You know something’s going right in that whole parenting thing when your daughter wants to join JROTC next year so that she can be on the school air rifle team.
Thought for the Day
Posted by daddybear71 on October 28, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/28/thought-for-the-day-52/
News Roundup
- From the “Torches and Pitchforks” Department – The governor of California is proving that he likes to live in danger. He has announced a proposal to cut back on retirement benefits for state employees, which will include a two tier system, more contributions from employees, and an increased retirement age. Look for cell phone footage of death threats and calls for his defenestration from union leaders anytime soon. Think more “Tehran 1979” than “Occupy Wall Street 2011”.
- From the “Pennies on the Dollar” Department – Negotiators in the European Union have announced a deal where the financial institutions that own Greek bonds will forgive a huge amount of that debt in order to help the Greeks limp along for a few more quarters. Remember kids, bonds are promises, not assets. When the bond holder sends a couple of guys around to tell you that you can either take a beating by ‘forgiving’ a part of the debt, or they can knife you and you’ll get nothing and like it, I guess you take the beating. I just wish they wouldn’t make you smile while they do it.
- From the “Bad Idea” Department – The widow of the man who set dozens of predatory animals loose before committing suicide is telling the Columbus Zoo to return the surviving animals to her care. Nothing can go wrong here. The zoo says it has no right to stop her from getting the animals back under current law, so I suppose she’s going to get them. I just hope that the emergency services, schools, and zoo bill her and her husband’s estate for the cost of all this, and I hope her neighbors sue her for the distress that having lions, tigers, and bears roaming the neighborhood caused.
- From the “They May Have A Point” Department – The family of dead Libyan dictator Mo-Q, as he is known to fans of his electronica recordings, plans to sue NATO in the ICC for causing his death. Their theory seems to be that the legal mandate for NATO intervention said nothing about close air support of ground troops and interdicting convoys of SUV’s, so the attack on Qaddafi was illegal. Much as it hurts to say, I kind of agree. The rationale for our involvement was to stop government forces from killing civilians, not to help the opposition win the war. I don’t think this will go anywhere, but it will be interesting to watch if it does.
- From the “Death From Above” Department – A new Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) project is apparently underway. The object is to create a small drone that could be carried by a larger drone, then launched as needed. This would give forces on the ground a small eye-in-the-sky that can be deployed from its mothership, then used as either a surveillance platform or as a mini-smartbomb. This is all really cool and I hope it comes to fruition, but the only thing that comes to mind is this: “Yo dog, we heard you like flying drones and killing insurgents, so we put a drone in your drone so you can kill insurgents while you’re killing insurgents!”. I know, I feel dirty too, and I’m sorry.
Posted by daddybear71 on October 27, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/27/news-roundup-72/
Blood is Boiling
OK, two rants in two days.
The local news is on, or at least it was until I shut it off in disgust. Over the past two half hour cycles, they have spent about 20 minutes of reporting time talking about a study they’ve ‘found’ that shows that over the past few decades, the ‘rich’ have gotten richer, while the ‘poor’ haven’t had quite as much income growth*. They then drag in one of the local ‘Occupy Something’ people, complete with carefully sculpted fauxhawk, expensive raingear, and a somewhat cultured Bluegrass accent to tell us how unfair it is that those who work are getting a vast amount more than those who don’t.
Look, life’s not fair. Never was, at least since our ancestors figured out that the biggest ape got most of the bananas and the cutest mate. You might as well complain that the small, agriculturally unproductive area of downtown Louisville is getting rain when the vast majority of the area is not as wet but has much more acreage. The mark of a good person is that you don’t accept that unfairness as an excuse, and try to find a way to overcome it.
The ‘rich’, few of whom inherited the bulk of their wealth, have gotten off of their butts and created that wealth that the hipster on the TV is whining about. Maybe they started a business and through hard work, ingenuity, and a good dose of luck were able to get rich doing it. Maybe they gave someone else money to do that, and now they are enjoying the fruits of that investment. Either way, because they invested a chunk of their lives in trying to do something, they’re wealthier than they were before, and more people are not among the ‘poor’ due to their efforts.
Yeah, the rich are getting richer faster than the poor are. Anyone want to admit that it’s not because of their race, or their family tree, or their political connections that they got that way? My guess is that most of them got that way because they got up every day, worked themselves to death, and got to bed late after putting everything they had into their job or their business.
My family isn’t rich when compared to the truly wealthy, but I know how I got to where I am. I’ve worked hard every day since I can remember, I’ve gotten an education in something that can pay to feed my children, and I’ve never taken a thin dime from the government that I didn’t earn. I may not be wealthy by our standards, but I’ve seen both obscene, ill-gotten wealth and crushing poverty, and this isn’t either of those.
This is a case of those who are not very well off when compared to their fellow Americans whining because they’re only 1000 times richer than the truly poor around the world. No American goes hungry because there is no food for those who cannot afford to buy it. Maybe you’re not eating steak and potatoes every night, but you’re not having to sit and watch your children slowly starve to death. No American goes without better health care than the middle class in most of the rest of the industrial world gets because they can’t afford health insurance. Maybe you don’t get the latest treatments or fanciest procedures, but they’ll keep your butt alive. No American child goes without at least a rudimentary education so long as their parents give a damn and make sure they study.
My point is that I’m tired of hearing people whine. If I had the power, I’d take each and every one of these class-baiting twits to the real world and let them see what poverty really looks like. I’d show them people who come from huts made out of garbage who are working their tails off to get out of that hut. I’d show them women who have to carry weapons every day, not so they don’t have their purse stolen, but so that they’re not kidnapped and raped. I’d show them graveyards full of the people who tried to make things better, but were rewarded with a bullet in the head for their trouble.
Then I’d show them the poorest of the poor here in America, a place that gives away free food, shelter, clothing, education, medical help, and just about anything else a person needs in order to not only stay alive, but to thrive and become a producing member of society if they would only care enough to do it.
Then, I would dare them to try to say that even the ‘poor’ in America aren’t doing pretty good. I’d dare them to show me the thousands of children who are dieing of diseases that can be cured with a dollar’s worth of medicine. I’d dare them to show me the millions of children who aren’t going to school because they have to work as hard as an adult to stay alive. I’d dare them to show me the graves of the people who die from mal-nourishment in America.
Then I’d laugh in their face as they try to come up with examples, because there aren’t any. Generations of Americans have bled into our soil so that these problems stayed away, and we continue to do so now.
If we don’t wake up, we are going to lose the ethics of hard work, self-reliance, and ingenuity that have been all that has kept us from sliding back into the morasse that our fore-fathers sailed across oceans to get away from. Our ancestors didn’t come over in steerage or worse so that their grandchildren could demand that others take care of them, and they would be ashamed if they saw how this movement is acting.
As a nation, we are soft. Hard work, ingenuity, and making your own way have fallen out of fashion with not only our young people, but also with their parents, and that scares me. The thought that the world owes you anything is a dangerous honey trap to fall into, and what I see when I see these Occupy people chanting, drumming, begging, and speaking is nothing more than a fly that’s fallen into the pitcher plant.
Now y’all excuse me while I get cleaned up and get to my job. There are thousands of protesters in the streets who are depending on me to provide for them.
*Here’s a hint: if your income is growing, then you’re not really poor. At worst, you’re only being swept along in the wake of the truly prosperous, but your income is getting bigger nonetheless.
Posted by daddybear71 on October 27, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/27/blood-is-boiling/
Something in my eye
OK, I’m a big softy. So what?
The nickname I use was given to me by my oldest when he was just barely old enough to talk. Our favorite movie at the time was “Jungle Book” and Mowglie calls Baloo “Papa Bear” a few times. Junior morphed that into “DaddyBear” when I started reading him the children’s version of the Jungle Book, and it stuck.
When I deployed to Bosnia in 1996, my ex and I sat down and recorded me reading a bunch of bed time stories. That’s always been my favorite thing to do as a dad, and I wanted Junior to get his daily share of “Green Eggs and Ham” while I was away. Reports are that he asked for DaddyBear to read to him every night I was gone. I wish I still had that tape.
What this soldier is trying to do is stay in touch with his young daughter during one of the most important times in her life. Apparently it’s doing some good, because she can still recognize him and tries to interact with his image instead of just sitting and watching.
I wish this father and every other parent who is deployed good luck and a safe return. Hopefully this little girl won’t remember that her dad was gone, but will have a great connection to her father.
Tonight, when Boo and I curl up with “Hop on Pop”, I’ll remember how lucky I am to have never been away from him for more than a couple of nights, which I can’t say for his brothers and sister, and how many other fathers are away from their kids tonight.
H/T to Danger Room for this one.
Posted by daddybear71 on October 26, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/26/something-in-my-eye-2/
hmmmmm
- Adama: Starbuck, what do you hear?
- Starbuck: Nothing but the rain.
- Adama: Then grab your gun and bring in the cat.
- Starbuck: Boom, boom, boom! / Wilco! / Aye-aye, sir!
- It’s raining like a son of a gun, Koshka got out of the house when I left for work this morning, and I really want to go to the range. This keeps popping into my head.
Posted by daddybear71 on October 26, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/26/hmmmmm/
Grow Some Bloody Skin
Begin rant:
A university in Ohio is spending money to fund a campaign by some of its students to try to get people to change the way they dress up for Halloween:
“Some costumes can be offensive to some people where you are highlighting their culture in a negative way,” said Stephanie Sheeley, a spokesperson for the group and a student at the university.
Basically, putting on a costume that is a caricature of a stereotype is considered bad. For example, the campaign condemns people who wear a dishdasha with C-4 accessories as being offensive to Arabs or Muslims. They also are against costumes that show Italians, Asians, and Mexicans, or whatever in a bad light.
Now, I’m not going to tell someone that they’re wrong if they’re offended by something. Everyone has their own tastes and values, and they’re valid even if I don’t share or agree with them.
But here’s a word of advice to someone who’s unintentionally offended by something someone wears for Halloween:
Grow the heck up and add a few layers of skin.
Look, my ancestors are stereotyped as being either bloodthirsty barbarian warriors (Norwegian) or drunken midgets in green who jealously guard a hoard of treasure (Irish), or maybe warmongering bumblers with a taste for Polish sausage and French wine (German). But you don’t see the Norwegian People’s Liberation Front protesting when someone dresses up as Olaf the Priest Cleaver for Halloween. You won’t see the Hibernians putting up posters because someone wants to dress up as Darby O’Gill. The local Deutch-American Friendship club isn’t going to stage a sit-in because someone came to the party as Sergeant Schultz.
But something tells me you’ll see Viking, leprechaun, and lederhosen costumes, along with ones for Skeeter and his redneck cousins, at Halloween parties on college campuses without someone putting up a poster.
Here’s the deal folks: Feel offended by something if you need to. Even feel free to tell someone who offends you why you’re offended. But for the love of sweet zombie Jesus, lighten up! It’s Halloween! It’s not a Klan rally, it’s not an Aryan Brotherhood retreat, it’s a bloody holiday.
If someone is dressed up as your ethnicity and is acting like an ass, don’t have anything to do with them. Ignore them. They’re doing it precisely so that people will pay attention to them. If the whole group you’re with is laughing along with the guy in the sombrero talking like the Frito Bandito, and that bothers you, get new friends. They’re not worth your time.
Quit wasting your time and my tax dollars trying to convince people, especially college students, to act the way you want them to act. That beer fueled douchebag in blackface? He’s offensive, and he was a beer fueled douchebag long before he put on the make-up. If you give him any attention, even negative attention to make him stop, it only feeds his need to be noticed. Shun him, and eventually he’ll either go away or quit being a beer fueled douchebag.
Did something happen to the youth of America in the 1990’s that made them so thin skinned? Was there a solar storm or something that I missed? Was it the Hale-Bopp comet? It had to be something. People don’t get this ‘sensitive’ without there being a cause.
End rant
Posted by daddybear71 on October 26, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/26/grow-some-bloody-skin/
Thought for the Day
Lord, make me patient with those who are learning, and forgiving of those who refuse to learn.
Lord, help me to not attribute to malice that which is probably ordinary stupidity.
Lord, give me the strength to do what is necessary, not what I’d rather be doing.
And finally Lord, remind me that all of your children are worthy of respect and kindness for your sake alone, and that I should not treat them in the way that they have so fully earned.
Amen
Posted by daddybear71 on October 26, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/26/thought-for-the-day-53/
The Prophecy
And lo, I stood upon the mountain. My armies were spread across the valley before me like a sea of fire and steel. A voice like thunder came from the heavens, and spoke unto me:
Now shall you and your army sleep.
Your time is not yet ripe.
Until the time when this mountain lays flat
When there shall come to you visions of a white wombat!
Now is our time come. Now is it time for the Ursine cavalry to roar its way across the steppe. Now our enemies shall know that their time is past. Now they shall know why they fear the cute.
Posted by daddybear71 on October 25, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/25/the-prophecy/
Thought for the Day
I really don’t mind the ‘end of the world’ calls at 3 AM. Those are the ones that make the job interesting.
It’s the 3 AM ‘someone didn’t feel like doing their job so we left it for you to clean up’ calls that make me itch.
Posted by daddybear71 on October 25, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/25/thought-for-the-day-54/
Stump Speech
Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for having me here today.
I’m here to talk about something that many of you might find disagreeable to talk about in polite company: misconduct on the part of law enforcement. But before anyone accuses me and Candidate X of being anti-cop, let me start with a bit of a disclaimer: It is our heartfelt belief that the vast majority of law enforcement people, be they local, state, or federal, are good people who have followed a calling to try to keep the lid on the parts of our society that refuse to follow our agreed-upon rules. This post should in no way lead you to believe that either Candidate X or I hold LEO’s in general in anything but respect.
However, there are a few bad apples in every basket, and the 1% that breaks the laws or abuses its authority colors our perception of the other 99%. The answer to this problem, like almost every other government problem, is to shed light on them so that the world can see them.
So here we go:
- A woman in New York asserts that an NYPD officer, who is also under suspicion for allegedly planting drugs on otherwise innocent people in order to meet an arrest quota, forced her to use drugs and then sexually assaulted her.
- Five NYPD officers have been arrested, along with seven others, for taking part in a scheme to smuggle guns, cigarettes, and slot machines.
- A female blogger had a bit of a surprise when she opened her suitcase after a flight to Ireland to find a TSA notice in her baggage that said “Get your freak on girl!”. Apparently the young lady had packed her sex toy, and is now asking the TSA to investigate the incident. The TSA says there’s no evidence their officers wrote the note.
So what do we have here? We have a police officer abusing his position of power, breaking the law, and assaulting a female. Then, we have police officers taking part in an organized scheme to break firearms, tobacco, and gambling laws. We also have unprofessional conduct by members of a government organization that has had issues with theft, bribery, and disregard for the civil rights of citizens.
The first one I lay squarely at the feet of those who continue to defend the need for a War on (some) Drugs. Yeah, if the young ladies accusations are true, the guy’s a jerk with or without the drugs. But it’s the fact that the drugs are illegal that gave the guy the power in this specific case. Take away the illegality of the drugs, and you take away the intoxicant used to force the young lady into sex. You also remove the incentive to frame innocent people for having drugs. No illegal drugs means no need to have a quota for drug arrests.
Next, we have an interstate conspiracy to smuggle guns, cigarettes, and gambling equipment. The cigarettes, while legal by themselves, are probably smuggled because of lower prices and taxes in other states. The gambling equipment and guns are illegal because of federal and state laws that try to control how we lead our lives, and no more. Why is taking a slot machine into New York an offense? Because someone in the state or federal legislature didn’t care for gambling, so they made it illegal. Same with guns, both at the federal and state levels. I have news for those who think that the state should control who has guns, which guns they should have, and how they should acquire and use them: You can buy just about any gun you want in most parts of the country, and the streets don’t run red with blood. Most places don’t even require you to have a license to do it. And most shockingly of all, you can carry that gun either openly or concealed, and children don’t spontaneously combust because of your actions.
Finally, we have adults acting like children, but it is a symptom of something that should chill the blood of every American. As I see it, the TSA is rotten to the core. It’s continued, and now expanding, role as gropers, hinderers, and bullies is an affront to the rule of law and civil rights. Its short history is fraught with stories of people being humiliated, intimidated, and violated. And now the agency is expanding to doing its work on our highways. Is the supposed security the TSA is providing us worth the continued erosion of our right to freely move about the country while conducting legal business?
My point on the first and second cases is this: stop making silly things illegal, and people will stop doing silly things to get around your silly law. Stop criminalizing the use of narcotics, and punish bad behavior that comes from their use. Stop legislating morality by outlawing gambling or guns, and people will stop smuggling them into your state. Stop charging an exorbitant amount of tax on cigarettes, and control smoking through other means, like telling people that Medicaid and Medicare won’t pay to treat people who smoke, and people will stop smuggling cigarettes. Taking that stand would probably save millions in healthcare costs on its own.
For the TSA case, it’s another example of why the TSA needs to be either drastically reformed and limited, or abolished altogether. I have never seen anything that definitively shows that the TSA has made us any safer, but I can probably find hundreds of stories about how they have taken away a lot of our liberty.
To sum up, we need to find a way to punish those who abuse their rights without taking the rights of others away.
While there may be bad cops, just as there are bad accountants, bad IT guys, and bad truck drivers, our laws aren’t helping. We make more things illegal all the time, and usually not because there is an actual harm done to society by the thing, but because we don’t personally care for it or we are scared of it. In order to make it less likely that our law enforcement will act badly, take away the incentive to abuse their power and break the law.
Candidate X and I will make it the theme of our administration to take the government out of as many aspects of your lives as we can. We will start by working to repeal laws that on their face violate civil rights because someone felt icky about the concept of a free people doing as they wish. We will reduce the profit incentive to break the law by making fewer things illegal. Our citizens will have more of their freedom restored, and we will hold those who abuse their rights and authority to harm others responsible for their actions without punishing the public at large.
Thank you for your time. Please remember, this is your country. Only you will be held responsible for its condition when you pass it on to the next owner.
Posted by daddybear71 on October 25, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/25/stump-speech-2/
DaddyBear
DaddyBear’s Den 