We Irish Have Always Known

On this date in 1852, Ireland mourned the passing of Thomas Moore, poet, balladeer, and economist.

All in the Family Way
by Thomas Moore

["The Public Debt is owed from ourselves to ourselves and resolves itself into a Family Account" - Sir Robert Peel's Letter]

My banks are all furnished with rags,
So thick, even Freddy can't thin 'em;
I've torn up my old money-bags,
Having little or nought to put in 'em.
My tradesman are smashing by dozens,
But this is all nothing, they say;
For bankrupts, since Adam, are cousins,
So, it's all in the family way. ...
.

Elmer Fudd to the rescue

We don't have as many hunters as we used to, but plenty of us still lurk in the forests, plod through the brome, climb for bighorns, and (masochistically, if you ask me) sit on our damp and frozen arses in dark swamps, waiting for the ducks to fly at sunrise.

How many? The official USFWS guess was a little over 12 million licensed hunters in 2006.  Other estimates run much higher, But even if you accept the government guess and then cut it in half, we field more than six million armed men and women who at least think they know something about field craft and shooting.

That just happens to be roughly the number of souls in the armed forces of the largest four foreign military establishments combined.

I wonder if the Pentagon has war-gamed this?

Yeah, I know invasions a la June 6, 1944, are the archaic visions of grouchy old Luddites. On the other hand, when General Dynamics, Rockwell International, and other merchants of highly technological  death start demanding payment in gold, even I with my sporterized 1903 might start looking militarily viable.

---




North Korea and Russia, 1.1 million each, India 1.3  million, China 2.3 million.

--

(h/t Alan.)

A beloved nephew in the cattle forage hauling business has just displayed a picture of some animals waiting around to become hamburger.  This prompted a gunny thought.

Thanks to the Bernanke-Bush-Clinton-Obama high-speed presses, and to the ethanol/agribusiness welfare class, those poor beasts are full of seven-dollar corn and selling for around a buck-ten a pound, still ambulatory and including hooves and horns.  Who ever would have thought we'd see the day when you could swap a muddy steer for a mint Python and get change back?

Not that he gives a damn,

but I suppose we should inform His Obamaness that  we're all  pretty much aware of:

He shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” – Article II, Section III.


Even if it is a a law of questionable constitutionality itself, like the DoM Act.