A: Carry your damn gun

B: If you can't carry it outside, keep it where you can get to it. Fast.
C: If he doesn't own one, he'd better get one; not only does he have to worry about the felons, he's now had his life threatened by the family of one of the felons.


I have to say, this possibly idiot statement stands out:
LaVelle, who runs sports leagues composed of youths and adults of different races, said he doesn't want any retaliation on the people who attacked him. But the attack has instilled fear in him and his family, and he hopes that there will be more of a police presence in the neighborhood.
Mr. LaVelle, if you're indicating you're not wanting to see them in jail, you're a fool. They came close to killing you, and do you think they'd have any problem going after your wife and kids as well? Or anyone else they decide needs a beating? There has to be a price for actions like theirs, or you just encourage more of it.

Just in case I didn't post on 'cut shells' before,

here it is; as he says, watch both parts


Side note: Working part-time, ranging to full-time in some cases, with shifts, means not much blogging time.

You want an example of 'militarization of law enforcement',

how about 'Heavy machine guns in NYPD helicopters'?
The NYPD began fitting police helicopters with heavy machine guns to shoot down terrorist airplanes about five years ago, after intelligence surfaced that al-Qaida was considering the use of crop dusters and other small craft for attacks, a senior city law enforcement official said Monday.

But while police officers have been trained to use helicopter-mounted .50-caliber machine guns against light planes, there was no intention to take down commercial passenger jets with such weaponry, said the official, who asked not to be identified.
I will refrain from comment, and let Weerd take it from here.

Hey, it was only a matter of time; after all, we've had a friggin' sheriff's office with a APC with a mounted M2 for a couple of years now.

A translation: Union Definition vs. Society's Definition

Union Definition of LE enforcing the law:
it amount to a private security force paid for by taxpayers

Society's Definition:
Cops enforcing a legal order the Union doesn't like

Back where Great Britain used to be, part whatever

Just go read it; PC moronity taken to the extremes. To screw up kids' minds.

Just what the progressives would love to do here.

My, my, my, look at the muzzles

on those AKs
Lots more pictures here

According to son, he's thinking of going to a smaller rear sprocket

on the Ducati. In part because that new extra 100cc causes things like the previous amount of throttle to cause the front end to depart contact with Earth with the factory-size.

I wouldn't want it myself, but LORD, that's a machine!

Fast and Furious was a botched operation, my ass

From Sipsey Street; if you can't hit his site, here's the Fox News story.
In a letter dated June 1, 2010, then Phoenix ATF Group VII supervisor David Voth instructed a Federal Firearms Licensee in Arizona as follows:

Dear Sir,

Per Section 925(a)(1) of the Gun Control Act (GCA) exempts law enforcement agencies from the transportation, shipment, receipt, or importation controls of the GCA when firearms are to be used for the official business of the agency.

Please accept this letter in lieu of completing an ATF Form 4473 for the purchase of four (4) CAI, Model Draco, 7.62x39 mm pistols, by Special Agent John Dodson. These aforementioned pistols will be used by Special Agent Dodson in furtherance of the performance of his official duties. In addition, Special Agent Dodson has not been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. If you have any questions, you may contact me at telephone number 602-605-6501.

Sincerely,

(Signature)
David Voth
ATF Group Supervisor
Phoenix Group VII

In the lower left-hand margin of the one-page letter is the hand-written notation:

"Picked guns
up 6/10/10
Paid Cash"

"Paid Cash" is underlined.
As to how ATF treats agents who won't be nice, quiet little puppets,
Sources describe continuing harassment of Dodson as his access to the Phoenix office building was restricted. "They removed him from the (Fast and Furious) case as politically unreliable," said another source, adding, "And of course after the Terry murder all the shots were being called by D.C."

After the death of Brian Terry, the "rumor" post on the ATF agent's website, CleanUpATF.org and the initial coverage by these reporters in the early weeks of January, 2011, "things got ugly" for Dodson. Blamed by his immediate supervisors as well as many of his fellow agents in the Phoenix office for "treason" as one source described it, Dodson's existence at the Phoenix office was described as "precarious" by one D.C. source. The threats to his life were perceived to be so great that "solitary range days" were arranged by a sympathetic supervisor so Dodson could practice marksmanship in safety. "He (the supervisor) didn't want him (Dodson) to eat one in the back" in a range "accident," said the source.
There was a time I would have flatly called bullshit on such a story; them days are gone. After what was done to Jay Dobyns after his accomplishments, why would this threat be a surprise?(if you're not familiar, search his name; instead of being treated as he should, the case was effed-up and he & his family damn near died)

From the Fox report:
According to documents obtained by Fox News, Agent John Dodson was ordered to buy six semi-automatic Draco pistols -- two of those were purchased at the Lone Wolf gun store in Peoria, Ariz. An unusual sale, Dodson was sent to the store with a letter of approval from David Voth, an ATF group supervisor.

Dodson then sold the weapons to known illegal buyers, while fellow agents watched from their cars nearby.

This was not a "buy-bust" or a sting operation, where police sell to a buyer and then arrest them immediately afterward. In this case, agents were "ordered" to let the sale go through and follow the weapons to a stash house.

According to sources directly involved in the case, Dodson felt strongly that the weapons should not be abandoned and the stash house should remain under 24-hour surveillance. However, Voth disagreed and ordered the surveillance team to return to the office. Dodson refused, and for six days in the desert heat kept the house under watch, defying direct orders from Voth.

A week later, a second vehicle showed up to transfer the weapons. Dodson called for an interdiction team to move in, make the arrest and seize the weapons. Voth refused and the guns disappeared with no surveillance.
As somebody said, the only thing 'botched' about this operation was the coverup; this demonstrates that BATFE and the administration(yes, I mean YOU, Holder and Napolitano and Mueller and Obama) WANTED these guns smuggled into Mexico, they WANTED dead bodies linked to those guns. Three guesses why.

Further from Sipsey on the coverup/delay tactics:
On September 9th, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) asked the White House to make former National Security Advisor Kevin O'Reilly available for an interview before the end of September to help "determine the extent of the involvement of White House staff in Operation Fast and Furious."

Emails already obtained by Congress show O'Reilly communicated about gun trafficking efforts with then-Special Agent in Charge of ATF's Phoenix office William Newell as early as summer of 2010. In the email exchanges O'Reilly asked Newell if it was okay to share the information with other White House staffers. Congressional investigators are seeking all related communications.

The new letter from the President's counsel doesn't say O'Reilly can't be interviewed by Congressional investigators, but neither does it provide an availability date. Instead the letter states that

O'Reilly, who has moved from the White House to the State Department from where he was tasked, is "currently on a previously scheduled assignment to Iraq."
Probably 'previously scheduled' by five seconds. If 'previously' at all.

To the Administration:

I propose a new rule:
If you ban inhalers 'for environmental concerns', then everyone in the EPA who has a hand in this should be required to stop breathing for two minutes, three times a day. Four minutes five times a day on stressful days. Enforced with duct tape if need be. Just think of all the carbon dioxide that won't be polluting the air!

Heard a squeak from the back of the Honda

when braking the other day, so checked all the brake pads. The front aren't much trouble, though you do have to lay down; the back you just can't see. Happily the design on this bike makes it easy to pull them: pull off a little rubber cover, unscrew and pull the locator pin and the pads just slide out of the caliper.

And oh, yeah, there's new pads in the very near future. Not down to the plates, but worn enough that they need replacement. The front, happily, are in very good shape.
Added: I ordered the pads the evening I posted this; Monday morning got e-mail notice that they'd shipped. That's excellent. Place called Power Barn.
Added: It's Wednesday, and they were in the mail today.

In other bike news, son had a nasty problem with his bike a couple of months ago; nasty as in 'time to rebuild the motor' time. Called the other day with a really interesting rumble in the background: got it assembled and in the frame, timing & so forth triple-checked, hooked up the battery, turned the key and pushed the button; it lit off on the third crank. This is going to be interesting for him to get used to: the rebuild used different cylinders, pistons & rings and so forth and a new ignition chip, the 748 is now a 850. With a scary jump in horsepower and torque.
Note: He also picked up a new chain and sprockets from this place: said they had the best price he found. And he received them two days after ordering. Probably where I'll get mine when needed.
'Course, considering the way things are going, I might go ahead and get them; that way I'll have them ready, and if the price jumps I'll have beat it.

This definitely throws a wrench in a lot of theories

if it pans out.
Scientists around the world were floored by yesterday’s announcement that CERN researchers had broken the speed of light, which is the fastest known speed. They presented their work today for further scientific scrutiny.

If proven true by other research groups, it will debunk Einstein’s special theory of relativity, which holds that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum.

If that is the case, scientists say they will need to rethink the way the universe works, because then “it‘s not just space that’s affected, it‘s time that’s affected too.”
Which reminds me of something I read years back: someone was writing on the Laws of Nature and Laws of Physics and said that a researcher he spoke with told him that the 'Laws' were no such thing, near as I can recall
What we call Laws are just the rules of how we currently understand things to work, and as such they're subject to change or modification at any time if new discoveries are made.

Wisconsin Judge Patrick J. Fiedler: you don't have a right

to decide I can't eat what I grow or raise, or the product from such. Screw you; you make the ruling, let's see you enforce it, you miserable little bastard.

Cue the Twilight Zone music:

Apart from his body, investigators could find no other damage in the house.

Dr Kieran McLoughlin, the West Galway coroner, said it was the first time in his 25 year career that he had returned a spontaneous combustion verdict, which is believed to be the first in Ireland.
...
The inquest on Thursday heard how investigators were baffled as to the cause of death, the Irish Independent reported.

Forensic experts found that a fire in the fireplace of the sitting room where the man's badly burned body was found had not been the cause of the blaze.

The court was told that no trace of an accelerant had been found and there had been nothing to suggest foul play. The coroner said he was satisfied nobody had entered or left the house that night.

The fire which killed Mr Faherty was confined to the sitting room. The only damage was to the body, which was totally burned, the ceiling above him and the floor underneath him.

Just to ruin your Friday evening,

In a proposed rule from Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the federal government is demanding insurance companies submit detailed health care information about their patients.
...
The HHS has proposed the federal government pursue one of three paths to obtain this sensitive information: A “centralized approach” wherein insurers’ data go directly to Washington; an “intermediate state-level approach” in which insurers give the information to the 50 states; or a “distributed approach” in which health insurance companies crunch the numbers according to federal bureaucrat edict.

It’s par for the course with the federal government, but abstract terms are used to distract from the real objectives of this idea: no matter which “option” is chosen, government bureaucrats would have access to the health records of every American - including you.
One of the problems with this 'the Secretary shall make rules' crap is the Secretary can do damn near what she wants, and the bastards in Congress can dodge responsibility for it.


For more dirtbaggery from Empty Hat Salazar,
U.S. District Court judges aren't known for using inflammatory language in deciding the weighty issues that come before them on the federal bench. So it was remarkable to read the scorching indictment of a federal environmental agency and two of its scientists last week by Judge Oliver W. Wanger.
...
Wanger was angered by testimony from the two scientists, Frederick V. Feyrer and Jennifer M. Norris, that he said was "false," "contradictory" and "misleading." He accused the Interior Department of "bad faith" in providing the two scientists as experts, and claimed their testimony was "an attempt to mislead and to deceive the court into accepting not only what is not the best science, it's not science." An Interior Department spokesman defended Norris and Feyrer, telling the New York Times that "we stand behind the consistent and thorough findings by our scientists on these matters and their dedicated use of the best available science."
As I recall, isn't Salazar still in violation of that judge's order to start approving drilling permits, and to actually let them drill?


Have a GM car? Want to tell them to stuff their "We can sell your data, and we'll keep collecting even if you drop OnStar" crap? Just turn it off.


Among the reasons why Obama's 'day of service' bullshit for 9/11 pisses me off so damn bad

Every crash is someone dying. This is also among the reasons I despise so much of our media: they will get people killed with fake Koran-flushing stories, they'll stir up as much shit as possible with Abu Ghraib, but they won't show any of this because 'it's too upsetting'. Fuck every one of these sorry excuses for reporters, and damn everyone who helped carry out this attack.



What went wrong at the Reno air show. One little piece off the tail and you're screwed. Bloody 22 g's.

I guess it could count as a 'failure to communicate'

One reason the Military Services have trouble operating jointly is that they don't speak the same language. For example, if you told Navy personnel to "secure a building," they would turn off the lights and lock the doors. The Army would occupy the building so no one could enter. Marines would assault the building, capture it, and defend it with suppressive fire and close combat. The Air Force, on the other hand, would take out a three-year lease with an option to buy.


Stolen from Rodger

Well, I used to like Moran Freeman...

FREEMAN: Mitch McConnell. Their stated policy, publicly stated, is to do whatever it takes to see to it that Obama only serves one term. What’s, what does that, what underlines that? “Screw the country. We’re going to whatever we do to get this black man, we can, we’re going to do whatever we can to get this black man outta here.”

MORGAN: But is that necessarily a racist thing?

FREEMAN: It is a racist thing.

MORGAN: Is it not Republicans, wouldn’t that say that about any Democrat president?

FREEMAN: No, they would have gotten rid of Bill Clinton if they could have.

MORGAN: They tried.

FREEMAN: They did try, but still. I don’t, they’re not going to get rid of Obama either. I think they’re shooting themselves in the head.

MORGAN: Does it unnerve you that the Tea Party are gaining such traction?

FREEMAN: Yes.

MORGAN: Why?

FREEMAN: Well, it just shows the weak, dark, underside of America.

In case you had any doubt of Obama's union ties,

This month the DOL has a public comment period on a 160 page rule change and tucked into that new rule is a section that will require staffing agencies to file with the government when they supply temp workers to businesses experiencing strikes, walkouts, or slow downs initiated by unions.

The new rule seems to also require that the people these temp agencies hire to also file their names and addresses with the DOL via a new form they would have to fill out. (See Labor Union Report for a copy of the form in question and for more technical info on this rule.)

These forms will be public knowledge as soon as the government gets its hands on them. That means that workers’ names and home addresses will also be public knowledge. That means that union thugs can get hold of these names and addresses so that they can amass lists of workers to scare away from their job in order to save union jobs.

When (pre-)Government Motors started the OnStar

program, there were a lot of concerns about it; here's one for you that's playing out now.
Navigation-and-emergency-services company OnStar is notifying its six million account holders that it will keep a complete accounting of the speed and location of OnStar-equipped vehicles, even for drivers who discontinue monthly service.

OnStar began e-mailing customers Monday about its update to the privacy policy, which grants OnStar the right to sell that GPS-derived data in an anonymized format.

Adam Denison, a spokesman for the General Motors subsidiary, said OnStar does not currently sell customer data, but it reserves that right. He said both the new and old privacy policies allow OnStar to chronicle a vehicle’s every movement and its speed, though it’s not clear where that’s stated in the old policy.

“What’s changed [is that if] you want to cancel your OnStar service, we are going to maintain a two-way connection to your vehicle unless the customer says otherwise,” Denison said in a telephone interview.
...
Jonathan Zdziarski, an Ohio forensics scientist, blogged about the new terms Tuesday. In a telephone interview, he said he was canceling his service and making sure he was being disconnected from OnStar’s network.

He said the new privacy policy goes too far.

“They added a bullet point allowing them to collect any data for any purpose,” he said.
Yeah, and there's NO chance Government Motors will not sell non-anonymous data, right?

So Agent In Charge Newell has decided his ass is hanging out WAAAY too far

and tries to pull it back in a supplemental statement to his testimony.

I really don't have anything to say, I'm just too disgusted by this crap. Newell probably decided- or the ATF lawyers did- that he was just too exposed to charges of lying to the committee and decided this might help.

And, let it not be forgotten, In a separate case not tied to “Fast and Furious” -- the murder of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata in Mexico -- weapons involved were traced to Texas. And last I heard ATF and DHS and all the other clowns are still stonewalling on 'Was there a program in Texas?'

Also, you'll note, Newell and the EffingBI are now claiming there was NOT a third weapon recovered at the scene of Terry's murder. Despite e-mails and words and all.

A whole bunch of people need to be put under oath, and then prosecuted and jailed if they lie.

It's just raining Gunwalker today

Remember that bit a couple of days ago about the Inspector General acting in a very bad or very stupid way? I'm voting for very bad:
In a letter released on Wednesday to Acting Justice Department Inspector General Cynthia Schnedar, they expressed deep concern over her decision to turn over to U.S. prosecutors in Arizona audio recordings obtained during her investigation.

Representative Darrell Issa, head of the House Oversight Committee, and Charles Grassley, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Schnedar apparently did not consider the significant harm caused by giving the recordings to those under investigation.

They criticized the move as potentially obstructing the congressional probe into the operation because potential witnesses may have colluded about what to tell investigators…

The letter described how an ATF supervisor, in discussing the congressional inquiry, allegedly said, “We are all on the same sheet of music. And if we stay on the same sheet of music, we will be all right.”

Also, that audio from Lone Wolf? His reason for making it:
...owner Andre Howard made the tapes only after he suspected he was being lied to, and his language is meant to get Hope MacAllister, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, to implicate herself and her agency in their illegal gun running scheme.

“He became very suspicious and in his own defense would tape key conversations with Ms. MacAllister and try to get her to make admissions about the truth of the matter,” said Dallas attorney Larry Gaydos. “Andre was trying to get her to admit that indeed they let guns go to Mexico.”…

Howard made the tapes in March 2011 after a meeting he and his attorneys held with federal officials. In that meeting, Assistant U.S. Attorney Emory Hurley continued to insist the guns Lone Wolf sold were stopped and seized before reaching Mexico.

But ATF officials are quoted in a Washington Post article and the Spanish language daily La Opinion saying just the opposite — blaming Lone Wolf for “selling guns to the cartels” with no mention that Howard was operating under the federal government’s direction, encouragement and approval.
After all that's come out, any business owner dealing with ATF probably should be recording any meetings; considering past history added to what's happened in Gunwalker, you don't know if you're dealing with an honest lawman or a clown use you and then try to destroy you to cover for themselves and their bosses.

And the official Gunwalker body count continues to rise

The California Republican kicked off the call with a brief statement reporting that Marisela Morales, Mexico’s attorney general, now says that at least 200 Mexican deaths can now be traced to weapons from the gunwalking program.That number has been revised significantly upward from earlier unofficial claims of approximately 150 deaths attributed to Operation Fast and Furious guns.

The revelation of the increased body count comes less than 24 hours after the Los Angeles Times published a story that rightly describes the actions of the Obama administration as an unresolved betrayal.

This betrayal — and Morales pulled no punches in using that exact word — is being ignored by the majority of the U.S. mainstream media, which vacillate from pretending that Gunwalker was just a minor law enforcement snafu to echoing White House-orchestrated attempts to smear the Oversight Committee chairman and obstruct the investigation.
As to the question of a special prosecutor,
Perhaps the most important clarification to come out of the call was confirmation that the Oversight Committee does indeed intend to call for a special prosecutor once they have completed their own investigation, which they optimistically would like to have wrapped up by the end of the year. Chairman Issa was quick to point out that finishing the House investigation by the end of the year hinged upon a transparent and timely release of information from the executive branch, including the federal law enforcement agencies involved and the Obama White House.

The White House has thus far refused to divulge any of the documentation the congressional investigators have asked for, and the administration’s political appointees are stymieing all attempts to get information out of the Justice Department, Homeland Security, and other involved agencies. Rep. Issa seemed quite aware that his goal of resolving the congressional investigation in 2011 was going to be obstructed by an administration in full cover-up mode.
Why no SP yet?
Issa also revealed that the reason a special prosecutor has not yet been brought in to investigate the plot is that once a special prosecutor begins to investigate, the Oversight Committee has to stop its own inquiry. The committee wants to be certain that they have explored every avenue and leave no source or witness uninvestigated before turning over the case. He also pointed out that a special prosecutor will be a Department of Justice employee investigating his own employer. Thus, Issa wants to be certain that they have enough knowledge to hold the prosecutor accountable.

And a flat conclusion from Issa:
After reiterating that every law enforcement agent that has been asked about Operation Fast and Furious has said that there is no way that it could have been a viable law enforcement operation, I asked Chairman Issa if there was any evidence of another reason for the implementation of Operation Fast and Furious and the other alleged gun-walking operations.

“This was dumb, it was useless, and it was lethal,” was the soundbite most of us will take away from the call in answer to that question, but his longer answer — which I regret I do not have a transcript of — is far more telling.

Nothing in his response could be construed to mean that Rep. Issa thought Operation Fast and Furious was a legitimate law enforcement operation. And if it does not appear to have been implemented as a legitimate law enforcement operation, then we are left with the possible alternative that the goal of the operation was both illegitimate and unlawful.

Issa put it rather bluntly: “The administration wanted to show that guns found in Mexico came from the United States.”
So, after all the investigation and testimony and evidence so far, that's the conclusion. A number of people have said it before; Issa said it after all the information he's seen. I think the SP, when he's chosen, better be ready to dig and subpoena and hold nothing back; otherwise he'll get his ass ripped off.


Also, from Codrea & Sipsey Street, on another BATF e-mail that's come out,
Examined objectively, Rubenstein admitted guns were purposely allowed to walk, that walking guns to a foreign country must be hidden from the public, and that if the Mexicans found out about it, cooperative law enforcement efforts would be jeopardized.

“If ‘1desertrat’ is an ATF employee,” Rubenstein advised, “then he/she is subject to our Orders and Standards of Conduct.”

Examined objectively, Rubenstein admitted "1desertrat's" allegations were true, otherwise, there could be no disclosure of official information, nor jeopardizing of operations, personnel or relationships.

Hit the range this morning

and, along with general practice, put about sixty rounds through the .22 conversion. Had one almost-stovepipe(case horizontal) and one failure to feed, all with Federal bulk-pack ammo. And both of those on the same magazine. I know because, having read that idea at Tam's a while back, I went around numbering almost every magazine in the house. I noticed that the previous such failures happened mostly with that mag, too. Very happy with the Lubriplate grease.


Couple of news items to point to: first, a restaurant in the Seattle area that won't serve TSA personnel; apparently the owner got seriously torqued by the way he was treated when flying.

The other's from Britain, some of the "We need to change history to suit what we want it to have been" types decided to get rid of Guy Fawkes Night:
For more than 400 years the day has been celebrated with bonfires and firework displays but last night Southwark Council in south-east London was accused of “ludicrous political correctness” after renaming the celebration The Colour Thief: A Winter Extravaganza Celebrating the Change of the Seasons.
After getting doused in a crapstorm of "What the hell is wrong with you idiots?", they denied they'd done it.

Just ran across this at Insty: two cases of cops behaving very badly, and a a couple of them are actually being indicted for it; delay due to PG County police were reluctant to cooperate. Guys, you'd better figure this out: even if you don't want to deal with bad cops because 'they're one of us', there are lots and lots of cameras out there now and you won't be able to just cover it up; and if you do try, people will think far less of you for it. And trust you less.

well, isn't THIS special?

And Here. We. Go!: Solyndra Executives Will Take The Fifth In Congressional Inquiry

What is the Fifth Amendment again? What is the actual situation in which you're permitted to invoke it?

Ah yes: You invoke your Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination when an official inquiry would compel you to yield evidence against yourself, which could be used against you in a criminal trial.

Lately no one says that anymore; they invoke it vaguely, speaking of their rights to keep silent "based on any part of the Constitution which might be relevant," or whatever, avoiding naming the Amendment whose protections are sought.

In the letters sent to the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, attorneys for Solyndra CEO Brian Harrison and CFO W. G. Stover said they advised their clients not to provide testimony during the hearings.

Daughter just showed me a new market,

Sunflower Market, NW 63rd & May. LOTS of cheeses, olives, a big section of nuts & dried fruits and different flours and oats, lots of organic stuff if that floats your boat. Pretty good prices on most things.

Heard of the Chainsaw Rebellion?

Just heard by phone from Bob Wright on the Otero County Chainsaw Rebellion today. About 300 folks showed up to defy the Feds and the Feds blinked. Congressman Pearce cut down the first tree and then it was cut into 2" slabs and handed out to members of the crowd as souvenirs by the Otero County Sheriff Benny House.

The Feds came into town a couple days ago and threatened to arrest anybody who tried to cut down a tree. The Sheriff is reported to have said, "You do that and I'LL arrest YOU for kidnapping." The Feds made themselves scarce today, Bob reports.



From an earlier bit:
“Somebody has to draw a line in the sand, step back from the federal government’s stranglehold and take responsibility for ourselves,” Rardin said at the public meeting in Alamogordo. “We are responsible for the health, safety and well-being of our citizens, and the current conditions of the forest warrant this emergency action.”

Dr. Lawrence Garrett, former Dean of the College of Eco-Science at Northern Arizona University, testified before the commission on Tuesday that forest health conditions and fire danger in and around Otero County are some of the worst he has seen in the southwestern portion of the United States. He will work with federal agencies on behalf of the county to create the plan to allow for the cleanup of the forest areas, including commercial logging.

“We will use the approach of restoration at the watershed level,” Dr. Garrett told the commissioners. This is an extremely important period in the history of management of this forest. We must take an aggressive approach to restoration and making the communities in this area safer from high wildfire risks.”

In our latest episode of Gunwalker Coverup (updated)

we have the Inspector General's office behaving in a very bad way:
CBS News has obtained secretly recorded conversations that raise questions as to whether some evidence is being withheld in the murder of a Border Patrol agent.

The tapes were recorded approximately mid-March 2011 by the primary gun dealer cooperating with ATF in its "Fast and Furious" operation: Andre Howard, owner of Lone Wolf Trading Company in Glendale, Arizona. He's talking with the lead case ATF case agent Hope MacAllister.

The tapes have been turned over to Congressional investigators and the Inspector General.
How is the IG acting badly?
Then, the sources say for some reason the Inspector General passed the tapes along to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona: a subject in the investigation. It's unclear why the Inspector General, who is supposed to investigate independently, would turn over evidence to an entity that is itself under investigation.
They updated this with the following:
A spokesman from the Office of the Inspector General today said, "The OIG officially provided the United States Attorney's Office with a copy of the recordings in question so that the USAO could consider them in connection with the government's disclosure obligations in the pending criminal prosecutions of the gun traffickers. Prior to receiving the tapes, the OIG made clear that we would have to provide a copy of the recordings to the United States Attorney's Office because they would need to review them to satisfy any legal disclosure obligations."
Can you say "Cover our ass because we didn't think anybody would find out about this"?
I knew you could.
Could be I'm being a little overly distrustful here, but my first thought is "Here's this recording, and the committee has it; you'd better make sure they don't catch you holding back anything on this. " 'Legal disclosure obligations' my ass: they've been ordered by Congress to 'give us EVERYTHING on this matter', and if they don't they're in violation. This sounds to me like the OIG playing games to try to help ATF figure out what they CAN try to hide. And the OIG needs to have its ass kicked for this.

And let's not forget the third gun that the EffingBI didn't want mentioned in Terry's murder.

Update: I'm going to throw this into a new post, too:
In a letter released on Wednesday to Acting Justice Department Inspector General Cynthia Schnedar, they expressed deep concern over her decision to turn over to U.S. prosecutors in Arizona audio recordings obtained during her investigation.

Representative Darrell Issa, head of the House Oversight Committee, and Charles Grassley, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Schnedar apparently did not consider the significant harm caused by giving the recordings to those under investigation.
(or possibly that WAS the consideration, maybe?)
They criticized the move as potentially obstructing the congressional probe into the operation because potential witnesses may have colluded about what to tell investigators…

The letter described how an ATF supervisor, in discussing the congressional inquiry, allegedly said, “We are all on the same sheet of music. And if we stay on the same sheet of music, we will be all right.”
That does sound like acting to control testimony, doesn't it?

So I guess he's not a 'REAL' scientist anymore...

Nobel prize winner for physics in 1973 Dr. Ivar Giaever resigned as a Fellow from the American Physical Society (APS) on September 13, 2011 in disgust over the group's promotion of man-made global warming fears. Climate Depot has obtained the exclusive email Giaever sent titled "I resign from APS" to APS Executive Officer Kate Kirby to announce his formal resignation.

Dr. Giaever wrote to Kirby of APS: “Thank you for your letter inquiring about my membership. I did not renew it because I cannot live with the (APS) statement below (on global warming): APS: 'The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth's physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.'

Giaever announced his resignation from APS was due to the group's belief in man-made global warming fears. Giaever explained in his email to APS: "In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible? The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this 'warming' period."

So does this make the Democrats/socialists demonstrating Nazi sympathizers?

After all, the left used the same clowns to accuse the tea party of being such, so if they're at Democrat/communist/anarchist demonstrations, that means the the D/c/a groups are...

Possible additional ends planned for the Gunwalker mission

here.

It is, isn't it?

Found here, thanks to this guy

So Holder & Napolitano & Co. have decided to try to define

some of their problems away:
The letter is specifically worded, tailored to answer congressional questions about a narrow range of “walked” firearms using a very specific definition of what constitutes an Operation Fast and Furious gun:

For the purposes of responding to this question, we consider a firearm to be associated with Operation Fast and Furious if it was purchased by an individual who is a target of that investigation. It is important to note that many of the purchases described below took place before ATF opened the case that became know as Operation Fast and Furious on November 16, 2009; before the purchaser had been identified as a target of the investigation; or without the ATF’s knowledge at the time that a firearm was purchased.

Some amazing caveats that the Department of Justice has chosen to ignore and not count:

• Weapons that were purchased by both targeted and untargeted straw purchasers if the ATF was not aware of the purchase in real-time as the buy occurred;
• If the straw purchaser was not on a pre-approved and narrow (roughly 20 suspects) list of acceptable targets (some of whom were FBI informants who bought weapons and armed the cartels using taxpayer dollars);
• Any suspect or weapon that was not officially part of Operation Fast and Furious before its “official” Nov. 16, 2009, launch date;
• Any suspect or weapon from other suspected gunwalking programs alleged to originate from Houston, Dallas, Tampa, or the Midwest;
• Related scandals involving some of the same co-conspirators, such as the grenade-walking debacle.

This extremely narrow — and self-serving — definition provided by the Department of Justice notably excludes the third rifle (and possible murder weapon) recovered at the scene of Agent Brian Terry’s death. That gun, while “walked” and used by the cartels in a violent crime, was purchased in an unnamed Texas gun-walking operation. Further, the DOJ — and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in particular — tried to make that SKS carbine “disappear.”

As to Bis Sister doing her Sgt. Schultz imitation,
While plausible, Napolitano’s claimed ignorance of the operation is highly suspect. She served as both Arizona attorney general and governor before she joined the Obama administration, and her long-time chief of staff, Dennis Burke, ran Operation Fast and Furious as the U.S attorney for Arizona — a post she helped him acquire. She had a personal stake in operations in her home state, and a professional obligation as the executive in charge of Homeland Security, one of the agencies involved in the operation.

More at the link

Talk about falling into a memory hole, anybody else

remember this?

Why, even if it weren't for Romneycare, I wouldn't vote

for Romney:
So I did a *little* digging. Mitt want's his cake, and to eat it too:

Q: As governor you signed into law one of the toughest restrictions on assault weapons in the country.

A: Let’s get the record straight. First of all, there’s no question that I support 2nd Amendment rights, but I also support an assault weapon ban. Look, I’ve been governor in a pretty tough state. You’ve heard of blue states. In the toughest of blue states, I made the toughest decisions and did what was right for America. I have conservative values.
...
The candidate reiterated his support for an assault weapons ban contained in Congress’ crime bill, and the Brady law which imposes a five-day waiting period on handgun purchases. ‘I don’t think (the waiting period) will have a massive effect on crime but I think it will have a positive effect,’ Romney said.
...
I do support the Second Amendment. I would have signed the assault weapon ban that came to his desk. I said I would have supported that and signed a similar bill in our state.
"I support the 2nd Amendment(except for those scary guns you peasants have no business owning)!" Yeah, there's something I can vote for.

I think some people may need a bit more training...

According to police, at 2:06 a.m., officers located a wanted person in the 400 block of Broadway. The suspect ran away from police and produced a weapon, they said.

Officers then fired at the suspect, who was not hit. However, two bystanders were hit by the gunfire. They were taken to a hospital to be treated for their injuries that are not believed to be life-threatening, according to police.
But people like me cannot be trusted to carry because 'we're not trained enough', etc.







Two

Every time I read of some 'geo-engineering' scheme

I wonder if these people really believe they know what the hell they're doing?

I like Olive Garden, but looks like they'd rather suck up to Michelle

than their customers.
Now comes word that Torquemada HHS Secretay Kathleen Sebelius has approved a whopping 111 waivers for businesses of all sizes, along with more unions and other providers of health insurance. The escapees include employers of many low-wage and part-time workers whose health insurance plans would otherwise be dropped, including Darden Restaurants — the parent company of the Olive Garden and Red Lobster and other chains, which employ some 34,000 people.
...
Michelle Obama said Thursday that a pledge by the Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants and their sister chains to serve healthier meals is a “breakthrough moment” for the industry.

Darden Restaurants Inc. is pledging to cut calories and sodium in its meals by 10 percent by 2016, and 20 percent over a decade. Among promised changes for children: no more french fries. A fruit or vegetable side will become standard with kids’ meals. One percent milk also will be served, including free refills, unless an alternative drink is ordered.
You screw with my meal, I won't give you any more of my money; how about that?

Breda goes Alpha Librarian

on overdue books:

And if you don't know Breda, she's over here

I should note that this odd wet stuff

has been falling from the sky off & on most of the day; I think it's called 'rain', but it's been so long I'm not sure.

First, if Egypt and other muslim nations are truly this conspiracy-happy

then that alone pretty much means they're screwed; add in the Jew-hatred, and damn...
I was shocked. In nearly six months of living in Syria, where orchestrated hysteria about Israel is integral to the very identity of the state, I had never heard the accusation surreptitiously levelled against me.

Neither am I from Israel, nor am I Jewish, but as someone of unmistakably European appearance, I have found myself constantly associated with Israel in Egyptian eyes.
...
Israel is just one of a panoply of worries that exercise the conspiracy theorists that frequent Egypt's cafes.

The standard fare of political gossip tends to revolve around the trial of [former President Hosni] Mubarak, internal corruption, and the causes behind the dire economic woes Egypt is currently experiencing.

A prosecuting lawyer at Mr Mubarak's trial even introduced the novel idea that the ex-president had died years ago, and that the man on trial was none other than an impostor.
...
Turning around, I found myself surrounded by five men, one of whom tried to punch me in the face. I stopped the attack by pointing out how shameful it was for a Muslim to assault a guest in his country, especially during Ramadan.

Relieved that a seemingly random assault was over, I was appalled by the apology offered by one of my assailants. "Sorry," he said contritely, offering his hand, "we thought you were a Jew."

Shaking his head in disbelief on hearing the news, an Egyptian friend sympathised: "That's stupid, you are obviously not a Jew."

The chilling implication I was left with was that, had I been Jewish, the assault would have apparently been justified.


Second, the level of shock when this was said must've just about sucked all the air out of the room:
“I have to tell you this: I am a huge fan of Sarah Palin,” the former Fugee said. “Cause she’s rad. She’s shrewd. She’s cool. Because at the end of the day, I’m for the people, because this is the United States of America...this is what America’s really about. Anyone should have the right to say, ‘Look I can do the job and this is what qualifies me to do the job.’….Now my wife probably will debate and disagree with me.”

Seeming to sense a little bit of disbelief, he qualified his statement.

“I’m not saying she could be the next president, you know, but there’s something about her. Heavy debates in my house. Whenever I say Sarah Palin, people think I’m crazy, but I like her, I do. I can like whoever. This is America, right?”

I love tools

I just tried to take a picture of something and the camera was dead. Opened it up and found two Kodak photo batteries had leaked on one end and corroded hell out of the contact plate. Happens I have a fine-work screwdriver set that had a phillips small enough to fit the screw holding the plate in.

Scrub it(and the cover piece) with baking soda and a brush, then hit the plate with 0000 wool and the solution, dry, and it works!

In the newest installment of "Chicago politicians trying to run lives

and spend OPM for no good reason" we have the current version of "You have to go to a range to get a card but you can't go to the range without one:
How can you get the range training to get a permit if you need a permit to use the range? Supposedly the ordinance makes an exception but that begs the question as to the burden of proof required and what kind of liability the range owners will face if someone scams them.

Also that would bar any non-city residents from using it. They're asking for another lawsuit.
Yes, they are; but since they're only spending Other People's Money to do it, and they don't want to give up any control of their subjects'citizens lives, they don't care.

When a politician says "If you love me,

help pass this bill" and mass "Can we have dinner" messages, that man has a problem.

Which means WE have a problem.


Speaking of politicians, I heard part of this yesterday, and it's a fine combination of disgusting and amazing; she really doesn't want to give an actual answer.
Host: So Jan Schakowsky, out of every dollar that I earn, how much do you think I deserve to keep?

Schakowsky: What is really your question here? Do you think you should not contribute to firefighters?

Host: No, no, it’s a very simple question. Out of every dollar I earn, how much do you, Jan Schakowsky, think I deserve to keep?

Schakowsky: No, it’s not a simple question. No, it is not a simple question. I’ll put it this way. You don’t deserve to keep all of it.

Host: Why?

Schakowsky: It’s not a question of deserving. What government is, is those things we decide to do together.
And so forth. Yeah, it is a simple question, the problem is what your answer would be that you don't have the guts to say out loud. Reminds me of the post on facebook where I repeated that question; the people who did respond would NOT answer it. Lots of "This is moral, this is good, don't you care?" crap, but not one of them would actually give an answer.



After reports that gun walking programs may have existed throughout the country, and possibly in the Tampa area, Rep. Gus Bilirakis (FL-09) began questioning the involvement and intent of this flawed and dangerous program.

Bilirakis, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, has again written a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder demanding answers to pressing questions about the involvement in and knowledge of these programs by the DOJ and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

"It went all the way to the White House".

"...each time we get to a certain level of clearness, somebody gets fired, somebody gets changed..."


The President was asked about this again, and again
He said he did not learn about Fast and Furious until the operation went badly wrong and that White House officials were told only that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was planning an operation aimed at reducing the smuggling of guns to Mexico, where more than 40,000 have died in drug-related violence.
Yeah. Because Newell & Co. just decided one day that this project was a good idea and didn't bother to tell anybody above until... sure, right.



Let's be clear--the only thing 'botched' in 'Project Gunwalker' was the cover-up
To allow the characterization of "Project Gunwalker" as a "botched sting operation" to go unchallenged is to give the perpetrators near (or at?) the very top of the Obama government a free pass on the utter evil of this monstrosity, and allow "gun control" apologists to blame it on desperation stemming from "weak U.S. gun laws," because of the "gun lobby."


It was interesting to note the change in tone as soon as they were told that a CBS correspondent was in the house, though. I may have to try that myself if they ever kick in my door.
Yeah, it's like the dumbasses realized they might have screwed up with someone who could actually give them some bad publicity, or something.


And, in general discussion, a new chapter in the 'What caliber is best?' argument

About that bike I bought

Inspired by Og's decision to get rid of his, and some thoughts that stirred up, here goes:
My current bike is a Honda VFR800. Sport-touring bike, fast and maneuverable, and described by me as 'probably having more horsepower than I'll actually need', and it's that latter bit that brought this back to mind:
More horsepower and torque 'than you need' just might translate into 'enough'.
To explain: years back, during the first marriage, wife had a little Honda scooter she'd used at college. If I'd known her back when I'd have said "Do NOT buy this thing if you have any intention of using it on public roads outside of the campus." Specifically because it had all the acceleration of a tired kid on a bicycle. In good conditions. But I wound up using to to & from work because money was damn tight and it saved on gas.

Little sucker got close to 90mpg as I recall, and didn't use much oil in the injection system, the tradeoff being that it was marked has having a max load of 170 pounds. I, fresh out of the shower, weighed 175. So I was over the limit without adding dinner and clothes. Add to that that fouling built up in the exhaust port over time and it slowly lost power until it reached the point you had to pull the exhaust and scrape the port clean. Let me put it this way: there's a long hill on one of the streets I took to stay out of traffic, and if the port hadn't recently been cleaned I'd have to stick my feet down and paddle to make it up the last bit. Not good*, I'd been riding for years before that, and having that little 'get up & GO' scared me. . So when finances improved a bit and we got rid of it I didn't miss it.

Neither did my parents, as I found out later; Dad, having worked about every kind of vehicle accident you can think of, said he'd been scared to death of me riding that thing because "You can't get out of the way on it." Which is where my 'enough' statement comes in.
Doesn't matter that you have right-of-way, or they did something dumb, if you're on a bike you just might have to get the hell out of the way of some clown. Or you see something developing/about to happen and want to get clear before it does. And at a time like that it can seem like there's no such thing as 'too much'. Especially if you ride on highways.

So, while scooters have improved(a LOT) over time, I prefer a motorcycle, one that will move when you have to(over the years I've developed a liking for 'move' that translates to someone thinking "Wasn't there a bike over there?")

Yes, there's a downside of plenty of power: the (usually young) dumbasses who think pulling a wheelie as they go through traffic at ten or more mph above the limit is just so freakin' COOL, and aren't I something? If you were only likely to hurt yourself I wouldn't mind, but
A: If you lose it somebody may have to live with the image of you just before they hit you, or
B: In trying to avoid hitting you, somebody may swerve and smash into somebody else.
So, tradeoffs on everything, as usual.



*If you're wondering why the hell I risked this thing, did I mention two little kids and very tight finances? You do dumb things at times when it'll save a bit.

As James says, how the hell is this just now

getting their attention?
"But in fact some people did leave and told us what was going on and when we looked back since 2008 we were aware of 28 people who had made similar accusations."
Admittedly I'm just a dumb Yank, but I'd think that many reports over that long a time would've gotten some attention a lot sooner.

Democrats and the Obama minions launch another "Snitch on anybody (Updated!)

who doesn't love Obama" site.

Ahem. Attention Attack Watch: Screw you. Yr. Obdnt. Svt., etc.

Update!:
The response to the site has been less than stellar.

On Twitter, where the Web site has an account to help Obama supporters submit evidence of “attacks” on the president using the hashtag #attackwatch, nearly every tweet about the site has ridiculed it.

“There's a new Twitter account making President Obama look like a creepy, authoritarian nutjob,” an Arizonan tweeted. “In less than 24 hours, Attack Watch has become the biggest campaign joke in modern history,” a contributor to conservative blog The Right Sphere wrote.

[They link that AttackWaaaaatch video here.]

...

Attack Watch, [as opposed to the less-scary "Fight the Smears" website], used the shorter — and somewhat scaremongering — tag­line, “Get the Truth. Fight the Smears.”

It’s safe to say that in its 24 hours of existence, Attack Watch has already backfired in drumming up support for Obama 2012. This tweet summed it up: “Wow, not only are Obama & Co. incredibly thin-skinned, they're paranoid.”
Ace also notes that there's a couple of reporters pushing a 'Obama is fighting depression' angle; if that's so, this really isn't going to help.

That's one quiet .45

The De Lisle was made in very limited numbers; 129 were produced during the period of 1942 to 1945 in three variations (Ford Dagenham Prototype, Sterling production and one Airborne prototype). Thompson submachine gun barrels were modified to provide the .45 calibre barrel, which was ported to provide a slow release of high pressure gas.

The suppressor, 2 inches (5.1 cm) in diameter, went all the way from the back of the barrel to well beyond the muzzle (the suppressor makes up half the overall length of the rifle), providing a very large volume of space to contain the gases produced by firing. This large volume was one of the keys to the effectiveness of the suppressor. The Lee-Enfield bolt was modified to feed the .45 ACP rounds, and the Lee-Enfield's magazine assembly was replaced with a new assembly that held a modified M1911 magazine. Because the cartridge was subsonic, the carbine was extremely quiet, possibly one of the quietest firearms ever made.

The De Lisle carbine was used by the British Commandos and other special forces during World War II and the Malayan Emergency. It was accurate to 250 metres (820 ft). -- Wikipedia.

Found at Sipsey Street

Oh, I'll bet she denied it...

In testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Napolitano said she was first made aware of the Fast and Furious program after U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in the line of duty in Arizona in December 2010.
Yeah. All the connections between the people running this and DHS(and her*) and she knew NOTHINK! Uh huh. Sipsey had a link to this video

which I can't watch right now; Sipsey description is 'this testimony will come back to haunt them both'.

It should. Escorted by the ghosts of the dead.
*Just days after Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Acting Director Ken Melson was forced into a make-work job at the Justice Department and long-time Janet Napolitano confidant U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke abruptly resigned, the investigation into Operation Fast and Furious rapidly gained momentum with evidence of a coverup instigated within hours of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s death.
and
Sources and documents indicate the prosecutor who advised the "Fast and Furious" case in Phoenix was Asst. U.S. Attorney Emory Hurley. His boss, Arizona's US Attorney Dennis Burke, was a longtime chief of staff for Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano when she served as Arizona governor. In brief questioning from Congress in March, Napolitano said it was "premature" to comment on details of the Fast and Furious controversies. She also said she was "not aware" that an agent under Homeland Security was on the ATF Fast and Furious task force in Phoenix. Speaking of herself in the third person, Napolitano stated that "no concerns were expressed to the Secretary."

Sometimes they're enough like you it's scary

Daughter was sick. Just started new job, and didn't want to call in sick after only two weeks so went in yesterday.

You know you shouldn't have gone when your boss says "Go home. And see a doctor on the way."

I'll start with a simple question: if there's no way for you to know

the laws, how the hell can you be held responsible for breaking them?


This company deserves a pat on the back for this:
Outback actually drove their catering truck into the back of a C-17 and flew it to Afghanistan in what they called Operation Feeding Freedom. Since that day, OSI Restaurant Partners, LLC (which includes Outback Steakhouse, Carraba’s Italian Grill, Bonefish Grill, Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar, and Roy’s Hawaiian Fusion Cuisine), has traveled every year to feed the troops abroad. And they do it without publicizing their efforts.



Reporter shills for the Brady clowns: commits perjury in the process.


Well, yeah, he was playing 'plausible deniability'. Badly.
House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa went after Attorney General Eric Holder on national conservative radio host Laura Ingraham’s show Monday morning. Issa said even if Holder really didn’t know about Operation Fast and Furious, he should’ve.

“We have a paper trail of so many people knowing that the only way the attorney general didn’t know is he made sure he didn’t want to know,” Issa said. “But if you don’t want to know something of this sort then you shouldn’t have the job he has. And ultimately one of the questions is, if he didn’t know, is he that inept that he is dangerous to have as the attorney general, and that is for the president to decide.”


What God-damned moron thought this was a good idea for a memorial to this terrorist attack? Tam's right, the assholes have gold-plated the craters.


So the guy in charge of creating TSA calls "Bullshit!" Few years too late, fella.


This man obviously has too much free time. And is having entirely too much fun with it. 12-gauge hulls and screw for projectiles?


It's already been asked, but again: how many jobs would spring up if Obama told Empty-Hat Salazar to stop blocking exploration/drilling in the Gulf? And actually opened up other areas currently off-limits?

Guns to clean, house to clean, that's it for now.

Grease test, part 3

So I lubed the conversion, and shot it; good results. Cleaned as usual, shot again(all Federal bulk-pack), still good. This time left it uncleaned, next range session put about eighty rounds through with one failure to fully cycle; that's a lot better than I'd gotten from any other lube on this.

After the last time I left it uncleaned, and shot it again today; out of about 120 rounds, I had one FTC in the first mag, that's it. Far as I'm concerned this grease is really good stuff.

This kind of crap is why a lot of SWAT teams need to be put on a very short leash

Team commanders must raise the profile of their teams. Stay active. Yes, I mean do warrant service and drug raids even if you have to poach the work. First, your team needs the training time under true callout conditions. If all your team does is train, but seldom deploy, you will end up training just to train. You need to train to fight. You already know that.
Translation: "We need to justify spending all the money and time we do on the teams, so use them in situations where there's no need for them. And you can call it training!"
And if somebody winds up dead because you wanted to put on your ninja suit as often as possible, well, that's the cost of training, right?

Crap like this is why A: a lot of agencies don't NEED a damn SWAT team and B: a lot of people like me have less and less trust in the police. Speaking of which, a case which could have been handled by "Knock knock, sir, I have a search warrant" gets two officers shot because they had to go kicking doors instead. And shooting up the place with a bunch of kids in the house. They fired 37 shots, many of which- from the sound of it- were just pointed, not aimed, and it's a miracle some kids weren't killed. Only good thing about this is the police not getting to hang somebody to cover up that they didn't do their job right.

The current e-postal match is up

over here

A comment on what she's called 'New York's memorial to the enemy':

TeeWee: "...and the two columns are positioned to represent the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Atop one column is a bronze eagle facing New York..."

Me: "It should have been a bronze B-52 facing Mecca."
followed by
...and one on the 9/11 Memorial, which faces New York, where they have bronzed their craters like a pair of baby shoes.

I've had people accuse me a whacking on 'green energy'

because I'm stubborn(when they're being nice) or don't care about the planet(usually delivered in accusatory tone); no, I'm against a lot of this crap because of the costs; from Britain, for instance,
Obviously this is impossible, but our Government will nevertheless do all it can to meet its unreachable target and force through the building of thousands of turbines, capable of producing a derisory amount of electricity at a cost estimated, on its own figures, at £140 billion (equating to £5,600 for every household in the land).

Which brings us to the third of last week’s news items, a prediction by energy consultants Ulyx that a further avalanche of “green” measures will alone raise Britain’s already soaring energy bills in the same nine years by a further 58 per cent.
Please note the 'FURTHER' in that last sentence; that's on top of all the other increases so far. I'll throw in that one of the electric companies here in OK started a program that, in the name of 'green', you could indicate your desire to have some percentage of your power come from wind; for which indulgence you would pay some extra percentage on top of the regular cost for that part of your electricity. I called 'bullshit' and declined.
A significant part of this crippling increase, helping to drive more than half Britain’s households into “fuel poverty”, will be the costs involved in covering thousands of square miles of our countryside and seas with wind turbines. The sole beneficiaries will be the energy companies, which are allowed to charge us double or treble the normal cost of our electricity, through the subsidies hidden in our energy bills; and landowners such as Sir Reginald Sheffield, the Prime Minister’s father-in-law, who on his own admission stands to earn nearly £1,000 a day at the expense of the rest of us, for allowing a wind farm to be built on his Lincolnshire estate.
And that thousand pounds/day will in part be paid by his neighbors through those subsidies they had no say in.

I say again, Bullshit.
Added: there be some big money in that there AGW stuff

Here's a sheriff and a bunch of deputies who should first be charged

for their criminal acts, and then sued. And have to pay the award out of their own damn pocket.
Geoffrey Asher just returned home from buying auto parts, and after coming out of a shed where he stored the parts, a sheriff's deputy was pointing a gun at him.

He didn't know the deputy had followed him for speeding, and officers didn't have the right to arrest him, then break into his home to search for evidence of crimes they had no reason to believe he even committed.
Bad, right? Just wait:
But Asher never agreed to a search, and the Lumpkin County sheriff and his deputies spent seven hours rummaging though his home before they got a judge to sign a warrant, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Gainesville.
...
He told the deputy to holster his gun if all he wanted was to write a speeding ticket, and when the deputy threatened to shoot him in the head, Asher told him to calm down and "wait for adult supervision," according to Karzen.

Deputies searched Asher's pickup and found handguns, all legally owned and which he used for target shooting, the attorney said.

Lumpkin County Sheriff Mark McLure soon arrived and used a credit card to slip the lock of Asher's front door, according to court documents.
Sheriff McLure, you are a disgrace to that badge you wear. You should be fired immediately. The same for your fellow sorry excuses for lawmen that were your deputies.

"Most of what I've seen were reasonable, honest mistakes by good cops," he said. "This was the first time I was involved in a situation where law enforcement officers knowingly violated someone's rights and lied about it in court."
Assuming the EffingBI and DoJ don't prosecute these people for the violations of rights, I'd think they could be prosecuted on the state level for perjury since they lied under oath. And they should be.

One of my pet peeves is idiots like Beckel who worship

at the altar of Che; Humberto Fontova points out just how full of crap Beckel is on the subject, including
So here’s Bob Beckel bashing a black politician of lowly origin who enjoyed overwhelming unionized labor support--while hailing the lily-white rich-boys, Fidel and Che, who outlawed labor unions and sent such as Richard Trumka and Jimmy Hoffa to the firing squad or prison. Where’s Trumka, Hoffa and Maxine Waters on this? Using liberals’ own standards Beckel sure sounds like an elitist--and a racist to boot.
That's been one of the interesting things in this history: Castro & Co. killed Deity-knows how many union people, yet clowns like Hoffa and Trumka support them; are they just idiots, or communists who consider a bunch of dead union brethren a cheap price for keeping Cuba communist?

Yeah, THIS is a good idea...

Talks to end the 10-year war in Afghanistan could be on the horizon after the U.S. backed a plan to let the Taliban open political headquarters in the Middle East.

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is likely to open a base in Qatar before Christmas, The Times said.

It is hoped this will help facilitate peace talks which could lead to a truce with the Taliban.

Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar is understood to be backing the negotiations.
After all, without such offices it's so much more difficult to set up some bombings and such. And the President doesn't like that nasty word 'victory', so a negotiated settlement is just so much more palatable to him.

Glock Gen4 recoil spring assembly swap

Ran across this earlier today; if you've got a 4th Generation Glock, ought to check on it

Never forget,

and never forgive


Oh, and Nanny Bloomberg, who doesn't have time or space for first responders or clergy? Fuck you; you are a canker on this nation. You suck on so many levels it's disgusting.

And to every 'news' agency that would scream ABU GHRAIB!!! endlessly, but refuses to show things like the shot above: if you knew just how bad it is for me to call you 'sorry excuses for reporters', you'd crap your pants.

I have a Kindle

Man, there's a lot of books available free

Unfortunately it won't fit in a pistol rug, so I'll have to find something else to keep it in.

I will note that the various warnings for tomorrow

cover 'may include dirty bomb threat' and 'may use vehicle'.

Deity knows how much money and time went in to determining that.

I guess we could call Gunwalker "The Give That Keeps On Giving"

if it weren't for all the bodies involved:
A third gun linked to “Operation Fast and Furious” was found at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, new documents obtained exclusively by Fox News suggest, contradicting earlier assertions by federal agencies that police found only two weapons tied to the federal government’s now infamous gun interdiction scandal.
...
Unlike the two AK-style assault weapons found at the scene, the third weapon could more easily be linked to the informant. To prevent that from happening, sources say, the third gun “disappeared.”
Like the whole mess would have 'disappeared' if some agents who actually ARE lawmen hadn't decided to blow this whistle on this.

Oh, remember the information about Gunwalker appearing to be operating in Texas as well as Arizona? And Grenadewalker?
Another plausible motive for hiding the weapon is that it would be traced to a different ATF operational sector, as an early indication that gunwalking was not limited to Operation Fast and Furious in the Phoenix Field Operations area. We now know as a matter of fact that all three federal agents shot with walked firearms had weapons walked from Texas recovered at their crime scenes. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agents Jaime Zapata and Victor Avila were ambushed in Mexico by members of the Zetas cartel, including at least one armed with a weapon from Lancaster, Texas, the Dallas Field Operations area.

The SKS “disappeared” by the FBI from the scene of Agent Terry’s murder most likely came from Dallas, but could have come from what appears to be a second Texas-based gunwalking operation, suggested by considerable circumstantial evidence to be centered in the Houston Field Operations area.

The fact that every U.S. agent gunned down in the line of duty was fired upon with weapons recovered from apparent gunwalking operations in the Dallas and/or Houston Field Operations areas — not to mention the revelation of an domestic gunwalking operation in Indiana dubbed “Gangwalker,” and now “Grenadewalker” — suggests a widespread program to arm violent felons.

James Bannerman and Joan Peterson:

yeah, they go together.
Meleanie Hain was unquestionably a “gun violence” victim by the definitions put forward by the anti-rights cultists, and yet not only was she demonized and reviled by the same, her murder was celebrated by the same people who would exploit her death to enact more unconstitutional “gun control”.

Why do I bring this up all these years later?

Well, it would appear as though James Bannerman has taken to hanging out at the weblog of professional “gun violence” victim exploiter, Joan Peterson, and commiserating about how mean us pro-rights advocates are for pointing out that gun control supporters frequently argue from logically, morally, or emotionally weak positions. Considering how much time and effort Joan has expended in setting herself up as a “gun violence” victim (when, in truth, she is as much a “gun violence” victim as I am an Alzheimer’s victim), I wonder if Joan is aware of James’ perspective on people like her?

I wonder how Joan would feel if Bannerman had said those things about Joan’s sister, Barbara Berglund?

In any case, it is an important perspective for pro-rights advocates for us to bear in mind. “Gun control” supporters like Bannerman do want us dead for daring to have differing opinions, and are willing to use the government to kill us if they have to. Other “gun control” supporters with stiffer spines are willing to murder us themselves. Countless “gun control” supporters want to ban firearms, ban our rights, harass and bully us, intimidate us and our families, and silence us by any means available.

These are the people we are fighting against, folks. These are the people we would defend our rights against. And these are the people we cannot permit to win. Ever.