Mr Quarter on THE NATIONAL DEBT

That feeling of disquiet and unease just seems to keep growing and I couldn't quite put my finger on it until today. Matt Patterson of Pajamas Media put words to my fears in his article today which I partially reproduce below:

"In this era of hyper-partisanship, it is comforting to know that there is one thing both parties have agreed upon — spending the nation into insolvency.

It is clear that $14 trillion is an amount is so astronomical as to be literally incomprehensible — beyond the ken of our formidable, if recently evolved, homo sapiens mind.

Unfortunately, that does not stop us from racking up such sums. Doubtless, the two phenomena are somehow related.

So deduct another $45,300 from your salary. That is what the national debt amounts to for every man, woman, and child in America. For a family of four with two small children and both parents working, that’s an additional $181,200 in family debt.

Few such families reckon this additional burden when they allocate their already-stretched resources. Yet reckon it they should, for national governments — despite our legal fictions to the contrary — are not autonomous entities. The money they spend and promise has in the end but one fount — the wallets and purses of individuals and families.

The government’s debt is our debt, and when our creditors at last demand their due, that heretofore unseen $45,300 per person in debt will suddenly surge to the surface and sweep all before it in a terrible deluge. Not one person in America will be unaffected. The rich will become less rich; the middle class will become, for all intents and purposes, poor; and the poor will see any hope they may have had of economic advancement disappear.

The deluge will come as a surprise to many. After all, cheap money and unlimited credit has given us the illusion of prosperity for all too long.

But ours is an inexcusable ignorance. For decades, the government has been spending our wealth — first everything we made, then everything we ever going to make, and now everything our children and their children will ever make. How future generations will judge us for the theft of their prosperity is not hard to guess.

America is not alone in this fiscally debased condition, of course. The rot is deep and widespread; it is civilizational. The entitlement promises made by national and local governments of the West are so vast that they can never be kept. When people finally and fully realize this, the capitals of the world will shake with the rage of masses which have come to expect everything, and will accept nothing less.

Indeed, it is already happening. The recent unrest in Greece, France, Britain, and elsewhere adumbrate our future rather nicely.

The reckoning is coming. It will be swift, and it will be terrible, and we will have only ourselves to blame."

The end is nigh.

The Deuce and Cops

In the wake of the mass murder in Tucson I was struck by the repeated comments made by Pima County (Tucson) Sheriff Clarence Dupnik (D). Before the shooting I don't recall ever having heard of Sheriff Dupnik, despite the fact that I was living in Tucson from 1977 to 1982 ( Dupnik first became Sheriff in 1980 ). Since the shooting we've all heard way too much from him. Listening to his rants regarding 'violent rhetoric' inciting crazed gunmen to go nuts and slaughter innocent people got me to thinking of good cops and bad cops. My first thought was that southern Arizona used to have lawmen like the Earps (R), the famous brothers who helped tame Tombstone, 'the town too tough to die', in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. The trail from Earp to Dupnik is long, and unfortunately, depressing.

Sheriff Dupnik's comments are egregiously political ( Sheriff being an elected office in Pima County, like most other jurisdictions ) and have little to do with law enforcement. Dupnik is political to the point he refused to enforce the recently passed Arizona law regarding illegal immigrants. Nice that a law enforcement officer refuses to enforce the law because he thinks it's 'racist and bigoted', despite the fact that a majority of Arizona residents think it's perfectly fine.

But to my main thought. Who are the 'Best Cops.'

It's late on a Saturday night. You've been over at a friend's house watching the NFL playoffs with several friends. You've had a bit to drink over several hours and are borderline legally too drunk to be driving. You're a middle-aged man with no criminal record, or at worst one or two misdemeanor arrests 25 years ago when you were young and stupid. Now you're driving home. You're driving fine, but you're left tail light is out and you don't know it...but the cops do. They pull you over. Your license, registration and proof of insurance are all up to date and in order. You obey all the officer's commands and are courteous. The cop runs your license and plates and finds that you nor your vehicle are wanted, and that your driving record is clean over the last five years. Now, what kind of cop is he? Good or bad? Are you going home to bed, or are you going to jail?

Who are the cops you want to be dealing with? Cops with judgment; cops not looking to advance their careers by meeting arrest quotas or to jam you up just 'cause they're in a bad mood; cops with an ingrained understanding of human nature who know that good guys occasionally deserve a break and bad guys never deserve a break. In other words, cops who are looking for the seriously dangerous...the bad actors who kill, rob and rape...the guys who burglarize your home or entice little girls into their vans; guys with four previous DUIs; cops who don't want to waste everybody's time dealing with that which they can truly let slide with no danger to the general public.

By that criteria, here are my Best Cops. Note: Seriously dirty cops are disqualified, i.e. Training Day, The Shield, etc ( punching out lowlifes who 'resist arrest', sleeping with the occasional hooker or placing a bet on the big game are okay ). Overt parodies and/or comedies are also disqualified, i.e. Police Academy, Naked Gun. Western lawmen will be a separate poll.

1. Andy Sipowitz ( Dennis Franz, NYPD Blue ). Broken more laws than your average felon.
2. Jim Malone ( Sean Connery, The Untouchables ). No blood, no foul.
3. Axel Foley ( Eddie Murphy, Beverly Hills Cop ). Car thief before becoming a cop.
4. John McLain ( Bruce Willis, Die Hard, et al ). NYPD, no time for small fry.
5. Harry Calahan ( Clint Eastwood, Dirty Harry, et al). Robbery/Homocide, would never pull over any car for a tail light out.
6. Martin Riggs ( Mel Gibson, Lethal Weapon, et al ). Don't try and sell him drugs and you're cool.
7. Jack Cates ( Nick Nolte, 48 Hours, et al ). Too lazy to deal with your misdemeanor ass.
8. 'Popeye' Doyle ( Gene Hackman, The French Connection ). Driving 100 mph in the city "might" get his attention.
9. Frank Bullitt ( Steve McQueen, Bullitt ). Too cool to mess with your misdemeanor ass.
10. Mike Lowery ( Will Smith, Bad Boys, et al ). Too busy being entertained by his partner to mess with you.

Here are the Worst Cops.

1. Joe Friday ( Jack Webb, Dragnet ). Wouldn't cut God a break.
2. Robocop ( Peter Weller, Robocop ). Can't cut God a break.
3. Nicholas Angel ( Simon Pegg, Hot Fuzz ). God maybe, but Jesus gets busted.
4. Bud White ( Russell Crowe, L.A. Confidential ). Every arrest advances his career.
5. Freddy Heflin ( Sylvester Stallone, Copland ). The law is the law.
6. Frank Serpico ( Al Pacino, Serpico ). He'd like to cut you a break, but Internal Affairs is all over him.
7. Sam Gerrard ( Tommy Lee Jones, The Fugitive ). As he so famously said, "I don't care!"
8. Steve McGarret ( Jack Lord, Hawaii Five-O ). "Book 'em Danno" is just too easy.
9. Rick Deckard ( Harrison Ford, Blade Runner ). "The computer says you're busted...nothing I can do."
10. Vincent Hanna ( Al Pacino, Heat ). "You're busted just for wasting my time."

Here's to good cops. I've actually known a few. God bless 'em.

The Deuce Ponders Some More

According to the U.S. State Department I am no longer a man. I'm not even male ( man and male not necessarily being synonyms ). I've never been so insulted! The Lizard Queen's minions have determined that I am instead Parent One.

Yes, the word 'father' is no longer adequate or appropriate to describe the biological relationship between me and my children. And that is the point. In the Brave New World, you don't have to contribute any DNA and actually produce offspring to be called father or mother. All you have to do is team up with someone of the same sex, conjure up an infant human being by the most expedient means available to you, be it adoption or surrogacy or turkey baster, then go to the nearest federal courthouse and point to your gay or lesbian partner and say, "That's Parent Two, I'm Parent One! Don't ask any embarrassing questions, just give me the passport you fascist bigot!"

If I'm Parent One, what is the new designation of my children? Does my daughter become 'Biological entity One-A, forced by nature to share 50% of Parent One's DNA, but struggling mightily to free itself of Parent One's patriarchal slavery?'

I can't wait to get a Parent One card on Parent One's Day.


The war between boys and female PC "educators" continues. A 13 year old future patriarchal enslaver was arrested and taken to juvie for brandishing an illegal writing utensil in the classroom of an oppressed victim of blubberism. If you can go to jail for wielding a Sharpie in school, why can't WikiLeak's Julian Assange go to jail for publishing thousands of classified documents injurious to U.S. foreign policy? Use a computer, you're a beacon of free speech helping to punish the evil imperialism of America. Use a Sharpie and you're just a punk.


Speaking of a total lack of judgment, best be careful what you say when you're talking about The Glorious Leader. UFC fighter Jacob Volkmann said after his latest victory that he'd like to fight Barack Obama next. Clearly the comment was rhetorical as The Glorious Leader would never have the balls to step into the Octagon against Ann Coulter much less another man, but that didn't stop some oppressed security mom from reporting the comment to big brother necessitating action on the part of the Secret Service.

Volkman said, “The thing is, I got home and I checked my e-mail and I had about 20 e-mails and one of them, one of ladies had actually contacted the FBI and the Secret Service, and she was telling me that she was going to do it.”

I wonder if it was the Sharpie teacher who dropped the dime?


But hey! The weaker sex just keeps on rollin'. Did you know that just one whiff of cigarette smoke mutates your DNA and dooms you to a slow, agonizing death by cancer...or conversely a sudden agonizing death by heart attack? Well, Surgeon General Regina Benjamin knows it and she wants all of us to rush to our local grief counselors to stave off our likely suicides before heading to Walgreen's and getting our Prozac prescription renewed for life.

Professor Michael Siegel of Boston University's School of Public Health, who is not linked to the industry ( tobacco ) said;

"It is simply untrue to assert that brief exposure to secondhand smoke can cause such results," he said. "If there is no safe level of exposure to any carcinogen, that would include exposure to automobile exhaust, the sun's rays, benzene, radon in homes, arsenic in drinking water and many other everyday items."

Clearly smoking is the number one health hazard on the planet for everyone and all smokers should just be shot on sight. The claims the Surgeon General makes are not even attributed to Plutonium, the most toxic substance on Earth.

All four of these stories have women at the center of them. There are many similar stories every day in the popular press, and God knows how many instances of similar events that go unreported. Just for a fleeting moment I get the idea that the 19th Amendment was not such a hot idea.