This goes beyond 'Sorry excuses for lawmen' and into

'Disgusting bastards who should be in prison'.
Remember the man who was killed by police because he tried to drive away when a bunch of guys in plain clothes and masks jumped out of an unmarked vehicle with guns? And was then accused of various things that had to be dropped? It gets even worse.

Ignore the idiot way this arrest was attempted; ignore the malice of the lies thrown at the dead man to exonerate the cops of their responsibility in his death; get this:
District Attorney Brian Rickman praised the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for going to "very extraordinary lengths" to insure the investigation into the shooting was fair. But Abigail Ayers' civil suit (PDF) calls that assessment into question. The complaint alleges that Officer Harrison, the cop who shot Ayers, wasn't even authorized to arrest him. On the day Ayers was killed, Harrison had yet to take a series of firearms training classes required for his certification as a police officer. More astonishing, Harrison apparently had no training at all in the use of lethal force.

These allegations have since been confirmed by local TV station WSBTV and, after the fact, by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Despite the fact that Harrison had killed a man suspected of no crime months earlier without having undergone lethal-force training and certification, the officer was still carrying his badge and gun up until the time of the WSBTV report. Once the publicity hit, Harrison was suspended. Abigail Ayers' civil suit also alleges prior disciplinary problems with both officers Oxner and Harrison, including alleged drug use.
You, as a plain old citizen, carry without getting permission from the state and kill someone in unquestioned self-defense and they'll put you in prison for not having a permit; this bastard was not a certified officer, had NO privilege to carry a badge at all let alone take part in a mess like this AND THEY LET HIM KEEP CARRYING A BADGE AND GUN AFTER HIS KILLING OF AYERS. I'm going to borrow this bit from Balko's post:
...That a police officer untrained in the use of lethal force and unqualified to be holding a badge and gun was put on a narcotics task force, and then placed in a position where he was able to shoot and kill a non-suspect is worse. But the kicker has to be that the subsequent police-led investigations of this high-profile case failed to turn up such a critical piece of information. It ought to cast more doubt on the already dubious notion that police shootings should only be investigated by other police officers.
Once upon a time I didn't like the idea of non-cops being involved in investigations of LE shootings; I've grown up a lot since that time(I used to trust the FBI to be always professional and fair, too).

All you people who just couldn't wait to vote for the first black President

and liked the 'hope and change' bull, how's that working out for you?
The White House is considering whether to detain international terrorism suspects at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, senior U.S. officials said, an option that would lead to another prison with the same purpose as Guantanamo Bay, which it has promised to close.

The idea, which would require approval by President Obama, already has drawn resistance from within the government. Army Gen. Stanley A. McCrystal, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and other senior officials strongly oppose it, fearing that expansion of the U.S. detention facility at Bagram air base could make the job of stabilizing the country even tougher.

That the option of detaining suspects captured outside Afghanistan at Bagram is being contemplated reflects a recognition by the Obama administration that it has few other places to hold and interrogate foreign prisoners without giving them access to the U.S. court system, the officials said.
"I will close Guananamo!(but open a different prison in another country, because who knew there would be actual problems with closing Gitmo?)

In one case last year, U.S. special operations forces killed an Al Qaeda-linked suspect named Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan in a helicopter attack in southern Somalia rather than trying to capture him, a U.S. official said. Officials had debated trying to take him alive but decided against doing so in part because of uncertainty over where to hold him, the official added.

U.S. officials find such options unappealing for handling suspects they want to question but lack the evidence to prosecute. For such suspects, a facility such as Bagram, north of Kabul, remains necessary, officials said, even as they acknowledged that having it in Afghanistan could complicate McCrystal's mission.

"No one particularly likes any of the choices before us right now, but Bagram may be the least bad among them," a senior Defense official said.
This is one of the end results of Obama & Holder & Co. trying to play "Terrorists and illegal combatants are just muggers writ large and get a civil trial."

Speaking of AG Eric Holder,
Byron York notes that the Department of Justice has delayed today’s appearance of Eric Holder to the Senate Judiciary Committee after a “disastrous” hearing earlier this month. The Attorney General made headlines when he dodged a question regarding the handling of terrorists by claiming that the US would wind up reading Miranda rights to Osama bin Laden’s corpse:

Why? Word is that it’s because of the signing ceremony for the national health care bill, but well-informed Republicans suspect the occasion may also have given Democrats an opportunity to put off what could turn into another embarrassing performance by the attorney general.

...
A source on Capitol Hill confirmed to me that the White House used the ObamaCare signing as their reason to postpone Holder’s appearance at Judiciary. However, the real reason could be a series of embarrassing admissions in a submission to the committee from the DoJ. Judiciary had asked for answers on the oft-claimed “hundreds” of terrorists tried in the federal court system, as well as an explanation of how the federal court system can protect national-security information as well as military commissions. According to this source, the DoJ’s answers confirm exactly what had been suspected — that Holder has not been telling the truth on either point:

In responses submitted to the Judiciary Committee this afternoon, the Department of Justice concedes that military commission trials have better safeguards for protecting classified national security information from leaks than civilian criminal trials. Although Attorney General Holder has repeatedly testified that civilian criminal trials are just as effective as military commission trials in protecting classified information, even stating that classified information protections in the Military Commissions Act were modeled on the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) used in federal courts, the responses received today (see pp. 29-32) tell a different story. They acknowledge that the MCA’s classified information protections are better than what is available in federal criminal courts. In fact, the responses explain how the military commission rules improved upon the civilian criminal rules “to take into account lessons learned in terrorism cases in federal court.” The Department’s submission to the Committee then details 7 categories of “key differences” between the classified information protections in military commission trials that are not similarly present in the federal criminal law.

Translation: Holder lied, got caught, and doesn't want to get caught lying again. Wonderful guy you appointed and your tame Senate passed, Obama.

The gentleman at Eternity Road has a good thought:

Let them know fear. I'd add 'disgust'. One of his suggestions is a lot less messy than the things that came to mind:
It is therefore important to remember that the congressmen who vote regularly to usurp the rights of the people against their will are also members of our communities. They must be cast out.

If they choose to associate with the thieves in Washington D.C. and vote the wealth of the people to be given to themselves, then they choose to stay there. They are no longer welcome among us.

If they choose to tar their opponents as racists or shut down protests against their betrayals, then they choose to forfeit their own rights to speak. Any media that grant them interviews should be boycotted, any appearance they make should be disrupted by peaceful, but loud protest. If they will not listen to the people speak, then the people must ensure they may not speak either.
One of the things that's annoyed hell out of me for years has been the deference shown to politicians; somebody gets introduced as Rep. Foghorn or Senator Jackass and far too many people damn near literally kiss their ass. It's given them far to high an opinion of themselves; they need to be reminded that they're hired help. As the past while has demonstrated they've far too often become corrupt and/or incompetent hired help, but hired help nonetheless. AND THEY NEED TO BE REMINDED OF IT.

One of the bastards who sold you out smiles and holds out his hand, tell him you just washed. He starts to lecture you, tell him you don't take lectures from crooked hired hands. Yeah, people around him will bitch and whine and threaten: their own sense of importance is tied in to people bowing down to The Rep. or The Senator. Tough shit. Don't let them get away with it. They're on an interview show, call in and make the point that they weren't sent there to sell out for some appointment or other federal job, and don't let them talk around it.

And if you can, record it, and post it. Make sure word gets around, so every time the bastard tries to weasel-word or threaten, everybody and their grandma can watch or listen to it.

That's what comes to mind for me. On the less messy side.

By the way, if the IRS thinks people are pissed at them NOW, and say nasty things,

just wait till they're the enforcers for Obamacare; THEN they'll hear and get nasty.

I seem to be turning into a test & report site

I wrote to Remington about the inconsistency of some of the .22 ammo lately, and they, unlike S&W, replied. Sent a shipping label & instructions to return the stuff for testing.

We'll see what they find.

Couple of years back the tailgate handle on my truck broke,

and being unwilling to give Ford $50+tax for this piece of molded plastic and two screws, I repaired it. Well, last night the damn thing broke again. In a different place; my fix is still solid.

So I did some browsing around, and found a place that has a STEEL replacement, that with shipping is going to be about $32 less than the PLASTIC Ford part.

You know, I'd like to know what moron decided that making this part out of plastic was a good idea: "We can save two or three cents each this way! And then screw the customer when it breaks and he needs a new one!"

And, since I'm bitching about plastic, Sig and their Trailside magazines. Damn things are molded polymer, the only steel in them is the spring, and they cost more than premium 1911 magazines. No reason for that.

Oh yeah, I'm pissed

At the open socialists and the useful idiots in the house- in the case of Stupak more like 'useful backstabbers'- who thought they could pretend to hold to what the people who vote tell them while simultaneously kissing Pelosi and Obama ass. Oh yeah, I'm pissed.

These people better be very happy we're not the people they lie about us being; if we were, there would already be broken windows and broken bones. Maybe a few bodies.

We're not going to forget you, not any single one of you God-damned betrayers. You liars.

I'm leaning toward that line from Next of Kin: "You ain't seen trouble yet; but it's comin'."


Oh, and anybody who thinks calling them socialists is mean, or wrong? The RWPP Sharpton let the cat out, so they've admitted exactly what they are.

I'm taking a detour from politics so I don't destroy my digestion

to look at something really interesting:
Researchers at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), which is the research and development arm of the Ministry of Defence, claim it is possible to incorporate material known as supercapacitors into armour of a vehicle to turn it into a kind of giant battery.

When a threat from incoming fire is detected by the vehicle, the energy stored in the supercapacitor can be rapidly dumped onto the metal plating on the outside of the vehicle, producing a strong electromagnetic field.

Scientists behind the project claim this would produce a momentary "force field" capable of repelling the incoming rounds and projectiles.
So in best case(I'm thinking) the field could deflect, say, an RPG round so it misses, or- actually also a best case- fry the fuse so it won't fire, which means dud bouncing off the armor. Very nice idea.

According to Ace, Rep. Stupak(Sorry Whore) has found his price

and sold out.

Fuck the tar and feathers, let's just go straight to ropes when they come out.

And they have to come out eventually.

I'm not all that fond of Theodore Roosevelt, but

he did have some interesting things to say. For instance, contrast what he said with what Obama's administration is doing:

“I believe that a man must be a good patriot before he can be, and as the only possible way of being, a good citizen of the world. Experience teaches us that the average man who protests that his international feeling swamps his national feeling, that he does not care for his country because he cares so much for mankind, in actual practice proves himself the foe of mankind; that the man who says that he does not care to be a citizen of any one country, because he is the citizen of the world, is in fact usually and exceedingly undesirable citizen of whatever corner of the world he happens at the moment to be in. In the dim future all moral needs and moral standards may change; but at present, if a man can view his own country and all others countries from the same level with tepid indifference, it is wise to distrust him, just as it is wise to distrust the man who can take the same dispassionate view of his wife and mother. However broad and deep a man’s sympathies, however intense his activities, he need have no fear that they will be cramped by love of his native land.”–Teddy Roosevelt

Ed Morrissey:

Army Times: The Obama administration says flying the flag could give Haiti the wrong idea.

“We are not here as an occupation force, but as an international partner committed to supporting the government of Haiti on the road to recovery,” the U.S. government’s Haiti Joint Information Center said in response to a query about the flag.

In the immediate aftermath of the quake and our initial response, France accused the US of conducting a de facto “occupation” of Haiti. Not surprisingly, Venezuela and Nicaragua followed suit. Ironically, the French don’t seem terribly concerned with flying their flag over Haiti despite their status as its original colonizer.

The decision not to fly the flag is an embarrassment of weakness on the part of Obama. Our nation has conducted relief efforts for decades through our military, saving millions of people from death, disease, and starvation. Like France, Britain, and Croatia, we have flown our flag during those operations not to note occupation but to represent the American people’s solidarity with those suffering from disaster. That historical record is answer itself to the lunatics in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and even France who indulge in paranoid hysteria.

Fly the flag, Mr. President. Let our actions speak for themselves, but demonstrate that we aren’t ashamed to arrive anywhere in the world with that flag flying proudly.

I just made the mistake of turning on channel 13,

the local PBS station, and found that they're doing one of their fundraising weeks.*

Again.

And my timing brought it up in the middle of some doctor whose answer for almost every ill is diet. As in "Meat is bad. Chicken is bad. Fish is bad. Olive oil is bad. Be vegetarian at least, preferably vegan and your health will be wonderful."

The knowledge that money is being taken out of my pocket in taxes to pay for this propaganda just makes the knowledge that the House Soviet is voting to try to steal the rest of my life even more of a pissed-off thing.


*"Yes, we get tax money, but we want even more, so we'll spend a week selling overpriced crap to try to guilt you into giving it to us."

On the 'breaking windows' post,

Stormbringer has this to say, with arguing in the comments.

This whole thing keeps percolating in the back of my mind. I've got a pretty good idea what the media and the socialists in DC(and some state capitals) will say and do if it begins; as the previous post on the 'racism' accusation notes much of the major media has no problem lying about anyone who defies The Obama and his minions so we'll never get a fair shake there. And considering the number of crapweasels meeting in DC today to vote who apparently don't care if they get reelected so long as they shove this down our throats- combined with the corrupting influence of being in DC- I don't know as the elections in November will really help; even if you replace every boob who votes 'yes' AND every boob you suspect of voting 'no' only because he got permission from Pelosi, trying to dump this socialized medicine scheme may be damn near impossible(see 'corrupt media' and 'corrupt politicians' above). So is there anything left, short of breaking things, that just might cause these people to understand just how far over the line they've gone?

Guys, I don't want to start breaking windows; I hate the thought of it. I also hate the thought of the bastards in DC and their little minions who've decided that they're privileged to order my life for me no matter what I think. I keep coming back to "Where's the Line? How do I know it's beyond words and demonstrations and we need to DO something?"

One of the things that most distresses me in this shit is that I've come to have a great lack of trust and confidence in our law enforcement and justice system. Far too many who carry the badge will carry out orders they know are in violation of the Constitution because they're more worried about getting yelled at by their supervisor or fired than damaging or destroying someones life; too many in the federal levels will carry out those illegal orders because they know the System will protect them, just like it protected Horiuchi. And too many of the politicians we used to have trust in have become so corrupted that we just cannot trust them AT ALL.

Remember the screaming by Stupid Party politicians when that crooked Representative's office was searched by the FBI? Proper search warrant, actual corruption investigation, and these bastards screaming that THEIR offices cannot be searched, No Sir! WE are special, WE are not like some commoner whose office and home can be searched! Do these idiots have any idea, any at all, just how many people said 'Screw these clowns' and walked away from the Stupid Party over that final straw? Do they even bleeping CARE?

Speaking of the Stupid Party, it's headed by that moron Steele. Who decided to announce that the criticism of some of his actions was based on his being black. Think he has any idea how many people he pissed off? How much he damaged that party? Does he actually care?

The Evil Party most of us have just flat given up on. It's dominated by people like Pelosi and Obama and his little terrorist and communist friends and the unions who collectively don't give a rats shaved ass for what ANYBODY thinks, so long as they have power; it'd take the equivalent of a Magnitude 9.8 quake to make any real change there.

Folks, I don't have any solid conclusion. Just that while I'd much rather get their attention more gently part of me really thinks we ought to be warming up the tar right now- hell, should have a roofers trailer already heated up and sitting in front of the House with a trailer full of pillows next to it, waiting for them to come out.

Some of the signs in pictures at Malkin's place:

Party like it's 1773
Reduce your government footprint
and my favorite,
You can't fix stupid, but you can vote it out

The other day, commenting on the TEA party post,

Marty mentioned reports of racist comments being thrown at a politician. My first thought was '5'll get you 20 it's bullshit', and sure enough,
A CNN reporter, yes, CNN, the home of the infamous Susan Rosegen, claimed to have heard racist slurs and shouts; other bloggers picked it up. I mean, if you’re going to smear a group of people by claiming that they were shouting slurs, perhaps make sure you don’t post video that completely refutes your claim and makes you look like a race hustler. Just saying.
Yep, our professional DC-whore major media doing what it seems to do as a specialty: smearing people with crap for the offense of not kissing up to the 'right' politicians.

Oh, CNN? We'll remember; just like we'll remember who voted what this day. And we won't forgive.

Bit of a roundup on this at Insty

I should mention that an amazing thing happened

I found the lost knife. Which is bloody shocking, usually something like that disappears it's gone forever.

Of course, it was found after I'd ordered and received a similar one. The new one has the Auto-Lawk, which I don't like, but I figured out how to disconnect the Auto and make it a manual, so I've got a spare.

First day of spring

Bah, humbugThere's apparently enough residual heat in the ground that the streets, where there's traffic, are mostly just wet. So far, gauging from the plants,
I'm guessing there's been about three inches. And right now the birds outside are cheeping and bitching, I think asking "Why isn't the place
open?!"

And Gerry? Don't worry, the Algore Syndrome will get around to you.

A thought occurs (shut up, Og)

Since the Obamites are planning on the IRS enforcing Obamacare, seizing refunds and so forth, how's this:
Everybody reduces their withholding to zero.
Take what was being held before and stick it in a savings account or something.
Comes tax time, figure your taxes and pay it all MINUS the Obamacare levy.
Why would I come up with such an idea?
*IRS agents verify if you have “acceptable” health care coverage;

* IRS has the authority to fine you up to $2,250 or 2 percent of your income (whichever is greater) for failure to prove that you have purchased “minimum essential coverage;”

* IRS can confiscate your tax refund;

* IRS audits are likely to increase;

* IRS will need up to $10 billion to administer the new health care program this decade;

* IRS may need to hire as many as 16,500 additional auditors, agents and other employees to investigate and collect billions in new taxes from Americans; and

* Nearly half of all these new individual mandate taxes will be paid by Americans earning less than 300 percent of poverty ($66,150 for a family of four.)

Yes, it would be a monumental risk; yes, the threat for the IRS/Obama weenies to make examples would be high; considering how screwed we are if this goes through... if, oh, a few million people all did something like this, and all made sure to tell EVERYBODY about it, it'd sure make life interesting for the minions of Obama, wouldn't it?

Among other things from today's TEA party,

Found at Tigerhawk

And for all the other people sick of the 'Twilight' crap,

Found here by daughter

Theo points to, among other things, a post at Sipsey Street

you might want to look at.

One of my nightmares in this whole pile of crap is the Line: nobody wants to go to the violence level, even breaking windows, unless that's actually what it'll take, but what if you wait too long and it's too late for some shattered glass to get the message across?

We've got people in high positions in the the government openly planning- hell, carrying out- the violation of their oath of office, openly breaking the highest Law of the Land; we've hit the point of asking "Is there ANYTHING short of a violent act- like breaking their windows- that they'll actually pay attention to?"

The other side? Some of these bastards would actually welcome it, because they could play 'Horrified Victim Of Extremist Violence', and our sorry excuses for reporters in the major media would play it up("Screw honest reporting, we have an agenda to push!"). Nancy Pelosi actually went on video talking about 'praying* to Saint John for help passing this law', you think she'd have a problem playing victim and martyr? As Oleg Volk says in his comment at Sipsey,
Seems like a bad idea to me. The legal proceedings would tie up our own resources, time and attention. It would look like plain hooliganism and the political message would get lost in the noise of the media coverage. Doing a light injury to the enemy and then standing to receive the return volley seems unwise to me.

We've got bastards of whom this isn't even a cartoon,
it's reality; any wonder a lot of people are at the point of deciding to break things, just in the hope of making these clowns pay attention?


*in her case it would be more of 'preying on', wouldn't it?

If Bush had done something like this,

the major media would be having purple kittens with pink spots on live camera; have the bastards said one damned word about Obama doing this?

The White House Office of Health Reform Director Nancy-Ann DeParle has been feverishly sending out unsolicited email messages to federal employees in an effort to build support for President Barack Obama’s health reform package over the last several weeks.

DeParle’s unsolicited emails have been regularly coming to some federal employees’ official government email inboxes for weeks without permission or request, causing some federal employees to feel threatened by the overt political language.

The Department of State employees, who receive hundreds of official government emails every day, have complained about the annoying and partisan emails but are nervous to go public for fear of retribution. The emails are addressed to the federal employees by name and use the official .gov address.

Nervous to go public? What is this, Venezuela?The unsolicited emails also request that the federal employees take action in order to ensure that Obama’s health reform package is passes and the federal budget isn’t at risk for bankruptcy. One federal employee was so concerned about DeParle’s language in one email that he questioned whether his department’s budget would be cut or eliminated without passage of Obama’s bill. DeParle uses scare tactics that some assume are meant as threats:

“No ifs, ands or buts about it -- if we do nothing to reform our broken health care system, costs will continue to skyrocket and break the budgets of American families, small businesses and the Federal Government,” read the March 12th email from DeParle.

But should federal employees be subjected to partisan propaganda? What precedent does it send for the White House to use the federal work force for their partisan agenda? And shouldn’t we let State Department federal workers concentrate on pressing issues like the Israeli-Palestinian issue or the Iranian nuclear weapons issue? Why would Department of Transportation employees have to worry about forwarding The White House’s partisan emails to their address books?

Note to police: if someone's getting in the way at a crime or arrest scene

and waving a camera around, you may well have reason to arrest them. When they're out of the way, not being a problem, but you just don't like having your picture taken, well, tough crap. If you're not doing something improper, you don't have to worry about it; if you ARE, then knock it off.

Ever notice how a bunch of the "TOTAL SEPARATION

OF CHURCH AND STATE!!!" screamers don't mind playing religious when it suits their ends? Even if they can't keep the days straight?

One thing that's always rather pissed me off is the insistence of so many on the left and so many of the "Leave my body alone!" feminists that somehow 'leaving laws off their bodies' includes "You have to pay for my abortion!" Absolute bullshit; you want my money to do something, I have something to say about it. Including saying "Dumbass, there are ways to avoid getting pregnant; if you're too stupid, lazy or uncontrolled to use them, stop insisting I pay for your stupidity." Another is the absolute nutcase-level hysteria shown if somebody mentions their religious beliefs, but the total willingness- like Pelosi- to drag their own supposed beliefs out like this.

I say 'supposed' because, from past words and actions combined with this, I don't think she believes, in anything other than a "This makes me feel good so it must be holy" bullcrap way.

On this beginning of spring

it seems Ma Nature didn't get the message.
Today: Snow and areas of blowing snow. High near 32. Windy, with a north northwest wind between 25 and 28 mph, with gusts as high as 39 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. Total daytime snow accumulation of 3 to 7 inches possible.

Tonight: Areas of blowing snow and a chance of snow. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 28. Windy, with a north northwest wind between 23 and 26 mph, with gusts as high as 37 mph. Chance of precipitation is 50%. New snow accumulation of less than one inch possible.

On the 'This is friggin' wonderful' front,

a hand-pump operated device for helping wound healing

You ever think about the flow of things like this? Somebody had a thought to try putting a partial vacuum over a wound, which led to the first devices, which led to better ones, and somebody had a thought which led to this.

Thanks to Insty

Something to read. Now.

And damn our 'professional media' for not making sure EVERYONE has heard about this

Among the reasons I tend to admire the Jewish people

Pre-war Vilnius was about one third Jewish and it had long been a center of Jewish scholarship and life; it had been the most vibrant center of Zionism in the Russian empire. Roughly two hundred thousand Jews perished in the next four years. They were driven out of town and shot in rows in the fields; they were clubbed down in the streets and burned alive in buildings; they were tortured and murdered in the old KGB prison; they were deported and gassed. The diminishing band of Jewish survivors huddled together in the ghetto did their best to keep their culture and their traditions alive; they organized a lending library which celebrated a milestone in December 1942 when the 100,000th book was checked out.

Among the reasons I despise those who make excuses for the Soviets and other communists,
As was the case in so many other countries overrun by the reds, priests, nuns, students and intellectuals faced especial brutality. Today the solitary confinement cells, the cells where prisoners were forced to stand in icy water and beaten brutally when they fell, the holding cells for the condemned and the execution ground are all open for visitors. Garish and clunky Soviet high tech phones and communications devices are still in the guardrooms; there are bags full of shredded documents left by the KGB in its rush to abandon the building as the USSR fell apart in 1990.

Standing in the cellar of the KGB prison, admiring the ingenuously designed torture cells, retracing the final steps of the prisoners on their journey from the condemned cells to the execution yard, it’s impossible not to think of Vladimir Putin bemoaning the fall of the Soviet Union as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century. Putin made his career in the same KGB that murdered and tortured for decades in Lithuania and its neighboring republics; the longing for the good old days must sometimes grow unspeakable.

And among the reasons I dislike the hell out of a bunch of the clowns in this administration:
Granted, Israel blundered by announcing the new housing while Biden was visiting, but Netanyahu has repeatedly apologized for what he said was an inadvertent slight. In November, Netanyahu agreed to a 10-month moratorium on construction in the West Bank but pointedly excluded East Jerusalem. That was hailed by U.S. special envoy George Mitchell as a "positive development." Now it's an insult. Again: Why?

Two press leaks may illuminate administration thinking. First, in July 2009, President Obama reportedly told Jewish leaders at the White House that it was important to put some "space" between the U.S. and Israel to "change the way the Arabs see us." Then an Israeli newspaper claimed that in a private meeting, Biden told Netanyahu that Israeli settlements were "dangerous for us": "What you're doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace."

I can't vouch for the authenticity of those quotes (the second one has been denied by the administration). But in spirit they ring true. They indicate a mind-set that holds that Israeli settlements are the primary obstacle to peace and that an Israeli-Palestinian accord is necessary to defeat the broader terrorist movement.

Two sides of law enforcement:

the incompetent and stupid:
CHICAGO (AP) — A suburban police department left behind a roomful of evidence when it closed two years ago — including a moldy sexual assault kit that authorities said linked a man to the 2006 rape of a 13-year-old girl, nearly 200 guns and hundreds of bags of narcotics, officials said Friday.

In all, seven rape kits had been left rotting in an unplugged refrigerator in the former Ford Heights Police Department, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said. The guns had not been registered with the state as having been seized by police, and Dart's spokesman Steve Patterson said none of the DNA evidence found matches anyone in the state's database.

"You're not talking about ineptness, neglect, you're talking about outrageous conduct of a police department that didn't care about the residents out there," Dart said.

And the 'This job can be downright dangerous':
First, a natural gas pipe was shoved through a hole drilled into the roof of the gang enforcement unit's headquarters. The building filled with flammable vapor but an officer smelled the danger before anyone was hurt.

"It would have taken out half a city block," Capt. Tony Marghis said.

Then, a ballistic contraption was attached to a sliding security fence around the building. An officer opening the black steel gate triggered the mechanism, which sent a bullet within eight inches of his face.

In another attempted booby trap attack, some kind of explosive device was attached to a police officer's unmarked car while he went into a convenience store.

"There's a person or people out there, a bunch of idiots, trying to do damage to us," Hemet Police Chief Richard Dana said. "We can't expect our luck to hold up, we need help."
Be interesting to see who turns out to be behind this. And I hope they find out before the bad guys get lucky.

Just heard a story on the radio about the 'crackdown' in El Paso

on drug gangs after the murders of some Consulate people a few days ago. It's supposed to send a message.

The message is "You kill State Department people and we'll get nasty! So just keep killing and kidnapping and raping the locals, and we won't bother you so much."

God-damned bureacrats politicians and politicians with badges.

"Dammit, I don't care if you voted for me, you calling me again (link fixed)

is harassment! And I'll report you!"

These clowns need to be thrown out of those offices they've become so comfortable in.

In the 'Disney Syndrome Takes Another Victim' category, we have two

both from Tam. First, on the jumpy side, a jogger gets his bell rung by a kangaroo.
Mr Striegl was knocked unconscious and remembers little about the attack...
Yeah, unconsciousness kind of messes with your memory of the event.

Second, on the toothy side,
Wolves in Alaska are suspected of killing a teacher in an isolated village while she was out jogging.

An autopsy has revealed that Candice Berner, 32, died of injuries sustained in an animal attack, officials said.

Her body was dragged off a rural road, leaving a bloody track, into the nearby bush and was surrounded by wolf tracks.
To borrow Tam's words, "What I want to know is how come the same person who would never walk alone through a dark alley in New York City will go and "experience" the wilderness by themselves without so much as a dull butter knife to their name. I've got news for you, hippie: If you live in the backwoods of Alaska, once you step out your front door, you are no longer the top link on the food chain."
Guy I used to know was in the Air Force for 23 years, and spent two at a base somewhere the hell out in Alaska. At that time he said in winter there were two big rules: going outside the fence alone was a court-martial offense(you could die from a broken ankle before they could find you), and NO group went outside the fence without at least one member being armed: the top of the food chain in the area was big, hairy and considered anything it could catch as food. And the people who ran the base didn't have any Disney-fied illusions about it.

As to the belief "If I'm not threatening, the animals won't bother me", Peter Capstick once wrote that upon being told by a hunter that "I don't believe in curses", one of the locals who'd warned him about a local witch doctor informed him that he didn't have to believe in it for the curse to work; doesn't matter how much you believe in the sweet furry friendly animals if one decides you look tasty or he just doesn't like the way you part your hair.

Added: just because someone left it at Og's place:

While waiting for the front to arrive, I've found some

fine examples of petty bullcrap and incompetence:
Incompetence:A computer database glitch has sent police to the home of an elderly Brooklyn couple more than 50 times since 2002, sheepish cops admitted today.

Walter and Rose Martin endured the most recent raid on Tuesday, when four cops showed up looking for a suspect. Two officers broke a window in the back of their Marine Park home.

Police are still investigating why the couples’ address shows up in their database when some suspects’ names are keyed in.

But they’ve flagged the Martins’ address, and say the couple shouldn’t get any more visits from cops.
NOBODY remembered the problem? NOBODY thought "Hmmm, we've gone there in error before, maybe we should check this out"? Computer glitch my ass.


Petty bullcrap: Since taking office, Obama has refused to approve any major Israeli requests for U.S. weapons platforms or advanced systems. Officials said this included proposed Israeli procurement of AH-64D Apache attack helicopters, refueling systems, advanced munitions and data on a stealth variant of the F-15E.

"All signs indicate that this will continue in 2010," a congressional source familiar with the Israeli military requests said. "This is really an embargo, but nobody talks about it publicly."
Absolute effing disgusting bullshit. Actually, this shouldn't be marked as bullcrap, this is active malice.


Speaking of active malice, Sen. Linsay Grahamnesty(Stupid Party Backstabber-SC) and Sen. Charles Schumer(Evil Party Camera Chaser-NY) want to force us to carry a national ID AND open us up to illegal aliens. Both should be among the first to hit the tar barrel.


"The Republicans did it too!" my ass:
Every legislative bill for which the House has used a self-executing rule in the past has already been considered, debated, voted on, and passed by the House.

In all uses of a self-executing rule, the House has never “deemed” as passed a bill on which it has not yet voted, but rather uses “deem and pass” in order to expedite passage of the Conference Report for a bill that has passed both House and Senate.

Thus, in all such cases, the Congressional record will show the results of the consideration of the bill. What is being “deemed” is merely that bill, as amended in Conference.
This "We don't have the balls to actually vote on this" cowardice is squarely the Democrats own piece of shit. And it needs to be smeared all over them.
AND the bastards are playing word games with the possibility of doing the same crap on immigration. Hell with tar & feathers, maybe we should go straight to ropes.


I'm going to close this with two things: first, the increase in IRS powers this Obamacare crap would hand out:
House Republicans said Thursday that the health care overhaul will expand IRS authority by giving agents the power to verify acceptable health care coverage and fine or confiscate the tax refunds of Americans without coverage.

Republican members of the House Ways and Means Committee, a panel that oversees taxes and health issues, also charged that IRS audits will likely increase if health care legislation is passed. They added the IRS will require up to $10 billion to administer the new program. They also claimed the IRS may need to hire 16,500 additional employees.

"This dangerously expands IRS authority," said Representative David Camp, (R., Mich.), the ranking Republican on the Committee on Ways and Means. "Most Americans will find it shocking and troubling."
No bloody kidding.

Last, Big Dick's prediction. If he's right, it'll be the damndest mess since the Brits burned DC. Except they weren't specifically trying to run down and hang politicians. Speaking of whom, would be hiding behind every uniform they could drag in front of them, because they're a bunch of corrupt cowards who don't have the balls to stand up front.

Also, as Kevin has pointed out, if it hits that point this nation may well be screwed; once that starts there's no guarantee it can restore things, or be restrained enough to prevent tremendous damage to what we're trying to save.

This is the first time in about 25 years

that I've not been scrambling around getting things ready for Medieval Fair. Been kind of nice, really, not being under that time pressure. Until today.

Making a piece- a small piece- for a friend, not much hammering at all, and it went pretty well. Until now, a couple of hours later. Now even typing hurts. My hands are so screwed...

Good thing I told them last year 'no more'. I just flat couldn't do it again.

Julia Tarver Mason; a miserable traitorous bitch who compares herself to John Adams

Go read. And about the law firm she works for, who is proud of 'achieving victories for Guantanamo detainees'. Breakables warning in effect.

And I wonder, if she's so effing proud of this, why doesn't she want to talk about it?

No, I don't use the word 'traitorous' lightly; what else would you call someone who does what she does? Including In 2006, Mason was banned from Guantanamo Bay by the base commander and the U.S. Department of Justice for secretly passing on anti-American propaganda and operational detention details to her “client.”

At this point, if I swung that way, I'd want to have Coburn's kids

He's announced that any politician who changes from a 'no' to a 'yes' vote on the Obamacare bill, who retires from/loses his seat and gets appointed to something that has to go through the Senate? He's already told his staff to place a hold on ANY such nomination/appointment.

Link to follow soon as I can find one; he's about to be interviewed on KTOK radio.

Added: here it is, and it's even better than I'd heard:
If you voted no, and you vote yes, and you lose your election, and you think any nomination to a federal post isn’t going to be held up in the Senate, I’ve got news for you. It’s going to be held.

Nymber two is, if you get a parochial deal for you or your district, I’ve already instructed my staff that we will look at every appropriations bill, and we will associate that with the buying of your vote. I want to tell you that your deal isn’t going to happen.

And be prepared to defend selling your vote.”

Yeah, spring's about to sprung...

...WINTER STORM WATCH IN EFFECT FROM SATURDAY MORNING THROUGH
SUNDAY MORNING...

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN NORMAN HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORM
WATCH FROM SATURDAY MORNING THROUGH SUNDAY MORNING FOR HEAVY SNOW
ACROSS PORTIONS OF NORTHERN...WESTERN...AND CENTRAL OKLAHOMA.

* TIMING: EARLY SATURDAY MORNING THROUGH SUNDAY MORNING.

* MAIN IMPACT: HEAVY WET SNOWFALL REDUCING VISIBILITY AND
 ACCUMULATING OVER 4 INCHES IN MANY AREAS...WITH LOCAL AMOUNTS
 OVER 8 INCHES IN NORTHCENTRAL OKLAHOMA.

* OTHER IMPACTS: WIND GUSTS OVER 45 MPH WILL COMBINE WITH
 TEMPERATURES JUST BELOW FREEZING TO PRODUCE WIND CHILLS IN THE
 TEENS.

Have to REALLY stake down that tarp over the peppers.

The sun finally broke through the other day,

and it's sunny this morning. Frosted heavy last night; I covered the stuff in the garden, so hope it's all ok. I'm going to have to keep covering it at night the next few, just to be safe. Especially since they're saying 50% chance of snow and rain Friday night & Saturday.

Now, news stuff: like an idiot prosecutor who apparently didn't have enough to do. And should have been thrown out of office without waiting for the next election. If you can call it that, the only 'good' thing is he was after the girls as well as the boys, so he was a more even-handed jerk than most.


From Michelle Malkin, and we want to give more money to the Mexican government why? Are they actually using it for something related to the problems, or maybe slipping it around to bribe congressmen to push for amnesty*?
A young American consulate worker and her unborn baby were slain this weekend in Mexico, along with her U.S. detention officer husband and the Mexican husband of another consulate worker. The wanton murders appear to have been a coordinated drug cartel hit; the victims had all just left a children’s birthday party in Juarez and were headed across the border back into Texas. The pregnant American official, Lesley Enriquez, is reportedly the first consulate employee to die in drug-related violence since 1985. Her 7-month-old daughter, terrorized by the gunfire while strapped in her car seat, was the lone survivor of the attack.
Yesterday they were claiming it was a case of 'mistaken identity'. Well, that's one way to try to cover it up: "It was just a mistaken-identity multiple murder, so nothing to worry about!"

Yeah. Right. Maybe Holder can come up with something strong to say when he breaks from talking tough about killing bin Laden.


It shouldn't be forgotten, while we're dealing with a corrupt House that wants to pass socialized medicine without actually voting on it, that these bastards are still working to throw our borders open, with dirtbags like Dick Armey in the lead.
“Who in the Republican Party was the genius that said that now that we have identified the fastest-growing voting demographic in America, let’s go out and alienate them?” Armey said, referencing Hispanics, during a luncheon in Washington at the National Press Club.

“When I was the majority leader, I saw to it that Tom Tancredo did not get on the stage because I saw how destructive he was,” Armey said of the Colorado congressman and 2008 Republican presidential candidate known for his opposition to illegal immigration.
Oh yeah, sucking up to illegal aliens and their enablers is a GREAT idea, Armey; who could doubt it?
Anybody with working brain cells who's not bought off. That's who, you clown.


"Just to prove I don't read what you write, I'm counting on YOU to push for Obamacare!"


"We don't have facts on our side, and people hate it, so we'll lie; no problem!"
"The Congressional Budget Office has confirmed that there is currently no official cost estimate. Yet House Democrats are touting to the press – and spinning for partisan gain – numbers that have not been released and are impossible to confirm. Rep. James Clyburn stated he was “giddy” about these unsubstantiated numbers. This is the latest outrageous exploitation by the Majority – in this case abusing the confidentiality of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office – to pass their massive health care overhaul at any cost."


I don't know, does this make them just common whores or more expensive call girls?
But now the president’s health care reforms are on the ropes and the San Joaquin Valley’s two blue-dog Democratic congressmen Dennis Cardoza and Jim Costa have been reluctant to support the president’s reforms. So imagine everyone’s surprise when the Department of the Interior announced yesterday that it is dramatically increasing the water supply to the valley’s parched lands. And what a coincidence, now the two California congressmen who were once “undecided” are being moved over into the “yes” column.…
We know Obama's a pimp(or would a better term be 'whoremaster'?), buying people of easy, ahem, 'virtue', but this is really disgusting. These people have been pleading for help with water for how long? And ignored by The One and the EPA and so forth for the whole time, UNTIL Obama wants to buy votes. THEN the water starts(for how long? is the question...) "I was quite content to let your farms die and you with them. But now I need the votes of your Representatives, so I'll let you have some. At least for now."


That's about all I can take for now. Besides, I need to refresh myself on tying a noose.



*The latter is nowhere in the article, just something that came to mind. Considering how worthless so many of the clowns in Congress have shown themselves to be, and how corrupt.

Some more information on the Medford PD thought police

and their actions from Balko. Including
It's hard to see that happening. Joseph Bloom, a psychiatrist at Oregon Health & Science University and a specialist in civil commitment law, says the police who apprehended and detained Pyles were likely acting under the cover of Oregon law. Bloom says the police are permitted to make a determination on their own to take someone in for a mental health evaluation—there's no requirement that they first consult with a judge or mental health professional. Bloom believes this is a wise policy. "It's important to remember that this is a civil process," he says. "There's no arrest, these people aren't being taking to jail. It's not a criminal action."

So SWAT teams, guns, and handcuffs...but not a criminal action? And what if Pyles had refused to "voluntarily" surrender to the police? "Well, yes," Bloom says. "I guess then it would become a criminal matter."
And if the bastards had charged in and killed him, they'd hide behind "We were following procedure, so screw you." Maybe THAT would count as a 'criminal action'?

"The idea that Pyles turned himself in voluntarily is ridiculous," says Starrett, the gun rights activist. "There's nothing voluntary about waking up to a SWAT team outside your home, then having a police negotiator call and suggest you surrender. They had no arrest warrant. But Pyles only had one option. If he didn't come out on his own, they were going to come in to get him."
Leading, again, to "We were following procedure when we murdered used lethal force."
Even if the apprehension of Pyles was legal, the seizure of his guns wasn't. Because civil commitment laws aren't criminal in nature, they don't carry authorization for the police to search a private residence. According to Pyles, he closed the door behind him as he left his home. Because the police didn't have a search warrant, they had no right to even enter Pyles' home, much less seize guns inside that he bought and possessed legally.
Sue them. For everything; no, he probably can't sue the clowns responsible personally, but when the city gets the bill maybe they'll do something about them.

One of those chores I'm not fond of

Daughter's ferret died this morning, so after work went over to help bury him.

That little sucker lived nine years, Methuselah for a ferret. From what I was told got up and stretched and got a drink of Ferretone when ex left for work, and when daughter got up he was gone. He'd been going downhill for some time, but still got around, could still eat and drink with no problem, so about as comfortable an end as you can hope for.

Just as a reminder that we don't have all the effing leftist fools

there's this clown in Britain:
Forces Recruitment Services - which help find jobs for former military personnel back in Civvy Street - had emailed Winn inviting him to consider taking on ex-servicemen and women at the Webeurope net design company he runs in Taunton, Somerset.

Winn, a former social worker, wrote back: "Personally, I'd rather recruit ex-drug dealers, convicts and even child molesters rather than consider anybody who has been in the pay of the British Government.

"Anybody who has been in the pay of such a military force, and by their silence and complicity has condoned such illegal and immoral actions while accepting a monthly blood-stained pay-packet, certainly will not be considered for employment by us!
...
He shook and chain-smoked as he then tried to justify his twisted beliefs, saying: "If you have a paedophile, at least he goes to court and is seen to be accountable for what he's done. That's why I made a reference."

Well, go ahead and hire child molesters and drug dealers, you little shit; I'm sure you'll be very comfortable with them.

In the Continuing Saga of the 15-22,

the replacement arrived. Good timing, because I was planning on hitting the range today. Brand-new rifle, gave it a look-over and headed out. Didn't have a lot of time, did try it with the following:
Remington Golden Bullet bulk-pack
Federal 36-gr hollowpoint bulk-pack
Federal Champion
Federal Auto Match
Eley Sport
Winchester 36-gr hollowpoint bulk-pack

I wasn't expecting perfection(wishing for, but...) out of a brand-new semi-auto, as many seem to need a break-in period besides finding what ammo it likes and doesn't. It didn't care much for the Auto Match, but the only real problem was with the Remington; and I strongly suspect the problem there is the ammo. Remington quality control seems to have gone to hell, at least on this stuff, very inconsistent in power: some was very light, some seemed very hot*. And a few rounds just didn't want to chamber. I looked those over closely, no sign of dings or whatever from feeding, just very tight in the chamber even though everything else slid right in.

There's the possibility the Auto Match trouble was from the magazine, that one's been iffy on other stuff. And I know it's that one because I took Tam's advice and numbered almost every magazine I own. Didn't have any more of that ammo with me, so next time I'll try this stuff in a different mag just to be sure.

So about 200 rounds downrange. It ate the Federal Champion, Fed hollowpoints and Eley without a hiccup**. The Winchester seemed a touch light, there were a couple of rounds that didn't quite cycle the action fully. I think I've got a box of Remington stashed away that's a couple of years old, I'm going to dig it out and see if it's a bit more consistent than the recent stuff.

I'm going to try to take this with me every range trip the next while and put at least a couple of magazines through, if there's going to be a problem I'll find it. And speak appropriately with Smith & Wesson about it if there is.


*I've had a couple of times I've cleared a gun and checked the bore because the shot seemed so light I wanted to be sure there wasn't a bullet stuck in there.

**A couple of misfeeds, but possibly mag related; rimmed cartridges not uncommonly have trouble if a round happens to drop into the magazine wrong. Badly. Whatever. We'll see.

In years gone by,

many people seemed to imagine suicide attackers were the ultimate expression of commitment. Today, we see suicide attackers for what they are: Stooges. Ignorant suicide bombers are not brave martyrs, but gullible Man Dogs trained to fetch myths. The Taliban select and condition Man Dogs as precision guided weapons. They are myth guided munitions.
From Michael Yon, along with some good pictures of F16s on takeoff

AG Holder: "Don't worry about having to try bin Laden, we'll make sure

he dies."
To every clown who voted for Obama despite what information came out: God, you're stupid.

To every moron who pushed to have Holder made Attorney General: What, you weren't stupid enough the first time?

So after first hearing all the self-serving bullcrap about how 'trying the terrorists and illegal combatants in civilian courts will showcase our justice system', followed by "Don't worry, even if they're found innocent they'll never walk out of court free"(they why the HELL are you wanting a civilian court trial if they have no chance of being found innocent?), we now come to "Don't worry, we'll be sure he's dead can can't face a civilian trial" from Attorney Dirtbag Holder. Wonderful, isn't it?

And take note of this idiocy from a Evil Party minion:
Rep. Chaka Fattah, D-Pa., bemoaned what he called a "cowardly" desire to avoid a civilian terror trial in a major city.

If a terrorist had killed thousands of Philadelphians, Fattah said, "we would expect him to come to Philadelphia" to face trial "if he would live long enough."

"It doesn't befit a great nation to hesitate or equivocate on the question of following our own laws," he said.
'Our own laws', you effing moron, include military tribunals for illegal combatants and such; you really think the people of PA would be happy about such a trial there? Happier than the people in NYeffin'C?

Morons and dirtbags; that's who's in charge.

Big Dick has a bit of text from a very important document to say what he thinks of what Congress is doing:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.


Strong words, as he says; words called for by a Congress openly planning to violate the Constitution in order to shove Obamacare down our throats. I have a visual of the proper answer if this piece of crap is passed:

No. No, you cannot violate the Constitution and the oath you swore- some of you multiple times- and do this without price. No, we will not tolerate it. If you pass this, the very least you deserve is to be dragged out of that office to meet tar and feathers.

Breda had a post that reminded me of two things

from the movie The Shootist, which had two of my favorite movie lines. The first,
"I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, and I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them."

The second, Waynes' character, J.B. Books, has just done some shooting with another character and when the younger man says his group is just about as good replies
"It's not always being fast or even accurate that counts. It's being willing. I found out early that most men, regardless of cause or need, aren't willing. They blink an eye or draw a breath before they pull the trigger...And I won't."
And that comes to one of my personal nightmares: that a 'everything's gone to shit' situation will happen and I'll hesitate that moment too long.

Bad-tasting food for thought. Some situations would be open and clear, it's the others where, to borrow a line, you're trying to do simple things in the most complicated of circumstances and have to do it right that bring this out. And it might not be your life on the line, might be a family member or friend, or a total stranger. Remember last year, the story of the man who started stabbing his wife in a store? Guy with a carry permit did what was required, drew, aimed and fired and stopped the attack; you can't call it self-defense, but no question defense of the life of another.

So we practice, and think, and work through scenes to be ready; ready to shoot or not shoot as called for.

From Breda we have this:

first, her reaction to girls checking out Twilight:
Every time teenage girls (and their mothers. Ugh.) came to my desk and asked for Twilight, it pained me.
Then, from Rev. Paul in comments,
My 14-year-old daughter has a t-shirt reading, "And then Buffy staked Edward. The End."

Go watch the video

About those Department of Education short-barreled scatterguns

Tam had this the other day, and today ran across this:
The Office of Inspector General is the law enforcement arm of the U.S. Department of Education and is responsible for the detection of waste, fraud, abuse, and other criminal activity involving Federal education funds, programs, and operations. As such, OIG operates with full statutory law enforcement authority, which includes conducting search warrants, making arrests, and carrying firearms.
Kind of like Tam, one of my first questions is "Why? Why does the OIG of the DOE need raid teams? There's no EffinBI or US Marshall's office around? No local PD or SO who can serve a warrant?" Along with the concerns of "How the hell much of our money is DOE spending so they can have their own personal ninja force?" Body armor and uniforms and sidearms and shotguns and ammo(do they have subguns, too? AR or M-16 rifles?) adds up to a fairly big chunk of change, at least when it's not other peoples money.

I have a new term for the Medford, OR Police Dept: (updated)

God-cursed miserable little bastards.
Original post here; guy wants his property back, but the Medford Police are playing more games with his life:
Medford police Lt. Bob Hansen said police try to return found, stolen or seized property to its rightful owner as soon as possible and have a procedure for doing so. If the property was seized as evidence, courts have the final say on when it can be returned.

Hansen declined to discuss Pyles' request, but described the department's process, which can take several weeks. Processing weapons takes longer than other items, he said.

When a person requests the release of property held by police, first the officer handling the case confirms that the item is no longer needed for the investigation, he said. Property control specialists confirm the owner's identity, then, for weapons, send information to Oregon State Police to determine if the person can legally have the weapon. OSP checks criminal records and looks for medical holds that might block gun ownership, Hansen said. Local police check additional municipal court records.
Let's see: they take him into custody with no actual charge, seize his property. Now, even though
A: They no longer 'need' them for evidence,
B: You know damned good and well they've already given the guy an anal check for ANYTHING they might be able to use against him, and found nothing, which means
C: They're doing this purely to screw with his life some more. Which apparently these sorry excuses for lawmen find amusing.

Followup found at Uncle

Update: got this in comments from Stratford:
I believe the firearms were returned on March 12th. I can't find the story in the Medford Mail Tribune right now, but on Saturday they posted a story that noted that he had sent the media an email that the guns had been returned in a "professional manner".

I don't know what to make of the speed with which it happened. Seems almost like an admission of guilt by the police. It appears someone is doing a lousy job of cya on this one.

In today's 'Biased media and AGW' post,

we have this:
THE chairman of the ABC, Maurice Newman, has told about 250 leading journalists, program-makers and managers at the ABC that the media had displayed "group-think" on the issue of climate change in a speech that led to a feisty exchange with senior journalists and forced managing director Mark Scott to try to smooth the waters.
What horrible things did he say to cause such upset?
He warned ABC staffers that he would not tolerate anyone suppressing information, citing the fact that a BBC science correspondent knew for a month before the scandal broke of damaging emails at the University of East Anglia in Britain highlighting the politicised nature of climate science but did not report them.

Mr Newman said the Guardian newspaper had noted that the moment climatology is sheltered from dispute, its force begins to wane.

"Which raises an important question for a media organisation," Mr Newman said in the speech obtained by The Australian. "Who, if anyone, decides what to shelter from dispute? And when?

"Should there be a view that the ABC was sheltering particular beliefs from scrutiny, or failing to question a consensus, I would consider it to be a dangerous perception that could lead to the public's trust in us being undermined."
Bingo. Exactly. And a big reason why so many people no longer believe what comes out of most of the major media on this. But such words can't be allowed to go unchallenged, of course.
Sources said the speech drew an immediate rebuke from the ABC's Media Watch presenter Jonathan Holmes, who rose to his feet and said he was angered by Mr Newman's remarks.

Sources said Holmes had told Mr Newman he was wrong to assert that sceptics were silenced on the ABC. Holmes declined to comment when contacted by The Australian.
I'll bypass the facts brought out in the recent past about media doing exactly that, and focus on what comes next:
ABC science journalist Bernie Hobbs also spoke, supporting Holmes's view and saying the ABC could not give undue weight to the sceptics and thereby push a sceptics' agenda.
'Undue weight'? These clowns spent years either not reporting on 'skeptics' at all or calling them names('bought by Big Oil', 'not a Real Scientist', etc.), so it's become 'giving undue weight' to actually honestly report on what someone has to say if they're a skeptic of AGW?

You'll notice that kissing the ass of and promoting every AGW nutcase and dishonest scientist out there isn't considered 'giving undue weight', oh no.

So yesterday the 'mostly sunny' somehow morphed into

'solid overcast all day'; today looks the same and 'the sun should return tomorrow'. Damn.

Few things to mention this morning: first, on Tom Hanks making idiot statements, V.D. Hanson takes it on: 'is he unhinged, trying to stir up publicity or just stupid?' Personally I'm going with effing asshat.


Trusting the UN to save you is not a plan; it's an admission you're screwed.
The failure of the Human Rights Council to take serious action to condemn Iran’s human rights abuses, and the election of Iran to the Human Rights Council itself, will be deeply disillusioning for the reform and human rights movement in Iran. It could destroy their faith in the international human rights system, for which many have sacrificed their freedom and security, and for which many have died. It will give legitimacy to hanging political prisoners, and more will be hanged.

But this issue is not just about Iran. It is about the capacity of the U.N. system to protect human rights. If Iran’s grave abuses are ignored and if Iran assumes a place on the council, the council will be further weakened. Other dictatorial regimes will be emboldened to repress their citizens.
You think maybe?


Among the reasons I don't want in on the Apple I-Whatever mess: if they'll screw up on batteries this bad...


When the PC idiots take over, like in Canada, you don't just get censorship, you get idiocy like this:
Speaking of Canadian values, they sound so nice when you’re floating choreographically over the Prairies on a massive CanCon bender. But what do they boil down to on the ground? Mme Marise Myrand is a 389-lb. diabetic who lives in Ste-Marie-de-Beauce in la belle province. She asked her condo association to give her a parking space nearer the door of the building. The board responded that it wasn’t for them to take somebody else’s spot and transfer it to her, but suggested Mme Myrand ask the occupant of the other space directly. Mme Jocelyne Nolet is a short-order cook in her sixties with an injured shoulder, and declined to accommodate Mme Myrand. So the aggrieved wound up at the Quebec “Human Rights” Tribunal, which ordered the condo association to hand over the parking space to Mme Myrand by March 1 and, for good measure, fined all 35 of her co-owners a total of $10,000 to be given to the plaintiff in compensation.

It was reported that, in the course of her battle with her co-owners, Mme Myrand had been subject to “degrading remarks” about using her obesity to get a better parking space. In her judgment, Michèle Pauzé fined the association $3,000 in punitive damages because these remarks “heurtaient les valeurs d’inclusion promulguées dans notre société”—i.e., they conflict with the inclusive values promulgated by our society.
The 'Human Rights' Tribunal should be dealt with. Possibly be defenestration, though a plain old rail out of town would do nicely. This has not a damn thing to do with human rights, and everything to do with control. And Stupidity, let's not forget that.


On a more cheering note, yesterday I put a lot of primers in cases. Stuff I load on the Dillon is primed in the loading process, but stuff on the single-stage press has to be primed separately. So I got a bunch of cases in different cartridges primed, bagged and put in the box for later. Now I need to load a bunch of stuff for practice. Which may be something I do today, depending on how it stays outside.

There've been a bunch of defenses of the dirtbag lawyers in DOJ

who represented the enemy in Gitmo, and then went to DOJ with Holder(bees pee upon him); here's some of what those 'noble members of the bar' did at Gitmo to help the enemy. Breakables warning in effect. Among other things,
Other incidents listed in the FOIA material included: a lawyer who was caught in the act of making a hand-drawn map of a detention camp's layout, including guard towers; a lawyer who sent a letter to his detainee client telling him that "we cannot depend on the military to do the right thing" and conveying his message of support to other detainees who were not his clients; lawyers who posted photos of Guantanamo security badges on the Internet; lawyers who provided news outlets with "interviews" of their clients using questions provided in advance by the news organization; and a lawyer who gave his client a list of all the detainees.

If the stated intent was to show that the government had singled out Paul, Weiss attorneys, the unstated purpose was to demonstrate something even more significant to the government's lawyers. They were outnumbered and outgunned. The Gitmo bar had grown to include some 400 lawyers from as many as 50 law firms that were subsidized by the millions of dollars earned from their paying corporate clients. They had the legal talent, the support of the international press and the judicial wind at their backs. They could bury the DOJ in paper. If one lawyer was taken out, she could be replaced by another.
Wonderful, isn't it? And we're supposed to think of these bastards as the new John Adams... Adams would be one of the people ready to hang these miserable lawyers.

'Bout says it all

Courtesy of The Sniper

I know they've been talked over a lot, but over at Cold Fury

there's a post with these two bits that just annoy the hell out of me. First,
Professor Obama, who will seek re-election on the 100th anniversary of Wilson’s 1912 election, understands, which makes him melancholy. Speaking to Katie Couric on Feb. 7, Obama said:

“I would have loved nothing better than to simply come up with some very elegant, academically approved approach to health care, and didn’t have any kinds of legislative fingerprints on it, and just go ahead and have that passed. But that’s not how it works in our democracy. Unfortunately, what we end up having to do is to do a lot of negotiations with a lot of different people.”
Makes it pretty plain, doesn't he? He doesn't want to propose, to lead: he wants to dictate. He's so brilliant he doesn't want to be bothered with this republic mess, he wants to give orders(remember "I won"?) to the subordinates to be carried out without argument.

The second,
“… the Constitution allows for many things, but what it does not allow is the most revealing. The so-called Founders did not allow for economic freedom. While political freedom is supposedly a cornerstone of the document, the distribution of wealth is not even mentioned. While many believed that the new Constitution gave them liberty, it instead fitted them with the shackles of hypocrisy.”
Let's see... in Obama's world "You keep what you work for" is hypocrisy and immoral, but "You work, and we'll take what you earn and distribute it as we think best" is freedom...

Hey, Obama, you use that word, but I do not think it means what you think it does.

"...so-called Founders..." my aching ass.

I hate daylight savings time

and wish the morons in DC would actually do something useful and end it. My body thinks it's 0819, but the clock now says 0919. Bleep.

Speaking of bleep,
"We are shocked and stunned at the Administration's tone and public dressing down of Israel," Anti-Defamation League director Abraham Foxman said in a statement. "We cannot remember an instance when such harsh language was directed at a friend and ally of the United States."
You weren't paying attention during the primaries and election, were you? You never heard of Reverend(bastard) Wright, who Obama considered his 'moral' leader? You haven't been warned by his previous words towards Israel? Foxman, you're either a willing tool, or a fool. He's crapped all over the British and other allies(must have shocked Zapatero no end: "But I'm a socialist too! Why are you treating me this way?!"), and you're 'shocked' he's treating Israel this way?

Idiot.


I'm with Insty, I'm sure AG Holder will jump right on this. As soon as he's finished covering up lying to Congress, and finding some way to call the people complaining racial cowards or something.


So Brit politicians are taking lessons from Pelosi:
On the other hand, he identifies Members of Parliament as being "resigned" to the fact that they will not be allowed to debate the bill or give it "detailed scrutiny" (heck of a job, MPs!). He cites an expert on legislation as saying that the bill will likely die if MPs insist on their right and responsibility to examine this legislation in detail before voting on it.
So their answer is Pelosi, "Ram it through before they can read it; hell, don't LET them read it! Lie all you have to, break your word, doesn't matter."

Matters to us, Pelosi; matters a lot. Not only don't you want us to see this abortion of a bill before you vote on it(or play games and pretend to vote on it), you've got it so larded up with bribes and payoffs you ought to be charged with racketeering. For instance,
During the meeting, party leaders reassured lawmakers that two of the most controversial deals -- the so-called Cornhusker Kickback and more Medicare Advantage money for Florida -- would be stripped out. But it appeared that additional Medicaid money for Louisiana and a $100 million hospital grant program requested by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) will both stay in the final bill.
These corrupt bastards aren't simply shameless: they're so far beyond that they don't remember what shame is.


Speaking of beyond shame, I'm with Levin: Slaughter should be removed from office. So should any rep who votes for her 'rule', every damned one of them. Not only are they corrupt and crooked, they're cowards; they want to shove Obamacare down our throats but don't have the balls to want to actually vote for it and be held responsible.

Go ahead and try it, you bastards; we'll get the tar warmed up. Maybe, for a very special few of you, we'll get the nooses ready.

Yes, I'm being threatening; bluntly, if you can't stand it go read someone else' blog. I'm freakin' sick to death of these politicians thinking they can do whatever the hell they want and their little friends in the House and Senate will protect them; let's make sure they understand that's not so, that at the least we'll throw their sorry ass out of that office. States that can start a recall petition? Get the paper ready; and make sure the miserable little shits know it.


Speaking of, these people need to pull on their big girl panties and deal with it; someone making an 'inappropriate joke' does not require you to wet your pants and punish them. If you tried to investigate everyone who's ever said something about doing a nasty to the IRS... hell, Stalin didn't have enough internal security to do that. Someone makes a real threat, that's one thing; stop whining about BS comments just because you don't like them. What's next, someone demands the same kind of treatment Geithner and Rangel got and you'll report them for investigation for being too demanding or something?


By the way, looks like an awful lot of the "My Toyota ran away with me!" is flat bullshit. And considering how in the tank the major media has been for Obama, and him being the head of Government Motors, a lot of the crap from Congress and the refusal of so much of the media is suspect; some of the media could simply be in their 'bash the company' mode, but all of them?


Seems the UN 'Human Rights Commission' has a lot in common with the illegal alien lobby in the US:
Second, that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs. Navanethem Pillay, has weighed in with her own special contribution to Israel Apartheid Week by likening South African Apartheid to Israeli Apartheid at a speech before the Permanent Committee on Human Rights of the Foreign Affairs Committee. First, Pillay harshly criticized Italy for its “policies on immigration and what she considers the criminalization of illegal immigration.”

What she is really saying is that Muslims have the right to populate and then dominate Europe and that no progressive country dare stop them. (Shades of Jean Raspail, Oriana Fallaci and Bat-Ye’or!)
Hey, Pillay, here's a piece of news for you: illegal immigration IS a crime, you 'progressive' moron. You pretending otherwise doesn't change that, and if being a 'progressive' country means you have to allow illegals to cross your border and settle at will, then that proves that being 'progressive' is idiotic. And suicidal.


Snork. Does anyone know how to cancel a bid on eBay?

I put in a bid for a "Mickey Mouse Outfit," and now it seems I'm only six minutes away from owning Obama and his entire cabinet....
Who aren't satisfied with their efforts to this point at screwing the country, they want to make it worse and worse...
Our secretary of energy pushes bio-refineries and windmills to oil executives at an energy conference as the administration announces a three-year offshore drilling ban. This is a policy for economic suicide.

They don’t qualify as an official group of victims, but carbon-Americans, as they have been called, did not have much to cheer about last week, when Energy Secretary Steven Chu addressed CERAWeek 2010, a premier industry conference hosted by IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

With an economy struggling to regain sound footing, Chu advocated a starvation diet devoid of additional fossil fuels that are to remain under the ground and seabed. Instead, he supports 53% more funding for wind research and a 22% jump for solar research.
And we're back to thoughts of tar, and feathers, and ropes...

Bleagh. I need food, while it's still available.

An excellent suggestion from Gerry

about that moron Ortiz in NYEffn'C:
Like I posted on Marko's blog, what would happen if restaurants, delis, diners, food cart operators and their customers all sent Teh Ortizidiot a 2 oz. shaker of salt? 400 or 500 thousand salt shakers showing up at his offices in Brooklyn and Albany might get his attention. Hell, think of the fun if he got a couple million of 'em. How many food establishments are there in the State of NY, anyway? How many people eat in restaurants in NY every day?

If 500,000 2 oz shakers of salt, show up, that is 31 1/4 tons of salt. If each shaker comes with a pledge of $2 to his opponent at the next election, he will have to go find an honest job.