Look Out

CNBC just now reported that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will meet this evening with leadership of both houses of congress "on possible solutions" to the financials crisis.

What could possibly be worse?

The Dow took a twelve-hundred point loop to end up over four hundred points in the green today, and nobody knows what's going to happen next. Everybody's guessing on who's going to be thrown a life preserver, and now a mob of pirates is headed for the bridge with drawn cutlasses.

No Discussion

"We want to take money..."

At this point in American history and knowing what we know of this idea and what it's wrought in objective fact -- nevermind all the theory that's never really popular in dealing with this and projecting what it actually means in reality before we get to that reality -- every thinking person would take Joe Biden at his words and rack a round into their battle rifle.

No compromise, no discussion.

That's exactly how summarily this should be dismissed. That man just told you exactly what he's about, and he should be taken just that seriously.

Cannibals At The Pot

"After a series of government interventions in the private markets, one seemingly more astonishing than the next, lawmakers found themselves confronted on Wednesday with the question of when and where to draw the line on future aid."

The New York Times

"Draw the line": that's a metaphor. Do you understand that it refers to principles? Specifically: it refers to why, how, and when to apply them.

This is why these people are now confused. Having never operated under any rational principles having to do with property and its disposal, they now have to decide who gets what out of the cannibal-pot in which they boil you -- annually -- for the grease.

And precisely because there are no rational principles underpinning any of this, you will never know what they will do to you next. Try to understand: you're living in an ethical mob-scene; a riot in which there is no sense to the destruction of values, and you can never tell when the next animal will come around the corner, club in hand, to beat your brains out and throw you to the maelstrom.

This is what America has come to, and don't ever count on them for the decency to stop calling it a free country. The truth is not in them, and you should take life and death account of that fact.

Now Hear This

Know your enemies:

That is all.

"An Enduring Mission"

They're here, kids:

"The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.

Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.

Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.

It is not the first time an active-duty unit has been tapped to help at home. In August 2005, for example, when Hurricane Katrina unleashed hell in Mississippi and Louisiana, several active-duty units were pulled from various posts and mobilized to those areas.

But this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities."

(Army Times)

The link comes from the Western Rifle Shooters Association. Get this comment from a former brigade S1 (Personnel) officer:

"Here's what's interesting to me:

(1) The mission was assigned to an active BCT, not a guard BCT. This is an unprecedented assignment of an active brigade to missions relegated to US soil. 'Civil service' missions have been the historic mission of the national guards, so why the unexplained change? In fact, most are probably unaware that all guards have two simultaneous missions, civil support missions in answer to their states and simultaneous assignments in support of an active duty unit under the Pentagon's force structure. For example, when I was in the Arkansas 39th Brigade, we were assigned to the 24th Infantry Division in Georgia. When I was assigned to Oklahoma's 45th Brigade, we were assigned to the 7th Infantry Division in Colorado.

(2) For the Pentagon to assign this mission to an active unit as opposed to a guard unit, it indicates a heightened level of priority to the mission. In the last 4 years, the Army has struggled meeting the high tempo requirements of rotating units to assignments in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have struggled with keeping units in readiness and filling the rotational requirements. In fact, the tempo has been so high the active component has supplemented their needs with guard units since the war began. So, taking an active BCT out of that two war rotation is significant."