Since I'm thinking of soldiers right now,

Behold I am a soldier bold,
I'm only twenty-five years old,
a finer warrior never was seen
from Inverness tae Gretna Green.
When I was young my father said
he would put me to a decent trade,
I didn'a like that job a'tall
so I went and I joined the Forty-Twa*

The wind may blow, the cold may crawl,
the rain may rain and the storm may storm
but you willna frighten' John MacGraw,
the stoutest man in the Forty-Twa

The corporal who enlisted me
he slapped my back, and then says he,
"A man like you so strong and tall
could never be kilt by a cannon ball.
The colonel then when he came roond,
he looked me up and he looked me doon,
and then says he "I'll take a guess,
ye must be the beastie of Loch Ness."

Chorus

To a great battle across the sea
the general he sent after me.
When I got there wi' my big gun
the battle was as good as won.
'Cause the enemy they all ran awa'
when the saw the size of Big MacGraw.
A man like me so big and neat, ye
ken yourself ye can never be beat.

Chorus

The King then held a grand review,
Ha! We numbered a thousand and fifty-two
the Forty-Twa came marchin' past,
and John Macgraw came a marchin' last.
The royal party grabbed their specs
and all began to stretch their necks;
said the King to the Colonel, "Upon my soul!
I took that lad for a telegraph pole!"

Chorus twice.

*The Forty-Second Highlanders

What's a good gift

for someone who'll be deploying soon?

Son just had his birthday, and will be going to his first duty station in Europe soon. So what do you give someone who's not going to have much baggage room and will be gone for quite a while? Birthday was a good CRKT folder, so what for Christmas? Something small and light, and which will not cause his sergeant or above to have conniptions.

No, I will not accept suggestions such as a copy of The Guide To The Better Brothels In Western Europe.

To the idiot in the blue Concord

on the way to work this morning(and what the hell kind of name for a car is that, anyway?). The one who was driving 25 in a 35 zone because "the school zone is only three blocks away". Who then dropped to 18-20 in the school zone. Who then drove 25 after exiting the zone until "Intersection!", at which time idiot slowed to 18-20 again, then got back to to maybe 25 before I was able to get around you.

Your day will come, jackass. And it will be baaaaaaaad.

Have I mentioned that the people we're fighting

are a bunch of bloody-handed murdering barbarians?

I know it's been mentioned by others, but this needs to be mentioned again.
There can be no doubt that the children were the target as the car that was attacked was only ever used to drive them to and from the Greek Orthodox School in Gaza City and was never used to drive their father.

But we're supposed to believe it's the Joooos who are the troublemakers and evildoers.

I am truly worried about my country

There's a variety of reasons, and I'll go into others later. Right now, I'm concentrating on people working hard to trash the Constitution because it doesn't agree with what they want to do. Specifically, on the 2nd Amendment.
(note: this is going to be a bit long for me, and I'm not as good as pieces like this as Kevin or the Curmudgeon for instance; but here goes)

From Kim:“We interpret the Second Amendment in military terms,” said Todd Kim, the District’s solicitor general, who told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that the city would also have had the authority to ban all weapons.

So this mucksucking lawyer says, in essence, that in the middle of a bunch of noted Rights of Free Men, the founders of this country threw in a amendment to protect the MILITARY having arms, and says he and the other Superior Beings can ban ALL firearms if they choose.

From the Geek:
Silberman and Judge Thomas B. Griffith seemed to wrestle, however, with the meaning of the amendment's language about militias. If a well-regulated militia is no longer needed, they asked, is the right to bear arms still necessary?

"That's quite a task for any court to decide that a right is no longer necessary," Alan Gura, an attorney for the plaintiffs, replied. "If we decide that it's no longer necessary, can we erase any part of the Constitution?"
Think about that. Despite there being clear instructions in the Constitution itself about how this highest law of the land can be changed, here's some God-cursed judges and other lawyers asking 'can we erase any part of the Constitution?' if they decide it's unneeded? Unless you're a lawyer or judge with delusions of grandeur the answer is obviously NO! But if you're not one of those things, what do you know?

It's been said before, the Judicial branch of the government needs a big, swift, serious kick in the ass. Too many judges for too long have decided that THEY are the arbiters of everything, that no other branch of the government can tell them "No", and that whatever they say, goes. And they've been getting away with it- at least partly- because A: a bunch of other judges like having that level of power and help them along and B: too many cowardly/statist/fill-in-the-blank politicians find them useful to push what they want, bypassing the Constitution that they swore to protect and defend.

And every member of the perpetually offended out there loves it: because if they can't get people to vote the way they want, they can get some idiot judge somewhere to order what they want. Screw the people, screw the law, the JUDGE has spoken and that's all that counts.

And it's a big part of what's pulling this country apart. This current bullshit is just one aspect, but it's a big one. Kim said:
"It does not matter what the Supreme Court decides.

Our Bill of Rights enumerate our Constitutional freedoms as individuals, and that’s the beginning, and end of it.

So let the blackbirds chirp all they may, and whatever they decide, it’s irrelevant. We know what the Second means, and the legal opinions of some appointed civil servants don’t matter.

Cold. Dead. Hands."

I agree. The Constitution does not mean what a bunch of black robes say, it means what those words on parchment say. Problem is all those Superior Beings who think it should mean what they say it does, therefore they can say what they want and- ta daa!- that's it. Which has already meant various levels of trouble, and in this could mean Big Trouble. Because- not only in this case- if the people decide that the Constitution no longer means anything except what some judge says, and it(finally) becomes obvious enough that too many politicians like it that way, it basically means that there no longer is a United States, there's just a rule by government fiat in all ways. We're too damn close to that for comfort now; if we step over the edge, I flat hate to think about it.

Over at Uncle's he's got this post, with various comments. You can go to most any gunboard and find similar threads, all boiling down to "What happens if some court says 'you can't own guns, turn them in' and various LE types start knocking on doors saying 'We're here to take them'?" (Note that Uncle asks "The right to self defense is considered in almost all societies as sacrosanct. How could any court rule in a way that would put citizens at the mercy of criminals that have no regard for the rule of law?" The answer, unfortunately, is 'with great ease of mind'. Just like courts have ruled that the police have no duty to protect you, just to protect 'society', and at the same time will rule to hang you for using what amounts to 'unapproved means' to protect yourself.)

Two things to note here. One is the fact that most gun owners are not only honest citizens, they don't want to hurt anybody. Many having been in the military and/or LE themselves, they do not want to find themselves looking over sights at one of those uniforms. But they remember that oath, to protect and defend the Constitution, that they took; and that the people who'd be knocking on their door took but seem unwilling to uphold("The chief/commissioner/mayor/governor gave me an order, I HAVE to obey it"); and some of them will fight. All the others, they've had a lifetime of respect for the law and those who enforce it, and that would be hard to break through. But for at least some, they'd be a law-abiding citazen who's now been told by government "You can't be trusted with/don't need/shouldn't have guns, and we're taking them" and now finds the minions of government, armed and prepared to arrest or kill, beating on their door. And some will say to themselves "I cannot tolerate this", and it will get very, very nasty from there.

Second thing you will have in this mess is the LE community(which it has unfortunately become) and the military types who will become involved if this happens. Part of the 'go to hell' process is the attitude of too many LE personnel, "I've got my orders and that's that. I have to carry them out whether I like them or not, and if that means shooting or jailing you so I can go home tonight, then that's what I'll do." It's been pointed out that some- maybe many- LE and military will refuse to carry out such an order, and some will. The rest, even those who don't like it, will do it. And the moment there's resistance, the 'us vs. them' kicks in, the "We can't let anyone defy this, let alone fight it, because that is Defiance Of Authority which we cannot tolerate: it causes problems and reduces our authority if we do. So we will stomp all over you".

And that means that after the first report of someone fighting, it'll go from 'we intended this to be an orderly process with consideration for peoples' rights' to 'just kick in the door and go!'. Which will get bad almost beyond belief. You think we have a problem with wrong-door raids and people being wrongly shot now? Think what'll happen then. And if wives/kids/neighbors get in the way or have 'something resembling a weapon in their hand' or are just in the wrong place when bullets start flying, well, it will obviously be the fault of the gun nuts. Which will be used as 'proof that private citazens should never have been allowed to own these dangerous weapons', etc. After 9/11 every government agency out there dragged out their wish list of 'things we need enacted/powers we need for security'; think it'll be any different if/when this starts?

And the alternative possibly sucks even more. It means the whole population saying "Well, we can't fight the government" and meekly handing their arms over. Which will be followed at some point with handing pretty much everything else over because those who want this will not be satisfied with taking our guns. They will, sooner or later, want pretty much total control over all parts of our lives.

You want to know what we'd become? Look at England. Taxed to death, told how you're allowed to speak and write and think, few firearms allowed to the peasants and their government wants to ban them all, you use 'too much force' or a weapon in self-defense, even against an attacker in your own damned home, and you stand at least as much chance of going to prison as your attacker. And on and on, including the government planning to supvervise your life down to and including how you read fairy tales(the approved ones, of course) to your kids.

One of the nasty things I've been contemplating on in this is that if I'm not already, I will be on a list of 'these are the people we need to get first'. No, I do not think I'm so prominent, so publicly known and popular that I'm a particular threat. It's simply that(I think Kevin's the first one I heard say it) what I do here, and things connected with it, will put me there. We buy guns, we write about them, we post on gunboards, we bitch at the gummint and LE when we think they do something badly or just flat wrong and we encourage others to do the same. Which means that if we're not already on some alphabet-agency list, if this crap in DC goes through and various agencies and politicians start rubbing their hands together in glee, we will be. I'd imagine I'd be way down on the list compared to a lot of other people, but I'd be there(in generally good company I'd say). Which is a sobering thought.

Generally speaking, I cannot imagine it actually going through. Among other things we have the this from Ohio, and this from Washington, both of which give hope. So we wait and see, and hope the SCOTUS hasn't completely lost its collective mind.

And I keep worrying for my country.

A piece from Britain,

courtesy of a gentleman who sent it to Kim. About lots of honest Subjects of the Crown saying to hell with it and buying or smuggling in guns for self-defense.

Owning a weapon is becoming a habit for rural homeowners who feel unprotected now that so many police stations have closed.

I have never seen a police car in my village and violent crime in the county, of course, is up. Baseball bats, swords, machetes, Mace and firearms are kept beneath the bed or close to hand by many people.

In a post the other day Uncle wrote "The right to self defense is considered in almost all societies as sacrosanct. How could any court rule in a way that would put citizens at the mercy of criminals that have no regard for the rule of law?" They answer is 'easily', as they've done it in country after country. And the results have generally been pretty plain to see. And this is one of the consequences: honest people who the government has essentially abandoned buying weapons illegally because, to borrow the old saying, "It is better to be judged by twelve than carried by six"(of course, in Tony Blair's Britain you don't even get twelve in many cases anymore, just one of the God-cursed judges who think they've taken Gods' place, but still).

It's going to be interesting over there one of these days, when the peasants tell Parliament to kiss their collective ass.

And yet more on the flying jackasses

and all their associations

To me, no question these BPMs were looking at a test run, a publicity opportunity, or a way to ease the way for some real hijackers. Or a combination of these.

And hooray to US Airways for standing behind the crew.

One more thing courtesy of Tim Blair,

how those eeevillle Joooos have hurt the poor Arab/muslim feelings:
Q: Do you mean to say that if Israel did not exist, there would suddenly be democracy in Egypt, that the schools in Morocco would be better, that the public clinics in Jordan would function better?

A: I think so.

Q: Can you please explain to me what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has to do with these problems?

A: The Palestinian cause is central for Arab thinking.

Q: In the end, is it a matter of feelings of self-esteem?

A: Exactly. It’s because we always lose to Israel. It gnaws at the people in the Middle East that such a small country as Israel, with only about 7 million inhabitants, can defeat the Arab nation with its 350 million. That hurts our collective ego.

Well, tell you what, Ahmed: stop whining, stop blaming the Jooos for all your damn problems and start acting like a damned Man! you sorry little bastard. Maybe reflect on just WHY that little country keeps kicking your collective ass, and actually produces people who make the world a better place. Doctors, researchers, writers, musicians, men and women who actually care about life, you know, people like that.

You've just admitted that your poor, tender feelings mean more to you than anything else, including the lives of your offspring. You've basically admitted that the 'Palistinians'- who your countries could have taken in and given homes after YOU told them to get out of Israel("Stay out of the way while we annhilate the Jooos!")- are more useful as a bunch of sodding death-worshipping barbarians to focus your feelings on than they are as human beings.

And by the way:
Mr. Sheikh, as the Editor in Chief of Al-Jazeera, you are one of the most important opinion-makers in the Arab world. What do you call suicide bombers?

For what is happening in Palestine, we never use the expression “suicide bombing.”

What do you call it then?

In English, I would describe it as “bombings.”

And in Arabic?

Literally translated, we would speak of “commando attacks.” In our culture, it is precisely not suicide.

But instead a praiseworthy act?

When the country is occupied and the people are being killed by the enemy, everyone must take action, even if he sacrifices himself in so doing.

Even if in so doing he kills innocent civilians?

That is not a Palestinian problem, but a problem of the Israelis.

This little part of the exchange tells us you don't have any fucking idea of the concept of honor; again, you're just a bunch of whining little homicidal brats who need someone to blame for their lack of self-discipline and continual pants-crapping. As the guy once said, "Dude! You suck!"

Along with your whole murdering, goat-humping tribe. Like Dennis Miller said:
No, they want what all the other Jew-Haters in the region want: Israel. They also want a big pile of dead Jews, of course --that's where the real fun is -- but mostly they want Israel.

Why? For one thing, trying to destroy Israel - or "The Zionist Entity" as their textbooks call it -- for the last fifty years has allowed the rulers of Arab countries to divert the attention of their own people away from the fact that they're the blue-ribbon most illiterate, poorest, and tribally backward on God's Earth, and if you've ever been around God's Earth, you know that's really saying something.

You know, Golda Meir was right, with one addition: she said there wouldn't be peace until you idiots loved your children more than you hated Jews. Guess what? Until you manage that not only will there not be peace, you will remain a bunch of child-raping, hating, murderous savages.

And by the way, you sodding jackass, while you make happy faces about mothers murdering other women and children while killing themselves, THESE are the kind of women we admire.

Yes, I am a wee bit pissed. How can you tell?

Welcome on Oklahoma in springtime,

Mr. Blair. Yeah, them there whirlywinds can be a bit disturbing to the neighborhood, can't they? But hey, it was just a lousy F2 at worst, so not too bad.

What's that? More per square mile there than here? I'll have to say I have my doubts about that, but it's not something I'll get too upset over. Hmm, lookee here:• One of the most destructive tornadoes in the UK struck Birmingham on July 28 last year when hundreds of buildings were damaged by 135mph winds. Gotta tell you, Mr. Blair, if a lousy F2 is 'one of the most destructive' then you folks have gotten off light. An F5 would flat curl your hair.

Well, I'll stop talkin' at you for now, you've got a bit of cleanin' up to do. Catch you later.

Proving once again that Jimmy Carter sucks,

take a look over here:
[CLIFT:] You're obviously aware of your main critic, Mr. Stein, who used to be with the Carter Center.

[CARTER:] Thirteen years ago! He hasn't been associated with the Carter Center for 13 years.

When we were originally sent Professor Stein's letter explaining his resignation from the Carter Center last week, I looked Professor Stein up on the Carter Center's site. Professor Stein's Carter Center page is here, describing Professor Stein as the "Carter Center fellow for Middle East affairs since 1983."

If you really need to be ticked off this evening,

go over to Jihad Watch and read this on Forced Islamisation:
THE person speaking had lived through it all. He was from the Moluccas - the Spice Islands of legend - and had been there most of his adult life. He was a Catholic and spoke from experience of people and events known to him at first hand. The tale he told of friends and communities betrayed, and innocents tortured and murdered without qualm or mercy, was heart-rending. All the more so because it need never have happened; and because it reflected badly on those who were obliged to prevent it: the Indonesian government and the International Community, especially the UN and its International Court of Justice.

Read it. It's enough to run you out of your last blood pressure prescription. And it contains something else. I've read the bit about 'there is no compulsion in Islam and how that means real moslems would NEVER try to force someone to convert. There's a very careful note on the background of it, and I'm going to put up a long excerpt:
"Popularly it is translated ‘There is no compulsion in Islam’. But the verse reads din ‘religion,’ not Islam. Also it should be noted [though this is never usually stated when the verse is used as a proof of the peacefulness of Islam] that Sura 2,256 is addressed to Muslims, not non-Muslims. It warns Muslims not to dally with ‘unbelief,’ and implies that belief is easy which is what the reference to ‘no force’ seems to suggest.

The following verse - usually never quoted - is the one that deserves attention. It applies to non-Muslims whom it warns in unambiguous language of the dire consequences of not embracing Islam: ‘[you] are the inmates of hell, and shall dwell there’. There is intimidation and coercion in this verse [Sura 2, 257] and perceptive Muslims would realise that if you can threaten unbelievers with hell fire if they don’t become Muslims, then a fortiori you can use physical force to make them embrace Islam.

There is an even more cogent argument against the ‘tolerance,’ and lack of coercion allegedly preached by Sura 2,256: the behaviour of Muhammad.

‘Then the Apostle [Muhammad] sent Khalid bin al-Walid … to the tribe of Beni Haritha bin Ka‘b in Najran and ordered him to wait three days before attacking them, after inviting them to embrace Islam.. If they agreed then he was to accept their submission from them; and if they refused he was to fight them. So Khalid set out and came to them and sent out riders in all directions inviting the people to Islam saying “If you accept Islam you will save your life.” They embraced Islam because of the threat. ….. When they came to the Apostle [Muhammad] and he saw them he asked “Who are these people who look like people from India?” and they replied, “These people are the Beni al-Haritha bin Ka‘b. … The Apostle [Muhammad] said to them: “'Had Khalid not written to me that you had accepted Islam and not resisted, I would have tossed your heads beneath your feet”.’ [13]

Despite denial by modern-day Islamic spokesmen, according to Ibn Hisham his biographer, Muhammad not only approved, but commanded the use of force in religion. And Islamic Law, especially the Qur’an, explicitly approves the use of such force.

Some Muslim scholars may grudgingly admit this privately when pushed, but publicly attest the opposite, claiming against all evidence to the contrary that the Qur’an opposes the use of force in spreading Islam.

Sura 2,256 is a trap for unwary non-Muslims. It cannot be taken at face value. The final blow to its credibility comes from the fact that whatever it may originally have meant, informed Muslims consider it to have been abrogated. [14] The abrogating verse is Sura 9:73 : 'O Prophet, struggle with the unbelievers and hypocrites, and be thou harsh with them’."

Interesting reading. If you can keep your head from exploding in the earlier part.

Do some of the Global Warmeners have any freakin' idea

just how stupid they sound?

Or are?

Looked over at Tim Blair, and he notes this marvelous little piece from a down-under looney named George Monbiot. Basically, 'any sport that brings lots of fans in should be stopped to save the Earth', etc. Here's the line that really stands out to me:
To avert it, the latest figures suggest, we need a 90 per cent cut in carbon emissions from every economic sector in the rich world by 2030.

Think about that. Does this clown have any idea what would be required to cut 90-freaking-percent of carbon emissions?!? And the next question would be, just how many people is he willing to see die for it? Most of the world population, apparently. Obviously, he will see that HIS fat ass stays in a nice, comfortable lifestyle, but how many people is he willing to see starve/die of thirst/die of disease/die of exposure/etc. to take care of that troublesome 90% cut?

And please note that 'in the rich world' bit. No carbon cuts from China or India or Africa or any other protected species part of the world, oh no. 'Course, he may well classify India as a 'rich world' place because they're working with us and expanding their economy, etc., which probably removes them from protected species status.

And while I'm at Blair's site, let me point out this wonderful piece of crap on 'leave no environmental footprint' day:
On Friday December 8 at 8pm, turn off your house electricity. Switch off your gas hot water heater. Put your car keys away. Switch off your mobile and any other battery-powered devices, and unplug your landline phones. Don’t step foot into any powered site, shop, house or building. You can, however, use public transport, buy ice and use beeswax or soy candles, which aren’t made from petroleum.

If you’re working that weekend, see if your employer will join The Big Switch Off.

(Oh Lord, I thank thee for providing such a dumbass to laugh at)

Where to start, oh dear. If you're in a cold climate freeze your pipes, in any climate maybe ruin food in the fridge/freezer, and huddle in the dark. Becuase, you morons, public transport USES ENERGY! And it took energy to produce the bloody candles which give off pollutants when you BURN THEM! And it took energy to PRODUCE AND KEEP THE ICE! for your pure, Gaia-loving, putrid soul. And, as Amos said in the comments, "Your employer might not wish to join the big Switch Off, but they may wish to include you in the big ‘You’re Fired, Asshole’."

And some more information about the Atlanta murder

of an 88-year-old woman. And I do not use the world 'murder' lightly. This should be prosecuted as manslaughter at the least. And yeah, I AM pissed off.


"Your Honor, our informant would not lie to us about something like this!"
It was Fabian Sheats' third felony drug arrest in four months. But on the afternoon of Nov. 21, according to a police report, he was looking to curry favor, so he told officers they could find a kilogram of cocaine in a house at 933 Neal Street N.W.

That encounter led police to the home of Kathryn Johnston, an elderly woman who lived alone behind burglar bars and kept a rusty revolver. When officers burst into the house just three hours after talking to Sheats, a shootout ensued that left the woman dead and three officers wounded. No cocaine was found.

Or maybe "But we would"
Police say they used Sheats' tip to direct a confidential informant to the Neal Street house, where he made a drug buy, leading them to conduct the raid. A man named Alexis White later came forward to say he is a longtime informant and police asked him to lie after the shootings and say he bought drugs at the address. Police will not say who the informant was.

As McQ says, "A known felon, busted 3 times in 4 months and attempting to find favor with arresting officers throws out an address.

3 hours later, armed with a no-knock warrant, police invade the home of Kathryn Johnson. 3 hours. How does one do the appropriate police work necessary to verify the story Sheats has given and obtain a warrant?"
and
"And the officers in question are still trying to claim it was a good bust because a small amount of marijuana was found in the Johnson home. My guess. Directly from the pocket of one of the officers to the floor of the home ... a little "back up" in case there really were no drugs on the premises."
And as of now, with what we know,is there ANY reason to doubt they'd do this?

I don't know which is worse, as more details come out; the sick feeling in my stomach, or the rage that I feel.

And on that UN 'small-arms' treaty

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

The newest mall bomber fits right in

with some stuff I heard a couple of years ago.

Back then, one day we got in a Homeland Security information summary/warning, which was released to the public a month or so later as I recall(why not right away? Beats hell out of me). Among other things found in Afghanistan were al Queda training manuals and video tapes on taking over a store, office, restaurant or school. The idea was fairly simple:
When you reveal yourself kill anyone who resists.
Separate all the hostages and kill anyone who might be a problem later.
Drag the situation out as long and loud as possible(all possible publicity, etc.)
And in the end, kill everyone.
There was no intention to actually get any payment, reform or whatever: the whole idea was as many dead infidels as possible with the most possible disruption.

After I read that, I made damn sure that I was carrying every time and place I legally could, as this- if it happened- was a far greater threat than the usual mugger types. And had a long talk with the kids about watching what's going on around them.

Well, for the second time we have some little BPM* planning an attack on a mall, to cause as much death and injury and disruption as possible. But he supposedly was just a 'lone wolf' jihadi, so we're not supposed to worry too much.

By the way, 'wolf' is far too dignified an appellation for a scumbag like this. How about 'lone jerkoff islamist buttmonkey'? It's a bit long, but I think it fits.

*Beturbanned Prophet Monkey

Among the reasons why you should read Lawdog

are some of his signature line ideas

"We go in hard and fast. Watch your fire sectors and your threat ID." Happy slammed a full mag into his MP5, "Nail anything taller than four feet except the Queen. Dead queens can't give us antidotes."

Dopey looked up from his equipment check, chin quivering, "What if she won't talk?"

"She'll talk," said Doc, grimly, "They always talk. Eventually."

On the subject of whining BPMs

Ran across this at Malkin's place a few days ago, shook my head in disgust and put it aside, then remembered it today.
Fitness USA, a gym chain, is investigating an alleged civil rights violation involving a local Muslim woman who says her afternoon prayer was interrupted by a fellow patron, and that her complaint to management about the situation was rejected.

"The manager told me, 'You have to respect her (the patron), but she does not have to respect your God,' " said Wardeh Sultan of Dearborn. "I've had my membership for seven or eight years, and I've never had a problem with praying there.

I call bullshit. Assuming she's made a point of praying at the gym(and give me a freakin' break on that), and someone said/did something she took offense to, I can't imagine a business manager telling someone that. ESPECIALLY in that part of the country.

Second, I don't trust these people anymore. There are far too many muslims who have shown their willingness to lie in order to get leverage against someone/some company, or just to get publicity. The flying jackasses, for instance. "...her afternoon prayer was interrupted by a fellow patron..." Just what the hell does that mean? She could have decided that someone saying something she didn't like, or using a machine too close or damn near anything 'interrupted her prayer'. No details as to what 'interrupted' her.

Third:Imad Hamad, regional director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, which lodged a formal complaint with Fitness USA on behalf of Sultan, said the recent spate of conflicts results from a growing intolerance of Islam and a growing restiveness among Muslims that their rights to speak freely and worship are increasingly at risk.

"They (Muslims) are resenting that they are to be suppressed from expressing themselves freely, like others," Hamad said. Of course, because we all KNOW how quiet and unwilling to speak muslims have been at any perceived insult/slight/"You didn't kiss my ass so I call RACISM!!!" This is the standard crap groups like this have been spewing for years, and means nothing. Except they've learned the winning formula: scream that you're a victim when anything doesn't go your way, and lots of people will bend over for you.

I'm sick of this. "We want our team to play yours but you have to ban all males from watching or possibly seeing the game" and "We want you to hand the facility over to us or you're a racist", etc.
Side note: your religeon is not a 'race' you idiot; shut the hell up.
Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of Muslim Public Affairs Council, says the right to petition for special accommodation based on religious beliefs is protected by the First Amendment.

"Whether a woman wants to cover her hair or not is her personal choice," he says. "As long as it's not imposed on the rest of society then I don't see any problem."
The problem, you sorry little shit, is that we're not talking about her 'personal choice' to cover her hair; we're talking about you crying "I'm a victim!" every time someone doesn't bow down to what you want.

To quote Quint, it's enough to piss off the Good Humor man.

About Rumsfeld

I've heard a lot of things about him over the last few years. I flat dismissed a lot of it as crap before I even checked into it based on where it came from.

Found this today that covers a lot of the stuff. I don't doubt he could be a pain in the ass to work for. I know he pissed off a lot of people because he did something they either didn't think could be done, or didn't want: he won.

More on possible Democrat/Hamas meeting

over at Captain's Quarters. His general thought is A: it would be stupid as hell, B: it would very possibly be illegal, C: the backlash from a lot of people would be incredible if found out.

Know what? We've got a bunch of people who think we're at fault in everything in the world, who think we need to be messed up to make things 'right', and who have been bending over for various terrorist groups and sympathizers in order to be 'sensitive' and pc; so why wouldn't they do it?

Also, from the YNet story:
The Palestinian news agency Maan, quoting a senior member of the Palestinian government, reported Wednesday that "ministers of the Hamas-led government recently held talks with European countries and with a delegation of the American Democratic Party. According to the source, in the talks, the European officials showed their understanding for Hamas' stance.
Oooh, if European countries are involved, then why not some of the Democrats? Since they think we should be following the EU line in just about everything?

Do not mistake me, I would much prefer this be Hamas throwing out crap to try to inflate their position. But I have doubts, based on past words and actions by some of these people. And a very worrisome thing is this from the post at Stop The ACLU:
Stacie Paxton, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, told WND the party was not aware of any meeting.
Now, think about that wording. It may just be stupidity on the part of this speaker, but it bothers me. I would think that the Democrat Party would be yelling at the top of their lungs "Hell NO!! We DID NOT meet with Hamas like this!" Instead, we get 'the party was not aware of any meeting'. Which really bothers me: it's the kind of Clinton word-game we got so used to. "No the party was not aware of what Rep. and Sen. Whosis and/or their staff members did" is how that could work out.

Check it out for yourself. My stand on 'if it is true' is the same: lamppost, rope, politician.

Now that I have overcome the rage

the story about Democrats meeting with Hamas stirred up, I will go ahead and post what I'd originally intended to:

My son graduated AIT today, with- obviously taking after his father(shut up, Og)- top-of-the-class grades.

He's got a two-week recruiting assignment, then some leave, then he heads off to his first unit assignment. Or duty assignment, or whatever is the right way to say it.

Gonna be an interesting next while.

I guess they're not 'real' scientists,

or they wouldn't write this:
The two researchers from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles (USA) conclude that “the theory of currently observed global atmospheric warming as a result of increasing anthropogenic carbon dioxide emission is a myth,” and that it has “proved to be an enduring one."

NO!!! But Al Gore said...

The take-home message of Khilyuk and Chilingar’s analysis, as they describe it, is that “any attempts to mitigate undesirable climatic changes using restrictive regulations are condemned to failure, because the global natural forces are at least 4-5 orders of magnitude greater than available human controls."

I started to relay this to the friend who'd drunk the kool-aid, but decided against stirring her up again. She IS a teacher, no telling what it'd do to her sense of balance to push her blood pressure so high.

The debate on climate change is never boring, the debate is full of surprises, and anyone claiming the debate is over is simply dismissing a significant number of papers that appear regularly in the major journals.

Damn, glad I didn't get rid of the truck.


Added: oh, this would make her lose her composure(more thanks to the good Mr. Blair):

N THE LAST two years, a remarkable amount of disturbing news has been published about global warming, mainly concerning melting of polar ice, tropical storms and hurricanes, and mass extinctions.

The sheer volume of these stories has resulted in some shifts in public attitudes. California has recently passed legislation to limit the emissions of carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas. Several bills are being prepared for submission to the new Congress early next year.

What's going on? Can the news really be this bad?

The answer is simple: No. Not if mathematics is any guide.

Ok, if this is true

it's time for the rope and lamppost. Or tree. Or whatever.

Meanwhile, sources close to the Hamas-led government claimed that Hamas representatives recently held talks with officials from the US Democratic Party at a secret location.
and
Meanwhile, the Bethlehem-based Maan News Agency reported Hamas representatives recently had secret talks with U.S. Democratic Party officials in anticipation of the party regaining congressional power in Washington.

I'm not just yelling words. Any member of the U.S. Government who did this should be hanged. Any member of either party who did this is a traitor.

Additional:
Just in case it didn't come through how much that pisses me off, they should be hanged, drawn and quartered. Preferably after doing something really unpleasant to them. Because they're the same kind of worthless excuses for humans who'd like to put back in power the man responsible for this:
Michael Trimble described several of the recovered bodies - a pregnant woman shot through her belly, killing the fetus; a young girl wearing little green boots whose leg had been shattered by bullets; an infant apparently smothered under the body of his mother.

It says something about me

that I'd eat there

Further evidence(if needed) that Jimmy Carter is a slug

Check this out at Powerline. Excerpt:
Being a former President does not give one a unique privilege to invent information or to unpack it with cuts, deftly slanted to provide a particular outlook. Having little access to Arabic and Hebrew sources, I believe, clearly handicapped his understanding and analyses of how history has unfolded over the last decade. Falsehoods, if repeated often enough become meta-truths, and they then can become the erroneous baseline for shaping and reinforcing attitudes and for policy-making. The history and interpretation of the Arab-Israeli conflict is already drowning in half-truths, suppositions, and self-serving myths; more are not necessary. In due course, I shall detail these points and reflect on their origins.

I will add one thing: "Having little access to Arabic and Hebrew sources", my ass. Carter has access to damn near anything he wants. 'Lack of sources' didn't undermine his understanding, the little bastard understands it just as much as he wants to, i.e. "The nasty Joooos are responsible for everything and get in the way of us sucking up to muslim tyrants and murderers".

I despise this man.

A nice piece on the flying jackasses

from Powerline. Please note the whole series of lies from the 'scholars', and that the testimony from everyone else demonstrates that they were deliberately acting to cause problems.

Leaves two possibilities, possibly connected. One is they just wanted lots of publicity of how 'poor muslims, even scholars, are mistreated'. The other is they wanted to make as much trouble as possible specifically to cause problems for flight crew and other passengers(the standard call the racist, bigots, etc.) so that when the real hijackers attack, people will hesitate to do something.

Either way, they're a bunch of dishonest canker sores on the ass of humanity.

Some more on bad cops

from Alphecca: Cook County prosecutors on Monday charged three more members of an elite Chicago police unit with using their badges and guns to break into homes and shake down residents for money over a two-year period.

One of the problems when bad people get on a force or cops turn bad is crap like this. Another problem is wondering how many times it happens and isn't reported because "Who am I gonna report it to, the cops?", which means there's no good way to guess how often this happens.

And as the guy from Vermont says, "And, of course, if any of their victims had defended themselves or gone to what few honest cops there are in Chicago, they probably would have . . . disappeared?
Police officials say that hundreds of cases have been compromised and dropped as a result of possibly being tainted by these guys."

And the wheels go 'round and 'round...

Some of the latest from Britain

Ranging from socialist politicians 'demonstrating their green credentials, to criminals on parole committing crimes(sur-PRIZE, sur-PRIZE!) to just how well that gun ban is working out.

Motorists face a rise in petrol prices today as the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, demonstrates his green credentials in his final pre-Budget statement.

He is preparing to announce the first fuel duty rise for three years, returning to the policy of raising tax on petrol and diesel in line with inflation. So, inflation makes your money worth less, so the government raises your taxes. After all, the sonsofbitches can spend it better than you.

"But Britain is SO much safer than here!" says someone. Really?
Nearly 100 people have been murdered by criminals on probation over the past two years, official statistics showed yesterday.

In the latest blow to Labour's claims to be tough on law and order, the figures represented a big rise in killings committed by offenders on licence in the community.

Between 2004 and 2006, there were 98 murders by offenders on supervision – 38 last year and 60 the year before – compared to 53 in the preceding two years.
and
The Home Office data also showed a surge in the number of rapes by offenders on parole or probation - 106 over the two-year period compared with just 18 in 1999.

and

A policewoman described yesterday how she was left screaming in agony after being shot at point blank range trying to arrest a suspected burglar.

and

An ice cream salesman who was shot at close range after he served young children from his van was critically ill in hospital last night.

So the Brits will keep passing laws to demonize/penalize anyone with the balls to defend themselves and getting rid of anything that might be considered 'offensive' while the criminals ignore the law(who'da thunk it?)

'Course, if their government has its way, nobody honest will have anything left to steal except their lives.

Have you thought about what's going to happen

when some jihadi nutcase(hereafter JNC) attempts/begins a serious mass-murder attempt in this country and a citizen with a gun(hereafter CWG) wounds/kills him?

Assume the best-case scenario:
Jihadi nutcase prepares to act
CWG spots him, notices something that puts him on guard
JNC pulls out machinegun/envelope of anthrax/bottle of VX/detonator, yells "Allah Akbar!" and
CWG makes draw and shoots JNC in the head/upper COM and puts him down.

Yes, I know, first reaction is "Present medal for marksmanship and good citizenship, then award large cash sum for future ammo purchases". However, have you considered what the mainstream media and every little leftist buttmonkey and islamist apologist group is going to say?

The pile of horseshit that's going to fall on the poor bastard will be amazing to see. He'll become a racist, a bigot, a hater of minorities, if it turns out to be someone with a long and happy record of being a Good Guy who teaches Sunday school he'll become a slavering CHRISTIANIST!!! who hates muslims. And just WHAT was this CIVILIAN doing walking around with a GUN? What kind of society ALLOWS that?!? And just what made this(murderer in waiting/hater/paranoid/bigot/racist/fill in the blank) think he was CAPABLE of making such a decision? Did he call on the deceased to surrender? Did he give him any real chance to surrender?
Don't tell me about the chemical weapon/bomb/etc.; how did he KNOW that the poor oppressed deceased actually intended to use it?!?

And so on.

And take another step. Say he fires and wounds JNC, and JNC tries to reach the weapon/push the button/open the bottle and CWG aims carefully and shoots him through the head. "Why didn't you just run up and disarm him? WHY did you HAVE to kill him? How long have you hated Muslims and wanted to kill them all?" and so forth.

An awful lot of the major media weenies will do everything they can to demonize him. And in part, I think it'll be because they'd feel guilty. Guilty because privately they'll be thinking "God, I'm glad he stopped that terrorist!", and they'll be ashamed of themselves for being glad the enemy was stopped.

Couple of days ago Tim Blair noted a piece of crap written by a Helen Razer about how she reacted to a power outage on a train. She at first thought 'terrorist attack'(gee, I wonder why?) and then:
My first instinct was to claw my way out of the train. The second was to call my partner and bid an emotional farewell a la the passengers on Flight 77. Fortunately, I did neither. Instead, I looked in the fleeting darkness for the aggressor. My myopic mindÂ’s eye found her. IÂ’d registered the presence of a woman who looked to be about 19. She wore a hijab and a backpack.
"You racist shallow bastard,‚” I told myself.

Couple of things here, but the big one to me is:
She thought 'terrorist attack' right off, and thought she was about to die,
She immediately knew who/what to look for as probable threat if it had been an attack,
And she hated herself for recognizing an unpleasant fact.

Which is exactly what would cause an awful lot of garbage to come out of a lot of people. Oh, there'd be all the usual suspects condemning CWG for their usual reasons, but even a bunch of them would be doing it to cover up their relief at CWG killing the JNC. Because they'd know, down in their guts where it counts, that somebody had prevented a horrible act by a means they profess to hate and fear used against someone they consider a virtual 'protected species'. And rather than admit those things, they'll want to hang the CWG for causing them to feel the relief and causing them to recognize that they KNOW who/what the threat is.

And of course the usual suspects will start up with someone like Katie Couric looking concerned and saying something like "While they feel relief at a dangerous incident(doubt very much they'd have the guts/integrity to say 'terrorist attack') being stopped, the (fill in the blank) say that this demonstrates the hazards of untraincitizensens carrying guns." And on from there.

It boils down to the fact that there are a bunch of people out there who will not/can not admit that a plain citizen with arms can be a good thing. Some of them- the really extreme ones- would rather see the incident happen and a bunch of people die than see some unwashed peasant without a uniform and badge stop it by means of arms.

Carnival of Cordite #80

This time hosted by The Bitch Girls.

Ref the AP 'fake but real' story

First read about the 'people burned alive' story a few days ago. Next thing I read was the 'did this really happen?' questions: in particular, Flopping Aces has been whacking this(just start scrolling down for everything). Then today, Instapundit pointed to this, calling this AP's "60 Minutes Moment".

Which is a real good way to put it. These clowns took a story they apparently didn't bother to actually confirm, from a guy they can't actually show exists, and when they were called on it started the same kind of "How dare you people question US?" crap that Rather & Co. did, and for the same reason: I think they know they can't show the story to be real, they can't produce their 'expert witness', and being seriously questioned on screwing up on this is a real threat to them. So they bluster and insult and "how dare you" and so forth instead of being, I don't know, actual reporters and finding out the facts?

Which feeds into this on this from Bill Roggio on how the troops react to their 'betters' in the major media:
I also overheard an Army specialist sitting behind me curse the media (and I mean curse), saying they didn't know what they were talking about when it came to Iraq. I talked to him, and explained I'm considered a reporter, and that I won't argue with his points. I made him uncomfortable. Had he known I was 'the press' I think he would have kept it to himself.

Gee, now why do you think he might be uncomfortable saying anything around a media rep, hmmmm? Maybe because he sees the evidence of their slant and prejudices every day, maybe?

And one of the sad things about this? AP ran this story because they knew people would believe it, because they know it's the kind of atrocity the terrorists- excuse me, 'insurgents'- would do.

A couple of weeks ago Tony Blair had a big article

in the Telegraph, I believe, on how necessary national ID cards were, and how most people were just overjoyed at the thought(ok, I'm exaggerating that last).

Well, not so fast, Mr. Blair: Millions may resist database, says poll

The first signs of a significant popular revolt against the Government's identity card scheme have been uncovered by a YouGov poll for The Daily Telegraph.

It suggests that hundreds of thousands of people, maybe even millions, would refuse to register on the proposed database that will underpin the scheme, even if this meant a fine or going to jail.

Hmmm, the peasants are revolting, it seems.

Overwhelmingly, the public is unwilling to trust Government promises not to misuse personal information and fears the national ID database will contain inaccurate and unreliable information about them.

No!

Now listen to this: The Act also does not make it a requirement to carry an ID card, again to avoid the so-called "Clarence Willcock effect", named after the last person to be prosecuted for refusing to show his wartime ID cards in 1952, leading to their abolition.
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People will either have to produce a card at a police station if required or will simply have their biometrics, which will be stored on the national database, checked by special readers. Ok, so they don't want to make people actuallycarry the cards to try to keep the upset down, but they want all the information in a database so the cops can say "Stick your thumb in here" and get it. And without doubt throw you in jail if you say "No".

Happily, the Brits are beginning to get their backs up about this, as well as some other things. I hope it continues, as I hate reading about the nanny state taking over all of their lives over there.

Hell, we're not as bad off as they in that respect, and it's bad enough here!

Another couple of bits about the Atlanta killing

I can't find the article right now, when I do I'll update this. They found two things:
The lady only had one round fired in her revolver, and
The injuries to the three officers? All appeared to be fragments, so they may have wounded each other with ricochets.

Just bloody amazing, ain't it?

Added: here's a link

Remember Kim's post a couple of years ago about On*Star?

Where the FBI used the system to listed to conversations a suspect had in his car? Well, I found a link over at The High Road and guess how secure your cellphone is? The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone's microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations.

There's too much here to excerpt, you ought to read the whole thing. Which means that if I get a cell, a: I'll turn off the locator function and b: take the battery out of the damn thing when I'm talking to somebody about anything I consider private. No, I'm not being paranoid(at least not much), I'm being pissed off. I'd only get the thing in case I actually need to make a call while I'm out, and I don't want to have to worry about some jerk hacking into it, whether fed or general jerk.

I can't find the article at Kim's site, maybe someone has it?

After reading this response to Michal Moore's letter,

he shall hereafter be referred to as Fat Bastard

Though Fat, Scraggly Bastard would be good, too.

12. We will not tolerate politicians who are corrupt and who are bought and paid for by the rich. We will go after any elected leader who puts him or herself ahead of the people. And we promise you we will go after the corrupt politicians on our side FIRST. If we fail to do this, we need you to call us on it. Simply because we are in power does not give us the right to turn our heads the other way when our party goes astray. Please perform this important duty as the loyal opposition.

You're going after Murtha? What will everyone think if you eat a war hero?

And what's your stance on corrupt documentary filmmakers?

Found this about the flying jackasses

Excuse me, the flying imams. You know, the idiots who went out of their way to stir things up, and then bitched that they're 'victims of racism', etc., when people reported them?

Michelle Malkin linked to this, which also has a link to a pdf of the full police report. Short version, either they were planning something specific, or they were trying to get kicked off the plane so they could yell "I'm being oppressed!". Which, considering how worried various airline crew and passengers are about being called racist, could well have been the whole idea. Either to get publicity, or to make people fear calling the alarm in the future which would make it easier for hijackers to try to take over a plane.

And by the way, we need more news people- assuming they care more about truth than about being pc- to bluntly and loudly point out over and over that muslim is not a race, it's a religeon; and that members of any religeon who cause problems on a plane are going to get thrown off.

Right now, I'm wondering how long it'll take for the 'thrown off' to become literal. Some other jackass imam or general stupid/arrogant/plotting muslim does this stuff but takes it a step further and actually threatens people/the plane, and a bunch of passengers throw him out the door.

Which would be to loud applause, I don't doubt. Get this bit from the report: Pauline revealed to Pajamas Media that the six imams were doing things far more suspicious than praying - an Arabic-speaking passenger heard them repeatedly invoke “bin Laden,” and “terrorism,” a gate attendant told the captain that she did not want to fly with them, and that bomb-sniffing dogs were brought aboard. Other Muslim passengers were left undisturbed and later joined in a round of applause for the U.S. Airways crew. “It wasn’t that they were Muslim. It was all of the suspicious things they did,” Pauline said.

Hear hear. And a merry 'be careful how you land, you idiot' to the next ones who pull something like this.

Storm aftermath

It stopped snowing a little after 11 last night, and this morning it was between 4-6 inches on the ground, depending on what area you were in. Roads snowpacked this morning, largely clear by afternoon; between the sun being out, temps hitting low 30's and the residual heat in the roads and ground from the warm weather just before this hit.

One of the interesting things about this was that when it first started sleeting the other day, I was alerted to it by thunder. Been a long time since I was in a sleet thunderstorm.

Highest storm total was in Bartlesville, northeast OK, officially 14 inches, with totals above 10 inches thoughout northeast and north central areas. The closed several of the turnpikes, including the Turner between here and Tulsa. As I was heading to work this morning, there was a line of semis about two miles long backed up waiting for it to reopen. When it did reopen around 9, the only vehicles allowed on for a couple of hours were trucks.

So most of it in my area is melted, except for sheltered areas and drifts, and a lot of that will melt tomorrow. Could have been much worse.

Although being, oh two or three hundred miles south

or more sounds good about now, I've had no plans to got to Mexico in the near future. Places I would love to see, but for one thing there's money, and then there's this:
The men were abducted Sunday when 30 to 40 armed men stormed the La Barranca hunting ranch in Mexico near the border south of Laredo, authorities said. It's the latest incident in a violence-plagued region where there are at least 20 unresolved cases in the last two years involving kidnapped U.S. citizens.
and
In September, U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza warned Americans to stay vigilant when traveling to Mexico and singled out Nuevo Laredo, across the river from Laredo, Texas, as being particularly dangerous. Garza said there were at least 20 unresolved kidnapping cases involving Americans.

So you add to this that there's a low-level insurrection going on down there(with potential to become high-level) and you have no way to carry for self-defense and the way the Mexican 'justice system' works(especially with tourists)...

It'll be a while.

It's still coming down

And since it hasn't stopped when they were predictingd("It will taper off during the evening")- hell, I don't think it's even slowed down- it may beat six inches. There's currently about four and a half in the front yard; some of that may be from blowing off the roof, but I'm not hiking out to a clear area to get another measurement.

Weather now says 'occasional snow before midnight', but I don't think constant small flakes counts as occasional. At least to me.

Well, the dogs got a good dinner and fresh water,and have a fresh thick layer of straw in the house so they'll be ok. Always have been before.

But it's gonna be a bitch getting to work tomorrow.

I don't care how far you used to walk to school,

it's cold out there. 20F. And yeah, the show actually did kick in. You saw earlier, here's current:














Little ways north of here on to the border, they've actually got blizzard warnings out. unusual around here; Kim would love it. What was that line from Dr. Fever on WKRP in Cincinnatti: "It's a balmy 17 degrees with a gentle wind wafting out of the north at about a thousand miles an hour."

Lots of little flakes coming down. At this rate it won't hit the six inch mark if it does taper off this evening, unless it gets a fair bit heavier for a while. I need to get the broom and sweep off the porch when I feed the critters; I used to have a scoop shovel but I loaned it to someone after the last snow(yeah, YOU know who you are) and it vanished. So I'll sweep a bit there and in the driveway.

Atlanta PD,

the agency that keeps on giving

And to keep the joy going,

Sharia law is spreading as authority wanes

However, the BBC Radio 4 programme Law in Action produced evidence yesterday that it was being used by some Muslims as an alternative to English criminal law. Aydarus Yusuf, 29, a youth worker from Somalia, recalled a stabbing case that was decided by an unofficial Somali "court" sitting in Woolwich, south-east London.

Now combine that with Race-hate and domestic violence targeted in pre-Christmas raids
Police have staged a series of dawn raids across London aimed at combatting domestic abuse, homophobic offences and race crimes.

An undisclosed number of people were arrested in the raids which are part of a two-week clampdown.
These people need Dumbledore to kick some people in the ass and ask "And just what do you think you are doing?"

And speaking of Global Warmering

at Tim Blair puts it, TCS has an interview with Bjorn Lomborg. An excerpt:
It clearly does. Global warming is an important issue and one which we should address. But there is no sense of proportion either in environmental terms, or indeed in terms of the other issues facing the world.

If you just take the environmental problem first, it's very clear that what causes by far the majority of deaths is lack clean drinking water and lack of sanitation. Millions of people are dying each year from this. Also taking the new WHO estimates of what really kills people, these are the huge issues.

The second biggest problem is indoor air pollution, which probably kills somewhere between 1 and 3 million people each year, basically because people are too poor to use good fuels and end up using dung or cardboard or whatever they can find. Only a very distant third comes climate change, which the WHO puts at 150,000 to die right now.

This of course ignores those people that are no longer dying from cold-related deaths. For some inexcusable reasons, I would argue, they have the idea that they will only look at things that are going to be bad and don't have to look at will be good from climate change.

One of the top climate change economists has modelled - and several papers that came out a couple of weeks ago essentially point out - that climate change will probably mean fewer deaths, not more deaths. It is estimated that climate change by about 2050 will mean about 800,000 fewer deaths.

There is a total lack of a sense of proportion about where we are in terms of the environment but also on non-environmental issues, which is of course what I am looking at now with the Copenhagen Consensus, where we try to look at what are the big issues of the world, and where can we do a lot of good, and where can we do a little good. And the bottom line is there are many problems in the world where we can do much more at much lower cost. So presumably, if our goal is to help people, then there are many other things we should do first. If our goal is to help the environment, then there are also many other things we can do first.

Still some of the Polish trainers

at MGS.

Oh, crap, look at this, too!

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.