With this election over, and while we're wondering if we'll need the ropes

due to the lame-duck session, we now return to some of our general WHAT?
A Zimbabwean was has been killed by a pride of lions while he was showering in a camp in the country's north.
Og? You still there?


Well, you keep threatening to arrest people at the demand of the palisimians, you're going to have fewer visitors.
Israel has expressed anger that, in the past, ministers and senior military figures have had to cancel visits to the UK because of concerns that pro-Palestinian groups might use the courts to seek their arrest over Israeli military action in Gaza, or this year's raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship in which nine Turkish activists were killed.

Pro-Palestinian campaigners have tried several times to have Israeli officials arrested under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which holds that some alleged crimes are so grave that they can be tried anywhere, regardless of where the offences were committed.
Yeah. Arrest someone for something that happened in another place WAAAY outside your jurisdiction... Not a good idea to start, folks.


You know why Barney Frank is still in office? Because so many people in MA are so effing stupid.
Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School Senior Dan Depaolis, dressed in medieval garb, rode a horse into the school's parking lot as part of spirit week.

What he, and his parents, thought was a good-natured stunt, the school deemed dangerous. Depaolis was suspended from school for two days.
...
The father tells FOX25 the school compared the stunt to bringing a “loaded firearm” to school and that he and his wife were shocked to hear about the suspension, saying that the 1100-pound horse, named Pierre, would never hurt a fly.


Why some US Attorneys should be among those tarred and feathered. Also the judges who help them commit this crap.


Whoo, the gent from Mass Backwards won! Excellent!


You too can make your effing damn longMosin Nagant into a bullpup!


Ok, a laser or gps-guided mini-bomb that can be carried by the buttload on drones... the possibilities are endless.


One last thing, which is political: here in OK question 744 went down. As in about 82% against. This was the "Screw everything else, give the schools all the money they want, with no real accountability for the spending and no worrying about where the money will come from" bill. A lot of the 'pro' crap was on this level: the radio commercial had some announcer reading and then asking "Is this real? We're not spending anywhere NEAR enough!", etc. after each section, ending with "WHO could be against 744?" The answer? "A lot of greedy people, Frank."

Do these clowns have any freakin' idea how offensive that is? Standard "If you don't vote for this you're greedy and don't care about the CHILDREEEN!! and SCHOOLS!!!" crap. I'd bet that commercial alone pissed off a lot of people. Screw 'em, we don't trust the education people anywhere near enough to even consider handing them money this way.

I now leave you to your own devices.

To the Republican Party

This is pretty much your last chance: you start acting like Evil Party Lite again(the backroom deals with Democrats, the spending, the bribes and kickbacks- more formally known as 'earmarks'- to buy votes) and there WILL be a third party in the next election.

You'd better believe it.

Dammit, I wish I'd seen this BEFORE Halloween

SHACKLEFORD: You know, Anne Rice started it, with her brooding, sensitive vampires. Come on, pre-crazy Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in one movie? That’s some man candy. Then you got Twilight, oh barf, where sparkly vampires don’t want to eat you, they just want to be loved and all that EXPLETIVE DELETED. It sends the wrong message to young women. What kind of hundred year old hangs out a high school to pick up dates? Weirdo pedophiles. That’s who. Real vampires love those books. It makes picking up victims much easier.

PL: Really?

SHACKLEFORD: Absolutely. Speaks directly to camera. Listen, girls. I know you like that whole ‘bad-boy-but-I-can-change-him’ thing, but real life vampires aren’t sensitive, they aren’t sparkly, and they don’t want to be your boyfriend. They want to eat you. Sucking your blood is not a euphemism, they literally want to suck your blood… out of your body. You kind of need that to, oh, not die. With vampires, when somebody says don’t forget to wear protection, we’re talking about body armor. The rates of vampire attacks have risen dramatically over the last few years against gullible teenagers because you’re just making this easier for them. Looks back at reporter. Hypothetically.

PL: Of course.

SHACKLEFORD: Looks back to camera. Vampires love you about as much as you love a Big Mac, honey. Deal with it.

Due to popular demand,*

daughter gave permission for her soup recipe to be posted

Broccoli Cheddar Soup (base recipe)

1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
3/4 cup chicken broth
1 1/2 cup milk
1 cup chopped broccoli
1/2 cup shredded cheddar

Saute the onion in butter until tender
Stir in flour, salt & pepper, cook and stir until smooth and bubbly
Add broth and milk all at once, cook and stir until mixture boils and thickens
Add broccoli. Simmer, stirring constantly, until heated through
Remove from heat and stir in cheese until melted

That's the base. She usually(I did) double the amount of cheese; as she says "Why not?" She has also, as I did this time, fried up some chicken and shredded it and then added it same time as the cheese. And if you've got it and it sounds good, you can fry up some bacon, chop it up and dump some on top just before serving. Or into your bowl just before eating. She's also thrown in some sliced mushrooms and garlic with the onion; lots of stuff you can do with it.


*Which means 'somebody actually read the post and asked'

Oh HELL yeah!

The warning to Republicans
Either act like adults charged with the responsible management of this country, instead of drunken teenagers with mom’s credit card, or we will un-elect you at the first opportunity.

Have a nice day.

And remember: when you vote against him, the Lightworker gets pissed off and progressives shed brain cells
So get out there and VOTE

Totally unrelated to politics, daughter gave me a recipe for broccoli cheddar soup

and I made a batch. DAMN, that's good.

They're a fine demonstration of how untrustworthy and bigoted the major media is

In today's "the MSM is worse than you thought possible" news, one media outlet is caught on tape plotting to tie Joe Miller to child molesters, while another "forgets" to run Christine O'Donnell's big 30-minute ad... twice. The day before the election. Reality truly is stranger than fiction sometimes -- if you wrote this kind of media bias into a script people would tell you it was too crazy to believe. And yet it happened.
and
Andrew Breitbart had been asked to participate in some sort of "digital townhall" and provide commentary during the night. After the typical caterwauling of the censors of the left, ABCNews has withdrawn the offer, apparently, or at least guaranteed to the lefties that Breitbart will not appear on TV. After ABC claimed he was never to appear on TV -- they claimed he would just be hanging out at the online forum or something -- Breitbart produced an email from them contradicting them.

Remember: every time you remember one of these
and vote against him, a progressive cries.

If Obama had a real level of integrity,

this would at least bother and probably scare hell out of him.

Unfortunately I fear he and his advisers probably consider it a 'fitting tribute' or something.

A: Free people don't kneel to politicians.
B: Politicians who like being knelt to should be removed from office at the first opportunity.

Three pieces you really ought to read

I'll borrow a small bit from Part 1:
There is one aspect of CSGV's(Coalition to Stop Gun Violence) philosophy, though, that I now realize I had completely misunderstood. The strongest reason for their aversion to gun rights isn't "gun violence," or the supposed threat of "right wing terrorism" (although they exploit both of those to the maximum extent possible)--it's that they believe that a strong-willed, vigilant citizenry, prepared to say "No!" to government excess, and equipped to back that denial up, is right now impeding the "progressive" agenda.

Part 2:

These events provided ample political cover for the cabinet to declare a state of emergency and suspend the individual liberties guaranteed by the Weimar Constitution. The rights to free speech and free press, free association, and privacy, among others, no longer existed.

What the book doesn't talk about there is that the authority to enact such sweeping powers was codified in the Weimar Constitution in Article 48. Horwitz's reticence on that little detail is perhaps not too surprising, given the fact that Article 48's insertion in the Weimar Constitution was largely the work of Max Weber--the very same Max Weber cited so frequently and so admiringly by Horwitz in explaining why the government must have a monopoly on force. Well, the Nazi government certainly had that.

and Part 3:

Isolate the Insurrectionists by embracing the self-defenders and the sporting gun owners. The fact remains that most gun owners are not Insurrectionists. The majority of gun owners keep guns primarily for self-protection or recreation, not to prepare for some future Armageddon. Insurrectionists do not deserve the cover provided them by self-defenders and sporting gun owners.

Wait a second here . . . "embrace the self-defenders"? Are they planning to tell these self-defenders that until 1989, the group's name was not the "Coalition to Stop Gun Violence," but the "National Coalition to Ban Handguns"? How about the fact that the name change was motivated not by a loss of interest in banning handguns, but by a desire to expand the mission to banning so-called "assault weapons," too? From "Disarmed: The Missing Movement for Gun Control in America," by Kristin A. Gross:

In that year [1989], the National Coalition to Ban Handguns changed its name to Coalition to Stop Gun Violence to reflect its view that assault rifles, as well as handguns, should be outlawed.

Go read them; good look at the gun bigots and progressives(or should this just be shortened to 'fascists'?) real thoughts and intentions

Thanks to the man at Sipsey Street for pointing these out.

And part 2 now properly linked

If this guy is serious, my first thoughts are

"What the HELL are you smoking out there?" followed by "Just what have your friends been dumping in the water?"
Conservatives will be shocked to learn that in her backyard, Pelosi is not widely viewed as truly representing our core liberal to progressive values. She's all sizzle and no steak on pro-peace politics, gay rights, ending the AIDS drug waiting list crisis, preserving the environment and other important local concerns. Pelosi is from San Francisco, but her real constituency has been her more rightwing House colleagues.
Um, yeah. Right. Just let me back away...

Seriously, what kind of mindset does it take to write something like that with a straight face? And apparently believe it?

Ok, one more thing I just can't pass up

You know the rally John Stewart headed up? They one about 'restoring sanity'? Well, apparently Stewart & Co. consider banning photography(can't let the peasants know exactly what's going on, can they?) and hanging out with people who approve the death penalty for insulting the islamic prophet(bees pee upon him):
At least at the moment, Wikipedia has a pretty good page on how the interview went:

On February 21, 1989, Yusuf Islam addressed students at Kingston University in London about his conversion to Islam and was asked about the controversy in the Muslim world and the fatwa calling for Salman Rushdie’s execution. He replied, “He must be killed. The Qur’an makes it clear – if someone defames the prophet, then he must die.” ^[5]

Newspapers quickly denounced what was seen as Yusuf Islam’s support for the assassination of Rushdie and the next day Yusuf released a statement saying that he was not personally encouraging anybody to be a vigilante,^[1] and that he was only stating that blasphemy is a capital offense according to the Qur’an.

However on March 8, 1989, while speaking in London’s Regents Park Mosque, Yusuf Islam was asked by a Christian Science Monitor reporter how he would “cope with the idea of killing a writer for writing a book.” He is reported to have replied:

In Islam there is a line between let’s say freedom and the line which is then transgressed into immorality and irresponsibility and I think as far as this writer is concerned, unfortunately, he has been irresponsible with his freedom of speech. Salman Rushdie or indeed any writer who abuses the prophet, or indeed any prophet, under Islamic law, the sentence for that is actually death. It’s got to be seen as a deterrent, so that other people should not commit the same mistake again.

Well, Yusuf- may I call you Yusuf?-fuck you. And your prophet. You have have performed submission, but the rest of us haven't, and we still believe in that real Freedom of Speech thing. So fuck you and every sharia-loving asshole out there. You call for murder of someone for their words, and then whine that he was 'irresponsible' with his freedom of speech? You, sir, are a inflamed boil on the anus of humanity. So take your 'submit to sharia' shit, eat it and die.

Hey, we can say "It would be seen as a deterrent", couldn't we?

Dinner with daughter, and now I'm full. Which, added to my messed-up

sleep schedule, means I'm going to leave you with a pre-flight Halloween shot

And remember, it's Zombie Week

at Whiteboard

Halloween safety advice

1. If someone tells you that you are the Chosen One and must save whoever or whatever, kill them and change your name.
2. Same bloody well goes for any harbinger of any "prophesy". If possible, resurrect them and kill them a second time.
3. If a mysterious and beautiful woman appears out of nowhere and is interested in you, run.
4. If you see a lone young child in the middle of nowhere and is uncommonly cheerful and/or giggling, run like you heard banjos.
5. Black cats, not so bad. Black dog that watches you without ever blinking? Don't run. Slowly back away.
...
12. For the love of the gods, if you are driving at night, fill the tank when you're between a quarter and half tank.
...
15. Little known fact, vampires are allergic to magnesium. When ignited and shoved down their throat.

Get the rest at Jay's place.

Dammit, I missed it till now: Project Valour-IT is on

over at Soldier's Angels. You can go with Team Army, Air FarForce, Navy or Marines; right now Army's in the lead.

Got a few bucks to spare? Here's a damn good place to send it.

If any one statement could sum up how screwed-up our tax system is,

it's this:
"I don't even do my tax returns anymore," he said. "I don't know any tax lawyer who does their own tax returns. The forms are Greek even to us."
When the specialists can't figure this crap out, then at least half of it needs to be thrown out. Preferably 3/4.

For a start, anyway.

So Anschutz is clearly off the menu of things I'll buy.

Since they're so willing to throw us to the socialists and gun bigots, they can damn well do without any of my money.

Lasers instead of actual firearms for the biathlon, for 'safety' of course...
During the ISSF World Cup have in sport shooting in 2010 in Munich we and the company Armatix a biathlon rifle model with these Technology are presented. In this context, it was a lot of positive Feedback, especially on the part of various officials association at national and international level.
That would be some of the people who want the UN to control all small arms ownership and use? Whose idea of 'control' is to ban them entirely if they can?

To put it crudely, fuck Anschutz. And the pony they rode in on.

Now here's an interesting case

ATF agent shoots a guy in the Virgin Islands when the agent gets involved in a domestic dispute; feds give him an 'attaboy, back to work' but the VI plans to prosecute him. And the feds, including some politicians, are having fits.

Go take a look. Two interesting bits here: one,
"William Clark is a federal ATF agent who does not have peace officer status under Virgin Islands law and therefore had no authority to enforce law including the domestic violence statutes," said Sara Lezama, a spokeswoman for the Virgin Islands Department of Justice.

As a private citizen, Clark was authorized to carry a gun and use reasonable force to defend himself and others, Lezama said. But Sukow "did not inflict bodily harm on anyone the morning he was shot," she said.
I took a quick look around and found this on VI firearms law:
"A license is required to possess, transport, or carry a firearm. A purchase coupon is issued to a license applicant when the application is approved. The weapon purchased is brought in to the firearms unit of the Virgin Islands Police Department. Information about the weapon is recorded and listed on the license issued to the applicant."
The statement would indicate that Clark had gotten a permit to carry; but if he was a federal agent working in his area he wouldn't need one, would he? Which means he was carrying and acting as a private citizen, as Lezama says. Which would throw out the argument from one of our favorite statists, Sen. Schumer:
"It is well recognized that federal law enforcement officers are immune from state criminal liability for actions that are taken within the scope of their employment as federal officers," Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, wrote in a letter to Gov. de Jongh. "That principle... applies with equal force in United States territories."

The Clark prosecution "has the potential to create a chilling effect on the operation of federal law enforcement throughout the United States' territories," Schumer wrote.
Can't have it both ways, Chucky;if he was there on duty he wouldn't need a locally-issued permit to carry, and if he wasn't then he should have no more immunity for his actions than any other citizen. For that matter, the 'immune from state criminal liability' is the kind of bullshit that's helped create the "We are FEDERAL Only Ones" attitude that causes such problems, and a lot of us are heartily sick of it(Horiuchi, etc.). If this guy being prosecuted causes federal agents to pay more attention to local law, I don't really see that as a bad thing.

Be interesting to see how this pans out.

Thanks to RNS for pointing to this.

And we have the line of at LEAST the day:

Pulling my stuff out of the tray, I looked back at the guard and asked, as sweetly as possible, “So, where do I go vote... for whoever's gonna fire you?”

I would damn well hope not

The 31-year old housewife who shot and killed one teenage intruder and wounded another last week in Midwest City will not face any charges.
And it's related to the post at De Coster's place the other day:
That's because Oklahoma County district attorney David Prater thinks the actions taken by Amanda Walworth were justified---she had every right to open fire on the two teenage boys after they kicked in the back door to her home.

I find that actually getting a full eight hours sleep does wonders

for the attitude. And aches. Unfortunately the shift is still going on, so it won't last long. In the meantime,
Among the reasons I despise Rep. Nancy Pelosi(NSD-CA)
By the end of 2008, Pelosi had been speaker for nearly two years. But the military was about to confront another controversy regarding her use of the Speaker Shuttle. According to a Dec. 9, 2008 military email, the Speaker Shuttle was at San Francisco International Airport as usual, waiting to take her back to Washington D.C. The email said that Pelosi wanted the jet to be moved, or "repositioned," just 51 miles away to Travis Air Force Base, closer to her Napa Valley home but far outside of her district.

"(T)he jet will not reposition to Travis," says a military official, "Jet will depart from SFO."

"(W)hy can't the jet reposition to Travis?" asks another military official. "You know this is a firestorm waiting to happen."

"We can't reposition the airplane such a short distance. It is not a judicial use of the asset. It is too expensive to operate the jet when there is truly no need to do so."
...
"We have never done this in the past. The deal is from (the Office of the Secretary of Defense and) the White House that the Speaker shuttle is from DC to SFO and back. We will not resposition. We do not reposition for convenience, even for the SECDEF (Secretary of Defense). It is not too far of a drive from Travis to SFO. Did the (Air Force) escort suggest to the Speaker that this is ok? If so, I hope you guys correct them immediately. If you agree with me that I am correct, then you need to stay strong and present the facts to the Speaker's office."

"She lives about 1.5 hours from SFO and much closer to Travis... From our point of view, it is difficult to tell the speaker that we can't support her when the whole reason we have a jet is to support her. Whether it is the best use of assets is not the question, but instead is it worth upsetting the speaker due to what really amounts to a rather minor point?"
Translation: "Pelosi will rip us all she can if we dare to 'inconvenience'her."
If you'll recall, she demanded a bigger plane than any other Speaker has ever had and her use of it has cost us a bloody fortune(according to Ace about $30k per trip, and I think that's each way), and then crap like this on top of it.


And yeah, this does smell of desperation: insult the Catholic church while trying to insult a Protestant who's running for office.


Hee, I think this would be something to give the bad guys nightmares:
More here; thanks to Theo for the pointer



debkafile's military and counter-terror sources confirm the WikiLeaks revelation that Iran developed camera-equipped suicide vests for al Qaeda's attacks on US troops under the instruction of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Center in Tehran.


Go over to Whiteboard for the rest


Among the reasons I despise Obama & Co.:
“If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,’ if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it’s gonna be harder and that’s why I think it’s so important that people focus on voting on November 2.”
Hey, Mr. President: you call people the 'enemy', they're going to start acting like The Enemy; you really sure you want to turn that dial?


And last, another update on the Erik Scott murder/manslaughter, and the apparently continuing harassment of Samantha Sterner. Aren't there ANY supervisors in LVPD with the brains to put a stop to this?

Ok, I was wrong: I went by Two-Four and ran across these

The kind of crap that causes people to not like or trust the police.

What idiot actually believes THIS is how you're supposed to act? Are you supposed to kiss their shoe while they're cuffing you, too? Bleeping Jesus on a pogo stick.

And last, as he says, you make the shot count and put the threat down. Period. Someone makes grownup threats to your life, they have to live by the grownup rules. And, in such a case, die by them.

I need to stop looking at his place this late; some of that crap pisses me off enough that my already messed-up sleep cycle may be even worse, now.

Let's just say that shift work is once again kicking my ass

Reminds me of why I retired in the first place. So not much tonight, just concentrating on two pieces of BS from New York, both from NYEffingC and Bloomberg & Co. First, what these nanny-state clowns think should prevent you from being allowed to exercise a constitutional right:
§ 3–03 Grounds for Denial of Permit. An application for a rifle/shotgun permit may be denied [if] for lack of good moral character or other good cause, pursuant to section 10–303 of the Administrative Code, based on the following reasons:
(a) The applicant has been arrested, indicted or convicted for [any] a crime or violation except minor traffic violations, in any [jurisdiction,] federal, state or local jurisdiction....
(g) The applicant has a history of one or more incidents of domestic violence [note that this doesn’t require a conviction or even a finding by a court by a preponderance of the evidence, just presumably the administrative officials’ own evaluation –EV].
(h) The applicant has a poor driving history, has multiple driver license suspensions or has been declared a scofflaw by the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles....
Please note that this is not to deny a carry permit, this is to deny owning a long gun at all.
Further, catch that 'arrested, indicted or convicted for' part? If you've ever been arrested for ANYTHING, indicted for ANYTHING, even if you were never convicted or it was a bad arrest or whatever, THAT is something they think should trash your 2nd Amendment rights forever. Same on the 'domestic violence' crap; 'incidents of' can mean just about anything they want it to.
And POOR DRIVING HISTORY for Deity's sake?
And that's just part of it; go read the rest.

And from SiH,
“There’s no way I could vote on this. Since I’ve been in the council, we’ve voted on numerous bills where fees and fines were increased and it would send a strange message to New Yorkers that the one fine we look to reduce is the fee and fine to permit a gun,” Councilman Erik Dilan (D-Brooklyn), who did not attend the caucus, said.
So pay a FINE to get a gun permit? Oh, that's just so full of Fail it's amazing.


Unrelated to NYE'C, I was thinking: my first job was at a motorcycle shop, my second an assistant janitor, the third cleanup and delivery at a blood bank and then into dispatch and my later career; the dispatch and beyond had shift work- 29 years of it- and the blood bank I was on call every other week for getting blood to hospitals when an emergency happened or they ran short. So except for two part-time jobs I've done shift work my whole adult life. Damn.

Among the reasons I despise politicians

But the bottom line remains that this story was a desperation measure by partisan Republicans, who have stooped to slinging mud about junior staffers to score points in the waning days of her campaign.”
Yeah, perjury and violation of immigration laws, let's see, “an uncharged coconspirator in the crime of perjury, filing false immigration documents, the crime of sham marriage.” is all a 'desperation messure', 'slinging mud', etc.

Manley, you're nothing more than a standard-issue canker on the national ass.
The highest level of management inside the Department of Homeland Security was aware that she worked for Reid, multiple sources confirmed, and following protocol, the majority leader should have been informed of the investigation through those channels, as well.

But in July 2009, when an ICE agent testifying at Tarhini’s preliminary deportation hearing was asked specifically about Tejada’s employer, the agent did not say it was the U.S. Senate.
ICE Special Agent Rebecca Perkins: “Currently she is employed with the — a Hispanic center organization.”
Tarhini's Defense Counsel, Jeffrey Byers: “Is that La Raza? Does that sound familiar?"
Perkins: “I don’t know.”
Byers: “It’s a — it’s a — it's something that is a public service group for the Hispanic community. Is that a fair statement, or something to that degree?”
Perkins: “Yes”
Translation: "She works for Senator Reid, but we're not supposed to say that."

Bleep.

For the moment let's ignore the DOJ not doing its job;

there's at least one full level of politicians in IL who should be in jail. At the least.

Now back to DOJ: Every bureaucrat involved in helping IL keep this crap going should be immediately fired. And have to return their pay for about, oh, the last six months or so; if they weren't doing the damned job, they shouldn't profit by it.

This is promising

The massive movement of intelligence gathering and analyzing forces from Iraq to Afghanistan in the last two years is paying off by cutting Taliban supplies of weapons, and money. More and more captured (often from dead Taliban) weapons and ammunition is of poor quality. Explosives, even the stuff made from ammonium nitrate fertilizer, is harder to get, and often used in smaller quantities in order to make more roadside bombs. That, in turn, is just getting more Taliban killed, including many more leaders. ...These are increasingly more dangerous because the Americans have more UAVs, along with camera towers and aerostats (tethered blimps) that can see for long distances, day or night and in any weather. It's not just that the cameras can pick up some guys planting a bomb (and call in an air strike), but can detect suspicious movement of any kind. The terrorists are creatures of habit, and the intelligence software can detect habits.

Google can take that 'Don't be evil' crap and shove it

Earlier this year the California-based firm admitted that the cars' antennae had also scanned for wireless networks, including home wi-fi, which connect millions of personal computers to the internet.

Google registered the location, name and identification code of millions of networks and entered them into a database to help it sell adverts.

The firm - which uses the slogan 'Don't be evil' - was able to record the location of every wireless router and network without alerting households because wi-fi signals are 'visible' to other internet devices, including the cars' antennae.

Google played down the significance of the wi-fi mapping and insisted it had not collected or stored data from personal computers.

It then backtracked and said its software had 'inadvertently' collected fragments of data (remember that phrase)which were being transmitted as the cars criss-crossed Britain.

The cars' antennae skipped networks five times a second, it said, meaning each network was only accessed for one-fifth of a second.

But it has now emerged that entire emails, web pages and passwords were copied and stored during that split-second.
And Google is oh, so upset! that this happened. And it was all an accident, etc. Reason I have a hard time trusting this?
In the past year alone he has:

* Addressed criticisms of Google’s stance on privacy by saying, “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”
* Claimed people want Google to “tell them what they should be doing next.”
* Said of Google, “We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about.”
* Said this: “One day we had a conversation where we figured we could just try to predict the stock market. And then we decided it was illegal. So we stopped doing that.”
* Suggested name changes to protect adults from the Web’s record of their youthful indiscretions.
* Said this: “What we’re really doing is building an augmented version of humanity, building computers to help humans do the things they don’t do well better.”
...
And Schmidt’s far from done. Appearing on CNN’s “Parker Spitzer” program last week, he said that people who don’t like Google’s Street View cars taking pictures of their homes and businesses “can just move” afterward to protect their privacy. Ironically, he said this on the very day that Google admitted those cars captured more than just fragments of personal payload data.
Add this to Google sucking up to the PRC and selling out bloggers, and there's no good reason to believe them, or trust them to completely delete the information they 'accidentally' sucked up.
“We want to delete this data as soon as possible, and I would like to apologize again for the fact that we collected it in the first place,” wrote Alan Eustace, a senior vice president of engineering and research.
"We WANT to"... Not "We WILL", but "WANT to". I've been listening to politicians too long to trust that 'WANT' to mean they WILL.

Two things to note this evening: one standard leftist idiocy,

the other sufficient to call for various politicians to be removed from office. For even proposing it.

First, the tea parties are full of racists and lynch mob mentality; it's the ONLY explanation, of course.

Second, a bunch of brainless fools have apparently decided it's just too hard to expect people here legally to become citizens; so they should be allowed to vote anyway.

I'm tired, and achy, so I'll leave it to you to generate words of outrage.

This is not an election on November 2.

This is a restraining order. Power has been trapped, abused and exploited by Democrats. Go to the ballot box and put an end to this abusive relationship. And let’s not hear any nonsense about letting the Democrats off if they promise to get counseling.
That first two sentences has to be the Lines Of The Week. At least.

At this point, I wouldn't trust the Los Vegas Police Department

for ANYTHING. About ANYTHING. The latest piece on the Erik Scott probable murder(ok, could be manslaughter) is enough to cause RCOB, and cause people who tend to reflexively trust the police to think hard about changing their minds.

You really have to read the whole thing, there's no way to excerpt it. Though I will borrow two parts, as display of pure, petty bullshit malice on the part of LVPD:
When the Sig finally arrived, the slide was jammed open, intentional damage requiring repair, more money imposed on the Scott family by Las Vegas authorities. All of these items could have been returned directly to Sterner, incurring no expense for the Scott family, but Sterner had to remain, to the authorities, a non-person who had no interest in the home or its contents that she shared with Scott.
and
A particularly disturbing pattern has recently emerged. Sterner has, in the last two weeks (circa late October, 2010), received two traffic tickets from Metro Police, and several friends and supporters of Sterner and the Scott family have been followed, several for great distances, distances that would eliminate the possibility that such following was mere coincidence, by the Police. In each case, there was a common factor: Each vehicle displayed the distinctive red, white and blue remembrance ribbon distributed in memory of Erik Scott to the rear.

While it is possible that Ms. Sterner has merely had an unusual run of bad luck in her driving habits, this too, like so much about this case, is unusual, questionable. Most people can drive for many years, even decades, without a single citation. But the unusual has become the commonplace in this case. What is most disturbing about this Police behavior is that it is counter to common sense and to professional Police practice, again, as so many of their actions in this case seem to have been.
Just flat effing disgusting.

Soros really buys lots of devotion with his money,

don't he?
News that Juan Williams' contract with NPR was terminated over comments he made about Muslims while appearing on Fox News shines a spotlight on the radio network's evergreen controversy: Its continued affiliation with Fox News. Specifically, NPR's Mara Liasson and her long-running association with Fox News has often raised questions. This might be the proper time for NPR to finally address that thorny issue.

I'm not suggesting Liasson has said anything as offensive as Williams, or that she has that kind of track record while appearing on Fox. I'm just saying that if you look at NPR's code of ethics, there's simply no way Liasson should be making appearances on Fox
Translation: "She hasn't actually done anything we can hang her for, but just showing up on Fox should be enough for NPR to fire her, too. That way we can cleanse NPR of people willing to not toe the line."

Interesting, isn't it? Lefties and 'progressives' who like to scream about 'free speech' and 'tolerance' and 'inclusiveness' doing everything they can to silence liberals who'll show up on a network the lefties don't like...

And as for them constantly calling conservative people racist,

"Juan Williams’ firing did not happen in a vacuum. It happened in the context of him having been the official Fox News lawn jockey stooge for years."

Oh, he did a strike-through, so he didn't really mean it and it's not a firing offense, right?

Note: Based on the comments over there, it appears the strike-through was added only after people complained, so yes, the author did intend to call Juan Williams a "lawn jockey," and yes, as one of my readers commented, the folks who run Balloon-Juice also are the first to call conservatives racist.

If you've heard about the probably hit piece CNBC is planning

on Remington, Weerd has this:

I'm going to have to stop looking at Joan Peterson's place;

it's just too damned frustrating to see her pull the same crap over and over and over. At times you can't tell if she's actually too damn stupid to see what people are pointing out, or doesn't care, or is just willing to lie to push her agenda. And the constant outbreaks of Reasoned Discourse^tm don't help, either.

'Course, it's possible Mr. Huffman is right; there's a mental defect involved...

As far as I'm concerned, crap like this means Rep. Dan Boren(NSP-OK)

ought to be thrown out of that office.
A bill introduced by Representative Dan Boren has firearm owners and gun control supporters in a shootout.

The bill would begin a study into firearm microstamping.

Rep. Boren, you suck. I don't care what the NRA thinks of you, crap like this we don't need; and you pushing it means we don't need YOU.


Added: saw this over at SiH, which says about the same thing Sigivald says in comments. I know sometimes I'm too quick to react to things; boils down in this case to
Boren is a Democrat who's voted with Obama on some things that make me distrust him,
When it comes to possible threats to the 2nd, I just have no damned trust anymore.
I need to work on the latter.

Before I get to some of the idiocy I hate having to write about,

I'd like to thank those who left kind thoughts in that post; much appreciated.

On the current bigoted idiocy, if you haven't heard about the firing of Juan Williams by NPR/PBS, go look it up; won't be hard.

Back? Ok, so Williams went on a Fox show and basically said when he sees some muslims on an airplane, acting certain ways, post-9/11 it makes him nervous. For that he was fired(it gets better) for 'not meeting their standards'. 'Standards' of a bunch who had no problem with this, and similar crap. We know exactly why he was fired, he stepped outside the allowed limits of what the NPR assholes consider 'proper' free speech. Disgusting, and their excuses are just as bad.

And THEN, just to make it even more fun, the CEO of NPR came out with this crap as part of her justification:
“Juan Williams should have kept his feelings about Muslims between himself and his psychiatrist or his publicist.”
My first thought when I read this: "Oh, you really paid attention to the Soviets, didn't you? "Obviously someone who says such a thing has mental problems and needs help." So you go out and make that idiot statement; were you planning to report him for the kind of involuntary commitment your Soviet friends used on people who said unapproved things? Or isn't that available to you as yet?

My first thought about the original event- the firing- was "Mr. Williams, you've now been called a bigot etc. for speaking unapproved thoughts; welcome to the damn club, and how do you like it?" From a couple of things I've read he does appreciate the situation, which is nice.

Screw NPR and PBS; get their hand out of the public purse, especially since they've openly shown this kind of bias and desire to squelch free speech.

Quote I found over at Classical Values:
Williams' firing is a clarifying moment in media mores. You can be Islamophobic, in the form of refusing to run the most innocuous imaginable political cartoons out of a broad-brush fear of Muslims, but you can't admit it, even when the fear is expressed as a personal feeling and not a group description, winnowed down to the very specific and nightmare-exhuming act of riding on an airplane, and uttered in a context of otherwise repudiating collective guilt and overbroad fearmongering.

Before I shut this down for the night, in reference to my previous posts'

comments on law enforcement, Confederate Yankee has some of the latest on the Erik Scott case. I'm going to post part of it, which has both lowered my opinion of LVPD and convinced me that they KNOW the shooting was basically the murder of a man:
The Police have asserted that the Ruger .380 ACP pistol reportedly found in Erik’s pocket by firefighter/medic Chris Thorpe constituted a crime, but the evidence of that “crime,” the pistol itself, was already in the hands of the police if their account of the incident is accurate. It may not be. All available evidence--to say nothing of common sense and constitutionally sound police procedure--indicates that Erik’s home had nothing whatever to do with any crime, nor did any of its contents. It was the home of a man the police shot and killed. That home was under the lawful control of Sterner, his joint tenant. The police knew this. Deputy Public Administrator Grodin knew this. The police had no lawful reason to enter or search Erik’s home or to take any property within. I am aware that I have repeated this point more than once. As Shakespeare said, there is method in my madness.

Experienced investigators listening to the voice of the PA Deputy Grodin on the You Tube recording would hear what I heard: A man running a bluff and running it badly. Unless he was incompetent (or under pressure?), Grodin would surely know the limits of his authority, and would also know, as has been admitted, that being accompanied by the police was unusual. He would have known that he had no authority to enter Erik’s home despite his bluff to the contrary, to say nothing of seizing his property, and would have understood that he could never, absent committing blatant perjury on an affidavit, have obtained a warrant. Realistically, he would likely have had no idea how to find and complete an affidavit to obtain a warrant as this is, in all probability, not a usual requirement of his daily duties.

The police would know how to obtain a warrant. They would know without a doubt that they had no legitimate reason and no lawful authority for a search and that obtaining a warrant would require a perjured affidavit, an original affidavit bearing their false assertions and an officer’s signature that would be on file with the court, difficult or impossible to control. In addition, as previously mentioned, the warrant return would have to specify each item seized which would then have to be entered into the police evidence system. All or any of these documents, if indicative of perjury or any other crime, would point directly at them and could lead to dismissal, prosecution and incarceration.

So why did the police contact the PA’s Office? Why did they enlist their aid? Why were they desperate to enter Erik’s home and seize property despite knowing that Sterner had joint tenancy and that they had no reason to be there and no lawful authority to conduct a search?
Go read all of it, but I warn you it's pretty much more of a RCOB piece. Especially with the next paragraph:
Part of the answer is suggested by the fact that after illegally searching the house and illegally removing property, they changed the locks and kept the key, locking Sterner out of her home until Kevin Scott was able to obtain the key at least a day later. The services of the PA’s office and the locksmith cost Erik’s family hundreds of dollars. Scott’s family were billed for the arguably illegal actions of PA Deputy Grodin and the Metro Police. Why did they believe it necessary to keep Sterner out of her home, to have unrestricted, unobserved time alone in that home before she was allowed to return to it?

And, Mr. Steve Grodin, it appears you are a shit. A miserable little shit, and I hope the family sues you for everything you have or ever will have for your part in this.

I know I throw out a lot of words on political crap,

but there's a whole lot more I don't talk about; for every article or post I mention(I know, that means 'bitch and whine and scream about') there's at least two or three I don't.

Combination of reasons. I never intended this to be a political blog, but it's turned partly into one. Partly because there's just not enough time to write about all the things that either outrage or delight me. And because, when you get down to it, my primary feeling toward politics tends to be "Would you people just LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE?!?"

I don't LIKE writing about corrupt, vicious little bastards like Barney Frank, and arrogant fools like John Effing Kerry, and very often flat stupid people like Maxine Waters. And when some tool like Trent Lott mouths off about how 'these tea party people will need to be properly controlled by the Party', and Corker starts talking about 'Oh no, we won't really try to get rid of Obamacare!', and some other Stupid Party tool talks about how friendly and helpful the Democrats will be... Sometimes I do scream at the screen. And have thoughts involving ropes with thirteen loops, or just a nice, simple firing squad. I'm effing sick to death of ALL these people who want to run my damn life. And my kids lives, and everyone else's. And if they'd just leave us alone, I'd let them kiss each others' asses and make deals and whatever all day long.

But they won't leave us alone. Some are socialist assholes who demand everyone be controlled by the state- with themselves in charge, of course- 'for our own good', some are just plain greedy powerbrokers who want to be in charge. And all of them want our money and our devotion and our lives. I am heartily fucking sick of them all.

And I flat hate the God-damned crap from various supporters. I've got a friend who can almost excuse almost ANYTHING done by a Evil Party member, but a Stupid Party member says or does almost anything, and it's "You dirty politician! You're crooked!", etc. Which wouldn't bother me as much except for his tending to consider me 'one of his Republican friends', despite my pointing out I've been giving 'R' party bastards harsh words for longer than he has. I'm sick to death of liberals and 'progressives' who think that if you don't agree with them, it means you're actually evil, that you hate, that you somehow want people to die. Preferably in poverty and misery.

And I really, truly deeply hate the fact that I can't trust one damned word that comes out of the major media. Movies, tv, actual(supposed to be) NEWS shows. I wrote once about what really got my attention about the hoplophobes; before that, when I was a kid and heard something on the news, or pushed by some tv show character that I flat KNEW was not true, I just didn't know what to think: "But that's not true, why are they saying it?" Far worse when it was a Professional News Reporter doing it; it took a long time to fully realize that, understand that, these people- supposed to be devoted to reporting news- would metaphorically and literally look you in the face and lie to you; to support their personal views, to help a politician they liked, whatever. And you know what? It still rouses me to actual fury when they do it.

Back when Rush Limbaugh first came on the radio in this area I'd never heard of him(on KTOK, if you're interested). Started listening, and it was incredible; here was a guy with a NATIONAL show actually saying a lot of the things I thought and- far more important- giving me more information than I'd had before. As in lots of parts of stories that I didn't hear anywhere else(pre-internet days for me), filling in holes; I'd have heard a news story about some incident or bill that I knew was leaving something out, or just didn't sound right, and now I got the parts ABC/NBC/CBS had left out, without having to wait a month or two for some magazine article to mention it. Which both enlightened me about a lot of news, and once again rubbed my nose in the fact that these people like Dan Rather and Peter Jennings and such were often flat lying to us, either directly or by omission. A lot of you know firsthand just how that destroys your previous trust in the 'news'; it makes you suspicious of EVERYTHING that comes out of their mouth.

The internet is both blessing and curse in all this: it allows you to dig up information the former gatekeepers don't want you to know, it allows you to cross-check what you hear and read, which is good; it also shoves right in your face the disdain and contempt these people, often referred to as 'elites', have for us. Also educational, and in some ways even more enraging than simply being lied to.

Speaking of which, a few days ago I read about the Democrats plans for a lame-duck session, some of the things they would like to do, including stealing peoples' pension accounts so they can use the money to pay off various unions and increase the government's control over us. And theft it is: seizing private property just because they want to.I have to wonder, what's in their minds? Do they actually believe everyone will yell a while and then quietly accept it? Or do they think that when some people do act that the security forces(EffingBI, Secret Service, etc.) will stomp on anyone who does and cow everyone else? At this point it would not surprise me in the least to find that some of these bastards WANT that to happen, WANT some excuse to order government agents to imprison and kill some people 'to encourage the rest of us' to behave properly. Do you have any idea how far these people have pushed me that I'm willing to believe this of some of them? For that matter, do the various LE agencies understand just how low their star has fallen that people like me believe- know in some cases- that they would simply accept their orders and trot off to carry them out? You've got cops in Maryland shooting people's dogs 'as a threat' even when they have to chase the dog down to kill it; think these sorry excuses for lawmen would hesitate to carry out orders from their political masters? I lost a lot of my confidence in the National Guard when I saw NG troops helping hold people at gunpoint in New Orleans because the mayor and police chief had decreed that the peasants could not be trusted with arms, not to mention the sight of an old lady being beaten by a couple of shits in police uniforms just for having a gun. I grew up around LE people, and it really hurts to have my confidence in them as generally good guys ripped up. Not to mention the fact that I cannot trust the good cops to hold the bad ones to account when they're corrupt or screw up("Yes, the officers killed an innocent person when they raided the wrong address, but they were following use of force guidelines so no action will be taken against them. Sorry about the dogs, too, but it's procedure.")

What this is all leading up to is I'm sick to death of all of it. I'm sick of not being able to trust a damned word that comes out of the major media; I'm sick of not being able to trust that LE officers will follow the damned law themselves; I'm sick at the knowledge that a lot of people in uniform will just follow their orders even when they know they're wrong; and I'm very deep-down-in-my-soul sick of corrupt, lying, condescending politicians. And I'm very very sick at heart that none of us can afford to NOT watch them and listen to all this and yell about it to make sure others know. Because we don't know when it might be some little bit of knowledge-spreading by someone out there that lights enough of a fire to keep something from going over the edge.

So if I'm not my usual sparkling self this past while, that's a large chunk of why.

This bitching session is now ended.

Even for the People's Republic of MA, to send this bastard

back to office over and over is disgusting:
Congressman Frank has never hesitated to use his power ruthlessly. On one occasion, he threatened bankers with summoning them before his committee and forcing them to reveal their home addresses — which would of course put their spouses and children at the mercy of any kooks that might come along.

Meanwhile, Congressman Frank could piously invoke "social justice" in defense of similarly ruthless community activist groups like Acorn or National People's Action, which had in fact besieged the homes not only of bankers but also of public officials who dared to oppose their agendas.

In Frank's words, these groups were simply people who "cared about equity" and who were just "trying very hard to preserve some equity and some social justice."

Vicious, petty, vindictive little socialist bastard. And Congress has kept protecting his sorry ass every time he was caught at something, and MA has kept reelecting him.

To every jackass in MA who voted for him: Screw you. And if you're now unemployed or otherwise caught by the economic mess Frank had a hand in causing, well, my only wish is that it would only bite those who helped him cause it instead of everyone else.

This is as good a display as you'll find of why I flat do not trust

the major media anymore. On much of anything. From Ace,
But did she say that?

No, she did not.

What she actually asked was:

"The First Amendment does [establish what you claim]? ... So you're telling me that the separation of church and state, the phrase 'separation of church and state,' is in the First Amendment?"

In other words, she makes it perfectly clear what she's questioning. Not that the Establishment Clause says what it says, but whether the phrase "separation of church and state" appears in the clause.

And of course, on that point, she's 100% right.

Don't believe me? Well believe the Washington Post, which now reports the exchange as concluding thus:

She interrupted to say, "The First Amendment does? ... So you're telling me that the separation of church and state, the phrase 'separation of church and state,' is in the First Amendment?"

Guess which article that appears in?

It appears in the original article, the one making the erroneous, damning misreportage of her question, or at least it does now. The article has been scrubbed and edited to now accurately report what she said and what she questioned.

The same URL I linked to yesterday now links to an edited, accurate version of the article.

There is no notification the article has been corrected, or that it got anything wrong in the first place, despite the fact that the reporter Ben Evans did in fact blow the quote 100% to suggest an entirely different meaning than the accurate meaning.

So it appears that, KNOWING there was video and audio of the words, Ben Evans lied about what she said. And when it became obvious that a lot of people were noticing the article was edited to CHANGE WHAT HE REPORTED HER SAYING with no 'correction' notice or anything.

We're supposed to trust these people why?

From (formerly Great)Britain,

what a lot of the National Socialist Democrats want to see here.
But for Kelly Marshall, who has five children by four different fathers, the handout has never been about paying for nappies, food and other everyday expenses.

She saved her benefit money to help pay for breast enhancement.

And as many parents envisage tightening their belts after the Tories announced plans to cut the benefit for higher-rate taxpayers, she plans to save more of hers for liposuction and a tummy tuck.

Miss Marshall, who has never worked, rakes in almost £29,000 a year from benefits - and last year spent £4,500 to go from a 34A to a 34DD.
That means she's being handed almost $46,000 of other peoples' money.
She explained: 'I have wanted a boob job since I was a teen. But it wasn't until I had five children that I could afford it - with all the extra benefits I get. Now I hope to have liposuction, a tummy tuck and regular Botox.

'I thought having children would make my boobs bigger, but that never happened so I decided to do something about them.

'I saved money from my benefits for four months to cover half the cost and put the rest on a credit card, which I pay back with my benefits.
Yeah. She was in such desperate need that she 'saved' enough of the OPM she was given to enlarge her tits. Wonderful. And she thinks she deserves the money:
'I know most people will think it is wrong I am spending taxpayers' money on my looks. But I deserve it because I am a good mum. Having children has taken its toll on my body. All mums should be able to have cosmetic surgery.
No, I think you're a dirtbag slut who lives of the labor of others and is so damn spoiled by your government that you think you DESERVE the money stolen from others.

'I don't care that it is at the taxpayers' cost,' she told Closer magazine. 'I am just proud of my looks and family - and it's my decision what the money is spent on.'
I'm not surprised you don't care; you LIKE having the government commit armed robbery to support you, you lazy bitch.

What doesn't help is she was TRAINED to be this way, by a government that LIKES people being dependent on the government. Well, Britain, you kept voting socialists into power; here's the outcome.

If you've got the stomach, go read what all she's bought the kids with OPM, and what else she thinks she and they 'deserve'.

Y'know, I'd kind of thought it common knowledge that the Boston Tea Party

took place some time BEFORE the Declaration and the full start of the social activities.

Yeah, Palin is SUCH a dumbass...

SO you think you've run out of places to put new craptacticool stuff

on you AR?

Think again.

Halloween foods

here, including Kentucky Fried WTF on a stick

Thanks to Uncle for the link

In the 'Weapons-Grade Snark' Category,

President Barack Obama said Monday he is appearing on "Mythbusters," a television series that uses science to separate fact from fiction

Awesome! Maybe he'll bring his birth certificate!

As far as 'cheap shot' goes, as I once told a lady "You expect me to pass up an opening like THAT?"

Borrowing from Frank J,

So the Democrats sucked. But not just plain old, usual politician sucked, but epic levels of suck where it’s hard to find an analogue in human history that conveys the same level of suckitude. It was sheer incompetence plus arrogance — and those things do not complement each other well. We’re talking sucking that distorts time and space like a black hole.

It’s Godzilla-smashing-through-a-city level of suck — but a really patronizing Godzilla who says you’re just too stupid and hateful to see all the buildings he’s saved or created as he smashes everything apart. Or, to use Obama’s favorite analogy, you have a car stuck in ditch, so you call the mechanic, but the only tool he brings with him is a sledgehammer. And then he smashes your car to pieces and charges you $100,000 for his service. Finally, he calls you racist for complaining. Obama and the Democrats have been so awful, it’s hard for the human brain to even comprehend.
...
People do remember how much the Republicans suck, and they know where it tops out … and that is nowhere near as bad as the Democrats are today. Like with the barking dog, it’s annoying, but you know it’s not going to cause the collapse of civilization as we know it. Not so with the zombie apocalypse; who knows how bad that could get if left to continue? Same with the Democrats and Obama; people have never dealt with anything this horrible their entire lives, and they aren’t that curious to see how much worse it can be.
I'd add: And the Republicans better remember we're all out of tolerance for suckage; they try going back to their pre-Speaker Pelosi suck, they'll be sucked right out of those offices at the next election, probably by the third party candidates that'll be running.

One of my first thoughts upon reading this was General Petraeus,

you'd better get off your ass and do something about this. And if you aren't allowed to, maybe you ought to resign so you can properly raise hell about it.
To the U.S. Army soldiers and Marines serving here, some things seem so obviously true that they are beyond debate. Among those perceived truths: Tthe restrictive rules of engagement that they have to fight under have made serving in combat far more dangerous for them, while allowing the Taliban to return to a position of strength.

"If they use rockets to hit the [forward operating base] we can't shoot back because they were within 500 meters of the village. If they shoot at us and drop their weapon in the process we can't shoot back," said Spc. Charles Brooks, 26, a U.S. Army medic with 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, in Zabul province.

Word had come down the morning Brooks spoke to this reporter that watch towers surrounding the base were going to be dismantled because Afghan village elders, some sympathetic to the Taliban, complained they were invading their village privacy. "We have to take down our towers because it offends them and now the Taliban can set up mortars and we can't see them," Brooks added, with disgust.

Some further thoughts, but they're a little garbled to put down right now.

Ouch! Dave, you're supposed to listen

for the rattle!

And then levitate.

One last thing tonight: the kind of people the Clintons had in the White House

are very similar to the bastards Obama has:
At one of my very first breakfasts, while Berger and Cohen were engaged in a sidebar discussion down at one end of the table and Tenet and Richardson were preoccupied in another, one of the Cabinet members present leaned over to me and said, “Hugh, I know I shouldn’t even be asking you this, but what we really need in order to go in and take out Saddam is a precipitous event — something that would make us look good in the eyes of the world. Could you have one of our U-2s fly low enough — and slow enough — so as to guarantee that Saddam could shoot it down?”

The hair on the back of my neck bristled, my teeth clenched, and my fists tightened. I was so mad I was about to explode. I looked across the table, thinking about the pilot in the U-2 and responded, “Of course we can ...” which prompted a big smile on the official’s face.

“You can?” was the excited reply.

“Why, of course we can,” I countered. “Just as soon as we get your ass qualified to fly it, I will have it flown just as low and slow as you want to go.”

The official reeled back and immediately the smile disappeared. “I knew I should not have asked that....”

“No, you should not have,” I strongly agreed, still shocked at the disrespect and sheer audacity of the question. “Remember, there is one of our great Americans flying that U-2, and you are asking me to intentionally send him or her to their death for an opportunity to kick Saddam. The last time I checked, we don’t operate like that here in America.”
I'll make a modification to that, General: honorable people do not operate like that, but you were not dealing with honorable people.

If you have the stomach to look at the Salon comments, you'll find lots of people explaining how Bush is ultimately to blame for all problems, knew the 9/11 attack was coming and did nothing, etc. But take some antacid and remove the breakables first.

Apparently a celebritute the major media and Democrats love, last name McCain,

has once again opened her mouth and spewed forth a pile of crap. Including this garbage:
"I speak as a 26-year-old woman," McCain said on ABC's "This Week." "And my problem is that, no matter what, Christine O'Donnell is making a mockery of running for public office. She has no real history, no real success in any kind of business. And what that sends to my generation is, one day, you can just wake up and run for Senate, no matter how [much] lack of experience you have."
Hmm. I do have to wonder just what the micro-brain of said celebritute considers suitable experience; but mostly I don't care. May be a surprise to the dumbass, but ANYONE CAN RUN FOR OFFICE. It's one of the specific things set up a couple of hundred years ago, party to keep idiots like McCain from being able to 'pre-qualify' people.

I don't know if she was dropped on her head as a baby, or the makeup fumes got to her brain.

Whilst waiting for dinner to cook,

I had a request for a shot of the new bike:
Honda VFR800; few years old, low miles. Being used, along with a couple of factors I won't go into right now, made it affordable.

Not the style I'd have really looked at, but son checked it out and said "You ought to try it out", so I did. MUCH more upright and comfortable riding position than his sport bike, very nice handling, flat flies when you twist the go-handle. And the factory pipes are very quiet, which was one of the things that took getting used to: you can hear every engine sound*, you can hear the chain hiss. Disc brakes front and back and ABS. The engine is a 'de-tuned version of the 800cc racing engine', and if this is de-tuned the original must be a flat bastard.

It'd be real easy to get in trouble on this thing, as it delivers so smoothly you don't realize quite how fast you're going; it gives you that urge to yell "SCREW THE SPEED LIMIT!" and grab a handful of throttle. About a week after I bought it I took the curve from I40 to I44 northbound about twenty mph faster than every before and it didn't feel like that was pushing it at all, Deity knows what a really good rider could do on it.

So that's the new machine. Found a Givi trunk for it which'll be very handy(on a very BIG sale, or wouldn't have been able to), and need to find some bags later on. Won't be factory, have you ever seen the PRICES they want on those? They're bleepin' fiberglass boxes with a bracket, dammit! So some soft bags I think it'll be. When weather and the job allow, I need to take a trip.


* I flat effing HATE bikes with ear-piercing pipes that make it sound like an asthmatic chainsaw with an amp.

Remember the idiots at VFW supporting politicians who crap on the troops?

Like Ma'am Boxer?
It is now evident to most of the VFW leadership, both National and especially the
departments, that the VFW has been subjected to extreme negative publicity throughout
the nation, and the recent endorsement decisions have, in fact, harmed the VFW’ s
reputation and future ability to fulfill our mission.

I cannot let this erosion of public support for our great organization continue. The
apparent lack of the committee to address these concerns will lead to a proposal by me,
as Commander-in-Chief, to amend the by-laws at the 112th National Convention for
the purpose of dissolving the PAC. Meanwhile, under the authority granted to me as
Commander-in-Chief in section 619 of the VFW National By-Laws and under section
620 of the Manual of Procedure, I am withdrawing all PAC appointments effective
October 15, 2010.

Accordingly, I’ m asking the council for a vote of “ no confidence” in the VFW PAC as
indicated on the enclosed ballot.
A good start. Now the question is "How and why the hell did you people sit around while the PAC did this and say NOTHING until people screamed and took money away from you?

Portable fire can Updated

Something Dad showed me a few years back, it's a good and pretty waterproof way to have a small fire without having to gather wood.

Take a tuna can, or something about that size(extra points if you used one of the openers that lets you use the lid). Cleaned out, of course. Cut some strips of cardboard wide enough that a piece inside will let the lid sit in place, and coil them up so you have a can full of cardboard. Then melt some wax and pour it in; let it sit a minute or two so the cardboard can soak it up, then pour out any excess and let cool. When lit the cardboard acts as a wick for burning the wax.

It does take a flame to ignite it, no flint & steel here, but it gives a hot fire in a small area
Besides covering it up for transport, and smothering the fire, you can use the lid to control the size of the burning area
Remember, both the can and the lid will get hot, so for use it needs to be on a much better surface than what I used here(JUST long enough to take the pictures).


Update: A good tip from comments:
I learned to keep it warm and get as much wax as possible in it before allowing it to cool from Gerry. You could use the oven on warm to keep it liquid until the cardboard is saturated.

And something I remembered: you can either make a couple of the pieces a bit wider than the others or stick some small pieces in between coils; a bit that sticks up above the rest makes it easier to light.

Due to circumstances that came together just right,

I'm back among the ranks of the (part-time)employed. Which is why bloggage has been light, and will remain somewhat sporadic; that post on the pocket holster took a week to get done, instead of the day or two it would have before.. Good pay, and while I wouldn't do it full-time unless it was that or starve, part-time will do. And- especially this time of year- the money will be very nice.

I will mention that I am once again the owner of a two-wheel powered conveyance, which is very nice. And a new helmet. One was by choice(knocked a hell of a hole in the checking account, one reason for the job), the other necessity; the helmet was actually overdue to be replaced, then about two weeks ago it slipped out of my hand leaving a store and merrily bounced across the pavement. Add age to impact and the hinge not working right anymore, and it's new helmet time. If you're curious, it's a HJC IS-MAX; the modular style with the pivoting chin bar is the only full-face helmet I've found that fits comfortably over my glasses, and this new model has a slide-down sunshield that means I don't have to worry about sunglasses while riding.

On to the news-type stuff, I agree with Uncle on this: did they or did they not break the law? If they did, what's this civil-penalty crap instead of criminal charges? If they didn't, then they've basically been blackmailed into giving a bunch of money to the government so they won't keep saying bad things about them. And I won't get into the "Satisfy the gummint that you're not a criminal before you're allowed to buy something for your sinus or cold problem" bullshit.


Good piece on liberal elitism, ending with this:
One last note about my own brushes with liberal elitism. In the summer of 1973, as an 18-year-old anticipating college that September, I worked in a biology lab at Princeton University. My duties including mopping the floor, feeding the rats, emptying the trays of fecal matter and, once the students were finished with their animal experiments, disposing of the critters. One afternoon, I had to dispatch a bunch of monkeys and cats—using chloroform—outside the building near the garbage containers. It caused a stir among students milling about, and a number of them harassed me, yelling, “Animal killer!” It was a very weird moment: young men and women, just a few years older than myself, attacking a minimum-wage worker for doing his job, rendered further ironic by the fact that some of the protesters were, in fact, the very same people who were conducting the experiments on the animals. That’s elitism.


Hehehe...


Oh, for bleep's sake,
Dexter Meyer says he recently returned to Denver International Airport after a trip and went to retrieve his car from the airport’s parking lot. After nine days, Meyer said he found that his car would barely start. A trip to the dealership revealed the problem: rodents had eaten through the car’s wiring.

According to Meyer, the dealership explained that small critters like rabbits and mice like to much on the car’s new wiring made up of a soy-based compound.
Who the hell had the bright idea of making wiring insulation of organic compounds that pests will eat? And I wonder how much he's getting paid?


A 'bacon attack' on a mosque. Discussion of 'we should be more sensitive' vs. 'I'm sick of a lot of muslims whining and threatening death whenever they're feeling unloved'.


TOTALLY unrelated to any of the above,

Thanks Weer'd!


On the subject of video, ran across this a while back; found it again today here, and it should be seen:




Kevin has a fine example of the kind of idiot who votes for Barney Frank and Friend of Angelo Dodd and Ma'am Boxer:
In today's USA Today was a letter from G. Bruce Hedlund of San Andreas, California. Mr. Hedlund said this:

Think of our country as a society made up of children and a government made up of adults. It is up to the adults to weigh all the options and provide services in the best interests of the children.

There is so much wrong with this, I don't even know where to start, but I will say that this attitude is responsible for the US receiving the government we've voted for.


I'm going to close this with something from Uncle:
The other difference I find in dealing with folks with whom I mostly disagree politically is the concept of need. Why do you need a 50 caliber? Why do you need a car that gets to 60 in under 5 seconds and gets shitty gas mileage? Why do you need this or that? And my response is always the same: What’s need got to do with it?

And this throws them for a loop. Literally. They feel the need to justify their desires, wants, views and goals so that they’re palatable to other people. They expect you to do the same. I have no such predilection toward that. I do things because I want to. And when I explain to them that my supposed need has fuck all to do with anything, I can literally watch their eyes glaze over in what I presume is disbelief. I think it’s hard on them to be told that they don’t have a say. And I’m not justifying any thing to them.
Amen. It's one thing to think to yourself "Ok, do I NEED this, or want this?" and decide what to do; it's a whole 'nother thing to have some jerk tell you you have to justify your decision- to HIM or the gummint- or it's not a valid or 'good' decision.

And now I shall attempt to get some stuff done here at the house. I'd rather go shooting, but...

Another holder of the Prescription Jockstrap Award

In clips seen for the first time, he is heard calmly telling his passengers: "Just to let you know, I took a round through my front windscreen which came up and hit me in the head.

"I've got a bit of a crack and a bleed there."

The bullet-riddled Chinook then starts malfunction and Flt Lt Fortune is heard saying: "MAYDAY. This is Tricky 73. Nine miles to the south."

He steered the chopper back to base despite being covered in blood - and was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross.