10:19 – The morning paper reports a murder in Winston-Salem, our second of the year. I find it interesting how the newspaper code words have changed. Forty years ago, the paper would probably have reported that the murder took place in a “white neighborhood”. Twenty years ago, it would probably have reported it as a “middle-class neighborhood”. Now, they report it as a “quiet neighborhood”. However they word it, this is a pretty unusual murder. The vast majority of murders, in Winston-Salem and elsewhere, occur in poor areas.
I now have everything I need to build three dozen more chemistry kits. It’s just a matter of boxing them up. Rather than do that today, however, I’m going to spend some time checking inventory and placing purchase orders for more components. I have to balance keeping sufficient supplies on hand with storage space.
For example, the chemistry kits include a 9V battery and a purple Sharpie. We’re down to zero 9V batteries and half a dozen purple Sharpies in stock. I used to order both of those five dozen at a time, but I’ve just cut purchase orders for twenty-five dozen of each. That should be enough to carry us through our busy period next autumn. Same thing for 24-well and 96-well reaction plates. We’re down to 75 and 61 of those, respectively. The time before last, I ordered 100 of each of those. The last time I ordered 250 each. This time, I’ll probably order 500 each. If it weren’t for storage space, I’d probably order twice that number, but even 1,000 reaction plates require a non-trivial amount of storage space.
16:07 – The news headlines say that SoD Hagel plans to cut the headcount of the US Army back to “pre-WWII” levels. Not even close. Before WWII, the US Army had about 180,000 people, and that counted the Army Air Corps. Hagel proposes to cut the Army to about 440,000 to 450,000, about 2.5 times the actual pre-WWII headcount, and roughly four to five times what it really should be. I propose that he cut our total military forces to 220,000. Call it 100,000 each for the Army and Navy, and 20,000 Marines. The Air Force should be eliminated as a separate force, with air/space arms of the two major services taking over those duties.
Hagel also proposes to eliminate the A-10’s, which are one of the few warplanes worth having, but to keep all of our fleet carriers. All of the carriers should be eliminated as one of the key steps in rendering US military forces (read “the US government”) incapable of interfering overseas. Eliminate the subs, both hunter/killers and boomers. Close all overseas military bases and bring all of our troops home. Close most of the domestic bases as well. They’re not needed. Transfer the tanks and APCs and warplanes to the state militia organizations. Bring back the DCM, and give an assault rifle and 1,000 rounds to any US adult citizen who wants one, no questions asked, no strings attached, and no records kept.
Withdraw from the UN and all other entangling alliances. Let the rest of the world do what it wants. We don’t need them. We are self-sufficient. If they want to trade with us, fine. But don’t expect us to clean up other people’s messes, and don’t expect us to continue giving away trillions of taxpayer dollars in “foreign aid”.
Patch up our relationships with Canada, Australia and our other traditional friends. We have treated our real friends badly, particularly Canada. We owe them a sincere apology and our best efforts to fix what we’ve broken.
OFD agrees nearly 100% with Bob’s Plan; I’d keep the Trident and Sea Wolf subs as a perimeter defense only, no traveling around the planet. Arctic Ocean and both coasts.
Among the armed forces I’d develop a much tighter and disciplined spec ops group for rapid deployment to any genuine threat to us here in North America. And I’d ratchet up our defensive cyberwar capabilities and develop much better security for our strategic national infrastructure and food distribution networks. But those responsibilities should be handled by the regional and state military forces.
Agreed also on our staunch longtime allies and friends among the former British Commonwealth of Nations and a big middle finger to Israel with a smaller one to the UK itself, mainly its government.
“Patch up our relationships with Canada, Australia and our other traditional friends. We have treated our real friends badly, particularly Canada. We owe them a sincere apology and our best efforts to fix what we’ve broken.”
Brings a tear to my eye, that does.
I got a little weepy myself here…
Well, it’s true, except for the “we” part. I had nothing to do with it.
I really noticed things starting to go downhill with NAFTA in 1994. It made sense for the US and Canada to have a free trade pact and open borders, but certainly not for either of use to invite a third-world country like Mexico to join that pact. Then things really started to go bad after 9/11, when the US government basically made it clear that it considered Canada untrustworthy, despite Canadian actions on and immediately after 9/11.
I understood the fears of many Canadians that completely free trade and open borders between our countries would end up smothering Canada’s national identity. And I see that happening now, but without the free trade and open borders. Canadian cops used to be what cops should be. Now they’re turning into clones of our militarized police. Speaking of which, I’m trying to imagine Canada before this all started producing a TV series like Flashpoint, which glorifies the whole militarized cop thing.
Agreed again, across the board.
We’re now working with the Canadians in having our cops doing stuff on their side of the border and theirs down here. I have some additional info/intel on Border Patrol ops which I’ll put up here if anyone’s interested; pretty extensive in this sector, which covers 300 miles, much of that over water. Some of the info concerns the Mohawk territory in upstate NY, where there are seven roads crossing the border under tribal jurisdiction, no Feds allowed, evidently, and major smuggling ops going on there. I imagine, though, the Feds keep an eye on everything increasingly with the drones.
Local farmers on the border have described how it was right after 9/11; sorta like the Berlin Wall during the postwar period; cops and military all over the place with machine guns and choppers. We’re talking flat square miles of dairy farms and fields and woods.
Here is some of it:
“Rainville said that when they first moved to Borderview Farm, a dead body was found in their field after several people from China were smuggled across the line and left to freeze in Vermont.
“We’ve had people from Spain bang on our door early in the morning looking for coffee because they were frozen,” Rainville said. After giving them some coffee in the barn and turning them over to border patrol, Rainville learned those people had been left off by smugglers at the wrong border crossing.
“We’re always looking,” Rainville said. He added that they often look at their own or others’ activity and ask, does this look unusual?
Security Rainville and his wife look for suspicious activity because they know border patrol and homeland security are also doing the same thing. Rainville estimated that both drive past Borderview Farm between 20 and 30 times a day, and he said that a helicopter regularly flies overhead as well. “You get used to it,” he said.
In addition to the vehicles, ground-bound and airborne, security cameras run out of Swanton’s border patrol station are everywhere in the area. “They zoom around and aim down and point at you,” Rainville said. “They don’t infringe on your privacy at all,” he added. “We feel very safe.
We have 24-hour security.”
Though everyday operations aren’t too problematic, Rainville said that in the aftermath of 9/11, heightened security made his and his wife’s unique living situation more obvious than usual. “It was kind of eerie then,” Rainville said. “You knew you were living on the border, and things were different right off. It was chaos. It was organized, but it was chaos.”
Armed guards were stationed nearby with machine guns, and every movement was checked.
Rainville said he and his wife couldn’t go into Alburgh village without being questioned.
The heightened measures, taken in fear of more terrorists crossing into the United States, lasted about a month.
“It was a big reality check,” Rainville said.
Open to Ideas Though border security was tight post-9/11, it wasn’t for lack of trust between the two countries before the event, according to Rainville.
“There was talk of just opening up Quebec and the United States [for commerce],” he said.
“That’s how much of allies we were. Of course, after 9/11, that stopped.”
I’ve always found the Marines and Army to be redundant. I’d close the USMC and fold their manpower into the USN and Army.
Marines are already part of the Navy, like the Coast Guard used to be. I agree, and so do some other, more famous, military strategists, that we should close down the AF and fold its weapons systems and some of its personnel into the air wings of the Army and Navy. The Marines have had their own air wing for quite some time; I knew some guys in Marine Aviation long ago.
I’d also eliminate most Fed cop and security forces and turn those responsibilities over to the states as well. Ditto the CIA, NSA, and FBI, which I’d fold into state organizations and the military arms.
There are 10,000 marines just at the USA embassies and White House. The air force needs to turn over the A-10s to the Marine aviators and then split itself back to the army and the missile sitters. The Marines also own the nukes on the carriers and cruisers.
I would definitely keep the subs. They are cheap insurance against a surprise attack. The carriers will all be gone in the first 8 hours of any protracted sea battle (missiles, see Falkland war) so we might as well get rid of them.
We should definitely have an open border with Canada. They are a very good friend and want to stay that way as we are their best customer. Mexico, no way!
You forgot about shutting down the NSA.
You can’t make this up. Obummer’s Chief Enforcer Holder says State AG’s aren’t obligated to enforce laws they don’t agree with. I guess they should do whatever the fuck they want just like Holder.
If by “don’t agree with” he meant “are unConstitutional on their face”, I’d agree. But of course that’s not what the corrupt little scumbag means.
The US Coast Guard is a separate entity from the Navy, and always has been. It was placed under the auspices of the US Navy only twice, in 1917 (WWI) and 1941 (WWII), but was returned to it’s own control after each of those wars. It is the oldest continuous naval service in the US, dating from 1790, and was originally called the Revenue Marines. The modern US Navy was founded in 1794. There was a Continental Navy that was founded in 1775 for the Revolution, but that was disbanded in 1785. Sadly the Coast Guard is now under the control of the DHS, an abhorrent organization which is historically equivalent to the Gestapo.
….while noting that so far the DHS has not gone about rounding people up in the middle of the night, sending them to concentration camps and guillotines, and has not targeted any specific religious or ethnic group in the population. Other than that, yeah, they suck.
The Chief Criminal Holder also does not mean that state AG’s can choose not to enforce the Fed laws he and his cronies and minions dish out. I and others have long been digging on how the guy is always smirking at us all, like he knows he’s Teflon and can’t be touched, no matter what he does or does not do.
“….while noting that so far the DHS has not gone about rounding people up in the middle of the night, sending them to concentration camps and guillotines, and has not targeted any specific religious or ethnic group in the population.”
Yet. As your so-called Fed Leviathan grows, I’m sure that will change. Don’t forget, or ignore, the fact that the Gestapo received much of the information they used against from citizens reporting suspicious activity in the interest of “national security”.
http://www.dhs.gov/how-do-i/report-suspicious-activity
If you can’t recognize the thin edge of the wedge, I guess I’ll have to continue pointing it out to you.
Oh I recognize it alright; we just seem to disagree on what to do about it. In any case, the methods of the Gestapo, the Soviets, and the Stasi were really primitive compared to what is available to regimes today, esp. this one. They don’t need informers so much anymore; we inform on ourselves; every time we post here, post on FaceCrack or Twitter, send email, or chat on the phone. What we buy online, or hell, the stores track us as we walk through the aisles by our phones.
The thicker edge of the wedge is when they actually start making examples of people in a big way, and when they start doing it by groups. I’m just gonna go way out on a limb here and say that voting or writing my congressman won’t help me much then.
It starts there, and if they don’t listen, you make them. Take a cue from the Ukrainians. They’ve had enough of their corrupt government and they did something about it. They didn’t just whine. They protested, some of them died, but it didn’t stop the rest from continuing to protest.
I don’t know how it will end for Ukraine good or bad, but they’re at least trying.
Dunno how serious this rhetoric about reducing the military can be. Scrap the A-10 but keep the F-35? That’s the biggest pork project in decades, with subcontracts and sub-subcontracts distributed to half the Congressional districts in the country.
I figure this is the same old story I lived through back in the 80’s: Under pressure to reduce expenditures, you threaten to cut programs and close military bases. Then you wait for outrage from the affected Congresscritters, who then “force” you to keep spending and make sure you don’t have to cut your budget after all.
That’s the biggest pork project in decades, with subcontracts and sub-subcontracts distributed to half the Congressional districts in the country.
Most of these cuts will not make it through congress. Too many congress critters with pork projects in their own backyards. Of course these same congress twits will demand cuts, just not in their district. Multiply that by a few hundred of the cretins and you will have gridlock. “Make the cuts, but not in my backyard”.
Then these same idiots will, one week later, try and make a case to cut government spending. Bunch of clueless dolts.
The situation in Ukraine is not as clear-cut as all that; the country is really split in two, with the western half leaning heavily toward Europe and the EU and the West, next to Poland, and the eastern half, which is more closely allied with Russia. It is also pretty clear that our State Department nabobs and their minions, along with our intel operators, were/are very busy fomenting the rebellion and blatantly on the side of the demonstrators.
http://buchanan.org/blog/ukraines-crisis-6252
We are nowhere near there yet; we’d have to have Occupy events much larger and much more vociferous, mainly in NYC and Mordor, but in many other large cities as well, with a few people getting beaten and shot; closest we’ve had so far were the riots of the Sixties, when the Feds called out troops with machine guns and armored personnel carriers and tanks. Of course that was only directed at the inner-city inhabitants. And we’re well past the stage of useless letters, emails and phone calls to Congress; those guys are hopeless.
When the lights start going out and staying out and the average family can’t jump in their Happy Motoring vehicle and bop on down to the Walmart for some junk made by Red Chinese slave labor or a giant case of Cheetos, and the tee-vees and internet are down, we’ll probably start seeing some push-back. And retaliation. And more pushing and yelling. And more retaliation and repression.
Ringleaders will probably start seeing their entire electronic lives disrupted and eliminated; property seized for nonpayment, all credit accounts closed, utilities shut off, etc. Rioting thugs will be rounded up for the network of camps that FEMA has been establishing. Not to mention the conex stockpiles of ammo that the Feds have been salting around the country and as Jesse Ventura showed recently, fields full of industrial-sized coffins that can hold three or four corpses.
Some really funny shit is starting to happen and become known around the country. Stay tuned.
I never said it was clear-cut or that there wasn’t dissension among the Ukrainians, my point was that they aren’t sitting on their hands or saying “what can we do, the government is corrupt”.
Democracy isn’t simply voting every four years, and it’s not throwing your hands in the air and saying it doesn’t work. Waiting for the apocalypse will not net you a better government than you have now, but a far worse one.
bgrigg-
Individual Coast Guard units were also under the auspices of the Navy during the Viet Nam conflict, 40-footers on river patrol, and a squadron of 5 weather ships on coastal blockade.
Not quite the same thing. Yes, individual units were sent to support the Army, Navy and Air Force in various roles, and those troops were under the auspices of the departments. The USN controlled Squadron One & Three, while the Army controlled the river patrols. Squadron One consisted of 26 82-footers and Squadron Three consisted of high endurance cutters as a deep sea barrier to protect the coastline. The USCG also operated numerous LORAN C sites to assist the USAF with navigation duties, and so were under the auspices of the USAF. In all 8,000 USCG members were deployed, but the balance of the USCG was left under it’s own control. Similar “loans” were made during Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom.
It works the other way, too. Six USN Cyclone class warships were lent to the USCG during Operation Noble Eagle during the aftermath of 9/11, the first time USN ships were under the command of the USCG.
We’ve never had a true democracy here, other than the New England town meetings, still extant, and based on Anglo-Saxon and Norse political entities from the so-called Dark Ages. Other than that, it’s been pretty much a mercantile oligarchy, and in the last few years, paradoxically increasingly fascist while the WH administration is demonstrably of Bolshevik inclinations and sympathies.
As for Ukranian events and history, it’s like comparing apples and oranges; they’ve never had a history like the Anglo-American tradition of individual liberties and rights under law, nor have they been accustomed to most of their population being armed. As as Buchanan points out, the country is split; the guy they just drove out was elected in a fair election with our blessing originally. The people ostensibly in charge now have the blessing and backing of our State Department honchos and intelligence apparatus, whose recent operations have fomented disasters in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Iraq, and Syria so far. Now they’re busy in Ukraine, and now that Putin & Co. can divert their attention from the Olympics, we can look for some interesting blowback in the near future.
As for engaging in the political process here anymore, beyond strictly local elections and voting? Like stemming the North Sea tides with our finger in the dike. What’s going to happen is going to happen, regardless of me phoning up or faxing Senators Leahy and Sanders; financial collapse, the peak oil downward slope and acceleration, and globalist-inspired and -fomented massive ethnic and racial strife and violence, which we can see developing around the world even now. The globalist elites recognize that the planet cannot any longer support six- or seven- or nine-billion people, and their object is a cold-blooded cull and purge, stretching over the next several decades. No doubt they’ve already written off the southern hemisphere, except for the resources they can continue to extract from it. And they will not bat an eye as the population in this country is cut by 70-80%. I imagine those cuts will extend to the majority of the urban/suburban Canadian population living above the border. And meanwhile Ottawa has plans to bring in a hundred-million immigrants from Asia as replacements. Just as Mordor has been doing here with Latinos and Europe with Africans and Turks.
“And meanwhile Ottawa has plans to bring in a hundred-million immigrants from Asia as replacements. ”
Where do you come up with this crap?
“This shameless immigration betrayal of Canada and the promotion of political party self-interest began in 1990 when one political party (the Progressive Conservatives) increased immigration levels to 250,000 per year. At the time they did this, they actually announced they were doing so in order to capture more of the immigrant vote. This may sound hard to believe because it is so brazen, but it is a fact. Since then, all other parties have adopted the same policy. All pretend that their actions are helping people in the rest of the world and that this immigration flood is also literally and figuratively enriching Canadian society.”
“The reality is that it has obviously been destructive and senseless. Canada’s average 250,000 per year immigration intake since 1990 has been far too high. In fact, Canada’s intake is the highest per capita in the world.”
http://www.immigrationwatchcanada.org/
So that’s around six-million immigrants right there coming into an existing population of around 34-million, and not counting illegal immigrants or the births among both legal and illegal immigrants once they’re in Canada. That would be like us taking in 50- or 60-million immigrants over the same period….oh wait….
I suppose there are folks who count this as a most blessed and wonderful thing.
At 250,000 per year, that will take 400 years to achieve 100 million people.
Immigrationwatchcanada.org is a joke and is considered by many (me) to be racist. They blame the Progressive Conservatives (AKA Tories) for the issue, but the Liberals increased the rate when they took the reins in 1993. BTW, The Tories recently eliminated the immigration loan system, whereby rich immigrants could lend Canada $800,000 interest free, in order to have their application fast tracked. That is expected to slow immigration down.
There isn’t a person on this forum who isn’t from immigrant stock. Keep that in mind when you close your mind to the world.
“Natural born” Canadians aren’t replacing themselves, and without immigrants our population would be shrinking.
Yup. I’m from immigrant stock. England, circa 1609-1620-1630. And like it or not, North America is a British-Protestant political, social and cultural entity. Like the rest of the former British Commonwealth of Nations.
Are we citizens allowed to have any say whatsoever on which immigrants and from where they come? And in what numbers? My understanding is that currently the UK, France and Germany, among others, rue the day their political leaders decided to admit wave upon wave of immigrants over the past half-century. Enoch Powell was right and Patrick Buchanan and the people at vdare are also right. This is unsustainable if we intend to keep our countries.
And continued worship of the Goddess Diversity and the Goddess Democracy will be our ruin here.
But of course YMMV, especially in a mostly culturally homogeneous country that is one-tenth the size of this one. The mileage is certainly gonna change over the next decades if Ottawa’s wonderful plans come to fruition, i.e. the massive increases of immigration they have in mind to “re-energize” the country and make it an “economic powerhouse,” etc.
We share a cultural past, my paternal side came over shortly after the Mayflower, but had the good sense to move North in the mid-1700s.
I’m willing to be that the real natural “Canadians and Americans” wish they had had a greater say in letting anyone into this region. Seems to me that the invading cultures pretty much destroyed everything they had.
And you do have a say, you just choose not to use it. And you even know what I’m going to say next. VOTE!
Vote for what or whom? We have nobody here. NOBODY. They’re all bought; lock, stock and barrel. The one or two who pipe up with honesty and reliability are quickly marginalized, blown off and shut down. You saw what they did to Ron Paul here, right? And he wasn’t even close to being any kind of threat to them.
No, the days of going along with the charade and chicanery of state and national elections here are over for me, and for more millions each election year. It is a game for fools and suckers. By our participation we not only enable them and justify their rule, we also serve as their willing, credulous and dumbass fools; they openly loathe and despise us and laugh at every turn. We are sport to them now. Our beautiful and brilliant First Lady openly calls the young people of the country “knuckleheads,” for not signing up in droves for her “husband’s” disastrous health care project. And they conduct foreign policy and send our children to various clusterfuck wars overseas with utter impunity. It’s like the Borg now; resistance is futile.
So they think and hope.
@bgrigg: Seems to me you just made OFD’s point
John, he may mean the original “Canadians” and “Americans” here on the continent, i.e., First Nations peoples; I’m not entirely sure. If he meant our common ancestors, then yes, he kind of makes my point; and yes, not all “invading cultures” have been a blessing and a positive good here. The waves of the nineteenth-century were of vastly/mostly European Christians, who made every attempt, sometimes heroically, to become assimilated here. Other invading cultures of more recent vintage have not done so, and in the UK and continental Europe they spit on the concept.
Well, Davy, why don’t you run?
And yes, I mean the aboriginals of the regions, not the “original” settlers, who are true invaders. Davy and I are the invaders.
As for assimilation, no we certainly did not, we dragged our stupid religions and stupid wars along with us, enslaved Africans to pick our cotton (speaking about immigrant workers!) and did not assimilate with the cultures that were already in place. The only assimilation we did was force others to forget their own culture and pretend they were Anglo-Saxons. My maternal grandfather was banned from teaching his children Gaelic. Canada is rife with similar stories. As recently as 1933, we banned the peoples of the Mediterranean to immigrate to Canada, preferring the blue eyed blondes of Northern Europe.
And of course Anglo-Saxons were in their turn the invaders of the indigenous peoples who inhabited what is now known as the UK. In fact, Wales (pronounced way-luss) is actually an Anglo-Saxon word that means “foreigner” even though they were the true aboriginal peoples of what is now England. Similar to the Californians and Texans who don’t think Mexicans have a right to occupy lands that were historically theirs.
Almost all talk about “original” or “rigthful” occupiers of land devolves to bullshit. Viz the above.
I take a pragmatic view: If you claim land and can hold it, it’s yours. If not, it’s not. The “american indians”, by whatever name, lost to the whites. The northwest-European-mostly-christian culture currently occupying what’s commonly known as the United States seems to be in the process of losing to the current wave of invaders, though there’s plenty of room for other outcomes to play out.
As for the “first nation” people and their place in the United States of the past two centuries, it’s obvious that the policy of the European invaders of several centuries ago, in not killing all of the men and enslaving the women, has caused nothing but problems for their descendants. It was an interesting experiment, but seems to be a failure. I suggest that future waves of invaders follow the time-proven custom.
Well OFD, maybe I missed the point then. I’m Canadian and I think not far geographically and generally not far politically from where bgrigg is as well even though in this case I disagree with him.
I kind of thought your point was that Canada and the US were based on British Common Law and culture, while increases in immigration in both Canada and the US have been from places that do not share this culture at all, to the point that it’s actually an anathema to more modern immigrants.
To me bgrigg’s point was that British common law and culture was invasive and essentially destroyed aboriginal culture. I’d have to agree. However I don’t think of this as a bad thing so my view isn’t condoned in Canada since I don’t buy into the ‘noble savage’ viewpoint.
“Well, Davy, why don’t you run?”
And get the same treatment Paul got? Why bother? But actually, I am looking to get involved locally here with one or the other of the committees, commissions, whatever, on a soldier-drone basis and pitch in a little; ditto for one or the other of the local environmental/watershed groups. And we live about a hundred yahds from the rear of the town hall, so it’s pretty convenient.
As for being invaders or slaverunners or whatever; almost every group of people in the world has screwed some other group and/or been screwed themselves by now. I ain’t taking the rap for my Puritan asshole ancestors screwing over the local indigneous peoples here in Nova Anglia. And the present-day indigneous folks look more Caucasian than I do. For obvious reasons; we didn’t massacre them all; we married some of them back when, thus my 1/16th or whatever Algonqian, dating to the late 17th- and early 18th-C in southeastern Maffachufetts.
Ditto the brutish Germanic and Norse thugs who invaded the British Isles back in the day; sure, they slaughtered defenseless monks and farmers, but they also got frisky with the local colleens and lassies and you can see the rather isolated product today in two very different northern hemisphere locales: in Iceland, which has a claim, in my view, for some of the most gorgeous women on the planet; and Greenland, where some Vikings apparently had relations with local Inuit.
“…there’s plenty of room for other outcomes to play out.”
You said it, Pilgrim; and some of us are working on those other outcomes. And not planning on going quietly. Not at all.
You didn’t miss the point at all, John, and in fact your view is exactly what I was rather poor at expressing; clearly our established culture here in North America, based on English language, law and liberty, is threatened by wave after wave of people, most of them decent human beings, no doubt, who do not come from this tradition and in fact have zero intention of ever taking it up or being assimilated by it.
I also think it was a vast improvement over the existing First Nations cultures here but of course would not have, and do not now, advocate their displacement and extermination, like, for example, our own War Between the States thug war criminal generals Grant, Sherman and Sheridan. I think, in fact, that insofar as possible, we ought to reopen and abide by the treaties our ancestors signed with theirs. Almost every one was broken and betrayed.
Why? They lost, in technology and in organized viciousness and in breeding. Right and wrong don’t come into it.
(To a certain extent “we” lost, as I’m maybe 1/16 amerind, probably from a couple tribes. But that bears out my point, which you agreed with, about conquerors breeding with the conquered.)
Well, technically, the American Indians were the invaders and conquerors. Caucasians inhabited North America before the first Indians showed up. The Indians eradicated the Caucasians.
Is that definitely the case? I’d thought from what I read a year (?) ago that the caucasians were here a long time ago, and later the oriental-descended “first” nationers showed up. I didn’t think it was known if the caucasians died out from natural causes (eg, big honkin sheets of ice) or had been conquered and killed.
Oh my. Bob is clearly not in line for any tenured academic positions in any college or university anthropology or other departments. The Left and the First Nations activists go ballistic when we mention earlier Caucasian presence here in North America.
As do the Red Chinese when the topic comes up of all those six-foot mummies in the western deserts with braided red and blonde hair and beards and tartan clothing. Dating to a couple-thousand years BC. It also annoys the African-American activists and charlatans when the pictures are published of Rameses II and his clearly auburn hair and beard and Caucasian features.
The couple times I brought it up, I didn’t notice leftards going ballistic over evidence of caucasians pre-dating orientals on this continent. No, they just went into the standard deny-deny-deny, “you don’t know what you’re talking about”, “that’s all been debunked” song and dance. The only thing that was omitted was calling me a racist, and maybe that was slipped in but I missed it.
Note that the response was the same as when climate “change”* is brought up, or disparate interracial crime statistics, or the cost-benefit analysis of Head Start. Really, we don’t need leftards any more. We can program a computer to respond to almost any stimulus exactly as a leftard would. (I can’t bring myself to call it an artificial intelligence. An artificial inanity, maybe.)
* I have no position on whether the surface of the globe is significantly warming, significantly cooling, or neither. I do have a position on the dishonesty of climate “scientists” who manipulate or make up data and conceal what they’re doing or who cook their computer models to give the desired answer. I have a position on the dishonesty or cowardice of other scientists who do not call for the shunning of the cherry-picking Hockey Stick Mann and UEA’s Jones. I have a position on the committees which “analyzed” the UEA leaked documents and, though a process of torturing the English language as badly as Jones and Mann ever tortured data, found there was no intent to deceive and that the results of Jones’s computer program were most likely correct despite the garbage that the program was revealed to be. I have a position on the politicians and bureaucrats who prescribe remedies for “climate change” which are identical to the remedies for “global warming”, which were identical to the remedies for “global cooling” thirty years before.
John, know that I simply like poking at people on forums, especially OFD. I don’t buy into the Noble Savage crap anymore than you or anyone here does, even though there is good evidence I am likely 1/16th Noble Savage! My point is no matter who we think “is in charge” someone else preceded us, and someone else will follow us. And Davy’s precious British culture is actually made of German, Danish, French and Roman concepts.
Davy, I meant locally, that’s where democracy starts. Run for Councillor or Town Reeve or whatever passes for local government. Get your ideas heard and who knows who you’ll affect that may end up as POTUS in the future. Also, here in BC there were no historic treaties signed. The very first was signed with the Nisga’a people way back in 2000. I’m being pushed to run for School Trustee. Imagine that, a lifelong home schooling having input on the school board! The mind boggles!
Bob, I just watched an interesting documentary that indicates that the Chinese may have made a settlement in Nova Scotia, specifically on Cape Breton Island, a couple of hundred years before Columbus didn’t arrive on these shores, and of course the indigenous peoples are definitely Mongoloid in appearance. As for Caucasians being here first, well show me something, anything, that supports that without devolving into Eric von Daniken territory.
More fun being poked at me? Gee whiz.
And thanks for the info on British culture and its ethnic backgrounds; I had no clue!
Now it’s OK for me to run for a local office; can I stop writing letters to the Congress critters?
I’ve seen nothing about the Chinese arriving on the northeast coast here, wrong coast, I might imagine; but the Norse were certainly here 500 years before Columbus, and eventually were sent packing by local skraeling hostilities.
“Really, we don’t need leftards any more. We can program a computer to respond to almost any stimulus exactly as a leftard would.”
Pretty much; pull the string and the puppets spout the usual nonsense. When that fails, they call us names and stamp their feet and make threats. Unfortunately they hold utter sway in academia, government and the media.
We’ve also had a debate over the F-35 which is really of no use to us whatsoever. I would like to see us take the A-10 and use it as a basis for a ground support Air Force. Why not? Nobody else wants to do it and we can’t trust anyone else to do it. I’m sure Bombardier is up to the job. I’m sure that we could also adapt it to Arctic patrol as well. Seems like a much better solution.
Dave: The US may be protestant but in Canada, the Roman Catholic church is still the largest religious denomination. It isn’t just Quebec, parts of the Maritimes and Newfoundland are also predominately Catholic.
And for what it’s worth, I’m pure immigrant stock, born in Toronto (amazing how few native born Torontonians I meet), father was German as were my maternal grandparents, mother was from Winnipeg. We are definitely Heinz 57 except to the best of my knowledge there is no Anglo in my background, but more than a touch of Slav and points East.
The oldest skeletons found in the Americas are Caucasoid.
I thought the American Indians were dark skinned Israelites, as per the Mormon fantasy.
Nah, American Indians are genetically of Asian origin.
It all depends on whether you buy into the idea that there was single flood of immigration to North America across the Bering Strait land bridge, or multiple migrations over a period of thousands of years. I believe the latter better explains the archaeological evidence, particularly skeletal remains from circa 12,000 BP that are obviously not AmerInd.
Yeah, I know. I was mocking the Mormon idea.
Come now Davy, and you continually spell my nation’s name as “Kanaduh” for what reason? To show off your English Lit degree? 🙂
My point is the vaunted British society is made up of the sum total of its parts. It is better because of the mix of races and nations that make up it’s peoples, not poorer because of it. It’s current issues have more to do with people refusing to accept that other cultures has attributes worth adapting. I’ll even go as far as stating that the fault mostly lies with the Islamic group who offer little in return, rather than the British, who’ve glommed onto any idea worth stealing (such as curry take away).
Bob, upon reflection I am presuming you are referring to the Kennewick man. The research I’ve found states that while the initial research showed Caucasian features, that subsequent analysis showed that the remains “is clearly not a Caucasoid unless Ainu and Polynesians are considered Caucasoid.” Source: http://www.nps.gov/archeology/kennewick/powell_rose.htm
I’m still waiting for further study of the Topper site in South Carolina, which has claims of pre-Clovis peoples occupying the site 50,000 years ago, based on radio-carbon dating. From what I’ve found the claim is highly suspect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topper_%28archaeological_site%29
I am firmly with OFD on citizen contact with Congress. Not only is it a total, complete, and dismal waste of time, it more than likely gets one on computer lists that one is best served by being free of. We do not have any kind of openness about what manner of info about us is shared between government agencies or between Congress and the business money that they dance to. But we now know with certainty it is collected. What is more, members of the US Congress and Senate are immune to ANYTHING that crosses their threshold, unless it is green and has pictures of Presidents on it.
And I agree that voting is useless. When strings of the puppets of both parties are pulled by the same money, why is voting the cure? That said, unlike Dave, I am still going to vote anyway. It is a completely impotent exercise, but a habit I cannot kick.
Moreover, there may be others who have a desire to participate in politics, but on a scale of 1 to 10, my interest in participating in any form of politics is about a -15. Whatever my contribution to society is, it will never be in politics. And that does not mean I have no right to complain about the state of politics or any portion of running the country thereof. This land has a free speech clause and I can complain about any damn thing I want to with legal impunity. Whether they come and get me is another matter entirely.
My paternal grandfather having had a Lakota mother, he still firmly believed that it was AmerIndians’ fault that they were overrun. As a child, his relatives lived in teepees and had no running water. When I came along, he lived in a nice house next door to ours, and watched the Wednesday night fights on TV’s that the Reservation still did not have. Neither he nor his mother had a problem with where the ‘immigrant problem’ led them. And in his childhood, that was to owning a large farm south of Indianapolis and having a more than comfortably large home on it that accommodated 7 kids. No running water there either, though — until after all the kids were grown.
“Whatever my contribution to society is, it will never be in politics. And that does not mean I have no right to complain about the state of politics or any portion of running the country thereof. This land has a free speech clause and I can complain about any damn thing I want to with legal impunity. Whether they come and get me is another matter entirely.”
ttgnet.com/journal makes strange bedfellows sometimes (that’s a figure of speech, goddammit!) I agree with Chuck agreeing with me.
I’ll still vote, like I said, in the immediate small-town local elections here (we have the annual Town Meeting coming up next Tuesday) and will endeavor to pitch in for local (Saint Albans Bay/Champlain watershed) issues and challenges. And will continue to do stuff with the church in the same vein.
But the state and national charades? Nope. All done with that malarkey. And more tens of millions are also giving it up. We are done giving credence to, and vicariously enabling, a criminal regime.
Hope you still feel that way when the black helicopters come for you.
Yes, this place makes strange bedfellows. I’ve even been known to agree with godless atheists, Barry Manilow critics and even the old Cannuk.
I’m all three!
“We are done giving credence to, and vicariously enabling, a criminal regime.”
So tacit approval of the criminal regime is fine with you?
Be fair, Bill. I don’t think anyone could accuse OFD of giving approval, tacit or otherwise, to the current regime.
By not exercising his franchise to vote, he is and so is anyone else that refuses to vote. All it takes for evil to win is for good men to do nothing.
We have criminal politicians in Canada, too. The biggest difference is we DO something about it. Google Mac Harb, Patrick Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau just to name the last four Senators who were caught with their hands in the cookie jar. This has kicked off the discussion about whether or not we even NEED the Senate. Then check out this wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_British_Columbia
You can get rid of the bad, but it takes more than sitting on your hands and complaining.
I think OFD’s point is that voting is pointless because our ruling elite remain in power no matter how the vote turns out. As The Who said, “Meet the new boss. The same as the old boss.”
I’m prepared to believe that voting is actually meaningful in Canada, at least for now, but I tend toward OFD’s viewpoint for the US at the federal level. They’re going to do what they’re going to do. The only real solution is to overthrow them, and none of us look forward to a violent solution. We’re all too old for this shit. That’s why I’m hoping (but not expecting) that the States who are (finally) resisting the federal behemoth will see some success.
There were Caucasian remains from 12,000 BC found north of the Houston area in 2012 while building the new tollway:
http://swamplot.com/grand-parkway-will-pile-on-the-dead/2012-12-04/
Bob, you’ve failed to understand the song, indeed as most people have. Townshend stated in 2006 that: “It is not precisely a song that decries revolution – it suggests that we will indeed fight in the streets – but that revolution, like all action, can have results we cannot predict. Don’t expect to see what you expect to see. Expect nothing and you might gain everything. The song was meant to let politicians and revolutionaries alike know that what lay in the centre of my life was not for sale, and could not be co-opted into any obvious cause.” He didn’t mean lay down and plug your ears, he meant that if you continually vote for the same thing, or not vote as the case may be, you will continually get the same thing. You don’t just change the boss, you have to change the way the boss works.
Voting is only meaningful when people exercise their right to vote and sadly fewer people are choosing that right each election, for much the same reasons. Eventually we will end up just like the US, as you get the government you deserve, and some will say we are already there. Also democracy doesn’t mean voting every four years, it means grabbing the elected ones by their shirt collar and shaking them when they don’t do what you want them to do. There is far too little of that happening in Canada, and virtually none in the US. When there is vocal distension, they’re made fun of, like the TEA party and Occupy Wall Street protesters were. Only those groups were doing the right thing, though not always for the right reason.
I would like Canada to adopt two ideas about holding office that isn’t very popular, much to my chagrin. One is setting a two term limit like you have with the POTUS, only I would do it for every elected office. You could sit out a term and run again, or you could run for a different office, but I think new brooms sweep cleaner than the old ones do.
The second would be to forbid the children of elected politicians from running for the same office, though this one has obvious issues about freedom. I’m not saying they can’t run for an office, just not the one their parent held. Right now the leading Liberal candidate for the PM’s office is the son of a former PM. He’s been groomed since he was young to take the reins and to me that is an aristocracy, though a lot of people think he’ll be as smart and charming as his father was. I think that is not always the case. In fact, I think that is rarely the case. In this case, I think he’s every bit as charming, but without the smarts to back it up. And we have far too many people who think they’re entitled to the office because of their bloodline. Canada doesn’t need their own version of the Kennedy clan, even when we already have them.
Lynn, where in that article does it mention anything about the origin of the remains?
I also am given to understand that electoral politics is still somewhat tenable in Canada and there are plans afoot for alternative parties to attempt valid participation in their next round, particularly in Quebec and the Maritimes. This may also well be the case out in BC as part of the future Cascadia. It is not the case down here, as I keep trying to explain, with little apparent success.
Bob has it right but I am not as optimistic:
“They’re going to do what they’re going to do. The only real solution is to overthrow them, and none of us look forward to a violent solution. We’re all too old for this shit. That’s why I’m hoping (but not expecting) that the States who are (finally) resisting the federal behemoth will see some success.”
I have high hopes, too, but expect our kids and grandkids are gonna see the violent overthrow scenario play out; us old farts are just now seeing the first rumbles of it. This may have been what it was like in the late 1840s and early 1850s here. Only now there are thirteen times as many people, tens of millions of whom are armed with modern weapons. With more or less instant communications capabilities. It’s gonna be an interesting ride.
Teens here during the days and below zero at night; I still see vehicles driving across the Bay ice.
Lynn, where in that article does it mention anything about the origin of the remains?
Doesn’t. I just remember that from another article in the Houston Chronicle that I could not readily find. This article calls them Paleoindians:
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/More-bones-found-in-path-of-Grand-Parkway-project-3944380.php
I would like Canada to adopt two ideas about holding office that isn’t very popular, much to my chagrin. One is setting a two term limit like you have with the POTUS, only I would do it for every elected office. You could sit out a term and run again, or you could run for a different office, but I think new brooms sweep cleaner than the old ones do.
I want this philosophy to spread to every federal office in the USA. Has worked well for POTUS, why not Senators (our new Lords and Ladies) and Congressmen (our new Knights of the Realm).
I would like to see our federal judges elected also. Maybe just SCOTUS for now.
I am just now catching up after a blow-out week. I think people of our era are going to be surprised at how calm things will remain as my kids’ generation and younger take the reins. They are not contentious, and deplore adversarial tactics. Contrary to views that the US will sink into civil war, I believe the future will be the opposite of what we see now. Gridlock will not be tolerated by the younger ones as they replace the stubbornness of their elders. Shutdowns and sequesters will fade to oblivion.
My generation were the protestors. We got good at demonstrations and creating crisis tensions — and still are. My kids generation is the opposite. They want movement, and compromise to get there. ‘Can’t we just get along’ is going to happen.
I may be getting on as an old fart, but I have much more optimism about the future than the rest of you.