Saturday, September 13, 2008

Outback encourages cannibalism!



I don't know which is worse: that they didn't see the possibility, or that I did

"Because that's where they grow

hippies, silly."

Glad I wasn't taking a drink.

Barring Kim's Stout Bulldogs either starting to hang people

here's a real, first-class, stick-a-fork-in-them-they're-done moment from (fG)Britain:
The threat of global warming is so great that campaigners were justified in causing more than £35,000 worth of damage to a coal-fired power station, a jury decided yesterday. In a verdict that will have shocked ministers and energy companies the jury at Maidstone Crown Court cleared six Greenpeace activists of criminal damage.

So a jury just told Greenpeace and every enviroweenie out there that they're free to damage and destroy anything that's 'contributing to global warming'.

The not-guilty verdict, delivered after two days and greeted with cheers in the courtroom, raises the stakes for the most pressing issue on Britain's green agenda and could encourage further direct action.

Gee, ya think?

Let's see, if someone breaks into your home and tries to kill you and rape your wife, guests, kids and all and you shoot them with the scattergun you've been allowed to own, you'll be in prison. Probably for the rest of your life. But these clowns have been given a green light to destroy because "It's more important than the law!" for them to fight globular warmering.

Barring revolution, non- or violent, Britain is screwed.

It was SUCH a nice way to start the weekend

Daughter called shortly before I got off work, she was out of town at a meeting and the car was giving her trouble. Got home, and about 45 minutes later another call: the car had died. So arrange a tow, then drive about 85 miles out to get her and her passengers, then back.

Did I mention I got off work at midnight?

So let's say I'm a bit tired today. And it's raining a bit. So I start looking around and find this from the campaign of Barack I Can Type Obama. And a whole bunch on this garbage at Insty, including this comment he found:
"I think they spent months trying to figure out how they can position Obama as better qualified than McCain, and basically came up with the fact that Obama can type."
Either Barack I Bring Change Obama is a frickin' moron, or his campaign staff is, or both. Do these people just not realize how garbage like this will turn around and bite them? Or does he think that he's such a deserving one, so protected, that it doesn't matter?

Let's see, and Charles Rangel, after blaming the wife he's divorcing for his thinking the law doesn't apply to himtax troubles, now isn't divorcing her. Gee, I wonder what conversations were involved there?

I think here the media is on very dangerous ground. I think that when you see them going through every single expense report that Governor Palin ever filed, if they don't do that for all four of the candidates, they're on very dangerous ground. I think the media so far has been the biggest loser in this race. And they continue to have growing credibility problems.
Well, yeah.

Well, here's a sterling example of law enforcement and the consequences thereof:
Two people who were arrested by police who misidentified them as drug dealers have filed lawsuits against several East Tennessee counties, law enforcement agencies and officers.
...
Both of the wrongly accused people, Patty Diane Yates, 38, of Morristown and James Russell Kitts, 44, of Seymour were accused of trafficking in prescription narcotic painkillers by agents of the Fourth Judicial Drug Task Force. All the charges against Yates and Kitts were dropped once it became clear that agents couldn't positively identify them as the people who allegedly were selling drugs.
...
Yates, a Morristown factory worker, was wrongly arrested twice last year on drug charges. During the nine months it took to clear her name, she was suspended without pay from her $10.86-an-hour factory job, which caused her and her husband to lose their house and go into bankruptcy, she said
.
Take a gander at this:
Yates' first arrest took place in Jefferson County, while the second took place at her home. Drug Task Force agents Ron Barrett and Neal Seals identified her as a woman who was trafficking pills, according to records, but Smith said he later determined the dealer might actually have been a woman named "Patty" who had children with the last name of "Yates."

"I had some doubt and that doubt made me want to err on the side of caution," Smith said
.
Well, if she lost her home and had to go through bankruptcy because you falsely identified and charged her, it would seem your 'err on the side of caution' didn't exactly do the job, now did it?

I've got AOL, and they've got a blurb on Ike on their 'news' crap that comes up; it shows a guy holding onto a pole and his body sideways, apparently because of the terrible wind. Except his loose shirt isn't blowing right, the water under him is obviously shallow and moving in a breeze and he's also obviously got one arm locked under him against the pole and the other holding him in place; he's not blowing in the wind, he's propped up there. Can't these morons at least use a REAL hurricane picture?

I think I shall brave the sprinkles to see if anything in the garden needs picking. SHould be a few more habaneros, maybe some peppers; the plants have taken off since the temps went down a bit and the rain picked back up after the hot & dry spell July/August.

Friday, September 12, 2008

I didn't watch the interview last night,

both because of being busy at work and, as a general rule, ignoring most political TV crap. Just as well; from what I'm reading, Charlie Gibson seemed to have done a nice job of proving A: how in the tank for The Obama the major media is, B: how freakin' unprepared(didn't understand what she actually said, etc.) Gibson was, or C: both. And the crap-throwing monkeys are in full cry, of course. It's pretty much correct that Treacher has part of the text of the next interview.

And, on the subject of crap-throwing screechers. I said the other day some of these people are out of their freakin' minds, and they just keep acting to prove me correct. And I wonder if Cohen is really comfortable taking his lead for talks on the House floor from these people?

Aw, crap. Further down at Ace I found this: which is downright pathetic. ABC edited out Gibson's error. And these clowns wonder why people don't trust them?

In local news, we've had a bunch of rain the last couple of days. All the heavy and flooding has been further west, but we've had enough to keep things wet, which means the grass is growing like it's preparing a place for the lions to hide after they get out of the zoo. Looks like no rain since sometime during the night, but it still way too wet to mow, which means the grass gets taller and by the time it IS dry enough I'll have to wonder if the Gaboon viper got out with the lions and tagged along to hide in the grass.

Speaking of lions, went to the zoo a couple of days ago. If you live in the area and haven't been there in a while, you ought to go; they've been working hard on the place over the last decade or so, and it's pretty nice. A while back I wrote about the Oklahoma Trail section with local native species(except the pheasant), there's a big area for the monkeys and apes and the Cat Forest for the felines. Two of the female lions were down near the mesh(this area's surrounded by wire mesh fencing, better viewing and I imagine less expensive than bar-type fencing), and the male, with fine bushy mane, was on the high ground above. Lady with several kids in a wagon stopped to look at them and said, in a slightly awed tone, "They're bigger than I thought they were." I told her a big male(like the one looking down on us) could get to over 400 pounds, and the kids loved it. No, I did not tell them about their people-munching activities. Looking a those cats, it's amazing humans in Africa managed to cause enough respect for the lions to not, in general, take humans as a general foodstuff: facing one with a rifle at close range would be bad, if all you had was a spear and shield...

Back to weather. Damn near the whole state is under a flash flood watch through Sunday, due to A: the remnants of a Pacific storm that caused all the rain(and some flooding out west) the last couple of days, and B: the expected passing of Ike after he travels through Texas. Looking at the projected track, after flushing Texas it's going to affect- assuming the track is right- most of eastern OK as it goes. Which means toad-floater-level rains and lots of flooding. If the track shifts a bit west, it means most of the state getting heavy rains out of it, including the places already having problems out west. Kind of like having part of the scary-level storm surge skip Texas and migrate here. Nasty storm.

Oh, jeez. I did hear about Matt Damon's idiot commentary, now I see he seems to have based it on a parody. That he didn't get was a parody. Headline: "Actor makes idiot statements; nobody surprised".

This elbow problem sucks. I can't mess with my guitar, because the motions of fretting are just right to annoy it, and even if it wasn't so damn wet I couldn't work on much because of it. I discovered that shooting bothers it, too; the motions and tension of two-handed pistol shooting bother it. Which meant enough of that to zero and try out the fiber-optic sights, then switch to a .22 and do some one-handed shooting. Which I actually like. A good .22 is, as many have mentioned, one of the best tools around for working on your form and concentration, and you can do it for not much cost since even higher-grade .22 ammo is relatively cheap. And I don't use the high-dollar($10-18/box) match stuff for this. Hell, I haven't used any of that, except for that one box, in the rifles at longer ranges.

Speaking of .22's, went by a local shop(Outdoor America) the other day while doing some grocery shopping, and they've got a couple of Walther Olympic free pistols. It's a shock to look at a .22 pistol and see a $1600 price tag.

And I ran across this at Rachel's place the other day: the head of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in Canada is worried that people seeing the Palin family treating Trig just like a baby will cause a drop in women aborting babies who may have Downs. Just wonderful, isn't it?

Thursday, September 11, 2008

So Obama is 'like Jesus', and Palin is

like Pontius Pilate. To borrow from somebody, Jeebus on a pogo stick, these people are freakin' insane.

The link above has some background on Rep. Cohen(Useful Idiot-TN). It's kind of amazing, this 'follow the Party orders' mentality.

Of course, this Party's leaders are backing Mr. “I personally feel I have done nothing morally wrong,” Rangel in his most recently exposed bullcrap. So Cohen sucking along isn't too surprising: "The Good of The Party Is Everything", after all.

Of course, this is the party with a Presidential candidate who has a friend like Bill Ayers
of whom their main concern is saying "No, he was just a casual acquaintance" with no condemnation of what he is and what he's done. So, compared to that, what's protecting a tax-dodging jackass like Rangel?

Cartoon stolen without hesitation from Treacher.

I woke up with a headache

Whether weather or the day or what, I don't know. Feeding the dog, standing in the mist, thinking about this day a few years back.

To those who died, who'd just gone to work like every other day. Those who waited too long, and those who- because of damage or fire- couldn't get out, whatever you believed, may you have peace.

To those like Rick Rescorla, out of uniform and in, who kept working up until they died to get people out; the people who stayed there keeping others moving, shepherding them out; the firemen and cops who went up into a building damaged and on fire to get people out. Especially the second tower, after the first had collapsed. Some of you were, without question, first class bastards in some ways; in any group you've got them. But you died doing your job, and I don't really care about the rest. God keep you.

To the people like the FBI supervisor who wouldn't even apply for a warrant to go through Moussoui's computer, because you were too worried about being 'insensitive' or having your little hand slapped for intolerance or whatever, and the other FBI and CIA people who didn't do their work as they should: I wish you a long life, remembering every damn day that people died, many horribly because YOU DIDN'T DO YOUR DAMN JOB.

To the politicians who made the work of putting things together harder because they thought law enforcement and intelligence gathering had to be PC and done in a 'properly sensitive' way, and wanted to suck up to the tofu-munching kumbaya-singing idiots who have money and votes: I hope you someday truly realize what you did and who many died partly because of it, and remember it every day.

To the people who, whether for actual belief or just because it was 'expedient' to give money or hiding & training places or intelligence to the mass-murderers, and to the scum-in-a-septic-tank who murdered so many that day: you're the kind of people who make me hope there is a Hell, because you belong in a very unpleasant corner of it.

To the network executives who decreed that video of people falling from windows and other unpleasantness from that day couldn't be shown again because it was too 'upsetting', but have no problem showing anything they can find that makes our troops look bad, saying anything that makes our country sound; you suck. You are miserable little suckass bastards and I hope someday you pay a price for it.

To the politicians and activists who couldn't even let a statue to those emergency workers who died that day be put up without trying to change it to be 'politically correct'; who couldn't let a museum be built without trying to turn it into a moral-equivalence tirade about the Evils of the U.S.; who can't let construction happen to rebuild the site because YOU CAN'T STOP TRYING TO CONTROL OUR THOUGHTS AND LIVES TO SUIT YOUR SENSITIVITIES, YOU SUCK.

The the politically-correct, U.S.-hating, conspiracy-theory-believing communist and anarchist and socialist assholes who couldn't wait to blame the U.S. for 9/11, who never find a good thing to say about this country, who despise our troops: I wish you a chance to actually live in the country you say you'd love to have; BUT IT WON'T BE HERE. Over our dead bodies, and not even then you miserable little shits.

To everyone who showed up to help, to work and sweat and cough in the dust and bleed assisting in the rescue and recovery work: thank you. That's not enough of a way to say it, but there's not really one.

To the people who looked at this and decided something needed to be done about it and signed their name and took the oath: thank you. Some of you have died, some have been crippled, all have sweated and suffered, every one of you who've been in combat have been terrified and enraged, and I don't have any words adequate to really say thank you.


Wednesday, September 10, 2008

And a new reason to dislike and distrust, maybe despise

Charlie Rangel:
WASHINGTON -- Rep. Charles Rangel will file amended federal, state and city tax returns and pay up to thousands of dollars in back taxes and as he tries to quell a controversy over his private financial dealings, according to a person familiar with his plans.

The New York Democrat, who wields congressional oversight of the federal tax code as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, is expected to hold a news conference Wednesday to respond to questions raised in recent weeks about his compliance with congressional disclosure rules and his tax returns, according to his attorney.

Translation: "Awright, I got caught, I'll pay some money and you people shut up and let me get back to accusing Republicans and conservatives of being crooks."

In recent days, Lanny Davis, Washington attorney for Mr. Rangel, disclosed that the congressman didn't report on his taxes more than $75,000 in rental income on a villa he owned at the Punta Cana Yacht Club, in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Documents released on Mr. Rangel's behalf also showed he paid no interest for a mortgage used to purchase the beach property. Mr. Davis said the financial issues were mistakes and unintentional.
All just an innocent mistake, nothing improper, no, not at all.

Mr. Davis said Mr. Rangel wasn't previously aware about the failure to disclose the income because most of the mailings were sent to his wife.
And of COURSE she never thought to mention such things to him. Or their accountant. Or anybody.

And Pelosi, she of the 'most ethical party, etc.,' is going to really come down on this.
House Republican leaders called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to "insist" that Mr. Rangel step down as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. "Given Chairman Rangel's continuing ethical lapses, he cannot effectively carry out his duties," said the letter from nine top Republicans, including Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio.

Brendan Daly, spokesman for the California Democrat, said she has no plans to ask Mr. Rangel to give up his chairmanship. "The American people would be better served if Republicans would stop playing politics and allow the bipartisan Ethics Committee to do its job," he said
.

Yeah, demanding he be held to the same kind of standard Pelosi & Buttmonkeys, Inc., scream for when somebody has an 'R' in their description, is 'playing politics'.

I'll note that Rangel is one of the Evil Party members who's always bitching and whining that 'the rich aren't paying their fair share', and all the other RWPP crap that comes out of his mouth.

I should read Lileks more often;

he takes the Obamiacs apart so well:
Consider the joy that would reign if someone wrote that “Democrats, racial guilt-mongers that they are, really believe that African-Americans will vote for an African-American just because he’s an African-American.” Of course Republican men don’t believe that women will vote for her just because she’s a woman. It’s surely a factor, but there’s the possibility that they will vote for her because she is not a woman like Heather Mallick.

You have to love the “Sexual inadequates that they are” line as well; if there’s one thing that’s amused me in the last two weeks, it’s the screechy distaste of Ms. Palin coming from men who embodied the Modern Alda Paradigm of masculinity, which is to say they are nervous around cars, think guns are icky, had their own Snugli, have wives in corporate jobs who make more money than they do, and still get dissed behind their backs because they can’t figure out how to make the bed. The Lost Boys, if you will. Now, some women can’t stand Sarah Palin for their own reasons, personal or ideological; same with men. Some men, however, are made deeply uneasy by her, because she’s the one who ignored the sensitive poet-guys in high school for the jocks, and didn’t seem to grasp the essential high-school truth that it’s cool to be a loser. But that’s rank psychoanalysis, and we won’t stoop to that
.
and wrapping up with
Of course it scares her. Everything outside the tight, airless bubble in which she lives scares her, from those yellin’ knocked-up hillbilly wimen to the menfolk who love ‘em, from the crazy furrin-doubting Murcans who bring up their heads from the trough only to bark for ‘nuther servin; of Freedom Fries, from the ghastly sight of people with different opinions on TV to the general roar of approval for someone who doesn’t perfect the art of licking the boots of the anointed leaders while pulling her wallet of our her purse and handing over whatever the state demands. Of course she’s scared. People like her are always scared. It’s a lonely world when you’re just so damned right and everyone else is so stupid.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

I guess we could start referring to The Obama's stand on guns

as being 'New Jersey bad':
At a match a few months ago, I was talking to a guy who’s friend was in a lot of trouble because he and a buddy were target shooting on their property, when the police showed up and, at gunpoint, disarmed them and hauled them off to jail. He had his kids with him, and there was some worry he’d lose the kids, because they charged him with endangering them too. His crime? Possession of .22LR hollow point ammunition. A whole box of it. That’s worth a lot of time in New Jersey. You can buy that stuff easily out of state. Most folks have no idea it’s illegal.

Let's leave aside for now the police coming onto his property, etc. In jail, might lose his kids for having .22 hollowpoint ammo.

I swear, NJ is one of those places you could not pay me enough to live there.

Brad Paisley managed a romance song involving

blood-sucking insects, but somehow I missed this one:
When you see a deer you see Bambi
I see antlers up on the wall
You see a lake you think picnics, and I see
A largemouth up under that log
I know that your thinking that you're gonna change me
In some ways well maybe you might
Scrub me down, dress me up, oh well, no matter what
Remember I'm still a guy

When you see a priceless French painting
I see a drunk naked girl
You think that riding a wild bull sounds crazy
And I'd like to give it a whirl
Love makes a man do some things he ain't proud of
And in a weak moment I might
Walk your sissy dog, hold your purse at the mall
But remember I'm still a guy

and at the end

These days there's dudes getting facials
Manicured, waxed, and botoxed
With deep spray-on tans, and creamy lotiony hands
You can't grip a tackle box
Yeah, with all of these men lining up to get neutered
It's hip now to be feminized
I don't highlight my hair, I've still got a pair
Yea Honey, I'm still a guy
And my eyebrows ain't plucked
There's a gun in my truck
Oh thank God I'm still a guy

Monday, September 08, 2008

I'm tired, but there's one good and two very interesting things

I want to point to.

First, the good:
Following Hurricane Gustav, a number of residents in various areas have formed their own temporary Neighborhood Watch-style organizations. They're different from normal Neighborhood Watch groups in several ways. For a start, everyone in them knows each other, and knows who can be relied on in their neighborhoods. Secondly, the groups actually go out on patrol, particularly during the hours of darkness, and particularly in areas where the power's still out. Finally, they're armed - sometimes heavily so.

And, unlike the bullcrap in NO, ...Of course, we've informed our local cops about our activities, and they're very happy about it. It means they can deploy their limited resources to areas where they're most needed, and leave us to handle things here. (The fact that a number of us, including yours truly, are former or retired military or law enforcement personnel of one sort or another also helps matters.)

Then the interesting:
Who is Khalid al-Mansour? And more importantly, why was he promoting Barack Obama in the 1980’s and raising money for him, when Obama was in his twenties?
and, on those records of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge,
The President of the University of Illinois, B. Joseph White, and the University Counsel of the University of Illinois, Thomas Bearrows, contacted Kenneth C. Rolling, the former Executive Director of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) and a professional colleague of Barack Obama for many years, prior to the release of CAC records to the public late last month and offered Rolling an opportunity to recommend to the University which records of the CAC held at the University's Chicago campus (UIC) should be restricted from public access.

Looks like Barack The Chicago Machine Politician Obama has people trying to hide records that might be troublesome to him and his Ascension.


The Good found through Kim, the Interesting through the True King of France.

Fiber Optic sights

Being able to see your sights, for some reason, seems to help a lot in actually hitting the target. Where you want to. So there’s been a bunch of ways developed to help out with that, especially in dim light.

The most basic is paint. Some bright-colored paint on the front sight doesn’t help the rear sight stand out, but at the usual self-defense ranges it helps. Then add paint, usually either dots or a bar(dots on either side of the notch, or a dot or bar at the center bottom) of the rear sight. Then came glow-in-the-dark paint, then tritium. Since tritium glows due to the isotope decaying, producing light as it does, it glows even if it’s not been exposed to light; a very nice thing. Then along came fiber-optics, and so you have front and rear with little light pipes set into a cage; they don’t glow in the dark, but they do gather light and direct it toward you, making them stand out somewhat even in dim light. And they cost a lot less than tritium night sights.

All this leads up to the set on my 1911. Yeah, right up above the Crimson Trace grips. You see, I’d been looking at putting fiber-optic sights on my project pistol; I was going to put on a front FO only and mess around with different ideas on the rear*. Then I ran across a set on sale at Midway for compact 1911s, with the Kimber base, on sale. This was a couple of days before the show where I saw the laser grips and decided to buy, so I ordered a set. Which came in the other day. Only took a few minutes to take off the originals(the front sporting a stylish international orange paint job on the face) and install the new. Shortly after I got this pistol I’d talked to a gunsmith about drifting the rear over, as it hit a touch to the left for me, and I figured might be better to use a sight pusher. He disabused me of that idea, telling me that every Kimber he’d done sight work on he’d had to use a brass punch and hammer on the rear, as the pusher just didn’t cut it; as he put it, “I think they must heat the slide and freeze the sight before they install them.” So a suitably padded vise, brass punch and light hammer it was. Also, the day before I put some Kroil on both sight bases and let it sit overnight, which helped; that is the creepiest oil I’ve ever seen. Cleaned off all traces before driving the new sights into place. Then to the range today to make sure they were zeroed. I'd used the laser to help set them in place, but nothing takes the place of actually firing. Happily, they were almost dead on; just a tap with hammer and punch took care of the adjustment.

In daylight these things are like having little lamps in the sights, brilliant red dot in front, two green in back. As the light gets dimmer so do they, but until you get to the point that there’s little to see the sights at all, they still pick up enough to help your eyes align them. I like them. The range seemed a bit dim today, but the FO still picked up enought light to stand out, and I'll take all the help I can get. I'd say definitely worth the money. They won't glow in very dim light like tritium sights, but tritium doesn't give those bright 'draw the eye' dots in daylight.

Now, one of these days, have to take the project gun to the smith to get that dovetail cut.



· I’ve heard/read various statements wishing that you could just buy a front sight with a big, bright tritium bead, the idea being “Put the bright dot between the bad guys shirt pockets and press trigger; repeat until he goes down or away.” At in the house, across the room ranges sounds good to me, but I couldn’t find a front-sight only in tritium.

Two interesting things from (fG) Britain

that indicate some hope. First, a piece on(who else?) Sarah Palin, including these observations:
In Britain and America - as in other parts of the Western world, too - an enormous gulf now yawns between leaders and led.

People have concluded that politicians of all parties seem to inhabit a world apart, governed by self-interest, cynicism, corruption, incompetence, deep contempt for the electorate and an incorrigible instinct to deceive them.

Politicians know this. Which is why they all purport to stand on a platform of 'change'.

But change from what to what, precisely?

Unless there's a clear answer, 'change' becomes a pointless soundbite which risks creating an impression of yet more political sleight of hand.

This is the trap into which Barack Obama has fallen.
...
By contrast, Palin has a very strong sense of right and wrong rooted in her evangelical Christian faith. Perversely, this damns her in the eyes of the Left as the 'hard Right'.

This is clearly absurd: she is a working mother of five who has shown herself as capable of felling Big Oil and other political cartels against the public interest as shooting moose.

Moreover, her real achievement is to do what the Left assumed was utterly impossible: she makes social conservatism seem attractive.

Not only is she young, attractive, clever, witty and feisty; her love for her Down's Syndrome baby embodies hope for the future.

As for her pregnant 17-year-old daughter's proposed shotgun wedding, the priority there is the welfare of the unborn child.

By contrast, the 'right to choose' feminist Left, which also thinks all women have a right to deprive a baby of its father, appears not just callous and selfish, but even downright murderous.

Which is why so-called 'progressives' on both sides of the Atlantic have gone into paroxysms of rage and panic over Sarah Palin
.

And it ends with this:
What the Cameroons have yet to grasp is that it was not so much conservative measures that the British public rejected, but Tory men.

There are millions who long for a conservative defence of Britain and its values by a leader they respect and admire.

Sarah Palin may well turn out to be Middle America's revenge on its elites.

Middle Britain is watching - and hoping that it will now be hunting season against the moose of the British Left, too
.
I'd say "Somebody draw antlers on the PM", but that' probably be considered a 'terrorist threat' nowadays.

The other is on the mess in Africa.
Western do-gooders are impoverishing Africa by promoting traditional farming at the expense of modern scientific agriculture, according to Britain's former chief scientist.

Anti-science attitudes among aid agencies, poverty campaigners and green activists are denying the continent access to technology that could improve millions of lives, Professor Sir David King will say today.

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from Europe and America are turning African countries against sophisticated farming methods, including GM crops, in favour of indigenous and organic approaches that cannot deliver the continent's much needed “green revolution”, he believes.

Speaking before a keynote lecture tonight to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, of which he is president, Sir David said that the slow pace of African development was linked directly to Western influence. “I'm going to suggest, and I believe this very strongly, that a big part has been played in the impoverishment of that continent by the focus on nontechnological agricultural techniques, on techniques of farming that pertain to the history of that continent rather than techniques that pertain to modern technological capability. Why has that continent not joined Asia in the big green revolutions that have taken place over the past few decades? The suffering within that continent, I believe, is largely driven by attitudes developed in the West which are somewhat anti-science, anti-technology - attitudes that lead towards organic farming, for example, attitudes that lead against the use of genetic technology for crops that could deal with increased salinity in the water, that can deal with flooding for rice crops, that can deal with drought resistance.”


Here's a key piece:
“Solutions will only emerge if full use is made of modern agricultural technology methods, under progressive, scientifically informed regulation,” he will say. “The most advanced form of plant breeding, using modern genetic techniques, is now available to us. Plant breeding needs to meet a range of demands, including defences against evolving plant diseases, drought resistance, saline resistance, and flood tolerance. The problem is that the Western-world move toward organic farming - a lifestyle choice for a community with surplus food - and against agricultural technology in general and GM in particular, has been adopted across Africa, with the exception of South Africa, with devastating consequences.”

Hell, yes. And I hope he has a scattergun handy, because the EUnuch food weenies are going to want to hang him for saying this.

If you don't check Lawdog occasionally,

look here and here and follow the links; you'll see why you should. Hey, snakes and ratels and pink gorilla suits and a truly moving story of an end; what more can you hope to find at a blog?

The nannies are not going to be happy until everything is so 'safe'

that NOTHING WORKS.

What brought this current attack of @)(#&&&^!!!DAMMIT on is matches. Specifically, what used to be called 'strike anywhere' matches. Mainstay of survival kits and Boy Sprout projects because you could dip the ends in wax to waterproof them, and then strike them on a rock, or the side of a pan or on your jeans-clad leg.

Which you cannot find anymore. All I can find is nanny-approved matches that have to be struck on, and ONLY on, their super-secret-safety strip on the side of the damn box.

Back when they first started some of this nonsense, friend told me about the 'safe and and environmentally friendly oven cleaner'. As he put it "It doesn't smell bad, it won't burn your skin, it's non-toxic and it's non-working." Son told me after Basic that the newer, safer, 'environmentally-friendly' bore cleaner didn't clean worth a damn.

I swear, some of these clowns would prefer us all either locked up or dead so we'd be 'safe' enough to suit them.

Sunday, September 07, 2008

"Palin, World, War & Kissing Girls"

Kevin found this. Which you really ought to read.

All of it.

Now, preferably. Here's why:
And then he talks about being a citizen of the world. Oh, help me.

I have no interest whatsoever in being a citizen of the world. The world actually sucks. In the world, having indoor plumbing and electricity are signs of disproportionate wealth. Never mind personally owned vehicular travel that is not mammal powered.

It drives me crazy when the "for the people, but not of the people" folks get their Atkins full bellies out of their Eames chairs, put down their iPhones, and take a stand from within the palatial air conditioned splendor of their fucking vacation homes
.

This evening's quote is from Mark Steyn

And that’s where M. Delanoe was, in the thick of the festive throng, when he got stabbed. His assailant missed his aorta by less than an inch, but gamely the mayor insisted that the party go on while he was taken to the Pitie’-Salpetriere hospital for a three hour operation that saved his life.

His would-be killer was a muslim immigrant, Azedine Berkane. But, as the establishment was at pains to emphasize, the good news is that he wasn’t a terrorist. No, he’s just a Muslim who hates homosexuals.

And that’s good new how, exactly?

Oh, for God's sake,

this crap is friggin' rediculous.
The Richland County (S.C.) Sheriff's Department has acquired an armored personnel carrier complete with a turret-mounted .50-caliber belt-fed machine gun for its Special Response Team.

And it WILL be used, because they'll have to justify the cost of keeping/maintaining/fueling the damn thing. And God knows what the damage will be when they do.

Will someone they might listen to tell these people to stop playing "The infantry squad in assault" and go back to being cops?

I'd forgotten this speech,

particularly this part:
I would like to point out that before the introduction of cattle, millions upon millions of buffalo dominated the Great Plains of America. They were so thick you could not see where the herd started and where it ended. I can only assume that the anti-meat, manmade global warming crowd must believe that buffalo farts have more socially redeeming value than the same flatulence emitted by cattle. Yes, this is absurd, but the deeper one looks into this global warming juggernaut, the weirder this movement becomes and the more denial is evident.
...
I’m sorry, fellows. Do you really think the world is filled with morons? When it comes to bait and switch, used car salesmen are paragons of virtue compared to this global warming crowd. Excuse me. It’s not the “global warming” crowd now; it’s the “climate change” crowd. Of course, they don’t want any of us to own automobiles; so
what the heck. They can act like used car salesmen because there will be more jobs for them as being advocates in the climate change arena
.

Reminded by the man who got out.

Does anyone else, when someone trumpets "Obama

went to Harvard!!!", hear the tones of Frazier Crane? Usually after someone who didn't go to Harvard handed him his ass in some way?

Why I read Ann Coulter

Things like this:
As this goes to press, the latest media-invented scandal about Palin is that McCain didn't know her well before choosing her as his running mate. He knew her well enough, though admittedly, not as well as Obama knows William Ayers.

A very nice light

When son was home on leave, he brought his home to show me, and I liked it. This is a very handy light. Clips onto a helmet(or whatever), blue or white light and a infrared emitter for showing up in night vision gear.

Two main switches on the back of the module. The one on top turns the emitter on and off. The bottom is a three position: center is off, top is blue, bottom is white. See the button on the side? Push it to cycle from low to medium to high intensity and back. Two blue and three white LEDs. Tried it out, and this thing puts out a LOT of light.

The knob that opens/closes the battery compartment also acts as a lockout switch; turn it one way and it disconnects the battery, so it can't accidentally be turned on(storage, travel) and run the battery down.

Some very nice stuff being put together out there.

I'll add that I found one of these lamps at a local dealer(just before they sold out again); it replaces the standard lamp on my G2 with the LED lamp. Ups the output to 80 lumens and gives up to 12 hours runtime on a set of batteries.

When a lawyer and politician words things in certain ways,

you know he's either flat-out lying, or talking around the answer.
A woman in the crowd told Obama she had “heard a rumor” that he might be planning some sort of gun ban upon being elected president. Obama trotted out his standard policy stance, that he had a deep respect for the “traditions of gun ownership” but favored measures in big cities to keep guns out of the hands of “gang bangers and drug dealers’’ in big cities “who already have them and are shooting people.”
Translation: "I'll ban them where and when I can, and big cities are the easiest place to start. I'll just say it's for the public good, of course." And, of course, he's ignoring the fact of all the laws already in effect on that.

“If you’ve got a gun in your house, I’m not taking it,’’ Obama said. But the Illinois senator could still see skeptics in the crowd, particularly on the faces of several men at the back of the room.

So he tried again. “Even if I want to take them away, I don’t have the votes in Congress,’’ he said. “This can’t be the reason not to vote for me. Can everyone hear me in the back? I see a couple of sportsmen back there. I’m not going to take away your guns.’’

Here's where you have to think about what he's saying. "If you have a gun in your house," does not cover 'if you carry for self-defense or take it to the range', and so on. And "Even if I want to take them away, I don't have the votes" is a dead giveaway; "Don't worry about it as long as I don't think I have the votes."

And that last bit: "I see a couple of sportsmen back there." Again, very specifically a group is pointed out and reassured; screw everyone else. This is a standard part of the liberal Dem line: "You can have guns for 'sporting purposes'." Coming from a guy who's tried to ban whole classes of firearms, who wanted a federal ban on concealed carry, that's not exactly reassuring, now is it?

As Q&O puts it, Good grief. "Even if I want to take them away"? Translation: "I'm not a gun grabber, but assuming that I'm lying about that, I've put some thought into it and I've calculated that I can't currently succeed. So you're not going to hold this little matter against me, are you?"
Answer: "Yes, We Are!"