Monday Book Pick: Sword of Exodus
The Sword of Exodus by Larry Correia and Mike Kupari
The sequel to Dead Six. Valentine and Lorenso are in even deeper shit than they were before. Plenty of action and raw meat for the firearm enthusists.
Monday Book Pick Archive
The Obama Economy Numbers
It’s been five years since our Dear Leader started his “Occupy the White House Golf Tour” and four and half years since the second worst recession since the great depression ended. Now history tells us that the deep the recession, the stronger the recovery.
So where the recovery that should have started four and half years ago? An actual recovery would involve replacing the jobs lost and creating news one. Instead of that, what we have under the economic guidance of our Dear Leader is over ten million people less in the workforce than we had at the start of the recession.
The U3 unemployment rate fell to 6.7% from 7%, which normally would be a good thing. In this case, not so much. Let’s look at the numbers. The economy only added about 70,000 new jobs in December. If you have been paying attention over the past four and half years, you would know that the economy needs to add 120,000 new jobs every month just to keep up with population growth. The drop in the BLS U3 number is explained by the 520,000 people “leaving the workforce.” A better indicator of the health of the workforce is the BLS U6 rate. The average U6 rate during our Dear Leader‘s reign has been 13.1%. To compare, the average U6 rate during President George W. Bush’s two terms was 9.2%.
To further highlight just how much the current administration’s policies are negatively effecting Americans, let us review the progress made on the “War on Poverty” started 50 years ago by LBJ.
[…] Fifty years after President Johnson started a $20 trillion taxpayer-funded war on poverty, the overall percentage of impoverished people in the U.S. has declined only slightly and the poor have lost ground under President Obama.
[…] Although the president often rails against income inequality in America, his policies have had little impact overall on poverty. A record 47 million Americans receive food stamps, about 13 million more than when he took office.
The poverty rate has stood at 15 percent for three consecutive years, the first time that has happened since the mid-1960s. The poverty rate in 1965 was 17.3 percent; it was 12.5 percent in 2007, before the Great Recession.
About 50 million Americans live below the poverty line, which the federal government defined in 2012 as an annual income of $23,492 for a family of four.
President Obama’s anti-poverty efforts “are basically to give more people more free stuff,” said Robert Rector, a specialist on welfare and poverty at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
“That’s exactly the opposite of what Johnson said,” Mr. Rector said. “Johnson’s goal was to make people prosperous and self-sufficient.”
So, as the nice man said, “Obama’s economic program of tax, spend, and regulate has been a dismal failure.”
Here is a graph from the Federalist, which points out that if ten million workers haven’t dropped out the workforce because the lack of economic growth, the U3 unemployment level would be almost 11%. This is Jimmy Carter recession level territory, in what should be a robust recovery.
Monday Book Pick: The Forever Engine
Filed under: Baen Books, Monday Book Pick, Science Fiction
The Forever Engine by Frank Chadwick
Crunchy Steampunk goodness from one of the founders of the genre. Yes, it’s that Frank Chadwick, creater of the Space:1889 RPG. Those of you, like me, will find a good deal familiar with tale of adventure and Mad Science. Including Liftwood, stout hearted British Marines, and a five barrel Nordenfelt!
Round Up Post
Filed under: Barking Moonbats, economy, Obama Economy, Our Dear Leader, Politics, RKBA
Let’s start with a few firearm/RKBA articles.
James Craig became the Detroit Police Chief last summer. Before that he spent decades working in the Los Angeles Police Department before becoming the Chief of Police in Portland, Maine. In LA, pretty much the only people with firearms are cops and violent criminals. The restrictive, so-called “gun control” laws haven’t really slowed down the rate criminals can obtain firearms. In Portland, Maine, firearm ownership among the law abiding is pretty common. Another difference is the violent crime rate. High in LA, low in Portland. Chief Craig’s advice for reducing crime in Detroit (which approaches Robocop levels), is more firearms in the hands of law abiding citizens. Here is one of multiple studies that back Chief Craig’s advice.
San Francisco is pretty diverse, it even has pro-Second Amendment liberal democrats. These folks are pretty far left wackos despite this one gleam of sanity in the world view. Hell, they don’t like our Dear Leader because he’s “too conservative” in their view. Probably upset he hasn’t rounded up Republicans and shipped them off to death re-education camps yet.
Here is a question that many law abiding citizens who have actually read the Constitution ask themselves, “My next AR, build or buy?”
Can’t leave the epic Charlie Fox known as Obamacare off the list. “Glitches” in the bloody website are still rampant, leaving many without coverage. Keep in mind, that in the time it took the Obama administration to build a really crappy website, America build almost 100 aircraft carriers during WWII. Plus the aircraft for the carriers, and the support vessels, and trained the crews.
For your reference when dealing with moonbats and Obama cultists, 8 Things Liberals Do to Avoid Having an Honest Debate.
Let’s wrap up with a look at how the Obama Economy is working for America. “34%: The unemployment rate for Americans ages 16-17. The unemployment rate for teenage Hispanic Americans is 48%, and the rate for teenage Black Americans is 60%.” Ya, just how is that hopey-changey thing workin’ for ya?
The Schadenfreude keeps on rolling in…
Filed under: Barking Moonbats, Obama Economy, Our Dear Leader, Politics
By way of the VodkaPundit, comes this tale of progressive Obama-cultist woe.
A self-described Obamacare “cheerleader” is upset that she actually has to pay for health care.
“I’ve been a cheerleader for the Affordable Care Act since I heard about it and I assumed that it was designed for people in my situation,” she told KOIN. “I was planning on using the Affordable Care Act and I had done the online calculator in advance to make sure I was going to be able to afford it.”
Her husband works for a non-profit organization that pays for his health care, but the couple is unable to afford to have her and their son covered under his plan. And she’s been told their combined income is too much to qualify for a subsidized health care plan under Cover Oregon.
“It wasn’t until I started the process and got an agent that I started hearing from them I wasn’t going to qualify for subsidies because I qualify on my husband’s insurance,” she told KOIN.
Mr Green sums up this tale of angst and woe:
In other words, Miss Anonymous supported ObamaCare when she thought you were going to pay for it.
Scratch a prog, find a greedy, grubby thief.
One of the comments to the post gets to the heart of the matter:
…the article says the combined income disqualified them from subsidies (in addition to her being eligible for her husband’s plan, I assume). I believe that’s over $94,200. Cost of living aside, that’s decent money.
Now here’s what happened: Husband previously insured everyone on his plan. Obamacare came along and they decided they would drop the wife and child from his policy during open enrollment. The expectation was that, according to the online calculator, they’d be able to get insured free or close to free. This saving the family ~$125 a month. So he dropped them with the expectation that they would have coverage on January 1. Unfortunately for them, the agent actually appeared to do his job and confirmed that their income was too high and she had qualified for her husband’s plan. Now it’s too late to add them back to his policy.
Basically, it’s not that they CAN’T afford it, it’s that they don’t WANT to pay for it – at our expense. I feel sorry for the child. It has to be raised by a couple on unprincipled degenerates.
Straight Up Racism
I’ve often pointed out that a good way to find out what leftist are up to is to listen to what they are accusing those they see as their political enemies of.
Case in point, racism. The left has been playing the so-called “Race Card” so often since our Dear Leader started his run for his “Occupy the White House” gold tour, that even the self-identified “fake journalists” at Comedy Central have called them on it. It has been become their default reply to anybody who dares to disagree with their far left extremist ideology.
Now if you were to look for actual examples of racism, you would find the “progressives” who toss out the charge, guilty of what they accuse other of, more often than not. Case in point, democrat election campaigns pay their white staffers more than black or hispanic staffers.
“African American staffers on Democratic federal-level campaigns are paid 70 cents on the dollar compared to their white counterparts; Hispanics are paid 68 cents on the dollar,”
The study goes on to point out, while Republican campaigns tend to hire more white men than the democrats, they are much better at paying their minority staffers what they pay the white staffers.
Friday B-Movie Pick: The Wolverine
This Marvel Comic based movie didn’t get the best reviews. It worked for me, but then I was really into comics back when Wolverine was first Uber-Popular with the fan base. So I knew all the backstory they tried to cram into this movie. It was a good action movie with nice fight scenes. The “ghost of Jean Grey” that the writers stuck in in order to give Logan more of tortured back story was a trifle over done in my NSHO. Bottom line, this is a Marvel Fan-Person movie. If you aren’t you can give this a pass. If you are, and are willing to put up with the backstory butchering these films are infamous for, fire up the popcorn.
Why is the media suppressing facts about the latest school shooting?
Filed under: Barking Moonbats, Media Bias, Politics, Progressives
Here is what you probably know, kid brings a shotgun to school (a “gun free zone”) and shoots another student before killing himself. The student he shot later died from her wounds inflicted by the kid who ignored the numerous victim disarmament laws in place.
Here is something you probably haven’t heard, because it doesn’t fit the media narrative. One of the law flaunting murder’s fellow students described him as “a very opinionated Socialist.” He also was, like our Dear Leader, a Keynesian.
He was also a strong proponent of so-called “gun control” laws. Yet, he decided to advance his political views through the barrel of a gun. Guess that makes him a good progressive.
Which is the message the “traditional” main stream media doesn’t want getting out.
Now imagine how they would have handled this story if this murderer had political leans anywhere to the right of center.
Rocket City Rednecks
I discovered this show by reading one of Travis Talyor’s non-fiction books, A New American Space Plan. While this post is about the TV show, pick up this book as well. It’s a well laid out case of why American should be serious about getting into space again and how to do it.
Also take the time to watch the show, Rocket City Rednecks, either by streaming or on optical disk. This show is about five self-identified Rednecks from Huntsville, AL, two of which are actual rocket scientists from NASA who actually build working gear. Really cool gear that works. OK, it works most of the time, but even when they fail, they learn from their mistakes so then can do it better the next time. That is really one of the important lessons. It’s OK to fail, as long as you learn from it. Most of the gear is built in Travis’ father’s garage. Charles Travis is a retired NASA machinist who worked on the Apollo program, and one of the five Rednecks who star in the show.
I’ve watched about a third of the first season so far, and they have built some really nifty gear so far. These include a still in order to build a moonshine fueled rocket, the actual rocket, a balloon based observation platform, a working submarine, a radio telescope array using 18″ satellite dishes, under vehicle armor capable of withstanding an IED blast (they drove the pickup truck away afterwards), and a working “Iron Man” suit, that had armor capable of stopping 9mm handgun rounds, lifting over 100 pounds with a single arm and fired rockets!
Just to add to the overall coolness of this, most of their projects are done over a single weekend with a budget of about $1000. Keep in mind that three of these Rednecks are current or former NASA employees. The two active ones have eight advanced degrees in science between them (Travis has five post-graduate degrees. For those of you who know me, yes, that is one more than Amy currently has). Rog (Rednect #4) doesn’t have any advanced degrees, but he does have a genius level IQ, and Michael (Travis’ nephew) is mechanically inclined and studying to be a machinist. Still, if you know basic work working, basic welding, how to solder two wires together, and some basic programming, you and your friends could try some of this stuff.
Which is kinda the whole idea of the show. To get kids off the XBox and out there building go carts, rockets, radio sets and other cool gear.
This is the kind of show my dad would have loved. He was 22 year veteran of the Army Corps of Engineers, and would have been out teaching kids how to to build the things the Rednecks are building.
Originally published at Urbin Technology
Obamacare is even more of a Charlie Fox than we thought
Filed under: Culture of Corruption, Our Dear Leader, Politics
It was clear that our Dear Leader‘s signature program was a Charlie Fox of epic proportions from the start, but Team Obama seems Hell Bent to take incompetence to even higher levels than they have in the past.
Case in point, they can’t even enroll Barry Soweto or as he’s known these days, Barack Hussein Obama, into their system.
If they were just corrupt, they could have faked it, but these idiots are corrupt and incompetent! To be fair, the system is working as well as one would expect with a corrupt community organizer with communist leanings, who never worked a real job in his entire life, running the system.