Data. Study.

Now.

Well, it would be a start; then make all the alphabet agencies

give up their "We're cool kids too!" SWAT teams.
Law enforcement agents with the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service are too "Rambo" to Rep. Jason Chaffetz's liking, so he wants to take away their guns and authority.

"These agents are more Rambo and less Andy Griffith than I would like," he told the Deseret News Tuesday.
Sounds good.  They show infection with the "I'm Easy Company dealing with Krauts" attitude, take their sticks away.

Chaffetz said he also wants to issue subpoenas to the "out of control" federal agencies to learn why they want to purchase submachine guns. He said he has had repeated meetings and sent letters to the BLM's national director, Neil Kornze, with no satisfactory response to his questions.

"I want to know what kind of arsenal they have. I'm met with blank stares," he said. "They're wholly unresponsive. They don't feel compelled to answer our letters."
They think they don't have to answer questions, go after their budgets.  This crap needs to stop.

I do understand there are places it's a good idea for someone to have a weapon; lose the attitude and maybe they can have them back.  Sidearms, maybe a rifle; no subguns or M-16 variants.


Our chances of air supremacy in future conflict are going down the drain.  And it's not going to improve anytime soon.



And I'll note that the President's domestic-terrorist friend Ayers was out in Chicago cheering on the violence and suppression of speech the other night; wonder if he's started hinting to the Occutards and Sanders supporters about bombs yet?

Spring in Oklahoma:

it's raining again, and a bit chilly, but no airborn vacuums floating around.  Very good weather for study time

Government-run health care: more to look forward to

An employee at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Phoenix hospital just revealed physicians are blocking off open time slots so they can retain easy schedules, effectively increasing wait times for veterans, some of whom have waited over 400 days for an appointment.
Kuauhtemoc Rodriguez, a former Army infantry officer, has repeatedly brought the issue of physician scheduling to leadership at the hospital, only to be ignored. Now, he’s letting Congress and the media know exactly what’s happening at the facility.

Miguel took this Lancet study apart

in fine fashion.  Very short version from the weenies: "All you have to do is pass these laws, and all will be harmony!"
Slight problems: starting with them being full of crap.  Again.  So badly that
When you have somebody from the Bloomberg-paid John Hopkins’s School of Medical Gun Control and Other Ugly Stuff calls the study Full Of Shit (In scientific terms), you know there is something wrong with it.
'Something' wrong?  LOTS of things.  Including
The paper, published in the British medical journal The Lancet and written by researchers at Boston University, Columbia University and the University of Bern in Switzerland, found that one of the three most effective gun policies were laws requiring ballistic imaging or microstamping, which help law enforcement identify guns used in crimes.

Experts noted that the laws, which were on the books in only three states, were not actually being implemented in practice.

That “would be the biggest red flag, obviously, when they’re finding huge effects of a law that doesn’t exist”, Daniel Webster, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, said.
No shit.  And Maryland actually got rid of their ballistic-fingerprint database because it didn't work; they'd never solved a crime with it, and wanted to put the money and personnel into their DNA database, which DID work.  Lots of politicians screamed, they could not stand the idea of their dream being shit, but finally gave in.

So, one more BS study 'proving' all we need is a few more restrictions, etc., to solve all the problems.  So they say.  One of the responses:
Other researchers who have published major evaluations of American gun laws said it was implausible that implementing three relatively modest gun restrictions could have such a huge impact on gun deaths.
“We’ve seen much more dramatic interventions in Britain and Australia and places like that, and even they did not get those kinds of results,” said Phil Cook, a public policy expert at Duke University who was one of the authors of a major study on the effectiveness of the nation’s current federal background check law.
'much more dramatic' meaning massive bans, and confiscations, and more licensing restrictions, the whole works.  And that accomplish that.  But for some reason those results will follow here if we pass those laws...

Since these weenies are pushing the ballistic fingerprinting and microstamping crap again, seems a good place to point those who haven't seen it to Kevin's post on Why Ballistic Fingerprinting Doesn't (and Won't) Work; it's a long one, and chock full of facts the weenies don't like.

One of those pieces of history that's so inconvenient to some

that they try to ignore it.  When it can't be ignored, it's still the fault of those Evil Europeans, because(the newer 'explanation') White Privilege.  Or something.


Never liked David Suzuki, and that was before he became one of the big Gerbil Worming people.  He's now demonstrated just why he doesn't like interviews where he can't control the questions.


"You don't want to carry those authors, they don't have the Correct opinions!"
Any bookstore that drops people over this, and then bitches about Freedom of Speech, is a bloody hypocrite.


And the New Campus Red Guard marches on.

Activists have also demanded the creation of an Office for Social Transformation, which would employ 15 students—young Robespierres in training—for the purposes of monitoring “racist, anti-black, transphobic, cissexist, misogynistic, ableist, homophobic, Islamophobic, and otherwise oppressive behavior on campus.” (Anti-Semitism, one notes, is curiously omitted.) These students will be granted terrifying powers to discipline faculty members who commit microaggressions. Professors—even tenured professors—can and will be placed under investigation if they are accused of maintaining insufficiently safe spaces within their classrooms.

These measures are hailed as “progressive” by the activists—because what could be more progressive than committees of liberal extremists conducting thoughtcrime investigations?

And the author better be careful, I'm sure that pointing out the 'no anti-semitism' omission is a microaggression.



To: Director Comey, FBI
Ref: 'Why do people suspect our motives in the Apple case?'

Sir, for the moment ignore some less-than-glorious actions by FBI over the past years: when we receive this slap in the face on top of various others, can you understand why we're not ready to trust ANY agency, including the one you run, to force it to be even easier to screw around in our lives?

Sincerely, etc.

This would actually have been a nice range day,

just wear shoes you don't mind getting soaked when you walk to the targets.  But there's some mowing I'll have to do later, and crap I need to do in the house, and I really don't want to do multiple walks back & forth to the target stands yet, so.  Now to get back up and start doing some of that.

But before I get off my assstart doing something constructive,
A leaked confidential police report in Germany warns of spiking refugee crime – including drug and sex offences – and a rise in radicalisation against the state.

The report says 'immigration will lead to more crime and increased police usage' to combat it.

The number of crimes – of violence, sexual, property theft and narcotic offences – will rise, says the paper of the North Rhine-Westphalian department of the interior whose 'Immigration' project involves both individual states and central government.
I think there are elections coming in Germany; I don't think Merkel & Co. are going to enjoy the results.

If you thought Lynch was anything other than Eric Holder(2),

this crap should deny that:
Attorney General Loretta Lynch testified Wednesday that the Justice Department has “discussed” taking civil legal action against the fossil fuel industry for “denying” the “threat of carbon emissions” when it comes to climate change.
Really?  Because they don't go along with the Preferred Narrative of Lightbringer?  Why the hell would you want to open such a can of 1st Amendment worms?

Ah, because control-freak 'It's for your own good' politicians want to compare speech they don't like to smoking:
He went on to point out that under President Bill Clinton, the Justice Department brought and won a civil case against the tobacco industry, while the Obama administration has “done nothing” so far with regard to the fossil fuel industry.

That Whitehouse thinks this crap is a good idea is idiotic; that Lynch & Co. are actually considering it should be proof she has no business being in that office.

Because for Germaine Clarno and the Union,

better people die without care than they talk to someone in that icky 'R' party about it.
A former federal employee union president is wracked with regret because veterans likely died at a time when she knew about gross misconduct within her Department of Veterans Affairs facility but didn’t tell congressional leaders because they were Republicans.

“If I would’ve gone to him two years ago, who knows what kind of lives could’ve been saved,” Germaine Clarno told a radio interviewer Monday, referring to the Republican leader of a VA subcommittee.
But you didn't.  You went to Democrats who apparently didn't give a shit.
The women first went to Rep. Danny Davis, a Democrat who represented the district that included Hines, but he was not on any committees with VA oversight authority. “Danny Davis was pretty apathetic not because he didn’t know what was going on but because he felt like their was nothing he could do,” Nee said in the interview.

The two women then went to Rep. Tammy Duckworth , a disabled veteran Democrat who also represents the area and was an official at VA before being elected to Congress, but since was a new lawmaker without leadership roles on any committees, she did not help. Clarno and Nee said Duckworth wouldn’t even read a report about the situation at Hines.
Are you effing KIDDING ME?  'because he felt like there was nothing he could do'?  'since she was a new lawmaker and without leadership roles on any committees'? 

You God-damned IDIOTS!  You never heard to GOING TO SOMEONE ON A COMMITTEE?  You never heard of 'press conferences'?  You never heard of going to people and SCREAMING YOUR DAMNED HEAD OFF? 

Oh, but that would have cause problems for the union, wouldn't it?  And would have disturbed things when a bunch of Obamacare-pushers were telling everyone how well that government-run health care was working, wouldn't it?

Damn the union, damn the politicians, and damn chickenshits like Clarno who couldn't dirty themselves to talk to someone in the other party while people were dying.

"Who cares about that 'warfighting' crap, the important thing is

that these people be properly reeducated as to their privilege!"

And when a bunch of people wind up dead because time and money was spent on this bullshit instead of actual training and education, the idiots in charge won't care; because they don't give a damn about troops anyway.


What Life As A Transgender Woman Taught Me About Progressives
It's not real complimentary

And don't forget the way they treat Jenner for the crime of supporting Cruz, and seeing more to the situation than one personal matter.


And more chemical weapons use in Syria.

If this is true, Portugal has jumped through the hole

into hell.  And considering what's happening in other countries over there, it wouldn't surprise me.


This is interesting:
The S.C. House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday along a party-line vote that prevents the state from enforcing federal gun laws that took effect this year.

The Second Amendment Preservation Act directs state officials to not enforce any federal law, rule or regulation that took effect after Jan. 1 that limits access to firearms and ammunition.

From the Democrats:
“I think that there’s some merit in sending a message to Washington that we’re going to protect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens,” Stavrinakis said. “But I don’t want to be a part of a bill that cements the rights of criminals and deranged people and terrorists to wreak havoc. After what we’ve been through in Charleston and what we’ve seen happen around the world and in this country with domestic terrorists, it’s just something I could not support.”
Yeah.  'cements the rights of criminals and deranged people and terrorists'.  No bullshit there, noooooo...


Oh, crap:
This newly released video, shot from inside Finicum's vehicle, does indeed, for those who want to blame Finicum for what happened, literally show him telling the agents that they might as well "go ahead and shoot me" when he's out of the car and right before they fire the shots that kill him.

But the most interesting and damning thing the video makes clear is that agents started shooting at him, twice, before any of the "appearing to reach in his pocket for a gun" that supposedly justified the kill shots. See starting around 5:30 of the video.
Damn. 

If this is how the West Virginia actually train their officers, (updated)

whoever runs their training needs to find a new job.  Something that doesn't threaten peoples lives.
Last week a West Virginia woman who stood between her dog and a state trooper intent on killing him was acquitted of obstructing an officer by a jury in Wood County. It took jurors just half an hour to acquit 23-year-old Tiffanie Hupp after they watched the video of the incident that Hupp's husband, Ryan, shot with his cellphone.
...
Hupp told PINAC her case hinged on her husband's video, which they did not have for weeks after the incident because Cook confiscated the phone, which he was unable to access because it was protected by a password. "Without that video, it's just my word against a state trooper," she said. "Nobody is going to believe my word over law enforcement."
Aside from arresting the woman on a bullshit charge, here's something interesting:
...Cook "testified that he was not afraid of the dog, but was following training that required him to kill all dogs that approach him, even if it was chained and wagging its tail as Buddy was doing in this case."
Really?  THAT'S their training?  Fire the bastards in charge, and make it plain that any officer who kills a dog without damned good reason will be under suspension.  Without pay.

I got curious and checked, WVSP has a Facebook page, so I messaged and asked- yes, politely- if this is actually how they train their officers.  That was yesterday, so far no response.  Apparently they figure better to ignore questions than deal with the commoners who might be troubling them.
Update:
I did get response: basically "They lied, nothing to it, if we actually said/did something like that the local media would be all over us."
Sometimes I hate the level of distrust and cynicism I've developed; I see something like 'Fictitious quote' and the local media thing, and I start thinking of all the ways that could be used to deny something that's actually got fact behind it.  I may be doing them a disservice here, but I doubt it.


And this from the PINAC link:
“After he put me in the patrol car and arrested me, he just walks up the trailer and up to the phones and, whatever devices were on chargers, he took them,” she said.
“He took my husband’s phone, he took my phone, he took my sister-in-law’s and my son’s tablet. And we don’t use those phones or tablets anymore. If my phone leaves my hands and goes into the hands of a cop, I kinda don’t trust that.”
After almost a month of constant calls to the police department, they returned her phones.
After demanding the passwords.  Indicating they'd been browsing around in them, probably illegally(from what I understand).   Now throw in this bullshit:
According to Hupp, Cook also testified that she had a crossbow in her hand, which the video clearly shows isn’t the case. He also testified that she raised her hands at him, which the video also shows didn’t happen.
In the video, Cook grabbed Hupp by the arm and spins her around and she never raised her hands at him.
As of yet, Cook has not yet been charged with perjury.
And he won't be. Because badge, he gets to lie under oath, in a court, and get away with it.

And they'll wonder why people don't trust them, or believe them.

Oh yes, FBI, let's just make things worse and worse...

The Department of Justice is investigating five FBI agents involved in the fatal shooting of Oregon militia spokesman Lavoy Finicum for allegedly covering up the details of Finicum’s January death.

One of the FBI agents allegedly lied about firing twice on Finicum, who was shot to death in the course of an attempted arrest related to the militia’s occupation of federal land. Four other agents allegedly helped that agent cover up the lie, reported the Oregonian.

Authorities revealed the investigation Tuesday, as a team of local investigators released new details about the shooting. A member of the Hostage Rescue Team allegedly failed to report the two shots in question, officials said, although neither bullet actually hit Finicum.
Isn't it just bloody wonderful?  Various distrust, suspicions, "It's a justifiable shooting, stop bothering us about it", and now this.  Yeah, that's going to help.
But news of the federal investigation into the FBI agents is sure to inflame some suspicions regarding the authorities’ conduct during the attempted arrest and fatal shooting.
You think maybe?
"So if everything is all good, no questions, justified shooting, why are these Feebs lying about what they did?"  And on from there.  It might BE a justifiable shooting, but this comes out and people will wonder "Why'd they lie?  What are they trying to hide?"

Well done, Very Special Agents.

"Why don't people like us and trust us?"

Because you act like this.
The search warrant executed at Taylor’s apartment cited no evidence of criminal activity there. Instead, in an affidavit to a judge, police argued that they should be able to search for drugs there based on their “training and experience” investigating the drug trade. They relied on an address they found in a court-records system for the woman arrested with PCP.
Gee, what could go wrong?

In a dozen instances, The Post found, officers acted on incorrect or outdated address information, subjecting such people as Taylor to the fright of their lives.
Well, that's one thing.

D.C. police, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the D.C. Attorney General’s Office defend the use of warrants based on police training and experience.
Of course they do, it lets them do fishing expeditions and screw people over.

But it's all actually WONDERFUL!!, you see:
Karakatsanis studied a year of warrants in which police searched for drugs based on training and experience and found that they recovered drugs one-third of the time. In response to Karakatsanis, then-D.C. Attorney General Irvin B. Nathan argued in 2014, “While Plaintiffs treat this success rate with contempt, finding drugs in one-third of similar police searches is strong evidence of probable cause.”
Short version: every cop, the judges who approve this crap, the USA and the AG should all be fired.  This is bullshit.  "We found something ONE THIRD OF THE TIME, that should cover everything!"  Bleep.

And I have to break this out again

No, it wasn't critical, but painful?  Oh yeah.  Left foot caught and turned, and I landed full on my right knee.  On the driveway.  I managed to roll, after the impact(which dod a lotta good), but the damage was done.  Yes, finally went to the doc; final verdict is nothing broken or cracked, just bruised the hell out of it.  'Just' being quite enough to be painful.

So an anti-inflammatory, and stay off it much as can.  Which is even more fun because there's something I need to work on in the aptly-named crawlspace, but on this knee?  Some crawling and kneeling?  Not gonna happen, unless it's to keep the Posleen from eating me.

The other sucky part of things like this is that I don't heal as fast as I used to, so that much longer before it's pretty much back to (what passes for) normal.

Yuck.  They really need to get that stem-cell treatment for joints out for people, I could really use it.

The people pushing this crap won't have their ass on the line

in some 3rd-World hellhole when the barbarians are coming over the wire; and they think the troops(especially the males) are pawns to be used however they choose, anyway, so they don't care what it does to readiness.

And when a disaster happens, they'll blame the people who WARNED them this would happen for not having sufficient enthusiasm for cause-pushing; after all, that's more important about that 'winning battles' stuff, isn't it?

And I do include the politicians in uniform helping push this crap.  There's be blood on their hands, and they won't care as long as they can protect their rank.


First drunk monkeys with knives, now buff taking over the bar...

When the clowns running your government, and the media,

both want to control you for their reasons:
Indeed, Stockholm Police confirmed to the Mail this week that since the ‘neo-Nazi’ station disturbance, no migrants – underage or otherwise – have reported any assaults on them that evening. 

This raises the disturbing question as to whether the anti-migrant rampage ever took place in the way described. A local newspaper said in the aftermath that the video showed nothing more than police chasing away the leaflet distributors. The footage has no images of child refugees – and the only sign of violence appears to involve a policeman waving a baton.
Why lie about such things?
‘The Left – that is to say the Swedish media and establishment – is not interested in debating mass immigration. They are ideologically committed to imposing it come what may, for the greater good, and anybody who disagrees is a fascist, a Nazi, or a racist.’

And while fake hate-crimes are being reported, to try to control what people think,
No-go areas have sprung up in cities where, unless police units have a back-up team to guard them, it is dangerous to attend crime scenes because Molotov cocktails are hurled at them by migrants, according to one senior inspector this week.
So the government and most media have demonstrated they're not to be trusted, and this crap keeps building; sooner or later it's going to blow up.  And the idiots who helped it get there will still be whining about 'right-wing nazis' and other bullshit to try and distract from what they've helped create.

I don't know if Sanders believes this crap,

or is just sucking for votes from the Only Black Lives Matter people.
“When you are white, you don’t know what it’s like to be living in a ghetto, you don’t know what it’s like to be poor, you don’t know what it’s like to be hassled when you are walking down a street or dragged out of a car,” Sanders argues.
This man is an idiot.  And if the DNC wasn't cheating, he'd be in the lead to be their candidate for President.


And he has apparently changed his mind on firearms, 'non-hunting guns' should be banned.  Besides being stupid, he apparently wants to challenge Obama for 'Best Gun Salesman'.


If Sweden and Germany Became US States, They Would be Among the Poorest States
"But they don't care, because Socialism!" or something.


“The act of protesting is not a denial of free speech, it is the exercising of free speech,” Stanley said. “Free speech is alive and well on university campuses.”
Yeah.  Because shouting people down, preventing them from speaking, blocking them from COMING to a campus, and getting people fired for 'offensive' speech' is 'exercising free speech'.  Things really DO mean opposites with the left.

Excellent; now find the asshats in the Pentagon

and that company who screwed all this up, and hand them their asses.
On Saturday, Army veteran Julio Muñoz finally found the dog he has been missing for three years — Ben, the canine that fought alongside him in Afghanistan.

Muñoz, 32, of The Bronx, was supposed to have been given the chance to adopt the dog after deployment. But as The Post revealed, at least two Pentagon employees, along with contractor K2 Solutions, have been secretly dumping military dogs out to civilians instead of offering them to their handlers.

Where do you find spelt flour?

I'll have to dig around, because I want to try baking this.


A new octopus, 2.5 miles down.


"Give the monkey a drink, what could go wrong?"
Rule: NEVER give the monkey a drink.  Especially if there are weapons around.


Interesting piece on the 21-foot rule.

First sounding of the bullshit alert:

On social media, the incident was described by some as a threat by the student against a black female student in a class on gender and race issues.
Actually that's three bullshit alerts.  Let's go over them, shall we?

The most basic: If it was a threat, why didn't any of them call the police?

Second: If someone actually threatened ANY female student, let alone a black one, anyone believe this wouldn't have been screamed about from the first second?  Along with names and pictures and probably video?

Third: Anyone who trusts ANY accusation out of a 'gender and race issues' class is an idiot.

Very short version: "Some Eloi at the university wet their pants at the sight of the most basic of tools, and some others want to use this to make it a racial thing."