How the administration wants to deal with pirates:

President Obama did not issue a statement on the tragedy. White House spokesman Jay Carney said that the administration was "obviously outraged by the actions of the pirates."

"And the president, as you know, I believe, has expressed his sincere condolences to the families of the victims," Carney said at a press briefing. "But beyond that, I don't want to get into details."

"This deplorable act firmly underscores the need for continued international progress toward confronting the shared security challenge posed by piracy in the waters off the Horn of Africa," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement Tuesday.
...
"Well, one of the challenges -- I'm not sure we can do something about it, but one of the challenges with pirates is if you capture them, what do you do with them?" Clapper said. "The international legal mechanisms for prosecuting, trying and convicting pirates turns out to be rather problematic. That's not obviously something we, the U.S., can do something, but that is a problem for the international community."
'International progress' and the 'international community' means "We sit around playing games, and when we capture some of the pirates they get a nice trial. Somewhere. Sometimes."

There is a simple solution to this: kill them. They take hostages, make it a simple "Release them and you live; harm them and you die" and then carry it out. Every time. You catch them in the process of an attack you don't try to capture them, you sink the damn boat; you find their mother ship, you sink it. They say "We will kill hostages if you trouble us!", you say "If you do this, we will find our home port and destroy it." And then do it.

But that would require a President and cabinet who care more about stopping this than about playing games with 'world opinion' and 'social justice'. And have the balls to carry out the actions.

A new .22 round

designed for autoloaders; 40 grain bullet at 1255fps. Be interesting to see how it works out. Note that this says it'll be sold only in 1k value packs, an interesting choice.


No, I never heard anyone teach this, either.


Preparing battlespace?
Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan predicted on Sunday that America faces imminent uprisings that mirror those in the Middle East.

“What you are looking at in Tunisia, in Egypt … Libya, in Bahrain … what you see happening there … you’d better prepare because it will be coming to your door,” Farrakhan said in a booming voice, thousands of followers cheering in his wake.

Farrakhan also called on President Barack Obama to allow protesters to march, urging the president not to attack innocent people when they do.
A: Peaceful marches are not a problem.
B: Some of the stuff he's pointing to are anything but peaceful.
C: Considering Farrakhan, he probably wants a really nasty situation here; among other things it'll be something else he can blame on the JOOOOOS!

Speaking of Farrakhan, the other day (on Facebook) I put up a link to this post at Classical Values; no comments, just the link because I thought it interesting. Response from socialist: "... the difference with the left is that racists and homophobes never become national spokespeople."
Really?
Al Sharpton? Farrakhan? Robert Byrd? Jesse Jackson(remember 'Hymietown'?) None of them ring a bell?
Response: "How about names from the 21st century?"
Think about that. Byrd died last year, the others I named are currently running around spreading their crap. And they're just the first ones that popped to mind, but the answer to them was 'they aren't current'. Just freaking unbelievable. I'd throw in Malik Shabazz, and the MEChA and La Raza clowns, but it wouldn't matter.


It's heading into spring in Oklahoma; yesterday it was 70's, last evening there were tornado watches up north and it's currently in the 30's. Ah well, 30's beats the teens we had a couple of weeks ago.

It seems there are some Madison LE officers

who need to be fired for not carrying out their orders.

Lest we forget

If you're not familiar, background here

Damn, the commies want to control EVERYTHING!

In one of history’s more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is “an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation.”

Yeah, it's to try and control Tibet; makes me wonder what happens if a few thousand show up and say "Where's my paperwork?"

Blatherings from Yetta Kurland, a Only One and

(surprise, surprise!) politician on how the peasants should not be allowed arms. But important people like her should.

And on the subject of Only Ones, God damn the brainless fucking morons involved in this; they deserve to be fired, and if not fired then placed on probation for near-terminal stupidity.
An 11-year-old Arvada boy was arrested and hauled away in handcuffs for drawing stick figures in school - something his therapist told him to do.
...
"Tim” is being treated for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and his therapist told him to draw pictures when got upset, rather than disrupt the class. So that’s what he did.

Last October, he drew stick figures of himself with a gun, pointed at four other stick figures with the words “teacher must die.” He felt calmer and was throwing the picture away when the teacher saw it and sent him to the principal’s office.

The school was aware that the boy was in treatment, determined the drawing was not an actual threat, notified his parents and sent him back to class.

His mother, “Jane,” however, was shocked when Arvada Police showed up at their home later that night. She says she told her son to cooperate and tell the truth, but was horrified when they told her they were arresting him and then handcuffed him and hauled him away in a patrol car.
...
According to the police report, “Tim” explained he made the drawing to release anger and would never hurt teachers or anyone. At first, the school did not want to press charges, but changed their mind when police called them later that night.

A juvenile assessment report shows Tim has never been in legal trouble before and is at low risk to reoffend. Regardless, he is charged with a third degree misdemeanor, interfering with staff and students at an educational facility.
Gee, Officer Friendly, decided you needed a splashy "We Protect People" arrest, did you? Or did the ball-less disgrace for a principal decide he wanted to make an example of how he adhered to Rules That Mean I Don't Have To Think Or Take Responsibility For Anythingzero-tolerance policy? And somehow a drawing the kid was throwing away became 'INTERFERING WITH STAFF'?

Congratulations, all of you: God only knows how much damage you've done to this kid FOR NO DAMNED GOOD REASON. Apparently the Arvada Police Department needs a serious upgrade in intelligence. And a really serious push for people with some fucking brains in their ranks.

There is an idiot named Bobby Franklin in Georgia

who needs to be removed from the legislature if this is his level of brainpower.
His bill defines the beginning of life as the moment of conception and any person who ends that life shall be guilty of murder....period. Now...I am a very devout Catholic pro-life gal and I think abortions are wrong but I think this bill goes too far.

For instance....Mr. Franklin wants all miscarriages to be investigated unless they occurred in the presence of a doctor. So in other words, if you miscarry at home, you could be investigated and you would have to prove that you did nothing to cause that miscarriage. If you took a sleeping pill or if you had a glass of wine then you would have to prove that neither of those things caused you to lose your baby...or you could be charged with murder.
Absolutely out of his freakin' mind. Such as it apparently is.

The sun came out!

There is rejoicing! And while it warms a bit, I'm looking around.
Damn.
A third of the buildings in central Christchurch may need to be demolished and rebuilt, authorities in New Zealand have warned, following an earthquake.

Hundreds of suburban homes damaged in Tuesday's 6.3 magnitude tremor may also have to be pulled down, officials said.
Death toll currently 144 and about 200 missing. Bad.


Engineering a bacteria or virus to be harmless doesn't always work:
Casadaban’s illness is important because of the way the plague bacterium had been weakened. Yersinia pestis needs iron to survive. Normally it gets this iron by stealing it from a host’s body with proteins that bind to it and help break it down. To make the bacterium harmless, scientists genetically stripped it of the proteins needed to consume iron.

“It’s like having a lion, where we took out all its teeth and all its claws,” Alexander said. “But in the case of Dr. Casadaban, the lion didn’t even need to have teeth. There was so much iron that it was freely available and easy to get.”


The federal Education Department in Australia has banned Zumba, a fitness program, from its headquarters after a dance class caused the new building to shake violently.
The possible 'whole lotta shakin' goin' on' cracks are almost endless.


The mayor of LA wants a special six-foot security wall around the official house. Apparently he's bothered by those grubby citizens not being prevented from setting foot on the sacred grounds or something.
And originally, he wanted it to be 8.5' tall.


This crap with TSA is beyond the point at which people should start calling the police and charging them with assault. Maybe child molestation.
The only bad thing on our trip was TSA was at the Savannah train station. There were about 14 agents pulling people inside the building and coralling everyone in a roped area AFTER you got OFF THE TRAIN! This made no sense!!! Poor family in front of us! 9 year old getting patted down and wanded. They groped our people too and were very unprofessional. I am all about security, but when have you ever been harassed and felt up getting OFF a plane? Shouldnt they be doing that getting ON??? And they wonder why so many people are mad at them.
One more reason not to put a bunch of money into trains: the DHS and TSA want to molest you even AFTER YOU GET OFF THE DAMN THINGS.

'Security theater' doesn't even begin to cover this idiocy; the only possible reason I can think of for this is that they want to force people into the habit of being sheep at any time, any place. Thought occurs, what do they charge you with if you say "I'm calling the police, you're holding me against my will"? YOU'RE GETTING OFF THE THING.


Some questions from Doc Helen on one of the latest "You men should grow up!" books:
Though she reluctantly admits that the “materials available to young men are meager, and what is available contradicts itself,” she comes up with this ridiculous conclusion: “At bottom, they are too free, a fact epitomized by their undefined, open-ended, and profoundly autonomous pre-adulthood.” She ends the book suggesting that young women will have to get a better understanding of the limitations imposed by their bodies (Huh?) and young men need to man up.

My question to her: Why should they?

What do you have to offer these men you call child-men if they do man up? Are you going to ensure that they have fair access to their children should they divorce? Will you make sure that they aren’t hauled off to jail if the wife makes false accusations of domestic violence? Will you let them keep the earnings and property that they worked for over years rather than have them turned over to their wife, even if she cheated and was abusive? Will you shield the millions of men who live in fear of their significant other but have nowhere to turn for help? Will you make marriage, in other words, as valuable to men as you think it is for women?


Some questions and possible answers as to why the Mexican government doesn't seem bothered by the Gunwalker revelations(long excerpt):

So why the deliberate indifference?

Possibly, it’s because they want to minimize scrutiny of their own corrupt role in arming cartels:

A Mexican army officer assigned to guard President Felipe Calderon leaked military intelligence to drug cartels, trained hit men and supplied military weapons to Los Zetas, according to a U.S. Embassy cable recently released by Wikileaks.

There’s another piece of the puzzle for that State Department tie-in mentioned the other day that could expand the Grassley Senate investigation.

St. Louis Gun Rights ExaminerKurt Hofmann makes a particularly relevant observation about timing:

As Charlotte Gun Rights Examiner Paul Valone pointed out in private correspondence, that U.S. Embassy cable is dated January, 2009, meaning that when, a couple months later, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blamed violence in Mexico on "[o]ur inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals," she was well aware that the drug syndicates were not depending on the U.S. commercial gun market for their weapons.

So Hillary knew at the time that Calderon’s own inner circle was neck-deep in profiteering from cartel connections and military arms supplying. As did Calderon, of course, who still continued to demand a ban on semiautomatic firearms be imposed against United States citizens.

Other day, in one of those stupid arguments on Facebook(I know, sometimes just can't seem to help myself) I was faced with a truly amazing thing: a bunch of the progressives and liberals actually believe ALL our current problems stem from Ronald Reagan having been President. Yeah, not good enough to blame Bush, in the end "IT'S BECAUSE OF THAT BASTARD REAGAN!!!" I mean, these people literally do not see that a Democrat or Socialist ever did ANYTHING wrong. Just flat amazing.


Paul Helmke really doesn't want people to pay attention to Gunwalker, does he?


And that's it for now; cleaning and maybe some handloading to do.

Well, this helps a helluva lot,

doesn't it?
Officers seized more than 6 tons of marijuana, about 145 pounds of cocaine, 12 automatic and semi-automatic weapons, thousands of rounds of ammunition, grenades, body armor and camouflage netting during two raids in McAllen on Wednesday, [Police Chief Victor] Rodriguez said . . .

Much of what officials seized was allegedly provided to the group, which claimed to be working with the Gulf Cartel in Reynosa, by Guardsman Jose Francisco Padilla, 30, of San Juan, police said.

“(Padilla) is a source of the flak equipment … .30-caliber weapons and ammunition,” Rodriguez said. “We know he is an active National Guardsman, but I don’t know what his assignment is.”
Apparently "Steal stuff and sell it", from the sound of this.

Found at Sipsey Street, who also notes that Sen. Coburn has taken notice of Project Gunwalker.

A bike I have no personal knowledge of

Something I ran across at the bike show last weekend, a Ural Patrol:
Not just a sidecar, a two-rear-wheel-drive bike; there's a driveshaft that delivers power to the sidecar wheel. The one I saw was a 2003, here's some specs on a later model.

I'll throw in that the one on sale had been fixed up in more military trim: slotted headlight cover, a RPK(semi) on a pivot mount on the sidecar, etc. Be an interesting thing to drive around, and with the off-road tires would probably do quite well in bad terrain.

More reason, if I needed another, not to every again have an American Express card

They help out assholes who want to destroy dams.

From the same post, another rich-as-hell asshole musician who wants death and destruction. Except. of course, for the major company that helps make him rich:
AP reporter Ryan Foley’s update from Madison on Monday night included details about a rock musician causing the crowd to to roar: “At noon, guitarist Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine took to a stage on the Capitol steps to fire up the crowd. He said he flew in from California to lend his voice to the protest.”

While reporters like Adam Nagourney “worry” out loud that the Wisconsin Republicans are going to look too extreme, AP somehow left out Morello’s truly appalling and extremist stands, like speaking fondly of Philadelphia cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal and the Maoist Shining Path terrorists in Peru. If that didn’t seem pro-violence enough, then there’s Morello praying for the drowning of President Bush in 2007, as reported in the Washington Post:

Onstage, when the Nightwatchman [Morello] sang, “I pray that God himself will come and drown the president if the levees break again,” the Jammin’ Java crowd’s attitude was chilling. People were praying.

...
That’s pretty strong stuff coming from work-for-hire employees of one of the great cogs in the global capitalist machine, the megaconglomerate Sony, which wholly owns and distributes Rage’s music and even is a co-owner of the group’s publishing. Since 1992, Rage has sold nearly 7 million records, and it’s safe to say that nobody has benefitted more from that commerce than the band’s unabashedly capitalist paymaster.

I have to note that on the CBS news page where I found

the Obama quote on 'stability', on the sidebar there's a 'Charlie Sheen is dating -' piece.

Why the hell is this considered news? I mean, if they had a 'Charlie Sheen found dead from heart attack/overdose/protecting herself girlfriend' or whatever, THAT would be of slight news interest, but this crap on what celebritute he's currently boinking?

So Obama made a comment that we can 'hang on

until oil prices stabilize', and we're supposed to be comforted.

May I point out that prices could settle at, oh, $150/bbl and that would be a 'stabilized' price?

This is just freakin' awesome

Starting with iron ore, down to the completed blades.

thanks to Uncle for the pointer

I think it was Steve at what used to be Hog on Ice who said

something like "Lots of lawyers are scum; so why does anyone think putting them in a black robe will change that?"
Ciavarella has told the media he never took bribe from anybody and has never wrongfully sentenced any teenager to juvenile detention. He was accused of receiving kickbacks from Robert K. Mericle, the builder and co-owner of two juvenile detention facilities in return for closing down the county's only juvenile detention center and sending teenage offenders to a private-run, for-profit facilities, sometimes for minor offenses. The former judge of Court of Common Pleas in Luzerne County has been accused of receiving $2.8 million as kickbacks.

The "kids for cash" case prompted the state Supreme Court to throw out thousands of convictions.


Over to WI, this is what you get from a teacher?
“That’s your problem. You’re an entrepreneur, so you don’t work. You don’t know what work is until you get into an educational area. … You’re uneducated, unethical, immoral, and you don’t know what life is. That’s your problem. Why don’t you go behind that fence where you belong? Why don’t you go back with your own kind?” She said this indicating towards the bottom of the Capitol Steps, where a couple of hundred tea partiers were gathered listening to speeches
...
Bystander: “What did you mean when you said does he have any children that he claims?”

Lady in red: “Because he’s such a free spirit and an entrepreneur, I would assume that he’s not supporting children. …

(To Robinson:) You are a big-mouth take-care-of-yourself man. You don’t care about anyone.”
...
When I asked the lady in red why she was so incensed at Robinson, a man she had never spoken to in her life, she said “He comes here dressed to the nines, look at him. He is portraying someone not from this community.” She admitted that her assumption that this black man has children he doesn’t support was racist, but said “What I said is racist, but I am not a racist.”.
'not from this community'. From a clown supported by thousands of bussed-in union clowns. Yeah.


Gee, the cost of oil affects things? Who- outside, apparently, of some of the idiots in this administration- would have thought it?
People actually paying for stuff, that's who.


The Weare Police Department needs to have its collective ass sued off, as that may be the only think that'll get the attention of these clowns. Speaking as someone who tends to have a 'toward the police' lean, when I see things like this
Police also claim dashboard camera videos of her arrest aren't available because the equipment wasn't working that night. Hipple said police don't have maintenance records to prove the cameras weren't working.
my sympathies go out the window.


Between the price of gas around here currently being $3.18, the cost of bloody everything going up/about to due to this and other fun idiocies, and not quite enough sleep, that's about all I can deal with on news today

The clown who was Schools Superintendent for so long, Sandy Garrett,

can't stop screwing with things even when she's out of office, it would seem.
A Department of Education source claims she was privy to a conversation in which Garrett, a Democrat who held the post for 20 years, allegedly indicated in mid-December that she had been in email contact with board member Tim Gilpin, a Tulsa attorney and like Garrett a Democrat, who supported Barresi's Democratic opponent, Senator Susan Paddack. Gilpin is a former Tulsa County Democratic Party chairman and longtime donor to liberal Democrats. Gilpin and former Democratic Senator Herb Rozell, also a board member, touched off a furor a month ago when they attacked Barresi at her first board meeting and refused to approve her employment of three top assistants.
Various denials, 'never happened', etc. Except
Garrett's emails have mysteriously disappeared from department computers. An employee says she was instructed by Garrett to delete them; Garrett says she gave no such order. But emails from her final months in office as yet have not been located.

The missing emails were discovered after The Associated Press asked about them. Two state records custodians told The AP that the deletion violated a state directive and cost researchers access to significant historical records of a longtime office-holder.
But whyEVER would she do something like that...
After The AP asked to see Garrett's recent correspondence, the Department of Education said the records no longer existed and disclosed that Garrett communicated with her staff through her private e-mail accounts in her last month on the job.
Why, that sounds like someone trying to cover things up, doesn't it?

The Koch brothers,

those BASTARDS!
no wonder the socialists and liberals hate them!

It can never be forgotten: Sen. Chuck Schumer(SDP-NY)

is not only the enemy, but a happy violator of of that troublesome oath he swore:

Under the plan endorsed by Schumer and Bloomberg, states and federal authorities would be required to increase the percentage of denied gun permit applicants to the national gun database. The penalty for not reporting would be a loss of federal funding for crime prevention.

Not required to make sure the data in the database is more accurate and up to date, but to just deny more people the right to purchase a gun, with no regard to accuracy? They call the proposal “modest.” If their Thesaurus has the word “stupid” next to “modest,” I might buy that.

First, we have one response to the Touching Special Areas people

She says that whenever a TSA agent attempts to dine at the restaurant, “we turn our backs and completely ignore them, and tell them to leave… Their kind aren’t welcomed in our establishment.”

The restaurant claims that 90% of its patrons are in agreement with their stance and that the local police have actually helped escort TSA workers of the premises.
Followed by the comment from a friend:
"Very wrong response! Of course they have the right to dine - after they've been viewed naked, and the pictures ridiculed by the staff, and they've been groped in full view of the other diners. If they try to leave before this is carried out, they can be thrown to the floor, handcuffed and taken away for interrogation."

Sgt. Son called a few nights back,

and said something I'm still snickering about. Talking about some of the difficulties with some of the people in the squad, there came the disgusted comment(from his hoary age of 26):
"He's 20 years old and he's still acting like a teenager!"

I'm going to be laughing about that for a long time.

Found a couple of bones in the fridge

left from the last time I had ribs. Took them out and gave them to the Security Staff. Senior took hers to a suitable spot to chew on; Junior took his and chomped it up in about twelve seconds.

That little beast has some serious jaws.

"You, too, can be irradiated

by a body scanner that doesn't do the job!"

AND may be dangerous; we don't know for sure since, last I heard, the safety stuff that should be available still isnt.

To borrow from Simon Templar, Whales do too have wings!

CBS actually made a real report on the Gunwalker mess.

Now maybe some others among our professional journalists will get off their fat asses and report on it.

The current count in New Zealand is 75 dead

and about 300 missing. Damn.

Rep. Michael Capuano, you are a hypocritical little bastard,

aren't you?
January 9: "What the hell is going on? There's always some degree of tension in politics; everybody knows the last couple of years there's been an intentional increase in the degree of heat in political discourse. . . . If nothing else good comes out of this, I'm hoping it causes people to reconsider how they deal with things."

The other day:
"I'm proud to be here with people who understand that it's more than just sending an email to get you going. Every once and awhile you need to get out on the streets and get a little bloody when necessary."
And here's one of the results of the bastards words:

If the police in that town are worth a crap, this sorry thug will shortly be in jail.


Update: Capuano now that he's been called out: "Oh, I should have worded it differently."

Gets interesting when a journalist is called on the bullcrap

they pose as 'given':


Found this at Ace

A very nice breakdown of how & why Marx was(and his ideas still are)

full of crap over at Classical Values. One bit:
To Marx value was raw material plus work. The means of producing that work (machinery, etc) were just sort of there. And he made no allowance for invention. (Which is why though Marxist revolutions often recruit intellectuals they're the sort of intellectuals who never had an original idea in their life.) Of course in our day and age, invention and original thought are at least as important as machinery in creating product. Also, the raw material fallacy means all the countries who have nothing else to sell feel "exploited" because we're taking their "value" away. Imbuing raw material itself with value means that it's sort of like stealing national treasure. This has given rise to an entire colonialist-exploitation-theory of history which has held more people in misery in developing countries than the most brazen robber baron could manage. And no one, NOT ONE seems to realize that their raw materials mean absolutely nothing if not used. If someone doesn't have an idea to use it. If the finished product is not good for something. In other words, if you're not producing something that someone else finds useful. (I.e. enough to pay for.) If the relationship isn't MUTUALLY beneficial.

I can't remember who is was, the first time I read of the 'stealing the treasure of the indigenous people' garbage, who called bullshit on it in a very plain way; as he pointed out, if someone had not developed technologies that used oil, the mid-East would still be a bunch of camel & goatherds raiding each other to steal wives and raping the livestock because without someone needing it that oil is worthless. Still true, and why the oil ticks live in dread of someone finding a practical substitute for oil.

Been reading about the mess in WI,

and in the mid-East and north Africa, and thinking about the reactions of some people here.

Specifically, despite a lot of the groups and people involved(Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, for example) we've got a bunch of people yelling "Democracy! It's about Democracy!! Democracy good!!!" ; how the hell do you see a bunch of islamist clowns talking about imposing sharia and calling for war to wipe out the Jews and keep saying that as if there's no problem?

Some of this is pretty much pushing for base-form democracy, mob rule; and mob rule pushing for a theocracy, at that. But you've got a bunch of people, primarily progressives and socialists, who either see no problem with mob rule(they plan to control the mob, of course) or are too damn stupid to see the problems. Long as they keep yelling "Democracy!" they think it's all good.

Went 'round with someone the other day on the mess in WI; according to her it's purely the downtrodden workers fighting for their rights against the evil right-wingers who want another bit of value on their stock accounts. Think about this: the state is broke, the people elected are acting to do exactly what they said they would, get the costs under control and stop the unions from controlling the process, and somehow this is seen as Evil Right-Wing Fascists robbing the poor workers, etc.(yeah, she is a socialist) She even sees a connection to those epitome-of-evil Koch brothers. She also defended the crooked doctors handing out fake sick excuses for teachers to skip work because "I'd be stressed too if I knew I might be fired for no reason!" Let's see, skipping work on falsified grounds, abusing sick leave... that's grounds to be fired in just about any company, and I think most states have similar rules on that, but that would be getting fired 'for no reason'. Yeah. Right. (she also basically said that one piece of information I brought up didn't count for squat because I found it on a blog while she quoted something from a local paper; I just said "Information is where you find it." This is also the one who claimed a Media Matters list of calling Glenn Beck names and disagreeing with him proved he 'lied' about a bunch of things)

And let's completely ignore that the Governor pointed out that if these concessions aren't made there'll be thousands of state and local public employees laid off; that doesn't count or something.

Back when, I worked for a state agency. In Oklahoma the union is called the OK State Employees Association, and I became really sick of them. If they'd been honest they'd have registered as a lobbying arm of the Democrat Party, which actions rather ticked me off; add to that their apparent complete disregard of the financial condition of the state when demanding more. More money, more benefits more whatever. And if the point was made too loudly that "THERE IS NO MONEY FOR THIS, YOU MORONS!" their answer was "Then raise taxes so you can give 'us' a raise!" I'd be sitting there thinking "Hey, if you raise taxes to give us a raise we'll be paying those increased taxes too, dammit!"

Their answer to that seemed to be "We'll only raise taxes on the rich!", etc. Yeah. That NEVER soaks down to everyone else, does it? Right now look at how that's worked in Californicated and the PROM; raise taxes on the wealthy and at least some of them move, and then you lose ALL the taxes you were getting from them. Isn't that a wonderful idea?(it is for the lower-tax states those people move to, of course) We're seeing the same attitude in WI; there's no money, but Progressivism Forbid that be acknowledged if it means the unions lose some power. I think one of the things that demonstrates this is about power is the outrage the unions have for two things in particular:
ALL union members would have to vote annually about keeping the union, and
The state would no longer collect dues for the unions, they'd have to get them directly from members.
The unions are apparently terrified of both ideas, which tells me the unions don't trust the bulk of their members to want to stay in and don't trust that they'll be happy to pay dues; they want the power of the state to take the dues for them, and don't want to have to deal with a vote of all members. Says bad things about the union, doesn't it?


I'll add to the personal history that there were a couple of people in my area who were OPEA members; the one time we had a problem that they went to the union with, the response was "Oh, we don't get involved in things like that! And please remember to renew for next year."

Rep. Allen West does not put up with bullshit

"I've been on the battlefield, my friend, ok? Don't try to blow sunshine up my butt"

When the bad guys think they have no reason to fear you,

you get hostages. Then you get dead hostages.
The four Americans aboard a yacht hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia are dead.

Hijacked last Friday off Oman, the Quest was being piloted toward the Somali coast – and was being shadowed by a U.S. Navy warship.

CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports that gunshots aboard the yacht were heard, and the warship took action.

All 4 Americans were dead, killed apparently by their captors.
Yeah, how's that God-damned Hope and Change working?

We've got a Navy that could take care of this, and deal with the pirates. Except the politicians won't let them. And here's part of the result. And the captured pirates will get a nice, comfortable cell and plenty of food and a 'international court' that won't accomplish squat.

New Zealand got pasted

with another quake. Second in only a few months.

Wonder if any of the hobbit burrows are left? I know it's a dumb question, but it did pop to mind

How do I despise the New York Times,

#372:
Oh, wait:

The New York Times had agreed to temporarily withhold information about Mr. Davis’s ties to the agency at the request of the Obama administration, which argued that disclosure of his specific job would put his life at risk.

How brave of you to wait five days before outing an undercover CIA agent.
You couldn't f*cking wait until he was at least out of prison and of harms way?

You are patriots who truly love this country.
You love America the way an abusive husband loves his wife. You love the idealized version of her, but are ready at any moment to beat the shit out of her should she do something you disapprove of. You know, like spying on the enemies of the United States.

Wow, a lot of pictures from WWII in the Pacific

here.

Found at Theo's place

Robert Mugabe's health 'hurting Zimbabwe'

Yeah, as long as the bastard is still breathing.

Two things for now: First, Columbia University

should be given two choices: ROTC or lose the federal funding, as I think the law calls for. And every one of the miserable little liberal shits who gave this man crap can FOAD; they're not worthy to kiss his ass.
Columbia University students heckled a war hero during a town-hall meeting on whether ROTC should be allowed back on campus.

"Racist!" some students yelled at Anthony Maschek, a Columbia freshman and former Army staff sergeant awarded the Purple Heart after being shot 11 times in a firefight in northern Iraq in February 2008. Others hissed and booed the veteran.


Second, RNS found this: 10kT Nuke Scenario in Port of Los Angeles. Scary stuff. And the little shits mentioned above ought to consider that
A: There are people out there who would flat LOVE to smuggle that nuke onto their university and trigger it, and
B: Troops like Anthony Maschek put their lives on the line- and often pay a price- to try and keep it from happening.
But that would require them stepping out of their nice, comfortable little liberal bubble. And I doubt they have the balls or brains to do that.

I have an idea for Gov. Walker:

Find every one of the union clowns getting one of these 'take a day off' notes and fire them for false sick-time claims.

Then go after the doctors for knowingly handing out these falsified forms.

That'd be a good start.

"Not exactly what you expect from Conan..."

From here

Know somebody who insists 'all cultures are equal' ?

Ask them to explain how this is equal to things here.
The reports said Hena was raped by her 40-year-old relative Mahbub on Sunday. Next day, a fatwa was announced at a village arbitration that she must be given 100 lashes. She fell unconscious after nearly 80 lashes.

Fatally injured Hena was rushed to Naria health complex where she succumbed to her injuries.
God damn these bastards. Every fucking one of them who thinks it right to sentence a girl to lashes for having been raped.

If you handload and use plated bullets(or want to),

I just got a notice from Conevera saying that there will be a price increase effective Monday on Berry's and X-Treme bullets. So if you can/want to get some before, you've got through tomorrow to order some.

The situation in Egypt and elsewhere seems to be

pretty much on their own, as the President seems to be- if anything- helping encourage the enemy(Muslim Brotherhood, Taliban, etc.) instead of actually wanting to help toward a real representative government. With the aid of that clown Jimmy Carter, who's either as stupid as ever or encouraging his only hope at no longer being the worst modern President in our history. So the current Brave Sir Democrats and union thugs demonstration in WI is kind of at the fore. I'd like to copy bits from two pieces Insty pointed to. First,
Mr. Walker's proposals are hardly revolutionary. Facing a $137 million budget deficit, he has decided to try to avoid laying off 5,500 state workers by proposing that they contribute 5.8% of their income towards their pensions and 12.6% towards health insurance. That's roughly the national average for public pension payments, and it is less than half the national average of what government workers contribute to health care. Mr. Walker also wants to limit the power of public-employee unions to negotiate contracts and work rules—something that 24 states already limit or ban.
Which actions to try to actually FIX THE PROBLEMS in their budget just can't be tolerated; it's been pointed out that if they can do this the state won't have to lay off something like 5000 public employees, but the unions would rather see those people canned.
But when it became obvious that the governor had the votes to pass it, Mr. Jauch and his 13 Democratic colleagues got on a bus and fled the state to deprive Republicans of a sufficient quorum to conduct any legislative business. They were later found at a Best Western Hotel in Rockford, Ill. Scot Ross, director of the liberal activist group One Wisconsin Now, endorsed the temper tantrum: "The senators have rightfully taken matters into their own hands."
Yeah. Rather than actually deal with the problems they ran away and hid. And morons like WN think that actually helps things. Well, admittedly, from their point of view it does help; it keeps things effed-up which they seem to prefer.
And now to what the unions probably care more about than they do about the average lousy member:
Labor historian Fred Siegel offers further reasons why unions are manning the barricades. Mr. Walker would require that public-employee unions be recertified annually by a majority vote of all their members, not merely by a majority of those that choose to cast ballots. In addition, he would end the government's practice of automatically deducting union dues from employee paychecks. For Wisconsin teachers, union dues total between $700 and $1,000 a year.

"Ending dues deductions breaks the political cycle in which government collects dues, gives them to the unions, who then use the dues to back their favorite candidates and also lobby for bigger government and more pay and benefits," Mr. Siegel told me. After New York City's Transport Workers Union lost the right to automatic dues collection in 2007 following an illegal strike, its income fell by more than 35% as many members stopped ponying up. New York City ended the dues collection ban after 18 months.
A: the government should not be in the business of collecting dues for the unions. Period.
B: If you don't care enough about the union to bother to vote, why are you a member?
Yeah, I know: a lot of them are members because they're forced to join if they want the job. Which should not be the case, and which is a big part of how this got so messed-up. Sounds like the unions are scared that the majority of members, if they actually have to vote on the union, will vote 'no', so rather than try to fairly win the vote they want to keep them from voting at all. Very Democratic of them, isn't it?
On the dues, kind of like the idea of ending income tax withholding so people would actually have to write a check to the government every year; politicians overall flat hate the idea because of the reaction people would have as they had to write that check. The unions are apparently scared of the idea of only getting dues from the members willing to pay them instead of having the taxman take it for them.

The other is from here, where RWPP Jesse Jackson showed up to screw around in a matter that touches neither on civil rights or racial matters:
"If we can find the money to bail out wealthy businessmen, we can bail out Madison, Wisconsin!" Jackson yelled, to thunderous applause from the crowd, many of them clad in Badger red.
Jackson knows, unless he's a truly stupid man, that we DIDN'T HAVE THE MONEY FOR THE BAILOUTS, but a bunch of idiot/crooked/lied-to politicians stole it anyway; now he wants the federal government to steal more money from people around the country to bail out states and cities from the holes they dug themselves into. Fat effing chance, Jackson. We're not having our pockets further picked so you clowns- I include he and the union thugs in this- can keep screwing things up even more.

By the way, Michelle Malkin has a list of some of the salary figures for some of these poor, downtrodden workers. BEFORE benefits. Take a look.

No, I don't live in that state; back when I worked for the state of OK, I remember the annual bullcrap of the teachers unions and the OPEA(OK Public Employee Assoc.) to get as much money as possible, and screw everyone else. This reminds me enough of that that it really pisses me off.

Althouse lives and works in Madison,

and has a lot of stuff up on the protests, threats and the teachers who aren't teaching and are taking kids out of school so they can join the protests.

Right about now, I'll bet the unions and Democrats- if they look at what the majority of citizens are saying- are worried. A lot. They're seriously pissing off most of the people in the state, and the long-term results for the unions and Democrats won't be good.


Speaking of Democrats and pissing people off, how the bleep do you ask a judge who just ruled the law is unconstitutional to tell states to enact the law? Easy: you're a socialist crapweasel who's desperate to get this stuff so tied-in that it can't be gotten rid of. Or so you hope.


So, just maybe, a bunch of DEA and SFPD officers will get their ass handed to them in court; be really nice if it happens.
Biggs describes 243 Diamond as a "two-story, one-unit" building in the warrant. There's no mention of Freshman or Larizadeh's son-in-law or seven-months pregnant daughter who were detained in the downstairs unit that morning. But property records — and a quick visual scan of the property — reveal it to be a three-story, two-unit building. That mistake alone may be enough to invalidate the search warrant.
...
SFPD offered no comment other than reiterating they had a warrant from Judge Richard Kramer to search 243 Diamond. But Peter Keane, dean emeritus of Golden Gate University's School of Law, says there appears to be a problem. "There's been cases like this in the past where police have a warrant to search [a single residence], then they get there and it's a multi-unit building and they search the whole building. In those cases, people have sued and collected substantial settlements. I think whomever is representing the government better get out his checkbook."
Yes, I know: the police officers and DEA agents will claim they're protected from being held personally responsible, etc. May still get a bit nasty for them:
Freshman, a UC Hastings law professor and the main consultant to the television show Lie to Me, was put into handcuffs while in his bathrobe as agents searched,... .
In other words, it's a bit like the drug team in Virginia who raided the Mayor's house and shot his dogs out of flat stupidity; the individual officers involved were protected, but it at least got the agencies involved and their actions a lot of nasty publicity; screwing up on the search warrant and hassling a law professor with lots of contacts and a real willingness to go after you just might cause the agencies some real problems.


Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice is a liar. And apparently has a great excess of time and money to waste, and so should have her budget cut. Along with that of every other agency involved in this bullshit.
... found the gun dealers modified assault rifles to bring them in compliance with state law. The dealers then would instruct the undercover officers posing as customers how to change them back into full-fledged assault weapons.
Unless she can prove they were telling people how to illegally modify the weapons to select-fire, then she's screwing with people for pointing out information available on the internet and in books, etc., to add cosmetic features back onto a firearm. How much taxpayer money is this clown wasting with this garbage?


A federal judge tells Empty-Hat Salazar- in polite words- "Stop dicking around and do your job properly, or else." I'd like to see E.H. look up and see a couple of Federal Marshalls coming in with handcuffs: "Sir, you've been charged with contempt of court and we are ordered to place you under arrest."(preferably in a Louisiana accent)


And finally, Sheila Jackson Lee really is either a idiot or the most twisted word-mangler around, and one of her colleagues just can't stand it being called Obamacare.

With that, I'm off to find some dinner.

Ah, the kinder, gentler rhetoric of the left

This is what the effing teachers on strike are exposing their students toThe Governor as Hitler. Uh huh. I asked the woman if she thought Scott Walker was like Hitler, and she said "Yes." So I said, "Are you saying that you think fascism could come to America," and she said, "It's what's happening."
Yeah. The Governor ...defended requiring government employees to contribute nearly 6 percent to their pension funds and nearly 13 percent to their health-care plans, saying that the pension contribution was equal to the national average, while the health-care contribution would be only half of the national average. and for that you morons compare him to Hitler? And call it fascism on the march?

And remember, these morons are teaching kids; any guesses what kind of history they teach?

I shall now have the joy of attendingt the birthday

of my goddaughter; and the somewhat lesser(shall we say) joy of my own. She's growing up, and I'm getting more surly and intolerant of bullcrap.

Such a tradeoff.

Two things: first, Richard Dreyfuss is, to put it politely,

a fucking idiot.
The opportunity arose when we both finished interviews on radio row. I approached Dreyfuss, put out my hand, and said “Hi, I am David Bossie, President of Citizens United.” Dreyfuss’ eyes lit up like he just saw Jaws and he said, “You’re going to have a hard time getting into heaven if you believe in that sort of stuff.” I was taken aback and asked, “Why?” Dreyfuss then went on a diatribe equating the Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court decision to the Khmer Rouge. He compared me to Pol Pot “stacking skulls” back at my office. He actually used his hands to seemingly act out the stacking of skulls. I replied by saying, “I thought you would have been supportive of my First Amendment Supreme Court case because you are in the business of supporting the First Amendment.” He did not have a clear response and looked like a frustrated, institution-bound Dr. Leo Marvin from his Oscar-worthy performance in What About Bob? For someone who was at CPAC to promote a civics and civility campaign, calling me one of the worst mass murderers in history strikes me as awfully hypocritical. But this is not the first time Dreyfuss has used extreme and offensive language to make a political point. He once compared former Vice President Dick Cheney to Adolf Hitler and agreed with comments that wished Cheney dead (though later apologized).


Second,
Um. Yeah. Right.

And you notice the signs are in English... not exactly for local consumption, I guess.

The modern Democrat Party: when the going gets tough,

they run like hell.
Sources tell the Madison NBC affiliate that Democratic lawmakers may have left the state to avoid a vote, possibly fleeing to the Illinois border, about an hour drive from Madison. The move is a repeat of a 2003 stunt by Texas Democrats who fled to a hotel room in neighboring Oklahoma to avoid a redistricting vote.

So it would appear that Joan Peterson

doesn't care how many people are beaten/raped/robbed/murdered, as long as no guns are involved...

Never forget, this is the kind of mindset we're fighting against.

It's February, and I know it won't last,

but the weather the last few and next few days is wonderful: highs 60's & 70's, yay! So I spent the day helping a friend with some stuff, and I'm just now scanning the news. And there's a lot of it. For instance,
“Operation Protect Our Children” sounded great! The Department of Justice and Homeland Security‘s tag-team beatdown was supposed to seize ten criminal sites this past weekend. Instead, it shuttered 84,000 innocent domains. And replaced them with a banner labeling them as child porn traffickers. Whoops!
Obvious question: can the people damaged by this idiocy sue? And can they get the morons responsible for this fired?


“60 Minutes” correspondent Lara Logan was repeatedly sexually assaulted by thugs yelling, “Jew! Jew!” as she covered the chaotic fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo’s main square Friday, CBS and sources said yesterday.
Must've been some of those types that Jimmy Carter says we don't need to worry about.


Belmont Club has a piece on the subject of finding out the world isn't the fuzzy-bunny place some think it is, and points out what a bunch of sniveling, self-righteous hypocrites run Berkeley:
The Berkeley City Council, after passing a resolution calling for the resettlement of detainees released from Guantanamo in the United States, voted against inviting such persons to live in their fair city, according to the San Jose Mercury News.
Yeah, it's great to want to turn a bunch of illegal combatants and terrorists loose in the US, "...as long as you keep them away from us!"


On the subject of idiots who happen to wear a uniform,
Military bureaucrats needlessly blocked U.S. troops in Iraq from getting laser weapons — tools that could’ve kept civilians from getting killed. That, in a nutshell, is what the Pentagon’s Inspector General concluded after an investigation of the Marine Corps’ botched attempts to send the nonlethal lasers to the war zone.

It’s a major mea culpa, but it comes with an important caveat: Sure, the Marines’ pencil-pushers mishandled the urgent request for lasers, first issued five years ago. But that doesn’t give today’s front-line commanders an excuse for circumventing the bureaucrats.
Because Deity forbid you do something that keeps people alive without getting the proper rubber stamped-approval from some asshole in a nice, safe office.


Oh, isn't this just wonderful?
MISSION - CHANNEL 5 NEWS is exposing what appears to be a Mexican military incursion into the United States. It was all caught on camera. We froze surveillance video taken at the Anzalduas International Bridge.

What you see is the international boundary that separates the United States from Mexico and what authorities on this side of the border seem to think is a truck packed with armed men crossing into the United States. The video clearly shows a large military-transport vehicle drive north on the Anzalduas bridge over the international boundary.
Possibly a mistake; way things have been going, quite possibly not.


Oh Project Gunwalker, we're pretty sure why a lot of the major media doesn't want to talk about it, but a good question is "Why isn't Drudge?" And some suggestions on pushing the matter.


John Wiley Price: a racist on the Dallas County Commissioner's Court:
"All of you are white -- go to hell. Go to hell. Go to hell.... You too, fatboy."

He offered up this racist remark when a fellow commissioner kept referring to him as "Chief Mullah" due to his role in ousting a government employee.

Now, "Chief Mullah" ain't civil either -- let's not pretend on that one. On the other hand, "Chief Mullah" really doesn't invite back the open declaration "All of you are white -- go to hell."

What makes this story special is this asshole's defense -- see, you're the racists. You drove him to this. How? Um, you called him "Chief Moolah" (it was mullah, not moolah) and he claims that "Chief Moolah" is an old-time racial slur.


Combine socialized medicine with socialist assholes in charge, and you get things like this:
Trespassing laws are to be used to evict elderly patients who ‘block’ hospital beds.

Pensioners reluctant to go home – often because they are too frail or confused to cope on their own – will be given 48 hours to leave. If they refuse, NHS trusts will seek a court order for possession of their bed.

The ‘bed-blockers’ could even be forced to pay the legal fees incurred.


Hey, on Gunwalker, looks like Sen. Grassley is just a bit pissed off at ATF trying to blow him off:
Senator Charles Grassley has released a letter written today to Attorney General Eric Holder. Referencing a Feb. 10 briefing given to him and his staff by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Fireams and Explosives (ATF), Grassley made a troubling observation that points to Bureau stonewalling of his request for complete information.

"[T]he briefers focused on general issues related to challenges in successfully prosecuting gun trafficking cases. They refused to answer specific questions about the facts and circumstances that led me to request the briefing," Grassley complained.
While it would be personally satisfying to read a letter in which the Senator says "I'm tired of these bastards lying to me; I want answers and I'm not going away", this very polite way of saying it will have to do.


If you're needing some ammo for arguing about the costs of Obama & Biden's Folly(this one, anyway), go here. Among other things,
Rail buffs argue that subsidies for passenger service simply offset the huge government support of highways and airways. The subsidies "level the playing field." Wrong. In 2004, the Department of Transportation evaluated federal transportation subsidies for the period 1990-2002. It found passenger rail service had the highest subsidy ($186.35 per thousand passenger-miles) followed by mass transit ($118.26 per thousand miles). By contrast, drivers received no net subsidy; their fuel taxes more than covered federal spending. Subsidies for airline passengers were about $5 per thousand miles traveled. (All figures are in inflation-adjusted year 2000 dollars.)


On that note I'll be leaving you for the night; I'm tired and still have the 15-22 to clean.

From the past wonders of the Soviet Union

She passed me keeping her head down but I recognised her.>

"Well, Ilyana, have you got rich now?"

She dropped her eyes even lower. I was sorry for her...

From Mudville:
Euphrosinia (or Eufrosinia) Kersnovskaya didn't know it at that time, but she herself had embarked on a journey that would take her to exile and the Gulag. Over two decades would pass before she could tell her tale in words and pictures - and even then (1964) she would do so only in secret and at tremendous personal risk.

I discovered her work only after I'd completed (at least thought I'd completed)this little tale of the birth of the cold war, which I'd referred to from the beginning as a graphic novel, filled with elements from comic books, science fiction and movies, and concluded with a reference to fairy tales. When I found the web site devoted to her work I knew I wanted to weave a few of these stunning examples of the reality of life in the Soviet Union into the tale. When I read that she "envisioned the text and illustrations as an indivisible whole, a genre that perhaps lies somewhere between traditional Russian lubok engravings and the modern graphic novel" I had no doubt. One cannot consider the impact of the efforts of the many useful idiots of the West (in the Trinity example, atomic spies) without having a true picture of the world they supported and facilitated. Compared to the documentation of the evils of Nazi Germany, very few such first-hand accounts of the Soviet hell exist. (And once he had the atomic bomb at his disposal, no one was going to loosen Stalin's iron grip.)

Lots more drawings and captions here. Pass it along to anyone you know who defends/has starry eyes about the Soviet Union

Hit the range this morning

and tried another ammo through the M&P 15-22. As of now there's been well over 1k rounds through this one with the only cleaning being wiping the bolt and bolt rails off once and lubing them. In that time about the only failures have been when the top round in a full magazine wasn't at the right angle(somewhat sensitive to that, but seems to only be when have the full 25 rounds in; some of the mags are picky about it) and a few misfires; and those rounds fired if you ran them through again.

I've now had subsonic ammo(Eley Sport and another I can't remember), standard and high-velocity stuff- both plated and bare lead- through it and most brands work just fine. The one big exception: Remington bulk-pack Golden Bullets. Roughly 1/4 to 1/3 of the stuff won't even chamber; those that do just flat suck, ranging from a lot of misfires to some sounding almost like hyper-velocity stuff and some so light I checked the bore to make sure nothing was stuck in there. They've really let their QC slip on this stuff.

No time tonight, next day or so I'll strip it and give it a real cleaning. And I need to get a good optic for it; I'd love to get the FACOG Tam pointed to for it, but since I'm just using it for general target practice I can't really justify to myself buying a $140 sight for it; I think I'll just get a decent scope for it.

You want to know just what a hellhole New Jersey is?

Read this.

Found at Oleg's place

First, listen to a major media Obama buttkisser

getting her ass handed to her


Then, read how Nic Robertson shows how full of crap and biased he is:
ROBERTSON: Achmed, you've been here down here on the Square for many days. The United States and the international community. You've just listened to President Obama saying that America will support Egypt if it wants help and assistance, and hopes that there will be a good transition for jobs for the young people. What would be your message for President Obama?

ACHMED: We don't know, actually, who he supports. He serves for his own purposes, and the Egyptian people serve for our freedom and democracy. Any democratic country should see for the people, not for its own purposes....

ROBERTSON: Mustapha is joining me now. We just heard President Obama say that he wants to extend, eh, support and assistance to Egypt and Egyptians if they want any, and he hopes that there are more jobs for the young people in the future. What's your message for President Obama?

MUSTAPHA: Well, my message to President Obama is just, "We started this revolution without any outside help, and we are going to finish it also without any outside help."...

ROBERTSON: Are you pleased that President Obama has come out, however, now and said he supports this change and supports the people and supports the young people and -- and what they've done?

MUSTAPHA: Well, actually President Obama's views were kind of conflicting during the last week... but now he's saying that he's supporting the change....

ROBERTSON: The view from here is one of very happy to now hear that President Obama has swung behind the people.
Robertson, if Obama stops too quickly you're going to be digging his crap out of your nostrils, you sorry excuse for a reporter.

The British MoD:

Bastards in Action:
The group of officers who received the mail, who all have more than 20 years' service, includes a Royal Tank Regiment veteran unceremoniously dumped while serving on the frontline in Afghanistan.

Another - who risked his life doing FIVE warzone tours - said: "It was out of the blue. We're disgusted.

"Essentially 38 of us are 'sacked' having spent our lives in the military. It's not good - five tours of duty and sacked by email."
I'd say 'unbelievable', but after what the British Government has become? it's not.
SAS legend Andy McNab said: "Young lads will see that and think, 'If that's how they treat the guys that have given their lives to the unit, how will they treat me?'"
No shit. Somewhere there's a quote that "A country that despises its military will come to have a despicable military"; and the Brits are working real hard at developing just that. The way they keep treating the troops, it's amazing they still have any good ones.

There's a miserable, bigoted little shit named Chauncey DeVega

over at Alternet; apparently he fits in with all the other bigoted little shits there.
In the immortal words of Megatron in Transformers: The Movie, Herman Cain’s speech at CPAC really is bad comedy. As you know, I find black garbage pail kids black conservatives fascinating not because of what they believe, but rather because of how they entertain and perform for their White Conservative masters.
...
Instead, Herman Cain’s shtick is a version of race minstrelsy where he performs “authentic negritude” as wish fulfillment for White Conservative fantasies. Like the fountain at Lourdes, Cain in his designated role as black Conservative mascot, absolves the White racial reactionaries at CPAC of their sins. This is a refined performance that Black Conservatives have perfected over many decades and centuries of practice.
Because it's just not possible for a REAL black man or woman to be of conservative bent, oh no...

DeVega, 'miserable little bigot' isn't quite enough of a description for you, but I'm trying to clean up my language a bit.

Ammo recall

A bit late, but just in case any of you haven't seen it and need to:

FEDERAL and AMERICAN EAGLE

45 AUTO PRODUCT SAFETY WARNING

Immediate Action Required

Certain lots of recently manufactured 45 Auto ammunition may contain an incorrect propellant charge. Use of product from these lots may result in firearm damage and possible serious injury.

DO NOT USE PRODUCT FROM THE FOLLOWING LOTS:

If you have in your possession any 45 Auto with the following brand names and part numbers, check to see if your ammunition package contains the above lots:

• American Eagle®(AE45A, AE45N1, or AE45A250)
• Champion™ (WM5233), GoldMedal®(GM45B)
• Hi-Shok ®(45C, 45D)
• Federal® Personal Defense ®(C45C, C45D)

Example below:



THIS WARNING APPLIES ONLY TO THE LOTS LISTED ABOVE.

If you possess ammunition from any of these lots, or have questions concerning this warning, please contact us at 1-800-831-0850 or 1-800-322-2342 and ask for Product Service. Federal will provide replacement product and will cover the cost of returning the affected product.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

As Insty put it(though more politely),

Mrs. Sherrod, discovery is going to be a bitch.

You know, takes a certain kind of dumb to sue someone who's probably been praying that you'd do just that so as to open the doors.

Well, howzabout you teach the little bastards

not to steal?
Second, and I was amazed when this anxiety was aired in fully half the interviews, residents worry that the store would suffer severely or even fail because of petty theft.

"There'll probably be a lot of shoplifting going on. They'll need a lot of security," Terriea Sutton, 35, said.

Brenda Speaks, a Ward 4 ANC commissioner, actually urged blocking construction of the planned store in her ward at Georgia and Missouri avenues NW partly because of that risk. Addressing a small, anti-Wal-Mart rally at City Hall on Monday, Speaks said young people would get criminal records when they couldn't resist the temptation to steal.
As to the first amazing thing, the locals know what kind of problems they're dealing with; I imagine the writer was mostly shocked they'd actually point out the problem.
As to the second, there's a good little bastard politician for you: try to prevent a store and jobs from coming into an area where they're needed because- what, because you clowns didn't teach the kids not to be thieves? (yes, I realize this is in DC, but still...)

So the 'wrong' kind of holster

makes your pistol a AOW. Which is effing rediculous. Tam in the comments:
I’d hate to set myself up for a “constructive possession” charge while waiting to find out what the BATFEIEIO’s official opinion is. I’m just sayin’…
Which is exactly the problem with this "We change our opinion and it changes the law" crap.

To borrow the phrase, Why are anti-gun people

so violent?
If the repo man’s story bears out, it sounds like a pretty wild ride:

He said the pastor was smiling during parts of the drive as he weaved and made sharp moves in an apparent effort to toss the repo man off.

''He hit the windshield wipers to try to knock my hands off the hood,'' Falzini said. ''He was laughing at me, telling me he was going to take me on the interstate.''
...
But curious thing about Neal. He’s a prominent local activist pushing citizen disarmament as the way to stop the violence.

''As community leaders we must promote safety. The possession of guns increases the risk of tragedy,'' Neal said.

Believing something needed to be done to get illegal guns off the streets, Neal approached the Akron Police Department and the Summit County's Sheriff's and Prosecutor's offices, with the gun buyback idea.

A fine view of PC idiocy at its best, from a bitch named Sonia Carr

And its best is pretty damned bad.
But it was here back in August that Mrs Farquhar’s group, Wiltshire Involvement Network (WIN), convened. Towards the end of the meeting, Mrs Farquhar noted that gossip about NHS changes had been spreading within the health service, remarking: ‘You cannot help the jungle drums.’

The phrase, as everyone must know, is a commonly used expression similar to ‘rumour mill’ or ‘grapevine’.

Well, not everyone. Almost before Mrs Farquhar had finished her sentence, a voice from the public gallery rang out: ‘You can’t say that.’ The voice belonged to Sonia Carr.
Who, of course, can take offense at anything for anybody.
One month went by, then two, then three. Finally, on November 17 — some 13 weeks after the meeting in the Scout hut — a ten-page report landed on Mrs Farquhar’s desk with the sinister sounding title 'Complaint Investigator’s Report'.

It had been commissioned by Wiltshire County Council. The authority, it transpired, had received an official complaint from Mrs Carr about the ‘jungle drums’ aside.

But, as far as Mrs Farquhar was concerned, the document marked ‘confidential’ might just as well have been produced by a Communist politburo, such were its astonishing findings.
'Findings'. Another word for 'rancid bullshit'. But it gets even better.
Mrs Carr had been interviewed, of course, before the report was published. So, too, had members of other organisations that had dealings with Mrs Farquhar and her team.

Scandalously, though, the only person who wasn’t interviewed was Mrs Farquhar herself or anyone on the 20-strong ‘steering committee’ who were present in the Scout hut. Except one, that is. And she was the one colleague who agreed with Sonia Carr..
Who suffered oh, so MUCH because of this comment!
The sentence read: ‘The complainant [Sonia Carr] explained that she suffered real pain and was emotionally upset by the comment made and this has had an impact on her health and her family.’

Yes, that’s the same Sonia Carr who stayed behind for sandwiches and mingled happily with Mrs Farquhar and her colleagues after the fateful meeting.
And, among the damage done by this bitch and the PC Police,
Like its counterparts up and down the country, Mrs Farquhar’s organisation worked hand-in-hand with local authorities, monitoring NHS trusts and social care services, carrying out hospital inspections, among other things, and investigating grievances on behalf of patients.

Following the ‘jungle drums’ farrago, all volunteers working under Mrs Farquhar — 200 of them across Wiltshire — were banned from council premises and meetings. They were even forbidden from communicating with councillors in any way.

Funding to cover the watchdog’s administration costs was punitively withdrawn.

So a valuable public service was paralysed and a scandal, which had dragged on for more than six months — at an untold cost to the taxpayer — had now managed to turn an army of well-meaning and selfless individuals into pariahs.

Now, Carr is a shithead of great proportions, obviously; but she had help in doing all this damage:
The man blamed — even by many of his own colleagues on the Tory-run council — for allowing the complaint to escalate is deputy leader John Thomson.

‘The law makes it clear that what matters is not the intention of the person who uses the phrase but whether anyone is offended by it,’ he said.

By that logic, ‘Chinese ­whispers’, ‘black magic’, ‘brown bread’, and ‘Indian summer’ could soon be on the banned list in Wiltshire — and elsewhere — along with countless other popular phrases. In fact, Cllr Thomson, like everyone else involved in this politically correct witch-hunt, is hiding behind the law (which includes a clear ­‘reasonableness test’) to avoid ­making sensible decisions.
"I do not have to use my brain! I have a Zero Tolerance measure to guide me, whether it makes any sense or not!"

So Carr and Thomson have pretty much destroyed a lady and the good things she and her friends did, caused a hell of a lot of problems for the people the lady & friends were helping; I hope the miserable shits have a feeling of accomplishment to hold them until the get to hell. Which, at this point, I tend to think is where they're going. Along with every member of the County Council and the 'investigators' who pumped this along. I mean, think of the vileness in their souls to happily pile onto this and destroy these people...

Found at FFoF

Encouraging they were caught, but keeping this

secret- as apparently has been done- not so good, I'd think:
"So, specifically, you're looking for the dirty bomb? You're looking for the nuclear device?" asked Blacher.

"Correct. Weapons of mass effect," Hallor said.

"You ever found one?" asked Blacher.

"Not at this location," Hallor said.

"But they have found them?" asked Blacher.

"Yes," said Hallor.

"You never found one in San Diego though?" Blacher asked.

"I would say at the port of San Diego we have not," Hallor said.

"Have you found one in San Diego?" Blacher asked.

The interview was interrupted before Hallor was able to answer the question.
Fun, fun, fun.

One other thing that caught my eye was 'weapons of mass effect'. Considering they've been charging people with 'weapon of mass destruction' charges over attempted bombings with plain explosives, why that particular bit of wording?

After the big wildfires went through Yellowstone

there was video on the news of park rangers gathering cones off trees so they could plant the seeds in Yellowstone and doing other such things, and I wondered why, if we're supposed to leave Nature alone to go its way, they were interfering in this manner?

Now, having torn up the timber industry in the name of the spotted owl,
The threatened bird's numbers continue to decline in Washington, Oregon and Northern California.

After two decades of intense legal and political battles, the Obama administration is due this month to offer its last-ditch plan to save the spotted owl from extinction.

All indications are that it will propose shot-gunning hundreds if not thousands of barred owls, an East Coast cousin that has invaded spotted owl territory and is pushing the meeker bird out of the best habitat.
So now they're planning a MASSACRE, I SAY!!! of barred owls to 'save' the spotted... I guess to enviroweenies one species is much more valuable than the other. Which is another interesting point, because we're not talking about a non-native invasive species here. Something else, too:
Breeding habitats are dense woods across Canada, the eastern United States, and south to Mexico;[1] in recent years it has spread to the western United States. Recent studies show suburban neighborhoods can be ideal habitat for barred owls. Using transmitters, scientists found that populations increased faster in the suburban settings than in old growth forest. The main danger to owls in suburban settings is from cars. The increased offspring offset the death rate due to impacts from cars and disease.[3]
Now, since the reason behind the destruction of the logging industry was 'to protect the old-growth forest the spotted owl must have'... doesn't really add up, does it?

And the Swiss people tell the gun bigots and GFWs

"No thank you, I'll keep it at home."

And yeah, the hoplophobes and bigots will be back and try again.

What? A bunch of Fed bureaucrats and politicians and media weenies

lied? Whoda thunk such a thing?
Another series of leaked State Department cables made public this week by WikiLeaks lend credence to investigative reports on gun trafficking and the drug war published by Narco News as far back as 2009.

The big battles in the drug war in Mexico are “not being fought with Saturday night specials, hobby rifles and hunting shotguns,” Narco News reported in March 2009, against the grain, at a time when the mainstream media was pushing a narrative that assigned the blame for the rising tide of weapons flowing into Mexico to U.S. gun stores and gun shows.

Rather, we reported at the time, “the drug trafficking organizations are now in possession of high-powered munitions in vast quantities that can’t be explained by the gun-show loophole.”

Those weapons, found in stashes seized by Mexican law enforcers and military over the past several years, include U.S.-military issued rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers and explosives. . .
Which, despite the hysterical vapors of Japete and Helmke & Co., are not things you buy at the local gun show or shop.

Back to the Touching Special Places people,

The Transportation Security Administration has told members of Congress that more than 15 million passengers received full-body scans at airports without any malfunctions that put travelers at risk of an excessive radiation dose.

Despite the reassurance, however, the TSA has yet to release radiation inspection reports for its X-ray equipment — two months after lawmakers called for them to be made public following USA TODAY's requests to review the reports.

TSA spokesman Kristin Lee says that the agency is still trying to ensure that the reports don't contain any "sensitive security or privacy-protected information" and that she expects they will be released "within the next few weeks."
Bullcrap. They have reports that will scare and/or enrage people and don't have to balls to deal with it, so they're delaying as much as they can. Which means there's a good chance they're knowingly letting people be dangerously irradiated. Which ought to call for firing at the least, and prison sentences at the best.