Missouri Democrat State Senator Jamilah Nasheed: (link fixed)

class all the way, huh?

Hey, former Aussie DPM Tim Fischer:

I'd say you need to worry about your own damned yard and stop bitching at us.
According to the Ballina Shire Advocate, "over 9,000 guns have been taken off New South Wales (NSW) streets and 3352 people have charged" during previous operations in the last 12 months alone.

NSW police commissioner Andrew Scipione explained: "There is no single source of gun violence... guns have fallen into the hands of organized crime, outlaw motorcycle gangs, mid-level crime groups and petty thieves and the lines are often blurred."
Well, isn't that amazing?

Not ironically, Australia implemented a massive purge of guns in 1996, which included bans on "assault weapons" and other semi-automatic rifles and shotguns. They also did forced buybacksconfiscations(there, fixed it for you) and then entered into a strict licensing and registration agreement where certain single-shot rifles and similar firearms could be owned but only if the owner provided justification for the possession of such a weapon.

"We're not just cops, we're Easy Company

in combat!  And if you don't understand, that means you want us to DIE!"  Etc. ad Bullshit.
Supported by fake numbers and "Screw you, we'll do what we want" attitude.
Here's a Milwaukee detective and former SWAT officer writing in National Review a few years ago, chastising Berwyn Heights, Maryland Mayor Cheye Calvo for pushing for reform after his home was invaded and his dogs were killed by a SWAT team in a botched, mistaken raid:

Sorry if Calvo and his mother-in-law were “restrained” for “almost two hours.” Would you rather have them be comfortable for those two hours, and risk officers’ lives and safety? Calvo should be able to understand what the officers did and why they did it.
Municipal police departments do fight a war on the streets of this country daily. This incident should not be considered overkill (to take a word from Reason’s Radley Balko), but sound police tactics.

 So screwing up- on top of using a SWAT team where it wasn't needed- and killing pets and scaring the shit out of citizens is 'sound police tactics'...

And they wonder why people don't like them or support them the way they used to?

Books

Specifically, Robert E. Howard's books.  Conan is his most widely-known character; there's also Kull, and Red Sonja, and Dennis Dorgan, Steve Costigan; historical fiction, fantasy, sword & sorcery. 

Only thing I knew of Conan for a long time was the idiot comic books.  Then, in 1978, friend and I went to the Fourth World Fantasy Convention.  Very memorable for several things, two of them being the guest of honor- Fritz Leiber*- and what he read Saturday night.  Robert E. Howard was a central feature of the con, and as part of that Leiber read the first Conan story, The Phoenix on the Sword.

Leiber was a, let's say 'imposing' guy: tall, slim, deep eyes, a mane of white hair, and a resonant voice.  Saturday night he stood at the lectern and every light in the hall went out except for the two candelabra behind him and the reading lamp.  And he began to read.

Ever listened to someone who has the gift?  To me, it was like being in the story, and marvelous.  Put a spell on me, it did.

And when we got back from the con, I started finding Howard's stuff and reading it.  There was a bookstore I'd found that had a big section of half-price used paperbacks(which is where I discovered Leiber), and in the 70's that meant getting them for anywhere from $.25 to $.75, and I ate them as fast as I could.  They're still on a shelf, every one I bought.

What brought this to mind is that the other day a friend mentioned seeing a movie based on another Howard character: Solomon Kane.  I'd heard somewhere, sometime, that there was talk of a movie but I'd never known it was made.  Having heard, I looked and today blew part of the budget on a disc.  Which I'll probably try to watch tomorrow; Sunday at the latest.

And if they screwed it too badly, well, I'll put 'em on my list, I will.


*And if you don't know his work, why the hell not?  Go look up Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, or Conjure Wife, or Gather, Darkness for a start.

Side note: the Howard stories were also what got me pissed off at L. Sprague de Camp; editing the stories for new publication should NOT involve changing the damn things, and he did.  It ticked me off when I found out how he had, and I still am.

First, if they did this to my kid, being sued would be the least of their concerns.

Second, what kind of effing moron decided this was a good idea?
A SWAT training exercise in Ohio in which a “gunman” hijacked a school bus and tied up students has generated online outrage after it was reported the children didn’t know it was an exercise.

Just friggin' idiotic.

Now THAT is a good question for the gun bigots!

But let me get something clear first: Moms Demand Victims Action and its followers have been aware since the group was created that Starbucks allows people to carry guns as the law in each state specifies. Moms Demand Victims Action and its followers have been boycotting (at least that is what they all said were going to do) Starbucks because of that. So, how can you boycott something that you are already boycotting? I mean, if you don’t patronize a locale with some sort of regularity, you cannot “skip” it, right?

Is this like a Double-Secret-Probation-Boycott?
Or something.

And something to be aware of from Bookface on the Starbucks Appreciation Page:
Manjina Knoxley 
I am starting a grass roots moevement and encourage everyone to participate. If you see someone carrying a firearm call 911 and tell them the person is threatening others with a gun. Then sit back and watch them get spread eagle and patted down and questioned. I bought a prepaid wireless phone so it can't be traced to my name. I did this twice sat at the gas station right beside the gun show.
And lots of gun bigots and hoplophobes approve the idea of making false police reports and putting lives in danger.  Because they care.

Jethro Tull had it right, there are beasties in the night

The Monster Hunters Ballad

As to vampires,
You know, they only sparkle when they're on fire

Somehow I don't think Holder and Jackson and Sharpton will call for marches

over these crimes, do you?
WWII veteran Delbert Benton died Thursday morning after being beaten to death by two black teens in Spokane while waiting outside an Eagles Lodge. The two suspects used “big heavy flashlights” to beat Benton. The suspects are still at large and described as two black teens between the ages of 16 and 19. One suspect is described as heavy set wearing black clothing and the other was wearing a black silk do-rag.


Authorities said the hot dog vendor was standing at the front entrance of the Home Depot in the 10900 block of New Halls Ferry Rd. around 3 p.m. when four shoplifters walked by and swiped his cell phone.

Police said the vendor chased them out of the store, but was struck in the head with a hammer one of the suspects had stolen. The suspects then got in a car and drove away.
The bloodied victim was transported to the hospital with serious injuries.

Ah, we have a statement from the RWPP Sharpton:
Rev. Al Sharpton responded Thursday to calls for him to address the Oklahoma murder of Australian student athlete Chris Lane, saying he is not protesting because the killing was not racial and “the system worked.”
Really, you lying bastard?  The Martin/Zimmerman case wasn't racial, and the system DID work; until you showed up lying and threatening and helped blow it into a huge mess.

But here it's a dead white guy and two of the murderers black, and one of them had made the kind of comments about whites you would've drooled over if Zimmerman had said ANYTHING like them about blacks, and you have black gang involvement, so there's nothing racial...


Ah, we have an update from the family of one of the murderers:
Padilla admitted that her brother had been in trouble for fighting in the past, but maintained that he’s “never been a vicious person” and she doesn’t “feel in my heart that he would go to such extents to take an innocent life.”
and
She said as far as she knew, he was not associated with any gangs, but she did say he “hung around older people that were affiliated with gangs.”
Aw, no, no possible problem there, right?
Remember that possible gang initiation idea?  Sounds even more fitting now, doesn't it?

The Daytona Police Department: Serving Themselves To Your Stuff

Unfortunately several of the firearms, including the irreplaceable Japanese heirloom war trophy, were damaged due to careless storage. The wood stocks were gouged and scratched, metal surfaces were marred, and the guns developed significant rusting. Some even had parts missing. In fact, the Arisaka brought back by the combat vet’s grandfather was ruined.

The PD doesn't care about any other laws other than those against theft either, apparently:
During the hearing, the city failed to offer any evidence of unsound mind, which was their alleged basis for seizing the property, ironically for "safekeeping." Furthermore the city ignored that Sec. 790.17, Florida Statutes, does not grant them any authority to seize or keep property in these circumstances, as affirmed in an opinion published by the Florida Attorney General and courts statewide. The city also ignored the language of the Baker Act itself which prohibits any loss of constitutional rights by individuals who are examined under the Baker Act. The city however claimed that veterans who are suspected of suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder should not have their firearms returned to them, deeming them to be of unsound mind, assuming the role of competent medical authority and snubbing the opinion of professionals who actually perform Baker Act evaluations.
Note just how this crap started
The VA has a “vet help line” run under a very lucrative contract. They’ve called it a lot of different names over the years. But it’s really the National Suicide Hotline (the VA doesn’t even have its own number that forwards… they just give out the suicide number as their own). So suicide is the problem vets have got, or at least that’s how the VA and the semi-trained, non-vet payroll patriots who work the line and run the program see it.

So if you call the vet helpline, you might just wind up like “A.B.,” stripped of his guns without due process and thrown into a nuthouse for evaluation. (He didn’t say he was suicidal. He didn’t threaten anybody. But if you call the line, they assume you are, assume you did, and they tell that to your friendly neighborhood police, who come guns drawn, expecting an armed, suicidal nutjob).
Just effing wonderful, isn't it?

Stephen Kloosterman, you pissed off the wrong guy

You've got to read this. Clown asks “Are Bad Jobs Good for the Economy and the People Who Work Them?” and uses a picture of Mike Rowe(of Dirty Jobs fame) in it.
Mr. Rowe has a problem with both the use of his picture and the article.
And tells Kloosterman about it.
In detail.

Just borrowing a couple of bits:
SK – People working odd jobs or doing day labor for money under the table sometimes do so because it’s the only option they have, we wrote.
MR – Agreed. But nowhere do you suggest that having one option is better than having no option. Certainly, these people are struggling, but they have not given up. They have not become wards of the state. They are looking for and in many cases finding a way to get by in a brutal economy. Certainly not ideal, but the Glass-Half Empty Restriction and the Context Clause of the DJCC both prohibit my endorsement of all “one-sided comparisons that fail to illustrate how things could always be much, much worse.”

and
SK – A few might even quote the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that “Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.”
MR – That’s very sweet. Unfortunately, the Delusional Thinking Restriction of the DJCC is very clear on this: “under no circumstances will artist’s name and likeness be used to declare or proclaim anything that might suggest the endorsement of a utopian or fairy-tale state.”

This adds to the Chris Lane murder story

Chris Lane was murdered as a part of a gang initiation, according to James Johnson, the father of a boy who was also allegedly targeted by the three youths accused of killing Mr Lane.

Police have not commented on the claim, though court documents confirm the accused were eventually arrested in front of the boy's home.
And yeah, we do have those gangs here; they're a serious problem.

Hey, former DPM Fischer, I have an idea: instead of playing "Let's blame the object because blaming the dirtbag is all judgemental and stuff", let's pass a measure: if you commit a murder as part of gang activity, the death penalty is the ONLY penalty allowed; how's that sound?

From the wonderful people at CSGV:

So get raped, tortured, murdered, whatever, but DON'T use lethal force to defend yourself!  Or you wife, or kids, or girlfriend/boyfriend...


Ah, one of those wonderful people at DHS:
Instead, the DHS employee advocates for:

• The mass murder of white people. \His site says, "warfare is eminent, and in order for Black people to survive the 21st century, we are going to have to kill a lot of whites – more than our christian hearts can possibly count."
• A conspiracy theory arguing that white people are trying to "homosexualize" black men in order to make them more effeminate and therefore weaker. As part of this, Kimathi, praises a series of laws in some African countries that criminalize LGBT behavior and people. Kimathi also advocates for the supremacy of black men above black women — he offers tips on his site, for instance, "to help every Black woman in the world understand what she needs to do to keep a strong Black man happy." 

What halfway surprises me is the SPLC actually calling him on this; I thought they were too busy putting up targets on people they don't like.  And trying to make sure no kids can get out of lousy schools and into better ones.
In short, SPLC argues that if the law can’t rescue every child from a failing school, then it shouldn’t be allowed to rescue any child. Not only would this line of reasoning hobble almost every government effort to incrementally address any problem, but the argument also rests on a misunderstanding of the status quo and the law’s likely impact.
I doubt it's a misunderstanding; I think it's a demonstration of why they were renamed the Southern Poverty Lie Center.
And if they actually gave a rats ass about helping kids, they'd want to do something about this:
One of the eight plaintiffs, Mariah Russaw, said she couldn’t afford the transportation costs even if her 12-year-old grandson, J.R., could leave Barbour County Junior High School in Clayton. All junior highs in the Barbour County school system are on the failing list.


What can happen with others are not between you and the doctor.


The gentleman has a problem with Rep. Jim Clyburn(D-Asshole) and his slimy statements:
Attacks on the right wing blogisphere are common practice, but one part of Rep. Clyburn's comments is way over the line. The part where he accused right-wingers of using Hitler-like tactics.
EXCUSE ME? Hitler? REALLY?? How dare he cheapen the memory of the Holocaust with inappropriate references.  I am sick and tired of  Democrats and their fake Shoah references (Shoah is the word Jews use for the Holocaust it's Hebrew for Disaster).
Rep. Clyburn allow me address the charges you made against my colleagues and me by asking  you some questions:
    Rep. Clyburn..I have many relatives with this on their arm do you have any?

And he goes on from there.


Tam notes the "WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING!" over the current reports of WMD being used in Syria:
Note to Middle Eastern dictators: If you want the New York media establishment on your side, only nerve gas your own people during Republican administrations.


Uncle says ...ammonium nitrate pressure cooker tea party air plane.
I'll add propellant primers striker conflagrate NRA Gadsden militia insurrection.


Son had to head out this morning; short leave.  So life goes back to what passes for normal.

The story of the murder in Duncan gets more involved

As in 'gang involvement', from the looks of it.
From one of the links:
Edwards, the youngest of the accused at 15, treated Tuesday’s court hearing as a joke.

James Edwards, 15, was treating the murder as a joke, District Attorney Jason Hicks told a hearing in the town of Duncan on Tuesday (Wednesday morning AEST).
Mr Hicks told the court that Edwards has previously been in contact with police, and that he had “an attitude of total disregard for law enforcement” when he was being charged over Lane’s death.
“He thinks it’s funny, and it’s all a joke,” Mr Hicks said.

He had also been in court on Friday, the day of the killing, on an unrelated charge.
Another bloody choirboy, I imagine, who's just misunderstood and loves his family.


By the way, I have a message for the former Deputy PM of Tim Fischer Australia: bugger off, you slimy little opportunist.  The bad guys have been caught; not a legally-owned gun among them, AND gang involvement, yet you start pimping your gun ban preferences using the blood of the dead?
Go screw yourself with a mummified kangaroo dong.

Added: from Chicago, which has the kind of gun laws Fischer approves of:

Five people were shot Monday evening in the Uptown neighborhood along a Safe Passage route outside a church that was holding a prayer service at the time, officials said.
Four shootings in the city since then have also left at least six people injured.

How dare they!?  Don't they know those are all 'Gun Free Zones'? The nerve of them.

Along with general visiting,

son and I hit the range this morning; loud noises and holes in targets occurred.  Which brings me to the latest edition of "Why do you wingnuts think anybody wants to take your guns?"

Because they're doing it.
Tresmond says his client was ordered to turn in his weapons last week because he was once on anti-anxiety medication, which is a violation of the SAFE Act. Wednesday, State Police informed the Erie County Clerk’s Office that it made a mistake when it said Lewis was in violation of the state’s new gun law.
...
For all of our more liberal leaning readers who continue to ask “what’s so bad” about universal background checks before we’ve even seen the specifics, this is your answer. In New York, you can be placed on a “list”of people with no Second Amendment rights on the say so of any doctor who has questions. And it already happened to David Lewis. Thankfully, he’s getting his guns back… for now. But what is the larger effect of this if we put it on a national scale?
...
But that also sort of buries the lede here…
They’re Already Taking Away Guns From People For Having ONCE Been Prescribed ANTI-ANXIETY MEDICINE.

But we have nothing to worry about.   Right.

Bloggage may be intermittent the next few days;

son is home on leave.  So before I forget,
How'd you like to bring that in?


This is been going around:

I saw a picture in the Boston Globe during the Boston Marathon bombing, where there was a State police officer…actually there were two officers, they both had identical helmets, flak jackets, weapons, everything I wore in Iraq, only it was all blue. The officer on one side had a big patch that said Massachusetts State Police…the other officer next to him…his patch said Boston Police.

What we’re doing here, and let’s not kid about it, we’re building a domestic army and we’re shrinking the military because the government is afraid of it’s own citizens.

This is a surprise to anyone?
The CRS, Congress’ non-partisan in-house think tank, compiled 82 deadlines that the Affordable Care Act mandates upon the first three years of its own implementation. Remarkably, it turns out that the White House has missed half of the deadlines legally required by the ACA. And some of those deadlines remain unmet to this day.


For some reason it'd slipped my mind that one of the places to see an active volcano is Japan.


Yeah, I'd imagine the usual suspects would just love for us to 'get over 9/11'.
Mr. Beckel?  Fat chance.  And screw you.

Have some friends who'll want this option

in a few years

Looks like the Escambia County SO has some real problems

And it'd better deal with the idiots- and the reason they have a badge- soon.
Amid a growing firestorm of criticism, Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan tried to offer some answers today after two deputies shot at and injured an unarmed man in his own driveway.
Bad, right?  It gets worse.
Meanwhile, Walker and her relatives were still assessing the damage at Walker’s home this morning. In her driveway, her white Lincoln Town Car still sat speckled with several bullet holes. In her carport, 17 shell casings had been found, family members said.
17 rounds fired, by two deputies.  And they hit their intended target ONCE.

I will leave further comment on that to you.

On the other incident, after crawling through a window- no warrant, no nothing- and dragging two people out of bed at gunpoint,
She said she and her fiance had been dragged to the hallway and the dogs were in the bedroom when the single deputy returned to the bedroom and shot the dogs.
Really, Deputy Lee, you effing moron?  And I'd just love to hear his reason for that, wouldn't you?
But wait!  There's MORE!
A sheriff’s report states that there is no video evidence of the incident, and the Sheriff’s Office has declined to provide a reason.
Which sounds like they'd normally have some, but for some magical reason in this case 'no video!'  Damn, I wonder why?

Spent a lot of time on my feet the other day

and the spider-bit foot is telling me about it; it's still a lot better than a week ago, just going to take a while to fully get over it.  So while I'm sitting here with my foot up,
at the buffet this morning:

A lot of you are aware of this, but for those who aren't: Obama told the CDC to do a study on 'causes and prevention of gun violence'.  And the CDC did an honest study and report.  Which is why Obama and his pet media won't talk about it.
For example, the majority of gun-related deaths between 2000 and 2010 were due to suicide and not criminal violence:

Between the years 2000-2010 firearm-related suicides significantly outnumbered homicides for all age groups, annually accounting for 61 percent of the more than 335,600 people who died from firearms related violence in the United States.

In addition, defensive use of guns “is a common occurrence,” according to the study:

Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year, in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008.

Accidental deaths due to firearms has continued to fall as well, with “the number of unintentional deaths due to firearm-related incidents account[ing] for less than 1 percent of all unintentional fatalities in 2010.”
Doesn't fit the narrative at all.  Wonder how much yelling they did at the CDC for not tailoring the results to what Obama & Co. wanted?


More of the screwing-over-of-people caused by Franklin Roosevelt & Co.:
But there was one unintended, but totally predictable, consequence of the so-called "allotment payments" to farmers not to grow: they would have no more use for sharecroppers. So sharecroppers, who were mainly in the South and who were already in bad shape, suddenly found themselves out of work. When landowners were paid to keep land fallow, there was no crop on that land to share.
And a lot of those sharecroppers were black.  So
Senator Smith came to my office when he heard that the [allotment] checks were going out to the tenants. A senator coming to see a young bureaucrat shows how things were turned upside down by the New Deal . . . He said, "Young fella, you can't do this to my ni**ers, paying checks to them. They don't know what to do with the money. [DRH comment: Count me skeptical. My guess is that they knew exactly what to do with the money.] The money should come to me. I'll take care of them. They're mine." That attitude, much less kindly expressed, was widespread.


Makes you wonder what journalists might find out if they actually REPORTED on these protests, doesn't it?
The first thing I learned is these protesters were clueless about the pipeline they were protesting, and about oil and economics in general.

I asked one of the protesters, Mike Roy, why he is only protesting the pipeline now, even though it’s been operating without incident since the 1970s. He seemed genuinely surprised to learn this. I asked him why he only opposes the plan to put Alberta oil in it, but was fine with it pumping OPEC crude for decades.

At first Roy simply refused to believe me. He was confused about how OPEC oil could be pumped from Alberta. He didn’t understand that the pipeline was operating now, with Saudi and Algerian oil now. The Alberta plan would be a change — that’s the “reverse” part that he was protesting. He didn’t know that.
...
How could people who were so clueless about what they were protesting also be so passionate, too? That’s the second thing I learned. I did what many reporters simply don’t do — I Googled the names of a half dozen protesters there. Mike Roy was from London. So was Bailey Lamon. And Dan Beaudoin. Jeff Hanks was from out of town too.

They’re professional protesters, who go from town to town on whatever the cause of the day is — Occupy, Idle No More, anti-GMO food, whatever. That’s why they didn’t know anything about the pipeline. They didn’t care. They just like protesting.


They're pissed at the Army breaking up their camps, so the Muslim Brotherhood burns churches and attacks Christians in general.  Wonderful people, aren't they?


Chris Christie: miserable little suckass politician.  "Wait, even if I demanded this, if I sign hit gun ban it'll cause me trouble if I run for President!  VETO!"


Ok, screw sitting here with my leg up.  It's a fine day outside, and I'm going to do some stuff.  Hopefully without dropping something on or rolling something over my foot.