08:08 – One to-do item taken care of. We now have about three dozen biology kits finished and ready to ship. Today, I’ll get started on the next batch of 60 chemistry kits. Well, half-batch, really. I’ll do them in two groups of 30 each. I also need to get started on making up solutions in bulk for the forensic science kits, which we plan to start shipping by 27 August, and earlier if possible. We’re doing an initial run of 30 of those kits, and we already have pre-orders on some of those.
Barbara called last night, but the cell phone service where she was was horrible. We lost the connection on her first attempt, and when she called back she was breaking up so badly I could barely understand her. But I did hear enough to know that her dad is fine and everything is going well.
Good to hear that your FIL is doing OK. BTW, do you have a permit for running a business in your home?
The Civil War of 2016 – U.S. military officers are told to plan to fight Americans:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/7/the-civil-war-of-2016/
OK, the crazies are roaming freely again.
I want what those buggers are smoking. First of all, one has to imagine American troops and their officers firing on fellow citizens, including family, friends and neighbors. Then one has to think of the billion or so firearms in our hands right now.
Someone will pipe up: ‘yeah but they got jets and tanks and stuff and you have no chance…’ True, if one is so stupid as to run up against tanks or fire one’s Mini-14 at a pair of F-16s zipping along at treetop level. But guess what? Pilots, aircrew and tank drivers and gunners have to eat, sleep, get to and from their machines, etc. Those machines also have to be fueled.
For a very minor illustration of this point, one can check out the local yahoo dirtbag up here who got pissed off and used his tractor to crush seven country sheriff’s department vehicles IN THEIR OWN PARKING LOT while the deputies were inside snoozing with their air conditioning going full blast. This left the deputies with no means to pursue him or answer any calls, unless they could do it on foot or commandeer private vehicles. And since their rifles and shotguns were locked inside their cruiser trunks, those were useless, too. They had to torch open the trunks to get those back.
If some bonehead militia unit took over a town in the Carolinas and the Army and Marines rolled in and blew them all away, there would be a huge backlash of rage and violence not seen since 1865.
I read this article about the Army’s first lesbian general:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/10/army-general-becomes-first-gay-flag-officer/
It must have been hard to suck it up for 20+ years, but that’s why homosexuals are successful in the military. Professional. My existing active duty contacts aren’t reporting any real problems with their gay soldiers. Maybe there is hope for the military.
I’ll leave aside the desirability or not of active-duty gay troops; we have way too many flag officers in proportion to enlisted scum already. The Brits are even worse; it’s crazy. At the rate we’re going we’ll have five generals and three admirals standing around with stopwatches and Powerpoint tablets while one enlisted peasant is digging holes and filling them in again.
And we need to cut DOD by half or two-thirds anyway and get out of the business of Empire, close almost all our overseas bases and bring home almost all our troops to secure THIS country. Leave the Sandbox hadjis and others to sort out their own problems or slaughter each other, who cares? Somebody still has to sell us their oil. And if we have another 9/11 assault, send the spec ops boyz out to find and kill the perps. Meanwhile secure our borders, sea lanes and air space and call it a day.
I have fellow right-wingers on other boards telling me we is the bestest nation that ever lived, etc., and we have maintained a relatively peaceful world since The Good War, etc., but I say we simply, if for no other reason, do not have the money to keep this crap game afloat any longer. We’re not just several trillion in the hole right now, like our lords temporal try to tell us; we are many tens of trillions in the hole; the money is not there for endless foreign adventuring and a massive Leviathan bureaucracy. It is all gonna come crashing down, sooner rather than later.
Kinda makes you wish for the good old days of wired communications, back when Ma Bell still was and Western Electric made phones that lasted more than 18 months.
Amen.
On my way to Indy yesterday, via “the Interstate which is never finished”, I saw a semi-trailer that someone had scratched into the dirt:
NO CHANGE
NOBAMA
Mittens just picked, as probably everyone here knows, his running mate finally; a sometime Randian and alleged Roman Catholic. This will make no difference. I see another down-to-the-wire election along the lines of hanging chads in some swing state like Ohio or Florider and the country split right down the middle, almost exactly, again. Who occupies the WH is irrelevant. It is now, and has been for some time, an office where a guy in a suit from Wall Street will show up a couple of dozen times in a month, alone, walk right in, and tell the occupant how it is going to be. Another guy in a suit brings in the morning paper for the Chief SCOTUS and tells HIM how it’s gonna be. A third suit swings by the Pentagon and advises the Joint Chiefs what the deal is.
All three suits then convene, either in person or over the net, with their counterparts in the UK and Israel, and a few more items are taken care of thereby. No one else is consulted, least of all the hordes of Mundanes and peasants in flyover country whose only perceived good is their shelling out of tax money until they are bled white, and the use of their children, and now moms and dads, too, in foreign adventures, where they bleed red.
But above it all is the reality that there is no more money to pay the piper. They can print wheelbarrows full of fiat currency and it will avail us nothing. It will be an interesting decade.
Just got back from a trip to Niagara Falls and Washington DC.
http://www.raymondthompsonphotography.com/trip
For those that are interested.
Spectacular, Ray. Really nice.
Speaking of which; is there a way now, or will there be a way, to upload our pictures and videos here to the site, Bob? Things could liven up quite a bit…just sayin….
There is no possible way I can vote for Ryan. Bad choice on Romney’s part. That does it for me—I’m voting straight Libertarian. Ryan and Romney are those who consider our Social Security and Medicare to be “entitlements” and not the system which I—and all of us—paid into for our whole lives, to be reserved for us and paid back at retirement. This is nothing but the bullshit of transferring of more and more wealth from the middle-class to the super-rich. The rich can—and do—pay off Congress to facilitate the stripping of middle-class wage-earners. As if Romney has not already caused enough loss of jobs through Bain disassembling companies and jobs, selling off assets and shipping jobs overseas, now he puts together a ticket that will pick our pocketbooks clean.
Count me out of support for that.
I totally agree, it is time for us to leave Iraq and Afghanistan. The debacle of the Marines being killed in a Ramadan meal in Afghanistan is hard for me to handle as my son was doing that just a couple of years ago. Something is really wrong with those people and we need to leave. Today if not sooner.
We probably need to think about leaving Germany and Okinawa also. We own Guam so we can keep that base. And any other that we own.
BTW, I am proud of Romney for having the courage to select Paul Ryan. That selection will cost him some votes by people staying home at the election. I will be even prouder if Romney has the gumption to go through with Ryan’s plans if they are elected.
I am thinking that Florida is going to vote for Obama and have him take the election even as the House and Lords, excuse me the senate, go Republican.
I won’t be voting at all, for the first time in my life. I acquired this whole new thing called self-respect. Can’t do the charade anymore. I’ve been sleepwalking for fifty years. No more. This State is a total criminal fraud and it’s bad enough they steal my money and interfere in my life, but I don’t have to sign off on it anymore.
I saw an article this week that 100 million people in the USA are getting government checks now, excluding social security.
http://www.infowars.com/100-million-poor-people-in-america-and-39-other-facts-about-poverty-that-will-blow-your-mind/
When did we get the attitude that they could take my money by force and give it to others? Of course, the federal government is actually borrowing money from the Fed (now the biggest holders of tbills) and giving it away. And, I blame the federal government for the outlandish number of single parent households.
I liked this in the article, “As our economy gets even worse, there is going to be a tremendous need for more love, compassion and generosity all over the country.”. I believe firmly that we should return to the churches and other organizations handing out charity. I do not think that we can afford the various government bureaucracies handing out cash all over the place.
As far as tough times go, I actually only have one data point: my business accounts receivable is the highest it has ever been (that is not good!). My books on a accrual basis look great and my partners are patting me on the back. My business on a cash basis is looking a little dicey and my partners are worried. My conclusion is that a lot of businesses are not paying their bills. And I am in the oil and gas business which is fairly healthy right now.
Raymond Thompson says:
Just got back from a trip to Niagara Falls and Washington DC.
Wow! A lot greener there than here:
http://indianaeconomicdigest.com/main.asp?SectionID=31&subsectionID=237&articleID=66024
All the brown areas in pics should be green.
My family were Democrats until FDR, when they became diehard Republicans. As for me, I had an epiphany when the Agnew/Nixon debacle hit the fan, and I realized that the Republican party had been hijacked (again—Lincoln was the first time) by lying, cheating, hypocritical, egotistical would-be felons. In spite of the evidence being so clear (even local Republican politicians have openly used pressure to get family DUI’s dismissed and one got a significantly reduced sentence for a drunk as a skunk offspring who ran over and killed a mentally handicapped man walking home along a county road), I never could persuade my parents that the Republican party had been hijacked and was not worthy of their vote. They could not get over the sentimentality of having been party workers in their youth and while I was a kid. That epiphany when I was about 20, was when I became a Libertarian.
You got 2 choices: vote Dem and have the country spend far more than it takes in, until we become like Greece; or vote Rep and watch the money in YOUR pocket disappear, while it gets transferred up to the super-rich, like Romney—and soon Ryan will be among the super-rich, just like all politicians ultimately become. And have no doubt—those super-rich bastards do NOT want you to join them among their super-rich ranks. Note how Romney always separates himself from you the commoner by talking about HIS friends, not you or yours. You don’t have horses or wives or friends with horses pursuing dressage in the Olympics; you don’t have friends who own Indy race cars like Mitt; you don’t have friends who play destructo with businesses worth millions. Which is worse—seeing YOUR money (that you and Jim constantly refer to) going to welfare recipients, or going to Romney and his ilk, as a transfer up the ladder, instead of down?
Wait until your $1,100/mo (national average) in Social Security becomes $110/mo due to Romney/Ryan, and Medicare goes away and you have to pay the full freight on medical bills—like I have had to since I returned from Germany, until Medicare kicks in for me ($7,000 for just ONE 10 minute hospital procedure, which, btw, failed to solve the problem),—and your $208,000 (national average) in total assets as an almost retired person shrinks to considerably less as you sell it off little by little so you can buy next week’s groceries because your Social Security “entitlement” (forget that you contributed to that “entitlement” for over 45 years) never cuts it anymore, and YOU become one of those 100 million needing a government check to survive to the next week, while the jobless rate continues soaring and the older you get, the less likely you will ever have another fulltime job except cleaning toilets in McDonald’s. Even Walmart is doing away with the greeters. Ever see old farts working there anymore? Not in my Walmarts. All young 20-somethings these days. Complete turnaround from 2 years ago.
This week, I had supper with a guy who has worked in my industry almost as long as I have, was laid off because they wanted someone younger who cost less. Never before has he been more than 2 weeks out of work, but this time, he has yet to find another job after 2 years. He told me he has offered to work in trainee’s positions for minimum wage, but knowing his extensive background, they refuse to hire him.
Until you guys get off your behind, and help get somebody like Ron Paul elected, whichever of the 2 big alternatives you vote for, are going to see to it that you do not hang onto much, if any, of “your money”. I have converted a good handful of people to Libertarian over the last couple decades, and it is not easy. But it takes more than just me. Meanwhile, you are going to elect Romney/Ryan. I want to see how that is going to work out for you. I already KNOW it ain’t gonna work out for me. Romney wants to INCREASE military spending. Kiss “your money” (and mine) goodbye. Whatever you manage to hang onto, will have shrinking purchasing power, as Romney has announced nothing that will deal with the declining dollar. As my great aunt was fond of saying, “Luck to ya.”
Another health biz right now is allegedly IT and hiring is up. But I heard in a conference call meeting the other day that the gigantic corporation where I work, at least the division or group or whatever that I’m in, is looking to hire more temp contractors, or as they call them, “sub-k’s.” And at the same time offering various retirement buy-out and reduced workday packages to its lifers.
So they will drive down wages for their own employees and not have to pay the sub-k’s any bennies, like, say, vay-cay, sick time, personal time, what-have-you. And the funny as shit thing here is that if any of them/us go to work for this corporation in Europe, they will have to give us what they give their Euro employees. But here in the U.S. where we are citizens and hold security clearances with DOD, we are pond scum.
I am gonna try like hell to find a slot I can scam myself into for a Euro assignment now. I can bring my multilingual daughter along for translation purposes and supplement that with Google Translate. Actually them furrin buggers should know English.
Yeah, great; “health” biz. I meant, of course “healthy” biz. Damn.
Okay Chuck and Dave, you want Obama to win. Right?
Sheesh. How anyone could stay at home in November is beyond me.
Chuck did state he was going to vote Libertarian. That’s a vote against Obama, and is perfectly acceptable as a political position.
Individuals boycotting the polls only lets the worst kind of politicians win. Forming a large and loud protest group that rejects ALL the candidates would be another matter. Whatever happened to the OWS movement? Protesting Wall St. was pointless, because the protestors didn’t have any money, but they do have votes.
And I still like Bob’s idea of paying your taxes in full the day before the election.
So let me get this straight: I am supposed to be a good little do-bee citizen and rush down to the polls again this time to vote for a candidate who MIGHT be marginally better than the Incumbent, who is a piece of shit. And we are expected to play this charade every four years while our lords temporal continue to consolidate their rule via Leviathan, steal our money for their worship of Mammon and take our children for their adulation of Moloch. They must be ROTFLTAO at us, what dupes, fools and imbeciles we are, as we drop the soap every four years.
Someone else on another board today said ‘well, he is another big government type but he’s marginally better than the other guys…’
Great. Swell. This is what we’ve come to; voting for the “marginally better” parasite and NOT the piece of shit that is in there now. Next election maybe our choice will be between a Stalin and a Mao and we will opt for the former because he kills fewer people. And a shame that Hitler isn’t running this year because he didn’t fill out his citizenship papers in time, not that that’s an issue with anybody in this country anymore except hardcore wack-job Tea Party racists, fascists, white supremacists, etc., etc. or so the media narrative goes.
So this means, of course, that I must WANT Barack Hussein to win. Hey, maybe another four years of this shit will cause more Americans to wake the fuck up instead of sleepwalking through the first year of Bishop Mittens, while he and his Wall Street boyz artificially prop up the economy and everyone cheers and goes back to American Idol and Dances With the Stars.
This house of cards cannot be sustained much longer, no matter the little bump we might see this fall if Mittens gets in; we are too far gone and it is far too late. Many tens of trillions in the hole and no way out other than total Default, and when that happens, mes amis, we are in uncharted historical territory in a huge country of 313 million people with roughly a billion firearms.
You do the math.
And have a nice day.
From Howie Carr at the Boston Herald:
“The conservative bloggers are saying this is now going to be an “election about ideas.” The problem is, are modern American voters ready for anything weightier than a debate over Bud Light vs. Coors Light? After all, 53 percent of this same electorate voted for Barack Obama in 2008. How bright can they possibly be?”
Exactly. And the electorate that actually bothers to run down and play this stupid game is still a minority of the population and the minority of THAT elects whatever person finally ends up in the WH. Last few times were total jokes; I can’t imagine this next one being any different. Or its results.
Default will happen, actually, before enough people opt out of participation in this system and then we will have some change and hope. Eventually, after a lot of pain and suffering. Most of it unnecessary.
Hmm. My comments are not making it in—maybe because I changed my screen name.
Miles_Teg says:
12 August 2012 at 04:49
Okay Chuck and Dave, you want Obama to win. Right?
You know, given the choice, I think Obama would be less destructive to my retirement income (which is ever more imminent) than Romney. Romney and Ryan are going to make SURE I do not have enough Social Security and Medicare from my contributions since I was 14 (now over 50 years of sending money and getting nothing in return until next year) and started working for pay. You guys who do not need Social Security to live on, and want it to go down with Romney/Ryan’s election, are well above my means.
But I am through voting for the lesser of 2 evils. This year, it will be straight Libertarian. In another year, I am going to take an income hit that will put me below the poverty line (for the second time since I returned from Germany, where I was paid well as an immigrant). If I vote for Romney, I am insuring that I will be cleaning toilets at Mickey D’s to make ends meet. I have worked for the Mitt Romney types. I would not vote for them for all the cheese on the moon.
OFD said it well. Voting in this election just encourages them, and doesn’t help to solve anything.
I’ve been having this conversation since the mid-70’s, beginning with my father. He told me that voting Libertarian would be wasting my vote. I told him that, on the contrary, him voting either Democrat or Republican would be wasting his. He finally voted Libertarian for the first time in the 1976 election.
As OFD says, voting for either the Democrat bastard or the Republican bastard is completely meaningless and without effect. Our votes are meaningless in terms of effecting any change, except in the sense that we can send a message by voting Libertarian.
Gary Johnson is a good man, exactly the type of person most of us would want to be president. No, he’s not going to win the election, and even if he did the LP would also have to carry a majority in the Senate and House to allow Johnson to make much difference. But we have a choice between voting for one of the two buffoons running on the major-party tickets or voting for a man who actually has principles.
Or not voting at all and thus not encouraging the bastards. I note, for example, that when many of our hopes were vested in the Tea Party folks, they began to sing in a different key once they got to Mordor and became enamored of the blandishments they were offered there, the parties, the social circuit, the hob-nobbing with people of power and might, the being taken under the wings of senior political hacks who advised them of how it really works there, etc., etc.
Why should I believe any differently of libertarian pols who somehow manage to get there, Ron Paul being a notable exception, and so noted? I may feel better and more righteous for fleeting seconds when I go to the polls and vote for Paul or Johnson, but believe me, that disappears fast, and feels all the worse for having cast my paltry vote in the teeth of a hurricane. For nothing.
I’m staying home this year. And keeping an eye on voter turnout. Also watching the underground economy grow in leaps and bounds. And around here, more people selling off their boats and second and third cars, growing vegetable gardens, experimenting with alternative currencies, and finding other means of information gathering than the tee-vee and nooz papers. Also other means of entertainment and fun. I just wish there was more support and more leadership courage in the states to say no unequivocally to DOD activating our Guard and Reserve citizens for foreign entanglements in the Sandbox and elsewhere, most often for multiple tours. Not one governor out of fifty had the balls.
76 here today and very nice so far. Mrs. OFD has been off for the weekend selling or trying to sell her sea glass jewelry at a craft fair on the Lake Champlain waterfront, and so it has been 48 hours now of wine, women and song here, of course, taking a page from the Robert Thompson Playbook.
The only message not voting sends is that you don’t care who wins or what they do. Voting Libertarian sends a very distinct message; that you don’t like what Democrats and Republicans are doing, and are willing to “waste” your vote to tell them so.
Libertarians are principled; Democrats and Republicans care only about being elected. I mean, if Libertarians cared about being elected, they wouldn’t be Libertarians. Or they would run as Republicans, which Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, and a few others have done. And note what happens when those libertarian “republicans” are elected. They maintain their principles. Ron Paul isn’t called “Dr. No” for nothing. And look what Johnson did as governor.
Davy, not voting EMPOWERS the buggers!
How does you staying home and not voting tell them anything? Protest by protesting, not by sitting in your chair at home. I’ve been watching voter turnouts for years, and the less voters who vote, the worst the government acts. And I’m talking any government, not just the White House.
Or maybe run as a candidate? Throw your hat in the ring, change happens best from inside, anyway.
Bob wrote: “The only message not voting sends is that you don’t care who wins or what they do. ”
THIS! And this phrase should be embroidered on our pillows.
I’ll try this once more: It is not that I don’t care. It is that it doesn’t MATTER if I care. Obviously I care.
None Of The Above.
The system is permanently broken and needs a massive overhaul and reboot, no way around that. Let it rip and let the chips fall where they may. Playing their game in any guise, including voting for libertarians in the belief that that is sending some kind of “message” to anyone who gives a shit is a waste of time and effort. They’re laughing at us and our libertarian heroes, believe me.
Forget the sending of messages; nobody’s home.
If I were a politician, I’d fear you, OFD.
What was it that Heinlein said about small-mouth anarchists?
I’m with OFD 100% on this, to the extent of not voting, either. I might conceivable vote in a state or local election but I don’t know any of the people involved and I don’t like to vote randomly. The various school budget and state bond issues and such are a waste to vote on because the politicians either put the issue back up for vote until they get the “right” result, or simply ignore the results. And I refuse to vote for any federal office because the US federal government is a completely, blatantly criminal organization. They ignore the charter which gives them their very existence. The US federal government has broken the contract between them, the states, and the people. The US federal government has no legitimacy except the raw power of the gun.
“The small-mouthed variety of anarchist has spread through the Galaxy at the very wave front of the Diaspora; there is no need to protect them. But they often shoot back.”
From “The Notebooks of Lazarus Long,” maybe? This dude and Philip K. Dick are strange agents but some of their writing is well worth the effort of wading through tons of muck. Apparently editors have rarely done a day’s real work in the American department of professional writing in a very long time. Dick has received the imprimatur of the literary establishment, such as it is in this country, with a Library of America edition. Heinlein will likely wait a while longer, especially since the movie version of “Starship Troopers.”
I actually started to watch the movie version, but I gave it up when I got to the scene with what Pournelle later called “the Polish firing squad”.
I never did understand how Poles and Slavs came to be stereotyped as stupid. I’ve had several friends of Polish or Slavic extraction over the years, and all of them have been bright. In the case of Mary Chervenak, extraordinarily bright.
You gave up watching Starship Troopers? They had a mixed shower scene that would have had you pining for Oberlin.
Poles and Slavs got stereotyped by Germans and English (same thing, really), who think that everyone else is stupid.
Listen, OFD is not all doom and gloom: what if robots took over the world? Would we be wiped out?
http://what-if.xkcd.com/5/
Don’t think it was the Germans who stereotyped the Poles. At least in the East, near the Polish border where I lived. From my observation the Polish put-down was from Chicago, and a Midwest thing. Never heard Polish jokes in New England; DEFINITELY never heard a single one in Germany. The Poles I interfaced with daily living in Berlin (50km from the Polish border) were smart, the women good-looking, and lots of real red hair on them, unlike the dyed red hair the blonde Germans aspired to.
I have long maintained that not voting IS a vote. It sends a message, but what that message means can be open to interpretation. Never have I bought this stuff about not voting being some kind of citizenship slough-off. That crap was invented by high school Civics teachers.
There is no law, nor does the Constitution require voting as a prerequisite for anything. I do NOT have to vote as a prerequisite to complain about government. Some small-minded dunce of a high school teacher dreamed up that patently false argument. And I will not vote for things I have no connection with, or interest in—like school boards. When I had kids in school, I took great interest in the politics surrounding their school; but I am not going to screw up the votes of those who currently have kids in school, and have a definite agenda for improving their school system, by guessing who would be best for the job. I have no direct interest in school systems, and no valid motivation to interfere with those who do. Leave schools to them. I will reserve my vote for referenda on school matters. That is the Libertarian way.
However, I believe Bob is right: not voting does not send as clear a message as a Libertarian vote. Eventually others catch on to that fact that there is an alternative available that is better than the completely out-of-control major options.
Fortunately, Indiana has an increasing number of Libertarian candidates for office, including governor. This year, they get my straight ticket vote.
Yeah, well, the “eventually others catch on” argument cuts no ice with me; we’ve been saying that for decades. And now there is no time left. We are nearing the brink.
“Some small-minded dunce of a high school teacher dreamed up that patently false argument…”
I’ve never heard that before.
I’m 57 and my K12 education was in Wisconsin. No civics, history or whatever teacher ever told me I was obligated to vote, it’s my duty, etc. Perhaps your K12 education sucked dead bunnies.
I suspect that OFD thought at the time, as did I, that the Who were speaking literally.
We’ll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgment of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song
I remember thinking at the time, more than 40 years ago, that this was going to happen and that I just hoped I’d be young enough to have a fighting chance to survive it.
I do think OFD is more pessimistic than I am. I think things are going to collapse, but I think it’ll be more gradual than OFD does, and will probably be 10 to 20 years before the total collapse. If it happens, I’m gonna get me at least one politician.
Not voting DOES send a message. One of tacit approval.
“One of tacit approval.”
With all due respect for our Canadian friend: bullshit.
Actually Robert and I are pretty much on the same page when it comes to Leviathan and the coming collapse. He is probably correct that it will be drawn out over ten to twenty years before the final cataclysm but I do tend to be more pessimistic and think it may well come sooner than that if certain ‘triggering’ events take place.
That Who song and the album came out my last year of high school and me and my pals listened to it that summer after graduation after I’d enlisted for Uncle back in May of my senior year, at 17, with both parents’ eager signatures. We dropped acid, smoked pot and drank beer, mostly, and cranked that record and several others up all the time.
I had seen enough of the inner city riots and the State response to them by then, along with the nightly casualty reports from ‘Nam to not have much trouble believing Roger Daltry was being literal. We saw The Who at Boston Garden a few years later and Keith Moon passed out over his drum kit about ten minutes into the show. We were given a rain check and around three or four months later they came back and blew Boston into the hahbuh with four hours of amazing rock.
“If it happens, I’m gonna get me at least one politician.”
Only one? None of us will call you greedy if you make it 10 or 100.
Chuck, not voting is not a vote. It does not send a message. It just lumps you in with the unwashed who have no interests in life beyond where their next beer/crack/food stamps are coming from.
If you can’t bring yourself to vote Republican at least you could vote Libertarian. That would send a message.
It will be pretty much open season here on politicians, banksters, speculators, lawyers, advertising and marketing execs and practitioners, and others of that ilk. We are probably gonna see a preview soon in some of the southern tier of European countries, Greece, for one. The Greeks have a very long history of violence and fratricide and their civil war after The Good War is particularly instructive. Could also be interesting in Italy, Spain and Portugal. Remember the Spanish Civil War? Well, probably most of us here don’t, but it is also very instructive. A lot of well-meaning Americans and Brits flocked over to fight on the wrong side. Well, any side would have been wrong to fight with, really. We have plenty here to do and to fix without going off to foreign entanglements which both Washington and J.Q. Adams warned us against.
And Greg, you down there in Oz, you might wanna stop advising Chuck and me what to do or not do with our votes here. With all due respect for you and our Canadian friends. You guys signed on and stayed signed on to the British Empire, and there you are. I’m not pulling rank here, just sayin.
Dave, I can give free, unsolicited advice to whomever I wish. Yes, I and we Aussies, and even the usually loopy Cannuks have remained loyal subjects of Her Majesty. You’re just jealous that the UK won’t take you back. Sorry but, but you’re stuck with the politicians you’ve got. Ours are bad, but nowhere near as bad as yours.
Individual Americans can fight on whichever side of the Spanish Civil War they like. I despised Franco, and also a lot on the Loyalist side, who were loopy even by communist standards.
I say with George Orwell (may peace and blessings be upon him) “Viva España! Viva POUM!”
Yes, and birds leave their spackle on whatever cars they wish.
Wait—the UK won’t take us back??? WTF??? Guess I didn’t get the memo.
Damn.
There’s an old saying that’s pertinent to this, something like “One day a birdie sent its love to me, I thought ‘thank goodness cows can’t fly.'” I can’t remember exactly, mum taught me that one over 40 years ago and my memory isn’t what it used to be. Getting old is hell ™.
Anyway, I’m the birdie, and you guys are the 1200 pound bovines.
I’m sure that if you dug up the bodies of miscreants like Washington, Jefferson and so on and put them on display as a warning to other traitors and humbly petitioned Her Majesty she *might* consent to letting you guys back in, to be ruled as colonies by 50 or so bureaucrats in Whitehall. I’m sure it would work better than what you’re doing now.
If you don’t vote you’re gay!
Where’s Geoff/Jeff when I need him.
I’m just kidding. Trying to stir the pot, jerk OFD’s chain.
I’M KIDDING, GEEZE!!!
Well, since we’re quoting protest songs, I’ll add:
Everywhere is freaks and hairies
Dykes and fairies, tell me where is sanity
Tax the rich, feed the poor
Till there are no rich no more
I’d love to change the world
But I don’t know what to do
So I’ll leave it up to you
Population keeps on breeding
Nation bleeding, still more feeding economy
Life is funny, skies are sunny
Bees make honey, who needs money, monopoly
I’d love to change the world
But I don’t know what to do
So I’ll leave it up to you
World pollution, there’s no solution
Institution, electrocution
Just black and white, rich or poor
Them and us, stop the war
I’d love to change the world
But I don’t know what to do
So I’ll leave it up to you
Maybe the next gen will learn something and change things, rather than just complaining and maintaining the status quo, and that’s what you guys are going to be getting in November, more of the same. I’m done with the argument. Enjoy your hand basket ride while it lasts.
Yeah, I miss Geoff/Jeff too. We’re running out of gun nuts in this forum.
Let me get this straight now: I am a gay cow in a handbasket riding with a shovel to dig up American patriots so I can go beg Betty Windsor to take us back while I listen to Alvin Lee and Ten Years After and a little bird flies above shitting on me.
Got it.
Damnit Dave, lay off the Smack, will you!
Greg, it’s just more evidence how the US ended up this way…
At least when Armageddon happens, they have guns. We’ll be up a creek without a p… Oh wait. I own guns. You’ll be up a creek without a paddle.
My son has told about some of their night time Marine Corps operations in Iraq. They owned the night. The populace may have lots of guns but the Marines have the equipment and training. If the Marines are deployed in the USA, oh my gosh. Most of the Marines are from California and Texas so we’ll be OK but you other guys are toast. Actually, I cannot image the Marines agreeing to deploy anywhere in the USA. They spent a lot of time in boot camp explaining what a lawful order was and was not.
MrAtoz says:
“Some small-minded dunce of a high school teacher dreamed up that patently false argument…”
I’ve never heard that before.
I’m 57 and my K12 education was in Wisconsin. No civics, history or whatever teacher ever told me I was obligated to vote, it’s my duty, etc. Perhaps your K12 education sucked dead bunnies.
My education was superlative, but I had a history teacher who was positive that Malthus was right and the world would run out of food before the end of the ‘60’s—and he spouted that almost daily. It was similar with everyone teaching Civics. Maybe you didn’t have those less than worthless courses; they were supposed to teach one about the modern-day workings of Washington, and what everyone’s “responsibility” to government and society was–including that ‘duty to vote’ crap.
bgrigg says:
Not voting DOES send a message. One of tacit approval.
Absolutely not.
Read Harry Browne’s book “How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World”. It defines a free man’s responsibilities better than anything I have ever read. IMO, it is the Libertarian’s bible. It is cheap for the Kindle; terrifically expensive book in print.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Found-Freedom-Unfree-World/dp/0965603679
I really hate civics courses. Fortunately we didn’t have them here when I was in school. But in matric American History we had a US civics type book as the set text. Fit for toilet paper, basically. I bought the 1972 version of The National Experience by John M. Blum, et al. Worth every cent. I like to think that buying and studying that book got me an ‘A’ for the subject.
Chuck, when I visited friends in London in 1990 they told me of a local woman who’d been abducted from a local Tube station and raped. She’d struggled but not cried out for help. I wouldn’t say she got what she deserved – no one deserves that, but we all agreed that she was most unwise.
IMHO people who don’t vote are like that woman.
Oh, brother, and they tell ME to lay off the smack! Not voting in these shams and charades of elections here is now like unto a woman being raped. Amazing. What is in the water Down Under?
Marines deploying around the country? Whatever. There are how many Marines? And how many armed citizens? Many of the latter also trained and experienced veterans, perhaps ten percent of them combat-experienced. And how many Marines are gonna be willing to fire on other Americans they are sworn to protect and defend? I saw a statement recently from a retired Navy flag officer and he said do not count on his fellow navy officers EVER issuing orders to fire on American civilians.
But we shall see; the proof is in the pudding, as they used to say.
You have a lot of faith in those armed citizens. I don’t. At one time most Canadian families had firearms. Now very few do. I have many friends who think they have no need for one, as we are a “civilized society”. From what I see, almost half of Americans think the Left is right (pun intended) and are quite willing, almost shrill, in demanding safety from “gun violence”. They don’t have guns, either.
I applaud the concept of revolution, but question whether or not there are enough Americans left with the resolve to carry it out. Who is the modern day Washington or Jefferson? And you are going to need more than just two. You’ll need another Hancock and Gwinnett to step up and IIRC both of these gentlemen were elected by the people in their colonies to represent them, while the former two were merely delegates appointed based on their wealth and influence.
I still say voting has merit. But whatevah!
The better-trained they are, the less likely they are to fire on American civilians. Kent State was a bunch of punk troops led by punk officers.
Throughout history, politicians and kings have depended upon mercenaries and non-local troops to put down popular insurrections because they know they can’t count on local troops to slaughter civilians. That just isn’t going to happen here, other than perhaps isolated incidents, because all of our troops are “local”. The US military draws from all 50 states, and all units are diverse geographically. If a unit was ordered to fire on US civilians, they’d be firing on their own family and relatives and friends or on their buddies’ family and relatives and friends. It’s just not going to happen. And any officer who was too insistent would find himself fragged.
Troops fire on enemies, so the trick for politicians and kings has always been to convince the troops that the people they want killed are enemies. Good luck convincing a trooper from North Carolina that Iowa farm families are the enemy, or vice versa.
Yes, I know. A lot of military folks will claim that training will out. And I believe that, if the troops are being ordered to break things and kill people in a place they consider “foreign”. Troops will slaughter women and children. We’ve seen that in just about every war in history. But they’ll slaughter only other people’s women and children, not their own. And ultimately it doesn’t really matter if they fire on US civilians or not. Some may do it once, but once the order is given the military starts to disintegrate.
Given that one of the bloodiest conflicts in history was the American Civil War, claiming that Americans won’t fire on fellow Americans seems a bit naive to me.
The Marines won’t be facing unarmed women and children, but revolutionaries with guns. And maybe even then the Marines won’t fire, but are you that sure about the TSA, ATF and the other self-important letters?
The War Between the States wasn’t a matter of Americans firing on Americans. It was Union Soldiers firing on Confederate soldiers, and vice versa. These were two countries at war.
The Marines would first be facing unarmed civilians. That’s the way it always starts. It’s soldiers firing on civilians that motivates civilians to start shooting back. And just as the redcoats learned and as we learned in Viet Nam, guerrillas don’t engage in set-piece battles. They ambush. They shoot from cover. They sabotage. No soldier ever knows if any civilian man, woman, or child is a guerrilla. They can’t shoot everyone, even if they wanted to, which they don’t. And it’s impossible for a formal military force to beat them if the guerillas enjoy popular support among the population. The military forces have artillery and tanks and warplanes, but they have no targets for them.
One man has written a novel about a modern day war between the states. _A_State_of_Disobedience_ by Tom Kratman.
http://www.amazon.com/A-State-Disobedience-Tom-Kratman/dp/0743499204/
It was not pretty and the Marines were front and center as most of the battles occurred in Texas when it seceded.
Hmm, I seem to recall that there were families that fought on both sides, splitting even a single family between siblings, or is that as made up as most of US history seems to be?
I’m sure it happened, but not nearly as commonly as a lot of people believe. I doubt that father fought son or brother fought brother in many instances. Cousins was probably more common but still rare. There was little mobility back then, and your close relatives tended to live in the same county.
Things were a bit different in the border states, particularly what became West Virginia. There, Northern and Southern sympathizers often lived literally side-by-side, but they generally kept their personal wars to words and shunning rather than shooting.
Again, what you’re talking about here is one soldier shooting at another soldier who’s shooting at him. That’s very different from soldiers shooting civilians. Sure, they’ll shoot back if they’re shot at, but they’re not going to shoot unarmed civilians who are protesting or whatever. And if a guerilla war does break out, you can expect a lot of desertions from the military forces, taking their weapons and other gear along with them. Again, every time this has ever happened, the military commanders find that desertion is rampant. Their soldiers disappear like smoke in the wind.
That, incidentally, is also the reason for something I noticed during the race riots back in the 60’s. I was in Pittsburgh one time when the rioting was at its worst, and there NG troops all over the place. And I didn’t see a single black face among the NG troops, although blacks were well-represented in active-duty and guard units at the time. The authorities, as always, needed something to set their troops apart from the civilians they were up against. Perhaps I’m cynical, but I thought at the time and still think that they arranged to have white troops opposing the almost entirely black groups of rioters because they thought white troops would be more likely to fire on black civilians if ordered to do so.
Miles_Teg says:
Chuck, when I visited friends in London in 1990 they told me of a local woman who’d been abducted from a local Tube station and raped. She’d struggled but not cried out for help. I wouldn’t say she got what she deserved – no one deserves that, but we all agreed that she was most unwise.
IMHO people who don’t vote are like that woman.
That analogy is not even close to being applicable. You described someone under immediate bodily harm. No one I know of, is being physically molested by the government. Even incarcerated criminals do not mind returning to their government lodgings for free food, sleep, TV, health care, and education, because physical violence by government officials in those institutions is rare. Even the TSA’s missteps have almost always to do with exposing and fingering what Americans consider their private parts by strangers. Their doctors sometimes do the same things with no complaints at all.
Get and read the Browne book—especially the chapters on government. It makes clear the fallacies involved here, which are on many levels, and all on my side.
Browne plainly describes how attempts to change the government to save or obtains freedoms is—in this age—guaranteed to fail. And, in his own words, “…no one has an obligation to vote or to try to change society.” For the list of his many reasons supporting and leading to the logic of that statement, get the book and read it. It would be a thesis for me to reiterate it here. The book is less than US$8, and if you don’t have a Kindle, you can download a free reader program for your computer to read it there.
Dave is right: voting is essentially a complete (not just a partial) waste of your (and my) time. It is perfectly and crystalline-clear obvious that it does not result in change. Because it is doomed to fail. Our founders knew that (of course, it helps that they were Libertarians, so they could see things more logically). They believed that only armed insurrection changed government.
Get and read the book.
And doing nothing accomplishes what?
Read the book.
“Read Harry Browne’s book “How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World”. It defines a free man’s responsibilities better than anything I have ever read. IMO, it is the Libertarian’s bible.”
I’m not a Libertarian. Any comment from from the gnu, anarchist, resident smal “l” libertarian on this book.
You can get a htm copy on TPB. I’m sure Mr. Browne would approve, even if he is a molderin’ in the grave.
Then quit complaining about Dave’s and my attitude that voting is a waste of time. I don’t subscribe to your view that people who don’t vote are a problem. My view that we both have the right to choose whether to vote or not, allows us both freedom. Your view that anyone who doesn’t vote ought to be forced to, else they should have diminished or no rights, allows you the freedom to do as you will, but not me.
And I have no idea what “Any comment from from the gnu, anarchist, resident smal “l” libertarian on this book.” means.
There was a lot of people in the War of Northern Aggression having to make hard decisions about which side to be on. The husband of the only great grandchild of George and Martha Washington served with the Confederate forces. His name was Robert E. Lee. President Lincoln had his property seized for that action as General Lee was first offered command of the Union forces, we now know it as Arlington Cemetery.
I’m referencing Bob, since this is his site and that is how he describes himself. If the book you reference as the “Libertarian Bible” is such, I assume he has read it and has a comment for us non-libertarians.
I thought that would be obvious.
He has read it and lives by it more than anyone else I have encountered.
And yet he advocates voting Libertarian. Hmmm.
Plunked downed the money but won’t get to reading it for a while yet.
I asked for his comment, not yours. Unless you speak for him.
Yeah, I’ve read it but not since soon after it was published, so I don’t really think I’m the guy to comment on it. I actually met Browne a couple of times back in the late 70’s or early 80’s, once in company with Howard Ruff.
No one speaks for me. I don’t even always speak for me, unless I state explicitly that I’m speaking ex cathedra.
I don’t speak for anyone but myself. Sorry if I misinterpreted your earlier comments. I took it as a slam of the choice to pursue Libertarian politics. Even if it was, I came back a little too strong. Entschuldigung.
No problem. We all speak our minds here. Except for OFD. I don’t unnerstan ‘alf the shit he says (chain…jerking…kidding…love OFD’s posts).
Chuck, since you are a big “L” Libertarian, would you NOT vote to eliminate Social Security and Medicare? I believe that’s Dr. Paul’s position. At least that is what I thought he said on the campaign. I say big “L” as opposed to little “l” since I believe little “l” libertarians, like Bob, not speaking for him, ever, would eliminate those social programs now. Even after paying in to them.
One things is for sure, whether Obama or Romney is elected, their plans for SS and Medicare seem to be so obfuscated no one can figure out what they are or where they are headed. Except down the toilet.
I would keep Medicare and Social Security. But I would get rid of Medicaid. Then we would have to figure out how to pay for all the little old ladies and little old men in the nursing homes that 40% of Medicaid goes for.
But then I would expand Medicare to all CITIZENS in the USA as that pays for crisis care only. People could then choose to add on additional insurance policies (drugs, cancer, extended hospital stays, etc). If you are not a citizen and not in a crisis then you should go home to your country for treatment.
Exactly. I even use the same “ex cathedra” to denote that I’m speaking seriously and not just bullshitting around, which I am about 90% of the time. Maybe 98%.
It’s gotten worse since I started publishing fiction. There is a stupid number of people (or a number of stupid people) who can’t seem to get it through their heads that just because the viewpoint character in a short story makes a socially controversial statement (which the character didn’t even believe; he was provoking someone) or has begun a one-man attempt at genocide, it doesn’t mean I, the author, support the same things. I’ve gotten a fair amount of feedback from readers about what a monster I am based on my short stories. I’m going to start using the Niven/Pournelle line
(Niven’s Law as quoted by Stirling. The version I remember referred to “We professional authors” and both Pournelle and Niven used it, but I don’t trust my memory.)
Our host pretty much spelled out the prevailing controversy about voting in this thread very nicely. Nicely done, sir. As have Chuck and SteveF, beyond my poor powers to do so. I simply said I would not vote this year not because I don’t care but because it does not matter that I DO care. I can care a whole bunch but my voting does nothing. This system is broken beyond repair and needs to be degaussed, reformatted, a downgraded o.s. installed, and a reboot. We are approaching the degaussing stage, like it or not. And elections notwithstanding.
Stand by for further instructions; you, too, MrAtoz. Canadians and Aussies can sit and watch how it is done.
MS DOS per chance.
I’m voting for The Great White Hope. lol.
OFD wrote: “Stand by for further instructions; you, too, MrAtoz. Canadians and Aussies can sit and watch how it is done.”
I’ll get the popcorn ready!
I’m trying to keep this going only so we can hit 100 posts for this one day…
…MS-DOS…would you believe I recently used PC-DOS (the IBM version) to update firmware on network cards in several hundred RH nodes in a cluster? And they still have a group that keeps OS/2 going.
I would opt for OpenVMS, latest version. Second choice would be RHEL 6.3.
There is absolutely, positively nothing wrong with Social Security.
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/lesson-for-reporters-social-security-does-not-add-to-the-budget-deficit
and
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/projected-social-security-shortfall-dwarfed-by-wage-growth
Do not buy into the lies rich politicians on both sides who want you poor, and the lies in the media that Dean Baker points out daily.
Hi OFD, is there anything that the R & R boys (Romney and Ryan) could do to make you happy with the Republic again ?
For me, a balanced budget and a balanced budget amendment with teeth in it would go a long way. I really, really do not want to go through a revolution. Some go right (see American revolution of 1776) but most go wrong (see French and Russian revolutions). And Cromwell’s revolution lasted less than a decade. And I do not think that any Asian revolution has gone right.
“…is there anything that the R & R boys (Romney and Ryan) could do to make you happy with the Republic again ?”
The old Republic is long gone, at least since that day in 1947 when the late Dean Acheson was ‘present at the Creation,’ i.e. of American Empire. I figure it was gone at repeated intervals; with our entry into The Good War; our excellent Wilsonian Adventure in the Great War; our Splendid Little War; our fun and games with First Nations out West; the Great Eliminator’s invasion of the South; our wonderful Mexican War, which we are now about to lose, along with most of our western states; and the original betrayal at the secret proceedings in Philadelpia in 1787.
The R & R Boyz can make me happy by immediately retiring, and taking the Incumbent and his awful administration with them. If they all leave peacefully and immediately and guarantee with us taking their children hostage that they won’t come back, we won’t stand them all against a wall and blow their sorry felonious asses away.
Whatever they and their ilk promise to do once in power ain’t worth a piss-hole in the northern Vermont snow.
Chuck wrote:
“That analogy is not even close to being applicable. You described someone under immediate bodily harm. No one I know of, is being physically molested by the government.”
It wasn’t meant to be a perfect analogy. I’m just saying that that woman was making an effort to avoid abduction, just not enough effort.
Your attitude towards changing government leads logically to anarchism, something I thought you disavowed.
Yes, I’ll try to remember to get the book, I have a Kindle.
Chuck W wrote:
“Then quit complaining about Dave’s and my attitude that voting is a waste of time. I don’t subscribe to your view that people who don’t vote are a problem.”
As far as I am concerned you can vote or not vote as you please. But if things turn out badly, and you didn’t vote, you get no sympathy.
Lyn wrote:
“His name was Robert E. Lee. President Lincoln had his property seized for that action as General Lee was first offered command of the Union forces, we now know it as Arlington Cemetery.”
I never knew that the land now occupied by Arlington Cemetery was Lee’s property. I just thought they acquired the land in front of Lee’s mansion (or it was already public land) and put the cemetery there.
mratoz wrote:
“No problem. We all speak our minds here. Except for OFD. I don’t unnerstan ‘alf the shit he says…”
It’s not what his mind’s saying. It’s the Smack speaking… 🙂
OFD wrote:
“I simply said I would not vote this year not because I don’t care but because it does not matter that I DO care. I can care a whole bunch but my voting does nothing.”
You could vote Libertarian. Doing so might lead us to believe that the effects of the 50 kg of Smack you ingested all those years ago have started to wear off… 🙂
bgrigg wrote:
“OFD wrote: “Stand by for further instructions; you, too, MrAtoz. Canadians and Aussies can sit and watch how it is done.”
I’ll get the popcorn ready!”
And I’ll provide the kangaroo steaks, kangaroo tail soup, Victoria Bitter and throw a prawn or three on the barbie.
We don’t need some Cranky Yankee to show us how it’s done, our governments aren’t as totally out of control as yours and our health system works, sort of.
OFD wrote:
“I would opt for OpenVMS, latest version. Second choice would be RHEL 6.3.”
I would like to ditch all modern mainframe operating systems and go back to NOS/BE, perhaps even SCOPE 3.4. In the name of diversity I’d even allow MSOS and MASTER some time in the sun. And who wants stinking OpenVMS? We want the original VMS, running on VAX 11-780s…
Lynn wrote:
“And Cromwell’s revolution lasted less than a decade. And I do not think that any Asian revolution has gone right.”
In Ireland the words “the curse of Cromwell be upon you” are still a potent putdown.
I think Charles I was more than a bit of a fool, but the failings of the republican government of the regicides and their puritan accomplices that followed are one of the reasons I’m a convinced constitutional monarchist.
LONG LIVE HER MAJESTY!
Rolls eyes!
Miles_Teg says:
As far as I am concerned you can vote or not vote as you please. But if things turn out badly, and you didn’t vote, you get no sympathy.
Well, you have no basis under the US Constitution or US law for that attitude. And things are going to turn out badly, because the Libertarian will not likely get elected without much more help from many more defectors. You folks who trust Republicans to deliver vague promises are just like my parents—you just cannot believe that they are liars and hypocrites, just like No Change Nobama. You want less spending, less government, balanced budgets, military retreat to our own shores—then go with the party who has delivered 3 out of the 4 at the state level, and cannot deliver the 4th until they get to the White House. Bill Weld did a spectacular job in Massachusetts—even though he had no Libertarian backing in the state legislature. Gary Johnson made a good start in New Mexico, much of it being reversed without Libertarians continuing at the regulator. Libertarians stand for—and when they are able to get to office, have delivered—what more than half of America repeatedly says they want.
Why, oh why, keep voting for only the 2 parties that continually fail to even deliver what they promise? let alone what the country says it wants?
There is no really good reason, which is why the Libertarians should get the protest votes.
If people don’t like considering voting their civic duty, then they should consider it a rare privilege. When I compare typical voter turnouts in the so-called First World nations to that of war-torn Iraq, where they were under death threats by the fundamentalists, I shake my head in disbelief.
VMS, are you kidding? Give me Unix or give me … something. The Unix concept of command pipes alone is worth the price of admission. I sure am glad that MS stole many of those concepts from Unix. In fact, I consider it a major error that MS did not move the Windows operating system to rest of top of Unix and grab all the standard Unix utilities. I use this all the time in a Windows command prompt:
grep -i data *\*\*.f | grep -i \.i
Just wait until the next Charles becomes King and Protector of the Realm. Then you will see a fool. His sons, however, seem to be solid pieces of work thanks to their mother and their grandmother.
Prince Chuck just needs to be skipped. Actually, Lizzie should get a pledge from Chuck; they both should abdicate, and let William get on with it.
I’m not sure that’d do much good. Queen Victoria was a moron, and as far as I can tell few of her descendants are much brighter than she was. Of course, given that she has no power it probably doesn’t matter.
Replace the royal family with cats, as Mark Twain suggested in
Connecticut Yankee. They’d be less expensive, less
reprehensible, and just as useful.
Lyn wrote:
“VMS, are you kidding? Give me Unix or give me … something.”
Yeah, I liked VMS a bit, having used ancient CDC operating systems written in the Sixties. Very efficient but not human friendly.
I’ll just remind y’all of a quip I heard about Unix in the Nineties:
“UNIX. The operating system with no balls.”
I’m hoping Her Majesty will outlive Charles. As our host says, the royals have no real power, so we can safely limit our concerns to the smart but evil politicians.
SteveF wrote:
“Replace the royal family with cats, as Mark Twain suggested in Connecticut Yankee. They’d be less expensive, less reprehensible, and just as useful.”
Less expensive, sure.
Less reprehensible. You obviously know nothing about cats. They’re evil incarnate.
Just as useful. Well, the jury’s still out on that. They sure wouldn’t bring in the tourists like the royals do. And the UK needs the dough tourists leave behind.
Bill wrote:
“Rolls eyes!”
Yes Bill, too much rope will do that to you. Sell it, don’t smoke t yourself.
Quality control, Greg. Somebody has to do it!
You Aussies need to get a better connection to the joke grapevine. From what I’ve heard the guys at Bell Labs have been referring to Unix as a castrated Multics since the late 60’s.