Remember the 'probes' that cleared the CRU & Co.

on the Climaquiddick e-mails? Seems a lot of people have problems with the probes; I wonder why...
They criticised the brevity of the appraisal panel report, at “a mere five pages”, and said both investigations should have been more open to the public.

The committee also said the emails review “did not fully investigate the serious allegation” relating to the deletion of emails and instead relied on a verbal reassurance that the messages still exist.

Though the committee was split over the credibility of the inquiries, an amendment put forward by Labour MP Graham Stringer which said that they had not been independent was voted down by members.

He said Lord Oxburgh appeared to have a “conflict of interest” because of his links to green businesses while the Emails Review panel included a former Climate Research Unit scientist.
Who do these people think they are, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi?



The NYEffin'Times cooks the numbers to get what they want you to believe. Anybody surprised by this needs a rest.
New York Times readers, however, ought to hesitate before scurrying to speed-dial their Congress reptiles and demand an end to this preventable epidemic of gun ownership. To begin with, that repeated phrase "9 out of 10" has a euphonious ring, but Blow's data is simply inaccurate. I was unable to find any U.S. homicide statistics in the source cited, the United Nations Small Arms Survey, which for the most part discusses the proliferation of guns in places like Timor and Yemen. According to the Department of Justice, the percentage of homicides for guns in the U.S since 1977 has risen slightly from 62% to 68% -- less than seven out of ten, not nine out of ten.

More importantly, although these figures may be interesting for certain analyses, they don't tell us much about societal violence. Incredibly, Blow never addresses the obvious relevant figure: the overall homicide rate. He is able to claim that the U.S. is in "a league of its own," with a country sphere at the top of the chart, only by basing his analysis on an irrelevant statistic -- "percent of homicides by firearms." A homicide is a homicide, whether it's done with a Glock or a garden hose.
Yes, but if you actually go by the overall number, the US is shown to be a lot safer than these people want you to know. Including a lot safer than places with the kind of personal disarmament laws the NYE'Times pushes.



Remember Barney Frank(Corrupt Jerk-MA) and the other National Socialist Democrats denying Fannie and Freddie needed any new rules because things were just wonderful under Raines & Co.?
Freddie’s problems arose in 2003 when it disclosed that it had understated its income from 2000 to 2002; the company revised its results by an additional $5 billion. In 2004, Fannie was found to have overstated its results for the preceding six years; conceding that its accounting was improper, it reduced its past earnings by $6.3 billion.

Mr. Raines retired in December 2004 and Mr. Howard resigned at the same time. Ms. Spencer left her position as controller in early 2005. The following year, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, then the company’s regulator, published an in-depth report on the company’s accounting practices, accusing Fannie’s top executives of taking actions to manipulate profits and generate $115 million in improper bonuses.


One more "Taxes need to be raised!(on other people)" celebrity:
Consider what Baldwin wrote in the Huffington Post four years ago in a piece he titled Tax Cuts and the Republican Legacy:

These tax cuts are not only to make Bush's wealthiest supporters richer, they are intended to hurt less powerful Americans by killing many of the social programs they depend on. That is the legacy of this Republican-controlled Congress. To hurt those who aren't wealthy enough to write Bush-Cheney a big check. I urge all Americans to keep that in mind during this election cycle. A Republican-controlled Congress is killing important social programs that we all depend on, so that Bush's friends can avoid paying a reasonable share of their taxes. ....

So, according to the News, Baldwin might be claiming residency in the Hamptons to evade New York City taxes. But four years ago, the "30 Rock" star encouraged people to give generously to Democrats in the midterm elections so that Republicans could be ousted from Congress and taxes raised.
As I recall, Baldwin was the jerk who went on a national show during the Clinton impeachment and said that in a proper country one of the people in charge of the impeachment AND HIS FAMILY would be dragged into the street and stoned to death.


Gee, so those nasty Israelis aren't actually the big obstacle to peace? Whoda thunk it.


Having had an actual nights sleep, I now have to go out and do some shopping, thus preventing the Security Staff from biting me for running out of their rations. Back later.

Only reason I'm posting on this is I'll forget to if I don't do it n ow

Huffman has a post that includes this on the subject of bullet penetration:
Penetration less than 12 inches is too little, and, in the words of two of the participants in the 1987 Wound Ballistics Workshop, "too little penetration will get you killed."
Sounds good. But it reminds me of something in the Ayoob book I read. Can't dig it out right now but it goes something like
Saying "A bullet HAS to penetrated 'X' inches as a minimum" has problems. Say you shoot an attacker with a .45; the bullet penetrates the chest, expands to about .65" and stops just under the skin of the back, stopping the attacker cold. According to the 'must penetrate at least' numbers that bullet is a failure because it 'only' penetrated 10.5 inches.

No deep thoughts right now, just something I was reminded of.

I mentioned I've been working part-time at the place

I retired from; has good points, but it's also been a very good reminder of why I was so glad to leave.

The other day was a good one: worked day shift, and about two hours before got off the supervisor called, the lady working hoot shift had car trouble and he didn't have anybody else to ask, could I double-back and work that shift? That means get off, go home, take care of some house stuff and dinner, get about two hours sleep and then back to it.

Only reason I'm still awake is so I can go to bed at a normal human hour to try to keep my systems somewhat sorted out.

"I didn't mean what I actually said;

why won't you believe me?" says been-in-DC-far-too-long Lugar.

Uncle pointed to a new blog

Gunpoliticsny.com. Good way to keep track of what crap is coming out of Bloomberg's brain, including this:

Mayor Bloomberg is giving his speech right now on his “major” gun control initiative. The main points are:

1. Enhanced background checks, get mental health records from states.
2. No private sales, bogus “gun show loophole.”

Plus:

He supports the McCarthy magazine bill.

He’s laying all the blame on Congress for not doing anything about his agenda. He also avoided trashing the NRA.

Ever notice how, if guns are in any way to be used as an excuse, these 'champions of individual rights' have no problem with 'turn all your medical records over to the cops to be searched'?

This sounds like Bob Fletcher should be prosecuted

for a number of things, starting with(not in any order of importance)
Just weeks into the new Ramsey County Sheriff administration, we finally know why former sheriff Bob Fletcher ignored Minnesota Data Practices requests for the 78 Terrorism Information Briefs he boasted about preparing and disseminating since 2005.

"They never existed," Randy Gustafson, the new public information officer for Sheriff Matt Bostrom, said in a telephone interview on January 19. "It is a very big lie."
view counter

But that's not the only thing Fletcher falsified in this 2009 budget report to the Ramsey County Board, according to Gustafson.
Continuing to
Olding, who left his post a week after Fletcher was gone, didn't respond to the Daily Planet's requests for an interview. His 2009 salary, according to this searchable database on the Pioneer Press website, was $92,380.52.

Just how that public money was spent, and exactly how many people worked underneath Olding, remains unknown.
and ending with this, which particularly caught my eye:
The previous administration didn't exactly make it easy for Gustafson to transition into his work with the public. When he got to his new office, there were no files, papers or outstanding records requests left for him to learn from.

"Inside of the office there were zero pieces of paper," he said.

As the days go on, the suspicious history they're unearthing is a bit of shock, Gustafson said.
This caught my attention due to past history; in my former career it came to our attention that it was common that a sheriff who lost his reelection bid would be followed out by some of the dispatchers and deputies, and they'd all steal or destroy records before they walked out. Not just personal stuff, but LE records on arrests, criminal history inquiry records, all kinds of official documentation. Sometimes just to be shitty because they lost, sometimes to hide things they'd done; extremely unprofessional at the least, criminal at the most. Still pisses me off to think about it, and I still think those who do such things should be prosecuted to the fullest extent. If Fletcher & Co. did this, that's exactly what should happen to them.

Ref Kevin's post on When Animals

Attack, Dad once told me of a day, when he was a kid, when a guy who'd been squirrel hunting came stumbling into town looking like he'd lost a fight with a lumbermill bandsaw. Somebody took him to the doctor, and after he was stitched up and bandaged the "What'n hell happened to you?" question was asked.

He'd been sitting under a tree when he heard leaves being shuffled to his rear. Carefully turned his head to see, and there was a bobcat cub playing in the leaves, and getting closer. "I've always wanted a bobcat to raise as a pet," thinks he, and when it got close enough he grabbed it.

It grabbed back. And wouldn't stop grabbing.

His final words on the subject were "Somebody tells you he can lick his weight in wildcats, you call him a damn liar, I couldn't even whoop a little one."

Why Canada is on the list of places I would not live

People firebomb your home while you're inside, you use a gun to run them off, and you get arrested. For a start.
His collection of seven guns, five pistols and two rifles was seized, along with his firearms licence. Mr. Thomson said he lives in fear that his attackers will return and has taken to arming himself with a fire extinguisher.
Which will do fuck-all good if the clowns come back. And, say, hit the house from two sides this time.
From the clowns at the Niagara Regional Police Service,
“If the public are wondering can you run out of your house and [fire a handgun at an intruder], the bottom line is, according to the laws of Canada, no, you can’t,” said Constable Nilan Dave of the Niagara Regional Police Service, which charged Mr. Thomson. “That’s why the courts are there, to give a person an opportunity to explain their actions.”
Hey, Constable JackassDave: people firebombing your home WITH YOU INSIDE is attempting murder; where the hell you get this 'at an intruder' crap, I have no damned idea. I'm sure you'd be happier if he'd simply sat inside waiting for you bastards to show up and save him, but since that might've involved his death, that's not really a good idea. No matter what you think, you worthless excuse for a lawman.

...will not support any Republican candidate during the primaries who attacks Palin

Hey, Stupid Party HQ and all 'R' people thinking of running for the Oval Office: you'd better pay attention to this.
Palin is not just another potential Republican candidate. Palin is someone who has endured attacks by the mainstream media, entertainment establishment, and left-blogosphere second to no one currently active in Republican politics.

Palin's political and economic survival under this assault is why Palin's supporters in the Republican Party are more motivated than those of any other potential candidate.

And it is why people like me, who currently are open-minded as to the field of potential candidates in the absence of knowing who will run, will not support any Republican candidate during the primaries who attacks Palin. (Yes, the Lombardi Rule still takes effect after the primaries are over.)
Whole thing here.

We keep getting closer and closer

to Hammer's Slammers

From the writings of Rep. Steve Cohen

via Iowahawk

And, to start off your weekend early,

Deer roping
and
The Attack Squirrel

Borrowed from Borepatch

We've all seen what happens when you combine crazy gun laws with possibly politically motivated government. A bunch of folks took this kind of personally. People have been asking what they can do.

TJIC himself has been pretty gracious about the whole thing, saying that he's in good shape (so far) and recommending that people toss another sawbuck in the plate on Sunday if they want to help the world out. Fine advice for all of us.

But +5 Insightful to Top Of The Chain, who brings a wicked smaht idea:

So last night after I buycotted a graphic novel from Heavy Ink, TJIC commented on the previous post with this.

Btw, if comic books aren't your thing, I own and run a second business: SmartFlix.com.

Sign up for Combat Pistol University

http://smartflix.com/store/video/6303/Combat-Pistol-University

... or Gunsmithing University:

http://smartflix.com/store/video/6614/Gunsmithing-University

...or one of the others:

http://smartflix.com/store/universities

So instead of entertaining yourself with the latest Spiderman, Batman, etc., you can get yourself some practical knowledge from a variety of subjects.

The idea isn't a boycott, it's a buycott - support business that you like. I look and see all sorts of shooty goodness there, including this:

oday the M1 is enjoying a resurgence as a long range match rifle through the DCM program and the recent availability of imported surplus rifles. If you own a M1 Garand or it's magazine fed brother the M1A you'll want this course so that you can truly understand how your rifle functions, be able to totally strip it and reassemble it down to the last part and perform basic repairs. You will even understand how that mysterious clip feed system works and how to adjust it. Improving accuracy is also discussed. The differences and similarities internally between the M1 and the M1A are shown in detail.

This video was added to our catalog on January 01, 2000 in Firearms::M-1 / Garand.

As you see, they're helpfully tagged for your browsing convenience. Other tags include AK-47 and 1911 (by God). And there's a nifty Amazon-like Wisdom-Of-Crowds thingie, which helpfully points out:

Customers who rented this DVD also rented

• Rediscovering The Old Ways: Fire
• Practical Shooting For IPSC & IDPA
• AK-47 Armorer's Course (covers AKS/MAK90/AK47)
• 3GM - Shooting Techniques of the Grand Masters
• Building The M1 Garand Rifle

So take a moment to browse over to SmartFlix. There may just be something there for you - if so, order it. Post it on your site.

And to the point of this post - let's drive so much business his way that Governor Patrick will want to break ground at the new SmartFlix World Headquarters.


The original here

Apparently Obama and the State Department are so in love

with the idea of communists taking over countries that they're STILL trying to get Zelaya back into Honduras. Like there's nothing better to worry about than pushing a small country to let a Castro wannabe back in to screw things up even more.


I think the Evil Party weenies are kind of panicked by the vote the repeal Obamacare, and it shows. I think it's not just the vote passing with a far greater margin than the vote to enact it, I think it's that a whole bunch of Stupid Party politicians actually held to their promise to have a vote and put everyone on the record; I think that scares hell out of the EP, and explains a lot of the "Thsi is just a gesture" and "It won't pass in the Senate so we won't even vote on it" noise. If Reid is so certain it won't pass and was actually worried about time, he'd just schedule the vote and get it done; if he's so confident the people actually love the bill he'd WANT the EP Senators to be on record voting for it again. That he's so solid on "I won't let it come to a vote" says he knows how ticked off people are about it and does NOT want EP Senators on the record as voting for it a second time.


Article on the revolt/revolution going on in Tunisia; one of the interesting things there is the same thing that's happened in other places, including Iran: the use of cell phones and internet to bypass the usual communication channels. You realize that we could help some revolutions go by putting some kind of phone repeater system up so the government could not cut these communications? Drive the tyrants nuts, wouldn't it?


Since the call for civility we have seen
A Democratic congressman compare republicans to Nazi’s and refuse to apologize at first then finally did.

A liberal talkshow host made oral sex jokes concerning the Republican Female Lt. gov of Wisconsin on the air.

A second lib talker fantasized on air about murdering Rush Limbaugh.

and on the Joy Behar show Sarah Palin was referred to as a Nazi and blamed her for the Tucson Massacre

We could go on but it’s kinda late as I’m writing this.


This is just too damned icky(I know, but the word fits) to deal with right now. But between a lot of idiots pretending to be parents and celebritutes like these being looked up to by kids, what do we expect?


Well, the only surprise here is it took this long; I'd imagine the investigators and prosecutors office were crapping bricks every time Dupnik opened his mouth.


BATFE once again decides to legislate. Because the Scary Black Shotgun doesn't meet someone's standard of 'sporting'.


Blackfive once wrote about his past experience with troops from different countries in bar fights, and said the Aussies were just plain bad news; that appears to be an understatement.
He was awarded a Medal for Gallantry in December 2006 for his courage under fire in Afghanistan's Chora Valley in the same battle in which Sergeant Matthew Locke, who was killed in action during 2007, won his MG. During that fight, according to comrades, "RS" tore a Taliban fighter off his back like an insect, stood on his throat and shot him dead.

By the time the battle was over about 60 Taliban lay dead from small arms fire, hand-to-hand combat and close air support.
He's about to receive the Victoria Cross for more recent actions.


Yeah, he was screaming "You must die!" and chopping the door down because he just wanted to scare him. Yeah. In most of the US, outside of the PRs, Mr. I Want To Scare You would've assumed ambient temperature due to severe ballistic poisoning; wonder what'll happen to him if convicted? For that matter, while I believe that arms ownership is heavily regulated in Denmark, no idea what level of freedom you have to use one in self-defense; so if he'd had a firearm, would this be a (fG)British-level 'shoot the man trying to kill you and you'll go to jail' situation?


From Jay G on the situation in the PROM:
Second thought: I've actually had folks e-mail me about this same sort of scenario. "Aren't you afraid your opinions will get you in trouble in MA?" It's something I've struggled with, because as the above story shows, they can - and will - revoke your ability to legally exercise your Second Amendment rights for exercising your First Amendment rights. I expect the ACLU to be all over this case any time now - if this is not a clear and egregious example of the government infringing on this man's First (and Second) Amendment rights, then we have no rights in this country.
...
There's that "suitability" again. For any reason whatsoever, the licensing authority in your town of residence can decide that you are no longer suitable and revoke your MA LTC. You will have to surrender your firearms, handing them over to an FFL who will most likely charge you for the service until you can find suitable homes for them. At best you can apply for an FID card which will allow you to own shotguns and low-capacity long arms - those are "shall issue" - but any handguns and "high capacity" semi-automatic rifles are gone (and some folks consider the Ruger 10/22 to be a "high capacity" rifle).

They point to his blog postings as evidence that he is unsuitable - hogwash. What he wrote is distasteful to some - advocating the assassination of members of Congress immediately following a senseless shooting is in poor taste IMHO - but it's not treason. It's not inciting violence - he does not advocate the shooting of congress critters, he makes (what I assume to be) a tongue-in-cheek assessment that care needs to be taken to avoid collateral damage. It's in poor taste, that's for certain - but a threat? Hardly. There's nothing threatening involved.


Back to the subject of abortion; was looking at other posts at Borepatch and ran into this:
So determined are they to have a girl that they recently terminated twin boys conceived through IVF. The couple said it was a traumatic decision but that continuing to have unlimited numbers of children was not an option.

If their test case fails, they said they will go to the US to conceive a girl.

The couple, who cannot be identified, conceived three boys naturally.

The woman, in her thirties, said she loved her sons but would do anything to have a daughter. She admitted she was obsessed with having a daughter and that it had become vital to her psychological health.

The man said, "After what we have been through, we are due for a bit of luck. We want to be given the opportunity to have a girl."
I'm going to pass on the other things I could say; for now I'll just note
You DID 'have the opportunity', asshole; nature and your combined genetics said "No". That you're willing to keep getting pregnant and keep aborting those nasty boys until you get what you want...


And finally, where would you think a forecast like this might come from?
Temperature
3 in 10 chance of a mild start
3 in 10 chance of an average start
4 in 10 chance of a cold start

Precipitation 3 in 10 chance of a wet start
3 in 10 chance of an average start
4 in 10 chance of a dry start

Summary: There is an increased risk for a cold and wintry start to the winter season.

Looking further ahead beyond this assessment there are some indications of an increased risk of a mild end to the winter season.

If you thought this
you'd be wrong.

A couple of state Senators had words for the COP and

councilmen on their calls for registration; including that it would be really nice if the COP worried more about catching illegal aliens, like the one who used a AR15 to shoot an officer a while back, instead of wanting to screw with honest people who own such firearms. Which sounds like a good idea.

I would also note, for Chief Citty and the Councilmen, that an illegal alien CANNOT LEGALLY BUY A FIREARM OF ANY KIND, so even if their registration idea was law it wouldn't have stopped him since he got the thing illegally anyway.

Of course, that would mean dealing with inconvenient facts that don't support what they want to do, so I doubt they'll pay attention to it.

In the PROM*, as the commenter says,

...with Freedom and Liberty for All.*


*Offer does not apply in MA.




This is among the reasons why 'may issue' and letting the local LE head have complete say over who can and can't have(or keep) a firearms license of any kind is garbage.


*To those who may not have seen it before, People's Republic of Massachusetts . Also works for Maryland which is at least as much a hellhole for people who actually believe in those founding documents.

In which Japete demonstrates, once again, that facts

really don't matter to her. And her friends & minions.
I am just amazed that you guys are trying to rewrite commonly held American views on what happened during the awful period with the KKK and civil rights.
'Commonly held views'. She doesn't dispute the facts(I guess she's grown tired of having her ass handed to her when she does), she's seriously bent out of shape because the facts pointed out don't match up with the 'commonly held views' she wants to push.

Whole thing here, found thanks to Robb


By the way, didn't Condoleeza Rice mention her father keeping loaded guns handy to keep the night riders away? Of course, that would 'alarm' Japete horribly if you brought up

Further reason why NPR should be defunded

Borrowing from Tam's post,
As it turns out, prior to the show, a blogger of my acquaintance received the following email:

From: Matthew Baskin mdbaskin@gmail.com
To: XXXX
Sent: Fri, January 14, 2011 1:32:22 PM
Subject: NPR show On Point needing progressive gun guest

Hi Mr. Blogger,

My name is Matthew Baskin and I work for the NPR program On Point with Tom Ashbrook. I’m writing to ask if you’d be able to speak as a guest on Monday, January 17. We’re looking for a gun owner and 2nd Amendment supporter who is not opposed to the forthcoming McCarthy bill re: limiting magazine capacity. I’d be very grateful if you could put me in touch with any gun owner who is not opposed to regulation. Let me know if anyone comes to mind. Thanks very much.

Best,
Matthew Baskin

Which just goes to point out the Totally Unbiased nature of the debate.
Not looking for opposing views, not for any kind of real debate, oh no, they ONLY want a gun owner and 2nd Amendment supporter who is not opposed to the forthcoming McCarthy bill.

And, of course, no mention that it would also ban a lot of firearms, including antiques; that would not fit the narrative.

I'm wondering if the cold has frozen some brain cells(that they really can't spare)

in some people? It might explain some things. For instance,
A bit back, Congressman Steve Cohen was going on about getting a carry permit after the Tucson shooting. Now, he’s actually sponsoring the ban on standard capacity magazines. Also, he likens those that support repeal of Obamacare to Nazis. This guy’s fun to watch.
I guess he wants a carry permit but one that'll only allow substandard-capacity mags. And he didn't get the "You're not supposed to talk that way" memo, either.
Speaking of which, there needs to be a "You should not change what I actually said, especially when people actually KNOW what I said" memo:
The New York Times did this earlier, deleting Obama's line about whether incivil debate caused the Tucson shooting -- "It did not," Obama said, fairly directly, contradicting the New York Times' Narrative.
...
And now High Priestess of Advanced Dementia With Paranoid Complex Joan Walsh of Salon is pressed into the great duty of fixing her god's words so they agree with the prophecy.

Here's what Obama actually said:


Ah, MTV: no music videos except for very late night/early morning, and now this. As if another reason was needed not to watch it.


I don't write much on the subject of abortion. Whatever way you think on it, it should be a basic standard that clinics and doctors that perform them have to meet the standards for conduct, cleanliness, etc.; apparently PA didn't really care about those things:
The only exception to this live-and-let-die policy was supposed to be for complaints dumped directly on the department’s doorstep. Those, at least, could be investigated. Except that there were complaints about Gosnell, repeatedly. Several different attorneys, representing women injured by Gosnell, contacted the department. A doctor from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia hand-delivered a complaint, advising the department that numerous patients he had referred for abortions came back from Gosnell with the same venereal disease. The medical examiner of Delaware County informed the department that Gosnell had performed an illegal abortion on a 14-year-old girl carrying a 30-week-old baby. And the department received official notice that a woman named Karnamaya Mongar had died at Gosnell’s hands.

Yet not one of these alarm bells – not even Mrs. Mongar’s death – prompted the department to look at Gosnell or the Women’s Medical Society. Only after the raid occurred, and the story hit the press, did the department choose to act. Suddenly there were no administrative, legal, or policy barriers; within weeks an order was issued to close the clinic. And as this grand jury investigation widened, department officials “lawyered up,” hiring a high-priced law firm to represent them at taxpayer expense. Had they spent as much effort on inspection as they did on attorneys, none of this would have happened to begin with.
This is disgusting stuff.


Speaking of disgusting, Rep. McCarthy's new gun/magazine ban bill includes some little surprises, like

We have the final language of the McCarthy Bill, as introduced in Congress. A key aspect to this proposed law, which I have not touched on before, is perhaps the most important aspect of it:

(v)(1)(A)(i) Except as provided in clause (ii), it shall be unlawful for a person to transfer or possess a large capacity ammunition feeding device.

The law begins with the default presumption that it is illegal to possess a “large capacity ammunition feeding device.” That you possessed the magazine prior to the ban would be an affirmative defense to the charge in court that you possessed a magazine with 11 rounds or more. You could be arrested and charged for possessing one, and be forced to prove in court that you owned it prior to the ban.
...
Remember when they call for “common ground,” and “common sense,” they want you in prison. They are at the height of their disingenuousness when they use this kind of language in the debate. If I were a lawyer, and I was your lawyer, I’d suggest the safe thing to do is throw all your magazines that hold 11 rounds or more in a river, along with your Henry Rifles, if you wanted to be completely safe from prosecution persecution in the even this bill were, God forbid, to actually pass.
And I've no doubt McCarthy would love to see people in prison simply for not being able to double-solid-swear-PROVE they owned a magazine before this piece of crap went through.

And please note that yes, this would ban a lot of rifles such as the Henry(the originals as well as reproductions), which is- from the gun bigot point of view- an 'improvement' on the Clinton AWB.


Ah, the wonders of the People's Republic of MA: the COP can suspend your firearms license because
Police Captain Robert Bongiorno said that Corcoran’s firearms license was suspended on the grounds of “suitability,’’ pending the results of an investigation into whether a comment Corcoran allegedly made online was intended as a threat in reference to the Jan. 8 shooting in Arizona that left six people dead and 13 wounded.


Eeek. This is a nasty flaw indeed, Kel-Tec better fix it fast.


More later, I need food.

Well, bleep

This will be at the level of the Maunder Minimum of 1675 -1715.

This would NOT be good

Awww, it's so cute

when they have babies

Oh HELL yes

Well, if Rep. Jackson Lee isn't the dumbest,

she's definitely in the running. Jeez, what a load of fertilizer.

However you stand on the Obama birth certificate stuff,

this does not help matters.
Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie suggested in an interview published today that a long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate for Barack Obama may not exist within the vital records maintained by the Hawaii Department of Health.

Abercrombie told the Honolulu Star Advertiser he was searching within the Hawaii Department of Health to find definitive vital records that would prove Obama was born in Hawaii, because the continuing eligibility controversy could hurt the president's chances of re-election in 2012.

Donalyn Dela Cruz, Abercrombie's spokeswoman in Honolulu, ignored again today another in a series of repeated requests made by WND for an interview with the governor.
As I recall, Abercrombie said a while back that he'd seen the original birth certificate; now this?

About that 'more friendly language' in politics,

would help if these clowns actually believed in it.
That photoshopped image ran in a Hispanic newspaper in Georgia and depicts our newly elected governor as Hitler. Of course the governor is Republican and the article quotes a Democrat state lawmaker. Seems they ain't too happy with Mr Deal's position on illegal immigrants.

Take a minute today and call/write your Senators and Rep

and ask them to look into what Codrea has been calling Project Gunwalker. I've mentioned it before, but the problem is greater now(as if' that's possible) because at least some of the Senators contacted just don't seem too interested, which is disgusting.

More at Sipsey Street, where Senators Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and Charles Grassley of Iowa are specifically named as being contacted, and, well,
Folks, this has been a frustrating morning. Senate staffers who have been completely briefed on the Project Gunwalker scandal over the last few weeks are deliberately not answering their phones. Others, including Charlie Harmon, the chief of staff of Saxby Chambliss, the U.S. Senator from Georgia, told one of his constituents, "We're on it." Yet, when pressed about the urgency of the matter, said "these guys need to get a lawyer."

No, Charlie, right now they need a Senator with a spine and a pair to do his damn job. The agents need a Senator to COME TO THEM. There are ongoing investigations, the main thrust of which, in my opinion, is to cover up the circumstances of Project Gunwalker and the death of Border Patrol agent Terry. To volunteer to go to the press during an ongoing investigation can end their careers or put them in jail themselves. Yet some are willing to do so, if forced by the inaction of your elected senators and representatives. The tools that the agency, Main Justice and the White House have at their disposal to shut these agents up are many and powerful. These guys need whistleblower protection NOW.

So Kevin had words with a socialist(who probably calls herself

a good liberal) and conversation ensues. Go read. I'll just point to one particular bit:
We elect the people whom we believe to be the most competent, people who are supposed to have our best interests in mind (ideally), and we elect them so that they may govern the masses.
?
Bleep.
Lady, Deity-DAMNED if I've ever voted for someone to 'govern the masses'; I elect someone who's supposed to represent me. People who want to govern in that way want to rule us, and us nasty conservative/libertarian types do not hold with that. It makes us think of tar, feathers and ropes.

Have you noticed that wen an awful lot of liberals defend Sarah

Palin, they can't simply say "What you're doing is wrong" or something of the sort? Nooo, they have to throw in all kinds of caveats and "She's stupid and a Republican" crap to note just what good liberals or progressives or whatever they are, but they're above the nastiness enough to defend her anyway.

I'd have a lot more respect for them if they could simply say "Hey, blaming her for 'X' is incorrect, and idiotic and just wrong" and stop there.

What's that line somebody came up with, "Palin isn't a politician, she's a Rorschach blot"?

I'm going to start this with one of the more pisses-me-off things

I've seen in a while: at the MLK Day observance, the NAACP just had to show its contemptThat's George Washington they couldn't stand to look at.


Don't know about you, but I don't generally drink that much whiskey at a time; I have this problem with unconsciousness and alcohol poisoning.


Besides the fact that NOBODY should hold an office for that long, one of the changes I want to see is a bill proposed to end all pensions for members of the House and Senate, and no pension for the President; you want to stay in office, you should not forever get a pension paid for by the public for having stayed there.


Theo had this posted:
Ever seen anything like that before?


Well, Mumbles, got news for you: 'fine young man' and 'poor judgement' do not go together with 'dealing drugs while working for the Mayor'.


Damn. Hope somebody takes the critter in.


No. NO. HELL NO.
Federalized security screening at airports has been such a success that President Obama wants to apply the same government "expertise" to the realm of online commerce and commentary. The White House cybersecurity adviser joined Commerce Secretary Gary Locke on Jan. 7 to announce what amounts to a national ID card for the Internet.
A: Anybody who says the TSA and airport screening is a sales recommendation is a moron.
B: I want the GOVERNMENT to control my access?
C: The chances for abuse are scary as hell.


And last, a slightly different viewpoint on 'fascism' vs. 'communism':

Comrades! This cat was troubled for a while by the question of why do we, the Progressives, despise Fascism, even though it is so similar to Communism. True, many of the rank-and-file members of our glorious community are too busy raising awareness to educate themselves on the details of what they are denouncing. But the community organizers ought to know — and yet, Fascism is recognized as an evil regime. This seemed unfair until suddenly I understood...

Fascism is evil — a "cheap imitation" — because it does not go far enough. Indeed, although not a free marKKKet, it still leaves much industry and commerce in the private hands (even if those are the hands of government cronies). This makes it nicely inefficient economically (and thus producing less light- and noise-pollution), but nowhere near as great as Communism.

And I do now have a new pc; much faster than the old. And looks like I had the important stuff backed up(yay!) and what wasn't won't be too much of a pain to put back together.

River rescue as sex toy ditches rider

That got your attention, didn't it?
A bizarre decision to ride an inflatable doll down a flood-swollen Yarra River blew up in a woman's face yesterday when she lost her latex playmate in a rough patch.

The incident prompted a warning from police that blow-up sex toys are "not recognised flotation devices''.
Ya think maybe?

Bleep.

Bleeping bleep-of-a-bleep.

Go read. And Sergeant Blanton? We ever meet, I'll buy drinks.

City Councilmen Sam Bowman and Pete White: proof that gun bigots

reside in Oklahoma, too:
Oklahoma City councilman Sam Bowman made it clear at Tuesday's city council meeting where he stands on gun control. He favors it. Especially when it comes to assault rifles like the kind used last summer in an ambush that wounded city police officer Katie Lawson.

Bowman's stance and applause for Police Chief Bill Citty's call for registration of assault rifles got councilman Brian Walters standing up for the 2nd amendment. "I wanta commend our chief for not only the courage to step forward on this but to make such a statement," proclaimed Bowman who called them knock off military M-16 type rapid fire assault guns. "There's no place for that kind of weapon in our civil communities."
By the way, Chief Citty is the clown who announced a couple of years ago that he wants tighter rules and regulations on the sale of firearms and the registration of those firearms," Citty said.

Oh, but it's not an attack on the 2nd, oh no:
Bowman contended he's not attacking the 2nd amendment. "I would hope this would have nothing to do with the argument about 2nd amendment rights to bear arms. It's not about the right to own a weapon to protect your own home."
I'm very sure you HOPE it's not seen as the attack it is, but we see what you're doing and saying. And note the new goalpost: the right to own a weapon to protect your own home. "No, it's not an attack on the 2nd Amendment, it's just wanting to change what it means."

As to White,
City Councilman Pete White supported Bowman and Chief Citty. "Chief Citty needs to be complimented for the courage that it took to even bring that up," he said in referring to Citty's weekend comments calling for registration of such assault rifles.
So we've got a police chief and two councilmen who're first-class gun bigots who don't think we should be allowed to own guns that scare them, but will settle(for now) for registration.

I think we need a new COP and some new councilmen at the next election.

Speech and anti-gun astroturf, all in one post

First, words for all the lefties decrying nasty speech:
Last week, the left quickly blamed the right for the national tragedy of a shooting spree by a madman who never watched Fox News, never listened to Rush Limbaugh and likely did not know who Sarah Palin is.

Fortunately, the American public rejected out of hand that idiotic notion that the right was responsible.

Rather than apologize, the left wants to change the tone of the political debate.

The left suddenly wants civil discourse.

Bite me.

The left wants to play games of semantics.

Bite me.

The left wants us to be civil — after being so uncivil for a decade.

Bite me.
...
Lefties were too busy celebrating the 2008 election to listen.

When people protested lefties made vulgar remarks about tea-bagging and giggled.

So screw you and your civil discourse.

I don’t want to hear it.

I have been screamed at for 10 years.

It’s my turn now. I am not going to scream back. But I refuse to allow anyone to dictate what I say or how I say it. I refuse to allow the same foul-mouthed, foul-spirited foul people who dumped on me to now try to tell me what I may or may not say.

My free speech matters more than the feelings of anyone on the left. You don’t like what I say? Tough.
As they say, read the whole thing.


As to the astroturf, remember the American Hunters and Shooters Assn.? That was a front group for Helmke & Co.?
The answer, would obviously be this person is not an unknown blogger, but a false flag; someone flying under the banner of being pro-Second Amendment while in truth being no such thing. Google shows the truth:

So it would seem that Tracee Larson is previously associated with the false flag operation American Hunters and Shooters Association. This woman has no credibility as a pro-gun spokesman, and it’s quite likely the NPR interviewers are aware of that. It’s also likely that perhaps Helmke either got to pick his opponents here, or it was arranged to be softball interview. What better people to use on the pro-gun side than Bob Levy, who endorses magazine restrictions, and Tracee Larson, who is an AHSA shill flying a false flag.

Had a chance to shoot a new something today

a Marlin 39A lever-action .22. Similar to this picture of the new production


Differences:
Owner believes is is a 1950's production
No checkering
Missing front sight hood
And at some point a previous owner installed a Lyman receiver sight, one with target adjustment knobs.
Ok, just found a much more similar picture:
This one had most of its bluing intact, and from the marks either wasn't used much or was very well-cared-for; the action was actually a touch tight still. That long barrel & mag tube would probably make Rep. McCarthy soil her undies, as it holds, as I recall 18 .22lr cartridges; that's a lot of levering to empty it. And see that knob on the side of the receiver? Unscrew it and the rifle separates, the action coming apart in left & right sides(left holds the bolt, right holds the lever & trigger & stock). Very tight lockup, no wiggle at all.

This was indoors at H&H this morning, so not the most helpful of rest & lighting for trying to check grouping, but if I did my part it kept all of two magazines worth in a 3" bull at 30 yards, what it'll do from a solid rest with better light would be interesting. I love aperture sights, and I become more fond of them with every passing year, the one on this was a compact unit that didn't spoil the lines and gave a very nice way to aim.

I would love to grab it and run like hell borrow such for further testing; maybe I'll get the chance later. A fine old rifle, it was.

The electric car future?

In its obsessive desire to promote the virtues of electric cars, the BBC proudly showed us last week how its reporter Brian Milligan was able to drive an electric Mini from London to Edinburgh in a mere four days – with nine stops of up to 10 hours to recharge the batteries (with electricity from fossil fuels).
I'll let you read the piece for the 1830's tech that beats that time; my own comment is:
I checked, and London to Edinburgh is 332 miles, roughly the distance from my house to a friend's house in Waco, TX. In my truck, doing a little over 60 for best mileage, I can make that trip in 5-6 hours(depending on how often I stop to get rid of excess liquid or if I stop at Cabela's on the way). So the electric Mini took FOUR FREAKIN' DAYS, with NINE refueling stops... And let's note that the vaunted windmill 'green' energy isn't much available(especially when it's really cold) so they're still dependant on coal, oil, gas or nuke plants for electricity; but they still think these battery-powered roller skates are the future?

I've said it before, I'd love to find some fuel or form of energy generation that would make the oil ticks once again the lords of nothing more than the world's biggest litter box, but we ain't got it yet. And windmills and other 'green' energy(since the eco-jerks refuse to even consider nukes green) won't make up what we need, whether they like to admit it or not.

Bleah. I've got to go computer shopping, among other things. In a vehicle that uses gas but won't need refueling during the running around.

Attention Guardian: the only possible response

is 'No. HELL no. And screw you.'

Free speech can’t exist unchained. US politics needs the tonic of order<>

Didn’t guys named “Benito” and “Adolph” say much the same thing in the last century?
Why yes, they did. I think Lenin and Stalin & Co. were big on it, too.

You want some really good EUnuch values?
Foreigners are always surprised by the US's capacity to speak right but somehow not do it. Washington must contain more wisdom and talent than anywhere on earth, yet it contrives the disaster zone that is American foreign policy. This is normally put down to such impediments as the US constitution, the silent majority, sheer bigness and freedom of speech.

Today's culprit is freedom of speech, or at least the speech of the American right and its broadcast cheerleaders.
Let's put it more bluntly: fuck you, you statist asshole. That Constitution you hold in such low regard, we're rather fond of it and part of the reason is the restrictions it places on the government, which is why we- unlike you- still have actual freedom of speech. Of course, YOU consider that a bug, not a feature.

Free speech is a Hobbesian jungle. It requires a marketplace where the trade in information, ideas and opinion has a framework of rules, including rules that maintain fair and open competition. Most will be voluntary, but others need enforcement.
Translation: we should, like the Brits, have government censors telling us what speech is allowable.

I repeat: Screw you, Jenkins, and your little dreams of government control of speech.

Somehow, I do not think this is the best of advice

Over at VFR World, ran across a thread on 'Is it ever too cold to use a battery tender?' Two of the answers were
It is too cold when the battery has cracked in half and is in two pieces.
That means you must be in North Dakota.
followed by
I would say -273K (-459F). At that temp your battery and the wiring all go superconductive, so you'd be ok and not need a battery tender.
And I stopped reading at
Never used a battery tender but I know that at absolute zero resistance is futile.

"Which right-winger said these horrible things?

Oh, wait..."


One of Ronald Reagan's offspring is a vile little bastard; wonder what happened to him? Maybe he just likes all the 'right' party invitations he'll get for trashing his father.


Here’s how: note carefully what happens at exactly 1:20 in the video. You’ll notice that the lights which had been illuminating Roy Wilson are suddenly turned off, right when it becomes obvious that he’s going to continue his inappropriate political rant. What you’re seeing at that moment is a TV camera crew, which had been filming Roy Wilson’s speech for possible use as a soundbite in that evening’s news broadcast, realizing that the guy was going off-message — so they simply switched off the camera’s photo lights and stopped filming him because his speech no longer fit the media’s predetermined narrative. They went to the vigil to report on a “respectful” event, and by golly they were going to bring back a report about a “respectful” event, regardless of what actually occurred.


Seems the latest attempt of the gun bigots so smear us is that a CCW guy who ran to the sound of the shots to help 'almost' did something bad; as Roberta points out,
I wonder if any of them realize that on that basis, they were probably "almost shot" last time they got a speeding ticket? Do they think Officer Friendly always rests his right hand on the butt of his gun?


And finally the Sensitized Modern Version: Huckleberry Finn in Comics

After an argument the other day with a friend

I've come to the conclusion that Insty is right: I'm not sure overall why(some points I know), but Sarah Palin just flat drives a lot of lefties so nuts they cannot seem to use their brain when her name comes up. And they like to bring it up for some reason, just can't shut up when they have a chance to, they HAVE to bring her into it.

And then they bitch when she answers. She's 'making it about her', she's 'jumping on the bandwagon' and every other bit of "She should shut up and not answer" idiocy you can think of.

That last was what the argument just had on Facebook* with a friend boiled down to; he flat hates Palin, and somehow her being accused of responsibility in these murders and daring to successfully smack the moles back into their holes meant 'she was making this about her and she shouldn't do that' (I'll note that he also managed to throw in 'Alaskans aren't like us', 'Republicans don't like uppity women' and other such bullshit; got to keep the narrative going, y'know. Oh, and if you're of conservative bent you HAVE to be a Republican, etc.)

Another thing I've noted: you might never have said one word in support of Palin, but by pointing out their bullshit you're labeled as a total Palin supporter; it's like they cannot understand "Whether I like her or not doesn't matter, the fact is this was unfair".


* I know, I know. If I didn't have a couple of friends who're hard to contact any other way, I'd drop it.

Joy, joy

This morning the pc decided to start continually acting like it'd just been turned on, and nothing I tried could break it out. So it's going to be looked at by someone I know, and- happily- I still had my old pc set aside.

Damn, it seems slow now.

Few days ago-

before it got so bloody cold- was able to use the bike for some running around. Heading west on I40 I got caught in some nasty traffic and opened up the throttle to get clear of it.

Shortly thereafter I noticed
The traffic snarl was gone
I was doing 90
And it didn't feel that fast.

At 90 the engine was turning a whole 6000 or so rpm, as I recall; redline is almost 12000.

I repeat, if this is the detuned version of the racing engine the original must be a scary bastard. And I'd really like to find a track to try it out on.

Ah, the PC bigotry of NPR

It's safe to say there was a collective sigh of brown relief when the Tucson killer turned out to be a gringo. Had the shooter been Latino, media pundits wouldn't be discussing the impact of nasty politics on a young man this week — they'd be demanding an even more stringent anti-immigrant policy. The new members of the House would be stepping over each other to propose new legislation for more guns on the border, more mothers to be deported, and more employers to be penalized for hiring brown people. Obama would be attending funerals and telling the nation tonight that he was going to increase security just about everywhere.
Ah, Miss Hernandez, you hit all the points, didn't you? 'Gringo', 'anti-immigrant', 'deporting mothers', 'hiring brown people' you managed to stuff the whole works into this piece of crap.

Got that, folks? You can't be against illegal immigration, you're against ALL immigration. And brown people. Etc., etc., etc.

You're a nasty little bigot and a liar, Miss Hernandez. Or, if you actually believe this crap, a bigot and a fool.

Wonder if she's got some MEChA stickers or posters around?

Speaks for itself

For the other, I haven't gotten around to figuring out rollovers, so go to Sondra's and see her contribution

The wonderful reasoning of liberal/progressive dirtbags

I linked earlier to a YouTube video montage of death wishes tweeted about Sarah Palin after various bloggers maliciously linked Palin's electoral target map to the Tucson shooting.

Now YouTube is threatening to pull the video because one of the people who sent a tweet has complained that the video violates her privacy.
He has a screenshot of the tweet by the effing moron who's whining that people seeing the tweet that she SENT OUT ON THE INTERNET is violating her privacy.

How's that for an interesting reasoning process?

Back to the evils of communism, and those who apologize or excuse it

Foreign communists in the Soviet Union, witnesses to the famine, somehow managed to see starvation not as a national tragedy but as a step forward for humanity. The writer Arthur Koestler believed at the time that the starving were "enemies of the people who preferred begging to work." His housemate in Kharkiv, the physicist Alexander Weissberg, knew that millions of peasants had died. Nevertheless, he kept the faith. Koestler naively complained to Weissberg that the Soviet press did not write that Ukrainians "have nothing to eat and therefore are dying like flies." He and Weissberg knew that to be true, as did everyone who had any contact with the country. Yet to write of the famine would have made their faith impossible. Each of them believed that the destruction of the countryside could be reconciled to a general story of human progress. The deaths of Ukrainian peasants were the price to be paid for a higher civilization. Koestler left the Soviet Union in 1933. When Weissberg saw him off at the train station, his parting words were: "Whatever happens, hold the banner of the Soviet Union high!"
Also from Bloodlands

Uncle points to a case where the officers should have to personally

pay up. For being arrogant dumbasses who happen to wear badges while abusing their authority.
"The caller indicated that Sutterfield was not being disorderly, disruptive, or committing any criminal acts," the complaint states. "The call was dispatched. The dispatcher did not indicate that Sutterfield was being disorderly, disruptive, or committing any criminal acts."

When police arrived, Sutterfield was driving out of the church parking lot, the plaintiffs said. Palick stopped her.

"Defendant Palick drew his gun and pointed it at Sutterfield," the complaint asserted. "Defendant Bethia also arrived on scene, drew his gun, and pointed it at Sutterfield."

Palick required Sutterfield to get out of the car, and proceeded to search it without her consent, the complaint continues. The officer subsequently found Sutterfield's handgun in the car, enclosed in an opaque case which was zipped closed.

"Before the search, Defendant Bethia handcuffed and physically held Sutterfield," the complaint states. "Mork physically searched Sutterfield and removed her car keys from her pocket without her consent and over her repeated objections."
So far, bad. What makes it worse:
Mork also removed a loaded magazine from Sutterfield's holster, again without her consent and over her objections, the complaint continued. Yet another officer, Tushaus, arrived on the scene and gave Palick approval to arrest Sutterfield for illegally transporting a firearm.

According to the complaint, illegally transporting a firearm is not an arrestable offense in Wisconsin.

"Defendants were made aware that it is not an arrestable offense via a memo from their Chief of Police, dated April 22, 2009," the complaint states.

Nonetheless,the officers took Sutterfield to the Brookfield Police Department, where she was questioned, booked, and released.
So they knew damned well that their charge was bullshit, and put her through all this anyway. Agree with Uncle, I'd have added some zeroes to the settlement. And the dumbasses with badges should have to pay at least some of it out of their own pockets.

It being- woo hoo!- an entire degree wamer than this time yesterday,

making it a somewhat less frostbitten 12 degrees, I am still staying inside. Which gives me time to look at some things and yell about them. Like the call to police your speech by the Chancellor of UC Berkeley,Robert J. Birgeneau; I'll let the response from FIRE speak to this:
Chancellor Birgeneau's e-mail is very ill-considered for a variety of reasons.

First of all, there is so far no evidence that a "climate of demonization," "mean-spririted xenophobia," or "hateful speech" had anything to do with alleged killer Jared Loughner's apparent decision to try to assassinate Giffords and kill or injure many others. The supposition that political expression created a climate that led Loughner to his choice is an idea that seems to have sprung from whole cloth out of the minds of people who likely were upset beforehand about "rhetoric" and "hateful" speech, including, apparently, Chancellor Birgeneau. Nevertheless, it has quickly become the driving force in the national discussion about the shooting.
...
Finally, Birgeneau's e-mail, if taken to its logical conclusion, seems to imply that minority groups and undocumented students at UC Berkeley might become violent if people in the campus community do not support the DREAM Act and if other examples of "hateful speech" go unchallenged on campus. While he avoids an outright call for censorship of certain opinions—such as opposition to the DREAM Act—he makes it clear that he would not be surprised if the voicing of these opinions led to another incident like that in Arizona. Birgenau thus implies that such expression is therefore both morally wrong and likely to endanger people's lives through its very utterance.

It is within the Chancellor's rights to officially encourage people at Berkeley to act and speak in accordance with the university's officially sponsored moral principles. Yet, does the Chancellor really think students on his campus are so fragile, psychologically weak, and prone to violence that the campus is less "safe" when they see mean graffiti, experience racism, or hear "virulent" language against Israel? Even if someone on campus is truly so unstable and unsafe—a possibility in any institution as large as UC Berkeley—taking the steps necessary to ensure that such a person is never "set off" by speech he or she finds offensive would result in a campus that one would not even recognize as a part of America.

Adopting the logical if unstated conclusion of the Chancellor's argument here (as some lawmakers and commentators appear to be ready to do) would result in the imposition of a variation on the "heckler's veto," where the most violent person in the community gets to decide who may speak and what they may say, on threat of violence. As UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh wrote yesterday for The Volokh Conspiracy, there is no First Amendment exception that would leave speech unprotected when "the concern is simply that a few kooks or extremists might be moved to commit a crime at some indefinite time as a result of seeing the speech." If we are to have a free society, the boundaries of acceptable speech must not be determined by what might spark the murderous rage of the craziest and/or most violent person.
What I can add is that to a lot of 'higher' education people would LOVE to be able to shut down whatever they personally label 'incendiary' or 'hate' or 'divisive' speech; they do not WANT open, free speech on all subjects, they want people conditioned(for the public good, of course) to only speak in the approved PC ways. And they're using the actions of a demented human in AZ to push that on people.


Speaking of the desire for speech codes,
A “McKinley moment”? Meaning what? An occasion for self-censorship because of the insinuations and false allegations raised against them in the aftermath of the shootings in Tucson–much as false allegations were raised against Hearst following McKinley’s slaying?

Not only is “McKinley moment” an imprecise construct: It suggests that using smears to batter foes into silence is somehow worthy or admirable.


In globular warmering news,
In an almighty battle to salvage credibility three British government institutions are embroiled in a new global warming scandal with the BBC mounting a legal challenge to force ministers to admit the truth. Sceptics ask: Is the UK government’s climate propaganda machine finally falling apart?

Last week the weather service caused a sensation by making the startling claim that it was gagged by government ministers from issuing a cold winter forecast. Instead, a milder than average prediction was made that has been resoundingly ridiculed in one of the worst winters in a century.


Speaking of the sorry excuse for a lawman running Pima County,
Sheriff's Department and community-college officials in Pima County are refusing to release a wide range of public documents about the man charged in Saturday's shooting rampage that left six dead and more than a dozen wounded.

The Pima County Sheriff's Department and Pima Community College have declined to release documents that could shed light on run-ins they had with 22-year-old Jared Loughner in the months prior to the shooting.

The Arizona Public Records Law requires that records be "open to inspection by any person at all times" unless officials can prove releasing the information would violate rights of privacy or confidentiality or otherwise harm the best interests of the state.
Yeah, does make you think he doesn't want the information getting out, doesn't it?


Courtesy of Theo,


On a personal note, dogs are nuts. The Security Staff have a doghouse made nice & warm, they have a garage. Where are they? Snoozing in the back yard in the sun. At bloody 12 F.

And that's it for now. Stay warm.

Well, this is encouraging

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates confirmed Sunday that U.S. intelligence agencies underestimated China's progress in developing a new stealth jet fighter.
...
Asked about recent disclosures on China's Internet of a prototype fifth-generation jet, dubbed the J-20, Mr. Gates said U.S. intelligence has been "watching these developments all along.

"We knew they were working on a stealth aircraft," he said. "I think that what we've seen is that they may be somewhat further ahead in the development of that aircraft than our intelligence had earlier predicted."
In other news,
"They clearly have potential to put some of our capabilities at risk," Mr. Gates said, according to a Pentagon transcript of his remarks."We have to pay attention to them, we have to respond appropriately with our own programs."
Actually, I'd be much happier if they were having to respond to our developments, Mr. Gates.

But have no fear, because talking is the answer!
Mr. Gates, who arrived in Beijing on Sunday, said he hopes that closer military relations with China's communist-controlled armed forces will produce a strategic dialogue that might reduce China's need for "some of these capabilities."
Yes, because communist dictatorships always respond to kind words, right?

Found over at Ace, where there are some other thoughts on this.

Rep. Peter King(Stupid Party-NY) if a friggin' moron

if he seriously means this.
New York Republican Rep. Peter King said Tuesday that he will introduce legislation to ban the carrying of any firearm within 1,000 feet of what he described as “high-profile government officials.”
Ok, let's ignore the "You could be arrested for having a gun two blocks away on the other side of a damned building" bullcrap; this is more "Us public officials should get special consideration because we're more important than the peasants" garbage.

No, you're not, Mr. King and Mr. Clyburn; you're just a couple of public employees with delusions of importance; and if you actually believe you should get these special considerations, you should be removed from those offices. Get it straight: YOU ARE NOT OUR DAMNED BOSS, and we're pretty damned sick of you thinking you are.

My ex has a couple of chihuahuas, one of which

I rather like; but this is just too good to pass up:


Found at Rodger's place;
occasionally not really SFW

Couple of things on the current "We must tone down

the talk" noise that's going around. First, from Jack Shafer:
Embedded in Sheriff Dupnik's ad hoc wisdom were several assumptions. First, that strident, anti-government political views can be easily categorized as vitriolic, bigoted, and prejudicial. Second, that those voicing strident political views are guilty of issuing Manchurian Candidate-style instructions to commit murder and mayhem to the "unbalanced." Third, that the Tucson shooter was inspired to kill by political debate or by Sarah Palin's "target" map or other inflammatory outbursts. Fourth, that we should calibrate our political speech in such a manner that we do not awaken the Manchurian candidates among us.

And, fifth, that it's a cop's role to set the proper dimensions of our political debate. Hey, Dupnik, if you've got spare time on your hands, go write somebody a ticket.
(But writing tickets doesn't get him on the national news, so...)
The great miracle of American politics is that although it can tend toward the cutthroat and thuggish, it is almost devoid of genuine violence outside of a few scuffles and busted lips now and again. With the exception of Saturday's slaughter, I'd wager that in the last 30 years there have been more acts of physical violence in the stands at Philadelphia Eagles home games than in American politics.

Any call to cool "inflammatory" speech is a call to police all speech, and I can't think of anybody in government, politics, business, or the press that I would trust with that power. As Jonathan Rauch wrote brilliantly in Harper's in 1995, "The vocabulary of hate is potentially as rich as your dictionary, and all you do by banning language used by cretins is to let them decide what the rest of us may say." Rauch added, "Trap the racists and anti-Semites, and you lay a trap for me too. Hunt for them with eradication in your mind, and you have brought dissent itself within your sights."
Exactly. Remember the bit I noted on Rep. Brady's desire to make it a federal crime to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or inciting violence against a federal official or member of Congress? Just how big is the truck you can drive through that description? Calling for someone to be thrown out of office, voted out of office, etc., could be defined as 'threatening'; and if you think there aren't politicians and some LE clowns who would do it, you're dreaming.

So we're looking at Don't Say Nasty Things Because Someone Might Do Something Stupid combined with calls for You Can't Say Something That Makes The Politician Lose Bladder Control laws. To borrow from Insty,
Anyone else find it creepy that new standard what me may and may not say is: How will it affect the behavior of an abviously crazy person who may or may not hear it?

Hehehehehe.....

A pistol to a foot soldier is not a piece of equipment for winning a war, but rather for saving his life. Only a country that actually valued the lives and safety of its individual troopers would have, and indeed could have designed and mass produced such a pistol.

By way of comparison, we may take note of the Walther P38, whose designers seem to have expended a lot of effort to prevent their soldiers from shooting themselves in the foot. Which seems like a strange decision for a master race to make.

Communists are as bad as Nazis,

and their defenders and apologists are as bad as Nazis’ defenders, but far more common. When you meet them, show them no respect. They’re evil, stupid, and dishonest wrote Insty a while back. Just recently I saw a book mentioned and found it at the library: Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. Only about sixty pages in, and one of the things it's convinced me of is that Stalin and the communist True Believers were(some still are) even more evil than I would have believed. And I do not use that word lightly. This is part of what really got me, referring to the famine Stalin ordered in the Ukraine:
As Stalin interpreted the disaster of collectivization in the last weeks of 1932, he achieved new heights of ideological daring. The famine in Ukraine, whose existence he had admitted earlier, when it was far less severe, was now a "fairy tale", a slanderous rumor spread by enemies. Stalin had developed an interesting new theory: that resistance to socialism increases as its successes mount because its foes resist with greater desperation as they contemplate their final defeat. Thus any problem in the Soviet Union could be defined as an example of enemy action, and enemy action could be defined as evidence of progress.

Resistance to his policies in Soviet Ukraine, Stalin argued, was of a special sort, perhaps not visible to the imperceptive observer. Opposition was no longer open, for the enemies of socialism were now "quiet" and even "holy". The "kulaks of today," he said, were "gentle people, kind, almost saintly." People who appeared to be innocent were to be seen as guilty. A peasant slowly dying of hunger was, despite appearances, a saboteur working for the capitalis powers in their campaign to discredit the Soviet Union. Starvation was resistance, and resistance was a sign that the victory of socialism was just around the corner. These were not merely Stalin's musings in Moscow; this was the ideological line enforced by Molotov and Kaganovich as they traveled through regions of mass death in late 1932.

Stalin never personally witnessed the starvations that he so interpreted, but comrades in Soviet Ukraine did: they had somehow to reconcile his ideological line to the evidence of their senses. Forced to interpret distended bellies as political opposition, they produced the utterly tortured conclusion that the saboteurs hated socialism so much that they intentionally let their families die. Thus the wracked bodies of sons and daughter and fathers and mothers were nothing more than a façade behind which foes plotted the destruction of socialism. Even the starving themselves were sometimes presented as enemy propagandists with a conscious plan to undermine socialism. Young Ukrainian communists in the cities were taught that the starving were enemies of the people "who risked their lives to spoil our optimism."
Evil. There is no other word for this. Millions dead, God alone knows how many physically and/or mentally damaged for life. And we've still got fools who defend it. Make excuses for it.

This is going to be as hard to read as The Black Book of Communism.

Take a look at this

Note the 'fly over the tank and detonate over the turret' action, so it'll strike down at the thinnest armor on the vehicle. Impressive

Speaking of tar & feathers, or at least removal from the office

he's been infesting for so long,
A top House Democrat said the attack on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) should change how members of Congress are screened at airports.

“I really believe that that is the place where we feel the most ill at ease, is going through airports,” Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), who serves as assistant minority leader in the House, said on "Fox News Sunday."

Clyburn called for the Transportation Security Administration, which administers airport security checkpoints, to interact “a little better” with the Capitol Hill Police.

“We’ve had some incidents where TSA authorities think that congresspeople should be treated like everybody else,” he said. “Well, the fact of the matter is, we are held to a higher standard in so many other areas, and I think we need to take a hard look at exactly how the TSA interact with members of Congress.”
At least this bastard is open about it: he thinks politicians should be given special treatment, better than what the peasants get.

Oh, and that 'higher standard', do you mean the one that kept Rep. Rangel out of jail, for instance?

And they want to make it illegal for us to say things like "You miserable little canker on the ass of the nation, you should be thrown out of that office. Preferably through a window", because it makes them all poo-poo undies and all.

Hey, Rep. Brady(NSD-PA), you pass laws to restrict

my speech, I think you should be dragged out of your office and tarred & feathered.

There, that should get me on the list. If I wasn't already.

Deity, what a bunch of wimps and tyrant wannabes.

Rest well, Major Winters

You damned well earned it

Ref the 'If only we had proper gun control!' stuff you knew was coming,

Confederate Yankee has some updates; easiest to just go there and start scrolling down. However, I will point out one post in particular, in which he points out that Salon flat lied, repeatedly, about the murders and the Clinton AWB.

Add them to the other liars.

Having listened to some of the statements made

by the Sheriff Clarence Dupnik of Pima County, I have a couple of thoughts:
First, the voters need to get this clown out of office at the first opportunity, and replace him with somebody who has a brain that includes a 'mute' setting, and knows when to use it. For the chief LE officer of the county to go on the air and make some of the statements he did... Unprofessional at least, idiotic at best. First, a LE officer is not supposed to be playing politics on something like that(at all, preferably, but for damned sure not on something like this). Second, the Chief LE Officer Of The County is NOT supposed to be making a defense argument for the accused. Either of these things ought to get him thrown out of office.

Second, I just read a couple more things. This and This, to be precise(thanks to Insty for pointing to them). Read this:
Jared Loughner has been making death threats by phone to many people in Pima County including staff of Pima Community College, radio personalities and local bloggers. When Pima County Sheriff’s Office was informed, his deputies assured the victims that he was being well managed by the mental health system. It was also suggested that further pressing of charges would be unnecessary and probably cause more problems than it solved as Jared Loughner has a family member that works for Pima County. Amy Loughner is a Natural Resource specialist for the Pima County Parks and Recreation.
If this is indeed the case, then this may partly be why the Sheriff has such a case of oral diarrhea; he's got a bad link to this mess.

Daniel Hernandez

Vet acts in time of need; anybody surprised?