for it. Because there's not enough 'rich' people to tax to death to pay for Obamacare.
Hey, union members, how's that HopeyChangey working for you? Since the union is using your dues to support these bastards, and you're now going to be taxed for your insurance on top of that.
Thursday, January 07, 2010
It got all the way up to 21 degrees today,
and it's 15 now, on the way down to 5 or so.
I know most of you are aware of what temperatures like this mean, but just for anyone who doesn't:
It kills.
More years ago than I care to think about my family lived in a little town in northern Oklahoma surrounded by farms and ranches, and at times in winter you'd swear there was nothing between you and the North Pole but a few stray buffalo and elk. I(very happily) never worked on one of them in a situation where I had to take care of the livestock, but you learn in a place like that that the weather isn't just good or bad to be out in. You pay attention to it. In summer storms can come rolling over the plains faster than seemed possible; high winds, lightning, tornadoes, hail, heavy rain. That's where I learned(secondhand, I'm happy to say) that 12-18" of fast-flowing water over a road can wash a car or truck into the creek.
Winter gives ice and cold and wind. 30F isn't too cold, but every mph of wind takes the wind chill down. People have died of exposure in temps around 50F; often after getting wet, but also just from pushing too far and getting too tired, not having enough energy left to stay warm and not realizing until too late they had to warm up, or else. They just keep pushing on until "I need to rest a minute", they close their eyes and never open them. Happens every year.
At 30, a 20mph wind makes it feel like 17F. Drop the temp to 20, that same wind gives you 4. Drop the temp to 10, that same wind makes it feel like 9 below zero. You can get frostbite fast, and your body is using a lot of energy to maintain temperature; spend a while out in the cold working(shoveling snow, cutting wood, clearing a road, whatever) and as you warm up after you'll be starving, your system needing calories to replace what it burned keeping you warm.
Earlier today I decided I needed to take a walk. I did dress for it*, but it wound up being a short walk; the air was almost painful to breathe, and so dry...
What brought all this to mind was reading this:
Volunteers have reported that ‘a large number’ of elderly customers are snapping up hardbacks as cheap fuel for their fires and stoves.
Temperatures this week are forecast to plummet as low as -13ºC in the Scottish Highlands, with the mercury falling to -6ºC in London, -5ºC in Birmingham and -7ºC in Manchester as one of the coldest winters in years continues to bite.
Workers at one charity shop in Swansea, in south Wales, described how the most vulnerable shoppers were seeking out thick books such as encyclopaedias for a few pence because they were cheaper than coal.
One assistant said: ‘Book burning seems terribly wrong but we have to get rid of unsold stock for pennies and some of the pensioners say the books make ideal slow-burning fuel for fires and stoves.
A lot of them buy up large hardback volumes so they can stick them in the fire to last all night.’
Just wonderful, isn't it?
And with Obama's minions playing games to make it harder to drill for oil & gas here, and dead-set against nuke plants, we may wind up there. And I don't have a damned fireplace.
*About fifteen years back Dad somehow wound up with a Army Arctic Parka. It was a bit small for him so he gave it to me; that thing has been wonderful a number of times.
I know most of you are aware of what temperatures like this mean, but just for anyone who doesn't:
It kills.
More years ago than I care to think about my family lived in a little town in northern Oklahoma surrounded by farms and ranches, and at times in winter you'd swear there was nothing between you and the North Pole but a few stray buffalo and elk. I(very happily) never worked on one of them in a situation where I had to take care of the livestock, but you learn in a place like that that the weather isn't just good or bad to be out in. You pay attention to it. In summer storms can come rolling over the plains faster than seemed possible; high winds, lightning, tornadoes, hail, heavy rain. That's where I learned(secondhand, I'm happy to say) that 12-18" of fast-flowing water over a road can wash a car or truck into the creek.
Winter gives ice and cold and wind. 30F isn't too cold, but every mph of wind takes the wind chill down. People have died of exposure in temps around 50F; often after getting wet, but also just from pushing too far and getting too tired, not having enough energy left to stay warm and not realizing until too late they had to warm up, or else. They just keep pushing on until "I need to rest a minute", they close their eyes and never open them. Happens every year.
At 30, a 20mph wind makes it feel like 17F. Drop the temp to 20, that same wind gives you 4. Drop the temp to 10, that same wind makes it feel like 9 below zero. You can get frostbite fast, and your body is using a lot of energy to maintain temperature; spend a while out in the cold working(shoveling snow, cutting wood, clearing a road, whatever) and as you warm up after you'll be starving, your system needing calories to replace what it burned keeping you warm.
Earlier today I decided I needed to take a walk. I did dress for it*, but it wound up being a short walk; the air was almost painful to breathe, and so dry...
What brought all this to mind was reading this:
Volunteers have reported that ‘a large number’ of elderly customers are snapping up hardbacks as cheap fuel for their fires and stoves.
Temperatures this week are forecast to plummet as low as -13ºC in the Scottish Highlands, with the mercury falling to -6ºC in London, -5ºC in Birmingham and -7ºC in Manchester as one of the coldest winters in years continues to bite.
Workers at one charity shop in Swansea, in south Wales, described how the most vulnerable shoppers were seeking out thick books such as encyclopaedias for a few pence because they were cheaper than coal.
One assistant said: ‘Book burning seems terribly wrong but we have to get rid of unsold stock for pennies and some of the pensioners say the books make ideal slow-burning fuel for fires and stoves.
A lot of them buy up large hardback volumes so they can stick them in the fire to last all night.’
Just wonderful, isn't it?
And with Obama's minions playing games to make it harder to drill for oil & gas here, and dead-set against nuke plants, we may wind up there. And I don't have a damned fireplace.
*About fifteen years back Dad somehow wound up with a Army Arctic Parka. It was a bit small for him so he gave it to me; that thing has been wonderful a number of times.
Tam found a real nice piece of video
to go with March of Cambreadth, and I'm stealing it.
Without a moments regret
And please note: the Battle of Vienna took place in 1683 after the Ottoman Empire had laid seige to Vienna for two bloody months. And that was the second time the Ottomans made it that far; the first was in 1529:
The Ottoman failure to capture Vienna in 1529 turned the tide against almost a century of unchecked conquest throughout eastern and central Europe, which had previously claimed Southeastern Hungary as a vassal state in the wake of the Battle of Mohács. According to Toynbee, "The failure of the first [siege of Vienna] brought to a standstill the tide of Ottoman conquest which had been flooding up the Danube Valley for a century past."
And the video fits the song very well:
The battle marked the turning point in the Ottoman–Habsburg wars, the 300-year struggle between the forces of the Central European kingdoms and the Ottoman Empire. Over the sixteen years following the battle, the Habsburgs of Austria gradually occupied and dominated southern Hungary and Transylvania, which had been largely cleared of the Turkish forces. The battle is also notable for including the largest cavalry charge in history with some 20,000 Polish and Austrian-German cavalry involved.
Without a moments regret
And please note: the Battle of Vienna took place in 1683 after the Ottoman Empire had laid seige to Vienna for two bloody months. And that was the second time the Ottomans made it that far; the first was in 1529:
The Ottoman failure to capture Vienna in 1529 turned the tide against almost a century of unchecked conquest throughout eastern and central Europe, which had previously claimed Southeastern Hungary as a vassal state in the wake of the Battle of Mohács. According to Toynbee, "The failure of the first [siege of Vienna] brought to a standstill the tide of Ottoman conquest which had been flooding up the Danube Valley for a century past."
And the video fits the song very well:
The battle marked the turning point in the Ottoman–Habsburg wars, the 300-year struggle between the forces of the Central European kingdoms and the Ottoman Empire. Over the sixteen years following the battle, the Habsburgs of Austria gradually occupied and dominated southern Hungary and Transylvania, which had been largely cleared of the Turkish forces. The battle is also notable for including the largest cavalry charge in history with some 20,000 Polish and Austrian-German cavalry involved.
Yeah, THIS will really help Chicago PD
The Chicago Police Department is seriously considering scrapping the police entrance exam, sources tell Fran Spielman.
Dropping the exam would bolster minority hiring and avert legal battles, according to one source, while others confirm that the exam could be scrapped to open the process to as many people as possible.
Reminds me of the idiot statement from the head of the Army after Fort Hood: 'Diversity is far more important than protecting troops from jihadis/fighting the enemy/showing some good sense.'
Dropping the exam would bolster minority hiring and avert legal battles, according to one source, while others confirm that the exam could be scrapped to open the process to as many people as possible.
Reminds me of the idiot statement from the head of the Army after Fort Hood: 'Diversity is far more important than protecting troops from jihadis/fighting the enemy/showing some good sense.'
Why various bureaucrats need to be added to the
"How many lampposts in DC?" list:
The nation's green eyeshades are now destined to come under the regulatory rule of the Internal Revenue Service as part of the Obama Administration's latest revenue grab.
Under the plan, which would begin with the 2011 tax season, anyone who takes money to help people with their taxes will have to register with the IRS, and eventually pass competency tests and sign up for continuing education. So having made tax filing so complicated that most Americans need help with their forms, Washington now wants to raise the price of such counsel by regulating advisers in a way that may reduce their supply.
Defending the decision, IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman declared that regulating tax preparers was reasonable because "In most states you need a license to cut someone's hair." Yes, the cosmetology guild does like to raise the barriers to entry for competitors.
The nation's green eyeshades are now destined to come under the regulatory rule of the Internal Revenue Service as part of the Obama Administration's latest revenue grab.
Under the plan, which would begin with the 2011 tax season, anyone who takes money to help people with their taxes will have to register with the IRS, and eventually pass competency tests and sign up for continuing education. So having made tax filing so complicated that most Americans need help with their forms, Washington now wants to raise the price of such counsel by regulating advisers in a way that may reduce their supply.
Defending the decision, IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman declared that regulating tax preparers was reasonable because "In most states you need a license to cut someone's hair." Yes, the cosmetology guild does like to raise the barriers to entry for competitors.
And back to our wonderful media
I’ll have more details as I get them, but I just heard from a source that the local paper here in Indy actually threated State Representative Mike Murphy in an email. Rep. Murphy is the sponsor of one of the bills that would limit access to the concealed carry database to LE only.
Details are thin right now, but from what I understand, the senior editor of the Star sent a series of emails to Rep. Murphy blasting him for the bill, and then telling Rep. Murphy that the Star would not run any positive stories about the bill. Oddly enough, the editor also apparently accused NRA of leaving poop on his doorstep.
Details are thin right now, but from what I understand, the senior editor of the Star sent a series of emails to Rep. Murphy blasting him for the bill, and then telling Rep. Murphy that the Star would not run any positive stories about the bill. Oddly enough, the editor also apparently accused NRA of leaving poop on his doorstep.
In the discussion of the other reason- currently- to tell Arnold
to kiss our collective ass, is the latest mess he signed to screw over honest gun owners:
The way the bill is worded, they could be liable if ANY ammo related products, including speed loaders, magazines or stripper clips, are shipped to ‘prohibited persons’. This is beyond sending them a fax copy of your FOID card since you don’t need a license to own or purchase any of those things.
The way the bill is worded, they could be liable if ANY ammo related products, including speed loaders, magazines or stripper clips, are shipped to ‘prohibited persons’. This is beyond sending them a fax copy of your FOID card since you don’t need a license to own or purchase any of those things.
What kind of database would be required? What kind of evidence would the CA courts accept as ‘reasonable’? What is the burden of proof? How much would CTD have to spend in legal fees?
This is exactly what this law is designed to do. CTD and other ammo companies really have no other choice if they pay attention at all. CTD is going above and beyond by not selling to agencies as well.
I'd like to see every ammo company and every firearm manufacturer tell California "No ammo for you; not the PDs, not the SOs, not CHP. No pistols, no rifles, no shotguns. You don't want us to sell there, well, then we won't sell them to YOU, either."
Two missile defense bits
Since I'm staying out of the globular warmering outside,
it being just a touch cool for tanning(wind chill zero or below) outside, it's a good thing there's so much idiocy and crookedness out there to write about.
A TSA agent was arrested on January 3rd in Terminal One at LAX, a source told NBCLA. He had just gotten off duty and was behaving erratically, saying, "I am god, I’m in charge." The agent was arrested.
Meanwhile, a TSA Internal Affairs investigation turned up evidence of LAX TSA agents using drugs at an after-hours party.
TSA officials say a videotape of the party was of poor quality and the employees were not in uniform, but 4 employees were tentatively identified.
All 4 were tested for drugs. One came back positive and that employee was fired.
Hey, remember the one reported on a couple of months ago yelling at somebody "I have the power!" when they dared to ask a question? Only a matter of time till they moved up to deity.
Added: how the tape was found,
The investigation began late last year when a TSA Agent was arrested for allegedly counterfeiting parking passes here at the employee parking lot. In his house, police found a videotape. On it was an afterhours party where other TSA agents were allegedly using drugs.
The outgoing Republican governor, stopped by term limits from seeking reelection in November, called for tax reform, protection for higher education spending -- and more money from the federal government.
I repeat, Screw you, Arnold; I don't want my neighbors and my kids looted because you morons couldn't stop spending.
Hey, a little more on our tax-dodging Treasury Secretary:
Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then led by Timothy Geithner, told American International Group Inc. to withhold details from the public about the bailed-out insurer’s payments to banks during the depths of the financial crisis, e-mails between the company and its regulator show.
AIG said in a draft of a regulatory filing that the insurer paid banks, which included Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Societe Generale SA, 100 cents on the dollar for credit-default swaps they bought from the firm. The New York Fed crossed out the reference, according to the e-mails, and AIG excluded the language when the filing was made public on Dec. 24, 2008. The e-mails were obtained by Representative Darrell Issa, ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Yeah, Dodd would fit right in, one tax-cheat and crooked politician taking over from another.
The ice was melting and the seals were disappearing(STARVING POLAR BEARS!)! In 1922.
Apparently it cooled back down or something...
Yeah, that global warming is so brutal, the friggin' polar bears may move south. Maybe we should feed Al Gore to them?(I know, but it would be fitting)
Did you know the Lockerbie mass-murderer the Scot government released 'so he could die with his family' is still walking around?
“We are quite interested in how the Libyans, and indeed the Scots who released Megrahi, are going to spin the fact that he is still alive and kicking after he was supposed to have gone to his eternal judgment day,” said aviation security expert Frank Duggan, president of Victims of Pan Am 103 Inc., which represents the families of the 190 Americans killed in the Boeing 747’s explosion over Scotland. “We never believed he was as ill as they maintained, since they had been saying he had one foot in the grave for over a year.”
I repeat what I said before: Scotland and England, you can kiss my ass, you miserable suckups to Libya.
Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, has demanded that Megrahi be returned forthwith to prison in Scotland. And Rep. Eliot Engel, another New York Democrat, has taken an interest in the case as a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “It was ludicrous to release the Lockerbie Bomber, absolutely ludicrous,” Engel told me. “It’s even more outrageous now in light of what has happened with this Nigerian guy. There are many terrorists out there.”
Awww, isn't that cute? Schumer wants Gitmo closed and seems to have had no problem with Catch & Release, but THIS he's pissed about! And hey, Engel, where was that attitude before, you bastard?
Hey, remember in the UK the Met office said "Snow is going to be a rare thing" in the future? Well, Ma Nature didn't agree.
Blizzards that yesterday crippled the North spread South overnight — and left most of the nation floundering in the white stuff.
The Army was called in to rescue 1,000 stranded motorists last night
A six-year-old was left in a critical condition after falling into an icy garden pond
A woman killed on the A1 in North Yorkshire this morning took the death toll to six
Councils warned they have little more than a day's road grit left
Shoppers began panic-buying thermal underwear, food and wellies
And forecasters predict more snow is still to come
And it turns out those nasty coal-fired power plants are kind of handy:
The UK stores a maximum 4.3billion cubic metres of gas, enough for 15 days. Extra has been imported and a crisis has been averted by suppliers switching to coal-fired generators.
Speaking of things you don't expect to read about,
Add a new reason for delayed flights at Tampa International Airport - ice.
Seven flights were delayed early today and three flights were delayed on Wednesday morning due to ice formation on planes, according to airport officials.
As Uncle notes, a jihadi sneaks a bomb onto a plane in the Netherlands, and gun owners in this country can't be trusted at the airport? It IS bullshit, and a demonstration of how the hoplophobes will use anything as an excuse for disarming us.
Thirdpower notes the idiocy coming from a bunch of people who're panicking over the idea of Chicago and other cities having to recognize all of the Constitution.
Google sucks. And cooperates with the PRC while saying 'Don't be evil'. And is a bunch of cowards, apparently.
Noted by Uncle.
Every time I see a reference to this, I think of Achmed: "New guy... tried to practice."
JayG tries out a Laserlyte.
That's about enough for now. I made a pot of ham & beans yesterday, and I think it's time to heat it up. And the cornbread.
A TSA agent was arrested on January 3rd in Terminal One at LAX, a source told NBCLA. He had just gotten off duty and was behaving erratically, saying, "I am god, I’m in charge." The agent was arrested.
Meanwhile, a TSA Internal Affairs investigation turned up evidence of LAX TSA agents using drugs at an after-hours party.
TSA officials say a videotape of the party was of poor quality and the employees were not in uniform, but 4 employees were tentatively identified.
All 4 were tested for drugs. One came back positive and that employee was fired.
Hey, remember the one reported on a couple of months ago yelling at somebody "I have the power!" when they dared to ask a question? Only a matter of time till they moved up to deity.
Added: how the tape was found,
The investigation began late last year when a TSA Agent was arrested for allegedly counterfeiting parking passes here at the employee parking lot. In his house, police found a videotape. On it was an afterhours party where other TSA agents were allegedly using drugs.
The outgoing Republican governor, stopped by term limits from seeking reelection in November, called for tax reform, protection for higher education spending -- and more money from the federal government.
I repeat, Screw you, Arnold; I don't want my neighbors and my kids looted because you morons couldn't stop spending.
Hey, a little more on our tax-dodging Treasury Secretary:
Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then led by Timothy Geithner, told American International Group Inc. to withhold details from the public about the bailed-out insurer’s payments to banks during the depths of the financial crisis, e-mails between the company and its regulator show.
AIG said in a draft of a regulatory filing that the insurer paid banks, which included Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Societe Generale SA, 100 cents on the dollar for credit-default swaps they bought from the firm. The New York Fed crossed out the reference, according to the e-mails, and AIG excluded the language when the filing was made public on Dec. 24, 2008. The e-mails were obtained by Representative Darrell Issa, ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Yeah, Dodd would fit right in, one tax-cheat and crooked politician taking over from another.
The ice was melting and the seals were disappearing(STARVING POLAR BEARS!)! In 1922.
Apparently it cooled back down or something...
Yeah, that global warming is so brutal, the friggin' polar bears may move south. Maybe we should feed Al Gore to them?(I know, but it would be fitting)
Did you know the Lockerbie mass-murderer the Scot government released 'so he could die with his family' is still walking around?
“We are quite interested in how the Libyans, and indeed the Scots who released Megrahi, are going to spin the fact that he is still alive and kicking after he was supposed to have gone to his eternal judgment day,” said aviation security expert Frank Duggan, president of Victims of Pan Am 103 Inc., which represents the families of the 190 Americans killed in the Boeing 747’s explosion over Scotland. “We never believed he was as ill as they maintained, since they had been saying he had one foot in the grave for over a year.”
I repeat what I said before: Scotland and England, you can kiss my ass, you miserable suckups to Libya.
Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, has demanded that Megrahi be returned forthwith to prison in Scotland. And Rep. Eliot Engel, another New York Democrat, has taken an interest in the case as a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “It was ludicrous to release the Lockerbie Bomber, absolutely ludicrous,” Engel told me. “It’s even more outrageous now in light of what has happened with this Nigerian guy. There are many terrorists out there.”
Awww, isn't that cute? Schumer wants Gitmo closed and seems to have had no problem with Catch & Release, but THIS he's pissed about! And hey, Engel, where was that attitude before, you bastard?
Hey, remember in the UK the Met office said "Snow is going to be a rare thing" in the future? Well, Ma Nature didn't agree.
Blizzards that yesterday crippled the North spread South overnight — and left most of the nation floundering in the white stuff.
The Army was called in to rescue 1,000 stranded motorists last night
A six-year-old was left in a critical condition after falling into an icy garden pond
A woman killed on the A1 in North Yorkshire this morning took the death toll to six
Councils warned they have little more than a day's road grit left
Shoppers began panic-buying thermal underwear, food and wellies
And forecasters predict more snow is still to come
And it turns out those nasty coal-fired power plants are kind of handy:
The UK stores a maximum 4.3billion cubic metres of gas, enough for 15 days. Extra has been imported and a crisis has been averted by suppliers switching to coal-fired generators.
Speaking of things you don't expect to read about,
Add a new reason for delayed flights at Tampa International Airport - ice.
Seven flights were delayed early today and three flights were delayed on Wednesday morning due to ice formation on planes, according to airport officials.
As Uncle notes, a jihadi sneaks a bomb onto a plane in the Netherlands, and gun owners in this country can't be trusted at the airport? It IS bullshit, and a demonstration of how the hoplophobes will use anything as an excuse for disarming us.
Thirdpower notes the idiocy coming from a bunch of people who're panicking over the idea of Chicago and other cities having to recognize all of the Constitution.
Google sucks. And cooperates with the PRC while saying 'Don't be evil'. And is a bunch of cowards, apparently.
Noted by Uncle.
Every time I see a reference to this, I think of Achmed: "New guy... tried to practice."
JayG tries out a Laserlyte.
That's about enough for now. I made a pot of ham & beans yesterday, and I think it's time to heat it up. And the cornbread.
I don't often write about the mental cripple Andrew Sullivan has become,
but this is just, wonderful!
Aside from the sheer lunacy of imposing borders on a sovereign democracy, which also happens to be a close ally, what in Sullivan's increasingly deranged mind makes him think the prospect of US soldiers fighting to keep Hamas, Hezbollah and the rest from attacking Israel is going to work? Does he really think these groups are just going to turn over their weapons to us or let us confiscate them without a fight?
But for some reason this is supposed to be a Good Idea...
My own view is moving toward supporting a direct American military imposition of a two-state solution, with NATO troops on the borders of the new states of Palestine and Israel. I'm sick of having a great power like the US being dictated to in the conduct of its own foreign policy by an ally that provides almost no real benefit to the US, and more and more costs.As they say over at Ace,
Aside from the sheer lunacy of imposing borders on a sovereign democracy, which also happens to be a close ally, what in Sullivan's increasingly deranged mind makes him think the prospect of US soldiers fighting to keep Hamas, Hezbollah and the rest from attacking Israel is going to work? Does he really think these groups are just going to turn over their weapons to us or let us confiscate them without a fight?
But for some reason this is supposed to be a Good Idea...
So a tax cheat was no problem for Treasury Secretary once,
so why would Dodd be? I mean, he only
* In 2003, Dodd -- already a high-ranking member of the Banking Committee -- scored two cut-rate refinancing deals on personal mortgages worth nearly $800,000 from subprime-mortgage lending giant Countrywide Financial.
The deals arose from Dodd's being designated as a "Friend of Angelo" -- Countrywide co-founder Angelo Mozilo.
* In another questionable real-estate transaction, Dodd in 1994 acquired a one-third share of an Irish vacation home. The other two-thirds were purchased by William Kessinger, business associate of one Edward Downe, who pleaded guilty to insider trading.
Seven years later, Dodd successfully lobbied then-President Bill Clinton, on his way out of the White House, to pardon Downe. Shortly thereafter, Dodd took full ownership of the Irish property -- at a mere fraction of the appraised value.
* Last February, an amendment to the stimulus package from now-Chairman Dodd guaranteed that executives from firms receiving government bailouts -- including insurance giant AIG -- remained eligible for bonuses.
along with we have no idea what all else. I realize for the Obama Administration this is all no big deal, as corrupt officials fit right in, but for the rest of us?
For the rest of us, tar and feathers and rails come to mind.
* In 2003, Dodd -- already a high-ranking member of the Banking Committee -- scored two cut-rate refinancing deals on personal mortgages worth nearly $800,000 from subprime-mortgage lending giant Countrywide Financial.
The deals arose from Dodd's being designated as a "Friend of Angelo" -- Countrywide co-founder Angelo Mozilo.
* In another questionable real-estate transaction, Dodd in 1994 acquired a one-third share of an Irish vacation home. The other two-thirds were purchased by William Kessinger, business associate of one Edward Downe, who pleaded guilty to insider trading.
Seven years later, Dodd successfully lobbied then-President Bill Clinton, on his way out of the White House, to pardon Downe. Shortly thereafter, Dodd took full ownership of the Irish property -- at a mere fraction of the appraised value.
* Last February, an amendment to the stimulus package from now-Chairman Dodd guaranteed that executives from firms receiving government bailouts -- including insurance giant AIG -- remained eligible for bonuses.
along with we have no idea what all else. I realize for the Obama Administration this is all no big deal, as corrupt officials fit right in, but for the rest of us?
For the rest of us, tar and feathers and rails come to mind.
Yes, Obamacare will be good for you
As long as you can afford it. Wait, afford it?
WASHINGTON -- Some married couples would pay thousands of dollars more for the same health insurance coverage as unmarried people living together, under the health insurance overhaul plan pending in Congress.
The built-in "marriage penalty" in both House and Senate healthcare bills has received scant attention. But for scores of low-income and middle-income couples, it could mean a hike of $2,000 or more in annual insurance premiums the moment they say "I do."
The disparity comes about in part because subsidies for purchasing health insurance under the plan from congressional Democrats are pegged to federal poverty guidelines. That has the effect of limiting subsidies for married couples with a combined income, compared to if the individuals are single.
WASHINGTON -- Some married couples would pay thousands of dollars more for the same health insurance coverage as unmarried people living together, under the health insurance overhaul plan pending in Congress.
The built-in "marriage penalty" in both House and Senate healthcare bills has received scant attention. But for scores of low-income and middle-income couples, it could mean a hike of $2,000 or more in annual insurance premiums the moment they say "I do."
The disparity comes about in part because subsidies for purchasing health insurance under the plan from congressional Democrats are pegged to federal poverty guidelines. That has the effect of limiting subsidies for married couples with a combined income, compared to if the individuals are single.
Wow, Nanny-State Minnesota takes a step forward, Comrades,
For Your Own Good!
...the state will now know when any of us get prescribed Vicodin, Oxycontin, or any other potentially addictive medicines. Minnesota will require pharmacies to report every customer who fills such a prescription to the Minnesota Prescription Monitoring Program, starting next Monday. The state says this will allow doctors to know whether their patients are abusing prescription medication by seeing more than one doctor, but they won’t be the only ones:
Yeah, what problems could possibly follow along with this? Ignoring, of course, the basic one of the government stepping deeper into your life.
...the state will now know when any of us get prescribed Vicodin, Oxycontin, or any other potentially addictive medicines. Minnesota will require pharmacies to report every customer who fills such a prescription to the Minnesota Prescription Monitoring Program, starting next Monday. The state says this will allow doctors to know whether their patients are abusing prescription medication by seeing more than one doctor, but they won’t be the only ones:
So the state will have a list of everyone who has prescribed painkillers. What could possibly go wrong?Starting this week, Minnesota residents who fill prescriptions for addictive drugs like Vicodin and OxyContin are going into a new state database.
The aim is to stop drug abusers and dealers from shopping around for prescriptions.
Pharmacies were required to start reporting to the Minnesota Prescription Monitoring Program on Monday. By March, doctors, dentists and pharmacists can use the system to identify patients who get too many habit-forming medicines.
Yeah, what problems could possibly follow along with this? Ignoring, of course, the basic one of the government stepping deeper into your life.
So Bill Ritter decided not to run for re-election
as Colorado Governor 'for his kids'; but...
...Two of his college-age children no longer live at home. The others are teenagers who’ll be leaving the nest in short order. Ritter choked up when he said he hadn’t made his family a priority and called the step-down an “intensely personal decision.” That’s a carefully-chosen phrase which signals to the press: Back off. Don’t ask any more questions. But if he isn’t really stepping down over neglect of his children, who was he referring to when he spoke of failing to make family his priority?
...
Quick refresher: Villafuerte is entangled in the railroading of Denver ICE agent Cory Voorhis — whom federal prosecutors tried to punish after he blew the whistle on sweetheart deals for criminal illegal aliens during the 2006 gubernatorial campaign. A jury acquitted Voorhis of all federal charges. He’s trying to get his job back. At least one of his supervisors (whom Hayden asked Ritter about yesterday) has admitted lying. Villafuerte served on Democrat gubernatorial candidate Bill Ritter’s campaign team while on leave from the Denver D.A.’s office and from all local news accounts was deeply involved in the witchhunt against agent Voorhis. Last month, Villafuerte withdrew from her nomination as U.S. Attorney in Denver amid growing questions about her role in the Voorhis railroading and the accessing of federal criminal databases for political purposes.
Villafuerte remains Ritter’s deputy chief of staff. But she was noticeably absent from the press conference yesterday.
The local buzz about a rumored affair involving Ritter and Villafuerte hasn’t died down. Her absence and Ritter’s sudden and bizarre withdrawal aren’t likely to quell the rumors.
Gee, maybe another Evil Party politician worried about being caught in the act? And another bunch of reporters who won't do their jobs and ask questions? Hmmm.....
...Two of his college-age children no longer live at home. The others are teenagers who’ll be leaving the nest in short order. Ritter choked up when he said he hadn’t made his family a priority and called the step-down an “intensely personal decision.” That’s a carefully-chosen phrase which signals to the press: Back off. Don’t ask any more questions. But if he isn’t really stepping down over neglect of his children, who was he referring to when he spoke of failing to make family his priority?
...
Quick refresher: Villafuerte is entangled in the railroading of Denver ICE agent Cory Voorhis — whom federal prosecutors tried to punish after he blew the whistle on sweetheart deals for criminal illegal aliens during the 2006 gubernatorial campaign. A jury acquitted Voorhis of all federal charges. He’s trying to get his job back. At least one of his supervisors (whom Hayden asked Ritter about yesterday) has admitted lying. Villafuerte served on Democrat gubernatorial candidate Bill Ritter’s campaign team while on leave from the Denver D.A.’s office and from all local news accounts was deeply involved in the witchhunt against agent Voorhis. Last month, Villafuerte withdrew from her nomination as U.S. Attorney in Denver amid growing questions about her role in the Voorhis railroading and the accessing of federal criminal databases for political purposes.
Villafuerte remains Ritter’s deputy chief of staff. But she was noticeably absent from the press conference yesterday.
The local buzz about a rumored affair involving Ritter and Villafuerte hasn’t died down. Her absence and Ritter’s sudden and bizarre withdrawal aren’t likely to quell the rumors.
Gee, maybe another Evil Party politician worried about being caught in the act? And another bunch of reporters who won't do their jobs and ask questions? Hmmm.....
I would almost have given my left testicle to have been there
As the Gore party started walking out of the room, my colleague called out, "Hey, Al, how's all that global warming working out for you?" Gore turned around and stared at us with a completely dumbfounded look on his face. He was speechless. With a smile, my colleague repeated the question, again to a hapless look of dismay.
Finally, Gore mumbled under his breath, "Wow, you sound awfully angry." I responded with a thank you, explaining to him that we were actually extremely amused. The encounter concluded with Gore's friend mouthing a very animated "f--- you" at us, and they skulked away. My only regret is that no one at the table asked Gore, "What's the matter? The polar bear's got your tongue?"
Finally, Gore mumbled under his breath, "Wow, you sound awfully angry." I responded with a thank you, explaining to him that we were actually extremely amused. The encounter concluded with Gore's friend mouthing a very animated "f--- you" at us, and they skulked away. My only regret is that no one at the table asked Gore, "What's the matter? The polar bear's got your tongue?"
You take a kid fishing or to the range or hunting and the PC weenies scream;
the jihadi-minded muslims teach their children to hate and to kill, and those same people don't want to talk about it. Or have anyone else mention it. These miserable bastards have mothers telling other mothers to sacrifice their children for jihad, and our media ignores it. But they'll publish stuff that actually damages the war effort and gets our troops killed, why, that's fine!
Looking over all the videos at Memri TV, something struck me. Remember the scene in 300 where Leonidas is speaking with Xerxes? The emperor says he would kill half his army just to defeat the Spartans; Leonidas says "I would die for any of mine." The palistinians and jihadis are following the old Persian model, it would seem.
Looking over all the videos at Memri TV, something struck me. Remember the scene in 300 where Leonidas is speaking with Xerxes? The emperor says he would kill half his army just to defeat the Spartans; Leonidas says "I would die for any of mine." The palistinians and jihadis are following the old Persian model, it would seem.
Our 'Most Ethical and Transparent 'Justice' Department
This week, a federal district court in Kansas imposed sanctions on the same Civil Rights Division (CRD) officials who spiked the Panthers case, Loretta King and Steve Rosenbaum, for their refusals to provide information in another case.... What is clear from reading the order is that, as usual, the CRD made broad accusations of discriminatory conduct when it filed its complaint, but when it was asked to provide specific examples or actual evidence of such discrimination, it failed to do so.
Translation: "You cannot come into this court and say "Rule as we wish, because we say you should!" And you cannot lie about what someone did."
Actually, considering what prosecutors think they should get away with, why shouldn't these clowns think they can lie and get away with it?
One of the interesting things:It is noteworthy that these two lawyers — the ones who directly superimposed their own legal judgment in the New Black Panther Party case — are now the subject of the court’s order, which as the report notes is unusual, in that it is “directed at individual lawyers that specifically says their employer is not responsible for paying the costs.” To boot, King is a multiple-sanctions recipient. During the Clinton administration, she was one of the Justice Department attorneys who was responsible for a fine of more than half a million dollars.
So this court wanted to make the two JD lawyers, Loretta King and Steve Rosenbaum, pay the fine themselves, as in out of their own pockets. Which sounds like "Dammit, you can't come into my court and pull crap like this and expect me to let you slide!" Be nice if it happened but, as the article notes, the 'Justice' Department will most likely wind up giving them the money, which means they're reaching into our pockets to keep these two lawyers from having to actually pay for their conduct.
Translation: "You cannot come into this court and say "Rule as we wish, because we say you should!" And you cannot lie about what someone did."
Actually, considering what prosecutors think they should get away with, why shouldn't these clowns think they can lie and get away with it?
One of the interesting things:It is noteworthy that these two lawyers — the ones who directly superimposed their own legal judgment in the New Black Panther Party case — are now the subject of the court’s order, which as the report notes is unusual, in that it is “directed at individual lawyers that specifically says their employer is not responsible for paying the costs.” To boot, King is a multiple-sanctions recipient. During the Clinton administration, she was one of the Justice Department attorneys who was responsible for a fine of more than half a million dollars.
So this court wanted to make the two JD lawyers, Loretta King and Steve Rosenbaum, pay the fine themselves, as in out of their own pockets. Which sounds like "Dammit, you can't come into my court and pull crap like this and expect me to let you slide!" Be nice if it happened but, as the article notes, the 'Justice' Department will most likely wind up giving them the money, which means they're reaching into our pockets to keep these two lawyers from having to actually pay for their conduct.
The damndest description of a trigger I've ever heard
from comments on the Erma Carbine, speaking of a Erma Luger in .22:
Cons: The trigger is like dragging a piano across a gravel driveway with your forefinger in a loop of string, then up onto a high curb. But not in the good way.
Gerry, that's downright poetic, it is
Cons: The trigger is like dragging a piano across a gravel driveway with your forefinger in a loop of string, then up onto a high curb. But not in the good way.
Gerry, that's downright poetic, it is
I think the media spoken of in this DO know they're not doing their job;
they either don't care(because it would be reporting on The Obama and the socialists), or are actively not doing their job(because it would mean actually reporting on The Obama and the Evil Party/Socialists).
The Mayor of London has a message about taxes
that the dictatorial little bozos in DC would do well to listen to. They won't, for the same reason he lists for Brown & Co., Socialist Fools:
It is nothing to do with the needs of the economy, of course. It is all about politics. This Government has spectacularly mismanaged the public finances. It has overseen an explosion in the wage bill of the state, to the point where the average public-sector worker now earns £74 more per week than a private-sector employee, as well as having much better pension and other entitlements.
In the next few months there must be a bloody reckoning, and as the cuts fall, Labour wants to be able to console its suffering public-sector vote bank. You may be hurting, they will say, but the rich are hurting, too.
In other words the 50p tax is not far, in its political motive, from Stalin's assault on the kulaks. Above all, Labour wants to portray any opponent of the new tax as a thoughtless defender of the rich. We are not. The truly rich will get a smarter accountant or buzz off to Zug. What we want to protect is the spirit of enterprise that has been so vital in reviving this country in the past 25 years, a revival that has helped all sectors of society.
It is nothing to do with the needs of the economy, of course. It is all about politics. This Government has spectacularly mismanaged the public finances. It has overseen an explosion in the wage bill of the state, to the point where the average public-sector worker now earns £74 more per week than a private-sector employee, as well as having much better pension and other entitlements.
In the next few months there must be a bloody reckoning, and as the cuts fall, Labour wants to be able to console its suffering public-sector vote bank. You may be hurting, they will say, but the rich are hurting, too.
In other words the 50p tax is not far, in its political motive, from Stalin's assault on the kulaks. Above all, Labour wants to portray any opponent of the new tax as a thoughtless defender of the rich. We are not. The truly rich will get a smarter accountant or buzz off to Zug. What we want to protect is the spirit of enterprise that has been so vital in reviving this country in the past 25 years, a revival that has helped all sectors of society.
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
From the look of this, the Finns are screwed
When they start cooperating with "We need more laws even when they won't stop the bad guys" crap, they're losing. Or lost.
It should be noted that a lot of the Obama supporters
are just flat friggin' nuts
Now, the inquiry, the questions are being raised as to whether or not this is not a deliberate attempt to embarrass... ah, that's not quite a strong enough word, but let's start there, embarrass the Obama Administration - that there are forces at work in this country, and I believe this as surely as I put on my right shoe before my left - that there are forces alive who are very active, very wealthy in this country, at work in this country that want Obama to fail no matter what and the idea of killing 200 to 300 people on a jetliner in order to make the point is nothing. It means nothing.
Mike Malloy, kool-aid drinker and muffin-snarfer of Olympic level.
Now, the inquiry, the questions are being raised as to whether or not this is not a deliberate attempt to embarrass... ah, that's not quite a strong enough word, but let's start there, embarrass the Obama Administration - that there are forces at work in this country, and I believe this as surely as I put on my right shoe before my left - that there are forces alive who are very active, very wealthy in this country, at work in this country that want Obama to fail no matter what and the idea of killing 200 to 300 people on a jetliner in order to make the point is nothing. It means nothing.
Mike Malloy, kool-aid drinker and muffin-snarfer of Olympic level.
“There has never been a more open process for any legislation,”
said Pelosi, thus demonstrating that she's either
A liar of incredible dirtbagginess, or
So deluded she shouldn't be allowed in public without a keeper to prevent her running into traffic.
A liar of incredible dirtbagginess, or
So deluded she shouldn't be allowed in public without a keeper to prevent her running into traffic.
Erma M1 Carbine, .22LR
Every once in a while you'll run across one of these. At first glance you'd think it was a M1 Carbine*; closer examination says 'no'. I found this page on the history, which says they were originally made as training rifles for the German authorities after WWII, when they were using a lot of Carbines; later they were made for export. There was even a version made in .22 Magnum. The history includes this:One of their larger markets was France, but they also exported these two models to the Far East (Thailand, Pakistan, and others) and South America (Brazil, Ecuador, and others). One customer was a South American country whose military issued the ESG 22 to their troops that worked in dense jungle areas and called the rifle a "jungle carbine". The Wischo director indicated that all of Erma-Werke's rifles were manufactured at Erma's facility in Dachau, and the stocks for the various E M1 based models were supplied by Sile of Italy.
Hmmm. For pest control and such I can see, but issued as a 'jungle carbine'?
The rear sight is plastic, and looks remarkably like the M1 Carbine Type III adjustable sight. The receiver is grooved for a standard .22 scope mount, and the sight slides on and is locked on by a screw. I'm told that a lot of the rear sights were lost over time, and you can find posts at forums like Rimfire Central asking "Where can I get one?" Usually the answer is "You can't."
The one I've fired was picked up used, and had a very light, clean trigger(almost too light). It had a problem: when the bolt started forward to chamber the next round, it would strip that cartridge from the mag and then seemed to drag on the next cartridge, causing it to not quite chamber the round. The owner didn't want to fiddle with magazine lips(his first thought was the next round was sticking up a touch too high, but mags are about as impossible to find as a rear sight so if you mess up the lips...) and couldn't figure out what was causing it. The problem was finally tracked down when he noticed the bolt felt like it was dragging slightly in the first part of travel back from the closed position, same for the last bit of travel before closing. We disassembled it(instructions here) and found that the machining on the bottom of the bolt was rough; hadn't been finished well at all. A few minutes with a fine stone to clean it up and then a few strokes with a hard Arkansas to polish and it slid much more smoothly; lubed and reassembled, you could really tell the difference. The next day he tested it and went through about a hundred rounds of three or four brands with no problems.
It was a fun rifle to shoot. As I noted, the trigger is almost too light, more like something on a match rifle than a plinking and small-game gun. The safety is a lever in the right-front of the trigger guard like the later M1 Carbine version. Shooting offhand it was easy to keep shots in a nice, tight group at 25 yards. Too bad it's not still in production, or something like it; I think it'd sell quite well(a M1 Carbine lookalike that uses .22 ammo? C'mon, there's a market there!)
I'll note, if you do find one, do stop at the basic stripping for cleaning; the insides of the thing are, ah, interesting. The trigger, for instance:
Don't know about you, but I'd rather not have to fit that all back together if I don't have to. *I've read there were two versions: one had a magazine that looked just like the M1 mag, the other, more common, is angled, slimmer and longer, obviously for .22. The latter came in 5, 10 and 15-round versions.
Just in case you're new here, or haven't heard of it,
when you have a chance you should to over to the Box o' Truth and look around; all kinds of neat stuff, like what a rifled barrel does to buckshot loads, and penetration tests. And lots of pictures of water jugs blowing up.
A fine demonstration of why people have lost faith in the Justice System
in this country; from one of the two links in the post,
Hrvol and Richter contend that prosecutorial immunity gives government officials the right to coerce witnesses to lie, withhold evidence pointing to a suspect's innocence, and work with police to manufacture false evidence of guilt, then use that evidence to win false convictions that send two men to prison for 25 years. Their motivation for making this argument is obvious; they'd rather not pay for their misconduct. But they're supported in amicus briefs filed by the U.S. Solicitor General, the National District Attorneys Association, and the attorneys general of 27 states and the District of Columbia. Notably, Cook County, Illinois, home to a number of wrongful convictions, also filed its own brief in support of the prosecutors.
Think about that; the Nation District Attorneys Assoc. says that a prosecutor who lies, fakes evidence, pushes people to commit perjury and KNOWINGLY put innocent people in jail should have complete immunity from being sued. That's just flat fucking disgusting. These bastards are supposed to care about finding the facts, the TRUTH of the matter, but they think they should be immune from punishment when they lie and cheat and...
From the other link:
Solicitor General Katyal and the attorney for the prosecutors in Powattattamie both made the absurd argument that the actual injury in Powattattamie occured when the defendants were wrongly convicted and jailed, not when the evidence against them was manufactured. Therefore, because the prosecutors were acting in their role as triers of the case when the injury occurred, they should be immune to lawsuit, even though they were acting as investigators when they conjured up the perjured testimony in the first place. Had they passed the evidence off to another prosecutor for trial, they could still be sued. This led Justice Anthony Kennedy to ask, "so the law is the more deeply you're involved in the wrong, the more likely you are to be immune? That's a strange proposition."
It certainly is. Katyal went so far as to argue that even police officers who manufacture evidence used to convict an innocent person may not be liable, so long as they tell the prosecutor ahead of time that the evidence has been faked—again because the actual injury occurs at the time of conviction, and at the time of conviction the state actor inflicting the damage is the prosecutor acting in his role as prosecutor, at which point he has immunity. Kennedy reiterated the problem: "Again, the more aggravated the tort, the greater the immunity."
If a prosecutor found out someone on the defense side manufactured evidence, they'd want them in jail; but the prosecutors think they should be free to do so...
Yeah, that video was right: don't talk to the police. At all. OR the prosecutors. Get a lawyer before you say anything other than "I want a lawyer." Because, according to the Justice Department, the police and prosecutors can lie and cheat and frame you and should face no penalty for doing so.
Hrvol and Richter contend that prosecutorial immunity gives government officials the right to coerce witnesses to lie, withhold evidence pointing to a suspect's innocence, and work with police to manufacture false evidence of guilt, then use that evidence to win false convictions that send two men to prison for 25 years. Their motivation for making this argument is obvious; they'd rather not pay for their misconduct. But they're supported in amicus briefs filed by the U.S. Solicitor General, the National District Attorneys Association, and the attorneys general of 27 states and the District of Columbia. Notably, Cook County, Illinois, home to a number of wrongful convictions, also filed its own brief in support of the prosecutors.
Think about that; the Nation District Attorneys Assoc. says that a prosecutor who lies, fakes evidence, pushes people to commit perjury and KNOWINGLY put innocent people in jail should have complete immunity from being sued. That's just flat fucking disgusting. These bastards are supposed to care about finding the facts, the TRUTH of the matter, but they think they should be immune from punishment when they lie and cheat and...
From the other link:
Solicitor General Katyal and the attorney for the prosecutors in Powattattamie both made the absurd argument that the actual injury in Powattattamie occured when the defendants were wrongly convicted and jailed, not when the evidence against them was manufactured. Therefore, because the prosecutors were acting in their role as triers of the case when the injury occurred, they should be immune to lawsuit, even though they were acting as investigators when they conjured up the perjured testimony in the first place. Had they passed the evidence off to another prosecutor for trial, they could still be sued. This led Justice Anthony Kennedy to ask, "so the law is the more deeply you're involved in the wrong, the more likely you are to be immune? That's a strange proposition."
It certainly is. Katyal went so far as to argue that even police officers who manufacture evidence used to convict an innocent person may not be liable, so long as they tell the prosecutor ahead of time that the evidence has been faked—again because the actual injury occurs at the time of conviction, and at the time of conviction the state actor inflicting the damage is the prosecutor acting in his role as prosecutor, at which point he has immunity. Kennedy reiterated the problem: "Again, the more aggravated the tort, the greater the immunity."
If a prosecutor found out someone on the defense side manufactured evidence, they'd want them in jail; but the prosecutors think they should be free to do so...
Yeah, that video was right: don't talk to the police. At all. OR the prosecutors. Get a lawyer before you say anything other than "I want a lawyer." Because, according to the Justice Department, the police and prosecutors can lie and cheat and frame you and should face no penalty for doing so.
Global warming and the ice is all melting
my ass.
Winter Could Be Worst in 25 Years for USA...
CHILL MAP...
Britain's big snow shuts cities...
GAS SUPPLIES RUNNING OUT IN UK...
Elderly burn books for warmth?
Army drafted to rescue 1,000 snow stranded motorists...
Vermont sets 'all-time record for one snowstorm'...
Iowa temps 'a solid 30 degrees below normal'...
Seoul buried in heaviest snowfall in 70 years...
3 die in fire at Detroit home; power was cut...
Midwest Sees Near-Record Lows, Snow By The Foot...
Miami shivers from coldest weather in decade; Florida Gov Signs Emergency Order ...
Cold snap spurs power rationing in China...
This is the list at the top of Drudge today. Much like yesterdays and the day before and tomorrow...
Winter Could Be Worst in 25 Years for USA...
CHILL MAP...
Britain's big snow shuts cities...
GAS SUPPLIES RUNNING OUT IN UK...
Elderly burn books for warmth?
Army drafted to rescue 1,000 snow stranded motorists...
Vermont sets 'all-time record for one snowstorm'...
Iowa temps 'a solid 30 degrees below normal'...
Seoul buried in heaviest snowfall in 70 years...
3 die in fire at Detroit home; power was cut...
Midwest Sees Near-Record Lows, Snow By The Foot...
Miami shivers from coldest weather in decade; Florida Gov Signs Emergency Order ...
Cold snap spurs power rationing in China...
This is the list at the top of Drudge today. Much like yesterdays and the day before and tomorrow...
I have to note that I walked into Wal-Mart the other day
for the first time in a long time. Except for a few things that, for some reason, nobody else carries, I've stayed out since the Wal-Mart weenies made their deal with Nanny Bloomberg's Mayors Who Want To Ban Guns group.
Well, while out getting groceries and such yesterday, there was a Super Center along the way and I stopped in. Generally speaking, mistake.
The place has gone downhill. Lots of stuff with prices not marked, only a few price scanners scattered around and not well marked, different brands mixed together(eggs, in this case) so you couldn't tell what the price was for sure without hunting down one of the scanners... Damn.
I used to shop there a LOT.
I do have to note that I went through sporting goods just to check, and they did have the bulk packs of Remington .22 ammo in, so I bought one. Just about the only thing that hasn't gone downhill is that when they do have ammo, it's at the usual price.
I don't know if they backed out on the deal, or if the 'We'll snitch on our customers for you' deal was only for certain places, but no videotaping or logging of ammo sales here.
Well, while out getting groceries and such yesterday, there was a Super Center along the way and I stopped in. Generally speaking, mistake.
The place has gone downhill. Lots of stuff with prices not marked, only a few price scanners scattered around and not well marked, different brands mixed together(eggs, in this case) so you couldn't tell what the price was for sure without hunting down one of the scanners... Damn.
I used to shop there a LOT.
I do have to note that I went through sporting goods just to check, and they did have the bulk packs of Remington .22 ammo in, so I bought one. Just about the only thing that hasn't gone downhill is that when they do have ammo, it's at the usual price.
I don't know if they backed out on the deal, or if the 'We'll snitch on our customers for you' deal was only for certain places, but no videotaping or logging of ammo sales here.
"It is ALL Bush's fault!
Everything! I'm responsible for NOTHING!"
“Make no mistake, we will close Guantanamo prison, which has damaged our national security interests and become a tremendous recruiting tool for al-Qaeda,” he said.
“Make no mistake, we will close Guantanamo prison, which has damaged our national security interests and become a tremendous recruiting tool for al-Qaeda,” he said.
“In fact, that was an explicit rationale for the formation of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.“
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula first came to prominence in Saudi Arabia in May 2003. There is absolutely no proof that Gitmo had anything to do with the group’s formation. The first operational leader of AQAP was killed in June 2003.
One of these days somebody in the press corp is going to remember they're supposed to be an actual reporter and nail Gibbs or The One himself to the wall on this crap. It'll be fun to watch.Sure enough, Arnold is getting around to asking the feds to pick your pocket
to save Californicated from the price for its own idiocy.
Screw that.
Few months back somebody pointed out Rep. Barney Frank("I slept with somebody on the board but that's no problem!" Corrupt-MA) was already starting the "We should do this" crap because MA is in similar state, just not quite as bad, and he wanted a precedent of the feds robbing the country when time to save the PROM from having to deal with its own idiocy and crookedness.
Screw that.
This is another one of those "Anybody who votes for such should be dragged out of that office and hanged by the short & curlies" matters.
And Gov. Arnold? Screw you.
Screw that.
Few months back somebody pointed out Rep. Barney Frank("I slept with somebody on the board but that's no problem!" Corrupt-MA) was already starting the "We should do this" crap because MA is in similar state, just not quite as bad, and he wanted a precedent of the feds robbing the country when time to save the PROM from having to deal with its own idiocy and crookedness.
Screw that.
This is another one of those "Anybody who votes for such should be dragged out of that office and hanged by the short & curlies" matters.
And Gov. Arnold? Screw you.
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
One last thing before bed: a followup on the TSA screwing around Updated
with people's lives:
At this point the TSA officials escorted Yon to a designated screening area where they examined the contents of his bag. “Then they asked me how much money I make,” Yon said. Yon suggested to the TSA officials that the question was inappropriate and unrelated to transportation security. The award-winning blogger noted another TSA officer approached Yon: “he asked who do I work for.” ”I did not answer the question which clearly was upsetting to the TSA officers.”
Yon was escorted to a room elsewhere in the airport where he said he remained silent during much of the questioning. According to Yon, “they handcuffed me for failing to cooperate. They said I was impeding their ability to do their job.”
Yon described the TSA officials as noticeably frustrated by his refusal to answer their questions: “I always assume everything is being recorded. I was trying to be professional.”
Yon continued, “They said I wasn’t under arrest, but I’m handcuffed. In any other country, that qualifies as an arrest.”
This is a marvelous example of clowns with too much authority over people abusing that authority. It's none of their damned business how much money he makes. Or who he works for, for that matter. But they just couldn't stand that someone would dare to not answer their questions, so he winds up handcuffed.
Makes me think: remember the video about "Never talk to the police", it being pointed out that no matter what you say, it can and will be used against you, even if you're innocent? Makes me wonder if TSA uses this to fish for SOMETHING they can misuse to screw somebody around so they can pad their "We did a good job" numbers. Or, there is the other possibility: they knew who he was and for some reason(orders from somebody?) were looking for something to use against him.
Either way, they suck.
Update: Yon now has on his Facebook page that it was Customs who handcuffed him
At this point the TSA officials escorted Yon to a designated screening area where they examined the contents of his bag. “Then they asked me how much money I make,” Yon said. Yon suggested to the TSA officials that the question was inappropriate and unrelated to transportation security. The award-winning blogger noted another TSA officer approached Yon: “he asked who do I work for.” ”I did not answer the question which clearly was upsetting to the TSA officers.”
Yon was escorted to a room elsewhere in the airport where he said he remained silent during much of the questioning. According to Yon, “they handcuffed me for failing to cooperate. They said I was impeding their ability to do their job.”
Yon described the TSA officials as noticeably frustrated by his refusal to answer their questions: “I always assume everything is being recorded. I was trying to be professional.”
Yon continued, “They said I wasn’t under arrest, but I’m handcuffed. In any other country, that qualifies as an arrest.”
This is a marvelous example of clowns with too much authority over people abusing that authority. It's none of their damned business how much money he makes. Or who he works for, for that matter. But they just couldn't stand that someone would dare to not answer their questions, so he winds up handcuffed.
Makes me think: remember the video about "Never talk to the police", it being pointed out that no matter what you say, it can and will be used against you, even if you're innocent? Makes me wonder if TSA uses this to fish for SOMETHING they can misuse to screw somebody around so they can pad their "We did a good job" numbers. Or, there is the other possibility: they knew who he was and for some reason(orders from somebody?) were looking for something to use against him.
Either way, they suck.
Update: Yon now has on his Facebook page that it was Customs who handcuffed him
So, according to this guy, there's a burrito gene only found
in illegal aliens. From Mexico.
Well, if that's the case, we need to remove them from our gene pool, because who knows what other oddity might be running 'round in their DNA?
Well, if that's the case, we need to remove them from our gene pool, because who knows what other oddity might be running 'round in their DNA?
The things that happen when you're out buying stuff Updated
Over at Insty, among other things, we find a really cool killer drone(a little bitty one);
And we have a link to this critique of a piece of bullcrap from David Brooks. Insty says the Brooks piece doesn't seem that bad, that it might be Brooks trying to explain this stuff to the Upper West Side crowd; problem is, Brooks also crapped all over Palin at every opportunity, etc; he's explaining this by saying "Those cretins in flyover country aren't as smart or as well-educated as you, and so they oppose everything the Educated Class stands for." As Ace says,
Did you catch that? The public doesn't like the educated class, so -- because of that -- they childishly, petulantly take the position opposite that class.
Rather than: The majority of the public disagrees with this self-declared technocratic soft-socialistic urban would-be elite on most issues, so -- because of that -- their estimation of this small but extraordinarily noisy cohort necessarily diminishes.
And adds
We disagree with you because we disagree with you; and we think you are arrogant, effete, entitled douchemongers because you are arrogant, effete, entitled douchemongers.
Update: I now have to add this link to Claire; go read.
Oh, wow, the Educated Class mental titans at the White House have decided it wouldn't be a good idea to send a bunch of terrorists to Yemen after all.
Tough call. Super-tough. I mean, it's just that a dozen Yemeni terrorists whom we released into Yemen's "custody" (and who then "escaped" -- whoopsie!) have rejoined Al Qaeda and are trying to kill us. Including blowing up planes over Detroit.
You know, it's a fundamental, unshakable premise on the left that these Gitmo detainees are innocent-as-lambs dudes who were just "scooped up" by our stupid, non-educated-class military.
It's kind of hard to make that claim when they all keep rejoining Al Qaeda, isn't it?
Oh, crap. If the fast food rejects with police powers known as TSA really wanted to demonstrate that a lot of their personnal are friggin' idiots, they picked a good way.
Got arrested at the Seattle airport for refusing to say how much money I make. (The uniformed ones say I was not "arrested", but they definitely handcuffed me.) Their videos and audios should show that I was polite, but simply refused questions that had nothing to do with national security. Port authority police eve...ntually came -- they were professionals -- and rescued me from the border bullies.
If this is indeed what happened, why the HELL were these clowns demanding to know that? Damn.
Also update: Play-Doh
It should be noted: Michael Steele is a jackass.
And someone who really was a communist bigshot warns of what the Democrat Party is trying to do to this country. Y'know, maybe some of the clowns in Congress should remember what happened in Romania when people finally blew up.
Stuff to do, guns to clean from the range trip. See you later
And we have a link to this critique of a piece of bullcrap from David Brooks. Insty says the Brooks piece doesn't seem that bad, that it might be Brooks trying to explain this stuff to the Upper West Side crowd; problem is, Brooks also crapped all over Palin at every opportunity, etc; he's explaining this by saying "Those cretins in flyover country aren't as smart or as well-educated as you, and so they oppose everything the Educated Class stands for." As Ace says,
Did you catch that? The public doesn't like the educated class, so -- because of that -- they childishly, petulantly take the position opposite that class.
Rather than: The majority of the public disagrees with this self-declared technocratic soft-socialistic urban would-be elite on most issues, so -- because of that -- their estimation of this small but extraordinarily noisy cohort necessarily diminishes.
And adds
We disagree with you because we disagree with you; and we think you are arrogant, effete, entitled douchemongers because you are arrogant, effete, entitled douchemongers.
Update: I now have to add this link to Claire; go read.
Oh, wow, the Educated Class mental titans at the White House have decided it wouldn't be a good idea to send a bunch of terrorists to Yemen after all.
Tough call. Super-tough. I mean, it's just that a dozen Yemeni terrorists whom we released into Yemen's "custody" (and who then "escaped" -- whoopsie!) have rejoined Al Qaeda and are trying to kill us. Including blowing up planes over Detroit.
You know, it's a fundamental, unshakable premise on the left that these Gitmo detainees are innocent-as-lambs dudes who were just "scooped up" by our stupid, non-educated-class military.
It's kind of hard to make that claim when they all keep rejoining Al Qaeda, isn't it?
Oh, crap. If the fast food rejects with police powers known as TSA really wanted to demonstrate that a lot of their personnal are friggin' idiots, they picked a good way.
Got arrested at the Seattle airport for refusing to say how much money I make. (The uniformed ones say I was not "arrested", but they definitely handcuffed me.) Their videos and audios should show that I was polite, but simply refused questions that had nothing to do with national security. Port authority police eve...ntually came -- they were professionals -- and rescued me from the border bullies.
If this is indeed what happened, why the HELL were these clowns demanding to know that? Damn.
Also update: Play-Doh
It should be noted: Michael Steele is a jackass.
And someone who really was a communist bigshot warns of what the Democrat Party is trying to do to this country. Y'know, maybe some of the clowns in Congress should remember what happened in Romania when people finally blew up.
Stuff to do, guns to clean from the range trip. See you later
Couple of quick things this morning
First, somebody screwed the pooch bigtime, letting this guy in unscreened. And it cost.
Another case of our media failing in their job, foreign media doing that job. And, secondarily, that moron Johnson blowing another gasket.
If you can't stop the wind farm with honest argument, use PC bullcrap. Especially in federal bureaucracies and in the People's Republic of MA, that usually works. Enviroweenie mantra: "Go Green!(except we don't really want you to have any energy so don't really do it)
Nearly the entire eastern half of the United States is enduring bitterly cold temperatures not experienced since 1985. Even Florida, which has been hovering around freezing levels overnight recently, is also feeling the almost-nationwide chill.
"It'll be like the great winters of the '60s and '70s," said AccuWeather.com Chief Meteorologist and Expert Long Range Forecaster Joe Bastardi.
The last time a large swath of severely low temperatures struck the nation was in January 1985. That historic arctic outbreak had below-zero temperatures Fahrenheit stretching from Chicago eastward to New York City, and all the way south to Macon, Ga.
Global warming my ass. Go to Drudge and look at the top of the page; that whole string of 'record cold, record snow' stories.
And last, I wonder if Holder will treat this guy like earlier Border Patrol people involved in shootings?
Another case of our media failing in their job, foreign media doing that job. And, secondarily, that moron Johnson blowing another gasket.
If you can't stop the wind farm with honest argument, use PC bullcrap. Especially in federal bureaucracies and in the People's Republic of MA, that usually works. Enviroweenie mantra: "Go Green!(except we don't really want you to have any energy so don't really do it)
At the back end of the process, after foreign terrorists have been interrogated, It is a serious mistake and something of a travesty to try them in federal court (Padilla is not a foreigner, though). But it is close to criminal, at the front end, to give foreign terrorists rights enjoyed by ordinary defendants that make it more difficult for us to obtain information from them that might well prevent future attacks and save lives.
In the most telling moment of his interview with Wallace, Brennan was unable to deny that this is what the adminstration has done in this case.
But it lets the administration play "We are the Ones" again, so they seem to think it's worth it. No matter how many American lives it costs in the long run.WALLACE: But wait, wait. Let me ask you specifically. After Abdulmutallab got lawyered up, did he stop cooperating with authorities? Did he stop talking?
BRENNAN: I'm not going to address exactly what he did before or after he was -- talked with his lawyer. We got information. We continue to have opportunities to do that.
Nearly the entire eastern half of the United States is enduring bitterly cold temperatures not experienced since 1985. Even Florida, which has been hovering around freezing levels overnight recently, is also feeling the almost-nationwide chill.
"It'll be like the great winters of the '60s and '70s," said AccuWeather.com Chief Meteorologist and Expert Long Range Forecaster Joe Bastardi.
The last time a large swath of severely low temperatures struck the nation was in January 1985. That historic arctic outbreak had below-zero temperatures Fahrenheit stretching from Chicago eastward to New York City, and all the way south to Macon, Ga.
Global warming my ass. Go to Drudge and look at the top of the page; that whole string of 'record cold, record snow' stories.
And last, I wonder if Holder will treat this guy like earlier Border Patrol people involved in shootings?
I didn't hear Hume's comments,
but I'm tempted to conclude they were a good idea if only for the way they cause all the right people to wet their pants in outrage.
"The Most Ethical Congress EVAH!!!" Part Whatever
According to a pair of senior Capitol Hill staffers, one from each chamber, House and Senate Democrats are “almost certain” to negotiate informally rather than convene a formal conference committee. Doing so would allow Democrats to avoid a series of procedural steps–not least among them, a series of special motions in the Senate, each requiring a vote with full debate–that Republicans could use to stall deliberations, just as they did in November and December.
“There will almost certainly be full negotiations but no formal conference,” the House staffer says. “There are too many procedural hurdles to go the formal conference route in the Senate.”
Translation: "To hell with procedure, we want to shove this through no matter how we screw the country doing it."
That idea of dragging people out of offices to the tar trailer is sounding better and better.
“There will almost certainly be full negotiations but no formal conference,” the House staffer says. “There are too many procedural hurdles to go the formal conference route in the Senate.”
Translation: "To hell with procedure, we want to shove this through no matter how we screw the country doing it."
That idea of dragging people out of offices to the tar trailer is sounding better and better.
Monday, January 04, 2010
Snork. Hehehe
Because of the uber-leftist and showy multi-culture-chic nature of Portland, Oregon, the city housing authority scores brownie points and tax dollars by collecting more needy immigrants than Angelina Jolie.
More over at Sovereign Slacker
More over at Sovereign Slacker
Ref the post about Dr. Helen and the book on young men
and violence, GuardDuck was kind enough to find the book I couldn't remember
For your friends/acquaintances who think "All the REAL scientists
who aren't bought off by Big Oil believe in AGW", pass this on:
But who are the skeptics? A few examples reveal that they are numerous and well-qualified. Several years ago two scientists at the University of Oregon became so concerned about the overemphasis on man-made global warming that they put a statement on their Web site and asked for people's endorsement; 32,000 have signed the petition, including more than 9,000 Ph.Ds. More than 700 scientists have endorsed a 231-page Senate minority report that questions man-made global warming. The Heartland Institute has recently sponsored three international meetings for skeptics. More than 800 scientists heard 80 presentations in March. They endorsed an 881-page document, created by 40 authors with outstanding academic credentials, that challenges the most recent publication by the IPCC. The IPCC panel's report strongly concludes that man is causing global warming through the release of carbon dioxide.
Last year 60 German scientists sent a letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel urging her to “strongly reconsider” her position supporting man-made global warming. Sixty scientists in Canada took similar action. Recently, when the American Physical Society published its support for man-made global warming, 200 of its members objected and demanded that the membership be polled to determine the APS' true position.
And who wrote this?
Neil Frank, who holds a Ph.D. from Florida State University in meteorology, was director of the National Hurricane Center (1974–87) and chief meteorologist at KHOU (Channel 11) until his retirement in 2008.
But who are the skeptics? A few examples reveal that they are numerous and well-qualified. Several years ago two scientists at the University of Oregon became so concerned about the overemphasis on man-made global warming that they put a statement on their Web site and asked for people's endorsement; 32,000 have signed the petition, including more than 9,000 Ph.Ds. More than 700 scientists have endorsed a 231-page Senate minority report that questions man-made global warming. The Heartland Institute has recently sponsored three international meetings for skeptics. More than 800 scientists heard 80 presentations in March. They endorsed an 881-page document, created by 40 authors with outstanding academic credentials, that challenges the most recent publication by the IPCC. The IPCC panel's report strongly concludes that man is causing global warming through the release of carbon dioxide.
Last year 60 German scientists sent a letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel urging her to “strongly reconsider” her position supporting man-made global warming. Sixty scientists in Canada took similar action. Recently, when the American Physical Society published its support for man-made global warming, 200 of its members objected and demanded that the membership be polled to determine the APS' true position.
And who wrote this?
Neil Frank, who holds a Ph.D. from Florida State University in meteorology, was director of the National Hurricane Center (1974–87) and chief meteorologist at KHOU (Channel 11) until his retirement in 2008.
.22 snap caps
You can get .22 rimfire dummies, but they're action proving dummies(check feeding & such) and specifically say "Do not use as snap caps". Thinking about it, no mystery why: with centerfire cartridges the cap can use either a polymer pad or spring-loaded brass pad or something to cushion the firing pin; with a rimfire, can't really do that. I'd guess not economically in the case of the polymer or they'd be out there(think the whole rim area being polymer, which might be too thin for the job).
DISCLAIMER: this is just an idea I tried, and I'm letting you know about it. I'm not telling you this is the best way to make something of the sort, just that it works for me. Also, see WARNING at the end.
Here's what I came up with, using some 3/16" dowel and fired .22 cases
Cut a section of dowel. This is a tiny fraction over .8" long
Chuck it in the drill
Use the drill to spin it against some sandpaper to get a rounded point
You can glue it in, but what I did here was a couple of wraps of scotch tape to make it a tight fit in the case
and it's done. Here's one next to one in a 15-22 magazine
I've just finished half a dozen, and after several tries they seem to cycle just fine from magazine to chamber, and eject as they should; if need be you can adjust the length and profile. You could make them with .22 Short or Long cases for that matter. For dry-firing they're good for a half-dozen or so uses, then you'll need to put the wood into a new(once used?) case.
WARNING: If you make any of these up, you'd damn well better mark them- color the cases or something- AND keep them separate from any live ammo; with the shiny brass it'd be easy to get them mixed together with loud and bad result.
DISCLAIMER: this is just an idea I tried, and I'm letting you know about it. I'm not telling you this is the best way to make something of the sort, just that it works for me. Also, see WARNING at the end.
Here's what I came up with, using some 3/16" dowel and fired .22 cases
Cut a section of dowel. This is a tiny fraction over .8" long
Chuck it in the drill
Use the drill to spin it against some sandpaper to get a rounded point
You can glue it in, but what I did here was a couple of wraps of scotch tape to make it a tight fit in the case
and it's done. Here's one next to one in a 15-22 magazine
I've just finished half a dozen, and after several tries they seem to cycle just fine from magazine to chamber, and eject as they should; if need be you can adjust the length and profile. You could make them with .22 Short or Long cases for that matter. For dry-firing they're good for a half-dozen or so uses, then you'll need to put the wood into a new(once used?) case.WARNING: If you make any of these up, you'd damn well better mark them- color the cases or something- AND keep them separate from any live ammo; with the shiny brass it'd be easy to get them mixed together with loud and bad result.
Hey, New York Effing City, you like where your money
is going?
The city spent $32,000 on 70,000 fliers that tell you how to shoot heroin, complete with detailed tips on prepping the dope and injecting it into your arm.
The Health Department handout has outraged New York's top drug prosecutors and abuse experts.
"It's basically step-by- step instruction on how to inject a poison," said John Gilbride, who heads the Drug Enforcement Administration's New York office.
"It's sick," said City Council member Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Queens)
"Foolish," said Columbia University drug researcher and treatment expert Dr. Herbert Kleber.
The 16-page pamphlet features seven comics-like illustrations and offers dope fiends such useful advice as "Warm your body (jump up and down) to show your veins," and "Find the vein before you try to inject."
It even encourages addicts to keep jabbing if their needles miss the mark.
"If you don't 'register,' pull out and try again," it says.
But the Health Department says not to worry,
The Health Department defended its brochure, saying it was helpful and necessary, and has been distributed only to addicts or those at risk of becoming abusers.
Because someone in danger of becoming a drug abuser primarily needs directions on how to shoot up.
The city spent $32,000 on 70,000 fliers that tell you how to shoot heroin, complete with detailed tips on prepping the dope and injecting it into your arm.
The Health Department handout has outraged New York's top drug prosecutors and abuse experts.
"It's basically step-by- step instruction on how to inject a poison," said John Gilbride, who heads the Drug Enforcement Administration's New York office.
"It's sick," said City Council member Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Queens)
"Foolish," said Columbia University drug researcher and treatment expert Dr. Herbert Kleber.
The 16-page pamphlet features seven comics-like illustrations and offers dope fiends such useful advice as "Warm your body (jump up and down) to show your veins," and "Find the vein before you try to inject."
It even encourages addicts to keep jabbing if their needles miss the mark.
"If you don't 'register,' pull out and try again," it says.
But the Health Department says not to worry,
The Health Department defended its brochure, saying it was helpful and necessary, and has been distributed only to addicts or those at risk of becoming abusers.
Because someone in danger of becoming a drug abuser primarily needs directions on how to shoot up.
Oh boy, the new year's starting off
just great.
As Susan notes below, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is urging the Obama White House not to go forward with plans to send a number of Yemeni terrorists now being held in the Guantanamo Bay detention facility back to their home country. But the Obama White House insists it will continue to send those Gitmo inmates to Yemen -- a country now recognized as a hotbed of terrorism so dangerous that the U.S. has decided to close its embassy there.
Because the number of terrorists already released and causing more problems isn't enough, or not bad enough to further upset his 'progressive' base or some other idiocy.
He wants the Postal Service do take care of this? Oh, come ON, I know he wants to suck up to unions but DAMN. Or, to borrow a line from a Drake book, "Did a computer blow a circuit or did some dickheaded human actually think this was a good idea?"
Happy New Year, readers, but before we get on with the debates of 2010, there's still some ugly 2009 business to report: To wit, the Treasury's Christmas Eve taxpayer massacre lifting the $400 billion cap on potential losses for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as the limits on what the failed companies can borrow.
The Treasury is hoping no one notices, and no wonder. Taxpayers are continuing to buy senior preferred stock in the two firms to cover their growing losses—a combined $111 billion so far. When Treasury first bailed them out in September 2008, Congress put a $200 billion limit ($100 billion each) on federal assistance. Last year, the Treasury raised the potential commitment to $400 billion. Now the limit on taxpayer exposure is, well, who knows?
Because Rep. Barney Frank(So Corrupt And Arrogant It's Amazing-MA) hasn't wasted enough of your money yet.
Evil Party candidate supported by union thugs; no surprise.
Stupid Party not supporting someone who's actually a conservative type; no surprise, either. And a fine example of why I refuse to give any money to the Stupid Party until they pull their collective head out.
The hysterical or insane(do we have to pick just one?) Sullivan is yelling 'racist' at anyone who says unkind things about that picture of the President. As Ace says, Andrew Sullivan has trouble understanding how someone widely believed to be an arrogant dick might be poorly served by a photo of him with an arrogant dick expression on his face. And Insty's reply is ...Well, that’s the last refuge of the Obama fans these days, isn’t it? But Biden’s role here isn’t as a white man. Obama’s showing contempt — or so it seems to me — for the guy he picked as his running mate. Which, considering Biden, isn't real surprising(ask me what I really think of him), but to hit the big point again: for the White House to think this was a good picture to put up is just amazing.
From Where Great Britain Used To Be,
Hate preacher Anjem Choudary of Islam4UK, a branch of the radical al-Muhajiroun movement, has planned a march with coffins through Wootton Bassett in the coming weeks. He planned his anti-UK march along the same route that is used to return troop’s bodies killed in Afghanistan. He wants people to be aware of the million of innocents lost during the Afghanistan War. Choudary blames the UK for the deaths.
...
As more than 190,000 people signed an internet petition objecting to the march, Anjem Choudary said he had chosen to protest in the town – renowned for honouring soldiers killed in Afghanistan – because it would attract ‘maximum attention’.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said today such a march would be ‘completely inappropriate’.
But in remarks designed to cause maximum offence, Choudary compared fallen British heroes to Nazi stormtroopers and the September 11 and July 7 terrorists. He even claimed his plan was backed by families of servicemen and women.
And if past history holds true, the cops will threaten and maybe jail anybody who dares to counter-protest for 'hate crimes' or something.
Climate Change: is there anything it can't do?
Good grief. Two-thirds of the United States is below freezing, orange crops in Florida are being destroyed, the world is seeing record low temperatures, yet we're told it's getting "hotter" and the miserable failures of Copenhagen are to blame.
The idiocy just never stops.
And, of course, we're supposed to pay people off for this. I'll note that for the past while Oklahoma has been as much as 15-20 degrees below norms for this time of year, and it looks to be at least that bad for at least the next week. Al Gore, you bastard, who let you in here? And in the homeland of the CRU,
Scotland’s icy roads are hours away from gridlock as local authorities begin running out of salt in the longest period of cold weather for 20 years, council officials said last night.
The prospect of the country grinding to a halt as the holiday season ends was raised after thousands of drivers spent up to three hours in an eight-mile queue north and south of the Forth Road Bridge on Saturday and endured a further day of severe conditions yesterday.
Bob McLellan, Fife Council’s head of transportation, said that its suppliers did not have enough reserves of salt and the county faced running out this morning. The problem was being repeated all over the country, he added.
… “Closing the embassy in Yemen last night? No one wants State Department officials put at risk, but that is a sign of weakness. Closing the embassy? We can’t protect our own embassy in Yemen, a place where we have special operations forces. A place we say we’re working with the government on the front lines of the war on terror? And there’s a terror threat, and we close the embassy? That’s a victory for al Qaeda. This last week has been a victory for al Qaeda in that region, I’m afraid.”
Hey, if he actually acts to protect the embassy, it's admitting what he doesn't want to: real threats that'll require real action to deal with. And he'd rather see people die here than do that, it seems.
Awww, Canada is worried about airline passenger privacy. And our government won't even stand up to THIS.
You know, it wasn't that long ago that the response to this would involve the British Navy, Marines and a trip to the pirates home town. Now?
Damn, it's cold outside. But I have to go out there anyway.
As Susan notes below, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is urging the Obama White House not to go forward with plans to send a number of Yemeni terrorists now being held in the Guantanamo Bay detention facility back to their home country. But the Obama White House insists it will continue to send those Gitmo inmates to Yemen -- a country now recognized as a hotbed of terrorism so dangerous that the U.S. has decided to close its embassy there.
Because the number of terrorists already released and causing more problems isn't enough, or not bad enough to further upset his 'progressive' base or some other idiocy.
He wants the Postal Service do take care of this? Oh, come ON, I know he wants to suck up to unions but DAMN. Or, to borrow a line from a Drake book, "Did a computer blow a circuit or did some dickheaded human actually think this was a good idea?"
Happy New Year, readers, but before we get on with the debates of 2010, there's still some ugly 2009 business to report: To wit, the Treasury's Christmas Eve taxpayer massacre lifting the $400 billion cap on potential losses for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as the limits on what the failed companies can borrow.
The Treasury is hoping no one notices, and no wonder. Taxpayers are continuing to buy senior preferred stock in the two firms to cover their growing losses—a combined $111 billion so far. When Treasury first bailed them out in September 2008, Congress put a $200 billion limit ($100 billion each) on federal assistance. Last year, the Treasury raised the potential commitment to $400 billion. Now the limit on taxpayer exposure is, well, who knows?
Because Rep. Barney Frank(So Corrupt And Arrogant It's Amazing-MA) hasn't wasted enough of your money yet.
Evil Party candidate supported by union thugs; no surprise.
Stupid Party not supporting someone who's actually a conservative type; no surprise, either. And a fine example of why I refuse to give any money to the Stupid Party until they pull their collective head out.
The hysterical or insane(do we have to pick just one?) Sullivan is yelling 'racist' at anyone who says unkind things about that picture of the President. As Ace says, Andrew Sullivan has trouble understanding how someone widely believed to be an arrogant dick might be poorly served by a photo of him with an arrogant dick expression on his face. And Insty's reply is ...Well, that’s the last refuge of the Obama fans these days, isn’t it? But Biden’s role here isn’t as a white man. Obama’s showing contempt — or so it seems to me — for the guy he picked as his running mate. Which, considering Biden, isn't real surprising(ask me what I really think of him), but to hit the big point again: for the White House to think this was a good picture to put up is just amazing.
From Where Great Britain Used To Be,
Hate preacher Anjem Choudary of Islam4UK, a branch of the radical al-Muhajiroun movement, has planned a march with coffins through Wootton Bassett in the coming weeks. He planned his anti-UK march along the same route that is used to return troop’s bodies killed in Afghanistan. He wants people to be aware of the million of innocents lost during the Afghanistan War. Choudary blames the UK for the deaths.
...
As more than 190,000 people signed an internet petition objecting to the march, Anjem Choudary said he had chosen to protest in the town – renowned for honouring soldiers killed in Afghanistan – because it would attract ‘maximum attention’.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said today such a march would be ‘completely inappropriate’.
But in remarks designed to cause maximum offence, Choudary compared fallen British heroes to Nazi stormtroopers and the September 11 and July 7 terrorists. He even claimed his plan was backed by families of servicemen and women.
And if past history holds true, the cops will threaten and maybe jail anybody who dares to counter-protest for 'hate crimes' or something.
Climate Change: is there anything it can't do?
Good grief. Two-thirds of the United States is below freezing, orange crops in Florida are being destroyed, the world is seeing record low temperatures, yet we're told it's getting "hotter" and the miserable failures of Copenhagen are to blame.
The idiocy just never stops.
And, of course, we're supposed to pay people off for this. I'll note that for the past while Oklahoma has been as much as 15-20 degrees below norms for this time of year, and it looks to be at least that bad for at least the next week. Al Gore, you bastard, who let you in here? And in the homeland of the CRU,
Scotland’s icy roads are hours away from gridlock as local authorities begin running out of salt in the longest period of cold weather for 20 years, council officials said last night.
The prospect of the country grinding to a halt as the holiday season ends was raised after thousands of drivers spent up to three hours in an eight-mile queue north and south of the Forth Road Bridge on Saturday and endured a further day of severe conditions yesterday.
Bob McLellan, Fife Council’s head of transportation, said that its suppliers did not have enough reserves of salt and the county faced running out this morning. The problem was being repeated all over the country, he added.
… “Closing the embassy in Yemen last night? No one wants State Department officials put at risk, but that is a sign of weakness. Closing the embassy? We can’t protect our own embassy in Yemen, a place where we have special operations forces. A place we say we’re working with the government on the front lines of the war on terror? And there’s a terror threat, and we close the embassy? That’s a victory for al Qaeda. This last week has been a victory for al Qaeda in that region, I’m afraid.”
Hey, if he actually acts to protect the embassy, it's admitting what he doesn't want to: real threats that'll require real action to deal with. And he'd rather see people die here than do that, it seems.
Awww, Canada is worried about airline passenger privacy. And our government won't even stand up to THIS.
You know, it wasn't that long ago that the response to this would involve the British Navy, Marines and a trip to the pirates home town. Now?
Damn, it's cold outside. But I have to go out there anyway.
Remember the milblogger being crapped on due to Jennifer Scott
at the Huntsville School Board being an asshat? And the Army getting involved? And the troop involved getting screwed over for no good reason?
The Army Official Blog put up a statement about this mess, apparently catching heat after the Day of Silence by milbloggers in support of said troop. Let's just say that most people aren't real impressed by it, Kitchen Dispatch having her response here.
I'd say the shortest ways of putting it are these two comments:
Swell. Then fix the situation with CJ and restore him back to his rank and position… and clear his record.
Otherwise, this is just so much hot air.
and
Put your money where your mouth is! The whole (current) issue with CJ is mostly based on PERSONAL not military issues, which the MILITARY decided needed to be dealt with, even though it had nothing to do with OPSEC and everything to do with CJ’s life as a father of a child in a public school. Follow K.J.’s suggestion and clear up CJ’s situation. If he is seriously considering leaving the Army because of this, something is seriously wrong with his chain of command.
Can't really add anything to that.
The Army Official Blog put up a statement about this mess, apparently catching heat after the Day of Silence by milbloggers in support of said troop. Let's just say that most people aren't real impressed by it, Kitchen Dispatch having her response here.
I'd say the shortest ways of putting it are these two comments:
Swell. Then fix the situation with CJ and restore him back to his rank and position… and clear his record.
Otherwise, this is just so much hot air.
and
Put your money where your mouth is! The whole (current) issue with CJ is mostly based on PERSONAL not military issues, which the MILITARY decided needed to be dealt with, even though it had nothing to do with OPSEC and everything to do with CJ’s life as a father of a child in a public school. Follow K.J.’s suggestion and clear up CJ’s situation. If he is seriously considering leaving the Army because of this, something is seriously wrong with his chain of command.
Can't really add anything to that.
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Remember I mentioned the Unitarian Church(?)
with all the 'social justice' and 'economic justice' flyers pasted up? I may have to print this off and stick it up with them:
“Throughout his career,” we noted in the series opener, “Obama has worked closely with a network of stone-cold socialists and full-blown communists striving for ‘economic justice.’” Economic justice simply means punishing the successful and redistributing their wealth by government fiat. It’s a euphemism for socialism, which in practice is more economic extortion than justice.
“Throughout his career,” we noted in the series opener, “Obama has worked closely with a network of stone-cold socialists and full-blown communists striving for ‘economic justice.’” Economic justice simply means punishing the successful and redistributing their wealth by government fiat. It’s a euphemism for socialism, which in practice is more economic extortion than justice.
Damn, a lot came out while I was at the show
Let's start off with the current display of ineptitude from the Obama Administration:
He then told people to remember that "our adversaries are those who would attack our country, not our fellow Americans", before decrying "fear and cynicism" and "partisanship and division" - the code phrases for horrid Republicans used during his 2008 election campaign.
Complacency, faux moralising and partisan shots at Republicans. It was a neat summary of where Obama is going wrong after the Christmas Day debacle when the Nigerian knicker bomber managed to waltz onto a Detroit-bound flight.
For a man who campaigned denouncing the politicisation of national security under President George W Bush, it is worth noting how intensely political Obama's treatment of what might henceforth be known as Underpantsgate has been.
His White House recognised its political vulnerability more readily than it comprehended the level of danger faced by Americans.
Interesting, isn't it, how we're having to see reporting on this crap from British papers for the most part?
Now, from a Canadian paper on Time's man of the year(this crap doesn't deserve caps):
I suspect Time knew just as well as everybody else that the real person of the year, whether you worshipped him or were a critic, was – how could it be anyone else? – Barack Obama. Was not Barack Obama sworn in as President in 2009? Was he not – the descriptors are now bonded to his name – “the first black man to occupy the White House?” Was this not a “historic milestone?” Did he not, almost immediately, also win the Nobel Peace Prize? Was he not the predominant politico-celebrity figure of the entire world this year?
What was Time waiting for before it would name him as person of the year? Did he have to win Wimbledon with one hand tied behind his back while simultaneously directing repairs to the Large Hadron Collider?
I think Time went to the relatively faceless functionary Bernanke mainly not to name Barack Obama. Time, like a lot of its fellows in the wild world of the contemporary U.S. media, is in an awkward place with regards to Mr. Obama. Having devoted so much incense to his remarkable ascendancy, a great swath of his country's press is looking for a convenient and not too noticeable off-ramp while it – shall we say – recalibrates its enthusiasm.
It's an uncomfortable pivot from the audacity of hope to buyer's remorse. Very uncomfortable for those in the media who played the cheerleader for Mr. Obama, who skated by controversies that would have sunk other candidates or abandoned the ruthless investigations they would have pressed on less congenial candidates.
The ferocity they applied to the Republican vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, in contrast with the timidity they brought to his campaign, will in time come to be seen as one of the most shameful episodes in American journalism. Not so much for what they did to Ms. Palin, but for what they neglected to do in examining the candidate for the office that really counted. In some curious way, the U.S. media's bulldogging of Ms. Palin was kind of an inverted compensation for what they weren't doing to him.
Just exactly: they saw Palin as a threat to Obama's Ascension and did everything they could to her, AFTER having done everything they could to ignore anything questionable about Obama. Which an awful lot of them continue to do.
Back to the subject of the Underwear Bomber, and terrorism in general,
It speaks eloquently to the Obama administration’s priorities that it took the White House four days to acknowledge the “catastrophic breach of security” that led to the failed bombing of a US-bound jet on Christmas Day — but a scant four hours to accuse Dick Cheney of coddling terrorists.
The former vice president Wednesday harshly criticized the administration’s efforts — or non-efforts — against terrorism. Whereupon, Team Obama went ballistic.
And, for one of the best parts of this mess,
n response, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer actually claimed that Cheney was “more focused on criticizing the administration than condemning the attackers.”
That’s a laugh.
Dick Cheney — the man who, as one blogger put it, would waterboard terrorists until their lungs qualify for federal wetlands status — soft on terrorism?
Have you seen the picture over at Insty? If you haven't, go take a look; what's your first thought? Have to tell you, even if I liked him that pose would piss me off unless it was directed at a terrorist, Chavez or a Saudi bigshot. Over at Althouse she notes that some True Believer says he looks like James Bond, which is freaking laughable: Bond might have looked confident, watchful, dangerous or a few other things but he wouldn't have had an expression like that unless, well, looking at a terrorist(just before shooting him), Chavez or a Saudi bigshot(again, just before shooting him). This is a guy who took days to make a personal statement about a terrorist attack that came way too damn close to downing an airplane but made a sirens screaming run from the beach over a friend's kid banging his chin; that's contempt on his face, whether for Biden(I know, I know, shut up) or someone else(us?) I don't know, but Bond it isn't.
Damn, I wonder just how much Pachauri is making? Go here and start scrolling down.
Over in Britain, 'Cold of a variety not seen in over 25 years in a large scale is about to engulf the major energy-consuming areas of the northern hemisphere. The first 15 days of the opening of the New Year will be the coldest, population weighted, north of 30 [degrees] north worldwide in over 25 years.'
That is the chilling (quite literally) verdict of Joe Bastardi, a weather forecaster on the American TV channel AccuWeather.
Yet, while many months ago he and several of his rivals correctly forecast a pre-Christmas freeze, the organisation that told us last year to prepare for a 'barbecue summer' was getting it wrong again.
They rip the Met a new one, and throw in this point:
The data collection system is far from perfect, designed primarily for weather recording, not long-term climate prediction. Reflecting the military origins of the Met Office, many weather stations are situated on airfields. They are there to provide real-time observations for aviators and to provide the basis for short-term forecasts. They are not climate monitoring stations and arguably should not be used as such.
"But they're so convenient! And they show Warming!(ignore the runways and machinery and such)"
Right.
No "smoking gun." Just, basically, three or eight foreign intelligence services with dossiers on this guy thicker than a Stephen King book all saying "hey, this guy says he wants to get on a plane wearing a bomb."
Oh -- and yeah, the guy's own father called up and said he's a dangerous jihadist.
But no smoking gun. I mean, not even Sherlock Holmes could put these paltry clues together.
Snork. Hehe. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Iranian legislators on Sunday decided to not allow a visit from Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.), according to Iranian media.
"Members of the Iranian parliament's Foreign Relations Committee (a subcommittee of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission) voiced opposition to the request after studying the issue," Hassan Ebrahimi, head of the committee, told the semi-official Fars News Agency.
Several Iranian news outlets reported last week that Kerry had submitted an official request to visit Tehran in an emissary role.
But, of course, the Pepe le Pew of the Senate wasn't actually going at all!
When asked Sunday if Kerry had filed a travel request as claimed or if Iran had taken pre-emptive action against talk of a visit, Jones told The Hill, "John Kerry has no plans to travel to Iran."
Especially since they told him to keep his sorry, treacherous ass out of the country, eh, Pepe?
Words from Blackfive ref the TSA blog attacks:
Hint to any who have had their computers or other com gear taken TSA/CID/Other: get new. You don't know what's been done or added to those devices. If you think they wouldn't add, just look at what they did to you to get it in the first place. Bugs, bad porn, you name it -- if it shows up after an incident like this, the so-called investigative agencies should not be given any benefit of doubt. Yes, I am saying I think them capable and willing to do such. While I would normally give any LE the benefit of the doubt, the circumstances and actions of LE in these cases negates that. Turn anything seized over to your lawyer and don't let it back in your home. As Insty has noted, you have already been found guilty of the worst thing in the world -- you made a bureaucrat(s) look bad. There is little or nothing that such will not do to make you pay for that crime. I love my country, but I fear the bureaucracy. So should you.
To close I'm going to point you to a Mark Steyn piece:
Whom should the traveling public thank for these impositions? The 9/11 killers were mostly Saudi. But the Shoebomber was a British subject. So were the Heathrow plotters. And the Pantybomber was educated in British schools - first in Togo; then at University College, London - and there is plenty of evidence he was radicalized while in the UK. So three of the four circles of homeland security hell with which the public are tortured are British in origin.
He then told people to remember that "our adversaries are those who would attack our country, not our fellow Americans", before decrying "fear and cynicism" and "partisanship and division" - the code phrases for horrid Republicans used during his 2008 election campaign.
Complacency, faux moralising and partisan shots at Republicans. It was a neat summary of where Obama is going wrong after the Christmas Day debacle when the Nigerian knicker bomber managed to waltz onto a Detroit-bound flight.
For a man who campaigned denouncing the politicisation of national security under President George W Bush, it is worth noting how intensely political Obama's treatment of what might henceforth be known as Underpantsgate has been.
His White House recognised its political vulnerability more readily than it comprehended the level of danger faced by Americans.
Interesting, isn't it, how we're having to see reporting on this crap from British papers for the most part?
Now, from a Canadian paper on Time's man of the year(this crap doesn't deserve caps):
I suspect Time knew just as well as everybody else that the real person of the year, whether you worshipped him or were a critic, was – how could it be anyone else? – Barack Obama. Was not Barack Obama sworn in as President in 2009? Was he not – the descriptors are now bonded to his name – “the first black man to occupy the White House?” Was this not a “historic milestone?” Did he not, almost immediately, also win the Nobel Peace Prize? Was he not the predominant politico-celebrity figure of the entire world this year?
What was Time waiting for before it would name him as person of the year? Did he have to win Wimbledon with one hand tied behind his back while simultaneously directing repairs to the Large Hadron Collider?
I think Time went to the relatively faceless functionary Bernanke mainly not to name Barack Obama. Time, like a lot of its fellows in the wild world of the contemporary U.S. media, is in an awkward place with regards to Mr. Obama. Having devoted so much incense to his remarkable ascendancy, a great swath of his country's press is looking for a convenient and not too noticeable off-ramp while it – shall we say – recalibrates its enthusiasm.
It's an uncomfortable pivot from the audacity of hope to buyer's remorse. Very uncomfortable for those in the media who played the cheerleader for Mr. Obama, who skated by controversies that would have sunk other candidates or abandoned the ruthless investigations they would have pressed on less congenial candidates.
The ferocity they applied to the Republican vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, in contrast with the timidity they brought to his campaign, will in time come to be seen as one of the most shameful episodes in American journalism. Not so much for what they did to Ms. Palin, but for what they neglected to do in examining the candidate for the office that really counted. In some curious way, the U.S. media's bulldogging of Ms. Palin was kind of an inverted compensation for what they weren't doing to him.
Just exactly: they saw Palin as a threat to Obama's Ascension and did everything they could to her, AFTER having done everything they could to ignore anything questionable about Obama. Which an awful lot of them continue to do.
Back to the subject of the Underwear Bomber, and terrorism in general,
It speaks eloquently to the Obama administration’s priorities that it took the White House four days to acknowledge the “catastrophic breach of security” that led to the failed bombing of a US-bound jet on Christmas Day — but a scant four hours to accuse Dick Cheney of coddling terrorists.
The former vice president Wednesday harshly criticized the administration’s efforts — or non-efforts — against terrorism. Whereupon, Team Obama went ballistic.
And, for one of the best parts of this mess,
n response, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer actually claimed that Cheney was “more focused on criticizing the administration than condemning the attackers.”
That’s a laugh.
Dick Cheney — the man who, as one blogger put it, would waterboard terrorists until their lungs qualify for federal wetlands status — soft on terrorism?
Have you seen the picture over at Insty? If you haven't, go take a look; what's your first thought? Have to tell you, even if I liked him that pose would piss me off unless it was directed at a terrorist, Chavez or a Saudi bigshot. Over at Althouse she notes that some True Believer says he looks like James Bond, which is freaking laughable: Bond might have looked confident, watchful, dangerous or a few other things but he wouldn't have had an expression like that unless, well, looking at a terrorist(just before shooting him), Chavez or a Saudi bigshot(again, just before shooting him). This is a guy who took days to make a personal statement about a terrorist attack that came way too damn close to downing an airplane but made a sirens screaming run from the beach over a friend's kid banging his chin; that's contempt on his face, whether for Biden(I know, I know, shut up) or someone else(us?) I don't know, but Bond it isn't.
Damn, I wonder just how much Pachauri is making? Go here and start scrolling down.
Over in Britain, 'Cold of a variety not seen in over 25 years in a large scale is about to engulf the major energy-consuming areas of the northern hemisphere. The first 15 days of the opening of the New Year will be the coldest, population weighted, north of 30 [degrees] north worldwide in over 25 years.'
That is the chilling (quite literally) verdict of Joe Bastardi, a weather forecaster on the American TV channel AccuWeather.
Yet, while many months ago he and several of his rivals correctly forecast a pre-Christmas freeze, the organisation that told us last year to prepare for a 'barbecue summer' was getting it wrong again.
They rip the Met a new one, and throw in this point:
The data collection system is far from perfect, designed primarily for weather recording, not long-term climate prediction. Reflecting the military origins of the Met Office, many weather stations are situated on airfields. They are there to provide real-time observations for aviators and to provide the basis for short-term forecasts. They are not climate monitoring stations and arguably should not be used as such.
"But they're so convenient! And they show Warming!(ignore the runways and machinery and such)"
Right.
No "smoking gun." Just, basically, three or eight foreign intelligence services with dossiers on this guy thicker than a Stephen King book all saying "hey, this guy says he wants to get on a plane wearing a bomb."
Oh -- and yeah, the guy's own father called up and said he's a dangerous jihadist.
But no smoking gun. I mean, not even Sherlock Holmes could put these paltry clues together.
Snork. Hehe. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Iranian legislators on Sunday decided to not allow a visit from Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.), according to Iranian media.
"Members of the Iranian parliament's Foreign Relations Committee (a subcommittee of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission) voiced opposition to the request after studying the issue," Hassan Ebrahimi, head of the committee, told the semi-official Fars News Agency.
Several Iranian news outlets reported last week that Kerry had submitted an official request to visit Tehran in an emissary role.
But, of course, the Pepe le Pew of the Senate wasn't actually going at all!
When asked Sunday if Kerry had filed a travel request as claimed or if Iran had taken pre-emptive action against talk of a visit, Jones told The Hill, "John Kerry has no plans to travel to Iran."
Especially since they told him to keep his sorry, treacherous ass out of the country, eh, Pepe?
Words from Blackfive ref the TSA blog attacks:
Hint to any who have had their computers or other com gear taken TSA/CID/Other: get new. You don't know what's been done or added to those devices. If you think they wouldn't add, just look at what they did to you to get it in the first place. Bugs, bad porn, you name it -- if it shows up after an incident like this, the so-called investigative agencies should not be given any benefit of doubt. Yes, I am saying I think them capable and willing to do such. While I would normally give any LE the benefit of the doubt, the circumstances and actions of LE in these cases negates that. Turn anything seized over to your lawyer and don't let it back in your home. As Insty has noted, you have already been found guilty of the worst thing in the world -- you made a bureaucrat(s) look bad. There is little or nothing that such will not do to make you pay for that crime. I love my country, but I fear the bureaucracy. So should you.
To close I'm going to point you to a Mark Steyn piece:
Whom should the traveling public thank for these impositions? The 9/11 killers were mostly Saudi. But the Shoebomber was a British subject. So were the Heathrow plotters. And the Pantybomber was educated in British schools - first in Togo; then at University College, London - and there is plenty of evidence he was radicalized while in the UK. So three of the four circles of homeland security hell with which the public are tortured are British in origin.
That ought to prompt astonishment - and great shame in Britons. Yet Timothy Garton Ash, Hoover panjandrum and eminent British complacenik, wrote in The Guardian only three weeks ago:
Not all Muslims, all of the time, will be able to support all these minimum essentials of a modern free society. There is a real tension between some of the essentials (for instance, the equal rights and dignity of homosexuals) and what is habitually taught even in mainstream, conservative Muslim communities. But most British Muslims, most of the time, will support most of them.
Even if that's true (and it's by no means clear that it is), is that enough? I said a few years back that Britain had been so hollowed out by Islamic radicals that it was becoming Somalia with chip shops. Mr Abdulmuttalab supposedly got the ol' jihad fever while at university. I see The New York Times reports the remarkable statistic that one-fifth of students at British universities are Muslim. As Professor Garton Ash would say, most British Muslims most of the time will be most unlikely to self-detonate over most American cities. So that's okay, right? Up to a point. A poll by the Centre for Social Cohesion found that one-third of Muslim students in Britain believe killing in the name of religion is justified and are in favor of a global caliphate. That's a lot of potential airline tickets.
Out with a friend at the gun show today,
which wasn't quite a waste of time but... These Hall of Fame(they actually call it the Grand American Arms Show now) shows used to fill the building; now there were lots of empty tables, and it's been this way for more than a year, this one just worse than the others. And the admission keeps going up. They've got to either get more people in, cut the price or both or a lot more people are going to say to hell with it and not go.
Sen. Nelson(Expensive Whore-NB) doesn't wants the problem 'fixed'
by extending the Cornhusker Kickback (100% federal payment) on Medicaid to every state.”
Well, gee, isn't that a GREAT idea? Since the current estimate(and those are always too high, aren't they?[/sarcasm]) is Nebraska costing the 'feds'(us, since it's our damned money) about 100 million bucks, add in another 49 states...
Nelson, you suck. You don't like the heat you're getting for your crap so you throw this out to try to cover up. We know what you are, we know what you did, and this garbage isn't helping your case. In case you don't realize it, we DO know that WE'RE THE ONE'S WHO'LL BE PAYING FOR ALL THIS CRAP! And we're really tired of you and Reid and others acting like that's not the case, or that we're too stupid to understand this.
According to the memo, McMaster responded to Nelson by saying that the goal of the GOP attorneys general was to remove the Nebraska Medicaid provision from the bill and that “he saw no way that he—nor any of the state attorneys general—will support extension of the Cornhusker Kickback to every state nor be a part of a deal like that.”
I damned well hope not. I just wish Governor Henry here in OK had the balls to have the AG here join this suit. But then Henry's a Democrat, so probably no chance of that.
Don't you just love the way Nelson and the others want to 'fix' things by trying to bribe us with our own money?
Well, gee, isn't that a GREAT idea? Since the current estimate(and those are always too high, aren't they?[/sarcasm]) is Nebraska costing the 'feds'(us, since it's our damned money) about 100 million bucks, add in another 49 states...
Nelson, you suck. You don't like the heat you're getting for your crap so you throw this out to try to cover up. We know what you are, we know what you did, and this garbage isn't helping your case. In case you don't realize it, we DO know that WE'RE THE ONE'S WHO'LL BE PAYING FOR ALL THIS CRAP! And we're really tired of you and Reid and others acting like that's not the case, or that we're too stupid to understand this.
According to the memo, McMaster responded to Nelson by saying that the goal of the GOP attorneys general was to remove the Nebraska Medicaid provision from the bill and that “he saw no way that he—nor any of the state attorneys general—will support extension of the Cornhusker Kickback to every state nor be a part of a deal like that.”
I damned well hope not. I just wish Governor Henry here in OK had the balls to have the AG here join this suit. But then Henry's a Democrat, so probably no chance of that.
Don't you just love the way Nelson and the others want to 'fix' things by trying to bribe us with our own money?
Since I was reading Dr. Helen,
also ran across this review of a book, The Little Black Book of Violence. From what I've heard, not just from her, it's largely "This is how things develop, here's how to stay OUT of fights, here's some of the consequences if you get in one and it gets nasty."
I'll throw in something I've picked up over time(and happily, I don't know this particular thing from personal experience): if a fight- the real, down and dirty thing- starts, you've only got two choices:
Break contact and get the hell out, preferably without the jerk and/or friends in hot pursuit,
Or win. Whatever it takes. And that tends to get really nasty. And involves serious injury to one or both involved. And can involve getting arrested and going through the whole mess even in cases of clear self-defense, AND can involve the jerk who started it and lost deciding to sue you for injuries he wouldn't have if he hadn't started the fight in the first place. Etc.
If you've got a young relative- male in particular- this might be a good book for him. There's another which I can't remember the title of, something like 'A Bouncer's Guide' I read a few years back that was very good. I found it at a library and checked it out mostly from curiosity; glad I did. A good half of it was recognizing signs that a situation was going bad, someone was working up to whacking you or sizing you up, ways to defuse it and/or get out before things blew. If I can find the title I'll post it.
I'll throw in something I've picked up over time(and happily, I don't know this particular thing from personal experience): if a fight- the real, down and dirty thing- starts, you've only got two choices:
Break contact and get the hell out, preferably without the jerk and/or friends in hot pursuit,
Or win. Whatever it takes. And that tends to get really nasty. And involves serious injury to one or both involved. And can involve getting arrested and going through the whole mess even in cases of clear self-defense, AND can involve the jerk who started it and lost deciding to sue you for injuries he wouldn't have if he hadn't started the fight in the first place. Etc.
If you've got a young relative- male in particular- this might be a good book for him. There's another which I can't remember the title of, something like 'A Bouncer's Guide' I read a few years back that was very good. I found it at a library and checked it out mostly from curiosity; glad I did. A good half of it was recognizing signs that a situation was going bad, someone was working up to whacking you or sizing you up, ways to defuse it and/or get out before things blew. If I can find the title I'll post it.
Dr. Helen pointed to this piece by Steyn, which ends
with this:
So once again we see the foolishness of complaceniks who drone the fatuous cliches about how "in this struggle, scholarships will be far more important than smart bombs." The men eager to self-detonate on infidel airliners are not goatherds from the caves of Waziristan but educated middle-class Muslims who have had the most exposure to the Western world and could be pulling down six-figure salaries almost anywhere on the planet. And don't look to "assimilation" to work its magic, either. We're witnessing a process of generational de-assimilation: In this family, yet again, the dad is an entirely assimilated member of the transnational elite. His son wants a global caliphate run on Wahhabist lines.
Used to know somebody who had- probably still does- bought into the "Poverty leads to terrorism" etc. line. One night she started that and a guy who usually didn't say much upped with "So why were the 9/11 hijackers from well-off families, some of them rich? Why had they gone to good universities?" She tried to deny that, and somebody else came in: "Yes, they were and did; it's in the records, we know who they were." She didn't answer. The look on her face was interesting; I couldn't decide if she was shocked at something she somehow had never heard, or thought she was being ganged up on unfairly. Maybe both.
bin Laden was from a wealthy family*; the heads of Hamas and Hizballah have piles of money and send their kids to Europe to fine universities(where, interestingly- and it's a bad sign- they fit right in) and send somebody else's kids to blow themselves up in the holy struggle against the evil Joooooos. But we still keep hearing the "They do it because of poverty" crap.
Oh, and if it's poverty, why do they do crap like destroy the working greenhouses the Israelis left behind? Instead of using them?
'Course, this also works as the excuse for dumbing down schools and passing kids on when they haven't learned anything: "They're poor, you can't expect them to learn like rich(i.e. have both parents and are expected to learn) children!" So they pass these kids on, they fail, and that's excused by 'poverty' they wouldn't be in if they'd been held to higher standards growing up. And yes, I include their 'parents' on welfare and dealing drugs and thinking prison is no big deal. Question: aside from an apparent desire to destroy everything just because it isn't perfect, WHY do progressives and liberals refuse to see that expecting someone to succeed, to learn, DEMANDING it of them, works? When schools were segregated and most black schools got a fraction of the resources white schools did, and black kids were expected by their parents and community to learn- no excuses- and behave, they did; the combination of more money and lowered standards sucks(not just for black kids, they're just the most dramatic example), but these people just won't recognize it.
*Count me as one who thinks bin Laden is dead. Until I see a video that can be proven to be current(not breaking to a still when current events come up) and him, I'll continue to think so.
So once again we see the foolishness of complaceniks who drone the fatuous cliches about how "in this struggle, scholarships will be far more important than smart bombs." The men eager to self-detonate on infidel airliners are not goatherds from the caves of Waziristan but educated middle-class Muslims who have had the most exposure to the Western world and could be pulling down six-figure salaries almost anywhere on the planet. And don't look to "assimilation" to work its magic, either. We're witnessing a process of generational de-assimilation: In this family, yet again, the dad is an entirely assimilated member of the transnational elite. His son wants a global caliphate run on Wahhabist lines.
Used to know somebody who had- probably still does- bought into the "Poverty leads to terrorism" etc. line. One night she started that and a guy who usually didn't say much upped with "So why were the 9/11 hijackers from well-off families, some of them rich? Why had they gone to good universities?" She tried to deny that, and somebody else came in: "Yes, they were and did; it's in the records, we know who they were." She didn't answer. The look on her face was interesting; I couldn't decide if she was shocked at something she somehow had never heard, or thought she was being ganged up on unfairly. Maybe both.
bin Laden was from a wealthy family*; the heads of Hamas and Hizballah have piles of money and send their kids to Europe to fine universities(where, interestingly- and it's a bad sign- they fit right in) and send somebody else's kids to blow themselves up in the holy struggle against the evil Joooooos. But we still keep hearing the "They do it because of poverty" crap.
Oh, and if it's poverty, why do they do crap like destroy the working greenhouses the Israelis left behind? Instead of using them?
'Course, this also works as the excuse for dumbing down schools and passing kids on when they haven't learned anything: "They're poor, you can't expect them to learn like rich(i.e. have both parents and are expected to learn) children!" So they pass these kids on, they fail, and that's excused by 'poverty' they wouldn't be in if they'd been held to higher standards growing up. And yes, I include their 'parents' on welfare and dealing drugs and thinking prison is no big deal. Question: aside from an apparent desire to destroy everything just because it isn't perfect, WHY do progressives and liberals refuse to see that expecting someone to succeed, to learn, DEMANDING it of them, works? When schools were segregated and most black schools got a fraction of the resources white schools did, and black kids were expected by their parents and community to learn- no excuses- and behave, they did; the combination of more money and lowered standards sucks(not just for black kids, they're just the most dramatic example), but these people just won't recognize it.
*Count me as one who thinks bin Laden is dead. Until I see a video that can be proven to be current(not breaking to a still when current events come up) and him, I'll continue to think so.
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