Build Your Own AR-15....In Your Kitchen?

Well, it's only the last 20%.  But still.

Making me wonder why our friends on the left obsess about the "gun show loophole."

Con-man commandments

1. Be a patient listener (it is this, not fast talking, that gets a con-man his coups).

 2. Never look bored.

3. Wait for the other person to reveal any political opinions, then agree with them.

 4. Let the other person reveal religious views, then have the same ones.

5. Hint at sex talk, but don’t follow it up unless the other fellow shows a strong interest.

6. Never discuss illness, unless some special concern is shown.

 7. Never pry into a person’s personal circumstances (they’ll tell you all eventually).

 8. Never boast. Just let your importance be quietly obvious.

 9. Never be untidy.

10. Never get drunk.

 Source is here.

A PSA for KPC readers

(clic the pic for an even more glorious image)

What do you get the jaguar who has everything?

Indoor plumbing, of course!!

Hat tip to Karl de la O

A foolproof plan to balance the budget and stimulate the economy

As you may know, one of the ideas tossed around for dealing with the debt limit was to have the Treasury mint a trillion $ coin and then have the Fed "buy" it from them.

It is not well known, but totally true that Congress has already put the Fed on such a path since 2005 with an extra economic stimulus twist.

The Fed is mandated to buy new "presidential" dollar coins every year from the Treasury. It costs $0.30 to make them so Treasury is making bank. Plus, no one wants to use them so the Fed has to find/build storage facilities to house the unwanted coins.

I am not making this up!

Currently the Fed is holding over a billion of these coins in 28 different storage facilities.

People, all we need to do in these troubled times is double down on this excellent starter program. Make the Fed buy, say a trillion of these coins every year and store them.

That's $700 billion a year in new revenue and lots of construction jobs building new storage facilities. Plus those facilities will need managers, forklift operators, maintenance workers, security guards...

Hey, maybe the Treasury could make the coins even bigger!

I really don't see what could go wrong here.

Hat tip to 7im.

Bricks in St Loo Taken By the Truckload

Nod to the Blonde

Opportunity Cost

Amazing. One of our problems is that "expense" is mostly effort and annual budget. Real cost, OPPORTUNITY cost, hardly enters the calculations of government officials at all.

As a result, "we" own a bunch of stupid, useless, wasted spaces in buildings all over the U.S. Because selling them would require that someone get off their ass. And because it would reduce the power of the agency that owns the space. Whereas the money just goes to reduce the burden on taxpayers. And nobody gives a *%&$ about that.

(Nod to Anonyman)

Whattya know.

It's easy (and fun) to mock John Boehner (he smokes, he cries, he tans), but I am beginning to believe that he is a very skilled politician.

How Germans make lemonade

When Regina Mayer's parents dashed her hopes of getting a horse, the resourceful 15-year-old didn't sit in her room and sulk. Instead, she turned to a cow called Luna to make her riding dreams come true.

Hours of training, and tons of treats, cajoling and caresses later, the results are impressive: not only do the two regularly go on long rides through the southern German countryside, they do jumps over a makeshift hurdle of beer crates and painted logs.

"She thinks she's a horse," the golden-haired Mayer joked on a recent sunny afternoon as she sat atop the impassive brown-and-white, grass-munching cow.

The whole story is here and is self-recommending. Regina still wants a horse though!

Hat tip to Mrs. Angus.

Markets in everything / there is no stagnation

Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, I give you the The Breed'n Betsy bovine rectal simulator!

Oh you know it's real!

And, for an extra fee you can get the optional "water rectum" for a more realistic feel!

Hey Tyler: How many of these babies were in the kitchens of the 1950s?

From the sublime to the ridiculous

People! I leave you alone for a few days to go snorkeling with humpback whales and y'all start up *another* war? I guess I just can't go on vacation, eh?

Here's a quick pic; we have just started downloading photos and videos from the trip.

Yes, they actually let you get in the water and swim around with 40 foot long, 30-40 ton whales (and sometimes their 2 ton, 2 month old children)!

Here's the company's report on the week we spent with them.

The greatest thing to come out of George Mason!

With all apologies to Pete Boettke, it's got to be this (best to watch with the sound off because the guy is kind of an a-hole):

More on this tiny dancer is available here.

QOTD

"It is unimaginable that someone is killing his citizens, bombarding his citizens, how can officers be ordered to use bullets from machine guns, tanks and guns against their own citizens?"

"This is unacceptable. Let the people speak, be free, decide to express their will. Do not resist the will of the people."

--Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Story is here. Who says this guy doesn't have a sense of humor?

All Hail Keith Gaddie

Keith is professor of political science at OU, a publishing machine, an expert in southern politics, a sought after consultant in cases involving re-districting and voting rights, and a novelist!.

People, you should fire up the Facebook and beg Keith to friend you. He has the consistently best FB posts of anyone in my vast network (of 116) friends. Here is a koan-like gem from this morning:

"Anderson Cooper is the little miniature dog in America's designer handbag."

I don't think I've written a sentence that good in my whole life!

My favorite short poems about prison

Prison Ball

They don't negotiate if you are held
Hostage. Don't attempt to take a charge.
If you find a point guard who'll pass the rock,
Help him escape. Let him fastbreak at large.

-Sherman Alexie



Christmas in Prison

It was Christmas in prison
and the food was real good.
We had turkey and pistols
carved out of wood.

-John Prine

Mother Superior jumped the gun

Wow. Huge article in today's WSJ by Yale Law professor Amy Chua (of World on Fire "fame") called, "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior". Should have been titled "I am a raging, abusive, racist, a-hole".

It's terrific to read the whole thing. You think it can't get any worse and then it does.

Here's a lovely vignette involving her masochistic husband, Jed and daughter Lulu, that followed Lulu's inability to play a certain piece of music on the piano:

Jed took me aside. He told me to stop insulting Lulu—which I wasn't even doing, I was just motivating her—and that he didn't think threatening Lulu was helpful. Also, he said, maybe Lulu really just couldn't do the technique—perhaps she didn't have the coordination yet—had I considered that possibility?

"You just don't believe in her," I accused.

"That's ridiculous," Jed said scornfully. "Of course I do."

"Sophia could play the piece when she was this age."

"But Lulu and Sophia are different people," Jed pointed out.

"Oh no, not this," I said, rolling my eyes. "Everyone is special in their special own way," I mimicked sarcastically. "Even losers are special in their own special way. Well don't worry, you don't have to lift a finger. I'm willing to put in as long as it takes, and I'm happy to be the one hated. And you can be the one they adore because you make them pancakes and take them to Yankees games."

I rolled up my sleeves and went back to Lulu. I used every weapon and tactic I could think of. We worked right through dinner into the night, and I wouldn't let Lulu get up, not for water, not even to go to the bathroom.

Holy Crap!

And with this purchase, I have finished my Christmas shopping!!!

I saved the best for last too:

Oh Dear!

Leader, that is. Thanks to @hallsmansm for pointing me to this most excellent blog.

Here are a couple of examples:

Kobe Bean Bryant: I owe it all to Michael...JACKSON??

What a fantastic column by Adrian Wojnorowski.

Here's the highlight:

Out of nowhere one afternoon, Michael Jackson made a call to the irrepressible and isolated Kobe Bryant, and so much changed for him. From a distance, the King of Pop could sense so much of his own obsessive genius within the prodigy. Bryant was the 18-year-old wonder for the Los Angeles Lakers, and no one knew what to make of a restlessness borne of a desperate desire for greatness.

“He noticed I was getting a lot of [expletive] for being different,” Bryant said.

They would talk for hours and hours, visiting at Neverland Ranch, and Bryant has long been fortified by the lessons Jackson instilled about the burden of honoring true talent, about the ways to open your mind to be smarter, sharper and insatiable in the chase.

“It sounds weird, I guess, but it’s true: I was really mentored by the preparation of Michael Jackson,” Bryant told Yahoo! Sports.

Bryant isn’t much for nostalgia and sentimentality, but it hung in the air as he cut into his steak over dinner recently in the fourth-floor restaurant at the Graves Hotel. Jackson is gone, but Bryant is going on 15 years with the Lakers.

“We would always talk about how he prepared to make his music, how he prepared for concerts,” Bryant said. “He would teach me what he did: How to make a ‘Thriller’ album, a ‘Bad’ album, all the details that went into it. It was all the validation that I needed – to know that I had to focus on my craft and never waver. Because what he did – and how he did it – was psychotic. He helped me get to a level where I was able to win three titles playing with Shaq because of my preparation, my study. And it’s only all grown.

“That’s the mentality that I have – it’s not an athletic one. It’s not from [Michael] Jordan. It’s not from other athletes.

“It’s from Michael Jackson.”


I don't think I'll be able to get the smile this gave me off my face all day.

It's so EZ to save the country

The NY Times set out a challenge: YOU fix the Budget! So I tried and it was easy. You can see my plan from this link.

I (more than) balanced the budget in 2015 and 2030 with 90% coming from spending cuts and 10% from new revenues.

I left the Bush tax rates in place. I didn't get rid our our current tax breaks for mortgages and health insurance. I didn't put on a national sales tax.

I did put on a carbon tax and some type of estate tax. I raised the social security retirement age one year to 68, and I capped medicare growth at GDP growth +1% point starting in 2013.

The rest was just straight up, old fashioned spending cuts.

I would put the chances of anything within two standard deviations of my proposal getting through our political system at right around 2 or 3 percent tops.

But the bottom line is that we are not in budget trouble because of any fundamental structural economic or demographic problems. We are in trouble because our politics are disfunctional.