RNS Quote of the Day

If a detailed, factual study were made of all the instances in the history of American industry which have been used by the statists as an indictment of free enterprise and as an argument in favor of a government controlled economy, it would be found that the actions blamed on the businessmen were caused, necessitated and made possible only by government intervention into business. The evils, popularly ascribed to big industrialists, were not the result of an unregulated industry, but of government power over industry. The villain in the picture was not the businessman, but the legislator, not free enterprise, but government controls.

Ayn Rand – Notes on the History of American Free Enterprise

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The Soundboard: The Dog Days of Winter Edition

I regret that it is my job to inform you that Jake, our Dachshund that I posted about last week at this time, passed away yesterday.

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We were quite hopeful of his chances to keep on keepin’ on last weekm what with his lack of fuss in taking his anti-biotics, but as of Saturday, Jake was down to only eating one of his two daily meals and when he stopped eating altogether on Monday, we something was wrong. We to him to the vet the next morning and they said that his kidneys didn’t seem to want to go along with the plan, but that they wanted to keep him for the day to run some tests.

The tests showed that his heart murmur was lessening but again, his kidney function had gone down to 50%. The vet gave us some more meds to try and wake them up, but Jake still refused to eat Tuesday morning.

At 3am on Tuesday morning, Jake started to frequently vomit and when he could walk, he would do so in small circles, which, if you have ever had a sick pet, you know that is a very bad sign.

The vet said that the only thing he could was to keep Jake for the day and try some re-hydration from all the vomiting, but that it would probably have little to no and possibly a bad effect. It was then that we had to decide to have Jake put down. What with the pain he was probably going through by that time, and the rapidly worsening of his condition, it was the humane thing to do.

We sat with him as the doctor gave him the injection. He went very peacefully.

We made up a box for him and put his “Beef King” t-shirt and a 4-Pack of Hebrew National Beef Knockwurst franks in there along with his favorite pillow and went to the crematorium. The good folks there have helped out quite a few times in recent years. 

We’ll have Jake back with us in the house by Saturday so that he can watch the big game with the wife on Sunday.

I was looking for another ‘Dog Oriented’ song for him for today, but ran aground until I remembered that one of the Blue Note artists, Big john Patton, wrote one just for him on his album Let ‘Em Roll.

And so today, I give you

Jakey – Big John Patton

While it is a swift moving song, the bass line reminds me of the way Jake used to hippety-hop run, which he can do now without the restrictions of weight or age.

Jake, you were a tough old son of a bitch (as he was a dog, that is quite a literal description and a compliment). You and I didn’t get along some of the time, but you made the Analog Wife very happy. And for that I thank you. So long, baby bubba.

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And they’re hung like the Keebler elves too

James Thayer writes about the recent string of arrests of members of the ELF over at The Weekly Standard.

In his article, he sheds some more light on the activities of the arrestees, their arson methods and the criminal ‘organization’ itself, including some words on how they took their method of organization and leadership from the Klan.

Mr. Thayer also points out in his article, the words used by the family members and friends of those who were arrested to describe them. The phrase “non-violent” is almost universal. The words “gentle”, “loving” and “caring” show up almost as fequently.

Of course, all of those biased opinions are shown to be lies by the words of Lauren Weiner when she said “The government blows stuff up, why can’t we?” to an undercover federal agent.

In contrast to Mr. Thayer’s article, NW author and Orcinus blogger David Neiwert, who has never seen a right of center group he couldn’t tag as racist or a property rights group he couldn’t somehow connect to a militia, does both in his latest post “The Orca Killers” where he uses every bit of smoke, mirrors and anecdotal secondhand accounting to try and link the Building Industry Association of Washington to local property rights groups who may have been connected to someone in a self appointed citizens militia group.

He does this because he seriously needs to rile up the hard-left sycophants that inhabit his his comments section (they can smell a Klan member at 50 paces, I tell ya!) and because the BIAW has filed suit to try and keep the local Orca pods off the overused Endangered Species List.

I mention the Orca pods in particular because the only way that the local activists were able to get them on there was to have each pod classified as distinct so that the numbers look smaller. And because local salmon runs are connected to the Orca’s feeding habits, this is very likely going to be tied to their numbers in the future and possible listings on a ‘Threatened Species List’.

But Neiwert forgets his hypocrisy in that he supports the fishing rights for the local indian tribes laid out in numerous treaties. These ‘treatied rights’ do not hold the tribal members who net salmon in great numbers to account when they take from the whole number and which has led to the cancellation of salmon fishing for all non-tribal members in this state in the past.

But what is a builder’s association doing filing lawsuits against the listing of Killer Whales (we’re going to stop this ‘Orca’ nonsense right here) on the endangered species list, you might ask?

Easy. With their listing, any land near waters that they ‘inhabit’ (read: large sections of the Puget Sound) now becomes protected from future development, costing landowners the ability to do what they want with their land via losses in property rights and ultimately jobs to the BIAW members. Neiwert, ever the union supporter, doesn’t think these particular folks should be able to organize and to fight for the future their livelyhood, so he takes the BIAW’s disagreement on the hoodwinking of federal agencies by environmentalist zealots and immediately starts in with half-baked conjecture and anecdotal tales told, all of them by highly biased sources and some of them second hand.

To Neiwert, property rights and the rights of citizen and business groups to petition their government are nothing compared to the “preservation” of a species that cannot keep its act together enough to keep Mother Nature or Darwin happy. You will not build where David says you cannot build unless you want to be labeled as a racist or a baby Killer Whale murderer.

His hypocrisy again comes into play when he forgets that these were the exact same methods used by far-right conspiracy theorists to tie the “Clinton/Cocaine/Mena Airport” story together, which Neiwert will debunk free of charge for you on demand.

And lastly, and most importantly, in the few past instances where I have been allowed to try and show Neiwert his hypocrisy in his near-refusal to talk about the actions of leftist groups such as ELF, ALF and SHAC as violent and destructive, he first asserts that these groups are not leftists because they are violent.

Not only that, but even though they and he both fight for more rights for animals and the near-elimination of private property rights, they are not on “His Side”. But don’t you dare be a ‘right-wing-nut’ who believes in the Second Amendment and property rights at the same time, because then you might as well have been in the passenger seat with McVeigh. Bring up the Weather Underground or the SLA and you get some pile of hyperbole about how that was blown out of proportion.

So, in conclusion, Neiwert is a hypocrite alarmist and the ELF’s and their ilk will hopefully be going down into a deep dark hole, never to be seen again.

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They’ve got him under their skin

I’m pretty sure that it is just coincidental that the SOTU speech was given on Tuesday, the one day of the week that local liberals here in Seattle get together to get hosed and fantasize about how perfect the world would be without Republicans and their little brothers, the civil libertarians (unlike the ACLU, who are un-civil libertarians).

No matter what stars had to align to make it happen, happen it did and the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally met at the Montlake Ale House to watch the speech and have liberal amounts of alcoholic beverages.

And Sam Skolnik of the Seattle PI was there to ‘drink’ it all in and file a day after report.

Toward the end of the speech, it sounded as if several members of the group were suffering from a unique, left-wing strain of Tourette’s syndrome.

“You (blank)!”

“God, I wish he would shut the (blank) up!”

President Bush, antagonist numero uno, was giving his annual State of the Union speech, and a crowd of about 30 mostly young, professional-looking liberals were there to jeer him on.

Tuesday evening, attendees drank when Bush spoke phrases such as “September 11” or “terrorist.” They laughed when he appeared to mispronounce certain words. They booed when he called for the renewal of the Patriot Act. And they cheered loudly for Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) when she was shown smiling and shaking her head as Bush defended his use of warrantless telephone wiretaps.

“It’s not Bush that I hate,” said Jeff Evans, a software programmer from Seattle. “It’s the military-industrial complex he represents. Look at Exxon’s recent profits if you don’t believe me.”

Added Ellen Meserow in between sips of red wine: “I just can’t even start. It’s like every day in the last six years he’s slapped me in the face.”

Just so that you know the named players in this report, Ms. Meserow went to the 2004 Democratic National Convention to blog for the Washington State Dean Delegation.

Imagine that, she says ignorant things, just like her former candidate and current party chair. Ms. Meserow, I’ve never slapped a woman before, but if it will make you feel better, and because we’re all about pleasing the people here at RNS, I can literally slap you in the face everyday until Bush’s term expires. Just leave a note in the comments with a preferred time (late afternoons work for me).

Jeff Evans is a programmer and if you Google his name, his site is the first one to come up. Mr. Evans, I’m sure that what with the investment of your knowledge and time, you’d like your web design business to turn a profit as well, and so would I. I’m glad that Exxon made a profit this year as it means that they are getting a return on the investment of their knowledge and time as well.

If you want to be called a useful idiot, you need no more than to decry someone getting their returns and to use ignorant phrases like “Military-Industrial Complex”. I am holding out the “Slapping in the Face” Service that I offered to Ms. Meserow to you as well, you useful idiot.

So there you have it folks, fiercly partisan Democrats were getting hosed and mocking the national tragedy of September 11th, making light of murderous religious fanatics and cursing in public at the President of the United States.

Because it isn’t enough for them to have the entirety of the City of Seattle, King County and the State of Washington in their hip pocket, they must have it all.

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RNS Quote of the Day

An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. The seem to sense, perhaps more clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of laissez-faire capiatlaism – that gold and economic freedom are inserperable, that the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire capitalism and that each implies and requires the other.

Gold and Economic Freedom – Alan Greenspan

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Medal of Honor

Readers of this blog are likely familiar with the famous Deuce Four unit out of Fort Lewis, WA.

One of their own, PFC Oscar Sanchez of Modesto, California, died just over a year and a month ago defending his post from a truck bomber in Mosul. 

Sanchez shot at the driver of the oncoming truck, apparently forcing the bomber to detonate his explosives before he reached his target. Even that near-miss blast was powerful enough to wound more than a dozen soldiers. Had Sanchez not thwarted the attack, the butcher’s bill would likely have been far worse. Sanchez died the same day from wounds sustained in the explosion.

“At only 19-years old, with a young bride waiting at home for his return, Oscar Sanchez had everything to live for,” Kurilla told soldiers. “With everything to live for, Pfc. Sanchez laid down his life for his friends so that they may live.”

–comments from Sanchez’ commander, Lt. Col. Erik Kurilla

According to this report, the Blue Star Mothers are pushing for PFC Sanchez to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Sounds right to me.

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Rumor, rumor….

Say Uncle links to a rumor that within the next couple of days VP Dick Cheney will step down for health reasons, to be replaced by Senator Frist.

Well, health reasons or “health reasons,” I’d be sorry to see him go. He’s the main reason I got excited about the GWB candidacy back in 2000 — I’ve been watching Cheney, and being impressed by him, since about age 12 when I first started watching the MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour. Even back then, the guy had gravitas!

Lots of my liberal friends consider Bill Clinton to be the epitome of the American politician, in the best sense of the word. For me, it’s always been Cheney. Cheney has Clinton’s glibness and appearance of expertise on a host of topics, but Cheney brings a seriousness to all his discussions that yanks the issues out of the ethereal posturing of politics and returns them to being about serious, realistic, honest public policy — which is where our politics should be all of the time, but of course aren’t.

I also can’t see Cheney fiddling around with an intern while there’s serious work still to be done.

Needless to say, I hope the rumor’s false. The ultimate source (quoted at DougPetch.com) claims his “military sources are 100%.” We’ll see real quick, won’t we?

Posted in Heroes, Comrades and Brothers | 6 Comments

Strange Brew

Something wicked this way comes. I’ll be back later today.

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Not exactly radiation

But I think the Schmuck is on the right track,

CNN – Alaska volcano continues to belch ash

This volcano is sending tons of CO2, a greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. CO2 has been identified as one of the main causes of Global Warming.

I think we should consider sanctions against Alaska.

Myself, I think it is the weight of all that oil that caused the volcano to go off.

Drain ANWR! Save the earth!

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RNS Quote of the Day

Those who alledge that the purpose of anti-trust laws is to protect competition, enterprise and efficiency, need to be reminded of the following quotation from Judge Learned Hand’s indicment of ALCOA’s so-called monopolistic practices:

“It was not inevitable that it should always anticipate increases in the demand for ingot and be prepared to supply them. Nothing compelled it to keep doubling and redoubling it’s capacity before others entered the field. It insistes that it never excluded competitors: but we can think of no more effective exclusion than progressively to embrace each new opportunity as it opened and to face every newcomer with capacity already geared into a great organization, having the advnatage of expertice, trade connections and the elite of personnel.”

ALCOA is being condemed for being to successful, to efficient and too good of a competitor. Whatever damage the antitrust laws may have done to our economy, whatever distortions of the structure of the nation’s capital they may have created, these are less disasterous than the fact that the effective purpose, hidden intent and the actual practice of the antitrust laws in the United Stateshave led to the condemnation of the productive and proficient members of our society because they are productive and efficient.

Based on a paper given by Alan Greenspan at the Antitrust Seminar of the National Association of Business Economists in Cleveland, September 25th, 1961

Shortly after the successful vote to put now Justice Alito onto the SCOTUS, Ben Bernanke was voted to be the 14th Chairman of the Federal Central Bank, thus bringing the final chapter to the tenure of Alan Greenspan.

Although he’ll never see this, I’d just like to thank him for his twenty some-odd years of service, through the recessions and the gravy times, the bulls and the bears and through peacful times and those that were not so peaceful.

It was his job to make sure the US economy (and therefore, a major part of the world economy) was strong enough to grow, and grow we did. When we look back on the Greenspan years, we’ll laugh at the deficits and the surpluses and keep up the fight to lower our tax rates, remembering that taxing money from our wallets to put into someone elses’ wallet is akin to making us slaves to not only the government, but to the recipient of the tax dollars.

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