In an attempt to shut up people like us and shut down

protests, some ivory tower/leftist clowns have diagnosed 'anti-government phobia'. Part of a reply:
A rational reaction to the scientific analysis of historically-proven patterns is not a "phobia" any more than being tired when you work the night shift is a "disorder," you fucking quacks. There is no such thing as "Shift Work Disorder." If you're up all night, you'll get tired. It's not a 'disorder,' it's how the human body works. And there is no such thing as "Anti-Government Phobia." It's not a 'phobia,' it's the natural instinct of self-preservation.

Why is it that a dumb truck driver knows more about how life works than a bunch of Ivy-League graduates? Oh, yeah--because I live in the real world. Must be nice up in that ivory tower, but I'll take reality any day of the week...

...because, in the end, I really have no choice. And you don't, either.

So is he the Appeaser in Chief, or simply

a traitor?
President Barack Obama, in a bid to reconcile with the
Teheran regime, has blocked legislation that would hold Iran accountable for
the Hizbullah bombing that killed 241 U.S. Marines in 1983.

A survivors group has asserted that the administration is pressuring
Democrats in Congress not to support a bill that would enforce massive
judgements against Iran by the families of the Marines. In 2007, a U.S.
federal district court judge found Iran liable for the Beirut bombing and
ordered Teheran to pay $2.65 billion in damages.
...
Ms. Derbyshire, whose brother Marine Capt. Vincent Smith was killed in the 1983 bombing, said survivors and their families were urging Congress to support amendments to the Iran Sanctions Bill, scheduled for mark-up in the Senate Banking Committee on Feb. 2.

But they said committee members were being pressed by the White House not to vote for amendments that would hold Teheran responsible for the 1983 attack and transfer the $2.65 billion awarded in 2007. The Iran Sanctions Bill would enable U.S. sanctions on foreign companies that purchase or ship oil through the Iranian government or sell telecommunications equipment to Teheran.
And, lest they feel left out, let's remember the appeasing little shits in the State Department:
Over the last decade, the families of Iranian-sponsored attacks have won
billions of dollars in suits against the Teheran regime. But the federal
government, particularly the State Department, has blocked access to Iranian
assets or funds in the United States.

Found over here

AHHH! IT HURTS!

It burns!!!

A "DID YOU ACTUALLY SEND THIS?!?" moment

Nearly 2,000 people received a vulgar e-mail from the Oklahoma Insurance Department. The e-mail was intended to announce an awards ceremony for notable Oklahomans, but one award was going to the girl with the biggest breasts. To add insult to injury, the word breast wasn't actually used.

Without going into details,

this does sum up my current attitude toward sons' unit and their current effed-up movement preparations

Tried to go to the range this morning

'Tried' being the operative word. 10am on a cold Friday in February, and there was a 30-45 minute wait for a lane.

I do believe the firearms industries are doing some business lately. And lots of people are making loud noises and holes in targets.

Why, what are you afraid of, Michael Luo?

Why are you so bothered by someone seeing your data?

My first thought is "Well, Issa caved

and the Stupid Party has struck again." And Holder gets to keep playing wall, and the criminals in the upper reaches of government are another step closer to getting away with it all.

So; is Issa taking orders from someone, being blackmailed with something, or just unwilling to take the next step?

Something to offend everyone

Professor Henry Brubaker said: "Deciding who's cleverest between left and right is like deciding which tube of Smarties would make the best Pope.

"On one side you have people who think capitalism is a great idea but hasn't been done properly yet and on the other you have people who think the forced redistribution of wealth is a great idea but hasn't been done properly yet. It's not exactly a Mensa toga party.

"But right wingers are at least intelligent enough to assume that everyone is a potential enemy. Especially those who give hugs instead of handshakes.

"And while racism, homophobia and insisting climatology is a pyramid sales scam are all a bit dense, so is standing on top of a pile of skulls and shouting, 'let's try it again'."

As to Justice Ginsburgs' idiot statements

about ignoring our Constitution in favor of others, from someone who's dealt with the results of one of her recommendations,
As it happens, I have been on the receiving end of the “Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” a characteristically modish piece of Trudeaupiana foisted on the country in the early Eighties. As I wrote here:

Since this magazine and I were ensnared in the “human rights” machinery, I’ve come to regard Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms as—what’s the legal term?—oh, yeah, a worthless piece of crap.

Few days back Tam had a history post on Pompeii

which reminded me of something I've read: after a whole bunch of eruptions/disasters in various places, one of the things you read is some variation of "The locals didn't know the mountain was a volcano." Little or no record keeping other than verbal, and that apparently not touching on nastiness like "The last time the hill over there caught fire".

Which caused me to look for some more volcano stuff at the library, which led to a dvd about Mount Nyiragongo. Which the locals damn well DO know is an active volcano, but which doesn't prevent a bunch of them from starting to rebuild homes on top of the lava from the eruption the ran like hell from not long before. Even after they were warned that there is the possibility of very fast-moving lava rising up from crevices that run underneath the freaking town.

Which brings me to the reason for this whole mess: carbon dioxide. The stuff seeps up from lava degassing in many volcanoes; sometimes it seeps into a lake and, when things get disturbed, surges up out of solution, flows downhill and kills things. Nyiragongo is doing the same charging to Lake Kivu(right next to a big city, of course), but the stuff is also seeping up over large areas of the countryside and gathering in low spots. And killing people.

Ma Nature; she's got lots and lots of ways of turning you into fertilizer.

Anti-nuke hysteria, greenie idiocy, and what do you get?

"Turn on those coal-fired plants before we freeze!"

I wonder what they think is going to happen when they shut down all the other nuke plants?

'Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable'

my ass.
To maintain the illusion that they are part of some kind of radical underground, intellectuals must practise a deceit. They can never admit to their audience that fear of violent reprisals, ostracism or crippling financial penalties keeps them away from subjects that ought to concern them - and their fellow citizens.

Although it is impossible to count the books authors have abandoned, radical Islam is probably the greatest cause of self-censorship in the West today. When Ayatollah Khomeini proclaimed a fatwa against Salman Rushdie in 1989, censorship took the form of outright bans. Frightened publishers would not touch David Caute's novel satirising the Islamist reaction to The Satanic Verses, for instance. They ran away from histories and plays about the crisis as well because they did not want a repeat of the terror Rushdie and his publishers at Penguin had experienced.
...
Most of the censorship religious violence inspires, however, is self-censorship. Writers put down their pens and turn to other subjects rather than risk a confrontation. So thoroughgoing is the evasion that when Grayson Perry, who produced what Catholics would consider to be blasphemous images of the Virgin Mary, said what everyone knew to be true in 2007, the media treated his candour as news. 'The reason I have not gone all out attacking Islamism in my art,' said Perry, 'is because I feel real fear that someone will slit my throat.'
It should be noted that these are also some of the people who practically wet their pants in indignation when someone points out that a lot of muslims really ARE violent bigots and racists who do these things.


I'd point this out to people I know, but considering you have to show pictures before they'll admit their compatriots DID call Bush a nazi and threaten murder and such, they'll just- if they deign to take notice at all- say something like "He hasn't been as strong on civil rights as I'd like." The fact that they want to give terrorists and enemy troops the same rights as someone busted for petty theft in this country is disgusting on its own part.


"Well, no, those glaciers are NOT melting; but don't worry, other things will melt and we'll still all drown!"


Know someone who believes that "Romney isn't paying his fair share!" crap? Show this to them. Borrowing a part:
When you invest in something, you are gambling with the money you already have. There is no guarantee that you will make a profit, and in fact you may lose everything. Risk is the greatest disincentive to investment. The only reason we have investment is because the potential rewards outweigh the risks. As you lower the incentives to invest, you lower the amount that will be invested. The second biggest disincentive is that even if you make $100 on that stock you bought, you’re going to give the government $15. Raise that to $35 and you just made risky investing look even less interesting. Make it not worth it, and people quit investing their money at all and sit on it instead. Then watch the economy implode.

“But fair share! FAIR SHARE!” sob sob whine blather.

Because half of us not paying anything in income taxes at all isn’t fair enough? Okay, so raising the capital gains tax is stupid, but you still want to stick it to those pesky rich people. I know! Let’s raise the corporate income tax! Rich people own corporations! That’ll show them!

(for the record, do you have a 401K? Then you own corporations too)

Despite already having one of the highest corporate tax rates in the functioning world, let’s go ahead and jack that sucker up! Except that corporations look at taxes as another expense. If you tax them more, they simply pass that along in the cost of their product to the consumer, as in you and me. If the expense becomes too much of a burden and causes their prices to rise to the point that they are noncompetitive, they either go out of business and you lose your job, or they move to another country that doesn’t molest them as much, and you still lose your job. They exist to make a profit for their stockholders, not to pay for your good time.

See why class warfare sucks?
Bold is mine; because it's amazing to me how many people seem to have no bloody idea how some of this "Tax the rich!" stuff winds up biting THEM in the ass.

My personal customer service moment

brought to mind by some stuff at Doc Grumpy:
Friday evening, about 5:30. Phone rings.
"This is 'X', and I have a printer issue'

Me:What's the problem?*

Describes problem, I do troubleshooting. During which it comes out that it's been acting up 'for a couple of days'. "Yeah, looks like it's dead. I'll make out a trouble ticket. They should get out there Monday; might be Tuesday, but probably Monday."
Budget matters, etc., printers don't get a 'Fix it now' status unless there's some kind of actual emergency.

"But we have 'Y' going on this weekend! It's going to be busy, we need it!"

Me: I'm sorry, we don't make priority 1 tickets for a printer(especially when the damn thing's been 'acting up' for two days and you wait until 1730 on a Friday evening to call).

"Look, we need this running." Definite irritation and "You need to take care of us" in the voice.

This chased 'round for a minute or two, him demanding I send someone out there RIGHT NOW, me pointing out "We don't do that on this kind of problem." Finally,
"I Want This Fixed Tonight."

Me: I want my hair back, but that's not likely to happen either.

Long pause, then 'click' as he hangs up.

I figured I'd be answering some "Why did you do that?" the next week, but never heard a word about it.


*I despise the overuse of 'issue'. If your printer just died, if your monitor just smoked, you don't have a 'issue' you have a damned PROBLEM

Because I'm too lazy to dig for follower numbers,

and Drawn Cutlass gave me this

1. Copy and paste the award on our blog.
2. Link back to the blogger who gave us the award.
3. Pick our five favorite blogs with fewer than 200 followers, and leave a comment on their blog to let them know they have received the award.
4. Hope that the five blogs chosen will keep spreading the love and pass it on to five more blogs.

So I'll throw in
Doc Grumpy
Annie: "Dr. Grumpy's office, this is Annie."

Mr. Payne: "Yeah, the pill the doctor gave me makes me nauseous."

Annie: "Okay... In looking through your chart, I don't see that he prescribed any meds. In fact, you haven't been here in almost a year."

Mr. Payne: "My other doctor gave it to me last week."

Annie: "Then you need to call the doctor who prescribed it."

Mr. Payne: "What does that have to do with it?"


Og, for things like
Is it really so wrong

to have, as your hearts desire, a soul-filling need to gather herds of midgets dressed as lawn gnomes to storm the lawns of public officials, thereby confirming in their own minds that they have gone insane? Would it further be wrong to arm them with bags of rotting produce? Is it so wrong to want to see them cavorting, oiled and naked through the rose garden?


The Feral Irishman, for coming up with things like

"You hit one of Michelle's flying monkeys!"

The Everlasting Phelps
R. Kelly pees on a live 14 year old naked cousin on video, and he gets acquitted.

A couple of marines pee on a dead terrorist on video, and people want them sent to prison.

Does that seem right to you?


Two--Four
Down the small street, I came across a park, tucked into the shadow of the Tokyo Tower. It was circled around a soccer-pitch bordered with a few park benches. On two of them, apart, sat two teen-aged girls, practicing their French horns. Walking across this round space, I was approaching one of them obliquely, about thirty degrees off my course to the left. Hoping to soothe any apprehension of her nerves on the approach of this six-foot-three white man in a cowboy hat and mis-matched Nikes, I gave her an eye-contact moment of quiet applause. She nodded at me, never stopping her work.

The sounds of their horns next to this indescribably lovely little park impeccably kept, were exquisite counterpoint to the humanly-artifactual nature of the place: the trees were majestic and I wish you could have whiffed their fragrance in the springing air. This was human life at some of its most delicate beauty and purpose, in a place diligently kept for reminder of our stewardship of beauty in its original manifestation: mankind, in nature.
He doesn't post often, but when he does...

"Why would you want to have a gun in a national park?"

Taking all the recommended precautions wasn't enough to keep a mountain lion from snatching a 6-year-old Leander boy from his mother's hand and clamping its jaws on his face at Big Bend National Park on Sunday night.
...
"This attack did not happen on a trail. We were not hiking," Harris said. "We were on a paved walkway in between a restaurant and a hotel, and this cat grabbed my child from me."
Yeah, I think I'd rather have something .35-caliber or up rather than trust to a pocketknife.

And here's a wonderful bit of wording for you:
Park spokesman David Elkowitz said it is very unusual for a mountain lion to attack someone so close to a building.
Tempting to add "Usually the attacks are out on a trail" to that.

Have a friend who insists "Obama hasn't done anything to attack gun ownership,

so why is the NRA always scaring people about Obama? It's just to raise money!" Pointing out Obama's past words and actions apparently doesn't count because "He hasn't actually DONE anything on this as President", etc. Except
In a rash attempt to deflect attention away from himself and his own irresponsibility, Holder let Congress know that the Obama administration is still working toward the day when it can reinstate former President Bill Clinton’s so-called “assault weapons” ban. According to Holder:

This administration has consistently favored the reinstitution of the assault weapons ban. It is something that we think was useful in the past with regard to the reduction that we’ve seen in crime, and certainly would have a positive impact on our relationship and the crime situation in Mexico.

It’s difficult to follow Holder’s logic here, but it goes something like this …
Sent this to the friend; wondering how he'll respond.


The CSGV also dances in the blood of attackers, if they think they can twist it to make the actual victim look like a bad guy.


A .380 revolver? Something new to check out.


Across the pond: "You don't want your daughter being injected with this contraceptive device? Too bad, we think it's a good idea so screw you."


Let's see... costs same as a Volt, gets 50 mpg, 0 to 60 in 4.5? Damn, I want to see one of these!


Loud bang on a window just now; happily, unlike that dove a few years back, this bird didn't crash through the damn thing.




Crap, this sounds like something out of Hot Fuzz:
As the probationary officer from Sussex Police searched for suspects, the camera operator radioed that he had seen someone “acting suspiciously” in the area.

But he failed to realise that it was actually the plain-clothed officer he was watching on the screen, according to details leaked to an industry magazine.

The operator directed the officer, who was on foot patrol, as he followed the "suspect" on camera last month, telling his colleague on the ground that he was "hot on his heels".

The officer spent around 20 minutes giving chase before a sergeant came into the CCTV control room, recognised the “suspect” and laughed hysterically at the mistake.


Oh, for bleep's sake...




You may already be a member!


When I start seeing machinegun nests at the local bank and Blackwater teams around ATM's, THEN I'll start taking Anti's claims of 'spiraling gun violence' seriously. I have no plan, however, to let myself be as vulnerable as the Mexican people though.


Dave Perry: a gun bigot who hits ALL the talking points.
And Perry? Fuck you.


You might remember all the 'food pyramid' crap over the years, with it becoming, a couple of decades ago, 'Stop eating meat and eat lots of carbs', etc. Now... The excuse for the change is "There's too much salt", not a word about what so much carbs does to a lot of people.

Henderson, NV PD: and what will you do for an encore?

It may be reasonable for police officers to assume that someone weaving through lanes and driving erratically at 4 a.m. could be intoxicated. This is just what Nevada law enforcement assumed when they pulled over Adam Greene, forced him out of his vehicle when he wouldn’t move and beat him until his body would submit to allowing them to put on handcuffs.

But Greene, of Henderson, Nev., wasn’t intoxicated. He was in diabetic shock, a condition that results from low blood sugar.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal explains officers believed Greene to be resisting arrest, so they put their knees into his back to yank his arms upward, cracking one of his ribs in the process, and kicked him in the face. Officers from both the Henderson Police Department and Nevada Highway Patrol were present, although it is reported that state troopers did not beat Greene.
Get rid of qualified immunity. These bastards ought to have to pay this award out of their own pockets.

You want to know what will open your eyes? One day, years back, I was sitting in a car full of long-time(15, 20, 25 years) LE officers listening to them bitching about the attitude problems of a lot of the younger officers; if they have a problem, what do you think those younger officers are like to the average citizen they deal with?

So this guy- former Border Patrol agent- says

the mess at the borders is due to the intentions of a bunch of people in government. I have to ask a question, or borrow one from Kevin speaking of some of the crap going on: Again, if Obama is out to destroy America, would he be doing anything differently?
The comparison is apt, I think: assume that the borders mess isn't by design; if it were, would they be doing anything differently?

One of the things that annoys me? Let's say I pass the above article at Blaze on to some others I know: I know a goodly number who'll dismiss it out-of-hand simply because it's on Blaze. They do the same for something from Fox News just because it's Fox: "You can't believe ANYTHING Faux news puts out!" Challenge them to show where the report is false or inaccurate, they ignore you; by definition(to them) it being from that source automatically means they can dismiss anything there.


Totally unrelated, it's Kalashnikitty time! If nothing else, I can guarantee from personal experience that these shirts do a fine job of pissing off some liberal types.

So the new head of the Brady Campaign seems to actually believe

in the Triangle of Death crap; but doesn't seem to mention some other things:
From his bio at the Brady Campaign:

Dan founded CPYV after his brother was severely wounded in a shooting at the Empire State Building in February 1997.
...
In that same article, Gross goes on to call the NRA "immoral":

Daniel Gross, 30, homed in on the National Rifle Association and called the politicians who accept its support and do its bidding ''immoral.''

''There is an element to the gun violence epidemic that is far more insidious than any medical epidemic,'' Mr. Gross an advertising executive, said. ''It may sound like a bad movie, but there are actually evil people working to spread the virus, including people in our government.

''They generate a smokescreen of flawed and deceptive arguments to hide their true concern, which is not the physical health of the American people but the financial health of the gun and ammunition industry.''
Which is where the Triangle Of Death comes in. However, along with all the accusations and victimology, something gets left out about the terrorist who committed the attack that day:
The story put out at the time was that Abu Kamal had been ruined financially and was depressed over it.
Except
But in a stunning admission, Kamal's 48-year-old daughter Linda told the Daily News that her dad wanted to punish the U.S. for supporting Israel - and revealed her mom's 1997 account was a cover story crafted by the Palestinian Authority. "A Palestinian Authority official advised us to say the attack was not for political reasons because that would harm the peace agreement with Israel," she told The News on Friday. "We didn't know that he was martyred for patriotic motivations, so we repeated what we were told to do."

But three days after the shootings, Kamal's family got a copy of a letter that was found on his body, they said. The letter said he planned the violence as a political statement, his daughter said. "When we wanted to clarify that to the media, nobody listened to us," she said. "His goal was patriotic. He wanted to take revenge from the Americans, the British, the French and the Israelis."

She said the family became certain that he carried out the attack for political reasons after reading his diary. "He wrote that after he raised his children and made sure that his family was all right he decided to avenge in the highest building in America to make sure they get his message," said Linda, who works for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. She said her mom burned the diary, fearing that it would cause the family trouble.
So, we're supposed to believe that a guy planning a terrorist attack, intending mass murder, could not have gotten a weapon except for the Immoral NRA, etc. Really?

I wonder: if he'd used a bomb would he still have been a 'lost his savings' victim, or would the media have dug a bit more? Probably not;an awful lot of the media really doesn't want to report actual palistinian terrorist attacks here in the US.

Oh, you've got to check this out!

I think this is also something a female doctor could get away with, that a guy couldn't (which is interesting, because you interviewed a female doc, but had a picture of a male one). Let's face it: Take away the medical atmosphere, and you've got 2 people in leather seats who've just hugged, one has bought the other a drink, and now wants to talk to the others genitals.

Obviously, I don't have a vagina. But, let's say I went to a doctor: He puts me in a comfy chair, offers me a Diet Coke, tries to hug me (I don't think that's going to happen) and then says, "So, Ibee, if your penis could talk, what would it say?" (Does that sound like a pick-up line from a gay bar?).

My mouth (not my winkie) would likely say "Get away from me!" grab my pants, and be grateful he hadn't gotten to the turn-your-head-and-cough part. Tell me this- if a male urologist asked guys that, would you feature it in an article about good medical practice?
And to whoever the hell it was that pointed me there, thank you

And one more, from Codrea

Here's the thing: If the federal "intelligence" apparatus is so finely tuned they can swoop down on a British tourist tweeting jokes from "Family Guy," what do you think the odds are they would be oblivious to an unfolding story that threatens to reach into the top levels of the administration? And how is it some guy in Alabama and another one in Ohio were getting and documenting all kinds of continually-corroborated information--for months--while the subjects of their reports remained blissfully unaware?


And indications that Traver, who Obama & Co. want as head of ATF, was probably in the know about Gunwalker.

This is going to be a long one,

there's several posts at Sipsey speaking specifically of the last hearing, and more on just why the committee seems to be accomplishing so little: Boehner.

First:

Yesterday was the devil's own day in the Gunwalker scandal investigation and the search for the truth suffered as a result. Several sources tell Sipsey Street that the committee's work has been slowed by the intervention of Speaker of the House John Boehner, with some saying plainly that "the fix is in."

Several sources close to the investigation, have "gone dark," no longer speaking on conditions of anonymity because they have been warned that to do so will be at the risk of their jobs, Prior to the hearing, this silence was represented to some that the committee was ready to exercise a "nuclear option," in the phrase of one, so Holder would have no warning of any evidence said to have been gathered by the investigation.

Considered in the cold light of day, such reports have to be considered as the worst hyperbole, if not deliberate disinformation. "Some 'nuclear option,'" said one. "More like a Black Cat" (a small firecracker).

Said one person very familiar with the investigation:

As for yesterday . . . (it was) a plea bargain of sorts where both sides save face. The Committee will accept the scalps of Breuer and Wienstein, DOJ will release enough of the (documents) to condemn them, claim cooperation (thus giving the appearance of recognizing congress's oversight authority), and Holder will survive - looking like a "leader" for offering them up (along with a few lower level ATF and DOJ folk). The Committee will chalk one in the "Win" column for oversight and holding people accountable. DOJ will have the same for cooperating and accountability. All sides win, all checks and balance intact and working fine, all powers respected and then they move on to the next act of political theatre. The only ones left to sweep up the mess, are the American and Mexican peoples - ignorantly secure in our beliefs that the system works and that our government is actually for us, by us, and of us.

That John Boehner has now become the most useful tool to the White House outrages many gun rights activists and Tea Party members, who look upon this turn of events as just one more sell-out in a long line of sell-outs.

Asked by this reporter what Boehner would get from such a deal, called "logrolling" by the source, he said, "Whatever he wants most or fears most. Politicians do these deals all the time, but this one is unusual in its size and scope. . . and the fact that a whole lot of people are watching."

Another source confirmed the foot of Boehner on the brake pedal of the Issa Committee investigation and said, "the only thing that will stop him is if somebody chucks him out of the car."

As press inquiries begin to grow about what influence Boehner has had on the Issa investigation, reports out of the hard-core gun rights groups that I spoke with today say that, in the words of one, "if this is the game that Boehner is going to play, we can play, too," pointing out that Boehner is facing a primary challenge in his home district in the spring. "I can see a lot of people suddenly invested in the idea that Boehner has to be dumped," said one.

Yesterday a lot of people, including this writer and the whistleblowers, were frankly discouraged at the outcome of the hearing. Today, however, that sense of betrayal has turned to anger, and resolve.

Said one source of this writer very familiar with the investigation and unhappy with the latest turn:

The real question, for many of us, is what now? I'm reminded of that guy in the Matrix where he sold everyone out just so he could get plugged back in, to "taste a steak again," (to) go back to the ease of living the lie rather than the burdens of fighting the reality. I believe many of us find ourselves standing face to face with similar paradigms, and now, forced to make that same decision. So I ask you, do you prefer easy with a side of steak? Or like me, and I borrow from Capt. John Paul Jones, "Give me a fast ship, for I intend to go into harm's way."

As I readied this post for publication, I received another call from a gun rights activist in Ohio. "Boner," he said, using a derogatory term of Buckeye conservatives for the Speaker of the House, "is going to wish he never heard of 'Gunwalker.'"

LATER: Yet another gun rights activist has forwarded this link for the campaign of David Lewis, Boehner's opponent in the GOP primary.

Second, on some of the deceptions and deals going on, including that the FBI is in this up to their eyebrows:

As the Democrats in last Thursday's hearing sang the song of "permanent director of the ATF," specifically, Andrew Traver, I mentioned to "authorized journalists" seated around me that,

a. The Democrats controlled the House, Senate and White House from 2009-2011 and thus could have had any director they wanted, and,

b. Traver was an anti-firearm rights ideologue whose confirmation hearing in the present time would be more than problematic, even though they still controlled the Senate and could assure success.

In other words, they could have had Traver at any time in the past three years and elected not to do it.

As I wrote here back in July 2010, when I broke the story of Traver's long-postponed selection to replace Ken Melson:

So let's sum up: Traver has been an ATF agent for 23 years, starting out as an entry-level jack-booted thug ("an original member of the Entry Control Team, forerunner of the Special Response Teams"). Since then, he has risen through the agency hierarchy, all the while making friends of notorious Illinois anti-firearm rights politicians of both parties. He has had personal friendly contact with Barack Obama and Hizzonor, the King of Chicago Richard Daley. He has worked with the virulently anti-firearm Joyce Foundation and the IACP, putting his efforts and his name to a report which calls for more firearm bans and regulations that amount to the gutting of the Second Amendment. Traver is, then, an extremely politically well-connected, anti-firearm, pro-citizen-disarmament zealot.

Traver was even closer friend to Rahm Emanuel, Clinton adviser on gun policy, who later became a Congressman from Chicago and then Obama's Chief of Staff. He is now, of course, Mayor of Chicago.

And, as I wrote back in March 2011, an incident involving Eric Holder early in 2009 shaped everything that came later:

It is early March, 2009. Eric Holder, the Attorney General of the United States had walked into a buzzsaw a couple of weeks before when on 25 February, according to CBS News:

Attorney General Eric Holder was busy announcing the capture of more than 50 alleged members of the notorious Sinaloa Cartel yesterday when he unwittingly stepped into a larger debate about gun control.

Responding to a reporter's question on weapons' regulations, Holder said, "Well, as President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons. I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum."

Holder refused to speculate when legislation would move forward. "There are obviously a number of things that are -- that have been taking up a substantial amount of [Obama's] time, and so, I'm not sure exactly what the sequencing will be," he said.

Almost immediately, the Blue Dog Democrats went spastic, burning up the phone lines to the White House. Rahm Emanuel was reported to be "livid" at the faux pas. The long-time supporter of the Brady Bunch, citizen disarmament and specifically the ban on semi-automatic rifles of military utility (the misnamed "Assault Weapons Ban"), was not upset about the goal, just the impolitic nature of the public announcement.

CBS reported in the same story that even pro-citizen disarmament advocate Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the House, recoiled:

. . . "I think there are a lot of Democrats on Capitol Hill cringing at Eric Holder's comments right now," Wayne LaPierre, president of the National Rifle Association, told ABC News.

Lending credence to LaPierre's claims, The Hill reports that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi responded to Holder's remarks during her weekly press conference by stating, "On that score, I think we need to enforce the laws we have right now. I think it's clear the Bush administration didn't do that."

Pelosi's comments reflect the fact that Democrats may not now want a fight over gun regulations with so many other matters on the president's agenda.

So, that's Item One of our Gunwalker Conspiracy Time Line: February 2009, "Eric Holder handed his head by Pelosi and Emanuel on his public advocacy of a new AWB." Here's Item Two, from a story on Sipsey Street in October 2011:

Sources familiar with the congressional investigation into the Gunwalker Plot say that investigators are homing in on early conversations -- and meetings -- between ATF Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix Field Division William Newell and his self-described "long-time friend," Kevin O'Reilly, a State Department employee then on the National Security Council. This is reflected, say the sources, in the subpoena issued this week by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee seeking, among other things, "All communications to or from William Newell, former Special agent in Charge for ATF's Phoenix Field Division, between . . . March 16, 2009 to March 19, 2009."

The sources also say that Newell met personally with O'Reilly during this early period in the Obama administration and they believe that Newell may have "weaponized" the desire for more better statistics on the part of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others to support the "90 Percent" meme -- that 90% of weapons seized in Mexico from the drug cartels actually came from American civilian market sources.

Newell, who the sources say was familiar with the tactic of "gun walking" from the previous failed Operation Wide Receiver in Tuscon where Newell had participated in it, probably provided the germ of the idea that "walked" weapons could be used to "boost the statistics" of weapons found at crime scenes in Mexico, in the words of an early whistleblower in this case.

If this is true, it places Kevin O'Reilly, a State Department employee responsible to Hillary Clinton, as the critical potential witness in the early history of the Gunwalker Scandal.

So, even before the Obama administration decided upon a new director for ATF, a State Department guy on the White House's National Security Council is chatting about guns and the border with somebody that now even the Democrats say -- as they try to blame the entire scandal on him -- is the Number One Gunwalker in the United States, William "Gunwalker Bill" Newell.

What happened next, you ask? What is Item Three on our Gunwalker timeline? Why the Obama administration finally settled on an acting Director for the ATF -- someone decidedly NOT Traver. Someone who was not even close to being an obvious choice: Ken Melson. The date was 8 April 2009. Why Melson? He was not Traver, certainly. He was not a friend of Obama or Emanuel and was not particularly known as much more than a career DOJ apparatchik, a non-entity. His last promotion had come from George W. Bush when he was named director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys in May 2007. The Obamanoids never put Melson up for a hearing as permanent director, either, although they certainly could have assured his confirmation. Yet they did not. This was always a mystery to many observers. In the light of what subsequently happened, perhaps the appointment of Melson is less mysterious -- if more sinister.

Since we can certainly see that they had the ability to confirm whomever they chose, why then did they choose Melson? In the light of what we now know about Gunwalker and the murder of Brian Terry, it seems obvious that they were hedging their bets with a designated schmuck.

Recall what we do know about events that led to Brian Terry's death. ATF was actually only trusted with two parts of the conspiracy --

1. They were to coerce American licensed firearm dealers into selling weapons to straw buyers who provided those weapons to the money-men/smugglers of the cartels. They were then to document to follow, but not arrest, the straw buyers and their superiors when the weapons were put in the smuggling pipeline. They were forbidden to follow of arrest the cartel middlemen/managers.

2. They were to count those weapons when they showed up in Mexico beside dead bodies, using the E-Trace system. That, and only that.

There was no attempt, unlike Wide Receiver, to coordinate with the Mexicans or track the weapons. There was no "sting gone bad" because THERE WAS NO STING. The purpose of pushing American civilian market firearms into Mexico was to push American civilian market firearms into Mexico. The evidence supports no other conclusion.

Those two things, and only those two things, were what the ATF was trusted to do. But that was not all that was going on. Recall this portion of the report released the night before Thursday's hearing by the Issa committee.

Shockingly, though, other federal law enforcement components of the Department of Justice were already aware of the two cartel associates that ATF had finally identified. Their names appeared frequently in DEA call logs provided to ATF – in December 2009.11 Inexplicably, ATF failed to review all the materials DEA had provided, missing these prime investigative targets.

Additionally, DEA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had jointly opened a separate investigation specifically targeting these two cartel associates.12 As early as mid-January 2010, both agencies had collected a wealth of information on these associates.13 Yet, ATF spent the next year engaging in the reckless tactics of Fast and Furious in attempting to identify them.

During the course of this separate investigation, the FBI designated these two cartel associates as national security assets.14 In exchange for one individual’s guilty plea to a minor count of “Alien in Possession of a Firearm,” both became FBI informants and are now considered to be unindictable.15 This means that the entire goal of Fast and Furious – to target these two individuals and bring them to justice – was a failure. ATF’s discovery that the primary targets of their investigation were not indictable was “a major disappointment.”

NOTE 12: Meeting with Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and Congressional Staff at Robert F. Kennedy Building, Justice Command Center, Oct. 5, 2011 10:00 AM [hereinafter FBI Meeting]. See also Head Shot, Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces [hereinafter Head Shot]. This reaction and lack of follow-through typify the serious management failures that occurred throughout all levels of the Department during Fast and Furious.

NOTE 13: FBI Meeting, supra note 7. See also FD-302 supra note 8.

NOTE 14: FBI Meeting, supra note 7.

NOTE 15: Head Shot, supra note 12.

NOTE 16: Transcribed Interview of James Needles, at 30 (Nov. 4, 2011) (going on to describe it as “very” frustrating)

The October meeting on Operation Headshot by committee investigators with DOJ, FBI, DEA and ATF personnel on 5 October came a month after the wider world learned of two "stone cold killers" who were paid confidential informants of the FBI in the FOX News report by William Lajeunesse entitled "EXCLUSIVE: Third Gun Linked to 'Fast and Furious' Identified at Border Agent's Murder Scene."

A third gun linked to "Operation Fast and Furious" was found at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, new documents obtained exclusively by Fox News suggest, contradicting earlier assertions by federal agencies that police found only two weapons tied to the federal government's now infamous gun interdiction scandal.

Sources say e-mails support their contention that the FBI concealed evidence to protect a confidential informant. Sources close to the Terry case say the FBI informant works inside a major Mexican cartel and provided the money to obtain the weapons used to kill Terry.

Unlike the two AK-style assault weapons found at the scene, the "third" weapon could more easily be linked to the informant. To prevent that from happening, sources say, the third gun "disappeared."

. . . Months ago, congressional investigators developed information that both the FBI and DEA not only knew about the failed gun operation, but that they may be complicit in it. House Government Reform and Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, fired off letters in July requesting specific details from FBI director Robert Mueller and Drug Enforcement Administration chief Michele Leonhart.

"In recent weeks, we have learned of the possible involvement of paid FBI informants in Operation Fast and Furious," Issa and Grassley wrote to Mueller. "Specifically, at least one individual who is allegedly an FBI informant might have been in communication with, and was perhaps even conspiring with, at least one suspect whom ATF was monitoring."

Sources say the FBI is using the informants in a national security investigation. The men were allegedly debriefed by the FBI at a safe house in New Mexico last year.

Sources say the informants previously worked for the DEA and U.S. Marshall's Office but their contracts were terminated because the men were "stone-cold killers." The FBI however stopped their scheduled deportation because their high ranks within the cartel were useful.

In their July letter, Issa and Grassley asked Mueller if any of those informants were ever deported by the DEA or any other law enforcement entity and how they were repatriated.

Asked about the content of the emails, a former federal prosecutor who viewed them expressed shock.

"I have never seen anything like this. I can see the FBI may have an informant involved but I can't see them tampering with evidence. If this is all accurate, I'm stunned," the former prosecutor said.

To characterize , as the committee report does, the alleged "failure to deconflict" Operation Head Shot and Operation Fast and Furious as a "serious management failure" is akin to criticism of the Holocaust on the grounds that it was a serious misuse of the German railway system.

It is no wonder that observers, including this writer, are prepared to believe on the basis of this latest "memorandum" and the failed hearing that it preceded that "the fix is in" and in some ways has been from the very beginning.

To paraphrase Admiral Josh Painter in The Hunt for Red October, predatory federal bureaucrats and the politicians they serve don't take a dump without a plan. And senior policy executors don't start something this dangerous without having thought the matter through.

A contingency plan is a plan devised for an exceptional risk which is impractical or impossible to avoid. Contingency plans are often devised by governments or businesses who want to be prepared for events which, while highly unlikely, may have catastrophic effects. -- Wikipedia.

I submit that the selection of Kenneth Melson would not have been made without an eye to the series of events -- both before his nomination and those that were planned for after -- that became the Gunwalker Conspiracy. All planners, military, political or business, do contingency planning as part of the decision-making process. The people who planned Gunwalker at the highest levels of the Obama administration in early 2009 had to take into consideration a number of "what ifs" in the event of failure.

What little we know about Operations Headshot and Fast & Furious makes it plain that the Gunwalker Conspiracy and the murder of Brian Terry can only be explained as compartmentalized clandestine pieces of the same criminal enterprise to subvert the Constitution by building a predicate for more gun control atop the mountain of dead bodies in Mexico and the exaggerated threat that the cartels would do the same thing here.

Plausible deniability is, at root, credible (plausible) ability to deny a fact or allegation, or to deny previous knowledge of a fact. The term most often refers to the denial of blame in (formal or informal) chains of command, where upper rungs quarantine the blame to the lower rungs, and the lower rungs are often inaccessible, meaning confirming responsibility for the action is nearly impossible. In the case that illegal or otherwise disreputable and unpopular activities become public, high-ranking officials may deny any awareness of such act or any connection to the agents used to carry out such acts. It typically implies forethought, such as intentionally setting up the conditions to plausibly avoid responsibility for one's (future) actions or knowledge. In politics and espionage, deniability refers to the ability of a "powerful player" or actor to avoid "blowback" by secretly arranging for an action to be taken on their behalf by a third party—ostensibly unconnected with the major player. In political campaigns, plausible deniability enables candidates to stay "clean" and denounce advertisements that use unethical approaches or innuendo based on opposition research. -- Wikipedia.

In Gunwalker everything would have of necessity been on a need to know basis, with those supervising a particular function only briefed with a back story that justified, legally and bureaucratically, what they themselves were doing. The old lie of fake necessity, national security, covers a lot of possible objections. Thus, the political types like Eric Holder and Kenneth Melson would not be briefed on "tactics" or the particulars of Fast and Furious and Headshot. To do so in a compartmentalized clandestine operation would have been foolish. The political appointees only needed to know what not to notice, what not to be too inquisitive about. "Plausible deniability" has been a popular concept for bureaucrats and politicians for a long time before anybody ever thought to call it that.

This reduces the number of critical players necessary to carry out such a plot, with each carefully selected ("Personnel is policy") and placed exactly where they can execute and supervise their portion of the larger plan. Certainly this would explain the March 2009 meeting with attendance of people like O'Reilly, Newell and, it is said, Burke (while he was still Napolitano's henchman at DHS) among others.

Deception planning. Contingency planning. Plausible deniability. All of these would have been taken into account by the Gunwalker conspirators before the first weapon was smuggled. And, with the inconvenience of the whistleblowers like John Dodson aside, their preparations have been working out pretty damned well.

The Issa Committee itself is buying into -- in ignorance or on purpose -- the deception that counts on the public's preconceived notions of the ATF as a bumbling agency that has given us Ruby Ridge, Waco and the Good O' Boys Roundup scandals. Going after Holder and others for "managerial failures" is like issuing Bonnie and Clyde a speeding ticket after a bank robbery. They will be happy to dispute the ticket before a local magistrate as long as you take no notice of the blood-stained cash on the floorboards.

The thing to remember about Ruby Ridge and Waco is that although both are considered ATF screw-ups, it was the FBI which racked up the body count and that agency's employees never paid a moments heed to the the casualties nor did they suffer the least inconvenience because of it. In this, the Gunwalker Conspiracy mirrors earlier deadly federal misadventures, perhaps because it also uses some of the same conspirators, including most especially Eric Holder. No wonder the DOJ staffers behind Field Marshal Holder at Thursday's hearing were smirking more often than not. The deception plan is working to a tee. Designated goats like Melson, selected beforehand for their weaknesses, are performing to the script.

Having watched all this Oversight Committee theater from both near and far now, I have to wonder why the principal players in the investigation think that we commoners are so stupid as to believe that THEY are so -- innocently, gullibly -- stupid to faithfully execute the Obama administration's own deception plan while pretending to investigate it. If there is some sort of "deep plan" that the committee is supposed to be executing here, I see no evidence at the moment that it is one which will lead to the truth and to justice for the many victims of Gunwalker.

What can we do about it? For one thing, we can insist that someone get to the bottom of what really happened with Operation Headshot and the FBI's role in the murder of Brian Terry and the subsequent cover-up to protect their "stone cold killer" snitches. More on that later.

Over at Daily Caller, they contacted Boehner's office about this:
TheDC followed up and asked Steel if his boss supports the 103 Republican House members who have either demanded Holder’s resignation or expressed “no confidence” in him via a formal House resolution, or both.

Rather than answer the question to quell concerns about the strength of Boehner’s leadership as the controversy gathers steam, Steel dodged it by responding with the same exact boilerplate message just nine minutes after he sent it the first time.

“The Speaker appreciates the hard work that Chairman Issa and many others have done to expose this scandal,” Steel emailed again. “President Obama’s Department of Justice needs to be accountable.”

Steel used identical language to respond when TheDC asked him the same question in mid-January at the House Republican retreat in Baltimore.

Steel would not answer, however, when TheDC asked him if Boehner supports House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa’s threat to hold Holder in contempt of Congress if he fails to produce subpoenaed documents by Issa’s Feb. 9 deadline.

Steel also wouldn’t answer when TheDC asked him if the speaker supports Issa’s call for Holder to apologize to the Mexican government, and to the families of the more than 300 victims of Operation Fast and Furious in Mexico.

I'm back. And Holder and Napolitano are still liars

Tony Coulson was the DEA official in charge of Tucson at the time. He says the problems ran even deeper than that.

"In 2009, 2010, I became aware that ATF was walking guns into Mexico,” Coulson said. “I also learned that Homeland Security Investigations, then ICE, actually interceded on more than one occasion where they seized weapons at the ports of entry when they were heading southbound contrary to ATF’s plans.

There was serious friction, Coulson claims, between ICE and the ATF in Phoenix. When Coulson took the gun walking to his bosses in Phoenix, he was told the lead law enforcement official in Arizona – U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke – was already aware of it.
And yet we're supposed to believe Napolitano and Holder knew nothing of it...

And on the Mexican Gun Lie(bold mine),
Coulson also claims politics played a role in how Fast and Furious unfolded. The ATF officials who supervised the gun walking out of Phoenix were telling the news media as early as 2008 that 90 percent of the guns seized in Mexico came from the U.S. In other words, the same agency that was waging a public battle against gun smuggling was facilitating gun walking at the same time.

"Among federal law enforcement, that became somewhat of a joke,” Coulson said. “We all knew that was whatever weapons the Mexican government decided to follow or trace back to the U.S. And never took into account the weapons that come in from Central America, from other countries around the world.”

That 90 percent statistic was widely reported, but it was inflated. ATF officials quietly refuted those numbers. Later, they told auditors they were based on only a small portion of the guns seized in Mexico.

Yeah, Rahm, sign that check

and consider what the next one will cost if you keep screwing people around on civil rights.

Yes, the ice cream machine has been balky lately

Between odd hours, not enough sleep and a lot of general disgust, it's been hard to work up much enthusiasm to dig through all the crap going on. Weather's been ratty enough haven't been to the outdoor range to give the M1 Ultimak setup a real tryout, and not to the indoor range for a while, either. Still, general outrage has good points, such as thinking "I know the people who read my ravings know about this crap, but I have the need to yell some more anyway":
Operation Fast and Furious was specifically conceived so that “walked” guns would be recovered at crime scenes in Mexico. Their serial numbers would be provided to the ATF by Mexican authorities for tracing. Regardless of motive, the entire operation was premised on weapons being recovered at crime scenes in Mexico, and law enforcement agencies are well aware that criminals primarily abandon weapons only after they’ve been used in serious felony crimes such as murder or attempted murder.

Operation Fast and Furious was conceived knowing that Mexican nationals would be sacrificed in significant numbers if the tracing operation had any chance of working.

Operation Fast and Furious allowed more than 2,000 weapons to “walk,” indicating that those in charge of the operation were willing to let thousands of Mexican nationals die in an effort to identify the ringleaders of a cartel’s weapon acquisition team.
And, put bluntly, I'm getting God-damned tired of not seeing people who lied to Congress, who committed perjury and apparently violated export laws and so on, charged with their crimes. If Issa and Grassley and the Stupid Party leadership let some people get fired and then turn loose of this, every damned one of them should be removed from office at the first opportunity. Preferably in a manner involving the use of tar and feathers. The Dutchman has a long post on his recent trip to Sodom on the Potomac for the most recent hearing; I'll put up something on that later today.


On to what happens in city controlled for decades by crooks and progressives: when LE goes to hell because the budget gets cut again, people are doing what they have the right to do: protect themselves.
You'll notice the web address includes 'detroit-vigilantes', and the article has numerous references to people arming for self-defense 'taking the law into their own hands'; either the author doesn't know the difference between vigilante and self-defender, or doesn't care. It being Detroit and a journalist, could be both.


Some of the nannies make it plain: to save us all from meth, they'd like to see ALL formerly over-the-counter cold/allergy meds banned. Howzabout we let anybody stupid enough to use meth kill themselves and let people go back to buying their stuff- in the original formula- as needed? And tell the nannies to kiss our collective ass.


On the recent "We don't care what your beliefs are, you church people will do what you're told" orders from The Lightworker, opposition builds. I'm wondering, do the clowns think they'll get enough support from the left that they can afford to piss off this many voters(including the ones that haven't voted in years, but this'll probably bring them to the polls this fall), or if they just don't care so long as they enact another stop in their agenda(and hope it'll stand challenges)?


Obama really doesn't like that Separation of Powers thing, does he?


Maria Corina Machado: someone to remember. And wonder how long she'll stay A: alive and B: out of prison.


From Hanson: Are you one of 'them'?


Stuff to do, more later as the outrage and general upset overcomes good sense.

So, once again, DHS is busy with the labels

they say they shouldn't use. But it's ok, because it's against people like us...
But not only does the “lexicon” target constitutionally protected activity, it specifically targets groups based on race, namely “black supremacist extremists” and “white supremacist extremists.” I have absolutely no problem targeting groups promoting violence based on racial supremacist ideology, but if DHS is going to proscribe the use of such terms and promptly turn around and use such — while in the same breath targeting private citizens for exercising their constitutional rights and freedom of speech in violation of DHS’s own standards — needless to say, that’s a serious problem.

It bears mentioning that an earlier incarnation of the DHS lexicon was the subject of criticism from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress for its targeting of “alternative media” and its shockingly broad definition of the “patriot movement.” A DHS spokesman later claimed that the “lexicon” was sent out prematurely.

Which raises the question of why these various “lexicons” published by the federal government exist in the first place.
Might be argued that this only refers to those who facilitate or engage in acts of violence; problem is, these clowns seem to consider us yelling at our congresscritters and/or saying non-pc things about bad guys as 'violence', etc. Do YOU want to trust them not to play with words?


I can't remember where I read it the other day, but I'll borrow: "Fuck you very much, Mr. Commander-in-Chief. Especially since son is shortly heading to A'stan, starting with a truly fucked-up prep for the movement(as in no pre-deployment leave and other idiocies I won't go into right now).


Screw it. It's chilly but the sun is shining and I'm tired; I think I'll find a book and a spot out of the wind

"What? Treat a TSA member as if he were one of the peasants?

We can't do that!"
You or I would've been hauled to jail; but
"I felt that this situation involving upper-management had the potential to give TSA Phoenix yet another public relations black eye. In an effort to avoid bad publicity for TSA, the TSA Manager, me and the checkpoint I told the X-ray operator to release the bag from the X-ray machine."
And of COURSE nobody got fired or demoted or any real punishment; they ARE official TSA Molester People, after all.


From the "We'll save you from Global Warmening!" people,
When I visited the House of Lords’ minister, Lord Marland, at the Climate Change Department a couple of years ago, I asked him and the Department’s chief number-cruncher, Professor David Mackay (neither a climate scientist nor an economist, of course) to show me the Department’s calculations detailing just how much “global warming” that might otherwise occur this century would be prevented by the $30 billion per year that the Department was committed to spend between 2011 and 2050 – $1.2 trillion in all.

There was a horrified silence. The birds stopped singing. The Minister adjusted his tie. The Permanent Secretary looked at his watch. Professor Mackay looked as though he wished the plush sofa into which he was disappearing would swallow him up entirely.

Eventually, in a very small voice, the Professor said, “Er, ah, mphm, that is, oof, arghh, we’ve never done any such calculation.” The biggest tax increase in human history had been based not upon a mature scientific assessment followed by a careful economic appraisal, but solely upon blind faith. I said as much. “Well,” said the Professor, “maybe we’ll get around to doing the calculations next October.”

They still haven’t done the calculations – or, rather, I suspect they have done them but have kept the results very quiet indeed. Here’s why.
Added: DaYUM, it's cold out there!


Schumer shows us- again- what a slimy little bastard he is.


Recent history, from PBS


Over the last couple of years I've seriously pissed off some people by pointing out what WUWT notes: a lot of the same people screaming "GLOBAL WARMERING!!" now were, when I was a teenager, screaming "GLOBAL COOLING!!"; and a lot of their 'solutions' then were the same as now. It's like they have a vision for which anything will do as a reason to implement it...


I haven't been around the 'carry & care for the baby' situation in a long time; this sure isn't something I'd have thought of: the Tactical Diaper Bag.


Ok, I have another possibility for the '5 if you had a pile of cash to spend': a Hotchkiss Revolving Cannon. Put that sucker on a trailer and take it to the range. And if I had the money to buy and feed this thing, I'd have the money for a suitable range, too.

Which brings to mind: if you've ever been to the 45th Infantry Division Museum, the start of the trail outside is flanked by a pair of these M3 37mm Antitank Guns(something else I'd love to have in operating condition). I once talked to the guy who brought one of them to the museum from where it'd been at the Altus Air Force Base: he hitched it to the back of a pickup(which had state markings) and drove it back. Said the drive was worth it just for the looks he got...


PBS had a show on wolverines the other day, interesting to say the least. However, they threw in a obligatory "But globular warmering will ruin the climate they require to survive", etc. Amazing how they will talk about how tough, capable and so forth the critters are, but assume a change in climate will do them in; how the hell do they think they survived all the climate changes of the past?


New Radom pistols? Cool; friend has one and says it's the best 9mm he's ever fired.


Ah, so Nanny and Mumbles are only putting on their commercial in the DC area; I'd imagine a conversation along the lines of "The commoners won't pay attention and do what we want, so let's target this on other politicians."


Pizza; I want pizza. But don't have proper pizza stuff here, and after the vehicle trouble really don't want to spend that amount of money on one(dammit, I LIKE Hideaway...). Also it's overcast and chilly out there, which is making my joints ache; to the kitchen it is.

Added: I could not pass up throwing this in:
Found at this guys' place; some post may be NSFW