Stuff Worth Reading

AM's answer to the 64 thousand dollar question of how diversity and the liberty come together.

My 4 guns for the end of the world. Clearly the guy is a well trained genius.

Mark Steyn: America not paying its fair share. You cannot simultaneously enjoy American-sized taxes and European-sized government. One or the other has got to go.

 Remember that big mess at the 2010 Shot Show? Well it turned out to be a bunch of lies from an informant that was "a cocaine addict, tax cheat, and admitted thief of millions of dollars".

  

Life is What Happens When You Turn The News Off

I seem to go into a sort of cycle with the news. Right now I am about sick of it. I still check out the drudge daily and if things get boring cruise the BBC. Instead of listening to the news at work I have been using a comedy show as background. I keep up enough to have a clue what is going on but really am having a hard time pretending to care.

The issues of police abuses has been weighing pretty heavily on my mind lately. Over a short time (since my being able to pay attention to these things at a relatively adult level) the changes which have occured are widespread and universally negative. Right now I do not have any additional thoughts on this topic which I am willing to share in a public venue.

Gang/ Mob attacks seem to be on the rise. The perpetrators, victims and area demographics seem to be quite consistent. The only thing that concerns me more than this is the total ambivalence of law enforcement about these crimes. The widespread efforts of government and media to conceal these events does not weigh positively into the mix either. I am not personally concerned about this. I do not frequent the kind of areas where this sort of thing has been happening. Also my life patterns, like being home at 7 to put the kid to bed, drops the odds even further. In any case it is still troubling.

Greece getting out of the Euro may almost be a foregone conclusion at this point. The idea of Euro bonds is laughable. Like cosigning for a loan your deadbeat brother in law/ whatever to get a loan it would require Germany be on the hook for things in the end. Like cosigning in general it is just a terrible idea. Banks or private markets are far better judges of who is a worthwhile risk than friends and family. I get what is in it for everybody but Germany, who actually has their financial house in order.

Also to complicate things there is significant risk to the Euro itself. As Tam put it "So Greece's profligate habits are threatening to drag the Euro under. Germany, the only wino at the bar keeping a squinty eye on the tab, is urging some restraint on Greece's part, which makes the Jerries the no-fun bad guy of the story."

The biggest way this inconveniences me is that it means I am not going to Greece which sucks. It was definitely on our short list before the mess of the last few months. Now the risk of getting stuck somewhere with a toddler in tow makes it a no travel zone for us. I guess it is a significant global risk, blah blah blah but I don't care about that.

So what did I do today?

After getting off work I came home for some quiet family time. For no clear reason I decided to make home made pizza. I had never done this but with some help from Wifey utter disaster was averted. I learned to do something new and we had a pretty good dinner. It was a nice quiet evening and I got something out of it.

It is worth noting that Dave Duffy wrote an article that inspired this one but was much better.

Anyway I hope you all have a nice quiet evening.

US Debt Downgraded

This morning I went in to work half asleep as usual. I am able to get moving quicker than most folks but am still not quite myself until I've been up for a half hour and or had a cup of coffee. Someone said in passing "US Debt was downgraded" and it caught my attention enough to walk over and ask if he was serious. He was and gave me the one sentence summary of it then moved on to something else. This part was kind of interesting.

Remember the scene in Snatch (if you haven't seen it you really should) where the two black guys who run the pawn shop and their friend walk into the office and find Brick Top (an old crazy english gangster with funny glasses) sitting on the couch? Well it got the two guys attention because there was an old, odd looking man sitting on the couch in their supposedly locked office. The third knew who Brick Top was and what his presence there meant, that it was very bad. This was kind of like that. Certainly it will get everybodies attention, if just for a second, but only some who keep track of these sort of things know how really bad it is.

For a lot of reasons I have been somewhat complacent recently but this definitely changed that. While not a suprise parse I didn't think anything like this would happen so soon. It definitely made me take stock of things.

On the bright side I am really happy Wifey and Walker are at home with family. It would be nice if I was around, both for psychological and functional (healthy young men with military training are useful) reasons, they are in the best possible place they could be. This makes me very glad we made that choice.

I had been (maybe mistakenly) waiting for PM's to take a hard dip before buying again. That plan is out the window. I made a big, for us, purchase and feel better knowing that a little bit more of our buying power is now not dollar denominated. Also I am looking at filling a few gaps that have been present for awhile. I HAD planned to just stash cash and do a good round of buying when I get back but that plan is now out the window. Also I have a few more ideas and need to do some more thinking and talk with the Wife about them.

Get your house in order while it is still possible and reasonably affordable. I don't mean to tell you that the world is ending and you should put every dime into beans and bullets or anything like that. However if there is something you have been meaning to do, or a purchase you have been meaning to make and can reasonably afford them it is time to do it. Could be food, training, PM's, guns, ammo, whatever. There may well be some bad stuff coming so if you want something and can (please don't use credit or spend irresponsibly) afford it them it's time to get it.

If our nation does not get it's economic house in order sooner instead of later we may have some very ugly times ahead.