tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-127087422024-03-05T04:48:11.546-06:00Space For Commerce, by Brian Dunbar<center>Meaningful Work or Death. Any other form of existence doesn’t interest me.<br><p>~Hugh Macleod<p>
"You are what you do when it counts"<br><p>
- Armor, John Steakley <p>
</p></p></p></p></center>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3643125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12708742.post-20234437011645154402014-04-25T22:55:00.000-05:002014-04-25T22:55:55.430-05:00Catching up While Waiting To Pick Up My Youngest Son From A Social EventThe biggest thing, ever, in quite a while is that I, Brian Keith Isidore Dunbar, have been confirmed, received, into the Roman Catholic Church.<br />
<br />
I'd like to thank Sister Maria of Our Lady of the Lake, for leading the RCIA class. Stanley Cummings for sponsoring my poor self. My wife for putting up with me, and setting a good, Catholic example, and my son, Cian, for taking the journey with me.<br />
<br />
A special thanks to the brothers at OLOL Fraternus for setting a great example of how to be a man, and for sponsoring the several excursions we took together. There is nothing quite like celebrating Mass in the woods with seventy or eight like-minded fellows.<br />
<br />
There is other stuff about work but it seems less important now, than when I set out to write this.<br />
<br />
If you're interested in legal services or software, startups, Clojure, Ansible, Datomic, ElasticSearch, or the hazards of open-plan offices, drop me a line.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12708742.post-79266400609957071872014-03-04T21:22:00.000-06:002014-03-04T21:22:18.871-06:00All One Might Need to Know About Being Outraged Over Ukraine v RussiaOne the one hand one Geez-Louise Russians are acting bad, ami'right? Can't we be all peaceful and stuff.<br />
<br />
On the other hand, leaving out our own proclivity for leaping into other sovereign countries with jarheads and airborne troopers and Apaches a-blazing [Beirut, Grenada, Panama, Haiti, Iraq, Yemen, Libya], what <i>business</i> is it of the United States to wag their finger and say 'bad bad bad'.<br />
<br />
On the gripping hand, extending guarantees to states surrounding nuclear-armed cultural paranoids .. I mean what can go wrong, ami'right? <br />
<br />
Read, and heed;<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I want a man who is looking out from the true center of the universe which is the stone mound in the Kremlin known as the Lobnoye Mesto, the Place of the Skull. Lend me your eyes for a moment. Stand on the Lobnoye Mesto. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"In the southern distances are the bottled inland seas coveted by Tsar Peter. To the northeast lie the bottled shores of the Baltic which the Russian spirit has been forced to conquer to break the exploitation of Russia by European navies. To the east is an ocean guarded by Japan and to the southeast lies the ancient Chinese enemy. There are rich and barrierless steppes to the west through which hostile armies can, and have, struck like lightning at every opportunity. To the north are the dread skies open to the swift hellfire and brimstone of American arrows.” </blockquote>
<br />
Excerpt From: “Donald Kingsbury - The Moon Goddess and the Son.”Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12708742.post-58442451978198534982014-02-13T20:00:00.000-06:002014-02-13T20:00:41.937-06:00Movies I Have Watched Recently<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bye_Bye_Birdie">Bye Bye Birdie (1963)</a><br />
Why in the world don't they make more fun musicals like this? I really enjoyed the heck out of it.<br />
<br />
Joe Bob says give it a whirl.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettysburg_(1993_film)">Gettysburg (1993)</a><br />
The director's cut is 4 hours at 31 minutes of boredom, with overly long scenes of meandering tedium, relieved by moments of really good acting. Then more krep. Another bright moment! More meh. And so on.<br />
<br />
So, not a good movie. It's not even good <i>history</i>.<br />
<br />
If I didn't know anything about the Gettysburg campaign, or the penultimate battle before I watched, I wouldn't know much about it after the movie. I might even know less: it's like the movie was trying to replace my brains with cotton fluff. And Lord knows I got little enough brains to spare.<br />
<br />
As shot, one piece of gently rolling countryside looks like another. Is that Seminary Ridge? Cemetery Ridge? Cemetery Hill? Who knows? We know Devil's Den - it's chock full of big-ass rocks. But the rest ... it's all just places they plonked a camera without much tying them together in the narrative.<br />
<br />
I'll give them this: 20th Maine's engagement on Little Round top was very well done. Come to that, the scenes with _just_ the 20th Maine, filled out a bit, would have made a dandy movie all by itself.
<br />
<br />
Another character and actor who deserves his own film: Sam Elliot as cavalry brigader John Buford.<br />
<br />
I would have turned it off at the end of the first hour but for Tom Berenger as Longstreet. I kept watching to see him portray Longstreet as the only sane man in an army of fools, goofballs, and dorks. Amazing job by a great actor. <br />
<br />
There is a scene - I guess you have to watch it through all the way to get the impact - where the stupid, retarded, awful Pickett's Charge is about to kick off. The artillery has failed to knock out the opposition. 15,000 men are about to walk a country mile under a broiling hot July sun across an open field, through shell, shot, and musket fire. Half of them aren't going to come back. Longstreet knows this as sure as he knows the sun will rise. Everything he has spent the entire movie trying to avoid is about to happen.<br />
<br />
Picket: "Shall I order the charge?"<br />
<br />
All Longstreet can do is ... just ... wave his hand. 'Go' he is saying. 'But I can't say it for it will break my heart.'<br />
<br />
That's some acting right there.<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12708742.post-73177480759308645652013-12-17T21:32:00.000-06:002013-12-17T21:32:23.803-06:00Another reason why having a configuration tool to build servers is a good ideaForgive me reader, it's been a month since my last post. Sorry about that.<br />
<br />
At work we've got Ansible. It <i>rocks</i>. If you build servers by hand you have my sympathy, and stop <i>doing</i> that. Check this out:<br />
<br />
I have hypervisors running Proxmox. Which is openvz with frills.<br />
<br />
On these hypervisors, I have a whole lotta containers. Two containers are 32-bit Ubuntu, 4gb of RAM. Found out today, at lunch, I need them to be 64-bit Ubuntu with 8gb of RAM.<br />
<br />
Not very long ago, this would be a <b>big deal</b>, involving a lot of money, and time and frustation. Today I simply did this:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Stop and delete the old containers. </li>
<li>Edit a file. Change MEM=4096 to MEM=8192. Change OS=ubuntu32 to OS=ubuntu64. </li>
<li>Run a shell script - answer the prompts. There are four of these. </li>
<li>Shell script runs an Ansible playbook, which is a yml file telling Ansible what to do. </li>
<li>Sit back and watch Ansible do it's thing. </li>
<li>Five minutes later I have two new servers, the application is deployed and running. </li>
</ul>
<br />
The book keeper wandered up. I gestured: look! She started at my terminal, printing line after line of text telling me what Ansible is doing to my server. What ..<br />
<br />
'My life-long ambition to reduce my job to pushing a button once in a while is coming to fruition! Muh-ha-ha!'<br />
<br />
She gave me a 'bless your heart' [1] smile and warily backed away. No doubt she was looking for a sharp stick in case I got out of hand ...<br />
<br />
I <i>love</i> what I do for a living.<br />
<br />
I need to point out that none of this Just Happens: The playbook that builds the container is a 2nd or 3rd generation playbook here. It works well because we have done the hard work of making playbooks that didn't work so good. At least <i>my</i> playbooks were lame and clunky.<br />
<br />
An astute observer would also notice that the process does not yet do a very good job of editing proxmox container values on the fly. That is I _should_ be able to edit the MEM value and rest easy knowing that Ansible will make that change for me. It doesn't do that, yet, but I have plans ...<br />
<br />
Also I would be remiss if I did not point out that there is a team effort at work here and my contributions are very much built on the platform I inherited when I arrived. If I'm any good with these tools it's because the guys I work with did a great job of setting them up.<br />
<br />
[1] Most of my readers may know this is Southern for 'You are insane and bear watching'.<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12708742.post-30736460847358705112013-11-16T18:54:00.003-06:002013-11-16T18:54:55.483-06:00Hi-Point 45 ACP - October 2013<b>Being an occasional repot on a Hi-Point 45 ACP. I own one, I'll shoot it when I can. I'm not a gun expert, or a firearms aficionado. I'm just this guy, you know? <i>Always remember: the plural of anecdote is not data.</i></b><br />
<br />
October, 2013. Fired fifty rounds. No mis-feeds, jams, or excitement. Hit the target, a man-sized silhouette at 12 and 25 yards. All rounds except one landed in the black, with consistent grouping down and to the left because the shooter is human, and weak. The errant round was the last fired; the shooter got lazy and jerked it off.<br />
<br />
Based on the collective wisdom of nerdy aficionados on the internet, I expected the thing to mis-feed, jam, explode, catch fire, sodomize a cat, or a combination of any and all the above. Disappointed that I appear to have a firearm that, while not pretty, Just Works.<br />
<br />
Until Next Time, Joe Bob says Check It Out.<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12708742.post-1358302124481242302013-09-17T19:24:00.004-05:002013-09-17T19:25:18.942-05:00The Robert E. Lee of SF writersWhen I look at the competition, think about the gifted, smart people I work with, our tool set, the shiny machines, the really <i>nifty</i> hardware we're installing in the data center ...<br />
<br />
<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=_lO9ZroeXmgC&source=gbs_navlinks_s">I need to remind myself</a> ...<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Listen to me now: There has <i>never</i> been a military in the entire history of the human race that has gone to war equipped with more than the <i>least</i> that it needs to fight the enemy. War is expensive. It costs money and it costs lives and no civilization has an infinite amount of either. So when you fight, you conserve. You use and equip only as much as you have to, never more. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
He stared at us grimly. "Is <i>any</i> of this getting through? Do any of you <i>understand</i> what I'm trying to tell you? You don't have these shiny new bodies and pretty new weapons because we want to give you an unfair advantage. You have these bodies and these weapons because they are the <i>absolute</i> <i>minimum</i> that will allow you to fight and survive out there. We didn't <i>want</i> to give you these bodies, you dipsh*ts. It's just that if we didn't, the human race would already be <i>extinct</i>. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Do you understand now? Do you <i>finally</i> have an idea of what you're up against? Do you?"</blockquote>
<br />
Scalzi's online persona is a a bit of a dipsh*t. Produces readable, but not great, fiction.<br />
<br />
He is, come to think of it, the Robert E. Lee of SF writers in a world of Lost Cause a**holes. <br />
<br />
But he's about got it spot on, here.<br />
<br />
Gotta be humble.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12708742.post-51141597919835318132013-09-16T22:35:00.000-05:002013-09-16T22:35:29.568-05:00PLEASE America do nothing to promote gun control When I heard the news I thought: 'Stand by for stuff to get stupid'.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress/following-navy-yard-shooting-dianne-feinstein-calls-for-stricter-gun-control-laws-20130916">Feinstein</a> and the <a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/henry-winkler-tweets-for-more-gun-control-the-wake-of-the-navy-yard-shooting">Fonz</a> did not disappoint.<br />
<br />
In a world of higgedly-piggedly, it's good to know people's knees will jerk predictably.<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12708742.post-73728169709052295702013-09-02T23:58:00.001-05:002013-09-02T23:58:48.482-05:00Placeholder PostDear S4C Readers.<br />
<br />
The story of the trailer house, the ferret smell, and the flush toilets, will remain unpublished until after the law suit is concluded.<br />
<br />
Respectfully,<br />
<br />
The Mgt<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12708742.post-62712833915832544642013-09-02T15:37:00.002-05:002013-09-02T15:37:57.895-05:00BreadIt's been too long since I've filled the house with the smell of baking bread.<br />
<br />
Far, far, longer, I gather from the land lord, since this house has had people in who bake.<br />
<br />
I'm not a wild-eyed mystic but I do, I do, believe a home retains a certain presence from what is done within: cutting a pine board, baking bread. <br />
<br />
That stuff gets into the walls, man, and makes a place feel like a home.<br />
<br />
Dough rising as I type. Bread will be done at 6:00. Be here by 6:15 or the Teenagers will not leave you a crumb.<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12708742.post-16923985367667920872013-09-02T12:06:00.002-05:002013-09-02T12:06:39.748-05:00I'm seeing things:But that doesn't mean they are not there.<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Look at this <a href="http://galactica.wikia.com/wiki/File:Caprica_City.jpg">picture</a> of the Caprica City skyline ( from the title track of Battlestar Galactica): front and center is a building that looks like an old-model Cylon head.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Man: those guys are <i>tricky</i>.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
At least I'm pretty sure it is Maybe not enough coffee. Or too much.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12708742.post-69258739121358466982013-08-25T12:54:00.002-05:002013-08-25T12:54:51.843-05:00Three Years From Right NowIt had just now occurred to me that <a href="http://docs.datomic.com/">Datomic</a> is well suited to be the backend for things that guys like Nick Szabo - and others - are <a href="http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/">always going on</a> about: smart contracts, digital property, secure titles.<br />
<br />
You <i>know</i>: the stuff that will enable actually existing anarcho-capitalism.<br />
<br />
Me? Oh, I've been out in the world. Acquired a new job. Lost the cat. Downsized a mountain of stuff, moved, was homeless for a week, moved again.<br />
<br />
Details later, maybe. But <i>man</i>: do check Datomic out.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12708742.post-17873360559463787712013-07-06T19:44:00.002-05:002013-07-06T19:44:57.956-05:00SawzallIt is big. <i>Heavy</i>. In the basement. Just your average Hide-A-Bed.<br />
<br />
It's gotta go. Next stop: the dump.<br />
<br />
Getting it <i>down</i> there involved removing the door at the stop of the stairs and - if memory serves - a lot of energetic shoving down a narrow stair case.<br />
<br />
Not looking forward to this.<br />
<br />
Inspiration: courtesy of a dear friend, I have use of a Sawzall.<br />
<br />
Funnest thing I've done all day. I <i>gotta</i> get me one of those.<br />
<br />
Also: with the metal bits sawed loose of the frame, I've got a nice chunk of metal for the salvage yard.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12708742.post-41265820911636084092013-06-26T21:47:00.004-05:002013-06-26T21:47:50.113-05:00Changes<i>Opportunity knocks once let's reach out and grab it, </i><br />
<i>Together we'll nab it, </i><br />
<i>We'll hitchhike, bus or yellow cab it!</i><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMR5JVo21wQ">Movin' Right Along (YouTube)</a><br />
<br />
We're moving! New home, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee">state</a>, new <i><a href="http://www.cicayda.com/">company</a></i>.<br />
<br />
Gonna be fun.<br />
<br />
More, later.<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12708742.post-50829801178981394502013-06-08T23:12:00.001-05:002013-06-08T23:12:20.820-05:00GO HOME CAR YOU ARE DRUNKor<br />
Smells like rolling probable cause<br />
or<br />
Your Ma's gonna know what you been doin'<br />
<br />
Visited Mom, back at the home place. Brought a bottle of wine as a gift because I was raised right.<br />
<br />
Was violently reminded of the perils of 'sun' <span style="font-size: x-small;">[1] </span>mixed with 'June' combined with 'Oklahoma' when I left the wine in the wagon for a few hours after arrival, and the predictable happened.<br />
<br />
Messy, but not impossible to clean. And the car now has a 'winey' smell that is faint, and not-unpleasing.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[1] That damned luminous orb.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12708742.post-18982545810455466702013-06-05T23:01:00.003-05:002013-06-05T23:01:38.194-05:00Robert E. Lee Was Not A Good GeneralFrom the Twitter:<br />
<br />
A Guy: Robert E. Lee was excellent.<br />
Me: Oh boy: there is a long ranty post about Lee's short comings, but not written. Yet.<br />
<br />
And I sat down to write it tonight and thought 'Hey, I have written that. And so I have and <a href="http://space4commerce.blogspot.com/2013/01/it-is-all-lee-fault.html">here it is</a>;<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Robert E. Lee was not a good general. He fiddle-fracked around on campaigns of no possible benefit, wasted the only resource he could not afford to waste - his manpower. He was a fool, unable to adapt to the changing times.</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12708742.post-90618852431559849842013-05-12T16:35:00.000-05:002013-05-12T16:35:01.506-05:00LAMENT FOR THE THIRD SACK<br />
<br />
Gold was the light that shone in the towers of Ethras,<br />
<br />
Green was the mountain where Protas stood, alone with his thoughts,<br />
<br />
White were the clouds that cast shade on the nourishing plain.<br />
<br />
Black is the sky this day.<br />
<br />
The plain flashes red.<br />
<br />
Red sparks as numerous as stars honed edges gleaming<br />
<br />
The color of hills that are clothed in murmuring flame,<br />
<br />
The color of blood washing the threshold of the library.<br />
<br />
Say the ravagers: this is the wrath of the over-God<br />
<br />
Of whom we are the instrument in this world of things.<br />
<br />
Things that we are. Things that you are.<br />
<br />
Things that you have made with the work of clever hands<br />
<br />
Things that by right share a common doom.<br />
<br />
No Mynster, no crypt, no labyrinth can shelter us this day, but only the wastes that stretch beyond the ken of even the most abject slines.<br />
<br />
From <a href="http://monastic.org/orth/lament.html">Lament For the Third Sack</a><br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12708742.post-76891823742781043442013-04-30T22:01:00.002-05:002013-04-30T22:01:37.479-05:00No wonder 90% of TrekContent is lame and stupid: it's built on a foundation of finger-wagging<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek">As early as 1964,</a> Gene Roddenberry drafted a proposal for the science fiction series that would become Star Trek. Although he publicly marketed it as a Western in outer space—a so-called "Wagon Train to the Stars" (like the popular Western TV series)[2]—he privately told friends that he was modeling it on Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, intending each episode to act on two levels: as <b><i>a suspenseful adventure story and as a morality tale.</i> </b></blockquote>
Suddenly a light dawns: Roddenberry was lecturing without the intelligence of a Rod Serling or the wit of a Jonathan Swift.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12708742.post-75971587917363980352013-04-27T23:04:00.000-05:002013-04-27T23:04:11.586-05:00Don't Marry a Soldier<blockquote class="tr_bq">
48. If you train a soldier to shoot a five year old without batting an eye, on the grounds the child might be concealing a grenade, you have to expect him to be somewhat callous when he returns to family life. He will think nothing of dashing his infant son against a wall or threatening his wife with a handgun if she fails to do the dishes. </blockquote>
<br />
<a href="http://mindprod.com/politics/iraqdontmarry.html">Man</a>. I cannot tell you the number of times after a tense night with an ear cracked for incoming and then I rise at 0530 for my early-morning PT and there is a dirty <i>dish</i> in the <i>sink</i> and <b>CHARLIE IN THE WIRE FIRE FOR EFFECT DANGER CLOSE DANGER-CLOSE SMOKEY THIS IS NOT 'NAM, THIS IS BOWLING THERE ARE RULES</b> and suddenly I'm waving my handgun around like a nitwad's wet dream.<br />
<br />
On the one hand, having to deal with social services and the kids crying and the cops and all is a bummer. On the other, a good flashback really gets the ol' blood moving.<br />
<br />
Semper Fi.<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12708742.post-16986108009975676542013-04-23T19:55:00.001-05:002013-04-23T19:55:26.976-05:00M1 GarandI do not, <b>not</b>, <b><i>not</i></b>, like firearms for their own sake. They're tools, is all. Tools with a singular purpose, granted. But: tools.<br />
<br />
But I got to hold an M1 Garand last weekend, ran through the manual of arms ...
<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>That is a well-made, solid, machine, brother. </li>
<li>I want one. </li>
<li>The difference between my M16 (7 pounds unloaded) and an M1 ( 9 1/2 pounds unloaded ) was surprising. As in 'whoa, that sucker is <i>heavy</i>'. </li>
<li>I <i>get</i> the Baby Boom, now. </li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
After lugging an M1 all over the damned world, over beaches, up the hilly willies and down the hilly willies
... GI Joe was a <i>buff</i> mother-f*cker.<br />
<br />
Mary Jane from back on the block just couldn't help herself.<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12708742.post-89237996239732021452013-04-17T20:00:00.000-05:002013-04-17T20:00:09.481-05:00All Dogs All The Time - I'd Watch ItIn the last two days we've been told there were three bombs, a fire, one unexploded bomb, cell phones were cut off, there were only two bombs, and no fire, a guy was under arrest, cell phone coverage was not cut off, a guy wasn't under arrest, another guy was arrested, except now he isn't but <i>any</i> minute now someone <i>could</i> be. Stay tuned! Eleventy!<br />
<br />
If CNN and company care to get actual, factual, news published they might as well take a deep breath, research their stories, put out an hourly news cast, once a day, fill the rest of the time with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Puppy_Channel">Puppy Channel</a>. <br />
<br />
Ratings would go through the roof, I bet.<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12708742.post-72990510861332910332013-04-10T09:24:00.001-05:002013-04-10T09:24:43.230-05:00Dream<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>A man exits a diner, trying to be inconspicuous. A string of balloons and a flying saucer crash next to him.<br/><br/>Then things get weird.<br/><br/>The US Navy circa 1930 fights off an alien armada in New York harbor. Iowa launches a nuclear shell right _up_ the spout of a _HUGE_ alien battleship's cannon, detonating _INSIDE_ the dreadnaught and it was beautiful. I had an aerial view for that one.<br/><br/>There are close-ups of plucky resistance fighters potting individual alien soldiers with wee little nukes, at a marina. Most of the aliens die, but almost none of the resistance fighters do, and then we're all on a bus high-fiving.<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12708742.post-90446336475552934882013-04-05T20:52:00.001-05:002013-04-05T20:52:19.317-05:00We have met the enemy and he is us<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><a href='http://intellihub.com/2013/04/05/obamas-open-collectivism-government-tyranny-is-impossible-because-government-is-us/'>He [Obama] said </a>that such worries would just feed “into fears about government. You hear some of these folks: ‘I need a gun to protect myself from the government. We can’t do background checks because the government’s going to come take my guns away.’ The government’s us. These officials are elected by you … <b><i>I am constrained as they are constrained by the system that our founders put in place.</i></b>”<br/><br/>This would be the <i>same</i> guy that <i>executes</i> American citizens <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution'>without a trial.</a><br/><br/>Related: 'Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself!' said every grade school bully, ever.<br/><br/><br/></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12708742.post-63907644279986238222013-02-20T18:18:00.001-06:002013-02-20T18:18:59.357-06:00Lent<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>I forgot to write, and forgot to observe, the annual giving up of something for Lent.<br/><br/>Buy-bye social media. See you in April.<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12708742.post-33825195888199826982013-02-16T17:57:00.001-06:002013-02-16T17:57:03.131-06:00Life imitates art<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><br/>I love money. I love everything about it. I bought some pretty good stuff. Got me a $300 pair of socks. Got a fur sink. An electric dog polisher. A gasoline powered turtleneck sweater. And, of course, I bought some dumb stuff, too.<br/><br/>- Steve Martin<br/><br/>I love money. I love everything about it. I bought some pretty good stuff. Got me a gold rolex. Bruce Lee memorabilia. An Eddie Van Halen guitar. A hat that Michael Jackson wore. And, of course, I bought some dumb stuff, too.<br/><br/><a href='http://www.sportsfirings.com/?p=9368'>- Jesse Jackson, Jr</a><br/><br/><br/></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12708742.post-23733348202175988802013-02-15T08:24:00.001-06:002013-02-15T08:24:41.009-06:00Hypothetical bicycle<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>I have a bicycle. <br/><br/>It is worth $20.<br/><br/>I want to sell it.<br/><br/>My state has a law that says all bicycles must be sold for no less than $40.<br/><br/>I am not going to sell my bicycle.<br/><br/><a href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFbYM2EDz40'>Related (youtube)</a>: Edgar the Exploiter is going to be all right. Simon is screwed six ways to Sunday.<br/><br/><br/><br/></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0