Apparently there's a petition going around

from someone who works at Staples who's pissed that hours are being cut to avoid some of the Obamacare costs.  Said petition says "Will you greedy bastards just pay for my Obamacare and not cut my hours?"

I thought about finding a way to ask "And what will you say if the company decides to keep a smaller number of full-time people and fires everyone else because THEY CAN'T AFFORD THAT CRAP?", but decided I'd pissed-off enough people lately without that.

Tab clearing

Hamas-linked CAIR (Council on Anti-American Islamic Relations) leader told a crowd at a rally for Islam that members of the faith should not be bound by American law. “If we are practicing Muslims, we are above the law of the land,” said Mustafa Carroll, executive director of CAIR-Dallas branch.


What?  The Obama/Holder DoJ doesn't want to provide information?  Who'd have suspected such a thing?


"What?  Let the common rabble actually VOTE on this?  Ridiculous!"


Representative Bob Goodlatte: one more backstabbing Stupid Party dirtbag.


Another reason the EPA should be closed down.  And the IG of said agency terminated.

Preferably- well, I'll let that go.


24 of the various scandals the media doesn't want to talk about(guess who's involved?).


Another democrat trying to hide Obamacare numbers.


The decay of the profession of arms.
Having listened to some of sons' stories about Army idiocies, I believe it.


The accordion; I KNEW the damn things were evil.

If buying a car were like buying a handgun in Western Australia

Borrowed from Jigsaw:

Step 1.  Join a recognised car club.  Be a financial member for 6 months, do a safety training course and undergo (and pass) a safety test.

Step 2.  At the end of the six months, find a car that you want.  Ensure that it is a car which has a use at the club of which you are a member, and which:

a)      is no shorter than 3 metres,

b)      is no wider than 1.2 metres,

c)       has no silencer on the exhaust,

d)      has a fuel tank no larger than 10 litres,

e)      has a manual gear-box (no fully automatics allowed),

f)       has an engine capacity of less than 3.8 litres

g)      is not used by the police or military.

Step 3. Pay the vendor/dealer the full amount, and (for an additional fee) receive a copy of the serviceability certificate which contains the VIN number.  (Note, you can only purchase one car in the first six months).

Step 4. Apply to your car club for support of your purchase of the car, providing all details of the car, and specifying your intended use within the club’s activities.

Step 5. Ensure that your garage meets the requirements regarding construction material, and number of locks.  Fill in a Statutory Declaration to this fact and take supporting photographs.
Step 6. Ensure that you have acceptable separate storage for both the fuel and fuel tank.
Step 7.  Once you have passed the safety test, have the serviceability certificate and the club support letter, statutory declaration and photographs fill in the online form.  Detail your medical and mental health, genuine need for owning the car, intended use, and other miscellaneous information.

Step 8.  Print out the completed form.

Step 9.  Sign the form and take the signed form, supporting documentation and photographs along with 100 points of ID to a participating Post Office.

Step 10.  Hand form, supporting documentation, $246.30 and ID to the Post Office worker (after waiting in Post Office queue).  Wait while they take your photograph and lodge the form.

Step 11.  Wait approximately 6 – 12 weeks for the paperwork to be processed and a letter, your licence and your "extract of licence" card to be sent to you.

Step 12.  Take the licence to the seller (with the receipt) and collect your car.  Being sure to drive it directly home.

Remember cars can only be driven between your place and an approved club activity; your place and the police station and your place and mechanic.  

At all other times they must remain in the locked garage that no one else but you has access to, with the fuel tank, and fuel stored separately.

I may have to change the 'Dumbass Feminism' label to 'Idiot-level'

because that's what this is.
I'm not going to excerpt; you really need to read it all to get the full flavor of this.

Because studying data points takes my mind off

the last few days:

Snork...

Every time I get a death threat I let the person making the threat answer two questions that will dictate the circumstances of his demise. Please pay careful attention to the following questions.
1. What are your preferences concerning shot placement?

and

2. What are your preferences concerning bullet size?
More details at the link

A place self-defenders should go

and do some reading.  Lots of information, including
All too often the subject of criminal and dangerous behavior -- especially the aftermath -- is muddled up with ideology, rhetoric and even politics. Often the actions of the criminal and violent person is explained away as a result of injustice, oppression or societal failure. However, by looking at crime and violence from the perspective of extreme selfishness and lack of concern for others, you begin to see more of the 'charging lion' nature of the subject. 

And make no mistake, that criminal coming at you is like a charging lion ... intent on eating you alive.

Automatic rifle from a Lee Enfield

Interesting.

Hey Ford, this does NOT give me reason to trust you

Because of the GPS units installed in Ford vehicles, Ford knows when its drivers are speeding, and where they are while they're doing it.

Farley was trying to describe how much data Ford has on its customers, and illustrate the fact that the company uses very little of it in order to avoid raising privacy concerns: "We know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you're doing it. We have GPS in your car, so we know what you're doing. By the way, we don't supply that data to anyone," he told attendees.
And we're supposed to believe that why?


Why We Don't See You As Officer Friendly Anymore(Reasons #372 and 373):

A case of alleged police brutality dating back to 2009 is being investigated and three officers are on paid leave in New Hampshire after a video of an incident seems to have resurfaced this week.

Michael Bergeron, 19 years old at the time of the incident, said he has chipped teeth and a permanent lump on the back of his head as a result of the treatment by Seabrook police officers.

and

A California father of four died after being beaten by police outside of a Bakersfield hospital, while witnesses say he begged for his life. A couple witnesses filmed the gruesome scene, but say they were later forced to give their cellphones to authorities and have yet to receive their devices back.

...

“We had stopped by Taco Bell to get something to eat, and we were eating and at about 3 a.m. two detectives showed up, barged in without my permission and demanded to see my boyfriend for his phone,” Melissa said.

[...]

She said she and her boyfriend were essentially kept captive inside their own home until they released their phones.

As was reported earlier, the boyfriend eventually gave up his phone without a search warrant being presented because he had to be at work at 8 a.m. and didn’t want to be late, she said.

Bloomberg & Co. are corrupt blood-dancers; we already knew that.  But nice to have it in writing.
A rush to maximize political benefit from the Newtown school shooting, bickering over celebrity sponsors and snarky commentary on some of the nation’s most prominent politicians are among the things to emerge from communications between former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s New York City Hall staff and executives at the Bloomberg-founded group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG).
...

1. Little Separation Between City Hall and Political Nonprofit: ‘Must Have Some Metrics’

New York City Hall employees, paid by the city’s taxpayers, spent significant time intertwined with a national group that had nothing to do with gun policy or any other policy in the New York City limits.

Among the prominent city hall staffers involved in seemingly every minutia of the anti-gun group was John Feinblatt, the chief adviser to Mayor Bloomberg for policy and strategic planning and the criminal justice coordinator. The bulk of e-mails were between Feinblatt and Mark Glaze, the director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

But in numerous e-mails, various other city hall officials were cc’d.

Gee, isn't using public employees for personal reasons kind of illegal?


The oil ticks have a real problem with our fracking; makes me wonder if that's the big reason Obama wants to make it as difficult as possible.


Most transparent administration ever! my ass.
President Barack Obama’s deputies have picked one of his political donors to investigate the IRS’ attack on independent political groups during the 2012 election, according to California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House investigations committee.
“We request you immediately remove Ms. [Barbara] Bosserman from the ongoing investigation,” said a Jan. 8 letter from Issa to Attorney General Eric Holder.

The secret selection of Barbara Bosserman, a lawyer in the Department of Justice’s civil rights division, was revealed by a committee investigation after the DOJ stonewalled the legislators.


I wonder if this was connected with Gunwalker, or a separate thing?
U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agents and U.S Attorneys held secret meetings with drug trafficking organizations, especially the Sinaloa cartel, on Mexican soil, revealed Mexico-based newspaper El Universal.

The DEA and the U.S. Attorney's office are both components of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

Official and court documents from the U.S and Mexican governments were cited as the source in the Jan. 6 news report. 
And sounds just like Gunwalker,
El Universal alleges that the DEA operations were carried out without the knowledge of the Mexican government.

I'm actually better this morning,

but that's after a night of lousy sleep and if you don't count the headache.  But better.

I remember all the 'satanic abuse' bullshit going around back then, and it's one reason I consider any therapist or psychiatrist suspect; because those 'professionals' were right in the middle of this, egging it on and insisting "Kids would not lie about something like this!" while the bastards were talking the kids into more and bigger lies.

Bad enough the hard they did; think any of the bastards will face any punishment for what they did?

I've had some but the last few days

that produced a very sore throat, a stuffed and runny sinus system, and general tired.

And I flat hate having a runny nose.

The good news of the day: Rep. "The shoulder thing that goes up" McCarthy is leaving Congress.  If you've not heard why I call her that,
She had no damned idea what she was talking about, and tried desperately to avoid answering, but the interviewer wouldn't let her get away with it.  NO idea what she's talking about, but she felt entitled to make laws to prevent honest citizens from having firearms with features she didn't like, until she could get around to flat banning all firearms.

Cancer is nasty, with the exception of people like Stalin and Hitler and Castro I don't think I could wish it on anyone; Really do hope it can be treated, but I AM glad she's gone.  Borrowing Seans' last line, Goodbye. Good riddance. Get well.

Yeah, Lyndon Johnson didn't give a rats ass about troops lives, either.

So Obama was sending our young men and women off to a meat grinder with no real confidence in the likelihood of success. How like Lyndon Johnson.
I'd add '..., without caring about lives lost, and without the balls to just pull the troops out.  Because reelection means more than people dying and being crippled."


Over at Ace found this video
and some background.  Yeah, in Basic they work you hot, cold, tired and hungry; you make mistakes there so you can learn to do it right when you're hot/cold/exhausted/hungry in some nasty place.

Which reminds me of a story son told me: unit was on a training mission in a place I won't mention, and he sent a guy he considered 'very special' to do something.  Little while later someone said "Sergeant, where's X?"
"That's a good question, he ought to be back.  Get some binoculars and go over there, I'll go over here and see if we can spot him."
They did spot him, got on the radio:
"X, where are you?"
"I don't know."
"Look around, what do you see?"
"A bunch of holes in the ground."
"That's because you're in the mortar impact area.  Now turn around, walk in your own footprints and get back here."


They ought change the headline to '- giving up on gun control FOR NOW.'  Because soon as they think it's safe to do so they'll be right back at it.


This has to annoy hell out of all the right people.
I do wonder, are they looking forward to or dreading someone being jailed, or maybe shot during arrest, for the horrendous crime of having a metal or plastic box that's too big?

Why I have a label of 'Dumbass Feminism', also probably

another reason why lots of guys look a college and think "I'm supposed to go into debt for this?  To be treated this way?"
Last February, one year after the encounter, the other shoe dropped: Yu was informed that Walker had filed charges of “nonconsensual sexual contact” against him through the college disciplinary system. Two and a half weeks later, a hearing was held before a panel of three faculty members. Yu was not allowed an attorney; his request to call his roommate and Walker’s roommate as witnesses was denied after the campus “gender equity compliance investigator” said that the roommates had emailed him but had “nothing useful” to offer. While the records from the hearing are sealed, Yu claims his attempts to cross-examine his accuser were repeatedly stymied. Many of his questions (including ones about Walker’s friendly messages, which she had earlier told the investigator she sent out of “fear”) were barred as “irrelevant”; he says that when he was allowed to question Walker, she would start crying and give evasive or nonresponsive answers. Yu was found guilty and summarily expelled from Vassar.

Yu, a U.S.-educated Chinese citizen, is now going after the Poughkeepsie, New York, school in federal court, claiming not only wrongful expulsion and irreparable personal damage but sex discrimination. His complaint argues that he was the victim of a campus judicial system that in practice presumes males accused of sexual misconduct are guilty.

Crap like this is also why I told some women the '1 in 4 women is raped in college!' line is bullshit.  'RAPE' has an actual meaning, and it does not include "Damn, I was drunk, wish I hadn't done that."  Or other such "I'm not responsible" garbage.

Speaking of which: interesting that women are simultaneously strong a capable, and so weak and afraid that they can't be held responsible for what they do.  According to these clowns.


Hey, actual law enforcement doesn't have the status of 'national security'.  Also, you can probably get more money claiming the latter.


Another socialist who whines about people 'not paying their share' while cheating on her taxes...  Hey, they've got our former treasury secretary and Charles Rangel as examples to follow.


And the Obamites find another way to screw over veterans.  Disgusting bastards, aren't they?
US veterans started receiving letters from the government last year informing them that they are disabled and not allowed to own, purchase or possess a firearm. If the veteran does decide to purchase a firearm he will by fined, imprisoned or both.
This comes on page 2 of the VA letter.
...
The majority of US veterans receive basically the same letter. Many of the veterans do not even know the VA declared them incompetent. The targeted veterans say the VA offers an appeals process but then does not share required information.


When you've got this many people 'reporting' bullshit, either they're flatly incompetent or they're trying to hide/direct attention away from something.

No surprise to us, but think the gun bigots and hoplophobes will pay attention?

I don't.
A study published in the latest issue of the academic journal Applied Economics Letters took on many of the claims made regularly by advocates of stricter gun laws. The study determined that nearly every claim made in support of stronger restrictions on gun ownership is not supported by an exhaustive analysis of crime statistics. 

The study, “An examination of the effects of concealed weapons laws and assault weapons bans on state-level murder rates,” conducted by Quinnipiac University economist Mark Gius, examined nearly 30 years of statistics and concluded that stricter gun laws do not result in a reduction in gun violence. In fact, Gius found the opposite – that a proliferation of concealed carry permits can actually reduce incidents of gun crime.

In the Dark and Fascist State of New York, some pigs are WAY more equal

than everyone else:
Lacking a laser pointer, Hauer drew his handgun and used the laser target designator attached to it to draw attention to the salient point. According to the officials the incident “rattled” three members of the Swedish delegation “when the gun’s laser tracked across one of their heads before Hauer found the map of New York, at which he wanted to point.”
But wait!  There's MORE!
It is not clear why Hauer, who is not a law enforcement officer, was allowed to carry a loaded handgun into a state office building. Hauer “was disabled by a stroke a few years ago and can be unsteady,” according to the Times Union, but he does have a license to carry a firearm in Albany and New York City. Reporters questioning whether Hauer received a “carve-out” from the Public Facilities Law that would have barred him from carrying a weapon inside a state office have so far not received an answer.
Of course not; and unless they push really damn hard or get really lucky they won't; the Official Class is covering for each other.

So: actions that would have had a plain citizen in a cell get cover-up for a Only One.

Wonderful place, New Effing York.

COMRADES! New chief commissar approves new housing

for commone- proletariat!  Care so much for you that rent only nine-hundred capitalist dollars for THREE HUNDRED SQUARE FEET!

Per month!

Pay no attention to Chief Commissar and mansion; not your concern, comrade.

Yeah, blowback's a bitch, isn't it?

Democrats came under heavy criticism Friday for driving Magpul Industries out of Colorado by pushing an aggressive gun-control agenda, a move that could cost the state more than $80 million annually.
Add in the other businesses that've left or cut back, that's a big chunk of change Colorado has lost.


On the "I'm really sorry now that it blew up in my face!" front,
Michael Meyers, executive director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition, told The Daily Caller that Melissa Harris-Perry and MSNBC engage in racial McCarthyism to silence mainstream black voices.

“I’m an African-American, and I’m a liberal,” said Meyers, longtime former member of the ACLU’s Board of Directors and onetime aide to legendary NAACP executive director Roy Wilkins. ”I shook when I watched that segment where they were calling out the African-American grandchild of Mitt Romney. I was really appalled.”


Gee, another socialist politician who's corrupt?  Who could imagine such a thing...
New York City, you wanted it; you'd better hope he uses some lube.


Jeez; the RPG may not be your friend, even if you or your friend is the one using it.

Because 'The Soviet Union was run by butchers who used starvation to murder millions'

isn't tolerable to Ta-Nehisi Coates, so it becomes It really is chaos out there. It's always been chaos out there.

Because dealing with "It's COMMUNISM, you moron" just isn't doable.

I haven't read Bloodlands yet; have a copy of The Black Book of Communism I keep having to put down and I've read a number of things about the famines(ORDERED famines, remember) the Soviets used to kill in mass.  To call the Soviet Union anything other than evil is stupid.  And blind.

Unfortunately, lots of people in both categories.

Tried a new recipe today,

and it came out pretty well.  Daughter found it here.  I used a roast instead of brisket, and following her advice I used Simply Apple juice instead of cider, and on my own I left out the parsnips and threw in some new potatoes.  The meat's fork-tender, and tasty.  Which was a relief; it got done before I'd thought it would and I'd worried it was overdone.

I think next time I'll fiddle with spices a bit.  And you could probably use water and some suitable beer instead of juice/cider; all kinds of possibles come to mind.

If you were gonna build a house is southern Louisiana,

say around New Orleans, you'd use materials you KNEW could take the temperatures and humidity, would you not?
Unfortunately, Make It Right has found that TimberSIL can't stand the moisture in the balmy city and has turned dark gray and begun falling apart. The organization has replaced wood in 30 homes and is considering legal action. TimberSIL has reportedly caused trouble for at least one other client: a project in Western Massachusetts that had to be repaired when the builders found the wood retained too much moisture and couldn't hold paint.
Apparently if you say 'Eco-friendly!  No nasty chemicals!  It's great!', that's enough to make a lot of people not think to ask "Has this shit been tested in these conditions?"

Which reminds me of something Og posted a while after Katrina:
All of the buildings and residences damaged beyond repair by Katrina were ground up in such a manner. What, might you ask, would they do with all this debris? Well I’ll tell you what they ARE doingh with it: Making new levees.
My contribution:
I read a book a while back that had a description of the construction of levees in the 19-teens & twenties. I specifically noted that fill brought in or scraped over was inspected to get rid of any wood- logs, lumber, whatever- they could find because it would rot and make weak spots in the construction.
And now they’re using ground-up houses...


The ultimate ideal of Government Motors: make cars too expensive for the peasants to afford.  
Except they'll have special prices for union and Party members, of course.


Higher Indoctrination(sure-hell doesn't count as 'education'):
Until 2011, students majoring in English at UCLA had to take one course in Chaucer, two in Shakespeare, and one in Milton —the cornerstones of English literature. Following a revolt of the junior faculty, however, during which it was announced that Shakespeare was part of the “Empire,” UCLA junked these individual author requirements. It replaced them with a mandate that all English majors take a total of three courses in the following four areas: Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Disability and Sexuality Studies; Imperial, Transnational, and Postcolonial Studies; genre studies, interdisciplinary studies, and critical theory; or creative writing.

In other words, the UCLA faculty was now officially indifferent to whether an English major had ever read a word of Chaucer, Milton or Shakespeare. . . .



Well, here's a Colt that's gonna go for a tall price.


And on the "Global Warming/Climate Change all the ice is melting(except right here)!" front,
Responding to a request from Russia, China and Australia, a U.S. Coast Guard heavy icebreaker will leave Australia for Antarctica on Sunday to rescue more than 120 crew members aboard two icebreakers trapped in pack ice near the frozen continent’s eastern edge, officials said.

The nearly 400-foot cutter, the Polar Star, is set to assist the Russian and Chinese ships because “there is sufficient concern that the vessels may not be able to free themselves from the ice,” the Coast Guard said in a statement.

In case you haven't followed this, they're stuck because they went to rescue a bunch of AGW researchers who went there to show 'all the ice is melting!' and got stuck.

Be it noted that a lot of scientists are not real happy with the idiots who started this chain of events.


Boiling water sprayed into a -41F day



Wonderful people, aren't they?
A Kuwaiti woman who is called an “activist” and former candidate to the Kuwaiti parliament, spoke to the Kuwait Times about the establishment of a new law permitting men to buy and sell non-Muslim girls, captured in jihad, as sexual slaves in order to protect Muslim men against seductive sexual immorality. The Arabic Al Arabiya had more details on what that woman, Salwa al-Mutairi, is advocating:


Also in the mid-East, what Syrians are putting together as artillery.