James points to the article. I'll note that not being an LE officer, some of them, like 1 and 3, will help you get the hell out of a place/situation before it gets to the blowup point.
As somebody once said "Hell, if I'd known this was going to happen I would've gone somewhere else!"
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Remember the school using laptop webcams to spy on students?
My original post is here, partway down; now they're admitting it but claiming it was a 'anti-theft measure':
• How did the security feature work? Upon a report of a suspected lost, stolen or missing laptop, the feature was activated by the District's security and technology departments. The tracking-security feature was limited to taking a still image of the operator and the operator's screen. This feature has only been used for the limited purpose of locating a lost, stolen or missing laptop. The District has not used the tracking feature or web cam for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever.
EXCEPT,
The issue came to light when the Robbins's child was disciplined for "improper behavior in his home" and the Vice Principal used a photo taken by the webcam as evidence.
Which means ...has not used the tracking feature or web cam for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever is a flat-out damned lie. Big-ass nasty lawsuit time.
Oh, and if they wanted a 'find the stolen laptop' method, they ever heard of GPS? As opposed to 'take a picture of the (possible)thief'?
• How did the security feature work? Upon a report of a suspected lost, stolen or missing laptop, the feature was activated by the District's security and technology departments. The tracking-security feature was limited to taking a still image of the operator and the operator's screen. This feature has only been used for the limited purpose of locating a lost, stolen or missing laptop. The District has not used the tracking feature or web cam for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever.
EXCEPT,
The issue came to light when the Robbins's child was disciplined for "improper behavior in his home" and the Vice Principal used a photo taken by the webcam as evidence.
Which means ...has not used the tracking feature or web cam for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever is a flat-out damned lie. Big-ass nasty lawsuit time.
Oh, and if they wanted a 'find the stolen laptop' method, they ever heard of GPS? As opposed to 'take a picture of the (possible)thief'?
'Gun Owners Against Illegal Mayors'
That's a winner; amazing what kind of people Nanny Bloomberg associates with.
I originally put up a post on this right after I called
Smith & Wesson for a return label. Kevin put in a comment that made me decide to take that post down until the damn thing was actually on the way back to the factory; something about “How does it feel, after to Olofson case, to now have an ‘unlicensed machinegun’?” I said “Not very damned good, thank you kindly”. Then thought a minute, and deleted the post. The reasons for which really piss me off; when an honest citizen has to have that kind of concern about some EffingBI agent deciding to use you to build his arrest record or something over something like this, it’s a very bad statement on some law enforcement people. No, I don’t think somebody at the FBI or BATFE is monitoring my electronic soapbox and waiting for me to let something slip; But Olofson wasn’t trying to do anything illegal- hell, went out of his way to demonstrate his good intent- and it got him time in a federal prison.
‘This’ is the next entry in the Continuing Saga of the M&P15-22. At the range a few days ago, I discovered that it had developed a new ability: it would occasionally fire two shots with one press of the trigger. Which is both a serious safety problem and a possible legal problem(see above). So it was unloaded and cased, and after I got home I called S&W. I got a guy in Customer Service, said I had a problem and needed to return it; he asked for the SER# and my name, and said “We’ll have a shipping label on the way.” Cool, I thought, they’ve got the records from the previous two returns and I’ll have it tomorrow or the next day.
Two days later, no label, so I called. Seems they hadn’t bothered to e-mail the label, they’d snail-mailed it, and the guy I talked to said “There’s no e-mail address on the file.” Wonderful. He took the address and said “You’ll have the label within 48 hours.”
Today’s 48 hours later and still no e-mail, but the snail-mailed label came in, so the rifle is on its way back to the factory, so I thought I’d replace the post I deleted and fill out the situation report.
By the way, I don’t know why S&W bothers giving an e-mail address for ‘Customer Support’, as they don’t seem to bother reading anything that goes there. When the first problem developed I e-mailed(figuring “Why tie up the line when this can get things going?”), and when heard nothing back the next day mailed again: still nothing, so I phoned. This time, after getting the shipping stuff started I sent one detailing the problems I’ve run into with this rifle, and so far- four days later- not even a “We have received your message” or a “Stop bothering us”. So I’d say don’t bother with e-mailing them, just call; at least they do answer the phones.
Aside from the specifics, you know what bothers me? It’s a friggin’ .22 rifle, and S&W can’t make it right? Why the hell not? I've got a .22 semi-auto that's more than 50 years old, and it still works fine, and I've seen many more; so what's the problem with a company like S&W getting this model right?
‘This’ is the next entry in the Continuing Saga of the M&P15-22. At the range a few days ago, I discovered that it had developed a new ability: it would occasionally fire two shots with one press of the trigger. Which is both a serious safety problem and a possible legal problem(see above). So it was unloaded and cased, and after I got home I called S&W. I got a guy in Customer Service, said I had a problem and needed to return it; he asked for the SER# and my name, and said “We’ll have a shipping label on the way.” Cool, I thought, they’ve got the records from the previous two returns and I’ll have it tomorrow or the next day.
Two days later, no label, so I called. Seems they hadn’t bothered to e-mail the label, they’d snail-mailed it, and the guy I talked to said “There’s no e-mail address on the file.” Wonderful. He took the address and said “You’ll have the label within 48 hours.”
Today’s 48 hours later and still no e-mail, but the snail-mailed label came in, so the rifle is on its way back to the factory, so I thought I’d replace the post I deleted and fill out the situation report.
By the way, I don’t know why S&W bothers giving an e-mail address for ‘Customer Support’, as they don’t seem to bother reading anything that goes there. When the first problem developed I e-mailed(figuring “Why tie up the line when this can get things going?”), and when heard nothing back the next day mailed again: still nothing, so I phoned. This time, after getting the shipping stuff started I sent one detailing the problems I’ve run into with this rifle, and so far- four days later- not even a “We have received your message” or a “Stop bothering us”. So I’d say don’t bother with e-mailing them, just call; at least they do answer the phones.
Aside from the specifics, you know what bothers me? It’s a friggin’ .22 rifle, and S&W can’t make it right? Why the hell not? I've got a .22 semi-auto that's more than 50 years old, and it still works fine, and I've seen many more; so what's the problem with a company like S&W getting this model right?
Remember the guy who was 'profiled for having Arabic flashcards'?
Seems there's a bit more to the story than previously told.
Or rather, here’s what the federal agent could have thought instead.
Or rather, here’s what the federal agent could have thought instead.
- Physics major? Possibly knows how to make a bomb.
- Went to Sudan? One of the world’s most vibrant terrorist training camps are located there. (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad once called Sudan called the second home of the “dear, pious and revolutionary brothers.”)
- Middle Eastern studies? Right, because Columbia’s Middle Eastern studies department isn’t a hotbed of radicalism. Oh wait? It is?
On these grounds alone, I’m glad that the TSA agent erred on the side of arresting George, which is pretty much what Deb Saunders wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle. (It has since come out that George also visited Malaysia, home of Muslim extremism, and Indonesia, home of the largest Muslim population on the planet. Neither of these things should disqualify him from flying, but he shouldn’t be surprised about being screened a bit more.)
And of course the ACLU is involved, etc.Friday, February 19, 2010
Quick note: my one post on Tiger Woods
Dude, you're not a sex addict; you're a jerk. You have fame a lots of money and it gave you the opportunity to get lots of females into bed, and you kept doing that after you were married.
Addict, no; idiot, yes.
Addict, no; idiot, yes.
Two things to end the evening, both speaking of Obama & Co.
and dirtbaggery.
First, remember Holder not wanting to give the names of some of his 'Justice' Department buttmonkeys who'd worked for the terrorists/illegal combatants at Gitmo before going to the 'J'D?
In his response, Holder has given Grassley almost nothing. He says nine Obama political appointees at the Justice Department have advocated on behalf of detainees, but did not identify any of the nine other than the two, Katyal and Daskal, whose names Grassley already knew. "To the best of our knowledge," Holder writes,
First, remember Holder not wanting to give the names of some of his 'Justice' Department buttmonkeys who'd worked for the terrorists/illegal combatants at Gitmo before going to the 'J'D?
In his response, Holder has given Grassley almost nothing. He says nine Obama political appointees at the Justice Department have advocated on behalf of detainees, but did not identify any of the nine other than the two, Katyal and Daskal, whose names Grassley already knew. "To the best of our knowledge," Holder writes,
during their employment prior to joining the government, only five of the lawyers who serve as political appointees in those components represented detainees, and four others either contributed to amicus briefs in detainee-related cases or were otherwise involved in advocacy on behalf of detainees.
Holder says other Obama appointees, like Holder himself, came from law firms which represented detainees but did no work on behalf of the terrorist prisoners. But other than Katyal and Daskal, Holder does not reveal any names of any Obama appointees, nor does he mention the cases they worked on.
And Ace notes that they can't claim "I recused myself!" because
They apply a fairly narrow notion of recusal and only avoid working on cases specifically about their own clients or Gitmo. But the people who worked to release Gitmo prisoners -- as their lawyers -- work on cases involving, for example, detention at Bagram airfield in Afghanistan. And almost all the same arguments and issues in such a case apply directly to Gitmo cases -- so yes, they have a continuing conflict of interest as they work to push policies that will get their clients sprung out of Gitmo.
Miserable, corrupt little bastards, aren't they?
Speaking of corrupt bastards, it seems Sen. Specter(Turncoat-PA) is getting offers from Obama & Co. to try to help him hold that seat:
A White House spokesman this morning strongly denied an offer had been made to Sestak. Before the spokesman issued the denial, a senior Pennsylvania Democrat said Sestak’s account was met with anger by White House officials yesterday.
After yesterday’s taping, Sestak said he recalled the White House offer coming in July, as he was preparing to formally announce his Senate candidacy in August. He declined to identify who spoke to him or the job under discussion. Sestak also would not say whether the person who approached him worked for the administration or was an intermediary for the offer.
How desperate do you have to be to play games like this to try to keep Specter in office?
By the way, once again, Pres. Bush? Thanks for nothing for helping this bastard in the last election.
Explains it pretty well
When you give your money to someone in need, simply because you want to help, that’s called CHARITY.
When someone in need holds a gun to your head and makes you give them your money, that’s called ROBBERY.
When someone holds a gun to your head, makes you give your money to him for the benefit of someone in need whom he claims to represent, that’s called SPREADING THE WEALTH.
As a corollary, when someone takes out massive loans in your name and the names of your children in order to give that money to someone else, that’s called STIMULUS.
Was pointed toward a case of the 'disarm the peasants' people
in Finland pushing to ban semi-auto handguns.
And if they get that, within a few years it'll be revolvers and rifles above 'necessary' calibers or some such bullshit, and on and on until it's another (fG)Britain.
And if they get that, within a few years it'll be revolvers and rifles above 'necessary' calibers or some such bullshit, and on and on until it's another (fG)Britain.
Among other things this morning*, Romney has a LONG way to go
to convince me I'd want his ass in the White House; his attacks on the 2nd and his pushing that socialized medicine scheme in MA are great big smelly blobs of "I know what's good for you" sitting on his head releasing stink.
After leaving the concert hall, Obama went to a more exclusive fundraiser for Bennet at a local hotel, where people who had raised or paid $15,000 got a picture with the president.
This after comparing himself to Truman. And after meeting with the Dalia Lama and then scooting him out the trash door("I will stand up to China!as little as I have to to shut you people up").
So it took two months for this to leak out, and there's an argument that there's nothing to it; we'll see.
I'm sure you've heard about the guy who crashed an airplane into the IRS building in Austin. You may have already heard that despite the commie ending to his suicide manifesto, and his hard-left leanings and so forth, it's become a leftie and media(but I repeat myself) thing to paint him as a tea party guy. Which proves that both are liars and dirtbags.
Speaking of statist bastards, the Lower Merion School District officials in charge of this ought to be fired. Then horsewhipped. And every time some school brass reaches too far(searching a students car when it's not at school, etc.) this should be repeated until they get the damned idea.
More here, including The issue came to light when the Robbins's child was disciplined for "improper behavior in his home" and the Vice Principal used a photo taken by the webcam as evidence. Ok, that's flat-out proof of using this to spy on kids AND taking pictures of them. I repeat, horsewhip time.
I guess Biden claiming credit for winning Iraq caught so much crap that Obama decided to change the name so THEN he can claim credit for victory- which is a word he won't even use, but still.
"If men wrote women's magazines"
If you've got kids in school, and you haven't read any of Kevin's posts on what the assholes are doing/have done to education in this country, go read this. Read it if you DON'T have kids, because this is screwing the future of all the kids affected by it and everything they touch in the future. It starts off with Markadelphia, leftist extraordinaire, accusing Kevin of lying and paranoia, and Kevin rebuts- actually, takes him apart. Lots of links to other stuff, as usual.
Just what being PC At Any Cost has done to British police.
Once again, to borrow Tam's phrase, If the pants fit, wet them. And if you follow the Facebook link at the end, you'll get a full dose of 'teabaggers and militia and idiots and automatic weapons, oh my!'
I think I'll close it now; brass to sort and process, etc.
*Yeah, well, it was morning when I started...
After leaving the concert hall, Obama went to a more exclusive fundraiser for Bennet at a local hotel, where people who had raised or paid $15,000 got a picture with the president.
This after comparing himself to Truman. And after meeting with the Dalia Lama and then scooting him out the trash door("I will stand up to China!as little as I have to to shut you people up").
So it took two months for this to leak out, and there's an argument that there's nothing to it; we'll see.
I'm sure you've heard about the guy who crashed an airplane into the IRS building in Austin. You may have already heard that despite the commie ending to his suicide manifesto, and his hard-left leanings and so forth, it's become a leftie and media(but I repeat myself) thing to paint him as a tea party guy. Which proves that both are liars and dirtbags.
Speaking of statist bastards, the Lower Merion School District officials in charge of this ought to be fired. Then horsewhipped. And every time some school brass reaches too far(searching a students car when it's not at school, etc.) this should be repeated until they get the damned idea.
More here, including The issue came to light when the Robbins's child was disciplined for "improper behavior in his home" and the Vice Principal used a photo taken by the webcam as evidence. Ok, that's flat-out proof of using this to spy on kids AND taking pictures of them. I repeat, horsewhip time.
I guess Biden claiming credit for winning Iraq caught so much crap that Obama decided to change the name so THEN he can claim credit for victory- which is a word he won't even use, but still.
"If men wrote women's magazines"
If you've got kids in school, and you haven't read any of Kevin's posts on what the assholes are doing/have done to education in this country, go read this. Read it if you DON'T have kids, because this is screwing the future of all the kids affected by it and everything they touch in the future. It starts off with Markadelphia, leftist extraordinaire, accusing Kevin of lying and paranoia, and Kevin rebuts- actually, takes him apart. Lots of links to other stuff, as usual.
Just what being PC At Any Cost has done to British police.
Once again, to borrow Tam's phrase, If the pants fit, wet them. And if you follow the Facebook link at the end, you'll get a full dose of 'teabaggers and militia and idiots and automatic weapons, oh my!'
I think I'll close it now; brass to sort and process, etc.
*Yeah, well, it was morning when I started...
Glad I hit the range yesterday,
as it's cloudy and chilly this morning. Took a variety of boomsticks, a couple to check sighting and others just because it was a nice day and I hadn't fired them in a while.
One thing confirmed, the P14 works quite well with 185-grain cast bullets; it doesn't like the 150-grain at all.
One thing confirmed, the P14 works quite well with 185-grain cast bullets; it doesn't like the 150-grain at all.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
I've mentioned David Drake's books before; son likes them
too, which led to the following story:
In Drake's The General series, co-author Steve Stirling, in the first novel one of the units, the 5th Descott Guards, takes from a warehouse a whole bunch of red & white-checked scarves, which afterward became kind of a unit badge. Fast-forward a few years...
Son's in a cavalry unit, and I made a suggestion, which led to finally finding a suitable scarf:
So I sent a copy of the shot to Drake with the caption "...on detached duty from the 5th Descott."
Next day came a answer: "Wonderful!" and he sent it on to Stirling, who also liked it. Nice to give a bit of enjoyment to a couple of authors who've written so much stuff we like.
And yes, I did suggest he get the whole squad in scarves for a shot, but didn't think he could pull that off.
In Drake's The General series, co-author Steve Stirling, in the first novel one of the units, the 5th Descott Guards, takes from a warehouse a whole bunch of red & white-checked scarves, which afterward became kind of a unit badge. Fast-forward a few years...
Son's in a cavalry unit, and I made a suggestion, which led to finally finding a suitable scarf:
So I sent a copy of the shot to Drake with the caption "...on detached duty from the 5th Descott."Next day came a answer: "Wonderful!" and he sent it on to Stirling, who also liked it. Nice to give a bit of enjoyment to a couple of authors who've written so much stuff we like.
And yes, I did suggest he get the whole squad in scarves for a shot, but didn't think he could pull that off.
Aw crap, this post is worth it just for
this comment:
While shooting at the blue screen during scenario training at Fort Dix, I blew away a reporter by accident. The training NCO said "you are only supposed to engage the enemy" follwed by "oh wait, as you were."
While shooting at the blue screen during scenario training at Fort Dix, I blew away a reporter by accident. The training NCO said "you are only supposed to engage the enemy" follwed by "oh wait, as you were."
So a leftist professor murders- again- and now another leftist
So a bunch of the 60's radicals weren't actually nice people?
Really?
Now a key participant in the Columbia rebellion has made a startling confession. Mark Rudd, who was chairman of the SDS chapter during the disturbances, acknowledges that a fellow radical, John "J.J." Jacobs, set the fire in Hamilton Hall, and that he, Rudd, went along with the plan. The confession, a depressing postscript to the 1960s, solves a four-decade-long mystery. It offers a grim testament to just how mean things got at Columbia, and a sobering reminder that not all student radicals were starry-eyed idealists. In more than a couple of cases, they were power-hungry extremists jostling for control of the student-protest movement. And Ranum had the audacity to get in their way.
Now a key participant in the Columbia rebellion has made a startling confession. Mark Rudd, who was chairman of the SDS chapter during the disturbances, acknowledges that a fellow radical, John "J.J." Jacobs, set the fire in Hamilton Hall, and that he, Rudd, went along with the plan. The confession, a depressing postscript to the 1960s, solves a four-decade-long mystery. It offers a grim testament to just how mean things got at Columbia, and a sobering reminder that not all student radicals were starry-eyed idealists. In more than a couple of cases, they were power-hungry extremists jostling for control of the student-protest movement. And Ranum had the audacity to get in their way.
Welll, well, well, the Brady Group To Ban Guns and
Mayors Against Gun Ownership must be having fits over this.
I have a real question, no snark:
Why can't these supposedly intelligent people understand what they're dealing with?
"I think the conclusions of the report are consistent with what the secretary was saying in the region this week," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Thursday. "We have ongoing concerns about Iran's activities. We cannot explain why it refuses to come to the table and engage constructively to answer the questions that have been raised, and you have to draw some conclusions from that."
Hey, Mr. Crowley, let me put it very simply for you:
They want nuclear weapons. They want to use them on Israel. They keep telling everybody this,why can you not understand that THEY MEAN IT?
Re-read that State Department idiocy: amazing, isn' t it?
"I think the conclusions of the report are consistent with what the secretary was saying in the region this week," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Thursday. "We have ongoing concerns about Iran's activities. We cannot explain why it refuses to come to the table and engage constructively to answer the questions that have been raised, and you have to draw some conclusions from that."
Hey, Mr. Crowley, let me put it very simply for you:
They want nuclear weapons. They want to use them on Israel. They keep telling everybody this,why can you not understand that THEY MEAN IT?
Re-read that State Department idiocy: amazing, isn' t it?
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Especially since the Russians have already said they're going to sell
these planes to other countries, the decision by Obama & Co. to cut off the F-22 numbers is looking like an even more stupid decision than it did before.
Daughter took me to dinner for my birthday,
and we tried a new place: Sinbad. Good food, good service, nice place; I recommend it.
My first thought is "Where does Obama find
these clowns? Is he an incompetence magnet?
It gets worse: Brennan then went on to decry the “ignorant feelings” of Americans outraged at the jihadi attacks on American soil. And then he told Shahin and the audience of Muslim students that he “was very concerned after the attack in Fort Hood as well as the December 25 attack that all of sudden there were people who went back into this fearful position that lashed out not thinking through what was reasonable and appropriate.”
The Fort Hood jihadist slaughtered 14 innocent soldiers and an unborn baby after an Army career openly threatening the lives of our soldiers and Brennan is wringing his hands about the rest of us “lashing out” over government incompetence. He believes our true sin is not in the systemic underreacting by the military, homeland security, intel, and White House officials in charge, but in the “overreacting” of the American public.
Add this idiocy to that moron Napolitano, and we may be screwed. Makes me wonder, unless we're far more lucky than I can imagine, how many people are going to wind up dead over this idiocy.
It gets worse: Brennan then went on to decry the “ignorant feelings” of Americans outraged at the jihadi attacks on American soil. And then he told Shahin and the audience of Muslim students that he “was very concerned after the attack in Fort Hood as well as the December 25 attack that all of sudden there were people who went back into this fearful position that lashed out not thinking through what was reasonable and appropriate.”
The Fort Hood jihadist slaughtered 14 innocent soldiers and an unborn baby after an Army career openly threatening the lives of our soldiers and Brennan is wringing his hands about the rest of us “lashing out” over government incompetence. He believes our true sin is not in the systemic underreacting by the military, homeland security, intel, and White House officials in charge, but in the “overreacting” of the American public.
Add this idiocy to that moron Napolitano, and we may be screwed. Makes me wonder, unless we're far more lucky than I can imagine, how many people are going to wind up dead over this idiocy.
I have come to a conclusion:
a birthday just means I'm one year more of a old bastard than I was the day before.
Hell of a thing, isn't it?
Hell of a thing, isn't it?
On the globular warmering fraud and/or general crookedness front
we have this on Nature apparently trying to get Jones off the hook; we have NASA caught playing games with slanted/faked data and FOIA requests:
NASA stonewalled my request for more than two years, until Climategate prompted me to offer notice of intent to sue if NASA did not comply immediately.
On New Year’s Eve, NASA finally provided the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) with the documents I requested in August 2007.
The emails show the hypocrisy, dishonesty, and suspect data management and integrity of NASA, wildly spinning in defense of their enterprise. The emails show NASA making off with enormous sums of taxpayer funding doing precisely what they claim only a “skeptic” would do. The emails show NASA attempting to scrub their website of their own documents, and indeed they quietly pulled down numerous press releases grounded in the proven-wrong data. The emails show NASA claiming that their own temperature errors (which they have been caught making and in uncorrected form aggressively promoting) are merely trivial, after years of hysterically trumpeting much smaller warming anomalies.
And so on. No telling just how much taxpayer money was wasted by these people playing these games; we know that if the goal of the enviroweenies had been achieved our freedoms, our economy would have been trashed.
And by the way, Dr. Jones, considering your actions to use 'peer review' to silence people who disagreed with your True Belief, you've got a lot of damned nerve talking about hijacking the peer-review process, you crooked bastard.
NASA stonewalled my request for more than two years, until Climategate prompted me to offer notice of intent to sue if NASA did not comply immediately.
On New Year’s Eve, NASA finally provided the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) with the documents I requested in August 2007.
The emails show the hypocrisy, dishonesty, and suspect data management and integrity of NASA, wildly spinning in defense of their enterprise. The emails show NASA making off with enormous sums of taxpayer funding doing precisely what they claim only a “skeptic” would do. The emails show NASA attempting to scrub their website of their own documents, and indeed they quietly pulled down numerous press releases grounded in the proven-wrong data. The emails show NASA claiming that their own temperature errors (which they have been caught making and in uncorrected form aggressively promoting) are merely trivial, after years of hysterically trumpeting much smaller warming anomalies.
And so on. No telling just how much taxpayer money was wasted by these people playing these games; we know that if the goal of the enviroweenies had been achieved our freedoms, our economy would have been trashed.
And by the way, Dr. Jones, considering your actions to use 'peer review' to silence people who disagreed with your True Belief, you've got a lot of damned nerve talking about hijacking the peer-review process, you crooked bastard.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Gun bigots speak: one refusing to acknowledge that she was wrong before
and is wrong now, and one who wants to sell that Heller 'created a new right', and calls it a 'red herring' when we protest that people like him actually DO want to destroy a basic right; and if they can't destroy it, limit it as much as they can.
Reading this, my first thought is "The clowns who put this together
don't really care how may of our troops wind up dead, do they?"
Under the current rules of engagement, troops retain the right to use lethal force in self defense, said U.S. Col. Wayne Shanks, a spokesman for the international force.
The rules seek to put the troops in the “right frame of mind to exercise that right,” Shanks said. They require troops to ask a few fundamental questions:
• Even if someone has shot in my general direction, am I still in danger?
• Will I make more enemies than I’ll kill by destroying property, or harming innocent civilians?
• What are my other options to resolve this without escalating the violence?
They 'retain the right to use lethal force in self defense'. In the middle of a fucking battle. Isn't that just so fucking special you could puke?
Christmas said his troops might be frustrated, but understand the reasons behind the strict rules. As he spoke, Cobra attack helicopters fired Hellfire missiles nearby. Ground forces under intense fire had requested the air support 90 minutes earlier, but it took that long to positively identify the militants who were shooting at the allied forces.
"We understand the fucking DOD will hang us if we don't follow these stupid rules, and we may well wind up dead if we do follow them. Oh, we understand, all right."
The mindset of the people in charge seems to have gone from "We have a war to win" to "Winning will be nice, but it won't count if we upset anybody too badly."
Just effing wonderful, isn't it?
Under the current rules of engagement, troops retain the right to use lethal force in self defense, said U.S. Col. Wayne Shanks, a spokesman for the international force.
The rules seek to put the troops in the “right frame of mind to exercise that right,” Shanks said. They require troops to ask a few fundamental questions:
• Even if someone has shot in my general direction, am I still in danger?
• Will I make more enemies than I’ll kill by destroying property, or harming innocent civilians?
• What are my other options to resolve this without escalating the violence?
They 'retain the right to use lethal force in self defense'. In the middle of a fucking battle. Isn't that just so fucking special you could puke?
Christmas said his troops might be frustrated, but understand the reasons behind the strict rules. As he spoke, Cobra attack helicopters fired Hellfire missiles nearby. Ground forces under intense fire had requested the air support 90 minutes earlier, but it took that long to positively identify the militants who were shooting at the allied forces.
"We understand the fucking DOD will hang us if we don't follow these stupid rules, and we may well wind up dead if we do follow them. Oh, we understand, all right."
The mindset of the people in charge seems to have gone from "We have a war to win" to "Winning will be nice, but it won't count if we upset anybody too badly."
Just effing wonderful, isn't it?
Very good news that they caught this bastard,
and they need to keep him somewhere where Holder can't run to his rescue and mirandize him.
You just knew this was coming: IPCC hurricane conclusions
are crap.
Hatton performed a z-test statistical analysis of the period 1999-2009 against 1946-2009 to test the six conclusions. He also ran the data ending with what the IPCC had available in 2007. He found that North Atlantic hurricane activity increased significantly, but the increase was counterbalanced by diminished activity in the East Pacific, where hurricane-strength storms are 50 per cent more prevalent. The West Pacific showed no significant change. Overall, the declines balance the increases.
"When you average the number of storms and their strength, it almost exactly balances." This isn't indicative of an increase in atmospheric energy manifesting itself in storms.
Even the North Atlantic increase should be treated with caution, Hatton concludes, since the period contains one anomalous year of unusually high hurricane activity - 2005 - the year Al Gore used the Katrina tragedy to advance the case for the manmade global warming theory.
Say, anybody seen Al lately? No? Hmmm.....
Thre IPCC's WG1 paper states: "There are also suggestions of increased intense tropical cyclone activity in some other regions where concerns over data quality are greater." Hatton points out the data quality is similar in each area.
The IPCC continues: "It is more likely than not (> 50%) that there has been some human contribution to the increases in hurricane intensity." But, as Hatton points out, that conclusion comes from computer climate models, not from the observational data, which show no increase.
"The IPCC goes on to make statements that would never pass peer review," Hatton told us. A more scientifically useful conclusion would have been to ask why there was a disparity. "This differential behaviour to me is very interesting. If it's due to increased warming in one place, and decreased warming in the other - then that's interesting to me."
Hatton has thirty years of experience of getting scientific papers published, but describes this one, available on his personal website, as "unpublishable".
"It's an open invitation to tell me I'm wrong," he says. He was prompted to look more closely by the Climategate emails, and by his years of experience with computer modelling. All code and data on which policy conclusions are made should be open and freely downloadable, he says - preferably with open tools.
And Hatton has done what a bunch of the Climaquiddick scientists refused to do: made ALL his data & methods available; kind of like what scientists are supposed to do.
Note: at the very end there's this:
Critics point out that an increase in low-intensity storms being recorded is due to better instrumentation. Most are at sea, and thanks to radar and satellites, more are now observed.
Couple of decades back, when the 'global warming' stuff was getting started, there was a lot of "There are more tornadoes than there used to be, and it's because of the heating!" yelling; this was countered by a bunch of meteorologists pointing out that with the combination of newer radar(doppler especially) and more people around to see, a lot of them- especially smaller ones- that weren't spotted before were being reported now. The number of travelling vacuums was about the same, but more of them were actually noted and reported than before.
Hatton performed a z-test statistical analysis of the period 1999-2009 against 1946-2009 to test the six conclusions. He also ran the data ending with what the IPCC had available in 2007. He found that North Atlantic hurricane activity increased significantly, but the increase was counterbalanced by diminished activity in the East Pacific, where hurricane-strength storms are 50 per cent more prevalent. The West Pacific showed no significant change. Overall, the declines balance the increases.
"When you average the number of storms and their strength, it almost exactly balances." This isn't indicative of an increase in atmospheric energy manifesting itself in storms.
Even the North Atlantic increase should be treated with caution, Hatton concludes, since the period contains one anomalous year of unusually high hurricane activity - 2005 - the year Al Gore used the Katrina tragedy to advance the case for the manmade global warming theory.
Say, anybody seen Al lately? No? Hmmm.....
Thre IPCC's WG1 paper states: "There are also suggestions of increased intense tropical cyclone activity in some other regions where concerns over data quality are greater." Hatton points out the data quality is similar in each area.
The IPCC continues: "It is more likely than not (> 50%) that there has been some human contribution to the increases in hurricane intensity." But, as Hatton points out, that conclusion comes from computer climate models, not from the observational data, which show no increase.
"The IPCC goes on to make statements that would never pass peer review," Hatton told us. A more scientifically useful conclusion would have been to ask why there was a disparity. "This differential behaviour to me is very interesting. If it's due to increased warming in one place, and decreased warming in the other - then that's interesting to me."
Hatton has thirty years of experience of getting scientific papers published, but describes this one, available on his personal website, as "unpublishable".
"It's an open invitation to tell me I'm wrong," he says. He was prompted to look more closely by the Climategate emails, and by his years of experience with computer modelling. All code and data on which policy conclusions are made should be open and freely downloadable, he says - preferably with open tools.
And Hatton has done what a bunch of the Climaquiddick scientists refused to do: made ALL his data & methods available; kind of like what scientists are supposed to do.
Note: at the very end there's this:
Critics point out that an increase in low-intensity storms being recorded is due to better instrumentation. Most are at sea, and thanks to radar and satellites, more are now observed.
Couple of decades back, when the 'global warming' stuff was getting started, there was a lot of "There are more tornadoes than there used to be, and it's because of the heating!" yelling; this was countered by a bunch of meteorologists pointing out that with the combination of newer radar(doppler especially) and more people around to see, a lot of them- especially smaller ones- that weren't spotted before were being reported now. The number of travelling vacuums was about the same, but more of them were actually noted and reported than before.
Monday, February 15, 2010
The kind of shit your kids teachers
might be going by. And future teachers(God help us) are being taught in many socialist indoctrination centers'teachers' schools.
Dr. Jones admits the hockey-stick graph was crap
and that- well, hell, just take a look; lots of parts of the q&o with HUGE admissions:
There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not.
Whereas, before, these clowns basically said the MWP didn't exist.
[Question:] When scientists say "the debate on climate change is over", what exactly do they mean - and what don't they mean?
[Jones:]It would be supposition on my behalf to know whether all scientists who say the debate is over are saying that for the same reason. I don't believe the vast majority of climate scientists think this. This is not my view. There is still much that needs to be undertaken to reduce uncertainties, not just for the future, but for the instrumental (and especially the palaeoclimatic) past as well.
Translation: "Al, you're on your own, I won't say "The science is settled" anymore."
Ooops: I forgot a key admission. Phil Jones justifies his "hide the decline" tactics by admitting he includes tree ring proxies which are congruent with his theory and tossing out proxy series which undermine it.
Yes, I posted on this interview the other day; it just needs to be kept up as much as possible. And after having myself and others compared to Holocaust deniers for doubting AGW, it just cheers the hell out of me to bring this up again. Plus, in another example of the British press covering what our up-Obama's-ass media won't,
In an interview with The Times Robert Watson said that all the errors exposed so far in the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) resulted in overstatements of the severity of the problem.
Professor Watson, currently chief scientific adviser to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said that if the errors had just been innocent mistakes, as has been claimed by the current chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, some would probably have understated the impact of climate change.
...Professor Watson, who served as chairman of the IPCC from 1997-2002, said: “The mistakes all appear to have gone in the direction of making it seem like climate change is more serious by overstating the impact. That is worrying. The IPCC needs to look at this trend in the errors and ask why it happened.”
...Professor Watson has held discussions with Al Gore, the former US Vice-President, about creating a new climate research group to supplement the work of the IPCC and to help restore the credibility of climate science.
There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not.
Whereas, before, these clowns basically said the MWP didn't exist.
[Question:] When scientists say "the debate on climate change is over", what exactly do they mean - and what don't they mean?
[Jones:]It would be supposition on my behalf to know whether all scientists who say the debate is over are saying that for the same reason. I don't believe the vast majority of climate scientists think this. This is not my view. There is still much that needs to be undertaken to reduce uncertainties, not just for the future, but for the instrumental (and especially the palaeoclimatic) past as well.
Translation: "Al, you're on your own, I won't say "The science is settled" anymore."
Ooops: I forgot a key admission. Phil Jones justifies his "hide the decline" tactics by admitting he includes tree ring proxies which are congruent with his theory and tossing out proxy series which undermine it.
Yes, I posted on this interview the other day; it just needs to be kept up as much as possible. And after having myself and others compared to Holocaust deniers for doubting AGW, it just cheers the hell out of me to bring this up again. Plus, in another example of the British press covering what our up-Obama's-ass media won't,
In an interview with The Times Robert Watson said that all the errors exposed so far in the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) resulted in overstatements of the severity of the problem.
Professor Watson, currently chief scientific adviser to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said that if the errors had just been innocent mistakes, as has been claimed by the current chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, some would probably have understated the impact of climate change.
...Professor Watson, who served as chairman of the IPCC from 1997-2002, said: “The mistakes all appear to have gone in the direction of making it seem like climate change is more serious by overstating the impact. That is worrying. The IPCC needs to look at this trend in the errors and ask why it happened.”
...Professor Watson has held discussions with Al Gore, the former US Vice-President, about creating a new climate research group to supplement the work of the IPCC and to help restore the credibility of climate science.
I would almost give my left testicle to be there to see
Sen. Boxer(Nutcase Hypocrite-CA) get the word she'd lost; I mean, we're talking major-scale progressive and socialist heads exploding, be colorful as hell.
And the musical screams of disbelief and dismay...
And the musical screams of disbelief and dismay...
Proving that one of the curses of the US is bureacrats with nothing better to do
than screw with people,
On January 2010 American Tactical Imports Inc received official notification from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and explosives that the original barrel shroud (aka: fake suppressor) supplied with your GSG 5 SD model must be replaced. It has been determined that this shroud is regulated under the National Firearms Act. American Tactical will provide a replacement shroud at no charge for each GSG 5 SD model sold or currently in inventory.
On January 2010 American Tactical Imports Inc received official notification from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and explosives that the original barrel shroud (aka: fake suppressor) supplied with your GSG 5 SD model must be replaced. It has been determined that this shroud is regulated under the National Firearms Act. American Tactical will provide a replacement shroud at no charge for each GSG 5 SD model sold or currently in inventory.
Y'know, I'd love to see Bloomberg push this,
because seeing him charged as being involved in pushing someone to illegally buy a gun would be just wonderful.
These are the bastards that Obama wants to speak with 'without preconditions'
It wasn’t until the regime thugs had finished beating him and the 50 or so other young men they had rounded up that they checked his identity papers.
Then, when they realised that Ali Karroubi, 36, was the son of Mehdi Karroubi, a leader of Iran’s opposition Green Movement, they started beating him again – this time with sticks and batons.
“When they recognised who my brother was, the militia tried to punish him so badly,” said Mohammed Taghi Karroubi, the reformist politician’s eldest son.
“His wrist was fractured, he received so many lashes on his back and legs and his internal bleeding was so bad he was vomiting up blood. He was tortured by the basij and the police for five or six hours before they released him.”
Then, when they realised that Ali Karroubi, 36, was the son of Mehdi Karroubi, a leader of Iran’s opposition Green Movement, they started beating him again – this time with sticks and batons.
“When they recognised who my brother was, the militia tried to punish him so badly,” said Mohammed Taghi Karroubi, the reformist politician’s eldest son.
“His wrist was fractured, he received so many lashes on his back and legs and his internal bleeding was so bad he was vomiting up blood. He was tortured by the basij and the police for five or six hours before they released him.”
Even for someone with apparently political connections,
this level of coverup is freakin' insane. Even for a place as politically inbred as MA: After murdering her brother, this clown
We know that Amy then went to Dave Dinger Ford and according to Thomas Pettigrew who was working in the garage, told the Boston Herald that Bishop put a shotgun against his chest and demanded a vehicle. Pettigrew said Bishop claimed she and her husband were in a fight and he was coming after her. She was arrested in the parking lot when she exited the garage, surrounded by police with guns drawn.
She was brought to the Braintree police department where she was being booked and suddenly per direct order of Chief Polio, the booking process was ordered to stop. The Braintree Officers were inexplicably ordered to release Amy to the custody of her parents.
And Delahunt was directly involved in getting her off; question is why? What were the connections?
We know that Amy then went to Dave Dinger Ford and according to Thomas Pettigrew who was working in the garage, told the Boston Herald that Bishop put a shotgun against his chest and demanded a vehicle. Pettigrew said Bishop claimed she and her husband were in a fight and he was coming after her. She was arrested in the parking lot when she exited the garage, surrounded by police with guns drawn.
She was brought to the Braintree police department where she was being booked and suddenly per direct order of Chief Polio, the booking process was ordered to stop. The Braintree Officers were inexplicably ordered to release Amy to the custody of her parents.
And Delahunt was directly involved in getting her off; question is why? What were the connections?
And yet another "The science is sound, we just made some typos" defense
of the IPCC report. And the "Do something NOW or DIE!" bullshit. I'm going to borrow a couple of paragraphs:
Climate researchers say the errors do not disprove the U.N. panel's central conclusion: Climate change is happening, and humans are causing it. Some researchers said the U.N. panel's attitude -- appearing to promise that its results were infallible, and reacting slowly to evidence that they were not -- could undermine the rest of its work.
"What's happened here is that there's an industry of climate-change denialists who are trying to make it seem as though you can't trust anything that is between the covers" of the panel's report, said Jeffrey Kargel, a professor at the University of Arizona who studies glaciers. "It's really heartbreaking to see this happen, and to see that the IPCC left themselves open" to being attacked.
Kargel said he noticed an error in the report of the IPCC's second working group, a research unit, in 2007. The report said huge glaciers in the Himalayan mountains might disappear by 2035. Some glaciers are melting, but they are too enormous to disappear that quickly: "It's physically impossible to kill the ice that fast," Kargel said.
He said colleagues regarded the error as too ridiculous to fuss about until recently....
Ignore actual errors of fact, ignore people connected making piles of money off the report, ignore all that: "It was just some typos, and the deniers are causing problems that will kill us all!" I highlighted that line because it sums this crap up very well: "We know it's an error, but it's not worth bothering with" UNTIL it helps lead to finding a bunch of other, far more serious errors, at which point it becomes "Stop worrying about the transcription errors, just believe us because The Concensus Says We're Right!" We're supposed to ignore the inconvenient(for them) facts and just Trust The IPCC. Yeah. We're supposed to ignore things like this:
Ridley gives pride of place to Stephen McIntyre, a retired mining consultant in Toronto with a genius for forensic statistical analysis. He was the one who back in 2003 first exposed the problematical data and the sleight of hand underpinning the hockey-stick graph, which purported to abolish the medieval warming period.
Ridley notes: "He has also uncovered a mistake in data that conveniently prevented 1934 being warmer than 1998 in America; the splicing together of the records of two Antarctic weather stations as if they were one; the smoothing of sea-level rise in a way that conveniently concealed its recent deceleration; the use of a Swedish lake sediment series upside down so it showed recent warming instead of cooling; and most recently the reliance of an attempt to resuscitate the hockey stick on a ludicrously small sub-sample of just 12 Siberian larch trees."
We're really going to do that and let you destroy our economy and freedoms, sure thing.
In the latest edition of The Spectator, Matt Ridley, a veteran science journalist, offers an explanation for how the consensus came unstuck. "Despite 20 years of being told they were not just factually but morally wrong, of being compared to Holocaust deniers, of being told they deserved to be tried for crimes against humanity, of being avoided at parties, climate sceptics seem to be growing in number and confidence by the day. What is the difference?
"In a word, the internet. The `climate consensus' may hold the establishment -- the universities, the media, big business, government -- but it is losing the jungles of the web. After all, getting research grants, doing pieces to camera and advising boards takes time. The very ostracism the sceptics suffered has left them free to do their digging untroubled by grant applications and invitations to Stockholm."
...
Part of Ridley's argument is that it's distinguished scientists in retirement, who have no fear of faculty censure or funding bodies and have nothing to lose, who have led the internet revolt. In Australia, that body includes Garth Paltridge, the author of The Climate Caper, and William Kininmonth, author of Climate Change: A Natural Hazard. As well as publishing books and journal articles, both have an internet presence.
And we're back to "Who profits?" This points out one of the drivers of a lot of this bullshit: money. Push the 'right' idea and the weenies will give you grant and other money; push the information that this is mostly bullshit and they freak; some because they actually BELIEVE, many because it threatens the money train.
I'm pissed off about this stuff more than usual today, because almost got into an argument with a friend last night; forwarded the article pointing out what some of the unintended consequences of declaring the polar bear 'threatened' were likely to be and the reply was "That's silly! Hunting doesn't threaten the bears, they're going to die because the ice is all melting!" None of the facts about the increase in Arctic sea ice, none of the information coming out matters because "All the responsible scientists who aren't bought off by Big Oil say AGW is happening!"
It's enough to piss off the Good Humor man.
Added: Bore Patch has this on the subject, as to how it got so screwed in the first place and why so many don't want it un-screwed.
Climate researchers say the errors do not disprove the U.N. panel's central conclusion: Climate change is happening, and humans are causing it. Some researchers said the U.N. panel's attitude -- appearing to promise that its results were infallible, and reacting slowly to evidence that they were not -- could undermine the rest of its work.
"What's happened here is that there's an industry of climate-change denialists who are trying to make it seem as though you can't trust anything that is between the covers" of the panel's report, said Jeffrey Kargel, a professor at the University of Arizona who studies glaciers. "It's really heartbreaking to see this happen, and to see that the IPCC left themselves open" to being attacked.
Kargel said he noticed an error in the report of the IPCC's second working group, a research unit, in 2007. The report said huge glaciers in the Himalayan mountains might disappear by 2035. Some glaciers are melting, but they are too enormous to disappear that quickly: "It's physically impossible to kill the ice that fast," Kargel said.
He said colleagues regarded the error as too ridiculous to fuss about until recently....
Ignore actual errors of fact, ignore people connected making piles of money off the report, ignore all that: "It was just some typos, and the deniers are causing problems that will kill us all!" I highlighted that line because it sums this crap up very well: "We know it's an error, but it's not worth bothering with" UNTIL it helps lead to finding a bunch of other, far more serious errors, at which point it becomes "Stop worrying about the transcription errors, just believe us because The Concensus Says We're Right!" We're supposed to ignore the inconvenient(for them) facts and just Trust The IPCC. Yeah. We're supposed to ignore things like this:
Ridley gives pride of place to Stephen McIntyre, a retired mining consultant in Toronto with a genius for forensic statistical analysis. He was the one who back in 2003 first exposed the problematical data and the sleight of hand underpinning the hockey-stick graph, which purported to abolish the medieval warming period.
Ridley notes: "He has also uncovered a mistake in data that conveniently prevented 1934 being warmer than 1998 in America; the splicing together of the records of two Antarctic weather stations as if they were one; the smoothing of sea-level rise in a way that conveniently concealed its recent deceleration; the use of a Swedish lake sediment series upside down so it showed recent warming instead of cooling; and most recently the reliance of an attempt to resuscitate the hockey stick on a ludicrously small sub-sample of just 12 Siberian larch trees."
We're really going to do that and let you destroy our economy and freedoms, sure thing.
In the latest edition of The Spectator, Matt Ridley, a veteran science journalist, offers an explanation for how the consensus came unstuck. "Despite 20 years of being told they were not just factually but morally wrong, of being compared to Holocaust deniers, of being told they deserved to be tried for crimes against humanity, of being avoided at parties, climate sceptics seem to be growing in number and confidence by the day. What is the difference?
"In a word, the internet. The `climate consensus' may hold the establishment -- the universities, the media, big business, government -- but it is losing the jungles of the web. After all, getting research grants, doing pieces to camera and advising boards takes time. The very ostracism the sceptics suffered has left them free to do their digging untroubled by grant applications and invitations to Stockholm."
...
Part of Ridley's argument is that it's distinguished scientists in retirement, who have no fear of faculty censure or funding bodies and have nothing to lose, who have led the internet revolt. In Australia, that body includes Garth Paltridge, the author of The Climate Caper, and William Kininmonth, author of Climate Change: A Natural Hazard. As well as publishing books and journal articles, both have an internet presence.
And we're back to "Who profits?" This points out one of the drivers of a lot of this bullshit: money. Push the 'right' idea and the weenies will give you grant and other money; push the information that this is mostly bullshit and they freak; some because they actually BELIEVE, many because it threatens the money train.
I'm pissed off about this stuff more than usual today, because almost got into an argument with a friend last night; forwarded the article pointing out what some of the unintended consequences of declaring the polar bear 'threatened' were likely to be and the reply was "That's silly! Hunting doesn't threaten the bears, they're going to die because the ice is all melting!" None of the facts about the increase in Arctic sea ice, none of the information coming out matters because "All the responsible scientists who aren't bought off by Big Oil say AGW is happening!"
It's enough to piss off the Good Humor man.
Added: Bore Patch has this on the subject, as to how it got so screwed in the first place and why so many don't want it un-screwed.
Just because it deserves mention, from a comment
on the "We want to be servants of the Greens" Audi ad,
I don't care about Audi or the green movement, what I find offensive about this commercial and many like it is the seeming acceptance and desirability of a police state. The trend toward the "goodness" of the state authority in every facet of our lives.
from Angry White Guy
Fits very nicely with the attitude of the weenie Protein Wisdom noted:
The more I’ve thought about it, though, the more the teabaggy interpretation just doesn’t quite fit. The thrill at the end, when they guy gets to accelerate away from the crowd, turns on satisfying the green police — not rejecting or circumventing them, but satisfying their strict standards. The authority of the green police is taken for granted, never questioned. If you’re looking to appeal to mooks who think the green police are full of it and have no authority, moral or otherwise, why would you make a commercial like that? Why offer escape from a moral dilemma your audience doesn’t acknowledge exists?
The ad only makes sense if it’s aimed at people who acknowledge the moral authority of the green police — people who may find those obligations tiresome and constraining on occasion, who only fitfully meet them, who may be annoyed by sticklers and naggers, but who recognize that living more sustainably is in fact the moral thing to do. This basically describes every guy I know.
This clown, and 'every guy he knows', WANT to subordinate themselves to a 'moral' police state, they LIKE the idea. Just friggin' wonderful, isn't it?
What brought this back to mind was this piece by Steyn on the subject:
But now Audi flogs you its vehicles on the basis that it’s the most convenient way to submit to arbitrary state authority. Forty years ago, when they first began selling over here, it’s doubtful the company would have considered this either a helpful image for a German car manufacturer or a viable pitch to the American male.
But times change. As Jonah Goldberg pointed out, all the men in the Audi ad are the usual befuddled effete new-male eunuchs that infest all the other commercials. The sort of milksop who’ll buy the TDI and then, when the Green Police change their regulatory requirements six weeks later, obediently take it back to the shop and pay however many thousand bucks to have it brought it into compliance with whatever the whimsical tyrant’s emissions regime requires this month.
I don't care about Audi or the green movement, what I find offensive about this commercial and many like it is the seeming acceptance and desirability of a police state. The trend toward the "goodness" of the state authority in every facet of our lives.
from Angry White Guy
Fits very nicely with the attitude of the weenie Protein Wisdom noted:
The more I’ve thought about it, though, the more the teabaggy interpretation just doesn’t quite fit. The thrill at the end, when they guy gets to accelerate away from the crowd, turns on satisfying the green police — not rejecting or circumventing them, but satisfying their strict standards. The authority of the green police is taken for granted, never questioned. If you’re looking to appeal to mooks who think the green police are full of it and have no authority, moral or otherwise, why would you make a commercial like that? Why offer escape from a moral dilemma your audience doesn’t acknowledge exists?
The ad only makes sense if it’s aimed at people who acknowledge the moral authority of the green police — people who may find those obligations tiresome and constraining on occasion, who only fitfully meet them, who may be annoyed by sticklers and naggers, but who recognize that living more sustainably is in fact the moral thing to do. This basically describes every guy I know.
This clown, and 'every guy he knows', WANT to subordinate themselves to a 'moral' police state, they LIKE the idea. Just friggin' wonderful, isn't it?
What brought this back to mind was this piece by Steyn on the subject:
But now Audi flogs you its vehicles on the basis that it’s the most convenient way to submit to arbitrary state authority. Forty years ago, when they first began selling over here, it’s doubtful the company would have considered this either a helpful image for a German car manufacturer or a viable pitch to the American male.
But times change. As Jonah Goldberg pointed out, all the men in the Audi ad are the usual befuddled effete new-male eunuchs that infest all the other commercials. The sort of milksop who’ll buy the TDI and then, when the Green Police change their regulatory requirements six weeks later, obediently take it back to the shop and pay however many thousand bucks to have it brought it into compliance with whatever the whimsical tyrant’s emissions regime requires this month.
Unrelated to anything, a picture I won't post
Friend sent me an article and picture on a guy who peed on an electric fence. A 220-volt 3-phase electric fence(who's keeping the frikkin' elephants?). The picture was of what was left of the personal equipment.
Parts of me are still trying to hide.
Parts of me are still trying to hide.
BobG pointed out a Will Rogers saying hadn't heard,
and I like it:
"There ought to be one day-- just one-- when there is open season on senators."
-Will Rogers
"There ought to be one day-- just one-- when there is open season on senators."
-Will Rogers
Lots of people keep wondering why so many guys either don't go
to college at all, or drop out and go to work after a year or two; I've known of a bunch who did so to avoid being buried in these loans.
Ignoring other things, you have this mess: tuition and fees keep rising, so people have to borrow more and more to pay for them, which means spending years- sometimes decades- paying the loans off, and guys especially look at this and say "No."
Ignoring other things, you have this mess: tuition and fees keep rising, so people have to borrow more and more to pay for them, which means spending years- sometimes decades- paying the loans off, and guys especially look at this and say "No."
Sunday, February 14, 2010
First thing: the Long Beach Police Department
Office of Counter Terrorism?
Second, they think a bunch of Open Carry people meeting(openly) needs mention in a 'counter terrorism' update?
Second, they think a bunch of Open Carry people meeting(openly) needs mention in a 'counter terrorism' update?
On those not exactly 'vanishing' and not really endangered polar bears,
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service estimates that the polar bear population is currently at 20,000 to 25,000 bears, up from as low as 5,000-10,000 bears in the 1950s and 1960s. A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain noted that the polar bear populations “may now be near historic highs.”
And yet, based on global-warming bullshit 'studies' they've been designated 'threatened' by our idiot bureaucrats; and this is a bigger threat to them, by far, than 'global warming'. How? Read the piece for this edition of 'Unintended Consequences'.
As a note, Peter Capstick once wrote about how marking the leopard in Africa endangered- though it was no such thing- got more of them killed than legal sport hunting ever did; seems that when landowners could count on safari companies paying them for rights to hunt them, the landowners would put up with livestock predation because they nevertheless made money. But when safari companies would not pay- because no hunter wants to pay thousands to hunt a trophy he can't bring home- for hunting rights, the landowners and ranchers started treating the leopards like vermin, shooting and poisoning them to protect their livestock.
Of course, the WWF and other weenies didn't really care, they'd stopped the evil hunters from hunting them and that was more important than actually keeping the leopard populations in good health.
And yet, based on global-warming bullshit 'studies' they've been designated 'threatened' by our idiot bureaucrats; and this is a bigger threat to them, by far, than 'global warming'. How? Read the piece for this edition of 'Unintended Consequences'.
As a note, Peter Capstick once wrote about how marking the leopard in Africa endangered- though it was no such thing- got more of them killed than legal sport hunting ever did; seems that when landowners could count on safari companies paying them for rights to hunt them, the landowners would put up with livestock predation because they nevertheless made money. But when safari companies would not pay- because no hunter wants to pay thousands to hunt a trophy he can't bring home- for hunting rights, the landowners and ranchers started treating the leopards like vermin, shooting and poisoning them to protect their livestock.
Of course, the WWF and other weenies didn't really care, they'd stopped the evil hunters from hunting them and that was more important than actually keeping the leopard populations in good health.
That WOULD make quite a headline:
“…the physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests.”
And yet no headline that I remember; wonder why...
And yet no headline that I remember; wonder why...
And in the People's Republic of Maryland,
they just can't stand the idea of peasants not having to be licensed.
The plan, drafted by Delegate Samuel I. Rosenberg, Baltimore Democrat, and Sen. Brian E. Frosh, Montgomery County Democrat, would mandate that citizens carry a special license while conducting any number of routine transactions involving a gun.
...
It would become a crime to go to a gun range and rent a firearm for a little target shooting without this license in hand. Out-of-state visitors who might want to keep up their skills while on vacation would be out of luck under the proposal because they would not even be allowed to apply for a state gun license.
The bill would make it a crime on par with murder, kidnapping, rape and extortion for a private party to sell his own gun to someone who has no license. It also would give police the authority to seize the e-mail, cell phone and other records of anyone merely suspected of selling or renting a gun in Maryland without a license. This is an extreme reaction to conduct that is perfectly legal in most states and should be a constitutional right anywhere in the Land of the Free.
The plan, drafted by Delegate Samuel I. Rosenberg, Baltimore Democrat, and Sen. Brian E. Frosh, Montgomery County Democrat, would mandate that citizens carry a special license while conducting any number of routine transactions involving a gun.
...
It would become a crime to go to a gun range and rent a firearm for a little target shooting without this license in hand. Out-of-state visitors who might want to keep up their skills while on vacation would be out of luck under the proposal because they would not even be allowed to apply for a state gun license.
The bill would make it a crime on par with murder, kidnapping, rape and extortion for a private party to sell his own gun to someone who has no license. It also would give police the authority to seize the e-mail, cell phone and other records of anyone merely suspected of selling or renting a gun in Maryland without a license. This is an extreme reaction to conduct that is perfectly legal in most states and should be a constitutional right anywhere in the Land of the Free.
Ah, the wonders of the National Health Service...
THE National Health Service has spent £1.5m paying for hundreds of its staff to have private health treatment so they can leapfrog their own waiting lists.
More than 3,000 staff, including doctors and nurses, have gone private at the taxpayers’ expense in the past three years because the queues at the clinics and hospitals where they work are too long.
Figures released under the Freedom of Information act show that NHS administrative staff, paramedics and ambulance drivers have also been given free private healthcare. This has covered physiotherapy, osteopathy, psychiatric care and counselling — all widely available on the NHS.
More than 3,000 staff, including doctors and nurses, have gone private at the taxpayers’ expense in the past three years because the queues at the clinics and hospitals where they work are too long.
Figures released under the Freedom of Information act show that NHS administrative staff, paramedics and ambulance drivers have also been given free private healthcare. This has covered physiotherapy, osteopathy, psychiatric care and counselling — all widely available on the NHS.
Snork, a 'Hoplophobe Helmke-to-English' translation
which includes
Helmke explained that people in large groups are banning together and carrying their guns unconcealed into businesses to flaunt their Second Amendment rights.Translation: Helmke explained that people in large groups are exercising their rights, and that upsets him, because even through technically the Bill of Rights protects the right to keep and bear arms, people shouldn't actually assert that right, because it scares him.
Hell with tar & feathers; along with various politicians and burearucrats
who need hanging, we need to add some business people to the list; like this clown at Microsoft:
The American blogosphere is going increasingly “viral” about a proposal advanced at the recent meeting of the Davos Economic Forum by Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer for Microsoft, that an equivalent of a “driver’s licence” should be introduced for access to the web. This totalitarian call has been backed by articles and blogs in Time magazine and the New York Times.
As bloggers have not been slow to point out, the system being proposed is very similar to one that the government of Red China reluctantly abandoned as too repressive. It was inevitable that, sooner or later, the usual unholy alliance of government totalitarians and big business would attempt to end the democratic free-for-all that is the blogosphere. The United Nations is showing similar interest in moving to eliminate free speech.
Please note that those major media "We do our job, which is to decide what we want you to know" jerks like the idea. And- of course- so does the UN, who want to control every damned aspect of the lives of all on earth. And I don't doubt the Obama administration would just love it("For the safety of our children, and to stop the proliferation of bad information(we REALLY don't like people talking about us in unapproved manners), we think it necessary to implement these controls on internet access", etc.)
The recent uprising in the blogosphere that resulted in the overturning of the Global Warming consensus can only have focused our rulers’ attention more acutely on this infuriating challenge to their totalitarian control. “What will go next?” they must be asking themselves. Unrestricted immigration? Punitive taxation? Even the European Union? With the helots exploiting a loophole in the PC Curtain that has otherwise been so remorselessly drawn down over freedom of expression, the internet represents a dangerously subversive force, fulfilling the role in the West that was formerly performed by samizdat publications inside the Soviet Union.
American protesters are most vociferous in defence of their rights because that is their culture. Some of them claim that British people are being dangerously indifferent to the long-term potential for censorship of the so-called Digital Economy Bill being slithered through Parliament by Lord Mandelson. The inference they draw is that, just as Britons supinely submitted to firearms legislation that has led to a situation where “only the bad guys have guns”, we may be sleepwalking into internet slavery.
Found this at Ace
The American blogosphere is going increasingly “viral” about a proposal advanced at the recent meeting of the Davos Economic Forum by Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer for Microsoft, that an equivalent of a “driver’s licence” should be introduced for access to the web. This totalitarian call has been backed by articles and blogs in Time magazine and the New York Times.
As bloggers have not been slow to point out, the system being proposed is very similar to one that the government of Red China reluctantly abandoned as too repressive. It was inevitable that, sooner or later, the usual unholy alliance of government totalitarians and big business would attempt to end the democratic free-for-all that is the blogosphere. The United Nations is showing similar interest in moving to eliminate free speech.
Please note that those major media "We do our job, which is to decide what we want you to know" jerks like the idea. And- of course- so does the UN, who want to control every damned aspect of the lives of all on earth. And I don't doubt the Obama administration would just love it("For the safety of our children, and to stop the proliferation of bad information(we REALLY don't like people talking about us in unapproved manners), we think it necessary to implement these controls on internet access", etc.)
The recent uprising in the blogosphere that resulted in the overturning of the Global Warming consensus can only have focused our rulers’ attention more acutely on this infuriating challenge to their totalitarian control. “What will go next?” they must be asking themselves. Unrestricted immigration? Punitive taxation? Even the European Union? With the helots exploiting a loophole in the PC Curtain that has otherwise been so remorselessly drawn down over freedom of expression, the internet represents a dangerously subversive force, fulfilling the role in the West that was formerly performed by samizdat publications inside the Soviet Union.
American protesters are most vociferous in defence of their rights because that is their culture. Some of them claim that British people are being dangerously indifferent to the long-term potential for censorship of the so-called Digital Economy Bill being slithered through Parliament by Lord Mandelson. The inference they draw is that, just as Britons supinely submitted to firearms legislation that has led to a situation where “only the bad guys have guns”, we may be sleepwalking into internet slavery.
Found this at Ace
My first thought on reading this is "Professor Jones, (updated)
you're a damned liar." We're supposed to believe that neither he nor anybody else in the project had copies? No backups of any of the 'lost' data? And that(assuming the 'lost' is true), instead of saying it outright he defied FOIA requests and played games for all these years, just waiting for it to blow up in his face?
Uh huh.
And now?
Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.
And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.
...
He also agreed that there had been two periods which experienced similar warming, from 1910 to 1940 and from 1975 to 1998, but said these could be explained by natural phenomena whereas more recent warming could not.
He further admitted that in the last 15 years there had been no ‘statistically significant’ warming, although he argued this was a blip rather than the long-term trend.
And he said that the debate over whether the world could have been even warmer than now during the medieval period, when there is evidence of high temperatures in northern countries, was far from settled.
So his claim now is that the MWP was 'localized', not worldwide, etc. The piece ends with this:
Professor Jones criticised those who complained he had not shared his data with them, saying they could always collate their own from publicly available material in the US. And he said the climate had not cooled ‘until recently – and then barely at all. The trend is a warming trend’.
Please note: 'Collate your own data' is damn well not the same as 'sharing the raw data and methods'; and Jones knows it.
Mr Harrabin told Radio 4’s Today programme that, despite the controversies, there still appeared to be no fundamental flaws in the majority scientific view that climate change was largely man-made.
"We ignore the MWP and the Little Ice Age, hide and/or lose data, cherry-pick data, but there's NO fundamental flaw in our view." Uh huh. And as to the 'no fundamental flaws', how 'bout this? And this? And this?
But Dr Benny Pieser, director of the sceptical Global Warming Policy Foundation, said Professor Jones’s ‘excuses’ for his failure to share data were hollow as he had shared it with colleagues and ‘mates’.
Which would indicate Jones is a damned liar making excuses.
He said that until all the data was released, sceptics could not test it to see if it supported the conclusions claimed by climate change advocates.
He added that the professor’s concessions over medieval warming were ‘significant’ because they were his first public admission that the science was not settled.
This mess is just effing disgraceful; for a whole effing group of scientists to play these games is bad enough; when they're playing a game and using the result to try to help control our lives, it ought to be a- what's the equivalent of 'disbarment'? offense.
Uh huh.
And now?
Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.
And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.
...
He also agreed that there had been two periods which experienced similar warming, from 1910 to 1940 and from 1975 to 1998, but said these could be explained by natural phenomena whereas more recent warming could not.
He further admitted that in the last 15 years there had been no ‘statistically significant’ warming, although he argued this was a blip rather than the long-term trend.
And he said that the debate over whether the world could have been even warmer than now during the medieval period, when there is evidence of high temperatures in northern countries, was far from settled.
So his claim now is that the MWP was 'localized', not worldwide, etc. The piece ends with this:
Professor Jones criticised those who complained he had not shared his data with them, saying they could always collate their own from publicly available material in the US. And he said the climate had not cooled ‘until recently – and then barely at all. The trend is a warming trend’.
Please note: 'Collate your own data' is damn well not the same as 'sharing the raw data and methods'; and Jones knows it.
Mr Harrabin told Radio 4’s Today programme that, despite the controversies, there still appeared to be no fundamental flaws in the majority scientific view that climate change was largely man-made.
"We ignore the MWP and the Little Ice Age, hide and/or lose data, cherry-pick data, but there's NO fundamental flaw in our view." Uh huh. And as to the 'no fundamental flaws', how 'bout this? And this? And this?
But Dr Benny Pieser, director of the sceptical Global Warming Policy Foundation, said Professor Jones’s ‘excuses’ for his failure to share data were hollow as he had shared it with colleagues and ‘mates’.
Which would indicate Jones is a damned liar making excuses.
He said that until all the data was released, sceptics could not test it to see if it supported the conclusions claimed by climate change advocates.
He added that the professor’s concessions over medieval warming were ‘significant’ because they were his first public admission that the science was not settled.
This mess is just effing disgraceful; for a whole effing group of scientists to play these games is bad enough; when they're playing a game and using the result to try to help control our lives, it ought to be a- what's the equivalent of 'disbarment'? offense.
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