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Heh!  This is a good and pithy shortcuts to know what kind of person you may be debating and categorize where you (or they) stand on the most politically charged (and some it only exists BECAUSE it can be and is hyper-politicized skewed toward Statism):

Alarmists. They pay little attention to the details of the science. They are “unconvincibles.” They say the danger is imminent, so scare tactics are both necessary and appropriate, especially to counter the deniers. They implicitly assume that all global warming and human-caused global warming are identical.

Exaggerators. They know the science but exaggerate for the public good. They feel the public doesn’t find an 0.64°C change threatening, so they have to cherry-pick and distort a little—for a good cause.

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One of our segments was spent talking guns and I brought up this:

New From TrackingPoint: Squad-Level M1400 Extreme Distance Precision-Guided Firearm

TrackingPoint announced today its latest Precision-Guided Firearm. The squad-level M1400 338LM bolt-action rifle engages stationary and moving (up to 20 mph) targets out to 1400 yards. The squad-level M1400 represents a breakthrough in performance, cost, and weight in comparison to TrackingPoint’s prior extreme distance precision-guided firearms. The squad-level M1400 is designed to provide unprecedented battle stand-off capabilities at the squad level. The M1400 gives every squad a precision shooting expertise at ranges beyond the capabilities of skilled snipers . . .

And there’s a bunch of other features talked about at the link.  What caught my eye was that their first offering cost about $30K – here’s the march of technology:

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I mentioned how to get the Federal govt out of “Education’s” hair in my post here (“McLaughlin Middle School Principal William Krantz – put up or shut up“)- just stop doing business with them.  Seriously, put aside the lure of “free money” (that never is) and settle on just doing the basics.  Or, you can do what this guy is (rightly!) doing:

” (Georgia), who chairs the influential Georgia House Appropriations Subcommittee on Higher Education, filed the lawsuit along with his wife, alleging the federal government violated the Administrative Procedure Act when they issued a “guidance document” that included onerous new regulations for schools to follow. If schools fail to abide by the Department’s Office for Civil Rights’ ever-changing guidance, they risk losing federal funding.

Ehrhart has been a vocal critic of the Department’s “Dear Colleague” letters, which began forcing colleges to spend more and more money to adjudicate felonies in 2011. In January, Ehrhart told school administrators: “If you don’t protect the students of this state with due process, don’t come looking for money.” It was the strongest statement yet on the issue from a legislator.

Squeeze play!  Knuckle under to the Feds or you lose your own State’s money – choose wisely.

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Yet another Educrat makes “a thunder” he can’t back up.  C’mon, blowhard, show me that oath! (Reformatted, emphasis mine, entire article after the jump):

Livingston told school board members to meet the tax cap budget number required by the Manchester city charter, more than $2.5 million will have to be removed from her $165.2 million request.  Last week during a public hearing on the budget, city resident Patrice Bernard reminded board members of the oath of office they took back in January, “swearing to uphold the City Charter” – and the city’s tax cap. “If your word means nothing, you don’t deserve to be sitting in those seats,” said Bernard. “Keep your word. I expect you to uphold the tax cap.”

Good going girl!  Make SURE they’re reminded that they have boundaries – duly voted upon and set by the people that pay their salaries. After all who is supposed to be in charge here?  Who are the employers and who are the employees?  Well, it seems that Principal Krantz never got the message:

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I’m really beginning to hate seeing this phrase: “with the help of the following XX Republicans“. It always means that we have Republicans voting against their base and against the platform – and happy about it.  It means that the vision we were given by the Founders, a limited Federal government, just went dark by yet a few more photons.

And there’s US Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) right in the middle of them.  Do you think that perhaps she’s going to start regretting some of her “bipartisan, reaching across the aisle” votes when the NH Conservative base votes “present” (e.g., takes a pass on that race like we did for Havenstein and Brown) come September and November?  The first line in the post gives you all you need about the brainlessness (not to mention, principlelessness) of her vote (with the second telling who is really going to be eating this one):

GOP-Passed Solyndra Subsidies Use Enron-Style Accounting to Fuel Federal Housing

What happens when you mix green energy social engineering with the affordable housing agenda? You get the worst elements of venture socialism that led to our economic collapse. You also get a bill from your GOP Senate pushing this very left-wing ideal of central planning.

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Every Friday, Powerline has a column from Ammo Grrrll that is a must read for me.  This one – absolutely go and read the rest, but this part speaks to the young’uns “back when” and the the miserable little crapheads that think that they are all-knowing adults because SOCIAL JUSTICE!

Young men of my father’s generation, the same age as today’s wretched college crybullies, were storming the beaches of Normandy and Anzio, being strafed by machine gun fire from real triggers. An uncle I never met, my father’s older brother, perished in the Pacific. His picture in his dress Marine uniform graced Grandma’s upright piano til the day she died.

I would love to thank him, of course, for giving his life for liberty and country. But I would be embarrassed to show him a piece of chalk and explain that pitiful muscle-free men the age he was when he died, now cower in fear from a graffito which mentions a political candidate they apparently don’t care for.

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Shot:

Tech giant Intel is laying off some 12,000 workers…The chip-making giant said the mass firings are part of a “restructuring initiative” that will further its shift away from the PC business toward smart devices and cloud-based computing.

Chaser:

It’s one of the country’s 15 largest users of H-1Bs [visas], which are temporary visas that allow companies to hire foreign workers for American tech jobs. The big-time layoffs come even as the company has called for hikes in the number of foreign workers it is able to hire using H-1B visas.

Hangover:

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OK, I’m lifting this right from Maggie’s Farm (via Instapundit) – a letter reputed to be a hoax but like with Ammo Grrrll, a good portrayal of those dunderheads who truly believe their PR and superior knowledge and where they should be.  My only question is how did these college numbskulls get to the point that they believe they should be our moral and speech Overlords?  Oh yeah, our education system that has trained them that “rightly dividing the word of truth” (ok, bending the contextual meaning a bit, but a good grounding in Western Civ et al should have one going “yes, I recognize that”) comes only from their feelings and current standards and not a grounding in history and what was extant at those times (emphasis mine).

This letter was a hoax of sorts, posted somewhere on the internet as a response from Oxford to students attending as Rhodes Scholars to remove the statue of Oxford Benefactor Cecil Rhodes.

Not sure who wrote this. Best line to the students:  “Understand us and understand this clearly: you have everything to learn from us; we have nothing to learn from you.”

American higher ed administrators might bear that in mind.

Dear Scrotty Students,

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Yes, I was in high school when Earth Day first kicked off.  And yes, there were some really bad things that had been done and really had to get cleaned up.  And so it has in a lot of ways – America’s environment is far better now than it was 46 years ago.  And sure (gulp, an admission here), some government regulation was needed.  And public demand has also done its part too.  But at the same time, there was a lot of fear mongering going on – and it hasn’t abated.  Here are some of the claims that “the science experts” said was gospel.  Well, science is never settled and all that matters is “did the hypothesis live up to the data”?  Did the hypothesis match up with reality?

Umm, not so much – predictions from 1970:

“We have about five more years at the outside to do something.”
• Kenneth Watt, ecologist

“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”
• George Wald, Harvard Biologist

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I read this and just shook my head slowly from side to side – I just couldn’t believe what I was reading.  Given this, why haven’t we all risen up in righteous indignation (er, if not a lot more) and say “no more” to taking more and more?  But at least one person did the right thing by voting…

Life in California — A Tax on a Tax

I just got a bill for some extra property tax I owe to a county in California.  The story behind it is sad and sort of hilarious.

A year or two ago I got billed in an audit for some “California use tax” on some golf carts we moved to California from Arizona.  I hadn’t thought I owed use tax on them because I paid sales tax in Arizona where I bought them.  But California sales tax is higher than that in Arizona (naturally) so I apparently owed use tax on the difference.  OK, I paid it.

Then, just recently, I was informed by one county in California that my property tax reports were wrong.

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