Saturday, September 12, 2009

"Priceless!... DC Protesters Chant "Glenn Beck" Behind CNN Live Shot"



Stolen from Gateway who got it from Hot Air

Just, it's WONDERFUL!

Director Samuel Maoz's hard-hitting Israeli war movie Lebanon won the Golden Lion for best picture at the Venice film festival today. The film went inside a tank to focus on a young Israeli conscript during the 1982 war. "I dedicate this award to the thousands of people all over the world who, like me, come back from war safe and sound," the director told the audience at the 11-day cinema showcase. Another frontrunner, American director Todd Solondz's dark comedy Life During Wartime picked up best screenplay.
And why is this so wonderful?
Two prominent American pictures were shut out of the festival's official jury awards -- Michael Moore's attack on corporate greed, Capitalism: A Love Story, and The Weinstein Company's The Road, which John Hillcoat adapted from Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel. This will no doubt affect Harvey Weinstein' release plans for it. Moore's pic did receive the Leoncino d'oro Award from 26 local youths selected by the festival, but nothing from the official jury -- even though he personally came to Venice to premiere his documentary.
HA! Eat it, you miserable little bastard!

A federal judge who actually believes in the law

On these facts, Judge Black concluded as a matter of law that the police violated Matthew St. John's constitutional rights under the Fourth Amendment because they seized and disarmed him even though there was not "any reason to believe that a crime was afoot." Judge Black's opinion is consistent with numerous high state and federal appellate courts, e.g., the United States Supreme Court in Florida v. J.L. (2000) (detaining man on mere report that he has a gun violates the Fourth Amendment) and the Washington Appeals Court in State v. Casad (2004) (detaining man observed by police as openly carrying rifles on a public street violates the Fourth Amendment).
And here's a bit that's undoubtedly causing a lot of LE brass hats a real problem:
Notably, Judge Black denied the police officers' requested "qualified immunity," a judicially created doctrine allowing government officials acting in good faith to avoid liability for violating the law where the law was not "clearly established."
'Qualified immunity' is what a lot of agencies and cops have used to keep themselves from being held personally responsible for screwing up in an incident(like shooting your yorkie 'as a matter of policy', for instance); take that away, and it just might cause some of these people to become a bit more careful about their actions.

This calls for strong language: If you want to dive into absolute

bugfuck insanity, Tam(in the comments to this piece) informed us of this place. Here's a sample, in case you don't want to have to have your brain rinsed, which mine may need after reading this:
"Oh, all of us in the intelligence community know about the concentration camps and their purposes. We ALL know that they are TO TERMINATE THE RESISTERS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER UNDER MARTIAL LAW..."(-Michael Maholy, a personal friend, 20 years Naval Intelligence and CIA working directly under Bush and North for the NWO agenda.)

Tools of termination such as MODERN GUILLOTINES had to be purchased and imported from overseas.

"I have personally been to Japan and seen the place where many of these guillotines have been manufactured for the hour of martial law. I have stood on the loading docks of San Diego and watched as they were being secretly unloaded, and I knew what they would be used for: the termination of resisters of the NWO under martial law." (-Elaine Knost, former high level Satanist leader and CIA assassin under Bush.)

What I want to know, is how the hell she found it?

If he can't keep Delilah,

can we have her to turn loose in the Senate?

Yeah, just a few right-wing nuts showing up in DC

'Few' in media-speak now meaning an estimate of 2 million people.

There's got to be some puckered backsides in Congress.

Ah, to have the concession to sell rope(with 'How to tie a noose' instructions, of course) in D.C. today...

So the People's Republic of Maryland can't do anything about ACORN

but they can go after someone who exposes them...
No word on whether they’ll be prosecuting any ACORN people for conspiring to cover up
sex slavery. They’ve got bigger fish to fry, I guess. Like … the people who exposed the people who conspired to cover up sex slavery.

This is what you get for doing the media’s job for them.

STATEMENT OF STATE’S ATTORNEYS OFFICE FOR BALTIMORE CITY RELATIVE TO THE ALLEGED BALTIMORE ACORN INCIDENT

Baltimore, MD – September 11, 2009 – We have received inquiries from citizens and the media asking whether the Baltimore City State’s Attorneys Office would initiate a criminal investigation for acts allegedly committed at ACORN offices located in Baltimore. The only information received in reference to this alleged criminal behavior was a YouTube video. Upon review by this office, the video appears to be incomplete. In addition, the audio portion could possibly have been obtained in violation of Maryland Law, Annotated Code of Maryland Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article §10-402, which requires two party consent.

My first thought? I hope the State's Attorney is being hammered by subjectscitizens asking where the hell they were when the vote fraud and other things ACORN was tied into were happening? But you get outraged at THIS?

Second, if they try to prosecute him, I hope he starts filing charges on every news outlet that's done a sting of the type.

Friday, September 11, 2009

I wasn't planning on posting again today, until I saw this

Weiderhold played an instrumental role in creating OSSSO’s predecessor at Amtrak, the Counter-Terrorism Unit (CTU). He tapped Rooney to oversee the office. But Rooney was quietly given the “thank you for your service” heave-ho in May and Weiderhold was unexpectedly “retired” a few weeks later — just as the government-subsidized rail service faced mounting complaints about its meddling in financial audits and probes.

As I reported in June, Weiderhold had blown the whistle on intrusion of Amtrak’s Law Department into his financial audits and probes. A damning, 94-page report from an outside legal firm concluded that the “independence and effectiveness” of the Amtrak inspector general’s office were “being substantially impaired” by the Law Department – which happens to be headed by Eleanor Acheson, a close pal of Vice President Biden.

Biden, in turn, is tight with the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), the powerful union that represents the Amtrak Police Department. According to OSSSO sources, the APD brass have been aggrieved over the non-unionized counterterrorism unit’s existence from its inception. A West Coast OSSSO team member told me that union leaders blocked police credentialing efforts by his office for more than a year. An East Coast OSSSO team member told me that the FOP recently filed a grievance against one of its counterterrorism officers for assisting a train conductor who asked for help in ejecting a ticketless passenger
.
Well, we had idiot politicians trying to kill, and then making as difficult as possible, the program to arm pilots; why would we expect more from the idiots in charge of trains?

It was a day off, and I had the radio on

when a local DJ said there was a report of a plane hitting one of the Trade Center towers. Damn, some clown flying where he shouldn't have been, I thought. Little bit later "A second plane has hit the other tower." Ok, that's no accident.

So on went the tv, and watching and listening. Didn't see any of the people jumping that I recall, saw that later(and God damn every miserable excuse for a reporter who decided they needed to replay Abu Graib shit over and over, but couldn't show any of that because 'it upset people'). One thing I do remember: some talking head, in the appropriate breathless voice, said something for the whatever-time about "Terror striking into the heartland", and I realized I was on my feet yelling "Terror striking? What about the PISSED OFF in the heartland, you moron!"

I didn't realize then just how many people would use this as an opportunity to piss on their own country. That there were people who actually wanted to believe Bush did it. That there were so many in Congress who'd sworn to uphold and protect who'd use it to try and tear down(found out just what that oath meant to them).

But the most of us remember('Day of Service' my ass). And we support striking at the people behind this, and we support the troops. I've got my gripes with Bush 43, but going after the bad guys in Afghanistan and Iraq and other places isn't one of them.

That's all for now, just not sure how to put things.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

IT LIVES!

Lathe operational; no blood spilled.

Not the best of pictures, but here it is
It's bolted to a piece of 3/4" plywood. As PeterT mentioned in comments the other day, all by itself probably not rigid enough, but I've got a nice solid bench it'll be sitting on for use. For a free-standing bench, I'd probably do as he suggested and double the plywood on top of solid legs.

Here's the motor setup
It's a 1/2-horse 1725rpm washer motor, so right in the recommended speed and will have plenty of torque for anything you can do on this. It's a 'paddle', another piece of 3/4", with two good hinges bolted to the base and the paddle, with the motor bolted in place(no screws). I can adjust the motor up or down if needed, and the weight keeps the belt tight.

The white in the jaws is a piece of pvc(an Og suggestion for practice). The bit that was in it is somewhat dull, but still did a nice job of facing the end. I did a bit more fiddling with it, but not much. I'm going to stone the bit tonight and see if I can sharpen it(I'm always nervous
about starting on a type of tool I've never worked on before) before trying anything else. The thing runs very smooth and quiet, and I can detect no signs of the bearings being worn, for what visual inspection is worth on this. There's an oil fitting on each end of the headstock and I did remember to put some in yesterday and spin it a few times by hand. I engaged the backgear and tried that; it turns very slowly with that. It came with a plate that shows the gear arrangements to use for threading when I get that far, and all the gears.

Question to anybody out there: is there a way to oil or otherwise lube the backgear assembly? Or do you just leave it alone?

I guess I'll need to get a dial indicator for truing pieces in the chuck; doing it by eye... can get by with that on pvc or delrin, but I'd rather be a bit more precise for brass or steel. And I think I'll rig something to protect the motor from bits being thrown off the stock.

Happily, this belt seems to be in fairly good shape, so should last a while. 'Happily' because to replace it with another standard belt would mean disassembling the headstock. There's a belt mentioned that comes in sections and does not require that; I think that's what I'll use.

Those sawhorses are some light plastic ones I bought several years back. They're good for light work and not much else, and I hadn't used them in so long(been under a tree) that when I opened them and slapped them down to clear some dirt on the feet, spiders and crickets and ants fell out. Leading to a short session with the bug sprayer. And no, didn't try it on them; this was just for the pictures.

MHI has the patch contest winners

here. I want a T.A.L.O.N. patch. Actually three, for me and the kids. Son could keep his somewhere handy: "That? That's just in case dad calls asking for arty, don't worry about it."

No, I didn't listen to the speech last night; when you already know

what he's going to say, why(and I hate listening to political speeches anyway). He wants to take over health care, which is bad enough; he also has people like Holdren working for him:
HOLDREN: There has been a strain of what many people call “US exceptionalism” in the United States, the notion that the United States is so big, so important, so powerful, so technologically advanced that it can and should do what it wants. I think this strain is misguided.

Q: Will Americans need to reduce their living standards? Is that politically viable, or will technology [unintelligible] do it?

H: I think ultimately that the rate of growth of material consumption is going to have to come down, and there’s going to have to be a degree of redistribution of how much we consume, in terms of energy and material resources, in order to leave room for people who are poor to become more prosperous
.
Basic lefty "If you succeed someone else has to fail" bullcrap, but it's how Obama & Co. think. As Morrissey says
First, Holdren doesn’t know what “American exceptionalism” means. He can’t even get the term right. American exceptionalism has nothing to do with our size or our technological prowess, except in tertiary terms. Exceptionalism springs from the unique nature of our nation’s birth, the historical leadership in personal freedom that America has shown (with very notable failures, such as slavery and post-Civil War Jim Crow), and especially the role America inherited in the 20th century as the guarantor of Western security and international shipping.

This is no philosophical quibble, either. Part of the reason America consumes more relative to other nations on a per-capita basis is because we produce more for the consumption of others, and out of necessity for our role as global cop. That is a large part of the reason that our defense spending outstrips those of other Western nations, as they do not contribute nearly as much to that role. Seeing as how Holdren can’t figure out what he opposes, it comes as no surprise that he doesn’t see the connection between that role and consumption of resources, either
.

And the lie that illegal aliens won't be able to get health care under the Obama takeover:
The Democrats' bill in the House, H.R. 3200, contains gaping loopholes that will allow illegal immigrants to receive taxpayer-funded benefits. And these loopholes are no accident.

The legislation contains no verification mechanism to ensure that illegal immigrants do not apply for benefits. Republicans offered an amendment to close this loophole -- it would have required verification using the existing methods that are already in place to verify eligibility for other federal benefits programs. But, when they were asked to put the language of the bill where their words were, in a party-line vote, House Democrats rejected the amendment to require verification and close this loophole.

This column appeared in The Hill, not World Net Daily. The Hill is the respected, influential publication of Capitol Hill. It fact-checks claims. And Smith is exactly right -- enforcement provisions were gutted
.

OBAMA: "Don't pay attention to those scary stories about how your benefits will be cut. ... That will never happen on my watch. I will protect Medicare."

THE FACTS: Obama and congressional Democrats want to pay for their health care plans in part by reducing Medicare payments to providers by more than $500 billion over 10 years.
(image sto- borrowed from Ace)


And the President has been part of ACORN, which has been caught(on top of vote fraud and a bunch of other things) helping a pimp get money for a brothel and prepare to evade taxes:
Later, when the “pimp” asks what would happen if the organization is somehow connected to the scheme, the ACORN staffer replies, “First of all, it’s not gonna damage us because we not gonna know. And with your girls, you tell them, ‘Be careful.’ Train them to keep their mouth shut.”

“These girls are like 14, how can we trust them?” the pimp asks.

“Just be very, very careful,” the ACORN staffer says. “Whatever you do, always keep your eyes in the back of your head.”

Note that when he mentions having 14-year old hookers, their only problem seems to be keeping them quiet about the arrangement. Wonderful people, aren't they?


And we must take note- again- of all the corrupt politicians, like Rep. Charles Rangel:
Federal Election Commission reports show Rangel's campaign committee has forked over $2 million to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee since 1995.

Only Pelosi (Calif.), Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer (Maryland) and Democratic Whip James Clyburn (SC) have been more generous.

Rangel also has donated $3.8 million from his campaign and leadership committees to Democratic candidates directly since 1999, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
...
His money has helped the re-election efforts of 119 members currently serving in Congress and three members who sit on the ethics committee.


And Van Jones lands at a place run by Soros; anybody surprised?
For fallen White House aides, the rallying cry apparently is John Podesta to the rescue! The Obama administration’s former green jobs czar Van Jones is headed back to Podesta’s Center for American Progress after stepping down from his White House post four days ago amid controversy over his leftist affiliations, the Daily News has learned.
If you read the Jammie post, you'll read of all the major media people glossing over Jones' past, and pretending they actually covered the story. Downright pathetic.


Unrelated to the above is the Justice Department doing something- well, you can't call it 'to avoid doing something'; it's 'doing something stupid and trying to keep someone from talking about the stupid':
In December 2007, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Wichita unveiled a 34-count indictment against Haysville, Kansas, physician Stephen Schneider and his wife, Linda, a nurse who worked in his clinic. It charged Schneider with "illegally distributing prescription drugs to his patients, directly causing the deaths of at least four of them."

Convinced the Schneiders were innocent, Reynolds and her group, the Pain Relief Network (PRN), publicly disputed the charges. In January 2008, PRN announced a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of using the federal Controlled Substances Act to regulate the practice of medicine, traditionally a state function. PRN also tried to stop the state medical board from suspending Schneider's license, arguing that doing so would harm his patients.
...
The Tanya in question, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tanya Treadway, evidently was annoyed by the unusually balanced press coverage Reynolds helped arrange. In April 2008, Treadway took the extraordinary step of seeking a court order prohibiting Reynolds, who was neither a defendant nor a lawyer in the Schneiders' case, from talking about it. The prosecutor claimed Reynolds had "a sycophantic or parasitic relationship with the defendants," whom she was using "to further her own personal interests."

Nine months after a federal judge rejected Treadway's attempt to gag Reynolds, the activist learned she was the subject of a grand jury investigation into possible obstruction of justice. Reynolds and PRN received subpoenas demanding their communications with dozens of people, including relatives of the Schneiders and members of their defense team. Tellingly, the material sought includes correspondence related to a PRN-commissioned billboard in Wichita proclaiming "Dr. Schneider never killed anyone."

This has been one part of the fallout of the War on Some Drugs; doctors who prescribe 'too much' or 'the wrong kind' of pain meds to patients being charged with being a pusher; and it's freakin' insane. There've been documented cases of doctors providing 'improper' meds(morphine or heroin or some serious stuff) to patients with advanced cancer or similar disease because nothing else would help the pain being charged with crimes by these idiots; this is one of those cases where it's a good question to ask "Don't you have some actual criminals to chase? Everything is so under control you have extra time and money to do this crap?"

And now, to try to prevent someone from talking about it? How much money and time is Treadway wasting here?

Jeez, what a morning.

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

And some...consider the Institute for Policy Studies

to be the President's "idea bank."
...
John Feffer, co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the radical, pro-Marxist Soros-funded Institute for Policy Studies gives us an "I'm okay, you're okay" look at suicide bombers.

Feffer's 3,375 word apologia is summed up in this passage

We have our suicide bombers—we call them heroes. We have our culture of indoctrination—we call it basic training. We kill civilians—we call it collateral damage.
...
But wait! Feffer has a military example from US history. Two hundred and five years ago a US Navy ship deliberately blew itself and its volunteer crew up trying to inflict damage on enemy vessels in Tripoli. Feffer describes the war against the Barbary Pirates as "America's first war against Islam." Forget the piracy, murders, hostage-taking, and demands for tribute.

And that's all it takes for Feffer to "justify" the 9/11 attacks. The terrorists hit the Pentagon, thus, 9/11 was a military strike, no different from American strikes in Iraq and Afghanistan
.

Lathe update:

I have a motor! Dad had a 1/2-horse 1725rpm washer motor with nothing to do at the moment, and since the daughter was visiting over the weekend she brought it back. I'm going to bolt the lathe to a piece of heavy plywood as a base, and mount a 'paddle' for the motor: another piece of plywood hinged on the side by the lathe so the weight of the motor will keep the belt tight. Og suggested a place to get bits for cheap(ordered), I found a website that had the original manual as JPGs of each page, Gerry in comments suggested a couple of books and Keith suggested another book and some more sites.

Over time this is going to get involved; lots to learn. And this is kind of like firearms, in that if you don't watch it you can wind up spending far more on accessories than you did for the lathe. A three-jaw chuck here, lathe dogs there(don't know if they bark or what, but I'm assured I'll need them), a drill chuck for the tailstock and so on.

I went by Lowes this afternoon for bolts, nuts and washers. And hinges, for the paddle. This crap just keeps getting more expensive in a sneaky way; the price on the bags of machine screws & nuts is the same, but they have fewer in them than used to. Happily, I've got a piece of 3/4" plywood for the base, as that stuff is high, too.

Went to the range today(taking my time on the lathe), and got to shoot something I'd never handled before: .416 Rigby. Guy had a new Dakota rifle & Leupold scope, getting in a last bit of practice before heading for Africa Friday(the bastard). The cartridge makes a .30-06 look undernourished; 400-grain softpoint at about 2300 fps. He offered a cartridge and I took it. Let me put it this way: I wanted to be upright so I rested both elbows on the bench, and I now have a scrape on both of them. That thing speaks with authority.

Didn't help matters that the thing only weighed about as much as my Garand; and that was with the mercury recoil-reducer in the stock. I understand the "You'll carry it more than shoot it" argument, but if I had such a beast I'd rather carry a couple more pounds around. Damn glad it had a Limbsaver(accurate name) recoil pad.

While not using someone else's expensive ammo, I tried out some more cast bullet loads in the Garand. Bottom line: either I just can't find the magic combination, or this rifle just doesn't like cast. All function the action properly, and when I stripped and cleaned it I found no trace of lead fouling, but the best group was a bit over five inches at 100 yards. At this point I think I'll stick with the 150-grain gas-checked bullet for when I want to shoot it at the indoor range or stick to the 50-yard line, and use jacketed for longer ranges.

One thing to finish cleaning, and I think I'll then get out a bottle of Dad's home brew.

Another bunch of 'child care workers' and politicians

who need the acquaintance of tar and feathers:
PARENTS are being threatened with having their children taken into care after questioning doctors’ diagnoses or objecting to their medical care.

John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP, who campaigns to stop injustices in the family court, said: “Very often care proceedings are used as retaliation by local authorities against ‘uppity’ people who question the system.”

Cases are emerging across the UK:
Britain, what the hell have you let happen to you?

"Tom Daschle is the human toe fungus of Washington"

Which would be more funny if it weren't true.
Despite abandoning his Secretary of Health and Human Services nomination in disgrace in February 2009, the K Street tax cheat who evaded IRS rules for years remains a top White House confidante and policy strategist. In fact, he’s leading the drive to save Obamacare. He climbed up from under the bus back into the Oval Office and onto the sets of Meet the Press and This Week with George Stephanopoulos to offer his rescue plan.

It’s Daschle’s idea to morph the unpopular “public option” into non-profit “health care co-ops” that will almost certainly receive government funding, support, and tax advantages over private insurers. Old colleagues on both sides of the Senate aisle are now promoting his alternative. Last week, he penned a Do It For Teddy Kennedy pep rally op-ed in the Wall Street Journal urging Democrats to go it alone and depend on the backroom Senate reconciliation process if necessary to get a deal done.
...
The White House told the Washington Post that Daschle is simply a trusted “sounding board” and “friend” offering invaluable assistance as an experienced individual with a passion for health care reform. But Daschle is the dictionary definition of a self-interested Washington lobbyist and Beltway swamp creature. Married to heavy-hitting aviation lobbyist Linda Hall Daschle
(who, as I recall, was getting rich as a lobbyist while he was in office), the former U.S. Senator from South Dakota has earned more than $5 million as a professional back-scratcher since leaving life as an entrenched incumbent. In the parlance of self-exempting Team Obama members, Daschle is merely a beneficent “resource,” as he described himself to the New York Times, serving the Public Interest.

The truth: Daschle is cashing in mightily on his role as “the architect of President Obama’s health care plan” in the private sector – and evading lobbyist disclosure by reinventing himself as a highly paid “senior adviser” to D.C.-based law firm/influence-peddling shop Alston & Bird.

The four Marines who died the other day?

Dashing from boulder to boulder, diving into trenches and ducking behind stone walls as the insurgents maneuvered to outflank us, we waited more than an hour for U.S. helicopters to arrive, despite earlier assurances that air cover would be five minutes away.

U.S. commanders, citing new rules to avoid civilian casualties, rejected repeated calls to unleash artillery rounds at attackers dug into the slopes and tree lines — despite being told repeatedly that they weren’t near the village.

“We are pinned down. We are running low on ammo. We have no air. We’ve lost today,” Marine Maj. Kevin Williams, 37, said through his translator to his Afghan counterpart, responding to the latter’s repeated demands for helicopters.
...
I said it would happen, and only recently “officials” have admitted that the new Afghanistan ROE have opened up new space for the insurgents. Now it has cost the lives of four more U.S. Marines. How many more Marines will have to die before this issue is addressed? The new ROE should have been dealt with as a classified memorandum of encouragement and understanding to consider holistic consequences of actions rather than a change to formal rules by which our Marines and Soldiers are prosecuted by courts. Yet the damage has been and continues to be done by poor decisions at the highest levels of leadership.

Damn the ROE.

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Picked something up at the flea market Sunday

an old Sears model 109 metal lathe. 6" throw, 18" bed, and has a 4-jaw chuck. Seems to be in pretty good shape and has all the gears for threading. Which it'll be a while before I try that; very little experience with lathe work. I may have to look for a new chuck in the future; each jaw tightens independently, which makes me think problems getting a piece centered.

Dad has a motor that'll work nicely to power it, and Og has provided some tips. I found some jpg copies of the original manual online, and I'll hit the library to see if have any books on machining that cover some 'how to's' , and order some cutters. I've been wanting a small lathe for stuff for years; back when I was making lots of knives, having this to turn pommels and such would have been bloody wonderful. Right now? Pins, screws(later), punches, and we'll see what else comes up.

I'll post a picture later. In the meantime, anybody know anything to do/watch for on this?


In other news, I have hummers in the yardThere are two I know of, and this is one of the only good pictures I've been able to get; little buggers zip down to the feeder and by the time I have the camera ready, zip! I feel halfway like Wile E. trying to catch the roadrunner.

Speaking of which, on a training mission a short time ago son & squad were driving down a trail and found a dead coyote, then about a hundred yards down a roadrunner trotting along; and of course someone said "Stupid coyote never learns."

Not only is this an idiotic action by the State Police of the People's Republic of Maryland,

you'll note they haven't actually let dealers know about this stupidity:
Maryland --(AmmoLand.com)- In its infinite wisdom, the licensing division of the Maryland State Police has determined that certain .22 caliber rimfire rifles are “assault weapons” based solely upon there cosmetic resemblance to some firearms that are defined by Maryland law as “assault weapons.”
...
The real problem is: The Maryland State Police have apparently not issued a formal written bulletin to the firearms dealers informing them of this new requirement. It is entirely possible for a dealer and/or buyer to be arrested, charged, and prosecuted for violating an unwritten policy established in secret by Maryland State Police Licensing Division.

I repeat: you could not pay me enough to live in that state; they keep electing dirtbags like Frank to the Congress, and they elect state politicians who encourage the State Police(very apt name for them) to do crap like this.

Couple of years back a friend told me of driving through the People's Republic of Maryland and being stopped by the State Police. And the main reason for the stop seemed to be "Where are the guns?"
"Excuse me?"
"You assholes from Texas and Oklahoma always have guns, now where are they!"
Very bad attitude, very threatening. No, I have no proof of it. After hearing so many stories like this, and of how subjects of the PROM are treated, I believe it.

If the story is correct, the cop and the magistrate

and likely the doctor ought to all be charged for violation of his rights, AND criminal assault.
According to the suit, police arrested Jamie Lockard, 53, on suspicion of drunken driving in March.

A Breathalyzer test showed he was under the legal limit, but Officer Brian Miller doubted the findings.

Lockard and his attorney claim in the suit that police took him to Dearborn County Hospital and forced him to submit to a urine and blood test.

Police said they obtained a warrant, but Lockard's attorney said his client was shackled to a gurney and had a catheter inserted against his will.
...
The blood test showed that Lockard's blood-alcohol level did not exceed Indiana's legal limit, police said.

Garner said the police officer did not apologize, but instead charged Lockard with obstruction of justice
.
If the Lawrenceburg Police Department doesn't have a problem with this, then the chief ought to be fired and someone who actually thinks the Constitution means something be hired.

Tuesday, and there's laundry to do, but first:

Michael Moore is a lying hypocrite, but we already knew that. One of the things I hated about Swimmer Kennedy was the hypocrisy of thundering about how "The rich aren't paying their fair share!" while he- very rich- hid and sheltered as much of his income and estate as possible from taxes; Moore is the same, a man who's become rich whining that the system that allowed him to become rich is evil, telling kids they can't succeed, pushing unions while telling his employees that if they join one he'll fire them; now a man worth millions says capitalism is 'evil'. Miserable bastard, isn't he?


In Britain, three convicted of plans to blow up airliners in flight.


The 'post-racial presidency' keeps pulling up racial bullcrap; in this case we have first the words of Rev. Wright
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So what do you think about the health care bill?

REV. JEREMIAH WRIGHT, PRES. OBAMA'S FORMER PASTOR: I think the racists in the right wing are upset because poor people are about to be helped
.
and the 'defense' from Amanda Carpenter
I think, though, that Jeremiah Wright is absolutely correct, you know, that issues of poverty, issues of race have to be injected into a conversation about health care reform.
Ah. It's 'absolutely correct' to throw racist bullshit into the 'health care reform' argument. Why?


That Van Jones being a Truther and running from it seems to be one of the upsetting things for some of the left:
Now he's been thrown under the bus by the White House for signing his name to a petition expressing something that 35% of all Democrats believed as of 2007 -- that George Bush knew in advance about the attacks of 9/11.
Well, to people who don't have their head so far up their ass they're suffering from hypoxia, it IS idiocy; that you think it's a legitimate belief...


President Obama continues working to pay off unions, and screw everyone else:
Honestly, just how incompetent is Barack Obama?
The radical in the White House just placed a high-level SEIU negotiator in charge of creating manufacturing jobs...
When was the last time you heard of a union official creating a manufacturing plant?
...
The name Ron Bloom is one that we need to start paying attention to. He has a long history of being the negotiating face of unions in a suit. He is a Harvard Business School graduate who has worked for the unions beginning with SEIU for decades. The most recent union he represented was the United Steel Workers (USW) before becoming a part of the automotive team that Obama put together. You know the one that had the head Steven Rattner having to resign over some questions about his personal finances mixed in with a little fraudulent money gifts.Rattner was replaced by Ron Bloom, and voila the United Auto Workers (UAW), got a sweetheart deal backed up by the power of the federal government to try and stave off bankruptcy.
This isn't a matter of incompetent; it's a matter of paying depts to the unions and- as I said- screw everyone else.


A good way to put "Why does the major media simply ignore some stories?"
Wright. Jones. Freeman. Edwards. For simplicity's sake, I've focused on the Times' coverage, but other top news outlets also ignored or underreported some of those stories. Why?

Certainly there's bias involved. Given what we know from the formal and informal polling of journalists at mainstream organizations, most of the people involved in political reporting are liberals, and likely Democrats. They want the Obama administration to succeed.

But the question may not be so much who they are, as who they hate, or at least who they intensely dislike.

The first words of the Times' story on Jones' resignation were, "In a victory for Republicans and the Obama administration's conservative critics. ..." One news anchor suggested Jones was "the Republican right's first scalp." Other coverage called the Jones affair a victory for Glenn Beck, Fox News, right-wing blogs, and even Sarah Palin, who played no role in the matter.

If you throw in Rush Limbaugh, you have all the bogey-people of the conservative world. To some on the left, including some journalists, denying them a victory was a top priority, no matter what Van Jones had said and done.

There was a day, not too long ago, when the Times and other influential news organizations could kill a story -- could deny the bad guys a win -- simply by ignoring it. Sometimes they still try. But it just won't work anymore
.

Laundry's waiting, see you later.

Obama's speech to the kids, in the current version at least,

long and- well, let Althouse tell you:
Can any speech be good for such wide range of ages? 2540 words should take at least 15 minutes to deliver. Who gives a 15 minute speech to kindergartners?
...
Students tuning in? Glad you could join us? It's not voluntary.
...
"This is no picnic for me either, buster" is a long-time laugh line for Obama, but it's not exactly comprehensible to kids. Do kindergarters and first graders understand what a foreign country is? Do elementary school students recognize the word "Indonesia"? Will students understand why going to school with people other than Americans is so bad? (Isn't it prejudiced to think that? a bright child might wonder.)

And so on.

You know what I'd really like to see? The original version, the one written before the word got out and the outrage started; I have to wonder what was changed.

Monday, September 07, 2009

B17 WWII log book

Rodger has the link here

No, it wasn't bad vetting;

Obama knew exactly who he was getting, and why.
Yet was that expenditure a failure? Perhaps by the stated goals of improving education in Chicago in measurable ways, yes. However, if the intent of Bill Ayers (who applied for and received the Annenberg grant) and Obama was to use the grants to funnel money to radical organizations and to incrementally radicalize Chicago public education in ways that might not show up at all in standard student performance evaluation, CAC may have been judged a success worth repeating. Obama and Ayers served together on the boards of CAC and the Woods Fund and both organizations funneled grant money to, among others for example, ACORN!

Which brings us to Van Jones. He wrote a book about a green economy from a decidedly leftist perspective that earned him praise from the left but there is no evidence I have seen that he has ever created a single job. Last April, in Slate magazine’s The Big Money, Chadwick Matlin wrote ‘Van Jones: The Face of Green Jobs’:
“Jones is the switchboard operator for Obama's grand vision of the American economy; connecting the phone lines between all the federal agencies invested in a green economy. The $787 billion stimulus Congress authorized in February had at least $30 billion of green-jobs funding attached to it. It's Jones' responsibility to work within all the government agencies to make sure it gets doled out appropriately.”
Van Jones’ appointment as Green Jobs Czar was not an example of poor vetting. This was Obama repeating what he knew and what Bill Ayers had done with him: get your radical operative in a position from which he influences the direction of the money!

No surprise: Pres. B. Cartman Obama and SecState Clinton knew

about the release of the Libyan mass murderer
British officials claim Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton were kept informed at all stages of discussions concerning Megrahi’s return.

The officials say the Americans spoke out because they were taken aback by the row over Megrahi’s release, not because they did not know it was about to happen.

‘The US was kept fully in touch about everything that was going on with regard to Britain’s discussions with Libya in recent years and about Megrahi,’ said the Whitehall aide.

‘We would never do anything about Lockerbie without discussing it with the US. It is disingenuous of them to act as though Megrahi’s return was out of the blue
.
'Disingenuous'? How about 'duplicitous'? How about 'full of crap'?

So, in the name of sucking up to Libya and(I suspect) as recompense for having crapped on Brown in the past, Obama and Clinton knew about this, and lied about it. Which fits right in with Brown lying about his part in it.

As to The Obama chairing the UN,
No American president has ever attempted to acquire the image of King of the Universe by officiating at a meeting of the UN’s highest body. But Obama apparently believes that being flanked by council-member heads of state like Col. Moammar Qaddafi — who is expected to be seated five seats to Obama’s right — will cast a sufficiently blinding spell on the American taxpayer that the perilous state of the nation’s economy, the health-care fiasco, and a summer of “post-racial” scapegoating will pale by comparison.
Read both, especially the second as it has info on Obama's apparent desire to disarm this nation and Israel as much as possible.

So the Sierra Club doesn't just lie about climate,

they lie about politics, too:
What we underestimated was the power of the fact that both Jones and the Barack Obama are black. Yes, the hysteria was about politics -- I don't think Fox News really cares about Jones's ethnicity -- but it was enabled by race. Calling Bush a "crack-head" is seen by a large part of America as worse than calling him "addict-in-chief" because crack is not just a drug -- it is a drug used largely by black people. It reminds those Americans who are still uncomfortable with Barack Obama that we have a black president.
As Riehl says, I've got sawdust for brains.

What IS it with these people? There's no possible reason for anybody opposing anything or anyone in this administration that's not because of race?

But on Saturday night, Van resigned, and this morning I was sick at heart. Collectively we -- the environmental community, progressives, and the Obama administration -- blew this, and we let our cause, our president, and Van Jones down.
How? By not managing to hide that Jones is a Truther, a communist, a racist? If that had all been covered up, all would have been well?

Well, maybe in THEIR world.

Another Democrat politician says 'public option' in health care

is just a step to single-payer, i.e. the government in total control of health care:
REP. ELLISON: Most of us are co-authors of HR676, which is a single-payer bill so we feel like we’ve already compromised. I think that the reality is the public option has been scored by the Congressional Budget Office as saving $150 billion, so this actually helps deal with the fiscal responsibility issues…It offers choice, which is a good thing…

ESKOLA: Isn’t the public option really just a step towards the single payer that you want so much?

REP. ELLISON: Yes but the reality is that for many people that’s not what it is
.
Which translates to "Lots of people don't realize that so we're trying to sneak it in that way."

Sunday, September 06, 2009

Citizens or subjects

And yet, the nation is divided again, this time over perhaps a larger question: Are we citizens or are we subjects?

It's a civil war of sorts.

The British people are subjects under a constitutional monarchy that provides a titular head of state, who reinforces the relationship between the government and the governed.

The state must take care of its subjects. The British like this.

Citizenship is messier. People have more personal responsibility.

Everyone is equal. People shout down congressmen. How rude.

I can see why Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco thinks such behavior is "un-American."

She sees the American people as subjects, not citizens.

So does the president.

"The Constitution is a charter of negative liberties," President Obama said in 2001. "Says what states can't do to you. Says what the federal government can't do to you, but it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf."

Read it all

As to the "Other Presidents have talked to schoolkids",

from Dr. Helen:Yes, other presidents have given individual talks to children but they went to the classroom themselves and talked with kids --the Politico article points out that this is the first time a president has ever given a speech addressed directly to students--and the fact that it is televised into the classroom is suspect. If Bush pumped in a show to all kids that was mandatory about the Iraq war,etc, people would be outraged.

Some of the commenters note one of the problems with this: an awful lot of teachers will use it as the opportunity to push their views on the kids. There's enough trouble with that crap without The One helping out.

Insty points to a story on why Pelosi doesn't have the balls or integrity

to deal with Rep. Charles Rangel(Tax Cheat-Evil Party-NY); lots of "Don't want to make this group mad" and "Nobody else to choose who won't be a problem". What gets me is this at the end:
Yet for all his public defiance, Rangel is said to be deeply disturbed by the charges and their effect on his four-decade career of public service.

“It bothers the hell out of him, it hurts,” said a friend. “I mean, he sees himself as the guy who helped push through stuff like the Earned Income Tax Credit – and now people are saying he’s unfit to serve.”

To put it bluntly: Well, godDAMN, Rangel you whining little bastard! You're writing tax laws, including the new one you want where an honest mistake gets penalties no matter what, AND YOU'RE NOT PAYING YOUR TAXES. You bitch about nasty Republicans and you're not reporting- what is it now, at least a half-million in money and property that you 'forgot' to mention? And you're basically paying off people on the House 'Ethics' Committee and now your FEELINGS ARE HURT? You miserable corrupt bastard, you ARE unfit to serve; you are fit to wear a prison suit, but that's about all at this point. All we need now is for you to start yelling that the only reason people are after you is because you're black; then we'll know you have fully reached the bottom.

I've heard horror stories on the British quarantine on pets

coming in; maybe these critters will have a decent time of it. After all, the quarantine people can consider the consequences(as in being visited by a number of REALLY pissed-off squaddies) if anything happens to those dogs.

The AP CEO is Thomas Curley(Shitbird exploiter of dying troops)

and the photographer with no ethics is Julie Jacobson. Here's the rules they agreed to:

“The rule regarding coverage of “wounded, injured, and ill personnel” states that the “governing concerns” are “patient welfare, patient privacy and next of kin/family considerations.”

“Casualties may be covered by embedded media as long as the service member’s identity and unit identification is protected from disclosure until OASD-PA [Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs] has officially released the name. Photography from a respectful distance or from angles at which a casualty cannot be identified is permissible…”


and here's what they did:

The AP reported that the Marine’s father had asked – in an interview and in a follow-up phone call — that the image, taken by an embedded photographer, not be published. The AP reported in a story that it decided to make the image public anyway because it “conveys the grimness of war and the sacrifice of young men and women fighting it.” …

Gates wrote to Thomas Curley, AP’s president and chief executive officer. “Out of respect for his family’s wishes, I ask you in the strongest of terms to reconsider your decision. [...] I cannot imagine the pain and suffering Lance Corporal Bernard’s death has caused his family. Why your organization would purposefully defy the family’s wishes knowing full well that it will lead to yet more anguish is beyond me. Your lack of compassion and common sense in choosing to put this image of their maimed and stricken child on the front page of multiple American newspapers is appalling. The issue here is not law, policy or constitutional right – but judgment and common decency.”

The problem being that AP believes only in pushing their politics and playing games; judgement and common decency don't count to these bastards. They think we don't have any idea of the 'grimness of war and the sacrifice of the troops'? Bull-fucking-shit; that's an excuse for crapping on the troops and their families, and AP can kiss my ass.

You want to know what Obama & a lot of Democrats seem to think of Honduras

and the rest of Central & South America?
REP. BILL DELAHUNT: Well, Margaret, I find it somewhat amusing that many of my colleagues on the Republican side must have gone to law school in — in Honduras, because it would appear that they’re constitutional scholars.
But let me be very clear. The — the request or the initiative by Zelaya was not to extend his term. The question that was going to be on the ballot was a nonbinding referendum for the people of Honduras to decide simply this question: Should there be a constituent assembly?
That was it, pure and simple. I think we have to understand the context of Honduran politics. It’s been a country that has been ruled by an economic elite. And, with all due respect to the elections that have been held down there, that economic elite exercises disproportionate influence in that democracy.
In the past — and I dare say at times now — it would be fair to describe Honduras as a banana republic.

REP. ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN: Oh, my gosh.

REP. BILL DELAHUNT: We can’t go backward.

REP. ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN: What an insult. What an insult. That is…

REP. BILL DELAHUNT: We — well, you can…

REP. ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN: Shame on you, Bill.

REP. BILL DELAHUNT: Ileana, let me — please, don’t say that.

REP. ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN: A banana republic, that’s just great. What an insult to the Honduran people.

REP. BILL DELAHUNT: Well, you don’t think that — well, let me — let me ask you this, OK? You would not, in the past, describe Honduras and other Central American and Latin American countries as banana republics?

REP. ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN: No, absolutely not. And I think that’s an insult to the people of Honduras.

REP. BILL DELAHUNT: Then I dare say that you don’t — you’re not that familiar with Latin America
.
Isn't that just wonderful? Maybe that's why Obama was so quick to 'interfere' in Honduras when he wouldn't touch Iran; who cares about messing with a lousy little banana republic down there? Response:
REP. ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN: Well, I think that this is about the rule of law.

I don’t think that this is about economic distribution of wealth, whether it’s a large country or a small country, whether it’s a poor country or a rich country. This is a country that — that said very clearly, the president has violated the constitution. You don’t have to be a constitutional scholar or a graduate of a Honduran law school to know that the article of the constitution is quite clear.

You can call it a poll. You can call it a survey. You can call it a referendum. You can call it anything you want. But it was a violation of the Honduran constitution. And I’m not the one that says that. The supreme court, by a 15-0 unanimous decision, said this president is violating the law.

Now, what are the people of Honduras supposed to do…

Telling Obama and a lot of Democrats to kiss their ass is a good start.

While speaking of the whining and crying and "How dare you

actually quote my words and tell people what I did?!?" from Van Jones and the Obama Buttmonkeys, Cold Fury takes note of some of the connections between these people:
Van Jones was hand picked by Valerie Jarrett. Ms. Jarrett’s father was an ardent commie who probably knew Obama’s father figure, sex rebel Frank Marshall Davis. Ms. Jarrett was instrumental in getting Michelle Obama the U of Chicago hospitals PR position that paid her so well for diverting the financially undesirable to neighborhood clinics. Michelle’s dad was a Chicago ward boss. That Jones joins Rezko, Ayers and Wright under the bus is no accident. That Obama puts the screws on Honduras and sucks up to Cuba and Venezuela are no accidents. That the FBI is responsible for doing background checks, and Obama wants to give them sovereignty over the CIA is no accident. That Teddy Kennedy tried to cut a separate deal with the odious Yuri Andropov and then backed Obama is not really an accident.
There's not a chance in hell Obama didn't know about Jones' connections; he probably considered them qualifications.

More on why so many don't trust the major media anymore,

as of Sept. 4, Riehl found

From a Nexis search a few moments ago:

Total words about the Van Jones controversy in the New York Times: 0.
Total words about the Van Jones controversy in the Washington Post: 0.
Total words about the Van Jones controversy on NBC Nightly News: 0.
Total words about the Van Jones controversy on ABC World News: 0.
Total words about the Van Jones controversy on CBS Evening News: 0.

Combine that with the outrageous decision by the AP to publish the dying picture of Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard, and a picture of the irresponsible and unworthy media we're stuck with today begins to emerge as clearly as it ever has. And they wonder why they're going broke. What a disgrace they quite truly have become.

The communist truther Green Jobs Czar is gone,

leaving this morning with a whiny letter statement including
On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me," Jones, special adviser for green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in a statement announcing his resignation just after midnight Saturday. "They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide."
In current political-speak that means people actually quoted what he said("I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the [Rodney King] verdicts came down on April 29th," he said. "By August, I was a communist."), they actually had the nerve to bring up what he did(supporting and cutting a record with a cop killer, signing onto a 9/11 Truther petition, lying about how long he was 'associated' with The War Times, calling the US the 'real terrorists'); that's considered racist and intolerable when the one you're quoting is a democrat/progressive and especially so when they're a member of some minority group.

The excuses are nicely covered here: ...has opened him to accusations that he associated with Communists(he DID associate with them, and said he was one), ...in 2004 he allowed his name to be put on a letter requesting an investigation into whether the Bush administration allowed 9/11 to happen as a “pre-text to war.”(allowed?!? HE SIGNED THE PETITION, dumbass!), and so forth; he's just being 'slimed by slight associations', etc. ad bullshit. With accusations of racism thrown at anyone who dares to quote him/show his history/do anything to bring up that he's a truther/America-hating/racist commie.

The Politico article has a line about 'conservative Republicans on a czar hunt', which is one of the standard "It's only those reactionary Republicans who don't want Obama to succeed doing this" accusations; I guarantee you, lots of Democrat Reps and Senators in conservative districts, and districts that might not be considered 'conservative' but have real problems with clowns like this 'advising' the President, have been getting calls and letters from voters saying "What the hell is this guy doing in the White House? And how bad are some of the others? And what are you going to do?"

One down...