Around the blogs

Here goes with the first Around The Blogs collection for 2013.  Some of the entries date back to 2012, because our last collection that year focused on the Newtown tragedy in Connecticut.

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Ace Of Spades examines our individual 'share' of the US national debt.  He gets to the point.

Our debt is 105.6% of our GDP. If everything we earned for 1 year and 19 days went directly to paying off debt, we would be in the clear. In the meantime, you would be kicked out of your house for not paying property taxes, in legal trouble from not paying state of federal income taxes, and looking kind of thin from subsisting on moss soup and acorns. Clearly, this will not be fixed in a year. Or two, or five.

More at the link.

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Rev. Donald Sensing brings us 'The (Mostly) German Philosophers' Love Song'.

(Gigglesnort!)

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Weird And Pissed Off appeared to have stopped blogging after the November elections.  However, while his old blog remains dormant, he's opened a new one at Cats, Cooking and Chaos.  Welcome back to the blogosphere, brother!

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Old NFO informs us about DARPA's ACTUV project for anti-submarine warfare.  He includes a video clip describing it, and a link to an article with more details.  You can also find more information here.  Interesting stuff.

A little earlier, he'd put up a very amusing list of pilot attributes.  A short selection:

In the Alaskan bush I'd rather have a two-hour bladder and three hours of gas than vice versa.

It's not that all airplane pilots are good-looking. It's just that good-looking people seem more capable of flying airplanes.

An old pilot is one who can remember when flying was dangerous and sex was safe.

More at the link.

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Early last month I mentioned what I called 'A screaming deal on a powerful flashlight'.  Brigid's just reviewed the same flashlight, complete with photographs.  It's interesting reading for those of us interested in emergency preparations.

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Warren Meyer brings us his tax proposals, which would greatly simplify and streamline our present incomprehensibly intricate tax code.  He also illustrates how the latest Washington shenanigans complicate things further.  I think he makes a good case.

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Ambulance Driver brings us a tale of a special kind of stupid.  LANGUAGE ALERT:  He's not backward in expressing his (profane) opinion of the gentleman (?) concerned.

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Diogenes' Middle Finger alerts us to a left-wing academic's call to ignore the Constitution in resolving the problems facing our nation.  Needless to say, I saw red on the spot!  The Constitution is the foundation and framework of our Republic.  Do away with it, or ignore it, and chaos results.

Karl Denninger makes a similar point, illustrating how unconstitutional measures have illegally bypassed strict scrutiny and been allowed to become law.  I agree with him that this can't be allowed to continue.  Here's an excerpt.

When do we, the people, stop sitting for expedience and demand things be right instead?

There is a lawful means to change the clear language of The Second Amendment.  There is a lawful means to ensconce a right to health care in the Constitution.  There is a lawful means to make illegal the use of recreational drugs (we once understood this with alcohol and then ignored it -- for expedience.)  There is a lawful means to constrain the 4th Amendment and make being groped by the TSA legal.  There is a lawful means to constrain your right to travel using the common means of the day and require driver licenses.

That lawful means is to amend The Constitution.

There is no other lawful means; all other methods are in fact law-breaking and, when proposed by or passed by Congress, openly seditious in their character.

. . .

The Declaration was not of rights to be given by government but of unalienable rights that no government has the authority to regulate, delegate or control as it never possessed them in the first instance.

The Constitution was not a declaration of rights held by the people, it was the opposite.  It was a declaration of a very few things that the government had the ability to control and regulate, delegated by the people, reserving everything else.

And the entirety of the Bill of Rights was the absolute requirement of the founders to sign off and accept The Constitution.  Without each and every one of them the Constitution would not have been adopted, and as such they are inherently part and parcel of the original document and can only be lawfully modified in one way -- through the Amendment process in Article V.

There's more at the link.  I agree with Mr. Denninger.  It's long gone time we restored the Constitution to the legislative, legal and juridical precedence that is its (and our) birthright.

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Marko, the Munchkin Wrangler, brings us a tale of lustful stupidity so mind-boggling it should really be a Doofus Of The Day post in its own right.  However, he found it first, so I'll simply steer you in his direction to read more about it.  One can only hope that the idiot in question won't procreate . . . and if he continues to treat decent women in that fashion, he's unlikely to get the chance!

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Joel brings us the tale of a cat named Cocaine.  I think I've met one or two of his cousins over the years . . .

While I cannot deny that most cats are completely without practical value, I don’t agree at all that cats are uncool. Cats, in fact, are far cooler than dogs. Because cats don’t care. A dog (generally speaking, and with exceptions) wants you to love it. It’s practically obsessed with the desire to be petted, cared for, validated. Dogs are high-maintenance items.

Cats don’t give a damn what you think about them. In any relationship between one cat and one human, there is absolutely no doubt anywhere in that cat’s mind as to who’s in charge – and it’s not the human.

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David McElroy asks, 'Had enough yet? Ready to quit pretending politics changes things?'  He makes a powerful case.  Here's an excerpt.

At some point, the government will lose the ability to pay its debts, because productive people will be unable to pay what’s demanded of them. There just aren’t enough of them, and more and more of them are going to walk away rather than be robbed blind in order to allow money to keep flowing to military adventurism, corporate welfare and the quasi-socialist medical system. (If you think we’ve had a free market in medicine, you’re not paying attention.) When the government loses its ability to pay the debts, draconian taxes will be imposed. Borrowing will stop. Rebellion will increase. Collapse is inevitable.

. . .

When the system collapses, nobody is going to care who you voted for or where you marched. The only thing that’s going to matter is whether you have a plan to take care of yourself and your family.

Quit thinking that swapping one politician for another is going to change anything. It’s not. The entire system has to go. The Titanic is going down. Quit paying attention to the two groups fighting over who gets to claim authority over the bridge of the sinking ship.

There's more at the link.  I hate to say it, but I fear he's right.

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Dr. Whitecoat brings us another WTF??? moment in the emergency room.  It certainly sheds new light on the mathematical odds of survival!

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Last but not least, Grouchy Old Cripple brings us a magnificent Monday Pun.  I think it's more of a feghoot than a pure pun, but it had me groaning loudly!  Well done, sir!

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That's all from the blogosphere for this week.  More soon.

Peter