Thursday, April 02, 2009

Spring Break


Sorry I missed the party! But the airports are looney tunes time! I guess the recession doesn't count when you've got Daddy's credit card...come to think of it, that's how the country's being run these days, except they we're the Daddy.

In catch-up, here's a must-read piece from Breibart's new Big Hollywood site on the endless on th propaganda war on those poor, poor Mexicans:
“There is an iron river of guns that flows South into Mexico [from the United States] to supply criminal organizations on the border,” says Tom Mangan, senior special agent with Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) in Phoenix. “They are in the market for machine guns, hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles,” he continues. That’s right. The drug gangs can’t buy that and other military stuff like the 40MM grenades and the rifles with launchers...so they drive to the United States and purchase them from American gun dealers at retail. Isn’t that the story you’ve been told? Well, congratulations. America’s First Amendment protected propaganda ministry has punked you on another important issue — this time on behalf of dissembling officials and gun confiscation advocates.
Pretty much covers it. I say the answer is the opposite of the one being suggested: Mexico needs to draft it's on version of the Second Amendment to give the former peasants that have to live in NarcoWorld South a fighting chance. In Mexico, where guns are outlawed, only outlaws have guns...now where have I heard that before? 

Wait wait...an even better idea...we get seven guys, including one who dresses in black and is named "Chris"...

Changing gears entirely, with TBD: SURVIVAL I've been thinking a lot about "transition time," a play on Amanda Ripley's "survivors arc" she outlined her book THE UNTHINKABLE. Ripley says that in a disaster, people typically go through three stages — denial, deliberation and finally decisive action. The people who survive are the ones who most quickly move through that arc.

The transition time concept works, I think, in any violent, chaotic encounter...the more quickly we move from "flinch" to "action" defines whether we will succeed or fail...that means training mental flexibility as well as specific skillsets. Goes back to that Ralph Waldo Emerson quote I've used for years and years, "In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed."

The goal of learning multiple skillsets is giving our minds a whole new box of "index cards," that is, responses for chaotic situations. This allows us to move quickly through the deliberation to decisive action since we're prepared and have a response. The "denial" phase is interesting, essentially the primate flinch/freeze reaction gone wrong. Freezing in the face of danger may have worked better when we were climbing around trees in Africa — lots of big predators are mostly sight hunters — but it doesn't work all that hot when you're getting mugged.

Gonna be doing much more research on this topic...expect more writing, or maybe the subject of a podcast.

7 comments:

ericire12 said...

re: Spring Break


Hooray for boobies!



*The peanut gallery has spoken!

Louis said...

Check out the Fox news article on where the Mexican guns are coming from:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2009/04/02/myth-percent-guns-mexico-fraction-number-claimed/

They have a US estimate of 17% vs. the 90% claimed.

Bob G. said...

Michael:
I did a post on my blog the other day about ALL the guns BEING MADE south of the border that are clones of U.S. firearms.

Seems the media hasn't quite picked up on that yet.
And neither has Hillary.

Oh, well...at least SOME of us Like FOX news) know the TRUTH.

B.G.

bgary said...

I wanna know where those retail stores are. You know, the ones where they sell Stingers and RPGs over the counter to anyone who wants them?

If I could find one of those places, I'd probably go "stimulate the economy" a bit.

Dock said...

That photo is positively VULGAR.

Keep up the good work! :)

Steve said...

GEEE, do you think someone intentionally distorted the per-centage of US arms going into Mexico for their own political gain. When are we going to realize that Mexico is the problem. Let's just tell them no more aid until they stop encouraging illegal immigration, stop shooting at our agents from across the border, stop escorting the drug runners, and do something to fix their own corruption. Maybe then we can solve the problem.

Anonymous said...

Greta was "flamed" on the Fox News blog last week, right after her interview with another (or the same) government "talking head". She was "word-smithed" by the guy and she didn't seem to catch it. He said something to the effect that "90% of the guns that they were able to trace, came from the US". The operative words are "...that they were able to trace". Most of us caught the careful wording, but she seemed to miss it. Many of the immediate posts to her blog scolded her for not asking about the rest that were not trabeable to the US, or that Mexico refused to release the serial numbers of. That would have been the grenade launchers, bazookas, rocket launchers, Ma-Deuces, full-autos, etc.
This propaganda is a perfect example of the old adage: "Figures don't lie, but liars figure".
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