CBS has a 'Rate the President' poll up

As of just now,
The Economy

---

A:
4.77%

B:
4.56%

C:
5.27%

D:
17.80%

F:
67.60%

Foreign Policy

---

A:
6.80%

B:
4.19%

C:
7.67%

D:
21.66%

F:
59.68%

Health Care

---

A:
7.14%

B:
3.01%

C:
2.87%

D:
8.31%

F:
78.67%

Afghanistan

---

A:
5.67%

B:
13.60%

C:
25.96%

D:
22.84%

F:
31.93%

Iraq

---

A:
5.79%

B:
10.08%

C:
24.39%

D:
23.77%

F:
35.96%

Threat of Terrorism

---

A:
6.63%

B:
4.92%

C:
9.74%

D:
21.19%

F:
57.52%

Energy and the Environment

---

A:
5.66%

B:
5.56%

C:
12.70%

D:
21.03%

F:
55.04%

Social Issues

---

A:
6.71%

B:
4.69%

C:
10.82%

D:
18.95%

F:
58.84%

Bipartisanship

---

A:
6.60%

B:
3.12%

C:
4.00%

D:
8.08%

F:
78.20%

Obama's Overall Job as President

---

A:
6.28%

B:
4.03%

C:
3.69%

D:
22.25%

F:
63.76%

Among the people voting, Barry's not feeling the love, it would seem.

Tuesday, and Spokesslug Gibbs is doing his usual job

of trying to claim credit for anything good and crapping on anybody who brings up inconvenient facts. Like Obama's history on the surge.


Hey, just because she sits in Congress and broke various rules, that's no reason to actually investigate her, is it?


So was this a dry run for an attack? Seems it's being argued.


And last, Yabu found a pic of one big damned reptile

If you blog, or you're just interested in dirtbags trying to control things,

Insty has some info for you. Linked article has this:
In July, Gibson told Threat Level that more Righthaven clients would be forthcoming. He also gave a brief accounting of how Righthaven works. Borrowing a page from patent trolls, Righthaven acquires the copyrights to newspaper content for the sole purpose of suing blogs and websites that re-post those articles without permission.

Righthaven usually demands $75,000, but will settle for a few thousand dollars.
So we know exactly what kind of extortionist we're looking at.

I shall end the evening with

First, Sondra's blond joke

Followed by something she reminded me of

Just to screw with your peace of mind,

I bring you something that makes me think we need a bit of Charles Napier attitude in our actions in 'Stan.
For centuries, Afghan men have taken boys, roughly 9 to 15 years old, as lovers. Some research suggests that half the Pashtun tribal members in Kandahar and other southern towns are bacha baz, the term for an older man with a boy lover. Literally it means "boy player." The men like to boast about it.

"Having a boy has become a custom for us," Enayatullah, a 42-year-old in Baghlan province, told a Reuters reporter. "Whoever wants to show off should have a boy."

Baghlan province is in the northeast, but Afghans say pedophilia is most prevalent among Pashtun men in the south. The Pashtun are Afghanistan's most important tribe. For centuries, the nation's leaders have been Pashtun.
...
Sociologists and anthropologists say the problem results from perverse interpretation of Islamic law. Women are simply unapproachable. Afghan men cannot talk to an unrelated woman until after proposing marriage. Before then, they can't even look at a woman, except perhaps her feet. Otherwise she is covered, head to ankle.

"How can you fall in love if you can't see her face," 29-year-old Mohammed Daud told reporters. "We can see the boys, so we can tell which are beautiful."

Even after marriage, many men keep their boys, suggesting a loveless life at home. A favored Afghan expression goes: "Women are for children, boys are for pleasure." Fundamentalist imams, exaggerating a biblical passage on menstruation, teach that women are "unclean" and therefore distasteful. One married man even asked Cardinalli's team "how his wife could become pregnant," her report said. When that was explained, he "reacted with disgust" and asked, "How could one feel desire to be with a woman, who God has made unclean?"
Let's change that wording a bit: "How can you worship a deity who you say made women 'unclean' and then apparently tells you it's just fine to rape kids?" Possibly ending with "you fucking moron?"

When I see "MAN-EATING GIANT SQUID", I expect

to read of Architeuthis Dux reaching into boats and pulling scantily-clad coeds and drunk frat boys to their doom. Instead I get Humboldt squid chomping fishermen- which they've done before- and eating fish- which they've done forever.

They're dangerous, sure, and I wouldn't go in the water with them, but c'mon, guys, giant squid they ain't.

Damn. Wonder how much it would cost to get one

for the back yard?
U.S. SOCOM (Special Operations Command) has adopted an old U.S. Army concept to create mobile workshops (MTCs or Mobile Technology Complex) that can fix exotic gear (which SOCOM has a lot of), modify their special gear, or even create something new. The MTC is a modified (with new some gear) version of the decade old U.S. Army MPH (Mobile Parts Hospital).

The MPH was developed when the army realized that the easiest way to get the many rarely requested, but vital, replacement parts to the troops, was to manufacture the parts in the combat zone. In short order, this led to the construction of a portable parts fabrication system, called MPH, that fit into a standard 8x8x20 foot shipping container. The original version used two containers, but smaller equipment and more powerful computers eventually made it possible to use one container.
...
...The computer controlled machine tools have been around for decades, but the big breakthrough was the development of CAD (Computer Assisted Design) software for PCs in the 1980s, which made the process of designing, and then fabricating, a part much faster. The MPH has a high speed satellite data link, which enables it to obtain the CAD file for a part. Many CAD files are already stored in the MPH. Often, the MPH staff figure out a way to improve a part, based on the broken parts they see, and what the troops tell them.(and ain't THAT just wonderful?)

There are four MPH systems in service, two of them in Afghanistan. A fourth is being built, at a cost of $1.5 million. In the last six years, MPHs have manufactured over 100,000 parts, on the spot. This saves days, or weeks, that it would take to order the part from the manufacturer, and the MPH part is usually a lot cheaper (because the air freight and manufacturer mark ups to pay for maintaining the part in inventory). The next version of the MPH has a 3-D part builder, which uses metal dust and a laser to build a part.
Oh Gawd, Og, can you imagine?

President Obama's top education official urged government employees to attend a rally that the Rev. Al Sharpton organized to counter a larger conservative event on the Mall.

"ED staff are invited to join Secretary Arne Duncan, the Reverend Al Sharpton, and other leaders on Saturday, Aug. 28, for the 'Reclaim the Dream' rally and march," began an internal e-mail sent to more than 4,000 employees of the Department of Education on Wednesday.

Sharpton created the event after Glenn Beck announced a massive Tea Party "Restoring Honor" rally at the Lincoln Memorial, where King spoke in 1963.

The Washington Examiner learned of the e-mail from a Department of Education employee who felt uncomfortable with Duncan's request.
As he damn well should have. This administration cares nothing for that 'ethics' thing, not when they can corrupt the process to get what they want.

Ref the bike trouble the other day,

I'll throw in something that's either a "Great!" or "You did WHAT?", depending on point of view:
To jump the bike you hook the positive cable to the positive starter connector, the negative to the frame. The starter relay is covered by a sideplate with a big screw at the bottom, coin-slotted. Got there with the truck, and couldn't turn it(hadn't been off in quite a while, of course it was frozen). So grabbed the vise-grips, clamped them on the quarter and promptly bent the quarter without the screw budging.

Bleep.

I went through the bed and back of the truck, and there's nothing wide enough/thick enough to- waitaminnit, hmmm.... There's the male part of the center seat belt buckle. And I haven't used it in years... Cut the threads on the folded end of the belt, pull the buckle off and SHAZAM!, it fits! Turned the screw loose with no problem, allowing me to jump the bike and get it home.

Yes, I've got the buckle back on, I'll either put a couple of stitches on the folded end or a couple of drops of superglue to hold it.

By the way, it really helps, when charging a flat battery, if you check and find that the trickle charger got bumped to the six-volt setting before you hook it up for a few hours.

We know, and we need to remember: not all LEOs and prosecutors

are buttheads:
I’ve followed with interest your series on police misconduct in harassing or arresting bystanders who photograph or video officers on duty. We had a similar case this month – we dismissed the charge immediately and began an internal review of all the officer’s pending cases. His boss (the County Sheriff) brought the matter immediately to our attention and launched an IA investigation as well.
The Way It Should Be Done.
...nearly all of our officers and their chiefs strongly support audio and visual recording of officers while on duty. Most jurisdictions here have voice-activated microphones and video cameras mounted in their patrol cars and remote microphones clipped to their officers’ collars. Many of these devices automatically download video and audio feeds directly to remote servers to prevent tampering with the raw footage. But the cameras cannot capture everything that happens around an officer and the microphones have a limited range, so bystanders’ portable video can be a potent source of evidence documenting that an officer acted properly – which they do in the vast majority of instances.
True. And one of the things that seems to escape a lot of the people saying "You can't record US!" is that when they pull this, it causes people to ask "What are they trying to get away with?", which doesn't exactly help people have confidence in the LEOs.

And how was YOUR damn afternoon?

While back broke the decapping pin on my .30-06 sizing die. Nobody but Lee sells that part, and didn't want to order just that(shipping more than the part last I checked). Then yesterday I got the lathe back in order*, and decided today "I'll get a piece of music wire and turn one." Only needed it to deprime, as I've been using the Lyman M die to expand the case mouths for cast bullets.

So get on the bike and off to Ace. Exit Ace, and the bike won't start; barely cranks over.

Bleep.

Tried push-start, no go, acted like the battery just didn't have enough left even for that. So pull the seat, and the cables weren't loose, but weren't really tight either. So pull them, clean the contacts and hook it back up, no good. So.

Walk home. Load ramps in truck just in case, drive to parking lot. Jump-start the bike(first time), rode it home(after shut off tried starting, battery flat). Get bicycle, ride to truck, load bike and drive home, put the bike on the charger and unload the truck. All on a nice 95-degree day.

I think what happened is haven't ridden the bike much lately due to the oil leak, and between that and the cables not being properly tight the battery went down. One of the few bad things about the Vulcan is the charging system is 'just enough', so if the battery gets a bit down it can't really bring it back up, so it keeps getting lower & lower.

Oh, the pin? Turn one that seems just beautiful. Find that I apparently turned the shank that goes into the collet just tiny bit small, so the damn thing won't stay in place under pressure. So cut another piece and turn another that seems to work. And I need to sharpen the bits after the work on that steel.


*Couple of weeks ago Security Staff(Junior) decided to see how the power cord tasted. Discovery caused me to engage in Language Practice, which caused dog to disappear for a while. I finally dug out another cord saved for just such need and hooked it up.

Ah, the gun show yesterday

It was of decent size, and one of those where you find several things you really wouldn't mind having. And(of course) can't afford. But got some powder, Dad got powder and primers, I found some bronze brushes I needed got to look at lots of nice stuff(TWO people had K38 Combat Masterpiece revolvers, dammit, both in fine shape). Instead of maybe going back today I need to do some yard work, some cleaning in the house and some cooking(I'm starving for some reason). So just a few things to note this morning.

First, yeah, I'd say sue their ass:
But to arrest someone who is unmistakably on their own property, and doing nothing remotely illegal, is an abuse of power pure and simple. Even if it were true that Gibson was endangering herself by witnessing the traffic stop from the confines of her front porch, how could that possibly be construed as “resisting arrest” or “obstructing the police” without eviscerating everything that the concept of private property (not to mention plain old individual rights) stands for? Taking such a risk is not illegal. Doing it while occupying one’s homestead should be recognized as unassailably within one’s rights.

Since it appears that neither the police nor the district attorney’s office can be shamed into refraining from such power abuses, perhaps it will take a fat lawsuit for violations of Gibson’s (et al.) constitutional rights to get their attention.
This breaks down to her not going away when ordered by the officer(neither did her neighbors who were watching) and daring to take video of the event, which seems to be the real kicker here: the officer is pissed at having his picture taken and the chief and DA are willing to screw over a citizen as a way of saying "Don't you dare take our picture while we're at work!" Which is bullshit, and needs to stop.


Second, it's not really a surprise the major media would work to downplay the event, but this is freakin' disgusting. Along with the various "It's all bad, angry white people against the coloreds" crap, and "These people don't know what they want!" Etc. Which pretty much goes to give further proof of how badly the major media is both in the tank for Obama & Co., and how much they want to crap on anybody who doesn't follow the 'elite' belief system.


Third, it appears that the cartel doesn't like the Mexican government investigating its massacres:
The body of an official investigating the massacre of 72 Central and South American migrants killed in a ranch in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas was found today dumped beside a nearby road alongside another unidentified victim, according to local media.

Earlier, two cars exploded outside the studios of the national TV network Televisa in the state capital, Ciudad Victoria. There were no casualties, but the blasts added to a growing sense of fear in the aftermath of the worst single act of violence in the country's raging drug wars.


And with that, I shall now fix lunch

Thing is, Obama WANTS the US subordinate to the UN

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer demanded Friday that a reference to the state’s controversial immigration law be removed from a State Department report to the United Nations’ human rights commissioner.

The U.S. included its legal challenge to the law on a list of ways the federal government is protecting human rights.

In a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Brewer says it is “downright offensive” that a state law would be included in the report, which was drafted as part of a UN review of human rights in all member nations every four years.

“The idea of our own American government submitting the duly enacted laws of a state of the United States to ‘review’ by the United Nations is internationalism run amok and unconstitutional,” Brewer wrote.