What if governance sets up intolerable guard rails?

I tend to agree that humans collectively need guard rails. It's not OK to hack each other up or steal from each other. That's a given.

Still, the question is how much space is there between the guardrails?

I have lived by a moral code that guides me. I must be doing something right because I have not gotten into any real trouble in my life. (That and the fact that I have never been caught.)

The law only goes so far. When it goes too far it is the duty of the people to break said law and just plain ignore it.

An example of that is the ownership of certain firearms in certain places. Compliance with laws banning them runs well under 10% in these places and that disgusts me because it SHOULD run zero.

There are a few other rules that should be ignored. 

Right now in Michigan the governor signed a safe storage act and has instructed teachers to ask students what goes on at home which is clearly none of their business.

As far as I'm concerned any teacher that asks kids anything about their home life should be dragged out of the classroom and be beaten senseless by the parents.

The ONLY thing the teachers should be interested in are obvious signs of malnutrition or abuse. That's it. 

Of course a group of fathers beating up a 23 year old woman schoolteacher would result in them being called cowardly woman beaters so she should be handed over to the mothers to dispense justice to.

I pity the schoolmarm that has to deal with six or eight angry mothers. They can be worse than men.

When the guide rails get to narrow it's the duty of We, the People to stretch them out a bit.

I've said this before, and it bears repeating. Anne Frank was hidden by outlaws and ratted out by law abiding citizens.

While I am on topic, most governors are heavily guarded, usually by the state police. I wonder what they would act like if they were not given such protection. Maybe they would be far more apt to leave us alone.

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Wowee kazowie! A black owned pizza place!

Which means I will likely check it out because I like pizza.

If he makes a good pie than likely he will have a repeat customer. If he makes a great pie he can bet on having a regular customer.

If he makes a lousy pie he will never see me again.

It's not about color. It's about pizza.

Period.

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One of my pet peeves is attempted do good upgraders.

I remember being taken to dinner once and ordering the meat loaf and my host suggested I try one of the steaks. He actually tried to upsell me on it. My host, a company supervisor was trying to impress is over some damned thing and thought I was crazy not to take a steak dinner as a company freebie.

Over the years a few times when someone buys the drinks I've had my host get me Knob Creek or Maker's Mark when I asked for Jim Beam. Usually I quietly choke it down so as not to embarrass my host but not always.

A couple of times I've picked up my drink, gone over to the bar and handed it to the bartender and ordered a Jim Beam and returned.

Once the host asks what's wrong and I simply say that I don't like expensive bourbons. As usual, they say, "I don't understand. Knob Creek is a better bourbon than Jim Beam."

"No. It's a more expensive bourbon than Jim Beam. I really don't care for it."

It's that simple.

One time someone offered to take me to some damned hifalutin' fancy restaurant for dinner and I told him to "Save your money. I won't be impressed. Go find a nice truck stop or basic diner that makes a pretty good meat loaf and REALLY impress me."

He did and we had a really relaxed meal together.

I remember at work occasionally when they ran a class or something they'd tell us to save our dinner receipts. I had maybe 4 nights worth and while most of the other guys gorged themselves on steak and lobster, 

I turned in two from a diner, one from a fish place that made a pretty good fried cod and a supermarket receipt for a couple of pork chops, some potato salad, cole slaw and some lemonade.  

When he asked what the supermarket receipt was for I told him that there was a fire pit behind the motel and it looked like a pretty good night for a barbecue. He shook his head and laughed.

At a later three day and nights overnight class I turned in a receipt for a damned expensive dinner and a diner meal and my port captain laughed and commented that I didn't take advantage of things.

There's a 1991 Miata NA in the garage and if some rich guy destroyed it in an accident and offered to buy his way out of it by offering me a new one straight off the showroom floor I'd probably agree, sell it and go hunting for another low mileage, garage kept 1991 NA. Screw the upgrade. I like what I like.

 

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I keep getting dismal reports out of NC/TN regarding FEMA relief.

I would love to see just one report from a non governmental/biased media source that says something positive.

Even if it's some dumb local yokel kid saying something like "Hey! This is pretty cool! They're giving me 25 bucks an hour for me to sit here and make sure the proper forms are filled out before anything gets handed out!"

I just Googled 'Any good news about FEMA in NC?"

I went through the first 6 pages of what came up and it was nothing but denials of the accusations made by Trump and others.

However, it you look at the sources, they are the usual gang of culprits. On the other hand, what else would you expect Google to post? Over time I have watched Google go down the woke rabbit hole.

Wikipedia is no prize, either.

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On J5 I was in DTW and CNN was still the airport TV channel before they stopped using it there.

I had my tablet out and watched a bunch of videos made by people that were in DC nearby and got a 100% different picture of things than CNN gave.

 

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Figured I'd share one of my Facebook posts with you

One time some screeching impassioned mother asked me if I'd give a child a rifle. 

My reply was "Certainly not. Rifles are too heavy for small children to use. They are better suited for crew served weapons like machine guns and mortars because they learn how to work together and build teamwork. Just the other day I taught my grand daughter how to change a hot barrel on an M-60 machine gun and she's pretty good at it now. When she get a little bigger in a few years I'll teach her rifle marksmanship but until then she's going to be a machine gunner or maybe work a mortar." 

I was proud of the panic attack I gave her.

Protip. Always slip an extra asbestos mitt into your small child's spare barrel bag because little kids need both hands to swap out a hot barrel.

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What's with all the hate for ham radio?

I hear that it's not fair that people have to have a license to use it (other than in an emergency involving life or property. When that happens one can use ANY radio communications.) 

The blubbering is incessant. A lot of whiners that are too lazy or stupid to take a test that 8 year old kids have passed use the usual lame excuses.  (A couple months ago I worked a 12 year old girl. She was a real pro.) They don't want to have their licenses listed on a database.

That only holds water if they don't register to vote, have a Social Security number, drive, hunt, fish or do anything that doesn't require a license of any kind. Then I kind of see their point. Kind of.

"It should be like CB!" they cry. 

Someone said CB is the Haiti of the airwaves. They're spot on. CB is a mess, ham radio is fairly disciplined. It's disciplined because we have something to lose, a license. (and possible fines which are not light.)

CB used to require a license until the FCC gave up on it. CB was the 11 meter band taken from the hams and designated the Citizens Broadcast band in the late 50s. I recall some early 1960s Popular Science articles saying it was a pretty good public utility.

And it was one of those things that easily could have been a useful public utility had the FCC policed it and occasionally thrown out a fine to the abusers. They didn't.

Enter the 70s and any clown with $39.95 burning a hole in their pocket could go down to nearest Western Auto and buy themselves a CB and ratchet jaw all he wanted. It got worse as time went on. CBs are 4 watt rigs and enter the genius that dragged a linear amplifier to up his power. Couple that with a 55 mph federally mandated speed limit and enter the Smokey and the Bandit game. A lot of truckers had CBs powerful enough to service a small city.

That wasn't bad enough. Some rocket scientists started yanking components out to increase power even more which resulted in splattering his signal all over the entire band. I believe it peaked when some Billy-Joe-Bob finally splattered his signal on the aircraft bands. The FAA called the FCC who tracked him down and slapped him with a 5 figure fine. Of course he legally didn't have to pay it. He had the option to fight it in court which he did and the judge promptly doubled the fine. His problem, not mine.

"Freedom of the airwaves!" I hear from time to time.

While I hate too much government intervention as much as the next guy, I'm going to have to hold with basic licensing requirements because nobody want's to have a pilot of an airliner to have his radio jammed when he's trying to land at LAX with 300 souls on board.

The licensing itself serves a purpose. It shows a certain amount of  motivation on the part of the individual and as a result they respect the use of the airwaves. and gives them a little skin in the game.

No license means the individual has nothing in it and therefore will not respect it and like CB, the airwaves will go straight down the toilet.

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The older I get the more I believe the federal government should get out of just about everything.

Ever since Jimmy Carter set up the U.S. Department of education we've slipped from being the top of the chart worldwide down to number twelve. We're not even in the top ten anymore.

As I sit here I have been getting horrific reports of the absolutely piss-poor job FEMA is doing in flood torn NC and TN. There are also unconfirmed reports going around that the State Police have threatened to arrest FEMA employees that are trying to block non governmental relief efforts.

I'd just love to watch that one go down.

"You can't arrest me! I'm FEMA!"

Thirty seconds later Mister FEMA is face down, handcuffed in a van headed down 30 miles of bad road.

It seems that everything the feds touch turns into a warm, steaming pile of fresh dung.

FEMA=Funneling Everyone's Money to Aliens. That's another thing that should go away. 

The list of things that should go away is rather long and I don't have forever and a day to list them here but there's a damned long list.

Ronald Reagan was right when he said the most fearful words one could hear are "I'm from the government. I'm here to help."

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The Tea Party was doomed from the beginning

It didn't stand a chance.

It started as a fiscally conservative, stay out of the social issues movement. As such it started taking off.

Along came the usual gang of idiots that wanted to add 'their special issue' to the platform and that was the end of that. 

Ray Charles saw that one coming.

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