Battletech Update

No, I’m not dead.

Things have been busy around here. I haven’t had any time to post. Here is one of the irons I have in the fire.

I painted my mercenary Battalion, the Second Battalion of Kirstin’s Krushers. I have talked about it before. Here is a summary:

1. Superglue a Battlemech to a base, then fill in the gaps with this stuff, Texture Gel. It’s basically white glue with lava bits in it. I slathered it on, intending for it to provide a realistic look to the base, but it shrank in some cases, leaving a dip in the texture gel. :( I suppose the bad news is you can’t get it anymore. What I have is all that I’m going to get.

2. Hosed the Battlemech down in the Army Painter system, a spray paint with primer and color in one can, so you don’t fill in the details with several coats.

3. Dip the Battlemech in a lacquer to make the details really “pop” out. That worked, but not quite the way I wanted it to.

4. Paint details, such as the cockpit and weapons. I painted the base an awful brown. I thought it looked good or at least passable at the time.

5. Finish up with a Matte sealer to protect the paint job. This also didn’t work out quite right, some ‘Mechs “frosted,” so they will just look a little funny. I then glued some tufts of grass on the base. Again, I wasn’t too picky, and I used stuff meant for 12mm models instead of 6mm models.

Here is an example of one of my “finished” Battlemechs.

Well, after finishing everyone, I thought the bases were a disaster. So, I’m redoing all of them in these steps:

1. After soaking in water to soften the glue, I peeled the grass off.

2. After letting it dry, I painted the base in white glue, and then dipped the base into some Fine Brown Ballast I bought at the local model railroad store.

3. I then painted the entire base, including the sides, flat black. This seals the ballast to the base.

4. I used this mix of paints on the base, Beasty Brown, then a drybrush of Plague Brown, followed by a light touch of Dead White.

When I make the effort to go down to the Games Workshop Bunker, I’ll get some static grass to put on the base as well. I don’t have the time, energy or money to go there right now.

PIPA and SOPA

There are two bills in congress right now that must be stopped. PIPA (Protect IP Act) in the Senate, and SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) in the house.

These bills can (and knowing Obama/Congress, will) censor the Internet, something explicitly they are not supposed to do by the Constitution.

While the supporters of the bills say “that will never happen,” all we have to do is look at the history of our government and see that when they give themselves power over something, they take it and use that power.

Contact your congressman/senator and tell them you are opposed to these bills. Here are the websites for the House and Senate. Follow the links to your representative’s webpage. Call, email, fax or all three.

The object of a citizen is to keep his mouth open. I highly suggest you do that in this case. The consequences of not doing so are dire indeed.

Sad News Indeed

It is with a heavy heart that I report the closing of Gamerz Depot. It closed over the weekend, after a 3 1/2 year run. We beat the average life expectancy of the small businesses, which if they fail, they fail in the first two years. I put a lot of hard work into the store, and I am truly sad to see it go. It was a “big tent” kind of place, where gamers of every type could come and play. But, due to declining sales, we were forced to close.

It seems destined that Memphis is not a gaming store city. We have had multiple people try their hands at gaming stores, and all of them have closed their doors for one reason or another. The only reason why the GW Battle Bunker stays open is because it is a benefit to those who work there. They don’t care if the store makes money or not, the gaming space will remain open.

I told you about this two years ago!

All I can say about the OWS and all of the other Occupy movements, Cloward-Piven is winning. Who are Cloward and Piven? Why, two Liberals who came up with a way to crash the American economy. I wrote about this two years ago. Here is the proof.

These Occupy movements are starting to strangle the budgets of the cities they are “occupying.” Extra police, clean up, and all of the other things are adding up and they are getting ready to collapse the cities. Once 4 or 5 cites have devolved into chaos caused by these “useful idiots,” Obama can order martial law and then all bets are off. He gets his wish and becomes Dictator-for-life. America becomes a third-world country and not only the US, but the world will be finished.

This must be stopped. Our future depends on it.

The “Workers Paradise” is going down the tubes

It seems that the “Workers Paradise” of Zuccotti Park is not quite all it’s cracked up to be.

“Professional homeless” (their words, not mine) have been invading the OWS camp to partake of the wonderful food. So, whatever happened to Lenin’s words? “From each, according to their means, to each according to their needs,” or something like that. Turning away the homeless to soup kitchens or just feeding them PB&J is not very nice.

Just another part of the hypocrisy that is exhibited by the OWS crowd every day. You mean the homeless can’t get the same nice food that everyone else gets? Nice treatment of those who need it the most.

Just as a side note, Tea Party organizations in some cities like Atlanta have sent letters to their mayors demanding the same treatment as the Occupy movements in their cities. I mean, there are no permits for the gathering, no permits pulled or fees paid to squat on the parks. The Tea Party wants nothing more than equal treatment under the law, which is what this country was founded on. Will they get it? Probably not, but it will expose those in office as the hypocrites they are.

This list goes on, and on about how the Tea Party are “violent subversives,” but the (armed) Tea Party people hold peaceful demonstrations, all within the law and do not squat and set up camp in public parks. You don’t see clashes with the police, rapes (yes, women are leaving the OWS encampment because of the rapes) or other disruptions of the peace found at the various Occupy places across the country.

And yet the OWS is being compared to the Tea Party. It’s kind of like comparing Rush Limbaugh to Air America. That dog won’t hunt.

Fisking Occupy Memphis

I found this on the Occupy Memphis website. I wanted a good laugh, so I thought I’d tear it apart. Here we go:

We are Occupy Memphis. We stand with the Occupy Wall Street Movement and all other nonviolent democratic uprisings around the world.

We are here to denounce the control of our government by the 1%. We the People have a right to govern ourselves; that right has been usurped by corporations, big banks, Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, and the wealthiest 1% of our population. These elites put profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality.

They say we have a budget crisis, but what we have is a priority crisis. They say we have a fiscal deficit, but what we have is a deficit of democracy. They have taken our silence for consent, but no more.

We are seniors, teachers, small business owners, clergy, and union members. We are clerks, firefighters, nurses, police, and immigrants. We are service workers, veterans, entrepreneurs, students, the unemployed, and recipients of Social Security benefits.

We are mothers, fathers, children, grandparents, friends, and neighbors. We are those who do all the work and keep this society running. We are you and you are one of us. We are the 99%. We are here to peacefully Occupy Memphis until our demands are heard.

All well and good. We just heard your demands. Does that mean you’ll go away now? ;-)

We demand that Wall Street be held accountable for its role in the destruction of the global financial system.

We demand that the 1% pay their fair share of taxes, that all tax loopholes benefiting the super-rich are closed, and that those who try to skirt our country’s tax laws are tried and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

You don’t specify what “their fair share” is. The top 1% of taxpayers already pays 38% of the total personal tax revenues. So, as I always ask (and never get an answer) WHAT IS THE “FAIR SHARE” of that 1%?

As far as those who skirt our countries tax laws and are not prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, those are the people in power under your illustrious President Obama. You elected him, I didn’t.

We demand that corporations not be afforded the same First Amendment rights as individuals; that corporations not be allowed to influence elections through campaign contributions.

That is a slippery slope that I don’t want to go down. Curtailing somebody’s First Amendment rights today, no matter whom and how specific you want to get, will lead to everybody losing their rights tomorrow. Look at just about every set of laws there is on the books. Compare when they were started, and where they are now. DUI laws, Income tax, the list goes on. The term is “mission creep.”

How exactly do corporations “influence” elections through campaign contributions? By allowing candidates to run ads to press their view in 15 second soundbites and attack ads, wearing them into your brain, that’s how. Now, if you actually HAD an independent thought process, you would pay attention to what the candidate meant, not just what he says. You would do some research and look at their plans they want to enact if elected.

We demand equal treatment from our justice system at all levels and at every stage, from investigations, through trials and sentencing, regardless of race or social class.

A laudable goal. I wish that could happen as well. But when 50% of the crime is black-on-black, and 65% of the crime is black-on-white, and most of those blacks are poor, what do you mean, “regardless of race or social class?” Should we let a certain percentage of blacks go just because they are black and/or are poor?

We demand that our government recognize healthcare as a basic human right. It is shameful that our city’s infant mortality rate is higher than in many developing countries.

Healthcare is NOT a basic human right. It takes a person 10 years and over $100,000 to learn to be a medical doctor. He is going to want to be compensated appropriately for the effort he put into becoming a doctor. If you decide he “makes too much” and he only deserves to be paid as much as a plumber, then he will become a plumber instead of a doctor. If you have no doctors, how will you have healthcare?

One of my medications costs about $35 a pill. And that is cheap compared to other medications. These miracle drugs need to recoup the R&D costs needed to develop and test the medications. That’s why one of my pills costs almost $35 each, and the generics runs about $2-4 each.

We demand an end to Tennessee’s regressive labor laws, such as right-to-work and at-will employment, which keep us in poverty. We demand an ordinance mandating that no city services can be privatized; any outsourced services should be brought back in-house.

How do these “keep us in poverty?” There are two reasons why you are fired from a job. One is that the company can no longer afford to support the position, and thereby eliminate it, and the other reason is to fire you because you’re not doing the work, or you’ve messed up and violated company policy.

If you force employers to keep sub-performing people employed, then businesses won’t hire new people unless they are sure of the person, and that growth of the company will support the position. Also, if you force employers to keep too many positions that they cannot support, the entire company may have to close, throwing everybody out of work. A good example is the Memphis police department recently, either everybody takes a $30 a week cut, or a lot of officers lose their jobs entirely. If you had to make a choice, which one would you pick, $30 a week cut, or no job at all?

We demand affordable and fair housing for all and that Wells Fargo be held accountable for its racist, predatory lending practices in Memphis.

I am not absolving Wells Fargo, but if you are too stupid to read the paperwork, and understand what it says and its ramifications, then you shouldn’t purchase a home. The fault lies on both sides of the table. But the federal government also deserves some blame as well. If the Feds hadn’t mandated that more people own homes, the banks wouldn’t have underwritten the risky loans they did, causing the housing crisis.

We demand that those Memphians who experienced foreclosures due to the illegal activities of banks and other financial institutions be adequately compensated and their debt forgiven.

Like I said above, the banks were mandated into making the loans. Does this mean I can be “adequately compensated” and I get my home loan forgiven as well? Woo Hoo! I mean, I was responsible and didn’t buy a $200,000 home with an interest only, variable rate balloon mortgage on my salary.

We demand that the city use our money for education and public services rather than corporate incentives and tax freezes for companies like Bass Pro or Electrolux. Memphis gives away more public dollars in corporate welfare than any other city in the state, yet our unemployment rate is at 12.1%.

The Memphis City Schools budget before the merger was about $960 Million a year. Considering that only 70% of kids graduate from MCS, and 60% of those who did graduate couldn’t read their own diplomas, just how much more money do you want to throw down that rathole? With Memphis being 53% black, and most of them are illiterate or functionally illiterate, what else do you think the result of our unemployment rate would be? Imagine our unemployment numbers if companies like Bass Pro and Electrolux didn’t come here because of the tax breaks. That would mean fewer jobs, and more unemployment.

We demand a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Our concerns will be addressed. Our demands will be met. We will not be discouraged. We will not be intimidated. We will not be ignored. We are the 99%.

You got the government you wanted, because you elected the people you wanted. Steve Cohen is the U.S. Representative to Memphis because he promised to bring home “our share” of Federal dollars instead of being fiscally responsible by getting the government to spend only what it has instead of borrowing against our grandchildren’s future. Obama is President because he promised to “spread the wealth” around by redistributing it. In three years, he’s managed to spend $9 Trillion that we didn’t have, and he’s not slowing down.

The nice thing about the First Amendment is you have the right and freedom to stand on a soapbox with your bullhorn and say whatever you want. However, there is no guarantee that anybody has to listen to what you have to say. You can say that you are “the 99%” all day, but either I’m part of the 1% or you’re not “the 99%”

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Occupy Wall Street

I wanted to weigh in on this subject. My feelings and thoughts have finally come to a head.

It seems to me that this “movement” is nothing more than a disorganized mob. They can’t agree on a common message, they have no significant reason to protest, except to protest itself. It stated on Wall Street, where the protesters purchase products from companies traded on Wall Street, if they have a 401(k), it is most likely invested in that very same Wall Street. The ignorance and hypocrisy is blinding.

The reason for this post is the following two photographs. I don’t know their names, but let’s call them Ashley and Karen.

Ashley looks like she came into a comfortable amount of money because of the hard work of her parents. She is calling for her to be taxed more. “She is the 1%, and she stands with the 99%.”

Next comes Karen. She has dire medical and financial problems. I am not going to get into the complexities of medical insurance here. Just the fact that she doesn’t have, and is very likely never to have medical insurance.

I would now like to introduce them to each other. Ashley, meet Karen. Karen, Ashley.

I would then say, “Ashley, if you want to help other people, here is a person that will gladly take any money you want to give her because it will keep her alive.”

Why give money to the Government for “redistribution” when 83% gets absorbed into the government for overhead? Ashley could give $275,000 to Obama, who would let only $47,000 actually make it to a person or persons. Or, she could give all of it to Karen, who would be able to use 100% of it.

Besides, when Ashley calls for takes to go up on “her,” she is also calling for taxes to be raised on many other people as well. Ashley, if you want to pay more to the government, please, write a check and send it in. I’m sure they will cash it. BUT DON’T GET MY TAXES RAISED WHILE YOU’RE AT IT. You may be swimming in money, but I’m not.

Liberals. Bah. The view that government can be the parent to everybody is not what this country was founded on. Stand up on your own. Take what comes your way, good and bad. If you get knocked down, stand up and try again, and again, and again until you win. That’s what America was founded on. That’s what made America great. These Liberals want to tear that ideal down. I don’t know why, no Liberal has ever been able to hold a coherent conversation with me. When faced with facts, they start screaming epithets and attack me rather than calmly debate the facts.

 

That darn Constitution

Just keeps getting in Barry’s way! Because the DEMOCRATS in the Senate won’t pass President Obama’s “jobs bill,” Barry had this to say:

“Scour this report, identify all those areas in which we can act administratively without additional congressional authorization and just get it done,” President Obama said today to a “Jobs Council” meeting.

From what it sounds like, (and if it walks like a duck…) Mr. Obama doesn’t want to be President, but rather Dictator-for-Life! That way he could get what he wants done, done!

Of course, what he wants to do (and he is succeeding) is to wreck this country. Saddled with $14,000,000,000,000 worth of debt that didn’t produce squat but to make some people rich before they took the money and ran (like Solyndra), Barry wants to do it again with his “jobs bill.”

The definition of insanity is to repeat the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. No matter how many times you use the recipe for Cinnamon bunt cake, you will never get a devils food cake out of it!

Let’s get this guy out of office in 2012. At this point, I am almost convinced that a chimpanzee throwing darts at a wall could do a better job than what Barry is doing now.

Just a test

Well, I just updated to the latest version of WordPress for the iPad. If I edit the profile, I can get to the dashboard with a few extra steps, but otherwise the app crashes as soon as I tell it to connect to the website. Connecting to the dashboard, I can’t use the visual editor, instead I’m forced to use the HTML editor. Let’s see if I can at least use apostrophes.

An American before becoming an American

I want to share this video with you. This man was an American as a child, even though he was born Vietnamese. He saw American troops fighting for him, and at that moment he became an American. It took him years to actually get here and get naturalized to become a true American citizen. But he has been an American citizen for longer than he realizes.

He gets it. America is not a location on a map. It is an ideal held in the heart, a desire to be free and to live ones life without the encumbrance of government.

He also understands the difference between Socialism and Communism. “An AK-47 pointed at your head.”

Ten Years After

Pearl Harbor. The JFK assassination. The attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. 9/11. These were all moments that changed America. Those alive at that time remembered where they were at that moment. Each moment took away a measure of innocence.

In 1941, all we had was radio. We had to conceive with our minds the images of Pearl Harbor. The images, which came days later were black and white photographs.

The JFK assassination we had black and white television, of breathless journalists reporting the event. It wasn’t until later that the Zapruder film came out, to give us the last moment of that man.

The attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan was brought to us within minutes of when it happened, with the actual events unfolded for us.

9/11 was brought to our workplaces and living rooms, live and as it happened. We watched the second aircraft actually hit the South Tower. Sorrow turned to abject horror as the two towers fell.

For the past ten years, I have cried on this day. Tears of sorrow, tears of remembrance, tears of rage. I almost can’t see my monitor through the tears at this moment.

On this anniversary, however, I wonder if the terrorists have won. Our airports are microcosms of police states. We jump at the slightest hint of another “terrorist attack.” Their goal was to change us. In that aspect, I do think they have won. But not in the way that they imagined.

If you tear your eyes away from Washington, where we have a Socialist President and a Congress held immobile by partisan politics (not that an immobilized Congress is a bad thing, mind you), look outwards to what the liberals call “flyover country.” That is literally the heart of our country. It is where the young men and women volunteer to join our armed forces and put their lives on the line to protect us. Most will come home to joyous reunions with their families, others to be laid to rest to streets lined with American flags.

It is this patriotism that I wish to leave you with. The willing sacrifice of not only our men and women of the armed services, but with the passengers of Flight 93. The last words heard by Todd Beamer’s family from him. Words that have turned into the battlecry of every American military member, first responder and anyone about to go into harms way. They are the powerful words that have defined us over these past 10 years. It means we still have terrorists to kill, people to help and hope to inspire. It means so many things I cannot write them down, because some of the feelings don’t have words. Let us never forget those who died on this day, the sacrifices made since then and the long road ahead of us.

Let’s Roll.

Using the constitution as a weapon

I see all of this uproar about a Constitutional Amendment to require the federal government to have a balanced budget. This is one of those “sound good” ideas that isn’t a “good, sound” idea.

Our Founding Fathers were totally against having any debt that is owed to other people or governments. It says in the Bible, “the borrower is slave to the lender.” This is so true. Without a good, sound fiscal policy debt can eat up your life. I know, I’ve been there. I’m still there, but I’m working my way out of it.

But our Founding Fathers also knew that there would be short, specific times when it would be necessary to go into debt, temporarily for some significant reason, such as a large scale war. Which is why Article I, Section 8 reads in part, “[T]o borrow money on the credit of the United States.”

But with the advent of Keynesian economics, where you are to look to government instead of yourself for help, the idea of perpetual debt became acceptable. So, in order to buy votes, over the last 50 years, the Congress has given bread and circuses to the people today, in exchange for their children and grandchildren paying for their excesses.

It took a Republican Congress to balance the budget. It can be done, as long as we’re not trying to pay off the unions and other special interest groups who all have their hand out.

So, now we look at amending the Constitution to require a balanced budget. This is very similar to the idea of legislating behavior with Prohibition. I know the Tea Party is going for it, and it may be time to require this, but I don’t like it. There will be times we will have to go into short-term debt, and if we are required to balance the budget every year, either other programs will have to be cut in the short term, or taxes will have to go up. And as you know, it is a very rare case when taxes go down.

There is no “special” language to let a short-term out that greedy politicians won’t hang their hats on. “3 out of 5 annual budgets must balance,” or “only during declared war” will leave that foot in the door for a return of the excesses of today. For haven’t we had “wars” on drugs, poverty, homelessness, et. al for the past 50 years?

The best way to safeguard the public treasury is to elect those who will work to balance the budget without external limitations, and to change the guard often. This is why the entire House is up for election every two years and why spending bills must originate in the House.

We must divest ourselves of a professional political class, for this is where our problems lie. I would rather see a term limit amendment than a balanced budget amendment.

But we, as a People, must also divest ourselves of the entitlement mentality, looking to government to solve our problems. When a person screws up, there must be negative consequences or they don’t learn. We have forgotten the lessons our Founding Fathers taught us. Let us learn them again, and teach them properly to our children so the United States can continue to be the shining city on the hill for the rest of the world. There is no other country where immigrants from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe come to for a new life, one where hard work is rewarded and there is no secret police to lock you up because you are “too rich” or for any other reason. There is no other country in the history of the world where the people give power to the government, rather than the government granting freedoms to the people.

Let us therefore be diligent, prudent and circumspect and keep it that way.

Your Latin lesson for the Day

“Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium.” Written by Thomas Jefferson, this translates out to, “I prefer freedom with danger to slavery with ease.”

I prefer that I be responsible for my own safety, rather than hand it over to a capricious TSA, who is directed to “randomly” screen children and elderly, but not the very demographic that caused this trouble in the first place (Arab males in the 20-30 age range). For this reason, I will not fly unless I absolutely must, no other choice.

Getting my genitals groped is not a good way to start or end a vacation, in my opinion. I would prefer that we adopt the Israeli way of screening. They don’t have any problem, because they only screen the people who stand out.

In our clamor for “safety” we have surrendered many of our freedoms. Our airports are literally microcosms of police states. All it takes is the wrong word, taken out of context, or the wrong gesture, and you are held for as long as Homeland Security wants to hold you. No phone call, no notification to anybody, you go straight to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200, for a very long time. There are no checks, no balances. Homeland Security can do anything they want to you at any time. You literally surrender all of your rights as an American when you step foot into an airport. I am literally in more fear of the HSA/TSA than I am of crashing.

And all it takes is referring to a Krystal as a “gut bomb”, or talking about a “da bomb” burrito. Go ahead. Try it and see what happens. I’ll see you when they close Gitmo. Maybe.

What we sow, they shall reap.

Do you really want to see the future if we continue on this path? With out of control spending, $14 Trillion of debt and no one on the Left willing to try and fix the problem (they don’t see it as a problem) are we going to pass this on to future generations?

Watch this, from PowerLine:

Look at it this way. A typical family makes about $46,000 a year. If that family were the government, they would be spending $58,500 a year, racking up $12,500 every year in credit card debt. They would presently owe about $250,000, and 40% of what they spend, which comes out to $23,200 a year, is spent on interest alone. And you are not even making principal payments, just limping along, paying the interest and racking up more debt.

And so we inflict it upon our children. How does that make you feel? To know that your children will be saddled with your excesses after your death. Wouldn’t it be great, that on our deathbed, we could hand our children a check for $250,000? If we keep going the way we have been, we will be handing them a $250,000 bill instead of a check.

Think about that.