And now a word from Ron Paul

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Dear Friends,

Whenever a Great Bipartisan Consensus is announced, and a compliant media assures everyone that the wondrous actions of our wise leaders are being taken for our own good, you can know with absolute certainty that disaster is about to strike.

The events of the past week are no exception.

The bailout package that is about to be rammed down Congress' throat is not just economically foolish. It is downright sinister. It makes a mockery of our Constitution, which our leaders should never again bother pretending is still in effect. It promises the American people a never-ending nightmare of ever-greater debt liabilities they will have to shoulder. Two weeks ago, financial analyst Jim Rogers said the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made America more communist than China! "This is welfare for the rich," he said. "This is socialism for the rich. It's bailing out the financiers, the banks, the Wall Streeters."

That describes the current bailout package to a T. And we're being told it's unavoidable.

The claim that the market caused all this is so staggeringly foolish that only politicians and the media could pretend to believe it. But that has become the conventional wisdom, with the desired result that those responsible for the credit bubble and its predictable consequences - predictable, that is, to those who understand sound, Austrian economics - are being let off the hook. The Federal Reserve System is actually positioning itself as the savior, rather than the culprit, in this mess!

• The Treasury Secretary is authorized to purchase up to $700 billion in mortgage-related assets at any one time. That means $700 billion is only the very beginning of what will hit us.

• Financial institutions are "designated as financial agents of the Government." This is the New Deal to end all New Deals.

• Then there's this: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." Translation: the Secretary can buy up whatever junk debt he wants to, burden the American people with it, and be subject to no one in the process.

There goes your country.

Even some so-called free-market economists are calling all this "sadly necessary." Sad, yes. Necessary? Don't make me laugh.

Our one-party system is complicit in yet another crime against the American people. The two major party candidates for president themselves initially indicated their strong support for bailouts of this kind - another example of the big choice we're supposedly presented with this November: yes or yes. Now, with a backlash brewing, they're not quite sure what their views are. A sad display, really.

Although the present bailout package is almost certainly not the end of the political atrocities we'll witness in connection with the crisis, time is short. Congress may vote as soon as tomorrow. With a Rasmussen poll finding support for the bailout at an anemic seven percent, some members of Congress are afraid to vote for it. Call them! Let them hear from you! Tell them you will never vote for anyone who supports this atrocity.

The issue boils down to this: do we care about freedom? Do we care about responsibility and accountability? Do we care that our government and media have been bought and paid for? Do we care that average Americans are about to be looted in order to subsidize the fattest of cats on Wall Street and in government? Do we care?

When the chips are down, will we stand up and fight, even if it means standing up against every stripe of fashionable opinion in politics and the media?

Times like these have a way of telling us what kind of a people we are, and what kind of country we shall be.

In liberty,

Ron Paul

Two new TV Show Addictions

When I find a new show I like, I'm all about buying the seasons on DVD and watching them all NOW.

The Unit - I'd never heard of this show. (Shocking, I know, considering I don't have any sort of TV programming at home.) I happened to catch most of an episode while I was living in a hotel in Rockville, MD. At first I thought it was 24, due to Dennis Haysbert's presence. It quickly became apparent it wasn't 24, but I had no idea what it was. I had to look it up on IMDB. Well, then I was curious, and went about finding episodes online to watch, to see if I liked it. I was quickly hooked.
The Unit features layered stories, often intertwining the adventures of the fighting men of the top secret Unit with the lives of the wives they leave on base. It combines action, some dry Army humor, and drama into a highly watchable combination.

Chuck - This show I had heard of, as Amazon's Unbox (which is now defunct and replaced by Video on Demand, a HIGHLY original name...) was constantly bombarding me with ads for it. I finally gave it and watched when they showed the first episode for free. Wait, Adam Baldwin is in this show? I'm in!
Chuck is the tale of an innocent Best Bu...er...Buy More employee, Chuck, who works for the Geek Squa...er....Nerd Herd. Chuck accidentally gets hypnotized and winds up with all the secrets of the NSA and CIA in his brain. The NSA and CIA both send agents to watch over him, and hilarity ensues.
Chuck is the spy show opposite of Burn Notice, and it works well. Where Burn Notice is a spy show filled primarily with drama and action, and backed with a nice dose of comedy, Chuck is primarily a comedy, backed with two scoops of action and drama. I happen to love both shows.

So, there you have it. Two more good TV shows. Who knows, maybe we're on the way back from the swing towards "reality" shows, and TV may become watchable again. Of course, I still won't pay for the privilege of watching commercials, but my DVD library may grow substantially.

Crysis: Warhead - Dual SMG fix

Just got Crysis Warhead home. Loving it so far. However, I noticed that since I assigned Mouse 2 to Jump, instead of the default Zoom function, I cannot fire my second SMG without jumping. You'll have the same weird issue with any function you reassign Mouse 2 to.

To fix this, you need to open your Vista documents folder. (Default is c:/Users//Documents/My Games/Crysis_Warhead/Profiles/Default)
Once in the default folder (or whatever you named your profile) right click on actionmaps.xml and choose open with, and then select Notepad.

Once you have this file open, scroll down and look for:

action name="attack2" onPress="1" onRelease="1"
key name="mouse2"/
/action

Go ahead and change "mouse2" to whatever key you assigned zoom to, or to whatever key you wish.

Click file at the top and save.

Now you can rock dual SMGs without any weird secondary behavior. (Jumping every time you shoot sucks!)

Look what I did! Star-15 Update

As it was hotter here today than it has been most of the summer, I elected to not go bust my ass outside. Instead, I took the time to play some World of Warcraft, and to assemble my AR-15 parts. (I LOVE that the lower I got is called a STAR-15, instead of an AR-15.)

It was my first, so I accidentally marred the finish just a bit on the lower, but I don't think it's too noticeable. Also, I can't install the remaining 5 or 6 parts until I get a butt-stock. But all in all, I'm pretty happy for how it turned out, and it cost me a lot less than buying one that was already assembled.

STAR-15 Stripped Lower

This is the only part of an AR-15 style rifle that you have to purchase through a licensed dealer and have a background check preformed for. Everything else, including the parts that actually fire the rounds, can be purchased through the mail. Strange laws, eh?

Syracuse Gun Show - Sept. 13th, 2008

So, as you may or may not know, I am a card carrying member of the NRA. I like guns. A lot. Guns, however, are expensive. Being unemployed, this is somewhat of an issue.





However, as luck would have it, selling my Nintendo Wii and this seasons gun show at the New York State Fair Expo building coincided. So, I had about $300 to stretch over millions of dollars of possible purchases.

I decided to really stretch it and instead of buying a whole gun, I bought parts for two guns and some ammo for another.

$100 - Double Star AR-15 lower receiver. (Double Star - it was the cheapest stripped lower at the show, AND it has my last name in it. Cool.)

$45 - ATI Strike Force stock for my Ak-47 rifle. The stock is folding and adjustable, so it needs to be drilled and pinned to be neither before I can mount it, but it was cooler and cheaper than other AK stocks I have been looking at.

$54 - DPMS Panther Arms AR-15 Lower Receiver Parts Kit. The trigger, hammer, and parts for the stripped lower I bought. Once this is installed, I need a butt-stock and an upper receiver for my rifle, and I will have a full gun. I'm excited to be building it from parts rather than buying it complete. (And also, this will save me about a grand.)

$30 - 2 AR-15 polymer,30 round, pre-ban magazines. Some nice, light, high-capacity magazines for my future AR-15 rifle.

$18.75 - 1 British, pre-ban, 30 round magazine. This one is made from steel and is quite a bit heavier than the polymer mags. I bought it instead of another polymer because variety is good, and because with 2 different types I have a better chance of one type working well in the rifle.

$15 - 2 - 50 round boxes of Wolf 9mm Luger ammunition for my 9mm carbine. (My other project rifle that is almost complete, it just needs a barrel shroud.)

So, less than $275 spent, and I'm well on my way to completing some new guns. Yay! Today was a good day.

More pics from the Rockies