cow:
Putin, Russia's most powerful politician who now serves as prime minister, said Washington's decision to scrap the antimissile plans of George W. Bush's administration was a correct and brave decision.
...
Putin told an investment forum in the Black Sea resort of Sochi he now expected further steps from Washington including the complete removal of all trade restrictions and full U.S. backing for a joint bid by Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan to join the World Trade Organization (WTO).
"The latest decisions by President Obama to cancel plans to build the third positioning region of the missile-defense system in Europe inspires hope and I do anticipate that this correct and brave decision will be followed by others," Putin said.
Any guesses/bets on what Pres. Obama(a.k.a. 'Dumbass') will give on next?
As to the 'new' system that will replace this one,
So excuse me if I don’t buy this “redefinition” of the threat the Obama administration is claiming is better addressed by its focus on short and medium range Iranian missiles. Any defense against missiles is a layered defense. That means you address all possible missile threats.
The fact remains that the only threat to Europe, for whom the Bush-era anti-missile shield was intended, is ballistic missiles. Iran (or Russia) must use them to reach that continent. Iranian short and medium range missiles are not a threat Europe.
The point, of course, is should Iran develop an ICBM, Europe would be defenseless because the systems which are designed for the short and medium range missiles aren’t designed to go after ICBMs.
Or said another way, the proper announcement would have been “the US is adding the missing two layers to the anti-missile defense system, thereby making the system complete.”
Instead we pulled the long-range system. Why?
So now politicians who had no problem standing at a podium and announcing "The war is lost" when Bush was President are demanding we have to back Obama on this or 'it will damage his ability to deal with other nations', which apparently wasn't important when Reid and Pelosi and Obama were screwing our troops in the field a while back.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
This case had to be a setup by CAIR
A popular national chain of clothing stores is being sued by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for allegedly not hiring a Muslim Tulsa teenager because she wears a hijab, a religiously mandated head scarf.
The EEOC filed the lawsuit Wednesday against Abercrombie & Fitch in U.S. District Court in Tulsa, citing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, modified in 1991, as the basis for the action.
The suit says that Samantha Elauf, 17, applied in June 2008 for a sales job at the Abercrombie Kids store in Woodland Hills Mall.
A district manager allegedly told her that the hijab, which Elauf wears in observance of her religious beliefs, did not fit the store's image.
"Defendant refused to hire Ms. Elauf because she wears a hijab, claiming that the wearing of headgear was prohibited by its Look Policy, and, further, failed to accommodate her religious beliefs by making an exception to the Look Policy," the lawsuit states.
A: If she's a devout muslim, why the hell would she want to work at that place?
B: I'd imagine the rules for employees are laid out; if you don't like them, why want to work
there? Unless you're setting them up for the suit.
C: This fits what CAIR & Co. have done other places; try to force a business to change the rules to accommodate muslims.
The EEOC filed the lawsuit Wednesday against Abercrombie & Fitch in U.S. District Court in Tulsa, citing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, modified in 1991, as the basis for the action.
The suit says that Samantha Elauf, 17, applied in June 2008 for a sales job at the Abercrombie Kids store in Woodland Hills Mall.
A district manager allegedly told her that the hijab, which Elauf wears in observance of her religious beliefs, did not fit the store's image.
"Defendant refused to hire Ms. Elauf because she wears a hijab, claiming that the wearing of headgear was prohibited by its Look Policy, and, further, failed to accommodate her religious beliefs by making an exception to the Look Policy," the lawsuit states.
A: If she's a devout muslim, why the hell would she want to work at that place?
B: I'd imagine the rules for employees are laid out; if you don't like them, why want to work
there? Unless you're setting them up for the suit.
C: This fits what CAIR & Co. have done other places; try to force a business to change the rules to accommodate muslims.
Riehl asks "What is Olympia Snowe smoking?"
I don't know, but this attempt to blow smoke up our kilts... she either thinks nobody pays attention or thinks she can lie and not be called on it. As to her not changing,
But the first part? Senator Snowe, you lie. I have seen your American Conservative Union rating. Your lifetime score is 47.88%, and your 2008 score of TWELVE PERCENT. That's one heck of a change.
And how does that $787 billion stimulus bill that you, Arlen Specter (still a Republican at the time) and Susan Collins voted for embody limited government and fiscal responsibility?
Snowe is just another RHINO squish.
But the first part? Senator Snowe, you lie. I have seen your American Conservative Union rating. Your lifetime score is 47.88%, and your 2008 score of TWELVE PERCENT. That's one heck of a change.
And how does that $787 billion stimulus bill that you, Arlen Specter (still a Republican at the time) and Susan Collins voted for embody limited government and fiscal responsibility?
Snowe is just another RHINO squish.
House guests and lathe progress
not connected, just same time period.
Ex and daughter are at a con in Texas, and so I have these two here for the weekend
Xoco, on top, no longer looks like a bobblehead, and Rhapsody has grown considerable. Her right ear tends to stand up and the left is folded about halfway. Most of the time. And they think Security Staff is going to eat them. I haven't had to resort to duct tape as yet, but the roll is handy.
The 'chance of showers tonight, becoming partly cloudy tomorrow' turned into dry overnight and it's raining lightly off & on now. Dammit. I had some mowing to do, but unless it stops now and the stuff dries by afternoon, I can forget that.
The lathe bits came in a couple of days ago, and so did the books. "How to run a lathe" has been started, and it's exactly what I needed: "You don't know anything, so here's how you start". The bit that came with the thing it turns out is a right-cut, and I needed a left-cut, so I took one of the new bits and ground it yesterday and tried it out. Instead of a wheel, I used the belt grinder, on one of the rollers so I had a hard surface with a square corner. It does grind on a curve so you have to shift it back & forth a bit to keep it flat, but did a nice job on that tool steel; then used a diamond stone to hone and polish it. On aluminum it cut beautifully, so I guess I got the angles and spindle speed right. Angles thanks to the book, which has very good drawings and explanations.
I need to get some delrin and brass rods for making punches. And when I have time I'm going to figure out the gears for some thread setting and try that out on pvc(thanks to Og for that suggestion) and find out what I'm doing before I try it on steel. I did find a lube hole in the housing for the backgears, so can take care of that. And I may make a handle for the hand wheel that advances the compound along the bed. Get a spindle for the tailstock(eventually) that's threaded to hold a chuck so I can center-drill pieces. Damn, I wish I'd had this for knife pommels and such years ago.
I think it stopped raining. It was a given that it would rain since the state fair opened the other day. Standard rule here: you can be in the midst of the worst drought in memory, but when the fair gets here it WILL rain. Often a lot.
Aw, crap. Metrosexuals have discovered the canteen. "...woven canvas, leather trim, and fitted with retro-chic metal grommets" for God's sake. Over here you can get an actual insulated arctic canteen(with cover) for $22.50 and shipping. Or for actual water carry, a 2-quart with cover for $17.50. Of course, they don't have anything retro-chic about them, but...
Crap, it's raining again.
Unrelated to any of the above, I've got a mold that throws 125-grain .38 roundnose bullets, which- except for targets- are just about useless; it's a lousy profile for small game or self-defense. And it's a bit too small diameter for the .38S&W. So I tried something: I set the drill press vise in the bench vise so the jaws were horizontal, set a bullet in and gave it a half-turn, producing a flat-nose bullet. According to the caliper it didn't expand the body, so gave another half-turn; body expansion, not exact in all dimensions(no surprise) but fairly consistent. I'm going to make a batch of these up to try out. For exact diameter you could drill a hole in a 3/8" steel plate and ream it to the exact diameter you want(adjustable reamers are inexpensive at Harbor Freight), set the bullet in and then squeeze it. I'd lube it first, as that'd help keep the lube grooves from getting too squished and probably help remove the bullet. I've got a reamer set, so I need to find some suitable plate. I've got some spring stock that thick, and it's annealed so shouldn't be too hard to cut a suitable rectangle.
If you had a suitable press, maybe a big, heavy-duty drill press, you could make a nose punch with a point; then, if you could make a jig to hold the plate centered you could produce flat-nose hollowpoints. If nothing else, out of a .38 Special or .357 rifle they'd really do a job on rabbits and such.
Ex and daughter are at a con in Texas, and so I have these two here for the weekend
Xoco, on top, no longer looks like a bobblehead, and Rhapsody has grown considerable. Her right ear tends to stand up and the left is folded about halfway. Most of the time. And they think Security Staff is going to eat them. I haven't had to resort to duct tape as yet, but the roll is handy.The 'chance of showers tonight, becoming partly cloudy tomorrow' turned into dry overnight and it's raining lightly off & on now. Dammit. I had some mowing to do, but unless it stops now and the stuff dries by afternoon, I can forget that.
The lathe bits came in a couple of days ago, and so did the books. "How to run a lathe" has been started, and it's exactly what I needed: "You don't know anything, so here's how you start". The bit that came with the thing it turns out is a right-cut, and I needed a left-cut, so I took one of the new bits and ground it yesterday and tried it out. Instead of a wheel, I used the belt grinder, on one of the rollers so I had a hard surface with a square corner. It does grind on a curve so you have to shift it back & forth a bit to keep it flat, but did a nice job on that tool steel; then used a diamond stone to hone and polish it. On aluminum it cut beautifully, so I guess I got the angles and spindle speed right. Angles thanks to the book, which has very good drawings and explanations.
I need to get some delrin and brass rods for making punches. And when I have time I'm going to figure out the gears for some thread setting and try that out on pvc(thanks to Og for that suggestion) and find out what I'm doing before I try it on steel. I did find a lube hole in the housing for the backgears, so can take care of that. And I may make a handle for the hand wheel that advances the compound along the bed. Get a spindle for the tailstock(eventually) that's threaded to hold a chuck so I can center-drill pieces. Damn, I wish I'd had this for knife pommels and such years ago.
I think it stopped raining. It was a given that it would rain since the state fair opened the other day. Standard rule here: you can be in the midst of the worst drought in memory, but when the fair gets here it WILL rain. Often a lot.
Aw, crap. Metrosexuals have discovered the canteen. "...woven canvas, leather trim, and fitted with retro-chic metal grommets" for God's sake. Over here you can get an actual insulated arctic canteen(with cover) for $22.50 and shipping. Or for actual water carry, a 2-quart with cover for $17.50. Of course, they don't have anything retro-chic about them, but...
Crap, it's raining again.
Unrelated to any of the above, I've got a mold that throws 125-grain .38 roundnose bullets, which- except for targets- are just about useless; it's a lousy profile for small game or self-defense. And it's a bit too small diameter for the .38S&W. So I tried something: I set the drill press vise in the bench vise so the jaws were horizontal, set a bullet in and gave it a half-turn, producing a flat-nose bullet. According to the caliper it didn't expand the body, so gave another half-turn; body expansion, not exact in all dimensions(no surprise) but fairly consistent. I'm going to make a batch of these up to try out. For exact diameter you could drill a hole in a 3/8" steel plate and ream it to the exact diameter you want(adjustable reamers are inexpensive at Harbor Freight), set the bullet in and then squeeze it. I'd lube it first, as that'd help keep the lube grooves from getting too squished and probably help remove the bullet. I've got a reamer set, so I need to find some suitable plate. I've got some spring stock that thick, and it's annealed so shouldn't be too hard to cut a suitable rectangle.
If you had a suitable press, maybe a big, heavy-duty drill press, you could make a nose punch with a point; then, if you could make a jig to hold the plate centered you could produce flat-nose hollowpoints. If nothing else, out of a .38 Special or .357 rifle they'd really do a job on rabbits and such.
Friday, September 18, 2009
From where Great Britain used to be, let's start with a truly dumbass cop
shooting someone in a classroom demonstration:
PC David Micklethwaite, 52, blasted telephone operator Keith Tilbury at point blank range after mistakenly loading a live round into a 'Dirty Harry' style .44 Magnum revolver.
They had a Model 29?
He shot Mr Tilbury while attempting to show civilian recruits how the chamber spins in a Magnum made famous by Clint Eastwood.
Because he was the Only One in the room qualified...
When he reached into a Quality Street tin Thames Valley's armourers used to keep assorted ammunition,(a lot of you are cringing at this point) he grabbed a live round.
He then took the Magnum .44 out of a holdall in order to demonstrate the difference between a revolver and a pistol, loading what he thought was a dummy round into the chamber.
Mr Tilbury, a former electronic defence industry worker who had shot in the Berkshire County rifle team, later told investigators he saw Micklethwaite aiming the weapon at him(Good grief!).
'I was getting up to move from my chair to move when I heard two clicks and then a loud bang.' As Mr Tilbury's classmates looked on in horror, he was thrown back onto the chair and collapsed to the floor.
Leaving behind this example of Prime, Grade A idiocy, we move on to
A mother and her disabled daughter died in a blazing car after police decided a campaign of terror against them by local yobs was not worth prosecuting, an inquest heard yesterday.
Fiona Pilkington, her family and neighbours asked for help more than 30 times but she was accused of 'overreacting'.
And just what, in their wisdom, was not worth prosecuting?
The yobs, some as young as ten, threw stones and eggs at her home in Barwell, Leicestershire, urinated on a wall, invaded the garden and pushed fireworks through the letter box, leaving the family 'under siege'.
Anthony was beaten up in the street and locked in a shed at knifepoint.
The final call to police came on the day of Miss Pilkington's death in October 2007, when she was told to 'ignore' girls trampling over her hedge and mocking Francecca, who had developmental delay and a mental age of four.
Whiskey Tango Bleepin' Foxtrot?
Yesterday coroner Olivia Davison put a series of searching questions to Chris Tew, who was then assistant chief constable of Leicestershire Police.
She said it must have been 'common sense' to want to help a family who were feeling 'victimised'.
Mr Tew, now retired, said: 'Anti-social behaviour often occurs in residential areas when no actual crime is being committed. There's no damage or assault and it doesn't pass the threshold for a crime.'
So. Really. So in (fG)Britain nowadays, trespassing and property damage being beaten and assault with a deadly weapon(let me note, I think that over here in Dodge City Land forcing someone to go somewhere at knifepoint could be considered kidnapping, for that matter) and so forth don't count as 'damage or assault' and 'don't pass the threshold for a crime'.
Shit.
'It must be a motivating factor in being a police officer to stop a situation like this...So I wonder why someone did not decide this needed to be stopped?'
Mr Tew replied: 'I cannot answer that, sorry.' He said it was ' unfortunate' police had not linked Miss Pilkington's calls. An investigation had found 'too many cases were closed without further contact or additional resources offered'.
'Unfortunate'. Yeah, that's the word.
The inquest heard that none of the 16-strong gang was ever prosecuted. At one point one told Miss Pilkington: 'We can do anything we like to you and you can't do anything about it'.
Because the British government and police are apparently not worth shit in the case of plain citiz- excuse me, subjects of the Crown being threatened and attacked and having their homes damaged.
And finally, to some more of that wonderful National Health Service:
Two care workers who covered a dementia sufferer’s mouth with sticky tape to keep him quiet were convicted of assault yesterday.
Derek Maynard, 89, had a three-inch piece of Sellotape placed over his mouth because he had made a fuss about wanting to go to bed.
And, for my conclusion,
A young woman died in hospital after waiting almost two hours for a blood transfusion that could have saved her.
Sally Thompson, 20, bled to death after a doctor accidentally punctured her jugular vein during a bungled procedure.
Despite an urgent request to the blood bank at Manchester Royal Infirmary, she died one hour and 45 minutes later, before any arrived.
...
they sent an order down for blood but the bank said they were having trouble finding any crossmatched blood because of her disorder.'
I'm going to go into a bit of bitching here. 'Way back in the Cretaceous when I worked at the blood bank in Lawton, I was on call every other week. One of the hospitals in town needed blood, they'd call and I'd be paged. We kept a list of our own inventory plus what the hospitals had, so I'd go wherever and get it and take it over. In an emergency- for instance, someone bleeding out and needing desperately blood we didn't have, I'd call the nearest places that might have it, find it, and if I couldn't get it in time, or it was too far away, we called the Highway Patrol for an emergency pickup and delivery; they'd call the nearest trooper, by the time he got to the hospital or blood bank office it'd be packed and ready, and they went. If it crossed county or district lines, another trooper would be waiting, they'd move it over and blow. If no trooper available for a stretch, they could usually get the local sheriff's office to relay it. They'd hit the ER door and run it to the lab, where a quick & dirty check was done to make sure it could be used and in it went.
That was in the 1970's, in southwest Oklahoma; we got it done. And yet the National Health Service couldn't manage to.
'No crossmatched or uncrossmatched O-negative blood was supplied, despite it being requested during the resuscitation, and this was a significant failure,' Mr Meadows said.
No SHIT?
I've got a friend who accuses me of cherrypicking bad stories about health care in Britan(he loves the idea of socialized medicine); I keep telling him all I have to do is pull up the British news sites and the stuff is there. All the damn time. Jeez, what a mess.
PC David Micklethwaite, 52, blasted telephone operator Keith Tilbury at point blank range after mistakenly loading a live round into a 'Dirty Harry' style .44 Magnum revolver.
They had a Model 29?
He shot Mr Tilbury while attempting to show civilian recruits how the chamber spins in a Magnum made famous by Clint Eastwood.
Because he was the Only One in the room qualified...
When he reached into a Quality Street tin Thames Valley's armourers used to keep assorted ammunition,(a lot of you are cringing at this point) he grabbed a live round.
He then took the Magnum .44 out of a holdall in order to demonstrate the difference between a revolver and a pistol, loading what he thought was a dummy round into the chamber.
Mr Tilbury, a former electronic defence industry worker who had shot in the Berkshire County rifle team, later told investigators he saw Micklethwaite aiming the weapon at him(Good grief!).
'I was getting up to move from my chair to move when I heard two clicks and then a loud bang.' As Mr Tilbury's classmates looked on in horror, he was thrown back onto the chair and collapsed to the floor.
Leaving behind this example of Prime, Grade A idiocy, we move on to
A mother and her disabled daughter died in a blazing car after police decided a campaign of terror against them by local yobs was not worth prosecuting, an inquest heard yesterday.
Fiona Pilkington, her family and neighbours asked for help more than 30 times but she was accused of 'overreacting'.
And just what, in their wisdom, was not worth prosecuting?
The yobs, some as young as ten, threw stones and eggs at her home in Barwell, Leicestershire, urinated on a wall, invaded the garden and pushed fireworks through the letter box, leaving the family 'under siege'.
Anthony was beaten up in the street and locked in a shed at knifepoint.
The final call to police came on the day of Miss Pilkington's death in October 2007, when she was told to 'ignore' girls trampling over her hedge and mocking Francecca, who had developmental delay and a mental age of four.
Whiskey Tango Bleepin' Foxtrot?
Yesterday coroner Olivia Davison put a series of searching questions to Chris Tew, who was then assistant chief constable of Leicestershire Police.
She said it must have been 'common sense' to want to help a family who were feeling 'victimised'.
Mr Tew, now retired, said: 'Anti-social behaviour often occurs in residential areas when no actual crime is being committed. There's no damage or assault and it doesn't pass the threshold for a crime.'
So. Really. So in (fG)Britain nowadays, trespassing and property damage being beaten and assault with a deadly weapon(let me note, I think that over here in Dodge City Land forcing someone to go somewhere at knifepoint could be considered kidnapping, for that matter) and so forth don't count as 'damage or assault' and 'don't pass the threshold for a crime'.
Shit.
'It must be a motivating factor in being a police officer to stop a situation like this...So I wonder why someone did not decide this needed to be stopped?'
Mr Tew replied: 'I cannot answer that, sorry.' He said it was ' unfortunate' police had not linked Miss Pilkington's calls. An investigation had found 'too many cases were closed without further contact or additional resources offered'.
'Unfortunate'. Yeah, that's the word.
The inquest heard that none of the 16-strong gang was ever prosecuted. At one point one told Miss Pilkington: 'We can do anything we like to you and you can't do anything about it'.
Because the British government and police are apparently not worth shit in the case of plain citiz- excuse me, subjects of the Crown being threatened and attacked and having their homes damaged.
And finally, to some more of that wonderful National Health Service:
Two care workers who covered a dementia sufferer’s mouth with sticky tape to keep him quiet were convicted of assault yesterday.
Derek Maynard, 89, had a three-inch piece of Sellotape placed over his mouth because he had made a fuss about wanting to go to bed.
And, for my conclusion,
A young woman died in hospital after waiting almost two hours for a blood transfusion that could have saved her.
Sally Thompson, 20, bled to death after a doctor accidentally punctured her jugular vein during a bungled procedure.
Despite an urgent request to the blood bank at Manchester Royal Infirmary, she died one hour and 45 minutes later, before any arrived.
...
they sent an order down for blood but the bank said they were having trouble finding any crossmatched blood because of her disorder.'
I'm going to go into a bit of bitching here. 'Way back in the Cretaceous when I worked at the blood bank in Lawton, I was on call every other week. One of the hospitals in town needed blood, they'd call and I'd be paged. We kept a list of our own inventory plus what the hospitals had, so I'd go wherever and get it and take it over. In an emergency- for instance, someone bleeding out and needing desperately blood we didn't have, I'd call the nearest places that might have it, find it, and if I couldn't get it in time, or it was too far away, we called the Highway Patrol for an emergency pickup and delivery; they'd call the nearest trooper, by the time he got to the hospital or blood bank office it'd be packed and ready, and they went. If it crossed county or district lines, another trooper would be waiting, they'd move it over and blow. If no trooper available for a stretch, they could usually get the local sheriff's office to relay it. They'd hit the ER door and run it to the lab, where a quick & dirty check was done to make sure it could be used and in it went.
That was in the 1970's, in southwest Oklahoma; we got it done. And yet the National Health Service couldn't manage to.
'No crossmatched or uncrossmatched O-negative blood was supplied, despite it being requested during the resuscitation, and this was a significant failure,' Mr Meadows said.
No SHIT?
I've got a friend who accuses me of cherrypicking bad stories about health care in Britan(he loves the idea of socialized medicine); I keep telling him all I have to do is pull up the British news sites and the stuff is there. All the damn time. Jeez, what a mess.
Why we don't trust the "Illegals won't get health care
under this bill" crap:
Maddow then played an audio clip of Section 246 from the bill. This section, which liberals keep brandishing like a DNA-stained dress, states: "Nothing in this subtitle shall allow federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States."
In other words, illegal aliens are excluded from precisely one section of the thousand-page, goodie-laden health care bill: Section 246, which distributes taxpayer-funded "affordability credits" to people who can't afford to pay for their own health care.
Even this minor restriction on taxpayer largesse to illegals will immediately be overturned by the courts. But the point is: Except for vouchers, the bill does not even pretend to exclude illegals from any part of national health care -- including the taxpayer-funded health insurance plan.
The current post
Maddow then played an audio clip of Section 246 from the bill. This section, which liberals keep brandishing like a DNA-stained dress, states: "Nothing in this subtitle shall allow federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States."
In other words, illegal aliens are excluded from precisely one section of the thousand-page, goodie-laden health care bill: Section 246, which distributes taxpayer-funded "affordability credits" to people who can't afford to pay for their own health care.
Even this minor restriction on taxpayer largesse to illegals will immediately be overturned by the courts. But the point is: Except for vouchers, the bill does not even pretend to exclude illegals from any part of national health care -- including the taxpayer-funded health insurance plan.
The current post
Why we don't trust the "Illegals won't get health care
under this bill" crap:
Maddow then played an audio clip of Section 246 from the bill. This section, which liberals keep brandishing like a DNA-stained dress, states: "Nothing in this subtitle shall allow federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States."
In other words, illegal aliens are excluded from precisely one section of the thousand-page, goodie-laden health care bill: Section 246, which distributes taxpayer-funded "affordability credits" to people who can't afford to pay for their own health care.
Even this minor restriction on taxpayer largesse to illegals will immediately be overturned by the courts. But the point is: Except for vouchers, the bill does not even pretend to exclude illegals from any part of national health care -- including the taxpayer-funded health insurance plan.
Maddow then played an audio clip of Section 246 from the bill. This section, which liberals keep brandishing like a DNA-stained dress, states: "Nothing in this subtitle shall allow federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States."
In other words, illegal aliens are excluded from precisely one section of the thousand-page, goodie-laden health care bill: Section 246, which distributes taxpayer-funded "affordability credits" to people who can't afford to pay for their own health care.
Even this minor restriction on taxpayer largesse to illegals will immediately be overturned by the courts. But the point is: Except for vouchers, the bill does not even pretend to exclude illegals from any part of national health care -- including the taxpayer-funded health insurance plan.
And why should WE trust these people?
'Beliefs and commitments' of nation's leader should supersede judges - The interpretation of federal law should be made not by judges but by the beliefs and commitments of the U.S. president and those around him, according to President Obama's newly confirmed regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein.
That whole 'separation of powers' thing just doesn't seem important to them, does it?
That whole 'separation of powers' thing just doesn't seem important to them, does it?
Gee, I just don't understand why allies(current and potential) don't trust
Obama...
The United Nations Human Rights Council, a putrid perversion of every high ideal upon which it was founded, has issued a report calling the Israelis war criminals. The HRC has also, in obedience to the wishes of Chávez and Castro, ejected the representative from Honduras. In the very week the U.N. has committed these outrages, the Obama administration has announced that the United States, which quit the organization in 2006, will rejoin. Brilliant.
And from Weasel Zippers,
The United Nations Human Rights Council, a putrid perversion of every high ideal upon which it was founded, has issued a report calling the Israelis war criminals. The HRC has also, in obedience to the wishes of Chávez and Castro, ejected the representative from Honduras. In the very week the U.N. has committed these outrages, the Obama administration has announced that the United States, which quit the organization in 2006, will rejoin. Brilliant.
And from Weasel Zippers,
WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Poles and Czechs voiced deep concern Friday at President Barack Obama's decision to scrap a Bush-era missile defense shield planned for their countries.
"Betrayal! The U.S. sold us to Russia and stabbed us in the back,"the Polish tabloid Fakt declared on its front page.Polish President Lech Kaczynski said he was concerned that Obama's new strategy leaves Poland in a dangerous "gray zone" between Western Europe and the old Soviet sphere.
An editorial in Hospodarske Novine, a respected pro-business Czech newspaper, said: "an ally we rely on has betrayed us, and exchanged us for its own, better relations with Russia, of which we are rightly afraid."
The move has raised fears in the two nations they are being marginalized by Washington even as a resurgent Russia leaves them longing for added American protection.
Is Britain still a sovereign state?
Denis MacShane, a former Europe minister, has claimed that just nine per cent of UK laws derive from Brussels and based this on research by the House of Commons Library of the number of Statutory Instruments through which most regulations are now enacted. However, this ignored the fact that many EU rules take direct effect. The Lithuanian government, which has been counting since it joined in 2005, reckons the amount of laws affecting it directly attributable to the EU is about 30 per cent.
According to research by the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA), there are currently 16,980 EU acts in force and between 1998 and 2007 there was a net gain of 9,415 EU laws. In 2007, 3,010 EU laws became UK law, while only 993 EU regulations were repealed - a net gain of 2,017 extra laws.
The pace at which new EU laws were promulgated also increased at a record speed, with a net gain of over 2,000 new laws in both 2006 and 2007, compared to an annual average net gain of only 942 new laws between 1998 and 2007. Almost half of the extra 9,415 EU laws created in the 10 years to the end of 2007 were introduced in 2006 and 2007. Ben Farrugia, a policy analyst at the TPA, says: “Despite EU rhetoric about reducing regulation, it is growing at a record rate.”
Our Immigration Department: is there anything they can't crap up?
A Marine's Japanese widow is fighting to raise her son in the nation her husband died protecting. Hotaru Ferschke and Sgt. Michael Ferschke had a proxy wedding, filing marriage papers after he deployed. He was killed in Iraq. Now U.S. immigration refuses to acknowledge the marriage.
These bastards... Go to Blackfive for the rest.
These bastards... Go to Blackfive for the rest.
I wonder how long it'll take to hear the PM of Poland called racist
for not taking calls from President Obama's underlings? I mean, c'mon, I know you'd rather he had the balls to tell you directly but don't you know those people work for The One?
Not only did the timing suck, but the New York Effing Times can't make up its mind:
UPDATE: The NYT reports on the unfortunate timing as well.
SECOND UPDATE: The NYT story linked above no longer makes reference to the timing, but this other NYT story does.
ACORN: the criminals that keep on stealing and helping illegals:
GOP California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger now wants an investigation. But neither the Terminator nor any other California public officials raised a peep when the very same San Diego ACORN office publicly announced a partnership with Citibank to secure home loans for illegal aliens. In 2005, Citibank and ACORN Housing Corporation – which has received tens of millions of tax dollars under the Bush administration alone — began recruiting Mexican illegal aliens for a lucrative program offering loans with below-market interest rates, down-payment assistance and no mortgage insurance requirements. Instead of Social Security numbers required of law-abiding citizens, the program allows illegal alien applicants to supply loosely-monitored tax identification numbers issued by the IRS.
"Telling the truth is a smear, you right-wing bastards!!"
Big protests in Iran; people there haven't given up yet.
President Obama said this week that his health care plan won't cover illegal immigrants, but argued that's all the more reason to legalize them and ensure they eventually do get coverage.
He really does want to ruin this country, doesn't he?
Damn, what a morning.
Not only did the timing suck, but the New York Effing Times can't make up its mind:
UPDATE: The NYT reports on the unfortunate timing as well.
SECOND UPDATE: The NYT story linked above no longer makes reference to the timing, but this other NYT story does.
ACORN: the criminals that keep on stealing and helping illegals:
GOP California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger now wants an investigation. But neither the Terminator nor any other California public officials raised a peep when the very same San Diego ACORN office publicly announced a partnership with Citibank to secure home loans for illegal aliens. In 2005, Citibank and ACORN Housing Corporation – which has received tens of millions of tax dollars under the Bush administration alone — began recruiting Mexican illegal aliens for a lucrative program offering loans with below-market interest rates, down-payment assistance and no mortgage insurance requirements. Instead of Social Security numbers required of law-abiding citizens, the program allows illegal alien applicants to supply loosely-monitored tax identification numbers issued by the IRS.
"Telling the truth is a smear, you right-wing bastards!!"
To hell with civility, to hell with politeness, and to hell with the hand wringing over whether we’re going to lose some kind of moral authority if we’re only three times better, fairer, and more moral people than the Democrats rather than four times better.
The future of the country hinges on stopping Barack Obama’s socialistic agenda, including Chappaquiddickcare. If the Democrats’ feelings get hurt in the process, too bad. I didn’t see any Democrats worried about decorum or upsetting Republicans during the Bush years. Heck, there still aren’t any Democrats who care about it now.
Big protests in Iran; people there haven't given up yet.
President Obama said this week that his health care plan won't cover illegal immigrants, but argued that's all the more reason to legalize them and ensure they eventually do get coverage.
He really does want to ruin this country, doesn't he?
Damn, what a morning.
General Electric: "We can get along with the new Stalin
just fine!"
Shortly after the pullback on the shield programme was announced, Russia's government said Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would meet several U.S. executives on Friday from firms including General Electric, Morgan Stanley as well as TPG, one of the world's largest private equity firms
Shortly after the pullback on the shield programme was announced, Russia's government said Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would meet several U.S. executives on Friday from firms including General Electric, Morgan Stanley as well as TPG, one of the world's largest private equity firms
General Electric may be the company with the closest ties to the Obama administration (if not, GE is second only to Goldman Sachs), and here we see the company benefiting from an abrupt foreign policy change made by President Obama. But GE isn't the only company benefiting. Reuters paints the broader picture:
The article also notes GE CEO Jeff Immelt sits on Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, and GE owns MSNBC, the network famously friendly to Obama.
Add this to some of the other crap GE is/has been involved in, maybe we should all stop buying GE products and send them a letter telling them why?
Damn, I just tried to bring up the GE contact information, and it keeps timing out; I wonder if people are telling them things...
Thursday, September 17, 2009
A lefty speaker lies about O'Keefe and Giles to try to cover for ACORN
Anybody surprised?
Far Left mouthpiece Marc Lamont Hill told Bill O’Reilly that Big Government investigative reporters James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles went to “hundreds of ACORN offices” before they were able to catch “low level” ACORN workers for their damning reports on the scandal-plagued organization. When asked how he knew this Hill told O’Reilly that, “They admitted it.”
This is not true.
James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles did not go to “hundreds of ACORN offices” to acquire material for this project. They went to the four offices that were shown in the series of videos. Also, at no time did O’Keefe, Giles or any representative of Big Government give such a statement to the press or to anyone.
The accusations by Marc Lamont Hill are completely false.
And, considering another video has been released, and there are apparently more on the way, it would seem that Hill really is a lying leftist boob.
Speaking of lying boobs, here's a rundown of some of the connections Obama is trying to downplay- or deny- with ACORN.
Far Left mouthpiece Marc Lamont Hill told Bill O’Reilly that Big Government investigative reporters James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles went to “hundreds of ACORN offices” before they were able to catch “low level” ACORN workers for their damning reports on the scandal-plagued organization. When asked how he knew this Hill told O’Reilly that, “They admitted it.”
This is not true.
James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles did not go to “hundreds of ACORN offices” to acquire material for this project. They went to the four offices that were shown in the series of videos. Also, at no time did O’Keefe, Giles or any representative of Big Government give such a statement to the press or to anyone.
The accusations by Marc Lamont Hill are completely false.
And, considering another video has been released, and there are apparently more on the way, it would seem that Hill really is a lying leftist boob.
Speaking of lying boobs, here's a rundown of some of the connections Obama is trying to downplay- or deny- with ACORN.
Didn't Obama pick a wonderful date to crap on Poland and
the Czech Republic?
Seventy years ago, in the morning hours of September 17, 1939, the Red Army troops crossed the Polish border and over the following weeks, in accordance with the secret protocols of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, occupied and annexed large swathes of what was then eastern Poland and is now western Ukraine and Belarus and southern Lithuania. The outgunned and outmaneuvered Polish army was already by that stage collapsing under the onslaught of the first German blitzkrieg, so from a military point of view the Soviet invasion did not materially affect the outcome of the struggle. It did, however, provide a dastardly coup de grace for the first chapter of the Second World War.
But don’t expect much news and commentary about September 17; not in the West, and certainly not in Russia.
I wonder, how many of the major media weenies mentioned this fact in their 'news' broadcasts today?
The anniversary is an uncomfortable reminder that for around one third of the duration of the war, the Soviet Union was one of the aggressors — first against Poland, then against Finland, and finally against the Baltic states and Romania — and that during that time it provided invaluable material aid to further the Nazi aggression against the West, while at the same time committing mass war crimes within the newly occupied territories, of which the so called “Katyn massacre” of some twenty thousand Polish army officers taken prisoner of war is only the most widely known.
Very few others have been investigated, none have been prosecuted (if one excludes the farcical attempt by the Soviets to pin the blame for Katyn on the Germans during the Nuremberg trials), and not one person responsible has ever been held to account. To add insult to injury, the very memory of the Soviet atrocities committed east of the Ribbentrop-Molotov line had been banished and criminalized after the war, right up until the fall of the Berlin Wall. For years, September 1, not the 17th, was the only date to remember, and for many it remains the only date that matters and the only date they know.
I'm curious; did Obama & Co. not know this date, did nobody around them know? Or did they like the date for telling two eastern European allies that they were screwed?
Seventy years ago, in the morning hours of September 17, 1939, the Red Army troops crossed the Polish border and over the following weeks, in accordance with the secret protocols of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, occupied and annexed large swathes of what was then eastern Poland and is now western Ukraine and Belarus and southern Lithuania. The outgunned and outmaneuvered Polish army was already by that stage collapsing under the onslaught of the first German blitzkrieg, so from a military point of view the Soviet invasion did not materially affect the outcome of the struggle. It did, however, provide a dastardly coup de grace for the first chapter of the Second World War.
But don’t expect much news and commentary about September 17; not in the West, and certainly not in Russia.
I wonder, how many of the major media weenies mentioned this fact in their 'news' broadcasts today?
The anniversary is an uncomfortable reminder that for around one third of the duration of the war, the Soviet Union was one of the aggressors — first against Poland, then against Finland, and finally against the Baltic states and Romania — and that during that time it provided invaluable material aid to further the Nazi aggression against the West, while at the same time committing mass war crimes within the newly occupied territories, of which the so called “Katyn massacre” of some twenty thousand Polish army officers taken prisoner of war is only the most widely known.
Very few others have been investigated, none have been prosecuted (if one excludes the farcical attempt by the Soviets to pin the blame for Katyn on the Germans during the Nuremberg trials), and not one person responsible has ever been held to account. To add insult to injury, the very memory of the Soviet atrocities committed east of the Ribbentrop-Molotov line had been banished and criminalized after the war, right up until the fall of the Berlin Wall. For years, September 1, not the 17th, was the only date to remember, and for many it remains the only date that matters and the only date they know.
I'm curious; did Obama & Co. not know this date, did nobody around them know? Or did they like the date for telling two eastern European allies that they were screwed?
Starting with a big one, Pres. Obama, Jimmy Carter II, craps on allies
yet again:
It now looks as though the president has surrendered to Russian demands to kill off Third Site. Michael Goldfarb at The Weekly Standard is reporting that:
“According to reliable sources, Obama administration officials are on their way to Poland and the Czech Republic to deliver very bad news. The administration intends to cancel completely the missile defense sites that had been promised to these governments by the previous administration.”
Soft on dictators and crapping on allies: yep, he either studied at Carter U., or they have the same mindset. Either way, it sucks.
WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday she is clueless about an amendment to prohibit government funds for embattled ACORN, although it overwhelmingly passed the Senate Monday and the White House is calling for the group to be held accountable.
"I don't even know what they passed," Pelosi told The Post yesterday. "What did they do? They defunded it?"
The amendment to suspend housing grants was a stunning blow to the community-activist group -- and came as some Democrats and the White House have been backing away from the group.
If she, Speaker of the House, truly knew nothing of this, then she's deaf and/or stupid, and so is her staff.
...ACORN 'chief organizer' says 'We're gonna go after this videographer and Fox',
just before the NEXT tape comes out, this one in San Diego.
I think the old saying is "Once is chance, twice could be coincidence, three times is enemy action"; this is five, and the big reaction of ACORN seems to be to try to kill the messenger; typical for a socialist group, isn't it? Remember this statement:
Former Acorn board members tell me the group has always been confident it will be protected. After the Nevada voter-registration fraud indictment last May, Bonnie Greathouse, Acorn's chief organizer in the state, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that "we've had bad publicity before" and survived. "People always come forward to our defense. We're just community organizers, just like the president used to be."
Not so much, anymore.
Obama & Co. lowballed the costs of Cap & Trade to the US? No surprise:
Well, it looks like he low-balled the costs of this horrid piece of legislation.
The Obama Administration this week admitted cap and trade would actually cost American households around $1,761 a year.
CBS reported:
Back to Jimmy Carter the Second, more formally known as Pres. Barack Obama:
Next week the Obama Administration will allow Ahmadinejad, Castro, Chavez, Gaddafi and several other international thugs into New York City to speak in front of the United Nations General Assembly. However, one country's president will not be allowed into the United States.
President Roberto Micheletti from Honduras will not be allowed to enter into America. The Obama Administration revoked his visa back in July.
For the first time in our nation's history, the Obama administration is siding with Marxist leaders Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, Raul Castro and Evo Morales in condemning our democratic ally Honduras.
A while back there was a bunch of noise that the new rules of engagement may have been a big factor in the deaths of Marines in Afghanistan; Uncle Jimbo doesn't think so:
...The new directive specifically states that if a unit cannot safely disengage, then they can use fire support against civilian locations.
...But the mistakes were in improperly applying the ROE and in disregarding the commander on the ground saying that there were no civilians in jeopardy regardless. If as reported they were denied this fire support due to an overly tight and wrong interpretation of the ROE, and worse if the chain of command failed to listen to the unit in contact advising that the call for fire would not harm civilians, then heads should roll. But let's find out if that is the case before we jump to judgment.
I hope not; I hate the thought that the commander would put rules in effect that would cause troops to die. Other problem: if the rules did allow the use of arty and air but the commanders either thought it wouldn't be allowed or were worried that if civilians died they'd be hung out to dry, then we've got- in the second case- a real big problem.
While Rep. Maxine Waters(Socialist-CA) is bitching that those people who disagree with The ONE's plans need to be investigated,
The ethics committee did not indicate what allegations it is examining involving Waters, but a series of news reports earlier this year questioned the California lawmaker’s role in the decision to provide $12 million in federal bailout funds to OneUnited Bank, where her husband, Sidney Williams, had served on the board and owned a minimum of $500,000 in stock in 2007.
...
As reported in March by the Los Angeles Times, the California lawmaker, a senior member of the Financial Services Committee, arranged a September 2008 meeting between OneUnited Bank’s chief executive, other financial institutions and Treasury Department officials.
The newspaper quoted a former Treasury official who attended the meeting as saying that it was intended to focus broadly on problems facing minority-owned banks, but instead focused primarily on OneUnited Bank.
Translation:"Yeah, if ACORN had been a conservative group we'd have been all OVER it, but since ACORN isn't we were just to busy with everything else to bother with, y'know, investigating them. Or reporting on what someone else brought up."
Senator Baucus(Evil Party Dirtbag-MT) really thinks screwing you is a good idea:
The Baucus proposal would impose, starting in 2013, a 35 percent excise tax on insurance companies for "high-cost plans" -- defined as those above $8,000 for individuals and $21,000 for family plans.
...
The tax contemplated by Baucus is also a big revenue raiser. It is expected to raise $200 billion, money that Baucus is hoping to use to pay for subsidies for the uninsured.
And Baucus thinks it's a good idea; Baucus needs to be recalled by MT voters.
And the New York Effing' Times can't be trusted. At all:
Here's what ACORN claimed... before the revelation of the NYC video:
It now looks as though the president has surrendered to Russian demands to kill off Third Site. Michael Goldfarb at The Weekly Standard is reporting that:
“According to reliable sources, Obama administration officials are on their way to Poland and the Czech Republic to deliver very bad news. The administration intends to cancel completely the missile defense sites that had been promised to these governments by the previous administration.”
Soft on dictators and crapping on allies: yep, he either studied at Carter U., or they have the same mindset. Either way, it sucks.
WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday she is clueless about an amendment to prohibit government funds for embattled ACORN, although it overwhelmingly passed the Senate Monday and the White House is calling for the group to be held accountable.
"I don't even know what they passed," Pelosi told The Post yesterday. "What did they do? They defunded it?"
The amendment to suspend housing grants was a stunning blow to the community-activist group -- and came as some Democrats and the White House have been backing away from the group.
If she, Speaker of the House, truly knew nothing of this, then she's deaf and/or stupid, and so is her staff.
...ACORN 'chief organizer' says 'We're gonna go after this videographer and Fox',
just before the NEXT tape comes out, this one in San Diego.
I think the old saying is "Once is chance, twice could be coincidence, three times is enemy action"; this is five, and the big reaction of ACORN seems to be to try to kill the messenger; typical for a socialist group, isn't it? Remember this statement:
Former Acorn board members tell me the group has always been confident it will be protected. After the Nevada voter-registration fraud indictment last May, Bonnie Greathouse, Acorn's chief organizer in the state, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that "we've had bad publicity before" and survived. "People always come forward to our defense. We're just community organizers, just like the president used to be."
Not so much, anymore.
Obama & Co. lowballed the costs of Cap & Trade to the US? No surprise:
Well, it looks like he low-balled the costs of this horrid piece of legislation.
The Obama Administration this week admitted cap and trade would actually cost American households around $1,761 a year.
CBS reported:
The Obama administration has privately concluded that a cap and trade law would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion a year, the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent.
A previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says the total in new taxes would be between $100 billion to $200 billion a year. At the upper end of the administration's estimate, the cost per American household would be an extra $1,761 a year.
Back to Jimmy Carter the Second, more formally known as Pres. Barack Obama:
Next week the Obama Administration will allow Ahmadinejad, Castro, Chavez, Gaddafi and several other international thugs into New York City to speak in front of the United Nations General Assembly. However, one country's president will not be allowed into the United States.
President Roberto Micheletti from Honduras will not be allowed to enter into America. The Obama Administration revoked his visa back in July.
For the first time in our nation's history, the Obama administration is siding with Marxist leaders Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, Raul Castro and Evo Morales in condemning our democratic ally Honduras.
A while back there was a bunch of noise that the new rules of engagement may have been a big factor in the deaths of Marines in Afghanistan; Uncle Jimbo doesn't think so:
...The new directive specifically states that if a unit cannot safely disengage, then they can use fire support against civilian locations.
(NOTE) This directive does not prevent commanders from protecting the lives of their men and women as a matter of self-defense where it is determined no other options (specific options deleted due to operational security) are available to effectively counter the threat.In the case under discussion an advisory unit and it's Afghan counterparts were ambushed and called for fire support from Apache gunships and artillery. They got neither in a timely fashion and almost certainly that was a factor in the deaths of the four Marines.
...But the mistakes were in improperly applying the ROE and in disregarding the commander on the ground saying that there were no civilians in jeopardy regardless. If as reported they were denied this fire support due to an overly tight and wrong interpretation of the ROE, and worse if the chain of command failed to listen to the unit in contact advising that the call for fire would not harm civilians, then heads should roll. But let's find out if that is the case before we jump to judgment.
I hope not; I hate the thought that the commander would put rules in effect that would cause troops to die. Other problem: if the rules did allow the use of arty and air but the commanders either thought it wouldn't be allowed or were worried that if civilians died they'd be hung out to dry, then we've got- in the second case- a real big problem.
While Rep. Maxine Waters(Socialist-CA) is bitching that those people who disagree with The ONE's plans need to be investigated,
The ethics committee did not indicate what allegations it is examining involving Waters, but a series of news reports earlier this year questioned the California lawmaker’s role in the decision to provide $12 million in federal bailout funds to OneUnited Bank, where her husband, Sidney Williams, had served on the board and owned a minimum of $500,000 in stock in 2007.
...
As reported in March by the Los Angeles Times, the California lawmaker, a senior member of the Financial Services Committee, arranged a September 2008 meeting between OneUnited Bank’s chief executive, other financial institutions and Treasury Department officials.
The newspaper quoted a former Treasury official who attended the meeting as saying that it was intended to focus broadly on problems facing minority-owned banks, but instead focused primarily on OneUnited Bank.
Translation:"Yeah, if ACORN had been a conservative group we'd have been all OVER it, but since ACORN isn't we were just to busy with everything else to bother with, y'know, investigating them. Or reporting on what someone else brought up."
Senator Baucus(Evil Party Dirtbag-MT) really thinks screwing you is a good idea:
The Baucus proposal would impose, starting in 2013, a 35 percent excise tax on insurance companies for "high-cost plans" -- defined as those above $8,000 for individuals and $21,000 for family plans.
...
The tax contemplated by Baucus is also a big revenue raiser. It is expected to raise $200 billion, money that Baucus is hoping to use to pay for subsidies for the uninsured.
And Baucus thinks it's a good idea; Baucus needs to be recalled by MT voters.
And the New York Effing' Times can't be trusted. At all:
Here's what ACORN claimed... before the revelation of the NYC video:
This recent scam, which was attempted in San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia to name a few places, had failed for months before the results we’ve all recently seen.
The statement was embarrassing enough that ACORN seems to have disappeared it forever from their site -- a pretty good red flag about the statement's "operativeness."
But that won't stop the NYT. The statement's great -- we just need to edit out a couple of words:
In a statement over the weekend, Bertha Lewis, the chief organizer for Acorn, said the bogus prostitute and pimp had spent months visiting numerous Acorn offices, including those in San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami and Philadelphia, before getting the responses they were looking for.
And just like that, ACORN's clear lie about O'Keefe and Giles striking out in New York City is airbrushed out of the picture, and the statement is presented as still possibly operative.
You know, worrying about "Can I stop this dino that's about to eat/mulch me?" would be simple compared to worrying about all these people who want to 'save' me...Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Maybe the education speech was just the first step
This week the House is scheduled to approve H.R. 3221, an education lending bill that CBO reports will increase the deficit by $50 billion. The bill includes a little-known provision to give the Secretary of Education $500 million - to be provided to to any entity he deems “appropriate” - to develop and disseminate free and “freely available” online courses.
This is unprecedented.
Federal curriculum is contrary to longstanding government policy - and it’s unnecessary. For decades, Federal law has prohibited the U.S. Department of Education from exercising control over the “curriculum, program of instruction . . . or over the selection or content of library resources, text books, or other educational materials by any educational institution or school system.”
Now the Obama Administration and Congress are poised to provide the Secretary of the Education half a billion dollars, and give him the authority to enter into contracts with any entity he deems “appropriate” to “develop, evaluate and disseminate” “freely available” “education courses.”
Why?
This is unprecedented.
Federal curriculum is contrary to longstanding government policy - and it’s unnecessary. For decades, Federal law has prohibited the U.S. Department of Education from exercising control over the “curriculum, program of instruction . . . or over the selection or content of library resources, text books, or other educational materials by any educational institution or school system.”
Now the Obama Administration and Congress are poised to provide the Secretary of the Education half a billion dollars, and give him the authority to enter into contracts with any entity he deems “appropriate” to “develop, evaluate and disseminate” “freely available” “education courses.”
Why?
Went to the Sam Noble Natural History Museum
in Norman, hadn't been there for several years. Nice place, lots of American Indian exhibits, lots of general natural history and a big section for dinosaurs and their ancestors. This building was opened about eight years ago(I think) to replace the original building, which was tiny. They also had samples and fossils and whatever in storage that'd been there, in many cases, for decades. And a lot of it, the labels or listings having been lost, they didn't know what was. As in, once they had the new facility far enough along to start opening things up, they found what turned out to be the biggest dinosaur skull known. I quote:
The newest record-holder is also a ceratopsian; Pentaceratops sternbergi, based on a new specimen just readied for display by the Sam Nobel Oklahoma Museum of Natural History in Norman, OK. The skull, including the 2-meter frill, is about 3.1 meters long.
...
The entire skeleton was dug up in the Four Corners region of New Mexico in July 1941. But the skull, still embedded in its rock matrix, was left in storage in the museum for years
because of the U.S. entry into World War II and the shutdown of the
scientists' funding source, the Works Progress Administration.
A ten-foot long skull, still in rock, sitting there since WWII. It's an impressive thing, I'll tell you.
The centerpiece of the dinosaurs is a full-size diorama of an apatosaurus being attacked by a saurophaganax, smaller than a tyrannosaur but still a big(36' long), impressive predator
which somebody decided should be the State Dinosaur of Oklahoma.
On that time & space problem? I think this was originally found in the 1930's, and not really examined until the 1990's.
One of the other dioramas includes a pair of dienonychus, one of them with a kill
these little suckers only stand about four feet in normal stance; but I'd hate to meet one when unarmed. Small, fast, lots of sharp teeth & claws, including the big one on each foot.
There's a full-size bronze statue of a mastadon with a man, woman and dog nearby; just not enough distance for my camera to take the whole thing in.
It's a nice museum, well set-up. Like I said, it could probably stand to be at least twice the current size(I'm wondering what all else is still in crates somewhere.
Now, down to something I was thinking about, having recently read Time Safari and Tyronosaur(again): if you could go back to that time, what would you take?
Personal choices: for the big stuff, either a .30-06 or .375H&H with really good solids(maybe actual AP bullets), and a 12-gauge shotgun with slugs and buckshot. The rifle because the only way you'd actually be able to stop one of these, especially a big predator, is hitting the heart, spine or brain, and that means something with penetration out the wazoo that you can shoot quickly and well, for repeat shots if needed; with that, I'd rather have one of those than something heavier that I can't recover from as quickly. I'd spend a LOT of time practicing before making the trip, and studying drawings to know the aiming points.
The shotgun? If you ran into some smaller predators, up close, I tend to think a scattergun would be a very comforting thing to have available.
The newest record-holder is also a ceratopsian; Pentaceratops sternbergi, based on a new specimen just readied for display by the Sam Nobel Oklahoma Museum of Natural History in Norman, OK. The skull, including the 2-meter frill, is about 3.1 meters long.
...
The entire skeleton was dug up in the Four Corners region of New Mexico in July 1941. But the skull, still embedded in its rock matrix, was left in storage in the museum for years
because of the U.S. entry into World War II and the shutdown of the
scientists' funding source, the Works Progress Administration.
A ten-foot long skull, still in rock, sitting there since WWII. It's an impressive thing, I'll tell you.
The centerpiece of the dinosaurs is a full-size diorama of an apatosaurus being attacked by a saurophaganax, smaller than a tyrannosaur but still a big(36' long), impressive predator
which somebody decided should be the State Dinosaur of Oklahoma.
On that time & space problem? I think this was originally found in the 1930's, and not really examined until the 1990's.One of the other dioramas includes a pair of dienonychus, one of them with a kill
these little suckers only stand about four feet in normal stance; but I'd hate to meet one when unarmed. Small, fast, lots of sharp teeth & claws, including the big one on each foot.There's a full-size bronze statue of a mastadon with a man, woman and dog nearby; just not enough distance for my camera to take the whole thing in.
It's a nice museum, well set-up. Like I said, it could probably stand to be at least twice the current size(I'm wondering what all else is still in crates somewhere.
Now, down to something I was thinking about, having recently read Time Safari and Tyronosaur(again): if you could go back to that time, what would you take?
Personal choices: for the big stuff, either a .30-06 or .375H&H with really good solids(maybe actual AP bullets), and a 12-gauge shotgun with slugs and buckshot. The rifle because the only way you'd actually be able to stop one of these, especially a big predator, is hitting the heart, spine or brain, and that means something with penetration out the wazoo that you can shoot quickly and well, for repeat shots if needed; with that, I'd rather have one of those than something heavier that I can't recover from as quickly. I'd spend a LOT of time practicing before making the trip, and studying drawings to know the aiming points.
The shotgun? If you ran into some smaller predators, up close, I tend to think a scattergun would be a very comforting thing to have available.
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