While most young folks don’t know who Kenny Rogers is, I’m sure almost everyone who gets to this website has heard this song. The lyrics seem simple enough, but the implications are deep. In life you are dealt a set of cards every so often and you have no choice but to make a decision. You may accept what life gives you, you could reject it, or you could simply run away. If you ask yourself if you’re playing the game right, I hope the answer is yes.
How to be Happy
I am no psychiatrist, but I think I’ve lived long enough to offer some tips on happiness.
1. Adapt Yourself
Few things in this world are immutable, death and taxes are among them. Try to acclimate yourself to wherever you’re living to the best of your ability – your hobbies and passions may or may not be available to you. Enjoy the best your surroundings have to offer – if you’re in Colorado ski, if you’re in Montana give hiking/mining a shot, if you’re in China then don’t miss the opportunity to have the meals of your lifetime.
2. Maintain Your Health
It’s very hard to be happy if you’re sick or in pain, so do whatever is possible to avoid these conditions.
3. Be Yourself
Express yourself, you will be better liked if you be who you are rather what you are expected to be and you will enjoy your life more if you are not living the life of someone else. While #3 may conflict with #1 this hint is not saying that if you are a skiing in Jamaica then make sure to continue skiing, it is more geared towards personality attributes and communication styles.
Gun Control Activists Continue To Ignore Reality
All gun tragedies are horrible, however the recent drive by Sandy Hook relatives to expand background checks is misguided to say the least. The shooter in Sandy Hook did not buy a gun without a background check, he borrowed his mothers who was completely within her rights to purchase guns. Tragedies, such as the Boston marathon bombing, are horrible when they happen but unless a police state is set up to watch everyone all the time they will happen. Are we going to ban all fireworks, fertilizers, sugar, pressure cookers, heavy objects, and cars from citizens? Will licenses need to be issued for each of these items?
Instead what is going on is a push towards a global UN managed registry of gun owners and a very crucial step towards the eradication of the 2nd Amendment. Not allowing citizens to own guns or any weapon for that matter means each family will be helpless to defend themselves against criminals and criminals will know that – a pack of five men would be pretty confident they could ransack a place knowing that lawful families will not have guns in their house – be it an 8 gauge shotgun or AR-15. What else will be confiscated after guns, well probably gold and silver.
I’d like to think that our world is peaceful and everyone gets along – however this is false. Most people will fight each other when they feel their survival is at stake, many will fight for resources to come out on top, others will fight for the front of the line if no checks are put in place, and yet others will fight just because they feel like it. My point is that most folks know what the law is and what the consequences are for breaking the law, given the someone lax system we have in place some will risk breaking the law knowing the punishment combined with the risk is less than the reward and will then break the law. If lawful folks have the capacity to maintain the law in their own jurisdiction (their home) then folks will think twice about testing the punitive system of any given home.
The most important reason that Americans should own guns is that we have fought too long and hard against tyranny to let our freedom of self defense to be undermined by a tragedy.
Cyprus Bank Levies May Trigger European Crisis
Recently EU finance ministers forced Cyprus’s governments hand with the choice of implementing inconceivable bank levies as a condition of receiving a 10 billion euro ($13 billion dollar) bailout or face national bankruptcy. The levies as planned will withdraw 6.75% of account balances under 100,000 euros and 9.9% on balances on or above that amount. To put that in perspective someone with $5000 in their bank account would lose $337.50 and someone with $200,000 in their account would lose $19,800.
This is a very real example of how governments may choose with their debt crisis, although one of the more extreme methods. Less hurtful tactics include eliminating deficit spending, increasing economic activity (which will increase tax revenue), or simply increasing taxes or creating new ones.
The photos of folks at ATMs not being able to withdraw their cash will definitely cause some panic in Europe if not around the world. I’m interested in seeing how this plays out in the next few months.
Sim City 2013 – Worst PC Game Release Ever
Sim City 2013 was hyped up for months before it’s recent release, but here it is two days after the release and most people can still not connect to a server to play a game they paid 60 – 80 bucks for. Not to mention they will be kicked out of the game if their servers go down while they are in the middle of building their city, and this game requires that EA games maintain their servers in order to play the game in the future – something they are not obligated to do in the future and will certainly mean this game will be useless as is 10 years from now. I am astonished EA games allowed such an utter piece of garbage to the market in the state it is in, either they have no idea how to stress test servers or they purposefully released a useless product hoping to make the quick buck. I’ve never taken the time to comment on a poor video game or video game publisher before but this is it – I will never buy an EA games product again.
Sim City Unable to Create your City at this Time
**Update** Now I am unable to play the game as it is always showing ‘Checking For Updates’
*Update* I was able to create a city after quitting and rejoining a different server
Tonight I hopped onto my computer to open and play a game I just downloaded during the day after pre-ordering yesterday for $60, the first message I see when trying to create a city – “unable to create your city at this time, please claim a city again”. This is outrageous, and to think it comes from the masterminds of such games as “Sim City 2000″ and “Sim Farm”. Hopefully this gets resolved soon otherwise EA Games and especially Maxis will need to consider their funeral arrangement (in other words which company they should sell their pitiful entities to).
Side note, the ‘Time Played’ info on Origin for Sim City says 11 hours, even though I just installed it and haven’t played 5 minutes yet.
Feds Buy Tons of Ammo
Recently I was surprised to find out that I was not able to find the smallest bullet around, the 22 LR, at the local Walmart. Turns out supplies are gone due to a huge government order for ammo specifically clearing the shelves of 22 LR and .223 (used in the AR-15).
While the Obama administration will not be able to immediately change gun laws, it seems that it is taking action through its huge government purchases of ammo which effectively keep regular folks from getting any. If you ask around, you will encounter the same situation around the country (comment below with your experience).
The Fed purchases include not only FMJ (full metal jacket) rounds but also hollow point rounds, which are forbidden for use in war based on the Hague Convention Declaration III, which also set chemical weapons use as an illegal tool of warfare.
Resources:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/02/17/Feds-Buy-2-Billion-Rounds-Of-Ammunition
http://www.wnd.com/2013/02/feds-buying-enough-bullets-for-24-year-war/
LAPD Opens Barrage of Fire On Two Females in Truck
Two females, a 47 year old and her 71 year old mother, were wounded in a hail of gunfire today as LAPD officers mistook the truck for that of Chris Dorner. Dorner recently killed three people and released a manifesto declaring that he was at war with the LAPD for perceived wrongs that resulted in his being fired years ago.
It is important that the general public remains safe as this man is being hunted, it is unacceptable that innocents be caught in the crossfire especially when Dorner is nowhere in the vicinity.
Women Cleared to Fight on the Front Line
As a parting gesture, Leon Panetta cleared women for active combat roles effective immediately. While women play a vital role in keeping our military top-notch through their service, I think that sending them out on the front-lines is a bad idea as women have biological limitations and will prove a distraction to their male peers. Menstrual cycles alone will make sitting in the trenches for weeks a hazard. In terms of hand to hand combat, women will be at a disadvantage to a male counterpart in most situations. Lastly, it will be hard for men not to act in protection mode for their female peers instead of focus on mission objectives when situations arise and may be distracted due to physical attraction to their female peers. Time will tell if this was a good or bad idea, and I believe the latter is more accurate.
Today Obama said
“Today, every American can be proud that our military will grow even stronger with our mothers, wives, sisters and daughters playing a greater role in protecting this country we love.”
I have to disagree with the notion that putting our mothers, wives, and sisters in harms way is a good idea. It pains me to think that more women will die and possibly be taken captive by the enemy because our President and his secretary of defense are trying to liberalize the country to the point of harm.
Obama Defies Founding Fathers and Attacks the 2nd Amendment
Obama showed his true colors today by releasing plans that he had harbored until his re-election to effectively bash the second amendment and the intent the founding fathers had when they drafted it – to protect themselves from an unjust government. Today he proposed 23 executive actions that he would take against gun owners that did not require congressional approval, effectively smearing the Constitution with rubbish as socialist America becomes one step closer to reality. He also proposed new legislative proposals which included global background checks, limiting magazines to 10 rounds, and banning weapons that look like assault rifles.
Piece by piece, Americans are letting the government erode the freedoms that were won with blood and sweat of patriots. America is slowly becoming a restrictive police state where most people work for the government and whose jobs are to spy on their neighbor. People need to take a stand against this repression and realize that taking away our freedoms is ultimately going to be our undoing as a civilization built on the idea of liberty and justice.
The lawful are being punished for the actions of the unlawful, which is simply not right. Write to your representatives and show them your disgust with what is happening in the executive branch. Protect your family, and protect your freedoms. Look up operation ‘Fast and Furious’ online and find out how Obama has cost American lives in the past in an attempt to find an excuse to ban military style weapons in the United States. Search Google for what happened in the UK and Australia after guns were confiscated and destroyed, and ask yourself if you want the same to happen around the US.
Criminals around the country will immediately realize that all they have to do is to do home raids in packs of two or three and they will know for sure they can defeat a single law abiding citizen with the capacity of only 10 bullets, since even cops miss 2/3 of their shots! Stories of homeowners surviving attacks by multiple intruders will no longer be happening once assult rifles are banned, and people will be at the mercy of the police which take 8 minutes to respond to priority 1 calls even in our capital!
Percent distribution of incidents where police came to the victim, by police response time and type of crime. source: U.S. Dept of Justice, 2008. (most recent data available.)
|
Response Time
|
Within 5 min
|
6-10 min
|
11 min to 1 hour
|
Within 1 day
|
Longer than 1 day
|
Length of time unknown
|
Not ascertained
|
|
Violent Crime *
|
28.3%
|
30.3%
|
33.5%
|
2.5%
|
0.4%
|
5.0%
|
0.0%
|
|
Robbery
|
32.3%
|
38.8%
|
28.3%
|
0.0%
|
0.0%
|
0.6%
|
0.0%
|
|
Aggravated assault
|
20.9%
|
32.6%
|
36.4%
|
4.8%
|
0.0%
|
5.4%
|
0.0%
|
|
Simple assault
|
31.4%
|
28.0%
|
31.8%
|
2.4%
|
0.1%
|
6.2%
|
0.0%
|
|
Property crimes
|
12.8%
|
20.2%
|
47.8%
|
12.6%
|
1.9%
|
4.7%
|
0.0%
|
|
Household burglary
|
13.6%
|
21.8%
|
46.9%
|
12.6%
|
1.9%
|
3.3%
|
0.0%
|
|
Motor vehicle theft
|
12.5%
|
22.2%
|
49.1%
|
11.5%
|
1.3%
|
3.3%
|
0.0%
|
|
Theft
|
12.5%
|
18.9%
|
48.0%
|
12.7%
|
2.0%
|
5.9%
|
0.1%
|
* Includes data on rape and sexual assault.
If someone is attack you in your house, you need to be ready the minute of, and not put your family at the mercy of an unknown intruder for up to an hour.
On The Issue of Gun Rights
What If Americans Didn’t Have Modern Weapons During The Revolutionary War? Would We Be Free?
The Obama administration and a few prominent liberal politicians such as Michael Bloomberg have taken advantage of a recent shooting to pounce on the second amendment. While the indiscriminate killing of innocents by a deranged individual is certainly something horrible and wrong, the piece by piece sacrifice Americans make unwittingly through incessant bombardment by a liberal media and White House administration is also deplorable. The confiscation of legally purchased weapons in America is unthinkable from a constitutional perspective and could be a precursor to the loss of additional freedoms we take for granted today. It’s shameful that foreign nationals are pulling the strings in getting the best country on Earth to bend and contort into a truly socialist society where individuals have no say whatsoever, are monitored their entire lives, and are restricted on where they go and what they own.
Every law abiding citizen should have the right to have a weapon that can adequately defend them, reducing the magazine capacity limit will only get adequate defense weapons out of the hands of law abiding citizens and effectively nullify the purpose for the second amendment – which was to keep the power to defend liberty against both foreign and domestic in the hands of Americans. Rupert Murdoch, the owner of FOX News, has attacked the second amendment and shown his true ignorance in calling for a ban on automatic weapons. This is the same Murdoch who runs NewsCorp, a company that has gotten into trouble for wiretapping victims of tragedy and bribing officials throughout the UK.
If you don’t know already, none of the weapons used in any shooting as of late was done by an automatic weapon. Michael Bloomberg also took advantage of a tragedy to get his fingers into forcing more regulations and restrictions on Americans – the same Bloomberg who got a approval to impose a ban on restaurants from serving large containers of soda!
I’m not saying drinking a lot of soda is a good thing and I’m not telling everyone to buy as many assault rifles they can, I’m saying that chipping away at our liberty piece by piece will eventually result in us having no liberty at all. In the words of Benjamin Franklin,
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety”
I agree with this statement, and hope our country remains free.
Bakers Union Kills Hostess
Today I bought two boxes of Twinkies and one box of cup cakes. I shared one box with my co-workers and kept the other for myself. Today we witnessed a company that was formed in 1930 go into dissolution because the 3,000 member bakers union decided to play a game of chicken with a fledgling company, nailing its coffin and closing a household brand and eliminating almost 19,000 more American jobs.