On the sidebar of this WSJ page I have open, I can see five and a half articles I could click on if I were that bored. (Five most colorful navel lint balls!)
Three of them have to do with that Malaysian airliner.
Sweartagod, if these people don’t shut up about it soon I’m gonna give it back.
They say that Louis XIV had the inscription Ultima Ratio Regum cast into all the cannon of the French Army. It means “The Ultimate Argument of Kings,” and that always struck me as one of the most honest and up-front things any ruler or would-be ruler ever said. “We can dress it up prettier than this, but when it comes down to the unvarnished truth this is what it’s about: You’ll do as I say or I’ll send my goons to kill you.”
I thought about that for a long time. If there’s an ultimate argument, it seems only logical that there must be an ultimate answer. For years I thought the ultimate answer must be the bullets in my rifle, but it never seemed quite right. I’ve got bullets – he’s got frigging Cannon Balls. I mean, if there were three hundred million rifles throwing bullets at him, then maybe. But we all know that’s not going to happen. So if there’s an ultimate answer to his ultimate argument, it sure as hell ain’t bullets.
It finally came to me – and that’s when I abandoned the city and most of my stuff, and gave all that was behind me a good stiff Randian Shrug.
The ultimate answer to kings is not a bullet, but a belly laugh.
Little Bear 2009-2018
Laddie the Amazing Torso Boy 2011-2020
"Freedom Outlaw. It’s not what you do; it’s how you do it. It’s an attitude — from which actions always follow. It’s a do-it-yourself occupation. And a lifetime vocation."
- Claire Wolfe, Backwoods Home Companion, 6-07-10
I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.
- G. K. Chesterton
"If every Jewish and anti-Nazi family in Germany had owned a Mauser rifle and twenty rounds of ammunition and the will to use it, Adolf Hitler would be a little-known footnote to the history of the Weimar Republic."
- Aaron Zelman
"Authority should derive from the consent of the governed, not from the threat of force."
- Barbie
"Never underestimate the ability of shit to find a fan."
- F. Paul Wilson
"You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs." The sophistry of villains - Bah!
- Robert A. Heinlein, Double Star
“Truth is, I’m not specifically interested in an armed society. What I want is a free society.”
- George Potter
I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.
- D. H. Lawrence
Aristippus passed Diogenes as he was washing lentils.
He said, “If you could but learn to flatter the king, you would not have to live on lentils.”
Diogenes said, “And if you could learn to live on lentils, you would not have to flatter the king.”
Sandy Hook was a Gun Free Zone. So was the Westroads Mall. And the Aurora Theater. And Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Should I go on? They were all Gun Free Zones.
– Reality
“Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.”
- Robert A. Heinlein
"Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."
- Ayn Rand
If ever a man should ask you
For your business or your name
Tell him to go and fuck himself
Tell his friends to do the same.
For a man who'd trade his liberty
For a safe and dreamless sleep
Doesn't deserve the both of them
And neither shall he keep.
- Frank Turner
Don't be afraid to try something big, just because you're an amateur. The Ark was built by amateurs. The Titanic was built by professionals.
- Anon
"Nothing scares a police officer more than the threat of being treated the way that they treat people every day."
- Anon
"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet."
- Gen. James Mattis
"Lust for power is the most flagrant of all the passions."
- Tacitus
"The man who knows what freedom means will find a way to be free."
- F.A. "Baldy" Harper
"The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude."
- William James
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
- Viktor Frankl
The free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country.
- Milton Friedman
“We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.”
- William Faulkner
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.
- Ernest Hemingway
"Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
John Moses Browning - The most badass Mormon who ever lived.
"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.'"
- Ronald Reagan
The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.
- James A. Baldwin
"It is better to be a warrior in a garden than to be a gardener in a war."
- Anon
“I tried to live in such a way that, when dying, I would rather feel happy than scared.”
– Witold Pilecki
Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.
- Sallust
"Place your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark."
- Lazarus Long
Read, every day, something no one else is reading.
Think, every day, something no one else is thinking.
Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do.
It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.
– Christopher Morley
“I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceases to be a man.”
-Frederick Douglass
ESSE QUAM VIDERI –
To be, rather than to seem
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
“A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give.”
– Ida B. Wells
Do what thy manhood bid thee do; from none but self expect applause.
He noblest lives and noblest dies, who makes and keeps his self made laws
– Sir Richard Burton
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
– Winston Churchill
“Happiness is a journey, not a destination. Dance as though no one is watching you. Love as though you have never been hurt before. Sing as though no one can hear you. Live as though heaven is on earth.”
― Father Alfred d’Souza
It’s a puzzle, all right. I was rather astonished to see that the big mudslide in Washington state had slid off the top headline slot of all the news feeds – already. Finally found a short piece, and sadly they found more dead, but I guess mud isn’t as exciting as blood and missing aircraft. And nobody seems to mention the fact that these folks were warned many long years ago about living in the path of that unstable mountainside. I have folks who live not too far from there.
And, while I feel bad for the families of those lost in the airplane, what is with this ongoing hysteria and shouting? People die every day, from all kinds of things. I can think of many worse fates than the probable quick death of those passengers. Why does this remain such a big deal for so long? Are we missing something in this story?
Very interesting story about the “body cams” of the two police outfits, one in Rialto, CA. and one in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The one in Rialto, supposed to be a model of reform, is highly questionable at best. I’ve spent some real time in Rialto… and the police were as smarmy as any others even 20 or more years ago. About on a par with most police in So. Calif. which is to say, not good. Turns out that this “study” is a bit of PR fluff from someone connected with that Rialto police outfit, and no doubt a real whitewash.
The cameras have an “off” switch, I presume, and there are lots of “poor folks,” druggies, homeless and other marginal folks in both places to provide fodder for the gore mills of both police FORCES. And as long as they target those folks, they won’t get much bad press, of course. But I know from personal experience that there are growing areas in those cities and surrounding areas where the police do not dare to set foot unless they come in overwhelming numbers, especially at night. The worm will turn eventually.
ML: “what is with this ongoing hysteria and shouting? “
Personally, I’m extremely curious as to how Joel manipulated spacetime to shift the Bermuda Triangle and a black hole into the plane’s path. Inquiring
mindsbrainless CNN anchors want to know.I grew up a couple miles from the mudslide. Thank FSM, God, Allah, and shit house luck that my family is safe. I do know several of the dead and missing. My brothers and sons-in-law are working on the recovery. A lot of the houses had been there fifty years or more. For some perspective, The Steelhead Drive area is 50′ to 70′ below the highway. The highway has about 40′ of mud and debris on it. And I feel so helpless sitting 500 miles away.
Far be it for me to out Joel… but I’d really like to know how to manipulate spacetime at least a little. To heck with the Bermuda Triangle… that’s their problem. For once, I’m just really sick of winter…
As for expecting brains of MSM “anchors,” I gave up wasting any time on that probably 40 years or more ago. It was a real blow to discover that “Walter Cronkite” was a sleazeball collectivist after all. sigh
Dubber, I feel for you. I felt the same when the really bad fires got close to my sister’s house a few years ago. Their house is in a sub-division built 40 years ago. And I’ve felt bad for people who built their houses on the sides of unstable slopes in lots of places, flood plains, near volcanoes, lots and lots of seriously dangerous places. Just think of how many times taxpayers have “helped” to rebuild the super mansions that routinely burn or crumble and fall into the ocean in places like Malibu.
And most of those homes would not be built there if the home insurance was not so insanely skewed, and the rescue/fire operations were not supported by stolen tax money… and a host of other problems caused by this horrible idea that everybody should live off everybody else. If they had to bear the risk and the costs themselves, they’d find somewhere else to live… at least after the first disaster.
I can fully understand the desire to live in beautiful, even potentially dangerous places, of course. I just can’t see robbing other people anywhere at gun point to make it possible.
Can we saw “False flag”. The plane deal is keeping lots of stuff out of the headlines. We hardly hear about the Chrimea or the economy lately. I suppose it could je a coverup as suggested on the daily sheepel last night as well. Certainly the mud slide has the potential of almost half as many bodies as the plane.
Howard, no need for false flag ops. In an entire world of things happening the complicit lamestream muddia can always find something more important… like Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, too effin’ many Kardashians…
Even if you insist on an incident involving a plane crash…flight 370 is at least the 22nd crash just this year. If anyone were so inclined, you could find something mysterious about any one of them. In 2012 and 2013, we averaged a crash roughly every two days.
You want mysterious? How anout the missing Russian “mutant plague mice” freighter drifting unfound on the high seas for more than a year?
One more cry of “false flag op!” and I’m going to declare that conspiracy theory to be a false flag op, and watch the Internet nuttosphere collapse into a black hole of concentrated paranoia.