Divemedic

When I posted about the Swiss Guard the other day, it caused me to get into a discussion with a Catholic friend, who accused me of posting a fake photo and lying about the Church. This caused me to embark on a research campaign throughout the Internet, looking for evidence of the modern arms carried by the Swiss Guard. That was not easy. The Catholic Church is largely run by people who know how to keep a secret. Ever meet a Jesuit that couldn’t keep a secret?

Anyhow, during my research, I found quite a few places where people made fun of the guards because of their quaint ceremonial uniforms, and people saying that they must be incompetent. I would point out that those uniforms are CEREMONIAL, were designed by Michelangelo himself, and are meant to be seen as non threatening. Pope Paul the 6th is said to have begun a campaign of making the Guard appear less threatening, to the point where it was suggested in 1968 that the halberds, chest plates, and helmets would be eliminated. That doesn’t mean that the Guard doesn’t know its business. They have guarded the Holy See for over 500 years, and not one Pope has been killed under their watch. That is an impressive record that no other security detail in the world can come close to matching, although they came close to losing that unblemished record when Pope john Paul II was shot in 1981.  

In order to be a member of the Swiss Guard, the applicant must be a Swiss citizen of Roman Catholic faith, be between 19 and 30 years old, have attended the Swiss military academy, unmarried, and at least 174 cm tall. New guards are sworn in once a year, on May 6th.

They carry modern weapons, and by all accounts appear to be a well trained, well equipped force. I may have a problem with the Church’s policies, but the training and record of the Swiss Guard is exemplary.

There is an old story from back in the days when states required people to take a test in order to vote. Back in those days, it was the sheriff of the county that administered the test in the state of Georgia. the test was simple: The sheriff would hand the applicant a newspaper, and simply read the headline aloud. 

Now the story goes that one day, a black man appeared at the Sheriff’s office and wanted to register to vote. The sheriff handed the man a newspaper.

It was printed in Japanese. Without missing a beat, the man said: “Well, this is easy. It says here that there ain’t no niggas gonna be allowed to vote in Georgia this year.”

This is the reason that we do not restrict rights in this country: because to restrict a right is to allow people to deny that right to others. This is why THIS post rightly pisses me off. The racism that allowed that sheriff to deny the man his voting right is just as repugnant as the attitude being used to deny gay marriage or deny gun rights. How dare you restrict a right in order to force others to live as you wish them to.

In the majority opinion of the Heller case, the Supreme court said:

“We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms.
Miller
(an earlier case) said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons
protected were those “in common use at the time”. We think that
limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of
prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’ ” 

This has been called the “common use” test. This can be a dangerous precedent, because what is not in common use today may be the best thing tomorrow. Case in point:

 A doctor in London thinks that he can use psilocybin, the psychedelic ingredient in magic mushrooms, to treat depression. However, the problem is that the drug is a class I controlled substance, meaning that it is highly addictive and has no recognized medical use. For that reason, scientists and doctors cannot even use the drug in studies to investigate whether or not it has a medical use. In other words, since it is not in common use, no one may use it, even to find out if it CAN be useful. That is the problem with “common use” tests.

This line of reasoning means that the founding fathers meant for the Constitution to only protect muskets, as they were all that was in common use at the time of ratification. I cannot believe that the founders could possibly be so short sighted. If this were the case, the First Amendment would not protect your right to speech on the internet, over the telephone, or on the radio.

Here in the US, the Republican party is all for drug prohibition and fully supports this application of the common use test. Marijuana is itself a class 1 controlled substance, and the Republicans refuse to admit that it has, or ever can have, a legitimate medical use. The Republicans: for smaller, less intrusive government. Unless it involves drugs. Or sex. Or marriage. Or forcing people to learn about religion in school. Or making alcohol off limits during the hours that church is in session. Or…

This anti-gun screed is so full of fail, it is sickening. Drop by and give him your opinion.

I read an article yesterday that claims the rate of inflation in the US is 1.3 percent, and 10 year treasury yields are holding at 1.69 percent. The two are tied together, and they are both being manipulated.

The official inflation numbers are being massaged. They exclude energy and food, which is a major part of our expenses. Let’s take a look at what energy and food are doing. This website began tracking the prices of 30 grocery items, plus a gallon of gasoline in 2008. What they found was the cost of these items was:

$54.11 in 2008.
$70.37 in March of 2011, an inflation rate of about 9%.
$76.86 in August of 2011, meaning an annual inflation rate of about 18%.
$79.28, in September of 2012, a 3% inflation rate.

The only thing that has slowed down inflation is the cost of housing from 2008-2009, with the crash of the housing market. That has since corrected itself. Look at the prices here.

Interestingly, average wages in the US are 20 times higher than they were in 1930.
A new house is 62 times more expensive
A new car is 47 times more expensive.
Gasoline is 21 times as much.
Bread 31 times.
Beef 33 times as much as 1930.

In terms of real purchasing power, this is the poorest generation in over 100 years.

Sidney Crosby, known as “Sid the Kid” was a rising star player for the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins. In his first season in the NHL, he was the sixth most productive scorer in the league. In his second, he was the number one most productive scorer. His future was bright. Until the fifth season, when he took blows to the head twice within a four day period. He began showing unspecified “concussion-like symptoms,” missed the rest of that season, the playoffs, and the first quarter of the following season. All from taking two blows to the head while wearing a helmet. Sid eventually recovered and is playing again, but remember that that head injury took nearly a year to recover from.

How is this related to guns? Dr. Hemenway of the Harvard School of Public Health claimed on January 13 that:

The gun is a great equalizer because it makes wimps as dangerous as
people who really have skill and bravery and so I’d like to have this
notion that anyone using a gun is a wuss. They aren’t anybody to be
looked up to. They’re somebody to look down at because they couldn’t
defend themselves or couldn’t protect others without using a gun.

Now some of you may see where I am going with this, and others will think that I am advocating that hockey players should shoot opposing players with handguns.

The reason I bring up Sidney Crosby is simple: There is this attitude in the United States that when a person attacks you, you should try to engage in some sort of boxing match, and if you are unable to adequately defend yourself from a larger, faster, or more skilled opponent, you should “take your ass whipping like a man.” This comes mainly from the Hollywood fallacy that people can take a hit to the head that is sufficient to knock them unconscious and wake up with nothing worse to show for it than a headache. The fact is: ANY blow to the head is potentially fatal, as this article describes.  

The fact is that fists and feet are the murder weapons in over 700 murders a year. In fact, in 2011, an 11 year old girl killed a classmate with her bare hands. Taking away the ability for that homosexual to defend himself from the teens that want to beat him up, the woman who is the intended victim of a rapist, the senior citizen from the violent Burger King employee, or the man in a wheelchair from his attacker doesn’t make us manlier, it makes us more of a “survival of the fittest” Darwinian society and society fails. For isn’t the point of society to protect those who are unable to protect themselves?

From Jon Gutmacher comes an excellent example of how it isn’t guns that are the problem.