Random Thoughts

The weekend seems to be a good time to put down all the things that have occurred to me during the week. Here goes.

The general population of the United States is a bunch of idiots led around by a news media that is generally full of idiots. Case in point: Look at what is happening to Rand Paul, candidate for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Jim Bunning. Rachel Madcow somehow got Dr. Paul on to the subject of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. When Dr. Paul answered the question, he stated that he did not support discrimination, that he believed individuals and individual businesses had the right to determine who they would serve without government intervention, and that the Civil Rights Act should have been properly directed more at the government. I agree with his answer, and that answer is not racist or discriminatory in any way. Like most Libertarians, Dr. Paul believes that individuals should be free to make choices without intervention of the government so long as no one gets hurt. If a business chooses to exclude persons of a particular race, bigots and apathetic persons are free to patronize the business while fair-minded people would likely shop elsewhere. Bigots should be free to discuss their views in public, and others should be free to know who the bigots are and to shun them. I have seen the effects of this in North Idaho, which is rumored to be full of white supremacists (rumored, but not true except in the minds of idiots like Morris Dees and Mark Potok). The Aryan Nations people spouted their crap, but their numbers were small and virtually nobody was flocking to their compound. Due to extremely poor judgment on the part of previous Supreme Court justices, Dr. Paul is a public figure and has little recourse in the way of suing for defamation of character against the raving-mad, insane, racist, retarded moonbat asshats in the left-wing media and the drooling, special-education institution escapees driven to protest against Dr. Paul by the biased media zealots.

I have been noticing that the Department of Defense keeps coming up with new and interesting weapons. New rifles that shoot caseless ammunition, energy weapons, tiny air-burst grenades fired from a rifle attachment. The military technology keeps getting more and more advanced, while the civilian weapon technology seems to have hit the ceiling with semi-auto rifles and mid-20th century cartridge technology. The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constititution gives all citizens the right to keep and bear arms. It does not say that I am limited to one particular class of arms (It also does not say that any citizen would lose such a right upon conviction of a felony, think about that.). If the founding fathers had intended that Americans be limited to a single shot rifle, or arms inferior to the army, they would have said so. The dictionary definition of an arm, besides a body part, is of a weapon, a munition, an implement of war. Although I have no desire to own a ray gun, I have the right to own it under the Second Amendment. We need to start thinking outside of the "establishment box" on this Second Amendment issue, or soon we will find ourselves cowed by the overwhelming might of the government's arms while we are reduced to hiding with our peashooters.

Our incompentent government will undoubtedly crucify British Petroleum for the continuing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Undoubtedly BP deserves blame, but the Carter II Administration seems to be going overboard with its threats against BP, especially considering that BP is doing most of the heavy lifting with regard to the cleanup (whether by doing it or paying for it). B. Hussein Soetoro should be focused on the cleanup, then truly investigate once the cleanup is done, then propose ways the government itself can be less incompetent in the future. What will actually happen is a witch-hunt against BP and other energy producers, with the result being extreme limitations on offshore drilling. Given the potential for damage to the environment, limitations on offshore drilling would not be a bad idea if we had economical means to replace the energy that comes from offshore oil wells. Since we don't, get ready for higher energy costs and another hit to a struggling economy.

What will the Carter II Administration and South Korea do about North Korea's sinking of a South Korean navy ship in March? Nothing. The Norks are a proxy of the Chinese. It was only a ship that sank. It was only 46 sailors who died. Move on, please. B. Hussein already has moved on to begging the Chicoms for fair trade.

I can't resist a bit of commentary about the coming collapse and gold. Gold is down a bit this last week. So is the stock market. But only a bit. There are some opposing forces at work with both gold and stocks, from my point of view. Investors, as always, are seeking a way to profit. If profits seem elusive, they look for a store of value. Gold appears to be down because investors are seeing opportunities to profit from the market jitters in Europe and the U.S. The gold market has cooled a bit as investors see opportunities in the markets. Even though you can't eat gold, I believe it will shortly return to $1,200.00 an ounce and start going higher once the profiteers have finished exploiting the ups and downs of the jittery, but largely not improving, markets.

I do have another suspicion related to the slight drop-off in the price of gold amid reports that the Germans and other Europeans are exhausting physical gold reserves in Europe. Could it be that the paper gold market has become so obviously manipulated that trades in actual gold are occurring off market? Someone with more brains and connections than I have should investigate this.

Funniest moment of the week was when Nouriel Roubini told Bill Maher that people should buy Spam, not gold. Roubini explained that Spam has a more practical store of value long-term: You can eat it.

Speaking of market jitters, I would appreciate it if the idiots in the media would quit referring to every thirty point fall in the Dow as a "sharp decline" and a thirty point rise as a "rally". If the government wants to waste time investigating market manipulation, let's find out how much the markets have been affected by this media hyperbole. Is it the financial equivalent of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater when the mass media trumpet a Dow downward move of 50 points as being a precipitous fall?

List of threats I am watching: Iran/Syria/Turkey/Lebanon/Hezbollah/Hamas/Israel, North Korea, Venezuela/Brazil, Russian Empire Expansion, Pakistan/India, Energy Dependence/BP spill, Creeping Marxism/Economic Collapse, Fascist Leftists/Deprivation of Rights, Food Shortages, Kalifornia, Rahm Emmanuel.

Enough for today. Got to get some more Spam.