- Welcome to the New Soviet Union, comrades — where you can now be paid to inform on the “incorrect” opinions of your peers. (H/T MJR)
- Scary. The Washington state gov — with the cooperation of the quisling NRA — is attempting to put teeth into firearm background checks. Considering that up to 95% of denials may be in error, this could seriously screw with thousands of innocent people.
- I know this area of southern Oregon and I get it. The rage, the resistance. The hidden America Our Masters fear but never understand. But never sacrifice your libraries. Bring them back privately if you can. (H/T jc2k in comments)*
- That worldwide cyberattack last week? a 22-year-old who lives with his parents halted it. Only temporarily, though.
- More signs of trouble in the student loan bubble. First, the fedgov makes it impossible to get out of debt. Then they put your house at risk.
- Can observant Jews eat bacon? Oy vey!
- Speaking of food … is this merely another form of medical nosiness? Or is it a real sign of how bad things are getting for ordinary working people?
- Mothers: neither you nor anybody else will be surprised to know that your kids hijacked your brain for life. Happy Mothers Day.
- Life. It’s like this. But usually not so cute
* The world’s best library system is one (of many) reasons I live where I do. Though I’d far, far rather it be funded privately, I was pretty astounded a few years ago when a local tax levy for it passed with 90% support. And this area is not terribly different than those in article.
Were I to encounter one of those…individuals… described in your first link, suffice to say that my instinct to violence would be a very difficult thing to repress. There is a distinction, I think, between giving information to assist an investigation of a Crime (with a harmed Victim) and informing in this manner, and the lowest creature which goes about the Earth on two legs is the informer. I put them even below paedophiles- the paedo is tormented by what is by any rational measure a mental illness from which there is no escape this side of the river, but the informer coldly decides to sell out his unoffending fellow beings and deliver them into a mechanism which may pauperise or kill them at a word. The informer makes their decision not from a deranged mind but in full possession of their faculties and the knowledge of what they do. There are persistent stories over here that several informers and Gestapo were defenestrated as the war ended, and several more as the Communist regime collapsed. How true these stories are, I don’t know; but their currency speaks to the local attitude on such persons, and I am hard pressed to disagree. When one of these Politickí Komisaři meets a very messy end, I shan’t be surprised at all.
Such things not truly being a moral option at this point, one can hope for total social ostracism, or at least as many instances as possible of these people being identified and told to “Get the FUCK AWAY from me!” when introduced to new people.
That UofA job opening has so much potential for monkeywrenching . . .
Re: doctors, etc. and “food”… One of a number of things not to discuss with any doctor or minion – unless you really want to, of course. Doctors generally know little or nothing about nutrition, let alone chemical and additive free, so there’s no point in talking to them about it. Ditto most other health care “professionals.” I seriously doubt there is anyone, even those living under a bridge somewhere, who doesn’t already know that there are food banks, soup kitchens and other sources for food.
My advice? Don’t go to doctors unless you really, REALLY must. Urgent care centers are a good alternate for most things anyway, since they don’t have time to do a lot of meddling. When you do go, make it clear what you are there for, discuss only that, and don’t be afraid to tell them to mind their own business if they get nosy or pushy.
Re. libraries shutting down, this is just another variation on the “kidney machine gambit”. I salute the people of Roseburg for standing up to it.
Brad — Yeah, you’re right of course. I still hate to see libraries go — though I’m sure they’ll still find a way to re-open them.
Although I don’t believe libraries should be funded with taxes, if I could choose where my local taxes go, the library would be high on my list. Especially since the area where I live has the most wondrous small-town libraries that ever could be.
I love the county library here too. Sadly, it may not last too much longer. I go there at least weekly – different times and different days, and very seldom see anyone else in the stacks. The computers are often occupied (mostly students), and the movies/audio are fairly popular, but there are just not enough people using any of it, especially the paper books. Wyoming, state and local, has even cut SCHOOL spending, and the schools and colleges are actually cutting staff and programs due to reduced revenue. So things like the county library system can’t be expected to last forever. Taxes on coal, oil and gas producers paid for tons of government at all levels for a very long time, and individual taxpayers will never be willing (or numerous enough) to full the gaps.
Thank goodness I have tons of books at home, and dozens more on my android tablet.
Unintended consequences: Those loving the spotted owl are now closing libraries.
Stipulating the existence of government and taxes, I’ve for years prioritized their use as police, fire, hospitals, libraries, and street&bridge.
“Unintended consequences: Those loving the spotted owl are now closing libraries.”
But only closing the libraries for the people who lived and worked around the spotted owls (and the salmon runs and the “endangered” wetlands). And we’ve known from the beginning that those people — we people — don’t count.
For years the urbanites of the PNW have made it obvious they’d prefer the “wild” parts of the country be kept as their private playgrounds. They’d love to roust us out. Who would then feed them and provide materials for their fancy houses, then don’t ask. The Chinese, maybe. Or the farms of Central America.
In my grumpier moments, I want the people of flyover country to go on a prepping rampage for a couple of years and then go on strike. Er, pardon me: “Vacation.”
“After all,” he says, “if we don’t have systems in place to recover (student loan) debts, how can credit be extended?”
In English: “If we don’t screw over former students, how can we screw over future students?”
The NSU folks need to study Robespierre.
Its been really strange to have gone from being a neighbor of the new Camp David NJ, to the SW Oregon of the story.
I went from one of the highest effective county tax rates to one of the lowest. One thing I’ve learned is that affluence and red tape are proportionate to each other. It takes a lot less time to get something done out here.
And while I definitely can see the changes in the levels of services provided, there’s a big difference in the service providers as well. I have yet to see someone on a road crew leaning on a shovel in OR, where it was common to see 5 out of 6 ” workers” on an NJ road watching the newest guy dig.
We are in some serious financial trouble out here, but there’s a movement behind the scene to see just how minimized a county gov’t can be. Departments are being cut so deeply they cannot fulfill their functions. 2 of our 3 county commishes are taking $10k per year as opposed to the $90k salary to do the job, and seemingly doing proportionally less work. It shows. Now they want to hire a county manager to do their work for them.
It really is a mess, but I see more community here than I ever did back east.
I think that SW Oregon was clamoring to be a psrt of the secessionist “State of Jefferson”, right? So it’s not surprising when an anti-tax attitude rears its head there.
The next step after deciding what we should eat is deciding that we should eat it. All the indicators have been leading up to this, and Michelle Obama’s school plan (instituted too early) was just the beginning. Physicians “have to ask” about food and our access to it, like they “have to ask” about guns in the home. Typical of government-creep: first you insinuate an idea into society, then you assume it should happen, then you make it mandatory to “ask” about it or act on the assumption. Soon no doubt the psychologists will decide that we are “abnormal” if we question whole grains, or happen to dislike, say, Brussels sprouts.
And the list goes on.
From ML: “My advice? Don’t go to doctors unless you really, REALLY must. Urgent care centers are a good alternate for most things anyway, since they don’t have time to do a lot of meddling. When you do go, make it clear what you are there for, discuss only that, and don’t be afraid to tell them to mind their own business if they get nosy or pushy.”
DITTO.