Left Brain, Right Brain

An Anecdote

The other day your favorite Ostrich Killer attended a small, intimate concert held in a local music store.  The musician played guitar and sang.  He was exactly one day younger than I.  You'd have thought we would have hit it off.

His presentation was a memoir of his own life (I can barely tolerate memoirs,) his mother, his nanny, his father to whom he referred with both disdain and charity, and Texans to whom he referred with less charity.  Then he decided to explain to the assembled listeners his thinking about politics, world hunger, religion, the nature of love, and left brain and right brain people after first making sure we all understood that he considered himself a right brainer.

Right brainers, he implied strongly, are artistic and left brainers are thinkers and therefore not artistic, are indeed the trouble with the world and the source of all mankind's strife and suffering.  We, the captive audience, sat there and, glancing around, I saw that most of us were smiling and nodding knowingly.  Apparently most of us were right brainers.

Left brainers, according to our right brained entertainer, have few significant artistic skills because they are naturally inclined to think about things, instead of expressing artistically.  A left brainer's thinking abilities are unsuited to learning art, even should a left brainer wish to.  Art and rationality are, it would appear, too different to coexist inside the same head.

On the way home this began to amuse me.  Here was a self-proclaimed right brainer telling us that left brainers - thinkers - were incapable of art because they think.  So, I thought (sorry, a left brainer sort thing), is a right brainer incapable of thinking because they do art?  If a thinker can't do art, what makes a right brainer decide he can think and figure things out?  And if a right brainer is as incapable of thinking as a left brainer is of art, why should any of us care what a right brainer has to say?

 The obvious answer is that we shouldn't.  A more subtle answer is that no two people have identical art / rationality mixes inside them, and that rationality is more likely an aid to artistic expression than a hindrance.  The inverse, though, especially to people like our concert entertainer who think in either/ors, is unlikely to be true.

As Barbara Streisand has been told many times, "Shut up and sing."  
  

A SPEECH YOU WON''T HEAR FROM OBAMA

My Fellow Americans,

The Benghazi fiasco happened on my watch.

The IRS targeting of conservative groups, pro-Life groups, global warming skeptics and others happened on my watch.

The Department of Justice has bugged the telephone and other communication lines of the Associated Press, and that happened on my watch.

One of my predecessors, Mr. Nixon, resigned when confronted with the Watergate affair, where some hotel and meeting rooms belonging to the Democratic party were bugged.  And then, when discovered, he attempted to cover it up.

That was a far lesser breach of the public trust than the three breaches I mentioned above.

I was tried, and found wanting.

Mr. Nixon recognized what a man of honor must do, and set the example that I now must follow.

Effective Monday I will resign as President of these United States.  The Vice President, Joe Biden, will be your president for the remainder of my term.

Good night, and Godspeed.

BENGHAZI

It Isn't Complicated

Skipping all the lead-up pleas for more security, let's just look at what went on, and why, once the embassy reported being under terrorist attack on September 11, 2012.

The State Department was notified.  So was Obama. A quick evaluation within Hillary's State Department made the obvious leap to the understanding that since Obama was campaigning on how he had Al Qaeda on the run, this wouldn't look good for him.  Worse, since embassies such as the one in Benghazi are an extension of the State Department, admitting that there was no security for the Benghazi embassy would look very bad for Hillary.

I can't prove it, but even a numbskull would have to realize Obama was told both of the above.  He is Commander in Chief, after all, and it's his job to be brought into the situation.  Only he could issue a 'Stand Down' order to the military, which had standing Rules of Engagement covering embassy protection.  Then he disappeared for seven hours.  No one has come forward to tell the world where he was.  Seven hours is enough time for a couple quick rounds of golf.  He is a 16 handicapper, after all.  In the meantime and in his absence the State Department concocted bogus talking points - not those provided by the CIA, which were professional and factual - and came up with the You Tube video story we've all heard about.  Which was also bogus.

The story they decided to stick to was that this was a spontaneous outrage protest over that video, instead of what it really was: an Al Qaeda attack of a US embassy on September 11.  The story was concocted as damage control for Obama's re-election effort, and to preserve Hillary's viability for a presidential run in 2016.  The military was not called in to help because that would be an admission that the situation was an actual attack, not just a protest.

It worked for Obama, but it probably won't work for Hillary.

That's all there is to it.  They went into spin and cover-up mode, instead of rescue the people mode.  Four died as a result.  Lies, in  other words, cost four American lives, and no one has stepped up and credibly claimed responsibility.  Plain and simple.  

Now, don't try holding your breath until Obama tells the world where he was in those missing 7 hours, and provides absolute proof.  He lay doggo so that no decision about the embassy could be traced back to him.  You may have noticed that this president never knows a thing about anything, that he hears about it on the news just like you do.

Look around you.  More than half of the people in your field of view voted for him.  Twice.  Some of them several times.  Is there any hope for this country? 

CLOSE TAX LOOPHOLES

A Good Idea, Right?

We hear it all the time: "Close Tax Loopholes!"  There's even an apparently anonymous campaign urging just that, right here in my own state.

Most people nod their heads in agreement with that sentiment.  After all, it would be only fair, right?

Not so fast.  Before we can close a tax loophole, we have to know what a loophole is.

Easy, some people think.  A loophole is any legal way to avoid paying taxes.

Okay, let's examine that.  Let's say that you own a home - or, more accurately, own a home mortgage.  You pay $$$$ every month on that mortgage.  Most of that money goes toward the interest you have to pay, and the rest against the principal of the loan.  Luckily, though, you get to deduct the interest you pay every year - or, to be exactly correct, you get to deduct your tax bracket's worth of that interest - when you file your taxes.

By our definition, that's a loophole.  Should we close it?

No?  Then we need to re-define the word 'loophole.'  Either that, or change our objective to something like "Close SOME tax loopholes."

Now that's something your Ostrich Killer can get behind.  I want to close all those loopholes that don't benefit me.  And there, o gentle reader, is the rub.  That's what EVERYONE who says 'Close Tax Loopholes' wants.

Which 'loopholes' benefit me?  Any loophole that drives down the cost of goods and services does.  For example, Big Oil gets exploration cost deductions.  If they didn't get those, the cost at the fuel pump would be higher.  Anything made of plastic would cost more.  Small businesses get to deduct much of their start-up costs.  If they didn't, many of them wouldn't start up.  If they didn't start up, their goods and services wouldn't be available to me. 

Here's a loophole I could close happily:  the dependent child deduction on personal income taxes.  All my children are grown, so I don't have that deduction available to me.  So you shouldn't either.  It would only be fair, after all.

Back to that campaign in my own state.  Those road-side signs also say "Put our families and kids first."  Not sure how closing loopholes helps families and kids, but I can guess that means removing loopholes from business taxes.  What happens if we do that?  The businesses will be faced with suddenly far less profit.  What do you think they'll do about that?  Pick one or more of the below:

1. Raise prices.
2. Reduce overhead and number of employees.
3. Go out of business.
4. Move to another state- Texas? - or country.

Will families and kids benefit from any of those outcomes?

The point to be taken is that loopholes are often necessary.  Think of them as tax incentives, meant to encourage certain kinds of fiscal behavior.  Without them, or at least some of them, that behavior would not be readily undertaken.  In most cases those tax incentives were written into law ON PURPOSE to encourage that sort of fiscal behavior.

So to put families and kids first, it would be prudent to think twice about closing tax loopholes.

This has been a public service announcement by your Ostrich Killer.  

You're welcome.  Now down to the boat.

Twentieth Century Biggest Killers

Name The Top 4, if you can.

Right about now you're thinking someone like Ted Bundy, or Charles Manson, or some other similarly deranged and disgusting sub-human.

But you'd be wrong.  You have to think bigger.  Much bigger.

Let's start the list with the biggest killer of all, according to accepted research, and work our way down.

1.  Mao tse Tung  -  China  -  70 million in various purges, exterminations, etc.
2.  Rachel Carson  -  America -  50 million, give or take a few tens of millions, through publishing a fantasy and false alarm.  Her fantasy is still killing millions, with no end in sight.
3.  Joseph Stalin  -  Soviet Union  -  30 million in various purges and exterminations.
4.  Adolph Hitler  -  Germany  -  10- 15 million through purges, exterminations, cleansings, etc.

Of the above 4 above, only one is still killing.  She's long dead, of course, but her work is still killing.

What else do the above have in common?  Christianity, or more properly the lack of it.  None of the above had any significant connection to any mainstream religion, much less Christianity.

Other things we can learn from Rachel Carson:
1.  Words kill.
2.  Governments won't act to correct an obvious wrong, out of fear of being thought badly of by envirowackos and other uninformed do-gooders.  Including, and especially, the United States government.  No matter the consequences of continuing that wrong.  PC, political expediency and faux science win over clarity of thought and action based on actual science.

All of us should be - there has to be a word stronger than 'ashamed' to express it.  Worse, most of us are unaware of what Rachel Carson has done - all with the best of intentions, of course - results don't matter, only intentions do if you're an envirowacko / progressive - and, in fact, most of us probably saw her name in the above list and immediately thought "Who?"

I need another cup of coffee.

Wargaming Global Warming

The Oceans will Rise.  So What?

The eco-alarmists among us would have us believe that global warming exists, and that it is caused by man burning stuff.  While your Ostrich Killer is agnostic about global warming, and a 'denyer' about man's activities being a significant contributor, let's pretend that those Chicken Littles are correct.  So what?

So what?  So what, you ask?  Won't the seas rise a couple feet over the next century or so as polar ice melts?  Won't millions of people living on the coasts flail about in the suddenly high water?  

No.  Oh, the seas would rise, all right.  But not over night.  They will rise minutely each year.  And each year, as coastal communities continue to build and evolve, those that build will build high enough away from the actual coastline that their structures are safe.  The sea will gradually reclaim the existing shorelines and create new ones.  The shapes of those new shorelines will be different than the existing shorelines.  So will the shapes of the coastal communities.  This rise in the oceans will be, for all intents and purposes, unnoticed and unfelt.

So no need to panic.  You don't need to wear a life preserver when you go to bed.

But even better news: we seem to be in a cooling period, not a warming period.  So if you lose sleep over the size of the arctic ice packs, you can sleep easy.  If you worry about the shape of the existing coastlines, you can sleep easy.  On the other hand, if you were hoping you wouldn't have to keep heating your home into the month of May, I'm afraid you're out of luck.

And now for some coffee.  

IF WE CAN SAVE EVEN ONE CHILD'S LIFE

Then We Should Do It

That's what Obama said when he gave is speech kicking off his assault on the Second Amendment.

Do you agree with him?

If so, then the below information might be helpful in focusing your attention on the Obamacure (the cure Obama would push, using his gun control logic.)

Annual Child Deaths in US by Cause (recent data rounded off to nearest 100, as reported):

Gun-related:  1500.  Two thirds are drug or suicide related.  ObamaCure: No guns.  Partial cure: no drugs.
Car crashes:  1500.  ObamaCure:  Make it illegal for kids to ride in motor vehicles.
Drownings:      900.  ObamaCure:  Make it illegal for children to be allowed near water of any sort.
Animal Attack:  30.  ObamaCure:   Round up all animals.
Horse Riding:    23.  Data from Alberta, BC.  Scale up for yourself.  ObamaCure: Confiscate horses.

Welcome to Your New Criminal Status

Or, Welcome to the Gun Owner's Black Market

Yes, gentle readers, when the law is passed to require background checks on all gun purchases, there will be a de facto gun registry put in place.  Every gun purchased by a law-abiding citizen will be known about by your benevolent government.  This, we are told, will prevent school shootings.

Does that mean that if there had been a background check that the Connecticut shooting wouldn't have taken place?

No.  It would have had no effect.  The gun owner was the perp's mother.  She had them legally.  He killed her, stole her guns, and took them to school.

This legislation isn't about safety.  Or preventing crime - after all, criminals won't submit themselves to such background checks.  For that matter, neither will American patriots.

Which brings us to the question: who has the most to fear from unregistered guns?

Your Ostrich Killer contends that your government does.  Which is why they want background checks - so that they will know where the guns are, so they can confiscate them before a revolution gets a good start.  The history of the 20th Century is rife with countries that have imposed such registration, only to then confiscate them and then decimate the citizens afterward.  Twenty or more millions died because they were 'purged,' something that would have been more difficult had they been able to legally own guns.

So what can you do to stop this background check legislation?  Probably not a lot.  There is a shortage of brains up on capitol hill, and most of those with brains won't really listen to you.  But you have a civic duty to try.  So contact your representatives and senators, and tell them not to sign on to such legislation.

I doubt that will work, but you have to give it a try.  It's the right thing to do.  You could send a link to this blog to your rep, and let him / her know you agree with it and will remember his / her vote on this issue come next election.

What's the right thing to do should such legislation pass?

Many Americans who understand the intent of the Second Amendment, and understand the difference between a 'right' and a 'privilege' will refuse to buy guns on the retail market, nor will they transfer them with the required paperwork.  They will do their gun trading on the black market.  The underground.  Cash or barter.  Your Ostrich Killer, should he wish to buy a gun after the passage of such legislation, will become a criminal under the proposed laws.  I don't worry a lot about that, as I will have the better part of 100,000,000 like-thinking patriots for company.  I don't think there's jail space for even a small fraction of that number.

Are you content to prostrate yourself before your government and say to them 'do with me as you will, I trust you?'

Google this saying:  A people that will trade freedom for safety will wind up with neither.

". . . the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."  That's pretty plain English.  Is a national background check and its associated databases an infringement?

You bet it is.

The American KGB

It looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck . . .

First, let's make sure you know what the KGB was.  Back in the Soviet Union days, the KGB was the internal police ('Committee for State Security') for the Soviet Union.  They rounded up offensive people, tortured and executed them as needed.  They served the Soviet government as a stability tool.

In the United States, the military is prohibited from carrying out such actions by the 18th Amendment.

So we're safe, right?

The DHS (Department of Homeland Security) has acquired 2 billion rounds of military small arms ammo (about 30 years' worth for a Vietnam - level conflict) and ordered 2700 mine-resistant armored vehicles.  

What for?

The DHS 'agents' aren't bound by the 18th Amendment.  Thirteen years ago - well before the 9/11 attacks, which were used as an excuse to create the DHS - your Ostrich Killer wrote a prediction that such an agency would inevitably be formed.  I called it the Bureau of Internal Stability, but what's in a name?  It's the intent that matters.

Wait, you say.  The DHS is for anti-terrorism.  Yes, that may have been what we were all told at the time, but all that ammo, those armored vehicles - what terrorist threat are they arming themselves for?

Your Ostrich Killer will now go out on a limb and answer that the arms and equipment are for use against a revolutionary citizenry, since the Federal armed forces cannot be used for that purpose.  The DHS is an analog to the KGB: a tool to help maintain internal stability.  Simple as that.  It looks like a duck, it walks like a duck, it quacks like a duck.  It's a duck, genus KGB. It may be a kinder and gentler KGB - that remains to be seen - but it's a duck nonetheless.

Our elected officials see a revolution coming.  They are preparing.  Are you?  Or are the blinders still firmly attached?

Farewell, Maggie

Adieu to a Heroine

The twentieth century saw Great Britain produce three prime ministers of note:  First, there was Neville Chamberlain, who eventually resigned in dishonor and disgrace, although he and his country both put a different face on it at the time.  His limp-wristed appeasements to the Nazis at the infamous Munich conference was a major encouragement to Hitler to assume Great Britain would not interfere with his plans of conquest.  That encouragement may have been the final necessary catalyst to kick off World War 2.

Next came Winston Churchill, who took over from Neville Chamberlain the disarray of both the office of Prime Minister and the English war effort.  History tells us that this man may have been the most inspired and doggedly persevering of all English leaders in the last four hundred years.  You'll find his name on any list of the Top Five leaders of the 20th Century.

Finally, there was Margaret Thatcher, or just plain Maggie.  Her accomplishments were massive and jaw-drop amazing.  She made decisions based on principle instead of politics, brought England back from the brink of abject socialism and economic ruin, and returned the Falkland Islands to the British after Argentina so stupidly captured them.  The Argentinans made the same mistake about her that the Nazis made about Churchill - they seriously underestimated resolve.  Now we see endless 'news' footage of the human debris of England carrying signs reading such hateful things as 'The witch is dead' and other disgusting symbols of their delight over her death.

Why are they rejoicing?  Because she made these scum choose starvation or work when she was Prime Minister.  This vermin preferred sitting on their asses and smoking dope to being productive in both personal and societal contexts.  They liked being paid to do nothing, much the same as the typical Obama voter does. Sadly, Maggie's efforts were magnificent only in the short run, as England is once more paying more and more people to do less and less.

She'll be missed by all of us who were there, watching and learning, as she kept Great Britain afloat and proud on her watch.

Will there ever be another team like Reagan and Thatcher?  One can only hope, but the prospects don't look good.

Farewell, Baroness Thatcher.

RE-PURPOSING BACKGROUND CHECKS FOR GUN OWNERS

Or, the Goose / Gander Model

Never let it be said that your kinder, gentler Ostrich Killer is not interested in re-purposing to save money.

With that caveat in mind, let's explore (briefly) the concept of background checks for all gun buyers.  Ignoring the logistical and financial burdens of tens of millions of such checks, the setting of criteria of who is disqualified for gun ownership can also be applied to other disqualifications.

Voting, for example.

Citizen Jones fails a background check for gun ownership?  Then Jones' name is automatically removed from voter registration lists and 'flagged' to alert officials that re-registration is to be denied.

Background checks for gun buyers is supposed to make us all safer.

What could be deadlier than a mentally or criminally inferior voter population in the general electorate?  Look what they got us the last two elections.

Okay, okay.  I take that back.  I shouldn't have called all those voters mentally or criminally inferior.  My apologies to those voters, although none of them read this blog.  Most of those voters are just rationally challenged - either too uninformed or lazy to do the thinking necessary to cast a responsible vote. 

It's early yet.  Back to the coffee pot.