If you have in any way ever even remotely supported the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) campaign against Israel, you are invited to die screaming in a fire. That includes just about everyone associated with the University of California system.
It is good to know that you want to protect the right of Muslims to enter the country from nations who’s leaders support terrorism and have vowed to do us harm; but you want Jews from an allied nation to be driven out of America.
I have watched with embarrassment as employees with various federal agencies have gone rogue on social media to criticize President Trump. The alternative agency Twitter feed that I find the most upsetting is Rogue NASA.
BOOM!!! That’s it. I was hooked. That’s what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to solve technical challenges. Also, SPACE!!! Space is awesome!
From Apollo 13 I was introduced to The Right Stuff, both the book and the movie. The more I read about what those men did, pushing the boundaries of engineering and design, the more I was inspired.
It is one of the greatest joys in life that I get to drive by an Saturn V rocket on my way to work everyday. The Saturn V is perhaps in the top 10 engineering advances in human history, right up there with antibiotics and splitting the atom.
NASA was founded by President Dwight D. Eisenhower with the signing of the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958. The purpose of which was:
To provide for research into problems of flight within and outside the earth’s atmosphere, and for other purposes.
As an adult, I was dismayed when President Obama turned NASA’s gaze around to stare at earth to study climate change. NASA’s vision it outer space. We already have an agency that studies the earth and its atmosphere, the NOAA. NASA didn’t need to become a redundancy. A refocus of NASA on deep space exploration is exciting to me. I am thrilled about the impending launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. I look forward to a NASA that I hope will inspire my son with new discoveries the way NASA inspired me.
Well, the first stage of the Saturn V burned 203,400 gallons of kerosene in 162 seconds to produce 7.5 Million pounds of thrust. We did that 10 times, not to mention all the unmanned launches of the Saturn IB that we conducted to get the Saturn V ready.
The advancement in knowledge and reach we gained was worth every molecule of CO2 we made doing that.
Climate change is all these alt agency Twitter feeds are yammering about. A group of scientists are planning a march on DC to protest, and what is their march all about? Climate change and Social Justice intersectionality.
This brings me to my point, or should I say points.
First of all, I am dismayed that in Liberal America, “science” is synonymous with climate change. Any speculation about anything less than a totally apocalyptic future brought about by burning fossil fuels is “science denial.”
The attitude regarding climate change has become such an article of political faith that climate change and science hardly belong in the same sentence anymore.
So much of the climate change noise sounds like the street preacher screaming “The End is Neigh” only to change the date when the world doesn’t end when he predicted.
This is where the problem of the combination of political religion and scientists really kicks in: fixing the problem.
Now is when I take of my scientist lab coat and put on my engineer hard had. Let’s say for argument’s sake that man made climate change is completely real. Now what?
The response from the “scientists” (the use of scare quotes was deliberate) is to destroy the economy. Our economy thrives on shipping goods around the world on oil burning ships and across the country in diesel burning trucks. Our economy is possible because the cost of power in Western World is so very low.
That is a call for rolling blackouts. People would starve to death just due to the amount of food spoilage from shut off refrigerators. Innovation would end. Our economy would die overnight as electricity became prohibitively expensive. There is no way to replace 66% of our energy infrastructure with wind and solar in 5 years (the article was published in 2014). It took 20 years to electrify America. Rebuilding our energy infrastructure will take at least that long.
The same with any technology that aims to replace the internal combustion engine. There is no point to a commercial vehicle that takes an hour to charge up enough to drive 22 miles. Sure, Tesla Superchargers exist, but until an electric vehicle is built that has the carrying capacity, range, and recharge/refill time as any current commercial gas or diesel vehicle, the investment in the infrastructure isn’t there.
That’s OK. The Tesla today is like the Motorola of the 1980’s, battery life sucks, it is wildly expensive, and is mostly a toy for rich people to show off. Fast forward 20 years and through innovation brought about by the consumer market, everybody has a really awesome smart phone. Give the electric car industry another 20 years an I’m sure my son’s first new car after college will be something electric and awesome.
The point is we have to get there at a rate of technological progression that is economically feasible. We need to keep the lights on with coal to do that.
We’re not going to get to Star Trek by taking a detour through The Flintstones to avoid putting out any more CO2.
This isn’t bowing to the oil industry or big coal or hating the planet. This is Engineering Econ 101.
Without cheap energy our economy fails, A failed economy can’t innovate. Without innovation we have no solutions. We can’t bankrupt the economy to save the planet… assuming we can even save the planet.
And yet my saying “hey, slow down, we’ll get to a future that is nearly free of energy and transportation generated CO2, we just have to do it in an economically sustainable way” makes me a science denier.
The push to remove supressor from the NFA is being done under the name of protecting shooter’s hearing.
The Washington Post is counter arguing that the sound of a gun shot is a safety feature to warn others of impending death.
Here’s the thing. I DON’T CARE.
The prevailing theory on the election of Donald Trump was that Americans were tired of Liberal PC culture. They elected the most anti PC candidate they could.
We’ll I’m tired of Liberal anti gun culture. I don’t want supressors because they will reduce the likelihood of hearing damage from hunting. I want supressors because they are cool and screwing one onto the end of my pistol with a 21 round magazine will make a Liberal cry.
I want Trump to go full Trump on the NFA just to butthurt Bloomberg, Boxer, Cuomo, and Feinstein. I want to be able to buy a brand new M16A3 receiver (screw burst, I want full auto), slap a 11.5 in 300 AAC upper to it, and screw a can on the end, and only have to fill out one 4473 for the whole thing.
Why?
Cuz fuck you, this is Trump’s ‘Murica, that’s why.
This is my rebellion. I want every gun right that every Democrat ever took away from me back, and I want it now.
It’s not about hearing protection, it’s about grabbing my gun rights back.
This paraphrasing brought to you by watching videos of the Women’s March on Saturday.
SJW 1: “The Founding Fathers were racists. They owned slaves. Never mind that slavery was normal in the 1780’s. This makes them hypocrites when they wrote about liberty and freedom in the Constitution. Their racism makes the Constitution null and void today.”
SJW 2: “Planned Parenthood is a wonderful organization and Margaret Sanger is a hero. Never mind that she was an advocate of eugenics and abortion for reducing the size of the black race, eugenics was popular in the 1920’s, it doesn’t mean anything.”
Me: *head spinning*
P.S. my hard drive shattered spectacularly on Sunday. My blogging will be light and limited until my new computer comes in.
According to Merriam- Webster, the word hysterical means behavior exhibiting overwhelming or unmanageable fear or emotional excess. The etymology of the word hysterical comes from the Greek for womb. The Greeks believed that women suffered from a disorder of the womb that caused them to become crazy.
Watching the Women’s March that occurred surrounding the inauguration of Donald Trump, I think the Ancient Greeks were right.
At the marches themselves, so much of what I saw from the Women’s March was just gross. In Los Angeles, women hung bras from trees. What was the message they were trying to send with that? I don’t know.
The First Amendment says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. I have read some of the things written on the pads and I haven’t seen one that I would consider a redress of grievances that the the Government can address.
What the hell is the woman who stuck this up thinking? As a man, I think periods are gross. As a man, I believe that rape should be punishable by death and I completely support the right to concealed carry hoping that if a woman is attacked, she shoots and kills her rapist. Seeing as how in the US rape is punishable by time in prison and having a period is not, this makes no sense.
Here’s what I don’t get. Feminist women usually complain about the objectification and sexulization of women. Then they carry signs and protest in a way the focuses entirely on their sexual organs. “Don’t sexualize me, here’s my pussy!!!” I just can’t follow this train of though. “Respect me as a person, think about my vagina.” The hypocrisy here is incredible, and is giving me whiplash.
One of the common themes was the “Nasty Woman.” Nasty woman became a term of solidarity after Trump called Hillary a “nasty woman” during a debate.
She is a terrible, entitled person. She is a domestic abuser. She treats subordinates with contempt. This is the “nasty woman” Trump was referring to. For women to claim this for solidarity is objectively terrible. Name me any other time women would stand in solidarity with a domestic abuser?
Where this hodge podge of inconsistent and contradictory messages really crosses the threshold for me is when it comes to “resistance.”
Ha ha, nope.
Nope. Gross, but nope.
Definitely nope. Still gross.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that since these women are overwhelmingly liberal, they are probably anti-Gun. Princess Leah was a warrior. She carried a blaster and she killed Stormtroopers. When you say something “has teeth” it means that it has the power to hurt you. The implication of the “pussy grabs back” is that force will be met with force.
Protesting and holding signs is not force. If “Trump is literally Hitler” do you think he would give a shit about some signs. No. His Brown Shirts would be out in force knocking the heads of those women with their signs. This is how I also know there is no war on women. If there was, they wouldn’t be allowed to march.
The Second Amendment exists because that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, that is done with guns. The Second Amendment is this nation’s ultimate reset button. It gives the citizenry the ability to meet force with force and combat tyranny.
That is why Princess Leah shot people.
At a personal level, the right to keep and bear arms gives every person the ability to defend themselves, to repel assault, to (again) meet force with force.
These gun control loving, gun free zone promoting can’t me force with force. They can’t repel an assault. They routinely criticize and mock gun owners for calling themselves a safeguard against tyranny, since the military will defeat us in a day. They call us insurrectionists for even thinking that it is our right to defend ourselves against a despotic government
We consider a standard combat load 180 rounds. For them it is 140 characters. Their call for resistance s a joke. Their threats are empty. They have no teeth. They gave theirs up and want to pull ours.
This march was an embarrassment. It was a gross cacophony of hypocrisy and confusing messages.
I think the message of this march could best be described by Shakespeare: Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
I saw this clip online, then I saw it blow up all over Facebook. It is of Sen Bernie Sanders telling Trump’s nominee for HHS Secretary, Tom Price, that America is not a compassionate society.
Price’s response was pathetically weak tea.
This is my response. Consider it my official application for a speechwriter for Team Trump.
“Senator Sanders, you compared Canada’s healthcare system to that of the US. Here are some numbers for you to consider. The population of Canada is about 36 million people. The population of California is almost 39 million people. The population of the US as a whole is over 320 million people. By comparison, our most populous state is larger than their entire country and our country is almost 10 times their size.
The GDP/GNI of the US is about $17 Trillion. According to Forbes, the average healthcare consumed per person in the US is about $10,000 per year.
Doing the math, that means that healthcare costs in the US are about $3.2 Trillion. That puts the total cost of healthcare in the US at nearly one fifth of the US economy.
My question for you is: where do we get the $3.2 trillion minimum, necessary to cover America’s healthcare costs?
It is true that 47% of the American people to not pay Federal Income Tax. I acknowledge that these people pay other Federal taxes in one way or another, Social Security Tax, Payroll Tax, fuel excise tax, etc. But every one of those taxes goes to a specific use, Social Security, Federal unemployment, highways, etc. It does not contribute to the general fund.
Your are in essence proposing that half of America cover the healthcare costs of themselves and the other half of America. If they don’t, they get their door kicked in by a SWAT team and go to prison for tax evasion.
I’m sorry, but I do not consider that to be the definition of compassion.
To cover the additional cost of healthcare, if you raised my tax rate to equivalent to that of my Canadian counterpart, my tax burden would go up by almost $15,000. That is more than four times my current deductible. The trade off for me as a working American making above the median household income but below $250,000, is a loss of $11,000 per year. I would pay $15,000 more in taxes to avoid a $4,000 deductible. That will make it harder for me to make ends meet.
I understand compassion, but why does your definition of compassion mean that it is harder for me to buy a car or put a roof over my head or pay off my student loans or anything else I can do with $11,000 of my hard earned money?
Does our healthcare system need improvement? Of course. I am not going to deny that. Adding $3.2 trillion to the budget is not the way to fix that.
You can say that I lack compassion because of my belief. But under your plan, forcing me to be compassionate means that I lose my house.”
On Miguel’s advice, I went over to the Moms Demand Action – Florida Facebook page. Not 10 seconds in and I was overwhelmed by their lies.
That’s right. According to MDA, the shooting in a Miami park on MLK Day was the result of the NRA’s “guns everywhere, all the time” policy.
Well, the the Police are reporting that the shooting was caused by gang rivalry. Call it prejudice, but suspicion tells me that a bunch of gang members probably aren’t Florida CCW permit holders. No news outlet reported that anybody arrested has a CCW permit.
As an NRA member, I don’t recall the organization I belong to advocating for gang members and criminals to be allowed to run around with guns getting engaged in gang on gang shootouts.
They do advocate for the right of CCW permit holders to be able to carry lawfully, without the inconvenience of certain public places like parks being gun free zones. Again I’ll make the argument. If I’m a CCW permit holder, legally carrying concealed, why can I walk down a city sidewalk with my gun but not down a footpath through a local park? Will my gun taint the park with its gun cooties? The idea that a city should be a patchwork of places where it is legal to carry in some locations and illegal in others is ridiculous. All that really does is make it more likely for a CCW permit holder to get in trouble for accidentally cutting through a gun free zone and not knowing it.
Conflating the argument for allowing CCW permit holders to carry in city parks with allowing gangs to turn parks into battle grounds is either a level of stupidity that makes me think anybody who believes that is too dumb to be able to post anything to Facebook, or deliberately misleading to scare uninformed people.
Seeing as how MDA posted this, I’m going with deliberately misleading.
