DC vs Heller

There seems to be a lot of misconceptions about the second amendment Ive noticed with all this publicity about DC v Heller. While I am glad the supreme court struck down DC's absolutely idiotic law I don't think the second amendment means what they think it means.
When the constitution was written men were stilling dueling to defend their honer i.e. Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Certainly in this environment the idea of anyone telling you that you could not defend yourself in your own home was absurd.
I am not a historian but from my own perspective the 2nd amendment means exactly what it says. It grants states the right to raise armed militias. These were militias after the manner of the minutemen. What did the minutemen do? They kicked a repressive government out of their colonies.
I think this because at the time the idea of the constitution was hotly debated idea (see federalists v antifederalists). That is why they worked on it over two months in a room closed to the public. One of the biggest concerns was that of the central/federal governments power versus those retained by states. In order to alleviate these concerns (and get the needed 3/4ths majority of colonies to sign) the drafters of the constitution added the bill of rights. When you look at the list of the 10 amendments as a whole I think you can see the fear of another repressive government shining though.
One must also remember that the government cannot grant rights. It only has the power to restrict them. I believe that regardless of which century you live in the right to defend your family and your home by the most efficient means possible is not only a right but a duty.

TJIC

Just in case you haven't checked out the link to TJIC here is a quote from his "about TJICistan"

TJICistan is an autonomous anarchic zone landlocked inside Arlington, MA, USA.

TJICistan covers approximately 7,000 square feet of space.

TJICistan has a permanent population of one humans and two dogs.

TJICistan seceeded from Arlington, Massachusetts, and the United States on 26 December, 1995.

After extensive utility computations, the non-government of TJICistan has chosen to pay taxes foreign aid, to all three levels of government in the adjacent territories, as the alternative of armed confrontation, while certainly exciting and entertaining, sums to a lower total level of utility over time.

TJICistan is heavilly armed, with approximately 10 firearms for every adult citizen.

Awesome.

Peculiar Markets

Today an interesting thing happened. It seems that because the Fed did not raise rates yesterday the dollar slid. Then because the dollar slid the price of oil jumped. Next because of oils jump the stock market slid. Or at least this is what is seems to me. Could the answer be for the fed to raise rates which would increase the dollar, which would push down oil, which would push the stock market up?
Craziness. Its kind of like Dr. Egon Spengler telling us to "cross the streams" after the don't cross the streams because, "Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light" speech.

Tulips or Oil

Coyote blog has a great explanation of why oil isn't being driven up by speculators here. Its definitely worth the time reading.
A couple of my own thoughts: Obama doesn't support off shore drilling because it will have no immediate effect. This is ironic for a couple of reasons. First isn't he touting himself as the long range visionary. Second if the democrats had been allowing us to drill off shore and in the arctic we wouldn't be in this bad of a predicament. Lastly their is nothing that will provide immediate relief. It takes time for consumption to come down or production to go up. These off shore well do take a few years to find and develop.
Next thought. People are changing the cars they purchase to more fuel efficient models. However with the average age of registered cars in America being 8 or 9 years the US auto fleet is going to take at least that much time to turn over into more efficient models.
Lastly for our own national security we ought to be increasing our domestic oil production capacity. That to me seems like a no brainer.

La Migra

Yes the title is probably spelled incorrectly. But the real purpose of this post is a question I have. Many people are suprised by my stance on immigration. It seems most Republicans think that illegal immigration is bad and when questioned on it they say "because its illegal". So my question is what gives our federal government the right to restrict immigration to our country. The easy answer is national security. But if you look closely that is not my question. The question is why does the government have the power to make immigration illegal. For example why are their quotas on the number of immigration visas allowed.
Another question is if capitalism makes the US so great why is it illegal for me to contract with someone from another country for his labor. Assume that we are both adults and consent and actually see mutual benefit from our contract. How, in a capitalist society, can this contract be illegal.
Just to put it out there if I had any say I would have no quotas and allow anyone who wanted to work to come. I suppose to appease the masses I would have some kind of background check in place to ensure they weren't criminals. This then would stem the flow of "illegals" to an amount that the border patrol could actually manage. Also this would only leave criminals trying to come in illegally. That means instead of a border fence, which would be totally ineffective - see Maginot Line, we could use predator drones with hellfire missiles or gatlin cannons to patrol the border. And you cant tell me that that wouldn't be cool.

Wally World

I have never really understood so many peoples hatred of Wal Mart. Their basic business plan is to undercut the competion. Sure this is bad for a few small merchants but for the rest of us it means we can buy all sorts of garbage for cheap.
This last week I was searching for a previous version of Command and Conquer for my computer. It had to be the older version because its what the rest of my family uses. I searched several so called game stores but couldn't find it. One of these stores was close to a Wal Mart so I decided to give it a last ditch try. To my pleasant surprise I found a DVD with not only the version I was looking for but several prior to it with expansion packs for $30. This experience once again affirmed that as much as I hate shopping Wal Mart makes it a little easier.

"Easy" Majors

As many of my nieces and nephews are approaching college age I thought this graph may be helpful for them in choosing a major or perhaps helpful for their parents in forbidding a particular major.

Hat tip Adventures in Capitalism