Seattle Homeless Man Murders A Cellophane Wrapper

Walking home from work last night, crossing the foot bridge from 1st Street to the ferry terminal, I heard a loud crashing clang on the street below.

I looked over the side.

There was a homeless man in his mid twenties on the far side of the street below. He was jumping up and down and holding his fist as if it hurt. There was a traffic sign attached to a light-standard next to him. It was vibrating wildly. He must have struck it with his fist. That would account for the noise that I heard and the evident pain that he suffered.

A small piece of cellophane wrapping floated down from the winds above and landed a few feet from him. He turned and stomped on it with his foot and then he commenced to jumping up and down murderously on the piece of plastic wrapping.

He was consumed with rage - Jumping up and down on a piece of plastic, having moments before struck a light-standard mounted metal street sign with his fist.

There was no calm moment. He said nothing. He made no noise save for the striking of the sign and the stomping on the sidewalk.

I walked on thankful that I was not on the street below where he would notice me.

---

At night, the homeless gather underneath that footbridge to sleep. The footbridge offers them some protection from the Seattle rains. There is often about twenty to thirty people there bedding down for the night with their sleeping bags and blankets.

This is a commonplace in Seattle. This is every night here.

In the morning, the encampment will be cleared. A few rags and bits of garbage may remain but an inattentive passer-by would not notice anything amiss during the daylight hours.

It is a different place at night.

---

I see these people nearly everyday. They are for the most part, the same people that I have seen here for years. This is not a moment of hard-luck. It is not a problem of poverty. There is something else at work here.

I am sure that most of these people present little danger to anyone but themselves. Most are only a danger to themselves in that their hygiene suffers and they risk exposure from the cold and the wet.

But I wonder about the one that was trying to murder that piece of cellophane.

Santa Clause and Barak Obama

There was an election in November.

It went badly.

Santa Clause, running on a Robin Hood platform, beat the Republican challenger.

The Republican, Mit Romney, promised prosperity through hard work.  This did not sit too well with an electorate that wanted to rob the rich to support the welfare state.

The nation has sold it's soul for ObamaPhones and ObamaCare.

A cheap price for a once rich nation.

Heaven help us.

Is it all over for the Obama Campaign?

This was from a +4 Democrat poll.

According to a CNN/ORC International survey conducted right after the debate, 67% of debate watchers questioned said that the Republican nominee won the faceoff, with one in four saying that President Barack Obama was victorious.

"No presidential candidate has topped 60% in that question since it was first asked in 1984," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

Boof!!!

This is not good for the President.

There were more Democrats than Republicans in the sample.

If the poll is to be believed, it is as if Romney won all of the Republicans, all of the Independents, and some of the Democrats.

This may well be the beginning of end of the Obama Campaign.

Debate Transcript: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/2012-presidential-debate-president-obama-and-mitt-romneys-remarks-in-denver-on-oct-3-running-transcript/2012/10/03/24d6eb6e-0d91-11e2-bd1a-b868e65d57eb_print.html

Do you think that the polls are biased in favor of Obama? If so, you are not alone.

From: Poll: Plurality say polls biased for Obama - The Hill (October 2nd, 2012)

A plurality of Americans and more than seven in 10 Republicans say pollsters are intentionally skewing results to benefit President Obama, according to a new poll released Tuesday.Some 42 percent of voters surveyed by Daily Kos and SEIU believe pollsters are manipulating their sample sizes to benefit the incumbent president, while 40 percent do not. An additional 18 percent said they were not sure. That's evidence that Republican claims that Democrats and minority voters are being oversampled in national polls could be resonating — and potentially undermining the momentum of the president's early lead. (More)

Read the whole article. It is worth it.

Of course, there is a little bit of irony here in that the article is based on polling data.

What Is Your Country? - The State Department Vs The United States Of America

See: Reagan Readied U.S. Warship for '82 Falklands War

The article details how President Reagan was ready to lend England one of our warships in the event that they lost a carrier in their fight with Argentina over the Falklands.

The article has a curious tidbit:

Lehman and then Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger agreed to support U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher with the loan of the amphibious warship USS Iwo Jima , he said.

“We agreed that [Weinberger] would tell the President that we planned to handle all these requests routinely without going outside existing Navy channels,” Lehman said in a speech provided to the U.S. Naval Institute he made in Portsmouth, U.K. “We would ‘leave the State Department, except for [Secretary of State Al] Haig, out of it.’” 

It was as if they were deliberately treating the State Department as if it had trouble understanding where it's loyalties should be.

I was reminded of something that I had heard about Secretary Of State, George P. Shultz.

LAMB: Is there anything that didn't make it into these 1,188 pages that disappointed you -- you ran out of time, space?

SHULTZ: Oh, no, I think that the important things are all there. There's one incident that somehow or other is not in there, and I don't know why it got left out. But it's an interesting thing that happened. When I was -- in the first period when I was secretary of state, there was in my office a big globe. And when ambassadors, who were newly going to their posts or in their posts and coming back to visit me, would get ready to leave, I would say to them, "Ambassador, you have one more test before you can go to your post. You have to go over to the globe and prove to me that you can identify your country." So unerringly, they would go over and they'd spin the globe around and they'd put their finger on the country they were going to, pass the test. 

So Mike Mansfield, great elder statesman in America, former Senate majority leader and who had been ambassador to Japan for a while before I was there, and he was a close friend of mine from back when I was in the Nixon administration -- so he was visiting and he got ready to leave. I said, "Mike, I got to give you the same test I give everybody else. Before you can go back to Japan, you got to show me that you can go over to the globe and put your finger on your country." So he went over and he spun this globe around and he put his hand on the United States, said, "That's my country." 

So I've told that, subsequently, to all the ambassadors going out, "Never forget, you're over there in that country, but your country is the United States. You're there to represent us. Take care of our interests and never forget it, and you're representing the best country in the world."

It is an important caution.

It would be far to easy to work in the section for a particular country or region and forget that you are working to promote what is best for the United States of America, not necessarily what is best for that particular country or region that you are assigned to.

Another issue that comes into play is how a person's world-view fits or conflicts with role of State Department. Those that look at themselves as more of a "citizen of the world" than a "citizen of the United States of America" would be in conflict with the State Department role of protecting and promoting the interests of the USA over and above the interests of other countries or of "the world."

For the Constrained, the question of "What is your country?" is not confusing or difficult to answer. For the Unconstrained, the "citizen of the world" concept confuses and makes difficult a question that if answered wrongly, puts their country at risk.

From the "Why haven't we kicked the UN out of the US yet? files:

See: U.N. could tax U.S.-based Web sites, leaked docs show

The United Nations is considering a new Internet tax targeting the largest Web content providers, including Google, Facebook, Apple, and Netflix, that could cripple their ability to reach users in developing nations.

The UN and the rest of the world needs to be reminded that the Internet is ours and they are free to play on it.  This kind of scheme can be dealt with fairly easily. Any country that adopts this tax should be kicked of the net entire and invited to create their own Internet that they may tax and regulate to their hearts content.

If they come to their senses, they can be allowed back on to the US created Internet. Until that time, they can go pound sand.

Bath-salts and the Zombie-Apocalypse

You may have heard about the recent incident where one nekkid guy was eating the face of another nekkid guy. The cops shot the one that was out to lunch.

See: Miami Police Shoot, Kill Man Eating Another Man’s Face

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Miami police are still tight-lipped about the man they shot and killed on the MacArthur Causeway Saturday afternoon, but new details back claims they had no choice: the naked man they shot was trying to chew the face off another naked man, and refused to obey police orders to stop his grisly meal, which one source now claims included his victim’s nose and eyeballs.

See also: Causeway Cannibal Identified; Fears Grow Over Drug Possibly Involved

Emergency room doctors at Jackson Memorial Hospital said they too have seen a major increase in cases linked to the street drug called “bath salts” or what is sometimes referred to on the street as “the new LSD”.

When I first saw the headline at drudge, I thought it meant bath-salts as in, you know, bath-salts. Not some exotic drug.

I figured, "well, that might explain the nekkid."

All the same. Yuck!

Drugs are bad. m'kay?

Pot: I understand that stuff. I don't want to do it. I don't think it is a good idea to smoke a substance that dulls your wit. But, if you want to do it, at least be mindfull that it will make you stink like a skunk with a bad attitude.

Meth and Crystal: This stuff will destroy you. Everyone that I know that has used this crap, and I do mean every one of them, has had their lives destroyed. Who can watch people destroy their lives on that stuff and think that they will be the exception if they use it? Meth and crystal will destroy you. No Exceptions.

Crack and PCP are bad too. Don't do them. Just don't.

And now bath-salts. That stuff makes meth, crystal, crack and PCP all look like girl-scout cookies.

Bath-salts ---> Zombie Apocalypse!

It is like something out of a movie.

Some things out of the movies should stay in the movies.

Zombieland was fun as a movie. As real life, not so much.

Now in the apparently possible event that you find yourself facing a real life bath-salts-Zombie bent on eating your face, remember, there are 32 rules of Zombieland. Memorize them. You may actually need them.

Is government using "obesity" to justify growing fatter?

In a word, Yes.

See: Hinkle: Drop and give Uncle Sam 20

At a "Harvard Thinks Big" confab earlier this year, evolutionary biologist Daniel Lieberman offered his own bright idea for tackling the nation's obesity epidemic. Merely medicating it won't do, he said, and education is well-meaning but ineffective. His answer? "Coercion. … We should start telling corporations what to do." But not just corporations. He also advocated — "to hearty applause," the Harvard Gazette noted — "requiring people to exercise."
Lieberman's idea sounds radical. For now. But in fact, he is (pardon the term) only slightly ahead of the curve. Yale's Kelly Brownell has long advocated taxes on Twinkies, soda and other high-sugar snacks. That idea has gained support from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, along with the mayors of Philadelphia and Baltimore, and state lawmakers in numerous states. The New York Times' Mark Bittman likens foods with added sugar to tobacco, and asks, "How do we regulate the consumption of dangerous foods? … We need the government on our side. It must acknowledge the dangers caused by the most unhealthy aspects of our diet and figure out how to help us cope with them." Bittman's colleague, Frank Bruni, agrees. In a column lamenting America's spreading waistline, he concludes that "we need to rethink and remake our environment much more thoroughly."

It is in the nature of government and government agencies to want to regulate and to control. There is no limit to what a government agency will think it has the right and the duty to control. That is why governments are dangerous and why our founding fathers set up a constitution that specifically limited the powers and scope of our government.

But the constitution itself is not enough. What is even more important than having a constitution that limits the powers and scope of government, is having a people that want to be free.

If the people that make up our nation want a government that controls what they can eat and how much they exercise, then constitutional limitations on the powers and scope of government are reduced to nothing but a string of nice sounding words.

We are sliding into an age where eating a chocolate bar will become a revolutionary act.

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
George Washington

Who wrecked the UK?

A Reuters Headline that caught my eye this morning.

UK has changed for worse under Queen Elizabeth: poll

Sorry folks. You can't blame the demise of the UK on the Royals. You did it yourselves. You voted to have the state give you things for free. Now you are learning that "free stuff" is more often than not, worth exactly what you pay for it.

Socialism sucks. It destroys wealth. It destroys people. It destroys everything but want.

The execrable "give back to the community" guilt-trip.

I really hate the guilt-trip phrase “give-back” the way that it is used here and in the post that it links to.

See: https://twitter.com/#!/SeattlePD/status/189419396429643776

And: http://spdblotter.seattle.gov/2012/04/09/spd-officers-give-back-to-the-community/

The term is loaded with the implication that something was wrongly taken and that the taker has “given back” to make amends for their aggression against those that they have victimized.

People need to call bullshit on this crap.

These police officers did not take something wrongly. They did not victimize "the community" by taking something from it by force or by fraud. Neither they nor any of us should allow ourselves to manipulated by the cult of victim-hood that promotes that damnable “give-back” crap. It demeans all of us when it is used.

Big Labor Hates Amazon

The Unionistas have a new target in their sites.

Check out the timeline of this twitter feed for March of 2012. https://twitter.com/#!/workingwa There is every reason to expect Amazon to feature prominently in the months to come.

Now take a look at a what appeared in the Sunday April 1st Edition of the Seattle Times.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2017883663_amazonmain25.html

Hint to The Seattle Times and labor toadies: Amazon is a retailer, not a charity. They sell stuff to people that are willing to buy. They employee people to make this enterprise work. Everyone wins, except the parasites. People are not forced to work for them. People are not forced to patronize them.

These kinds of attacks on Amazon will likely ramp up this summer.

Hopefully Amazon will have the courage and the will to fight these bastards.

A big fat "Fluke you!" from Obama and Sebelius

From the "Are we having fun yet?" files.

Item #120314a

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has ordered that all enrollees in the health-care exchanges will pay a separate monthly surcharge for abortion coverage.

All means all. Everyone. No exceptions. That means you.

See: Sandra Fluke (Wikepedia)

Vote for Obama and get FREE STUFF!

About that Free Healthcare, . . .

See: BAD WEEK FOR FREEDOM

Only a deceitful government busybody do-gooder would actually argue that forcing insurance companies to cover millions more Americans and cover pre-existing conditions would result in lower costs for the average family. I wonder what will happen in 2014 when 30 million more Americans are guaranteed “free” healthcare under Obamacare. The saddest part of this oncoming train wreck is that millions of willfully ignorant people actually believed the blatant lies and false storyline fed to them by sociopathic politicians who desire to control every aspect of their lives. These people believe they know what is best for you. They believe they are smarter than you. They do not care what means are required to achieve their ends of absolute domination over your life. Personal freedom, individual liberty and a critical thinking populace are the antithesis to the desires of the governing elite.

And about all of that other Free Stuff that you are being promised . . .

See: Can Obama Win Re-Election by Promising Free Stuff

Mr. Obama says he is not waging class warfare against the wealthy in America. He is, of course. His campaign slogan might as well be: ” Vote for Me … I’ll Give You Free Stuff.” This is enticing. Imagine if you pay no federal income taxes and one of the candidates says, “I’ll take money from rich people and give it to you to pay your mortgage – even if you were irresponsible and bought a house you couldn’t afford. Vote for me, I’ll make sure you get unemployment benefits for almost two full years. And, oh yeah, vote for me and I’ll make sure you get birth control pills — free of charge.

The most important, underreported story in America is the one about who we Americans are becoming. As Bill O’Reilly put it: President Obama is “calculating that the American voter has changed into a person who wants free stuff from the government and is willing to sacrifice some freedoms in order to get the free stuff. And you know what? The President might be right.”

Like Bernard Goldberg, I am not convinced that this election is a slam-dunk for the Republicans. I think that when a large enough portion of the voting population is dependent on the government for their material comforts and wants, our mandate to be "a free people" devolves into pleading to be "a people of free stuff."

We are becoming more and more like the serfs of our feudal past.

Charity Versus Robin Hood. Can you force charity at the point of a gun?

See: American Catholicism’s Pact With the Devil

In the process, the leaders of the American Catholic Church fell prey to a conceit that had long before ensnared a great many mainstream Protestants in the United States – the notion that public provision is somehow akin to charity – and so they fostered state paternalism and undermined what they professed to teach: that charity is an individual responsibility and that it is appropriate that the laity join together under the leadership of the Church to alleviate the suffering of the poor. In its place, they helped establish the Machiavellian principle that underpins modern liberalism – the notion that it is our Christian duty to confiscate other people’s money and redistribute it.

At every turn in American politics since that time, you will find the hierarchy assisting the Democratic Party and promoting the growth of the administrative entitlements state. At no point have its members evidenced any concern for sustaining limited government and protecting the rights of individuals. It did not cross the minds of these prelates that the liberty of conscience which they had grown to cherish is part of a larger package – that the paternalistic state, which recognizes no legitimate limits on its power and scope, that they had embraced would someday turn on the Church and seek to dictate whom it chose to teach its doctrines and how, more generally, it would conduct its affairs.

Those that seek to use government to "redistribute the wealth" should keep the following in mind:

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's. -Exodus 20:17

Theft is no less a sin when you use government to take from your neighbour because he has wealth to take.

You can only give as charity that which is yours to give. You cannot put a gun to someone's head and make him give his money to the poor and call it charity.

Democrats are robbing Social Security for a Campaign Gimmick

See: Payroll Tax Cuts Are Worst Way To Boost Growth

We like tax cuts as much as anyone. But the fact is, we're taking money from a pay-as-you-go retirement system that's already running in the red, and replacing that cash with IOUs. We're burdening future generations so we can spend tax cuts now.

When you hear and see the news reports on the payroll tax cut that is working its way through congress, keep in mind what it really cuts. If a Republican had tried to pull this stunt, the MSM, AARP, and all the rest of the assorted welfare state advocacy class would have been up in arms and screaming to the rafters about how it would destroy the Social Security system. Yet, since Obama is a Democrat, they are silent.

Obama's Illegal Appointments And The End Of "Advise and Consent."

Obama's illegal appointments will create havoc with the appointment process. If they are allowed to stand, the President, whoever it happens to be from this day forward, will be able to "declare" congress to be in recess for the purpose of bypassing the constitutional requirements of advise and consent.

See: Manhattan Moment: Expressly illegal 'appointment' violates Obama's oath

The president cannot require Congress to act on his priorities. To the contrary, Congress acts independently of the president as a check and balance to his power.

Obama's view that he may decide when the Senate has gone into recess virtually nullifies the Senate's advice and consent role. Under this rationale, what would stop the president from declaring recesses every weekend so that he can make unilateral appointments?

Precedent is a bitch. If this abomination is not slapped down now, there will be no stopping any future President from using it.

Any-time that the Senate or the House goes quite for short holidays and weekends will become an opportunity for an opportunistic President to make a "Recess Appointment."

So what will voters do about this in November? Will they reward Obama and his enablers in the Democrat Party by returning them to office?

Ultimately it is we the voters that are the last line of defence of the constitution.

It is up to us.

Vote them out.

The next wave of sin taxes.

See: Multnomah County initiative would tax soda pop, other drinks

PORTLAND -- Backers of an initiative to tax pop and others sweetened drinks in Multnomah County say it will put people to work and give kids opportunities to exercise.

The initiative calls for a one cent per fluid ounce tax on most sweetened drinks including pop.

Another example of progresives cleverly inventing new ways to tax the snot out of everyone living and dead.

Expect this tax to come to your local town in the near future. Bad ideas like this have a way of spreading, like lice.

Obama and the politics of "what you can get away with."

See: VERNUCCIO: No time for advice and consent

In a press release, Sen. Michael B. Enzi, Wyoming Republican, ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension (HELP) Committee, stated, “The president has ignored the Senate’s confirmation and vetting process” by appointing Ms. Block and Mr. Griffin.

As Mr. Enzi rightly noted, the president’s submission of the nominations at the last minute made it impossible for the Senate even to begin its vetting process. The process includes a background check to see if the nominees’ taxes are paid, if they are facing any pending civil or criminal investigations and to ensure that they face no conflicts of interest.

For Obama and the Democrats, the constitution is a "flawed document" and means nothing. For them, all politics can be boiled down to "what you can get away with."

Obama and the Democrats think that at this time, they can get away with making "recess appointments" even if the congress is not in recess.

From this point forward, any-time that there are not people on the floor of both the house and senate, yammering away on something, future presidents will be able to declare congress to be in "recess" and appoint their people to office. The day or the hour won't matter. Weekends and holidays will become defacto recesses.

That is, if they are allowed to get away with this.

Obama trashes the Constitution.

Art. I §5 cl.4 of the U.S. Constitution.

"Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting."

From: Obama’s recess appointments are unconstitutional

Yes, some prior recess appointments have been politically unpopular, and a few have even raised legal questions. But never before has a president purported to make a “recess” appointment when the Senate is demonstrably not in recess. That is a constitutional abuse of a high order.

From: Is Obama's appointment of Cordray illegal?

While this type of recess appointment is a common action for presidents, this one is fuelling a lot of argument because the Senate was technically still in session. The GOP senators, fearing Mr. Obama would do this, had been holding pro-forma sessions (pretend sessions where the Senate is called into session but no work is done). Senate Democrats used the same tactic during President Bush's administration.

These "sessions" are held every third day because traditionally Congress has had to be out of session for at least that period of time before a president can make a recess appointment. Cordray's is the first such appointment during a Senate break of fewer than three days since 1949.

From: When Is A Recess Appointment Not Really A Recess Appointment?

But Obama is the first President to make a recess appointment during a pro forma session. And business groups are now threatening legal actions to block the appointment.

Damn the constitution! Full Steam Ahead!

From the illegally appointed Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Standing Up for Consumers

By John Cordray, Reader Supported News

05 January 12

Today, I was appointed by President Obama to serve as the first Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I am honored by this opportunity to continue my work on behalf of consumers. And I am energized by the responsibilities and challenges facing the Bureau.

He is a true believer.

The appointment of John Cordray is illegal on two counts.

1) Obama declared this "a recess" appointment. Congress was not in recess. Obama is entitled to his own opinions, but he is not entitled to his own facts. He can not make this "a recess appointment" by just declaring it so. Congress has to actually be in recess in order for Obama to lawfully make a recess appointment.

2) The Frank-Dodd act, which created this unnecessary office, specifically requires that the appointee be approved by the senate. It is a weird little oddity in the legislation that is most likely due to sloppy legal work on the part of the legislations drafters. But it is there none the less. The Frank-Dodd act does not allow for recess appointment.

More importantly the “recess” appointment of Cordray doesn’t solve the President’s problem. The Dodd-Frank Act is very clear, even a law professor can probably understand this section, that authorities under the Act remain with the Treasury Secretary until the Director is “confirmed by the Senate”. A recess appointment is not a Senate confirmation. Now don’t ask me why Dodd and Frank included such unusual language, they could have just given the Bureau the new authorities, but they didn’t. So even with this appointment, the CFPB won’t be able to go after all those non-banks, like the pay-day lenders and check-cashiers that caused the financial crisis (oh wait, those industries didn’t have anything to do with the crisis).

(Emphasis is mine - Syrah)



See:

Obama’s Constitutional Gamble on Consumer Finance Nomination

Doubling down: Obama follows Cordray recess appointment with three more to NLRB

Obama to Congress: I’ll decide what’s constitutional

Obama Reelection Strategy Seen in Cordray Appointment

Is the Senate in recess? The Constitution says no.

Obama Oversteps His Limits with Cordray Recess Appointment

Cordray's Recess Appointment Sure Doesn't Look Constitutional To Me

#OWS is going to the Rose Parade . . .

And at the front of their little parade in LA . . .

Activist Leading ‘Occupy the Rose Parade’ Is a Convicted Thief, 9-11 Truther, and Former Democratic Assembly Politician

They have "float" for the parade too.

It is made of garbage bags.

Rather appropriate.