North Korea’s Drop in the Nuclear Bucket

17 Thursday Aug 2017

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Them nuc-u-ler wep-ins. Kim Jong-Un seems to have backed off the nuking of Guam or whatever. The following might, just might help explain why. It explains much. A pretty good breakdown of who has what:

nuclear-weapon-factsheet-2

As VisualCapitalist’s map above demonstrates, the United States and Russia still maintain the world’s largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons, holding 92% of the world’s estimated 15,000 nuclear warheads.

While today’s arsenals seem quite excessive, they are actually quite modest compared to historical totals such as those during the Cold War. In 1986, for example, there were actually 70,300 nuclear weapons globally – but luckily for us, the number of warheads has eased down over time as countries disarm more weapons.

A few more countries will probably join the nuclear club within a decade or two. Yet, hopefully the overall weapon numbers will continue to fall. Hopefully none will ever see use. Two was too many.

Can the Churches fix the Schools? The Education?

16 Wednesday Aug 2017

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Gary North, architect of the Ron Paul Curriculum (K-12) asks: Why Is There No Free Online Catholic Education?

It certainly makes sense to ask. The traditional schools slowly close due to this and that reason yet millions of families still favor the religious education over the government schoolhouse alternative.

North sees a possible inter-denominational bidding war for the attention/enrollment of young Christian scholars. It could all start Catholic:

What about the Southern Baptists? If they thought the Catholics were going to do this, there would be a bunch of Southern Baptists who would give it a shot. It would appall them that the Catholics would do it without a challenge from Southern Baptists.

October 31 is the 500th anniversary of Luther’s nailing of the 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg church. If Missouri Synod Lutherans thought the Catholics were about to offer a free online K-12 curriculum, they would organize to match them, course for course.

Presbyterians are the scholars of the Protestant world. If conservative Presbyterians thought that the Catholics were going to do this, they would form a study committee in each Presbyterian splinter denomination. Within five years, there would be a decision to start a curriculum by reach group. Within less than a decade from this decision — though not much less — there would be at least five Presbyterian curriculums online.

Then the Dutch would match them. The Dutch would not tolerate American Presbyterians horning in on Calvinist private schools run by school boards dominated by parents.

Then “word of faith” cable-TV Pentecostal pastors would see a profit opportunity: Holy Ghost-directed education. They would organize online programs. Their ministries would own the programs.

What we need is interdenominational competition. We need denominationally committed Christians who will not tolerate any of those other denominations getting away with this. Obviously, they’re not willing to fight the public schools. They are all perfectly willing to let the public schools steal their kids’ minds. This has been true in the United States ever since the 1840’s. But the thought that the Roman Catholics were going to do this would outrage Protestants.

Therefore, I call on some mother superior to leave a legacy behind. I call on some Catholic bishop to get his act together, educationally speaking. Get that free online curriculum up and running! Show those Protestants a thing or two!

If 20 million families then pulled their kids out of tax-funded schools, maybe a majority of voters would start voting “no” on school bond ballot propositions. Would that be so bad?

A very interesting idea and concept. More than rebuilding American education, this might just help the churches save themselves – from themselves.

BTW, if you and your kids are tired on the local K-12 experience, consider the RPC.

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RPC.

Thanks and thanks again, Dr. North.

Another Cakewalk in Venezuela???

15 Tuesday Aug 2017

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Venezuela and her people aren’t doing too well at the moment. President Trump suggested he might be able to “help.” Said “help” may be unwanted.

After months of attacking Venezuela’s unpopular President Nicolas Maduro, Latin America came out strongly against U.S. threats of military action against the crisis-hit nation.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s surprise comments on Friday may bring the beleaguered Maduro some respite in the region, just as Venezuela was on verge of becoming a pariah over its recent installation of a legislative superbody, widely condemned as a power grab by the ruling Socialists.

Following Trump’s assertion that military intervention in Venezuela was an option, Maduro’s critics are caught between backing the idea of a foreign invasion of Venezuela or supporting a president they call a dictator.

Wars and near wars in and with: Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, North Korea, etc. What’s one more? It’s madness, that’s what.

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A problem? Yes. Our problem? No. Reuters.

Some Observations About the Charlottesville Riots

13 Sunday Aug 2017

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Unless you just emerged from a deep hole somewhere, then you likely know something about the unhinging of America as seen in Charlottesville, VA this weekend.

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Daily Mail.

There’s plenty of commentary out there – some honest, some less so. Here are just a few observations, some in general and some directed at various groups:

1. Stay away from events like this unless you are with the police/EMTs or just incredibly stupid. They are dangerous and largely pointless.

2. There are going to be more of them. They will grow increasingly worse, rising (descending) from “riots” into “battles.”

3. This is that beloved diversity in action. This is the outcome of 50 years of globalist takeover in America. Congratulations, this is what you’ve done. Ram enough incompatible people into close proximity and all hell will eventually break loose. This is what you get when you sufficiently demonize the majority population and they decide to fight back.

4. In a sense, for the first time in 50 years, this was a race riot featuring white people in roles other than those of fleeing victims. Maybe you didn’t specifically ask for it. Really doesn’t matter now.

5. I said it was a bad idea to attack all things Confederate. This one originally cranked up in response to an assault on the image of one of the greatest military minds and most honest gentlemen in American history, Robert E. Lee.

6. Perhaps hundreds of assault rifles were carried in force and not one single shot was fired. Restraint amid the madness.

7. Whichever side you’re on, please remember that the police are not your friends. They’re there to enforce the local establishment’s laws and wishes. They will happily steer two warring factions towards conflict if it helps them keep a modicum of control.

8. Communists, BLMers, and SJWs: Cars can be deadly weapons. If you attack someone in a muscle car, you might expect to get run over. Actions have consequences, snowflakes. Stop attacking and hating white people and they just might not show up by the thousands with torches and ARs. Idiots.

9. Alt-Right and Nationalists: lose the Nazi and KKK sh!t. You don’t need this level of extremism to trigger the SJWs; seems any and everything does that. No one likes the Nazi crap. It’s counter-productive. It enforces your enemies’ stereotypes of you. It’s all completely irrelevant and woefully out of date. It’s Un-American. And was all originally based on a fraud anyway; are you yourself a 1930’s German worker and socialist? No, then cool it. Hitler was a fool. Leave him in the bunker.

10. On a partially related note: some have spent the better part of a year calling Donald Trump “Hitler,” “Literally Hitler,” and “a Nazi.” Why now???, how???, how could you possibly expect your “Literal Hitler” to start condemning Nazis??? No sense whatsoever.

11. Politicians: shut the hell up. This is your mess. Blame no one but yourselves.

12. Globalists: go to hell. Go now. Do not pass go.

13. Mr. Jefferson: please pardon the mess. Seems you were right about watering the tree.

14. I don’t think these trends will reverse. The old America is on the path to civil war or a breakup. I sincerely hope I’m wrong. Prepare as best you can.

15. There is no point 15. I just added this so some moron won’t call this Perrin’s 14 points. See No. 9, above.

Not a pretty weekend but it was entirely predictable. It should be patently obvious to everyone outside the Federal Reserve, the war party, and the MIC that we no longer need boogeymen and foreigners to fight. There’s plenty of trouble at home.

God Bless America. What’s left.

Ads, 100X Faster!

12 Saturday Aug 2017

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A lot more ads. Maybe 3D or holographic or something. The ads of today have overcome the tech advances, essentially rendering the net less efficient than it was 15 years ago. This new development may send us back to the 19th century.

Ultrafast wi-fi, which is 100 times quicker than today’s mobile networks is on the horizon, after scientists proved they could send complex data using high-frequency radiation.

The researchers sent video signals using terahertz, rather than traditional microwaves, at speeds of 50 gigabytes per second. Most wireless networks only operate at top speeds of 500 megabytes a second.

The breakthrough could lead to high-speed streaming on the go.

Or more ads. Maybe cancer.

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Pat B. on the only N. Korea Option that makes Sense (and More)

11 Friday Aug 2017

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If you haven’t read A Republic, Not an Empire, you should. Eighteen years later and Pat’s thinking is still timely:

If the past is prologue, and it has proven to be, the future holds this. A renewal of ICBM tests until a missile is perfected. Occasional atrocities creating crises between the U.S. and North Korea. America being repeatedly dragged to the brink of a war we do not want to fight.

As Secretary of Defense James Mattis said Sunday, such a war would be “catastrophic. … A conflict in North Korea … would be probably the worst kind of fighting in most people’s lifetimes.”

When the lesson sinks in that a war on the peninsula would be a catastrophe, and a growing arsenal of North Korean ICBMs targeted on America is intolerable, the question must arise:

Why not move U.S. forces off the peninsula, let South Korean troops replace them, sell Seoul all the modern weapons it needs, and let Seoul build its own nuclear arsenal to deter the North?

Remove any incentive for Kim to attack us, except to invite his own suicide. And tell China: Halt Kim’s ICBM program, or we will help South Korea and Japan become nuclear powers like Britain and France.

Given the rising risk of our war guarantees, from the eastern Baltic to the Korean DMZ — and the paltry rewards of the American Imperium — we are being bled from Libya to Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen — a true America First foreign policy is going to become increasingly attractive.

Kim’s credible threat to one day be able to nuke a U.S. city is going to concentrate American minds wonderfully.

Here the best common sense solution is also the easiest. Sadly, common sense usually doesn’t coalesce until after an Empire falls and fades away. Ask Gibbon.

There was a recent glimmer of hope on a related matter: privatizing the war in Afghanistan (still fighting 16 years later, you know). But it was a false hope. Rather than a privateering program like the one that withstood the British Navy during the Revolution, they propose a mass extension of, a monopoly trust system for, the corporate welfare. More imperial faliure awaits.

And all the while, as we chase phantoms in places we don’t belong, the enemy within our own nations Aloha Snackbars away. Again and again.

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Reuters.

Always from within, never without.

An Armed Society is Also a Better Educated Society

10 Thursday Aug 2017

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Professors like this guy will be leaving the schools eventually now that they know some people are packing heat.

A Texas professor is making waves on social media after protesting the state’s campus carry law by wearing protective combat gear to class.

San Antonio College geography instructor Charles K. Smith went to his class last week sporting a camouflaged bulletproof vest and helmet. He said he wore it because he doesn’t feel safe.

“It definitely makes me feel uneasy that there are more firearms on campus than there should be,” Smith told mySA.com. “[Dressing this way] was just a statement on how I felt.”

Campus Carry, which was signed into state law in 2015 and officially implemented into Texas community colleges on Aug. 1, allows individuals with a conceal license to carry a handgun on college premises. The law went into effect at 4-year institutions in 2016.

A photo of Smith wearing the combat gear was shared on Facebook, which generated a flurry of comments in favor of and against the professor.

“I realize students were carrying guns on campus illegally, but now it’s legal to do so. It increases the chances of something happening,” said Smith, who also acknowledged that no one had pulled a gun on him in his 10 years at the college.

“Used to, when they got mad at me, they had to go home to get the gun and had time to cool off. Now they will have it with them,” he added.

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This weirdo gotta go-go. James Velten/Fox.

Campus carry makes schools safer. And it has the side benefit of running off nutjobs. This maniac will soon tire of wearing 40 pounds of body armor (though he admittedly looks more robust than the average SJW). And when nothing bad happens as he fears, he way be shamed.

Sgt. Rhetoric has no dialectic examples to display (not that he would). The best-known school shooting from his state’s history came courtesy from government agents, not students.

His teaching is likely as unsound as his fear of weapons (hoplophobia in action here). The school and the kids would be better off without his paranoia.

This is further examples of guns doing good things without even being fired. A polite society and free of wackos. A twofer!

Cometh the Correction

09 Wednesday Aug 2017

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The stock market, all 22,000+ of it, is but one of many bubbles a bubblin’ away under the economy.

Major U.S. stock-market indexes are trading near record levels, but does that statistic simply mask an ominous picture that’s being painted behind the scenes?

…

“The good performance of these large companies is masking the fact that many stocks, including REITs and those in the retail sector, have already entered bear-market territory,” Lamensdorf wrote, referring to real estate investment trusts.

…

Separately, a read on market supply and demand from Ned Davis Research has shown weakening demand for stocks, despite major indexes continuing to grind higher, while the supply metric has started to rise. Rising supply and lower demand could indicate waning enthusiasm for equities at current levels.

There have been other signs of worsening technicals. Currently, 60.4% of S&P 500 components are above their 50-day moving average, considered a positive sign for short-term momentum. In mid-July, nearly 75% were, according to StockCharts. For the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.16% only 47.3% of components are above their 50-day, compared with 67% in late July, a dramatic swing lower.

Recently, nearly 6% of New York Stock Exchange- and Nasdaq-listed securities hit a 52-week low on a day when the S&P 500 ended at a record, according to data from Sentimentrader that was cited by Lamensdorf, who called this “an alarming percentage.”

He added that it was the second-highest level going back as far as 1965, and that “Similar spikes occurred in 1973 and 1999, both directly preceding significant corrections.”

History. Read it.

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Market Watch.