1929 versus 2008

Perhaps I should add "economics" to the title of my blog now. Anyone following the news has probably noticed that the large financial firm, Lehman Bros., has filed for bankruptcy. Merril Lynch was purchased (or perhaps it should be said, bailed out) by Bank of America to prevent its collapse. The stock market not surprisingly took this news badly and dropped like a rock fairly quickly. Certainly no crash yet despite not being too pretty, but one must wonder: are we in for a new Great Depression? Certainly there are some eery reminders all around us of 1929. Banks collapsing like houses of cards, jobs being lost all around us, high numbers of foreclosures, repos of items bought on credit and more. There can be some comparisons to what happened before 1929: the roaring twenties were not all that different in some ways from the 90's and, more recently, and more important, the real estate bubble and economic boom that went with it in recent years. People were like sheep, all lining up to buy an expensive house, new cars, and anything else that could be bought without really being able to afford it. Bad credit? No problem, have an interest only mortgage, we'll look the other direction while you sign the papers, we want you to have a house. No downpayment? No problem, 100% financing available. Want to remodel or buy some fancy toys but have no cash? No problem, with the soaring housing market your house is worth triple what you paid, so cash in on that equity with a loan. Yet all bubbles must burst, and burst it did! Home prices are dropping like lead sinkers in water. Those who keep their asking prices high won't sell most likely. Those who took advantage of that creative financing? They're losing their homes in record numbers. Those banks that gave out loans to people they never should have given them to? They're collapsing. Perhaps there is some justice in that. The fools who got in over their heads in debt should have known better, but so too should the banks have known better. The bankers created this mess with their greed. It reminds me all to well of Thomas Jefferson's warning: if we let the bankers control our money supply, we will wake up homeless on our own soil.

The Federal Reserve has made easy money available, with low interest rates, leading to this mess. Our politicians created this monster back in 1913, and FDR (removing gold from circulation) and later, LBJ (removal of silver from coins) and then Nixon (ended the gold standard), in steps took silver and gold out of our money, replacing it with base metals and paper backed by nothing. Imagine what difference there would be if the Federal Reserve could not simply make up money out of thin air (electronically) or out of paper and ink (federal reserve notes). Our government would have to more carefully control its spending, banks could not lend so much money out, checking real estate prices to a degree, inflation would not eat savings in such short order. Unfortunately, we the people have allowed our servants to become our masters, and our masters are the servants of corporations and banks. Jefferson also warned us against corporations. Why have we so long ignored sound advice?

We have followed greed, materialism and selfishness for far too long. Our state religion is consumerism and our national god the almighty dollar. People today by and large are not content with being well fed, clothed and sheltered. They must eat out every night or have food that takes little work to prepare (and which is also more expensive and damaging to health, giving the medical industry more money). Having some decent clothed that last a long time and taking care of them isn't enough, people need to buy new clothes frequently no matter if they're needed, people must have the latest fashions, etc., all expensive. It's quite amusing to me to see people pay top dollar to wear an advertisement on their bodies! People aren't content with a small home that shelters them and conserves resources and money. People must have a 5,000 square foot mcmansion with more bedrooms and bathrooms than residents, a kitchen full of stone and expensive woods and appliances, that rarely sees much real food being prepared in it. People are not content with a small car and using it until it wears out, they must have an SUV bigger than their neighbor does. And, one can not forget the TV's, the stereos, the computers, the video games and cell phones and more. Afterall, would anyone want to be laughed at for not having the latest? And, all of this must make you think the average person is swimming in money to afford this all, right? The more likely answer for most Americans is that they are swimming in debt. The mcmansion will never be paid off, everything goes onto credit cards, and if the minimum payments are made each month, the average person thinks they're doing okay financially. The fact of the matter is that most people are incredibly irresponsible with their finances. We must give up our materialism, accept less and be content with it, and realize something our grandparents likely learned the hard way in the 1930's: do not rely on credit, banks and try to stay out of debt. There is no reason for the SUV's and mcmansions, our rampant consumerism, our wastefulness of our valuable resources. We should be smarter than this, but sadly, it appears that we are not. We want bandaid solutions to keep the house of cards standing, to keep our wasteful lifestyles going. Americans long ago, by and large, tossed out the ideals of independence and self-reliance for big houses and expensive toys. In return, most Americans have accepted dependence on others, slavery without the chains. The so-called American Dream is nothing but a hoax propagated by bankers and materialists. A false religion and false promises. God have mercy on us for having such foolish thoughts! October 24 is not too far away, will we see a repeat of 1929 or shall this be a slow process of collapsing? Only time will tell. Needless to say, endless economic growth is a fallacy.

The government tramples on people's rights

This poor fellow getting ready for a hunting trip abroad had the misfortune of checking into the same hotel in Denver, CO as nancy pelosi. He had rifles and handguns, all unloaded, cased, secure in his luggage. Evidently her majesty queen pelosi doesn't like we the people to be armed (us stupid serfs), so the rat hotel clerk (note how the manager contradicts himself, saying the fellow was caught with the firearms while checking in, yet the manager claims to not know why he was there, what a rat, a boycott is in order) reported the man had firearms and the man is now in jail being charged falsely with concealed weapons without a license. The story can be read at: http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=98258&catid=188

He violated no laws. The relevant laws, from the Denver municipal code are as follows:

"Sec. 38-117. Dangerous or deadly weapons--Prohibitions....(b) It shall be unlawful for any person, except a law enforcement officer in the performance of duty, to carry, use or wear any dangerous or deadly weapon, including, but not by way of limitation, any pistol, revolver, rifle, ...Sec. 38-118. Same--Affirmative defenses....(b) It shall be an affirmative defense to charges brought under section 38-117(b) that the weapon is or was carried by such person:...(3) For the legitimate sporting use of such weapons, including shooting matches or other target shooting, or trap or skeet shooting; all such weapons being so used shall be unloaded when carried or transported to or from such sporting use;"

Under CO state law an unloaded firearm is not a "concealed weapon."


So he violated no laws. The self-proclaimed elite in our country merely hold our liberties in contempt. If these political rats (pelosi, obama, etc.) were not scum they'd speak up for this fellow. I pray that he gets a good lawyer and brings a claim under the Civil Rights Act of 1871. These scum behind this malicious violation of his rights have no legitimate claim to represent us.

I will also add, this is why while "shall issue" permit/license laws for carrying weapons have been called a great victory by second amendment supporters, I think it is a very incomplete step on the road to a victory. By requiring a license at all, no matter how easily obtained, it opens the door to false claims and violations of rights by police officers. If the laws were as in Vermont and Alaska, no license being required, there would be no possible way for them to bring such false charges.

Been a while...

Since I updated! Well, the wet weather has had some bad effects on my garden, namely, problems with fungus on some of my tomato plants. Not all of the plants have been affected but it isn't pretty. One tomato was ripening but the water collecting on the top (stem area) rotted it and it fell to the ground, and the rot spread when I tried to salvage it by ripening it inside so I couldn't just cut off the bad part. Nonetheless, I still have lots of tomatoes doing okay (always plant more than you need). It's been dry for most of the last week (relatively speaking) and the past few days have been quite warm. My moon and stars watermelons are doing better than they were the last time I updated, so, if there's no early frost I should have at least one. I picked a sugar baby watermelon last week. Rather small but not bad considering the cool, rainy weather.

Locally, there was a group of four flatlanders from CT (as near as can be told) who shot someone in the leg in a town not too far away (who may have been involved with drugs or something from the sounds of things). Problem is, they didn't stop at their target (who survived and is in jail himself now in violation of his conditions of release; he was convicted of dumping some toxic stuff in a river some years back), and while fleeing towards New York carjacked from some innocent people (and this happened not far from a shooting range I was at while this was going on, I heard lots of sirens and didn't know what it was until the next morning). The people in the car were not surprisingly, terrified during and after their ordeal, as it was a nasty interruption while they were enjoying themselves). Now this is where things get very strange: the Rutland City police department got involved when they fled through the city, and were laying spike strips on the road with a K9 unit nearby. A state trooper ran through the spike strips and ran over the city's police dog, killing it, or so the articles I read say, which were later re-written to not make the police look so incompetent. Nonetheless, the suspects were found and jailed and have been charged. There was an article in the Rutland Herald ("We Don't Dial 911") in which residents tired of this crime were saying they're armed and will not tolerate these scumbags (I wonder if Officer Fuller has been over to them now to share his great "wisdom" that they're "part of the problem" if they carry a gun?).

Been a while since I updated!

The garden is going well. Little green tomatoes all over the place. I got my first bean harvest yesterday and canned them today. Wax beans. I've got a lot more bush beans (mostly green) getting ready, and my pole beans are starting to form beans. I've got some little tiny watermelons on one of my plants. I should have a squash tomorrow or the next day ready to pick. The cucumber plants are getting ready to start growing cucumbers. The broccoli is all picked. I'm letting the remainder of my peas dry on the vines for seed. The corn stalks are getting pretty good sized. I've got some everbearer strawberries getting close to being ready to pick, but not too many of them. They'll be nice to eat as a snack though. There should be a bigger crop later in the summer that I'll turn into jam.

The weeds are pretty bad, I've got some work to do one of these days here. The rain just makes the weeds grow faster than I can pick them!

If anyone thinks the economy is still "okay" I'll invite them here to look for a good fulltime job. I'm hoping I can have a successful trapping season this winter to help pay for my move to AK. Of course that depends on the fur market, and what I can manage to catch and skin and flesh well. It'll take catching lots of furs to be a good source of income, considering we don't have the marten, wolf and lynx that can be trapped here, that bring in better money than beavers and such. We do have fishers so hopefully I can catch some. But I think beavers and raccoons and foxes may be my main targets, along with muskrat since they're less work. I don't have a lot of traps now and snares are banned in this state, but I'm adding traps to my collection everytime I can. I should have a lot of them by trapping season. Just got a few in the mail yesterday, including a big antique number 4 double longspring. Antique but still working!

It's a real shame that land trapping all ends December 31, by law. What a stupid law, let the wildlife biologists in the Fish and Game Department determine the seasons entirely, many of them could be much, much longer. Seasons on animals like bobcats could of course remain short to protect their numbers, but why end trapping on the common raccoons, foxes, skunks, etc. on December 31? Good thing water trapping for beaver, muskrats and otters continues well past December 31 and I can take some furbearers by shooting (oddly enough, including bobcat, but they're so reclusive I suspect the longer shooting season doesn't cause problems) after December 31 but hunting them is a lot harder than trapping them! A .22 will work fine on raccoon but I don't think I want to hunt coyote with one, might not be a clean kill, but my mauser and mosin would be overkill and could damage the fur too much. I might have to make some decent hunting loads for my nagant revolver, I think it would be perfect with the right loads. My .36 Colt 1851 Navy replica might work too but the bigger .36 lead ball might cause more fur damage than a .30 caliber jacketed bullet, I'm not sure so some experimenting will be in order I guess.

Recently, there was an article in the local paper about the town of Brandon (VT) Select board trying to stop a family from using an RV as a guest home. It's not hurting anyone in any way but these stuck up arrogant control freaks don't like it and want to stop it. These control freaks are precisely what's wrong with this country and this state in particular: people just can't leave each other alone even when no one is being harmed. If a person wants to live in a tent on their own property it should be legal if no one is being hurt. We need a new revolution of sorts, in which we throw these people out of office. I'm not talking violence, but there needs to be a good publicity/ad campaign of some sort against control freaks in office. The members of the Brandon select board should all resign if they want to do what they're trying to do to that family. That's not the job of government! I'm glad there are no building permits, zoning or any of this other nonsense on my property in Alaska. Thank the Lord that we have Alaska with its Unorganized Borough, the last truly free place in this country in many ways!

Big week in the garden!

Well, not too long ago the garden was flooded by some very heavy rains. Luckily, everything dried out and survived, but where I sank almost to my knees in the mud shows! Anyways, I've got blossoms forming on some of my little pepper and tomato plants (they're still growing bigger but they have blossoms already). My peas are growing peas and soon I'll have some to eat. I noticed my first little tiny bean growing yesterday. On the Golden Lumen wax beans (a bush type). My pole beans are vining and climbing. They take longer to grow anyways.
The watermelon plants are going slow but I put some clear plastic down on the soil around the plants to warm things up since the weather has been fairly cool most of the past month. Today's weather has been a miserable, humid heat though. I don't think the peanuts will do anything from the looks of it but it was worth a try and a little fun just the same. The cucumber plants and the carrots are taking off and I even saw some squash flowers starting to form. The potatoes need more soil hilled up on them. I might actually use mulch for the rest of what I put on them to make things easier. The onions are doing great but I'm seeing some flower stalks appearing where I don't want them. The broccoli was attacked by some wildlife (I saw deer footprints a couple weeks ago so I improved the fence and haven't see any lately) but recovered quick and is forming some nice heads. Still, not going to be a great crop and it's starting to get to where it'll be too hot for it. I'm going to do a fall crop of it, I have better luck that way anyways. My everbearing (actually, day neutral type, I wanted Ozark Beauty plants but couldn't find any but found some day neutral types) strawberries are doing nicely but so far no fruit but a couple small berries since I planted them this season. I should get something later in the season though. I'm keeping a close eye on a nice big patch of wild blue berries I found so I can hopefully get some before the critters get all of them. My dill this year has been a total loss, something ate or killed it, and I don't know what. It went missing overnight without a trace. Probably eaten. I'm growing some more but I doubt it'll be ready on time for my cucumbers to use it in my pickles. My corn has been attacked some but so far I've got enough growing for myself. I replanted some seeds for the stalks destroyed by my enemies the chipmunks, it might grow before the frosts hit since it's an early/short season type (yukon chief) but we'll see...

Big SCOTUS decision today!

Today the Supreme Court ruled on the Second Amendment. They said "We affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals." They declared that it protects an individual right not connected to the militia to "possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation." "It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service—M-16 rifles and the like—may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large. Indeed, it may be true that no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks. But the fact that modern developments have limited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of theright."

"3. Relationship between Prefatory Clause and Operative Clause We reach the question, then: Does the preface fit with an operative clause that creates an individual right to keep and bear arms? It fits perfectly, once one knows the history that the founding generation knew and that we have described above. That history showed that the way tyrants had eliminated a militia consisting of all the ablebodied men was not by banning the militia but simply by taking away the people’s arms, enabling a select militia orstanding army to suppress political opponents."


So, some good and other ambiguous/vague statements. It is disappointing that they did not strongly protect the right to own machine guns and such, but on the other hand, I'm sure the 1986 ban will be challenged. Even if we do not get rid of the NFA entirely, to get rid of that 1986 ban on new machine guns would be quite nice and, perhaps, good enough for me as far as NFA items go if that is the best we can do. Maybe I'll have to start saving up money for some NFA tax stamps to get some nice toys. Maybe some grenades or other destructive devices, if the machine gun ban is ever overturned or repealed, I want one of those. Those pre-1986 machine guns are pretty expensive these days.

The ruling has certainly made things more difficult for gun grabbers I think because many of their targets: common handguns, AR's and Ak's, so-called high capacity magazines, etc., are all quite common and protected based on what the court said. The court stated that unless a person is prohibited (that is, a felon) they must issue him a license for his handgun. That obviously leads to several logical extensions and conclusions: if the right to keep arms (the central issue in this case) is protected and therefore the license (the license requirement itself was not challenged by Heller sadly so it was not overturned) must be issued unless there is a valid reason (the person is a felon), then likewise, as the ruling also declared to bear arms a right as well (but not at issue in this case), then DC must allow people to carry (bear) arms, and therefore must issue carry permits. Obviously, Fenty won't like that, so i suspect another lawsuit will be needed for that to be resolved.

Mayor Daley of Chicago nearly had a heart attack judging from the way he spoke today. Chicago's handgun ban is being challenged already by a lawsuit. DC's government is still trying to restrict guns including enforcing the ban on most semi-auto handguns and they do not seem eager to issue carry permits or to even allow registration of handguns yet. They will try their best to hassle gun owners, but I foresee more lawsuits that DC will lose. It would be wonderful if someone would file a lawsuit against the city (and others that attempt to infringe upon this protected right) based on Title 42 of the U.S. Code, or perhaps DC will find itself held in contempt of court. Use the Civil Rights laws to put these thugs in their place! That's why those laws are in place, use them. I will myself should my rights be infringed upon in the future (or perhaps I should now given some of my recent enjoyable experiences with some wannabe thug from the Rutland police). I am looking forward to seeing the gun grabbers on the defensive.

To the four dissenting justices: I read your opinions as well. All I can say is that when such people are found in this country's highest court, clearly there is a problem. You have sworn to uphold the Constitution and guard the rights of Americans, yet you wrote four pieces of trash trying through incoherent rambling to trash the rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Do your country a favor and resign and quite the court, you scum!

crazy weather week

Weather's been crazy this week. Severe thunderstorms, flooding, sewage backed into people's homes, erosion all over, etc. The damage to my garden wasn't too bad but there was definately some erosion and some damaged plants. I was out in the middle of the woods on last Tuesday when a storm hit. It ended my camping trip pretty quickly. A tree fell about 20 feet from my tent. A big, live pine tree. That wind was quite strong. On the bright side, I got some target practice time in earlier that day. I didn't catch any fish but I tried.

The SCOTUS still hasn't ruled on the gun case. The suspense is killing me. It should be out on Monday, odds are. I sure hope they don't delay any longer with it, and they better do a very good job with it.

I haven't heard anything from the aldermen or chief yet on the police harassing me over open carry. I wanted to go to tonight's board of aldermen meeting, but didn't, I was too dirty, and tired, after most of the day being spent shopping for plants to replace the lost ones and then working on my garden. That rain sure did help the weeds grow.