The criticism comes from a senior official of the 56-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The head of its office that monitors democratic practices says the ruling effectively lifting limits on election spending by corporations and unions "threatens to further marginalize candidates without strong financial backing or extensive personal resources."
Well, tell you what, Euro-Boy, screw you. The 1st Amendment is very important to (most of)us, and we hold being able to yell at our politicians a Very Good Thing; so go away, you nanny-state dirtbags. We see what you're doing to Wilders for daring to speak non-PC things, so your criticism doesn't mean a whole lot.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
The previous post on the NYEffin'PD now leads us to another matter
touching on law enforcement:
You may remember that more than two months ago, amid the controversy over the Obama administration's decision to grant full American constitutional rights to, and hold a civilian trial for, accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Republican Sen. Charles Grassley asked Attorney General Eric Holder about Justice Department lawyers who before joining the Obama/Holder team had represented Guantanamo detainees or worked for groups representing them. Grassley pointed to one high-ranking Obama Justice official who formerly represented Osama bin Laden's driver and another who works on detainee issues despite previous advocacy for detainees.
...
Now, two months have passed and the senators have heard nothing. "Sen. Grassley does not have an answer yet," says a Grassley spokesman. "The Justice Department says it's 'in process.'" The Justice Department did not respond to an inquiry about the matter Friday, and it is not clear when the Department will answer Grassley's questions.
This is a serious damned question: any lawyer who worked for these people, and is now- supposedly- prosecuting them is in a serious pile of conflict of interest. To say the least. Holder playing "I don't have to tell you" is bullshit, and if he wasn't pushing an agenda he'd admit it's wrong(of course that assumes he cares about- or actually knows- the difference between 'right' and 'wrong').
Add to that
In the meantime, committee Republicans are starting to wait for Holder's response to another letter, sent yesterday, asking for an explanation of the decision to hold accused al Qaeda Detroit bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in the civilian justice system instead of as an enemy combatant.
Nobody from Holder on down wants to admit having anything to do with this; at least one of them is lying. And we need to know who.
You may remember that more than two months ago, amid the controversy over the Obama administration's decision to grant full American constitutional rights to, and hold a civilian trial for, accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Republican Sen. Charles Grassley asked Attorney General Eric Holder about Justice Department lawyers who before joining the Obama/Holder team had represented Guantanamo detainees or worked for groups representing them. Grassley pointed to one high-ranking Obama Justice official who formerly represented Osama bin Laden's driver and another who works on detainee issues despite previous advocacy for detainees.
...
Now, two months have passed and the senators have heard nothing. "Sen. Grassley does not have an answer yet," says a Grassley spokesman. "The Justice Department says it's 'in process.'" The Justice Department did not respond to an inquiry about the matter Friday, and it is not clear when the Department will answer Grassley's questions.
This is a serious damned question: any lawyer who worked for these people, and is now- supposedly- prosecuting them is in a serious pile of conflict of interest. To say the least. Holder playing "I don't have to tell you" is bullshit, and if he wasn't pushing an agenda he'd admit it's wrong(of course that assumes he cares about- or actually knows- the difference between 'right' and 'wrong').
Add to that
In the meantime, committee Republicans are starting to wait for Holder's response to another letter, sent yesterday, asking for an explanation of the decision to hold accused al Qaeda Detroit bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in the civilian justice system instead of as an enemy combatant.
Nobody from Holder on down wants to admit having anything to do with this; at least one of them is lying. And we need to know who.
You know, there is a reason for the test kits,
and not leaving someone in a cell for a bloody work week before you bother to check the stuff.
And note the response of NYPD:
The "drugs" were finally tested five days later and determined to be popular Coco (coconut) Candy. The charges were dropped -- but there were no apologies from the NYPD.
"Sweet happens," a police source glibly said of the boondoggle.
Well, isn't that such a wonderful, professional response to this crap?
And note the response of NYPD:
The "drugs" were finally tested five days later and determined to be popular Coco (coconut) Candy. The charges were dropped -- but there were no apologies from the NYPD.
"Sweet happens," a police source glibly said of the boondoggle.
Well, isn't that such a wonderful, professional response to this crap?
Hope! Change!!
Transparency!!!
The Justice Department, citing privilege claims, has refused to release e-mails and other documents sought under an open records request by The Washington Times to explain its decision last year to dismiss a civil complaint accusing the New Black Panther Party of intimidating voters at a Philadelphia polling place.
Talk about sorry excuses for law enforcement...
The Justice Department, citing privilege claims, has refused to release e-mails and other documents sought under an open records request by The Washington Times to explain its decision last year to dismiss a civil complaint accusing the New Black Panther Party of intimidating voters at a Philadelphia polling place.
Talk about sorry excuses for law enforcement...
Friday, January 22, 2010
Ref the arrests at the SHOT show,
and wasn't that a bit of grandstanding?, Codrea has some questions. Including
We can ask if grandstanding and getting headlines plays into any of that.
We can ask where ATF is on this, and if their absence is indicative of continued noncooperation and friction between their agency and the FBI.
We can ask how this is likely to boost the career of the guy ramrodding the operation, Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division, an Obama pick who gained notice on the national stage helping represent Bill Clinton during his impeachment.
Go read.
We can ask if grandstanding and getting headlines plays into any of that.
We can ask where ATF is on this, and if their absence is indicative of continued noncooperation and friction between their agency and the FBI.
We can ask how this is likely to boost the career of the guy ramrodding the operation, Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division, an Obama pick who gained notice on the national stage helping represent Bill Clinton during his impeachment.
Go read.
The only way I can put this: most of our local news flat sucks.
In specific, remember a while back I wrote about the MAPS tax vote? The one where the mayor said it would 'energize the city', etc. ad bullshit? The one where the police and fire department unions were warning that they were short on people and equipment now, and this would stretch them further? Well, most of the local news weenies(That'd be KOCO, KWTV and KFOR) went along with the mayor's plans and didn't really ask questions about various, ah, 'problems' and 'associations' involved in this mess.
Guess what?
One- ONE- station, KOKH, the local FOX affiliate, has reported that along with a bunch of other cuts being made due to the economy, Oklahoma City is going to lay off a bunch of cops and firefighters; none of the other 'news' stations are saying one damned word up to this point. And there's not ONE DAMNED WORD about it on their websites. All kinds of OTHER stuff, and about the layoffs in Tulsa, but NOT ONE WORD ABOUT THE POLICE & FIRE LAYOFFS IN OKC.
The Mayor, Mick Cornett, just gave his 'State of the City' address, and of course said not one damned word about it. And there's nothing on the city website right now.
During the leadup to the vote, just about the only one bringing up a lot of the questions was a guy named Mark Shannon who works at KTOK radio; he's got stuff up on his blog about it, but KTOK doesn't have ONE DAMNED WORD that I can find on their website on this crap.(past stuff of his here, for one)
KOKH did a report on their news show; all they've got on their website is this, but the actually have reported on this steaming pile of crap.
KWTV, KOCO, KFOR, you suck. You didn't do the research on the conflicts and bullcrap before the vote, and right now your websites don't have a damned thing on these cuts that I can find. You're some miserable excuses for newsmen. Or 'reporters' if any of the female employees get their knickers in a twist at my using such an old-fashioned word.
On second thought, you can't bother to report on this stuff? Screw you.
Guess what?
One- ONE- station, KOKH, the local FOX affiliate, has reported that along with a bunch of other cuts being made due to the economy, Oklahoma City is going to lay off a bunch of cops and firefighters; none of the other 'news' stations are saying one damned word up to this point. And there's not ONE DAMNED WORD about it on their websites. All kinds of OTHER stuff, and about the layoffs in Tulsa, but NOT ONE WORD ABOUT THE POLICE & FIRE LAYOFFS IN OKC.
The Mayor, Mick Cornett, just gave his 'State of the City' address, and of course said not one damned word about it. And there's nothing on the city website right now.
During the leadup to the vote, just about the only one bringing up a lot of the questions was a guy named Mark Shannon who works at KTOK radio; he's got stuff up on his blog about it, but KTOK doesn't have ONE DAMNED WORD that I can find on their website on this crap.(past stuff of his here, for one)
KOKH did a report on their news show; all they've got on their website is this, but the actually have reported on this steaming pile of crap.
KWTV, KOCO, KFOR, you suck. You didn't do the research on the conflicts and bullcrap before the vote, and right now your websites don't have a damned thing on these cuts that I can find. You're some miserable excuses for newsmen. Or 'reporters' if any of the female employees get their knickers in a twist at my using such an old-fashioned word.
On second thought, you can't bother to report on this stuff? Screw you.
There's just so much stuff out there,
but I think I'll start with Air America going down the toilet. Because they couldn't even get enough liberals and progressives to listen to make advertisers buy time, so they went bankrupt. Buh-bye.
So the UN will hold President Obama to his promise that the United States will reduce carbon emissions even if the Senate cannot pass climate legislation, even if the Copenhagen Accord flops. Well, got news for you, de Boer; screw you and the power grab you're riding on. He can 'promise' anything he wants, but it has to be approved by the representatives of the people before it has any power, and enough of the truth has made it out that that's not going to happen.
If you live in Arizona and are in McCain's district, my personal advice would be to tell any McCain or Stupid Party callers asking for votes or money to kiss your ass. He's proven himself to be one more progressive RINO on most things and cannot be trusted.
This sounds scary-close to the thinking behind the F4 Phantom not having a gun: "We're not going to have this 'dogfight' crap anymore, we're going to use missiles and hit enemy aircraft miles away!", which sounded great. Right up until we had F4s being chased by MiG15s with no missiles but a pair of cannon. Yeah, you can get by with something less than a Typhoon for a lot of missions in Afghanistan, but speaking as if you'll never need something like the Typhoon again... that's dumb, guys. Our AF keeps tried to get rid of the A10 almost from day 1, but it's been a great plane. Get the Tucano for the missions that it's good at(apparently very good), but don't fall into thinking that's all you'll need in the future.
Yeah, I think he's right: Obama & Pelosi & Reid have decided to 'wait until the attention dies down' and then try to sneak or shove Obamacare through. I guess they really don't care how many Democrats get stomped for it, they'll try this power-grab no matter what.
Also from Q&O,
Got that? Passing a bill that circumvents Brown’s vote will be viewed “with some justification” as illegitimate, so let’s go ahead and do just that! Do these people even listen to themselves? Using the reconciliation process (“sidecar” or otherwise) to shove health care legislation down Americans’ throats simply eschews the very legislative process that Barney Frank and Jim Webb cited as the reason to forgo further action on health care until Brown is seated. Yet, Hamsher and her cohorts advocate for legislative legerdemain anyway. Cognitive dissonance in action.
The reason, of course, is that passing health care legislation is such a fundamental issue for progressives that they have thrown all sense (such as was possessed) to the wind. It has nothing to do with what people want, but instead with what progressives want people to want. Apparently it doesn’t even matter that the rosy economic projections upon which these health care bills are based have little to no basis in reality. I guess, since the ultimate goal is a utopian fantasy, employing imaginary thinking is the only way to get there.
Totally unrelated to the above, I took the suggestion of a commenter and used some epoxy putty to build up the front sight of the M95. That worked very nicely to move the POI down to a reasonable point at 100 yards, and having a better-defined front sight helped accuracy, too. The proper fix would be a taller front sight, but I'm wondering about taking a short piece of hacksaw blade, heating and folding it, then opening it up just enough to fit over the front sight and soldering it on; that'd give a taller sight that would be more durable than the putty. You could keep part of the blade squeezed together right at the fold and open a 'skirt' beneath it, and could file the taller part down as needed to zero the POI with your ammo. I'm going to have to fiddle with that.
A Filipino muslim bomb tech killed in Afghanistan; gee, I wonder what he was doing there...
And so it is that I’d like to invite the head muckety-muck of the Evergreen State College, Dr. Les Purce, to put away the pomp and circumstance and come on down.
Dr. Les is wallowing in the wealth of taxpayer generosity.
Having been given a sumptuous residence as part of his presidential Evergreen package, he instead chose to live in a different house and insist on an additional $60,000 a year to pay for it.
Meanwhile, the house the college expected Dr. Les to live in sits empty.
What with repairs, utilities, maintenance and upkeep on the one house along with allowances for the new one, cost to us taxpayers is over $300,000 so far.
And now Dr. les says he wants a maid to take out his trash, wash his dishes and keep things tidy for him.
Well, he IS of the Progressive Elite, y'know, you can't expect him to live like one of the pea- uh, masses, can you?
I haven't tried to build an AR, but I still like the advice that Tam pointed to.
In the Tale of the M&P15-22, put another three mags through at the range the other day, and it's behaving itself nicely. I think I'll put the iron sights back on until I can find some taller(Extra-extra high, I guess) rings for the scope; I have to shove my cheek down on the stock to line it up properly.
Steve has been tempted into using lots of time devising new pizza recipes and methods.
It has to be noted again, the IPCC knew the 'The Glaciers Are Disappearing!' line was bullcrap and pushed it anyway.
The scandal threatens to undermine the panel’s credibility as it begins the marathon process of drafting its Fifth Assessment Reports, which are due out in 2013-14. Georg Kaser, a leading Austrian glaciologist who contributed to the 2007 report, described the glacier mistake as huge and said that he had warned colleagues about it months before publication.
Oh, this is just effing brilliant! on the part of the administration; they don't want to actually win in Afghanistan but don't have to balls to just pull out.
The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and senior Afghan officials have resisted moving forward with a bold and potentially risky initiative to support local militias in Afghanistan that are willing to defend their villages against insurgents, according to U.S. officials.
Their concerns have slowed the implementation of a key effort to provide security in places where there are relatively few NATO forces or Afghan police and Army units. U.S. military officials had wanted to get the initiative -- developed under the leadership of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan -- off to a quick start this year.
Eikenberry's unease about the program as it was structured by the military also reflects a broader difference of opinion at the highest levels of the U.S. military and diplomatic headquarters in Kabul about new approaches to combating the Taliban insurgency. While military commanders are eager to experiment with decentralized grass-roots initiatives that work around the ponderous Afghan bureaucracy in Kabul, civilian officials think it is more important to wait until they have the central government's support, something they regard as essential to sustaining the programs.
As Riehl puts it, The claim is they want to see more from the central government. Yet, this is the same administration that time and again has said the central government is part of the problem. Obama and his team don't seem to want to get out of the way and allow the military to fight the war with the best plan they can come up with. Should we be surprised?
I'm tempted to say it's also standard progressive bullcrap: it can't be allowed to succeed unless the government is in full control of it. Having these Afghan peasants actually defending themselves, on their own? Unthinkable!
Oh, gee, why would he make such a change now, I wonder?
MEMPHIS — A Tennessee man accused of killing a soldier outside a Little Rock, Ark., military recruiting station last year has asked a judge to change his plea to guilty, claiming for the first time that he is affiliated with a Yemen-based affiliate of Al Qaeda.
In a letter to the judge presiding over his case, the accused killer, Abdulhakim Muhammad, calls himself a soldier in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and calls the shooting “a Jihadi Attack” in retribution for the killing of Muslims by American troops.
“I wasn’t insane or post traumatic nor was I forced to do this Act,” Mr. Muhammad said in a two-page, hand-printed note in pencil. The attack, which he said did not go as planned, was “justified according to Islamic Laws and the Islamic Religion. Jihad — to fight those who wage war on Islam and Muslims.”
That's enough for one morning, especially since it's sunny outside. See you later.
So the UN will hold President Obama to his promise that the United States will reduce carbon emissions even if the Senate cannot pass climate legislation, even if the Copenhagen Accord flops. Well, got news for you, de Boer; screw you and the power grab you're riding on. He can 'promise' anything he wants, but it has to be approved by the representatives of the people before it has any power, and enough of the truth has made it out that that's not going to happen.
If you live in Arizona and are in McCain's district, my personal advice would be to tell any McCain or Stupid Party callers asking for votes or money to kiss your ass. He's proven himself to be one more progressive RINO on most things and cannot be trusted.
This sounds scary-close to the thinking behind the F4 Phantom not having a gun: "We're not going to have this 'dogfight' crap anymore, we're going to use missiles and hit enemy aircraft miles away!", which sounded great. Right up until we had F4s being chased by MiG15s with no missiles but a pair of cannon. Yeah, you can get by with something less than a Typhoon for a lot of missions in Afghanistan, but speaking as if you'll never need something like the Typhoon again... that's dumb, guys. Our AF keeps tried to get rid of the A10 almost from day 1, but it's been a great plane. Get the Tucano for the missions that it's good at(apparently very good), but don't fall into thinking that's all you'll need in the future.
Yeah, I think he's right: Obama & Pelosi & Reid have decided to 'wait until the attention dies down' and then try to sneak or shove Obamacare through. I guess they really don't care how many Democrats get stomped for it, they'll try this power-grab no matter what.
Also from Q&O,
Got that? Passing a bill that circumvents Brown’s vote will be viewed “with some justification” as illegitimate, so let’s go ahead and do just that! Do these people even listen to themselves? Using the reconciliation process (“sidecar” or otherwise) to shove health care legislation down Americans’ throats simply eschews the very legislative process that Barney Frank and Jim Webb cited as the reason to forgo further action on health care until Brown is seated. Yet, Hamsher and her cohorts advocate for legislative legerdemain anyway. Cognitive dissonance in action.
The reason, of course, is that passing health care legislation is such a fundamental issue for progressives that they have thrown all sense (such as was possessed) to the wind. It has nothing to do with what people want, but instead with what progressives want people to want. Apparently it doesn’t even matter that the rosy economic projections upon which these health care bills are based have little to no basis in reality. I guess, since the ultimate goal is a utopian fantasy, employing imaginary thinking is the only way to get there.
Totally unrelated to the above, I took the suggestion of a commenter and used some epoxy putty to build up the front sight of the M95. That worked very nicely to move the POI down to a reasonable point at 100 yards, and having a better-defined front sight helped accuracy, too. The proper fix would be a taller front sight, but I'm wondering about taking a short piece of hacksaw blade, heating and folding it, then opening it up just enough to fit over the front sight and soldering it on; that'd give a taller sight that would be more durable than the putty. You could keep part of the blade squeezed together right at the fold and open a 'skirt' beneath it, and could file the taller part down as needed to zero the POI with your ammo. I'm going to have to fiddle with that.
A Filipino muslim bomb tech killed in Afghanistan; gee, I wonder what he was doing there...
And so it is that I’d like to invite the head muckety-muck of the Evergreen State College, Dr. Les Purce, to put away the pomp and circumstance and come on down.
Dr. Les is wallowing in the wealth of taxpayer generosity.
Having been given a sumptuous residence as part of his presidential Evergreen package, he instead chose to live in a different house and insist on an additional $60,000 a year to pay for it.
Meanwhile, the house the college expected Dr. Les to live in sits empty.
What with repairs, utilities, maintenance and upkeep on the one house along with allowances for the new one, cost to us taxpayers is over $300,000 so far.
And now Dr. les says he wants a maid to take out his trash, wash his dishes and keep things tidy for him.
Well, he IS of the Progressive Elite, y'know, you can't expect him to live like one of the pea- uh, masses, can you?
I haven't tried to build an AR, but I still like the advice that Tam pointed to.
In the Tale of the M&P15-22, put another three mags through at the range the other day, and it's behaving itself nicely. I think I'll put the iron sights back on until I can find some taller(Extra-extra high, I guess) rings for the scope; I have to shove my cheek down on the stock to line it up properly.
Steve has been tempted into using lots of time devising new pizza recipes and methods.
It has to be noted again, the IPCC knew the 'The Glaciers Are Disappearing!' line was bullcrap and pushed it anyway.
The scandal threatens to undermine the panel’s credibility as it begins the marathon process of drafting its Fifth Assessment Reports, which are due out in 2013-14. Georg Kaser, a leading Austrian glaciologist who contributed to the 2007 report, described the glacier mistake as huge and said that he had warned colleagues about it months before publication.
Oh, this is just effing brilliant! on the part of the administration; they don't want to actually win in Afghanistan but don't have to balls to just pull out.
The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and senior Afghan officials have resisted moving forward with a bold and potentially risky initiative to support local militias in Afghanistan that are willing to defend their villages against insurgents, according to U.S. officials.
Their concerns have slowed the implementation of a key effort to provide security in places where there are relatively few NATO forces or Afghan police and Army units. U.S. military officials had wanted to get the initiative -- developed under the leadership of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan -- off to a quick start this year.
Eikenberry's unease about the program as it was structured by the military also reflects a broader difference of opinion at the highest levels of the U.S. military and diplomatic headquarters in Kabul about new approaches to combating the Taliban insurgency. While military commanders are eager to experiment with decentralized grass-roots initiatives that work around the ponderous Afghan bureaucracy in Kabul, civilian officials think it is more important to wait until they have the central government's support, something they regard as essential to sustaining the programs.
As Riehl puts it, The claim is they want to see more from the central government. Yet, this is the same administration that time and again has said the central government is part of the problem. Obama and his team don't seem to want to get out of the way and allow the military to fight the war with the best plan they can come up with. Should we be surprised?
I'm tempted to say it's also standard progressive bullcrap: it can't be allowed to succeed unless the government is in full control of it. Having these Afghan peasants actually defending themselves, on their own? Unthinkable!
Oh, gee, why would he make such a change now, I wonder?
MEMPHIS — A Tennessee man accused of killing a soldier outside a Little Rock, Ark., military recruiting station last year has asked a judge to change his plea to guilty, claiming for the first time that he is affiliated with a Yemen-based affiliate of Al Qaeda.
In a letter to the judge presiding over his case, the accused killer, Abdulhakim Muhammad, calls himself a soldier in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and calls the shooting “a Jihadi Attack” in retribution for the killing of Muslims by American troops.
“I wasn’t insane or post traumatic nor was I forced to do this Act,” Mr. Muhammad said in a two-page, hand-printed note in pencil. The attack, which he said did not go as planned, was “justified according to Islamic Laws and the Islamic Religion. Jihad — to fight those who wage war on Islam and Muslims.”
That's enough for one morning, especially since it's sunny outside. See you later.
Lots of noise already about this, but I do want to ask:
is Sen. Specter(Turncoat-PA) a fool, or simply so arrogant as to think this was a good thing to say?
It seems like a pretty simple question.
Who made the decision to charge Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the accused terrorist arrested for trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines jet on Christmas Day, as an everyday criminal, as opposed to an enemy combatant?
After all, Abdulmutallab was trained by al Qaeda, equipped with an al Qaeda-made bomb, and dispatched by al Qaeda to bring down the airliner and its 278 passengers. Even though the Obama administration has mostly abandoned the term "war on terror," the president himself has said clearly that the United States is at war with al Qaeda. So who decided to treat Abdulmutallab as a civilian, read him the Miranda warning, and provide him with a government-paid lawyer -- giving him the right to remain silent and denying the United States potentially valuable intelligence that might have been gained by a military-style interrogation?
It IS a simple question; the problem is nobody involved has the integrity or balls to say "I did".
After all, Abdulmutallab was trained by al Qaeda, equipped with an al Qaeda-made bomb, and dispatched by al Qaeda to bring down the airliner and its 278 passengers. Even though the Obama administration has mostly abandoned the term "war on terror," the president himself has said clearly that the United States is at war with al Qaeda. So who decided to treat Abdulmutallab as a civilian, read him the Miranda warning, and provide him with a government-paid lawyer -- giving him the right to remain silent and denying the United States potentially valuable intelligence that might have been gained by a military-style interrogation?
It IS a simple question; the problem is nobody involved has the integrity or balls to say "I did".
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Something strikes me in this "The End Of Hope" article
from Germany, this passage in particular:
"Obama made a serious misjudgement. Right at the beginning of his first year in office, he saved the banks, rescued the automobile industry from collapse and passed a huge economic stimulus package. He had hoped that these enormous deeds would give him the space to address those issues which are dearest to him: health care reform, climate change and investment in education."
"Those issues, however, are clearly not priorities for people in the US at the moment...
The first thing is that wording: "HE saved, Rescued, Passed".
The second is that they don't seem to realize just how much the way he pushed this crap pissed people off; that an awful lot of the population looked at the Government Motors and union bailout and hated it; that people looked at the 'saving of the banks' and all the conniving and deals involved and weren't real happy with it; that people realized just how badly the future of the country was mortgaged in the stimulus package and just how badly it would- and did- work, and did not like it. And thus these things did NOT 'give him space', it caused people who'd voted for Hope! and Change!! to say "What the hell are you doing? Take over my health care? Not a chance!"
To Nanny-State Europe these things may sound wonderful, but to us they were WAY off key. And Tuesday's result was one of the consequences.
"Obama made a serious misjudgement. Right at the beginning of his first year in office, he saved the banks, rescued the automobile industry from collapse and passed a huge economic stimulus package. He had hoped that these enormous deeds would give him the space to address those issues which are dearest to him: health care reform, climate change and investment in education."
"Those issues, however, are clearly not priorities for people in the US at the moment...
The first thing is that wording: "HE saved, Rescued, Passed".
The second is that they don't seem to realize just how much the way he pushed this crap pissed people off; that an awful lot of the population looked at the Government Motors and union bailout and hated it; that people looked at the 'saving of the banks' and all the conniving and deals involved and weren't real happy with it; that people realized just how badly the future of the country was mortgaged in the stimulus package and just how badly it would- and did- work, and did not like it. And thus these things did NOT 'give him space', it caused people who'd voted for Hope! and Change!! to say "What the hell are you doing? Take over my health care? Not a chance!"
To Nanny-State Europe these things may sound wonderful, but to us they were WAY off key. And Tuesday's result was one of the consequences.
Yeah, all that 'be cautious' stuff is just us trying to take over
There is only one functioning pier. It looks stable, but it is not. Sgt. Joshua Palmer, a U.S. Army diver, said that he and his men have examined every piling and that the news is not good. Many are splintered at the tops, tipped with frayed rebar where there should be solid concrete. It is not clear whether the pier can handle the weight it needs to bear. "I'm just a grunt, but I don't know. There's a lot missing under this pier," Palmer said.
The Americans weren't happy that a French naval vessel, the Francis Garnier, had docked. They weren't being competitive. They were being cautious. The French ship and its cargo could have tipped the pier over like an empty paper cup.
One of the Navy divers said, "Put on your life preservers." He wasn't kidding. Nearby, the civilian engineer for the Navy had made a pendulum out of a piece of string, a twig and a weight -- a half-full plastic eyedropper. He told a sailor to keep an eye on it.
"If it starts to swing, run," he said.
I'm not an engineer, nor do I blog as one: you don't have to be to recognize what's being described here.
And I'll bet that if the pier collapsed- or does- and the French ship takes damage, they'll bitch that our people didn't give them 'sufficient warning' or some other "It's not our fault!" crap.
Pointed to by Ghost of a Flea, who also notes that when you don't care about truth you can say anything:
Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez has once again accused the United States of playing God. But this time it's Haiti's disastrous earthquake that he thinks the U.S. was behind. Spanish newspaper ABC quotes Chavez as saying that the U.S. navy launched a weapon capable of inducing a powerful earthquake off the shore of Haiti. He adds that this time it was only a drill and the final target is ... destroying and taking over Iran.
Hugo, you miserable slut, if we could cause a friggin' earthquake your body would be buried in your Presidential Palace.
And the mullahs would be similarly interned; hey, if we could cause one, we could target it, right?
Normally I ignore the stuff that comes from Andrew Sullivan anymore,
but saw this bit at Dennis the Peasant and I just have to yell about it:
"The second explanation is the Brooks/Noonan theory that somehow everything feels wrong to the Independent or conservative-leaning voters. They have an instinctual fear of more government and, even though the Senate bill couldn't be more minimalist within the confines of expanding access and controlling costs, this gnaws at them. I think this is a legitimate feeling (I have it too) - but an illegitimate argument."
That Sullivan can look at the bloated , bribe-filled mass of corruption Reid shoved through the Senate and refer to it as couldn't be more minimalist within the confines tells me Sullivan is either demented, a friggin' idiot or so in the tank for Obama that they can't pipe oxygen in to him anymore.
"The second explanation is the Brooks/Noonan theory that somehow everything feels wrong to the Independent or conservative-leaning voters. They have an instinctual fear of more government and, even though the Senate bill couldn't be more minimalist within the confines of expanding access and controlling costs, this gnaws at them. I think this is a legitimate feeling (I have it too) - but an illegitimate argument."
That Sullivan can look at the bloated , bribe-filled mass of corruption Reid shoved through the Senate and refer to it as couldn't be more minimalist within the confines tells me Sullivan is either demented, a friggin' idiot or so in the tank for Obama that they can't pipe oxygen in to him anymore.
Just a few things to note this morning Updated! With DBS
First, sounds like the compassionate, tolerant folks of the left are playing "Let's ruin someone who disagreed with us" again.
The report’s respected authors, former Army Secretary Togo West and retired Navy Adm. Vernon Clark, said Defense Secretary Robert Gates did not charge them with finding out what happened. They were tasked with discovering whether there were any gaps or deficiencies that would hobble future efforts to identify internal threats and protect the force.
And they proceed to tap-dance around the truth, the facts, and any questions that would force them to give an actual answer. Just wonderful.
A little more on the level of bullshit here, including
Mr. West, at a second Pentagon news conference with Admiral Clark, said the problem with “self-radicalization” in the military was not rooted in Islam. “Suppose it were fundamentalist-Christian-inspired,” Mr. West said. “Our concern is not with the religion. It is with the potential effect on our soldiers’ ability to do their job.”
Bull-effing-shit. If 'fundamentalist-Christian-inspired' people were going around their units, let alone giving talks at conferences, talking about stoning people and killing anyone who doubted their beliefs truth and primacy, they'd have been noted as a dangerous nut and investigated and dealt with; you cowards have made it worth someones career to do so about a muslim. And you don't have to balls to deal with that, so you say crap like this.
If someones religious beliefs involve killing anyone who won't accept them and supporting terrorists- including at the cost of betraying your oath as an officer- then that religious belief IS of concern, whether you have the integrity to say so or not.
Captain's Journal also has some information on how the Anbar Awakening actually happened, and the problems- in some cases near idiocy- of trying to use the mythology of Anbar to set up actions in Afghanistan.
Note: as I recall, the Brits in Iraq were very big for a time on "We don't walk around in battle-rattle, we wear hats instead of helmets to show a friendly face", etc., and it blew up in their faces in the long run; they were acting as if they were patrolling in Ireland and expecting the same mindset and reactions from Iraqis(As I recall; been a while since I read on this).
Went over to Sipsey Street and ran across(among other things) this bit on the idiotic Brooks column whining about 'the not-well-educated being against the ideas of the educated class'. One part:
Since we can no longer count on being able to plan, we must adapt. When planning doesn’t work, centralization of authority is at best useless and usually harmful. And we must harden: that is, we need to build robustness and the capacity to self-heal and self-defend at every level of the system. I think the rising popular sense of this accounts for the prepper phenomenon. Unlike old-school survivalists, the preppers aren’t gearing up for apocalypse; they’re hedging against the sort of relatively transient failures in the power grid, food distribution, and even civil order that we can expect during the lag time between planning failures and CAS responses.
CAS hardening of the financial system is, comparatively speaking, much easier. Almost trivial, actually. About all it requires is that we re-stigmatize the carrying of debt at more than a very small proportion of assets. By anybody. With that pressure, there would tend to be enough reserve at all levels of the financial system that it would avoid cascade failures in response to unpredictable shocks.
Cycling back to terrorism, the elite planner’s response to threats like underwear bombs is to build elaborate but increasingly brittle security systems in which airline passengers are involved only as victims. The CAS response would be to arm the passengers, concentrate on fielding bomb-sniffers so cheap that hundreds of thousands of civilians can carry one, and pay bounties on dead terrorists.
I'll pass over the brain spasms so many would have over the idea of bounties; the basic idea boils back down to the Israeli criticism that "You are looking for things instead of looking at people." Problem we run into is that the same people who think 'Free Mumia!' is striking at racism and blame any and everything except the person committing the crime are of the same mindset as the clowns setting up a lot of the security theater; don't blame people, don't look for dangerous people, blame and look for things; it's just so much more sensitive and caring...
ShrinkWrapped on Brown. Some good stuff, including this quote:
It never ceases to amaze me that the very same folks who jumped on the Dede Scozzofava is a big fat RINO bandwagon have been going gaga over a candidate who is arguably even more liberal than Scozzofava
1. The Stupid Party was so busy playing games it didn't really want to get into a challenge to Coakley, and ticked-off people took over,
2. It was someone with a 'R' after his name actually going after this Senate seat in MA; even if Brown wasn't someone they'd push for in their home district, he would be a real change in MA in some ways and therefore was worth helping.
We'll see what happens with him.
As of last night, had some storms blow through but the worst stuff was south & east of OKC. At this point, between fall rains, the blizzard and this all the ponds and lakes ought to be up to the brim. Good thing, but it's too wet outside to edge or whatever. Ah well, more cleaning and organizing is always needed inside(I just looked around the room; dammit, where do I put some of this stuff?!?)
The report’s respected authors, former Army Secretary Togo West and retired Navy Adm. Vernon Clark, said Defense Secretary Robert Gates did not charge them with finding out what happened. They were tasked with discovering whether there were any gaps or deficiencies that would hobble future efforts to identify internal threats and protect the force.
And they proceed to tap-dance around the truth, the facts, and any questions that would force them to give an actual answer. Just wonderful.
A little more on the level of bullshit here, including
Mr. West, at a second Pentagon news conference with Admiral Clark, said the problem with “self-radicalization” in the military was not rooted in Islam. “Suppose it were fundamentalist-Christian-inspired,” Mr. West said. “Our concern is not with the religion. It is with the potential effect on our soldiers’ ability to do their job.”
Bull-effing-shit. If 'fundamentalist-Christian-inspired' people were going around their units, let alone giving talks at conferences, talking about stoning people and killing anyone who doubted their beliefs truth and primacy, they'd have been noted as a dangerous nut and investigated and dealt with; you cowards have made it worth someones career to do so about a muslim. And you don't have to balls to deal with that, so you say crap like this.
If someones religious beliefs involve killing anyone who won't accept them and supporting terrorists- including at the cost of betraying your oath as an officer- then that religious belief IS of concern, whether you have the integrity to say so or not.
Captain's Journal also has some information on how the Anbar Awakening actually happened, and the problems- in some cases near idiocy- of trying to use the mythology of Anbar to set up actions in Afghanistan.
Note: as I recall, the Brits in Iraq were very big for a time on "We don't walk around in battle-rattle, we wear hats instead of helmets to show a friendly face", etc., and it blew up in their faces in the long run; they were acting as if they were patrolling in Ireland and expecting the same mindset and reactions from Iraqis(As I recall; been a while since I read on this).
Went over to Sipsey Street and ran across(among other things) this bit on the idiotic Brooks column whining about 'the not-well-educated being against the ideas of the educated class'. One part:
Since we can no longer count on being able to plan, we must adapt. When planning doesn’t work, centralization of authority is at best useless and usually harmful. And we must harden: that is, we need to build robustness and the capacity to self-heal and self-defend at every level of the system. I think the rising popular sense of this accounts for the prepper phenomenon. Unlike old-school survivalists, the preppers aren’t gearing up for apocalypse; they’re hedging against the sort of relatively transient failures in the power grid, food distribution, and even civil order that we can expect during the lag time between planning failures and CAS responses.
CAS hardening of the financial system is, comparatively speaking, much easier. Almost trivial, actually. About all it requires is that we re-stigmatize the carrying of debt at more than a very small proportion of assets. By anybody. With that pressure, there would tend to be enough reserve at all levels of the financial system that it would avoid cascade failures in response to unpredictable shocks.
Cycling back to terrorism, the elite planner’s response to threats like underwear bombs is to build elaborate but increasingly brittle security systems in which airline passengers are involved only as victims. The CAS response would be to arm the passengers, concentrate on fielding bomb-sniffers so cheap that hundreds of thousands of civilians can carry one, and pay bounties on dead terrorists.
I'll pass over the brain spasms so many would have over the idea of bounties; the basic idea boils back down to the Israeli criticism that "You are looking for things instead of looking at people." Problem we run into is that the same people who think 'Free Mumia!' is striking at racism and blame any and everything except the person committing the crime are of the same mindset as the clowns setting up a lot of the security theater; don't blame people, don't look for dangerous people, blame and look for things; it's just so much more sensitive and caring...
ShrinkWrapped on Brown. Some good stuff, including this quote:
It never ceases to amaze me that the very same folks who jumped on the Dede Scozzofava is a big fat RINO bandwagon have been going gaga over a candidate who is arguably even more liberal than Scozzofava
Brown’s score puts him at the 34th percentile of his party in Massachusetts over the 1995-2006 time period. In other words, two thirds of other Massachusetts Republican state legislators were more conservative than he was. This is evidence for my claim that he’s a liberal even in his own party. What’s remarkable about this is the fact that Massachusetts Republicans are the most, or nearly the most, liberal Republicans in the entire country!Shor’s research shows us that even compared to Dede Scozzafava, Scott Brown is a very liberal Republican.
The point is that the "base's" support for Brown is a bit ironic in light of their continual excoriation of so-called RINOs. It's also a vindication for what many moderates (including yours truly) have been saying all along: rigid ideological litmus tests and a small tent approach are a sure fire prescription for staying out of power.
I think it purely boiled down to two things:1. The Stupid Party was so busy playing games it didn't really want to get into a challenge to Coakley, and ticked-off people took over,
2. It was someone with a 'R' after his name actually going after this Senate seat in MA; even if Brown wasn't someone they'd push for in their home district, he would be a real change in MA in some ways and therefore was worth helping.
We'll see what happens with him.
As of last night, had some storms blow through but the worst stuff was south & east of OKC. At this point, between fall rains, the blizzard and this all the ponds and lakes ought to be up to the brim. Good thing, but it's too wet outside to edge or whatever. Ah well, more cleaning and organizing is always needed inside(I just looked around the room; dammit, where do I put some of this stuff?!?)
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Just because it needs to be repeated what a scam and abuse of science
the AGW bullshit is,
The UN’s top climate change body has issued an unprecedented apology over its flawed prediction that Himalayan glaciers were likely to disappear by 2035.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said yesterday that the prediction in its landmark 2007 report was “poorly substantiated” and resulted from a lapse in standards. “In drafting the paragraph in question the clear and well-established standards of evidence, required by the IPCC procedures, were not applied properly,” the panel said. “The chair, vice-chair and co-chairs of the IPCC regret the poor application of IPCC procedures in this instance.”
The stunning admission is certain to embolden critics of the panel, already under fire over a separate scandal involving hacked e-mails last year.
Gee, ya think MAYBE?
It emerged last week that the prediction was based not on a consensus among climate change experts but on a media interview with a single Indian glaciologist in 1999. That scientist, Syed Hasnain, has now told The Times that he never made such a specific forecast in his interview with the New Scientist magazine.
“I have not made any prediction on date as I am not an astrologer but I did say they were shrinking fast,” he said. “I have never written 2035 in any of my research papers or reports.” Professor Hasnain works for The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in Delhi, which is headed by Rajendra Pachauri, head of the climate change panel.
But, of course, the UN insists they're right anyway:
Despite the controversy, the IPCC said that it stood by its overall conclusions about glacier loss this century in big mountain ranges including the Himalayas. “This conclusion is robust, appropriate, and entirely consistent with the underlying science and the broader IPCC assessment,” it said.
Translation: "You're threatening our funding! We must have that money!!" Reason #47,something why the UN is not to be trusted.
Pachauri, you're a miserable little grifter, and should be jailed as such. Eff you, and the socialist pony you want to ride over us.
And Al Gore is full of crap. And knows he's in trouble.
The UN’s top climate change body has issued an unprecedented apology over its flawed prediction that Himalayan glaciers were likely to disappear by 2035.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said yesterday that the prediction in its landmark 2007 report was “poorly substantiated” and resulted from a lapse in standards. “In drafting the paragraph in question the clear and well-established standards of evidence, required by the IPCC procedures, were not applied properly,” the panel said. “The chair, vice-chair and co-chairs of the IPCC regret the poor application of IPCC procedures in this instance.”
The stunning admission is certain to embolden critics of the panel, already under fire over a separate scandal involving hacked e-mails last year.
Gee, ya think MAYBE?
It emerged last week that the prediction was based not on a consensus among climate change experts but on a media interview with a single Indian glaciologist in 1999. That scientist, Syed Hasnain, has now told The Times that he never made such a specific forecast in his interview with the New Scientist magazine.
“I have not made any prediction on date as I am not an astrologer but I did say they were shrinking fast,” he said. “I have never written 2035 in any of my research papers or reports.” Professor Hasnain works for The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in Delhi, which is headed by Rajendra Pachauri, head of the climate change panel.
But, of course, the UN insists they're right anyway:
Despite the controversy, the IPCC said that it stood by its overall conclusions about glacier loss this century in big mountain ranges including the Himalayas. “This conclusion is robust, appropriate, and entirely consistent with the underlying science and the broader IPCC assessment,” it said.
Translation: "You're threatening our funding! We must have that money!!" Reason #47,something why the UN is not to be trusted.
Pachauri, you're a miserable little grifter, and should be jailed as such. Eff you, and the socialist pony you want to ride over us.
And Al Gore is full of crap. And knows he's in trouble.
This just in from the Adminstration: "No tax cheats will get government contracts;
friends of President Obama can still serve on the cabinet. And run the Treasury."
Does this bastard not realize that we actually remember this stuff?
Does this bastard not realize that we actually remember this stuff?
Gee, you now agree it was a mistake Updated
to treat a terrorist like a mugger? Damn, nothing gets past you, does it?
Update: just found this at Ace:
Tonight via Keep America Safe we find out that the DNI Blair has changed his story.
Update: just found this at Ace:
Tonight via Keep America Safe we find out that the DNI Blair has changed his story.
My remarks today before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs have been misconstrued. The FBI interrogated Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab when they took him into custody. They received important intelligence at that time, drawing on the FBI's expertise in interrogation that will be available in the HIG once it is fully operational.
Excuse me? We don't currently have an operational program to interrogate individuals deemed to be of high value? Did Blair not know that this morning? Did he lie? Is he the most incompetent man on the face of the Earth?
Well, it can't be the last one so long as Barack Obama has a job but what about the rest?
How in the world did we go from, "yeah, we should have used that program" to "Program? What program? We don't have a program." in less than 12 hours?
It's January, and there's a friggin' tornado watch
in the southeastern corner- nearly the southeast quarter- of the state.
Just in case you'd never heard of this "Oops!" from the FBI,
here's a piece on it at High Road.
Short version: FBI for years said their lab could analyze the bullet lead or fragments at a crime scene, compare them to bullets in a box owned by a suspect and declare "This bullet did/did not come from this box."
Until it was proven that this was bullcrap. Now a bunch of cases are under review, and probably a lot more should be.
You think about it, this should have been questioned from the beginning. Ammo companies get lead by the ton daily; being honest, all you could say was "This bullet came from the same batch of lead as was used in making this box of cartridges. Along with about a million others." But that doesn't impress people with your EffingBI Lab wizardry and put people in prison.
Short version: FBI for years said their lab could analyze the bullet lead or fragments at a crime scene, compare them to bullets in a box owned by a suspect and declare "This bullet did/did not come from this box."
Until it was proven that this was bullcrap. Now a bunch of cases are under review, and probably a lot more should be.
You think about it, this should have been questioned from the beginning. Ammo companies get lead by the ton daily; being honest, all you could say was "This bullet came from the same batch of lead as was used in making this box of cartridges. Along with about a million others." But that doesn't impress people with your EffingBI Lab wizardry and put people in prison.
Oooh, some very nice cups and mugs
here, Dark River Pottery and Forge.
Know what I want? From S.M. Stirling's Fifth Millenium series, a statue of Glitch, godlet of fuckups; Shkai'ra described him as 'the deity you pray will ignore you as much as possible."
Know what I want? From S.M. Stirling's Fifth Millenium series, a statue of Glitch, godlet of fuckups; Shkai'ra described him as 'the deity you pray will ignore you as much as possible."
Don't you just bloody love bureaucrats trying to talk around a question?
Especially when the question is "Did you know?" And "Do you have an understanding?"
And when pinned down, he didn't know. As Insty puts it, "The country is in the best of hands."
If you like bureaucratic idiots, at least.
And when pinned down, he didn't know. As Insty puts it, "The country is in the best of hands."
If you like bureaucratic idiots, at least.
And just in case anyone runs out of things to worry about,
consider the New Madrid fault system:
In the winter of 1811-12, the central Mississippi Valley was struck by three of the most powerful earthquakes in U.S. history. Even today, this region has more earthquakes than any other part of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. Government agencies, universities, and private organizations are working to increase awareness of the earthquake threat and to reduce loss of life and property in future shocks.
In the winter of 1811-12, the central Mississippi Valley was struck by three of the most powerful earthquakes in U.S. history. Even today, this region has more earthquakes than any other part of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. Government agencies, universities, and private organizations are working to increase awareness of the earthquake threat and to reduce loss of life and property in future shocks.
For further demonstration of why I despise so many government agencies
and the UN, first is this:
Food handouts were shut off Tuesday to thousands of people at a tent city here when the main U.S. aid agency said the Army should not be distributing the packages.
It was not known whether the action reflected a high-level policy decision at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) or confusion in a city where dozens of entities are involved in aid efforts.
Answer me this: does anyone actually think the hungry give a rats ass if the guy handing them food is in jeans or ACUs?
Jordan said that approval was revoked; water was not included in the USAID decision, so the troops continued to hand out bottles of water. The State Department and USAID did not respond to requests for comment.
Probably because
A: "WE are the State Department, and WE do not take such questions."
B: "I think we have a problem; people are upset and just don't understand why WE have to be in charge of giving out food."
No, Sparky, we don't.
And, at the post Insty did on this idiocy, we have this comment:
For the NGO community, to be seen co-operating with the US military was the kiss of death. NGO co-ordination meetings specifically warned against co-operation with the US military, as opposed to UN agencies. The supposed reason was that they wanted a clear line between the “killers” and those that were “there to help”. They would actually COMPLAIN that the military was out doing things like rehabilitating wells and such, whining that these were things that should be left to the aid agencies. The irony of the fact that we were all sitting in a meeting, DISCUSSING it, while the US military had already been out DOING it, was completely lost on them.
Sounds like it’s same-old, same-old. Nothing but tools, the lot of them.
And if it were left totally to the UN, people would have been dying of thirst while the UN weenies did studies on how long it should take and how many people would be needed to asses the situation so they could decide what equipment would be needed to rehabilitate the well, " and by the way we want more money."
Food handouts were shut off Tuesday to thousands of people at a tent city here when the main U.S. aid agency said the Army should not be distributing the packages.
It was not known whether the action reflected a high-level policy decision at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) or confusion in a city where dozens of entities are involved in aid efforts.
Answer me this: does anyone actually think the hungry give a rats ass if the guy handing them food is in jeans or ACUs?
Jordan said that approval was revoked; water was not included in the USAID decision, so the troops continued to hand out bottles of water. The State Department and USAID did not respond to requests for comment.
Probably because
A: "WE are the State Department, and WE do not take such questions."
B: "I think we have a problem; people are upset and just don't understand why WE have to be in charge of giving out food."
No, Sparky, we don't.
And, at the post Insty did on this idiocy, we have this comment:
For the NGO community, to be seen co-operating with the US military was the kiss of death. NGO co-ordination meetings specifically warned against co-operation with the US military, as opposed to UN agencies. The supposed reason was that they wanted a clear line between the “killers” and those that were “there to help”. They would actually COMPLAIN that the military was out doing things like rehabilitating wells and such, whining that these were things that should be left to the aid agencies. The irony of the fact that we were all sitting in a meeting, DISCUSSING it, while the US military had already been out DOING it, was completely lost on them.
Sounds like it’s same-old, same-old. Nothing but tools, the lot of them.
And if it were left totally to the UN, people would have been dying of thirst while the UN weenies did studies on how long it should take and how many people would be needed to asses the situation so they could decide what equipment would be needed to rehabilitate the well, " and by the way we want more money."
The Day After; still smells like far-left squirrels
in a circular firing squad. Which is downright glorious. I hugely dislike what the Stupid Party has become, but I despise what the Evil Party has become(which is the Evil Party); this is a great big roadblock to the EP plans and hugely encouraging to those of us opposed to it. And it really takes the shine off Obama's apple.
Speaking of roadblock,
In a statement, Erroll Southers said he was pulling out because his nomination had become a lightning rod for those with a political agenda. President Barack Obama tapped Southers, a former FBI agent, to lead the TSA in September but his confirmation has been blocked by Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, who says he was worried Southers would allow TSA employees to engage in collective bargaining with the government.
Except there was also that illegally using LE databases for personal purposes, and lying to Congress about it, and seeing us evil Right-Wing Extremists as more dangerous than people like Hasan...
I remember various media weenies having cows after the Stupid Party won control of the House and Senate during Clinton's term, including describing American voters as 'having had a temper tantrum'; well, now we have the Boston Birdcage Liner comparing MA voters to drunks who didn't know what they were doing. Yeah that's going to win people over to reading and trusting you.
If Harold Ford is a 'bold progressive leader', I have two questions:
Why do we want another socialist in the Senate?
Why are so many Evil Party bigshots having fits over his thinking about running? I mean, another 'bold socialist leader' would fit right in with so many of them...
I figured it was coming, but damn, 6.1 aftershock. Talk about scaring hell out of everybody. Good thing, the Comfort is in chopper range and taking patients in, and will be docked soon. Add that to the facilities on the Vinson, that's lots of help.
U.S. Navy divers arrived at Port-au-Prince's crippled port -- where a pier was perilously listing and two of three cranes were submerged -- to help engineers decide how much weight the docks could hold. Slowly, almost gingerly, they began to unload shipping containers from a barge that had sailed from Mobile, Ala., filled with supplies for the World Food Organization and Catholic Relief Services.
"It's really shaky down there," said one of the divers, Chris Lussier.
If you've ever done any diving, you can imagine being underwater inspecting a pier you know might fall over on you... and staying down and getting the job done, good for 'em. Get that pier back in full service it'll make a huge difference in getting supplies in and injured needing treatment out.
While the Dutch are working to silence Wilders for daring to speak(that 'Freedom of Speech' idea just doesn't go over well with PC At Any Cost idiots) things that upset some muslims, what's happening in Saudi?
A 13-year-old girl has been sentenced to 90 lashes and two months' prison in Saudi Arabia after she took a mobile phone to school.
A court ordered the girl to be flogged in front of her classmates following an assault on the school principal, according to the Saudi daily newspaper Al-Watan.
After the assault she was discovered to have concealed a mobile phone, breaking strict Saudi regulations banning the use of camera-equipped phones in girls' schools.
...
Health authorities in Jeddah have shut down an "illegal" women's fitness centre attached to a hospital, closing one of the few venues where Saudi women are able to exercise, local media said on Wednesday.
Although health officials have repeatedly blamed the high rates of heart disease and diabetes in the kingdom on poor diets and lack of exercise, health authorities said women's fitness centres were not allowed.
And there's that whole thing with the Saudis still crucifying people, too. But (your favorite deity) forbid someone dare say something that upsets any muslims.
The White House National Security Council recently directed U.S. spy agencies to lower the priority placed on intelligence collection for China, amid opposition to the policy change from senior intelligence leaders who feared it would hamper efforts to obtain secrets about Beijing's military and its cyber-attacks.
Gee, ya think?
The decision downgrades China from "Priority 1" status, alongside Iran and North Korea, to "Priority 2," which covers specific events such as the humanitarian crisis after the Haitian earthquake or tensions between India and Pakistan.
Oh, that's just bloody wonderful, isn't it?
The National Security Council staff, in response, pressed ahead with the change and sought to assure Mr. Blair and other intelligence chiefs that the change would not affect the allocation of resources for spying on China or the urgency of focusing on Chinese spying targets, the officials told The Washington Times.
Bullcrap. You make an official change like this, it doesn't matter if you're playing 'wink-wink' at some level; it's going to discourage a lot of people from keeping at seriously digging into what the PRC is up to. This just ain't good.
The FBI arrested 21 people at the SHOT show, supposedly for attempting to bribe an official from an African country. We'll see. The FBI hasn't been exactly non-political in a lot of crap over the last while, so this might be a legitimate investigation & arrests, or it could be bull.
Do you have any idea how much it pisses me off to have to write that 'We'll see if the FBI is playing games again or if this is a legitimate thing'? It's really nasty to have to admit how little trust you have in a lot of these people anymore.
And here's Tam's take on it.
On the good side, it's sunny outside and suppose to hit 60's with a fair chance of rain tonight; there's a reason Will Rogers said to wait around a bit.
I repeat, I wish I had Tam's way with words, especially when dealing with media bedwetters.
And on that note, it being bright & shiny outside, I've got stuff to take care of.
Speaking of roadblock,
In a statement, Erroll Southers said he was pulling out because his nomination had become a lightning rod for those with a political agenda. President Barack Obama tapped Southers, a former FBI agent, to lead the TSA in September but his confirmation has been blocked by Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, who says he was worried Southers would allow TSA employees to engage in collective bargaining with the government.
Except there was also that illegally using LE databases for personal purposes, and lying to Congress about it, and seeing us evil Right-Wing Extremists as more dangerous than people like Hasan...
I remember various media weenies having cows after the Stupid Party won control of the House and Senate during Clinton's term, including describing American voters as 'having had a temper tantrum'; well, now we have the Boston Birdcage Liner comparing MA voters to drunks who didn't know what they were doing. Yeah that's going to win people over to reading and trusting you.
If Harold Ford is a 'bold progressive leader', I have two questions:
Why do we want another socialist in the Senate?
Why are so many Evil Party bigshots having fits over his thinking about running? I mean, another 'bold socialist leader' would fit right in with so many of them...
I figured it was coming, but damn, 6.1 aftershock. Talk about scaring hell out of everybody. Good thing, the Comfort is in chopper range and taking patients in, and will be docked soon. Add that to the facilities on the Vinson, that's lots of help.
U.S. Navy divers arrived at Port-au-Prince's crippled port -- where a pier was perilously listing and two of three cranes were submerged -- to help engineers decide how much weight the docks could hold. Slowly, almost gingerly, they began to unload shipping containers from a barge that had sailed from Mobile, Ala., filled with supplies for the World Food Organization and Catholic Relief Services.
"It's really shaky down there," said one of the divers, Chris Lussier.
If you've ever done any diving, you can imagine being underwater inspecting a pier you know might fall over on you... and staying down and getting the job done, good for 'em. Get that pier back in full service it'll make a huge difference in getting supplies in and injured needing treatment out.
While the Dutch are working to silence Wilders for daring to speak(that 'Freedom of Speech' idea just doesn't go over well with PC At Any Cost idiots) things that upset some muslims, what's happening in Saudi?
A 13-year-old girl has been sentenced to 90 lashes and two months' prison in Saudi Arabia after she took a mobile phone to school.
A court ordered the girl to be flogged in front of her classmates following an assault on the school principal, according to the Saudi daily newspaper Al-Watan.
After the assault she was discovered to have concealed a mobile phone, breaking strict Saudi regulations banning the use of camera-equipped phones in girls' schools.
...
Health authorities in Jeddah have shut down an "illegal" women's fitness centre attached to a hospital, closing one of the few venues where Saudi women are able to exercise, local media said on Wednesday.
Although health officials have repeatedly blamed the high rates of heart disease and diabetes in the kingdom on poor diets and lack of exercise, health authorities said women's fitness centres were not allowed.
And there's that whole thing with the Saudis still crucifying people, too. But (your favorite deity) forbid someone dare say something that upsets any muslims.
The White House National Security Council recently directed U.S. spy agencies to lower the priority placed on intelligence collection for China, amid opposition to the policy change from senior intelligence leaders who feared it would hamper efforts to obtain secrets about Beijing's military and its cyber-attacks.
Gee, ya think?
The decision downgrades China from "Priority 1" status, alongside Iran and North Korea, to "Priority 2," which covers specific events such as the humanitarian crisis after the Haitian earthquake or tensions between India and Pakistan.
Oh, that's just bloody wonderful, isn't it?
The National Security Council staff, in response, pressed ahead with the change and sought to assure Mr. Blair and other intelligence chiefs that the change would not affect the allocation of resources for spying on China or the urgency of focusing on Chinese spying targets, the officials told The Washington Times.
Bullcrap. You make an official change like this, it doesn't matter if you're playing 'wink-wink' at some level; it's going to discourage a lot of people from keeping at seriously digging into what the PRC is up to. This just ain't good.
The FBI arrested 21 people at the SHOT show, supposedly for attempting to bribe an official from an African country. We'll see. The FBI hasn't been exactly non-political in a lot of crap over the last while, so this might be a legitimate investigation & arrests, or it could be bull.
Do you have any idea how much it pisses me off to have to write that 'We'll see if the FBI is playing games again or if this is a legitimate thing'? It's really nasty to have to admit how little trust you have in a lot of these people anymore.
And here's Tam's take on it.
On the good side, it's sunny outside and suppose to hit 60's with a fair chance of rain tonight; there's a reason Will Rogers said to wait around a bit.
I repeat, I wish I had Tam's way with words, especially when dealing with media bedwetters.
And on that note, it being bright & shiny outside, I've got stuff to take care of.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
A note: I keep hearing crap on news reports about the irony
of someone holding Swimmer Kennedy's Senate seat helping kill health care reform 'as Kennedy worked much of his career for such reform.'
Ah, no; Swimmer was working for socialized medicine where you'd get the care some bureaucrat decided you should be allowed to have, and that needs to go down into the grave with him.
Ah, no; Swimmer was working for socialized medicine where you'd get the care some bureaucrat decided you should be allowed to have, and that needs to go down into the grave with him.
Ok, you want something scary?
Which brings me to a second blogger who also discusses the Sullivan post and agrees with the lament (and, I would suppose, the characterization of those opposed to the government takeover of health care as “nihilists”). Nothing particularly compelling in his discussion until you get to this part:
Just bloody wonderful what so many on the left wish for, isn't it? Although I think this clown knows not of what he speaks: a classical liberal would be the antithesis of a authoritarian ruler, would be horrified at the idea of being handed- or taking- the power to 'ram things through without giving a thought'. The idea of people like that in government is a big reason why so many of the Founders were very firm about it being specifically noted that the people have a right to arms as that final veto.
Maybe some of these wishing-for-a-tyrant idiots ought to remember that.
It is at moments like this that I wish we had an authoritarian ruler who could take over for a few years, a clear-headed liberal in the classical sense who could ram things through and get them done without giving a thought to the shrieks and cackles of the deranged fringes of either side. It’s at moments like this when I think, “The USA could use a little China, or at least a little Singapore.” A benevolent despot who can engineer solutions and force them to happen.
Holy liberty loving Hannah.
How about a little USSR? A dab of Cuba? Some of Pol Pot’s Cambodia for leavening?
Just bloody wonderful what so many on the left wish for, isn't it? Although I think this clown knows not of what he speaks: a classical liberal would be the antithesis of a authoritarian ruler, would be horrified at the idea of being handed- or taking- the power to 'ram things through without giving a thought'. The idea of people like that in government is a big reason why so many of the Founders were very firm about it being specifically noted that the people have a right to arms as that final veto.
Maybe some of these wishing-for-a-tyrant idiots ought to remember that.
Such a sign of professionalism from TSA
...It would have been far more helpful had he reached out to our family and help us formulate a solution than belittle the effort.
I am insulted and appalled that a representative from the TSA would chose to make such a juvenile and insulting statement. You could have easily left the above quote off and just shared the Redress process with everyone.
It has been made quite clear to our family from both Continental and US Airlines that our son is clearly on a TSA list and they have absolutely no power in which to remove him.
If you think it's far more helpful to belittle the process rather than just giving people the information they need, then I think the TSA has far more serious issues than any of us imagine.
I look forward to getting our son off a list he's supposedly not on.
Sincerely,
Compared to these people, Barney Fife really was a dedicated professional.
Back when Reagan was first elected,
one of my lieutenants walked in that morning, raised a fist and stated "Power to the Republicans!"
Hehehehehehe.
The Stupid Party can still, in many cases, kiss my ass. But that doesn't change that this is a Good Thing.
A Republican wins 53-46. In the People's Republic of MA.
Duuuuuuude!
Hehehehehehe.
The Stupid Party can still, in many cases, kiss my ass. But that doesn't change that this is a Good Thing.
A Republican wins 53-46. In the People's Republic of MA.
Duuuuuuude!
It would appear that the Austin Police Department and BATFE
like extortion. At least when they're committing it.
Note the FOIA request, and I'll bet it's not the only one.
Austin PD just may have found itself ass deep in gators..
More over at Sipsey Street. Including this steaming pile of bullshit:
The police also made a big scene at the gun show to intimidate people. A vendor was placed in handcuffs by APD and lead through the crowd for everyone to see. He was taken outside but was later released and not arrested.
Lawsuit, discovery, more lawsuits needed.
Note the FOIA request, and I'll bet it's not the only one.
Austin PD just may have found itself ass deep in gators..
More over at Sipsey Street. Including this steaming pile of bullshit:
The police also made a big scene at the gun show to intimidate people. A vendor was placed in handcuffs by APD and lead through the crowd for everyone to see. He was taken outside but was later released and not arrested.
Lawsuit, discovery, more lawsuits needed.
Snork, if the recommendation is "John Effin' Kerry said it would work!",
then that should be your first bright red flag with a sparkler tied on the end.
I forgot to mention: Sean Cummings Irish Pub
moved to a new location here in OKC. Good booze, and I've tried some of the food; not bad at all.
And a friend of mine is performing there tomorrow evening, so I'm planning to be there.
And a friend of mine is performing there tomorrow evening, so I'm planning to be there.
Cayman Islands had a 5.8 quake
with not much damage reported.
If we're lucky, there'll be a number of these small to moderate quakes to bleed off stresses in the fault lines in the region.
If we're lucky, there'll be a number of these small to moderate quakes to bleed off stresses in the fault lines in the region.
Some more on the situation in Haiti
Among other things, at the airport,
One challenge in getting aid to Haiti has been the backlog of airplanes trying to land on the airport's one runway. Keen said it was like "pushing a bowling ball through a soda straw." He said the U.S. Air Force helped the Haiti government get its airport operational within 24 hours of the earthquake and the service is now helping to manage the air traffic control with the Haitian government determining the priorities of which planes should land first.
In the days that followed the disaster, some planes, carrying much needed emergency supplies, doctors and field hospital equipment, were turned away because there were delays in getting planes on the ground to take off. That created a backup of other planes that were flying in and needed to land.
"There were planes that were scheduled to land but didn't," he said. "The pilot at some point has to make a decision about continuing to burn fuel or divert to the Dominican Republic. . . . That's unfortunate and not what we want to see."
Another problem at the airfield, Keen said, has been that air traffic control officials often didn't know what was aboard incoming planes so that made it difficult to prioritize which ones should land first -- an issue that he said is being fixed. And there was only one forklift at the airport when U.S. military arrived to help. More equipment has been brought in to help quickly unload planes.
Very happily, a lot of Haitians are stepping up to help control and run things:
Despite the initial chaos of the event, Foster called it a success. Haitian volunteers came forward to organize the distribution and to help in providing security.
"They were ones who got all of the kids up the hill and brought them first, not us. I think that's an enormously positive step," Foster said. "The handful of times you may have seen a guy or two want to get rowdy, they policed those guys up themselves. I think that is very, very important to how this continues to flow."
Really, what you both expect and hope for: unless people have been beaten completely into the ground, there are those who'll step up; and every one that does makes the whole job that much easier.
Both links pointed to by Insty.
One challenge in getting aid to Haiti has been the backlog of airplanes trying to land on the airport's one runway. Keen said it was like "pushing a bowling ball through a soda straw." He said the U.S. Air Force helped the Haiti government get its airport operational within 24 hours of the earthquake and the service is now helping to manage the air traffic control with the Haitian government determining the priorities of which planes should land first.
In the days that followed the disaster, some planes, carrying much needed emergency supplies, doctors and field hospital equipment, were turned away because there were delays in getting planes on the ground to take off. That created a backup of other planes that were flying in and needed to land.
"There were planes that were scheduled to land but didn't," he said. "The pilot at some point has to make a decision about continuing to burn fuel or divert to the Dominican Republic. . . . That's unfortunate and not what we want to see."
Another problem at the airfield, Keen said, has been that air traffic control officials often didn't know what was aboard incoming planes so that made it difficult to prioritize which ones should land first -- an issue that he said is being fixed. And there was only one forklift at the airport when U.S. military arrived to help. More equipment has been brought in to help quickly unload planes.
Very happily, a lot of Haitians are stepping up to help control and run things:
Despite the initial chaos of the event, Foster called it a success. Haitian volunteers came forward to organize the distribution and to help in providing security.
"They were ones who got all of the kids up the hill and brought them first, not us. I think that's an enormously positive step," Foster said. "The handful of times you may have seen a guy or two want to get rowdy, they policed those guys up themselves. I think that is very, very important to how this continues to flow."
Really, what you both expect and hope for: unless people have been beaten completely into the ground, there are those who'll step up; and every one that does makes the whole job that much easier.
Both links pointed to by Insty.
Steyn has a very good question
about this.
The Grade 12 students from a high school in South Slocan, B.C., and seven adult chaperones were on a mission to set up a goat farm in a town about 45 kilometres outside the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.
Question is,
Even by the standards of Third World dysfunction, what country is such a basket case that it needs outside help to set up a goat farm?
The Grade 12 students from a high school in South Slocan, B.C., and seven adult chaperones were on a mission to set up a goat farm in a town about 45 kilometres outside the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.
Question is,
Even by the standards of Third World dysfunction, what country is such a basket case that it needs outside help to set up a goat farm?
As some of the media weenies seem to have developed a case of the vapors about Trijicon,
as noted here and here, I have to wonder just how desperate these clowns are to find something to define as a 'problem'.
If you've ever looked through one of the ACOG gunsights, you've wanted one. The things are expensive, simply because you pay for quality; they're designed to work in the worst conditions, and keep working in use that would trash a lot of other sights in short order. A while back son told me he'd finally managed to get one issued to him; he considers it the best gunsight he's ever used, period.
I'm going to steal Kim's comment:
The ACOG was developed by Trijicon without government funding AND is available commercially. That makes it COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) equipment. That they put an engraving as part of their design on it is their business. If the government decides the device meets it's requirements and wants a version without said engraving, that would be a special order at the least. Can't say what that will do to the price. This is not a government conspiracy to push religion. Unless someone can find evidence this was bought because of the engraving, there is no case that this is the government sponsoring religion.
Yep. This was designed and built by a private company. The government started buying them because they're damn good equipment and the troops wanted them. All this bullcrap being stirred up is one more instance of some media weenies looking for something so scream about.
If you've ever looked through one of the ACOG gunsights, you've wanted one. The things are expensive, simply because you pay for quality; they're designed to work in the worst conditions, and keep working in use that would trash a lot of other sights in short order. A while back son told me he'd finally managed to get one issued to him; he considers it the best gunsight he's ever used, period.
I'm going to steal Kim's comment:
The ACOG was developed by Trijicon without government funding AND is available commercially. That makes it COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) equipment. That they put an engraving as part of their design on it is their business. If the government decides the device meets it's requirements and wants a version without said engraving, that would be a special order at the least. Can't say what that will do to the price. This is not a government conspiracy to push religion. Unless someone can find evidence this was bought because of the engraving, there is no case that this is the government sponsoring religion.
Yep. This was designed and built by a private company. The government started buying them because they're damn good equipment and the troops wanted them. All this bullcrap being stirred up is one more instance of some media weenies looking for something so scream about.
The one thing I will say about MLK day yesterday
I'm pretty damn sick of people who act like nothing has changed in the last fifty years demanding 'Change!' as if someone was still not allowed to use the one drinking fountain in the building.
I just heard a bit of audio from someone talking about how 'it took forty years to fix America, and it may take (something) years more to fix Oklahoma'. Well, bullshit.
When the people saying this crap start demanding no preferences for anyone, regardless of color/whatever, equal treatment- period- for everyone, maybe I'll decide they're something other than some level of RWPP with their hand out. As long as they keep calling for racial quotas and preferences, screw 'em.
I just heard a bit of audio from someone talking about how 'it took forty years to fix America, and it may take (something) years more to fix Oklahoma'. Well, bullshit.
When the people saying this crap start demanding no preferences for anyone, regardless of color/whatever, equal treatment- period- for everyone, maybe I'll decide they're something other than some level of RWPP with their hand out. As long as they keep calling for racial quotas and preferences, screw 'em.
I wonder if any of the people accusing us of 'occupying' Haiti
have actually volunteered to take over the duties. Has France formally demanded to take over air traffic control duties, for instance? Has the UN- well, hell, I really don't care much about the UN.
During a visit to Haiti on Sunday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon conceded that international search-and-rescue teams needed to be "more balanced" in looking for victims of all nationalities and not just their own. He also suggested too few teams had been sent—even though on Friday, the U.N. had appealed to nations not to send any more rescue squads.
On Monday, he asked the U.N. Security Council to authorize 2,000 more peacekeepers and 1,500 more U.N. police for Haiti. "The heartbreaking scenes I saw yesterday [in Haiti] compel us to act quickly," Mr. Ban said. "I saw mass destruction and mass need."
Let's review: we're being told about the wonderful UN system to 'organize' relief; from an organization that didn't even get people on the scene in Aceh(as I recall) for more than a week, and then their first concerns were getting hotel rooms and catering for the teams that would show up to 'evaluate and prepare response plans'. Us, the Aussies and Japan had people on the ground within, what less than 48 hours? And a big effort underway before the UN clowns even arrived. But we're supposed to consider what's going on as organized as it is primarily because of the UN? Uh huh.
Let's see, Haiti is a third-world craphole that had a Presidential Palace but no real disaster setup of its own before the quake hit. Severe damage to the port(so you can't move stuff in by ship as fast), only one runway operating, severe damage to roads and bridges, most of the roads were crap in the first place... It doesn't matter who's in charge, getting this mess organized(as much as can) and relief getting out is going to take time. And that means people are going to suffer, some are going to die before help gets to them. Which sucks. If you know of any way to make it work better, please pass it on to the people working on this; they'd love to hear it.
I tend to whack on the UN a lot. Be it said, there are a lot of people in that organization who really do want to help others; they seem to be far outnumbered, at least in the control levels, by people who want to take over. The world, preferably, they think will be better off with someone like themselves running it. The level of corruption could make politicians in Chicago envious, the inefficiency is incredible, and the scapegoating is disgusting. Being an honest guy at the UN has to be like being an honest cop in New Orleans: hard as hell to keep going and stay straight.
By the way, a guy over at Insty wrote him and had this:
I read the other day that Bill Clinton arrived in a 757, and that Hilary’s arrival crowded out an aid plane.
Wouldn't surprise me at all. High-ranking politicians and hangers-on have a bad habit of thinking everything else should stop while Their Highnesses fly in or whatever; think of being the ATC in the tower having to clear traffic for some idiot like this to land(I can imagine some colonel saying something like "Lieutenant, I don't like it either, now carry out the damned order!") when the flights you have to divert have relief supplies or rescue workers and such; be frustrating as hell. Politicians flying in should find a place on one of the aid flights, or if they can't do that come in by the least disruptive method possible. Of course, if they did that they wouldn't be on their private 737 or whatever, and then how would people know how important they are?
During a visit to Haiti on Sunday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon conceded that international search-and-rescue teams needed to be "more balanced" in looking for victims of all nationalities and not just their own. He also suggested too few teams had been sent—even though on Friday, the U.N. had appealed to nations not to send any more rescue squads.
On Monday, he asked the U.N. Security Council to authorize 2,000 more peacekeepers and 1,500 more U.N. police for Haiti. "The heartbreaking scenes I saw yesterday [in Haiti] compel us to act quickly," Mr. Ban said. "I saw mass destruction and mass need."
Let's review: we're being told about the wonderful UN system to 'organize' relief; from an organization that didn't even get people on the scene in Aceh(as I recall) for more than a week, and then their first concerns were getting hotel rooms and catering for the teams that would show up to 'evaluate and prepare response plans'. Us, the Aussies and Japan had people on the ground within, what less than 48 hours? And a big effort underway before the UN clowns even arrived. But we're supposed to consider what's going on as organized as it is primarily because of the UN? Uh huh.
Let's see, Haiti is a third-world craphole that had a Presidential Palace but no real disaster setup of its own before the quake hit. Severe damage to the port(so you can't move stuff in by ship as fast), only one runway operating, severe damage to roads and bridges, most of the roads were crap in the first place... It doesn't matter who's in charge, getting this mess organized(as much as can) and relief getting out is going to take time. And that means people are going to suffer, some are going to die before help gets to them. Which sucks. If you know of any way to make it work better, please pass it on to the people working on this; they'd love to hear it.
I tend to whack on the UN a lot. Be it said, there are a lot of people in that organization who really do want to help others; they seem to be far outnumbered, at least in the control levels, by people who want to take over. The world, preferably, they think will be better off with someone like themselves running it. The level of corruption could make politicians in Chicago envious, the inefficiency is incredible, and the scapegoating is disgusting. Being an honest guy at the UN has to be like being an honest cop in New Orleans: hard as hell to keep going and stay straight.
By the way, a guy over at Insty wrote him and had this:
I read the other day that Bill Clinton arrived in a 757, and that Hilary’s arrival crowded out an aid plane.
Wouldn't surprise me at all. High-ranking politicians and hangers-on have a bad habit of thinking everything else should stop while Their Highnesses fly in or whatever; think of being the ATC in the tower having to clear traffic for some idiot like this to land(I can imagine some colonel saying something like "Lieutenant, I don't like it either, now carry out the damned order!") when the flights you have to divert have relief supplies or rescue workers and such; be frustrating as hell. Politicians flying in should find a place on one of the aid flights, or if they can't do that come in by the least disruptive method possible. Of course, if they did that they wouldn't be on their private 737 or whatever, and then how would people know how important they are?
A timeline on the New Black Panther case
here, including this:
Flagrant Justice Department stonewalling of numerous outside inquiries concerning the case already had deepened the suspicion that high-level political interference was involved. Now a new analysis shows that the top Justice political appointee positively identified as having approved the controversial decisions, Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, had a strange habit of consulting key White House lawyers in person at exactly the times the key Black Panther decisions were being made - but very rarely visiting the White House when Black Panther matters were not pressing. (See the accompanying timeline.) The Justice Department last week explicitly refused to respond to an "interrogatory" by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights about Mr. Perrelli's involvement.
From what I've read, there are a bunch of 'civil rights' weenies involved in this and similar cases who believe that ONLY minorities(especially blacks) can suffer from voter intimidation; that it's somehow not right to press such a case against a minority(especially a black) who commits this crime. Well, bullshit.
I don't care what color or religion or whatever the offender is, same about the victims; anyone who does what these NBP clowns did is a criminal, and should be prosecuted as such. Along with the simple fact that it's not right for someone to be given a pass on this crap, the splatter from such an action is horrible. To quote,
In his farewell remarks to his Civil Rights Division colleagues before being exiled to a South Carolina office (and after being ordered by superiors not to comply with a subpoena from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights), Mr. Coates reportedly said the division's focus under Mr. Obama is at risk of "enforc[ing] the Voting Rights Act in a racially biased fashion and turn[ing] a blind eye whenever incidents arise that indicate that minority persons have acted improperly in voting matters." Members of the Civil Rights Commission likewise have indicated that they are worried about a potentially inequitable administration of justice - a concern that appears to undergird its formal investigation into the matter.
Exactly. If people are actually given reason to believe the 'Justice' Department(which is what it becomes) will or will not file a case depending on the skin color or whatever of the crook... then why trust them? Not just on this, on anything? That's a road we really don't want to go down.*
Anyone who pushes for NBP and similar thugs to be given a pass on this is as big a racist as some guy in a sheet who wants the niggers** to keep in their place; just as big a racist, and just as disgusting an attitude.
*Yes, I know we've had such problems in the past; it was bad then, and no better now. Making this kind of crap the unwritten(with some of these idiots, maybe written) policy would be disastrous.
**I've seen all kinds of workarounds to using that word, and people screaming about it being used in any way; fact is, in this context, it's no worse than that NBP clown calling whites crackers, and that's been published all over.
Flagrant Justice Department stonewalling of numerous outside inquiries concerning the case already had deepened the suspicion that high-level political interference was involved. Now a new analysis shows that the top Justice political appointee positively identified as having approved the controversial decisions, Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, had a strange habit of consulting key White House lawyers in person at exactly the times the key Black Panther decisions were being made - but very rarely visiting the White House when Black Panther matters were not pressing. (See the accompanying timeline.) The Justice Department last week explicitly refused to respond to an "interrogatory" by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights about Mr. Perrelli's involvement.
From what I've read, there are a bunch of 'civil rights' weenies involved in this and similar cases who believe that ONLY minorities(especially blacks) can suffer from voter intimidation; that it's somehow not right to press such a case against a minority(especially a black) who commits this crime. Well, bullshit.
I don't care what color or religion or whatever the offender is, same about the victims; anyone who does what these NBP clowns did is a criminal, and should be prosecuted as such. Along with the simple fact that it's not right for someone to be given a pass on this crap, the splatter from such an action is horrible. To quote,
In his farewell remarks to his Civil Rights Division colleagues before being exiled to a South Carolina office (and after being ordered by superiors not to comply with a subpoena from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights), Mr. Coates reportedly said the division's focus under Mr. Obama is at risk of "enforc[ing] the Voting Rights Act in a racially biased fashion and turn[ing] a blind eye whenever incidents arise that indicate that minority persons have acted improperly in voting matters." Members of the Civil Rights Commission likewise have indicated that they are worried about a potentially inequitable administration of justice - a concern that appears to undergird its formal investigation into the matter.
Exactly. If people are actually given reason to believe the 'Justice' Department(which is what it becomes) will or will not file a case depending on the skin color or whatever of the crook... then why trust them? Not just on this, on anything? That's a road we really don't want to go down.*
Anyone who pushes for NBP and similar thugs to be given a pass on this is as big a racist as some guy in a sheet who wants the niggers** to keep in their place; just as big a racist, and just as disgusting an attitude.
*Yes, I know we've had such problems in the past; it was bad then, and no better now. Making this kind of crap the unwritten(with some of these idiots, maybe written) policy would be disastrous.
**I've seen all kinds of workarounds to using that word, and people screaming about it being used in any way; fact is, in this context, it's no worse than that NBP clown calling whites crackers, and that's been published all over.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Between the politicians who use the oath they swore as toilet paper-
and the Constitution as well- and the miserable excuses for reporters known as 'journalists' making sure we hear as little as possible about the enemy(the journalists must flat hate this here internet thingy), it's enough to ruin your mood.
Or consider a bigger coil of rope.
First, as to the video at right. Its context is the May 9, 2009 White House Correspondents Association Dinner. At which White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel uttered the following:
"When you think about the First Amendment...you think it's highly overrated."
Emanuel said this to an unidentified entertainment reporter (I did not toil too strenuously to ascertain his identity). But said scribe seemed a little bewildered by Emanuel's assertion, despite the obvious mirth in Rahm's face as he delivers the line - at the Correspondents' Dinner. The irony appears to escape the man with the microphone.
But given how the Administration has gone on to handle all things First Amendment, perhaps this journalist is not humor-addled, but prescient. Let us now place Emanuel's remark into the proper Administrative context.
And, moving on to the 'journalists',
The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) issued this directive a couple of weeks after 9/11; for sheer propaganda, their “Diversity Guidelines” are hard to beat. In fact, the enemy who attacked our country in an attempt to bring it down may just as well have been writing the narrative.
The “guidelines,” adopted at the Society’s national convention on October 6, 2001, urges journalists to “take steps against racial profiling in their coverage of the war on terrorism and to reaffirm their commitment to use language that is informative and not inflammatory.”
...
Regularly seek out a variety of perspectives for your opinion pieces. Check your coverage against the five Maynard Institute for Journalism Education fault lines of race and ethnicity, class, geography, gender and generation.
...
Who cares if the jihadis call themselves Muslims and say they’re fighting for Islam? Celebrate diversity!
Etc., et-effing-cetera. From people who- ah hell, you already know.
Friend who's been looking at my electronic soapbox for the past couple of days told me "You're very political, aren't you?" I guess I have become so; being faced with crap like this over and over, hard not to become political.
Or consider a bigger coil of rope.
First, as to the video at right. Its context is the May 9, 2009 White House Correspondents Association Dinner. At which White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel uttered the following:
"When you think about the First Amendment...you think it's highly overrated."
Emanuel said this to an unidentified entertainment reporter (I did not toil too strenuously to ascertain his identity). But said scribe seemed a little bewildered by Emanuel's assertion, despite the obvious mirth in Rahm's face as he delivers the line - at the Correspondents' Dinner. The irony appears to escape the man with the microphone.
But given how the Administration has gone on to handle all things First Amendment, perhaps this journalist is not humor-addled, but prescient. Let us now place Emanuel's remark into the proper Administrative context.
And, moving on to the 'journalists',
The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) issued this directive a couple of weeks after 9/11; for sheer propaganda, their “Diversity Guidelines” are hard to beat. In fact, the enemy who attacked our country in an attempt to bring it down may just as well have been writing the narrative.
The “guidelines,” adopted at the Society’s national convention on October 6, 2001, urges journalists to “take steps against racial profiling in their coverage of the war on terrorism and to reaffirm their commitment to use language that is informative and not inflammatory.”
...
Regularly seek out a variety of perspectives for your opinion pieces. Check your coverage against the five Maynard Institute for Journalism Education fault lines of race and ethnicity, class, geography, gender and generation.
...
Avoid using terms such as ‘jihad’ unless you are certain of their precise meaning and include the context when they are used in quotations. The basic meaning of ‘jihad’ is to exert oneself for the good of Islam and to better oneself…Avoid using word combinations such as ‘Islamic terrorist’ or ‘Muslim extremist’ that are misleading because they link whole religions to criminal activity. Be specific: Alternate choices, depending on context, include ‘Al Qaeda terrorists’ or, to describe the broad range of groups involved in Islamic politics, ‘political Islamists.’ Do not use religious characterizations as shorthand when geographic, political, socioeconomic or other distinctions might be more accurate.”
Who cares if the jihadis call themselves Muslims and say they’re fighting for Islam? Celebrate diversity!
Etc., et-effing-cetera. From people who- ah hell, you already know.
Friend who's been looking at my electronic soapbox for the past couple of days told me "You're very political, aren't you?" I guess I have become so; being faced with crap like this over and over, hard not to become political.
The idea of further strong quakes in the Caribbean isn't surprising,
but I wasn't aware of this part:
Satellite measurements show that the Caribbean plate is moving east over the Atlantic plate at around 2 centimetres per year. Measurements over several decades show that the sum of all earthquakes that strike on "splinter faults" on the Caribbean plate, like Tuesday's, have accounted for around half of the energy associated with this movement, leaving the other half stored up in the system. Some of the remainder may be accommodated by slow creep along the region's faults, but McGuire and his colleagues are concerned that much of the stress may be accumulating on the undersea thrust fault to the east.
...
If that stress were to be released on the submarine fault, it could trigger a catastrophic tsunami of the scale of the 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean disaster.
McGuire released a report warning of this danger in 2008 (PDF). Along with the entire Caribbean, Central America, the Gulf coast of the US and the north coast of South America would be at risk from such a tsunami.
In particular, geological measurements indicate that stress is building in the section of submarine fault between easternmost Dominican Republic and the island of Guadeloupe. Large earthquakes of magnitude 8.5 to 9.0 could rupture the entire 1000-kilometre length of the fault, McGuire and his colleagues wrote in their report.
A thrust quake that breaks loose a 600-mile fault line? Yeeks. That would be Bad.
I've read a bit on quakes, but for some reason never read- or noticed, one- this subduction zone. A tsunami rolling up from the Caribbean into the Gulf... Make that Very Bad. And that's not counting the damage from the quake itself.
Pointed to by Insty.
Satellite measurements show that the Caribbean plate is moving east over the Atlantic plate at around 2 centimetres per year. Measurements over several decades show that the sum of all earthquakes that strike on "splinter faults" on the Caribbean plate, like Tuesday's, have accounted for around half of the energy associated with this movement, leaving the other half stored up in the system. Some of the remainder may be accommodated by slow creep along the region's faults, but McGuire and his colleagues are concerned that much of the stress may be accumulating on the undersea thrust fault to the east.
...
If that stress were to be released on the submarine fault, it could trigger a catastrophic tsunami of the scale of the 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean disaster.
McGuire released a report warning of this danger in 2008 (PDF). Along with the entire Caribbean, Central America, the Gulf coast of the US and the north coast of South America would be at risk from such a tsunami.
In particular, geological measurements indicate that stress is building in the section of submarine fault between easternmost Dominican Republic and the island of Guadeloupe. Large earthquakes of magnitude 8.5 to 9.0 could rupture the entire 1000-kilometre length of the fault, McGuire and his colleagues wrote in their report.
A thrust quake that breaks loose a 600-mile fault line? Yeeks. That would be Bad.
I've read a bit on quakes, but for some reason never read- or noticed, one- this subduction zone. A tsunami rolling up from the Caribbean into the Gulf... Make that Very Bad. And that's not counting the damage from the quake itself.
Pointed to by Insty.
As Kevin once said, it may be too late
Instead of bitching at us about air-traffic control in Haiti,
I think France needs to be having words with Chavez & Co.
But then, that would be arguing with an actual commie dictator, wouldn't it?
But then, that would be arguing with an actual commie dictator, wouldn't it?
Hey, Chavez, you can't even produce enough electricity
to keep your cities lit; we produce this:
When not actively deployed, Comfort is kept in a state of reduced operations in Baltimore harbor. She has been used many times over the years and has been ready to ship out of Baltimore with 5 days' notice.
Patient Capacity:
Intensive care wards: 80 beds
Recovery wards: 20 beds
Intermediate care wards: 280 beds
Light care wards: 120 beds
Limited care wards: 500 beds
Total Patient Capacity: 1000 beds
Operating Rooms: 12
Departments and Facilities:
Casualty reception
Intensive care unit
Radiological services
Main laboratory plus satellite lab
Central sterile receiving
Medical supply/pharmacy
Physical therapy and burn care
Dental services
Optometry/lens lab
Morgue
Laundry
Oxygen producing plants (two)
Medical Photography
Four distilling plants to make drinking water from sea water (300,000 gallons per day)
Flight deck can handle world's largest military helicopters (CH-53D, CH-53E, MH-53E, Mi-17)
But you go right ahead whining about the 'invasion' the US is carrying out; and we'll keep ignoring you as the communist asshat you are.
When not actively deployed, Comfort is kept in a state of reduced operations in Baltimore harbor. She has been used many times over the years and has been ready to ship out of Baltimore with 5 days' notice.
Patient Capacity:
Intensive care wards: 80 beds
Recovery wards: 20 beds
Intermediate care wards: 280 beds
Light care wards: 120 beds
Limited care wards: 500 beds
Total Patient Capacity: 1000 beds
Operating Rooms: 12
Departments and Facilities:
Casualty reception
Intensive care unit
Radiological services
Main laboratory plus satellite lab
Central sterile receiving
Medical supply/pharmacy
Physical therapy and burn care
Dental services
Optometry/lens lab
Morgue
Laundry
Oxygen producing plants (two)
Medical Photography
Four distilling plants to make drinking water from sea water (300,000 gallons per day)
Flight deck can handle world's largest military helicopters (CH-53D, CH-53E, MH-53E, Mi-17)
But you go right ahead whining about the 'invasion' the US is carrying out; and we'll keep ignoring you as the communist asshat you are.
The sun is shining, it's supposed to hit 60 today,
and the "Glaciers will disappear!" weenies are full of crap(which we already knew, but):
A WARNING that climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 is likely to be retracted after a series of scientific blunders by the United Nations body that issued it.
Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world's glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.
In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC's 2007 report.
It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.
From Tim Blair:
"Yet surely the IPCC had the sense to review this claim and not overplay it? They didn’t:
A WARNING that climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 is likely to be retracted after a series of scientific blunders by the United Nations body that issued it.
Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world's glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.
In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC's 2007 report.
It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.
From Tim Blair:
"Yet surely the IPCC had the sense to review this claim and not overplay it? They didn’t:
When finally published, the IPCC report did give its source as the WWF study but went further, suggesting the likelihood of the glaciers melting was “very high”. The IPCC defines this as having a probability of greater than 90%.
The London Times summarises: “If confirmed it would be one of the most serious failures yet seen in climate research.” Which is saying something. More from Walter Russell Mead:
Something is falling, but it isn’t the sky."If evidence this slender was sufficient to convince the IPCC that this threat was real, it’s clear that the panel is more like Chicken Little than a serious source of scientific information.
Heeeeeee!
This isn’t the Democratic party of our fathers and grandfathers. This is the party of Woodstock hippies. I was at Woodstock — I built the stage. And when everything fell apart, and people were fighting for peanut-butter sandwiches, it was the National Guard who came in and saved the same people who were protesting them. So when Hillary Clinton a few years ago wanted to build a Woodstock memorial, I said it should be a statue of a National Guardsman feeding a crying hippie.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Oh, this is a GREAT defense of Coakley
If, by defense, you mean "It doesn't matter what she's done, we need a Democrat in that seat!"
"But LeBlanc isn't arguing either of those positions. She's arguing something far more repugnant: She's conceding that the Amirault case was a travesty of justice, and that Coakley was wrong for her extraordinary efforts to keep Gerald Amiralut in prison. But she's then arguing that Coakley deserves a pass specifically for her actions in the Amirault case, anyway, because all prosecutors do it, and because it's what Coakley had to do to accumulate political power and move on to higher office.
"But LeBlanc isn't arguing either of those positions. She's arguing something far more repugnant: She's conceding that the Amirault case was a travesty of justice, and that Coakley was wrong for her extraordinary efforts to keep Gerald Amiralut in prison. But she's then arguing that Coakley deserves a pass specifically for her actions in the Amirault case, anyway, because all prosecutors do it, and because it's what Coakley had to do to accumulate political power and move on to higher office.
That is one hellaciously disturbing statement of values. LeBlanc is either arguing that she believes the accumulation of power and advancement of one's career is more important than justice—more important than ensuring that innocent people don't rot behind bars—or that she's willing to give a pass to politicians who do.
Actually, not just a pass, but a promotion."
I'm sure this is going to turn out to be our fault, too
Earthquake victims, writhing in pain and grasping at life, watched doctors and nurses walk away from a field hospital Friday night after a Belgian medical team evacuated the area, saying it was concerned about security.
The decision left CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta as the only doctor at the hospital to get the patients through the night.
CNN initially reported, based on conversations with some of the doctors, that the United Nations ordered the Belgian First Aid and Support Team to evacuate. However, Belgian Chief Coordinator Geert Gijs, a doctor who was at the hospital with 60 Belgian medical personnel, said it was his decision to pull the team out for the night. Gijs said he requested U.N. security personnel to staff the hospital overnight, but was told that peacekeepers would only be able to evacuate the team.
Up to a point I can understand this, but
Sandra Pierre, a Haitian who has been helping at the makeshift hospital, said the medical staff took most of the supplies with them.
Why? I mean, if you're so worried about security that you're bugging out, why take all this stuff with you? Especially if, as it says later, you're planning on being back the next day?
Just bloody awful.
The decision left CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta as the only doctor at the hospital to get the patients through the night.
CNN initially reported, based on conversations with some of the doctors, that the United Nations ordered the Belgian First Aid and Support Team to evacuate. However, Belgian Chief Coordinator Geert Gijs, a doctor who was at the hospital with 60 Belgian medical personnel, said it was his decision to pull the team out for the night. Gijs said he requested U.N. security personnel to staff the hospital overnight, but was told that peacekeepers would only be able to evacuate the team.
Up to a point I can understand this, but
Sandra Pierre, a Haitian who has been helping at the makeshift hospital, said the medical staff took most of the supplies with them.
Why? I mean, if you're so worried about security that you're bugging out, why take all this stuff with you? Especially if, as it says later, you're planning on being back the next day?
Just bloody awful.
I know it's old, but I still like it
4. In PT gear all the Air Force people look like glow-in-the-dark Power Rangers and you can’t even see the Army Folks.
From Neptunus Lex
From Neptunus Lex
I think the song is 'Sunday mornin' comin' down'
Starting with, of COURSE it's our fault.
Anger built Saturday at Haiti's US-controlled main airport, where aid flights were still being turned away and poor coordination continued to hamper the relief effort four days on.
And the poor coordination is because our forces there can't do the job, they're crapping on anyone not a US citizen, etc. Key line:
The crowd accused American forces, who were handed control of the airport by Haitian authorities, of monopolizing the airfield's single runway to evacuate their own citizens.
So there's one bloody runway in operation. And they're trying to keep aid coming in AND set up evacuation of people all at once in a place turned into a giant rubble pile by the quake. And it's not running real smooth, so of COURSE it's the US being bastards. Yeah. And the French are making hay with this,
"I have made an official protest to the Americans through the US embassy," he said at the Haitian airport after a French plane carrying a field hospital was turned away.
A spokesman for the French foreign ministry later denied France had registered protest, saying "Franco-US coordination in emergency aid for Haiti is being handled in the best way possible given the serious difficulties."
having it both ways, or trying to.
Ann Althouse gives her take on Coakley's(Democrat Dumbass-MA) statement about people who dont like abortion not having jobs in emergency rooms, and has two very good bits:
She's a lawyer, and she ought to know that Roe v. Wade — along with other abortion cases — does not require services. There is a world of difference between having a right to do something and having the power to make other people do things for you as you try to exercise that right. If you don't know the difference between those two things, you don't understand how rights work. Other people have rights too. Refusing to perform an abortion is not a violation of the constitutional right to privacy.
This seems lost on an awful lot of people. Your right to speak your mind does not mean I can't speak mine, no matter how much you dislike what I say. Your dislike of being offended doesn't mean you can prevent me writing something.* And, directly related to this mess, being free to have an abortion does not mean you have the right to force someone else to pay for it. But back to the matter at hand, the other paragraph I want to quote:
It is especially important to think about these values in the context of an expanding government role in areas that were traditionally left to the private sphere — medical care, for example. It's the separation of church and state, so the dimension of the state is very important. A legislator who wants the state to run more of the economy and wants a strong separation of church is threatening to have a much greater effect on religious freedom than a legislator who believes in the strong separation of church and state but also believes in small government. Now, I want to give Coakley credit for bluntly stating the import of her position: You can have your religious freedom, but you'll have to give up your job. That elicits a "wow." That is, the truth is a slap in the face.
Yes, it is. It's also a threat, that- if she has her way- would be carried out by the power of the State: "You will not perform this particular service? Yes, that's your right, but you're fired for insisting on it here." (bold mine in the above quotes)
Ah, but Orszag is a good progressive and a Friend of Obama, so he can't be held to the standards Obama wants to hold others to. Hey, if he thinks being a tax cheat isn't a problem for a Treasury Secretary, why would this bother him?
Oh no, can't have any nasty JOOOOOOSSS on the jury. Or in the courtroom. Or alive...
I can't put this any better than the guy who wrote to Insty:
“The school, which has about 440 students in grades 6 to 8 and emphasizes technology skills, was initially put on lockdown while authorities responded.”
So a vice-principal at a technology-centric magnet school freaks when a student actually uses technology, and is incompetent enough that he/she doesn’t know how it works?
Please note that among the miserable excuse for a school official's actions he
wet himself, put the school on lockdown, had the bomb-squad come out to destroy X-ray the student's invention and search his parents' home, and then magnanimously decided not to discipline the kid (though he did recommend that the child and his parents get counselling to help them overcome their anti-social science behavior).
The parents should sue the idiot and the school. For any and everything they can get. Simply because it's probably the only thing they can do that'll actually make these idiots seriously consider what they did.
Added: more from the Advice Goddess
I've mentioned politicians in uniform; politicians in intelligence agencies are just as bad, and in some cases cause even more damage. The ones responsible for this crap ought to be fired, at the least.
A key line from this newspaper article:
The thinking goes that if Brown, a political lightweight before this race, can energize the undecideds and frustrated Dems to steal Ted Kennedy’s seat over a Democrat, then the tide in the state is truly turning.
That's exactly the attitude that's helped screw things up this bad: it didn't belong to Swimmer, and it doesn't belong to the Democrat Party; and them acting like it did/does is disgusting.
Hey, they worked hard to become mushrooms for this administration; you expect them to have an outbreak of integrity now? I mean, MSNBC 'journalists' are endorsing vote fraud, so staying a mushroom is not that big a deal, it would seem.
Michael Yon has some very cool pictures of arty firing, and some info on the guns & crews. Son's old unit was upgrading to 777 when he transferred; from what he told me, between the upgrades of the guns themselves, the electronics and the coordination with the firefinder radar, these things are almost spooky in the speed and accuracy they can achieve with a good crew running them. And with some of the GPS and laser-guided shells...
And last, on the threatening politician, Linoge notes that he has apologized to Bob S. He's also taken down his blog. Horse, barn doors, etc.
Anger built Saturday at Haiti's US-controlled main airport, where aid flights were still being turned away and poor coordination continued to hamper the relief effort four days on.
And the poor coordination is because our forces there can't do the job, they're crapping on anyone not a US citizen, etc. Key line:
The crowd accused American forces, who were handed control of the airport by Haitian authorities, of monopolizing the airfield's single runway to evacuate their own citizens.
So there's one bloody runway in operation. And they're trying to keep aid coming in AND set up evacuation of people all at once in a place turned into a giant rubble pile by the quake. And it's not running real smooth, so of COURSE it's the US being bastards. Yeah. And the French are making hay with this,
"I have made an official protest to the Americans through the US embassy," he said at the Haitian airport after a French plane carrying a field hospital was turned away.
A spokesman for the French foreign ministry later denied France had registered protest, saying "Franco-US coordination in emergency aid for Haiti is being handled in the best way possible given the serious difficulties."
having it both ways, or trying to.
Ann Althouse gives her take on Coakley's(Democrat Dumbass-MA) statement about people who dont like abortion not having jobs in emergency rooms, and has two very good bits:
She's a lawyer, and she ought to know that Roe v. Wade — along with other abortion cases — does not require services. There is a world of difference between having a right to do something and having the power to make other people do things for you as you try to exercise that right. If you don't know the difference between those two things, you don't understand how rights work. Other people have rights too. Refusing to perform an abortion is not a violation of the constitutional right to privacy.
This seems lost on an awful lot of people. Your right to speak your mind does not mean I can't speak mine, no matter how much you dislike what I say. Your dislike of being offended doesn't mean you can prevent me writing something.* And, directly related to this mess, being free to have an abortion does not mean you have the right to force someone else to pay for it. But back to the matter at hand, the other paragraph I want to quote:
It is especially important to think about these values in the context of an expanding government role in areas that were traditionally left to the private sphere — medical care, for example. It's the separation of church and state, so the dimension of the state is very important. A legislator who wants the state to run more of the economy and wants a strong separation of church is threatening to have a much greater effect on religious freedom than a legislator who believes in the strong separation of church and state but also believes in small government. Now, I want to give Coakley credit for bluntly stating the import of her position: You can have your religious freedom, but you'll have to give up your job. That elicits a "wow." That is, the truth is a slap in the face.
Yes, it is. It's also a threat, that- if she has her way- would be carried out by the power of the State: "You will not perform this particular service? Yes, that's your right, but you're fired for insisting on it here." (bold mine in the above quotes)
Ah, but Orszag is a good progressive and a Friend of Obama, so he can't be held to the standards Obama wants to hold others to. Hey, if he thinks being a tax cheat isn't a problem for a Treasury Secretary, why would this bother him?
Oh no, can't have any nasty JOOOOOOSSS on the jury. Or in the courtroom. Or alive...
I can't put this any better than the guy who wrote to Insty:
“The school, which has about 440 students in grades 6 to 8 and emphasizes technology skills, was initially put on lockdown while authorities responded.”
So a vice-principal at a technology-centric magnet school freaks when a student actually uses technology, and is incompetent enough that he/she doesn’t know how it works?
Please note that among the miserable excuse for a school official's actions he
wet himself, put the school on lockdown, had the bomb-squad come out to destroy X-ray the student's invention and search his parents' home, and then magnanimously decided not to discipline the kid (though he did recommend that the child and his parents get counselling to help them overcome their anti-social science behavior).
The parents should sue the idiot and the school. For any and everything they can get. Simply because it's probably the only thing they can do that'll actually make these idiots seriously consider what they did.
Added: more from the Advice Goddess
I've mentioned politicians in uniform; politicians in intelligence agencies are just as bad, and in some cases cause even more damage. The ones responsible for this crap ought to be fired, at the least.
A key line from this newspaper article:
The thinking goes that if Brown, a political lightweight before this race, can energize the undecideds and frustrated Dems to steal Ted Kennedy’s seat over a Democrat, then the tide in the state is truly turning.
That's exactly the attitude that's helped screw things up this bad: it didn't belong to Swimmer, and it doesn't belong to the Democrat Party; and them acting like it did/does is disgusting.
Hey, they worked hard to become mushrooms for this administration; you expect them to have an outbreak of integrity now? I mean, MSNBC 'journalists' are endorsing vote fraud, so staying a mushroom is not that big a deal, it would seem.
Michael Yon has some very cool pictures of arty firing, and some info on the guns & crews. Son's old unit was upgrading to 777 when he transferred; from what he told me, between the upgrades of the guns themselves, the electronics and the coordination with the firefinder radar, these things are almost spooky in the speed and accuracy they can achieve with a good crew running them. And with some of the GPS and laser-guided shells...
And last, on the threatening politician, Linoge notes that he has apologized to Bob S. He's also taken down his blog. Horse, barn doors, etc.
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