Month: March 2023

The hubris of money fondling Blue bubbles

This article from The Hill says it all about the perspective of the Left.

What if Marjorie Taylor Greene’s secessionist fantasy came true?

After denouncing “Democrats’ traitorous America Last policies” and their “sick and disgusting woke culture,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) declared, “We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government. Everyone I talk to says this.” Asked if her plan was realistic, Greene replied, “It’s something we should work towards because it’s kind of the vision that our founding fathers had for America, and I think it’s great.”

It seems appropriate, then, to consider some implications of Greene’s secessionist fantasy.

But if, somehow, the red and blue states manage to separate, the new normal, as with virtually all divorces, would have substantial economic ramifications. Domestic and international trade relations would be disrupted, treaties would have to be renegotiated, federal assets (including the gold at Fort Knox and military bases at home and abroad), would have to be parceled out, the national debt would have to be paid off.

Talk is cheap, but secession would be expensive for the large number of red states that are indirectly subsidized by blue states. These days, eight of the ten states most dependent on appropriations from the federal government almost always vote Republican. Ironically, many voters in those states believe their tax dollars are supporting Latinos and Blacks.

West Virginia gets 2.36 times more money from Washington D.C. than its residents pay in federal income taxes. Over 4 percent of the workers in the state are employed by the U.S. government, the seventh highest percentage in the country. They earn, on average, nearly double what employees in the state’s private, for-profit companies are paid. For every dollar Mississippi residents pay in federal income taxes, the state receives $2.53 from the government Marjorie Taylor Greene loves to hate. The state of Wyoming gets 56.4 percent of its revenues from the federal government, the highest percentage in the United States. The annual income of federal workers who reside in Alabama ($67,948) is more than double the average income of private, for-profit workers ($33,242).

By contrast, seven of the ten states least dependent on appropriations from the on the federal government almost always vote Democratic.

First of all, there are no Blue states.

There are Blue urban centers, and sometimes the population of those urban centers is the majority population of the state.

I lived in Illinois.  There are 101 counties in Illinois and 97 of them are consistently Red.

The ones that aren’t are Chicago, the wealthier Chicago suburbs, and Springfield.  That is 53% of the population of the state.

Upstate New York and the Central Valley of California are other examples of blood Red areas dwarfed in population by deep Blue coastal megaopolises they share a state with.

Any divorce will happen at the county level, not the state level.

The Central Valley won’t side with LA and San Francisco if shit goes south.

But what do these urban areas have that the Left thinks gives them power?

Money.

They are centers of finance.

The banking sector, Wall Street, Silicon Vallet, Hollywood, etc.

The thing is, they produced nothing but money.

Silicon Valley may produce software and websites, but they long ago gave up manufacturing hardware.

These Blue areas lack any and all agricultural, manufacturing, mining, refining, or other capabilities.

“Alabama will become destitute without government funding from DC paid for by Blue states.”

That shows that all they have is the power of the purse.

They have the monet but they are dependent on Red areas for everything else.

If the Left wants to know why the Right wants a national divorce so badly, this is why.

Watching 100 million concrete jungle residents run out of food and oil in a matter of days after they get embargoed by Red states is a lesson in hubris they desperately need.

 

 

 

Tuesday Tunes

Last week, as I was digging through the filings in Rupp v. Bonta this song popped up in my music queue. I think I had heard it way back when, but certainly nothing more recent than a decade or two.

There is one thing I have learned about lawyers in my many years, my lawyers have all been good people, their lawyers have all been assholes.

My lawyer wayback when hired a new secretary. When I came into see my lawyer she recognized me. She use to work at a different lawyer’s firm. That firm had represented my wife during our divorce. I had a terrible hatred for that dude because of the way he helped my wife get one over on me.

Anyway this secretary, when she recognized me, told me that she remembered me from coming into her office. How she had appreciated how I had treated her and the rest of the staff. Then she shocked me by telling me that my ex-wife’s lawyer liked me better than he liked his client and thought I had done a good job of representing myself in the end.

Lawyers are like the pitbulls that J.Kb. talks about. They are vicious and nasty and evil, but when they are protecting you, that is exactly what you want. You just have to be careful they don’t get off their leash.

Lawyer Jokes in bad taste

Q: What do you call 25 attorneys buried up to their chins in cement?
A: Not enough cement.

Q: What do you call 25 skydiving lawyers?
A: Skeet.

Q: How can you tell when a lawyer is lying?
A: Their lips are moving.

Q: Why did New Jersey get all the toxic waste and California all the lawyers?
A: New Jersey got to pick first.

Q: What do you call 5000 dead lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?
A: A good start!

The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.Henry VII, William Shakespeare

Who Wins?


B.L.U.F. – This is a subject that I think we could achieve a middle ground for, if the loudest and most extreme could just be removed from the equation. As it is, we’re going to end up even more polarized than ever. I apologize in advance for the VERY LONG and rambling nature of this missive. It’s hard to write, and I’m doing my best.

***

Abortion is a terribly touchy subject. I hate talking about it, because I really don’t have any interest in fighting over it. However, it’s a topic which I almost definitely have a “more left” stance on than anyone else on GFZ, so I will share.

First and foremost, Roe Vs. Wade was a terribly written law that should not have stood as long as it did, if at all. That it was overturned was inevitable. That doesn’t bother me. The idea of States being able to ban abortion entirely does bother me, but not too much so long as interstate travel for medical care is still allowed.

I would love to live in a world that didn’t require abortions. However, I live in a world that has rape, incest, accidents, and medical problems. I don’t foresee a change in that anytime soon, no matter how much I hope. That means that I can never be 100% against abortion. As long as there’s a chance that a living, breathing, adult (in body if not in mind) woman could be harmed by carrying a child to term, I have to support at least some cases of abortion.

I got pregnant when I was 19. It was most definitely an accident. I was on the Pill, and he was wearing a condom, and we both screwed up somehow. At the time, in my very misspent youth, I was actively drinking and using drugs frequently, and I was not eating well. I was malnourished, stressed, and in physical/medical distress. I won’t even go into my mental health at the time; suffice to say it was dismal. I found out at 5 weeks. I agonized over the decision, because I had suffered several miscarriages (likely a good thing, I say now as an adult with a large number of years under her belt… at the time it was devastating). I had to be honest, though, that any child I had at that moment would have been undernourished, likely exposed to a large number of chemicals (before I found out), and would have lived in extreme poverty. I chose to abort the child. By the time I managed to get in for an appointment, I was just shy of 12 weeks along (remember that for later in this discussion). That was over 30 years ago. I still mourn that child.
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Miguel’s AMA

it’s just Boris: Rifle cases, hard or soft, and why?

Holy crap, nice one. As usual, the answer depends on “tactics,” need and budget.  I don’t travel much with rifles, and whatever travel is to and forth range or buddy’s place not too far so the predilection is soft.

For my 10/22s I have a couple of cheap Walmart cases that have great padding.  I have some old weird “tactical” case for the AK which allows for a red dot (some wont, I found the hard way.) And for traveling and staying overnight at hotels, I have come to enjoy the NC Star Discreet Carbine Case because it does not give the “Tactical” vibe and I can carry an AR15 or my Ruger PC9 and enough mags. In fact, I need another one.

PS: The green nail polish is cheap paint enhancement for front sights. Get the one with sparkly stuff. Yes, I strapped the rifle like crap, but it was for this post.


Jay Bee: Having now lived here for a large chunk of your life, do you consider where you grew up to still be “Back home?” If not, did you have a specific “This is home” moment while here in the states?

First question: No. I don’t know how quite to explain it, but it is like I belonged/ did not belong, but I did not know it till I came to the US in the 80s to go to college and went back. Then I saw the Chavez shitstorm about to happen, discussed with the missus about leaving before shit the fan. We agreed and I actually said without thinking “OK, let’s go home.”


AWA: The first time you got to the United States, what struck you as “I didn’t expect that” or “That isn’t what I was told it was going to be”

This is a good one. Remember what 99% of the World knows about the US comes from Hollywood, so imagine the shitload of misconceptions. Again referring to the time I came to College here in Tennessee which was not a tourist trip: Politeness, cleanliness and organization. And the sometimes, the overwhelming abundance of stuff we never saw back home.
This clip from Moscow in the Hudson? I laughed when I saw it. It was not Soviet Russia in Venezuela (yet) but it was kinda true.


CBMTTek: Belt and suspenders.  

Belt only. I tried suspenders, but they do a number to my injured back. Plus, you can’t get a decent holster for a suspender.


msdryley:I currently live in Connecticut. I first visited Tennessee 15 years ago. I absolutely loved the Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg/ Great Smoky Mountains area and have often thought of moving to that state. I have started online realty searches and I have a few questions for your consideration : Is their a reason that the majority of houses do not have basements? 

You know the song Rocky Top? Well, the bottom is also rocky. In fact, you will find rock close to the surface like water in South Florida grounds. It is not unusual to have a demo to build a septic tank.

I have noted that the large land parcels typically have a house built close to the road and boast city water hook up. Is there a water quality problem or some other issue that makes city water more desirable than a well?

This is what I have seen: Wells might be unreliable. Water tables shift may shift and your well goes dry. It is one thing to dig a well on dirt and another more expensive to do through rock.

3 counties you would consider least desirable

Davidson (Nashville), Knox (Knoxville), Shelby (Memphis) and some add Hamilton (Chattanooga) to that mix.

I can’t say which are the three top good counties.


 

Poll Results

It seems that my long articles aren’t scaring you all off to much. On Sunday’s post I made some changes to add section headers to make it easier to read and used the “read more” option let you decide if you are truly interested in reading more about that subject.

People don’t seem to have an issue with my pull quotes, so for the time being I’ll continue to do them as I have been.

I have started to do a few more short quotes with links back to the sources to make somethings shorter.

Bad Arguments: Overview

B.L.U.F. Overview of the types of arguments being made by the state to justify infringements. Start of a series.


There are three identified arguments that are currently being presented by the state to justify their infringements.

  1. It isn’t within the scope of the Second Amendment
  2. It is just a fee/cost/expense, not a ban.
  3. There is a history and tradition of this type of regulation

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Trim your trees

I’m a Florida boy, born and raised.

You can take the boy out of Florida but you can’t take the Florida out of the boy.

In Florida, hurricane preparedness is a way of life.  Even when you move out of Florida, you spend the rest of your life prepping for hurricane season.

One of the hurricane behaviors that I have is in regards to trees.

Fuck trees.  I have a chainsaw.  In fact I have five chainsaw and am looking to add one more to the roster (I have a hankering for a Stihl MS251 Wood Boss).

Trees exist to be trimmed and chainsaws are for heroes.

See, when sustained winds of 75 mph winds come through whete you live, trees fall down and damage your home, car, and powerlines.

Cutting trees back so they don’t topple in the wind is a high priority.

I’m new to New England, but I just can’t understand the local lack of tree trimming.

Everywhere I go I see windfalls and limbs snapped off due to snow load.

Big trees hanging over homes and powerlines covered with snow and ice scares the fuck out of me.

It should scare the fuck out of you too.

‘In the arms of Jesus’: Teen critically injured by falling tree to be taken off life support

A teen in Tennessee was scheduled to become an organ donor Sunday after she suffered a life-threatening injury during storms that swept the state on Friday.

According to Liberty Creek High School, Aleya Brooks suffered a traumatic brain injury when a tree fell on her.

Jason Brooks, Aleya Brooks’ father, said the tree fell on her while she was helping her family clear debris from their driveway.

Jason Brooks said his daughter, who is also a cheerleader at her school, was taken to the hospital where it was determined she suffered multiple facial and head fractures, as well as deep bleeding in her brain.

The swelling in Aleya Brooks’ head increased Saturday, according to her father.

By Saturday evening, Aleya Brooks’ father said she would be “in the arms of Jesus now” as doctors prepared to remove her from life support on Sunday.

She’s not the only person in Tennessee to be killed by falling trees in the last few days.

Dangerous winds claim two lives in Middle Tennessee

In Hendersonville, an elderly woman was walking back to her home on Lake Terrace Drive when a tree fell on her. She died from her injuries, the city says.

The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) is currently at a Level 4 to provide increased monitoring and coordination from high winds that took place Friday.

Strongest wind gusts from Friday were in Clarksville, where gusts topped 79 mph.

High winds and trees are dangerous.

Keep your trees trimmed and if trees are sick, cut them down.

Don’t risk your life under a tree in a wind or ice storm.

Nature is a mean bitch and she will murder you in your own driveway with a tree.

Tree maintenance is very much a matter of life and death.