Midweek links
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2014- Eighty-four square feet, 305 possessions. I’m glad my own tiny-house phase is over, but I’m also glad I had it. I’m really glad it never went down to 84 square feet.
- Join the IRS. Cheat on your taxes. Misbehave. Win awards. Where do I sign up!
- Not just renegade ranchers, but the Texas attorney general, is ready to say, “Come and take it! (H/T LarryA in comments.)
- Rebels, rebels everywhere. And some intriguing background on who really “owns” all that Nevada land. (H/T Pat and naturegirl in comments.)
- Fellow plane passengers perform one, tiny non-violent act of resistance to save a fellow passenger from an unjust and potentially deadly deportation. Wow.
- 23andMe: “The Google of Spit.”
- One more thing that’s wrong with NICS. (As if everything weren’t already wrong with it.)
- While the smartest and most dogged gun-rights writers are still going back and forth about whether this week’s “faster than a speeding cartridge” Bloomy ad was real or a hoax, we know this one’s just as stooo-pid and appears to be the genuinely ignorant item.
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April 23rd, 2014
I cannot fathom living in 84 sq. feet. Granted, I look at things such as Housetrucks and think it’s cool, and it’d be fun project to build one. But to live long-term that way? I’d go bonkers.
The Izula showed up today. :-) I might try to find the rest of the kit, sans knife. Time to play with paracord!
April 23rd, 2014
A recent article on the current summit regarding land in the West http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/57836973-90/utah-federal-lands-states.html.csp backs up what Armstrong said in his article. (Utah believes they own the government owned land and has been on this issue for quite a while.) This particular summit has been scheduled for months and it’s ironic it all happened at nearly the same time….
As much as all that was disturbing, I think it will turn out that the real scary part was discovering Daniel Love and his story. And how many other Daniel Love type of teams there might be out there. And how can they take an oath to support and defend the constitution yet turn on their fellow Americans so easily? Not to mention how creepy it is to think the government thinks it needs to insert teams like this into general population.
April 24th, 2014
The real issue is the federal govt has been trying to claim, “legitimately”, its right to land since the American Revolution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Land_Management
That claim is behind such things as “citizenship”, The War Between The States, the issuance of passports (going and coming), what constitutes a traitor, and who owns real property (including which individual gets the right to homestead, and for what purpose).
That claim is also behind fedgov’s push for eminent domain, and regulations re: defense of home and property.
In addition, that claim purports to establish who is a “patriot” (or not), and how patriotism is expressed ― and taught ― in the “public school system”.
In short, all these requisites are a means to justify a geographical area called a “nation” (not confined to the U.S. ― all countries have established this claim).
What is significant to the U.S., however, is that this nation, by its original immigration, was not designed to be a “nation”, but a land of free will, where every individual could, and should, have the opportunity to establish his own means of living the way he chose. I think the “Founding Fathers”, *and the population at large*, were not used to that idea themselves, and did not know how to process individual ownership into a viable free society ― thus the subsequent downfall into dogmas and regulations (as those listed above) which ultimately legitimized the idea of “one nation, indivisible”. And, as the people accepted the idea of a new nation, they lost claim to the free land they had envisioned.
April 24th, 2014
You’re right, Claire –
“You fear we’ll take your guns. WE fear you’ll take our children.”
…goes beyond mere stoop-id and clear to asinine.
Once you guns are gone, Idiots – you’ll have no way to stop them from taking your children. Or doing anything else with them.
Or you.
April 24th, 2014
That’s right, Mark. Handing over your guns is the same as saying, “Now what else do you want to do to me?”
Those in government are thieves, counterfeiters, and murderers. Why wouldn’t they be cattle rustlers too?
I’m getting tired of all the people who say registration leads to confiscation. That is manifestly untrue. We have registration (NICS) and don’t have confiscation. I commented on that article, showing him where he is wrong. Surrendering guns is a choice. As to NICS being worthless, what’s new? The whole friggin government is worthless.
April 24th, 2014
To some extent the second ad is accurate, considering how many young people I’m seeing in my shooting classes.
Had two college-age sisters who took basic rifle because they didn’t want to be afraid of guns any more. The kids were successful, but there were parental hissyfits involved.
The whole FDA thing is coming unglued. Genetic drugs developed for one unique patient don’t lend themselves to mass trials.
And talk about unglued. NYPD opens Twitter#myNYPD site so people can post pics of their interaction with Officer Friendly. What could go wrong?
http://politix.topix.com/story/11691-epic-fail-the-nypds-twitter-outreach-campaign-has-massively-backfired
April 24th, 2014
Been visiting Claire’s blog for years, it is required daily reading for me. (Thank you Claire!)
I finally saw something I had to comment on.
Paul, I disagree that we have (full) registration with NICS. As long as many states such as mine allow for the free and undocumented sale of firearms between citizens of our states, that 4473 or NICS check don’t mean a thing.
“Yes officer, I sold that to some big guy named George. He showed me a CCW and drivers license. Don’t recall his last name. Have a nice day”…….is a perfectly legal response in my state. Once such an act is illegal in all states, THEN we’ll have registration and the confiscations will begin.
True registration is getting closer, but it’s not here yet.
April 24th, 2014
Here’s a video of Dee’s tiny house: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSGvBJEoNv8
April 24th, 2014
DTS is correct, Paul.
Furthermore, there’s always one more point I like to make (particularly to those who fret about the “Mark of the Beast” from the Book of Revelation, and those who don’t ;) –
the concern is about “commerce” – and the obvious intent of Big Brother to control EVERYTHING (and by implication) everyONE that tries to “buy or sell” in order to live:
There is one and only one type of property which is explicitly enumerated and protected in the Constitution, with that absolute prohibition which states, “shall NOT be infringed.” The one they are starting with. The one where “private sales” between once-free people are the objective.
IFF (that’s IF, and ONLY IF, for us engineering and math types) they can require “permission” (which is what such a ‘mark’ is all about) before any Slave of the Almighty State can “buy or sell” — or transfer, gift, bequeath, or what-have-you — a FIREARM, what else is there?
What kind of property could not possibly be prohibited by that false master to those peons?
“Registration” is a process…and it’s now IN process.
April 25th, 2014
No, you guys are wrong. You are looking at it from a legalistic and from a personal viewpoint. Try looking at it from the point of view of a bureaucrat.
A bureaucrat doesn’t *have* to know where every gun is. He just needs to know who buys a lot of guns. The (half-assed registration) NICS is good enough for that. If a confiscation bill is ever passed, they will be knocking at your doors, and searching your house. Saying you lost them in a boating accident won’t fly because the confiscators will have heard that before. They only need to catch you in one lie. That assumes they don’t just plant some shit on you (which is a pretty absurd assumption).
The guys with a lot of NICS hits will get the first visits, and then they will work their way down the list.
Sure, they’d like to tie it up tighter before they go for confiscation, so they will always push for capture of all transfers (and that would be worse for us); but they don’t NEED to. They have what they need right now.
What they are missing is that we will kill them if they try a confiscation. It won’t matter what is in their databases.
April 25th, 2014
More tiny living spaces. Hey, put 5 or 6 of these together, I could deal with that.
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_25630873/rhino-cubed-packs-tiny-portable-homes-into-spent
April 27th, 2014
The Western Shoshone filed suit decades ago to try to reclaim their land. In 1962 the now defunct Indian Claims Court ruled the Shoshone had lost control of their land due to settler encroachment and were not entitled to any claim from the US government.[4]
Good god that’s awesome. Harry really needs to get his story down better like the ICC did. My gratuitous summary: “We the encroaches are taking your land because you have allowed encroachment.” 1962 somebody spat that crap out. Not 1862, 1962!