I don’t know Larken Rose but I have a lot of respect for him. He’s a fine writer and a hardcore thinker, and he’s clearly a man who lays his own life on the line for what he believes. I don’t agree with everything he says here. But he asks some damnfine questions. Do good, upstanding citizens have a moral obligation to allow themselves to be oppressed, harassed, terrorized, assaulted, and wrongfully detained or imprisoned? Most people would say “no.” But would most people actually mean it? There are many examples of “law enforcers” treating innocent people like dirt. Random…
Category: Government
Government evils — but I repeat myself
Hey, you wanna see what ObamaCare looks like? Here you go. It’s twice as tall as a can of Bud Light: That’s a copy of the actual law. It turned up at the Wyoming Republican Party convention recently, where Sen. John Barasso made appropriate use of it. Hope he didn’t strain himself. The photo above was taken by my ex-Significant Sweetie, Charles Curley who actually (OMG!) attended the convention. R’s in Wyoming are a little different than R’s in most other places, though. Nobody had a hissy fit when an armed man showed up and hobnobbed with both the state’s…
A modest prediction: We will never know the precise details of the “technical error” that caused Thursday’s stock market madness. We’ll be told something. It might even be truthful. But it won’t (OMG will I ever forgive myself for encouraging conspiracy theories?) be the whole story. And here’s a bet, though I wouldn’t stake much money on it (and in fact, I’m hearing already that I may be wrong): The theory they’ll end up with was the one that says a single trader mistakenly typed in billion when he meant million — something along those lines. Sort of like the…
Well, since it appears that the U.S. stock market isn’t going to crash — yet — this morning — okay, for the next couple of hours, at least — I’m going to sit down and take up a much more serious, but slower-paced, problem that’s been on my mind. I’m talking about the national, even global plague of “do somethingness.” You know how people are always trying to find solutions to gigantic problems, and (because their only tool is government), making a worse mess of everything? Blame “do somethingness.” If we could only end the “do something” plague, clever, independent…
I’m sorry for not blogging the last few days. Last-Chance Gulch had company from far away and we were busy doing wild-n-crazy things. I intended to blog about the visit and our flamboyant visitor. But as I considered what to write, I realized that our activities — while harmless — were nearly all illegal, immoral, or fattening. Or at least some of the above. Now that I’m recuperated, I may take time and use my better judgment before writing up any of our scandalously fun behavior. Or not. In the meantime, I’ve been collecting. And some of what I’ve gathered…
You recall that “health-care” bill that had to pass so we could find out what’s in it? Well, Cato discovers yet another “mandate” in there that will land hard on every, single business person in the entire country. Weird one, too. Not exactly a paperwork reduction act. Yep, that was a “health-care” bill, alright. For the health of the IRS.
1:15 a.m. I woke up two hours ago with my trailer jerking in the wind and the moon silver-bright through the window (beautiful but unwelcome to sleepy eyes). The trailer always rocks in high winds, but this is different, sharp and jolting like a series of airy earthquakes. Every time I start to slip back into sleep another round hits. A couple of times, things have fallen off shelves. Nervous dogs begged for spots on my sleeping bag. So here I am, awake but fog-headed. Covered in canines. And soothing myself with a favorite bit of Shelley: A Dirge Rough…
Some Monday morning cheer for ya — a.k.a. how things work in the real world of big money, big influence and big government: How Fannie and Freddie — among the chief engineers of the mortgage wreckage have become even more “important” than ever. How the Big O’s proposed regulations will make the biggest Wall Street firms more untouchable than ever. (Another take here.) —– On the smaller domestic scale — here at Last-Chance Gulch where there is little money, no influence, and only those bits of big government that come wandering randomly in now and then — house walls went…
Okay, now this is odd. Couple of us were working in the meadow this afternoon when my youngest, loudest, and most car-chasing dog informed us of somebody coming down the road. Sure enough, along came a car, which went just past our driveway and stopped in a “where the heck am I?” sort of way. Now, we’re in the middle of nowhere, a good 12 miles from town, six of it on dirt and through washes. And once you’ve gone past our driveway, there is simply nowhere to go. Anyhow, there’s nowhere a stranger has any business going, unless he…
Ragnar insisted in a blog comment last week that I’d better darned well come up with a great post on 4/19. Nothing like a little pressure there, eh? Well, the brain’s not working too well and neither is the cursed up-and-down Internet connection here in the high desert boondocks. And WordPress has also gone cranky on me and twice erased portions of this post. So sorry, Ragnar, there will be no Great Thoughts coming from this direction today. Perhaps you noble readers will leap in and supply some GTs of your own in the comments section. I’ve just got this…