Spent the day at the OK Gunblogger Schutenfest

A: Weather kind of sucked.
B: Company did not.
C: I'm a lousy wingshot.
D: A .41 Magnum will make a 6" diameter steel target jump.
E: No matter the time and mixed experience, seems like I still shoot better with a S&W revolver than with a semi-auto(with a couple of exceptions).
F: I'm beat.  More later.

Feinstein could use a lecture on ethics, too

Thought I remembered this:
SEN. Dianne Feinstein has resigned from the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee. As previously and extensively reviewed in these pages, Feinstein was chairperson and ranking member of MILCON for six years, during which time she had a conflict of interest due to her husband Richard C. Blum’s ownership of two major defense contractors, who were awarded billions of dollars for military construction projects approved by Feinstein.
Vile, corrupt, dirtbag politician.


Speaking of such,
Even as they lost scores of illegal firearms in their Fast and Furious operation, federal ATF agents asked their Border Patrol counterparts not to pursue criminal leads or track gun smuggling in southern Arizona so they could follow the firearms themselves, and senior Homeland Security agents “complied and the leads were not investigated,” according to a new Department of Homeland Security inspector general’s report.
Still no mention of how they were going to 'follow' guns with no tracking mechanism and no attempt to track them.
Of course, it seems ATF considered it 'following' to have Mexico inform them when they turned up in another pile of dead bodies.
And Obama is still hiding records for Holder.


Further on chickenshit politicians, call it 'gun ban by another name':
There was also enough consensus among the commission members to recommend bans on high-capacity magazines and the possession, sale or transfer or guns — both military-style firearms and handguns — that are capable of firing more than 10 rounds of ammunition without reloading.
Translation: ANY FIREARM other than revolvers- including .22 rifles- would be banned.  Because ANYTHING using a magazine could be modified so it's 'capable' of that.  Question is, do they not understand this?  Or are they deliberately using this to try and slide a ban in?

I'm betting at least most of them know; they just don't have the balls to flatly state "We want to ban almost all firearms."

Venezuela’s economic woes are telling. Apologists for Chavez mentor Fidel Castro blame Cuba’s sixty years of economic problems on the US embargo. If it weren’t for Uncle Sam, they say, Castro would have built a socialist paradise by now.

Venezuela is the test for this talking point. Not only is there no US embargo in Venezuela, but the country also has huge oil reserves. And what does it have? Food and medicine and foreign currency shortages. A socialist paradise, indeed.

Who could have seen this coming? The Gods Of The Copybook Headings say, “Indeed."


Governor of CO. tried to play "Don't worry" with his statement after signing those idiot bills, but here's a list(PDF) of what shit is dropping on the people of the state; I don't think the politicians are going to be happy with the reaction, no matter what Obama and Bloomberg promised them.j


Yeah, it's Infowars; still:
Speaking at CPAC with Infowars and We Are Change reporter, Luke Rudkowski, Congressman Timothy Huelscamp revealed this week that the Department of Homeland Security has refused to answer questions from “multiple” members of Congress regarding its recent purchase of huge amounts of weapons and ammunition.
“They have no answer for that question. They refuse to answer to answer that,” Huelscamp said.
“I’ve got a list of various questions of agencies about multiple things. Far from being the most transparent administration in the world, they are the most closed and opaque,” the Congressman added.
“They refuse to let us know what is going on, so I don’t really have an answer for that. Multiple members of Congress are asking those questions,” he added.

Before I lose track of them

This one because it will probably give the right people nightmares

I've mentioned Dan Combs before;

can finally show you: ran across this video

He didn't do these programs strictly as shooting shows; he used the shooting to hold attention while working in traffic safety.  I got to see him personally once, and several films; hopefully more of them will make their way to electronic form.

Tab clearing

because it doesn't require thought:
New Jersey police and Dept. of Children and Families officials raided the home of a firearms instructor and demanded to see his guns after he posted a Facebook photo of his 11-year-old son holding a rifle.
No warrant, but they demanded.  Eff 'em.
More from Kevin


Howler & Co. getting bit in the ass by their own bill.


"Inform!  It is your duty to the State, comrade!"


Cypress banks closed till next week.  At least.  To keep the peasants from coming for their money.


Crichton's essay on Environmentalism as Religion.


"We HAVE to do something; if we don't, why are we here?"  To waste our money and annoy us, you bastard.


Democrats in Colorado kiss Obama's ass, and are costing the state an assload of money and jobs.
Colorado, if you don't clean house at the next election, then screw you, you deserve what they do to you.
Speaking of which,

An experiment

Couple of days ago I took a can(formerly holding green beans; French-cut, if it matters) that I'd cleaned out and tried something.  The lid had been removed with one of the newer openers that leaves a lid you can sit back on, so I ran a bead of kitchen/bath caulking around the edge of the lid, filled the can about 1/3 full of water, put the lid on and set a weight on it for a day.

Then I turned the can upside down and shook it a bit, then left it upside-down a while; no drips, no sign of leakage.  And the can opener cut it open with no problem.

This could make for some interesting storage possibilities.  Add that to consideration of vacuum bags, desiccant and sealed jars for money storage.

I'm not feelin' it today,

so just read some of the butthurt from the gun bigots and hoplophobes.

I have a question about a meteor or asteroid coming in:

Let's say one about Tunguska-size comes in over an ocean, and detonates about the same height up; what are the chances of the shock wave from that causing a tsunami?

Question brought up by this post

Tab clearing, cause my current schedule sucks

At issue is whether appellee, Trumbull County Children Services Board ..., may require attendees of its public meetings to sign in before being admitted to such meetings....


A: "You messed with the team!" idiocy,
B: Ed Schultz really is a sorry piece of work


Some thoughts from Hanson


The Russians think we're doing it on purpose(in some cases, might be right)


The long and short of it is that doing something legal, like openly carrying a firearm, can’t be used to justify a detention and a search.


 Feinstein's Evil Firearms I Don't Like ban killed from bill; hoplophobes and gun bigots hardest hit.
More.
Feinstein seriously all upset.

 Note: from the sound of it, keep yelling at the Republicans in the Senate & House both; don't ease off the pressure.  And it's affecting the Democrats, too; keep it up.
More.

This may be NSFW, but I don't care

Found over at Wirecutter; and that place is frequently NSFW

'Republican anarchists'? Really?

Borrowed from the Dutchman for those who can't go there:

"It is better to be despised by the despicable than admired by the admirable." -- Kurt Hofmann.

You know, I've been called a lot of names in the past twenty years by everybody from the SPLC to the neoNazis. SPLC has characterized me (back in the 90s) as a stooge for the racists like the Klan, the Neos and the misidentified "Christian" Identities. Of course this was at about the same time as the Constitutional militias were engaged in Operation White Rose and when I was saying that “Christian Identity is for pantywaists”:

“I think in some ways Christian Identity is designed for pantywaists who are afraid to declare themselves true Nazis,” Vanderboegh jibed. “These are the folks who have to tell their mommas or their wives, “It’s OK that we hate blacks and Jews, dear, because God and Jesus told us it’s OK. Whereas the Nazis don’t worry about that kind of thing. They’re sort of beyond excuses.

“You know, when you’ve got Adolf Hitler as your standard-bearer, what else have you got to be embarrassed about?” Vanderboegh said.

“They each come to their pus-filled beliefs by different roads, but they agree on the destination.” -- “Christian Identity is for pantywaists” by Jeff Stein, Salon, 11 Aug 1999.

For their part the neos and identities called me "Red Mike" and claimed I was an agent of both the Mossad AND the SPLC. The loon Bill Cooper (who also claimed to have shot it out with space aliens) called me "John Doe Number Five." The Larouchies claimed (and do yet today) that I was an agent of MI-5. At the time of the small window war over Obamacare, I was denounced by Kurt Nimmo at Alex Jones "Infowars":

Vanderboegh’s act will not inspire a modern three percent to take action against the federal government. It will, however, provide plenty of ammo for the likes of David Neiwert, Chris Matthews, nearly the entire line-up at MSNBC, Bill O’Reilly (who specializes in demonizing the Oath Keepers), the Southern Poverty Law Center, and hundreds of Borg hive Democrats who have hysterically warned now for months that “militias” (as defined by the SPLC) and rightwing racist extremists (as defined by the DHS and the MIAC report) who hate Obama because of his skin color are about to start burning down government buildings and killing bureaucrats.

Mike Vanderboegh’s comments are a gift to the Department of Homeland Security and the SPLC. His call for vandalism feeds right into the propaganda cycle and follows on the heels of supposed Tea Party activists — as likely agents provocateurs — who hurled racist epithets at African American members of Congress last weekend.

Jones himself used his radio show to claim that if I wasn't arrested for sedition that this would "prove" I was an agent of the Obama administration.

Well, I wasn't arrested and I went on to break (with David Codrea) the news of the Gunwalker Scandal. Sound like I was an agent of the Obamanoids to you?

When I was supporting the Minutemen back in 2005, SPLC called me a xenophobe and a "nativist." The government monopoly of force advocates at CSGV have been screaming for some time that I am an "insurrectionist."

So I've been called a lot of names over the years by a lot of folks. But I have to confess, I have never before been called a "Republican anarchist."

And, what, you may ask is a "Republican anarchist"? For that, you'll have to ask Bob Burnett at the Huffington Post, who, his bio sketch says "is a Berkeley writer, activist, and Quaker. Before starting a second career as a journalist, he was a technologist and one of the founding executives at Cisco Systems. Bob can be reached at boburnett@comcast.net."

Now Burnett initially fielded the concept of "Republican anarchism" on the first of March in an article entitled "Sequester: The Rise of Republican Anarchists."

The March 1 sequester budget cuts are yet another product of crises manufactured by the ultra-conservative wing of the Republican Party. These Tea Party extremists have one objective: crush the federal government. Motivated by a strange brew of Old Testament Christianity and Ayn Rand's "objectivism," they're a lethal force within the GOP -- anarchists. . .

What should President Obama do? The Republican Party has been taken over by anarchists, Tea Party extremists who do not believe in government. As University of California linguistics professor George Lakoff observed, "They believe that Democracy gives them the liberty to seek their own self-interests by exercising personal responsibility, without having responsibility for anyone else or anyone else having responsibility for them." Republican anarchists reject the founders' morality, the sentiments that produced the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. These ultra conservatives don't believe in the common good or the notion that Americans have a moral responsibility to care for each other. The Republican anarchist motto is, "I'm for me, first." (Ayn Rand's objectivism and glorified self-interest.)

President Obama must recognized that the anarchists have pushed the United States into a political civil war. The president cannot negotiate with House Republicans so long as they are beholden to the ultra-conservative wing of the party. Obama cannot negotiate with a fiscal gun held to his head.

The president has to hold firm, even if that means shutting down government for a spell. Perhaps then the mainstream Republican Party will expel the radicals and proclaim they are not against government, in general. Perhaps if the government is shut down, and the economy goes into a tailspin, Americans will wake up to threat posed by Republican anarchists.

Uh, huh. Methinks Comrade Burnett is not too well educated on the whole "anarchism" thing. I'm sure Mama Liberty and others could give him a good tutorial. But that wasn't all. Now Commissar Bob has elucidated further his concept in an article entitled "Disarming Republican Anarchists."

Multiple excuses have been offered for the difficulty of enacting gun control legislation, but the most obvious problem has not been mentioned: the U.S. contains millions of Republican anarchists. These ultra-conservatives fear the government and buy guns for protection. Their Tea Party Congressmen will do everything they can to block common-sense legislation.

Over the last five years, the Republican Party has veered to the far right and, in the process, been taken over by anarchists, Tea Party extremists who do not believe in centralized government. As University of California linguistics professor George Lakoff observed, "[ultra conservatives] believe that Democracy gives them the liberty to seek their own self-interests by exercising personal responsibility, without having responsibility for anyone else or anyone else having responsibility for them." Republican anarchists reject the founders' morality, the sentiments that produced the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. These ultra conservatives don't believe in the common good or the notion that Americans have a moral responsibility to care for each other. But they do venerate the second amendment to the Constitution, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms."

As a consequence, America is an armed camp . . Republican anarchists tend to live in Red states, where weapons are concentrated. There's a disturbing relationship between gun prevalence, resistance to gun control, and anti-government rhetoric. . .

Wherever there's a high percentage of gun ownership there is also pro-second-amendment rhetoric and inflammatory talk suggesting the federal government threatens individual freedom. In January, gun-rights advocate, Kurt Hofmann, wrote an article "Government prepares for war with the people, and mass media approves," in which he deplored a "forcible citizen disarmament campaign," and predicted the current wave of gun control legislation ultimately intends to seize the weapons of "patriots."

. . . This is the dark background that underlies the gun control debate. There are 49 self-identified Tea Party members in the House of Representatives and four in the Senate, plus several dozen more "fellow travelers." They represent the anarchists in opposing gun-control laws. Recently, Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul proposed a law that would nullify any presidential gun-control actions. Florida Republican Congressman Trey Radel suggested that if Obama takes executive action it would be grounds for impeachment.

Commonsense gun control legislation is anathema to Tea Party Republicans. To the anarchists universal background checks suggests intrusive government surveillance. To anarchists limiting magazine size or assault weapons is unacceptable; their guns are not for hunting, they are for self-defense.

That's why the current congress won't pass gun-control legislation. The Republican anarchists are too powerful. Indeed, nothing meaningful will happen until the GOP reinvents itself and disavows its anarchist wing.

Now, first of all, I'm jealous of Kurt Hofmann. To be despised so publicly by someone so obviously despicable is a rare honor.

I will not try to deconstruct or analyze this collectivist loony. I leave that to the reader. But "Republican anarchist"? Huh. That's a new one.

Yeah, that will get interesting...

Some of the unintended(we think) consequences of the gun grabs in Californicated, big excerpt:
So all this works in pretty neatly with another bit of news that, for now is unrelated, and the good people of the Golden State had better pray to Gaia Almighty it stays that way.
Because there was a 4.7magnitude earthquake in Anza the other day – one feared to be a “foreshock.”
And understanding that devastating earthquakes are often paired with devastating tsunamis, “Residents were urged to prepare for a number of disaster scenarios, including how to cope for being at least ‘two weeks on your own.’”
At least two weeks. Depending on how bad things are, perhaps longer. Perhaps a lot longer.
Can you imagine living in urban California, around LA or Frisco (where they had the progressive foresight to “unanimously approve” a “military style” ammo ban!) and the Big One hits? And civil authority, the part of it that shows up for duty anyway, is triaged protecting Tony Villaraigosa at his impregnable command center, or the SF Board of Supes at wherever they hang out (be nice)? And that’s assuming you don’t live in one of those cities that have gone belly up, thanks to public servants living large. You know, like San Bernardino, where they had to lay off 80 cops, and where the best advice the city attorney could give was to lock your doors and load your guns.
Now understand that in Los Angeles alone, there were estimated to be 120,000 gang members (that's what, about 80 percent of the combined Allied strength at Normandy?) compared to 10,000 sworn LAPD officers and about the same number of Sheriff’s deputies and reserves, and then recall the last time they deployed, after a lot of destruction had already been done, the National Guard had to wait on ammo. Perhaps some of Janet Napolitano’s crack Imperial Sardaukar can spare some of those 1.6 billion rounds or however many they’re said to be saving for a rainy day …
So here you are, hamstrung by all those existing California gun laws, and assuming you aren’t pancaked into the rubble and can make it back (probably on foot) from wherever you are to your home (sans a gun, by the way, since concealed carry permits in these areas inhabited by millions are rarer than Westboro Baptists in West Hollywood), you’re now told you’re on your own for at least two weeks. Probably without utilities and with a very limited stock of basic supplies, including drinking water, and surrounded by neighbors in the same fix. And you’re all bordered on, or just a quick ride from, other neighborhoods that may not be as ... bourgeois ... as yours. How will you -- and they -- react when it turns out millions aren’t prepared to go even two days, and besides that, there are all kinds of opportunities to add to material happiness, now that the store registers aren’t working anyway, nor are any credit, debit and wealth transfer cards, and the only thing standing between those who would take and those who have are … those who have.


Fits right in with the way Colorado Democrats stacked the deck in hearings, doesn't it?
Historically, any citizen would be allowed to speak if they arrived at the Capitol early and signed up on testimony records. Although sign up sheets were in place and citizens including myself signed up, we were completely disregarded. Minutes after I signed up to testify, I learned a different process would be utilized and testimony was based on three categories: experts, preferred witnesses, and public witnesses. No explanation was provided to define expert or preferred witness. I was told this decision was made by the senate president and the chairperson of the hearing committee. Additionally, experts would have no time constraints and all others would be restricted to three minutes. I was completely disheartened at what I was witnessing and this was exacerbated when I learned experts included an individual that was not a resident of Colorado who had no credentials to qualify as an expert except his spouse was a victim of the Tuscan Arizona shooting. He admitted he had not read the proposed bill and could not speak to any specifics regarding this bill. He encouraged Colorado to adopt universal background checks and close the gun show loophole, both of which already exist. Sadly, he testified with unlimited restriction as voters and taxpayers of this state sat helplessly as they were denied the right to testify during committee hearings. 

My colleague, Sheriff John Cooke, testified in opposition of the “Universal Background Check” bill on behalf of most sheriffs while staying within the three minute constraint. Fortunately, I was allowed to testify because a member of the legislature listed me as an expert witness. I was honored and brought statistics and facts as it related to the national insta-check system (NICS); the probable criminalization of law abiding citizens and the unenforceability of this particular bill. I offered other options knowing we all share the common goal of reducing violence. I was proud to represent my constituents and the majority of our sheriffs. That pride was quickly diminished as I departed the hearing room and witnessed hundreds of citizens who would not be given the opportunity to testify. Although they expressed their sincere appreciation for my comments, I recognized the injustice that was unfolding before my eyes. Citizens of Colorado were prevented from participating in the legislative process. Their rights had been overridden by the agenda of a few members of the State Senate.

Got an old rifle you can't find brass for?

You may be in luck.  I've got a friend who was looking for .577/450 cases, and this place has the best price I've ever found on those

Found over at OGAM

The Brits may be pushing through a law to 'regulate' the media;

when you see something like
“In the House of Lords I hope they are going to agree to a bit of law that says this charter can’t be tampered with by ministers.
“I hope there won’t be a vote in the House of Lords because I hope it will be agreed.”
it actually means "This is such a piece of crap that the only way it'll work is if we don't allow anyone to change anything in it; the deal has to be done before the commoners see it."

Even more:
Something that Mr Cohen doesn’t cover is that, we too, appear about to be regulated. Parliament is not just abridging the freedom of the press, but of the web too. As Guido Fawkes explains regulation looks likely to cover not just Fleet Street (if that were not bad enough), but:

“relevant publisher” means a person (other than a broadcaster) who publishes in the United Kingdom: (a) a newspaper or magazine containing news-related material, or (b) a website containing news-related material (whether or not related to a newspaper or magazine)

Title that bill "And your little bloggers, too!"


Ultra-secret national security letters that come with a gag order on the recipient are an unconstitutional impingement on free speech, a federal judge in California ruled in a decision released Friday.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ordered the government to stop issuing so-called NSLs across the board, in a stunning defeat for the Obama administration’s surveillance practices. She also ordered the government to cease enforcing the gag provision in any other cases. However, she stayed her order for 90 days to give the government a chance to appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.


From Texas:
Morton’s testimony last week before the Texas Senate helped steer Senate Bill 825, prompted by his case, over a crucial hurdle. The bill aims to hold prosecutors accountable if they hide or suppress evidence from defendants. Morton’s lawyers claim prosecutors failed to turn over key evidence supporting Morton’s claim of innocence. Clearly, current laws are too lenient in punishing such practices, which not only are unethical, but illegal. The Legislature should pass the bill.
Sounds good to me; prosecutors who knowingly violate the law and ethics SHOULD face personal consequences.
Now they need- ALL states need- to extend this to police who knowingly violate the law, or screw someone's life up through careless or deliberate actions(not bothering to make sure you have the right address, right person, use a SWAT team when they shouldn't and such).


BRM's take on the Cypress robbery:
Those who conduct such confiscations - no, let's call them 'thefts', because that's what they are - argue that what they're doing is legal, because they make sure to apply existing laws in new ways, or pass new laws to cover what they're doing.  Well, it may be legal, but that doesn't make it right.  It's like a federal officer conducting an unconstitutional search of someone's property.  He - and the federal 'establishment' - will argue that you have no right to resist him;  you can only sue after the fact to establish that the search was illegal, and obtain what restitution the courts will allow.  If you try to stop an illegal, unconstitutional search before it starts, the 'establishment' will arrest you, or even use lethal force against you for 'obstructing an officer of the law in the execution of his duty' - and then grant so-called 'qualified immunity' to those who've killed you, because they were 'doing their job', irrespective of whether or not their actions were legal.  It's just another example of how the 'establishment' will use the law to protect itself and its minions while screwing you.


The only way in which our cause can prevail is through positing a moral principle that applies to all—including those who choose to own no arms. This is the moral principle: every human being has a right to self-defense, and every human being has a sacred right to be trusted with arms unless he shows otherwise by his actions—a 'presumption of liberty, rather than a presumption that we are all evil and incompetent. 

Most of the Old World (with a few exceptions, such as Russia and Canada, which do have pro-active, self-defense oriented, gun rights movements) has no serious debate on the right to bear arms. A public consensus has emerged, in particular on the European continent, that civilian firearms are an evil to be mitigated, tolerated only for the purpose of sports. In some countries, gun owners now fear bringing up the issue of self-defense in public, for fear their gun license may be taken away (on allegations that they are owning a firearm for purposes other than sport).


A quote to remember:

“How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual… as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of.” Dr. Suzanne Gratia-Hupp

Fraud by global warmenists?  Whoda thunk it?(put your hand down)


On a personal note, when went to the outdoor range a few days ago the guy with the Mini Sharps showed up, and I got to try it at 100 yards with some handloads he'd put together with Speer 158-grain Deep Curl hollowpoints:

The circled group plus the one high-left was five shots(I think I pulled that one); the hole just below is from a different load(powder and bullet both, rest of that group was low).  That's from a .357 Mag rifle; oh, I want one in .30-30.

On what the EUnuchs are trying:

This is a breach of fundamental property rights, dictated to a small country by foreign powers and it must make every bank depositor in Europe shiver. Although the representatives at the bailout press conference tried to present this as a one-off, they were not willing to rule out similar measures elsewhere - not that it would have mattered much as the trust is gone anyway. It is now difficult to expect any kind of limitation to what measures the Troika and EU might take when the crisis really starts to bite.
If you can do this once, you can do it again. if you can confiscate 10 percent of a bank customer's money, you can confiscate 25, 50 or even 100 percent. I now believe we will see worse as the panic increases, with politicians desperately trying to keep the EUR alive.
Depositors in other prospective bailout countries must be running scared - is it safe to keep money in an Italian, Spanish or Greek bank any more? I dont know, must be the answer. Is it prudent to take the risk? You decide. I fear this will lead to massive capital outflows from weak Eurozone countries, just about the last thing they need right now. Even from the EU as a whole, I suspect, as the banking union is in place in most countries already.
And when that trust is gone...


More on the Great Globular Warmening Scam, or Climaquiddick as I call it:
The graph shows in incontrovertible detail how the speed of global warming has been massively overestimated. Yet those forecasts have had a ruinous impact on the bills we pay, from heating to car fuel to huge sums paid by councils to reduce carbon emissions. 

The eco-debate was, in effect, hijacked by false data. The forecasts have also forced jobs abroad as manufacturers relocate to places with no emissions targets. 

A version of the graph appears in a leaked draft of the IPCC’s landmark Fifth Assessment Report due out later this year. It comes as leading climate scientists begin to admit that their worst fears about global warming will not be realised.


On Feinsteins 'response' to Cruz the other day:
In other words, Feinstein is banning all firearms, but then allowing us to have some, at least for now.

Which just confirms her earlier statement, around the time of the first assault weapons ban: "If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States, for an outright ban, picking up [every gun]… Mr. and Mrs. America, turn ‘em all in."

No, it wasn't overlooked.  Well, unless you mean by the major media and so forth; we're probably lucky they aren't trying to deny it even happened.


It's cute when the nasty little bigots reveal what they are, isn't it?
I don’t think I realized Ben Carson was conservative until last month. Shame he’s becoming the right wing’s go-to black token.
— Deen Freelon (@dfreelon)


And yeah, if it'd been Cheney's aides doing this, the screaming from the media weenies would be unending.

While the suvivors of Benghazi are being kept from any inconvenient questions

by the backstabbers responsible for them being 'survivors of', this seems very appropriate to post again:

I guarantee there are people stupid enough to try this here (updated)

Specifically, Cyprus will impose a levy of 6.75% on deposits of less than €100,000 - the ceiling for European Union account insurance, which is now effectively gone following this case study - and 9.9% above that. The measures will raise €5.8 billion, Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who leads the group of euro-area ministers, said.
Translation: "We need money, so we're going to steal some of your savings.  What, you believed us when we said they were safe?
...The logical question: why here, and why now? And what happens when the Cypriot bank run that has taken the country by storm this morning spreads everywhere else, now that the scab over Europe's biggest festering wound is torn throughout the periphery as all the other PIIGS realize they too are expendable on the altar of mollifying voters and investors in the other countries that make up Europe's disunion.
You already know what'll happen: lots of people will decide to take most or all of their money out of the bank.  And we'll watch their economies do amazing things.  All bad.

The European Central Bank will use its existing facilities to make funds available to Cypriot banks as needed to counter potential bank runs. Depositors will receive bank equity as compensation.
'Potential'?  They're already going on, started soon as people got the word.  And they'll consider 'bank equity' to be worthless.

As a general rule, ANYTHING they decide that has to be done in the dark of night(like that crap law in New Effing York) they're doing because they know it's bad, and the effect will BE bad.  And for some reason they think people being extra-pissed at being dark-of-nighted won't be a problem.

Update:
Italy wants to go down the toilet, too.
"A tax rate of 15% on financial assets would probably be enough to push the Italian government debt to below the critical level of 100% of gross domestic product." So there you have it, the 'new deal' in Europe, as we warned, is 'wealth taxes' and testing the "capacity of Cypriots" appears to be the strawman on what the public will take before social unrest becomes intolerable.
So if some Cypriot and EU politicians wind up dead, Italy might not do this?
Might be a bargain.