Anti-Gress

Progress is Forward. When things get worse, like they are now, that's Anti-Gress. You are a Peasant. You deserve Anti-Gress.

California has decided that they think that chickens deserve bigger cages. Rather than pass a law that chickens raised in California require x amount of square feet of living space each, or a smaller number when shared with a combined flock of birds in a huge coop, which allows them to exercise, NO, California passed a law that any eggs sold in California had to come from birds getting this space requirement met. This has really irritated folks in other states who can't afford to tear down all their cages and rebuild them to meet California standards which could change again next year when they sell eggs nationally, including to California, despite being over 1400 miles away. So they're suing California in federal court in Fresno. Oops. Somehow, I think California eggs are going to get more expensive, and egg producers in the state will be the real winners.

Another bizarre thing is a few years ago, some crank got video of a condor eating pebbles and claimed they were lead bullets. To correct this terrible movie prank, instead of investigating properly, the govt passed a law that banned lead bullets. No, really. Banned them. Apparently, police officers now just use harsh language against villains, who are not terribly interested in following this particular law. Which you can avoid by going out of state to buy bullets. As long as you don't bring any fruits or vegetables back across the border with you. The law doesn't ban shooting bullets, just buying them here. It doesn't ban making them either.

I knew a guy who did this, in Sunnyvale. He moved to Maine after he retired, but this is a real thing. You add a bit of Antimony or Tin to the mix to make them a little harder, and thus safer to shoot in an old fashioned gun.

Birds do eat pebbles, you know. Their stomachs need them to help grind the seeds they eat so they can digest them. If you don't provide coarse sand and pebbles to chickens, they won't lay eggs and will gradually starve to death. I kept chickens as a child, so I know this. If you would like to know what it is like to keep chicken, I can suggest a cost effective duplication of the experience. First, set your alarm to 4:30 AM every day, even Sunday. Keep hitting the snooze, but understand it will keep waking you up every 8-10 minutes until you finally get up. Hens, even without a rooster, start making noise enough to wake you at 4:30, the very first inklings of light on the horizon. In the summer, it is even earlier. Especially if you are further north.

Next, teepee your car and throw eggs at your garage. Do this weekly, because your neighbors are being woken by your chickens making noise every morning. They are pissed off at you and want you to die. Those chickens are the reason.

Next, buy 3 dozen medium (not large) eggs at the discount grocery, put them in your fridge, and try to eat at least them every day before the week is up, somehow. At the end of the week, buy 3 dozen more. Realistically, if you have hens laying eggs, you won't be able to give them all away, and you'll get sick of them after a while. But you'll keep getting more. And they're all smaller eggs, some of them brown, some white, and they'll taste good but you'll get tired of it.

Next, scatter 3 pounds of cornmeal outside your door. Now, watch all the ants show up. Collect dog poop and keep it wet for a week, and then at the end of the week, scrape it up and pile it somewhere you can still smell it. This isn't actually as bad as chicken crap. Chicken crap attracts more ants, due to the undigested corn.

This is like the easy version of owning chickens, and you'll note that a dozen eggs is about $2/doz. at most discount groceries, and maybe a buck more at a fancier grocery, compared to the irritation of raising chickens yourself. Just buy the eggs. That's what I learned.

California also passed a law requiring all firearms to stamp their serial number of shell casings once fired, so when these casings eject, the number is identifiable. This is a really silly idea. For example, responsible people who go to a safe range to practice eject their brass all over the place. A murder could pick up a spent case off the floor and drop it at a murder scene, just to make trouble for that law abiding citizen. And criminals get their guns from Arizona anyway, since gun runners buy them there on vacation and take them back for cash sale in Oakland to drug dealers and murderers. I met someone who claimed to make a decent salary doing that. He might have been lying, but I think he was just gleefully evil. So stamping casings? Silly. More hilariously, it does nothing to the bullet itself so that still kills someone without an identifying mark. And all revolvers leave the cases in the cylinder, so you can remove those somewhere else. Or reuse them. So this stamping thing is only really valid if manufacturers comply and it is quite stupid.

Smith and Wesson is already pulling out of California, as is Ruger, and other handgun makers will probably stop selling in California, so self defense will come down to long guns and rocks. And not going to stupid places where you're likely to get shot by someone with a gun that doesn't microstamp the spent case before ejecting. Oh, and its not against the law to accidently destroy the stamp, or replace the part, like the hammer, which makes the stamp, and the law does not cover replacement parts or require validation that stamps can be read. It was thought up by a moron, who deserves to drown in a rainstorm by looking up to see what that funny wet thing is. Durr! Pity that's a myth.

In any case, for a more charming and humorous note, I give you this:

Now remember what they said, why these things exist? The miners were too poor to afford proper driving licenses, so they rode motorbikes. Anti-Gress means that, like banning self defense from hoodlums with guns, someday gasoline powered cars will be so expensive that electric cars will be nearly as much but the only legal option so nobody will own them and you'll be riding a scooter or motorcycle, unless its raining. At which point, your legally-a-motorcycle Reliant Robin will be your car out of the rain. Except they roll over.

So obvious, switch things so its 2 in the front and 1 in the rear. Still a 3-wheel, still a motorcycle according to state law, still avoids the car ban, but still not all that safe.

But that's okay if you get hurt rolling over, because only human beings have electric cars, and you're just huddled masses, the Poor, and you don't deserve to move safely. You ought to be at home tending your chickens, not clogging up the roads for decent people who can afford $65K electric cars. They don't have to wait in the dark for a bus to take them from night school, unarmed, because they are rich people are you are not.

Enjoy your SUV for now. Enjoy your bubblecar, too. The govt is about to remove the ban on oil exports from the USA after approving the Keystone XL pipeline, and the price of oil will rise about $18/bbl to $120/bbl, which means your gasoline will cost another 30 cents a gallon. That's IF Russia isn't embargoed over seizing Crimea, cutting off 25% of the world's oil supply and Europe's natural gas. The war in Ukraine could easily cause the oil supply to jump $50/bbl in a week, meaning you'd be looking at $5.50-$7/gal for your gasoline or diesel fuel. Or possibly more, Peasant, because you aren't worthy enough, and taxing you so rich people can ride electric cars in the fast lane, while you mutter along in the rain our your scooter, that's Anti-Gress. This is what your future holds. This is what you voted for.

All that fracking will make the oil companies rich. If you own oil company stocks, you'll get a piece of that. If you don't, you'll just pay more for gas, and pay more taxes on gasoline which will happen because most will be exported rather than used here. After all, the upside of 27% unemployment in the USA today is less gasoline being used, which justifies exporting it for big $$$ profits. And poisoning wells. Ahem.

That and waking up at 4:30 AM from the neighbors hens clucking loudly, but would you like a boiled egg? C'mon, just eat one more. It's all the protein you deserve, Peasant. LOL.