Wisconsin Judge Patrick J. Fiedler: you don't have a right

to decide I can't eat what I grow or raise, or the product from such. Screw you; you make the ruling, let's see you enforce it, you miserable little bastard.

Cue the Twilight Zone music:

Apart from his body, investigators could find no other damage in the house.

Dr Kieran McLoughlin, the West Galway coroner, said it was the first time in his 25 year career that he had returned a spontaneous combustion verdict, which is believed to be the first in Ireland.
...
The inquest on Thursday heard how investigators were baffled as to the cause of death, the Irish Independent reported.

Forensic experts found that a fire in the fireplace of the sitting room where the man's badly burned body was found had not been the cause of the blaze.

The court was told that no trace of an accelerant had been found and there had been nothing to suggest foul play. The coroner said he was satisfied nobody had entered or left the house that night.

The fire which killed Mr Faherty was confined to the sitting room. The only damage was to the body, which was totally burned, the ceiling above him and the floor underneath him.

Just to ruin your Friday evening,

In a proposed rule from Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the federal government is demanding insurance companies submit detailed health care information about their patients.
...
The HHS has proposed the federal government pursue one of three paths to obtain this sensitive information: A “centralized approach” wherein insurers’ data go directly to Washington; an “intermediate state-level approach” in which insurers give the information to the 50 states; or a “distributed approach” in which health insurance companies crunch the numbers according to federal bureaucrat edict.

It’s par for the course with the federal government, but abstract terms are used to distract from the real objectives of this idea: no matter which “option” is chosen, government bureaucrats would have access to the health records of every American - including you.
One of the problems with this 'the Secretary shall make rules' crap is the Secretary can do damn near what she wants, and the bastards in Congress can dodge responsibility for it.


For more dirtbaggery from Empty Hat Salazar,
U.S. District Court judges aren't known for using inflammatory language in deciding the weighty issues that come before them on the federal bench. So it was remarkable to read the scorching indictment of a federal environmental agency and two of its scientists last week by Judge Oliver W. Wanger.
...
Wanger was angered by testimony from the two scientists, Frederick V. Feyrer and Jennifer M. Norris, that he said was "false," "contradictory" and "misleading." He accused the Interior Department of "bad faith" in providing the two scientists as experts, and claimed their testimony was "an attempt to mislead and to deceive the court into accepting not only what is not the best science, it's not science." An Interior Department spokesman defended Norris and Feyrer, telling the New York Times that "we stand behind the consistent and thorough findings by our scientists on these matters and their dedicated use of the best available science."
As I recall, isn't Salazar still in violation of that judge's order to start approving drilling permits, and to actually let them drill?


Have a GM car? Want to tell them to stuff their "We can sell your data, and we'll keep collecting even if you drop OnStar" crap? Just turn it off.


Among the reasons why Obama's 'day of service' bullshit for 9/11 pisses me off so damn bad

Every crash is someone dying. This is also among the reasons I despise so much of our media: they will get people killed with fake Koran-flushing stories, they'll stir up as much shit as possible with Abu Ghraib, but they won't show any of this because 'it's too upsetting'. Fuck every one of these sorry excuses for reporters, and damn everyone who helped carry out this attack.



What went wrong at the Reno air show. One little piece off the tail and you're screwed. Bloody 22 g's.

I guess it could count as a 'failure to communicate'

One reason the Military Services have trouble operating jointly is that they don't speak the same language. For example, if you told Navy personnel to "secure a building," they would turn off the lights and lock the doors. The Army would occupy the building so no one could enter. Marines would assault the building, capture it, and defend it with suppressive fire and close combat. The Air Force, on the other hand, would take out a three-year lease with an option to buy.


Stolen from Rodger

Well, I used to like Moran Freeman...

FREEMAN: Mitch McConnell. Their stated policy, publicly stated, is to do whatever it takes to see to it that Obama only serves one term. What’s, what does that, what underlines that? “Screw the country. We’re going to whatever we do to get this black man, we can, we’re going to do whatever we can to get this black man outta here.”

MORGAN: But is that necessarily a racist thing?

FREEMAN: It is a racist thing.

MORGAN: Is it not Republicans, wouldn’t that say that about any Democrat president?

FREEMAN: No, they would have gotten rid of Bill Clinton if they could have.

MORGAN: They tried.

FREEMAN: They did try, but still. I don’t, they’re not going to get rid of Obama either. I think they’re shooting themselves in the head.

MORGAN: Does it unnerve you that the Tea Party are gaining such traction?

FREEMAN: Yes.

MORGAN: Why?

FREEMAN: Well, it just shows the weak, dark, underside of America.

In case you had any doubt of Obama's union ties,

This month the DOL has a public comment period on a 160 page rule change and tucked into that new rule is a section that will require staffing agencies to file with the government when they supply temp workers to businesses experiencing strikes, walkouts, or slow downs initiated by unions.

The new rule seems to also require that the people these temp agencies hire to also file their names and addresses with the DOL via a new form they would have to fill out. (See Labor Union Report for a copy of the form in question and for more technical info on this rule.)

These forms will be public knowledge as soon as the government gets its hands on them. That means that workers’ names and home addresses will also be public knowledge. That means that union thugs can get hold of these names and addresses so that they can amass lists of workers to scare away from their job in order to save union jobs.

When (pre-)Government Motors started the OnStar

program, there were a lot of concerns about it; here's one for you that's playing out now.
Navigation-and-emergency-services company OnStar is notifying its six million account holders that it will keep a complete accounting of the speed and location of OnStar-equipped vehicles, even for drivers who discontinue monthly service.

OnStar began e-mailing customers Monday about its update to the privacy policy, which grants OnStar the right to sell that GPS-derived data in an anonymized format.

Adam Denison, a spokesman for the General Motors subsidiary, said OnStar does not currently sell customer data, but it reserves that right. He said both the new and old privacy policies allow OnStar to chronicle a vehicle’s every movement and its speed, though it’s not clear where that’s stated in the old policy.

“What’s changed [is that if] you want to cancel your OnStar service, we are going to maintain a two-way connection to your vehicle unless the customer says otherwise,” Denison said in a telephone interview.
...
Jonathan Zdziarski, an Ohio forensics scientist, blogged about the new terms Tuesday. In a telephone interview, he said he was canceling his service and making sure he was being disconnected from OnStar’s network.

He said the new privacy policy goes too far.

“They added a bullet point allowing them to collect any data for any purpose,” he said.
Yeah, and there's NO chance Government Motors will not sell non-anonymous data, right?

So Agent In Charge Newell has decided his ass is hanging out WAAAY too far

and tries to pull it back in a supplemental statement to his testimony.

I really don't have anything to say, I'm just too disgusted by this crap. Newell probably decided- or the ATF lawyers did- that he was just too exposed to charges of lying to the committee and decided this might help.

And, let it not be forgotten, In a separate case not tied to “Fast and Furious” -- the murder of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata in Mexico -- weapons involved were traced to Texas. And last I heard ATF and DHS and all the other clowns are still stonewalling on 'Was there a program in Texas?'

Also, you'll note, Newell and the EffingBI are now claiming there was NOT a third weapon recovered at the scene of Terry's murder. Despite e-mails and words and all.

A whole bunch of people need to be put under oath, and then prosecuted and jailed if they lie.

It's just raining Gunwalker today

Remember that bit a couple of days ago about the Inspector General acting in a very bad or very stupid way? I'm voting for very bad:
In a letter released on Wednesday to Acting Justice Department Inspector General Cynthia Schnedar, they expressed deep concern over her decision to turn over to U.S. prosecutors in Arizona audio recordings obtained during her investigation.

Representative Darrell Issa, head of the House Oversight Committee, and Charles Grassley, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Schnedar apparently did not consider the significant harm caused by giving the recordings to those under investigation.

They criticized the move as potentially obstructing the congressional probe into the operation because potential witnesses may have colluded about what to tell investigators…

The letter described how an ATF supervisor, in discussing the congressional inquiry, allegedly said, “We are all on the same sheet of music. And if we stay on the same sheet of music, we will be all right.”

Also, that audio from Lone Wolf? His reason for making it:
...owner Andre Howard made the tapes only after he suspected he was being lied to, and his language is meant to get Hope MacAllister, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, to implicate herself and her agency in their illegal gun running scheme.

“He became very suspicious and in his own defense would tape key conversations with Ms. MacAllister and try to get her to make admissions about the truth of the matter,” said Dallas attorney Larry Gaydos. “Andre was trying to get her to admit that indeed they let guns go to Mexico.”…

Howard made the tapes in March 2011 after a meeting he and his attorneys held with federal officials. In that meeting, Assistant U.S. Attorney Emory Hurley continued to insist the guns Lone Wolf sold were stopped and seized before reaching Mexico.

But ATF officials are quoted in a Washington Post article and the Spanish language daily La Opinion saying just the opposite — blaming Lone Wolf for “selling guns to the cartels” with no mention that Howard was operating under the federal government’s direction, encouragement and approval.
After all that's come out, any business owner dealing with ATF probably should be recording any meetings; considering past history added to what's happened in Gunwalker, you don't know if you're dealing with an honest lawman or a clown use you and then try to destroy you to cover for themselves and their bosses.

And the official Gunwalker body count continues to rise

The California Republican kicked off the call with a brief statement reporting that Marisela Morales, Mexico’s attorney general, now says that at least 200 Mexican deaths can now be traced to weapons from the gunwalking program.That number has been revised significantly upward from earlier unofficial claims of approximately 150 deaths attributed to Operation Fast and Furious guns.

The revelation of the increased body count comes less than 24 hours after the Los Angeles Times published a story that rightly describes the actions of the Obama administration as an unresolved betrayal.

This betrayal — and Morales pulled no punches in using that exact word — is being ignored by the majority of the U.S. mainstream media, which vacillate from pretending that Gunwalker was just a minor law enforcement snafu to echoing White House-orchestrated attempts to smear the Oversight Committee chairman and obstruct the investigation.
As to the question of a special prosecutor,
Perhaps the most important clarification to come out of the call was confirmation that the Oversight Committee does indeed intend to call for a special prosecutor once they have completed their own investigation, which they optimistically would like to have wrapped up by the end of the year. Chairman Issa was quick to point out that finishing the House investigation by the end of the year hinged upon a transparent and timely release of information from the executive branch, including the federal law enforcement agencies involved and the Obama White House.

The White House has thus far refused to divulge any of the documentation the congressional investigators have asked for, and the administration’s political appointees are stymieing all attempts to get information out of the Justice Department, Homeland Security, and other involved agencies. Rep. Issa seemed quite aware that his goal of resolving the congressional investigation in 2011 was going to be obstructed by an administration in full cover-up mode.
Why no SP yet?
Issa also revealed that the reason a special prosecutor has not yet been brought in to investigate the plot is that once a special prosecutor begins to investigate, the Oversight Committee has to stop its own inquiry. The committee wants to be certain that they have explored every avenue and leave no source or witness uninvestigated before turning over the case. He also pointed out that a special prosecutor will be a Department of Justice employee investigating his own employer. Thus, Issa wants to be certain that they have enough knowledge to hold the prosecutor accountable.

And a flat conclusion from Issa:
After reiterating that every law enforcement agent that has been asked about Operation Fast and Furious has said that there is no way that it could have been a viable law enforcement operation, I asked Chairman Issa if there was any evidence of another reason for the implementation of Operation Fast and Furious and the other alleged gun-walking operations.

“This was dumb, it was useless, and it was lethal,” was the soundbite most of us will take away from the call in answer to that question, but his longer answer — which I regret I do not have a transcript of — is far more telling.

Nothing in his response could be construed to mean that Rep. Issa thought Operation Fast and Furious was a legitimate law enforcement operation. And if it does not appear to have been implemented as a legitimate law enforcement operation, then we are left with the possible alternative that the goal of the operation was both illegitimate and unlawful.

Issa put it rather bluntly: “The administration wanted to show that guns found in Mexico came from the United States.”
So, after all the investigation and testimony and evidence so far, that's the conclusion. A number of people have said it before; Issa said it after all the information he's seen. I think the SP, when he's chosen, better be ready to dig and subpoena and hold nothing back; otherwise he'll get his ass ripped off.


Also, from Codrea & Sipsey Street, on another BATF e-mail that's come out,
Examined objectively, Rubenstein admitted guns were purposely allowed to walk, that walking guns to a foreign country must be hidden from the public, and that if the Mexicans found out about it, cooperative law enforcement efforts would be jeopardized.

“If ‘1desertrat’ is an ATF employee,” Rubenstein advised, “then he/she is subject to our Orders and Standards of Conduct.”

Examined objectively, Rubenstein admitted "1desertrat's" allegations were true, otherwise, there could be no disclosure of official information, nor jeopardizing of operations, personnel or relationships.

Hit the range this morning

and, along with general practice, put about sixty rounds through the .22 conversion. Had one almost-stovepipe(case horizontal) and one failure to feed, all with Federal bulk-pack ammo. And both of those on the same magazine. I know because, having read that idea at Tam's a while back, I went around numbering almost every magazine in the house. I noticed that the previous such failures happened mostly with that mag, too. Very happy with the Lubriplate grease.


Couple of news items to point to: first, a restaurant in the Seattle area that won't serve TSA personnel; apparently the owner got seriously torqued by the way he was treated when flying.

The other's from Britain, some of the "We need to change history to suit what we want it to have been" types decided to get rid of Guy Fawkes Night:
For more than 400 years the day has been celebrated with bonfires and firework displays but last night Southwark Council in south-east London was accused of “ludicrous political correctness” after renaming the celebration The Colour Thief: A Winter Extravaganza Celebrating the Change of the Seasons.
After getting doused in a crapstorm of "What the hell is wrong with you idiots?", they denied they'd done it.

Just ran across this at Insty: two cases of cops behaving very badly, and a a couple of them are actually being indicted for it; delay due to PG County police were reluctant to cooperate. Guys, you'd better figure this out: even if you don't want to deal with bad cops because 'they're one of us', there are lots and lots of cameras out there now and you won't be able to just cover it up; and if you do try, people will think far less of you for it. And trust you less.

well, isn't THIS special?

And Here. We. Go!: Solyndra Executives Will Take The Fifth In Congressional Inquiry

What is the Fifth Amendment again? What is the actual situation in which you're permitted to invoke it?

Ah yes: You invoke your Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination when an official inquiry would compel you to yield evidence against yourself, which could be used against you in a criminal trial.

Lately no one says that anymore; they invoke it vaguely, speaking of their rights to keep silent "based on any part of the Constitution which might be relevant," or whatever, avoiding naming the Amendment whose protections are sought.

In the letters sent to the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, attorneys for Solyndra CEO Brian Harrison and CFO W. G. Stover said they advised their clients not to provide testimony during the hearings.

Daughter just showed me a new market,

Sunflower Market, NW 63rd & May. LOTS of cheeses, olives, a big section of nuts & dried fruits and different flours and oats, lots of organic stuff if that floats your boat. Pretty good prices on most things.

Heard of the Chainsaw Rebellion?

Just heard by phone from Bob Wright on the Otero County Chainsaw Rebellion today. About 300 folks showed up to defy the Feds and the Feds blinked. Congressman Pearce cut down the first tree and then it was cut into 2" slabs and handed out to members of the crowd as souvenirs by the Otero County Sheriff Benny House.

The Feds came into town a couple days ago and threatened to arrest anybody who tried to cut down a tree. The Sheriff is reported to have said, "You do that and I'LL arrest YOU for kidnapping." The Feds made themselves scarce today, Bob reports.



From an earlier bit:
“Somebody has to draw a line in the sand, step back from the federal government’s stranglehold and take responsibility for ourselves,” Rardin said at the public meeting in Alamogordo. “We are responsible for the health, safety and well-being of our citizens, and the current conditions of the forest warrant this emergency action.”

Dr. Lawrence Garrett, former Dean of the College of Eco-Science at Northern Arizona University, testified before the commission on Tuesday that forest health conditions and fire danger in and around Otero County are some of the worst he has seen in the southwestern portion of the United States. He will work with federal agencies on behalf of the county to create the plan to allow for the cleanup of the forest areas, including commercial logging.

“We will use the approach of restoration at the watershed level,” Dr. Garrett told the commissioners. This is an extremely important period in the history of management of this forest. We must take an aggressive approach to restoration and making the communities in this area safer from high wildfire risks.”

In our latest episode of Gunwalker Coverup (updated)

we have the Inspector General's office behaving in a very bad way:
CBS News has obtained secretly recorded conversations that raise questions as to whether some evidence is being withheld in the murder of a Border Patrol agent.

The tapes were recorded approximately mid-March 2011 by the primary gun dealer cooperating with ATF in its "Fast and Furious" operation: Andre Howard, owner of Lone Wolf Trading Company in Glendale, Arizona. He's talking with the lead case ATF case agent Hope MacAllister.

The tapes have been turned over to Congressional investigators and the Inspector General.
How is the IG acting badly?
Then, the sources say for some reason the Inspector General passed the tapes along to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona: a subject in the investigation. It's unclear why the Inspector General, who is supposed to investigate independently, would turn over evidence to an entity that is itself under investigation.
They updated this with the following:
A spokesman from the Office of the Inspector General today said, "The OIG officially provided the United States Attorney's Office with a copy of the recordings in question so that the USAO could consider them in connection with the government's disclosure obligations in the pending criminal prosecutions of the gun traffickers. Prior to receiving the tapes, the OIG made clear that we would have to provide a copy of the recordings to the United States Attorney's Office because they would need to review them to satisfy any legal disclosure obligations."
Can you say "Cover our ass because we didn't think anybody would find out about this"?
I knew you could.
Could be I'm being a little overly distrustful here, but my first thought is "Here's this recording, and the committee has it; you'd better make sure they don't catch you holding back anything on this. " 'Legal disclosure obligations' my ass: they've been ordered by Congress to 'give us EVERYTHING on this matter', and if they don't they're in violation. This sounds to me like the OIG playing games to try to help ATF figure out what they CAN try to hide. And the OIG needs to have its ass kicked for this.

And let's not forget the third gun that the EffingBI didn't want mentioned in Terry's murder.

Update: I'm going to throw this into a new post, too:
In a letter released on Wednesday to Acting Justice Department Inspector General Cynthia Schnedar, they expressed deep concern over her decision to turn over to U.S. prosecutors in Arizona audio recordings obtained during her investigation.

Representative Darrell Issa, head of the House Oversight Committee, and Charles Grassley, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Schnedar apparently did not consider the significant harm caused by giving the recordings to those under investigation.
(or possibly that WAS the consideration, maybe?)
They criticized the move as potentially obstructing the congressional probe into the operation because potential witnesses may have colluded about what to tell investigators…

The letter described how an ATF supervisor, in discussing the congressional inquiry, allegedly said, “We are all on the same sheet of music. And if we stay on the same sheet of music, we will be all right.”
That does sound like acting to control testimony, doesn't it?

So I guess he's not a 'REAL' scientist anymore...

Nobel prize winner for physics in 1973 Dr. Ivar Giaever resigned as a Fellow from the American Physical Society (APS) on September 13, 2011 in disgust over the group's promotion of man-made global warming fears. Climate Depot has obtained the exclusive email Giaever sent titled "I resign from APS" to APS Executive Officer Kate Kirby to announce his formal resignation.

Dr. Giaever wrote to Kirby of APS: “Thank you for your letter inquiring about my membership. I did not renew it because I cannot live with the (APS) statement below (on global warming): APS: 'The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth's physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.'

Giaever announced his resignation from APS was due to the group's belief in man-made global warming fears. Giaever explained in his email to APS: "In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible? The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this 'warming' period."

So does this make the Democrats/socialists demonstrating Nazi sympathizers?

After all, the left used the same clowns to accuse the tea party of being such, so if they're at Democrat/communist/anarchist demonstrations, that means the the D/c/a groups are...

Possible additional ends planned for the Gunwalker mission

here.