More is not better

Second amendment to the U.S. constitution first part.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,"

Okay let's go back to just after this was ratified. At that time and even before it was necessary for all able bodied men to be part of the local Militia. There really was no paid army so all guns and ammunition had to be provided by the local folks. This was even how Washington's army was made up of volunteers with their own firearms. Also note in the amendment the phrase "well regulated". So guns were regulated even back then. And anyone who's been in the military knows that they have very strict regulations about guns and their use. Why should the general public be any different? 

Here's some stats for you. The U.S. has over 300 million guns in this country. If each one had just 10 bullets it would be enough to wipe out half the worlds' population. Not enough? We also still have over 5100 nuclear weapons in our arsenals. That's enough to blow up the world a thousand times over and make the rubble bounce. Scientists estimate that with just 24 atomic bombs being set off would be enough to eliminate life on the planet.

So I have to ask how much is enough? We really do not need high capacity assault rifles in our cities and towns. They serve one purpose only and that's for war by a trained military. Shoot off a 50 cal. at the gun range but don't be keeping one under the bed because the Ruskies aren't going to be kicking your front door in any time soon. They're more apt to hack your computer and empty your bank account than cause you physical harm. Let's face it. You aren't going to walk into a grocery store or movie theater with an assault rifle. You can't take it to school or church. I'd bet most employers frown on having you bring one to work and you aren't going to go duck hunting with it. More than likely it will sit in a closet and collect dust so why have it in the first place?

One thing is for certain. With the current rush to buy guns there'll be more in circulation and with that increase will be more deaths either accidental or intentional. It's just a matter of statistics. 

A comedy of errors... we wonder why nothing gets done.

Over two weeks in session and our government has done absolutely nothing. Where do I sign up for that gig? If memory serves correct they make $172,000 a year. That's a bit over $3400 per week which would be accurate for a 50 week work year except it doesn't include or exclude in this case the time they are out of DC. All boiled down they spend less time running this country than a first grader does in school (which the last I checked was something like 162 days). 

What have we gotten for all that money spent? Remember there are 100 senators and 400+ congress monkeys in the House. 

After further review I think my head will explode. I went to the House web page to see what these guys are up to. I thought I was viewing a Marx Brothers Movie. The first few minutes of the legislative secession were the usual pledge of allegiance, prayer etc followed by an announcement or two. Then there were two resignations from committees which was followed by a recess (don't push yourselves guys) all in a period of exactly 12 minutes!  This would be like a construction crew showing up at a job site standing around scratching butts drinking coffee and telling jokes then deciding it was lunch time and leaving for three hours which congress did! Oh but it gets better. After a 30 minute meeting they again adjourned for an hour. On returning for just 30 minutes and giving an oath of office to some newly elected monkeys they took a vote to adjourn again. They must have had a glimmer of guilt because the vote was turned down. They worked for a little less than an hour and took another recess for over an hour. Two minutes after returning that they adjourned for the day.

Care to take a second and read the actual record it's all here in black and white for you comedy pleasure: Max brothers run the country   Welcome to Fredonia!

NFL IS FIXED!

Rigged pay offs bribes! In a "loss" to Atlanta after scoring the winning touch down and only less than 19 seconds on the clock somehow 6 seconds magically appeared on the play clock that gave Atlanta the opportunity to score a field goal. They did. This is rigged and I will never watch football again. The last attempt was in the last Seattle Superbowl with Pittsburgh's Worthlessberger scoring a touch down that wasn't (he never broke the plane of the goal).

Never never never again will I watch a "professional" football game again.

News you can't use. And could probably care less about

I see by the old news cycle clock on the wall that we're just about back to the non news. All complete with cute puppies and dress malfunctions, geez can these women get their clothing straight?

I see troops are being sent to Mali along with many French war planes which begs the question what spurred people to take up arms against their own government? Were conditions that bad that they had no alternative? I suspect they were but I'll have to research it farther. You can never really tell when the media today spins an issue faster than an Elvis record at 78 rpms. And if you don't understand that reference you're too young to be reading this.

Ex Egyptian president Mubarak gets another trial. Wonder what his excuse will be that he was temporarily  insane when he ordered the torture and murder of his people multiple times?   Or perhaps a 'twinkie' defense would be in order here.

Israel is once again stealing land from Palestinians. They just evicted a bunch of people from land where they plan to build more homes. Elections are coming and Nutandayahoo doesn't want to look like a wimp. Judging from what his generals say about him he's "coo coo for Coco puffs".

More rapes in India. Nothing like getting in some debauchery before they change the laws. Haven't studied their culture much but when they forbid so much as a kiss to be shown on a movie screen you know there's something wrong there. And to add, now we know why their population is exploding.

Microbes found on the Martian surface. Just don't try and bring them back home for further study we have enough illness here. Have to wonder what the effects of Spock's disease might be though. But then again maybe a little logic might be a good thing for this planet.

That seems to be it for today. I'll forgo the cute kitties and fashion gaffes. Bigger fish to fry and far more entertaining things to look at.    

What's going on?

Years and years ago it was fairly easy to determine the direction of the stock market. Picking a stock was child's play by today's standards. Most commodities sold on a cyclical basis. So it was a simple matter to buy when supplies were plentiful and sell when they weren't. Much has changed since those days. Aside from the momentary glitches such as crop failures floods and tainted produce it's relatively difficult to see what's going on. Say what you will about Obama's leadership but he did manage to stabilize the markets in a few short years both by his actions and his inactions. The markets when he took office were headed for the 6000 mark and are now at over 13000. 

Markets tend to move on fear however and there's enough of it looming in the background to make anyone nervous. The resolution over "cliff" debate pushed the markets up. Still there's a lot of fear left to be sold. We now have the debt ceiling to contend with but anyone with half a brain would tell you they won't pull the trigger on that hostage situation. To do so would cause irreparable damage to their game. That would be like giving the house keys to a teenager and telling them you're headed on a two week vacation, "See you when we get back".

There's a couple of things going on at present, actually they've been going on for quite some time now it's just that we haven't paid attention. While we were keenly focused with our noses to the grindstone the grindstone owners were busy changing the rules. I believe some of the first rules to go were how much borrowed money could be used to buy stocks. After the grand depression that mom and dad experienced our leaders saw fit to bring a bit of sanity to the game. No more than 50% of stock purchases could be done with borrowed money. Somehow that rule was thrown out. Add to that the elimination of the rules preventing investment houses and banks to merge which created much of the mess we see today. It was now open season for investment institutions to use bank funds at the roulette wheel gambling not just your checking and savings account funds but using them as leverage that bloated the loss column on the balance sheet. But for anyone who knows a thing or two about banking knows that a debt is seem as an asset to a bank. That is until the house of cards came tumbling down.

Speaking of houses those too were part of the game as we saw from the sub prime mess. Much like a Ponzi scheme you can't keep the game going without suckering in more players. With language only a well educated attorney could decipher it was easy to catch the rubes. How quickly what mom taught us was soon forgotten that when it looks too good to be true it probably is. We stood back and watched cracker box houses that once went for under $100K now be valued at a cool quarter million. But then the bubble burst. Those easy credit terms weren't so easy anymore. Those unfortunate enough to have bought at or near the peak were wiped out just like the late comers to a Ponzi scheme. And all was going well until somebody decided to cash out their chips. Soon everybody was headed to the pay out window only the House had no cash and the pay out window was closed. To make matters worse, as if nothing could be at that time, the House had bet that the players would all lose which indeed they did. The problem came when the House wanted it's pay out and those covering it's bet had no cash either.

So as you can see it's all a matter of values and perceptions of values. Throw in some greed and dump a few rules and we're back to the Dutch Tulip run. Didn't this happen with Beanie Babies too a few years back? Did I mention tomorrow is 'No Pants' day in Seattle? How fitting.  

Friday pussy frustrated and blue

Can't believe I've crashed two hard drives in two days. Seems like everything is breaking down all at once. None the less I persevere. Let's hope the blue guys headed to Atlanta do the same in Sundays' game.

Where was I? The Idle No More movement is set or not to meet with the government of Canada to try and work out some differences or not. It's been an off and on thing all week. Here's the thing for all to agree there's three factions that must come together. The chiefs representing all the first nation tribes, Steven Harper representing the government of Canada and the governor general who represents the crown. All because of some treaties that were signed in the 1700s and broken ever since. Now some would have you believe that the indians just want a bunch more money which to some extent is true. In looking into their history they got far less in education benefits and other goodies than most white kids. They are considered a ward of the state as it were in Canada with few rights. But what set this firestorm of protest off was bill C-45 which effectively took away many of their land rights without their agreement. All done to make building pipelines through their land much easier. And I must say these people do have a respect for the land. It's what they rely on to survive. As primitive as they may seem and who wouldn't be after getting the short end of the stick for a couple hundred years they still have a bit of common sense. They smell a rat in Harper and the politics being played out. So we shall see what happens later today.

bank fails later
Keeping my fingers crossed that this hard drive doesn't crash too.
UPDATE: One bank in Wa. failed this week making it the first of the year.

Frack You

There was a protest in Albany, NY yesterday to voice displeasure against hydrofracking which as we all know or should is the practice of pumping chemicals and water into a natural gas well in order to extract gas locked in the rock below. 

Main stream media reported that "hundreds of land owners and business people  also turned out to voice there support for natural gas development walking through the concourse carrying "friends of natural gas NY" placards. But that's not exactly the case after a reality check and a livestream verification. Turns out that only a handful of supporters were there and their chants were drowned out by the overwhelming anti fracking crowd.

So what's wrong with fracking one might ask? They're only trying to increase our quantity of natural gas and this will provide much needed jobs. First off the chemicals used are considered a trade secret therefore it's nearly impossible to determine their toxicity. Even the MSDS sheet gives only vague information as to their health effects. These chemicals forced into the ground under very high pressure tend to seep into the ground water ending up in the local folks' tap water.

One man at the protest brought a sample of his tap water. It was yellow and had the smell of gasoline. In addition to the chemicals there is a vast amount of water used in the process which is then pumped out to holding ponds at the drill site. These ponds are also toxic and are often left unattended and not well protected from animals or curious children.

In Montana it's a different story. Years ago it was common practice to drill a gas well without the use of bentonite a common inert mud like material used to seal a well to prevent seepage. It's used because it binds to toxic compounds, seals the well like cement and can actually be found as one of the primary ingredients of Pepto Bismol (termed barclays of bentonite). You can actually buy the stuff in most health food stores as a remedy. See you learn something new here every day. Unfortunately the fly by nighters in Montana were too cheap to do the job correctly so there's quit a bit of contaminated ground water.  This is not to mention all the nasties from the many mines like Anaconda copper near Butte or as the locals call it Butt.

As I realize that no system is perfect but it sure makes one wonder if there aren't better ways of doing things. Even "green" technology has it's draw backs but it seems a better alternative than what we're doing to ourselves at the moment. And one last issue. While you may see the likes of these corporate giants paste their names to "clean energy" signs at those well sites, the truth is that they're subcontracted to smaller companies who have a greater interest in profits than public safety or doing the job right.