Tuesday, January 15, 2013

IMPEACH OBAMA

For Crimes and Misdemeanors

A sitting president can only be impeached for committing crimes and / or misdemeanors.  Obama has stated he will not comply with a law requiring him to furnish his budget plan to Congress by a date certain.  Read more here.

Your ostrich killer thinks that refusing to comply with the law is a crime.  Ergo, Obama is about to commit a crime.

When he does, impeach him.  Rid the country of this oppressive, intrusive, destructive imperial ruler.

Friday, January 11, 2013

The Monitored Society

Your Privacy - NOT!

Do you have a cell phone? A tablet?  Any other app-running device?  If so, you have no privacy.  Here's how you can confirm that for yourself.

When you install a new app, one of the things it does is inform you what permissions and access the app uses on your device.  Some of the permissions and accesses I've seen include:
1. Access to your contacts list.
2. Permission to email / txt names on your contact list, using YOUR name.
3. Read the contents of your txt and email messages.
4. Listen to your voice conversations.
5. View and monitor your video chats.
6. View and copy your pictures.
7. Track your movements.
8. Turn on your device cameras at any time they choose.
9. Turn on your device microphone any time they choose.
10. The ability to modify, add to, copy or delete files from your personal storage.

And others.  Turning your device 'off' will not interfere with any of the above.  Only removing the device battery will prevent monitoring.  - - But Wait!  Have you ever tried to remove the battery from your tablet device?  Can you?

No problem, you say.  You'll just send sensitive messages through the US Mail.  Okay, that might be more secure than using a cell phone, but the US Postal Service has devices that read hand writing.  How do you suppose they sort all that mail, after all?  So each piece of mail is automatically scanned for destination and return addresses, and entered into a database.  Before long the US Postal service has your 'contact' list.  You can combat this by not using a return address.  That's still legal.  I think.

A couple paragraphs earlier you probably snorted and said something about the ostrich killer's paranoia.  That's just business, you say.  I ask you: are you so sure?  Did you know that Microsoft and the National Security Agency (NSA) coordinate with each other on the release of new Windows operating systems?  Don't be alarmed; this news is several versions of Windows old.  Bet you didn't know it, though.  Right?  Why do you suppose they coordinate with each other?

About twelve years ago a study revealed that Americans living in metropolitan areas were photographed an average of 18 times a day.  Since then traffic cams, mall cams, parking lot cams, sidewalk cams, etc. have proliferated.  There are television shows - multitiples of them - that use the pervasive presence of these cameras as part of their story lines.  Catching bad guys, usually.

Don't get me started on RFIDs.  They were a private venture to help shoppers, then government got their hands on them, and then - but don't get me started.

Does it comfort you to know you can't move around without being watched?  That when you pick your nose while waiting out the traffic light, you are being watched?  Do you like knowing you can be tracked down to about 13 feet accuracy?  Do you like knowing that after you check into your hotel room, your cell phone / tablet is recording voice and video?  Or looking over your shoulder as you order room service?  Next thing you know  your cell phone will notify authorities when you're speeding.  Big surprise in the morning's mail after that . . .

The Ostrich Killer leaves it to you to determine what nefarious purposes this information can be put should Big Brother decide he wants to.  You know who Big Brother is, right?  If not, read 1984.

You think the above is a bit of a joke?  Let me quote Will Rogers:  "I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts."

Wednesday, January 09, 2013

SECOND AMENDMENT MUSINGS

A Prepper's Guide to Guns and Ammo

A Scout's motto is 'Be Prepared.'  It should also be every citizen's motto.  Slaves don't need mottos; their governments tell them what to think.

Don't worry, Gentle Reader, we're not going to talk about slaves here today.  It's enough to say that if you've read 'Atlas Shrugged' then you know who the slaves are.

No, we're going to talk about guns and ammo from a Second Amendment perspective: what to acquire to help be better prepared for eventual revolution, should that be required.  Our forefathers thought it prudent to be prepared.  So should we, and for the same reasons.

First, ammo:  This is easy.  Go to any gun show and buy military surplus ammo for your existing weapon(s).  This ammo can be made in the USA, or Greece, or Norway, or any place else.  Making ammo isn't a high-tech industrial skill, so pretty much any governmental source will work fine.  The thing about military ammo is that its projectile is of a type called 'military ball,' also known as 'full metal jacket' or 'FMJ.'  It's very destructive and preferred for use by every military in the world.  You won't need a lot of this ammo.  You'll read why in a moment.

Next, guns:  This is also easy.  First choice is any that will use ordinary military ammo.  This, in a conflict situation, will aid resupply.  The top of this list would be any rifle chambered to handle the Standard NATO 7.62 x 51 round.  This round is also commonly known as .308 Winchester, and the two are interchangeable for our purposes.  It is the ammo fired by the M-60 machine gun, the M-14 rifle, and a variety of earlier generation European weapons.  This particular cartridge, shooting military ball, will penetrate light vehicles and of course softer material.  It is vastly superior in range, accuracy, penetration and stopping power to the lighter military calibers such as 5.56mm, used in the AR-15s and their clones.

There is no second choice for the Privately Owned Weapon (POW).  The AR-15 and its clones are not suitable for the use that a POW will properly be put to during a Second Amendment situation - and that is, to obtain a better weapon.  Yes, Gentle Reader, the only Second Amendment use your existing weapon will have is to help arm you better.  It will help you acquire the weapons your government doesn't want you to have.  Automatic weapons.  Rocket launchers.  Grenades.  Of course, since you'll be in a revolution anyway, maybe it won't matter much that your government disapproves.

Our Founding Fathers noticed that our revolution succeeded because the American citizen fighting the British was as well armed as the British.  So they wrote the Second Amendment to perpetuate that paradigm.  First order of business, then, is to become as well armed as the tyranny.

What about handguns?  Of the millions of handguns issued to US troops in all wars, they have probably not averaged shooting twice in anger each.  Statistically speaking, they simply don't matter.  So if you want one, carry the one you like.

Your Ostrich Killer has done his duty.  You're welcome.  Now, for that next cup of coffee . . .

Friday, January 04, 2013

WHY OBAMACARE MUST GO

And Any Other Federal Health Care Programs Too

  Okay, brace yourselves, o gentle reader.  You're about to read about the 'good old days.'

  In the Good Old Days (before, say, 1970) if one wanted health care, they paid for it.  If they couldn't afford it, they either did without or worked something out with the hospital / doctor.  This unenlightened approach - treating health care as a commodity (like a visit to your local barber shop or hair stylist) instead of a right - was the natural result of noticing that the US Constitution did not include 'health care' as a right anywhere within it.

  It still isn't in there.  And in those good old days, people seemed to get along pretty well, health-wise and longevity-wise.  Doctors did okay too.

  Then along came health insurance.  Actually, this started much earlier in our history.  Its purpose was simple and obvious: like all insurances, it was to provide a risk transfer mechanism for those who weren't sure they would be able to pay for a serious round of health care.  Like all risk transfer mechanisms, the customer was the sole decider of whether or not they needed it.  Then some large businesses started including health insurance as an employee recruiting and retention tool.  After all, it didn't cost much (in the Good Old Days.)

  Of course, they didn't tell their employees that the cost of that insurance was being offset by decrements to their paychecks . . . which meant, in simplest terms, that the employee was forced into buying company-provided health care, whether they wanted it or not.  Put even more simply, the employee would have larger paychecks if they were not REQUIRED to have the company - provided plan.

  Some enlightened companies understood this and offered their employees an option: a larger paycheck w/out health care, or health care with a smaller paycheck.  Correct me if I'm wrong about this, o gentle reader, but that employee option has been removed from all businesses, most likely due to legislation.

  It certainly hasn't escaped your notice that anything provided by the Feds costs at least twice as much as it would cost in a free market, through enterprise and entrepreneurship   It probably hasn't escaped your notice, either, that health care costs (meaning insurance) have risen sharply, much faster than the rate of inflation.  The Feds would have us believe this is a natural consequence of better medical technology.  The truth is that it's a natural result of layer upon layer of Federal oversight staffs, auditors, auditors of the auditors, insurance oversight, auditors of the auditors of the insurance industry, and so on.  All those people have to get paid.  They all have to work in buildings, in offices furnished w/ taxpayer-provided desks and other furniture and computers with which to oversee and audit and audit the auditors.

  Looking at this another way, Obamacare is a federal worker's jobs program.  Tens of thousands of IRS employees have been hired just to review tax returns for proof of health care coverage.  Look at all the tens of thousands of other employees . . . But we've already discussed that.

  We don't need a federal jobs program whose cost is a good seventh of our GDP - another way of saying a seventh of what you earn.  What we need is choices - which Obamacare denies - and a sense of personal responsibility for our own health.  Got the clap?  Go to the doctor and get a shot of penicillin.  Pay for it.  Walk out.  Guess what?  That won't be possible under Obamacare.  No, you'll have to have exhaustive diagnostics run (to help reduce the likelihood of a malpractice suit and indemnify the insurance company), samples taken, the data entered into the Medical Information Bureau's database and into the Social Disease (or whatever it's called these days) registry.  All this, of course, once you've shown your Obamacare proof of insurance.

  But that's no different than it is now, you're about to point out.  True.  Except for two things: the cost (far more than even the current punitive costs) and your choices.  You don't have a choice: you MUST have Obamacare.  You can't elect, because you're young and healthy, for example, doing without any form of health insurance except perhaps for catastrophic coverage.  Nope.  Everyone into the same pool.  The healthy pay for the sick.  The males pay for female contraception (a purely voluntary medical action) and even abortion ('reproductive rights,' we're told by NARAL and others, includes the right to have other people pay for your abortion.  I looked in the US Constitution and did not see such a right.) - never mind that your religion condemns abortion.  Non-smokers pay for smokers.

  It's ridiculous.  So your Ostrich Killer says Back to the Good Old Days.  Want health care?  Go get it.  Pay for it (it would be a LOT less expensive.)  Or do without, just like you'd do without a visit to the barbershop or hair stylist.  Seemed to work pretty well for a very long time.  Those uninsured people built this country into the greatest nation in the history of the Earth.  What have we, the nanny-state children, done?  And even more importantly, what are we doing?  More directly, what are YOU doing?

Wednesday, January 02, 2013

GUNS AND THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT

Why Americans Are Armed and Dangerous

No, it isn't to allow us to hunt Bambi.  No, it isn't to allow us to shoot burglars.  We are armed so that should our government become a tyranny, we the citizens will have the means to revolt.

Remember the times in which the Constitution was written: we had just come out of a bloody revolutionary war against a tyrannical government - and we won because the average citizen was as well armed as the troops of the tyrannical government.  It was the clear intent of our founding fathers that the citizenry have the means and be able to undertake such a revolt again, should it be required.  That is why they wrote :". . . the right to keep and bear arms SHALL  NOT BE INFRINGED."

Think about what that means to you, the citizen.  And think about the threat such a concept means to those holding federal power - the executive branch, the legislative branch, the judicial branch.

You, dear reader, are a threat to them.  They, however, have the power to make you less of a threat.  They can pass laws that make you a criminal.  For example, let's suppose they pass a law that requires you, the citizen, to register your firearms.  I can predict that there will be a 100,000,000 increase in the criminal population of this country overnight - because very few citizens will comply.

Which raises the next question: what can the Federal Government do to identify gun owners?
1. Track ammo sales, or restrict them to gun owners who can show proof of registration.
2. Search your home on 'probable cause' (maybe a neighbor reported they saw you with a gun.)
3. Restrict hunting licenses and access to shooting ranges to those with proof of gun registration.

Our government is quite innovative when it comes to legislating means to control the population.

Why not register, you ask?  Because a registered firearm is one that can be confiscated.  This is the sole purpose of such a registry.  Do a check of the history of the 20th century and see if that is so.  Start w/ Czechoslovakia  before the Soviets invaded.

But, you point out, passing such laws would be an infringement . . . You're right.  But many such laws already exist.  And the Constitution is being trammeled daily, its laws ignored.  Where, for example, does the Constitution give the Federal Government the authority to collect money from Jack, who has money, and give it to Joe, who doesn't?  Isn't that robbery?  Two thirds of your taxes are used for that purpose.  I've talked about entitlement programs elsewhere in my blogs, so we'll drop that discussion for now.  Just understand that the Constitution is no barrier to bad legislation.  Even members of the supreme court cite 'international law' when ruling one way or another - yet they're supposed to be bound by the Constitution.

You have a responsibility to 'protect and defend' the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, just like any member of the military.  You can do so by arming your household and teaching your children responsible firearm safety and how to shoot straight.

Think about our society today, compared to 50 years ago: today our every move is monitored (cell phones, tablets, traffic cams, mall cams, store cams, cars with OnStar or GPS, drones, etc.) and our every conversation is monitored (cell phones, tablets, emails, blog postings like this one, etc.)  Our shopping habits are entered into databases - think about that little 'membership' card you use at your local food store.  So are our library book check outs. Any interaction with commerce involving a sale ring-up and a debit or charge card.  Our privacy is gone.  What is this data used for?  Profiling.  Think about how your web browser, your cell phone, your tablet device knows what ads to show you.  Now scale up that simple paradigm to the federal level and imagine how those in power who want to stay in power might use that capability. Imagine the laws they might try to pass.  Think about the laws already in place.

So don't go thinking that we'll never have another revolution, because at some point it's either revolt or become slaves either of our own government or some invading country's forces.  Today we have a chief executive in the White House whose personal thinking is that the private sector economy exists to fund the public (government) sector.  Doesn't that make the private sector slaves of the public sector?

You and I may not see the next revolution.  But it's inevitable.

One last thought: the price of living in a free and open society is that we are a target-rich environment for wackos.  Freedom isn't free, and it isn't necessarily 100% safe.  But, as Ben Franklin is often quoted as saying: "people willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both."

Register your firearms if you're willing to be a slave in exchange for knowing only the police and the criminals will have firearms.  If you're not willing to register, let your representatives know.  Show this blog to others who think like you.