This sounds like one of those "chicken or egg" questions. Do poor people have more kids, or does having more kids make people poor? Uncle Ken seems to be saying that it works both ways, which sounds logical. On the other hand, will giving poor people money necessarily cause them to have less kids? I don't think that having less kids automatically makes poor people rich, but it couldn't hurt. It also seems possible that there is third factor that both makes people poor and causes them to have more kids.
I read an article in National Geographic some time ago that said birth control is actually illegal in Brazil because of the influence of their Catholic Church. They also have some kind of government health care that pays doctors more to deliver babies by C-section than to deliver them the regular way, so many doctors do more C-sections than are probably necessary. Some women have taken to bribing their doctors to tie off their tubes while they're in there because they don't want any more kids. When interviewed, some of these women have said that they were inspired to limit their reproduction by watching a locally popular soap opera that depicts rich and glamorous people who don't have many kids. The author of the article said that it was both good for these women and good for Brazil that they were finally taking steps to reduce their birth rate. Be that as it may, I think it's a sad commentary on what it takes to motivate some people. Maybe, instead of giving those tin pot dictators more foreign aid to spend any way they want, we should make a bunch of DVD copies of that Brazilian soap opera and pass them out to the illegal immigrants when we send them back where they came from.
Speaking of spending money, I'm sure that many of my ilk will object to the Freedom Dividend because it would be too expensive, but I think it wouldn't be the worst thing our government spends money on.
Speaking of illegal immigrants, the reason I posted that link about the Wall was because Uncle Ken recently said that no progress had been made on building it. I admit that it's only a drop in the bucket, but at least it's a start. After signing off last night, I got to thinking about the environmental concerns about building anything in that fragile desert. While these concerns are valid, I wonder if anybody has calculated the environmental effects of the hungry hordes currently swarming through that fragile desert and trampling what little vegetation it supports.
Friday, August 30, 2019
bringing the population down
There is a long history of warning about population growth beginning with a fellow named Malthus. It's pretty obvious, so it's not like it takes a genius to figure it out. I'm not aware that any particular steps were taken because of the popularity of The Population Bomb. The only steps taken that I am aware of is China's one child policy which preceded that book..
Was that policy effective? Well it was effective in reducing China's population growth. It was according to wiki. I really should look more deeply into this, Here is a major social experiment and yet it is not investigated much. Maybe people don't want to look into it because if it proves effective maybe people will try to impose it on their own country. Not likely though since it would be wildly unpopular and I can't think of any other country that has that much control over its people. Well there are the tinpot dictatorships but those guys generally want to have as many subjects as possible.
There was another book that caused a bit of a stir, Freakonimics, which came out in 2005. One of their observations was that there was a drop in crime about twenty years after Roe vs Wade. Their explanation was that legal abortion enabled poor young women to not have so many kids and when they had fewer kids they were able to raise them better and they did not become criminals, It makes sense on the face of it, but there might be something else going on. Those stats should probably be looked into more deeply, but not by me this morning.
There will only be ten candidates in the upcoming debates, and one of them will be Andrew Yang. He doesn't get much ink because he has no chance, but he has an interesting idea, which I am not going to look up right now of a guaranteed annual income whereby the very poor get money Okay I looked it up and it is called a Freedom Dividend and it's a thousand a month. The idea is that when you are very poor it's all you can do to keep a roof over your head and food in your belly and you are just living day by day and have no chance of getting ahead. But if you got a Freedom Dividend, you would have your roof and you would have your food and you could begin to get ahead, to be part of a productive work force and pay taxes.
But won't they just spend it on booze and lottery tickets? Some surely will, but there have been studies that show that a large percentage of poor people do get ahead when they get extra money.
And of course if they get ahead they will have less children. Beagles is correct that having too many kids drives you into poverty, but as the income rises people tend to have fewer kids.
And the same would apply to foreign aid, If we gave money to stimulate the economies of those poor countries down south they would have fewer kids and we wouldn't be trying to build that awful wall through a national park with a delicate ecology for Chrissake.
Was that policy effective? Well it was effective in reducing China's population growth. It was according to wiki. I really should look more deeply into this, Here is a major social experiment and yet it is not investigated much. Maybe people don't want to look into it because if it proves effective maybe people will try to impose it on their own country. Not likely though since it would be wildly unpopular and I can't think of any other country that has that much control over its people. Well there are the tinpot dictatorships but those guys generally want to have as many subjects as possible.
There was another book that caused a bit of a stir, Freakonimics, which came out in 2005. One of their observations was that there was a drop in crime about twenty years after Roe vs Wade. Their explanation was that legal abortion enabled poor young women to not have so many kids and when they had fewer kids they were able to raise them better and they did not become criminals, It makes sense on the face of it, but there might be something else going on. Those stats should probably be looked into more deeply, but not by me this morning.
There will only be ten candidates in the upcoming debates, and one of them will be Andrew Yang. He doesn't get much ink because he has no chance, but he has an interesting idea, which I am not going to look up right now of a guaranteed annual income whereby the very poor get money Okay I looked it up and it is called a Freedom Dividend and it's a thousand a month. The idea is that when you are very poor it's all you can do to keep a roof over your head and food in your belly and you are just living day by day and have no chance of getting ahead. But if you got a Freedom Dividend, you would have your roof and you would have your food and you could begin to get ahead, to be part of a productive work force and pay taxes.
But won't they just spend it on booze and lottery tickets? Some surely will, but there have been studies that show that a large percentage of poor people do get ahead when they get extra money.
And of course if they get ahead they will have less children. Beagles is correct that having too many kids drives you into poverty, but as the income rises people tend to have fewer kids.
And the same would apply to foreign aid, If we gave money to stimulate the economies of those poor countries down south they would have fewer kids and we wouldn't be trying to build that awful wall through a national park with a delicate ecology for Chrissake.
Thursday, August 29, 2019
Apocalypse Not - At Least Not Yet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb
Since a certain amount of memory loss is normal at our age, I thought I should look this up to make sure that I knew what I was talking about. I have never read the book, but I remembered the title because there was a lot of talk about it back in the day. It was actually published in 1968, but it drew on earlier publications from the 40s and 50s, so I wasn't far off when I said that we were all warned back in the 50s. Like a lot of dire predictions, this one hasn't exactly come true, but the argument could be made that it might have come true if the alarm had not been sounded when it was. One thing the predictors didn't take into account was the dramatic improvements in agricultural productivity that have been made since then. They didn't know that was going to happen, but they should have considered that it might, since science and technology have been advancing at an ever increasing pace in modern times. That has bought us some time, but it has also enabled the population to increase even faster.
It's not just about food anyway. Studies have been done with non human animals which found that overcrowding causes them to get cranky and pick on each other, even when abundant food is provided. I have not heard about any similar studies done on humans, but I don't see why it wouldn't apply to them as well. One could argue that most of the wars in history, even ancient history, were at least partly caused by competition for land and resources. There were less people then, but their options were more limited since they were more dependent on agriculture and didn't have the ability to go on a ski trip to Aspen when their neighbors got on their nerves.
Uncle Ken makes a good point when he says that rich people generally have fewer kids than poor people, but correlation does not establish cause and effect. It could just a easily be said that having too many kids is at least one of the primary causes of poverty. Somebody should do a study about that.
While most of the old growth forests in the US have been logged off, trees grow back eventually if you leave them alone. Last I heard, the trees in Michigan were growing faster than they were being cut down. Even the Rain Forest will regenerate someday, unless of course they cover it with condos and parking lots, which they will have to do if they keep making babies like there's no tomorrow.
Meanwhile, back at the border:
https://a.msn.com/r/2/AAGv40h?m=en-us&referrerID=InAppShare
Since a certain amount of memory loss is normal at our age, I thought I should look this up to make sure that I knew what I was talking about. I have never read the book, but I remembered the title because there was a lot of talk about it back in the day. It was actually published in 1968, but it drew on earlier publications from the 40s and 50s, so I wasn't far off when I said that we were all warned back in the 50s. Like a lot of dire predictions, this one hasn't exactly come true, but the argument could be made that it might have come true if the alarm had not been sounded when it was. One thing the predictors didn't take into account was the dramatic improvements in agricultural productivity that have been made since then. They didn't know that was going to happen, but they should have considered that it might, since science and technology have been advancing at an ever increasing pace in modern times. That has bought us some time, but it has also enabled the population to increase even faster.
It's not just about food anyway. Studies have been done with non human animals which found that overcrowding causes them to get cranky and pick on each other, even when abundant food is provided. I have not heard about any similar studies done on humans, but I don't see why it wouldn't apply to them as well. One could argue that most of the wars in history, even ancient history, were at least partly caused by competition for land and resources. There were less people then, but their options were more limited since they were more dependent on agriculture and didn't have the ability to go on a ski trip to Aspen when their neighbors got on their nerves.
Uncle Ken makes a good point when he says that rich people generally have fewer kids than poor people, but correlation does not establish cause and effect. It could just a easily be said that having too many kids is at least one of the primary causes of poverty. Somebody should do a study about that.
While most of the old growth forests in the US have been logged off, trees grow back eventually if you leave them alone. Last I heard, the trees in Michigan were growing faster than they were being cut down. Even the Rain Forest will regenerate someday, unless of course they cover it with condos and parking lots, which they will have to do if they keep making babies like there's no tomorrow.
Meanwhile, back at the border:
https://a.msn.com/r/2/AAGv40h?m=en-us&referrerID=InAppShare
politics today
The way it works is that having kids was a good thing in the past. A lot of them died before they reached adulthood, and the ones that didn't could help you work the farm or maybe in some sweatshop that employed kids. Anymore we are not on the farm and most kids reach adulthood, and here in the USA we are generally doing pretty well, and we don't need so many kids so we don't have so many. Immigrants have come here with lots of kids, but when those kids grow up in a more affluent place than their parents they have fewer kids.
I suppose we are kind of hypocrites telling South America to keep its forests inviolate when we, here in the USA, have already chopped down ours, but there it is, it's a done deal, and being in the tropics it is a more active lung. We used to have some kind of deal with those countries where we paid them to curb that expansion into the rain forest, I believe it was called foreign aid, but lately we don't believe in that sort of thing.
The moderate wing of the dems wants us to nominate a moderate in hopes of winning over folks like Beagles, but nominating a George Wallace type is a bit too far. segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. catchy as it is, is not going to make it in these times though if you put your ear to the ground you can hear something like it from the prez and from his minions.
There was a poll recently that put Biden, Sanders, and Warren in a tie, but two polls on the heels of that one put Biden back in the lead by about ten points. So far Sanders and Warren have refused to go after each other and there is not so much difference between them except that maybe he is more of a ranter and she a bit more of a sweet talker. Seems to me that health care is the big issue among the dems. They generally attribute their success in the 18 elections on hammering that issue,
There are some variations in health care proposals, what is the difference between single payer and medicare for all, for instance? And should we do away with private insurance? It seems to me that if the government puts its big foot in private insurance (except for like nose jobs) will eventually whither away. Seems to me that the media is lax in pointing out the specific differences in the plans, but then politicians tend to like ot keep things fuzzy, and the thing is that these are just things said on the campaign trail, and what will actually get through congress is something else.
I had been thinking that if the dems win the presidency they will also take the senate, but I have been reading articles and looking at the map and I no longer think it is such a sure thing. There are 22 republican senators but 18 of them are in ruby red states so we only have like four where we have a chance of winning, and can we hold onto the seat in Alabama?
A lot of politics in this post, I will try to think of a story for tomorrow.
I suppose we are kind of hypocrites telling South America to keep its forests inviolate when we, here in the USA, have already chopped down ours, but there it is, it's a done deal, and being in the tropics it is a more active lung. We used to have some kind of deal with those countries where we paid them to curb that expansion into the rain forest, I believe it was called foreign aid, but lately we don't believe in that sort of thing.
The moderate wing of the dems wants us to nominate a moderate in hopes of winning over folks like Beagles, but nominating a George Wallace type is a bit too far. segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. catchy as it is, is not going to make it in these times though if you put your ear to the ground you can hear something like it from the prez and from his minions.
There was a poll recently that put Biden, Sanders, and Warren in a tie, but two polls on the heels of that one put Biden back in the lead by about ten points. So far Sanders and Warren have refused to go after each other and there is not so much difference between them except that maybe he is more of a ranter and she a bit more of a sweet talker. Seems to me that health care is the big issue among the dems. They generally attribute their success in the 18 elections on hammering that issue,
There are some variations in health care proposals, what is the difference between single payer and medicare for all, for instance? And should we do away with private insurance? It seems to me that if the government puts its big foot in private insurance (except for like nose jobs) will eventually whither away. Seems to me that the media is lax in pointing out the specific differences in the plans, but then politicians tend to like ot keep things fuzzy, and the thing is that these are just things said on the campaign trail, and what will actually get through congress is something else.
I had been thinking that if the dems win the presidency they will also take the senate, but I have been reading articles and looking at the map and I no longer think it is such a sure thing. There are 22 republican senators but 18 of them are in ruby red states so we only have like four where we have a chance of winning, and can we hold onto the seat in Alabama?
A lot of politics in this post, I will try to think of a story for tomorrow.
Wednesday, August 28, 2019
We Were Warned
Way back in the 1950s we were warned that, if we didn't bring global population growth under control, Mother Nature would do it for us, and it wasn't going to be pretty. Europe and North America generally heeded that warning. The rest of the world, not so much. Red China made a stab at it in their own heavy handed way but, last I heard, it wasn't working out for them. With couples being limited to one child, many have been aborting their first child if the ultra-sound indicates that it's going to be female. This has resulted in a shortage of marriageable young women, so the Chinese men have taken to importing wives from other third world countries, reducing the effectiveness of the one child policy on total population growth. Meanwhile, Europe and North America are being over run with third world immigrants, reducing the effectiveness of their own birth control efforts.
Those fires in the Rain Forest are directly attributable to over population you know. The old slash and burn system wasn't much of a problem when only the indigenous locals were doing it. Some experts say that it even helped the Rain Forest regenerate by clearing out small patches in it, making way for new growth. Then, about the time we were all being warned about over population, Brazil decided to relieve the pressure in it's teeming urban slums by encouraging their people to move out into, what was then, untracked wilderness. Well, it's not untracked anymore, is it. If they keep making babies like there's no tomorrow, it's only a matter of time until the whole Rain Forest is one big teeming slum. Where are all those extra people going to go next? Venezuela has been depopulating recently, but that's because it has gone Communist. Lots of luck trying to make a living there. I suppose they could try to come to North America, but they would have to wait in line behind the hungry hordes from Central America that are already turning it into another teeming slum like the one they left behind.
Like I said, it's still early yet and I haven't made up my mind about my presidential vote next November. Uncle Ken may be right that Trump will win the nomination, and I will be faced with the choice of either him or the Libertarian candidate. One thing I'm pretty sure is that I will never vote for another Democrat unless George Wallace rises from the dead.
Those fires in the Rain Forest are directly attributable to over population you know. The old slash and burn system wasn't much of a problem when only the indigenous locals were doing it. Some experts say that it even helped the Rain Forest regenerate by clearing out small patches in it, making way for new growth. Then, about the time we were all being warned about over population, Brazil decided to relieve the pressure in it's teeming urban slums by encouraging their people to move out into, what was then, untracked wilderness. Well, it's not untracked anymore, is it. If they keep making babies like there's no tomorrow, it's only a matter of time until the whole Rain Forest is one big teeming slum. Where are all those extra people going to go next? Venezuela has been depopulating recently, but that's because it has gone Communist. Lots of luck trying to make a living there. I suppose they could try to come to North America, but they would have to wait in line behind the hungry hordes from Central America that are already turning it into another teeming slum like the one they left behind.
Like I said, it's still early yet and I haven't made up my mind about my presidential vote next November. Uncle Ken may be right that Trump will win the nomination, and I will be faced with the choice of either him or the Libertarian candidate. One thing I'm pretty sure is that I will never vote for another Democrat unless George Wallace rises from the dead.
while the forest burns
My time of tending bar at the Wigwam preceded the appearance of the girl who was to have no legs and her no account boyfriend, in any rate if she had recognized me as a guy who hung out there I don't think she would have found it worth mentioning, after all she was the girl who wrote the songs. I went to a Champaign Urbana History facebook page that I frequent to find out more about that Angel character. He had always seemed sinister, but I don;t remember him actually doing anything bad, and the information from the page was that some people liked him and that he found a nice girl and settled down. It's a little disappointing. I wanted to ask about the girl with no legs, but I wasn't sure how to put the question and it seemed a bit ill-willed to be going into that.
I'll think about more stories. Would fiction be ok?
I see where Trump has taken to calling his opponents the three stooges while the RNC is working to keep any other candidates off the ballots, and to discourage any primaries at all. I am curious as to what viable candidates are not being heard? If they are not being heard how can they be considered viable? There are only three likely candidates among the dems at this point, and I don't see any dark horse stealing the show. The dems are too damn serious about getting rid of Trump for any frivolity. Biden is a mystery to me. After not challenging the Big Girl, I thought that he was done running for president, and when he did announce I thought he would never get any traction. I think his main support came from the anything to beat Trump crowd, whose aims I respect, but more and more he is looking like an empty suit.
Social credit in the USA is nothing new, way back we used to put people in stocks, and as I recall being different from the herd was looked on in disfavor in the fifties. The difference is that now we have the technology to enforce it, but I was not too impressed with the examples the second article provided, especially that Patronscan. I think it's illegal to keep somebody out of your establishment because their name appears on some list.
I too find those satellite photos of the burning forests apocalyptic. Meanwhile G7 hasn't much to say, Trump is calling it fake news, like the greatly exaggerated estimates of Warren's crowds compared to the billions who throng to his rants, and how about the Trump of the south refusing money to fight the fires because he feels insulted by Macron? And notice how insulting the king (ala Trump and Denmark, and what is so insulting about the word 'absurd?') is being equated with insulting the country, like those French kings before the guillotine he declared that they were the state.
I'll think about more stories. Would fiction be ok?
I see where Trump has taken to calling his opponents the three stooges while the RNC is working to keep any other candidates off the ballots, and to discourage any primaries at all. I am curious as to what viable candidates are not being heard? If they are not being heard how can they be considered viable? There are only three likely candidates among the dems at this point, and I don't see any dark horse stealing the show. The dems are too damn serious about getting rid of Trump for any frivolity. Biden is a mystery to me. After not challenging the Big Girl, I thought that he was done running for president, and when he did announce I thought he would never get any traction. I think his main support came from the anything to beat Trump crowd, whose aims I respect, but more and more he is looking like an empty suit.
Social credit in the USA is nothing new, way back we used to put people in stocks, and as I recall being different from the herd was looked on in disfavor in the fifties. The difference is that now we have the technology to enforce it, but I was not too impressed with the examples the second article provided, especially that Patronscan. I think it's illegal to keep somebody out of your establishment because their name appears on some list.
I too find those satellite photos of the burning forests apocalyptic. Meanwhile G7 hasn't much to say, Trump is calling it fake news, like the greatly exaggerated estimates of Warren's crowds compared to the billions who throng to his rants, and how about the Trump of the south refusing money to fight the fires because he feels insulted by Macron? And notice how insulting the king (ala Trump and Denmark, and what is so insulting about the word 'absurd?') is being equated with insulting the country, like those French kings before the guillotine he declared that they were the state.
Tuesday, August 27, 2019
A stopped clock is right twice a day
I feel like telling a story today.
Keep them coming, Uncle Ken. Your stories are always a pleasure to read and I can enjoy them without getting hung up on arguments of one kind or another, arguments that seldom find any resolution. But I was surprised that the girl with no legs didn't recognize you from your time at the Wigwam.
I agree that more stories would be welcome in the musings of The Institute and I have to see what I can come up with to keep up with you guys. Patience, my friends.
-----
Current affairs are starting to make my head spin and I think of the old cartoon trope where an old guy, usually dressed in a robe with a flowing beard, is holding a big sign stating "The End Is Near." I never thought that the Amazon rain forest would catch fire but here we are, the damn thing is burning with hundreds of fires. This does not bode well, ecologically speaking, and I'm not sure if it will recover fully; a good way to create a desert is to start with burning down all the trees.
And what kind of sense can be made with the growing international trade wars? Trump is playing a game he doesn't understand and plays very poorly if the recent G7 summit is any indicator, but I'll let the pundits chew on that one. It seems to me that the international community is biding its time, waiting for Trump's term to end with a possible return to normalcy, however you wish to define it.
-----
When I heard that Joe Walsh entered the presidential sweepstakes, I thought "Cool!" but I was thinking of a different guy. Hey, it's an honest mistake. But just when I thought that politicians couldn't get any more delusional up pops this guy. What is he thinking? And what are most of the Democratic candidates thinking, do they sincerely believe that they have a shot or are even qualified? A lot of time and money is being wasted on these clowns and, sadly, this is the best that we can come up with at this time. Both parties have become so fragmented that viable candidates are getting lost in the noise and confusion, in my opinion. But time will tell, and maybe Congress will grow a spine, the legal system will work as it should, and pigs will fly.
-----
I know I keep yammering about China's social credit system but it fascinates and frightens me and is building up steam. Consider the source, it's Infowars, after all, but that doesn't automatically render it specious. And the system is not limited to China anymore, either; it's something we can experience now, right here at home. It's already begun so sleep well, citizens, and have your papers in order.
-----
There is something that I didn't know but Mr. Beagles probably did and that is that you can store ammunition for a long time, a very long time. One of the loonier YouTube channels that I follow, Taofledermaus, acquired some ninety year-old ammo and it worked perfectly. Cosmoline is your friend.
But I follow a lot of goofy channels and websites, just to get an idea of what the "other folks" are thinking. There are a lot of goofballs out there, that's for sure, and I'm not certain that they are all out of line. Nuggets of truth are bound to be found and I'm not sure that I would recognize them. A catchphrase of the old X-Files TV show was "Trust No One," and I'm beginning to agree.
Keep them coming, Uncle Ken. Your stories are always a pleasure to read and I can enjoy them without getting hung up on arguments of one kind or another, arguments that seldom find any resolution. But I was surprised that the girl with no legs didn't recognize you from your time at the Wigwam.
I agree that more stories would be welcome in the musings of The Institute and I have to see what I can come up with to keep up with you guys. Patience, my friends.
-----
Current affairs are starting to make my head spin and I think of the old cartoon trope where an old guy, usually dressed in a robe with a flowing beard, is holding a big sign stating "The End Is Near." I never thought that the Amazon rain forest would catch fire but here we are, the damn thing is burning with hundreds of fires. This does not bode well, ecologically speaking, and I'm not sure if it will recover fully; a good way to create a desert is to start with burning down all the trees.
And what kind of sense can be made with the growing international trade wars? Trump is playing a game he doesn't understand and plays very poorly if the recent G7 summit is any indicator, but I'll let the pundits chew on that one. It seems to me that the international community is biding its time, waiting for Trump's term to end with a possible return to normalcy, however you wish to define it.
-----
When I heard that Joe Walsh entered the presidential sweepstakes, I thought "Cool!" but I was thinking of a different guy. Hey, it's an honest mistake. But just when I thought that politicians couldn't get any more delusional up pops this guy. What is he thinking? And what are most of the Democratic candidates thinking, do they sincerely believe that they have a shot or are even qualified? A lot of time and money is being wasted on these clowns and, sadly, this is the best that we can come up with at this time. Both parties have become so fragmented that viable candidates are getting lost in the noise and confusion, in my opinion. But time will tell, and maybe Congress will grow a spine, the legal system will work as it should, and pigs will fly.
-----
I know I keep yammering about China's social credit system but it fascinates and frightens me and is building up steam. Consider the source, it's Infowars, after all, but that doesn't automatically render it specious. And the system is not limited to China anymore, either; it's something we can experience now, right here at home. It's already begun so sleep well, citizens, and have your papers in order.
-----
There is something that I didn't know but Mr. Beagles probably did and that is that you can store ammunition for a long time, a very long time. One of the loonier YouTube channels that I follow, Taofledermaus, acquired some ninety year-old ammo and it worked perfectly. Cosmoline is your friend.
But I follow a lot of goofy channels and websites, just to get an idea of what the "other folks" are thinking. There are a lot of goofballs out there, that's for sure, and I'm not certain that they are all out of line. Nuggets of truth are bound to be found and I'm not sure that I would recognize them. A catchphrase of the old X-Files TV show was "Trust No One," and I'm beginning to agree.
what's the story morning glory?
That whole bungalow story, that was all prelude to my yearly trip back to the hood, but then it started raining and kept on raining and I never did make that trip so I don't have much to say on the subject.
We in Illinois know Joe Walsh well, basically a washed-up loudmouth who has some talk show on some second-rate radio station. Likely this whole bid is to pump up his radio show. I saw him announce Sunday and since then I've seen him all over the airwaves. Here's a video of his gator speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yund53Mwoqs, note the clever visual aid. I guess voting for this guy would be the next best thing to writing in Mickey Mouse
Under the current electoral college system the votes of Old Dog and myself will drown in a sea of blue and mean nothing. Beagles's vote however, in the purple state of Michigan, will be meaningful, and while he may toy with opposition to the orangeman in the primary, he will vote for him in the general election. Perhaps he will be so disgusted that he will stay home, that is the best that I can hope for.
Speaking of the orangeman doesn't he seem to be imploding of late, changing his position in hours instead of in days previously? Well I have been predicting his downfall since he lumbered down that escalator so what do I know?
I'm glad Beagles liked the story. It's been rumbling around in my mind for years, I have written it out a couple times before and know it's shape well. Well you know it fascinates me, we go about our lives, our days, and this happens and then that, not much of it with meaning, mostly a random stumble, but sometimes events stick in our minds, and ,maybe they relate to other things and then we can put them together, delete some meaningless details, make other details pop, and then we have a story, something that all hangs together, and is out of the realm of the everyday humdrum of our everyday lives.
I'd like to hear, and tell, more stories in The Institute.
We in Illinois know Joe Walsh well, basically a washed-up loudmouth who has some talk show on some second-rate radio station. Likely this whole bid is to pump up his radio show. I saw him announce Sunday and since then I've seen him all over the airwaves. Here's a video of his gator speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yund53Mwoqs, note the clever visual aid. I guess voting for this guy would be the next best thing to writing in Mickey Mouse
Under the current electoral college system the votes of Old Dog and myself will drown in a sea of blue and mean nothing. Beagles's vote however, in the purple state of Michigan, will be meaningful, and while he may toy with opposition to the orangeman in the primary, he will vote for him in the general election. Perhaps he will be so disgusted that he will stay home, that is the best that I can hope for.
Speaking of the orangeman doesn't he seem to be imploding of late, changing his position in hours instead of in days previously? Well I have been predicting his downfall since he lumbered down that escalator so what do I know?
I'm glad Beagles liked the story. It's been rumbling around in my mind for years, I have written it out a couple times before and know it's shape well. Well you know it fascinates me, we go about our lives, our days, and this happens and then that, not much of it with meaning, mostly a random stumble, but sometimes events stick in our minds, and ,maybe they relate to other things and then we can put them together, delete some meaningless details, make other details pop, and then we have a story, something that all hangs together, and is out of the realm of the everyday humdrum of our everyday lives.
I'd like to hear, and tell, more stories in The Institute.
Monday, August 26, 2019
Alligator Joe
Uncle Ken, that was a fine story you posted on Friday, but I couldn't think of how to respond to it, so I spent the weekend looking for something else to write about. I saw on the TV news yesterday evening that another guy has declared his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. I looked him up on Wiki and here's what I found:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Walsh_(American_politician)
Joe Walsh is a former congressman from Illinois, so my esteemed colleagues might have heard of him. He is a Tea Party type, so you guys probably wouldn't like him, but he sounds like somebody who I could vote for. He has a bit of a checkered past, he used to be in favor of abortion and gun control, but he seems to have rehabilitated himself. He also supported Trump for president, but has since repented of that as well. I like a man who can learn from his own mistakes. Walsh said on TV that Trump was unfit to be president, and he has been waiting for someone else to challenge him for the nomination, but now he is stepping up to the plate himself because it doesn't look like anybody else is going to. Apparently Walsh hasn't heard of Bill Weld, but that's understandable because I only recently heard about him myself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Weld_2020_presidential_campaign
I see that Weld is pro abortion and pro gay marriage, but no candidate is perfect, and at least he's not Trump. I don't know his position on illegal immigration but, last I heard, the Libertarian Party was in favor of open borders. I have said myself that open borders would be better than the dysfunctional system we now have, but my first choice would be secure borders. Let's face it, we're never likely to get our wall now that Trump has given the word "wall" a bad name. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if the Unicorn Hunters banned it from the English language, if they haven't already.
Joe Walsh, however, has a better idea. Instead of a wall, he has proposed that we dig a moat all along the Mexican border and stock it with alligators. I am not making this up! Okay, he might have meant it as a joke when he first proposed it some years ago, but maybe it's an idea whose time has come. Alligators were once endangered in Florida, but they have since made an impressive comeback, to the point where they are beginning to make a nuisance of themselves. Rounding up Florida's surplus gators and relocating them would be a non-lethal alternative to culling them out. I understand that most of the unfenced stretches of the border are in the desert, the climate is about right, all that's needed is water, which the moat would provide. The water source would undoubtedly attract other wildlife, which the gators could munch on while they're waiting for the illegals to show up. minimizing the cost of maintaining the project once it's fully operational.
Of course it's early yet but, if the primary was tomorrow, I would be inclined to vote for Alligator Joe. I like a guy who can think outside the box.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Walsh_(American_politician)
Joe Walsh is a former congressman from Illinois, so my esteemed colleagues might have heard of him. He is a Tea Party type, so you guys probably wouldn't like him, but he sounds like somebody who I could vote for. He has a bit of a checkered past, he used to be in favor of abortion and gun control, but he seems to have rehabilitated himself. He also supported Trump for president, but has since repented of that as well. I like a man who can learn from his own mistakes. Walsh said on TV that Trump was unfit to be president, and he has been waiting for someone else to challenge him for the nomination, but now he is stepping up to the plate himself because it doesn't look like anybody else is going to. Apparently Walsh hasn't heard of Bill Weld, but that's understandable because I only recently heard about him myself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Weld_2020_presidential_campaign
I see that Weld is pro abortion and pro gay marriage, but no candidate is perfect, and at least he's not Trump. I don't know his position on illegal immigration but, last I heard, the Libertarian Party was in favor of open borders. I have said myself that open borders would be better than the dysfunctional system we now have, but my first choice would be secure borders. Let's face it, we're never likely to get our wall now that Trump has given the word "wall" a bad name. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if the Unicorn Hunters banned it from the English language, if they haven't already.
Joe Walsh, however, has a better idea. Instead of a wall, he has proposed that we dig a moat all along the Mexican border and stock it with alligators. I am not making this up! Okay, he might have meant it as a joke when he first proposed it some years ago, but maybe it's an idea whose time has come. Alligators were once endangered in Florida, but they have since made an impressive comeback, to the point where they are beginning to make a nuisance of themselves. Rounding up Florida's surplus gators and relocating them would be a non-lethal alternative to culling them out. I understand that most of the unfenced stretches of the border are in the desert, the climate is about right, all that's needed is water, which the moat would provide. The water source would undoubtedly attract other wildlife, which the gators could munch on while they're waiting for the illegals to show up. minimizing the cost of maintaining the project once it's fully operational.
Of course it's early yet but, if the primary was tomorrow, I would be inclined to vote for Alligator Joe. I like a guy who can think outside the box.
the trip back to the bungalow
Well shit, I am a creature of habit you know. I like to pretty much do the same thing at the same time on any given day, and after my yogurt and before my newspaper, I like to write my blog post. Especially on a Monday. Coming out of my weekend into the humdrum orderly week, I like to start it all by writing my post, and well, it just brings me to a complete stop when nothing has come over the transom on the weekend.
It makes it easier to write the post when I have something to work with, you know just something to start with, something to get my fingers ranging about the keys and that leads to this and this to that, and eventually I feel pretty good about writing what I think is a good post, it gives me something to shove myself off into the week with.
So I was born in Chicago in 1945 (borrowing from Paul Butterfield). Somewhere on the west side, near Harrison and Pulaski. I was not even walking when the family moved to Chattanooga. I don't remember much about Chattanooga, I think one time we found a turtle under our house. I guess it was a big deal, because I remember it, or at any rate I think I remember.
I think I remember seeing a mountain from the train when we rode back to Chicago in 1949, and moved into the house at 5607 S Homan.
There was a woman, Hettie Green, sometimes called the witch of Wall Street who owned a big plot of Chicago land west of western and south of 55th which she held on until her death and then her children sold it and some big developer moved in around 1920 and built block after block of bungalows, twenty-five to a block. I thought that was the way the world was, just block after block of bungalows, and was maybe a bit disappointed when I learned it wasn't. Tonti School was three blocks to the south and after that Gage Park was about a mile and a half to the east.
I came back the first couple summers after college, hung around with my old buddies, but then the lure of sleepy summer in Champaign became too great, and aside from Christmas and Thanksgiving visits I never lived there again. Well until I went broke in Texas in 1987.
But that is a story for later. This whole story was to be a prelude to my annual trip back to the old manse, but the sky is grey and yahoo predicts rain all day, and likely I won't be making that trip today. Maybe tomorrow.
I have a sense of duty towards The Institute, that Monday through Friday I write a post just about this length, and now I have done that and I'll see you dawgs tomorrow.
It makes it easier to write the post when I have something to work with, you know just something to start with, something to get my fingers ranging about the keys and that leads to this and this to that, and eventually I feel pretty good about writing what I think is a good post, it gives me something to shove myself off into the week with.
So I was born in Chicago in 1945 (borrowing from Paul Butterfield). Somewhere on the west side, near Harrison and Pulaski. I was not even walking when the family moved to Chattanooga. I don't remember much about Chattanooga, I think one time we found a turtle under our house. I guess it was a big deal, because I remember it, or at any rate I think I remember.
I think I remember seeing a mountain from the train when we rode back to Chicago in 1949, and moved into the house at 5607 S Homan.
There was a woman, Hettie Green, sometimes called the witch of Wall Street who owned a big plot of Chicago land west of western and south of 55th which she held on until her death and then her children sold it and some big developer moved in around 1920 and built block after block of bungalows, twenty-five to a block. I thought that was the way the world was, just block after block of bungalows, and was maybe a bit disappointed when I learned it wasn't. Tonti School was three blocks to the south and after that Gage Park was about a mile and a half to the east.
I came back the first couple summers after college, hung around with my old buddies, but then the lure of sleepy summer in Champaign became too great, and aside from Christmas and Thanksgiving visits I never lived there again. Well until I went broke in Texas in 1987.
But that is a story for later. This whole story was to be a prelude to my annual trip back to the old manse, but the sky is grey and yahoo predicts rain all day, and likely I won't be making that trip today. Maybe tomorrow.
I have a sense of duty towards The Institute, that Monday through Friday I write a post just about this length, and now I have done that and I'll see you dawgs tomorrow.
Friday, August 23, 2019
the girl who wrote the songs
I feel like telling a story today. It's basically a true story though some of it I have just heard second or third hand from sources that might not be reliable, but often the story that comes down is more compelling than the actual facts.
The Wigwam was the bar I went to work for after I realized that I was going to have to work for a living. A few years later I left it for the House of Chin which was just one door down from the Wigwam, but I still dropped in from time to time to see how it was doing. At some point they hired a new bartender who was not to my liking,, one of those loudmouth guys with not much to say, but that didn't keep him from saying it. His girlfriend sat across the bar watching him, but never saying a word. The only reason you would know that she was his girlfriend was that he was constantly mentioning the fact, proud I guessed that a no account guy such as himself would have a girlfriend at all. You couldn't tell if she was pretty because she was always hunched over and wore a stocking hat pulled low over her forehead so that all you could see were her gimlet eyes peering over the bar at him, watching over his every move listening to all his blather.
Eventually he was gone and so was she, nobody knew what happened to him or her and nobody much cared.
But then one day a story came down, this I heard from other sources so I am not clear on all the details. One morning she was going to catch the train up to Chicago, but she missed it. There was another train coming by in less than an hour, but she felt that she couldn't wait for it. The story was that voices told her she had to leave right away and when a freight train rumbled through she tried to hop it. But she was no practiced hobo and she slipped under it and lost both her legs. Some story huh, but that seemed to be the end of it, nobody heard anything more.
There was this guy who used to hang around the campus bars, called himself Angel. He wore a broad brimmed hat and often a cape. There was something sinister about him, but he had sort of a charisma among the riffraff, and always had a coterie of them following him around.
Late one slow night I was thinking of closing the House of Chin bar down a little early when I heard a commotion coming up the stairs. It was Angel and his coterie of riffraff and he was carrying some woman. The reason he was carrying her was because she had no legs.
She was wearing one of those floppy southern belle hats and she was made up, and I have to say she looked pretty good, but somehow I recognized her right away, she was the girl who used to sit across the bar at the Wigwam with her stocking hat pulled low over her eyes. Angel deposited her on a bar stool and the riffraff gathered around her. If Angel was their king, she was their queen.
And now she was no longer silent, she was talking up a blue streak, mostly nonsense. The riffraff put quarters in the jukebox and every time a new song began playing she would say, "I wrote that song."
Not much happened other than that. When the songs came to an end Angel lifted her off the bar stool and carried her away into the night. I never heard anything more about her or Angel.
What to make of it I don't know. I like to think that she was like a caterpillar when she sat across the bar with that hat pulled over her eyes and when she lost her legs it was like she became a butterfly. one of those butterflies that don't last very long after they come out of their chrysalis. Interesting story. Somebody ought to write a song about it.
The Wigwam was the bar I went to work for after I realized that I was going to have to work for a living. A few years later I left it for the House of Chin which was just one door down from the Wigwam, but I still dropped in from time to time to see how it was doing. At some point they hired a new bartender who was not to my liking,, one of those loudmouth guys with not much to say, but that didn't keep him from saying it. His girlfriend sat across the bar watching him, but never saying a word. The only reason you would know that she was his girlfriend was that he was constantly mentioning the fact, proud I guessed that a no account guy such as himself would have a girlfriend at all. You couldn't tell if she was pretty because she was always hunched over and wore a stocking hat pulled low over her forehead so that all you could see were her gimlet eyes peering over the bar at him, watching over his every move listening to all his blather.
Eventually he was gone and so was she, nobody knew what happened to him or her and nobody much cared.
But then one day a story came down, this I heard from other sources so I am not clear on all the details. One morning she was going to catch the train up to Chicago, but she missed it. There was another train coming by in less than an hour, but she felt that she couldn't wait for it. The story was that voices told her she had to leave right away and when a freight train rumbled through she tried to hop it. But she was no practiced hobo and she slipped under it and lost both her legs. Some story huh, but that seemed to be the end of it, nobody heard anything more.
There was this guy who used to hang around the campus bars, called himself Angel. He wore a broad brimmed hat and often a cape. There was something sinister about him, but he had sort of a charisma among the riffraff, and always had a coterie of them following him around.
Late one slow night I was thinking of closing the House of Chin bar down a little early when I heard a commotion coming up the stairs. It was Angel and his coterie of riffraff and he was carrying some woman. The reason he was carrying her was because she had no legs.
She was wearing one of those floppy southern belle hats and she was made up, and I have to say she looked pretty good, but somehow I recognized her right away, she was the girl who used to sit across the bar at the Wigwam with her stocking hat pulled low over her eyes. Angel deposited her on a bar stool and the riffraff gathered around her. If Angel was their king, she was their queen.
And now she was no longer silent, she was talking up a blue streak, mostly nonsense. The riffraff put quarters in the jukebox and every time a new song began playing she would say, "I wrote that song."
Not much happened other than that. When the songs came to an end Angel lifted her off the bar stool and carried her away into the night. I never heard anything more about her or Angel.
What to make of it I don't know. I like to think that she was like a caterpillar when she sat across the bar with that hat pulled over her eyes and when she lost her legs it was like she became a butterfly. one of those butterflies that don't last very long after they come out of their chrysalis. Interesting story. Somebody ought to write a song about it.
Thursday, August 22, 2019
Rome Wasn't Built in a Day
What I got from the Wiki article was that actual construction of Trump's Wall is being held up by several court challenges. The Supreme Court only recently ruled that construction may continue while the cases are being litigated. Come to think of it, I seem to remember reading something awhile back that specs were being worked up so the project can be put out for bids. After the bids are awarded, construction is estimated to take several years to complete anyway. Too little, too late, in my opinion.
I seem to remember reading that most educated people in the time of Columbus believed that the Earth was round, although some of his crewmen weren't so sure about that. What was not generally known was that North and South America lay between Europe and Asia. Columbus himself maintained to his dying day that he had been to India, although some of his contemporaries weren't so sure about that. The difference between me and Columbus is that he had a physical way of confirming his theory, while all I know about this immigration thing is what I read in the newspapers.
Archeological evidence has confirmed that there was at least one Norse colony in, what is today, Newfoundland. They're not sure what happened to it, but it was likely the same reason that the first colony in Greenland expired, namely climate change. During the Medieval Warming Period, Greenland was considerably greener than it is today you know.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period
I am not familiar with the music of Robert Johnson but, if Uncle Ken is talking about the old fashioned pre-electric Mississippi Delta Blues, it think it has a certain rustic charm to it, not unlike other folk forms. My favorite African music, however, is the Zulu style chants made popular in modern times by Ladysmith Black Mombasa.
I seem to remember reading that most educated people in the time of Columbus believed that the Earth was round, although some of his crewmen weren't so sure about that. What was not generally known was that North and South America lay between Europe and Asia. Columbus himself maintained to his dying day that he had been to India, although some of his contemporaries weren't so sure about that. The difference between me and Columbus is that he had a physical way of confirming his theory, while all I know about this immigration thing is what I read in the newspapers.
Archeological evidence has confirmed that there was at least one Norse colony in, what is today, Newfoundland. They're not sure what happened to it, but it was likely the same reason that the first colony in Greenland expired, namely climate change. During the Medieval Warming Period, Greenland was considerably greener than it is today you know.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period
I am not familiar with the music of Robert Johnson but, if Uncle Ken is talking about the old fashioned pre-electric Mississippi Delta Blues, it think it has a certain rustic charm to it, not unlike other folk forms. My favorite African music, however, is the Zulu style chants made popular in modern times by Ladysmith Black Mombasa.
rambling on my mind
I keep up with the news. I don't need no wiki, I know that the border wall isn't being built, that was my whole point,. We are not being defended from our enemies, despite constant ranting, and holding three branches of gummint for two years, and two branches lately, the wall is not being built. And now the master plan of the three dimensional chess player, to purchase Greenland, has fallen through.
Sources differ about the percentage of them that actually show up, so believe what you will about that. People differ about whether the earth is round or flat. When sources differ, the seeker of truth examines the issue and decides (perhaps tentatively) on one side of the other. Chris Columbus did not say well, a lot of guys think the world is flat (actually the Greeks knew the world is round, why else would a boat, sailing away, disappear hull first, and topmast last, but then the dark ages intervened) so I guess there is no way we will ever know, I guess it is unknowable, like how we can know the location or the speed of a particle, but we can never know both (though it would be five hundred years later before we knew that) so I guess I'll forget about that trip and open a pizzeria, I'll bet those Spaniards would go for an authentic Genoan pizza.
Funny how incurious those Spaniards were in Columbus's day. The Norsemen had discovered there was something out in the western ocean (Greenland! and Iceland, and I think Newfoundland. You wonder why they didn't think, well this place is awfully cold, why don't we follow this coast further south. Of course they were used to cold, but not that cold, I have read that if they had followed the path of the natives and lived on fish and what the sea might bring, they might have survived and even thrived, but they insisted on living like Europeans with crops and livestock and that just didn't work).
Well I'm just rambling, rambling on my mind, speaking of rambling how does Beagles feel about those old blues guys like Robert Johnson, who were doing folk (their folk) songs, that Beagles likes? Does he like their music, or can he detect in the rhythms of that music the roots of that devil, rock and roll?
August 22nd this morn. Less than two weeks before Labor Day, where has the summer gone? There is still plenty of time before Old Man Winter comes clomping in with his phlegmy laugh, put your ear to the ground and I wager you cannot even hear his distant footfall, but if you listen closely you can hear his icy sheets rustle as he grasps the alarm clock and thinks, still too early, I can catch maybe ten, twenty winks more. So in the meantime I will take myself out onto the veranda to read the news of the day.
Sources differ about the percentage of them that actually show up, so believe what you will about that. People differ about whether the earth is round or flat. When sources differ, the seeker of truth examines the issue and decides (perhaps tentatively) on one side of the other. Chris Columbus did not say well, a lot of guys think the world is flat (actually the Greeks knew the world is round, why else would a boat, sailing away, disappear hull first, and topmast last, but then the dark ages intervened) so I guess there is no way we will ever know, I guess it is unknowable, like how we can know the location or the speed of a particle, but we can never know both (though it would be five hundred years later before we knew that) so I guess I'll forget about that trip and open a pizzeria, I'll bet those Spaniards would go for an authentic Genoan pizza.
Funny how incurious those Spaniards were in Columbus's day. The Norsemen had discovered there was something out in the western ocean (Greenland! and Iceland, and I think Newfoundland. You wonder why they didn't think, well this place is awfully cold, why don't we follow this coast further south. Of course they were used to cold, but not that cold, I have read that if they had followed the path of the natives and lived on fish and what the sea might bring, they might have survived and even thrived, but they insisted on living like Europeans with crops and livestock and that just didn't work).
Well I'm just rambling, rambling on my mind, speaking of rambling how does Beagles feel about those old blues guys like Robert Johnson, who were doing folk (their folk) songs, that Beagles likes? Does he like their music, or can he detect in the rhythms of that music the roots of that devil, rock and roll?
August 22nd this morn. Less than two weeks before Labor Day, where has the summer gone? There is still plenty of time before Old Man Winter comes clomping in with his phlegmy laugh, put your ear to the ground and I wager you cannot even hear his distant footfall, but if you listen closely you can hear his icy sheets rustle as he grasps the alarm clock and thinks, still too early, I can catch maybe ten, twenty winks more. So in the meantime I will take myself out onto the veranda to read the news of the day.
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
One Piece at a Time
I hadn't heard anything about the Wall recently either, so I looked it up on Wiki. The article is quite long, but you can just read the parts that interest you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_wa
It seems that the project is currently tied up in the courts, however:
"The White House petitioned to the Supreme Court, and on July 26, 2019, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, issued a stay to Gilliam's ruling, allowing wall and related construction to proceed while litigation continues. The funding comes from $2.5 billion of the military budget.[c] The summary ruling from the majority indicated that the groups suing the government may not have standing to challenge the executive order.[144] However, the plaintiffs will return to the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court.[149]"
Another issue is that a substantial part of the Wall will need to be built on private or state owned land. Some landowners are against it, but others have grown tired of waiting for the government to act and are building it themselves: (Sorry about the gap, I can't seem to make it go away.)
Mexico border using $6-8 million of the donated funds. Kolfage's organization says it has plans to construct further barriers on private lands adjoining the border in Texas and California.[8][9]
Of course the Wall won't do much good as long as the current asylum laws are in effect. I read some time ago on my news app that there is a stretch of existing barrier near El Paso, Texas that is set back from the border about a hundred yards because of the rough terrain. Illegals have been stepping over onto US territory outside the fence and demanding that the Border Patrol come and arrest them. The BP people actually open a gate, go through and arrest these people, then bring them inside for processing. Most of them will eventually be released on the US side to await their hearing. Sources differ about the percentage of them that actually show up, so believe what you will about that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_wa
It seems that the project is currently tied up in the courts, however:
"The White House petitioned to the Supreme Court, and on July 26, 2019, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, issued a stay to Gilliam's ruling, allowing wall and related construction to proceed while litigation continues. The funding comes from $2.5 billion of the military budget.[c] The summary ruling from the majority indicated that the groups suing the government may not have standing to challenge the executive order.[144] However, the plaintiffs will return to the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court.[149]"
Another issue is that a substantial part of the Wall will need to be built on private or state owned land. Some landowners are against it, but others have grown tired of waiting for the government to act and are building it themselves: (Sorry about the gap, I can't seem to make it go away.)
Private efforts
We Build The Wall, a private organization founded by military veteran Brian Kolfage, raised over $23 million beginning in 2018, with President Trump's encouragement and with leadership from Kris Kobach and Steve Bannon. Over the 2019 Memorial Day weekend, the organization constructed a half-mile (800 m) "weathered steel" bollard fence near El Paso on private land adjoining the USMexico border using $6-8 million of the donated funds. Kolfage's organization says it has plans to construct further barriers on private lands adjoining the border in Texas and California.[8][9]
Of course the Wall won't do much good as long as the current asylum laws are in effect. I read some time ago on my news app that there is a stretch of existing barrier near El Paso, Texas that is set back from the border about a hundred yards because of the rough terrain. Illegals have been stepping over onto US territory outside the fence and demanding that the Border Patrol come and arrest them. The BP people actually open a gate, go through and arrest these people, then bring them inside for processing. Most of them will eventually be released on the US side to await their hearing. Sources differ about the percentage of them that actually show up, so believe what you will about that.
a headless army
So, I saw Pompeo on tv yesterday. The guy is kind of a dim bulb, but among Trump cabinet members he is a blazing supernova. He was explaining what is the deal with the recent ISIS resurgence. See now if he was Trump he could have just said that there was no resurgence, it was all fake news, and anybody that said so was a traitor. But that's a privilege not normally accorded to the lackeys, though some have come close to it because what the hell, So Pompeo kind of hemmed and hawed, careful not to say anything that would contradict any of the whoppers that Trump has said lately (Trump has said ISIS was completely wiped out), and basically mumbled something like 'it's complicated.'
Well amusing enough, but then I got to thinking, aren't these guys supposed to be protecting America? Isn't that what we pay them for? You have mumbling lackeys with no power fighting for the favor of the baby who cannot read through a one page report and changes his mind at the drop of a word from Hannity who gets his news from, well probably from Russian bots when you consider the content, which is anything that will tear the country apart and label anybody not hewing to the changing Trump line a traitor.
One of the things the reps like to do, and usually Trump goes along even though he would rather spend the money on parades and the wall (How is that wall-building coming along by the way?), is slathering money on the military. What is the point of a fat military if it doesn't protect us?
Back to ISIS. Aren't these the guys who sent wave after wave of desperate refuges banging on the doors of Europe, electing Trumpian dictators in Italy and Hungary, and in smaller less-advanced countries to the east? And brought the dizzying Brexit fiasco to England, and fueled rightist thugs in France and Germany? Not that I think Trump is playing three dimensional chess here, maybe more something along the lines of ignorance breeding more ignorance
And you have to think, if we have gone two years and change with a headless, practically speaking useless army, and yet nobody has swept down and tried to dismember us, so what do we even need an army for?
Well amusing enough, but then I got to thinking, aren't these guys supposed to be protecting America? Isn't that what we pay them for? You have mumbling lackeys with no power fighting for the favor of the baby who cannot read through a one page report and changes his mind at the drop of a word from Hannity who gets his news from, well probably from Russian bots when you consider the content, which is anything that will tear the country apart and label anybody not hewing to the changing Trump line a traitor.
One of the things the reps like to do, and usually Trump goes along even though he would rather spend the money on parades and the wall (How is that wall-building coming along by the way?), is slathering money on the military. What is the point of a fat military if it doesn't protect us?
Back to ISIS. Aren't these the guys who sent wave after wave of desperate refuges banging on the doors of Europe, electing Trumpian dictators in Italy and Hungary, and in smaller less-advanced countries to the east? And brought the dizzying Brexit fiasco to England, and fueled rightist thugs in France and Germany? Not that I think Trump is playing three dimensional chess here, maybe more something along the lines of ignorance breeding more ignorance
And you have to think, if we have gone two years and change with a headless, practically speaking useless army, and yet nobody has swept down and tried to dismember us, so what do we even need an army for?
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
the fly facing the swatters
Even though our causes are different Beagles's experience with the humane society seems to be a lot like mine with the board in the sense of one against many, and the many all seem to know each other and you don't know any of them, and they all present this face of geniality and openness, but they already know what they are going to do, and they'll swat you away, not with a fly swatter, but with a gentle brush of a soft cloth, but even as they do so they make you aware of the fly swatter in the other hand behind their back/
I think that's why lobbyists like to hire ex-politicians, people who were once part of the crowd that all knew each other. It's one thing to know how the operations of the committee look on paper, but the way it actually works is something different. That was LBJ's power, he could look at a committee and soon see who was powerful and who was not, who had an agenda and who was along for the ride, who was rigid and who was more pliant.
The board did do a survey. They are still tabulating the results (which sounds a little suspicious to me, how long can this take?), and I guess it will be revealed in time, and I don't want to make a fuss because I don't want people to think I am a crackpot. At some unannounced time there will be a meeting of the rules of regs which I will be invited to attend. This is the committee that is stacked against me, but I think after that it will go to the board which is I think pretty split in on the issue. I am keeping pretty quiet so far, partly because it seems like a good strategy, and partly because the whole thing takes a toll on me. The more I run it through my head the angrier I get, and the angrier I get the less able I am able to do the things I enjoy.
That whole strategy of divide and conquer, dogs vs trappers, bows vs shooters, shotguns vs high powered rifles sounds awfully complicated and I'm surprised that they would openly proclaim such a sneaky tactic, but maybe fanatics were running the show back in the 70's.
Saw the jumping worms on tv. They don't seem to jump that high or often, not like those Asian carps that smack fishermen in the face, so I don't expect to be smacked by worms as I stroll through the park.
I don't know what to make of that Lawrence Person guy, and I didn't want to spend the whole morning trying to figure it out. Anybody can use the term clown car and we have our fringes, that new age babe in particular, though I am intrigued by Yang. Anyway I think you will find fewer rubber noses and big shoes among the the 20 dems than you would have found among the 12 and 16 reps/
I guess as a good citizen I should pay more attention to what the candidates say in long interviews, everybody kind of looks like they are wearing a rubber nose and big shoes in a debate. Anyway it seems like now we are down to the big four, and Sanders and Harris are fading. Biden is fading a bit also, but he started out way ahead and right now he is the favorite of the Beat Trump At Any Cost crowd. My candidate, Warren is soaring, but you know what happens when you get too close to the sun. And of course when the race narrows a dark horse becomes more attractive.
I think that's why lobbyists like to hire ex-politicians, people who were once part of the crowd that all knew each other. It's one thing to know how the operations of the committee look on paper, but the way it actually works is something different. That was LBJ's power, he could look at a committee and soon see who was powerful and who was not, who had an agenda and who was along for the ride, who was rigid and who was more pliant.
The board did do a survey. They are still tabulating the results (which sounds a little suspicious to me, how long can this take?), and I guess it will be revealed in time, and I don't want to make a fuss because I don't want people to think I am a crackpot. At some unannounced time there will be a meeting of the rules of regs which I will be invited to attend. This is the committee that is stacked against me, but I think after that it will go to the board which is I think pretty split in on the issue. I am keeping pretty quiet so far, partly because it seems like a good strategy, and partly because the whole thing takes a toll on me. The more I run it through my head the angrier I get, and the angrier I get the less able I am able to do the things I enjoy.
That whole strategy of divide and conquer, dogs vs trappers, bows vs shooters, shotguns vs high powered rifles sounds awfully complicated and I'm surprised that they would openly proclaim such a sneaky tactic, but maybe fanatics were running the show back in the 70's.
Saw the jumping worms on tv. They don't seem to jump that high or often, not like those Asian carps that smack fishermen in the face, so I don't expect to be smacked by worms as I stroll through the park.
I don't know what to make of that Lawrence Person guy, and I didn't want to spend the whole morning trying to figure it out. Anybody can use the term clown car and we have our fringes, that new age babe in particular, though I am intrigued by Yang. Anyway I think you will find fewer rubber noses and big shoes among the the 20 dems than you would have found among the 12 and 16 reps/
I guess as a good citizen I should pay more attention to what the candidates say in long interviews, everybody kind of looks like they are wearing a rubber nose and big shoes in a debate. Anyway it seems like now we are down to the big four, and Sanders and Harris are fading. Biden is fading a bit also, but he started out way ahead and right now he is the favorite of the Beat Trump At Any Cost crowd. My candidate, Warren is soaring, but you know what happens when you get too close to the sun. And of course when the race narrows a dark horse becomes more attractive.
THe Rest of the Story
The reason I became involved with the founding of the Cheboygan County Humane Society was that I had heard that some, but not all, humane societies were against hunting and I wanted to use whatever influence I had to prevent ours from being like that. Animal control in Michigan is the responsibility of the county sheriff's department, but many of them contract it out to a local humane society. I think the animal control officer (dog catcher) is still a deputy sheriff, but the humane society runs the animal shelter (dog pound) and handles adoptions and things like that. In our case, the county bought the property and built the dog pound, then hired the humane society to run it for them. Before that the animal control officer had kept the dogs in his own barn. It had been a part time job, but with the increase in both the human and animal populations in our county, it was decided to make it a more professional operation. Since we didn't have a humane society, one of the county commissioners, who was a hunter himself, volunteered to help get one started. A newspaper article invited anybody who was interested to attend the first meeting, where a board of directors was elected, which included me as vice president, probably because nobody else wanted the job and I didn't know any better.
In retrospect, I think those people all knew each other before that first meeting. I found out later that the lady who was elected president was a strong minded woman, influential in the community, who was accustomed to getting her own way. When I made my motion, the other board members, including the county commissioner who was a hunter, just shuffled their feet and looked at the floor. When I saw that even he wasn't going to support me, I figured that I was fighting a losing battle and decided that I didn't want my good name associated with that outfit any longer. As it turned out, our local humane society has never made a lot of anti-hunting noise. They have mostly stuck to rounding up stray dogs and cats and, last I heard, they were doing a pretty good job of it. Madame President left town some years ago but, even before that, I don't remember her name being mentioned in news articles about our local humane society. Does any of this sound familiar Uncle Ken? By the way, was your Christmas light controversy ever resolved?
The newsletter from the HSUS explained that the reason they were going after the trappers first was because there already was a bit of a rift between hunting dog owners and trappers, and they figured that the hunters would not support the trappers and vice versa. The bow hunters were next because bow hunting hadn't yet attained the popularity that it has today, and some rifle hunters were resentful of the early archery deer season that had recently been approved. Some jurisdictions limit deer hunting to shotguns because it is not considered safe to use high powered rifles in populated areas, so you don't really need a high powered rifle to hunt deer. The whole program reminded me of that famous quote about the NAZIs, "By the time they came for me, there was nobody left to complain."
In retrospect, I think those people all knew each other before that first meeting. I found out later that the lady who was elected president was a strong minded woman, influential in the community, who was accustomed to getting her own way. When I made my motion, the other board members, including the county commissioner who was a hunter, just shuffled their feet and looked at the floor. When I saw that even he wasn't going to support me, I figured that I was fighting a losing battle and decided that I didn't want my good name associated with that outfit any longer. As it turned out, our local humane society has never made a lot of anti-hunting noise. They have mostly stuck to rounding up stray dogs and cats and, last I heard, they were doing a pretty good job of it. Madame President left town some years ago but, even before that, I don't remember her name being mentioned in news articles about our local humane society. Does any of this sound familiar Uncle Ken? By the way, was your Christmas light controversy ever resolved?
The newsletter from the HSUS explained that the reason they were going after the trappers first was because there already was a bit of a rift between hunting dog owners and trappers, and they figured that the hunters would not support the trappers and vice versa. The bow hunters were next because bow hunting hadn't yet attained the popularity that it has today, and some rifle hunters were resentful of the early archery deer season that had recently been approved. Some jurisdictions limit deer hunting to shotguns because it is not considered safe to use high powered rifles in populated areas, so you don't really need a high powered rifle to hunt deer. The whole program reminded me of that famous quote about the NAZIs, "By the time they came for me, there was nobody left to complain."
Monday, August 19, 2019
Begging for dollars
Last year about this time we had a little discussion about earthworms and the possible threat they make to forests. Not much has been said since then so I figured it was another one-week wonder, a story with no legs; a moot point since worms don't have any legs. But last week there was a worm story about another invasive species, and these worms are weird; they jump. Although native to the South they have been moving North and can now be found in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Just a heads-up for my fellow nature lovers.
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Last month I mentioned "clown car" in reference to all the Democratic candidates and I think Uncle Ken might have found my comment a bit harsh and perhaps it was. But the clown car concept is gaining some traction according to a recent posting I saw. The title of the article is "Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for August 19, 2019" and you can read it here. I just glanced at the article so I can't attest to the legitimacy of the site; maybe they're a bunch of loons but I thought the article title was funny and that's good enough for me.
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I know you guys don't spend as much time on YouTube as I do, but I noticed something interesting. When I use my laptop I don't see any of the embedded ads because of the Ad-Blocker software I have installed. It's different with my iPad though; the Apple ecosystem does not allow iPad ad blockers so all the videos I watch are usually interrupted by ads of one kind or another. Annoying as hell, and political ads are becoming more frequent although they are very short as they solicit money. They're only asking for a dollar, which indicates to me that the number of individual donors is more important that the amount of money raised. Off the top of my head I can only recall two candidates, Bernie Sanders and Tom Steyer, but I'm sure there have been others. I am very quick on the trigger to skip the ads but I'll try to slow down and keep a better log of the folks soliciting support.
I remember reading about Obama's election victory and how he was the first guy to exploit social media like Facebook. It worked pretty well but 2020 has a different spin on social media in that the candidates are hitting the video WebBlog sites with a vengeance. It's a great format for the candidates because they can take their time and discuss the issues without being hammered by a hostile inquisitor; these are reasonable people involved in reasonable discussions. Bernie spent more than an hour with Joe Rogan and it was amazing. He was calm and used his "indoor voice" unlike other times I've seen him on TV. Rogan leans right of center but I think Bernie impressed him. I'll have to scour YouTube and see what other long form interviews are out there. Candidates seldom get more than ten minutes or so to state their positions on issues so it's refreshing to hear them talk at length, often more than an hour.
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I don't recall anything about a hole in the space station...
It was last year about this time, a small hole in one of the Soyuz modules. It wasn't caused by a meteorite or any other "act of God." Somebody used a drill and there was a significant amount of finger pointing. The module has since returned to Earth but there hasn't been a peep about it. My guess is that one of the space guys went nuts and was duct-taped for his/her return trip home. Space programs are tenuous and nobody needs such negative publicity.
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Last month I mentioned "clown car" in reference to all the Democratic candidates and I think Uncle Ken might have found my comment a bit harsh and perhaps it was. But the clown car concept is gaining some traction according to a recent posting I saw. The title of the article is "Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for August 19, 2019" and you can read it here. I just glanced at the article so I can't attest to the legitimacy of the site; maybe they're a bunch of loons but I thought the article title was funny and that's good enough for me.
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I know you guys don't spend as much time on YouTube as I do, but I noticed something interesting. When I use my laptop I don't see any of the embedded ads because of the Ad-Blocker software I have installed. It's different with my iPad though; the Apple ecosystem does not allow iPad ad blockers so all the videos I watch are usually interrupted by ads of one kind or another. Annoying as hell, and political ads are becoming more frequent although they are very short as they solicit money. They're only asking for a dollar, which indicates to me that the number of individual donors is more important that the amount of money raised. Off the top of my head I can only recall two candidates, Bernie Sanders and Tom Steyer, but I'm sure there have been others. I am very quick on the trigger to skip the ads but I'll try to slow down and keep a better log of the folks soliciting support.
I remember reading about Obama's election victory and how he was the first guy to exploit social media like Facebook. It worked pretty well but 2020 has a different spin on social media in that the candidates are hitting the video WebBlog sites with a vengeance. It's a great format for the candidates because they can take their time and discuss the issues without being hammered by a hostile inquisitor; these are reasonable people involved in reasonable discussions. Bernie spent more than an hour with Joe Rogan and it was amazing. He was calm and used his "indoor voice" unlike other times I've seen him on TV. Rogan leans right of center but I think Bernie impressed him. I'll have to scour YouTube and see what other long form interviews are out there. Candidates seldom get more than ten minutes or so to state their positions on issues so it's refreshing to hear them talk at length, often more than an hour.
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I don't recall anything about a hole in the space station...
It was last year about this time, a small hole in one of the Soyuz modules. It wasn't caused by a meteorite or any other "act of God." Somebody used a drill and there was a significant amount of finger pointing. The module has since returned to Earth but there hasn't been a peep about it. My guess is that one of the space guys went nuts and was duct-taped for his/her return trip home. Space programs are tenuous and nobody needs such negative publicity.
nuthouses for pigeon shooters
The HSUS seeks to build a humane society that will move toward protecting and celebrating wildlife and will develop humane solutions to wildlife conflicts through innovation. The HSUS actively works to eliminate the most inhumane and unfair sport hunting practices, such as the use of body-gripping traps and snares, bear-baiting, the hound hunting of bears, bobcats, mountain lions and wolves, contest killing events and captive hunting on fenced properties. We oppose live pigeon shoots and other forms of staged hunting where the animals are bred or stocked simply to be shot as living targets. We also oppose the trophy hunting of rare or endangered populations and the use of lead ammunition, since less toxic alternatives are workable and available in the marketplace
This is the USHS's official policy on hunting. It doesn't sound like they are after Old Betsy. But that is now and Beagles is speaking of the 70's so perhaps things were different then. I couldn't find anything on their website about gun control, though aside from their own page and wiki, the first two pages contained only pro-gun, anti-HSUS stuff from, well I assume gun nuts.
The main reason I went to the source is that if gun control was their ultimate aim, going after bows and arrows first seems awfully ass backwards. If you want to wage some program of social change you go after the easiest items first, the places where you can gain some support. If your goal is socialism you go after the forty hour week first, and leave the takeover of business till after you have accomplished more modest goals.
Who hates bows and arrows? I think hardly anybody because hardly anybody gets hurt by them. Who hates AR's (I'm using this term to denote all semi automatic weapons because it's easier to type)? A lot of people, because they have killed a lot of innocent bystanders, Seems to me the logical first goal would be to go after AR's Too bad Beagles tore up that paper, I would like to see it.
I wonder why Beagles resigned on the spot. Shouldn't you stay and fight for what was right? Isn't that what Davy Crockett told us to do? I expect Beagles's goals were not compatible with that of the members. Actually I wonder why Beagles was interested in such an organization in the first place, what did he want to accomplish?
I think Beagles's second paragraph is meant to make a case that closing the nut houses is responsible for the current rash of shootings. I'm not buying it. I will just say this about that, if the mass shooting in Texas Beagles refers to (location? date?) had involved an AR, a lot more people would have been killed.
The mention of pigeon shoots, reminds me of Dick, The Prick, Cheney, shooting his old buddy in the face. Okay that frozen chicken in the sack at the grocery store was killed on some assembly line, but the guy doing it is being paid and the aim is to feed people. What to make of a guy who pays money to shoot an animal pretty much in a barrel, for the fun of it. For the fun of it? If we ever get around to rebuilding nut houses I hope the first beds go to guys who participate in pigeon shoots.
This is the USHS's official policy on hunting. It doesn't sound like they are after Old Betsy. But that is now and Beagles is speaking of the 70's so perhaps things were different then. I couldn't find anything on their website about gun control, though aside from their own page and wiki, the first two pages contained only pro-gun, anti-HSUS stuff from, well I assume gun nuts.
The main reason I went to the source is that if gun control was their ultimate aim, going after bows and arrows first seems awfully ass backwards. If you want to wage some program of social change you go after the easiest items first, the places where you can gain some support. If your goal is socialism you go after the forty hour week first, and leave the takeover of business till after you have accomplished more modest goals.
Who hates bows and arrows? I think hardly anybody because hardly anybody gets hurt by them. Who hates AR's (I'm using this term to denote all semi automatic weapons because it's easier to type)? A lot of people, because they have killed a lot of innocent bystanders, Seems to me the logical first goal would be to go after AR's Too bad Beagles tore up that paper, I would like to see it.
I wonder why Beagles resigned on the spot. Shouldn't you stay and fight for what was right? Isn't that what Davy Crockett told us to do? I expect Beagles's goals were not compatible with that of the members. Actually I wonder why Beagles was interested in such an organization in the first place, what did he want to accomplish?
I think Beagles's second paragraph is meant to make a case that closing the nut houses is responsible for the current rash of shootings. I'm not buying it. I will just say this about that, if the mass shooting in Texas Beagles refers to (location? date?) had involved an AR, a lot more people would have been killed.
The mention of pigeon shoots, reminds me of Dick, The Prick, Cheney, shooting his old buddy in the face. Okay that frozen chicken in the sack at the grocery store was killed on some assembly line, but the guy doing it is being paid and the aim is to feed people. What to make of a guy who pays money to shoot an animal pretty much in a barrel, for the fun of it. For the fun of it? If we ever get around to rebuilding nut houses I hope the first beds go to guys who participate in pigeon shoots.
Saturday, August 17, 2019
Old Classics
I'm sure that I have posted both of these stories in the past, but we never get tired of those old classics.
Back in the 70s, I was involved in the founding of the Cheboygan County Humane Society. At that time, there were three national organizations with which we could have affiliated, the Humane Society of the United States, which was anti hunting, the American Humane Association, which was pro hunting, and the ASPCA, which was neutral on the issue. In between meetings, our president got us affiliated with the HSUS without consulting any of the board members. (I was the vice president). The first I heard about it was when I got one of their newsletters in the mail. In that newsletter they explained their whole plan of eliminating hunting and trapping bit by bit, first the trapping, then archery hunting, then hunting with high powered rifles, then low powered rifles, and finally shotguns. They went on to explain that, when hunting was gone, there would be little justification for private citizens to own firearms, so that could also be banned which, they confided, was their ultimate goal. I got so mad that I tore the newsletter up into little pieces which, in hindsight, was the wrong thing to do, because now I had no evidence to present at the next meeting or to the esteemed colleagues that I would acquire decades later. Nevertheless, I raised hell at the next meeting and made a motion to disassociate our local chapter from this commie group. My motion died for lack of a second, and I resigned from the Cheboygan County Humane Society in protest.
It was also in the 70s that they started closing most of the mental institutions in this country, but the studies that justified it were done in the 60s. These studies determined that many of the people inside those institutions didn't need to be there, and that many of the people on the outside really needed to be on the inside. Rather than sort them out, they just opened the gates, let them all run loose, allowed them to breed, and now we are dealing with their grandchildren. I only remember reading about one mass shooting before the institutions were closed, I believe it happened in Texas, and it was long before ARs became so popular. In those days, if a person started acting crazy, people would tell him, "You keep that up and the men in the white coats gonna come take you away.", which frequently inspired him to clean up his act. Nowadays I suppose they say, "You keep that up and they gonna make you see a counselor.", which I doubt has the same impact.
Back in the 70s, I was involved in the founding of the Cheboygan County Humane Society. At that time, there were three national organizations with which we could have affiliated, the Humane Society of the United States, which was anti hunting, the American Humane Association, which was pro hunting, and the ASPCA, which was neutral on the issue. In between meetings, our president got us affiliated with the HSUS without consulting any of the board members. (I was the vice president). The first I heard about it was when I got one of their newsletters in the mail. In that newsletter they explained their whole plan of eliminating hunting and trapping bit by bit, first the trapping, then archery hunting, then hunting with high powered rifles, then low powered rifles, and finally shotguns. They went on to explain that, when hunting was gone, there would be little justification for private citizens to own firearms, so that could also be banned which, they confided, was their ultimate goal. I got so mad that I tore the newsletter up into little pieces which, in hindsight, was the wrong thing to do, because now I had no evidence to present at the next meeting or to the esteemed colleagues that I would acquire decades later. Nevertheless, I raised hell at the next meeting and made a motion to disassociate our local chapter from this commie group. My motion died for lack of a second, and I resigned from the Cheboygan County Humane Society in protest.
It was also in the 70s that they started closing most of the mental institutions in this country, but the studies that justified it were done in the 60s. These studies determined that many of the people inside those institutions didn't need to be there, and that many of the people on the outside really needed to be on the inside. Rather than sort them out, they just opened the gates, let them all run loose, allowed them to breed, and now we are dealing with their grandchildren. I only remember reading about one mass shooting before the institutions were closed, I believe it happened in Texas, and it was long before ARs became so popular. In those days, if a person started acting crazy, people would tell him, "You keep that up and the men in the white coats gonna come take you away.", which frequently inspired him to clean up his act. Nowadays I suppose they say, "You keep that up and they gonna make you see a counselor.", which I doubt has the same impact.
Friday, August 16, 2019
locking up nuts
This is why I dislike discussing gun policy with Beagles. No matter how carefully I frame my argument (Maybe 30 people a year killed by semi weapons, who would have survived an attack by a single shot killer vs the convenience of some hunter who, having missed his first shot having a chance at a second shot, which he probably won't make because if he was a good shot he would have hit the varmint in the first place, likewise the third shot), it makes no difference, because Beagles' sole argument is that if they outlaw any shooting iron that brings them a little closer to taking Old Betsy, and you can't tell tell him otherwise, so why bother?
Many anti-gun people are also anti-hunting people and vice versa. I have read, in their own literature that, if guns are banned, hunting will become less popular and, if hunting is banned, there will be no excuse for private citizens to own guns, which is their ultimate goal.
I would like to know the source of this. I'm sure some anti-gun people are anti-hunting, but many hunters are also for gun control, and I can't offhand name any prominent gun control person who has said anything about taking away the rifles of hunters. This whole argument about banning hunting as a way of banning guns sounds ludicrous. Surely it's the raving of some tin foil hat guy. Where is this 'literature' where Beagles has read this? I have never heard anything so consarn silly.
I think I remember that poll about a majority of people thinking that Trump will be elected, but polls come and go you know, the latest Fox poll has each one of the big four dem candidates beating Trump by about ten points, but that could change in a week. Has Beagles not heard of Trumpists who disapprove of Trump's undainty ways, yet like him for his conservative agenda? Maybe ninety percent of elected rep officials have said that after one of his outbursts. Beagles is hardly the only one which probably disappoints him, to be with the majority of Republicans.
This trope of locking up nuts to prevent shootings has been around as long as there have been shootings, it is mainly a way of saying do anything, whether it works or not, but don't come after my guns. Nuts have been around since we were apes, and building nuthouses has never changed that. It's a stupid argument, and if Trump read it (I'm sorry did I say Trump read? If Hannity had happened to read it and then to mention it on his tv show), then he did not get it from anything I have said.
Happy Friday Gentlemen, and have a good weekend.
Many anti-gun people are also anti-hunting people and vice versa. I have read, in their own literature that, if guns are banned, hunting will become less popular and, if hunting is banned, there will be no excuse for private citizens to own guns, which is their ultimate goal.
I would like to know the source of this. I'm sure some anti-gun people are anti-hunting, but many hunters are also for gun control, and I can't offhand name any prominent gun control person who has said anything about taking away the rifles of hunters. This whole argument about banning hunting as a way of banning guns sounds ludicrous. Surely it's the raving of some tin foil hat guy. Where is this 'literature' where Beagles has read this? I have never heard anything so consarn silly.
I think I remember that poll about a majority of people thinking that Trump will be elected, but polls come and go you know, the latest Fox poll has each one of the big four dem candidates beating Trump by about ten points, but that could change in a week. Has Beagles not heard of Trumpists who disapprove of Trump's undainty ways, yet like him for his conservative agenda? Maybe ninety percent of elected rep officials have said that after one of his outbursts. Beagles is hardly the only one which probably disappoints him, to be with the majority of Republicans.
This trope of locking up nuts to prevent shootings has been around as long as there have been shootings, it is mainly a way of saying do anything, whether it works or not, but don't come after my guns. Nuts have been around since we were apes, and building nuthouses has never changed that. It's a stupid argument, and if Trump read it (I'm sorry did I say Trump read? If Hannity had happened to read it and then to mention it on his tv show), then he did not get it from anything I have said.
Happy Friday Gentlemen, and have a good weekend.
Thursday, August 15, 2019
One Shot - One Deer
It was a long time ago that my dad told me they were licensing gun owners in Illinois. In those days, the principal debate was about gun registration. My ilk was against it because it was believed that would make it too easy, comes the revolution, for the Gestapo to go from house to house collecting everybody's guns to prevent us from mounting a counter revolution and taking our country back. The Illinois thing was supposed to be a compromise, they would know who owned guns, but they wouldn't know how many or where they were stashed. Sometime after that, I believe it was 1968, a federal law was passed that required licensed firearms dealers to record the guns they sold along with the names and addresses of the purchaser. This was de-facto gun registration, but only for new purchases from licensed dealers. I don't remember the background checks being instituted at that time, I think that came later, but again, it only covered new purchases from licensed dealers. The current debate today is about extending the background check and registration law to all firearm sales, including those between private citizens. I don't know how they intend to enforce that, but I thought that one way might be to license gun owners like they used to do in Illinois.
Semi-autos are popular with many hunters, but I suppose we could live without them. The idea is that, if you miss your target, you get an immediate chance to try again. This works better with small game, particularly birds, which are usually shot on the fly with a shotgun, than it does on deer, which are usually hunted with rifles. Most deer hunters will try to get a standing shot if they can and, if you miss the first shot, you will likely miss your follow up shots because now the deer is bounding away. There is an old Indian saying: "One shot - one deer. Two shots - maybe one deer. Three shots - no deer." Be that as it may, I will never vote for a candidate who wants to ban semi-autos. It is generally believed by many gun owners that, if we let them ban one kind of gun, they will just want to ban another kind of gun next. Eventually we will be down to bows and sling shots, and then they will ban them as well. Many anti-gun people are also anti-hunting people and vice versa. I have read, in their own literature that, if guns are banned, hunting will become less popular and, if hunting is banned, there will be no excuse for private citizens to own guns, which is their ultimate goal.
I heard on the TV news this evening that, according to a recent poll, 63% of the people believe that Trump will be re-elected, up from 44% a few weeks ago. I noticed that they didn't ask how their subjects intended to vote, just if they believed that Trump would be re-elected. They went on to say that many of their subjects said that they didn't like Trump as a person, but they liked some of the things he is trying to accomplish. Silly me, I thought I was the only one.
Speaking of Trump, is it possible that he reads our blogs? I have been saying this for a long time you know:
https://a.msn.com/r/2/AAFRouK?m=en-us&referrerID=InAppShare
Semi-autos are popular with many hunters, but I suppose we could live without them. The idea is that, if you miss your target, you get an immediate chance to try again. This works better with small game, particularly birds, which are usually shot on the fly with a shotgun, than it does on deer, which are usually hunted with rifles. Most deer hunters will try to get a standing shot if they can and, if you miss the first shot, you will likely miss your follow up shots because now the deer is bounding away. There is an old Indian saying: "One shot - one deer. Two shots - maybe one deer. Three shots - no deer." Be that as it may, I will never vote for a candidate who wants to ban semi-autos. It is generally believed by many gun owners that, if we let them ban one kind of gun, they will just want to ban another kind of gun next. Eventually we will be down to bows and sling shots, and then they will ban them as well. Many anti-gun people are also anti-hunting people and vice versa. I have read, in their own literature that, if guns are banned, hunting will become less popular and, if hunting is banned, there will be no excuse for private citizens to own guns, which is their ultimate goal.
I heard on the TV news this evening that, according to a recent poll, 63% of the people believe that Trump will be re-elected, up from 44% a few weeks ago. I noticed that they didn't ask how their subjects intended to vote, just if they believed that Trump would be re-elected. They went on to say that many of their subjects said that they didn't like Trump as a person, but they liked some of the things he is trying to accomplish. Silly me, I thought I was the only one.
Speaking of Trump, is it possible that he reads our blogs? I have been saying this for a long time you know:
https://a.msn.com/r/2/AAFRouK?m=en-us&referrerID=InAppShare
dribs and drabs from the week that was
I have to say that I don't know if they license gun owners in Illinois. Not even sure what that means, it sounds like you would have to pay some yearly fee like a hunting license. Not sure what good that does. I guess that makes it easier to track you down if you commit a crime, but that is after the fact. Red flagging sounds like a good idea, but when you get into the nitty gritty of who will be flagged it sounds like you are going to end up with something toothless.
I don't think I said anything about banning ARs, if I did it was just as a sort of shortcut, what I meant is banning all weapons that can easily be converted to automatic weapons. I wonder why a semi automatic is popular for hunting. If you only wound that wabbit, is he going to come charging after you? If you are hunting something that might actually come charging after you, well maybe you shouldn't be using that. I suppose you could carry a pistol of the coup de gras. The way I look at it is that you weigh the potential harm against the potential good that such a machine may do, and in the case of the bunny blaster the former outweighs the latter.
As I recall neither of the tarians! impressed me much. I recall referring to them as Dumber and Even Dumber. Doesn't matter. Jesus H Christ could run against Trump in the primary and got stomped/.
I take it Old Dog hasn't been walking along the beaches lately. Those concrete banks with the corrugated steel in front? Underwater, most of them.
I don't recall anything about a hole in the space station, in fact I don't know much about the space station at all. Are the Russkies delivering supplies now that the shuttle is gone? What are they doing up there? They will probably have to polish their brass and shine their shoes and learn to float at attention once they become part of The Space Force.
Those mainstream conspiracy theories about Epstein seem to have faded into the dark web in a pretty short time. Probably people thought if Trump is tweeting it, it must not be true. Now there is a way for Trump to throw off his persecutors he could tweet '2 + 2 = 4.' and watch everybody pull out their calculators and then shake them in puzzlement. What I still wonder about Epstein that I don't think has been answered yet, is where did he get all that money.
Those, um, things, in Podesta's brother's collection are pretty grotesque, but then some people think that art is supposed to shock. As the brother of a guy who is no longer in politics I don't see this becoming a thing. Unless Hannity decides to talk about it.
I don't think I said anything about banning ARs, if I did it was just as a sort of shortcut, what I meant is banning all weapons that can easily be converted to automatic weapons. I wonder why a semi automatic is popular for hunting. If you only wound that wabbit, is he going to come charging after you? If you are hunting something that might actually come charging after you, well maybe you shouldn't be using that. I suppose you could carry a pistol of the coup de gras. The way I look at it is that you weigh the potential harm against the potential good that such a machine may do, and in the case of the bunny blaster the former outweighs the latter.
As I recall neither of the tarians! impressed me much. I recall referring to them as Dumber and Even Dumber. Doesn't matter. Jesus H Christ could run against Trump in the primary and got stomped/.
I take it Old Dog hasn't been walking along the beaches lately. Those concrete banks with the corrugated steel in front? Underwater, most of them.
I don't recall anything about a hole in the space station, in fact I don't know much about the space station at all. Are the Russkies delivering supplies now that the shuttle is gone? What are they doing up there? They will probably have to polish their brass and shine their shoes and learn to float at attention once they become part of The Space Force.
Those mainstream conspiracy theories about Epstein seem to have faded into the dark web in a pretty short time. Probably people thought if Trump is tweeting it, it must not be true. Now there is a way for Trump to throw off his persecutors he could tweet '2 + 2 = 4.' and watch everybody pull out their calculators and then shake them in puzzlement. What I still wonder about Epstein that I don't think has been answered yet, is where did he get all that money.
Those, um, things, in Podesta's brother's collection are pretty grotesque, but then some people think that art is supposed to shock. As the brother of a guy who is no longer in politics I don't see this becoming a thing. Unless Hannity decides to talk about it.
Monday, August 12, 2019
Fish in a Barrel
I have noticed myself that the partisan pundits are in the habit of giving advice to the other side. I don't know if they have always done that or if they have just started doing it lately, but I never noticed it until the last few years.
I seem to remember saying before that I don't mind background checks. We've had them since about 1970, but only for purchases from licensed gun dealers. Extending them to all gun sales might not be a bad idea, although enforcement might be difficult. That's why I asked about licensing the gun owners like they used to do, and maybe they still do, in Illinois. In Michigan, when a motor vehicle is sold from one private party to another, both of them have to go down to the Secretary of State and register the transaction. Doing something similar with guns might be more efficient than trying to get private sellers to check the backgrounds of private buyers.
Banning ARs is more complicated. Fully automatics are already banned, but it's not difficult to convert a semi auto to a fully auto if you know what you're doing. If you ban all semis, you are including a lot of popular guns that are not normally used by mass murderers. In Michigan, semi autos used for hunting are already limited to five round magazines, so a total ban on high capacity magazines might be easier to pass than a total ban on ARs. By the way, I read somewhere that Trump has already banned bump stocks by executive order. I suppose that he could do that without Congress because fully autos are already banned, and the bump stock makes a semi auto shoot like a fully auto, so it was just a tweak in the existing regulations.
I agree with Old Dog that a fully automatic rifle is not so effective in taking out individual targets but, as Uncle Ken once said, "When you're shooting fish in a barrel, all you have to hit is the barrel." Shotguns can be deadly at close range, say up to 50 yards, depending on what kind of ammo is in the gun. A disciplined machine gunner can have a similar effect over longer ranges by firing short three to five round bursts. Any more than that, accuracy goes out the window, and the gun will eventually overheat and jam up.
They have been reporting near record high lake levels here as well, but I seem to remember seeing them much higher in the past. Shoreline erosion is not as much of a problem here because we don't get the big waves breaking on shore like you do at the long end of Lake Michigan. Low water was a bigger problem a few years ago because it was impacting navigation.
Eye of the beholder
Another thing I found out was that I had that guy's name wrong, it's not Web it's Weld, which explains why Uncle Ken couldn't find anything about him.
I can understand a little name confusion but I'm surprised that you guys don't seem to recollect that Bill Weld was Gary Johnson's running mate for the Libertarian Party in 2016. During the few interviews I saw of the two I thought that Johnson was too flaky for my tastes but Weld was a very solid guy and should have been the presidential candidate, not Johnson. And now he's a Republican again, go figure.
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I read today that the water level in Lake Michigan is approaching a record high, and that means Lake Huron, too. A couple of beaches in Chicago are gone and I was wondering if Lake Huron is going to encroach on Beaglesonia any time soon, providing Mr. Beagles with some prime lakefront property.
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Unless I've missed something there hasn't been a shooting with automatic weapons in the last few days and I saw something interesting. It seems that, on a per bullet basis, an automatic assault rifle is much less effective that a regular rifle, or even a muzzle loader like the esteemed Old Betsy. In a combat situation it can take many thousands of rounds to kill only one of the enemy. I don't have the statistics at hand but it sounds reasonable to me; one of the functions of a fully automatic weapon is to provide suppressive fire and not necessarily to kill an individual enemy. I'm not going to go any further with this train of thought lest we start discussing the ins and outs of mass shootings but be glad those nuts aren't using shotguns.
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I thought of another past news item that was a big deal but has disappeared: that hole in the International Space Station. That was about a year ago and it still seems to be unresolved. It must not be important because we are still pals with the Russkies and using their rockets.
But what about that Epstein fellow and his suicide this weekend? Hoo, Boy! Did you ever see a bigger can of worms to inspire the conspiratorial loonies among us? There are many forces at play here, guys, and it's just beginning. Maybe it's all connected, the Mueller Report, Russian election meddling, aliens and Area 51, Pizzagate, Clinton emails, the Illuminati, the Elders of Zion, and earworms from the pen of Irving Berlin.
And if you want to see something really strange do a Google on "Podesta Art Collection" and see what John Podesta's brother is up to. The guy has disturbing taste in art, neither an ear of corn nor a kitty cat to be found. I'm surprised the Trumpists haven't jumped all over this one but maybe they're part of it, a society for the appreciation of underwear-clad children.
I can understand a little name confusion but I'm surprised that you guys don't seem to recollect that Bill Weld was Gary Johnson's running mate for the Libertarian Party in 2016. During the few interviews I saw of the two I thought that Johnson was too flaky for my tastes but Weld was a very solid guy and should have been the presidential candidate, not Johnson. And now he's a Republican again, go figure.
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I read today that the water level in Lake Michigan is approaching a record high, and that means Lake Huron, too. A couple of beaches in Chicago are gone and I was wondering if Lake Huron is going to encroach on Beaglesonia any time soon, providing Mr. Beagles with some prime lakefront property.
-----
Unless I've missed something there hasn't been a shooting with automatic weapons in the last few days and I saw something interesting. It seems that, on a per bullet basis, an automatic assault rifle is much less effective that a regular rifle, or even a muzzle loader like the esteemed Old Betsy. In a combat situation it can take many thousands of rounds to kill only one of the enemy. I don't have the statistics at hand but it sounds reasonable to me; one of the functions of a fully automatic weapon is to provide suppressive fire and not necessarily to kill an individual enemy. I'm not going to go any further with this train of thought lest we start discussing the ins and outs of mass shootings but be glad those nuts aren't using shotguns.
-----
I thought of another past news item that was a big deal but has disappeared: that hole in the International Space Station. That was about a year ago and it still seems to be unresolved. It must not be important because we are still pals with the Russkies and using their rockets.
But what about that Epstein fellow and his suicide this weekend? Hoo, Boy! Did you ever see a bigger can of worms to inspire the conspiratorial loonies among us? There are many forces at play here, guys, and it's just beginning. Maybe it's all connected, the Mueller Report, Russian election meddling, aliens and Area 51, Pizzagate, Clinton emails, the Illuminati, the Elders of Zion, and earworms from the pen of Irving Berlin.
And if you want to see something really strange do a Google on "Podesta Art Collection" and see what John Podesta's brother is up to. The guy has disturbing taste in art, neither an ear of corn nor a kitty cat to be found. I'm surprised the Trumpists haven't jumped all over this one but maybe they're part of it, a society for the appreciation of underwear-clad children.
republicans giving advice to democrats
Offhand I don't think any dem presidential candidate has threatened to come after Old Betsy. Even so Beagles still feels that they will, so I don't know that the promise of any democrat is going to move him. Opinion pieces like the one Beagles has cited, are as common as fleas in an election season. Dems giving advice to reps on who they should nominate, and reps advising dems on who to nominate. Despite this sage advice dems always go for the person the members of their parties want and reps go for the person their party wants.
The other posting is kind of more of the same. Actually I don't know if Beagles backs that or not, all he says is what do I think about that, referring I think to the fact that it comes from Fox and is kind of moderate. The guy seems to be going for red flags and background checks which I don't think Beagles is for under his theory that giving up an inch brings those awful dems an inch closer to taking away Old Betsy. Actually I think the guy recommends reasonable red flags and background checks which means something toothless. Not that it matters because none of this is going to happen while the reps are in power. Trump is not going to follow through on giving up anything on gun control and the reps are going to go along with whatever he says.
The one thing I agree with the guy about is that the dems shouldn't toss around the term racism the way that they do, it might be true in a certain contexts, but what does it accomplish? I note that he wants us to give that up, but I also note that he says not a word about Trump moderating his rants, so what kind of deal is that.
There is much discussion in democratic circles about what to offer the guys at Joe's bait shop in order to get their votes but there is no republican circle that discusses what to offer the guys clicky clacking at Starbucks to win their vote.
Trump doesn't have much to gain by proposing anything reasonable on gun control because reasonable people are not going to vote for him anyway. Some of the reps in purple districts or states could help their chances by coming out for background checks or red flags but they don't dare do so because some Trump guy will challenge them in the primary, so that's another thing working in the dem's favor, And that's a good thing.
I'll have a couple Hoosiers staying here the next couple days, I probably won't be posting again until Thursday.
Friday, August 9, 2019
The Quandry
This was in our local paper today and I tracked it down on the net. I think it sums up my position pretty well. I might vote for a Democrat if he promised to stop illegal immigration and leave my guns alone, I don't even care what they do about health care anymore. Y 'all got anybody like that in the woodwork?
https://www.sj-r.com/opinion/20190806/byron-york-never-trump-quandary-when-you-want-trump-to-lose-but-cant-bear-his-democratic-opponents
Another thing I found out was that I had that guy's name wrong, it's not Web it's Weld, which explains why Uncle Ken couldn't find anything about him.
"The only Republican running against Trump so far is William Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts who left office more than 20 years ago. With scant polling, it is not clear how much support Weld has, but it’s not much."
Thanks to Uncle Ken for explaining that poll thing to me, it makes sense when you put it that way.
Speaking of making sense, I just found this on my news app, and it's from FOX. Who'd a thunk it?
https://a.msn.com/r/2/AAFzeqJ?m=en-us&referrerID=InAppShare
https://www.sj-r.com/opinion/20190806/byron-york-never-trump-quandary-when-you-want-trump-to-lose-but-cant-bear-his-democratic-opponents
Another thing I found out was that I had that guy's name wrong, it's not Web it's Weld, which explains why Uncle Ken couldn't find anything about him.
"The only Republican running against Trump so far is William Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts who left office more than 20 years ago. With scant polling, it is not clear how much support Weld has, but it’s not much."
Thanks to Uncle Ken for explaining that poll thing to me, it makes sense when you put it that way.
Speaking of making sense, I just found this on my news app, and it's from FOX. Who'd a thunk it?
https://a.msn.com/r/2/AAFzeqJ?m=en-us&referrerID=InAppShare
polls
I applaud Beagles for tracking down the details of that poll. It has long been one of my many peeves that columnists, using polls to bolster their point, often fail to include details about those polls, saying only something like recent polls show without saying exactly what polls or giving any details about how the polls were conducted. I have sent a few emails to columnists on this point and when they responded they said something like they only have so many words to put in a column and they don't want to bore their readers, which I find inadequate. If they don't want to give details on the polls then they should leave them out of their argument.
I imagine they conducted the poll by email because offhand I can't think of any other way. What they mean about weighing the target sample is if, say, only 10 percent of the respondents were black, but the population of the country is 20 percent black they would multiply the black respondents by two, if male respondents in the polls were 40 percent they would multiply them by some factor to bring them up to 50 percent, and so on until the percents of race, gender, education levels, etc matched the percents in the general population. There is a problem with those who don't respond. Do their opinions differ from those who do respond? Probably, but I don't know if that is a significant variance. I don't know what's to be done about that.
There should have been a comma in that 1960 number, it does not mean that the respondents come from that year somehow. It should have been 1.960 which is the number of the respondents.
If by saying 'we still have our guns', Beagles means that he still has Old Betsy, well of course, nobody is coming after after Old Betsy, but I know Beagles is never going to believe that.
I don't see anything coming in the wake of the current shootings. Moscow Mitch is not going to let anything come to the floor, and after a little Trump puffery about background checks, he has been whispering with Lucky Pierre so nothing will come of that. Very well the dems will use it as a campaign issue and I think it will help their cause, which to my mind, is a good thing.
I imagine they conducted the poll by email because offhand I can't think of any other way. What they mean about weighing the target sample is if, say, only 10 percent of the respondents were black, but the population of the country is 20 percent black they would multiply the black respondents by two, if male respondents in the polls were 40 percent they would multiply them by some factor to bring them up to 50 percent, and so on until the percents of race, gender, education levels, etc matched the percents in the general population. There is a problem with those who don't respond. Do their opinions differ from those who do respond? Probably, but I don't know if that is a significant variance. I don't know what's to be done about that.
There should have been a comma in that 1960 number, it does not mean that the respondents come from that year somehow. It should have been 1.960 which is the number of the respondents.
If by saying 'we still have our guns', Beagles means that he still has Old Betsy, well of course, nobody is coming after after Old Betsy, but I know Beagles is never going to believe that.
I don't see anything coming in the wake of the current shootings. Moscow Mitch is not going to let anything come to the floor, and after a little Trump puffery about background checks, he has been whispering with Lucky Pierre so nothing will come of that. Very well the dems will use it as a campaign issue and I think it will help their cause, which to my mind, is a good thing.
Thursday, August 8, 2019
The Poll
I clicked on Uncle Ken's link. Down at the bottom of the page were two other links that explained more details about how the poll was conducted. I clicked on the second one, and here's what I found:
"Methodology: This poll was conducted from August 05-07, 2019, among a national sample of 1960 Registered Voters. The interviews were conducted online and the data were weighted to approximate a target sample of Registered Voters based on age, race/ethnicity, gender, educational attainment, and region. Results from the full survey have a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points."
I have often wondered how they contact people to conduct these polls, in person, by telephone, or what. This one says that it was conducted online, but it doesn't say if it was by email or what. To be truly random, the pollsters should have contacted the polees instead of the other way around but, if I got an email like that, I would have sent it to my spam file if my email provider had not already done so. If I had gotten it by snail mail. I would have thrown it into the trash can, which is what we used before spam files were invented. If I had been contacted by telephone, I would have told the caller to "Shut up and leave me alone!", which is what I say to all telephone solicitors. If they contacted their 1960 subjects, what are the chances that they all would have willingly cooperated? So what do they do about the ones who don't, do they just keep contacting people until they get the desired number of willing subjects? Wouldn't that compromise the randomness of the poll?
Then there's this part: "the data were weighted to approximate a target sample of Registered Voters based on age, race/ethnicity, gender, educational attainment, and region." This sounds fishy to me but, truth be known, I have no idea what it means, and I have always been told that I have excellent verbal skills. Would one of my esteemed colleagues like to translate it into my native tongue?
Be that as it may, I suppose we will have to put up with a certain amount of additional gun regulations eventually. I believe it was 1968 when they first started doing the background checks and registering each new gun purchase, and many of my ilk thought it was the end of the world. Well the world is still here and we still have our guns.
"Methodology: This poll was conducted from August 05-07, 2019, among a national sample of 1960 Registered Voters. The interviews were conducted online and the data were weighted to approximate a target sample of Registered Voters based on age, race/ethnicity, gender, educational attainment, and region. Results from the full survey have a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points."
I have often wondered how they contact people to conduct these polls, in person, by telephone, or what. This one says that it was conducted online, but it doesn't say if it was by email or what. To be truly random, the pollsters should have contacted the polees instead of the other way around but, if I got an email like that, I would have sent it to my spam file if my email provider had not already done so. If I had gotten it by snail mail. I would have thrown it into the trash can, which is what we used before spam files were invented. If I had been contacted by telephone, I would have told the caller to "Shut up and leave me alone!", which is what I say to all telephone solicitors. If they contacted their 1960 subjects, what are the chances that they all would have willingly cooperated? So what do they do about the ones who don't, do they just keep contacting people until they get the desired number of willing subjects? Wouldn't that compromise the randomness of the poll?
Then there's this part: "the data were weighted to approximate a target sample of Registered Voters based on age, race/ethnicity, gender, educational attainment, and region." This sounds fishy to me but, truth be known, I have no idea what it means, and I have always been told that I have excellent verbal skills. Would one of my esteemed colleagues like to translate it into my native tongue?
Be that as it may, I suppose we will have to put up with a certain amount of additional gun regulations eventually. I believe it was 1968 when they first started doing the background checks and registering each new gun purchase, and many of my ilk thought it was the end of the world. Well the world is still here and we still have our guns.
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