Have you noticed how many of the 'Vets Against The War'

people not only weren't in combat positions(the ones who actually were in the military), but seem to think that the best way to do something is to crap on the troops they're supposedly concerned for?

An awful lot of their "It's TERRIBLE!" stuff is based on the troops being
Stupid
Aggressive toward each other
Undisciplined
And otherwise- well, following the lefty attitude that "They're people who were too stupid to get a real job."

Great way to show your 'concern', isn't it?

Ah yes, the Congress that really cares about the troops

Now that the Defense Finance and Accounting Services have paid out to 1700 service members who were stop/lossed the $500/month they were owed, the Army and Air Force tell us that the rules were changed by Congress so that many soldiers and airmen are no longer eligible for the payments. From the Stars & Stripes;

The bill makes clear that troops who re-enlisted or extended their contract and collected a bonus while being held under stop-loss do not qualify for the compensation.

The temporary halt will last until the Army gets a list of soldiers who received a re-enlistment or retention bonus while being stop-lossed, said Army spokeswoman Jill Mueller.

“The services didn’t decide this,” Mueller said on Wednesday. “This was decided by the legislature and we are executing their will.”

Al Franken, the Stolen Election Senator from MN,

is a miserable little bully, isn't he?

Franken, you're a corrupt little thug. And claiming the job title 'Senator' doesn't change what you are.

Something we damn well need to remember

A Christmas Poem for All Americans

The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.

Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight.
The sparkling lights in the tree, I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.

My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.

The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear.
Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know,
Then the sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.

My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.
Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.

A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.

"What are you doing?" I asked without fear,
"Come in this moment, it's freezing out here!"
"Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!"

For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts,
To the window that danced with a warm fire's light,
Then he sighed and he said, "It's really all right,
I'm out here by choice. I'm here every night."

"It's my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.
No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I'm proud to stand here like my fathers before me.

My dad stood his watch in the jungles of 'Nam,
And now it's my turn and so, here I am.
I've not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile."

Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white and blue. . . an American flag.
"I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home,
I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother
who stand at the front against any and all,
to ensure for all time that this flag will not fall.
So go back inside," he said, "harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I'll be all right."

"But isn't there something I can do, at the least,
Give you money," I asked, "or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you've done,
For being away from your wife and your son"
Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
"Just tell us you love us, and never forget
To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone.
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled
is payment enough, and with that we will trust.
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us."

Michael Marks
December 7, 2000

It's been around a while; I borrowed this from Kevin. Read carefully that last bit; a lot of us can't be at the pointy end, we have to work here. So when these people come home, when their kids grow up, we don't have to say "I couldn't be bothered" when they ask "How the HELL did this crap happen?"

Some more on the attempt to down the aircraft

yesterday; go to Riehl World and scroll down, bunch of links.

I'll argue one thing: I've been seeing some 'attempted terrorist attack' wording, and that's flat wrong; it WAS a terrorist attack, happily an unsuccessful one as far as downing the plane.

Well, during the primaries and election a lot of people pointed out

that Obama is a thin-skinned egotist who demands to have his way. And sat at the feet of and is advised by terrorists and racists and America-haters. And more people are finally realizing that he really is.

How's that Hopey-Changey working out for you guys?

Can you hear us NOW?

Security Theater At Work

A man suspected of planning to blow up a Delta Air Lines flight in Detroit could face charges as soon as Saturday according to an official familiar with the case.

The suspect is a Nigerian national who claims to have ties to al-Qaida.
is followed later in the story by
The man was apparently already on the government's no-fly list of suspected terrorists, ABC News said a senior intelligence official told them.

So AG Holder wants to make anyone placed on the list unable to buy firearms- despite all the holes and bullcrap of putting someone on it- but they can't keep someone on the- or 'a' according to this story- list off a damned airplane. Which he then tries to blow up.

Maybe they believed the corrupt backstabber Murtha was right?

Apparently the Shining Beneficence of Obama isn't calming the troubled terrorists after all.

I will note that on this Christmas day

I have
Cleared a double-wide driveway of global warming residue,
Helped get three cars unstuck(and if I see one of them again I may shoot him),
Cleared part of another driveway,
Changed a flat tire,
And discovered that my battery is almost shot; so tomorrow-after all's open- I have to put in a new one.

And got a short call from the son, in northern Iraq. Where's it's 50-something and dry, the bastard.

I now ache in most of the joints of my body.

Dinner. Booze. Rest.

Merry Christmas.

There will be a short break from our normal Christmas cheer

You! Bitch in the dark blue minivan on NW 36th! Yes, YOU! If you're so damn scared of ice that you can't drive through freakin' SLUSH at more than 5mph, GET THE EFFING PHONE OUT OF YOUR EAR AND USE BOTH HANDS.

And to the two morons driving Toyotas in front of me: stay off your damned brakes when you START UP A SLOPE!

And to the fucktard in the old Mercury who decided he just had to pass three cars. On an uphill. And upon seeing the oncoming car just kept shoving ahead, fishtailing all over: when you wind up in the morgue, I just hope you don't take someone else with you, you Darwin-Award-Waiting-To-Happen.

We now return to your normally-scheduled goodwill toward men.

I know it's really not the day, but this crap ticks me off

too much to pass over. Remember the "Executives should not get big pay or bonuses" crap from The Obama & Co.?
The top U.S. housing regulator said on Thursday it approved 2009 pay packages of up to $6 million each for the chief executives of government-controlled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The approvals were part of a wider decision by the Federal Housing Finance Agency on executive salaries at both firms. FHFA Acting Director Edward DeMarco said, on average, executive pay at the companies had dropped 40 percent from where it stood before the government seized them last year.
...

To continue playing that role in the U.S. mortgage market, Fannie and Freddie must “attract and retain the talent needed to accomplish these objectives,” DeMarco said.

The announcement came less than 24 hours after the Obama administration’s pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg, approved millions of dollars in pay for top executives at GM and GMAC. Feinberg oversees compensation plans at firms receiving money from the government’s $700 billion financial rescue fund.

Because giving big pay and bonuses to people at GM & Co. and the corrupt clowns at Fannie and Freddie is a whole different thing from a company not full of union clowns and Obama friends getting big pay.

Missouri, land of the Union Thugs and Corrupt 'Justice' officials

[Kenneth Gladney’s brother, Keith,] was fired on December 23rd, less than 48 hours before Christmas Day.
[K]enneth Gladney ... was assaulted by leaders of the St. Louis SEIU outside of Rep. Russ Carnahan’s Town Hall for Health Care on August 6, 2009.
Could it be that [Keith] Gladney was outspoken in his support for his brother [Kenneth]?
That he called on the County Prosecuting Attorney to bring justice to his family for the assault that had been captured on video and detailed in a 23-page police report?
Is it a coincidence that the same Prosecuting Attorney that Keith called out in his statement is also one of the highest ranking officials in the government structure that Keith worked for?
Is it surprising to learn that the Department of Health (the department that oversees the operations of Keith’s agency) works very closely with SEIU Local 1 on County Health related issues and policies? ...
Is it a coincidence that this happens hours after the Senate finally got Pres. Obama’s Health Care Scheme passed through the Senate cloture vote and on its way to final ratification?
Could it be that the power structure in the county was waiting for the cloture vote so as to act from a position of political safety with no potential negative repercussions?


Couple of years back I read some stuff at John Ross' site; if you're interested go here and look at
21, 22, 23 and 26. It covers a lot of the lying and backstabbing from people in Missouri state government who were desperate to keep a 'shall issue' law from being passed. Apparently crookedness goes deeper in Missouri.

Merry Christmas 'n all that

Right now it's cloudless and the sun shining down, and up to 21F. Which is a big improvement over thiswhich is how it looked at the worst. Out on the highways and open areas where the wind had full sweep visibility just about wasn't; the NWS site showed .06 mile at that time.

The official total out at the airport was 11" last I heard, but as I noted yesterday it was spotty; several areas of really heavy with surrounding areas anywhere from 3 to 6". Hell of a snowfall for this state at this time of year in any case. At one point not only was the H.E. Bailey turnpike closed from Oklahoma City clear to the TX state line, but Fort Sill was sending out vehicles to rescue people stuck on it. Just checked, the Bailey pike is still closed and so are the interstates in Central OK; as much as anything so they can get stuck/crashed/abandoned vehicles off the roadways.

Out in the front yard this morning, I've got this
If you look on the left center, see that bit barely sticking out? That's one of the mini rosebushes I pruned back a week or so ago. It's about 8-10" high. Mind you, the front had wind swirling over/around the house and drifting stuff in. But in the back yard, fairly open space in the middle, it's about 8-10" deep, up to just over the tops of my boots. Security Staff, on patrol while I shoveled,
left tracks around the perimeter in back, but there was not a track anywhere else. Considering that it's up to her belly, I'm not surprised.

It's supposed to get into the upper 20's today, that and sun will do a lot to improve the roads.

One good thing: last year I'd have been at the Department wondering if I was going to be able to get home. Or back to work today, likely. That's one reason I had absolutely no sympathy for those effing politicians whining about "I want to be home for Christmas!" Well, clowns, there's been a bunch of them I had to work; so shut the hell up.

I think I'm going to make some hot chocolate. And put some feed out for the birds.

It's tapering off now

According to what I can find, central OK received anywhere from 3" to more than 10", depending on just where you were.

I'm going to make one more trip out to sweep/shovel a bit, and that's it for tonight; I'll deal with more in the morning.

And Merry Christmas to all except the slimy corrupt little bastards in the Senate(my feelings of forgiveness, comfort and joy are very limited in some areas); you- and they- know who they are. Coal in their stockings my ass, they need a big nasty chunk- ah, let it go.

For now

Did DeMint whack the socialized medicine bill?

God, I hope so. And no, I'm not saying that lightly.

After all, if it does kill it it might save the disruption and smell of lots of politicians dancing a Tyburn jig from DC lampposts and trees.

Oh boy, the Globular Warming True Believers strike again,

and it makes the whole mess even worse:
The UK Met Office has released a large tranche of station data, together with code.

Only last summer, the Met Office had turned down my FOI request for station data, saying that the provision of station data to me would threaten the course of UK international relations. Apparently, these excuses have somehow ceased to apply.
Here's part of their statement:
The Met Office received the data information from Professor Jones at the University of East Anglia on the strict understanding by the data providers that this station data must not be publicly released. If any of this information were released, scientists could be reluctant to share information and participate in scientific projects with the public sector organisations based in the UK in future. It would also damage the trust that scientists have in those scientists who happen to be employed in the public sector and could show the Met Office ignored the confidentiality in which the data information was provided.
Ok, the obvious question is that if this is simply temperature data, why were they so damn scared of the idea of it being released? As I've bitched about before, one of the basics of the scientific method is that data and methods and so forth MUST be made available so it can be reviewed, and studied, checked for errors and argued about; but here are a bunch of scientists scared to death of the idea of this data getting out. WHY?

Three guesses.

And from a early review,
Meanwhile, even this extremely limited attempt at openness is not all it seems to be. John G-C has been looking at the code and running it against the data he has. What he has found is that prior to 1855 there was no southern hemisphere data and that when you run the Met Office's newly released code, this shows up as a gap in the graph of the average. But there is no such gap in the actual CRUTEM index. John's conclusion is that what we're looking at is not the actual code used in CRUTEM, but something written especially for public consumption. In light of the scorn that many programmers have been pouring on the quality of the coding standards at CRU, this might suggest that the original code was just too awful to make available for public inspection.
At one time the idea that an organization like this would be part of such garbage, I'd have laughed at. Not any more.

Talk about spotty,

they just said the 'official' total at Will Rogers Airport is 10". But you go a bit west to Mustang, 4".

The official amount thus far for Oklahoma City is 3"

of small, dry flakes that are blowing all over the place. Thus causing all interstates in the OKC area to be closed for now.

Seems like the biggest problem is visibility due to the stuff travelling horizontally; out in the open you can't see worth a damn. Oh boy, they just announced 'a huge 50-car pileup involving at least two patrol cars and an ambulance on I-40', but they didn't say WHERE on I-40. Wonderful.

If you've had to mess around in the stuff, you know that small, dry flakes don't shovel worth a damn, so I've concentrated on sweeping- and a little shoveling- to clear the front and back porch and the walk to the driveway. I'll try to do more later after the wind drops.

And that completes our update on the weather. Although if I run into that clown from Channel 4 who was loudly stating "At least 8 to ten inches of snow in the area, and there will be drifts EIGHT FEET DEEP!" for most of the morning, I may shoot him.

It's Christmas Eve, but since the Senate has seen fit to take a dump on us

this day, I'm going to make sure this quote the Idaho gent found gets around:
The right of a nation to kill a tyrant in case of necessity can no more be doubted than to hang a robber, or kill a flea.

A government of laws and not of men.

John Adams
(1735-1826)
Second President of the United States

Yes, this probably assures my place on some DHS or FBI list of subversives who quote those radicals of the past.

Seeing as how the words of the founders of this nation would have Napolitano wetting her pants, and her agency has already labeled military vets as people to be watched, I'll be in good company.

The Saga of the M&P15-22

I just heard a knock on the door and found a UPS guy with a box.

So it arrived on the 17th and it's back on the 24th; figure four-five days in transit back and they got to it and made the fix in a week, not bad.

Annoyance: "Repaired: Updated to latest spec."

Aaargh, that's the same thing they said before! So I think I'll write to them and ask just what the hell that means.

But they did throw in two new magazines, so that's to the good. But it'll be a few days before I can take it to the range; I don't care how much Tam likes realistic practice, I'm not going out shooting in this.

By the way, whichever of you bastards let Al Gore into the state,

I'm going to find you.