President Ahmadogcrap's letter to the US

Digging around today, I found the text of the letter here(link at Michelle Malkin), and after reading it I thought I'd give my response, with some selected quotes:

O, Almighty God, bestow upon humanity the perfect human being promised to all by You, and make us among his followers.
"We are working to bring on the 12th Imam and the Apocalypse, so help us out here."

Were we not faced with the activities of the US administration in this part of the world and the negative ramifications of those activities on the daily lives of our peoples, coupled with the many wars and calamities caused by the US administration as well as the tragic consequences of US interference in other countries;
"If you weren't keeping us from taking over Iraq through our little friends and keeping us from taking over Lebanon and killing those pesky Jews;"
...
And if we did not share a common responsibility to promote and protect freedom and human dignity and integrity;
"If we didn't have AP and the New York Times telling you how wonderful we truly are if only you were not so bigoted as to not see it on your own;"

While Divine providence has placed Iran and the United States geographically far apart, we should be cognizant that human values and our common human spirit, which proclaim the dignity and exalted worth of all human beings, have brought our two great nations of Iran and the United States closer together.
"Except for those Jews, but then they're not actually human."

Both greatly value and readily embrace the promotion of human ideals such as compassion, empathy, respect for the rights of human beings, securing justice and equity, and defending the innocent and the weak against oppressors and bullies.
"Which means we should both be stomping the evil Zionist state."

We all deplore injustice, the trampling of peoples' rights and the intimidation and humiliation of human beings.
"So we kill homosexuals, and hang teenage girls with bad attitudes, because it would not be just to let them live."

We all detest darkness, deceit, lies and distortion, and seek and admire salvation, enlightenment, sincerity and honesty.
"So we tell all muslims to kill anybody who dares to speak of Islam in other than glowing terms. Or draws cartoons we don't like, or any of that other stuff."

Our nation has always extended its hand of friendship to all other nations of the world.

Hundreds of thousands of my Iranian compatriots are living amongst you in friendship and peace, and are contributing positively to your society. Our people have been in contact with you over the past many years and have maintained these contacts despite the unnecessary restrictions of US authorities.
"We tell all countries that if they abase themselves before Islam, we won't destroy them. Until we get around to killing everyone who doesn't worship as we say, of course.

"And lots of our best people have gotten out of the country and gone to your unbelieving hellhole, and we want control of them again. How dare they say they want freedom?"

We, like you, are aggrieved by the ever-worsening pain and misery of the Palestinian people. Persistent aggressions by the Zionists are making life more and more difficult for the rightful owners of the land of Palestine. In broad day-light, in front of cameras and before the eyes of the world, they are bombarding innocent defenseless civilians, bulldozing houses, firing machine guns at students in the streets and alleys, and subjecting their families to endless grief.

No day goes by without a new crime.

"Those damn Jews are causing ALL the problems! Don't you see it?!?"

For 60 years, the Zionist regime has driven millions of the inhabitants of Palestine out of their homes. Many of these refugees have died in the Diaspora and in refugee camps. Their children have spent their youth in these camps and are aging while still in the hope of returning to homeland.

"The monkeys and pigs refuse to lay down and let us kill them as Allah orders. Which means we have to keep the muslims who got out of the Zionist State in camps. Houses? We give them houses to live in, we lose photo opportunities!"

Governments are there to serve their own people. No people wants to side with or support any oppressors. But regrettably, the US administration disregards even its own public opinion and remains in the forefront of supporting the trampling of the rights of the Palestinian people.
"Except us! Side with us! Stop keeping us from wiping out the Jews!"

Let's take a look at Iraq. Since the commencement of the US military presence in Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed, maimed or displaced. Terrorism in Iraq has grown exponentially. With the presence of the US military in Iraq, nothing has been done to rebuild the ruins, to restore the infrastructure or to alleviate poverty. The US Government used the pretext of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but later it became clear that that was just a lie and a deception.
"Of course, most of them are from the terrori- excuse me, freedom fighters we support. And ignore the schools and power plants and whatever you've built, because THEY DON'T COUNT! And ignore those nerve gas shells you keep finding buried, they don't count either."

In Iraq, about one hundred and fifty thousand American soldiers, separated from their families and loved ones, are operating under the command of the current US administration. A substantial number of them have been killed or wounded and their presence in Iraq has tarnished the image of the American people and government.
"Mostly killed by bombs, many of which we smuggle to the ter- freedom fighters, but who can blame us?"

You have heard that the US administration is kidnapping its presumed opponents from across the globe and arbitrarily holding them without trial or any international supervision in horrendous prisons that it has established in various parts of the world. God knows who these detainees actually are, and what terrible fate awaits them.
"Forget that 'captured in battle' stuff, they were KIDNAPPED, I tell you! And how dare you not let us mail them some Semtex, or a pistol or two!"

The US administration's illegal and immoral behavior is not even confined to outside its borders. You are witnessing daily that under the pretext of "the war on terror," civil liberties in the United States are being increasingly curtailed. Even the privacy of individuals is fast losing its meaning. Judicial due process and fundamental rights are trampled upon. Private phones are tapped, suspects are arbitrarily arrested, sometimes beaten in the streets, or even shot to death.
"You are not nearly as up to speed on stomping dissidents as we. But your authorities are being a serious pain to our comrades who want only to bring jihad to your land."

The US administration does not accept accountability before any organization, institution or council. The US administration has undermined the credibility of international organizations, particularly the United Nations and its Security Council. But, I do not intend to address all the challenges and calamities in this message.
"Of course, we just use the UN as it was meant to be used: to cover up what we do, and protect our preparations for bombing the Zionists from you doing something nasty about it. But YOU actually have that nasty ambassador telling the UN how useless it is; why are you so uncivilized?"

The legitimacy, power and influence of a government do not emanate from its arsenals of tanks, fighter aircrafts, missiles or nuclear weapons. Legitimacy and influence reside in sound logic, quest for justice and compassion and empathy for all humanity. The global position of the United States is in all probability weakened because the administration has continued to resort to force, to conceal the truth, and to mislead the American people about its policies and practices.
"It emanates from killing the unbelievers(religeous or not obeying the government) and tormenting their families! Haven't you learned anything? And when you keep causing problems, it upsets the Europeans who don't want to admit what we're doing."

Etc., etc., etc.

And finally,
"But those who repent, have faith and do good may receive Salvation. Your Lord, alone, creates and chooses as He will, and others have no part in His choice; Glorified is God and Exalted above any partners they ascribe to Him." (28:67-68)
"Either fall before us and embrace Islam, or else!"

It's pretty much the standard crap. I think I need to send him a response. Let's see...

Dear Mahmoud;

No.

We won't convert to Islam, and we won't just let you take over.

We've got problems with Israel(just try, you can say it without bursting into flames), but since they are a civilized nation that doesn't want to kill all non-Jews, we can work with them. So you ain't getting a clear shot at them.

We do have some civil problems over here, but I prefer our version to yours. Over here homosexuals are mad because in most states they can't marry, as opposed to being executed in places you control. And we've got lots of teenage girls with bad attitudes, but we'd rather give them a kick in the ass and some teaching to get over it, as opposed to hanging them.

We know you're sneaking bombs to the terrorists, and sooner or later there'll be a payback for that.

I could say a lot of things, but I think this will sum it up:








Regards,
Us

Where's the snow?

So far, less than an inch of sleet. Which is enough to mess up travel, but not nearly the 'major weather event' predicted in near-horrified/near-delighted tones














They're now saying 3 to 6 inches by tonight. Maybe, but it'll have to start snowing like a mini-blizzard to get there.

Amazingly, my days off coincided with this, so instead of slip-sliding to work, I fed and watered the dogs and am now ditting here doing this. And unless I find some cooking item I absolutely HAVE to have, I ain't going out except to check on the critters. There's some of the pot of chili and the rest of the cornbread I made last night, so I think I'll mess with a piece of wood I'm practicing checkering on, screw around on this here innernut and stay warm.

It's definately coming down now

Sleet & freezing rain for the last couple of hours; roads aren't bad right now, it's been warm enough the last few days to keep them wet. That'll be over by morning, skating lanes for rush hour.

At this point they're saying up to a half-inch of ice and/or sleet by morning, changing over to snow early morning and continuing through the day. Current prediction 5-8" by the time it's over.

That's not much for a lot of places, Og's territory for instance, but around here eight inches of snow is a lot. Since it doesn't happen often, not much in the way of removal equipment, so they mount box blades on the sand trucks and so forth. Snow's really not much of a problem, but a layer of glaze ice is a bitch.

Especially with the idiots who think they can inch their way up a hill and get stuck partway up, and wind up sideways across two lanes. I think someday I want to mount a 20mm cannon in a turret on top of the truck: that way when some idiot starts slowing down as he approaches a slope I can blow the idiot out of the way.

Well, that was fast

Those Polish trainers? They're gone already

Further reason not to trust the 'global warming' predictions

Last night they were predicting some freezing rain this evening, then snow tonight & part of tomorrow, maybe an inch accumulation.

This morning they changed that to rain/freezing rain by evening, then changing to snow through tomorrow with up to 6 inches.

About 1300 it was the same, except '3 to 7 inches' possible here.

Right now it's cold and windy, with not a drop of anything falling, and the weather weenie on the radio said "It's not coming in as fast as they thought earlier, they don't know why, maybe something is blocking it or slowing it down". Etc.

Which means it'll either do a few spits by tomorrow night, or it'll be the next best thing to a blizzard.

'Major weather event' we're told, and they can't predict it less than 24 hours in advance. But we're supposed to trust a bunch of computer models that say what the weather will do in 20-100 years.

Can I have a chorus of "Bullshit!"?

Hey, remember that Polish training rifle?

AIM Surplus has some of them now

The fecal matter has hit the rotating air-moving device

in that mess in Atlanta. Found the original link on this at Instapundit, then stuff at Reason, both with links to articles. Short version, the informant the raid was based on says that the police lied about what he told them, and that an officer specifically asked him to lie when he was interviewed.

I can't say it any better than in the Reason article: Attack the informant's credibility and you admit that you conducted a high-risk, forced-entry raid based entirely on a tip from an informant you now say is unreliable. You admit you did no corroborating investigation. You admit you didn't even send an officer to check to see if the informant was right about, for example, an external surveillance system. And all of this ineptitude led to the death of an innocent woman, not to mention to three officers getting wounded.

And if the guy's telling the truth? Well, now you're talking about a major-league shit storm. If this guy's telling the truth, not only did the officers originally investigating this case lie on the warrant, but the officers investigating after the shooting then lied again to cover it up. That means you not only have corruption problems with your narcotics officers, but you have problems with your internal affairs unit, the cops who are charged with investigating the abuses of other police officers.

Two of the articles here and here.

This is such a damn mess. On multiple levels.

About that shot I didn't take

It occurred to me that the were two reasons, and for those who aren't familiar with one of them, it might be good to mention it.

The first I think everybody knows: unless it's a life & death situation, you do not shoot toward/near another person. Period. What if the game/target or the other person moves as you fire?

The second is a bit more involved, that being the amazing ability of just a touch by something to deflect a bullet. Remember that a bullet is not only moving forward at high velocity, it's rotating at very high velocity, and when the two are combined with even a slight touch of a twig/branch or whatever, it can cause the bullet to go places you never intended.

I've known two people who fired a shot at deer in brush and missed. Relatively short range, so they were checking very carefully for blood, hair or anything else that would show they'd hit, and they found where the bullet had clipped a branch or twig they hadn't seen.

A few years back I read an article in a magazine where a guy decided to test this out. He built a frame and stuck 1/4" and 3/8" dowels in it running vertically and spaced around so a shot fired through it would have a good chance of hitting one. Then he set a target about five or six feet behind it, backed off a ways and fired a number of shots. Every one that hit a stick, even just brushing it, was deflected off target. Some actually missed the paper entirely, as I recall. I can't remember the proper scientific explanation, but it does happen.

Now, there was no brush between me and the deer, it was an absolutely clear shot. But the deer itself has muscle and bone. The 8mm load I worked up would, at that range, completely penetrate the deer, no question it'd lose a lot of velocity, but it would go through; and if any of the bone it passed through deflected the path...

May not have actually been a problem, but the risk was one I just wasn't willing to take.

I repeat: DAMMIT, I'm tired of this crap

Looked over at Balko's sight and found this. Go ahead and take a look. Especially note this: But the search warrant deputies gave Silva lists an entirely different address -- not Silva's house or the house next door. Silva said deputies gave her the search warrant several hours after the initial raid.

Pazin said deputies may have transposed numbers in the address on the warrant, but that law enforcement acted in good faith when they entered Silva's house.

'Good faith'. Get the wrong address, raid a home occupied by an old lady, but you did it in 'good faith' so we're supposed to say "Oh well, no big deal".

Got news for you, guys: it IS a big damn deal. If this lady had had a remote or something in her had, she could well be dead.

I repeat what I wrote before: the fact is that there is no margin for error in a raid like this. Not for a wrong address, not for using an assault when not needed. When everybody is lucky and nobody dies, people have still had their home damaged and their lives twisted around. When everybody is NOT lucky, there is at least one body to carry out. And then excuses to make.

Speaking of people not being lucky, remember the case of the guy wanted for gambling charges? Who was talking to an officer when a member of the tactical team(and I still want to know what the HELL was a tactical team doing involved in this in the first place?) running up had a negligent discharge and killed him? I give you two points of the current situation, also found through Balko:
First,Apparently, the recommendation handed down by the internal police investigation is that the officer who shot and killed Culosi be given three weeks of unpaid suspension, and that he be removed from the SWAT team. Oh, gee, ain't that awful? Kill a guy with your negligence and you get three weeks on the ground without pay, and you don't get to play with the SWAT team anymore. God, such punishment!.

Which, oddly enough, is the viewpoint of the officers on the department: The punishment recommended for Officer Deval V. Bullock in the shooting, which occurred in January, has outraged fellow officers, who said it is too harsh, and Culosi's family, who said Bullock should never again be employed in law enforcement.

[...]

Thielen, union attorney Edward J. Nuttall and numerous officers said an oral or written reprimand is typically given when a Fairfax officer accidentally shoots someone.

Words cannot express what I feel when I read 'is typically given when a Fairfax officer accidentally shoots someone. TYPICALLY? How the HELL often do these clowns 'ACCIDENTALLY SHOOT SOMEONE?!?

Screw it, I don't think I can take writing about this anymore tonight.

May I write once more of Rangel, Jerk/NYC?

Back here I took note of why I've decided he's not just a jerk, he's an asshole. Further evidence is found in the actual words out of his face:
I want to make it abundantly clear: if there’s anyone who believes that these youngsters want to fight, as the Pentagon and some generals have said, you can just forget about it. No young, bright individual wants to fight just because of a bonus and just because of educational benefits. And most all of them come from communities of very, very high unemployment. If a young fella has an option of having a decent career or joining the army to fight in Iraq, you can bet your life that he would not be in Iraq.

Isn't that just so, so special? To me, the key line is "No young, bright individual wants to fight just because of a bonus and just because of educational benefits. Just think about exactly what he's saying here. Nobody joins up to do something so stupid as, say, defend their country. Not because they think there's a need, oh no. It's because of a 'bonus' and 'educational benefits'. Uh huh.

And of COURSE he brings out that tired bullshit about 'they can't get real jobs, so they join the military'. Over and over and fucking over again.

This is, of course, coming from someone who also thinks any place in the country other than New York Effin' City(thanks for that, Kim) doesn't count, and wants to take over the title of Biggest Pickpocket In Congress from Robert Byrd(Thief/WV) so he can loot the rest of the country and drag the money back to NYE'C.

I'm just too pissed to say any more.

It's amazing what you see

when the season is closed

I had a chance to go out this weekend and pursue the elusive whitetail. No, Bambi has not left the forest, at least not through my efforts.

Saturday had a beautiful shot at a big doe, broadside at about 60-65 yards. Slight problem: the guy I was hunting with was about 40 yards the other side and not nearly far enough out of the line of fire for me to be comfortable taking the shot. And as soon as it- and the smaller one facing the other guy- saw him move, they were gone. That afternoon, nothing four-legged to be seen.

This morning I set up at a beautiful stand, there before light in a place where- according to the land caretaker- more deer have been taken than from any other spot. And I saw one small doe, in brush/grass high enough on the body and far enough away that I wouldn't have risked a wound instead of a clean kill.

And about half an hour after the doe wandered her way, a flock of wild turkey came by. Big tom in the lead, total of thirteen I counted, walking along in single file and eating as they went. Good news: if THEY didn't see/hear/smell me, the deer weren't either. Bad news: turkey season is closed. Whole bloody flock of them no more than 50 yards away, me with a solid shooting position, AND THE BLOODY SEASON IS CLOSED!

Dammit.

One thing I didn't see, unfortunately, is the four local celebrity critters. This area of western OK is currently home to one male cougar(black, yet!), one female and- with the female- two cubs. This is not opinion or guess, they've been seen by multiple people including the game warden. And there are BIG kitty tracks all around the area, sometimes paired with small kitty tracks. God knows my efforts didn't cut down on the food supply(there really are a hell of a lot of deer), and the people who own land in the area are very protective of them.

I'm hoping to maybe get out again before deer season closes, but I doubt it'll work.

More thoughts on the mess in Atlanta

I hate crap like this

Partly because I'm split. I've been around law enforcement people most of my life, and I tend to side with them. Often before I really think about it.

On the other hand...

Over the years, I've developed a bad case of cynicism and distrust toward a LOT of LE types. Seeing people acting as if(and getting away with it) they're immune from the law. Reading about case after case of raids on the wrong house, or based on bad information, where people are treated horribly- sometimes badly injured or killed- and the response is "The officers followed procedures; no action will be taken against them", and so forth.

Lots of the, call them apologists, we get the standard lines: "Wait until all the facts are in, this type of entry is necessary for officer safety, accidents happen, since they had a warrant they could legally be there so when she shot at them she was in the wrong", etc.

Lots of the, call them idiots, we get the standard "Any cop that comes into my home gets killed, if drugs were properly legalized this woudn't happen," etc.

Another complication to the arguments is, as someone put it, if you whack ATF and FBI for their actions at Waco, a bunch of people accuse you of defending Koresh for anything he may have done. So you wind up with people calling you names and accusing you of being nice to dirtbags if you criticize the police for an action. Doesn't make for reasoned argument.

No-knock warrants and Tactical/SWAT teams are much the same: there are circumstances where they are justified in use, in some actually demanded by the circumstances. Problem is they've come to be overused and/or used wrongly, and the consequences for the people hurt and the cops who did it can be really bad. Somebody winds up dead because tactics that were not called for were used, or their home is damaged and themselves & their family terrorized(and just try to get cooperation in the future from friends/family/neighbors of those people). The officers can be/SHOULD BE/ sued in many of the cases which can ruin them financially, and the consequences for a decent human being of knowing that becuase of a bad tip/deliberate lie by an informant or a mistake on address or a stupid mistake on his part, somebody died by his hand...

In the latter, even if the department protects them from financial ruin, good cops are not going to buy the "Don't worry about it, you were just doing your job" justifications they'll be given. They'll live with that for the rest of their lives.

And, as mentioned, you've now got people who'll see the police as the enemy. They're not the people who catch robbers and rapists and write tickets: they're the people who killed Uncle Frank because the idiots broke into his house in the middle of the night becuase somebody got the wrong address, etc.

I've come to see it that, in matters such as this, it may not be possible, in good conscience, to give the police the 'benefit of the doubt'. When they pin on that badge, they're given trememdous power and privilege. They can pull you over and write you a ticket, they can arrest you and put you in jail, they can kill you. When they're on a tac team or raid, that demands that they not make a mistake on address, or use a tip from some jerk they wouldn't trust to tell them the sun rises in the east to make a dynamic entry(don't you just love that name for 'smash in the door and stick a gun in peoples' face'?) without checking every detail. Somebody breaks into your house and you shoot them, all too many police and prosecutors will cut you no slack at all, will try to use any possible excuse to put you in jail; why should trained officers who screw up be given lattitude?

On the dynamic entry crap, I think Kim du Toit once wrote that if somebody smashes in his door in the middle of the night, he's not going to assume it's the police and play dead: he knows he has no illegal substances, he knows he has no illegal weapons, he knows he has conducted no illegal activity so he knows there is no reason for the police to be smashing into his home in the night. So he'll grab the shotgun to protect his home and family. So would I. First off, someone rouses you from a sound sleep by breaking in the door, you're not going to be listening carefully to hear what they're yelling; second, all the reported cases of bandits yelling 'police' or 'FBI' when they break in(note this: She said she understood Kathryn Johnston might have been frightened by recent break-ins staged by robbing crews wearing undercover police gear.) an honest citazen has no reason to believe them: ANYBODY can put big white 'POLICE' or 'FBI' on a jacket.(Added: note this Balko reported from the press conference:5) He maintains that despite the no-knock warrant police still announced themselves before entering, though he acknowledged moments later that the announcement came as police were battering down the door.

You have the right to defend yourself in your home. Period. LE has the obligation to take every step to make sure they're in the right place, for just reason, using only the tactics necessary. The consequences if they don't tend to be horrible.

Note: a commenter said this:
"Every police agency has a thick manual containing policies and procedures, and the after-action question is always "did he follow procedure?"

Officer Joe could have initiated an action which resulted in a bus full of nuns going over a cliff and killing fifty children on the beach below, then eradicating twelve families of sea lions and twenty protected species with the resulting gas and oil pollution and as long as Joe "followed procedure" he's golden."

Unfortunately, too often true.

By the way, have you noticed the insurrection in Mexico?

And the loser of the election swearing himself in as the 'legitimate president'?

And when does this mess blow up bigtime?

And how many come storming across the border when it does?

A bit more on the Dillon press

I've been loading some more .45acp on that Square Deal B, and now I find two problems:
First, I need more primers.
Second, once you get started on this thing you can, with short breaks to refill the primer magazine, load every damn case in sight.

It's really nice, being able to crank out ammo this way, and to repeat myself from earlier I wish I'd bought one a long time ago. If I start shooting a lot of .38 Special again, I'll have to get the dies & conversion for that. If they made the dies in this press for .30 Carbine(and why don't they?) that'd be great.

I will note that the low primer alarm does work, you get down to 3-4 primers and it buzzez at you until you do something about it.

Now I need more time at the range so I can shoot this stuff up so I can bring the cases back and load some more so I can...

I'm sick of hearing about innocent people being killed

while a warrant from a 'confidential informant' or 'anonymous tip' is being served.

Lots of people all over this, and rightly so. LOTS of questions not answered here. Among the big things:

Three police narcotics officers were shot Tuesday night by a 92-year-old woman who was killed as the officers forced their way through a door while serving a warrant at a house in northwest Atlanta, officials said.
...
Assistant Chief Alan Dreher said the officers had a legal warrant and "knocked and announced" before they forced open the door. He said they were justified in returning fire when they were fired upon.

and then, in the same story,
As the officers approached the house about 7 p.m., a woman inside started shooting, said Officer Joe Cobb, a police spokesman. The officers returned fire, wounding the woman, Cobb said.

Ok, people, make up your damn minds! You're giving TWO DIFFERENT STORIES about how this happened.

And, as espected, from this report:
Police say they followed proper procedures. Thomas hopes they did, but added: "When you see a 92-year-old being the victim of circumstances like this, we know something is going wrong."

This is one of the things that so pisses me off about crap like this: "they followed proper procedures", the first defense, to be followed down the line by "No action will be taken against the officers".

One of the questions that comes up over and over is over in many cases is this: A neighbor, Yolanda Jackson, 42, said she was sitting on the front porch of her home on Joseph E. Lowery Boulevard a block away when undercover narcotics officers, who were not in street uniforms, showed up around 7 p.m. to serve the warrant at Johnston's home, at 933 Neal St.(emphasis mine)
Simply, why no uniforms? If you've got a warrant, if you're doing a legal act, why not cops in uniform? If you've got an house full of real bad guys, it won't prevent you from doing the job; if you've got the wrong damn house, or it turns out that your informant is settling a grudge by sending you after somebody, they chances of Bad Things Happening is greatly reduced. Like Tamara says, "Look, if three burly dudes in street clothes start banging on my door one night and try and force their way into my home, I don't care if they're yelling "Police!" or "Singing Telegram!", that's why I keep a loaded M4 carbine in the house. They're not dressed like cops, and I can think of no reason the police would need to get into my house, so my natural assumption would be that these were home invaders of some sort. If the real police need to talk with me, they can get two guys in stopsign hats and 1 Adam 12 outfits to come knock on my door like civilized people. I, a civilized person myself, will then answer it.

But over and over, people dressed like dirtbags kick in doors- all too often 'announcing' themselves by yelling 'Police!' AS they kick in the door(all too often of the wrong house, or on bad information), and then people die and the department makes excuses. Even when people don't die, you just screwed over a whole family who- along with their friends and neighbors- will decide the cops are indeed the enemy and not to be trusted. And everybody who reads about it will wonder what the hell is wrong with you that you can't serve a warrant without this crap?

Been said over and over, a 'no-knock' raid- which is what it is when you announce AS you break in the door- has a place, just like the use of a tactical team has a place. When misused, or overused, it causes garbage like this.

Note: Reason has this:

Police aren't saying what they were looking for, or what they found inside. Johnston was the only person in the house at the time of the raid. Perhaps this case will prove different, but my experience in researching this stuff is that when police conduct a drug raid, they trot out everything they found -- particularly when the raid resulted in violence. That they've yet to announce any seized contraband doesn't bode well.


Update: Balko on the press conference the police held. In particular:
1) The search warrant was in fact a no-knock warrant.

5) He maintains that despite the no-knock warrant police still announced themselves before entering, though he acknowledged moments later that the announcement came as police were battering down the door.


Got that? Announced 'police' AS THEY WERE BATTERING DOWN THE DOOR. Never mind it might be hard do hear over a ram smashing the door, never mind the cases over the past while where burglars/robbers kicked in doors and yelled 'police' as they came in. "We did yell police!"

And if there were a buy at the house as they're claiming, from who? If not this lady, they couldn't try to see if the bad guy was there before breaking in the door? I think they call it 'surveillance' or something.

I just listened to an amazing piece of work

Not musically amazing, damn the luck.

Sometimes I listen to Sean Hannity in the afternoon. He's got one thing going for him above a lot of other interviewers: he'll ask a question, and when the politician/activist/(fill in the blank group) representative talks around it or avoids it, he comes back to it and insists on an answer. He had on today some Congressman from NY, and the big question was on the subject of Alcee Hastings, the impeached judge who Pelosi is pushing to be head of the Intelligence Committee as payback/suckup to the Congressional Black Congress. Hannity asked "Do you think this man should be in this position?" and it was amazing. This rep. dragged in Republicans("Do you condemn..?"), he dragged in everything except the freshly washed cat to avoid answering that. Including "We don't get to vote on that, it's a position the Speaker of the House decides on".

What makes this really good? This rep is one of the people who voted to impeach Hastings. And yet he could not answer yes or no to that question.

Just flat bloody amazing.

Rangel really is a jerk

On the radio a bit earlier I heard part of his blowing on some Sunday political show. Basically repeated the crap that 'mainly minorities with no choices join the military', and then said- this is paraphrasing, I can't remember the exact wording- that 'people who go to Yale or Harvard have choices, and won't join the military, so his national servitude draft bill will force them to join, which will prevent war because none of the politicians will a: want their kids( who ALL go to Ivy League universities, right?) to be involved and b: they won't want to take heat from the parents whose kids go to said Ivy League universities.

This just pisses me off beyond belief. Only people who go to 'real' colleges have 'choices', all politicians and parents of people going to 'real' colleges are assholes who won't support this country in time of need, and the people going to the 'real' colleges would ever think of joining the military.

Which must be a big suprise to all those people who left said colleges, or have degrees from said colleges, and signed up anyway.

And let us not forget that interesting piece from Rangel about taking lots of money back to New York City where it 'belongs', that places like Mississippi get more than their share, etc.

I must correct myself: Rangel isn't a jerk, he's an asshole.

You need to try this

Steve pointed to this guy cooking a pork shoulder, so I decided to try it. I got a nine-pound bone-in shoulder- smallest I could find- and used the recipe Dan pointed out with a couple of changes. I didn't have or get fennel seed, and I used dried rosemary and thyme. And I didn't peel the apples.

I stuck it in the oven for the first half-hour at high heat, then covered it and left it for about 3.5-4 hours, and DAMN it's good. Literally pulled off the bone, wonderful flavor, and about the most tender pork I've ever had.

Now I need to dig up Steve's pan con lechon recipe and give that a try. Though damned if I know where to get Cuban bread around here.

Secure high-tech passports aren't

Want to bet the proposed national ID cards won't be either?

A week or so ago the Telegraph had an article by Tony Blair listing why he insisted there needs to be a national ID card for every Briton. All to fight terrorism and crime, of course; not being able to see a doctor or write a check or whatever without the card is just a side bonus.

Well, Ace today pointed to this article on how a guy broke into the chip in the new 'ultra-secure' passports:
Fatally, however, the ICAO suggested that the key needed to access the data on the chips should be comprised of, in the following order, the passport number, the holder's date of birth and the passport expiry date, all of which are contained on the printed page of the passport on a "machine readable zone." When an immigration official swipes the passport through a reader, this feeds in the key, which allows a microchip reader to communicate with the RFID chip. The data this contains, including the holder's picture, is then displayed on the official's screen. The assumption at this stage is that this document is as authentic as it is super-secure. And, as we shall see later, this could be highly significant.

Problem, right?

The Home Office thinks not. It correctly points out that the information sucked out of the chip is only the same as that which appears on the page, readable with the human eye. And to obtain the key in the first place, you would need to have access to the passport to read (with the naked eye) its number, expiry date and the date of birth of its holder.

"This doesn't matter," says a Home Office spokesman. "By the time you have accessed the information on the chip, you have already seen it on the passport. What use would my biometric image be to you? And even if you had the information, you would still have to counterfeit the new passport - and it has lots of new security features. If you were a criminal, you might as well just steal a passport."

So no problem then?
"If you can read the chip, then you can clone it," he says. "You could use this to clone a passport that would exploit the system to illegally enter another country." (We did not clone any of our passport chips on the assumption that to do so would be illegal.)

Grunwald adds: "The problems could get worse when they put fingerprint biometrics on to the passports. There are established ways of making forged fingerprints. In the future, the authorities would like to have automated border controls, and such forged fingerprints [stuck on to fingers] would probably fool them."

Ain't this just wonderful? And a bunch of people in Congress and other places are just drooling at the thought of making us carry Certified Chromium-Plated Illuminated Gen-u-wine National ID cards* here, too. Think they'll be any better?


*apologies to C.W. McCall

Oh, yeah, BUSH was going to reinstate the draft, remember?

Except it's not him. Again.

He said having a draft would not necessarily mean everyone called to duty would have to serve. Instead, "young people (would) commit themselves to a couple of years in service to this great republic, whether it's our seaports, our airports, in schools, in hospitals," with a promise of educational benefits at the end of service.

Don't you just love it? It's a draft, but not just for military service. "young people (would) commit themselves to a couple of years in service to this great republic, whether it's our seaports, our airports, in schools, in hospitals, " etc., etc. Remember a few years ago the 'required voluntary service' crap? Here it is again. This points out that Rangel doesn't just want a draft for military service, he wants compulsory 'public service' from everyone.

Hmmm, I wonder when somebody will call it 'slave labor'? Although, since it's coming from Rangel, that'll be muted if at all.

This makes up for almost EVERYTHING!

Go here, read it, then read the comment about the Purina Diet.

But not if you're drinking

Tranquilizer my ass, I'd shoot it

Animal Attack - Asia

Event summary
GLIDE Number	AA-20061119-8468-NPL
Event type	Animal Attack	Date / time [UTC]	19/11/2006 - 10:13:04 (Military Time, UTC)
Country	Nepal	Area	Sunsari district
County / State	-	City	-
Cause of event	Unknow	Log date	19/11/2006 - 10:13:04 (Military Time, UTC)
Damage level	Moderate	Time left	-
Latitude:	N 26° 40.000	Longitude:	E 87° 10.000
Number of deaths:	Not or Not data	Number of injured persons:	12 persons
Evacuated:	-	Infected	-
-
DESCRIPTION
Nepalese hunters have captured a wild elephant that trampled to death at least 12 people and injured several others in the country's southeast, officials said Sunday. A team of 15 forestry officials found the elephant on Saturday after a two week search and shot it with a tranquilizer in the jungles of Sunsari district, about 310 miles southeast of the capital, Katmandu, said Ajit Karna, chief forest official in the area. Karna said the elephant had killed 12 people in the past one month in Sunsary and neighboring Morang districts. The elephant had also injured several others, five of them seriously and also damaged huts and crops. The elephant had been terrorizing the area and villagers had been using drums and fire torches to scare it away at night. Karna said tests were being conducted on the animal and they had cut off its tusks to prevent any attacks.

Found at Rsoe Havaria

Additional: just found this one; I didn't know it was flooding in Somalia

Animal Attack - Africa

Event summary
GLIDE Number	AA-20061119-8474-SOM
Event type	Animal Attack	Date / time [UTC]	19/11/2006 - 12:02:20 (Military Time, UTC)
Country	Somalia	Area	-
County / State	Buulo Barte district	City	Hiraan region
Cause of event	Unknow	Log date	19/11/2006 - 12:02:20 (Military Time, UTC)
Damage level	Heavy	Time left	-
Latitude:	N 3° 49.268	Longitude:	E 45° 18.565
Number of deaths:	9 persons	Number of injured persons:	Not or Not data
Evacuated:	-	Infected	-
-
DESCRIPTION
Crocodiles have killed at least nine people in Somalia, where devastating floods have displaced at least 50,000 others, bringing the death toll to over 50 in the lawless African nation, elders and witnesses said on Sunday. The nine died in Buulo Barte district in the central Hiraan region, 200 km north of the capital Mogadishu in the past three days, they said. Survivors in parts of the district were clinging to trees in desperation to avoid being eaten, local elder Ali Hassan Osmail said. "We are experiencing the worst crisis in this region, in addition to the evacuation and loss of property, people are expressing concerns over crocodiles that threaten their lives," Osmail added. "At least nine people have been killed by crocodiles floating all over the floodwater in the past three days and the number could rise because the problems still persist," he added. Witnesses and local officials have said the deaths bring the toll to a least 52 killed in Somalia in flood waters since late October when torrential downpours caused rivers to burst their banks. The bulk of the dead were in the Middle and Lower Juba, Lower Shabelle, Gedo and Hiraan regions. The United Nations said the current, unusually heavy seasonal rains were threatening Somalia with its worst floods in 50 years while the impoverished Horn of Africa country teeters on the brink of all-out war. Thousands of farmlands have been destroyed by the floods, which follow a prolonged drought that ravaged the entire eastern Africa region, causing a humanitarian disaster.

Speaking of climate change BS,

The Telegraph today has (ta-daaa!) Al Gore responding to the two previous articles. In usual fashion.
And, despite Viscount Monckton's recycled claims about the so-called "hockey stick" graph (an old and worn-out hobby horse of the pollution lobby in the US), this faux controversy has long since been thoroughly debunked.
Yeah, Al, but the problem is it's been debunked as crappy math(and bias) by the people who created it.

It's full of the usual 'all real scientists agree' crap. And has the title of At stake is nothing less than the survival of human civilization. Etc.

Really, you can boil it all down to this line:To be sure, not all of the finest workings of the climate system are yet fully understood to the finest grain.

Snort. 'to the finest grain' my ass.

And this clown almost became President.

And just because I like it,

Found via Michelle Malkin

Blackfive got a screed from a islamist

and takes it apart section by section. One of the points he makes:
9. You said, "I am sure you are all for exterminating the Persians - every single one of them due to US paranoia." NO. I am for exterminating anyone who insists that their religion or their national pride or paranoia demands they kill 4 million Americans because we don't believe in God the same way you do, or we want our women to wear bikinis, go to school, have jobs, make their own decisions instead of only doing what their husband says, and make money on their own if they want to. Your country's mullahs demand obedience and mistreat your entire population. You incite hatred against everyone else, but never against your own people for the atrocities they commit in the name of God. That is bad form in the civilized world. Since Persia used to be so enlightened, you should know that. It is not America who beats your children, breaking their arms under cars when they date someone Dad doesn't like. It is not America who hangs 16 yr old girls for blasphemy. It is not America who stones women for adultery. It is not America who allows women to be beaten just because their old man had a bad hair day. It is not America who imprisons and beats and kills foreigners for taking photos of things they aren't supposed to see. It is Iran and Islam. And I am for killing anyone who tries to force that mentality upon me, my family, or my country.

Read it, it's good

Please note that Project Valor-IT

has surpassed the goal set.

I'm going to leave that on the sidebar a while: I like seeing it.

Among the reasons we're endangered

Political correctness:
A questioner at an international gathering of editors I attended in Edinburgh in May suggested that blame for the murders of journalists in Iraq — most of them Iraqi — rested with President Bush's refusal to acknowledge the Geneva Conventions.
and
He started by referring to an anti-Semitic passage in the New Testament — which passed without comment. But when he began to list the passages in the Koran that denigrate Jews, describing them as monkeys and pigs, the panelists went ballistic. One of them, Madeline Bunting of the Guardian, put her hand over the microphone and said words to the effect, "I am not going to sit here and listen to any criticisms of Muslims." She was cheered, and not one of the journalists in the audience from right or left uttered a word about free speech — not hate speech, mind you, but free speech of a moderate nature

Abject stupidity:
So I looked deeply back into her eyes and said, "Mrs Corrie, don't you experience any cognitive dissonance in talking about a place which has been a Jewish pilgrimage site for centuries, that is supposed to be the tomb of one of the Biblical matriarchs, in the heart of Jewish Biblical country, and telling me 'it's on Palestinian land?" And she said "But it is Palestinian land! According to International Law! You know, they had all those resolutions at the UN and even the US agrees that it's Palestinian land . . . ."

Toleration of the enemy:
"There were words like 'kill,' then I saw it said 'destroy America,'" Eric Herrera said.

As they read on, students found the puzzle contained a paragraph that contained the following phrases:

*"Sharon killed a lot of innocent people," a possible reference to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

*"Palestine is not a terrorist group."

*"Allah help destroy this body of evil making humanity miserable."

Idiot/crooked/"I want to be here for life" politicians:
Conyers has also masterminded House Resolution 288, which condemns “religious intolerance” but clearly singles out Islam as needing special protection from such criticism. It states that “it should never be official policy of the United States Government to disparage the Quran, Islam, or any religion in any way, shape, or form,” and “calls upon local, State, and Federal authorities to work to prevent bias-motivated crimes and acts against all individuals, including those of the Islamic faith.” The bill was referred to the House subcommittee on the Constitution in June 2005, but Conyers, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, could rescue it from legislative oblivion.

Idiot/stupid/corrupt law enforcement:
Two Boston men who spent 30 years in prison for an underworld slaying they did not commit are suing the federal government after the FBI withheld evidence that would have cleared them to protect an informant.

More PC idiocy:
Of all the programs in the San Francisco Unified School District, JROTC
has brought discipline and self respect to many young people through out
the years. Yet on the news I see a Cindy Sheehan wannabe call those that
have gone through the program as being trained to be "occupiers" and
"murderers". (I wonder what that woman really thinks about the program!)

Elitism in LE:
Columbus State Community College (Ohio) President Val Moeller doesn’t want guns on her campus. Understandable -- when it comes to the institution’s civilian faculty and nearly 23,000 students -- but extremely controversial when you realize that Moeller’s resolve to maintain a firearms-free environment extends to the sworn officers who make up the college’s police force.

Judicial/Prosecutorial idiocy:
"Take that concealed weapon permit and turn it in to the Sheriff's Office - you don't need it," Judge Ammons said. "If the gun is returned to you, go sell it. You don't need it."

More crooked cops protected by other cops:

An Illinois State Police master sergeant has been charged with official misconduct and home invasion after he allegedly barged into a woman's apartment and hit a man with his gun...Knezevich is still being paid pending the results of the case...Authorities said he used a law enforcement database to get information on one of the alleged victims...

Dammit, I was ticked off about something before I started digging up this crap.

I hate this

Have to wait around the house hoping for a delivery. Maybe.
Have to stay offline because also expecting a call. Hopefully.

First means can't go anywhere, and there's stuff I need to do. Second means just time to do this out of frustration because it ties up the damn line.

Crap.

On the fox guarding the chicken house...

A leading member of an extremist Islamic group is working as a senior official at the Home Office, it has emerged.

Abid Javaid is a 'senior executive officer' in the IT department at the scandal-hit Immigration and Nationality Directorate which processes tens of thousands of asylum and visa applications every year.

But he is also an activist in the fundamentalist Islamic group Hizb-ut Tahrir which believes in a worldwide Islamic state under Shariah law.

This is despite Tony Blair calling for the group to be banned last year.

The article is here, found it through Little Green Footballs

Was listening to Glenn Beck this morning,

and he had a guy from the 'Islamic Thinkers Society' on near the end. Asking him about the chants of 'the real Holocaust is on its way' and stuff about mushroom clouds and Israel going away his society was doing.

His answers to everything boiled down to
Sharia law will solve everything
The muslim flag will fly over the White House
Israel would help save the world by going away
Israel is the primary cause of all bad things in the world, etc.

He did NOT want to answer just where the mushroom cloud was coming from, other than referencing it to gods' doing of course.

One thing I don't think me meant to say was when Beck asked him something about the U.S. flag he referred to it as 'your flag'. And got first evasive and then defiant when called on it.

Always interesting to hear from the enemy.

And one more bit from Britain today,

found through a post at the Sandmonkey. At a place called Reconquista the owner plotted some information on sex crimes in different areas of London, primarily between areas predominantly muslim and areas predominantly of other religeons. I haven't had time to go through all of it, but it's worth a look.

I may have to take back that hope about Britain

When I posted about that nursery school, the Panday pointed me to this absolutely horrific article.

This autumn is likely to see an extension of parenting orders that can force parents to attend parenting classes so that they can be used on the say so of local councils against parents.

For the first time, parenting orders are likely to be directed against parents whose children have committed no criminal offence.

The threat of action against parents who fail to sing nursery rhymes was unveiled by Mrs Hughes as she gave the first details of Mr Blair's 'national parenting academy', a body that will train teachers, psychologists and social workers to intervene in the lives of families and become the 'parenting workforce'.

Not enough?

The call for state intervention in the minute details of family life followed a series of Labour efforts to reduce anti-social behaviour and improve educational standards by imposing rigorous controls on the lives of the youngest children.

Mrs Hughes has established a national curriculum to set down how babies are taught to speak in childcare from the age of three months.

Her efforts have gone alongside a push by other ministers to determine exactly how parents treat their children down to how they should brush their teeth.

Tony Blair has backed the idea of 'fasbos' - efforts to identify and correct the lives of children who are likely to fail even before they are born - and new laws to compel parents to attend parenting classes are on the way.

The polite response delivered:
Critics of Government family policies condemned the 'nursery rhyme' intervention plan as intrusive and arrogant yesterday.

Jill Kirby of the centre right think tank Centre for Policy Studies said: 'This is the micro-management of family life.

'They have told us the books that our children should read and how to brush their teeth. Now they tell us what we should sing to them.

'This is what happens when a government has failed to do anything at all about the real problems of family breakdown, fatherless families and neglect of children. It is setting about wasting its time and our money.'

The proper response would be more on the line of "You socialist bastards have screwed things up enough. We're getting the pitchforks, tar, feathers and rails."

Or just shooting them. 'down to how they brush their teeth'? Good God.

And for president, by the way,

I'd suggest voting for Candidate Dog

First opinion on the Dillon press

I wish I'd bought one years ago.

I had ordered some primer pickup tubes which came in a few days ago, and I finally had time to set up the press, adjust the powder measure, tweak the seating and crimping dies for my loads. I just loaded 100 rounds of .45acp, with all operations- depriming/sizing, primer seating, powder, bullet seating and crimping- done continuously, and it's bloody wonderful. Not a hitch running the thing, and I just cycled some of the loads through my Kimber with no problems(not the same as firing, but I don't want to upset the neighbors).

Observations:
Do get the primer pickup tubes. Makes charging the primer magazine fast & easy. You might also get one of their primer flipper trays: I don't have one now, but one of these days I will; it's not as nice as the pickup tubes(I'm guessing, I worked around it ok) but it would be a nice thing to have.

It is a new set of motions to learn, so start off slow and get them right. Biggest problem I had- and it only happened twice- is priming. When you pull the lever back up from the resizing step it rotates the shell holder to the next stage(priming/charging) and at the end of the stroke you then have to push the handle up just a bit further; that's where the ram pushes up to seat the primer. I didn't do that twice, which meant getting out the bullet puller to remove the bullet and dump the powder and put the cases back through.

So far, that's about it. Read the book and take it slow, and it works great. Once the first full cycle has gone through you just
put a fired case in the first position,
put a bullet in the charged case in position three,
pull the handle, then push up
and another loaded cartridge pops out the side.
Literally pops out; there's a spring that kicks the finished round out into a chute that drops it into a bin.

Kevin was right, I like it.

It does address one of the problems that keeps a lot of people- Kim du Toit for instance- from handloading: time. It does take time, especially if you cast your own bullets for some things. And when you've got kids at home- let alone home-schooling- you don't have a whole lot of free time. The ammo I shoot the most of, the handgun stuff, this will really speed up.

The single-stage will still be handy. Some ammo, like the Auto Rim for the Webley and the .38S&W I don't run through enough- at this point, at least- to make it worth spending about $75 for Dillon dies for this press. And the rifle ammo won't fit in this thing, so unless I pick up a 550 or something later on, one step at a time for it. If I can pick up that Johnson powder measure later on it'll speed up the rifle a lot as the most time-consuming part of it is measuring the powder.

So it's a good rig, and it'll get a lot of use.

I'd seen this opinion about Darfur a while back

and I think it's worth putting up this link to where it's posted at The High Road. One excerpt:

"We at Amnesty International are not going to condone escalation of the flow of arms to the region," said Trish Katyoka, director of Africa Advocacy. "You are empowering (the victims) to create an element of retaliation.

"Whenever you create a sword-fight by letting the poor people fight back and give them the arms, it creates an added element of complexity. You do not know what the results could be."

But we do know what they are now.

Self-defense could exacerbate the situation, Katyoka said. "Fighting fire with fire is not a solution to the genocide. It is a dangerous proposition to arm the minorities to fight back."

Better they should be slaughtered.

Katyoka hopes the United Nations can do something -- someday -- to stop the killing. She also hopes Sudan's leaders are charged with crimes against humanity in the International Criminal Court. But at this rate, will there be any eyewitnesses left to testify?

As has been pointed out, the same people screaming and bitching because we took out Saddam, are screaming and bitching because we aren't sending troops to Sudan. Ain't it interesting?

How do I hate Jimmy Carter?

Let us count another way

Ran across this review of his latest book. Read it. The bias toward the Palestinians and various dictators in general and against Israel is flat amazing.

“When I met with Yasir Arafat in 1990, he stated, ‘The PLO has never advocated the annihilation of Israel. The Zionists started the ‘drive the Jews into the sea’ slogan and attributed it to the PLO. In 1969, we said we wanted to establish a democratic state where Jews, Christians, and Muslims can all live together. The Zionists said they do not choose to live with any people other than Jews’

“When I asked Arafat about the purposes of the PLO, he seemed somewhat taken aback that I needed to ask such a question. He gave me a pamphlet that stated, “The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is the national liberation movement of the Palestinian people….”

Yeah, them there Zionists, they's responsible for everything, ain't they.

A sign of hope from Britain

For kids, anyway

Most of their day is spent outside, even when the rain is falling. The 20 pupils come inside only for breaks and the rest of the time are allowed to roam, to make dens, mud pies and explore.
...
"Some nurseries say 'Let's go indoors, it's raining'. But we say 'Come on, let's go and splash in the puddles.' " Experts have long argued that school-age children should be allowed to take risks during play but there has been a growing trend for schools and local authorities to curb their chances of adventure for fear of being sued if an accident happens.

Farley is unusual in that it is embracing outdoor play for pre-school children as the route to early learning. Children are allowed to go inside whenever they want, but seldom choose to. During a full day from 8.00am to 6pm, they might only go inside for lunch and two "snack" breaks. The only weather the babies will not allowed out in is fog, said Mrs Palmer, because it is bad for their chests.

Expect the usual suspects to start screaming any time. Children being allowed to play outside? And get dirty? And learn without a computer sitting in front of them? Why, next thing you know they'll be learning to make decisions on their own!

Climate change BS part 2

is here at the Telegraph site.

One key note about the religeous zealots on this mess:On Thursday, Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, compared climate sceptics to advocates of Islamic terror. Neither, she said, should have access to the media.

"Freedom of speech my ass, I don't like what you say"

An evening with my son

He had a pass for the weekend, and we had dinner with friends of mine; the husband has known him pretty much his whole life, the wife had never met him. Between assisting in garage cleaning, playing with their dogs and dinner it was a nice evening.

Not much longer before he finishes AIT. He'll have some leave before he heads off to his first duty station, which will be God knows where at this point: could be somewhere in the US or Korea or Japan or Europe or the sandbox.

Time does go by. Sometimes it seems a short time ago, sometimes forever that I was holding this wrinkled, squalling baby that had just drawn his first breaths. His sister and he were both premature, and it was touch-and-go for both getting as far along as they did before entering the world. Now my daughter works in a nearby area, but between jobs and her actually having a life I don't get to see her much; son has signed on for a soldier with all that entails. Which means I don't see him very often either.

You fear as they grow that you're falling down on the job and not teaching them the things to do and things not to do as you should and hoping they get the message. And now you find out that, whether you did it right or not, overall they did get the points. So one's still nearby and the other will be going somewhere. 'Somewhere' quite possibly including unfriendly people who will try to kill him. Which makes me wish we'd had more time at the range. Yeah, the Army teaches them, but there are some bits & pieces that may not be in the standard Basic Rifle Marksmanship book.

In their different ways they're both carrying that training, daughter for self-defense in the civilian world and son in the military. Odd thing is, depending in where & when he could be at less risk than her in some neighborhoods, or things could go completely to hell when he sets foot on the ground. His MOS is one that would usually put him somewhere behind friendly lines, but I stressed to him when discussing the infantry work that he'd better get damn good at it: the bad guys can pop up from damn near anywhere.

Which holds true for daughter, too. What a lot of people don't recognize- or don't want to recognize- is that the enemy would just love to pop up in a store, a restaurant, an office building, and kill everybody there.

In the Posleen Invasion series John Ringo wrote that he feared the result of our having lived in something of a Golden Age. The people who fought WWII had been through the Depression, many had come from farms and ranches where living was hard at best, factories where crippling injury was always lurking, and the peace and security and ease of many things that we take for granted, didn't exist. We had quite a while before 9/11 with relative ease: nobody went without an education unless they didn't bother to learn, nobody who was willing to work needed to go hungry, medical care of quality unbelievable to our ancestors available. Yeah, definate problems in all areas, but many of the biggest problems were our own doing, not because the opportunity wasn't there. And because of the security and ease we got soft. Not everybody, but enough- especially among those with money and/or influence- to really screw some things up. So we have people who think a murderer or rapist deserves more sympathy than the victim, and that this country is almost always at fault when something doesn't work, and that you can't blame someone for not helping himself because the Government should have taken care of him.

I can't remember where I first heard the phrase "honor the threat". What I think is happening is that a lot of people cannot or will not honor the threat: they cannot- or will not- let themselves believe that someone means what they say when what they say is "You will convert to our way or we will kill you". They obviously don't really mean that, of course. They only want to discuss things and compromise, and if we just give a little and talk enough it'll all be ok.

So we wind up with a Speaker of the House telling us that the situation in Iraq is 'not a war to be won, but a problem to be solved', and people thinking that if you disarm the honest the dishonest will honor that and stop being violent and nasty. Freakin' insane, but these people actually believe it. They BELIEVE it, with more fervor than they put into any religeon they claim.

I don't claim to be all-knowing, or all that damn smart outside certain areas. I do know that the islamists mean every damn word: people who cut a screaming victims head off on tape do NOT do it because they just want to negotiate. So one of the things I taught my kids is that when someone threatens you, you believe they mean it and act accordingly, which can range from telling them to piss off to telling them that if they try it they'll die. I really fear for this entire nation if we don't overall wake up to the threat coming at us and honor the threat.

And for now, I spend time with the kids when I can, enjoy it, and hope they're indeed smart enough and tough enough to do what needs be done when the time comes.

The folks we had dinner with have a baby, born oddly enough on my birthday. She's almost nine months old now, and she reminds me of the thing I thought when mine were small: "If somebody tries to hurt them, the bastard's dead". I may be a relic, but I feel the same about my country, in a not quite so personal way. It's worth defending, too.

Gun show report

There's a small show on at the fairgrounds this weekend. I went, mainly looking for a couple of ammo boxes and to see if any targets of opportunity. Observations:

LOTS of people buying; I think I saw more people filling out paperwork and handing over money than in a similar time at much bigger shows.
LOTS of ammo being sold, in just about any cartridge available.
Lots of ammo boxes- steel ones- seemed to be moving.

It's enough to make you think people don't trust the new majority in DC, isn't it?

Oh God, the rot has set in

There's a elementary school down the road from my place. On their billboard out front is this:

"A good heart is worth all the heads in the world"

We may be doomed

National Ammo Week officially begins

today. At least 100 rounds of whatever ammo, or mix it up with a little of everything.

The origins here at Kim's place.

There's a gun show this weekend I'm going to try to hit, and there's a local shop that carries the Federal .22's I like(and another brick is always useful). So excuse me, shopping to do.

Remember KFC rolling over to the health nazis?

I wrote to them about it because
My daughter loves(d) KFC chicken, and
My daughter is allergic to soy.
Not tongue-swells-up-and-you-choke level, but the effects on her are not good. So I wrote to them and informed them that rolling over on this lost her as a customer-probably a lot of other people for the same reason, too- , and I wasn't coming back because I'm pissed at them for rolling over. Put more diplomatically, of course.

Today I got a letter from them:

Dear " ":
Thank you for expressing your point of view on trans fat and hydrogenated oils.

Colonel Sanders created KFC's Original Recipe checken over 50 years ago, and we've been cooking it the Colonel's way ever since so that it's finger lickin' good. We've tested oils that are trans-fat free, but we haven't found a recipe yet that's as delicious as our world-famous Original Recipe.

We are extremely careful about tampering with the taste of America's favorite fried chicken, and we will continue to take that very seriously as we explore oil alternatives and supply availability.

In the meantime, we provide complete nutrition information for all our products on kfc.com and in our restaurant brochures, including how all food can be part of a healthy diet.

Thank you again for taking the time to share you perspective.

Sincerely,

KFC Consumer Affairs


So:
Ignored the point about a lot of people being sensitive to soy,
State flatly "We've tested oils that are trans-fat free, but we haven't found a recipe yet that's as delicious as our world-famous Original Recipe."
And ignore my gripe about them rolling over to the food nannies.

So they say they're using stuff that will make the food taste not as good but are 'very careful about tampering with the taste'. Jeez, what a load of crap.

About the cat meat imam and Islam

One of the posts I did about this clown had this in the comments:
The funny thing about the complaints that these men got long sentences is that the punishment for rape in Islam is death.

I, as a Muslim think they got what they deserved. IF it is true that non-Muslim rapists get punished with less time in prison, then there needs to be a public outcry at how any rapist is not punished the same length as a Muslim would. It is dangerous to put rapists back on the streets.

I don't know too much about the Australian gang rape case but if its true the rapists claimed the non-Muslim women were less than human because they are not Muslim..then that just makes me sick to my stomach.

The command from Allah is for Muslims to be an example to others and call others to Islam. Not become arrogant and hate all non-Muslims.

too many Muslims are living in a time of ignorance and TOO MANY good muslims are staying silent about this problem!! And this quote is so true:

"all that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"

and this is happening right now. Evil people who are calling themselves Muslims are NOT following Islam!! They say they are but in reality they twist the meanings of verses and teach these twisted meanings to other ignorant Muslims and they are using the twisted verses to justify nothing but pure hatred!!

Yes, the media does play a role in vilifying Muslims (it is a FACT) BUT It is absurd for us Muslims to blame EVERYTHING on the media, the West etc... and not look at the faults of those who are calling themselves Muslims!!

Islam is perfect, Muslims are not!!

too many Muslims think they are perfect--and become arrogant!!

We are supposed to be an example to others, not think we are above them!!

Until us Muslims are more visibly protesting against terrorism, and the denial of womens' rights (It is not Islam that oppresses women, it is Muslims who take their culture over Islam) etc... that so many people will have such a negative view of Islam.

And when I say more visibly I am not necessarily talking about the media. Aren't so many Muslims complaining that he media does not give Muslims opportunities to voice their objections?? Well then we need to go out on the streets and get loud!!! Isn't that even better than one or two Muslims on a news program discussing these issues? The media wouldn't be able to ignore it either.

--rant from an ANGRY Muslimah

The comment was from TJ. Two things to say about this. The first is that I have a problem with the Yes, the media does play a role in vilifying Muslims: most of the major media has basically bent over backwards to avoid anything that would 'vilify' islam; hell, they practically wet their pants at the idea of criticizing Islam. If he's referring to press reports about people like Cat Meat, that's tough; reporting what somebody said is not 'vilification'.

Second, he's exactly right in And when I say more visibly I am not necessarily talking about the media. Aren't so many Muslims complaining that he media does not give Muslims opportunities to voice their objections?? Well then we need to go out on the streets and get loud!!! Isn't that even better than one or two Muslims on a news program discussing these issues? The media wouldn't be able to ignore it either. You start seeing large demonstration of muslims telling the islamists to go to hell, and applauding the freedoms here- including the freedom to criticize religeon- it'll make serious impression on a lot of people.

It would be a help.

If you had any doubt about the Democrat agenda,

check this out:
To that end, he sketched out an expansive federal agenda: Teaming up with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on gun control, passing new tax incentives for urban job programs, and redirecting federal money to New York in return for the outsize tax collections that the federal government makes here.

Let's see, screw gun owners, and grab every penny for New York(also known as 'screw everybody else).

Like I said, at the least call and/or write your Congresscritter and tell them you expect them to stand against this crap.

Any questions?

Yes, I have something to say about the election

To the Stupid Party: Just what did you expect, dumbass? Too many of you ignored the people back home when they told you what they were concerned about; too many of you did things just to 'get along' with the Evil Party; you didn't clean out the crooks the way you should have; and as a consequence you got your ass kicked. Learn from it.

To the Evil Party: You now have control of the House, and Screamin' Howard is calling for an end to 'divisiveness' in the House: we know that that translates to "Do what we want or we'll be mean to you". Short response: Fat Effin' Chance. I think that any Stupid Party member who plays that game is going to get kicked, hard, and rightly so. I also think that unless the Evil Party does something about people like Rangell & Co.("We're in a war I don't like, so I'm going to cut funding for the military") they're going to pay the price in two years.

If you're not already a member, join one of the Second Amendment groups. And write/call your Congresscritter and let him know what you think, Loudly, the first time the Evil Party takes a swipe at the Second.

And buy some ammo now; I'm betting the price will go up some more because of this.

Been reading a book, and personal disarmament shows up

Islamic Imperialism, by Efraim Karsh. Unfortunately I'm not going to be able to finish it before I have to take it back to the library; there's a list of people waiting for it so I can't recheck it. Interesting book on a number of points of the history of Islam. Personal disarmament shows up in the recounting of the Armenian Genocide.

Short version, the Ottoman Empire decided they wanted to get rid of the Armenians and proceeded to do so. From the accounts I've read before they may not have been quite as efficient about it as the Nazis going after Jews, but close. And one of the first things the Ottomans did(had read a bit on this before at JPFO) was disarm the Armenians:

First the Armenians had to be rendered defenseless; then they were to be uprooted from their homes and relocated to concentration camps in the most inhospitable corners of Ottoman Asia.
...
At the same time, the authorities initiated a ruthless campaign to disarm the entire Armenian population of all personal weapons. This sent a tremor throughout Armenia: the 1895-96 massacres had been preceded by similar measures, and most Armenians had no illusions regarding the consequences of surrendering their arms while their Muslim neighbors were permitted to retain theirs. Nevertheless, the community's religious and political leaders persuaded their reluctant flock to do precisely that in order to avoid harsh retaliation by the government. But even this was not a simple task. The Ottoman authorities demanded that the Armenians produce a certain number of weapons, regardless of the actual number of arms-bearers, thus putting man Armenians in an impossible position: those who could not produce arms were brutally tortured; those who produced them for surrender, by purchase from their Muslim neighbors or by other means, were imprisoned for treachery and similarly tortured; those found to have hidden their arms were given even harsher treatment.

With the Armenian nation rendered defenseless, the genocidal spree entered its main stage: mass deportations and massacres.

Same kind of program the Nazis used later: Jews banned from ownership of arms, and the serious attacks came after.

And it had happened before. Please note this part again:the 1895-96 massacres had been preceded by similar measures, and most Armenians had no illusions regarding the consequences of surrendering their arms while their Muslim neighbors were permitted to retain theirs. Nevertheless, the community's religious and political leaders persuaded their reluctant flock to do precisely that in order to avoid harsh retaliation by the government. It had been done to them before, but their leaders, hoping to 'avoid harsh retaliation', told them to go along with it.

I can understand the attitude that caused them to do so; "We're outnumbered, and maybe this time they won't do it to us if we don't make a fuss". I also know that down in their bones they knew better. The question then becomes, why not band together and head for the border, armed with everything you can lay hands on? If they've already massacred you, and you know they're going to do it again, why go along with it? Same question that could be asked of Jews at some points prior to WWII.

To me, it also points out something a lot of people have pointed out before: the only reason for a government to disarm citazens(or 'subjects of the Crown' in Britain) is because they A: don't trust the peasants and B: people in government are planning to do things the people won't like and don't want the people able to resist at the last-ditch level.

I wonder how much our news will talk about this?

A British Muslim plotted to cause "massive explosions" in Britain and the United States designed to kill thousands of people, a court heard today.

Dhiren Barot, a 34-year-old convert from north London, led a conspiracy to commit mass murder and was intent on causing, in his own words, "another black day for the enemies of Islam".

His plots included using radioactive dirty bombs, a petrol tanker, and a co-ordinated bomb attack using limosines packed with gas cylinders.

And the subways? He also planned to flood London's Underground network by blowing up a Tube train under the Thames, predicting that if he could "rupture the river itself", this "would cause pandemonium, what with the explosions, flooding, drowning etc that would occur".

Isn't this just a wonderful project from a devoted member of the ROP?

Two other things picked up from the son this weekend

I asked him if he'd heard about John Effin' Kerry's comments: "Oh yeah, Sgt. - was really pissed about that!" and went on to list some of the sergeants comments.

Second, he'd mentioned this before but this brought it back to mind: I think every DI in both batteries he's been in so far have been in Iraq or Afghanistan or both and came back to the States in the last few months. Lessons have included lots of personal notes about what they've seen/done and pointers coming therefrom. I'd heard the Army was working to get the lessons from the lines back to the training people, and it appears they're really doing it.

'Global Cooling/Warming/Climate Change' BS

Dammit, Kim beat me to it. I saw this article the other day but didn't bother to read it at the time. Short version, Mr. Monckton notes exactly how the UN(got to increase our power over the world) and 'scientists' more concerned with pushing a political agenda than facts screwed the data and findings to show what they want you to see, not what the data actually is. Just to whet your appetite:
Next, the UN abolished the medieval warm period (the global warming at the end of the First Millennium AD). In 1995, David Deming, a geoscientist at the University of Oklahoma, had written an article reconstructing 150 years of North American temperatures from borehole data. He later wrote: "With the publication of the article in Science, I gained significant credibility in the community of scientists working on climate change. They thought I was one of them, someone who would pervert science in the service of social and political causes. One of them let his guard down. A major person working in the area of climate change and global warming sent me an astonishing email that said: 'We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.' "

So they did. The UN's second assessment report, in 1996, showed a 1,000-year graph demonstrating that temperature in the Middle Ages was warmer than today. But the 2001 report contained a new graph showing no medieval warm period. It wrongly concluded that the 20th century was the warmest for 1,000 years. The graph looked like an ice hockey-stick. The wrongly flat AD1000-AD1900 temperature line was the shaft: the uptick from 1900 to 2000 was the blade. Here's how they did it:

And there's more to come:
This week, I'll show how the UN undervalued the sun's effects on historical and contemporary climate, slashed the natural greenhouse effect, overstated the past century's temperature increase, repealed a fundamental law of physics and tripled the man-made greenhouse effect.

Next week, I'll demonstrate the atrocious economic, political and environmental cost of the high-tax, zero-freedom, bureaucratic centralism implicit in Stern's report; I'll compare the global-warming scare with previous sci-fi alarums; and I'll show how the environmentalists' "precautionary principle" (get the state to interfere now, just in case) is killing people.

Pretty much the only really nasty disagreements with people I've had over the last while have been over this 'climate change' crap. The people who wrote to disagree with me early in the history of this blog were quite nice about it; they disagreed and argued, they did not insult and threaten. In person? Different matter there, I've been hit with the "You don't read REAL sources" and "All RESPONSIBLE scientists agree" and so forth. So far, I haven't seen any unfiddled data to make me change my mind, and every time I've checked into the "We're all gonna die unless we act NOW!" stuff it's turned out to be anything from 'ignore the inconvenient facts' to flat-out falsified information. Usually from people who are a: truly worried about the world and think they have to do anything necessary(in their minds) to change things to power-hungry bureaucrats who see it as a way to grab more power.

I'll be watching for the next articles.

Facial decoration

Of the natural kind, that is: beards and mustaches. This over at Lawdog made me think of some history.

I had a beard for several years. Partly just because I could, partly because I started growing it in winter(nothing seemed to keep my face from chapping after shaving back then) and partly because once there, I got used to it.

Had it before my first divorce(I still hate using that term), and for a few years after. Bought a little battery-powered trimmer to keep it neat and got along quite well. Couple of things finally made me reevaluate:
As Peter Capstick wrote, my hair was not turning majestically silver at the temples like Stewart Granger: it was just turning grey and falling out. And the beard had more grey than my hair.
My trimmer was about to die.
And I had a girlfriend(who in time became My Second Divorce, and even worse term) who said something about how she'd never seen me without it.

I'd had the plague that was going around that late-winter and hadn't seen her for almost a week. I was starting to feel better and that evening I studied my reflection and decided that since I couldn't even remember what I looked like without it, it would go. At least for now.
So out came the clipper, which promptly died. Not batteries, it went tits up about 1/4 of the way through. So I wound up using three disposable razors- all I had- to take it all off. If you've never done this, believe me, even a short beard will clog those things amazingly well; if I'd known where it was right then I'd have dug out the straight razor and used it.

In any case, I finished and used some hand lotion on my face- no after shave- and decided that while there was indeed a difference, I couldn't really call it an improvement, but it was done.

Next day got various comments at work along the usual line of "You shaved!". Called the girlfriend and asked if she was willing to risk being around me that evening, got a yes, and headed over that evening. Knocked on the door, no answer. Door was unlocked, which she'd do if she was on the phone or busy and expecting me so I walked in. Called her name, no answer, so headed one way down the hall and got halfway down when I heard her behind me, on the phone, so turned around.

She was coming down the hall toward me and stopped dead. "I don't BELIEVE it!" Ever seen a dog cock it's head when you do something? She cocked hers, actually leaned to the left a bit to get a different angle and repeated "I don't BELIEVE it!" Which caused whoever she was talking to to ask what the hell she didn't believe. "It's M, he shaved!"

By this time I was feeling like a curiosity in the store window, but got over that. She then said something I heard a bunch of times over the next couple of months: "You look at least ten years younger". Hadn't noticed that myself, but it turned out a lot of people did.

There was one other upside to getting rid of it: for the next few months, I could run into people I'd known for years at fairs & such and start talking to them, and after a few minutes they'd stop looking at me funny and start and say "Oh, it's YOU!"

I've thought about growing one again, but looking at pictures of myself from that time, decided against it. Besides everything else, the damn beard would probably look like it'd been sprayed white nowadays.

Speaking of survival kits,

urban division, since Baboon Pirates showed one, I thought I'd steal his idea show mine.












Kimber Compact Aluminum with a McCormick 7-round mag inside, a 7-round blue steel spare in belt clip, the Fobus holster I use a lot and a fairly new knife: a CRKT MIL-HRE.

The Kimber has Hogue finger-groove wraparound grips(the Pistolero recommended them, and he was right). I use the blued mag as a spare because the color doesn't show the way stainless does if my jacket blows open on that side.

Carnival of Cordite #79

is up and ready