BATF rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic

comes to mind.
Yeah, a new name, that'll fix everything!


In the post on solar power and avian cuisinarts*, commenter pointed me to an interesting side-effect in Ireland:

Irish environmental groups have called for a moratorium on wind farm constructions on bog sites until Best Practice Guidelines for construction on peatlands are in place.

A landslide in the Stacks Mountains in County Kerry in August has now been followed by a further landslide in County Leitrim. The Shannon Regional Fisheries Board has confirmed that both of these bogslides have led to extensive juvenile fish kills and destruction of the aquatic environment.

The two slides occurred while roads were under construction on raised peat lands. The roads are to facilitate the construction of wind farms.

Well, if you called him the '10% wants America better/90% wants it humbled President', then I'd agree with that 10%.  Otherwise, Mr. Pres, you're full of crap.

Twenty rules for racism. 

Ref the Officer Anonymous thing this morning, this pisses me off more the more I think on it.  If you haven't read the piece, in the original article you'll find this:
 In Utah, we have had many individuals walking around with open carry weapons around malls and theaters. Should I still feel safe and hope you are a sane person? If you are that person, should you really be offended if police approach you with guns drawn?
Translation: "I don't like you legally open-carrying, so if my highly-trained and psychologically-tested self sees you, I'll stick a gun in your face and treat you like a criminal.  Probable cause and all that crap?  I don't need it."
This is the attitude of a psychologically sound individual of good training?  Really?  And that doesn't yet touch on just what kind of exam this gun bigot would find acceptable, and who'd decide if you pass(we already know: someone like you).

And I'm sick of clowns like you demanding my arms be registered 'for the public good'.  Year or so back an officer in OKC was shot by an illegal alien with a AR15.  When our Chief of Police expressed his upset, did he demand the feds to more to get illegals out of the country?  Did he even MENTION the 'illegal alien' part?  Hell no, he stated that 'people who own guns like this should have to register them.'  Yeah, someone already in violation of at least one federal law is going to run right down and fill out a registration for the gun he illegally obtained.  Right.  And somehow("That's the part where the magic happens!") honest citizens being forced to register their arms will stop people like him...

Officer Anonymous, I'll join the other gentleman: fuck you, you miserable excuse for a lawman.


*I originally referred to 'bird cuisinarts';  Titan noted he preferred 'avian'.  Considering the also mince bats and God knows what else, I'm changing.

Simon Malls and/or Penn Square Mall does not

want to talk to me; still no reply.

Trying to decide whether to call, since I'll probably get a "That's from corporate, you'll have to ask them" brushoff.

Dammit, James,

now I want one!

Found at Sipsey

Me & My .30-06

One man's opinion of Gunwalker, and the 'Don't abolish ATF,

the replacement might be worse!" argument:
Right. Now we’ll see Holder spun as some sort of hero. Great. But that’s not what’s important. Holder – and Obama, for that matter – had absolutely nothing to do with what made the whole F&F thing exciting to me. They’re political apparatchiks, here today and gone forever. I never wanted this to be about them. God, how I wanted it to be about ATF.

And the irony is that by all accounts (damned if I’m going to try to read it) this “report” excoriated ATF. Granted it’s not the first time and the damned zombie of an alphabet-agency not only always manages to wiggle out but even to get its power and authority increased. Yes, this “report” will be forgotten now, if the government and the “news” has anything to say about it. But still, there it is in black and white. Look at it again, America. Here are your heroic protectors, who don’t give a shit about you. Who’ll cheerfully get Americans (not to mention hundreds or thousands of Mexicans) killed to make a single propaganda point. “Botched operation,” my ass. The only thing that was botched was that the ATF brass finally found something so low even ATF field agents wouldn’t swallow it.

Yes, I see and acknowledge the logic of those who said that if by some miracle ATF vanished forever its “duties” would only be taken over by some other federal agency, maybe even a competent one may God forbid. ATF’s only saving grace all these decades has been its ineptitude, and its love of the brutal gesture over common sense.
I acknowledge it – and I don’t care. ATF has been my enemy since I was a kid, watching my own sibling demonized on the news (not by name, granted, but as part of a class) as a foul, evil “kitchen table dealer” because he had the effrontery to try to comply with the law and get an FFL. Oh, that’s a grave I’ve waited a long, long time to piss on. And now I watch another opportunity slip away.

What a symbol it would be – the disbandment of the ATF. I get a little smile on my face just thinking about it. No, in practical terms it might not change much but think about the message it sends. To actually bring the destruction of a federal alphabet agency? You think the others wouldn’t notice that? Oh, baby. I think I need a cigarette.

The Guitar Saga, Post V: First, the hangers work

Second, getting the bridge masked was a pain; lots of curves, and that kind of tape doesn't flex or stretch.

Speaking of which, masked and what the body looks like sanded

Here's what the upper side and back looked like before I started:

 I had not realized how much the old finish had clouded, never mind the separating.

 Here's the hanger system

Stiff wire bent so one end goes into the amp socket(taped over to protect the innards), 550 cord from it over a frame piece, then to the neck.  Lets me rotate it all around for spraying.  Please ignore all the crap on the shelves in the background.

And yes, I did wear a mask for spraying.  Bought it a few years back, mostly for dust but the filter cartridges are rated for paint & varnish.  VERY happily; couldn't smell the stuff at all while spraying, but after had stepped outside and taken the mask off, stuck my head back in to check things and the smell of varnish was, I'll go with 'strong'.  If you weren't already aware, if you're going to be spraying a nitrocellulose varnish like this, do not do it without breathing protection.  I was also wearing pants, a long-sleeve shirt, one of my 'keep the crap off my head' covers and the mask.  Also, I used my spray paint handle(something like this one) on the can.

On the handle, I've been switching that between brake cleaner and chain lube(do NOT use brake cleaner on a O-ring motorcycle chain!  No, I was warned before, that's not experience) as well as spray paint, very handy thing it is.

So, first coat on, let it dry a bit longer, then second coat.  And so on

She seeks it here, she seeks it there,

she finds it nearly everywhere: Naomi Wolf has turned the vagina into the Scarlet Pimpernel.
 (when you can start with a quote like that, there's a lot to point to)


The blockbuster news contradicted the line the State Department and the administration had been pushing since the horrible tragedy took place almost two weeks ago: that there was no intelligence of a coming attack. In fact, the Ambassador himself was aware of a persistent high level threat against him.

“Perhaps the real question here,” CNN responded to the State Department criticism, “Is why is the State Department now attacking the messenger.”
That's not even at question we KNOW why: protect Clinton from the consequences of the screwups.



Obama claiming responsibility?  He is getting desperate.  Oh, Mr. President?  On that 'change the tone' thing?  Saying "I won" and expecting everyone to roll over for you, that didn't help.

Mr. Wu offered some unsolicited advice: Why not set up an oversight board of regional experts or serious YouTube users from around the world to make the especially tough decisions?

Oh, yeah, an oversight board of regional experts.... Isn't that what you want? Panels of regional experts bearing down on the free speech we have through private internet services like YouTube?
I don't know 'bout you, but the idea of an oversight board deciding what I can say/hear/watch, that does not give me warm fuzzies.



Why has this horrid and sordid tale not raised more outrage in the Hispanic community? You and I know why. The media and the Hispanic leadership are so in bed with the Democrats that they have stifled this story.

Bottom line, the Obama misadministration has murdered hundreds of Mexicans to make a political point, and gotten away with it. Yes, the DOJ and the ATF have gotten away with mass murder in Mexico, and, by the way, Hillary Clinton has nothing to say in response .


Some very nice lamps; wonderful what LEDs are being used for, and the way they work.  25 hours of light off four AA batteries beats hell out of 'a couple of hours, then throw in some new ones'.


Officer Anonymous, should I feel safe around you and hope you are a sane person, knowing that you consider yourself empowered by law to approach me at any time with gun drawn despite the lack of any probable cause whatsoever? If you made me nervous and I ‘approached you with gun drawn,’ would you consider that reasonable behavior on my part?
I didn’t think so. F*ck you, Officer Anonymous. Glad we could have this discussion.


 I'll have more to say on a couple of these things later; right now I need to rig up the hangers for the guitar

Since there's all these kilts running 'round lately,

No relation to kilts, but here's another anyway

After a classified Thursday briefing from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,

Sen. Susan Collins said security in Libya was "woefully inadequate, given the security threat environment." Rep. Buck McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, added, "The story now has been changed. There was a planned, premeditated attack."
The State Dept. is launching an Accountability Review Board to investigate. What do you bet its findings and the FBI's will be unavailable before Nov. 6?
Would you bet against that?
And yeah, word is that the ambassador was tortured.  Wonder if any of the suckup media will ask Obama about that?

The Guitar Saga, post IV

The sanding is done.  Since I'm using a semi-gloss finish I'm not sanding as far as would for a gloss.  The lutier recommened(for gloss) sanding to 600 grit, spraying, wet-sanding to level, then a final coat, then polishing.  The recommendation on the laquer is to sand to 220, spray, level-sand, then a final light coat with no buffing.  I wound up going to 320 grit, and the wood looks great.  In the morning I'll hit a final touch to anyplace that needs it(I want to look it over in sunlight for that), mask the neck, fingerboard and bridge, then spray.  For a spray booth I'm using the shed: I can hang the guitar so I can turn it to hit all sides & angles with the wind blocked, and it should be able to dry evenly.

Yes, the bridge.  Looking it over, the original finish on the front was in much better shape than the sides & back, and the area around the bridge had to simply sand it off.  The bridge isn't loose, no gaps, and with it that solidly fixed I hate to screw with it; so I wrapped paper around a scraper so I could sand right up to it. 

Speaking of paper, when I ordered the finish I also ordered one of their sampler packs of sandpaper to try.  If you're going to work on something that requires a really good finish, either order this stuff or find it locally: it's worth every penny.  I used half of a 150 sheet to take the heaviest stuff that had to be sanded off, used the 220 all round and half a sheet of 320 to finish.  This stuff loads less and cuts faster than any abrasive paper I've ever used before(yeah, I've mostly used cheap stuff), and I could slap the back against a post and knock loose most of what did load.  They say it's much more uniform in grain size, and I believe it, the finish it leaves is as good as could hope for.

Also found while browsing around, if you want a couple of scrapers and don't want to make them, they've got them, a burnishing tool too.  And it has a 'how to sharpen a scraper' section on the burnisher page that's wonderful(different method than I was shown, but there's always more than one way to de-fur that cat).

All week we've heard muslims telling us (updated)

that we in the west need to understand how important the prophet is to them.  We do understand, and we don't care; that's the point.  We don't care now, and we are never going to care.  Get used to it"

Found at Kevin's place

Added:
Ever see Khartoum?   Not a bad movie, Charlton Heston as Gordon and Laurence Olivier as the current Mahdi.  There's a scene about 2/3 through where Gordon has been to meet with Mahdi, and is a bit shocked.  He's been thinking that Achmet was a con artist, using the beliefs of his followers to lead them for his own ends, but has realized that (near as I can remember the words) "His faith is as true and strong in him as mine is in me."
It's a powerful scene, and it makes me wonder about something: possibly a reason a lot of the clowns so trying to accomodate and ransom to the islamists do so is that they don't have any real beliefs themselves(other than socialism/communism/self-worship) and they truly cannot understand someone who does?  They see the demonstrations and hate and killing as all for show, because- having no true down-in-their-soul beliefs themselves, they cannot comprehend someone who does, and thus cannot see the threat as actually real?

Should've noted before, Evyl is buying votes with an offer

of video of Jennifer; they really want to win this

On the subject of idiot laws and nanny-state morons

However, as I read more about this new California law, I found that I was even more felonious than I thought. The law bans "a knife or other instrument with or without a handguard that is capable of ready use as a stabbing weapon that may inflict great bodily injury or death."

I looked around my desk for "other instruments." There they were, six BiC round stick ball-point pens. When I was a college student in Texas many years ago, a highway patrol officer once told my government class that a BiC pen made a dandy self-defense weapon—just stab frequently about the face and neck with it. And here I am, 30 years later, committing a six-count felony with them. It gets worse, folks. I've also got one of the 0.5-mm mechanical pencils on my desk. I've actually once accidentally stabbed myself with one, so I have no doubt that they can inflict great bodily injury, or even death.
The felony counts are now over 10, counting the mechanical pencil, the six BiC pens (three of which are the dreaded fine-point assault pens), my pocket knife with the vile locking blade, concealed in my pocket, as I set here in my office at a university, committing felonies left and right, thereby giving up my civil rights forever... if I get caught. 
..
There's going to be a revolution in this country. There are going to be firing squads and lynch mobs, and the people being shot and lynched are going to be the idiotic little creeps who pass laws like these. It's going to be a terrible time for our country, a terrible time. But you know, when I think of standing there in a firing squad getting ready to shoot the idiots who passed this law, I'm not going to feel quite so bad about it after all. 


Kind of connected, found this by L. Neil Smith:

Over the past 30 years, I've been paid to write almost two million words, every one of which, sooner or later, came back to the issue of guns and gun-ownership. Naturally, I've thought about the issue a lot, and it has always determined the way I vote. 

People accuse me of being a single-issue writer, a single- issue thinker, and a single- issue voter, but it isn't true. What I've chosen, in a world where there's never enough time and energy, is to focus on the one political issue which most clearly and unmistakably demonstrates what any politician—or political philosophy—is made of, right down to the creamy liquid center. 

Make no mistake: all politicians—even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership—hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician—or political philosophy—can be put. 

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash—for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything—without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you. 

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims. 

What his attitude—toward your ownership and use of weapons—conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him? 

If he doesn't want you to have the means of defending your life, do you want him in a position to control it?
Found here

Speaking of closing coal plants and 'green' energy,

from Germany and Britain:
...Like all enthusiasts for “free, clean, renewable electricity”, they overlook the fatal implications of the fact that wind speeds and sunlight constantly vary. They are taken in by the wind industry’s trick of vastly exaggerating the usefulness of wind farms by talking in terms of their “capacity”, hiding the fact that their actual output will waver between 100 per cent of capacity and zero. In Britain it averages around 25 per cent; in Germany it is lower, just 17 per cent. 

The more a country depends on such sources of energy, the more there will arise – as Germany is discovering – two massive technical problems. One is that it becomes incredibly difficult to maintain a consistent supply of power to the grid, when that wildly fluctuating renewable output has to be balanced by input from conventional power stations. The other is that, to keep that back-up constantly available can require fossil-fuel power plants to run much of the time very inefficiently and expensively (incidentally chucking out so much more “carbon” than normal that it negates any supposed CO2 savings from the wind).

And one of the other problems: remember various people pointing out the damage that could be done to appliances, a/c systems and such if the electrical companies could screw with the voltage coming in for 'conservation'?
 Now the problem for the German grid has become even worse. Thanks to a flood of subsidies unleashed by Angela Merkel’s government, renewable capacity has risen still further (solar, for instance, by 43 per cent). This makes it so difficult to keep the grid balanced that it is permanently at risk of power failures. (When the power to one Hamburg aluminium factory failed recently, for only a fraction of a second, it shut down the plant, causing serious damage.) Energy-intensive industries are having to install their own generators, or are looking to leave Germany altogether.


Back when Thatcher was PM in Britain, there was a union strike on coal that threatened to shut down steel plants.  Thatcher broke it and got coal to the plants.  Various screaming and moaning was heard about 'attacking poor workers jobs' and so forth, and (for some odd reason...) the media didn't want to report- or talk at all- about the big reason she did it: blast furnaces of that type operate continuously, from the time first fired until they have to be rebuilt; if they have to shut down they have to let them cool completely and rebuild them; that means weeks of downtime.  One thing to deal with when it's planned, one furnace at a time: when they ALL go down(say, due to lack of fuel) it means the NO production, and all the people who work there(except the ones rebuilding the furnaces.  Unless, of course, it can't be done economically and then the whole damn place shuts down permanently) are laid off until the furnaces can go back in production.  It would've been an economic disaster, and the unions knew it and tried to do it anyway.  Here it wasn't planned, but along with aluminum, what other industry can you think of that does not react well to having their power drop unexpectedly?  Even for a few seconds?

We're back to that stuff noted in a post the other day:
I shudder to think of what this is going to do to grid reliability as well. A lot of those coal plants help support the grid during disruptions. They regularly provide both energy and MVARs (Mega Volt-Ampere Reactive) that keep the grid from collapsing when large loads are added or lost. (That’s about as simple as I can make it and still be understood.) Losing these stabilizers will make it very hard to hold the grid. I pity the load dispatchers.
Ignore the 'bird cuisinart' problems of windmills, the territory taken up by solar panels, etc.; the simple fact is that this stuff CANNOT take the place of coal and gas and oil plants.  "But at least it's doing something!" is the kind of response I've had to this; well, got news for you: just because it's 'doing something' does not make it a good idea.

Lefty journalist excuses everything else Holder's done/been involved in,

and still thinks he should be fired over Fast & Furious.  Lanny Breuer, too.


From Steyn on the current mess:
I see the Obama campaign has redesigned the American flag, and very attractive it is too. Replacing the 50 stars of a federal republic is the single “O” logo symbolizing the great gaping maw of spendaholic centralization. And where the stripes used to be are a handful of red daubs, eerily mimicking the bloody finger streaks left on the pillars of the U.S. consulate in Benghazi as its staff were dragged out by a mob of savages to be tortured and killed. What better symbol could one have of American foreign policy? Who says the slick hollow vapid marketing of the Obama campaign doesn’t occasionally intersect with reality?
and
What other entertainments have senior U.S. officials reviewed lately? Last year Hillary Clinton went to see the Broadway musical Book of Mormon. “We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others”? The Book of Mormon’s big showstopper is “Hasa Diga Eebowai” which apparently translates as “F*** you, God.” The U.S. secretary of state stood and cheered.

Why does Secretary Clinton regard “F*** you, God” as a fun toe-tapper for all the family but “F*** you, Allah” as “disgusting and reprehensible”? The obvious answer is that, if you sing the latter, you’ll find a far more motivated crowd waiting for you at the stage door. So the “leader of the free world” and “the most powerful man in the world” (to revive two cobwebbed phrases nobody seems to apply to the president of the United States anymore) is telling the planet that the way to ensure your beliefs command his “respect” is to be willing to burn and bomb and kill. You Mormons need to get with the program.


From Althouse on what might seem a distraction effort:
 We're barraged by new distractions, so let's catch things that are slipping down the memory hole. It's not just Nakoula. It's Chris Stevens. Our ambassador was murdered, and he was murdered after he was targeted and he was not given security.

Shame on those who disrespected Nakoula's freedom of speech. Their faults are apparent and need to be remembered. But what happened to Chris Stevens? I don't trust that we've learned the whole story. Why wasn't he protected? Was he an inconvenient man? We saw such an effort to create static around his death. Look — riots over here, here, and here! Offensive video on the internet! Man with a "towel" around his face! And hey check out the most important thing that happened all week: Romney said "47%" to some people back in May!

The very fact that we're thinking about Nakoula — and futzing with Romney rhetoric — makes me feel that Chris Stevens got stuffed down the memory hole.

Who wanted that forgetting and why?
That is an interesting question.  The most basic answer would be "Obama and Clinton didn't want to believe they actually NEEDED full security("We helped the Libyans, they would not do/allow anything to happen!") for the ambassador", followed by "They were busy preening and didn't want to have to deal with it."  And the "SQUIRREL!" distractions, well, this administration doesn't want anyone actually talking about it when they screwed up, and most of the media is quite willing to help.  So is the media just so in the tank they'll reflexively try to cover for Obama & Clinton even on this?  Or were they asked to help out?


Now that's a kind of blowback on Waco I'd not have thought of:
"A Pakistani imam, Abdul Wahid Qasmi, once told me that President Bill Clinton burned to death scores of Americans for criticizing Jesus." "If America can execute blasphemers, he said, why can’t Pakistan?"

Nicholas D. Kristof challenged that statement, and the imam opened a book "and began reading triumphantly about the 1993 raid on David Koresh’s cult in Waco, Tex."
From the comments: Heh - sure. Waco had nothing to do with actual blasphemy laws being violated - or even the existence of such laws. But what's more important to the Muslim world (apparently) are *appearances*.

Based on that, then - we are indeed guilty. Issue the apologies now!!



Gowdy’s promise of hearings comes after The Daily Caller this week published a series of emails, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, that show the Justice Department’s Office of Public Affairs director Tracy Schmaler and Media Matters staffers working together to attack reporters covering Justice Department scandals and other administration critics.

“My guess is, this won’t be the last we hear about that,” Gowdy said when Simone first asked him to respond to the news of their collusion. “[House oversight committee chairman Darrell] Issa is the chairman, and he can do what he wants.”
Yes, he can; question is, will he/will he be allowed to actually DO anything?


Well, yeah, if they actually think that stupid 15-minute video was an incitement to muslims, they should consider that movie a full-out call to war!
Of course, the movie is to polish Obama's apple, so it's different, right?


Oh, for God's sake...

At the risk of upsetting someone of sensitive nature

who might happen to find this, I have something to offer:
Without knowing it, he had broken a time-honored maxim of that world: Never speak ill of your own people when in the company of strangers. There was too little recognition of the malignant trilogy—anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism and anti-modernism—that had poisoned the life of Egypt and much of the region. . . .
Could be that he didn't consider it a problem because he doesn't consider us 'his people'?

I have no special knowledge but even a moron can discern certain patterns.

Half of the pattern is a bunch theocratic douchebags that oppress people.  They have perfected  the successful gambit of blaming America (or Israel) for their manifest failures.  Their people, exposed to generations of propaganda, are buying it hook, line, and sinker.  Here’s a hint, if your cat barfs on the rug in Aswan (Egypt) and you think America (or Israel) is the cause, you’re an embarrassment to yourself and your society.  The other half are American elites (both parties) who make a living pretending that theocratic jackoffs are “moderates” and evil does not exist.  Here’s a hint; evil does exist and if you don’t accept that you’re useless.

A promise Obama is actually keeping:

and boy, are we screwed:
Look, folks, I am in this field. I have been for more than 30 years. Losing 36,000 MWs of the most cost-efficient generation capacity in the US is a disaster. You have no idea how bad the increases are going to be. They will be disastrous to the individual energy consumers and apocalyptic to large users – those who create jobs.

I shudder to think of what this is going to do to grid reliability as well. A lot of those coal plants help support the grid during disruptions. They regularly provide both energy and MVARs (Mega Volt-Ampere Reactive) that keep the grid from collapsing when large loads are added or lost. (That’s about as simple as I can make it and still be understood.) Losing these stabilizers will make it very hard to hold the grid. I pity the load dispatchers.

Trust me, people, this is a very big, very bad thing that is happening as a direct result of Barack Obama’s war on coal.

One more 'I'm not attacking gun rights!' attack, this time

- again- on ammo and magazines.  Plus the standard "You can't fight helicopters and tanks and---" argument. 

Did you know that anybody who 'stockpiles thousands of rounds' is planning a massacre?  and that No one except a terrorist, criminal, or mass murderer needs a 30-round magazine.?
Me neither.

I left a comment; I could have been a bit more polite, but I'm really tired of this crap.

On the Gunwalker report from the DoJ IG:

The White House’s refusal to release communications related to the Fast and Furious gun-walking program and the refusal of a White House official to be interviewed about the matter “made it impossible” for the inspector general (IG) of the Justice Department to “pursue that aspect of the case,” the IG, Michael Horowitz, testified.

He added that the sought-after White House interview and communications constituted “a lead we wanted to follow.”
 But it was a 'complete investigation that cleared the AG', etc. ad Bullshit.


Also from the IG,
It's been a key subject of dispute throughout the "Fast and Furious" saga but one shrouded in mystery: whether wiretap applications reviewed and approved by senior Justice Department officials should have tipped them off about the dangerous tactics being used in the operation.
...
Now Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department's inspector general, is broadly siding with Issa, saying in testimony before the Oversight panel today that the wiretap applications should have raised red flags to senior officials who approved them.
Asked by several Republican lawmakers at the hearing whether reading the wiretap applications would have indicated that guns were being "walked," the tactic employed in Fast and Furious, Horowitz said "yes."
He then added a more nuanced version included in the report, that someone "who was focused on the question of investigative tactics, particularly one who was already sensitive to the issue of 'gun walking,'" would have "questions about ATF's conduct of the investigations."
You'll notice, at the end of this, that Rep. Cummings is playing "Bush started it!"  As if that would somehow excuse the guilty in this from responsibility for their actions and inactions.

From Grassley's statement on the report:
“At first glance, the Inspector General’s report reaffirms virtually everything that Congressman Issa and I have already reported.  Operation Fast and Furious was the height of irresponsibility on the part of a number of people from the ATF Phoenix field office all the way up to the Justice Department headquarters.  And, we still don’t know the full extent of any White House involvement because they refused to be transparent and provide documents requested by the Inspector General.  

“It’s clear that both the ATF and the Justice Department failed to provide meaningful oversight of Operation Fast and Furious.  They ignored warnings from employees, and frankly, failed to do their jobs.  It took the death of our own Border Patrol Agent, action by a courageous whistleblower, and intense scrutiny from Congress before they even took note of what was happening under their own eyes.  Even then, they wouldn’t come clean with how bad it really was until after they had sent a false letter and retracted it eight months later.

“It’s particularly discouraging that this all could have been stopped early on if people had just read the wiretap applications.  The Inspector General noted that anybody reading those documents should have seen the red flags. The law requires that certain senior officials authorize those applications, and the Inspector General found that they did so without reading them(That's assuming they DIDN'T read them...).  I’m glad that the OIG is joining me and Chairman Issa in urging the Justice Department to move to unseal the wiretap applications so that the American people can read them and make up their own minds.

“The President also appears to be abusing his authority to exert executive privilege.  The White House rightly allowed the Inspector General to make public a small subset of the documents withheld from Congress under his claim of Executive Privilege, but it continues to shut out Congress’ access to the rest of the documents.  It proves that this subset of documents could have been released earlier, and the President was merely thumbing his nose at Congress by claiming Executive Privilege on the eve of the contempt vote against Attorney General Holder for withholding the documents.

“It’s time to hold people accountable.  Attorney General Holder is out of excuses for action.

Some downloads you might want to look at

Found thanks to A Girl and Her Gun, she pointed to Active Response Training, and this page has a bunch of free medical reference books you can download, including Tactical Combat Casualty Care, Combat Lifesaver and others.

You Have Worth

A response from A Girl to- well, either a pacifist moron or a absolute, total fool.  Two bits:
Here is what I want you to understand, he does not think all people are equal and deserve to live a peaceful life. He believes that bad guys have the right to kill and good guys have the right to die. He believes your life and mine are less valuable. He believes that in allowing yourself to be killed the bad guy now has the opportunity to due process(found in a separate comment on same post). In the end his entire argument is that no one has the right to be murdered, but if there is a choice between good and evil, evil should get his day in court.
 ...
 If you get nothing else from this blog, please get this…YOU HAVE VALUE! Your life has value. All by itself your life has value. You have the right not to be mugged, raped, beaten or murdered, anywhere at anytime, by anyone and you most certainly have the right to do your best to stop someone who is trying to do any of those things to you. There isn’t a single moral, religious or statistical argument that carries more weight than YOU are valuable. YOU have worth. Not because you are a mother or a wife. Not because you volunteer at the local shelter. Not for any reason other than your life is a gift and as such no one has the right to forcibly take it from you and if they try then you have every right to say, No, not today. Not EVER!

My hands are aching from all the scraping and sanding,

and the other day I somehow managed to scratch an eyeball slightly(yes, I know, even before went to the doc I shouldn't have been out in the wind and crap), so I've been looking around.

Kevin had a post that directed me to MaxedOutMama, whose post started with this
I am so sick of identity politics. This can go no further. We are either going to commit cultural suicide, or we will break the back of the snake of "group rights". There are none. The Constitution grants rights to individuals only. If we ever abandon that principle, then we are squarely in the world of the Muslim, Nazi, Communist and Italian fascists.

Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most cherished principles and beliefs questioned and in some cases mocked. That psychic discomfort is the price we pay for basic civic peace. It's worth it. 

It's a pragmatic principle. Defend everyone else's rights, because if you don't there is no one to defend yours. If you are not willing to defend other people's rights, then US society is going to become an increasingly violent competition between groups for control. The choices before us are pretty clear. Do we want fighting in the streets, or do we want to support each individual's rights?
and has this further down:
It's time for Americans to grapple with the fact that our academic system is riddled with people who espouse values that are utterly antithetical to the American Constitution and the founding principles of our society. You cannot defend academic freedom for Ward Churchill (who has a long track record of espousing murder and violence as political weapons) on principle and then turn around and promulgate disposition theory in education schools, require social work students to lobby legislatures for particular political programs, or dismiss instructors who argue with Palestinian activists.You cannot logically institute a policy of non-discrimination against same-sex couples and then promulgate a policy forbidding RAs to hold bible studies in their own dorms. A university system that prevents the Danish Mohammed cartoons from being shown in the context of a discussion about them is fascist to its ugly, petty core.
You really ought to read it all.


I admit to a lot of gloomy thoughts lately.  I'm listening to/reading people I generally think smart who actually believe that not reelecting Obama means we hate someone/want someone to die/don't care about the world/are racist/I think are actually scared of Romney*.  We've got a President who'd rather pander to terrorists and muslim fanatics than defend that Constitution he swore an oath to uphold and defend.  I've actually had someone tell me that 'We're not out of money, there are a lot of rich people who have a lot we don't have access to yet!'(which scares the bloody hell out of me, because SHE ACTUALLY MEANT IT).  As Sarah Hoyt has pointed out, poor people in the US live at a level that most nobles and princes of not that long ago could not imagine, yet we're constantly told that we 'owe' it to those poor to take care of EVERYFUCKINGTHING for them; otherwise "You don't CARE if people suffer/die/whatever!", etc(after 'It's for the CHILDRENNNN!' one of the more common insults lately).  And so forth.

And that miserable sonofawhore Bernanke decided to make my savings and retirement account worth less and less, apparently so he can continue to play with peoples' lives and claim he's doing it for us.

And, of course, we have the savages working the Terrorist Veto worldwide.  And the hoplophobes and gun bigots using lies to try to disarm anyone not with a 'State Minion' id.  Add to that son being in Somewhereinthehell Afghanistan while our President is 'negotiating' with the enemy...

All this does not for a peaceful mind make.

Makes it hard to enjoy things.


 *Yes, I know what Romney is; no, I don't much trust him; yes, I do think he'd be less dangerous to the country than another four years of Obama.

Keven notes a mess in Sarah Brady Paradise,

and no, those laws aren't doing much good: guns AND grenades, yet.

My response to the Imam involves some bad language

Piss on you and your pedophile prophet, you miserable little tyrant wannabe.  We don't have to have your approval for our speech.  ANY of it.
"“My position is that White House has to say strong in its condemnation [of the filmmakers] and take this person to court. If he is innocent, we will accept that… The government has strong case against this person.”
Fuck you. Get this through your head: THERE IS NOTHING TO TAKE HIM TO COURT ABOUT.  Not in OUR country.

Read the whole damn thing.  It all boils down to "Sooner or later you will have to abide by the Koran and Sharia, or else.  And the 'or else' will be your fault!"

Day by Day has a good response to your 'Censor yourselves!' crap.  And, borrowed from Sondrak,

A: Is blogger just unable to refrain from screwing with things,

or do they actually think this crap helps?
You can't see it on the blog, but the whole 'posting' page has changed.  PITA.

B: Our President can't be bothered with disrupting his campaign schedule(nice excuse, huh?) to meet with Israeli officials, but he'll make time for the Egyptian President; probably to discuss how to turn the Blink Sheikh loose as quietly as possible.


C: If this woman was willing to turn loose and beat the crap out of this cleric, things are likely to get real interesting in Iran.


D: On Libya and various lies:  
The officials provided the information to the Washington Guardian, saying they feared the Obama administration’s scant description of the episode left a misimpression that the two ex-Navy SEALs might have been responsible for the ambassador’s personal safety or become separated from him. 

“Woods and Doherty weren’t part of the detail, nor were they personally responsible for the ambassador’s security, but they stepped into the breach when the attacks occurred and their actions saved others lives — and they shouldn’t be lumped in with the security detail,” one senior official said, speaking only on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about the State Department. 


E: Iranian subs; yeah, this'll work out well.


F: Some media decides to do some of the reporting that should've been done, oh, four years ago.


G: Another example of why the UN should be considered the enemy of freedom.


Now I think I'll go do some sanding, and take some pictures.

Penn Square Mall: no answer as yet

so I sent the following to Simon Property Group:
I am sending my question as a general inquiry because when I send to Penn Square specifically, or name it in this form I get the following reject:
DELIVERY FAILURE: User blanddec (blanddec@simon.com) not listed in Domino Directory

My question:
I went to Penn Square for the first time in a while, and noticed that you have posted 'no firearms' signs on the doors.

Those who have carry permits have passed a background investigation and class; I am curious as to why you have decided that people with concealed carry permits are not welcome in your mall, or are not trusted to carry their sidearm there.

That header added for the reason noted: send to the specific contact for Penn Square Mall, or if- in the corporate form- I choose 'mall specific question', I get a reject.

Not that it matters so far, because nobody has answered the question; we'll see if they do this time.  Last time and this I get a automated "We received it, someone will answer" message, so I know it's getting there.

It's being reported that the IG's report clears Holder Updated

of knowing about Gunwalker(so he's so incompetent he doesn't know what's going on?), but
“The report says Attorney General Eric Holder was not made aware of potential flaws in the program until February of last year,” Fox News is reporting, while making no reference to deficiencies admitted up front by the OIG.

Case in point, Chapter One of the report identifies key individuals who declined to be interviewed, significantly including “Criminal Chief [Patrick J.] Cunningham [who] declined through counsel our request for a follow-up interview…We also requested an interview with Kevin O’Reilly, a member of the White House’s National Security Staff[who] declined our request through his personal counsel.”

Simlarly of significance, and hardly surprising to those following this story, the report notes “The White House did not produce to us any internal White House communications, noting that “’the White House is beyond the purview of the Inspector General’s Office, which has jurisdiction over Department of Justice programs and personnel.’”
So they didn't talk to a bunch of people, did NOT get needed files, and yet they say Holder didn't know anything? Bullshit. For that matter, I didn't know people could tell the IG "I don't want to talk to you" and get away with it; are these clowns setting a precedent they may regret? More problems:
Also raising concerns, and again unsurprising to long-time observers, is a statement released this afternoon by Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley, who observed “We’ve already noticed that the report contains a factual error that lets Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer off the hook. The report accepts Breuer’s version of events, claiming that he hadn’t ‘proposed edits, commented on the drafts or otherwise indicated he had read them.’ In fact, emails show that he received drafts of the February 4 letter and commented on them before it was sent, which he later denied to Congress.”

So the report is really incomplete, has lots of holes in it, but expect the media to keep saying "This clears Holder!"

 Update: Whitewash. All you need to know about the OIG report in one sentence.

Was it the RPGs or the mortars that were your first clue?

The Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was in fact “a terrorist attack” and the U.S. government has indications that members of al Qaeda were directly involved, a top Obama administration official said Wednesday morning.
So, which do you think: did they decide it wasn't worth claiming 'It was all because of that video!' anymore, or did they realize just how effing stupid they were looking?

Best new infrared laser sight comment:

Yeah, but they make crappy cat toys

The Guitar Saga, Post III: also known as (updated)

'Well, that answers that.'
'That' being the use of the scraper. In about an hour I was able to remove almost all traces of the original finish from the sides, and then did a bit on the front. Except for some separation around the bottom curve, the finish on the front is in a lot better shape than the sides & back; and, except for those areas, this finish will not come off the way the rest did. So, a lot of sanding.

The scraper did save me a huge amount of time on the back & sides, so very happy I tried it. I started sanding on the front, will see if can get most of the finish off. It'll be about the first before the lutier can help me remove the bridge, so limited on how much I can do on the front. Figure do the 220 sanding on the back & sides, get as much of the front as I can, and wait for the finer sanding until the bridge is out of the way. I'll add some pictures later, guitar and scraper.

Updated: here's the scraper

As mentioned before, this is a piece of handsaw blade.  I don't think I've covered making this before, so:
First, figure the size & shape, and cut it.  I used a dremel with a cutoff wheel: draw the outline, cut just outside that line.  Don't have to cut all the way, depending on how you lay it out: if you score it deeply enough, you can then clamp it in a vise and flex the blade to break the piece off; same for smaller pieces to get the shape.  For a curved face, you'll have to do some grinding: I use my belt sander to both smooth & true the flat sides, and shape the curve.

Remember that you need the edges to be as square as possible, with sharp corners.

With a new piece, after the profile is done I lightly sand the flats to get rid of any burrs, then roll on the hook.  From here the pics are for putting a new hook on one you've been using:
First, use a fine file to cut away what's left of the hook.

Then use the file to cut the side down.  Again, keep it at as true a right-angle as possible to the scraper so you get those nice square corners.

With that done, I give the file a wipe over the flats again to get rid of any burrs.  Now comes making the hook.

Clamp the piece in a vise, and you'll need a hard, smooth piece of steel; in this case I'm using a long hex key

  You can buy a burnishing tool for this, it's a oval cross-section piece of hardened steel with a handle(yes, I need to make one) just for the purpose.  As long as it's smooth and hard(you're working on a piece of medium-to-high-carbon steel, remember) it will work.  Hold the tool against the scraper starting at one corner(in this case) at about a 35-45 degree angle.  Now you have to both push or draw it along the corner while pushing the tool down, actually sliding it both horizontally and vertically.  What you're doing is forming that corner into a hook that extends out a bit; light pressure can make a barely-there hook for very fine scraping, heavy pressure makes a bigger, more aggressive hook.  Takes a little messing with, but it's easy to pick up how to do this.

I learned this from a guy I used to know named Eddie, one hell of a carpenter/woodworker/general craftsman who had no problems sharing knowledge.  A fine man, died a few years back(yeah, he's missed by a lot of people).  He used scrapers a lot, both for removing old finishes that tended to clog sandpaper fast, and for the wood itself: set up the right hook and you can either take a fair amount of wood off with each stroke, or barely touch the surface to smooth it.


Back to the guitar, here's the soundboard; aside from a small place at the top, this along the bottom was the only places the finish was separating. 

 Just to try, after it sat all night I tried the scraper carefully along the edges, and sure enough was able to pop off more of the old finish.  After that did some sanding.  By the time my hands were saying "Knock it off, NOW" I'd removed a fair amount of the finish on the soundboard and done more 220 sanding on the sides and back

 
Sides and back are starting to look nice.  Be a while yet before I can get the gentleman to help remove the bridge, so no rush on this.

By the way, if you're looking for instrument parts/materials/finish stuff, here's the site he gave me: Stewart MacDonald.

I'll bet they're 'moving quickly' on this'; they really don't

want this to go in front of a jury.

This about covers the "Why don't people like muslims?" wailing:

You know, I think we're getting to the point where "Islamophobia" (instead of, er... "misislamy"? ...which is what you probably meant) is getting to be an appropriate term to use. I do get a little edgy around people when I'm not sure if their response to "Hey, Ahmet my friend, tell me, did you hear the one about 'Why did the Prophet cross the road?'" will be to throw Molotov cocktails through my windows and drag my beheaded corpse through the street.

Actually, "Islamophobia" may not be an accurate term at all, since "-phobia" describes fear that is irrational or out of proportion, when it has been shown over and over that a fear of Muslims losing their collective $#!+ in an orgy of burning, looting, and killing in response to "insults" that might not even be sufficient do draw more than a "Yeah? So's your mom!" in response on any civilized elementary school playground is grounded in, not just historic example, but a clear-headed grasp of current events.
This is in response to another "It's our fault, we need to be more understanding!" editorial.


"Why won’t President Obama — unlike Paul Ryan — release a long-term budget plan? Simple. If he did, it would show the only way to realistically pay for the Democratic spending agenda is to eventually raise taxes on pretty much everybody.

See, if you are not going to cut future spending increases and dramatically reform entitlements, raising taxes on just the rich isn’t enough to cover the budget gap. The Buffett Rule is a sham. The Tax Policy Center clearly showed that in a recent tax simulation it conducted:


What? Mother Jones 'inadvertently' lost a couple of minutes of Romney audio?


Yeah, we can trust the polls


If you’re wondering why the rich are getting richer, ask Mr. Bernanke.

President Obama has accused Mitt Romney of being a “reverse Robin Hood” – taking from the poor and giving to the rich. Ironically, that’s exactly what Fed Chair Ben Bernanke is doing, with the blessing of the Obama White House. Mr. Bernanke has again opened the central bank spigots, promising another round of quantitative easing, or bond and asset purchases, aimed at keeping interest rates low for the foreseeable future.

The upshot? Rising gasoline prices which will hurt low-income Americans, reduced income for retirees, and soaring stock prices. While seniors worried how they could cope with diminished incomes, the 40 wealthiest people in the world saw their net worth jump by $29 billion this past week.


Why don't so many of us trust the media? Because so many of them are so full of crap, and in collusion with Obama & Co.
Today’s revelation by Matt Boyle that the Justice Department is coordinating attacks on private citizens (including me) and coordinating with Media Matters on a wider scale than I first reported some months ago here at PJ Media provokes the question — why?

I raise this German history not to compare the events of that era to events today in America, but rather to note peculiar characteristics common to political thuggery, regardless of the degree or nationality of the thuggery.


I shall now, among other things, get some chili started for dinner. And rake up what Security Staff(Jr.) has found and carried to the center of the yard to chew on. Or admire the arrangement of. Whatever, it's a mess.

Hysterical Incompetence

A very good post. Couple of bits:
Some of this is budget related and if there's one idea I'd like to get across to city and county administrators and police chiefs across the country it's this. Spend your money wisely and effectively. Forget the SWAT teams and armored cars. Forget the UAVs and whiz bang. Concentrate on the basics, the things that make up your core competency. Hiring, Training and Retention. Invest your money in improving just those three simple areas and watch the effectiveness and competency of your agency grow all out of proportion to your costs.

And
I saw just this morning a video out of Maryland where a cop rushed a kid and bashed him over the head with his handgun. A handgun with one of his Hysterically Incompetent digits wrapped around the trigger which subsequently discharged. Then he lied about it because he's still in Hysterical Incompetent mode even after the encounter is over. Instead of an arrest it's national news, another black eye for my brothers and sisters in uniform and a 10 million dollar lawsuit. Nice.

We don't get the law enforcement we deserve, we get the law enforcement we allow. Be active in your community politically. Get to know your leaders and your cops. Be involved and be informed.And please remind your police administration that the vilest word in the law enforcement lexicon is Incompetent.

Don't let the Hysterical Incompetents win.

This stupid is just flat painful to read about

I don't care what you saw on Disney or Animal Planet, leave the damned cat alone.


That is a quite nice bottle & cup; and you can make coffee in it!


In favor of the levergun for social situations.


Well, this is just effing wonderful:
Syria tested firing systems for poison gas shells at the country's largest chemical weapons research center at Safira, east of Aleppo, last month, German weekly Der Spiegel reported on Monday, citing statements from various witnesses.

According to the report, Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers were flown in by helicopter to witness the testing.
...
It's also a well-known fact that Iran has been an active participant in Syria's WMD activities. In July 2007 "dozens" of Iranian engineers were killed (along with 15 Syrian military personnel) in an explosion at a research complex in the Aleppo region. According to Jane's Defence Weekly, the incident occurred when rocket fuel caught fire and Iranian and Syrian technicians attempted to load mustard gas onto a SCUD C missile. The blast also released a cloud of mustard, Sarin and VX nerve gas across the compound.
Put bluntly: I don't believe Obama would order military action against Syria- REAL military action- unless he thought there was some way to claim credit so as to help his reelection chances. He'd be more likely to try to under-the-table nudge the Israelis to do it(or just wait for them to do it when they decide they cannot wait any longer) and then both talk about the horrible Israelis and the harm they did, and offer aid to the 'victims' of the nasty Jews.


What? Holder & Media Matters working together to try to derail Gunwalker coverage? Whoda thunk such a thing?


'Night, all

The Guitar Saga, Post II

After posting Post I yesterday, I spent a little time starting to sand. Even with the damage, that finish is tough; after around 45 minutes I'd taken a lot of surface off but was nowhere near the wood.

Idea occurred, to try today: scraper. I wondered if one with a nice, sharp hook would be able to shave the old finish off more efficiently and still not bite into the wood. So after got home this evening(busy and fairly productive day) and all the livestock was fed, I took one, rolled a hook onto one long and one short side and gave it a try. It did indeed shave some finish off, but it was still going to take a while. Then took it over a spot where I'd picked off a piece of the separated, bubbled finish yesterday*, and a couple of big flakes popped off.

That was surprising, so stopped and studied things a moment, and discovered something: I could ease the hook up to the finish, carefully pushing down just enough to let the hook grab the edge of the finish, and pull. Pop, and another piece or pieces of finish would come off. Without leaving a mark on the wood that I could see.

Put it this way: instead of the several hours of sanding I'd (hoped)figured it would take to clean the back, in about twenty minutes I had the back clean, not a flake of finish left. Spent a couple of minutes with a sanding block and 220-grit paper, just to check the surface, and it looks good. If this works as well on the other surfaces, it's going to save a LOT of time.

I have no idea if it would work this way/well on a good finish that was just scratched or otherwise needing repair(it would definitely work to shave the finish down some); it may simply be that the way this finish was coming loose in places allowed the scraper to take it off this way. Either way, it works.



*using one of those 'You have been pre-approved!' fake credit cards to pop it off

My 5.11 Tactical Kilt came in

a day early; so-so photography notice:First impressions:
Fits just like it should. I usually wear a 34 waist; as I like the IWB holster I ordered a 36, and the holstered pistol fits comfortably. And the length is exactly right for me.
All the seams are properly finished, and I think the pleats will stay as they should.
The right cargo pocket has three sub-pockets inside, each will hold a pistol magazine; the left has two sub-pockets, that each hold a AR15-22 magazine.
Both cargo pockets can be taken off.
It needs to be washed, of course, which should get rid of a few creases from being folded into a shipping envelope.

I think I'm going to like it.

By the way, the bonnet is the one I've worn for many years at Ren-fairs, Medieval Faire, Scottish gatherings and other times; personal badge and all.

The Guitar Saga, Post I

I mentioned the finish is separating, here's what I mean




The back and soundboard aren't nearly as bad
except for a couple of strips along the bottom edge, but they'll still have to be stripped completely before new finish can be applied. That's going to take a while, and a lot of sanding, to cut off the old finish without taking more than the tiniest bit of the surface of the wood. The lutier suggested starting with 220 grit to get the old stuff off, then up to 600 for the final. After that will come cleaning, masking and spraying.

Don't hold your breath waiting for updates, I'm going to take my time on this.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali writes about the current Muslim Rage

(or temper tantrum by adult infants), and- SURPRISE!- CAIR calls her an islamophobe, etc. ad bullshit.

I don't know if this is 'We're screwed' or just

'I has a sad' territory:
Would you pay interest on a corn dog? Or how about a cinnamon roll? Some people say yes and are taking out high-interest pay day loans to go to the state fair.

People are taking out high-interest loans for more than bills, but they'll actually borrow money to go to the fair. Statewide Finance has seen about a 20 percent increase in business since the fairgrounds opened.

Interesting that so many idiots who DEPEND on the 1st Amendment

like to talk about trashing it.

That the administration would even BEGIN to consider this

indicates either a nonexistent spine(s), a terminal(for other people) case of idiocy, or- well, I can't really see any other choices.
The U.S. State Department is actively considering negotiations with the Egyptian government for the transfer of custody of Omar Abdel-Rahman, also known as “the Blind Sheikh,” for humanitarian and health reasons, a source close to the the Obama administration told TheBlaze.

The Department of Justice, however, told TheBlaze that Rahman is serving a life sentence and is not considered for possible “release.” Previous calls to the State Department were referred to the Department of Justice and so far, the State Department has neither confirmed nor denied the report.
Isn't that just friggin' wonderful? Can you say "We'll turn the terrorist loose if you promise to be nicer to us in the future"?
Cue Churchills' comment about appeasers.
A veteran intelligence analyst familiar with TheBlaze’s sourcing on this story said he met with an official on the Egypt desk at the State Department who told him the transfer of the Blind Sheikh to Egypt is something that is being “actively considered” by the administration as a solution to the ongoing crisis in the Middle East. His source asked not to be identified, fearing he would be persecuted by the U.S. government.
'Persecuted'... that's a nice word for it.

They do take note of the denial:
McCarthy also said the way the Department of Justice worded its denial may prove to be significant. The DOJ said Rahman’s “release” was not being considered, however, the question was whether or not his “transfer” to Egypt was being discussed.
Would you believe anything these bastards said?

The Guitar Saga

I mentioned a while back the problem with my guitar. Since then, I've checked books and websites; buttloads of information on repainting/refinishing electric guitars, but not squat on acoustics could I find.

Couple of days ago asked a couple of the folks with Beyond the Nine if they knew anybody; and lo! they pointed me to this place, Sooner Acoustic Music. So went by, they looked it over, and said(boiled down) "This will have to all be sanded off and recoated; I can do it, but you can too." And when I said was willing, he spent about twenty minutes on hows and whats(including where to get the finish he recommended), ending with "Don't be afraid to call me if you have any questions."

So I'll be doing it, now that I actually have the information needed and advice(if needed). Assuming I don't lose track, I'll take pictures when I start, and during the process.

Here's more of your Hope & Change!, and why people fear

for our rights:
"The Obama administration’s Department of Justice official Edward Perez, who is the assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, refuses to say that his department won’t attempt to criminalize blasphemy in the future."
Watch the video: The question asked is "Will you tell us here today, simply, that this administrations’ Department of Justice will never entertain or advance a proposal that criminalizes speech against any religion?" Simple question; and Perez tries four times to talk AROUND an answer.

Yeah, we can trust this administration to protect our rights(until enough muslims demand we lose them)...

Idiot Academic of the Day: Anthea Butler

To give you a taste:

My initial tweet about Bacile, the person said to be responsible for the film mocking the prophet Mohammed, was not because I am against the First Amendment. My tweets reflected my exasperation that as a religion professor, it is difficult to teach the facts when movies such as Bacile's Innocence of Muslims are taken as both truth and propaganda, and used against innocent Americans.

Let me just say this: if a YouTube video produced by a convicted felon renders it difficult for you to teach kids smart enough to get into Penn about religion, then you might want to consider another profession that does not require communication skills.
...
I had to read that three times to make sure I hadn't gone nuts. An American college professor — one who just paragraphs earlier announced that college professors are self-evidently supporters of the First Amendment — just said that speech should be punished by the government if the United States military thinks it should be. Is this real life?
Unfortunately, it is.
Read it all

Think a P90 would be neat?

Unwilling to pay a couple of thousand or more for a fancy .22 Magnum?

Make your own lookalike in .22lr!

What do you do when your idol refuses

to say what you want him to? Must've been frustrating as hell for him.


A bit of history that, unfortunately, is generally forgotten(considering schools today, probably not taught):
How many know that perhaps 1.5 million Europeans and Americans were enslaved in Islamic North Africa between 1530 and 1780? We dimly recall that Miguel de Cervantes was briefly in the galleys. But what of the people of the town of Baltimore in Ireland, all carried off by “corsair” raiders in a single night?
...
Let us not call this view reductionist. Jefferson would perhaps have been just as eager to send a squadron to put down any Christian piracy that was restraining commerce. But one cannot get around what Jefferson heard when he went with John Adams to wait upon Tripoli’s ambassador to London in March 1785. When they inquired by what right the Barbary states preyed upon American shipping, enslaving both crews and passengers, America’s two foremost envoys were informed that “it was written in the Koran, that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon whoever they could find and to make Slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.” (It is worth noting that the United States played no part in the Crusades, or in the Catholic reconquista of Andalusia.)


Roger Simon:
Indeed, the beginnings of Islam are the very stuff of great theatre and cinema, reprehensible as the actions of the protagonist may be. In fact, it may be great because of those actions. After all, Richard III is not a classic for nothing.

So I am very tempted by the subject of Mohammed.

Arrest me, Hillary Clinton, before I start. Call Eric Holder!

And while you are at it, tell him to round up Salman Rushdie. His novel about Mohammed is obviously blasphemous. He was lucky to escape that fatwa. We should have one of our own.
Speaking of which,


'Encouraging'... not exactly the word I've have chosen.


Some more evidence that the embassies were leaking like Chris Matthews' brain:
A squad of U.S. troops despatched by helicopter across the Libyan desert to rescue besieged diplomats from Benghazi on Wednesday ran into a fierce ambush that left a further two Americans dead, Libyan officials told Reuters. Captain Fathi al-Obeidi, commander of a special Libyan operations unit, said his men and an eight-man U.S. force came under attack after American survivors had left the blazing consulate and moved to an ostensibly secret location in an isolated villa. The villa came under an intense and highly accurate mortar barrage.

“I really believe that this attack was planned,” he said. “The accuracy with which the mortars hit us was too good for any regular revolutionaries.”

Connected: I'd heard bits & pieces about this, just ran across this post today:
The Lebanese news organization Tayyar.org is reporting that the murdered American ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, was raped prior to his killing September 11, 2012.

The Lebanese news report cited the Agence France-Presse (AFP) broke the story when given the information by an unnamed senior member of the Libyan Interior Ministry.

Tayyar.com also reported via Google translation from the original Arabic, Ambassador Stevens:

"...was killed and representation of his body in a manner similar to what happened with Gaddafi, such as murder."

Wonder if we'll every know the truth of this, yes or no?

Connected: from Front Page Mag:
In the Wikileaks cables, Stevens cheerfully described fighters who saw “resistance against coalition forces in Iraq” as “an important act of ‘jihad’” and local businessmen who took pride in the number of suicide bombers who had come out of the area. For years he had walked safely in their company without understanding that he was just as much of a target as a Marine in Baghdad, but without the training, the weapons or the survival skills.

The only reason Christopher Stevens had lasted this long is that the jihadist fighters had known a useful man when they met him. And Stevens proved to be very useful, but his usefulness ended with Gaddafi’s death. Once the US successfully overthrew Gaddafi and began focusing on stabilizing Libya, Stevens ceased to be a useful idiot and became a useless nuisance. Attacks soon followed on the Benghazi consulate and on other consulates as well, but the Marines were not brought in and Stevens continued relying on local goodwill to secure his offices. It was only a matter of time until the attackers got through.


Yes, I'm gloomy this morning: it's overcast and damp outside, our idiot Fed director has made sure my savings will continue to lose value, a bunch of dirtbags in Sodom on the Potomac have openly shown they don't give a rats ass about the Bill of Rights, and the other consequences of electing this socialist jerk
are helping blow up a large area of the world. If I didn't need to go somewhere, I'd have a drink.

A point of view that should be noted about the "Screw the 1st Amendment"

actions by the administration:
“I went berserk over the L.A.T. Nakoula photo too, but on top of the brownshirted Constitutional debacle, one incredibly consequential point has gotten lost in the shuffle: Could any visual more effectively reinforce the Arab street’s belief that the U.S. government can, in fact, punish blasphemers if it so chooses?”
Yep, that's exactly what this amounts to; how else would you describe it? Even without the (literal)brownshirts taking him away, his name, address, everything else was made public about as quickly as possible, translation: "Here he is, just try not to make it too messy and attention-getting if you kill him. And all you other people, pay attention! Or else."

Added:

Prosecuting someone because they broke the law is one thing.

Only prosecuting someone who broke the law, after they embarrassed the administration, is gangster government, extortion, and the road to totalitarianism.

and

“Probation is not a law enforcement function, it’s under the court. If his probation officer wanted to question him about the use of a computer, that broke his probation fine. But that wouldn’t include questions about making an anti-Islamic movie. It’s irrelevant. That means that the FBI showed up outside their jurisdiction for a reason given by their superiors. The question then is who ordered them there.”

The memory hole doesn't work as well nowadays

On Wednesday September 12, 2012 blogger Speak With Authority discovered that five days before 9-11, the US State Department sent out a memo announcing no credible security threats against the United States on the anniversary of 9-11.

The Overseas Security Advisory Council, who posted the memo, is part of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security under the U.S. Department of State.
...
But now it’s gone.
The State Department scrubbed the letter from its OSAC website.

The damning memo is gone.
How convenient. They flushed the damning memo down the internet memory hole.
Screen grabs at the link; brings back the warning that "If you find anything interesting/damning/damaging, get a screenshot NOW, before they decide to make it go away."

Tam notes a story

that'll both piss off and terrify some people.