Kentucky Packrat

Oh, SNAP

2013-04-18T21:51:00.002-04:00

As much as I dislike Mitch, his staff absolutely PWNED Harry.

A story in there somewhere

2013-03-12T19:00:00.001-04:00

It is 6pm in Gulf Shores. I am sitting on the beach, waiting on Milady to get back from her walk with Little Miss.

One mostly-drunk fellow walks by at the waterline. He is carrying an almost empty gallon jug of whiskey of some sort, and dragging a white plastic tabletop missing all of its legs but covered in Sharpie signatures.

I have no idea what his story was, but I would sure love to know it.

Why Standard and Poor's?

2013-02-04T23:23:00.000-05:00

Why is Standard and Poor's being targeted for a ratings lawsuit?

Lesson to be taught: don't downgrade the US government.

My favorite Super Bowl Commercials

2013-02-03T22:53:00.000-05:00

Baltimore isn't playing well (and worse, I'm wanting Baltimore to win...), so here's my favorite commercials from this year:
Number one, the Red M&M singing "I won't do that":

I also like Taco Bell's Viva Young.

Since I'm a dad of a Little Miss, this one tickles me too.

As an honorable mention, the Ram commercial about farmers. Having grown up on a farm, I am prone to be sentimental about it (until I remember the work, at least....)

I am NOT linking to the Samsung "Next Big Thing" commercial. It was bad.
(And Baltimore just won. Time to figure out if I'm happy about that or not. Oh well, next year for the Bungles. I'm sure of it....)

I Am A Gun Owner

2013-02-01T18:23:00.000-05:00

My Contributions to I Am A Gun Owner:

I post pseudonymously, for several reasons (explained before), but my stand is public and firm.

Mr. Obama, Mrs. Feinstein, if you want our guns, YOU COME AND GET THEM.

Responding to Dawn, the post that won't go there.

2013-01-31T06:14:00.000-05:00

At this article at Clareified, Dawn talks about gun control.

I posted two comments earlier that I'd posted there successfully. This one was unsuccessful.

Lets look at the NY Times article you quote. It's already a crime to transport a gun into Chicago from the rest of the state. If you don't have an FOID in Illinois, thats also a state crime. It's already a federal crime to buy a pistol in one state when you live in another state, and it's nearly impossible to buy a long gun in one state and take it to another. It's already a federal crime to buy a gun for a person who is themselves ineligible to buy a gun (a "straw man" purchase), or for a gun dealer to sell a firearm when he knows it's a strawman purchase or that the buyer is ineligible to purchase a firearm. It's also a felony for an individual to sell a gun to a person when you know they're ineligible to own a firearm legally.

Basically, the article boils down to: "criminals are acting criminally to get guns". Wow, who would have thunk it?

Real strawmen purchases are fairly easy to prosecute, because they're part of a pattern. The problem isn't the law, it's the prosecution. The federal government has cut back drastically on prosecuting under current gun laws, and that's not the laws' fault.

Your Georgia example, Phillip Sailors, is worse. He is in jail facing murder charges, which is exactly where he should be. However, he's also a veteran and former missionary. Absent some obvious signs of dementia or desire to kill, I'm selling a gun to him any time he wants to buy. If there's someone cleaner than a whistle legally, I want to meet him. There is no reasonable way that a gun seller could know that Phillip Sailors intended to be a murderer (barring unknown information), yet you're using it as an example of a bad gun sale.

Based on this standard, you would effectively be criminalizing gun sales. No person could sell a gun, because they could never be safe from prosecution for other people's actions outside of their own control.

I’m sure there are many drugs and treatments that would on balance save 100x lives, but we don’t have a governmental guaranteed “right” to them.

You have the analogy backwards. You are arguing that penicillin kills some kids through allergies, so we should ban penicillin for their sake. This is of course absurd; penicillin saves many multiples of lives compared to those it harms.

If the laws you propose would hurt more people than it helps, then "doing something" is worse than doing nothing.

2013-01-31T01:17:00.000-05:00

At this article at Clareified, Dawn talks about gun control.

I responded in two comments, and tried to post #3. #3 won't apply, so I'll post it here in the next article.

Comment 1:

But what do I know, the framers of the constitution would argue I’m not even a whole person.
I know you know this (or at least should), but for the peanut gallery: The House of Representatives was set up for 1 representative per X people in the state (and was originally meant to grow without limit). The South wanted to count slaves as a person, and that way they would have an immediate majority in the House. The North wanted slaves to not count, so that they would have an immediate majority. The Founders had to compromise, so that the North and South would have a balance. (Immigration, especially of the Irish, quickly tipped the balance to the North, so the compromise wasn’t needed, but that’s in hindsight…)

We can make too much of our heroes, and too little. Washington was generally kind to slaves, and regularly allowed them to “escape” or buy themselves out. He also chased some down and kept some from being able to leave legally. Jefferson was the strongest thinker against slavery, and probably helped bankrupt himself buying up slaves who couldn’t work. OTOH, he made little effort to free slaves at his death (again, probably because he was broke), and certainly someone in his family was sleeping with Sally Hastings.

Like a certain “I didn’t inhale/what does ‘is’ mean?” politician, they aren’t gods among men, they’re men who had good ideas and mediocre execution.

Now, if you want to talk about “not a real person”, go read Dred Scott v. Sandford. One of Taney’s key arguments against recognizing that Scott could be a citizen was the horrors of black people (like Scott) having the right to own firearms. Even the justices who agreed with Taney’s legal reasoning wouldn’t agree with his opinion for the racism and the overreaching.

We cannot appeal to “King would own guns” or “King would NOT own guns”, because Dr. King isn’t here to tell us what he’d do now (this is the real call to authority fallacy). We can look at history, however. Dr. King DID own guns, and did attempt to obtain a concealed carry permit at least once. OTOH, he also believed that Christian martyrdom requires passive resistance(*), and towards the end of his life he ceased to act in personal defense AND believed that his violent death would be an act of martyrdom(**). Both are consistent with a single self-defence theory, and are consistent with changing one’s mind. I’ll leave the listener to decide which.

(*) Luther wasn’t the only person ever to describe the principle, but he did it clearly. A Christian may defend himself and others when faced with violence not targeted because of the person’s belief. You may defend yourself from the robber or the base murderer, for example. However, injury faced because of your faith must be endured without violent reprisal.

(**) I AM implying causation here, but I won’t strictly hold to it if pushed.

Quote 2:

This is the first time I have ever heard the argument that Dr. King committed suicide by assassin, but okay.

*blink* OK, let’s try this again, slower and with fewer run-on sentences.

Dr. King believed in Christian passive resistance throughout his life. At the beginning of his struggle, he also believed in defending himself with guns. He owned them. He employed armed bodyguards to protect him. He even attempted to obtain a concealed carry permit (and was denied it for racist reasons).

Towards the end of his life, he ceased to take steps to defend himself with firearms (no bodyguards, etc.) while simultaneously believing that he would probably die a martyr’s death for his beliefs and actions.

I personally believe that the latter (believing he was going to die a martyr’s death) caused the former (ceasing to defend himself with firearms). This would be consistent with Luther’s Christian self-defense theories. However, my saying so is a “correlation means causation” fallacy: we only know both occurred at the same time. As far as I know, Dr. King never explicitly spelled this out. (If he did, feel free to correct me on this.)

Now that we’re past that, I’ll come back to the point I actually was going to make before getting distracted. (Yes, the entire post above was me being distracted. With so many ideas packed into one post, it’s easy to get distracted. I could have even called it a target-rich field, but I’m trying to avoid those evil shooting metaphors. Only liberals are allowed to use shooting metaphors, after all.)

Let’s assume for the moment that possessing guns is a right. (Based on your post, I don’t think you really believe that it is, which is why I will make this an assumption.) Now, you are calling on the rest of us to take significant limitations upon our right for everyone’s safety, by saying that we don’t need said right.

That seems fair and proper. Excluding the potential of a self-defense situation(*), then I as a city dweller have very little need at all for the firearms that may or may not be in my possession.

However, you are opening a very dangerous precedent here. People don’t need any rights to live, and rights cause governments all kinds of inconveniences and difficulties.

Imagine how much easier prosecution will be if we can identify the bad guy *because* we have his urine in a cup. You don’t have anything to hide, and you trust the government, so there’s nothing wrong with peeing in the cup on demand, right? The government has the technology to listen to your phone calls, but you’re not a criminal. They can listen to you, right? The FBI will never ever stoop to using intelligence like this for blackmail, so you’re fine. Oh, and let’s throw in governors on cars so that no car can ever go over 70 MPH or 4000 RPM. Speeding and high torque are dangerous, after all. How about swimming pools? More kids (not in gangs) die in swimming pools than die from gunshots in the US. They’re death traps; the federal government should demand their immediate filling with concrete.

Why should we not do any of these? By your logic, we the people have every obligation to restrict these rights too, to make things easier on the government or safer for ourselves. What is the difference?

One final aside: We have a National guard, a coast guard, an army, a marine, an air force, police forces, FBI, secret service, sheriffs, marshalls, private security firms, mall cops. We’re good on regulated militia.

You forgot the Inspector Generals office of the Department of Housing and Human Services. They just put in an order for a couple thousand guns and several hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammo. 43 different federal agencies or departments have people with badges, real assault weapons and machine guns, and lots and lots of ammo.

You need to go read the Federalist Papers. These government agents are not the regulated militia. They are the standing armies that the Revolutionary War people fought against. Standing armies were bad, and would inevitably lead to the loss of rights and tyranny. The well-regulated militia, a standing army of the entire citizenship (barring only the conscientious objector and the infirm) was considered necessary so that the people could both defend themselves from external enemies and rise up and defeat the standing army when a tyrant turned them against his own people.

(History quiz for the house: General Gage sent out soldiers to secretly take what items from the colonists at Lexington and Concord?)

(*) Considering that between 10x and 1000x(**) more people defend themselves every year using legally owned firearms than are shot without justification in the US, this is a BIG gift to you. I can prove that firearms are a net benefit to US society WITHOUT considering the rights issue at all (John Lott already has).

(**) Depending on whose numbers you believe and how you count a justified shooting. 10x is if you believe the smallest number of defensive gun uses (the DOJ’s non-anonymous survey) and everyone being shot as unjustified (even those shot in said defensive gun uses). 1000x weeds out gun suicides and shots that are neither homicides nor accidents, compared to Kleck’s 2.1 million per year count. The truth of course is somewhere in the middle.

How can we expect mercy?

2012-12-18T00:33:00.000-05:00

Our country kills other people's children without mercy, while sitting in the comfort of air conditioned buildings. We destroy our own young in the name of choice and convenience. The young we do have are either born on drugs or are fed them as young adults.

Why should we expect any mercy from God when our children are put to risk?

New Comment over at Vox Day

2012-12-11T16:46:00.002-05:00

A link to The Post, and a link to my comment. Now the contents:

Even though Wheeler said it today, I always take issue with anyone who says they know when Christ is returning/the end of the U.S. (or the West, in general) = the Second coming. Only God knows that (it's in the Bible).

I have completely quit listening to Hal Lindsay because of his tendency to say "and X is why Jesus is coming soon!!!".

The USA has no place in end-times prophesy, and we as a society have no desire to obey God first, so we're leaving the picture. I don't think we're dying out or going to cease to exist; we're simply leaving the grown-ups table and heading back to the kiddy table. It could be as simple as the first major oil trades in Euros, or it could be a generation or two out (or more). I won't pretend to set a date, and I won't pretend to say that it's a prerequisite to the Tribulation; it's just part of it.

I feel like the prophets must have sometimes; praying for revival like Ninevah but kinda wishing that God would go on and give us that final kick over the cliff so we could get it over with. However, He is merciful and wants every possible person saved, so He waits until His time.

What hurts me the most is not that God might be punishing us, but that He doesn't have to do a darn thing to punish us; He just has to pull back His protection. Our society is happy to tear itself apart from the inside.

The (true) Church in Africa and Asia (especially China) gives me heart that the Church is still healthy, and that it can be revived in America and Europe. The saints there are quite right to pray for us to be tested; Churchianity in the West desperately needs cleansing. I just hate that it's going to hurt...

A new song from Hania Lee

2012-12-01T02:16:00.001-05:00

I have to share a song from Hania Lee, originally posted on Hania's Blog:

Go buy some songs from her. She's on iTunes or her own store. Pay up, people.

A post over at Roger Ebert's

2012-07-22T00:19:00.002-04:00

Roger went anti-gun again. Of course, I had to comment....

If only someone had a gun in the theatre! This is ridiculous and comes from watching too many action movies.
When you take a few minutes to look, there are people who have done exactly this. Google "Charl van Wyk" for one; he disrupted a 4-person attack very similar to the Aurora incident with a single revolver.
In addition, how many of you have black market contacts? I don't have any and I would suspect that would be for the majority of the population.
No friends who can find weed? No one who always seems to know someone who knows someone? Sorry, don't believe it. In college, I didn't drink, didn't smoke (tobacco or "wacky weed"), was mister Squeaky-Clean, and I knew at least 2 drug dealers and one fellow who had access to military-grade explosives and guns. I'm now well into middle age, upper middle-class and still mister Squeaky Clean, and I still know people who know how to get weed. If you can get drugs, you can get guns.
I have had at least three acquaintances who have saved their own lives because they owned and used a handgun. I also have had a relative murdered using one. I have also lost relatives to drunk drivers, yet none of us will attempt to recreate prohibition or ban guns.
In the United States, more people use legally owned firearms to prevent deadly attacks upon themselves or others than are seriously injured or killed by the use of guns (whether owned legally or illegally). More people use firearms to defend themselves against a crime than commit a crime with a firearm.
Firearms, like gasoline, alcohol, and prescription medications, are a net positive benefit to society.

Getting spammed by kypackrat.com -- Sorry for the Inconvenience

2012-07-18T13:16:00.001-04:00

If you have been getting spam from an email address claiming to be from kypackrat.com, I sincerely apologize. I essentially lost control of this domain in March, and haven't been able to turn on SPF or DKIM. I know it's been happening because I've been seeing the bounces from the spam in my mailbox, and it's been annoying me.

Well, I got control of the domains today, and the first thing I did was slap on SPF and DKIM. If you are getting spam from me, turn on SPF and DKIM checking, and reject anything claiming to be from kypackrat.com that doesn't match either. The spam will stop.

I will post again about the domain struggle, but old friends are involved so I want to cool off just a little bit more first.

Guttersnipe

2012-04-05T10:41:00.003-04:00

In my quest for great music, I downloaded Guttersnipe from iTunes, and then pretty much forgot about it. The last couple of weeks, I've been listening to it again. It's GOOD.

Please don't post anonymously, and don't cuss or libel/slander

2012-04-03T22:56:00.001-04:00

Blogger allows anonymous comments, but I don't like them. I don't mind pseudonyms obviously; but you should pick an identity and stick with it.

I reserve the right to edit or delete anonymous comments at any time or any reason.

I also reserve the right to repost comments to edit out bad words, again at my discretion. If I do so, I will make a comment saying that I've done so, or will just delete the comment silently. If you want to cuss, feel free to comment on your blog, and then post a link in a comment.

Finally, I will stand behind my own statements. However, I'll happily throw you under the bus. Any comment that I think might expose me to legal liability goes. Again, post it on your site.

Disagreeing with Karl. Again.

2012-04-03T13:51:00.000-04:00

I hope Karl doesn't get too mad at me, but he's gone all irrational on Apple again.

Apple: $300 Or Less, Not $1,000 Or More

And maybe $100 or less.

Update: Karl didn't get mad. He just banned me. Oops.

I had to comment about that.

$1000 per share is insane. IMHO $500 per share was sky-high, much less whatever it is now. Apple has to correct here, and IMHO it will overcorrect. It will also take the Nasdaq with it when it blows. I understand why the market is desperate for an Apple: they want actual profits. HP is a zombie lurching towards a chop-shop takeover. Dell is a finance company pushing "fleeces" on hardware. Lenovo is forecasting 3% profit margins. Acer is longingly looking back towards its previous 3% profit margins and is wondering what happened. Samsung hasn't created a single dominant idea, and would be more profitable if it quit wasting its Apple-given profits competing with its best customer. Nokia couldn't find a clue with 4 committees and one supervisory committee of executives (and 5 different OS development teams).

Apple landed right in a perfect storm. Jobs believed in ultimate simplicity. Do it one way, the Right Way (TM). Offer the minimum possible number of choices, and make it easy. It worked for Saturn and for McDonalds. The iPad works because there are 2 choices: wi-fi only or cellular, and then 3 memory choices. For the Apple computers, it's portable or desktop, and then screen size (and processor, but I don't know any consumer that's cared about that for the last 3-5 years). Try ordering a computer from Dell: they have 6 different kinds of computers on the first page, and that's a distinct improvement from the multiples they used to offer.

There is a limit to the "just make it easy" market. Apple can saturate this market, and probably will soon if the economy downturns. Eventually, the cool side will get broken off by some other gee-whiz phone or tablet with a built-in blender and frappachino maker, and the low end will get squeezed by some toy making a $5 profit for their Indian or Chinese manufacturer.

However, $100 a share is silly. Even if we shave off the parabola and say they go 0 growth. They still have a loyal core customer base buying what they produce, and have a lot of profit margin to give. They could live well just supporting their current market for a foreseeable future, barring Apple's new "one more thing".

Karl, you're generating a Cassandra problem here: if you were putting your money where your mouth was the whole way up the parabola, you'd be long past broke. I understand that you have an irrational hatred for all things Jobs, but I think peeing on Jobs' grave would be more emotionally healthy and cathartic than railing against the irrationality of the market on Apple.

IMHO, everything you've ever forecasted about Apple can be applied to BMW and Mercedes equally. They sell luxury brands into a market dominated by low-cost options. Granted, neither has faced Apple's parabolic stock rise recently; but they have the same fundamental position. They both have loyal buyers in markets that traditionally run towards commodity status in bad times. So, why aren't you short BMW or Mercedes?

If I had money to spare, I could be talked into buying Apple at $300. Apple at $100 is IMHO just projection.

Greg Couch lost his mind over Calipari

2012-04-03T11:55:00.002-04:00

I hate to even link to Greg Couch's screed, but here's my comment to it anyway:

UNC has three players going pro early. Anyone for calling out Roy Williams? Robinson will leave Kansas early: perhaps Bill Self should never have recruited him? If you really believe this, advocate that schools bind students to 4 year contracts with repayment and penalty clauses. Let's see how well that goes.

Basketball players do NOT owe colleges anything. Even South Dakota State Teachers College(*) makes more in revenue off its basketball program than it costs to fund the kids' scholarships. A school like UK or Kansas makes multiples on it. The kids carry their school's athletic departments on their backs; they don't "owe" anything to anyone.

We are supposed to go to college to equip ourselves for a living. An NBA lottery pick guarantees enough money to live on for life. A first round guarantees a solid start for life. Even a second round pick is 5-10 years salary per year for the rest of us.

I think Mr. Couch is just jealous that his 4+ years striving for a journalism degree that is rapidly approaching toilet paper in value has clouded his judgement. Quit being jealous that these kids are turning their talents into lucrative careers.

(*) OK, I admit to exaggerating slightly. If South Dakota Teachers State College still exists (it used to, but I can't find it on Google now), it's probably Division 3 or NAIA, and they won't have scholarships. Nonetheless, the general point holds: basketball teams are profitable excluding coaching salaries, and most schools are profitable including coaching salaries. (It's football that usually breaks the athletic budgets at most schools.)

A post from Packrat's brain stem

2012-04-03T00:44:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the lack of thoughtful posting, but Packrat is too busy screaming and enjoying the feeling of this National Championship to make a more coherent post.

GO CATS!!!!

Breaking News: Title Vacated

2012-04-01T00:20:00.001-04:00

NAP Wire, New Orleans: In an emergency effort to assure the fans of NCAA basketball of the integrity of the NCAA basketball process, Dr. Mark Emmert has preemptively vacated UK's eighth national championship.

"We're not exactly sure what they have done, but I'm sure Cal has done something. We just want to be proactive and prepared for a foregone conclusion."

The University of Kansas has asked for the trophy, but Emmert claimed that he left it in his office, and will have to call them back.

Update: April 1st just isn't that interesting around the Interwebs this year....

Minor incident at the mall last night

2012-03-21T12:30:00.001-04:00

Had to run for the bathroom. Given how my colon still hasn't 100% recovered from a mega-dose of antibiotics a couple of months ago (no, the yogurt didn't help...), I don't dare try to stretch it long. Fortunately, it was the women's bathroom and not the men's that was shut down for cleaning.

I sit down to think for a moment, and I notice the feet in the next stall. Nice flip-flops. And red nail polish.

Seems that one lady couldn't wait, and her boyfriend/husband/significant other escorted into and out of the bathroom in haste....

At first, I just figured that I'd gone to the wrong bathroom. Again. Seeing the stalls through the crack in the bathroom door fixed that worry, at least.

Pre-game in decent seats

2012-03-15T18:17:00.001-04:00

Going to the UK game

2012-03-15T09:41:00.001-04:00

Little Miss and I scored 2 tickets to the UK-WKU game, thanks to my boss.

Little Miss has to go to class first, then we can leave for Louisville.

Just don't tell Milady we stopped at the Tolly-Ho for breakfast....

A comment made

2012-02-22T22:57:00.000-05:00

AndyO said: I’m not worried that the “conservative” machine is angling to put up another easily manipulated idiot like Dubya as their candidate for president. I’m not worried that each of these idiots seems willing to march lockstep to the orders of Big Money.
I take no comfort in how they seem to have no worries about alienating more and more voters.
What scares me is that they expect to win. And there must be a reason they think they can win the next round of elections IN SPITE OF THE MAJORITY.

I know I'm sure looking forward to an administration where most of the people running Treasury, State, the Federal Reserve, the White House intellegence structure, and various advisory boards are filled by people who haven't worked for (or taken a lot of money from) Goldman Sachs. I certainly don't want a president who has taken over $1 million in donations from Goldman Sachs employees.

Oh, wait, sorry. I just described the Obama administration.

Big Money has made very sure that they own all of the significant politicians for both parties. If I dare say it, there's only one politician who might be free of the bankers (his initials are RP), and even he has been a politician long enough to accumulate a few earmarks.

Why rob banks? That's where the money is. Now, the banks rob governments, because we insist on letting the government have its hooks on so much of us.

Commercials, second half

2012-02-05T21:55:00.001-05:00

Sorry, didn't care for any of them. Best of the game are all the first half commercials.

Good job Giants.

Commercials, first half

2012-02-05T20:25:00.001-05:00

There's only been two really good commercials:

First, Mr. Quiggly: very funny dog running.

Second, the Clint Eastwood Chrysler commercial:

Honorable mention: Sling Baby from Doritos.

If Ridley really cared about Lexington

2012-01-22T23:13:00.000-05:00

If Ridley cared about the new 4th district, then he would tell everyone that he will resign in time to allow Stein to run for the seat this November. Instead, he wants to keep his seat for two more years.