Sunday, February 07, 2010
So the IPCC is even more full of crap than thought
...A report in Sunday’s London Times highlights new humiliations for the IPCC.
The most important is a claim that global warming could cut rain-fed north African crop production by up to 50% by 2020, a remarkably short time for such a dramatic change. The claim has been quoted in speeches by Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, and by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general.
There is however one teensy-weensy little problem. As Professor Chris Field, the lead author of the IPCC’s climate impact team has now told reporters that he can find “no evidence” to support the claim in the IPCC’s 2007 report.
Now, that's pretty bad; their own people can find 'no evidence'?
(yeah, you know what's coming)
But wait! There's more!!
When the glacier story broke, IPCC apologists returned over and over again to a saving grace. The bogus glacier report appeared in the body of the IPCC document, but not in the much more carefully vetted Synthesis Report, in which the IPCC’s senior leadership made its specific recommendations to world leaders. So it didn’t matter that much, the apologists told us, and we can still trust the rigorously checked and reviewed Synthesis Report.
But that’s where the African rain crisis prediction is found — in the supposedly sacrosanct Synthesis Report.
So: the Synthesis Report contains a major scare prediction — 50% shortfall in North African food production just ten years from now — and there is no serious, peer-reviewed evidence that the prediction is true.
And MORE!!!
A prediction about the impact of sea level increases on people living in the Nile Delta was taken from an unpublished student dissertation.
We're at the point that it would be easier to ask for a list of things they haven't flat lied about or used bullcrap 'data' to 'prove'.
A long time ago a guy pointed me to a pork shoulder recipe
So today I tried it a bit different; less apple, immediately after browning I slopped some good barbeque sauce over the top, and instead of wine I put a couple of good splashes of whiskey in.
Damn, that came out good.
The gentleman up in Idaho is taking Dennis Henigan's work apart
Sunday morning,
Couple of key 'graphs from this piece:
None of this is to say that global warming isn't real, or that human activity doesn't play a role, or that the IPCC is entirely wrong, or that measures to curb greenhouse-gas emissions aren't valid. But the strategy pursued by activists (including scientists who have crossed the line into advocacy) has turned out to be fatally flawed.
...
“I don't think it's healthy to dismiss proper skepticism,” says John Beddington, the chief scientific adviser to the British government. He is a staunch believer in man-made climate change, but he also points out the complexity of climate science. “Science grows and improves in the light of criticism. There is a fundamental uncertainty about climate change prediction that can't be changed.” In his view, it's time to stop circling the wagons and throw open the doors. How much the public will keep caring is another matter.
One of the reasons a lot of people screamed so much about the AGW bullcrap was precisely this: the damage it was doing and would do to science: when anyone who doubts a theory is insulted and treated like a Holocause denier, that's got nothing to do with science, it's advocacy of the dirtiest kind. And all the "The science is SETTLED! The consensus has SPOKEN!!" bullshit just made it worse.
And let's not forget damage to the major media weenies; lots of people are taking notice that, just like with Obama, the media didn't do their damned job:
Nothing prevented Ms. O'Neil from taking a firsthand look at the IPCC report herself. She, like me, could have typed "WWF" (which stands for the activist group, the World Wildlife Fund) into a search box and found the 16 distinct WWF citations in the IPCC's 2007 report. Within a few minutes she could also have found the eight Greenpeace papers listed...
Instead, Ms. O'Neill - who has 25 years experience as a journalist - was utterly bamboozled by the PR machine which is the IPCC. She fell for their slick mirage. And then she passed it along to her viewers and readers.
As Steyn points out it was Laframboise, a lowly blogger, who dug up the above while the major media weenies didn't bother to do anything but treat IPCC press releases as confirmed fact; but we're supposed to trust in a believe every word the poodles like O'Neill throw out. Actually, I guess it's their credibility they threw out...
Oh, I like this idea. Howzabout a 0 dollar bill with Washington saying "Here's your payoff, you corrupt bastard"? There's a bunch of people on ALL levels of government who should receive those.
I like the title Althouse used: Sarah Palin was a blithering idiot until she became a devious genius. I'll throw in two things:
She could decide to never run for office again, and she'll still have helped make a big change in things.
There's an awful lot of people out there trying to figure out either why everybody else doesn't hate her, and some thinking "How the hell did I misjudge this so bad?"
...Besides, he said, almost everyone was on some sort of pension, disability, or government benefit, and was unwilling to work, so his choices were either illegal immigrants or broke foreign students. Then he launched into a blast against socialism, and explained how he was forced to become an expert tax dodger, how he would barter for all the transactions he could, and why he hated the government. He finished by sighing that in Greece, the people spend their time either devising ways to get government money or scheming to avoid the tax collectors — or, preferably, both.
Greece, not Chicago or some other place here. Unfortunately, sounds like a lot of places here, doesn't it?
The other day was Ronald Reagan's birthday; the man was human, had his flaws, but as a President he was pretty damn good.
Back to Climaquiddick for a minute, let's not forget that a lot of people, like Gore and Pachauri, have made a buttload of money off this AGW crap.
Heeeee!
Sorry Jane, but MoveOn are retarded to the lowest degree possible to still breathe. They are physically and mentally incapable of contributing anything productive to society, so they went into politics and now have bare majority ownership of the Democratic Party. They are, quite literally, a collective ambulatory vegetable with a point of view and a bank account.
Oh, I have got to get by CCiZ more often; as Phil says, drink warning in effect.
So if a woman has 'too small' a cup size to suit the censors... Australia, what the hell's happened to you?
Oh good grief, can't the IPCC check or correct ANYTHING?
Oh, this is just freakin' wonderful: massive overuse of antibiotics leading to highly resistant superbugs. Disaster in the making, folks.
'Carbon criminals' and 'no more snow'; uh huh.
And finally, Amnesty International: Friend of Terrorists
Gita Sahgal, head of the gender unit at Amnesty’s international secretariat, believes that collaborating with Moazzam Begg, a former British inmate at Guantanamo Bay, “fundamentally damages” the organisation’s reputation.
In an email sent to Amnesty’s top bosses, she suggests the charity has mistakenly allied itself with Begg and his “jihadi” group, Cageprisoners, out of fear of being branded racist and Islamophobic.
Sahgal describes Begg as “Britain’s most famous supporter of the Taliban”. He has championed the rights of jailed Al-Qaeda members and hate preachers, including Anwar al-Awlaki, the alleged spiritual mentor of the Christmas Day Detroit plane bomber.
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Bitch, bitch, bitch
"When did you get the hernia?"
I, being as quick as a cat in the thinking department, replied "What?"
Go read the whole story; it's worth it
I agree with Swampy

...WINTER STORM WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM MONDAY MORNING THROUGH MONDAY AFTERNOON... * TIMING: RAIN IS EXPECTED TO BEGIN MIXING WITH SNOW EARLY MONDAY AND CHANGE TO ALL SNOW BY MONDAY AFTERNOON. THE SNOW MAY BECOME HEAVY AT TIMES. MOST OF THE PRECIPITATION IS EXPECTED TO END BY MONDAY EVENING. * MAIN IMPACT: WIDESPREAD SNOW ACCUMULATIONS OF 3 TO 6 INCHES WILL BE POSSIBLE AND ISOLATED HIGHER TOTALS MAY OCCUR NEAR AND NORTH OF INTERSTATE-40. THIS WILL HAVE SIGNIFICANT IMPACTS ON TRAVEL AND COMMERCE. * OTHER IMPACTS: NORTHERLY WINDS WILL INCREASE ON MONDAY... LEADING TO SIGNIFICANT BLOWING AND DRIFTING OF SNOW. THIS MAY RESULT IN WHITE-OUT CONDITIONS FOR A TIME MONDAY AFTERNOON.
Sen. Richard Shelby(Stupid Party & Greedy-AL),
Earmarks and pork and legislative bribes; What We Already Have Far Too Much Of.
"I'm not going to take away your guns! I don't have the votes!
Damn these people. Personal ideology above all, including stopping terrorist threats.
It seems that being a honest, fair and hard-working ATF agent
I'd read about this case before; as I recall most of the serious charges brought due to the agent getting into Hell's Angels were dropped or thrown out because of the prosecutors and agency brass effing up the cases. And now they seem determined to prove that in their eyes the worst thing you can do is trust the agency brass.
And here's a damn good reason to tell Levi Strauss company
Reader "Barney B" sent me copies of his email correspondence with the clothing giant. I'll give you the CliffsNotes version, from their corporate "consumer relations" reply:
Levi Strauss & Co. believes deeply in the importance of equality, social justice, community involvement and corporate citizenship.
Here's one of the ways they manifest their deep beliefs:
OXFAM? Where have I heard about them before?In this time of need, we encourage you to give what you can at www.oxfamamerica.org.
Oh, yeah--they're the international citizen disarmament zealots who are conjoined with IANSA to stump for a global gun grab.
Levi's really hit the trifecta here: 'social justice', 'corporate citizenship' and 'Let's ban guns!'
Some years back I wrote to them when I heard about their involvement in PAX, their big thing at the time being "For the children, we need to ban guns because of school violence!" I pointed out that fists, feet, clubs and knives were used far more often than guns in crimes in school, so why weren't the primarily worried about those? Reply boiled down to "We're worried about all violence, but especially that caused by those nasty guns." Which caused me to formulate my General Rule of Semi-Non-Violence Idiocy: Some kid getting strangled, beaten or stabbed to death in a school isn't NEARLY as important as something the weenies can use to attack gun ownership, because for a lot of them that's the real goal.
And I haven't bought anything Levi's since.
Also pointed to by Codrea, why the hell does the Collin County DA
And is he going to be personally responsible for any deaths, injuries and property damage they cause?
Well, here's something that has the possibility of biting someone in the ass
State Rep. Sue Tibbs was one of the sponsors of a bill that makes it unlawful for “any person to willfully fortify an access point into any dwelling, structure, building or other place where a felony offense prohibited by the Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Act is being committed, or attempted, and the fortification is for the purpose of preventing or delaying entry or access by a law enforcement officer, or to harm or injure a law enforcement officer in the performance of official duties.”
...
The law states that to “fortify an access point” means to willfully construct, install, position, use or hold any material or device designed to injure a person upon entry or to strengthen, defend, restrict or obstruct any door, window or other opening into a dwelling, structure, building or other place to any extent beyond the security provided by a commercial alarm system, lock or deadbolt, or a combination of alarm, lock or deadbolt.
I understand the idea, though I think it's unnecessary; it's not like this is going to bother someone who's cooking meth or whatever. My concern is that some prosecutor is going to decide to use this against someone charged with something else because they had done something to make their home more secure.
Looks like Iran could get downright messy
I shall now borrow, among others, from Denny
Here's the deal. Ronald Reagan once pointed out that people voted with their feet. They went to where the best jobs are and where the living is better. That's why people are leaving Mexifornia and migrating to places like Texas. Texas is due to pick up four congresssional seats after the 2010 census. Georgia is gonna pick up at least one. People are leaving high tax and dying states like Michigan. Way to go unions!
But I digress. That's a rant for another day.
Mr. Williams' decision to leave Canada for the surgery has raised eyebrows over his apparent shunning of Canada's health-care system.
He knows that the Canadian system is not as good as ours.
"It was never an option offered to him to have this procedure done in this province," said Ms. Dunderdale, refusing to answer whether the procedure could be done elsewhere in Canada.Either it couldn't, or the rules they follow would've delayed it so long he'd have died, probably; and deity knows they don't want to admit either one.
So the Chinese have figured out the IPCC is not worth trusting; maybe someday our media will start reporting this stuff fully.
Speaking of which, Insty pointed to this: two feet of globular warming expected. And here in Oklahoma they're predicting ANOTHER round on snow on Monday; this has been the worst winter, snow and ice-wise, I can remember in a LONG time. Somebody find Algore, we need to either lock him up somewhere or he can join the defenestration queue with the tax weenies.
When Sen. Gillibrand(Evil Party Backstabber-NY) decided to stab the people in her home district in the back, she really went to a big knife, didn't she?
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand will make a joint appearance at a forum next month with controversial lawyer Van Jones, who left the Obama administration last year amid outrage over his past remarks about 9/11.
Question becomes, did this slip past her puppetmaster Schumer, or did he think it was a good idea?
Keith Olbermann: devoid of fact, and nearly of viewers.
Well, well, Starbucks refused to roll over for the Brady Coalition to Ban Guns; good for Starbucks. And Peets Coffee & Tea and California Pizza Kitchen? If I lived there, you would've lost my business for this PC idiocy of yours.
To the EffingBI: screw you, you little statist thugs. It's none of your damned business what websites I look at, unless you have gotten a legal warrant to dig into it. One thing we do NOT need is another massive invasion of privacy by you people with the standard excuse "It's for the CHILDREN!" You wanting to force this record keeping so you can go on fishing expeditions? Screw you.
Well, here's a good reason to stay out of Omaha. Let's see, a "We'll do it no matter what state law says" prosecutor, a "I want to know what you own" police chief... Not a place I'd want to spend money.
Charles Johnson: wonderful little bastard, isn't he?
Jeez. And in most of Europe, owning arms for self-defense is highly discouraged... an awful lot of Jews must be getting pretty nervous over this crap.
McChrystal says things have improved; hope so, and hope it continues.
Wow, MSNBC slants the news and The Obama is full of crap; whoda thunk it?
Well, lots of whores don't like being called what they are, Landrieu, deal with it.
Now if you'll excuse me, got some running around to do
Apparently the Diplomatic Security Service follows the standard rule:
Friday, February 05, 2010
Well damn, guy, what was your first clue?
I don't know why I'm surprised by this, except that I'd thought Hitchens would have already realized this a long time ago.
'Course, we've still got a lot of people who refuse to believe that Ahmadogcrap and the mullahs in Iran actually mean what they're saying, too.
This is one of the times I'd like to line up all the people responsible
I hate that you can go over everything multiple times, rechecking by the instructions each time, and you still have to worry about it.
Well, that IS a good question: What is the Austin Police Department
Forgive me if I can't help but focus on these words:
Why?[T]he department wishes to withhold some of the requested information and has asked for a decision from the Attorney General about whether the information is within an exception to public disclosure.
Sorry, and with all due respect and gratitude to Ms. Tripp for following up and fleshing out so many details for us, when the government dodges being forthcoming, and thus held accountable to the law for information their agents are willing to personally attest to on an official record (with all the attendant liabilities that implies), my antennae go up.
Speaking of savages, they exist in various places
Turkish police have recovered the body of a 16-year-old girl they say was buried alive by relatives in an "honour" killing carried out as punishment for talking to boys.
The girl, who has been identified only by the initials MM, was found in a sitting position with her hands tied, in a two-metre hole dug under a chicken pen outside her home in Kahta, in the south-eastern province of Adiyaman.
...
A postmortem examination revealed large amounts of soil in her lungs and stomach, indicating that she had been alive and conscious while being buried. Her body showed no signs of bruising.
Let's start the day with Government Control of the Internet:
Every jerk in every government who wants more government control of the 'net(all for the public good, of course) is traveling down the same path; Chavez the Communist is just more open about it.
Can you say 'Coverup by the State Department and DC Police'? I knew you could:
An agent in the vehicle, Mike McGuinn, did not identify himself to Medlock at the scene, or apologize for running him down. Indeed, Washington, D.C., police drove to a local emergency room to serve Medlock with a jaywalking citation as he lay prostrate in a hospital bed, while a man who identified himself as “special agent” stood by watching and taking notes.
...
Curiously, the ticket says that Medlock was struck at an intersection four blocks from where the accident actually took place. And it claims that Medlock was walking diagonally across the intersection at the time. In one of his strikingly short conversations with the Daily Caller, agent Mike McGuinn acknowledged that Medlock was not jaywalking at all, but walking “outside the crosswalk when the incident occurred.”
The question is: Did the federal agent driving the SUV, faced with potential liabilities from the accident, encourage local police to issue some sort – any sort – of citation to Medlock, to establish his culpability?
...
MPD provided several answers about the level of detail they would be able to provide. MPD public affairs said a police report would not be available until early next week at the soonest. A Daily Caller reporter who visited the Second District station, where Officer Muniz posts, was told there will be no incident report at all filed for a traffic incident.
Well, isn't this just a wonderful little runaround they've got going?
Hmmm, another possible link between AG Holder and terrorist groups; isn't THAT a wonderful thing?
Max Blumenthal, Professional Journalist, is full of crap. Big surprise, right? But hey, he's got someone of conservative bent to slime, so...
Andrew Sullivan really is a shit, isn't he?
Gee, another Obama appointee who lies to the Senate. This one's name is Craig Becker
Actually, that's about all I can take this morning. The sun's shining and most of the snow is gone, so I've got some things to do.
'No tax increases' my ass; this is on the line of using candy
Wall Street Journal op-ed, Another Obama Tax Hike: The Senate Health-Care Bill Would Raise Effective Marginal Tax Rates on Lower and Middle-Income Singles and Families up to 41%, by Douglas Holtz-Eakin (Former Director, Congressional Budget Office; Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations) & Alex Brill (American Enerprise Institute):
[The Senate health care bill raises] to shocking levels the effective marginal tax rates (EMTR) on lower and middle-income singles and families--with the government taking up to 41% of each additional dollar. ...
Got that? Tax increases by back 'helping you with your health care'.
As a family's income rises above 133% of poverty, Medicaid eligibility will be eliminated but a family that does not receive health insurance from their employer will receive a subsidy to purchase health insurance in the "exchange." In turn, however, as their efforts yield higher income, subsidies are clawed back or effectively taxed away. The current law policies show that there are already some lower income families facing EMTRs above those in the middle class. But the barrier to success imposed by health-care reform is even more striking. According to the Congressional Budget Office, about 20 million people would receive a subsidy to purchase insurance through an exchange and thus face a higher EMTR.
So. Obama promises 'no tax increases if you're not 'rich' ', which definition keeps shifting around; then this crap would give you a subsidy(i.e., other peoples money) to 'help' you get insurance, but that subsidy would be considered income so you'll pay higher taxes... And anyone who works hard and succeeds will be raped with this garbage, making it not worth succeeding.
So the Obamites get two things: take control of our health care, and destroy growth because people won't want to work hard and 'succeed' when it means they'll be taxed to death for doing so. Wonderful people, aren't they?
Some of this information has been around a while, but the Globular Warmering
In fact, the Fourth Assessment Report suggests 2035 as the likely arrival of Armageddon, but what’s half a decade between scaremongers? They rate the likelihood of the glaciers disappearing as “very high”—i.e., more than 90 per cent. And the IPCC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for that report, so it must be kosher, right? Well, yes, its Himalayan claims rest on a 2005 World Wildlife Fund report called “An Overview of Glaciers.”
WWF? Aren’t they something to do with pandas and the Duke of Edinburgh? True. But they wouldn’t be saying this stuff if they hadn’t got the science nailed down, would they? The WWF report relies on an article published in the New Scientist in 1999 by Fred Pearce.
That’s it? One article from 12 years ago in a pop-science mag? Oh, but don’t worry, back in 1999 Fred did a quickie telephone interview with a chap called Syed Hasnain of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. And this Syed Hasnain cove presumably knows a thing or two about glaciers.
...
...Dr. Murari Lal, the “scientist” who included the 2035 glacier apocalypse in the IPCC report, told Britain’s Mail on Sunday that he knew it wasn’t based on “peer-reviewed science” but “we thought we should put it in”—for political reasons.
And it also needs to be kept in the public eye just what- besides accolades and authority- some of these people are getting out of this crap:
V. K. Raina, of the Geological Survey of India, produced a special report demonstrating that the run-for-your-life-the-glaciers-are-melting IPCC scenario was utterly false. For his pains, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the self-aggrandizing old bruiser and former railroad engineer who serves as head honcho of the IPCC jet set, dismissed Mr. Raina’s research as “voodoo science.” He’s now been obliged to admit the voodoo was all on his side. But don’t worry. By 2008, Syed Hasnain’s decade-old casual chit-chat over the phone to a London journalist had become “settled science,” so Dr. Pachauri’s company TERI (The Energy & Resources Institute) approached the Carnegie Corporation for a grant to research “challenges to South Asia posed by melting Himalayan glaciers,” and was rewarded with half a million bucks. Which they promptly used to hire Syed Hasnain. In other words, professor Hasnain has landed a cushy gig researching solutions to an entirely non-existent global crisis he accidentally invented over a 15-minute phone call 10 years earlier. As they say in the glacier business, ice work if you can get it.
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Yes, some people really are savages,
The quote from Ghandi, I believe, is Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India,
In the land of Mahatma Gandhi, Indian gun owners are coming out of the shadows for the first time to mobilize, U.S.-style, against proposed new curbs on bearing arms.
When gunmen attacked 10 sites in Mumbai in November 2008, including two five-star hotels and a train station, Mumbai resident Kumar Verma sat at home glued to the television, feeling outraged and unsafe.
Before the end of December, Verma and his friends had applied for gun licenses. He read up on India's gun laws and joined the Web forum Indians for Guns. When he got his license seven months later, he bought a black, secondhand, snub-nose Smith & Wesson revolver with a walnut grip.
"I feel safe wearing it in my ankle holster every day," said Verma, 27, who runs a family business selling fire-protection systems. "I have a right to self-protection, because random street crime and terrorism have increased. The police cannot be there for everybody all the time. Now I am a believer in the right to keep and bear arms."
India currently seems to have the kind of bullshit victim disarmament laws Bloomberg and the Brady group would like to force on us.
Although India's 1959 Arms Act gives citizens the legal right to own and carry guns, it is not a right enshrined in the country's constitution. Getting a license is a cumbersome process, and guns cannot be bought over the counter -- requirements that gun owners describe as hangovers from the colonial past, when the British rulers disarmed their Indian subjects to head off rebellion.
In December, the Ministry of Home Affairs proposed several amendments to the Arms Act that would make it even harder to acquire a gun license, restrict the number of people eligible for nationwide licenses and curtail the amount of ammunition a gun owner can amass.
Ah, yes, face a terrorist attack and then pretend to deal with it by working to disarm the honest citizens. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? So will the reaction:
"We are outraged. We are not murderers. Instead of going after real criminals, the government is indulging in window dressing by bringing in gun control laws that target law-abiding citizens who have licensed guns," said Abhijeet Singh, 37, a software engineer who started Indians for Guns and is the coordinator of the new gun rights association.
"We want to remove the stigma on licensed gun owners," Singh said. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, 87 percent of murders by firearms in India in 2007 involved illegally held guns.
I can't remember if it was Kevin or someone else who said "Gun control laws are what politicians do instead of actually doing something." These folks need to remember that, and push it out there.
The reaction of the 'experts' will sound awfully familiar to you:
Indian security experts appear dismissive of the group's efforts. "There is no place for a gun rights movement in India," said Julius Ribeiro, a former police officer who comments on security issues. "That kind of debate may work in America, but it will not work here, because laws are misused and guns can easily fall into the wrong hands. It can get dangerous in India."
Standard translation: "You peasants have no need of arms, that's to be left to us minions of the state and experts. We of the State cannot trust you to own them." And I love the 'laws are misused' bit; does he mean the current 'disarmament by bureaucratic bullshit' described in the article? Just what the hell DOES he mean? And considering that the bad guys demonstratively have no problem getting arms, how would honest citizens having arms affect that?
Same arguments for disarming the citizens the hoplophobes and statists use here, and just as full of crap.
Mr. Verma, carry on; you're doing a good thing.
*It's one of those quotes that the hoplophobes really don't like people to remember.
Would YOU trust the EUnuchs to have access to this?
The only proper response of a country even pretending to be free would be "Excuse me. Gentlemen? Fuck your mother with a spade."
Let's talk about weather and weather-related stuff
Ok, so I may have added something there. Deal with it.
What? A major nor'easter will strike the Mid-Atlantic states producing major snow accumulations and strong winds.When? Storm begins around midday Friday and lasts through the majority of Saturday.
Where? High-populated areas of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and southeastern Pennsylvania will likely all experience big snow totals. Washington, DC and Baltimore could experience foot plus snow totals.
Globular warming my ass.
Right now it's so foggy outside I half expect to see some tall guy in a deerstalker strolling along outside. But at least it's well above freezing.
Mad Rocket Scientist notes something about central-planning economies
Trouble is, when you have a nutcase-level communist government, an awful lot of the people connected to the planning are.
Hehehehehe
I flat love his workAlso, I'll be interested in what the price of this holster turns out to be; for the Ruger .22 pistols it looks great.
So Holder now admits to the idiot decision
So he and his buttmonkeys delay and delay until he basically has no choice, THEN he admits to this being his responsibility.
And also that Obama was right in the middle of it:
In the days following December 25 — including during a meeting with the President and other senior members of his national security team on January 5 — high-level discussions ensued within the Administration in which the possibility of detaining Mr. Abdulmutallab under the law of war was explicitly discussed. No agency supported the use of law of war detention for Abdulmutallab, and no agency has since advised the Department of Justice that an alternative course of action should have been, or should now be, pursued.
Yeah. Those other agencies also run by Obama appointees and such had a problem with this decision; that just makes it all warm and fuzzy, doesn't it?
Apparently Amazon didn't think some things through
Due to Amazon.com’s removal of many of our authors’ books from its ordering system, we are removing Amazon.com links from our website. Our authors depend on people buying their books and since a significant percentage of them publish through Macmillan or its subsidiaries, we would prefer to send traffic to stores where the books can actually be purchased.
To that end, our volunteers are in the process of redirecting book links to indiebound.org, Powell’s, Barnes and Noble, and Borders.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Two fine demonstrations of 'Politician should know what the hell he's talking about
Our increasingly-RINO Mayor hath sworn a solemn oath to slay the beastly notion of letting licensed citizens carry their guns in Indy parks, 'cos he's like, wanting to be a one-term mayor. Or maybe he feeeeeels guns are all creepy. (Um, I thought he was in the military. USMC? Oh $DIETY please no; but yes). Heck, maybe he'd just like to see me get stomped flat in a city park; who can say? Money
“This never comes up in any forum I ever go to,” Ballard said of the issue. “I’m putting out what I hear from the people.”
Except there is a poll at the Star, presently running at 71% in favor of permit-holders being allowed to carry in parks (criminals already are -- why should they get special treatment?) and only 29% against the idea. The citizenry hath spake, Mr. Mayor, and they're sayin' you're full of it.
Your move, pal. The electorate's watching.
Oh, Mayor Ballard, you'd better believe they are!
The other is from Down Under:
"I'll give you an example: repeatedly in the AdelaideNow website one will see commentary from Aaron Fornarino of West Croydon. That person doesn't exist," Atkinson said on the air. "That name has been created by the Liberal Party in order to run Liberal Party commentary." This morning, AdelaideNow took great delight in posting a picture of Fornarino posing with a Mac and his young daughter. He's a second-year law student who moved to the area last year and "lives in a flat on Port Rd, about 500m from Mr. Atkinson's electorate office."
One made a dumbass statement, apparently from not checking to make sure he was right, the other I have a strong suspicion is lying. And both made the error.
That there is funny
(CNN) -- Iran said Wednesday it had launched a rocket carrying a rat, two turtles and some worms into orbit...All of which were wearing teeny, tiny explosive vests, no doubt, making it the first Persian MIRV.
If you read about a jerk named Dale Robertson
I have to say, this required a serious level of dumbass
Oklahoma City Police officials have launched an internal investigation into how and why a man who paraded himself as a former German federal police officer, made his way into specialized training here. The suspect, 27 year old Maziar Golchehr reported told a high ranking police officer in Oklahoma City that he was a former German police officer, who was interested in living and working here.
It appears the city officer befriended the suspect, allowing him into various police functions, including SWAT training, in which he was given access to a high powered, sawed-off weapon which is legally authorized for use only by police officers.
In case you're interested(and I know you are), the 'high powered sawed-off weapon etc.' was that mysterious object known as the MP5; and no, I have no idea how or why they came up with the dramatic wording.
A city officer participating in one of those training sessions became suspicious of Golchehr, based on how he reacted during the exercises. At that point, city police contacted the US State Department, and German authorities, only to learn Golchehr didn't have the background he claimed, and had engaged in similar ruses in Germany.
Same source from which I heard about the MP5 told me that he'd also had access to the PD computers; which means that besides that department's stuff he may also have had access to NCIC and NLETS and so forth; they must be having bloody fits. And it makes the line at the end of the story more worrisome:
Golcheher had been living in Germany and is of Iranian descent.
Now, isn't that just SO confidence-inspiring?
It's cold, but a lot of the snow melted yesterday and more
Wow, the 9th Circus actually slapped a federal judge down! And for actual good reasons!
Rep. Murtha(Corrupt Bastard-PA) is in the hospital. I admit a temptation to say a number of things, but I'll not do that today.
Hehehehehe
“He didn’t learn his lesson the first time, but when he hurt our economy by his ill conceived rhetoric, we didn’t think it would happen again, but now that it has I want to assure you, when he comes I’ll do everything I can to give him the boot back to Washington and to visit his failures back there.
“I gotta tell you this, everybody says I shouldn’t say it, but I gotta tell you the way it is. This president is a real slow learner.”
Sen. Reid must be SO happy to have The Obama coming to town for him.
Oh, wonderful. Question is, will The Obama send them a stern note, or just try to overlook this? I say 'overlook' because he's finally learned, I think, that if he publicly protests the next thing will be Ahmadogcrap telling him to go to hell.
That is one big-ass snowblower.
Ah, that seems just a bit excessive for whitetail...
I used to think a lot of Arpaio; after reading the last few months about some of the stuff coming out, not so much.
Last: Supposedly Abdulmuttalab is talking. Isn't that convenient? I mean, here Holder & Co. are getting serious heat about "Who decided? When? And why?" and the announce "Hey, he's talking, see how good our work is?"
Also, to borrow from Ace,
First, awesome and all but relying on the family of a terrorist to help gather intelligence isn't exactly a sure fire strategy. The fact that this guy's dad gave him up beforehand shows how extraordinary a case this is. There are huge numbers of examples of everyday Americans who won't help authorities put their family members behind bars for ordinary crime. Does anyone think we can rely on this type of cooperation every time?
Second, Abdulmuttalab began talking over a month after the attack. Do we really have that kind of time to waste? Considering the top counter terrorism officials in the administration said yesterday it's a virtual certainty that there will be another attempted attack within the next 3-6 months, I'd so we don't.
That's it for now, I need to find a 1/4" bolt 1" long.
Don't ask.
I guess this rates as "The dog ate the work, but it doesn't matter,
But when Jones turned down requests from them to reveal details about the location of the 84 Chinese weather stations used in the study, arguing that it would be "unduly burdensome", they concluded that he was covering up the error.And when, in 2007, Jones finally released what location data he had, British amateur climate analyst and former City banker Doug Keenan accused Jones and Wang of fraud.
He pointed out that the data showed that 49 of the Chinese meteorological stations had no histories of their location or other details. These mysterious stations included 40 of the 42 rural stations. Of the rest, 18 had certainly been moved during the study period, perhaps invalidating their data.
Keenan told the Guardian: "The worst case was a station that moved five times over a distance of 41 kilometres"; hence, for those stations, the claim made in the paper that "there were 'few if any changes' to locations is a fabrication". He demanded that Jones retract his claims about the Chinese data.
Now Phil Jones, the head of the CRU and his Chinese-American colleague Wei-Chyung Wang, from the University of New York at Albany are admitting that the data are lost. Even more damningly, the Guardian reports:
The story has a startling postscript. In 2008, Jones prepared a paper for the Journal of Geophysical Research re-examining temperatures in eastern China. It found that, far from being negligible, the urban heat phenomenon was responsible for 40% of the warming seen in eastern China between 1951 and 2004.
Lies and coverup from True Believers. Who were working very hard to affect how we'll be allowed(and that's what they want) to live our lives.
If you read the article, along with other stuff that's been coming out, you'll find that the Guardian and other papers are basically playing "Yes, they faked and lost data, but that doesn't change that we're warming the earth and disaster(might be, maybe) IS coming!" Talk about trying to have it both ways...
But the unpleasant fact is that these Brit papers are at least reporting on this mess, with most of our media seems to have an allergy to.
Ok, so according to this Reuters pulled the story
The tax cuts at the top that the president would allow to expire would significantly lower marginal tax rates on saving and investment and promote long-run growth. Letting those tax cuts expire would ultimately harm the middle class by lowering their wages.
Yes, but those would be tax increases on those evil people who dared to succeed! so that's just ducky according to The Obama & Co. Or if not 'succeeded' as yet, people building a business and may succeed, so they need to be punished now!
So it would seem.
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
And some of the media is still so in the tank for Obama
While the administration is focusing its proposal on eliminating tax breaks for individuals who earn $250,000 a year or more, middle-class families will face a slew of these backdoor increases.
The targeted tax provisions were enacted under the Bush administration's Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. Among other things, the law lowered individual tax rates, slashed taxes on capital gains and dividends, and steadily scaled back the estate tax to zero in 2010.
If the provisions are allowed to expire on December 31, the top-tier personal income tax rate will rise to 39.6 percent from 35 percent. But lower-income families will pay more as well: the 25 percent tax bracket will revert back to 28 percent; the 28 percent bracket will increase to 31 percent; and the 33 percent bracket will increase to 36 percent. The special 10 percent bracket is eliminated.
Investors will pay more on their earnings next year as well, with the tax on dividends jumping to 39.6 percent from 15 percent and the capital-gains tax increasing to 20 percent from 15 percent. The estate tax is eliminated this year, but it will return in 2011 -- though there has been talk about reinstating the death tax sooner.
Hey, Californicated: now you know that Meg Whitman
There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. [and/or] We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any flag of a nation to which we are hostile. We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.
Bad enough we have to listen to a bunch of race warlord poverty pimps calling this 'racist'; that this jerk Whitman has fits this way means you do NOT need her in office.
Cuba: the kind of 'gun control' the Brady Bunch, Violence Policy Center
Cuba has declared a two-month amnesty for citizens to register unlicensed guns, and says those passing aptitude and psychological tests will be allowed to keep their weapons.
A: Anybody who believes they mean that, and trusts them, is a fool.
B: This is exactly the kind of crap the Brady Group, Mayors Against Gun Ownership & Co. would love to force on us: "Just take the tests, and if we decide you're approved you'll be allowed to own that gun. For now."
And that brings us to the question of "If a communist dictatorship on a bloody island can't keep people from getting or making guns, just how the hell is that supposed to work here?"
The move is unusual in a state where almost no one except some active military personnel and plain-clothed state security agents are allowed to possess weapons.
Even most police officers are required to leave their pistols at the station or in a regional barracks when on vacation or leave, and young men participating in mandatory military service are given unloaded firearms for most exercises.
And yet we read this further down:
While Cuba is among the safest countries in the hemisphere, it is not unusual to find firearms in Cuban homes, though most are weapons improvised from household materials or guns that were smuggled into the country and bought on the black market.
'Safest country'. Snorf. Hehehehehe.....
And why might people be a bit untrusting of the 'amnesty'?
Cubans were encouraged to register any weapons they owned in the years after Fidel Castro and his band of rebels toppled dictator Fulgencio Batista on Jan. 1, 1959. But later authorities used a list of those who had sought licenses to go door-to-door and encourage them to turn over their firearms - even antiques considered family heirlooms.
Nice word, that: 'encourage'. As in "It would be very unfortunate if bad things happened to your family because you didn't surrender that Mauser like a good
And just to make it more wonderful,
The call to register arms is for Cubans civilians, and the bulletin stated that "security and protection agents, detectives and bodyguards will be summoned by the Ministry of the Interior" for an independent licensing process.
Yep. Approved minions of the State will get a different licensing setup. Isn't that just so deserving of trust that you could puke?
And it's what people like Bloomberg would love to do to us.
It's cloudy, but warmed up enough that things have been melting
If the Canadian socialized medicine system is so good, why is he coming here?
Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams is set to undergo heart surgery this week in the United States.
CBC News confirmed Monday that Williams, 60, left the province earlier in the day and will have surgery later in the week.
The premier's office provided few details, beyond confirming that he would have heart surgery and saying that it was not necessarily a routine procedure.
Are they hinting that the system is good for 'routine' but not anything else? Did the doctor say "Get this done or you'll die, so head south"?
Insty links to McArdle on the socialized medicine meltdown. She says, among other things,
I don’t think it is actually true that trying to pass a bill people hate, and then thinking the better of it because it turns out the electorate hates it, is no different from trying to pass a bill people hate, finding out that they really, really hate it, and then ignoring them and pushing it through anyway.
Moreover, I am sort of amazed that anyone does think this.
I'll suggest she's overlooking something: the burning-white-hot desire of the progressives in Congress to grab this power over the peasants. Some of these bastards would happily see the Democrat Party absolutely stomped in the next elections if they could just pass this and then spend the next years trying to keep the new Congress from getting rid of it. They Want This Power, and they're willing to shove it down our throats at any price; the only thing stopping them has been the Tea Parties making it absolutely plain to the elected reps that "You don't own that office, and we'll throw your sorry ass out of it." Which is also a sorry commentary on so many of said reps: they care so much about keeping their fat ass in that chair that they'll actually pay some attention to what their bosses say, which they should have been doing in the first place.
Well, well, it seems Jones was being even more conniving in pushing AGW than we already knew.
Phil Jones, the beleaguered British climate scientist at the centre of the leaked emails controversy, is facing fresh claims that he sought to hide problems in key temperature data on which some of his work was based.
A Guardian investigation of thousands of emails and documents apparently hacked from the University of East Anglia's climatic research unit has found evidence that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed and that documents relating to them could not be produced.
Seems like an awful lot of documents and data has turned out to be 'lost' or 'unavailable' from these scientists.
What? Obama lied? Tax increases on people making less than 250k?
Whoda thunk it?(other than everyone who warned about it BEFORE the election)
Ah, Chicago, where only some Nobel winners are worth mentioning.
Remember that part about Obama being an amazing liar? It really is something how he'll look you in the eye(in many cases it's actually the teleprompter, but still) and flat lie.
Holder just does not want to answer the question: How many of the political appointees now in charge of terrorist detainee issues at the Obama Justice Department were, not too long ago, lawyers and activists working on behalf of those very detainees? Who are they? Have they removed themselves from cases involving their former clients?
And there's no good reason for him not to. Maybe, in this case, the expression 'feet to the fire' ought to be taken a bit more literally...
One more thing, but it deserves APOIO.
Monday, February 01, 2010
A bit more on the O'Keefe case
Big problem for me: I want to believe the Justice Department wouldn't abuse the powers it holds, but after the last couple of decades or so I don't believe that; they've been caught at it too many times, and there have been too many times when they should have acted and didn't, which can be just as bad as acting when they shouldn't.
If you know somebody who wears a Che(he's still dead, y'know) shirt
In a famous speech in 1961, Che Guevara denounced the very “spirit of rebellion” as “reprehensible.” “Youth must refrain from ungrateful questioning of governmental mandates” commanded Guevara. “Instead they must dedicate themselves to study, work and military service.”
And woe to those youths “who stayed up late at night and thus reported to work (government forced-labor) tardily.” Youth, wrote Guevara, “should learn to think and act as a mass.” Those who “chose their own path” (as in growing long hair and listening to Yankee-Imperialist Rock & Roll) were denounced as worthless “lumpen” and “delinquents.” In his famous speech Che Guevara even vowed, “to make individualism disappear from Cuba! It is criminal to think of individuals!” he raved.
I'd read about this miserable little pustule on the anus of mankind before; it's always been just amazing to me how people who claim to be for individual liberty and free speech could in any way admire the murdering little shit. That people like Depp, who've become rich pretty much by being the kind of character Che would have locked in a camp- or murdered- can talk about how wonderful he was has to be taken as a sign of abject stupidity.
Of course, in the 'arts' community, there seems to be an awful lot of that going 'round. And in the teaching world, too(these being those teachers who should be removed from the classrooms and sent to Cuba so they can enjoy the society they keep preaching is so wonderful).
This corruption of Rep. Pelosi deserves a post of its own Updated
Worse still, she also appears to have requisitioned entire flights for the personal use of her children and grandchildren. That is, unaccompanied by any member of Congress, her kids, in-laws and grandchildren are utilizing entire military passenger jets for their routine travel needs.
Using the documents obtained by Judicial Watch's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, I have discovered the following manifests and travel requests.
Here's the post with the information; apparently 'Most Ethical Congress EVAH!' has a different meaning for her and her buttmonkeys than it does for the rest of is.
Update: Michelle Malkin has this.
It's Monday. Blah.
I'm with Insty on this: shaming and blaming campaign aides is all very well, but what's really needed is naming, blaming and shaming the miserable excuses for reporters who covered up all this crap during the campaigns.
Interesting piece here on a gentleman named Wole Soyinka. I'd argue with him on two things. First,
"England is a cesspit. England is the breeding ground of fundamentalist Muslims. Its social logic is to allow all religions to preach openly. But this is illogic, because none of the other religions preach apocalyptic violence. And yet England allows it. Remember, that country was the breeding ground for communism, too. Karl Marx did all his work in libraries there."
Why is Britain the way it is? "This is part of the character of Great Britain," Mr. Soyinka declares. "Colonialism bred an innate arrogance, but when you undertake that sort of imperial adventure, that arrogance gives way to a feeling of accommodativeness. You take pride in your openness." And so it is, he says, that Britain lets everyone preach whatever they want: It confirms a self-image of greatness.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: freedom of speech has to include people you don't like and ideas you don't agree with, or it's NOT freedom of speech, it's 'freedom of PC speech'. Where Britain, and some of the idiots here go off the rails is when they treat the islamists and their bullshit as 'specially protected'. When muslims can demonstrate demanding people be killed for 'disrespecting' islam, and anyone who dares to carry a sign protesting that is threatened with arrest... they've gone away from freedom of speech and into 'silence anyone who doesn't speak in a PC manner, or who upsets a protected species'; that's the problem.
Second,
Will radical Islam take root in the United States, as it has elsewhere in the West? Mr. Soyinka was confident that it would not. "I doubt you can have the kind of indoctrination schools in America as you do in the U.K. Besides, there's a large body of American Muslims in the U.S.—the Nation of Islam—which has created a kind of mainstream Muslim institution. The Muslims there are open Muslims, whereas in Europe they tend to go into ghetto schools.
"The Nation of Islam provides an antidote in the United States to fundamentalist Islam—which is why individuals from America have to go abroad to find radical teachings."
This makes me wonder if he's been smoking crack. We've got a population of the same kind of radical islamists Britain has, and they're pushing to get away with the same crap, and the same progressive idiots who've screwed Britain are trying to do the same thing here.
Such a racist attitude(cowardly, too) from the Violence Policy Center. Be nice if they had the nerve to call themselves what they are, The End Gun Ownership Center.
Jeez, can The Obama nominate anyone for anything without them being a lying dirtbag?
Patricia Smith, President Obama's nominee for Solicitor of Labor, appears to have lied to Congress, according to e-mails released from during her tenure as Commissioner of the New York State Labor Department. As Daniel Halper explains over at The Weekly Standard,

