Hold a politician to account? Take him off the committee

while the investigation- such as it is- continues? Sounds good to me, but then I'm not one of the jackasses in Congress.
More than a month into the new session, the reorganized committee -- with new leadership -- will begin again to look at Rangel's ethical issues, which we recently reported on here. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in November that the report would be completed by the close of the 110th Congress, which was January 3.

The investigation remains incomplete, and Rangel still chairs the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, much to the chagrin of House Republicans. Rep. John Carter (R-Texas) introduced a privileged resolution that would have forced Rangel to step down from Ways and Means until the ethics committee completed its report. The House voted last night to table it, however -- thereby killing it.
According to the story, EVERY Democrat either voted to table it or(the chickenshits) voted 'present'.

Here's the funny part:
Carter, the Republican Conference Secretary, said yesterday that he was not out on a witch hunt for corrupt politicians, but rather he was attempting to save the good name of Congress.

"It worries me that the public perceives a body made up of hard-working men and women on both sides of the aisle in such a negative light," Carter said. "Mr. Rangel has many issues hanging out there and still is in charge of writing the tax laws in this country as chair of the House committee."

Got news for you, Mr. Carter: Congress doesn't HAVE a 'good name'. Congress is now known as a bunch of flat-out crooks and socialists(at worst) and incompetents(at best) with a sprinkling of honest people; kind of like having high-grade sprinkles on a rotten cupcake.

Speaking of rotten, I got this from GOPUSA this morning:
I want you to know that I do intend to seek re-election. The magnitude of the financial crisis that many American families are facing makes it clear to me that I want to continue to serve the people of Arizona and our country in the Senate.

Today, I'm asking you to join my campaign by making a generous contribution so I may continue my service to our great nation.
The message includes this:
As always, I anticipate a tough re-election challenge. The national Democrats will no doubt target me for defeat in an attempt to expand their majority in the U.S. Senate. But with your help, we will counter those efforts and put forth an aggressive campaign to win. That's why I'm asking you to join my campaign by giving $25, $50, $100, $250, $500 or whatever you can afford right away.
Mr. McCain, I'd rather take a pile of money and use it for kindling than send it to you. The only reason I could vote for you in the past election was because I thought you'd be somewhat less damaging to the country, and it really pissed me off that between the Stupid Party bigshots and the media I wound up with you as the alternate to The Obama. And the way your people crapped all over Sarah Palin after your loss made it worse, you bastard. And THEN, just to make it even better, you signaled your intention to 'work with' Obama on immigration, which pretty much pointed to the amnesty you tried to shove down our throats already.

So go away, McCain: stop screwing with our lives. I decided a long time ago that 9/11 or no, Arizone should have gone through with the recall on you. Go away.

Speaking of the reputation of Congress, Maxine Waters is a member: 'nuff said.
Her questions to the bankers are so bizarre that they don't know what to do. Ken Lewis looks like a deer in the headlights as Waters asks her about offshore loss mitigation efforts. He can't even figure out what she's talking about, and neither can I. She also asks the bankers, few of whom are in the credit card business, how many of them have cut credit limits to people on the basis of where they shop. It's like watching your crazy aunt challenge your boyfriend to prove that fairies aren't real.
She's also the one who slipped in a hearing and told an oil company guy she'd like to see the oil industry socialized. 'Good name of Congress' my ass.

It appears that Pelosi and Reid staff met all through the night in secret with Democratic conferees’ staff to cobble together the “stimulus” conference report. Republican conferees were frozen out.

The objective appears to be to produce a final conference report on the trillion-dollar spending bill by this afternoon so that floor action can take place in both chambers by Thursday.

They intend to ram this trillion-dollar spending bill through with as little debate and scrutiny as possible.
'Good name of Congress', bullshit.

Assuming you could get through the Praetorian Guard that's protecting the House & Senate from the peasants, I've come to the conclusion that damn near the only thing that would really, truly get the attention of a good many of these politicians would be a bunch of people from back home showing up with a bucket of tar and a bag of feathers. Or, in some cases, a rope. And some of them would STILL stand there telling you that you don't know what's good for you, you should go home and stop causing problems, etc.

I occurred to me that a friend of mine is probably reading some of my recent stuff

and wondering if she should have a trank gun around next time we meet?

The lady in question I met down in Texas a bit over a year ago. It went to 'we'll have to see how things go' partly because the lady would like to marry, and partly because one day, not thinking anything of it, I sent her this address and said "Can't remember if told you before, but this is my soapbox."

As to the marriage part, that's largely out for one simple reason: I think I'd make a lousy husband at this point, and she needs- deserves, for that matter- better than that. That's not an excuse, that's cold fact. Unfortunately.

The other, she ran across a couple of things as she read through and said "I don't think I've known someone as opinionated as you before!"* It seems some of the things I have an attitude about were a bit shocking, if only for bluntness. With a bit of conflict, of course; she's a much nicer person in some ways than I am. And sense of humor conflicts; I told her about the Kalashnikitty shirts, and giving one to my goddaughter for a sleep shirt and she just about blew a gasket. Definite conflict, there.

Back to the original point, she may be reading some of my recent commentary on the proper association of many politicians to hemp products and thinking "And I was snuggled up to this nut?" And I do have to say I've been a bit, ah, emphatic lately; having a bunch of crooks, snobs and morons in DC ignoring what we have to say and assisting Obama in trashing the place brings that out in me. It makes me think of some music. Friend has an adapter to convert audio tapes to MP3 files and I was using it to save some stuff I've had for years. I ran across one song:
Scots wha hae w' Wallace bled,
Scots wham Bruce has often led,
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victory.

Now's the day, and now's the hour,
See the front of battle lour,
See approach proud Edward's power;
Chains and slavery.

Wha will be a traitor knave?
Wha will fill a cowards grave?
Wha sae base as be a slave,
Let him turn and flee.

There's a tendency to throw notes about Specter and Obama and Co. in there, you know? Last verse:
Lay the proud usurper low
Tyrants fall, in every foe
Liberty's in every blow
Let us do or die.

Seems appropriate, don't it? And if she reads this, she'll be sure I'm on the watch list.


*Cue joke about "Attitude? I don't have an ATTITUDE!"

Just so you know, the Aussies suffer from enviroweenie

morons too. In this case, to the tune of a bunch of people dead because they didn't want people clearing brush and trees around their homes.
ANGRY residents last night accused local authorities of contributing to the bushfire toll by failing to let residents chop down trees and clear up bushland that posed a fire risk.

During question time at a packed community meeting in Arthurs Creek on Melbourne's northern fringe, Warwick Spooner — whose mother Marilyn and brother Damien perished along with their home in the Strathewen blaze — criticised the Nillumbik council for the limitations it placed on residents wanting the council's help or permission to clean up around their properties in preparation for the bushfire season. "We've lost two people in my family because you dickheads won't cut trees down," he said.

Read it all, and think what the atmosphere must have been like in that room. Especially when
There was widespread applause when Nillumbik Mayor Bo Bendtsen said changes were likely to be made about the council's policy surrounding native vegetation.
Don't you just love that word? 'Likely'? As in "We'll think about it, peasants."
But his response was not good enough for Mr Spooner: "It's too late now mate. We've lost families, we've lost people."

Tim Blair once had a piece about the different ways 'mate' could be used to have different meanings; in this case I think it means "You slimy bastard, you're not getting away with this 'likely' bullshit, not now." I hope.

Speaking of Blair, he has a piece noting the size of some of the bushfires in the past, since the globular warmeringers are claiming the current fire proves 'climate change'( the PC term since temps aren't going up like they claimed for so long) is striking:
Contrary to current hyperbole, Black Saturday was not the worst fire day ever. Ash Wednesday’s wind speeds ranged from 70 to 120 km/h. A savage south-west front led to most of the deaths and property loss, whereas Saturday had a modest wind change.

Nor was the area burned in the latest fires exceptional. About 300,000 hectares is the likely total, compared with 1.5 million on Black Friday 1939, several million on Black Thursday 1851, 260,000 on Red Tuesday 1898 and 230,000 on Ash Wednesday. Note that the days of the week have mostly been used up already. Every 10 or 20 years there is a bushfire disaster. This isn’t going to change.

South-eastern Australia is perhaps the worst fire vortex in the world ...
Kind of like Oklahoma is right in the middle of the tornado area. And, up until the last century or so, grass fires in the long-grass prairie were bloody awful; think of dry grass six feet tall running for hundreds of miles with high winds pushing fire... from what I've read the plains tribes feared it more than anything else. For damn good reason. There's more than a hundred dead down under so far. From what I've read they're pretty sure arson was involved; if it is, just what kind of punishment is bad enough?

Well, let's see: Pres. The Obama is a liar,

(yeah, whoda thunk it?), his friend in charge of the Dept of Education has this to recommend how well he fixed Chicago schools:
"If someone hits a student, they are going to be fired. It's very, very simple," Duncan said.

Before heading to Washington, he vowed to take action.

"Any founded allegation where an adult is hitting a child, hitting a student - they're going to be gone," Duncan said.

But that's not what happened under Duncan's watch. Of the 568 verified cases, only 24 led to termination. Records show one teacher who quote "battered students for several years" was simply given a "warning" by the Board of Education.

And another student was given "100 licks with a belt." The abuse was substantiated, but the records show the teacher was not terminated.
But this miserable slug will do MUCH better now that he's in DC. Right.

Of course, that's right in keeping with the 'most ethical Congress EVAH!' that Pelosi promised. When she wasn't acting like a Soviet commissar, which seems to be her "What I want to be when I grow up" desire. By the way, just in case anybody searches,
JOHN MURTHA IS A CORRUPT BASTARD.
JOHN MURTHA IS A CORRUPT BASTARD.
JOHN MURTHA IS A CORRUPT BASTARD.
Along with Tax-writing Tax-cheat Rangel, who's still in charge of our tax laws after the 'investigation'(to greatly misuse the word), and our Tax-Cheat Head of the Treasury.

And let us not forget the commissars wanting to shove their socialized health care down our throats by means of the 'stimulus' bill. I'll throw in again, Specter, Snowe and Collins? What did your integrity cost? Or did you just not have any left? Of course, socialized health care has worked so well in Canada...
In Ontario, Lindsay McCreith was suffering from headaches and seizures yet faced a four and a half month wait for an MRI scan in January of 2006. Deciding that the wait was untenable, Mr. McCreith did what a lot of Canadians do: He went south, and paid for an MRI scan across the border in Buffalo. The MRI revealed a malignant brain tumor.

Ontario's government system still refused to provide timely treatment, offering instead a months-long wait for surgery. In the end, Mr. McCreith returned to Buffalo and paid for surgery that may have saved his life. He's challenging Ontario's government-run monopoly health-insurance system, claiming it violates the right to life and security of the person guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

...On the other side of the country in Alberta, Bill Murray waited in pain for more than a year to see a specialist for his arthritic hip. The specialist recommended a "Birmingham" hip resurfacing surgery (a state-of-the-art procedure that gives better results than basic hip replacement) as the best medical option. But government bureaucrats determined that Mr. Murray, who was 57, was "too old" to enjoy the benefits of this procedure and said no. In the end, he was also denied the opportunity to pay for the procedure himself in Alberta. He's heading to court claiming a violation of Charter rights as well.

Ah, just the thing. If I knew how to do the rollover thing I'd just steal the picture(with credit, of course), but since I don't you'll have to go here to see President Barack Cartmann Obama.

And if Hillary Clinton didn't see this coming, then she's far more stupid than I thought. Pres. The Obama wants every position held by his buttmonkeys, and she ain't one of them.

I have a question for all five of you who read this: since so many of the slimy parasitespoliticians in DC don't seem to care what we say in calls and messages, what do YOU think it would take to get their attention? For real?

Another paper decided to publish a database of carry permit holders,

all in the name of 'the public's right to know', of course. So this gentleman published the names of the managing staff at the Memphis Commercial Appeal. I doubt it'll get the points across, since they already know them and discounted them, but worth doing.

You don't actually CARE about the pork in the 'stimulus' bill.

How do we know so? That lying socialist bastard(to repeat myself) Sen. Chuck Schumer(Douche-NY) says so. Insty has a link to all the contact information for Schumer, but it really doesn't matter: he doesn't give a rats ass what anybody thinks if they disagree with what he wants to do. As Uncle noted a few days back, every one of these bastards who voted to rape us- again- was getting their phones and e-mail shut down by people calling/sending and saying "NO, DAMMIT!", and they did it anyway.

One can only conclude it will take something dramatic(lynching, the many-times-mentioned tar and feathers being applied, etc.) to make these people actually realize that we mean it. Because a lot of them either don't think we do, or think it doesn't matter; by the time the next election rolls around they figure they'll have figured a way to slime their way back into office. The reason being, they keep doing it. Murtha called the people in his district racists and bigots and rednecks- using the last in the most offensive way possible- and his corrupt, lying ass is back in the House. So why should they believe that we're really mad, when enough people keep excusing them, or being bought off with other people's money, and reelecting them?

Hell, that fucking traitor Arlen Specter(Backstabbing Piece Of Crap-Reelected By Morons In PA- and thank you again for helping with that, George Bush, you bastard) was telling someone that the bill 'needed a lot more study', then said he was voting for it anyway. Which makes me wonder:
Is he just a flat friggin' moron? or
I wonder what the price is for what he counts as his integrity? Same question for Snowe and Collins.

Just ONE damn little meteor, just one, dammit.

To assist the terrorist & felon-pardoner we have heading Justice,

Obama wants this jerk:
Groves says Ogden argued that the high court should look to laws, legal opinions, and decisions of foreign countries and international organizations regarding the death penalty. He notes that in particular, Ogden cited the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) — a 1989 treaty that bars the execution of people who commit crimes while under the age of 18.

Ogden, says Groves, pointed out that the United States is one of only two countries in the world that has not signed onto that treaty.

“[He argued] that doesn’t mean that the U.S. doesn’t have to follow the treaty, [but that] it means the opposite — that the United States must follow the treaty that it has specifically decided not to join,” says Groves. “Why? Because [Ogden argued] the rest of the world has joined it — and so therefore it’s some new customary, international norm and the United States must outlaw the juvenile death penalty.”

Yeah, we should be in a big damn hurry to trash the Constitution and our own other laws so as to suck up to the 'new international norm'. And President The Obama wants him as #2 and what may come to be laughingly referred to as the 'Justice Department'.

Don't you love it? Children should be able to get an abortion without the parents being told, let alone having to give approval, but someone who hasn't reached 18 by a few months can't pay the full adult penalty for murder.

As various people have said, barring very hard work and- possibly- divine intervention, we are so screwed.

A question occurs to me about the Porculus Bill being debated:

Do these morons in DC not know, or just not care, that while they're talking about how close to another TRILLION DOLLARS they're going to take from us,

we're filling out our taxes?

WHAT media conflict of interest

could you be talking about?
...to publicly address and resolve what appears to be a clear violation of journalistic ethics by ABC’s Chief Washington Correspondent George Stephanopoulos. Last week a Politico story broke the news that Stephanopoulos has participated in daily phone strategy sessions with now White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel throughout his tenure at ABC.

And this is just one piece of bullshit by media that we have real corroboration for; doesn't count the others there's knowledge of but nothing solid, or the ass-kissing that went on all through the campaign.

I've never liked Stephanopoulos; sonnabitch helped Clinton lie for years, then got hired by a news agency, then wrote a book about HOW he lied and how bad it made him feel, and is still pulling down big money as a 'journalist'. I can't say this is a real breach of ethics for him personally; he gave up his ethics a long time ago.

The picture this guy has of one of the protesters

of the horror of JROTC kids learning to shoot... The fact that this bitch has the sign in bloody Spanish indicates a couple of things to me:
It's entirely possible she's an illegal, who should be getting the hell out instead of carrying a sign,
She's probably one of the morons who makes excuses for gangbangers and illegals committing various crimes,
And California sucks.

My post about Sen. John Effing Kerry(Royalist-MA),

I seem to have upset that wide commenter Anonymous, who, among other things, said this:
Spending the money is about using it where it will do the most good to stimulate our ecomony. Are you intending on purchasing something with the money you would receive? That would help the economy. However, if you intend to pay off bills that would not be stimulating the economy because the money would be applied to previously purchased goods.
And so forth. Including
Now, perhaps you only care about yourself and don't really care about helping out the economy and assisting in putting you fellow citizens back to work, then I suppose I can understand your anger over Senator Kerry's comments. But,ultimately, in the end your selfishness will catch up to you and when you need that new job or you need to purchase that new product you will find both are not available to you.

Awww, isn’t that sensitive and feeeeeeling? Anony agrees with Sen. Effing Kerry and Bill Effing Clinton and Barney Effing Frank and Cris Effing Dodd and every other power-grabbing money-grubbing socialist leech in DC and all their buttmonkeys: They should control how and where and when we spend our money because to do otherwise would make us ‘selfish’. Wanting to pay bills with MY money is ‘selfish’. Wanting to get a car that’s the best deal for MY money is ‘selfish’. If I want to invest any of MY money and it’s not in an ‘approved’ investment, I’m ‘selfish'.

Normally I try to be calm about such things, but in this case:
Fuck you. You and every one of those thieves in Washington who want total control over our lives. This bill has even had the CBO stating it’s a friggin’ disaster, it’s going to cost us our economy, and LOTS of jobs, and yet you sit there and parrot that ‘This bill is about creating jobs’ bullshit. No, this bill is just like most ‘gun control’ laws: it’s about control. Of us, of what we earn, of what we do.

And whether you like it or not, whether hypocritical bastards like Kerry like it or not, IT IS MY MONEY. I worked for it, I earned it, and it's not your damned privilege to tell me how I'll be ALLOWED to spend it.

Anony finishes with this
This bill is not a debate over how much you pay in taxes how much you get for the money you pay in. And, it is not about managing your money. This bill is about creating jobs, moving America forward and helping fellow Americans..
Bull-fucking-shit. This bill isn’t about ‘jobs’ and ‘moving America forward’; if it was it would be all about things like tax cuts and reducing bullshit regulations and giving people and business a chance to get ahead. And it would include some money for building the eight-legged horses for the people like Frank and Dodd who helped create the damn mess. Instead it’s full of pork and bribes. If it was concerned with creating jobs, it wouldn’t involve all kinds of bullshit like billions to ACORN to further practice vote fraud.

And if President The Lightworker Obama

actually cared about jobs as opposed to payoffs, he wouldn’t have signed this:
Described as an act that discriminates against 84% of the work force, Obama signed an executive order that
“repeals Executive Order 13202, that prohibited federal agencies and recipients of federal funding from requiring contractors to sign union-only project labor agreements (PLAs) as a condition of performing work on federal and federally funded construction projects.”
Put bluntly, this is that God-cursed crooked politician Obama paying off the unions for past and future favors. That's not about 'helping fellow Americans' unless you've decided the only ones who should get help- until it's their turn to be destroyed- are the unions, and screw everyone else. And let's not forget that this will also raise the costs of lots of projects, which means thieving politicians taking more of my money to give it to the God-damned unions. AFTER the politicians skim off their take, of course.



So you can join Kerry and Obama and Frank and every other thief and liar in DC in kissing my ass.


Thanks to Theo for the illustrations.

Collins, Specter and Snowe:

three RINOs that need to be removed from office. And, once again, thank you George Bush, you bastard, for helping keep that piece of treacherous crap Specter in office.

As Malkin says, So, your representatives of the “most deliberative body in the world” have barely a day to digest and debate the 778-page legislative text before rushing to vote on cloture Monday evening.

As Uncle pointed out, these clowns have been getting something like 9-1 AGAINST this crap from the people they claim to represent, and they STILL do this. Every one of these people, whatever party, should be removed from office at the first opportunity. Using pitchforks if necessary.

I think it was last week Glenn Beck told of some Stupid Party representative bitching at him about the crap happening at the border and in illegal immigration, something like "I wish you'd stop talking about this, it upsets people and makes it hard for us to deal." I wish I could remember the bastard's name, unfortunately there's far too many in DC who would really like to make people stop talking about the crap they're doing and- as illustrated above- don't want to be bothered by the peasants who actually believe in the way this government is supposed to work.

There was some other moron told either Rush or Glenn, can't remember which, "Would you stop talking bad about Republicans?" To which he was reminded "I'm not a Republican, I'm a conservative; and if you don't like what I say about you, stop acting like Evil Party Lite". Which pretty much covers it. The Stupid Party members in the house held against this socialist power-grab, which is good, but the simple fact is that after all the garbage they've pulled on us in the past we cannot trust them to hold; they're going to have to PROVE to US that they can be trusted.

Remember the study linking MMR vaccine and autism?

As Insty put it, can you trust ANYTHING that comes from the Lancet?
THE doctor who sparked the scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine for children changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism, a Sunday Times investigation has found.

Confidential medical documents and interviews with witnesses have established that Andrew Wakefield manipulated patients’ data, which triggered fears that the MMR triple vaccine to protect against measles, mumps and rubella was linked to the condition.

If indeed true, this is a violation of ethics, a violation of the scientific method, and these bastards are responsible for a lot of sickness and death. Another case for a public whipping post, or tar and feathers. Maybe both.

There are problems with vaccinations, oh yeah; among other things, kids who have nasty reactions to a vaccine shouldn't have to continue getting the damn thing in order to go to school. Doesn't change that vaccines, used properly, have done incredible good in this world. Smallpox, for instance, used to torture and cripple and kill millions, and it doesn't exist in the wild anymore. These jerks... what is the right kind of punishment for what they've done?

John Kerry is an arrogant statist bastard,

pretty much proven- again- out of his own mouth:
During his speech, he addressed the argument made by fellow senators and many economists that tax cuts might be more helpful to stimulating the economy than long-term government spending. The American people are also coming around to that view, according to a recent CBS poll, which found only 22 percent of them favor more government spending over tax cuts as stimulus.

His argument against tax cuts for Americans during these hard economic times was illuminating:
I've supported many tax cuts over the years, and there are tax cuts in this proposal. But a tax cut is non-targeted.

If you put a tax cut into the hands of a business or family, there's no guarantee that they're going to invest that or invest it in America.

They're free to go invest anywhere that they want if they choose to invest.

I seem to remember, when FDR was trying to put a man in jail for selling wheat at other than approved price(he was selling only to local buyers and argued that the new law about interstate sales didn't apply, the government lawyer said something like "Are we going to go back to farmers selling to who they choose for what price they choose?"

And we had that wonderful bit from Bill Clinton about "You might not spend your money the right way" if you're allowed to keep more of it.

God DAMN these people, one and all. Kerry, it's none of your damned BUSINESS how I spend my money; Bill Clinton, same to you you controlling piece of crap. And there are far too many vile beings in DC who think the same way but don't have the nerve to say it out loud, or just realize that saying it just might upset the peasants.

Lampposts, ropes, politicians... repeat as required...

Was thinking about training,

and it reminded me of some past work. Like, when I was early-mid teens.

I’ve mentioned Dad was LE. Back then, semi-auto pistols were fairly rare in LE, it was mostly revolvers. When I started learning handguns, he decided I needed to learn defensive use the same way he had. That meant, among other things, point-shooting up close and reloading.

No quick-loaders, either, those were pretty new and I’d not even seen one. The pistol was a S&W Model 13 .357 Magnum. The standard Sam Browne belt had a sleeve on the side opposite the holster; on the sleeve were twelve loops for cartridges. The idea was that after you were empty you popped the cylinder open- pistol cradled in left hand, right thumb pushed the latch, two middle fingers of left pushed the cylinder open- and as your left hand tipped the revolver butt-down and the thumb was pushing the ejector rod, the right hand went to the loops and grabbed two cartridges by the bases and pulled them out; tip the pistol muzzle-down and your right pushed the first two cartridges in, then grabbed two more and loaded them, then two more. Then your left thumb pushed the cylinder closed as your right hand took the grip and you were ready to fire again.

I got pretty good at it. Dad had loaded some dummy cartridges to work with, and he’d work me at it when we had the chance to mess with it.* One of the parts of their qualification was to start at either five or ten yards(can’t remember which), and at the whistle start walking toward the target; at the second whistle you’d draw, fire six, reload and fire six more. Maximum time allowed was 15 seconds, and you never knew when the whistle would blow; you might take two steps(pistol all the way up and use the sights), or you might be within two steps(point-shoot) of the target. What made this really fun was for practice we used wadcutters, so you had to align the cartridges very closely to the chambers to get them in; much easier with hollowpoints or roundnose, but the mold Dad had to make bullets with was for 148-grain wadcutters and money for another mold just wasn’t there(neither was money for boxes of jacketed bullets). Of course, that meant I got real good at lining the two rounds up.

I think the best time I ever got with live-fire, from whistle to 12th round, was right at eleven seconds, range about eight feet and all shots in a fist-size group on a standard silhouette target.


One of the reasons I think point-shooting is a skill that should be developed, at least enough to become familiar with it, is the same reason it was taught by many LE agencies and self-defense trainers in the past: because it works. Up close and/or in bad light especially. When time-space allows, use the sights, no question; but being able to point-shoot is a very handy skill to have.

I didn’t fire a semi-auto pistol until I was in my 20’s, and then only on a couple of occasions until I got my 1911 compact. I’ve fired them a lot since then, in a variety of models and cartridges; I still can’t point-shoot a semi-auto as well as I can a S&W, though that’s improved. And the Laser Grips make a BIG difference there, they make it possible to point-shoot very quickly and accurately, though you need to practice without the light as well; bright light or gloves could make the laser hard to see or unusable.

Oh yeah, OBVIOUSLY the drug cartels smuggle guns in

from the US:
Steve came across this image last September. In my post "More Gunz N Mexico", I stated:

How long do you think it will be before some of these are in the hands of the drug gangs? Remember this image when the ATF and a compliant news organization starts bemoaning the influx of .50 caliber weapons in the hands of the drug gangs.

Five months, that is how long it took for the cartels to get their hands on Barretts.

But remember, it's actually OUR fault.

Just like Insty's question "Do ANY of these people

pay their taxes?", we have to ask "Can ANY of these 'highly trained professionals' pull off a raid without shooting the damned dog? Or is it that they just don't mind killing the dogs? Or maybe some of them look forward do it?

Generations of lawmen are looking down on this bullshit and shaking their heads in disgust. Both for the dog killing, and for the idiot excuses being made for this kind of unnecessary raid.

Obama and Clinton: two worthless bastards

when dealing with terrorists. First, the appeaser Obama:

Yesterday we were driving back from Houston, Texas from obtaining a passport for my daughter so she could attend the arraignment of al-Nashiri who had helped in the Cole Bombing. We were expecting to leave for Gitmo no later than this Saturday. I knew that Obama would no doubt dismiss the charges against al-nashiri. Our government has repeatably found excuses so as not to take any action against the Cole bombers and or those who support them. Like the countries of Yemen and the Sudan. So it came as no surprise to me when an Obama's aide called to tell me that we had an invitation to attend a meeting where president Obama would explain his reasons for dismissing the charges against the terrorists. I told him that it was on a short notice and that we would not be attending.

Why attend a meeting when you already know the inevitable outcome. And President Obama has already signed the order to close Gitmo, and a request to stop the trials. Which they did. With only one judge who had the strength, courage and conviction to stand up for the murdered sailors and say that al-nashiri's arraignment would go forward. So anyway I asked the aide if he would please get my letter to Obama instead. He said he would if I faxed it. I had wrote Obama a letter the previous week pleading with him to change his mind. I faxed the letter later that same day. I knew that I would have to tell my wife later on when we got home that our murdered son's trail had become a victim of petty politics. And that she would be upset and hurt yet again.

I wish that our government would not play the head games that they have played with the victims families. Its extremely disrespectful of the victims and their families. The government could have stopped this charade that there was going to be a trial after Obama had requested that there would be no trials in the first place. But instead my daughter took time off from work to make a 400 mile round trip to purchase a passport that she will probably never need. And of course she had to experience another let down when Obama's aide called. And my wife as well.

And Clinton; this crap I'd never heard before:
Back in 2000 right after the attack on the Cole we refused to meet with President Clinton, and I also refused to speak with Vice President Gore. For that decision we were housed in a different BAQ at Norfolk than the other families. And the next day we were not allowed in to the Memorial Services for the sailors of the Cole attack. It took the Commanding Officer of the base to get us in to the services, and up front with the rest of the families. I relate that story because I was not going to tell the news at first why we did not go and meet with Obama. But my wife insisted that I tell someone, and that our son deserves a trial. Its long overdue. So I did. I am not saying that Obama would react as childish as Clinton did. I don't think he would. But I did not want to see anymore head games on the part of the government. And by the way I have plenty of witnesses for that fiasco, plus a letter of apology from the base commander. And our Escort officer was there too at the time, and did her best to try and get us in with the rest of the families. (bold mine)
Can you believe the level of vindictiveness and childishness that would be required to pull this shit?

I'm stopping because I'm about to start pounding on the keyboard, and I can't figure out how to use written words to fully show just how pissed off and disgusted I am.

Some RINOs are not a protected species

and should be treated like any other common varmint. Especially being the treacherous little bastards they are.
Details of GOP Sen. Susan Collins’ “compromise” “stimulus” proposal are coming out. This is a Mt. Kilimanjaro-sized crock of you know what. Total cost of this “pared down” bill is $1.175 trillion.

Let me repeat that: $1.175 trillion.

This figure does not include the nearly $50 billion added in Senate amendments during the last two days.

So in the name of fiscal responsibility, Collins and the B.O. Republican contingent are selling out America with a plan that costs $7 billion more than the House Crap Sandwich Supreme.

Are we ready to say the F-word* yet?

(*Filibuster)
No, Mrs. Malkin, 'filibuster' isn't the word appropriate to this. The 'N' word(noose), the 'T', 'F' and 'R' words(tar, feathers, rail); now THOSE do come to mind. Damned Diane Feinstein is hedging her bets: "So I reserve the right at the end of the day to vote against the package that I don't think puts those jobs out there. That's my point." If this piece of shit(I'm not as refined as Malkin, I'll say it) is bad enough to cause crooked-as-a-dogs-hind-leg FEINSTEIN to say things like this, then it is truly, monumentally, burn-down-the-building-with-them-inside BAD. Which makes the betrayal by the RINOs even worse than usual. Makes you wonder what Reid & Obama are promising them for this, doesn't it?

Oh, wait; it appears what bothers Feinstein the most is tax cuts. Well, hell, I don't think she's ever seen a tax cut for people who actually pay taxes that she liked, so that explains it.

Bah. The miserable bastards deserve to be horsewhipped in the town square. And at least some of them turned into dangling fruit.

The World, and my take on it

Parts of it, anyway.

Haven’t written much about the son lately. His unit had rotated back to Germany, where the excitement consisted of freezing, defrosting after the morning PT in single-digit temperatures(low double-digits on some days) and dealing with the ice and snow.

Last night he flew in and stayed overnight; he’s been transferred to a base stateside. Got a few hours sleep, picked up his truck and headed out this morning on a long drive. From what he said of the trip, the only problem was in Paris. He’d had a big carabiner on his pack to hold his laptop case, and they confiscated it at the airport: “It can be used as brass knuckles, so it is not allowed!” This after it passing without a second glance through US and German airports multiple times. Apparently pointing this out and adding that he’d been trusted to board a plane once or twice with an M4 didn’t do anything more than irritate them. Which brings me to what I once said to my daughter when she brought up the metric system:
“The metric system is France’s revenge on the world.”
“Revenge for what?”(delivered with an annoyed look)
“For their having to be the French.”
She wouldn’t talk to me for a while after that…

In one of his books Eric Flint has a character saying that most of the French enlisted and a lot of their junior officers are quite good; it’s many of their high-ranking officers and the politicians who tend to be assholes. Which would seem to be born out by reports from Afghanistan, some people reporting that the French troops fight like hell when they can; but between orders from On High and lack of equipment can’t do it very often. You’d think, even if a lot of the politicians don’t like them being there, they’d want their troops equipped as well as possible, but no. Of course, we’ve got experience with asshole politicians like that ourselves.

In other news, I’d heard the other day about Rep. Stabenow talking about needed the ‘Fairness Doctrine’ or something else to be shoved down our throats because “There is no balance in talk radio.” Turns out that, along with the general BS in that statement, her husband is a bigshot(can you still be a bigshot in a failure like that?) with Air America. Which indicates she’s less interested in ‘fairness’ than in helping hubby shove AA down our throats. And, incidentally, helping the family bottom line. Isn’t it wonderful to have such dirtbagspoliticians in DC telling us what we should be able to hear? And read? And think?

There was various BS about the Porkulus Bill currently in the Senate, with some talk of ‘moderate Republicans’ i.e. RINOs, negotiating to try to cut down on some of the pork. The problem being that most of the damn thing is pork and payoffs and power grabs. Apparently President The Lightworker Obama gave a speech bitching about the nasty people not rolling over and letting his bill pass without all this messy debate(“What do you think this is, a republic?!?” “Yes, we do, and we ain’t shutting up.) When the CBO states that this bill is a disaster in the making, and these clowns keep pushing it with the “Give the Lightworker what he wants or we’re doomed!” line… could we borrow a roofing tar melter for a while, you think?

About a year ago I bought a Don Hume in-the-waistband holster at a show; it was a decent price and I wanted to try that style of carry. Well, the style of carry is great; easier to conceal, stable. The only problem was the mouth of the holster tended to close a bit after you drew; it has a piece of leather stitched around the mouth to stiffen it, but doesn’t do a lot. So the other day I cut the stitching and pulled that piece off, cut and shaped a piece of steel from a saw blade to fit, set it in place and stitched that leather piece back over it, then tweaked the shape a touch so the housing for the laser module in the grip didn’t bump into the mouth.

It’s great. It’s actually easier to draw, as well as return to the holster. It would probably make an even bigger difference if the body of the holster was a stiffer leather, but right now this is fine. Although I’m tempted to find some type of leather(I’ve heard horsehide is good) that would get very stiff after being fitted and try making one.


How does this sound:
Obama got used to the media giving him a pass on damn near everything the last couple of years. Add to that his buttmonkeys trashing anyone who dared to actually question his qualifications and his past and what he wanted to do to us, he got used to getting pretty much what he wanted.

Add to that the fact that he’s not really very good at what he’s doing; not only do a lot of people in both parties not trust him, he’s apparently done a lousy job of trying to build any with those people.

Throw in the sense of entitlement- connected to point 1- that led to the “I won” statements, which boil down to thinking “I won the job interview, so you HAVE to do what I want.”

Finally, I think Pelosi & Reid & Co. figured that since he didn’t really know what he was doing, or how to do it, or both, they figured they’d do the actual governing and he’d rubber-stamp whatever they put in front of him. And he either didn’t realize it before and doesn’t like it now, or knew it before and let them think that was how it would be and now…

Put it all together, seems like it would cover a lot of the crap that’s happened the last two weeks. His apparent surprise that his nominees actually ran into questions and opposition(not enough of either, but that’s a different gripe), his apocalyptic talk about “Give me this bill or we’re ruined”(closer to truth would be “Give me this bill and we’re ruined”), his anger that the Stupid Party is holding fairly strong and not giving him bipartisan cover for the crap he’s trying to feed us; seems to explain at least some of it.


The other day I noted that there's evidence of the wonderful islamist believers of the Religion of Peace raping teenagers/early 20's and then using the disgrace of that to push them into suicide bombing; I missed this the day before:
Samira Ahmed Jassim, 51, is accused of recruiting more than 80 women to become human bombs, including 28 who actually carried out attacks.

She has apparently confessed to helping to organise the rape of young Iraqi women.

She would then play on the shame associated with victims of rape in Iraqi society to convince the women to become suicide bombers as their only means of escape.
Note to people: if your culture tells a woman who's been raped that she's brought dishonor on the family, your culture sucks. If you arrange for a woman to be raped so you can convince her to commit suicide and murder, you suck even worse. And ought to be used as a bayonet-practice dummy, or put to some other appropriate use.

Our President.

Our appeasing, suckass miserable little bastard President.
A senior Obama administration official told The Associated Press that the charges against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri will be dismissed without prejudice. That means new charges can be brought again later.

It also gives the White House time to review the legal cases of all 245 terror suspects held there and decide whether they should be prosecuted in the U.S. or released to other nations.
Uh-huh. I'm sure you'll just sweat yourself to death to get to filing the charges all over again. You....

This was all I could find online right now; radio just had a bit on it; says he's going to meet with the families of those killed on the Cole to 'assure them' it's being done for a good reason.

I'm glad I'm not one of them. I don't think I could keep from spitting on the floor.

So this is how Chicago got it's gun ban,

and what wonderful people were involved.
As Friday's council session began,[Mayor]Byrne feared the vote was too close to call.There was extensive backroom debate to determine if the matter should be brought up.But,Byrne allies,primarily Alderman Fred Roti(1st),Edward Burke(14th)and Wilson Frost(34th),moved through the council chambers,persuading wavering aldermen to back the mayor's proposals.Still,Some of Byrne's staunchest allies,including Alderman Robert Shaw(9th) and Richard Mell(33rd),deserted ranks and voted against the ordinance.Streets and Sanitation Commissioner John Donovan made a last-minute deal with at least three aldermen who threatened to walk out of the meeting to avoid voting for the proposal.Donovan promised to improve city services in their wards.
"What will it take to buy your vote? Fixing the streets in your neighborhood? You got it."

Take note of Alderman Roti:
Just whose name came up at the Family Secrets Trial as an unindicted co-conspirator of the massive racketeering enterprise? Chicago Alderman Fred Roti.Alderman Roti was named by the Justice Department on pages 27 and 47 of this civil racketeering indictment as a "high ranking made member" of The Chicago Mob.Roti was no ordinary member,his job was to hijack Chicago's City Council which he did for 23 years.
Just wonderful, isn't it?

It seems to be raining a bit in Australia,

and it's bringing some visitors to town:
The deluge has also affected wildlife, washing crocodiles and snakes out their natural habitat and on to the streets.

Locals, already grappling with road closures, evacuations and food shortages, have been warned to watch out for rogue reptiles after one displaced crocodile, measuring more than 5ft, was reportedly hit by a car in Townsville. The animal survived the collision, suffering a few lost teeth and bruising.

Three separate reports said large crocodiles had been washed out of flooded rivers near the small cattle town of Normanton, further hampering rescue efforts, although emergency service volunteers have said they are prepared to encounter the odd "saltie".

Donna Smith, manager of the town's Albion Hotel, said a four-metre crocodile had been seen stalking residents and dogs in the flooded main street.

Four meters, a little over 13 feet. That's a damn big lizard to have roaming around inspecting the buffet. However, the people have their priorities straight:
She also issued the grave warning that the town was expected to run out of beer in two days.

"We can put up with a lot of drama, no fruit and veggies, but nobody wants a pub with no beer," Ms Smith told Brisbane's Courier-Mail newspaper.
Priorities: got to have 'em.

From the sound of it, some really nasty flooding. And, as virtually required by news anymore, they warn Meteorologists have warned the extreme temperatures and heavy downpours would only increase as a result of climate change.
Yeah. The same people who, I believe, were saying a while back that drought due to globular warmering was going to cause everyone to die of thirst. I just expressed my opinion, but I doubt they can hear it down there, and they'd blame it on 'climate change' anyway.

I don't know if President The Obama took lessons from the Goreacle,

but they've both turned into Johnny One-Note singers: "Do what I want, or we're all doomed!" Goreacle is giving speeches telling kids not to listen to what their parents say because "You know more on some things than they do"(as I recall, one of the warning signs of a cult: being told not to listen to family or friends who disagree or are worried about what you're doing); President Lightbringer One-Note is running around giving speeches that "If we don't pass this 'stimulus' bill NOW, the country may NEVER recover!". Translation: "Congress, don't listen to the doubters, and PLEASE don't listen to the people back home calling you and saying "NO!"; I won the job interview, so DO WHAT I WANT! NOW!"

Some old legislator the other day said "You know, whenever someone said "This has to be passed right away", I knew it had things in it they didn't want you to know about until it was too late." Which is exactly what's going on.

It's like we're being led by Ambassador Blowdry,

but I don't know if we have a Retief working on things.

When Russian tanks start pouring into eastern Europe and Iranian missiles begin raining down on Jerusalem, their leaders will know they will be facing a man who not only conquered America's racial divide but the hearts of the entire Cannes film community. And those Al Qaeda terrorists plotting a dirty nuke or chemical attack on San Francisco face a stark new reality: while they may no longer need to worry about US Marines, they are looking down the barrel of a strongly worded diplomatic condemnation by a Europe fully united in their deep sympathy for surviving Americans.

The Brady Group For Gun Bans gave OK a big thumbs up

from my point of view:
The Washington-based group, long on allegations but always short on facts to back up the allegations, claims Oklahoma's "weak gun laws help feed the illegal gun market, allow the sale of guns without background checks and put children at risk."

I only heard a couple of bits when this clown was interviewed on KTOK. The usual lies, half-truths and wish list(For The Children, you know). If I can find a transcript somewhere, I'll see if can post more on this low-grade fertilizer from a GFW.

If you're not familiar with some of these points, the Brady Gun-Ban Group thinks the laws in the People's Republic of Maryland are just peachy, and would be perfect if they went just a bit further into a full ban. OK has the same requirement for NICS checks for purchases from dealers as everyone else as required by law, so saying 'without background checks' is a flat-out lie.

al Qaeda homosexual rape, Diane Sawyer is a lying dirtbag and

Tammy Bruce' take on 'Obama and the Children', the last first:
Tired of being in the White House after two weeks. Priceless. According to the Barkey-Be-Gone Meter, he still has 1446 whole days to go before we kick him out. I suppose this is the presidential version of voting 'Present"? So let's see: Iran has launched a satellite, Russia is having riots, France is having riots, people in Kentucky are still freezing to death, the Sri Lankan war is escalating, he's threatened with a trade war by the EU because of crap in his Crap Sandwich, the Taliban is still attacking in Afghanistan, Islamic "pirates" are still hijacking ships and kidnapping people, our economy is still tanking mostly because of Barkey talking it down for a year, and he decides to go to a school to read to 2nd graders?

The kids did learn something, however, from his presence: what an arrogant and weak a**hole looks like.

Diane Sawyer & Co. play games with recordings so as to crap on people:
During the duo’s conversation, ABC played a sound bite that joined together two separate Rush Limbaugh comments made five days apart. The edited comment made it sound like the outspoken Republican radio host wants President Barack Obama to fail because he’s black. The first three sentences — "I don’t need 400 words. I need four. I hope he fails." — came from Limbaugh’s January 16 radio program, while the proceeding remarks — "We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds. Because his father was black. Because this is the first black president. We’ve got to accept this." — came from Limbaugh’s January 21 appearance on Fox’s Sean Hannity TV show.
If I remember right, Sawyer is the one who told of being sworn in in court: the man went throught he 'truth, the whole truth' oath and she said "I'm a journalist, that's what we do" and most of the courtroom broke out in laughter; she said it was 'very hurtful'. Well, dumbass, don't do crap like this and people won't feel the need to laugh at you when you claim to tell the truth.

And last, apparently some 'volunteers' need to be driven to 'volunteer' to suicide:
Islamic terrorists are raping young men in order to drive them into suicide bombings.

The Sun quotes Algerian militant Abu Baçir El Assimi:

"The sexual act on young recruits aged between 16 to 19 was a means to urge them to commit suicide operations."

The paper claims that "intense social stigma and fear of more gay sex attacks leaves Muslims prepared to die."
...
A suspected terrorist bomber killed in an attempted attack on a security installation in the Tizi Ouzou province of Algeria last month may have been raped, an autopsy revealed.

News source Ennahar Online said there was "a large tear in the anus of the terrorist, which confirms the sexual abuse. In addition, semen analysis is underway to determine the perpetrator.

"The young terrorist subject of sexual abuse, was aged 22, from Diar El Djemaâ, ElHarrach. He would have joined terrorist groups in March 2008.
Well, they've used retarded kids, retarded women and whoever else, I guess it was only a matter of time 'till they did this.

Sometimes the world is such a fun place...

The Obama Administrations new tax form for appointees

found by Mr. Powers:
And be sure to check out his new sponsor for electronic filing!

So they just passed another x-billion dollar bill

to provide insurance for 'the children';
It covers people who can pay for their own,
It's costing a bloody 'nother fortune,
And they passed a tobacco tax increase to pay for it.
.....
So they're going to 'pay' for this by increasing taxes on a product they're trying to get people to stop buying. So if people do stop smoking/dipping, no more money for this.

Gee, I wonder what they'll want to do then....

Snork.... "It is a bipartisan cabinet;

it has people who do pay their taxes, and people who don't."

Overheard just a minute ago from Mark Steyn

So Bill Clinton, despite his "Anti-gun pushes cost Democrats

the Congress" is throwing out bullcrap for the Brady Group to Ban Firearms:
Nobody wants to repeal the Second Amendment, and nobody wants to keep you out of the deer woods, but wouldn’t it be nice if your children didn’t have to worry about being mowed down by an assault weapon when they turn the corner?
Scaremongering and bullcrap, same as the last verse. Hope and Change!

Clinton also had this in the speech:
...We are now poised, I think, to spend a generation operating as a nation the way you operate in your cities on your best days. That does not mean the Democrats will win all the elections - if the Republicans reform themselves and develop a 21st century version of the second great Republican President's - Theodore Roosevelt's - philosophy, so that we have... a dueling communitarianism. That is, "my way of bringing us together is better than your way of bringing us together." One can be a little to the right of center, one can be a little to the left of center. But we will not go forward anymore, I don't think, with the kind of politics of division and destruction that drug us down for too long.
Translation: "C'mon, socialism is a WONDERFUL thing, and if the Stupid Party will just change to agree to that, we can all move forward!"

Anyone checked the price of tar and pillows, lately?

Rep. Rush(Evil Party GFW-IL) bill is a 'literacy test for gun owners'; nice way to put it.
One should not be required to obtain a license or pass a government-administered test to exercise any constitutionally-protected civil right. If the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s taught us anything, it is that all civil rights are sacred, one is no less important than another, and all of them are worth defending because a threat to one puts all rights in peril.

Rush would demote the Second Amendment right to the rank of a privilege that can be regulated by government. He is, after all, from Chicago, home of a Draconian gun ban law that gun control extremists consider "reasonable."

He would make the entire country like Chicago - and while that may square with anti-gun demagogues such as Mayor Richard Daley, it will not pass muster in places such as Missoula, Mont.; Cheyenne, Wyo.; Boise, Idaho; Flagstaff, Spokane, Wash. or just about anyplace else west of the Mississippi River or south of the Ohio River.

Perhaps Rush would like to see African-American citizens face this new test at the hands of some aging bureaucrat who remembers the "good old days" when his grandpappy was a Grand Dragon in the Klan and everybody in the county knew it.

Suddenly, if you're black, this written gun safety test doesn't sound so hot, does it?

Each of us has a stake in America, and it requires that we protect everyone else's civil rights as zealously as we guard our own.

A very nice way of pointing out one of the big problems with politicians in DC:
OBAMA: Well, I think my mistake is not in selecting Tom originally, because I think nobody was better equipped to deal both with the substance and policy of health care. He understands it as well as anybody, but also the politics, which is going to be required to actually get it done.

But I think that, look, ultimately, I campaigned on changing Washington and bottom-up politics. And I don't want to send a message to the American people that there are two sets of standards, one for powerful people, and one for ordinary folks who are working every day and paying their taxes.

COOPER: Do you feel you've lost some of that moral high ground which you set for yourself on day one with the…(Crosstalk)

OBAMA: Well, you know, I think this was a mistake. I think I screwed up. And, you know, I take responsibility for it and we're going to make sure we fix it so it doesn't happen again.

Notice anything in that exchange? Nowhere is there any talk of right or wrong. In Washington's culture, unlike the lives of most normal obviously naive Americans, that's hardly ever the issue. It's about what works. It's all about strategy.

Cooper didn't ask about the propriety of appointing a sudden millionaire to now oversee the people who paid him. He asks if the president should have dumped Daschle earlier?

Obama says Daschle was the best guy; his own mistake was political, creating an impression of hypocrisy by campaigning one way and appointing another.

Fact is, 10 years ago without the 24-hour news cycle and blogosphere, Daschle would almost certainly have been confirmed anyway; his party definitely has the votes and senators in Washington take care of each other, even when they're ex-senators. Again, the club.

And notice the reason Daschle gave for giving up. Nothing to do with having done anything wrong because in Washington's ways, he hadn't. It had to do with becoming a "distraction" for the administration's agenda.

Again, whatever works in Washington. How likely do you think that is to change?

Once again, the Evil Party is counting on squishy RINOs to change sides and pass a bad bill:
The Hill reports President Obama is "lobbying Republican senators personally on his economic stimulus package, which failed to attract a single GOP vote in the House." Obama has "scheduled one-on-one meetings at the White House with a handful of GOP centrists" such as Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins.
Surprise, surprise.

Aw, come ON, don't these people check on, or think about ANYTHING except "He's one of us"?
President Obama wants to be the Transparency President:

ON his first full day in the Oval Office, President Obama signaled a new approach to government transparency that will help restore trust in government.

As if opening the Bush administration's musty drapes in the Oval Office, Obama issued a memo urging agencies to err on the side of disclosure rather than on the side of secrecy, when responding to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

So it's somewhat ironic that Obama has nominated King County Executive Ron Sims to be No. 2 at HUD.

After all, Sims is culpable for what may well become the largest fine for violations of public records laws in U.S. history: see Yousoufian, Armen

My own public records suit against Sims (for delaying release of election records which revealed that King County officials unlawfully counted hundreds of ineligible ballots in the 2004 governor's race) goes to trial in April.
Of course, considering his past with ACORN and other vote-fraud groups, Obama may not consider something like this a problem; more like "Ah, somebody who knows my kind of operation!"

Another way of looking at Sen. Dodd(Corrupticrat-CN) and his "See! I'm innocent!" show:
Now Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sen, Chris Dodd, D-CN, has pulled what has to be an all-time classic evasion stunt against journalists covering Congress and the economic crisis concerning his promise six months ago to make public all of the documents about his sweetheart loan deal with Countrywide Mortgage.

Dodd invited a select few Connecticut reporters to his office in Hartford Monday and gave them a few minutes to view - but not copy - a small selection of documents that he claims proves he did nothing wrong in accepting special treatment from Countrywide that saved him a reported $75,000 in refinancing a couple of loans worth a total of $800,000. The Wall Street Journal called it Dodd's "Peek-A-Boo Disclosure."
As I recall this is the same kind of crap Sen. Kerry(Magic Hat Bearer) pulled on his "I will release my military records"; invited one reporter to view part of the record and then claimed "I fulfilled my promise."

Ok, I'm closing with this which, if true, should be resolved by Obama and everyone involved being publicly horsewhipped, then tarred and feathered, then run the hell out of the country:
According to GeostrategyDirect.com, a newsletter published by The Washington Times' ace national security reporter Bill Gertz, "Diplomatic sources said Barack Obama has engaged several Arab intermediaries to relay messages to and from al Qaeda in the months before his election as the 44th U.S. president. The sources said al Qaeda has offered what they termed a truce in exchange for a U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan. 'For the last few months, Obama has been receiving and sending feelers to those close to al Qaeda on whether the group would end its terrorist campaign against the United States,' a diplomatic source said. 'Obama sees this as helpful to his plans to essentially withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq during his first term in office.'"
A: If he's actually stupid enough to believe al Qaeda would honor any such agreement, he's too stupid to be out in public without a keeper to prevent him running into traffic.
B: If he doesn't believe them, but figures this is a way to make the moonbats happy, then he's so untrustworthy with the fate of this country we should go to the tar-feathers-whip option as soon as possible. Even HINTING to the enemy of such an agreement is so stupid I have no words to properly describe it.

Two things you ought to read

I know, I said 'night', but I just ran across these.

First, a piece by Judea Pearl, Daniel Pearl's mother. It includes this:
But the clearest endorsement of terror as a legitimate instrument of political bargaining came from former President Jimmy Carter. In his book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," Mr. Carter appeals to the sponsors of suicide bombing. "It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Road-map for Peace are accepted by Israel." Acts of terror, according to Mr. Carter, are no longer taboo, but effective tools for terrorists to address perceived injustices.

Mr. Carter's logic has become the dominant paradigm in rationalizing terror. When asked what Israel should do to stop Hamas's rockets aimed at innocent civilians, the Syrian first lady, Asma Al-Assad, did not hesitate for a moment in her response: "They should end the occupation." In other words, terror must earn a dividend before it is stopped.


Second, this piece on the strikes that have gone wildcat in Britain:
Today the strike in Lincolnshire has spread across Britain to contractors at the nuclear power plants Sellafield and Heysham, to Grangemough oil refinery and power stations at Longanet, Warrington and Staythorpe, to contractors at the South Hook LNG terminal in Milford Haven, and to Croyton oil refinery in Essex.

Thousands have gone out. The strikes have gone wild cat.

And all of it is right. For what else can British workers do when their own parliament has turned over the power to control Britains' borders and Britain's labour laws to the Brussels empire?

There is no point in saying, 'The workers must obey the laws that govern employment.' The laws which now govern employment in this country are no longer legitimate. They are no longer the laws drawn up by British democracy.

They are the laws drawn up by the European Commission. They are laws to which a generation of Britain's politicians have signed up, giving away powers they had no right to give away.

Britain's politicians signed up to these laws in Treaties most of them have never read, and if they did read them, they didn't believe every 'Europe without frontiers' clause would be enforced.

Well, surprise: the rootless cosmopolitan euro-zealots all over the Continent (though mostly in France) and the career eurocrats in Brussels (mostly led by the French) who wrote the European treaties put this stuff in because they meant to see it enforced.

But just listen to the whining of Peter Hain, the former work and pensions secretary who was part of Tony Blair's EU-pandering government, at the weekend. He told one paper that he thought something had gone 'badly wrong' with the way EU legislation was being enforced.

What he means is it is actually being enforced. The only thing that is 'badly wrong' is that Britain should ever have agreed to it in the first place.

It sounds like a lot of the people in Britain have finally found a way to say "Enough!" that the politicians can't avoid hearing. Understanding, that's a different thing, but they're damn well hearing it from the sound of this. The EUnuchs are, too; look for them to do/say something about forcing the peasant to obey that'll really set some things off. I hope.

Ok, I broke the M1 down completely,

everything except taking apart the trigger group, and inspected. No sign of lead fouling in/around the gas port, in the cylinder or on the piston. Cleaning the bore was two patches damp with Eezox pushed through, a third worked back & forth a few times, let sit a few minutes, then wipe a couple of dry patches through; cleaned just like normal, no visible sign of lead fouling.

Looking at the target, looks like about 4-4.5" at 100 with this load, with eight clicks elevation over the regular zero putting it dead-on. I do have to make a confession: some of that group may well be me. The inside of the rear sight was at an angle that got a lot of glare from the sun, which did not help. At all. It may be that I need a different bullet. Browsing through the stuff at Cast Boolits I've seen people getting good results with cast bullets from 130 to 200 grains, so there's lots of possibilities. This load worked nicely for the indoor range when I want to shoot the Garand there, but I'd like to get a load that gives better accuracy at 100. WHich this might under different conditions; just have to try.

I was able to try the 180-grain bullet, sized .311, in the #4Mk1 Enfield, and it shot nicely, though hitting a bit, about 3", to the right of point of aim(seems to be common with cast bullets in a gun specifically designed around a regular jacketed).

Now I've just about got things cleaned up, so I need to clean myself up and get to bed. Night, all.

Ref the "They're cutting the defense budget"--"No they're

not" crap going around, Insty pointed to this.
Confronted by two costly wars and a collapsing economy, the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee is preparing to trim military spending on weapons, committee chairman Sen. Carl Levin said Jan. 30…. “We are going to cut weapons systems,” Levin said during a news conference in an ornate Armed Services Committee hearing room.

“That’s not just me speaking. The secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs [of Staff] have spoken about [how] we have got to face the reality that there’s going to be a reduction somewhere in the defense budget,” said Levin, D-Mich.

“We don’t want to reduce personnel; we don’t want to shortchange personnel” amid a war, he said. “So we’ve got to look to the future and make savings there. There’s the fact of life.”

Put bluntly, I don't trust Levin as far as I can throw my truck. I'll let Boot say it:
There is something deeply disingenuous going on when Levin says “That’s not just me speaking.” He then goes on to quote senior Defense Department leaders indicating that they have to face the reality of a cut in the budget. But note that Secretary of Defense Bob Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen aren’t saying that the defense budget should be cut on the merits. They are perfectly aware that, notwithstanding a surge of war-related supplemental appropriations since 9/11, the armed forces have pressing demands — ranging from extra soldiers to newer aerial tankers and more ships — that desperately need to be addressed.

This is one of the things that scared hell out of me about Obama, and has pissed me off for years from people like Levin. Whether Obama & Co. realize it or not, those 'future combat systems' he wants to trash even research on are what give our troops the edge they have; the NEED those things. And Levin is one of the people who were whining and bitching and accusing "We didn't put enough troops into (fill in the blank)" and blaming Bush; but they've NEVER put forth a bill to increase funding so there would BE more troops to do the damned job, and if someone else did they did everything they could think of to prevent it passing.

I'm thinking Obama probably did do the 10% cut stuff talked about earlier, then when the screaming was louder than expected played "No, no, there needs to be an increase!", and now is using Levin and the other asshats to try and keep some of the heat off himself.

No, as a matter of fact, I don't trust ANY of them.

Range day

It was above freezing, and supposed to reach the lower 50's, and I was off, so headed out this morning.
A: It never hit 50.
B: Turns out there's a front coming in, and the wind was coming out of the north all day.
C: I knew the sun would be relatively low, but I'd forgotten how much that would affect how I see the sights.
Overall, nice day anyway, though I have to admit I need targets with a bigger bull for 100 yards now; my eyes ain't what they used to be(see subsection B: Getting Old Sucks). I'll write up the results later, the one thing I will go into now is the cast-bullet loads for the M1 Garand.

These, you might remember, used a 150-grain RCBS flat-point gas-check bullet over a charge of IMR4895. They worked out giving about 4" groups at 100. I'm honestly not sure if it's the bullet or me; the aperture and sun were at just the right angle to give a fair bit of glare, which did give me problems in aiming. I'd loaded 16 rounds of 35.0 grains, and in the second clip there were two cases where the bolt didn't go back quite far enough to pick up the next round; all the 36.0 grain loads cycled normally. I'll break it down later and check the gas system to see if any sign of lead fouling.

If the system is clear, I'm going to load some more for next time, and remember my little shade for the rear sight to take care of the glare. I'm also going to measure some of the as-cast bullets for diameter; I'm wondering if using them as-cast, lubing by hand and using the .311 sizer to seat the gas checks might work better. Have to think about that.

I now return you to your regular afternoon.

So the next step in Sen. Dodd(Corrupt-CT) trying to cover up

like a cat on a tile floor is to A: refinance to try and make the sweetheart deals go away, and B:
At least he did if you were a fast reader and were one of the few reporters he invited to his Hartford office yesterday to review -- but not copy or take -- more than 100 pages of documents related to his 2003 mortgage financings through Countrywide's "Friends of Angelo" program.

Heck, we'd all love the kind of courtesy that would have saved Mr. Dodd $75,000 over the life of the two loans he refinanced to the tune of $800,000, according to an analysis by Portfolio magazine. The savings came from rock-bottom interest rates and a free "float-down" -- the right to borrow at a lower rate if interest rates fall before you've closed on the loan.
So he came clean? Not exactly:
We don't know whether the documents Mr. Dodd briefly showed yesterday illuminate this mystery or not, because he didn't release them to us, or to the public or his constituents. Perhaps the reporters he allowed to take a quick peak will tell us more. What he did release to everyone was a set of fact sheets that purport to show there was nothing favorable about the terms Mr. Dodd and his wife received from Countrywide, along with a consultant's report that reaches the same conclusion. Mr. Dodd's office did not respond to our request for the documents themselves, which he promised to release more than six months ago.

But consultant reports -- prepared at the behest of a law firm hired by Mr. Dodd to help him through the Countrywide mess -- tell us nothing about what Mr. Dodd knew and when he knew it. Instead, they are an attempt to change the subject. Mr. Feinberg has said that Friends of Angelo were regularly reminded that they were getting special treatment -- otherwise, what was the point? And he claims to have Countrywide documents that prove that Mr. Dodd was aware that Countrywide had done him favors. Those documents may or may not be among those that Mr. Dodd played peek-a-boo with Monday, but we still don't know. Mr. Dodd said he's "sorry" he didn't release the documents sooner -- just not sorry enough to actually release them, apparently.

'Most ethical Congress' my ass.

Ref the defense budget post,

if this is correct, two questions:
Did the original report get it wrong, in which case the network owes a correction, or
was the original floated to see what reaction it got, and the reaction caused change of heart/go to fallback position?

And will we ever actually know which? Especially with things like this also happening?
CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus, supported by Defence Secretary Robert Gates, tried to convince President Barack Obama that he had to back down from his campaign pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months at an Oval Office meeting Jan. 21.

But Obama informed Gates, Petraeus and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen that he wasn't convinced and that he wanted Gates and the military leaders to come back quickly with a detailed 16-month plan, according to two sources who have talked with participants in the meeting.

Ref the defense budget post,

Just all kinds of stuff out there today

President The Obama has, of course, declared that he's standing behind Daschle the Tax Cheat Nominee #2. Surprise, surprise. With this from Sen. Dick Turban:
"If all you knew about Tom Daschle was that he used to be a senator and he made a mistake and had to pay over $100,000 in back taxes, you would have a right to be skeptical, even cynical," said Sen. Richard J. Durbin (Ill.). "But if you know Tom Daschle, you know better."
Translation: "Obama won the election and he wants him, so stop causing problems! Besides, what's a little tax evasion from a former Senator, hmmmm?"

As Ace puts it "Nanny Bloomberg bitten by groundhog". Which probably wasn't rabid.
The groundhog, that is. Has the groundhog had shots?

Remember Pres. The Obama declining to answer some questions because 'there's only one President at a time'? Seems that was only in public:
US President Barack Obama has already used experts within the last few months to hold high-level but discreet talks with both Iran and Syria, organizers of the meetings told AFP... However, even before winning the November 4 election, Obama unofficially used what experts call "track two" discussions to approach America's two foes in the region.
As the man puts it,
Any meetings that happened between November and the inauguration - that was merely Obama circumventing and potentially undermining a sitting Commander In Chief. But the stuff that happened before the election - that's egregious. Remember that Obama's main line of attack on Bush and McCain was that they weren't offering sufficient "strong carrots" to get Iran and Syria to change course. While he was launching those attacks, his surrogates were sitting down with those cretins and talking about all the extra concessions they could expect if they dragged their feet until Obama's inauguration. Some people might consider that a straightforward betrayal of US interests.
Yeah.

And Pres. Hopeychangeypants and his promises to end rendition? Not so much:
Now that the L.A. Times reports that rendition will continue during the Obama administration, Human Rights Watch has apparently altered its position. According to Tom Malinowski, the organization’s “Washington advocacy director,” the risk of torture and other abuses does not mandate the prophylactic cessation of rendition.
Remember the people, during the campaign, saying "Don't lie so openly to us, it makes it hard to keep the faith"? It appears now that the lies are just papered over, now that he's in office.

The 'no lobbyists' promise? Also not so much:
It is easy to project yourself as a clean politician after making your debut in South Side Chicago with buddies like Rahm Emanuel. US president Obama has appointed more than 17 lobbyists after talking big on anti-lobbyist Governance and rooting corruption out of the American Government.

The Prime Minister of Turkey seems to be something of a standard-issue Jew hater.

James Hansen of NASA, globular warmering screamer extraordinaire, gets slapped down. By his boss:
As Chief of several NASA Hq. Programs (1982-94), an SES position, I was responsible for all weather and climate research in the entire agency, including the research work by James Hansen, Roy Spencer, Joanne Simpson, and several hundred other scientists at NASA field centers, in academia, and in the private sector who worked on climate research. ...

[James Hansen] was never muzzled even though he violated NASA's official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind's effect on it). He thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress.

My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit. Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy.

Obama: Like Jimmy Carter(Without The Sweaters).

Local cops want to be allowed to jam cell signals. This is one of those "Aw, crap" things. I can see, under very limited circumstances(around a suspected bomb, in a jail or prison), allowing this. As a general thing? BIG problems there. And, like SWAT teams and no-knock warrants, if you give this authority you KNOW, without question, that it will wind up being abused.

Dirtbag Commie Ward Churchill wants his job back. And gets the description "In retirement, he's starting to look a lot like Michael Moore," which, considering their viewpoints, doesn't seem a surprise.

'Reporter' Ed Laskos is a bigot. And a truly sorry excuse for a reporter.

Bush hatred and Obama euphoria, two parts of the same religion.

The Stupid Party wouldn't help a guy running against Waxman, who's one of the biggest socialist moonbats out there. Although I'd argue with the line Yet again, I blame the conservative movement and the Republican Party for writing off Hollywood completely.; I'd guess a lot of conservatives probably backed him and liked the idea of him running; but the bigshots of the Stupid Party really are stupid, and they can pretty much control giving help to someone like this.

This guy says we probably don't have to worry much about Obama pushing gun and ammo bans and restrictions. Problem is, while he may not push them personally, he can behind-the-scenes encourage them. And if one made it to his desk, I have no doubt he'd sign it.

Damn, I need to do some things outside while it's nice. See you later

The Governor of Oklahoma has been studying at the alter

of President The Obama, it seems. He gave his State of the State address this afternoon at the opening of the session. Following my usual practice I turned the radio off for most of it, but when I turned the volume up a couple of times to see if he was done, I caught two things:
First, lots of pushing for the state to basically take over health care. He didn't put it that bluntly, but that's what it seemed to boil down to.
Second, you can tell that Republicans have majorities in both Houses as he(D) called for 'an end to partisanship, and said(can't remember the exact words)"You can do things that get the approval of bloggers and talk radio, or you can do what's good for the state."

Governor, if by chance you or one of your flunkies reads this: As you can tell, I'm a blogger, and your slimy insinuation that I do not care what's good for the state is disgusting. There's a guy named Shannon who has an afternoon show on KTOK; your insinuation that he doesn't care about what's good for Oklahoma is equally disgusting. I don't agree with everything he says any more than I agree 100% with Rush or Glenn Beck, but he's saying what he thinks, and a lot of people do agree with him(them) on a lot of things. We've got to put up with the President trying to silence dissent, we don't need to have to put up with it from you. And that bit of crap you threw out has gained a 'Idiot Politicians' tag on this post.

Yeah, I believe he means it;

and the unicorn is going to poop out $20 gold pieces on my front step overnight:
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs characterized the gap between Wall Street compensation and Main Street hardship as "outrageous." President Obama topped him with "shameful" and "the height of irresponsibility."

The president said, "Part of what we're going to need is for folks on Wall Street who are asking for help to show some restraint and show some discipline and show some responsibility."
Really?
New York's Charles Rangel and five other Democratic members of the House enjoyed a trip to the Caribbean sponsored in part by Citigroup (see above) in November - after Congress had approved the $700 bailout for financial firms (including Citigroup).

The members no doubt will object to the terms "junket," but that shoe fits. The National Legal and Policy Center, a watchdog group, has asked Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to investigate the Nov. 6-9 excursion to the island of St. Maarten.

It was called the Caribbean Multi-Cultural Business Conference, but "the primary purpose ... for most participants appeared to be to take a vacation," said the NLPC. And not only was the timing lousy, but "corporate sponsorship of such an event was banned by House rules adopted on March 1, 2007, in response to the (lobbyist Jack) Abramoff scandal," the group pointed out.
Think anything'll be done about it? Me neither. After all, they're wanting to put this tax cheat into high office, too:
“Make no mistake, tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter. ” Sen. Tom Daschle, Congressional Record, May 7, 1998, p. S4507.

It takes a proverb...

As grad student experts have long taught us, Western culture is quick to marginalize and devalue knowledge from the "Other." For example, look at the recent ridicule aimed at the "Egg of Power" sculpture President Obama keeps in the Oval Office. There is a disturbing hint of racism to the ridicule, because that sculpture happens to refer to a traditional proverb that comes from, depending on how you Google it, either Kenya or a 1993 Hallmark Kwanzaa card. Would these critics be so cavalier in their snickering if the president had brought some traditional white art, like a Successories poster or replica Harry Potter wand?
...
"Beware the eye of the tiger, for he is a survivor, and he knows many power ballads."
Mulleti

"Give a man a fish, he will eat today. Promise a man a million fish, he will contribute heap big wampum to your tribal election campaign fund."
Iroquois

"While the polar bear bickers with the seal, that fat asshole walrus snarfs all the fish."
Inuit
And so on. Go, now. Or you'll regret it

I now officially despise Daschle even more than before,

which I hadn't thought possible. And I can't distrust Pres. The Obama any more than I already did, but my contempt is growing. From the comments:
Daschle may have other tax problems with some other benefits.

Daschle will have to RE-amend his tax returns because he forgot to pay all of his MEDICARE taxes!

Daschle waited six months to amend his tax returns (after he was picked for the nomination).

Smells, smells very bad.
I'll have to disagree with the description: it doesn't 'smell very bad', it flat-out effing STINKS! This clown didn't bother with paying his taxes on this stuff until he was picked for this post, and then he STILL didn't pay all of them(just like our tax-cheat head of the Treasury), and apparently he's STILL trying to get away with skipping on some of them. And Obama & Co. keep saying it's not a 'real problem' and he should get the post.

He should get the same treatment anybody else would, which would include an IRS enema and back-taxes and penalties and interest. AND being told he has no damn business handling our money because he cannot be trusted. How do regular peasants get treated?
And how did the Daschles' get a penalty waiver? How, how, how...

Don't get me started. I have to deposit payroll taxes weekly online through my bank.

I got hit with a 10% late deposit penalty after mistakenly clicked the last day of the following month instead of the last day of current month.

I sent the IRS a letter with the documentation to prove it along with 1% interest.

On Friday I got the response. "Sorry, we can't waive the penalty because although you show it was not wilfull, you have not shown reasonable cause. You still owe $700 for the penalty."

But there's Hope and Change! with the new form:
Well, I'm doing my taxes on the new 1040dem form this year. It's even easier than the 1040EZ, the only IRS form that can be filled out with a crayon. With the 1040dem, you just take the form, wad it up, and throw it away. One caveat: you have to fill out a Schedule OOPS if you ever get nominated for a high visibility position.