When Dad and I drove through Altamont Pass last year I noticed

all the windmills that weren't turning; turns out it's because the damn things were dead, and nobody bothered to either repair them(and if they were actually making cost-effective energy, why wouldn't they?) or tear them down.  Then there's this:
Altamont's turbines have since 2008 been tethered four months of every year in an effort to protect migrating birds after environmentalists filed suit. According to the Golden Gate Audubon Society, 75 to 110 Golden Eagles, 380 Burrowing Owls, 300 Red-tailed Hawks, and 333 American Kestrels (falcons) are killed by Altamont turbines annually. A July, 2008 study by the Alameda County Community Development Agency points to 10,000 annual bird deaths from Altamont Pass wind turbines. Audubon calls Altamont, "probably the worst site ever chosen for a wind energy project." The same areas that are good for siting wind farms are also good for birds of prey and migrating birds to pass through, shame for the birds that none of the Green mental midgets who care so much about everything in nature, thought that one through when pushing their anti fossil fuel agenda.
Bird cuisinarts, indeed.


Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained records from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) revealing that the agency has spent millions of dollars for the warrantless collection and analysis of Americans’ financial transactions. The documents also reveal that CFPB contractors may be required to share the information with “additional government entities.” The records were obtained pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed on April 24, 2013, following the April 23 Senate Banking Committee testimony of CFPB Director Richard Cordray. The documents uncovered by Judicial Watch include:

• Overlapping contracts with multiple credit reporting agencies and accounting firms to gather, store, and share credit card data as shown in the task list of a contract with Argus Information & Advisory Services LLC worth $2.9 million
 

and on from there; more of the privacy protectin' from The Lightbringer


The question, as always, is 'how will it be enforced if the bastards ignore it?'


Gerry got me started looking, and I found this place and this. 
$45!
Dammit.

Bob has a point about history, and all the threats to 'get somebody white'

if Zimmerman is acquitted:

If you're not familiar, the walking piece of shit dancing is Damien Williams, one of the bastards who beat Reginald Denny into near-death and permanent handicap for the offense of being white.  And for being too nice to do what he should have, which was keep the doors locked and drive.  Over the assholes if need be.

You see, Denny had already been beaten senseless when Williams slammed a chunk of concrete into his head.  That's what the worthless bastard is celebrating.

This is exactly what Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and ever RWBB asshole who created the Martin/Zimmerman circus wants to happen again.

Bob notes that the Dutchman has written about this:
I told my daughters just last week that if they hear that Zimmerman has been acquitted, to get to a predetermined safe place IMMEDIATELY and stay there -- armed. My oldest often works her marketing job in rough parts of various cities, including Birmingham, Atlanta and even Houston. My youngest daughter's apartment is on the fringe of USM in Hattiesburg, butted up against another rough area. The racial divide promoted by the collectivists has become so poisonous that it is easy to see an LA riots outcome happening in this case -- all over the country. In any case, opportunistic criminals of every sort would seize on such a chance to commit their own favorite felony specialties in an atmosphere where the cops disappear and apprehension is highly unlikely.
And where garbage like Sharpton have premeditated an excuse for them to use.

Further on the LA riots from the gentleman at Seraphic Secrets:
Part I; Part II and III.
Update: parts II and III links above now don't work, use this for all three
From near the end:
 “Look how close they are,” says Karen.

“Just past La Cienega. Maybe eight blocks away.”

Karen gives me a long penetrating gaze:

“What do we do if they come here?”

My mind is racing away. The truth is we are defenseless. Unless I get crazy inventive like Dustin Hoffman in Straw Dogs.

“After this is all over,” I vow, “I’m going to buy a pistol.”

Karen says: “How about a shotgun?”
 

You know, it would be bloody wonderful to have a lot of this SWAT nonsense slapped down

because of the 3rd Amendment.
At the time the Third Amendment was ratified, the images and memories of British troops in Boston and other cities were still fresh, and the clashes with colonists that drew the country into war still evoked strong emotions. What we might call the “symbolic Third Amendment” wasn’t just a prohibition on peacetime quartering, but a more robust expression of the threat that standing armies pose to free societies. It represented a long-standing, deeply ingrained resistance to armies patrolling American streets and policing American communities.

And, in that sense, the spirit of the Third Amendment is anything but anachronistic.

And something from further down on the damage this shit is doing:
“They did their thing,” Taylor says. “Everybody on the floor, guns and yelling. Then they put the two kids in the bedroom, did their search, then sent me in to take care of the kids.”

Taylor made her way inside to see them. When she opened the door, the 8-year-old girl assumed a defense posture, putting herself between Taylor and her little brother. She looked at Taylor and said, half fearful, half angry, “What are you going to do to us?”
Taylor was shattered. “Here I come in with all my SWAT gear on, dressed in armor from head to toe, and this little girl looks up at me, and her only thought is to defend her little brother. I thought, ‘How can we be the good guys when we come into the house looking like this, screaming and pointing guns at the people they love? How can we be the good guys when a little girl looks up at me and wants to fight me? And for what? What were we accomplishing with all of this? Absolutely nothing.’ ”

Taylor was later appointed police chief of the small town of Winfield, Mo. Winfield was too small for its own SWAT team, even in the 2000s, but Taylor says she’d have quit before she ever created one. “Good police work has nothing to do with dressing up in black and breaking into houses in the middle of the night. And the mentality changes when they get put on the SWAT team. I remember a guy I was good friends with; it just completely changed him. The us-versus-them mentality takes over. You see that mentality in regular patrol officers too. But it’s much, much worse on the SWAT team. They’re more concerned with the drugs than they are with innocent bystanders. Because when you get into that mentality, there are no innocent people. There’s us and there’s the enemy. Children and dogs are always the easiest casualties.”
And the Constitution, let's not forget that.  Just like that crap from the Met in the previous post, these abuses are 'necessary for public safety'.  No matter how many lives they destroy.

A: Bloomberg & Co. blew it bigtime

Mayors Against Illegal Guns officials apologized for naming dead Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev among the victims of gun violence at the rally. But also named were other criminals killed by police, including California killer Christopher Dorner.

The chief and sheriff wrote, “Additionally, the list your group cited included several hoodlums who attempted to kill police officers. Kurt Myers, suspected of killing four people in New York, was killed after he fired at a tactical team. Anthony James Galla, who was wanted in connection with his alleged involvement in a shooting, was killed in a shootout with police in Pennsylvania. And Esteban J. Smith was killed after engaging in a shootout with authorities that left a sheriff wounded.”

The two officials wrote their letter was meant to express “extreme outrage.”

B: Did you know that, to the hoplophobes and gun bigots, that criminals shot by their victims or by the police ARE 'victims of gun violence'? And that daring to counter-protest at the Bloomberg's Illegal Mayors Blood-Dancing Tour is 'thugs and bullies, anti-semitic slurs', etc.(from the comments)? Just like the supposed racial epithets thrown at black members of Congress for which there's still no video or audio, I suppose.


In the past I had said that Testosterone makes you stupid, and Estrogen makes you crazy. No offense, it's how nature keeps us from becoming extinct. Now it's official: Testosterone gives you Unspecified Mental Degradation and Estrogen gives you unspecified everything else. The only recognized cure for any of this of course will be election or appointment to high political office.
And having your 2nd Amendments rights taken away, don't forget that.


Yeah, there's a reason I call them bird cuisinarts.


Found over at Ace, a surface-to-surface that seems built to take out small craft, like the Iranians like to play with:

Looks to me, from that one section, as if the things work like a Javelin, detonating above the target to get the strike downward.


I'm losing the desire to go on that trip to Britain someday.  Considering my opinions, the bastards are likely to arrest me for thought crimes.
Challenged with these concerns, the Met still refused to go into detail about the unit but told Wired.co.uk that its use of Socmint was necessary "to protect communities."
They can't manage to stop people murdering and mutilating British troops on busy streets, but they're hell on people who say non-PC things about the religion of the murderers.  GREAT way to protect communities, assholes.


Ref the Zimmerman trial and the racists who want him hanged at any cost:
To Samara and the new segregationists, we can’t expect universal behavioral standards like honesty, truthfulness, and courtesy.

Blame race all you want for Rachel Jeantel becoming a punch line. But remember one thing: your excuses sound like why one of the most venomous segregationists in American history defended slavery. I’m not willing to adopt Calhoun and Coleman’s “worlds apart” theory to explain away untruthfulness and rudeness on the stand.

Once upon a time, civil rights were built on the philosophical foundations of the integrationist Charles Sumner. It’s a shame too many modern “civil rights” advocates are channeling the ghost of John C. Calhoun.

Kevin has a new piece up

you should go read.
One bit:
But it's not just the Left. BOTH sides currently in power are threatened by personal liberty. Creative destruction threatens them. The Left calls itself "progressive," but as was noted a while back, they're not - they're the very definition of conservative, because they're trying to conserve their power and privilege. They do that by building a class dependent upon government, a class that will keep reelecting them to ensure their gravy train doesn't stop.  The only thing they want to change is the size of that dependent class to further guarantee their power and privilege.  And the GOP?  They want to conserve their power, too, but they've earned the sobriquet of "the Stupid Party."

Excellent news from West Virginia:

The West Virginia eighth-grader arrested after refusing a teacher's demand he remove a National Rifle Association T-shirt he wore to school won't face criminal charges after all
My first thought is "School, police and prosecutor realize just exactly how effing stupid they look, and didn't like what would be said if they actually tried the kid."

Especially after this idiocy:
And on Monday, the boy was summoned back to court as prosecutors sought to have a gag order imposed on him and his family. They claimed Jared and his father talking to the press about the case was not in the boy's interest, a rationale his own attorney rejected.

"We were here because the prosecution filed a motion for a gag order," White said on Monday. "My opinion is because, seemingly, they want to take it out of the court of public opinion."
Damn right they did.

Followup on the plated bullets in the Carbine report

I tried three loads: a grain below standard and the standard with W296(14.0 and 15.0), and one with 2400(12.0).  As this was mainly a "Do these shoot well for general practice?" tryout, I didn't make sure all cases were the same brand; most were Lake City military, with some Aguila and Federal and Remington mixed in, just as grabbed out of the bag.
I will note that, as suggested by CMP in their M1 Carbine reloading advice, I always measure cases after firing, and when necessary trim them to 1.280" length.

I mentioned my hand trouble before; it not only made handguns nearly impossible to use, it made rifles less than comfortable.  Add to that a so-so rest, and I'm not putting in group measurements; I'll just say that not only did all loads function perfectly, accuracy was right at what I'd expect from standard ball ammo.  I will say that the 2400 load shot very tight; it's going to get further testing.  And it and the 14.0 grain W296 load shot lower than the standard load; next time I can get to the outdoor range I'll not only try them for accuracy at longer range, I'll hopefully be able to get the Chrony set up to check velocity.

I only fired about 25 rounds, so didn't expect the bore to be very dirty, and I was right.  Compared to after firing that number of cast and gas-checked bullets the bore was VERY bright.  Ran a couple of patches wet with the PDB home-brow CLP through, let them sit a few minutes, then a couple of dry patches, and the bore was clean.  Very nice.

So at this point I'd have to say 'Yes' to recommending these bullets.


Other thing I was trying out that day was a brass catcher.  If you're not familiar with the Carbine, it tends to eject both up and forward(at least mine does), with the angle depending on the load, and apparently on how it feels that day.  So a catcher can't just sit on the right like for, say, an AR; oh no, it has to overhang to the left to be fairly sure of keeping the cases from flying out where you either can't retrieve them or have to search through the grass.  So I'd used some electric fence wire I had to make a frame and stuck some netting on it to try.

A: I needed stiffer wire.
B: It needed to be longer.
So today I put this together from a wire clothes hanger:

 This wire is MUCH stiffer, which should help a lot; definitely made it easier to put on.  Right now I've got the two ends held with a wide piece of velcro, with two narrow straps to hold it to the rifle.  Making it longer than the original should help it catch cases better.

And yes, with this on you have to insert a magazine, then reach in with your left hand to charge it..

So, next time I'll see if this works.

Once upon a time English common law was a treasure;

our laws were based on it, because It Was Good.  And now the Brits can't flush that treasure fast enough...
The irony of the situation is rich. Geller and Spencer speak out against the intolerance of Islam. Got that? They speak. They lecture. They write books. Spencer’s written a shelf of them. Geller was behind a campaign to place “defeat jihad” posters in New York subways. One of the reasons they were traveling to the UK was to participate in a commemorative ceremony for Drummer Lee Rigby. Remember him? He was the chap who, last month, was walking down a street in Woolwich when two Muslims ran him down in a car and then stabbed and hacked him to death with knives and a cleaver. Like the Earl of Strafford, their motto was “thorough.” When these partisans of the religion of peace got through with him, he had to be identified by dental records. 

Geller and Spencer are denied entry to the UK. Quoth a government spokesman: individuals whose presence “is not conducive to the public good” may be denied entry by the Home secretary. He explained: “We condemn all those whose behaviours and views run counter to our shared values and will not stand for extremism in any form.” 

That pretty much covers the waterfront, doesn’t it? Disagree with me and I’ll have you named an enemy of the state.
One of the places I've often wanted to visit is Scotland and England; considering some of the things I've said about what they've become, as well as Islamists, I wonder if I'd be under the same ban?
Or maybe I'm not a big enough PITA as yet.


Well, of progressive idiots see conservatives as the REAL threat, why would they have a problem with the Muslim Brotherhood?
While that may be expected, more troubling is that the U.S. ambassador to Egypt is also trying to prevent Egyptians from protesting—including the Copts. The June 18 edition of Sadi al-Balad reports that lawyer Ramses Naggar, the Coptic Church's legal counsel, said that during Patterson's June 17 meeting with Pope Tawadros, she "asked him to urge the Copts not to participate" in the demonstrations against Morsi and the Brotherhood.

The Pope politely informed her that his spiritual authority over the Copts does not extend to political matters.


The kind of idiocy that passes as 'sensible gun safety measures' to the gun bigots and hoplophobes:
That abominable insult (introduced and sponsored by Councilors Patti Bushee, Ron Trujillo and Mayor David Cross, and voted for by Bushee and Chris Calvert) would “make people take a photo of any magazines they currently own, get it notarized with date and time to show that the magazines were purchased before the ban, and then have folks carry the photos around.”

An interesting piece on arms and self-defense

Found this linked at The High Road.  I'm partway through it, will have to finish it later; did want to put up this quote which touches on something we've yelled about before:

This position seeps down through the “sub-political” issues of self-defense and personal responsibility. Not-really-pacifist “pacifist” liberals, I find, often get wrapped up in a recurring ideological process of shedding and assigning guilt.  I wouldn’t touch a gun. I’ll just call my paid servant the policeman to come and shoot my assailant for me.  My hands stay clean of gunshot residue and other stains; he wields the horrid gun and the moral responsibility, and quandary, of using deadly force – which I’ll endlessly analyze with my colleagues over dinner.  And if it really was my ass that was saved, we’ll all congratulate ourselves for maintaining our “pacifist” guiltlessness, while romanticizing the guy who did the dirty work for us. Katherine Bigelow speaks for many, who actually think there is some kind of extra moral virtue in this way of living in the world.  I find a more cogent description in the Sartrian term “bad faith.” 

For myself, since I neither am nor pretend to be a pacifist, if I were in some mortal danger that called for the self-defensive use of deadly force, I would rather take on myself the responsibility for using that force – moral quandary, dirty hands and all – than shift it onto someone from a quasi-professional caste created to be my absolving wet workers. 

That last bold is mine, and I think it's a very important thing.  I've yet to meet anyone- including self-declared pacifists- who, under threat, would NOT call the cops to come save them.  Guns, nightsticks and all.  And they feel very moral about not dirtying themselves with violence and weapons.

 

Which is one reason I so dislike so many who call themselves 'pacifists'.

 

The Brit National Health Service? That we're going to LOVE

according to Obama's people?
Nearly 1,200 people have starved to death in NHS hospitals because 'nurses are too busy to feed patients' 
For every patient who dies from malnutrition, four more have dehydration mentioned on their death certificate 
 In 2011, 43 patients starved to death and 291 died in a state of severe malnutrition Department of Health branded the figures 'unacceptable' and said the number of unannounced inspections will increase
Yeah, THAT'S going to fix it.


Yeah, WE can't be trusted to have guns...
The U.S. Park Police has lost track of thousands of handguns, rifles and machine guns in what a government watchdog agency concluded is the latest example of mismanagement on a police force trusted to protect millions of visitors to the city’s iconic monuments.
...
In the latest report, investigators tried to examine allegations that the Park Police could not account for a cache of military-style rifles, that inventories were incomplete and that some guns had been taken by officers for personal use. But the task was difficult, according to the report, because staff from the chief down to officers “had no clear idea of how many weapons they maintained due to incomplete and poorly managed inventory controls.”
They want YOU to go to jail if you don't report a missing/stolen gun fast enough...
Park Police guns turned up in odd places. In 2011, former police chief Robert Langston, who retired in 2001, showed up at a firearms qualification course for former law enforcement officers, according to the report.  Running the course was a former Park Police officer who had been a member of the department’s special weapons and tactics team. He also was an inspector general in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The official noticed that Langston’s handgun belonged to the Park Police, the report said. He seized the weapon and returned it to the agency. Current Park Police officials could not explain how the former chief kept his gun, which was “unaccounted for on inventories that followed his retirement,” according to the report.


Speaking of LE and firearms,
RCMP revealed Thursday that officers have seized a “substantial amount” of firearms from homes in the evacuated town of High River.

“We just want to make sure that all of those things are in a spot that we control, simply because of what they are,” said Sgt. Brian Topham.
And how did they seize them?
He did confirm that officer relied on forced entry to get into numerous houses during the early stages of the flood because of an “urgent need”, said Topham.
"It was an emergency!  We HAD to violate their home and take their property!"
Police are no longer forcing themselves into homes and the residences that were forced open will be secured, he said.
WILL be.  Yeah.  And just like it came to in New Orleans,
The guns will be returned to owners after residents are allowed back in town and they provide proof of ownership, Topham added.
And if it's something inherited and you don't have a friggin' receipt, well, "You're out of luck." I'm sure.


Stolen from the High Road: "Heidi Yewman purchases bullets.  Gives up!"

Besides the general "You've got no damned business with this information" aspect, this fails the Jews in the Attic test.
The results shocked him.

The paperback-size device, installed on the outside of police cars, can log thousands of license plates in an eight-hour patrol shift. Katz-Lacabe said it had photographed his two cars on 112 occasions, including one image from 2009 that shows him and his daughters stepping out of his Toyota Prius in their driveway.

That photograph, Katz-Lacabe said, made him “frightened and concerned about the magnitude of police surveillance and data collection.” The single patrol car in San Leandro equipped with a plate reader had logged his car once a week on average, photographing his license plate and documenting the time and location.

At a rapid pace, and mostly hidden from the public, police agencies throughout California have been collecting millions of records on drivers and feeding them to intelligence fusion centers operated by local, state and federal law enforcement.
"Oh, it's much more efficient at finding stolen cars!"  That's nice; so why the hell are you keeping records of cars that AREN'T stolen?  Where they've been and so forth?


If you haven't been following the Zimmerman trial, I'd suggest going to Legal Insurrection and just starting down the page.  Which will include this from today:

#Zimmerman Trial Day 5: Good: Up on sidewalk is when straddle position and arm movements coming downwards. http://t.co/Aarq3FMHVA
— Andrew Branca, LOSD (@LawSelfDefense) June 28, 2013

#Zimmerman Trial Day 5: Good: "Ground-and-pound" first thing that came tomy mind. http://t.co/Aarq3FMHVA
— Andrew Branca, LOSD (@LawSelfDefense) June 28, 2013

#Zimmerman Trial Day 5: Good's testimony on cross is TOTALLY as recounted b y Zimmerman http://t.co/Aarq3FMHVA
— Andrew Branca, LOSD (@LawSelfDefense) June 28, 2013

O'Mara: #Trayvon was raining down blows on #Zimmerman? "That's what it looked like."
— Rene Stutzman (@renestutzman) June 28, 2013

John Good: darker-skinned person was doing "ground & pound" on fella on bottom. #Trayvon, #Zimmerman
— Rene Stutzman (@renestutzman) June 28, 2013

O'Mara: #Trayvon was raining down blows on #Zimmerman? "That's what it looked like."
— Rene Stutzman (@renestutzman) June 28, 2013

JGood: Cries for help seemed to come from man on bottom, who was #Zimmerman, #Trayvon
— Rene Stutzman (@renestutzman) June 28, 2013

O'Mara: You described position as MMA-style "ground and pound?" Good: "That's what it looked like, yes." #GeorgeZimmerman #TrayvonMartin

 Add up all the lies from the media, and the lies and lawbreaking by the prosecutors, there really are people who belong in jail over this; Zimmerman just isn't one of them.

Someday Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and every other RWPP* asshole

is going to be held responsible for the trouble they cause; unfortunately, it won't do the victims much good.

This was a local case, investigated by the police, cleared by the prosecutor, until those shitheads saw it as a prime chance to create a race mess; and if somebody winds up dead or crippled, or homes burned, they'll deny any responsibility for what they caused.


*Race Warlord Poverty Pimp, a fine term stolen from Denny

Because we're OBVIOUSLY more dangerous than "Kill the Jews and infidels!" types;

after all, we commit all those 'carry the flag and tell the .gov to piss off' rallies, MUCH more dangerous than people planting bombs at a marathon.


However, al Chalabi was released June 12 based on claims that there was a lack of evidence to hold him custody.

A U.S. official said the U.S. government has evidence al Chalabi was linked to the Benghazi attack but did not provide that information to the Libyan government. It could not be learned why the evidence was not used to hold the suspect.


But don't pay attention to this, Bloody-Hands Cummings & Co. say so.
Though the IRS’s now infamous “lookout list” did contain the word “progressive,” screeners were instructed to treat progressive organizations differently from tea-party groups. Whereas they were merely alerted that a designation of 501(c)(3) status “may not be appropriate” for progressive groups, line agents were told to send tea-party applications off to IRS higher-ups, who coordinated their processing with lawyers in Washington, D.C. Beyond that, according to Roskam, there is “no substantive demonstration from any liberal group that they were targeted adversely.”

Ah, the wonders of Obamacare, that the PROM

wants a waiver.


Well, he's not connected to conservatives, libertarians or Republicans, so I guess they thought all was well:
Radical Egyptian cleric Yusuf Qaradawi is considered so radical that the United States bans him from entering the country. 
Qaradawi, considered the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, has called for the killing of Jews and Americans. 
That history makes the June 13 White House meeting with Sheik Abdullah Bin Bayyah all the more inexplicable. Bin Bayyah is vice president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), a group founded by and headed by Qaradawi. The IUMS has a long history of supporting Hamas –a top Hamas leader is an IUMS member – and of calling for Israel’s destruction.


Maybe Obama wants a database on everyone that's more under his control?


More on the IRS and their 'we screwed leftist groups too!' defense.

Operation Baen Bulk

This year, we are working on raising $2500 – $5,000 to purchase, load and send 10-20 Kindle eBook readers each to Military Treatment Facilities at Camp LeJeune and Ft. Bragg – and other base MTFs if we can.  We have also heard from soldiers that although the majority of patients are male, donated reading material all too often consists of magazines and “romance” books.  Thus we are working with our friends at Baen Books to pre-load the readers with over 100 titles – primarily “hard” science fiction and military adventure fiction by authors such as Ringo, Williamson, Drake, Weber, Kratman, Correia, and many more.  We feel that the selection of fiction on the eBook readers will appeal to soldiers who have seen combat (more so than society magazines and romances!) and will remind “our guys” that we will always remember and honor their service.

Full information at Correia's place.

Want

Sharp object, potentially quite shiny and useful.  With a fine pedigree.

So, we have the choice of the EffingBI Director either being mistaken, or lying...
Way things are, I know which way I'm leaning.


Further reason the IRS should be either done away with, or chopped by at least 2/3s and fitted with a very tight choke collar.
The Committee learned of allegations concerning a series of contracts, potentially worth more than $500 million, awarded by the IRS to Strong Castle. Witnesses who contacted the Committee alleged that Strong Castle engaged in fraud to win those IRS contracts. Documents and testimony obtained by the Committee showed that a cozy relationship between Strong Castle President and Chief Executive Officer Braulio Castillo and IRS Deputy Director for IT Acquisition Greg Roseman may have influenced the selection process.

Just like one of the other bigshots, he's taken the 5th, too.



Czech gun culture
And I've lost track of where I found the link; whoever it was, thank you


"Know your place, you peasant gun-nut!"


"I used to have a badge, so this law shouldn't apply to me!"
Golden, you're an idiot.  You've just told honest citizens that they're second-class citizens, and you expect them to be happy with that?

"But we can't freak the same way! because Obama!"

7 Things Democrats Would Have Freaked Out About If Bush Had Done Them
The list includes 

Actually, the death tolls in Afghanistan under each administration look like this:

But- but-- this kind of thing doesn't HAPPEN in Europe!

All the gun control people tell us so!
German police say they have arrested a 57-year-old trucker whom they accuse of carrying out 762 shootings on European highways over the past five years.

Well, if my job depended on public opinion of me, and I'd been acting like

 giant, abusive, power-hungry asshats, I might want to keep people quiet, too.


Speaking of abusive, corrupt asshats, the prosecutors in the Zimmerman case stand out.
The murder case against half-Latino neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman was dealt a devastating blow Tuesday, when prosecutors acknowledged that their star witness, the 19-year old former girlfriend of the late Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, lied under oath.
The woman, who also told police she was on the phone with Martin shortly before his death, falsely testified that she was in the hospital on the day of Martin’s funeral — perhaps to garner sympathy.
“In fact, she lied,” defense attorney Don West said. Prosecutors also acknowledged her lie, but were reportedly vague about whether they would charge the woman with perjury.
Considering their own actions, maybe they see her as a fellow abuser of the truth who should be protected?

Some of the background on why a number of the prosecution team ought to be disbarred, and probably in jail, here.

Behold the power of

BACON!

Why are progressives such racist bastards?

His initial response when called on this shit?

Really?  Two responses from me:
A: You expect anyone to BELIEVE that?
B: If you didn't think it was insulting and racial, then why the hell did you write it that way?

Whole story here

Miserable, lying little skank.

Drink warning in effect

Because laws and ethics only apply to His Majesty Bloomberg

when he wants them to.
In Nevada, Bloomberg set to influence a background check bill by registering and paying 13 lobbyists. As you can see here, they were lobbying on behalf of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns Action Fund. This is the 501(c)(4) entity, not the 501(c)(3) one according to Press Secretary La Vorgna. 

One of the paid lobbyists registered in Nevada was Christopher Kocher, who is (according to his LinkedIn profile), Director of Outreach and Special Counsel at Office of the Mayor of New York City. 

It appears as if Bloomberg is paying an employee of the city (Special Counsel, no less) to lobby on behalf of his 501(c)(4) from that action fund, which last week was claimed to be entirely separate from the 501(c)(3) which was using the city's servers.

More here.


Gee, I wonder how much they'd be paying in bonuses(they're not supposed to be paying) if not for that evil sequester?


"Hey, the IRS went after lefty groups too!"  Except they didn't.


I shall now see if pushing a mower annoys my hand; Jennifer will have to put that look away for now.

Short test report on the plated .30-cal bullets:

They work.
Slightly longer: I seem to have screwed up my right hand somehow during the concrete work.  Add that to trying out a brass catcher I'd cobbled together for the Carbine and a so-so rest, I'll leave it at 'no function problems and standard accuracy' for now.  More details later.

Well, I'm probably on a list somewhere already, so

here's some lawyerly advice on protecting yourself from the EffingBI.  Which brings a whole new light onto that 'lying to a federal agent' crap:

And, if you've never seen it, a lawyer saying "NEVER talk to the police without a lawyer" and why
If you watch it all the way through, the second speaker is a police officer.  Who agrees.

Well, it does sound like something Biden would come up with...

“We have been plagued by a recent rash of imaginary gun incidents in our nation’s schools,” said Biden spokesman Aldous Orwell. “Children live in terror because of rampant imagination.”

Step One of the program would entail registration of imaginary weapons in a National Imaginary Terror Weapon Information Tracking System (NITWITS).

It appears Colorado State Senate President Morse is an even bigger dirtbag-

and more worried- than we'd thought.
Apparently, Morse’s DC tactics are at it again. Many people who signed the petition are being called and being pressured to recant their signature on the petition. We are asking folks to let us know if you feel intimidated by these calls or are being overtly coerced in any way.

Go to gotremorse.com and click on Contact Us to report if you feel unduly pressured or intimidated by their calls.


The decision to keep U.S. personnel in Benghazi with substandard security was made at the highest levels of the State Department by officials who have so far escaped blame over the Sept. 11 attack, according to a review of recent congressional testimony and internal State Department memos by Fox News.

Nine months before the assault that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others, State Department Under Secretary Patrick Kennedy signed off on an internal memo that green-lighted the Benghazi operation.
But Hillary Clinton knew nothing about it.  Right.


Something on our professional journalists and their worship(not even virtual) of Obama.

Finding out about things like this,

and how much the system will do to avoid owning up to it, is what really started me on distrusting the .gov. 
It's also a big part of why I started referring to that agency as the EffingBI.
The feds knew that these two men murdered Deegan. In fact, the FBI had bugged Patriarca’s home in Providence, R.I., and documented on tape a conversation in which Barboza asked for and received permission to whack Deegan. But the FBI did not want to lose their highly prized, top-echelon informants. What they did next would alter the trajectory of criminal justice in the region for a generation. The FBI and prosecutors had Barboza take the stand and tell a fabricated version of the murder that would lead to the conviction of two innocent men, Peter Limone and Joe Salvati. After being declared guilty, Limone and Salvati were sentenced to death row.

The framing of innocent citizens in a capital-murder case by withholding evidence and suborning perjury—all to protect notorious criminals who were government informants—became the dirty secret of federal law enforcement in New England. In the years that followed, the convictions of Limone and Salvati would be challenged in various local jurisdictions but the government always fought back. It is difficult to know how many agents, assistant U.S. attorneys, district attorneys, and cops were in on the conspiracy. Prosecutors understood that they were to do everything within their power to preserve the convictions and ensure that no further examinations of the evidence would ever take place in court. Virtually the entire system became part of an effort to safeguard the false conviction so that criminals, protected by the government, could remain free.
"We have to protect our informants, so don't worry about a couple of innocent men dying in prison."

The level of disgust I have for these people is indescribable.

Well, Bloomberg thinks the law only applies to him

and his causes when he wishes it to, so no big surprise he'd use city facilities/people/money for his own purposes.
And note that, much like Gunwalker, this was brought up by a blogger.


I think a lot of clowns in DC consider this a good thing: combine nobody being able to live without breaking SOME law they don't even know about with the NSA and EffingBI nosing through everyones' e-mails and phone calls, they can always find something to charge ANYONE with.


Kind of a joke with daughter a few years back: "It can't be harmful, it's natural!"
"So is cyanide."
A pretty good piece taking that much more in-depth on the subject of "Oh, the horrors, manmade additives!" and such.


Some information on stopping power.  Short version: all handgun rounds pretty much suck, and rifles and shotguns aren't always that great, either.


There was some outrage a few days back that some prosecution 'experts' weren't allowed to testify in the Zimmerman trial about the yelling on the recordings.  If you've followed this mess, you know why; if you haven't, well, it's because said experts are full of shit.


What, you expect politicians and bureaucrats to cut actual fat and waste when they can screw people over in the name of playing their power games?

First, it appears Ms. doesn't handle dissent from the preferred line well (updated)

Second, people actually discussing and criticizing their article instead of handing out praise troubles them greatly.
Third, according to this clown Nocera at the NYEffingTimes, it's all the NRA behind it, and we're all bullies and censors.
...But, Kort went on to say, the comments Ms. Magazine had received were almost entirely from pro-gun advocates, and she and the small staff at Ms. were overwhelmed. Instead of leading to a high-minded debate about guns, her blog post had instead attracted insults and vituperation, and a clearly stated desire for “payback.” Other gun blogs had picked up Yewman’s post to mock it or insult it, with many commenters suggesting that the police in her hometown be called about what she was doing. Inevitably, somebody discovered—and posted—Yewman’s address.

What was Kort’s solution to this dilemma? Incredibly, it was to kill the rest of Yewman’s series. “I don’t think I should post the next two installments of this—they’ll only fire up the troops again, and we’re just not equipped to handle this on our blog,” Kort wrote. When I reached out to Kort, suggesting that Ms. had allowed itself to be censored by Second Amendment absolutists, she would not respond on the record. Suffice it to say that Ms. disagrees with this assessment. But I don’t see how you could view it in any other way. Ms. published something the N.R.A.-types didn’t like; they responded by bullying Ms. online, and Ms. folded.
Let's note some things here:
Reasoned Discourse^tm was in full effect: comments that didn't meet what Ms. wanted to see were mostly disappearing into the 'awaiting approval' black hole.
They were surprised that there was criticism and discussion?  Really?
I’ve been super careful NOT to approve any comments that mentioned where you might live.  And yet there her address appeared... made a good excuse to kill the series, didn't it?
Instead of leading to a high-minded debate about guns, her blog post had instead attracted insults and vituperation, and a clearly stated desire for “payback.”  So they say; about comments that nobody got to see, etc.  To me anymore, this falls under the same heading as politicians crying about 'death threats from gun activists': "Let's see them.  And if someone actually threatened you, turn that over to the police.  Have you?"

Very short version: Ms. and Yewman assumed either that they would receive primarily praise and ass-kissing for this series and were shocked when it didn't happen,  or hoped that any criticism would be small in quantity and all of a "look at the hating neanderthals' type.  When neither happened, they couldn't/wouldn't handle it.


From Sebastian:
This is straight from the anti-gun playbook: censor dissenting viewpoints and shut down debate, then claim to be doing it because people who have a pro-Second Amendment viewpoint are nasty brutes who just want to bully and intimidate everyone. That has not been my, or anyone else’s experience anywhere else on the Internet where dialog is not moderated and people are relatively free to have open discussion. Yes, some people on the Internet are poster children for the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. This is not news to anyone, and while I support “Ms.” magazine’s editorial discretion, I think bowing out of this is cowardly, and shows they are not committed to having any kind of real discussion on a serious topic.

To those who informed me, with great upset,

that "You don't care if the planet dies!" because of my skepticism of AGW and the warmenist scaremongering, I will now quote from the eminent engineer Wolowitz:

                                             "Suck it!"

“There are two conceivable explanations — and neither is very pleasant for us,” said Storch. “The first possibility is that less global warming is occurring than expected because greenhouse gases, especially CO2, have less of an effect than we have assumed. This wouldn’t mean that there is no man-made greenhouse effect, but simply that our effect on climate events is not as great as we have believed.”

“The other possibility is that, in our simulations, we have underestimated how much the climate fluctuates owing to natural causes,” Storch added.
Translation: "Our models suck, and we're full of crap."
“Certainly the greatest mistake of climate researchers has been giving the impression that they are declaring the definitive truth,” said Storch. “The end result is foolishness along the lines of the climate protection brochures recently published by Germany’s Federal Environmental Agency under the title ‘Sie erwärmt sich doch’ (‘The Earth is getting warmer’). Pamphlets like that aren’t going to convince any skeptics.”
No shit?

I'm going to cut to near the end, because this is exactly the kind of crap that's led to the current situation:
However, Storch said that he still believed in global warming and that earth’s temperatures would continue to rise.
"Screw that the models haven't worked, and our threats are crap!  I BELIEVE!"
“Yes, we are certainly going to see an increase of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) or more — and by the end of this century, mind you,” he said. “That’s what my instinct tells me, since I don’t know exactly how emission levels will develop.”

“Whether it ends up being one, two or three degrees, the exact figure is ultimately not the important thing,” Storch added. “Quite apart from our climate simulations, there is a general societal consensus that we should be more conservative with fossil fuels."
Ta-daaa!  "The facts don't really matter, whether it actually warms AT ALL, the important thing is getting rid of fossil fuels."

I will now accept apologies from the jerks who've informed me I have no concern for facts and 'scientific consensus'*, and no care for Mother Earth.


*Be it said, 'scientific consensus' is bullshit; but they meant I don't have concern for it in a bad way.

I will now note

that getting old sucks.  On multiple levels.

The one currently causing me to sit here typing instead of doing something else is that, after four days with mixing and molding concrete being the primary activity*, and only my usual 'normal' amount of sleep, I feel halfway like someone beat on me with sticks during the night.  Sore I could handle; this is beat.  As in 'eyes want to close, hands and back ache, tired-all-over' beat.  I do not recover from heavy work like I used to.


Since I'm on a roll here, I'll throw in women.  I very much enjoy the company of ladies, but the same time that's given me a lot more knowledge of how to interpret them has also given me a decided lack of patience with bullshit.  Which really interferes with things, because so many women seem to take it that they have some privilege to screw with men and suffer no consequences.  And get all butthurt when there ARE consequences.

Personal bitch on that subject: If you don't want to go out with someone, SAY SO.  Do not say "Yes" and then refuse to answer the phone.  If you have gone out, and don't want to again, the effort of saying "No, I don't think so" to a request for another is much preferable to- again- not answering the damn phone.
And if you play this game, do not expect the guy to be all smiles and forgiveness if you run into him; you decided lies and rudeness was better than honesty, so piss off.


Enough of that.  Nothing to do with age, except I may wear out before I find one, the hunt is still on for a K-32 I can afford and use.
I use that combination because you CAN find them; new-in-box, LNIB, and costing appropriately.  However, one that's got some wear that you won't mind taking to the range seems to be in the same realm of findability as unicorns not hostile to non-virgins. 


I have found that prices have reversed: a good dial caliper now costs a damn sight more than a good digital.


If you've got some time to pass, and don't mind some NSFW posts, and don't mind that reading some of his stuff will probably put you on the same list as Sipsey Street readers, go over to Wirecutter's place and browse around.
Speaking of Sipsey, he pointed to this, which would already have resulted in people getting their ass kicked if there were any justice:
As I've been reporting in a series of columns and blog posts over the past year, the Taliban waged an intricately coordinated, brutal attack on Camp Bastion in Afghanistan last fall -- three days after the deadly siege on our consulate in Libya and after months of prior security incidents and warnings. Fifteen jihadists disguised in stolen American combat fatigues penetrated the complex. They used rocket-propelled grenades, assault rifles and other weapons to wipe out nearly an entire squadron of Marine Harrier jets worth an estimated $200 million.

Along with the most devastating loss of U.S. airpower since Vietnam, two heroic U.S. Marines -- Lt. Col. Christopher Raible and Sgt. Bradley Atwell -- were killed in the battle, and nearly a dozen others were injured. Military officials refused to release details of the fateful budget and strategy decisions that led to the attack. But Deborah Hatheway, aunt of Sgt. Atwell and the family's spokesperson, and other Camp Bastion families learned on their own that their loved ones were left vulnerable to attack by military leaders who outsourced watchtower security on the base to soldiers from Tonga.
The neglect of security at Bastion was widely known. Nick Francona, a former Marine Corps Ground Intelligence Officer with 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, who served as a Scout Sniper Platoon Commander in Helmand Province in 2011, recounted on Foreign Policy magazine's The Best Defense blog in April: "It was obvious to even a casual observer that many of the posts were unmanned and were comically left with a 'green Ivan' silhouette target as a halfhearted attempt at deterrence."

Francona added: "The attack only occurred because of an egregious failure in basic infantry practices. ... It is painfully obvious that this attack would not have been successful, or likely even attempted, if not for multiple security failures at Leatherneck/Bastion."


CO Senate President John Morse: one more ratbag hypocrite politician.
Then:
I intend to fight this – we cannot allow outside interest groups to determine what is best for Colorado.

Now:

Meanwhile, Mr. Morse, a Colorado Springs Democrat, released a statement Monday on his Facebook page asking for out-of-state help from those in traditionally liberal cities to help fight the recall effort.
“We can get phone lists to you and things like that and have you help from Boston, Massachusetts, or San Francisco, California,” said Mr. Morse in a video message. “So thanks for all that you’ve done and thanks for all that you’re going to do as we move forward to take on this tiger.”

Earlier, he expressed his fervent hope that fellow rabid forcible citizen disarmament advocate NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg would come to his rescue with a nice fat infusion of Bloomberg Bucks.

And that's it for now.  If I don't get out of this chair I'm going to fall over.


*Five bags one day, next day help a friend with stuff, five bags each the next two days

A bullet experiment

in the works.  Was at H&H the other day and they'd received two pallets of various X-Treme plated bullets.  I picked up a box of the 110-grain roundnose for .30 Carbine to try out, and have some loaded.  So next time can hit the range, I'll see how they work.

I've used a lot of their handgun bullets, but never any rifle.  Hoping these work as well as the others.

My, my

A handful of aviation experts, including a number of investigators who were part of the original probe of TWA Flight 800, have come forward in a new documentary to say evidence points to a missile as the cause of the crash off the coast of Long Island 17 years ago.


Does this count as more Hope! or more Change!! ?
Given all of that, it will come as little surprise to read a piece by reporters Marisa Taylor and Jonathan Landay of McClatchy's Washington Bureau, in which they reveal that the White House has a special attack program to deal with whistleblowers called Insider Threat Program (ITP). And, no, contrary to what the administration has claimed, it's not just about "national security" issues. It goes way beyond that:

President Barack Obama’s unprecedented initiative, known as the Insider Threat Program, is sweeping in its reach. It has received scant public attention even though it extends beyond the U.S. national security bureaucracies to most federal departments and agencies nationwide, including the Peace Corps, the Social Security Administration and the Education and Agriculture departments.

The decision to keep U.S. personnel in Benghazi with substandard security was made at the highest levels of the State Department by officials who have so far escaped blame over the Sept. 11 attack, according to a review of recent congressional testimony and internal State Department memos by Fox News.
Chances of the people responsible actually being HELD responsible?  Damn near zero, I imagine.


Attn. Gutierrez:
Fuck you.  We don't want your amnesty bill.
You're just pissed because too many Republicans won't roll over for you.


GOC pointed to this on that fat, racist clown Karen Lewis.

If this pans out for widespread use, 'miracle'

would be a good word for it.
Genetically modify the HIV virus, use it to infect T-cells and cause them to specifically attack cancer cells.

And if the people who put this together don't share the Nobel, then the committee needs its collective ass kicked up between its shoulder blades.


Right now, I'd kind of like to go to Sean Cumming's and have a pint of Harp; whoever, parts of my body would rather sit here.  Here's the 15-bags-of-concrete-and-a-mold-reason:

The earliest section(first shot) is the lightest-colored, the second(next day) a bit darker, and today the darkest.By tomorrow I should be able to walk on the last section(the dogs have proven that just a few hours let it set enough to be paw-proof).

If you'll excuse me, I think it's time for another dose of naproxyn.

Reasons to drink whiskey (link fixed)

Most good; but 8 & 10 are enough to put you off your feed.
(link fixed)

What the hell is it with 'procedure' and shooting dogs?
And why is 'We followed procedure' supposed to be a fixes-all-mistakes answer?


And I wonder if the department will actually do anything about this clown, or will he get discipline="Don't do it again."?

The Greatest Cartridge EVEH!!

Take your pick: .45acp, 9mm, and for rifles .223.

"We've stopped LOTS of terror attacks with our violations of the Constitution

(in our dreams)!"
In a way it wouldn't seem as bad, if these bastards didn't lie about EVERYTHING...


Sen. Tester and Murphy: I wonder if that oath about the Constitution every meant anything to them, or if they just slowly gave up on it?


Y'know, it seems like it's always places that really don't like the commoners having arms that have this tendency to lie so much about crime rates.


"Your information is safe and private(except for all our loopholes you don't need to know about)!"

If people are afraid to talk to AP,

then the bastards got exactly what they were after.


This guy will not be getting an invite to the White House anytime soon.
JFK had a clear message when he came to Berlin a half century ago – the free world must stand up to Communist tyranny. 24 years later, President Reagan stood in the same spot famously calling on the Soviets to “tear down this wall.” Reagan’s speech was a seminal moment that ushered in the downfall of an evil empire, and gave hope to tens of millions of people behind the Iron Curtain. It was a display of strength and conviction by the leader of the free world, sending an unequivocal message of solidarity with those who were fighting for freedom in the face of a monstrous totalitarian ideology.

In stark contrast to that of his presidential predecessors, Barack Obama’s message on Wednesday was pure mush, another clichéd “citizens of the world” polemic with little substance. This was a speech big on platitudes and hopeless idealism, while containing much that was counter-productive for the world’s superpower. Ultimately it was little more than a laundry list of Obama’s favourite liberal pet causes, including cutting nuclear weapons, warning about climate change, putting an end to all wars, shutting Guantanamo, ending global poverty, and backing the European Project. It was a combination of staggering naiveté, the appeasement of America’s enemies and strategic adversaries, and the championing of more big government solutions.

The Leander Texas PD needs to be cleaned out

I want you to savor the full stupidity of two parts of this:
The warrant was for a man named Bradly Neal Simpson, who is wanted for an expired vehicle registration.
Really?  You sent out officers to arrest someone FOR AN EXPIRED TAG?
The address on the warrant is in Cedar Park, not Liberty Hill where the Simmons have lived for nine years. However, Leander Police say their database shows Simpson’s last known address as the same one where the Simmons live.
And of COURSE that excuses GOING TO THE WRONG EFFING TOWN to serve the warrant?  Really?

And to really put the cherry on the parfait,
The Simmons say not only was it a close call for their dog, Vinny, but it was also a close call for their 6-year old terminally ill grandchild playing just around the corner.
To sum up: they go not just to the wrong address, but to the WRONG TOWN(and wouldn't that open them up to a really nasty lawsuit?), shoot a dog that's not actually a threat, and put a kid in danger...

Lawdog, you need to give these people lessons in "Brain: Use Of".

When this politician sells out, he sells out all the way

So what is the first message he posted as it appeared the Secretary of State would approve enough signatures for his recall?

Meanwhile, Mr. Morse, a Colorado Springs Democrat, released a statement Monday on his Facebook page asking for out-of-state help from those in traditionally liberal cities to help fight the recall effort. “We can get phone lists to you and things like that and have you help from Boston, Massachusetts, or San Francisco, California,” said Mr. Morse in a video message.

Guess he took all that money from Bloomberg seriously: "The peasants are revolting!  I need help from you in other states!"

I have to say that Chris Christie would be the final straw...

I have been as pragmatic as anyone on wading through this political cesspool...sucked it up for McCain...sucked it up for Romney...but I will be damned if I'll cast a vote for an antigun floating...well, whatever it is that floats in cesspools...like Chris Christie. I'll stay home. Well, I'll vote in the other races, but if the Republicans put up a violently antigun candidate like Christie and expect the gun vote to turn out to bail their asses out yet again, they'll get the oblivion they so richly deserve.


Whyever would anyone have any problem with the EffingBI investigating and almost always clearing itself?[/sarcasm]


When 'harassment' translates to "We want to punish you for not kissing our ass."


Another view on drama queen Heidi Yewman:
The drama is exhausting and breathtaking.  But the thing that really worries me isn’t that she has a gun.  It’s that bimbos like this can purchase an SUV the size and weight of my Ford F150 and drive it down the road with screaming kids in the back whilst jabbering on the cell phone attached to her ear, after qualifying with a driving test that a monkey could be trained to take.

Makes you stop and ponder, no?  It’s one reason I drive so defensively on the road nowadays.


Only a matter of time: motorcycle helmets with HUD.


Well, that terrorist was shot by guns(used by law enforcement officers, but nevermindthat), so by Bloomberg's 'reasoning' that WOULD make him a gun-violence victim!

"Because we assume we can get away with it,

that's why."
With a growing number of reports from law-abiding pilots stopped by armed federal agents on the ramp, their aircraft searched by federal agents, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection remains silent, and outrage is building.


What kind of morons are running schools in the Fascist State of New Jersey?
This kind.
After a 12-year-old hearing-impaired girl was threatened with suspension from school for using sign language on the bus, a New Jersey school district has reversed its position.


But WE can't be trusted to own guns....
Special agents at the IRS accidentally shot their firearms 11 times between 2009 and 2011, and at least three of the cases “may have resulted in property damage or personal injury.”
Agents actually fired their guns accidently more often than they intentionally fired them in the field, according to an audit by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).


All this viciousness was in the service of denying that there is, as we wrote in yesterday's article, a "war on men." Well, imagine if a prominent feminist journalist wrote about the "war on women" and dozens of conservative male writers responded by subjecting her to similar verbal abuse. Would that not be prima facie evidence that she was on to something? If the answer is yes--and we'd say it is--then either the same is true in our case or the sexes aren't equal. (Select one or both of the above.)

We can take the abuse. In fact, in this instance we delight in it, not only because we see the humor but because it proves us right.


And now, I'm off to see if I can complete another section of walk without either my arms falling off or my back taking a vacation.

Five years President, and he still says 'Bush!'

At the least, Bush wasn't talking about giving Saddam weapons, was he?

And, from some of the people he thinks we should give arms to(and seems willing to put US troops on the line for),
Syrian rebels beheaded a Christian man and fed his body to dogs, according to a nun who says the West is ignoring atrocities committed by Islamic extremists.

The nun said taxi driver Andrei Arbashe, 38, was kidnapped after his brother was heard complaining that fighters against the ruling regime behaved like bandits.

She said his headless corpse was found by the side of the road, surrounded by hungry dogs. He had recently married and was soon to be a father.


Rubio, you can forevermore kiss my ass, you backstabbing little shit.


I do not really have the words for this betrayal.
US drops demand Taliban renounce al-Qaeda to allow talks to progress 

America will engage in its first formal direct talks with the Taliban on Thursday, after dropping its long-standing demand that the movement renounce ties with al-Qaeda in order for them to progress. 
...
Just hours after the agreement was announced, four American soldiers were killed by insurgents during an attack on Bagram Air Base. There were very few details of the attack, but a US official said the soldiers were killed by "indirect fire", possibly rockets or mortars.


Ah, but he's Obama!, so that stuff doesn't apply to him.


Nanny Bloomberg's latest "This is how you will live" directive.

That post in Ms. magazine?

More full of crap than we already knew.  Not only is Ms. engaging in Reasoned Discourse^tm, but “According to this bio, Yewman lives in Washington State. But Ms. Yewman’s experience obtaining a concealed carry permit do not exactly match the regulations in Washington State."  And it goes from there.

So: bad editing, bad writing, or lying?


(Yeah, the previous was supposed to be the last; I found I'd forgotten to post this earlier)

Short time ago was told that a lot of the stuff I link to is depressing;

it damn sure is.

Smiley took up the issue Boulder police Sgt. Michael Everett, who in an email response to her inquiry, explained that entering unsecured residences is standard operating procedure for most law enforcement agencies, including, Boulder police, and one that is not likely to stop. 

"There are many reasons for checking residences that are left open," Everett wrote in his response. "They include in-progress crimes and injured parties inside. There are situations which create a duty for officers to enter and check residences. Failure to do so creates liability for that officer and agency."

Because that 4th Amendment is just such a pain to have to abide by, so they don't.


And from wants-to-be-President Napolitano,
Domestic spying capabilities used by the National Security Agency to collect massive amounts of data on American citizens could soon be available to the Department of Homeland Security — a bureaucracy with the power to arrest citizens that is not subject to limitations imposed on the NSA.


And the Supremes decide- ah hell, just read it.
"Of COURSE you don't have to say anything!  BUT if you don't say things in the precisely right way, that counts against you."


In personal news, they make a mold for building your own walk or patio: level the space, put the mold down, mix one 80lb. bag of concrete and fit it in, smooth, then lift the mold and do the next section.

Five bags equals eleven feet.  And being so damn tired I don't want to move.  Supposed to be a good chance of rain tomorrow so I'd figured on getting more bags after that; as is, I doubt I'd be able to do much tomorrow anyway.

To do the whole stretch I want to, it'll take about another seven or eight bags.  Good thing this can be continued as conditions allow.
Oh, and I found that it took less than one bag to fill the mold each time.


It seems the lady has upset some people on Youtube


And she doesn't care.


One last thing: this is what happens when you put a upside-down tomato cage around the squash

Up, instead of out.  Makes it easier to get to the squash.

This doesn't qualify as 'fail', more "!(#(%a^^! idiocy"

Jared and Rose Cleerdin found themselves right in the middle of a shootout at what should have been a routine DWI checkpoint.  Days after the dramatic shootout in Brunswick County, they are still shaken by what they saw. 

"Every cop turned around and started unloading like super trigger happy as if their training was coming into full effect and they were being able to utilize it," said Cleerdin. "Everybody was just blasting this car to pieces. It was absolutely terrifying."

Dug around and found this article with what's supposed to have happened.   Better to go read it than me take excerpts.  It's... interesting.  See what you think.


Over at Sipsey there's a long one on the subject of 'if our society goes completely pear-shaped'.  Right now just going to borrow this one thing; next time someone says something like "One infantry platoon could step on a whole neighborhood/town if the right-wingers start something!", point them to it.  It's about the immediate aftermath of Lexington.  And remember that Capt. John Parker had said beforehand Stand your ground. Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.
But after the British onslaught and the militia "unassed the a.o." as they say in certain quarters today, the colonials were treated to British cheers and an 800 musket volley of celebration. As David Hackett Fischer described it in Paul Revere's Ride:

In the houses and woods along the road, the people of Lexington listened bitterly to the British cheers and began to count their dead. seven Lexington men had been killed and also one of the Yankee prisoners taken on the road, the unlucky Woburn man who was shot while "trying to escape." Nine other Lexington men were wounded, some severely. The toll was heavy in that small town. Eight pairs of fathers and sons had mustered on the Common. Five of those eight were shattered by death. Most families in that small community suffered the loss of a kinsman -- if not a father or son, then an uncle or cousin.

As the British troops disappeared into the west, the people of the town gathered on the Common. There was at first a sense of shock, a terrible numb and empty feeling of cruel and bitter loss. Then there was another raw emotion: deep, consuming, abiding anger. The people of Lexington asked themselves, who were these arrogant men in their proud red coats? By what right did they act as they did?

Other militiamen were now arriving from the far corners of the town. Those who had slept through the alarm began to appear, weapons in hand. Captain Parker mustered his company once again on the bloody ground. There were not sixty militia as before, but twice that number. The men were silent, grim and pensive. Most had lost friends and relatives only a few minutes before. Some wore bloody bandages. A few had faces and shirts blackened by powder stains. Their weapons were no better than before, but they replenished their ammunition from the dwindling store in the meetinghouse.

This time there were no consultations of debates. With a few terse words of command, Captain Parker ordered his company to fall in. The men were no longer in doubt about what to do. They were ready to give battle again, but on different terms.
He emphasizes that 'different terms'; the regulars found out real soon what that meant.  And if the people hoping to have cops and troops fire on people like us had any freakin' idea of the consequences, any understanding of history, well, they wouldn't be hoping for that.


Back to LEOs behaving downright idiotically, I present Humane Officer Barry Accorti and CoP Mike Freeman.
After signing the appropriate paperwork, the humane officer made his way to the backyard, found the kittens hidden in the woodpile, went to his truck, got a gun, and proceeded to shoot each kitten in front of the homeowner and her small children.
And the CoP?
“After visiting the scene, talking with the responding officer and re-interviewing the complainant, I have decided his actions were appropriate and have decided not to impose any disciplinary measures for the incident. We will talk with the humane officers about improving their communications with the public.”
What level of 'Fucking Idiocy' does it take for him to find this to be 'appropriate', and that 'improving communications' is the fix?

From the People's Republic of Maryland,

'concern for children' includes
interrogating them for hours,
scaring them into wetting their pants,
THEN calling the parents,
putting a suspension on their record
for the horrible offense of having a plastic cowboy pistol.
And
The Post notes that the principal — Jennifer L. Young, according to Dowell Elementary’s website — told the boy’s mother that things would have been even worse had the toy gun been loaded with caps. In that case, the school would have regarded the plaything as an explosive and called the police.
Principal Young, you should be fired for being a child abuser.  And the school board should be canned for standing behind this crap.


New Effing York is having another spasm of "Let's lie about this gun so we can ban it"; in this case, the FN 5.7 pistol.  Did you know this hotted-up .22 Magnum can penetrate body armor at 200 yards?
Yeah, I know, it can't.  And it won't penetrate anything any better than a .22 Mag unless you have the actual AP ammo, which hasn't be available to anybody but military and LE since day one, but that doesn't matter; Rep. Eliott Engel (D) has declared it's a 'cop killer' and should be banned from the peasants.  Along with wanting Obama to sign a royal edict to bring the Clinton AWB back(something else which didn't accomplish crap for protecting cops).

"Yes, dammit, it IS about

the #*!)E( nail!"



Stolen with great glee from SG

Short version of Ms. article: "Eeek, it's scary!"

Slightly longer version: "I didn't have to have .gov-approved training to buy it!  This is BAAAAAD!!!"
If you want to read it, it's here.  Though it, and some of the comments, are enough to suck the brain cells out of your skull.