Spent a lot of time on my feet the other day

and the spider-bit foot is telling me about it; it's still a lot better than a week ago, just going to take a while to fully get over it.  So while I'm sitting here with my foot up,
at the buffet this morning:

A lot of you are aware of this, but for those who aren't: Obama told the CDC to do a study on 'causes and prevention of gun violence'.  And the CDC did an honest study and report.  Which is why Obama and his pet media won't talk about it.
For example, the majority of gun-related deaths between 2000 and 2010 were due to suicide and not criminal violence:

Between the years 2000-2010 firearm-related suicides significantly outnumbered homicides for all age groups, annually accounting for 61 percent of the more than 335,600 people who died from firearms related violence in the United States.

In addition, defensive use of guns “is a common occurrence,” according to the study:

Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year, in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008.

Accidental deaths due to firearms has continued to fall as well, with “the number of unintentional deaths due to firearm-related incidents account[ing] for less than 1 percent of all unintentional fatalities in 2010.”
Doesn't fit the narrative at all.  Wonder how much yelling they did at the CDC for not tailoring the results to what Obama & Co. wanted?


More of the screwing-over-of-people caused by Franklin Roosevelt & Co.:
But there was one unintended, but totally predictable, consequence of the so-called "allotment payments" to farmers not to grow: they would have no more use for sharecroppers. So sharecroppers, who were mainly in the South and who were already in bad shape, suddenly found themselves out of work. When landowners were paid to keep land fallow, there was no crop on that land to share.
And a lot of those sharecroppers were black.  So
Senator Smith came to my office when he heard that the [allotment] checks were going out to the tenants. A senator coming to see a young bureaucrat shows how things were turned upside down by the New Deal . . . He said, "Young fella, you can't do this to my ni**ers, paying checks to them. They don't know what to do with the money. [DRH comment: Count me skeptical. My guess is that they knew exactly what to do with the money.] The money should come to me. I'll take care of them. They're mine." That attitude, much less kindly expressed, was widespread.


Makes you wonder what journalists might find out if they actually REPORTED on these protests, doesn't it?
The first thing I learned is these protesters were clueless about the pipeline they were protesting, and about oil and economics in general.

I asked one of the protesters, Mike Roy, why he is only protesting the pipeline now, even though it’s been operating without incident since the 1970s. He seemed genuinely surprised to learn this. I asked him why he only opposes the plan to put Alberta oil in it, but was fine with it pumping OPEC crude for decades.

At first Roy simply refused to believe me. He was confused about how OPEC oil could be pumped from Alberta. He didn’t understand that the pipeline was operating now, with Saudi and Algerian oil now. The Alberta plan would be a change — that’s the “reverse” part that he was protesting. He didn’t know that.
...
How could people who were so clueless about what they were protesting also be so passionate, too? That’s the second thing I learned. I did what many reporters simply don’t do — I Googled the names of a half dozen protesters there. Mike Roy was from London. So was Bailey Lamon. And Dan Beaudoin. Jeff Hanks was from out of town too.

They’re professional protesters, who go from town to town on whatever the cause of the day is — Occupy, Idle No More, anti-GMO food, whatever. That’s why they didn’t know anything about the pipeline. They didn’t care. They just like protesting.


They're pissed at the Army breaking up their camps, so the Muslim Brotherhood burns churches and attacks Christians in general.  Wonderful people, aren't they?


Chris Christie: miserable little suckass politician.  "Wait, even if I demanded this, if I sign hit gun ban it'll cause me trouble if I run for President!  VETO!"


Ok, screw sitting here with my leg up.  It's a fine day outside, and I'm going to do some stuff.  Hopefully without dropping something on or rolling something over my foot.

Thanks to Og:

a modern double rifle being regulated

can you say 'extortion'?

Maybe 'blackmail'?
I knew you could.


General Sisi, I should add, is Egypt’s new strongman, not Putin’s characterization of Obama.  But if you pronounce it correctly, it's that too.
And the “prospect” is now a reality: “actual abuse” — including “listening in on people’s phone calls” and “inappropriately reading people’s e-mails” — occurs daily. In early 2012, “actual abuse” was occurring at the rate of ten “incidents” a day — and “incident” is a term of art that can cover hundreds of violations of thousands or even millions of citizens.
But Obama's too busy on the golf course to be bothered with such things.  Assuming he actually gave a damn anyway.


"How dare you laugh at your superiors!  And PowerPoint!"

I would like to hear someone make a case for not legalizing this

It can't get someone high, but has serious medical use.  Like this.

Hey, Holder, you want to improve your image?  Stop screwing with this.

"To protect, Serve,

and Sue You 'Cause I Got Hurt"
Friggin' moron.

Grenade launcher, with recoil-reducing mechanism,

circa 1916.

Thanks to Billl for finding this

A: Bloomberg thinks the law is for peasants to obey,

so why would he obey it?
Second, considering some of the other crap that's come out, I'd imagine he's got a lot he doesn't want people to know about.  And his minions in Colorado really don't want voters to know about.

And we're supposed to trust any federal agency why, again?

The FMS said that the deficit went up $98 billion ($97,594,000,000) in the Monthly Treasury Statment for July, which it released on Monday. 

At the same time, the FMS said the debt stayed at exactly $16,699,396,000,000 in its Daily Treasury Statements, which are published every business day.
They lied.  To us, to Congress, to everybody.
Anyone think anything will be done about it?


From Sarah Hoyt:
I am Spartacus because Benghazi.

I am Spartacus because our voting system is corrupted beyond belief and the political elites have sewn themselves into a cocoon of fraud, via mail-in-ballots and voter fraud and fight against any attempt to clean the mess even minimally – because they know they’d never win another election again, if the elections were only as corrupt as they are, say, in India.

I am Spartacus because Fast and Furious.

I am Spartacus because a Rodeo Clown CAN laugh at the king.  As can we all.  As SHOULD we all.


Some thoughts in the rise in ninja-suiters pretending to be cops, including an idea I really like:
All forced-entry police raids could be recorded in a tamper-proof format, and the videos made available to the public through a simple open records request. This could be done efficiently and inexpensively. Even better, it wouldn't be difficult to equip the officers participating in a raid with cameras mounted on their helmets, jackets, or guns. Not only would recording all raids help clear up disputes about how long police waited after knocking, whether police knocked at all, or who fired first, but the knowledge that every raid would be recorded would also encourage best practices among the SWAT teams. Additionally, recordings of raids would provide an accurate portrayal of how drug laws are actually enforced. It’s likely that many Americans aren’t fully aware how violent these tactics can be. Perhaps many would still support tactical raids for drug warrants even after being exposed to videos of drug raids. But if the drug war is being waged to protect the public, the public should be able to see exactly how the war is being waged.
Screams of "WE can't operate that way!" in 3, 2, 1...
And, Bozo, that's the friggin' idea.

Speaking of, thoughts from a Marine.  And I like the sign.  “More Mayberry, Less Fallujah.”
Isn't that a nice idea?

'Race Warlord Poverty Pimps';

there are reasons Denny came up with the term.  Here's a good one:
Congresswoman Corrine Brown (D) is following in the footsteps of Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, as well as her fellow Florida colleague in the U.S. Congress, Frederica Wilson (D), by using race to explain why an early voting location situated in a predominantly black community was moved. Jacksonville’s Supervisor of Elections stated that the reason for the move was to cut back on monthly expenses that exceed $57,000 at the location in question, including utilities. 

The new location would only cost taxpayers about $40,000 a year.
My first thought?  "I wonder how much of that $57k PER MONTH was going to something other than election matters..."


We’ve talked about this before, but in fact, I don’t think there has ever been a country like ours, where our elites are deliberately taught – in our best schools – to hate and despise everything that we are, everything that makes us unique.  I don’t think there has ever been another country where our elites are taught to be ashamed to call themselves by our national name.

Or rather, there have been countries like that – but they were countries who’d lost a war, and where the governing elite were in fact puppets of their erstwhile enemy, sent in to utterly destroy what the country used to be and to make sure that it did not rise again and (maybe) next time win the war.
Some real interesting thoughts follow; go read.


Tab clearing:
Gun rights win in the northwest

New argument about black holes, and what we don't know.

Waxman wants to ban parts kits.  Parts, too.

"We need an armored vehicle, because protesters and stuff."

I've posted this before: what a lot of cops think of most proposed gun laws(not much).

"Screw Somalia, we're done."

Oh, this just might make me watch a primary debate!

Well, well, well, talk about a builder's kit!


The foot's better, but it's going to take a while.  The swelling's way down, but that toe and the area around is still sore and kind of tingly.  I shall now find somewhere else to put it up.
One of the sucky things?  The antibiotics I'm taking say 'Avoid prolonged exposure to sunlight', which makes sitting out back problematic.

As the President is such a thin-skinned weenie, (updates as I find stuff)

and his sycophants are such howling morons, I declare it Mock Obama Day!

I'll add more as I run across them
And if you see something suitable, link it in comments

And this one's not actually Obama, but it's connected:

Something noticed about the socialist trying to take over

the Starbucks Appreciation Page on Bookface:
Most of them are there solely to throw as much crap as a rabid monkey.  Nothing more than making it as unpleasant a place as possible.

And it's amazing how many 'progressives', given a chance, will work in "If it weren't for those damn Jews we wouldn't have a problem in the mideast!"
What?  Oh no, they'd never be so honest as to say it that way; they're very careful to say 'Israelis'.

Piers Morgan is a hoplophobic gun bigot who'd rather see women raped

and dead than armed.
"I would prefer that those women have guns to protect their lives," Hawkins said. However, Morgan remained dismissive. 

"I would tell that to the families of the women who were killed at Sandy Hook," he replied. "I'm not sure they would quite see it the same way."
I wonder if it occurred to this English moron that, if one of them had been armed, many others might have lived?

Or is that idea what really scares him?
Effing bloody disgusting little bastard.

President Gutsy Decision

my ass.
“Most people were like down in the Situation Room and [President Obama] was like, ‘I’m not going to be down there, I can’t watch this entire thing,’ We must have played 15 games of spades," said Love at a public event.
Because it's far too boring or stressful for President PhonyScandalBastardMompants to actually sit there during a raid to get the most wanted terrorist in the world.

Probably still pissed the adults made him come off the golf course.

And Eric Holder is still AG,

and Obama's still hiding documents for him.
Three more weapons from Fast and Furious have turned up at crime scenes in Mexico, CBS News has learned, as the toll from the controversial federal operation grows. 
...
Patino is said to have purchased 700 guns while under ATF's watch. Ever since, a steady stream of the guns have been recovered at crime scenes in Mexico and the U.S. But the Justice Department has refused repeated requests from Congress and CBS News to provide a full accounting. An estimated 1,400 guns are still on the street or unaccounted for.
Gee, I wonder why?

The NAACP now has the shark nibbling its toes

The Missouri chapter of the NAACP appealed for the U.S. Department of Justice and the Secret Service to launch an investigation and open a federal case against the rodeo clown who donned a mask of President Obama’s face and mocked with the crowd: Do you want to see a bull run down Mr. Obama?

The NAACP says the clown was guilty of inciting violence against the president.
Thou Must Not Mock The King, peasant!

Seriously?  Over a RODEO CLOWN?  Does this not prove you people have nothing real  to bitch about anymore?

And if you think this is not intended to prevent anyone mocking Obama, well, must be interesting in your world.

They brought friends to the buffet this morning

Now for a status update

on three things:
First, the foot is improving.  Swelling's down, but I still don't want to walk much, or stand on it much, and the fever feels about gone(I think my thermometer's screwed, so can't tell for sure).  Happily, it appears the antibiotics aren't screwing with me.

The report on the Magholder will take longer, because haven't been out much to wear it. 

Quite a while back I tried coating a knife with header paint to see how it'd hold up; I set it in the dining area, and it got covered up, so hasn't been used much(almost at all).  It's now sitting by the cutting board for actual use.

Confession time: it looked so nice I took a pistol that had a worn finish and refinished it with the same paint.  Figured I'd let it cure, bake it, then shoot  and carry it to see how it holds up.  Shortly after that, the current ammo/components crisis started, so it hasn't been fired as much as had planned.  Or carried as much(different story).  So today I'm going to start carrying it as much as I can, at least around the house, and start seeing how this finish holds up.

"No gun-free zones for us politicians,

we're IMPORTANT."

We've set up a system where the world's most easily offended people

get to decide what's offensive and what's not and coincidentally, crying "racism" often helps them fund raise or hurts their political opponents. It's like starting up the Salem Witch Trials again and then giving Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and the NAACP $10,000 every time they find a "witch" to burn. If we did that, what do you think the chances are they'd be finding witches EVERYWHERE? EXACTLY.


More on the IRS:
Just a few days ago, congressional investigators released emails suggesting that staff at the Federal Election Commission were engaged in conservative targeting of their own, perhaps with improper help from Ms. Lerner and the IRS. Now evidence is mounting that one of the most powerful agencies of the federal government — the Securities and Exchange Commission — has also engaged in political targeting. In a letter to the chairwoman of the SEC, congressional leaders revealed that documents produced for the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform “indicate that the SEC has been under immense pressure from elected officials and special interest groups as part of a government-wide effort to stifle political speech.”
And we're supposed to trust ANY government agency WHY, again?


Gun-free zone preparations: 'We're really just here to clean up the dead and triage the wounded, not stop the murderer.'
“In this scenario, police killed the shooter,” Hendricks shared from a set-up triage area. Tellingly, that didn’t happen until many simulated murders had taken place before the training teams had even arrived on scene.
“The goal -- to practice cooperation and triage tasks,” Hendricks continued, admitting by default that the goal was not to do everything possible to protect innocent lives.
Isn't that bloody confidence-inspiring?
I think it was Robb Allen who mentioned his daughter's instructions being "I don't give a rats ass what the teacher says about huddling down, you get the hell out a window and go."  Sounds like good advice.


Florida needs to clean out their prosecutor's office; it's full of vermin.
Vindictive, nasty, foul creatures.
Disbarment should be the beginning of the penalties for these bastards.


A rodeo clown wears an Obama mask, and
he's banned for life from the fair,
all the clowns have to take 'sensitivity training',
everyone who can is whining "It's not my fault!",
The head of the freakin' RODEO COWBOY ASSOCIATION resigned because THE CLOWN WASN'T BEING BANNED FROM MEMBERSHIP?!?
So, Missouri 'cowboys', when did you hand in your balls?  Because you sure don't appear to have any.


Bloomberg and Kelly get a kick in the balls, Nanny threatens to ignore the judge; wonder how well that'll work out?


Wonder how the gun bigots and hoplophobes will spin this as "Nobody wants to take your guns!" ?
You heard it straight from the horse’s mouth. Jay Carney said Obama will sign the UN Arms Trade Treaty “before the end of August…We believe it’s in the interest of the United States.”
This is very strategic timing considering Congress is on a 5 week vacation lasting thru the month of August!
Time to yell at the senators.  Loudly.

Remember that quote from Claire Wolfe?

Sometimes it’s excruciating, listening to the rhetoric of gun grabbers. The combination of self-righteousness and sheer bloody ignorance is like fingernails on the blackboard of the mind.
I got sucked into a couple of threads on the Starbucks Appreciation page, and dear DEITY, sometimes I forget just how
dishonest and/or
partisan and/or
effing stupid some of these people are...
'They said Obama wanted your guns, but you still have them; don't you feel stupid?'
Point out Obama's own words going back a decade, it doesn't matter; Feinstein's, Schumer's, the CSGV, on and on, it doesn't matter: 'They haven't actually taken your guns, so there was never any threat of it!  The NRA suckered you!'  And  on, and on.

Oh, and since all people who treasure the 2nd Amendment are conservatives we're all racists and bigots and- well, you know the drill.

Effing morons.  It's like finding a weird fungus growing on a dead log, that turns out to have spores that irritate and destroy brain cells by their very presence.  Not even a low-grade fever can make these people tolerable.

Being slightly feverish and bored

probably makes this seem even funnier(NSFW):

If she said this about a racial group, would she get a pass?

Over at Bookface, on the Starbucks Appreciation Page, ran across a letter from a woman in Newtown that includes
Why not go to the NRA office and show your support there with your own kind?
Well, gee, ma'am, what do you consider 'our own kind'?

There is a jerk named Rick Scalzo,

who's pronounced that anyone who'd have a AR15 for home defense is stupid.  And demented.  Etc.

He's the kind not worth arguing with.  From Bane: Good grief...is it just e or do these guys get dumber every week?
Uncle has the traditional take: I have one because I fucking can. You don’t get a say in what I do. And why I want it is none of your God-damned business. Clear, Sparky?


ALEC pushes back against slimy politician.


Never been to the Missouri State Fair; now I never will.  Damned if I'll put money in the pockets of these idiots.
Note that the Missouri Legislative Racists have jumped in, too; "Thou Must Not Mock The Obama!"


What?  Someone who gets lots of publicity over "RACISM!" stuff might have lied?


I shall now see if I can focus better on a book.  Between storms waking me up during the night and the foot, not enough sleep.  Plus having to hobble around.  If I had to go to the store, I think I'd dig the crutches out of the garage to use; it'd be easier to use them.

'To stave of geoengineering ideas, we need DRASTICALLY attack global warming!'

You know, when a big reason you want to attack globular warmening is to prevent idiots trying to 'save Mother Gaia' by screwing with the climate...
The people you're trying to stop are friggin' insane.
However, both of these options pose substantial known risks to humans and ecosystems. Stratospheric spraying could substantially reduce precipitation in South and Southeast Asia, potentially shutting down seasonal monsoons that more than a billion people rely upon for growing crops, or imperil replenishment of the ozone layer. Ocean iron fertilization could result in the proliferation of algae species that won't support higher order predators, or prove toxic in the marine environment. Moreover, the Earth's ecology is vastly complex, and both of these technologies may also pose significant unknown risks that are impossible to assess before it is too late.
That the same people who chant "We don't know what we're doing to the Earth!" would even consider plans like this...


Hadn't seen any hummers, but the feeder kept emptying; found out why

"Why aren't you saying anything about this case, Rev. Jackson?"
"Because the victim's white and the attackers black; why do you think?"


I never heard of industrial shotguns before; some reading to do, once my eyes stop crossing.

To cap off a so-so to not-so-good weekend

I went to the doctor this morning.  Reason being:
Foot was sore Saturday morning, and upon examination found what I thought might be(hoped was) a splinter; no, it's a bite.

Which got worse over the day and Sunday, leading to the appointment today.  So the doc says yeah, does look like a bite, and it also appears to have some infection going on(which explains the fuzzy feeling I woke up with).  So get these antibiotics, take this to reduce the swelling, stay off it and keep it elevated, etc.

There went the plans for the next couple of days.

I'll say this for the office: when I called they weren't able to do normal scheduling because their system crashed Friday and is still down; took about two hours for them to call back and say "Be here at this time and we'll work you in."  And they did.

Another reason to like bees

A new honey has been produced that has had ‘amazing’ results treating wounds and infections.

The bio-engineered product Surgihoney was tested on babies, new mothers, cancer patients and the elderly for over a year in Hampshire hospitals.

Wounds and ulcers, including those infected with the superbug MRSA, healed within days, while the number of women who suffered infections after giving birth by caesarean section has halved.


So SWAT teams acting like they're troops in Anbar Province(without the care to get the right address) isn't enough, huh?



In a searingly critical essay, a former senior aide to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. has called out the Obama administration and the president himself for claiming Friday that he welcomed a public debate on the government’s surveillance programs and the privacy concerns they provoke.

Jennifer Hoelzer, a former aide to Wyden who recently left his office, harshly questioned Obama in a piece she wrote for TechDirt.com, saying she was flabbergasted to hear him say he had wanted more public scrutiny for the National Security Agency surveillance programs after Wyden had worked for years in vain to try to persuade the administration to declassify parts of the program so that debate could take place.


No, they're not collecting everything, nooooo...


On one occasion, having captured and interrogated a terrorist near Maguga, Barrah knew that there was a Mau Mau gang holed up in the rough of Muthaiga Golf Club preparing to attack the clubhouse. Without informing his superior officers, he drove to Muthaiga police station where he collected a couple of Bren gunners before flushing the gang out of the rough. Eight insurgents were killed, including General Mwangi Toto, commander of the Mau Mau in Nairobi.

This incident took place on a Saturday afternoon — much to the disapproval of the club secretary, who complained that there had been golfers on the course at the time of the battle. Barrah, feeling somewhat underappreciated by this reaction, replied: “Don’t worry — next time I’ll shout 'Fore!’ before firing the first shot.”

August E-Postal Match

Over at Carteach0

Someone explain to me again- in a way I might believe-

that this bastard cares about anything or anyone other than himself?


Peter Gleick- climate alarmist and lying bastard- is still at it.


To take some of the bad taste from the first link out of your mouth,

                                                 AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHGH!

Stolen from Wirecutter:

How often do you see a bug

that actually qualifies for a .22 for pest control?

How effed is the city of Chicago?

This effed.
Short version: the City Council wanted to pass a bunch of laws banning/restricting guns/ownershop; said laws are preempted by state law, and they wanted to pass them anyway; they were given the word, and
In short, without great fanfare the City gutted their new proposal. After the Corp Counsel being questioned by one alderman about my assertions and getting a non-answer answer, it appears they have admitted our interpretation of the issue is correct. Otherwise, why the capitulation? Why this slight of hand change?
Could it be the $2 plus million they have paid out to NRA and SAF attorneys? They fact that we are 3 – 0 in our lawsuits?
Ummm, probably.
But, from the comments, there are some district commanders of Chicago PD telling their officers to enforce the city laws that they know are preempted; which means 'Big-ass lawsuits the city will lose." 
I really want your guys to understand that there are a bunch of gun guys who are itching for 1983 suits against the city and will name everyone involved. I don't want to see a good cop jammed up on a civil suit because a supervisor made a political decision to kiss ass and get hung out in Court.
Chicago: the brass will hang the officer out to take the blame, and hey, why should the city care?  It's OPM they're spending.

I never heard of a bearnip tree before

Not a moment of zen,

but damn!  Click to embiggenate

Picture of the sun taken with some kind of filtering; that on the left is a prominence that flared and was caught floating

Joe the Georgian

See if you know the last name

And something else from Al Stewart, same time frame:

I know people who trust NPR implicity;

so much for that.
It turns out that the ombudsman, Edward Schumacher-Matos, has been working on an analysis of the NPR series ever since. His conclusions, explained at length, were published yesterday. They are remarkable, in my view, for their candor and fairness:

My finding is that the series was deeply flawed and should not have been aired as it was.
The series committed five sins that violate NPR’s code of standards and ethics. They were:
1. No proof for its main allegations of wrongdoing;
2. Unfair tone in communicating these unproven allegations;
3. Factual errors, shaky anecdotes and misleading use of data by quietly switching what was being measured;
4. Incomplete reporting and lack of critical context;
5. No response from the state on many key points.

North Wildwood: You'd think better would be expected from the Dark and Fascist State of NJ[/sarcasm].

A North Wildwood police officer issued Jared and his wife a summons because of the dog. Goering said, “I expected to get more respect from him because of the jobs that we both have to do."

"He mockingly asked if all veterans get service dogs," said Jared’s wife, Sally Goering, “his dog is medically necessary and he is a service dog."

Last I heard, it's flatly illegal to mess with someone over a service dog.  Period.

And if this is the level of LE in NJ...

Time for charges, civil and criminal.

From Steyn on the Hasan trial:

In the immediate aftermath of his attack, the U.S. media, following their iron-clad rule that “Allahu akbar” is Arabic for “Nothing to see here,” did their best to pass off Major Hasan as the first known victim of pre-Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. “It comes at a time when the stress of combat has affected so many soldiers,” fretted Andrew Bast in a report the now defunct Newsweek headlined, “A Symptom of a Military on the Brink.”

Major Hasan has never been in combat. He is not, in fact, a soldier. He is a shrink. The soldiers in this story are the victims, some 45 of them. And the only reason a doctor can gun down nearly four dozen trained warriors (he was eventually interrupted by a civilian police officer, Sergeant Kimberly Munley, with a 9mm Beretta) is that soldiers on base are forbidden from carrying weapons. That’s to say, under a 1993 directive a U.S. military base is effectively a gun-free zone, just like a Connecticut grade school. That’s a useful tip: If you’re mentally ill and looking to shoot up a movie theater at the next Batman premiere, try the local barracks — there’s less chance of anyone firing back.

And let's not forget the words of the politicians in uniform:

After Major Hasan’s pre-post-traumatic workplace wobbly, General George W. Casey Jr., the Army’s chief of staff, was at pains to assure us that it could have been a whole lot worse: “What happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty.” And you can’t get much more diverse than letting your military personnel pick which side of the war they want to be on.

The CSGV and PAGV: full of crap and insisting the smell is rose petals.

See, again, the chart stated 'Chicago, Illinois' yet included 6.8 million people that DON'T live in Chicago nor fall under Chicago's gun laws.  That led to the anti-gun fanatics at the CSGV (who the original post was discussing) to tout it to the skies as 'gun extremist lies' that Chicago DOES have higher homicide rates than the areas outside of the city (5-6x). 

Then for 'Gun homicides' they did the same thing, adding in near 7m people who DON'T live under Chicago's laws. They completely ignore this fact in the post I reference it to and instead repeat their MSA and City numbers. Makes you wonder if they're dense or deliberately dishonest.

Six of one, half-dozen of the other...

The latest on Squeaky

here.  The title's the very short version: I don’t have a lot of concrete surgery details, just a lot of vague, scary shit. Here it is. Happy Birthday to me!

Sometimes it’s excruciating, listening to the rhetoric of gun grabbers.

The combination of self-righteousness and sheer bloody ignorance is like fingernails on the blackboard of the mind.
And that's just the beginning.


Remember that bit a few days ago about the Brits burning wood to generate power because that's somehow better for the environment than coal?  From Keith, over in that part of the world, part of the Law of Unintended Consequences:
Try buying fence posts in Britain now. 
The supposed intention was for power stations to burn baled up brash and stumps, but it's much cheaper for them to burn prime timber. 
As a result fence posts have multiplied in price, and as creosote is now banned in the EU, posts which in the past might have lasted twenty five or thirty years, have to be replaced after two or three years.

Back when I was starting 'smithing, one of the things I read of was Elizabeth I making an edict that the iron-making industry in Britain would move to coal.  You see, blacksmiths had preferred charcoal because(in the forge*) it burned cleaner than coal; but the growing industry was stripping Britain of forests to feed the furnaces, and they needed trees for the wood to build the ships that both the defense of the island and trade demanded, so "Start using coal.  Like it or not."  Now, apparently at least as long as the wood comes from somewhere else, they're trying to reverse that...

*Because they weren't worried about all the smoke produced by burning wood to charcoal, and didn't matter to them that the same weight of coal produces several times as much heat as charcoal, just that the finished product was cleaner in a forge.


Salon has thrown up(just about literally) a piece stating that 'Detroit is in ruins for the same reason New Orleans was almost left to die: it's a majority-black city and the right wing hates blacks'.  Note that 'right-wing' to these people means, well, 'Anyone who doesn't love socialism and PC racism.'

Kevin received this from the guy who tipped him to it:
This is why trying to reason with left wing, right on, politically correct groupthinkers is a bit like trying to wallpaper fog.  And, incidentally, why I firmly believe we are deep within an era of anti-Renaissance where such idiocy is published and taken seriously.
Oh, and Katrina was so horrible because GLOBAL WARMERING!!, don't forget.  And what you hear from 'right-wingers' is all race-coded("We got to punish them darkies!"), etc. ad Bullshit.

Speaking of, the writer is so full of it he should be standing in fields to fertilize the crops.


If I had to live in Seattle for a while, I think I'd work at causing the language police to have strokes and hemorrhoids; because they effing deserve it.


Someone should run a count: People who insist private schools are evil and kids should be made to go to public schools, but who send their kids to private schools.

Extra points for each celebritute listed.


Mad Ogre noted this the other day: temperature-sensitive camo.
Something mentioned in a number of sci-fi novels is uniforms of chameleon-fabric that shifts patterns depending on what the surroundings are; wonder how far away it is now?


Why the EPA should be trashed, reason #whatever:
So an exemption from today's mandate is far more than a perk—it is a lifeline, an outright payday. Making this indulgence even more curious is that it is being issued by the Obama EPA, an agency that isn't exactly known for doing favors for beastly carbon producers.

So who is the lucky dog? Who could make this happen? That's the best part. The EPA won't say. The agency not only refused to name the refinery in its rule, but also obscured certain numbers in the document to hide the beneficiary's identity. An EPA press officer would not give me the name, citing "confidentiality restrictions."
Translation: "You expect us to tell you who's paying-off who?"


And Palin was right.  Interesting who's agreeing, too:
In an op-ed last month in the Wall Street Journal that Palin could have written, Howard Dean, former head of the Democratic National Committee, called IPAB "essentially a health care rationing body" and said he believes it will fail.

"The IPAB will be able to stop certain treatments its members do not favor by simply setting rates to levels where no doctor or hospital will perform them," wrote Dean, who is also a physician. "Getting rid of the IPAB is something Democrats and Republicans ought to agree on."


Unrelated to news, a little while ago I read something about Magholders: magazine holder that holds it horizontally.  Then I ran across this at WOTC on them(note the coupon code if you want to order one).  Well, short time ago I was given a gift card as a "Thank you for continuing to spend money with us" from my internet service, and this seemed like a fine way to use it, so I now have one for 1911 mags.  I'm going to try it out for a while, and I'll report back.  So far, I like it.
Ah, WOTC now has a review on one they got for Glock mags.

I started to write "The level of stupid in this is painful",

but I really can't tell if it's stupidity, or malign intent.
The city of Oakland, California now wants to ban any object that could be used as a "tool of vandalism," including hammers, wrenches, slingshots, shields and presumably anything else with a blunt edge such as garden rakes or sticks.
...
The city claims these objects will be illegal to possess during a "protest," but a protest can be defined as any two people standing around, or walking down a street, or even just talking loudly. There is no official definition of a "protest," meaning the police can invoke the ordinance any time they wish. That's how these laws always go: they get interpreted and deployed far beyond their original intent.


Speaking of abuse of authority,
5 Apologies to the Cops Who Beat Me Up for No Reason
which includes
...You explained that you had received a domestic abuse 911 call from our apartment landline despite the fact that we have neither a phone nor a landline from which to call....
I think I'd want some explanations of this crap.

Commit a felony, get promoted;

anybody still believe the IRS gives a damn about the law?
Thomas’s promotion will not be without controversy, given that, in November of last year, she signed off on the illegal release to the left-leaning ProPublica, of nine pending, confidential applications for tax exemption filed by conservative groups. One of those organizations, the Colorad-based Citizens Awareness Project, yesterday filed a federal lawsuit against the IRS over the release of its application.

Like he says, if BATFE gives you a tip,

especially on a possible federal violation, and wants you do to the work...
Clue to local authorities: when a Federal agency has jurisdiction, and it's a big case that will draw publicity but they hand it to you .... that's right up there with an email from a guy who says he's a Nigerian bank president, has embezzled $10 million, and would like to wire it to you. They have a grudge against the guy, but know they have no case.
And if you add to the mess by saying you're an expert when you don't know squat, and act like assholes during the raid, and lie about not having photos of the seized property at the time of seizure, then you're both a sorry excuse for a lawman and generally a lying dirtbag.

Why does (fG)Britain have such a low homicide rate?

they lie about it.  Including
Since 1967, homicide figures for England and Wales have been adjusted to exclude any cases which do not result in conviction


Speech in Canada(sure as hell can't call this 'free'):
Asked whether he ever felt intimidated or threatened, he said, “There was a very clear choice laid out to me. The police said, ‘we don’t believe this agrees with [our] values, so either you have to give up your chaplaincy or you can have this speech.’
Rabbi, you made a bad choice.


Obama's minions have no problem at all with lying to Congress formally, do they?
As far back as December 2012, Obama administration officials were insisting that the data hub at the center of the ObamaCare exchanges was nearly finished.

Yet all the while, they were pushing back deadlines or missing them altogether, to the point where, unless ObamaCare's launch is delayed, millions of people's privacy will be at risk.

Obama officials may, in fact, have flat-out lied to lawmakers about the data hub's progress.
...
At that same hearing, Cohen claimed that the agency was "well along" on its data-sharing tests with "Social Security, with homeland security and with IRS" and would "be able to complete that testing by this spring."

But a June report from the Government Accountability Office found that such tests didn't even start until May, and that they won't be finished until September.
And back in April, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told the House Ways and Means Committee that the data hub was "basically completed."

But the GAO report said that "several critical tasks remain to be completed" before Oct. 1.


Speaking of lying to Congress, we're back to the NSA:

"The assumption is our people are just out there wheeling and dealing. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have tremendous oversight over these programmes. We can audit the actions of our people 100%, and we do that," he said.

Except

(c) Alexander's own assertion (in June) that NSA was "now putting in place actions that would give us the ability to track our system administrators"?

That is a good question. It certainly appears that the actions of some NSA employees could not be audited 100 percent. And if you want to get really deep in the weeds, see Marcy Wheeler's argument that there are multiple NSA employees with access to private data who wouldn't be tripped up by an analyst audit, because they're working with your raw data before it is queried by the folks hunting for terrorist plots.


Helluva thing to find in the attic.


Also found at ToM,
A: the magma chamber under Yellowstone is even bigger than previously thought.
B: the putative adults in this video ought to be horse whipped. Or staked out in front of the herd.


Good God.

Dear gunstore lawyers:

Shut. Up.

Don't think I'd heard of Carol Swain before;

wish I had.
"Trayvon Martin's mother is missing an opportunity to lead a social movement. America needs a conversation about the unfortunate plight of thousands of young black men who have adopted unhealthy lifestyles.

"High unemployment, black-on-black crime, and hopelessness are factors that must be addressed. Individual choices and wrong internalized messages have led to the devaluation of human life in the black community at every stage of development.

"The devaluation in human life is reflected in our abortion rates and the willingness to accept high black-on-black murder rates. We can do better!"
I'm surprised she's still a professor; wonder how many times the Usual Suspects have tried to get rid of her for saying this?


More on those attempts to frame Oathkeepers.  And a reporter.


Speaking of such, from Thirdpower: If you're not on a list, you're not doing enough. 
Also from his place,
Josh Horwitz Hates Logic and
Gifford's anti-gun donors listed.  Not much grassroots there.


A quote from 1764:
“A principal source of errors and injustice are false ideas of utility. For example: that legislator has false ideas of utility who considers particular more than general conveniences, who had rather command the sentiments of mankind than excite them, who dares say to reason, ‘Be thou a slave;’ who would sacrifice a thousand real advantages to the fear of an imaginary or trifling inconvenience; who would deprive men of the use of fire for fear of their being burnt, and of water for fear of their being drowned; and who knows of no means of preventing evil but by destroying it.

The laws of this nature are those which forbid to wear arms, disarming those only who are not disposed to commit the crime which the laws mean to prevent. Can it be supposed, that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, and the most important of the code, will respect the less considerable and arbitrary injunctions, the violation of which is so easy, and of so little comparative importance? Does not the execution of this law deprive the subject of that personal liberty, so dear to mankind and to the wise legislator? and does it not subject the innocent to all the disagreeable circumstances that should only fall on the guilty? It certainly makes the situation of the assaulted worse, and of the assailants better, and rather encourages than prevents murder, as it requires less courage to attack unarmed than armed persons.”
The article: Gun-Free Zones: A Threat to Every Child.

Whoever in DoD is responsible for this

needs to be canned.
Preferably literally.

Don't forget: the laws they pass are for little people, not those close to Congress.
And the miserable jackass in the Oval Office thinks NONE of the law applies to him.


A squid with zombie arms?  That's both interesting and downright nasty.

Only the Lords of the EUnuchs could decide that it's green to

stop using coal and START BURNING TREES FOR POWER.
The level of stupid is- it HURTS!

TSA: now violating their oath to the Constitution in many locations

other than airports.

So TSA says the 4th Amendment doesn't apply to them because T.S.A. officials respond that the random searches are “special needs” or “administrative searches” that are exempt from probable cause because they further the government’s need to prevent terrorist attacks.
Guess that oath to uphold the Constitution doesn't mean squat to these clowns, does it?  "The Constitution would keep us from doing this, so this is our excuse for pissing on it."

Some T.S.A. officials told auditors that they had concerns that deploying VIPR teams to train stations or other events was not always based on credible intelligence.

The auditors also said that VIPR teams might not have “the skills and information to perform successfully in the mass transit environment.
So they're just randomly harassing people to get us used to it. And sending untrained people out on bogus or nonexistent information to do it.

Let's not forget that the Chief Clown in charge of these molesters has said that in his opinion 'flying is a privilege'; and you give up rights to exercise privileges.

The Tueller Drill Revisited

An interview with Tueller; well worth reading.

If you're not familiar, he's the man who got the question "How close does someone with a knife or club, something like that, have to be before he's a real threat?" and actually worked on it.  Which produced what came to be called the '21-foot rule'(which he doesn't like; too hard & fast) and a lot more research into things like MOVING when someone is attacking.  I'll steal one section:
Tueller: At the time, I was assigned to the Salt Lake City Police Academy, conducting firearms and other use-of-force training. I was also teaching part time at Gunsite. During an academy training session, we had been doing draw-and-fire drills at the seven-yard line. During a break, we were discussing use of force issues and one of the recruit officers asked what to do if someone was attacking you with a knife, a club, or some kind of a contact weapon. He wanted to know how close an attacker should be allowed to encroach before the use of deadly force was justified to stop him.

At first, I thought about saying three or four steps, but then I realized that I didn’t have any idea how close was too close. I thought, “We can do better that this!” Since we already knew the average time it takes to draw, fire, and hit a target at seven yards – which was about 1 1/2 seconds from the holster – I decided to see just how long it would take someone to cover that same distance.

So we had one recruit officer play the role of the “bad guy” and another played the role of the “startled officer.” We put them 21 feet apart, and when the bad guy role player decided to start his attack, we started the stopwatch, and when the bad guy made contact with the good guy, we stopped the watch. I was quite stunned to discover that the time was roughly 1 1/2 seconds!

Then we tried the same exercise with everyone available in the class – some younger, some older, big and small, male and female – and all of them could run that seven yard distance in about 1 1/2 seconds. Of course, this was before Simunitions® or Airsoft®, but later we did test it with dart pistols. What we found was that if you’re ready and if everything goes perfectly, you might get the gun out and get a shot off before the bad guy role player makes contact. That is not good enough! Shooting does not stop the action.
The bold is mine.  Because this link was found in a thread on Facebook, wherein Larry Correia- who has a long record as a trainer for both LE and general citizens, wrote
And the thing you are thinking of is the Tueller drill, based on the research of Dennis Tueller from the SLCPD where he demonstrated that the average person can cover 21 feet and inflict serious injuries with a knife in the time the average officer could draw and fire. Keep in mind that all handguns suck, and just because you put a round into somebody, they don't always immediately stop doing whatever it is they are doing.

Some just because

Sometimes "Make it bigger!" really does work

Defense Distributed created the first fully 3D-printed handgun called the Liberator a few months ago. Now a Canadian fellow on YouTube has revealed a 3D-printed rifle, which he continues to make improvements upon.

On the YouTube channel “ThreeD Ukulele” a man going by Matthew, who doesn’t show his face, uploaded three videos a few days ago documenting what he said are 14 total shots with the weapon before it cracks.
Single-shot turn-barrel.  And we want accuracy results, dammit.

And yes, the tears and screaming of gun bigots and hoplophobes are sweet.

Put Ma Nature and Murphy together,

and it sucks.
A Canadian city is “in shock” after two young boys were seemingly killed by an escaped snake that slithered into the room where they were sleeping late Sunday night.
Rock python.  From another building.

Pictures from the West in the 1870's

over here.  Including

Shoshone Falls


These miserable disgraces to peace officers should be fired, and prosecuted, and fined for everything they have or ever will have.

And I include the supervisors-however high up they go- who knew this crap was going on.
In two separate incidents hundreds of miles apart, Texas state troopers have conducted body cavity searches on women pulled over for traffic stops on minor infractions in full view of passing motorists. The repeated incidents mean that the uncomfortable, invasive searches are some sort of department policy, civil rights advocates now say.
...
On video of the incident, the two women can be heard yelling with discomfort as the female officer inserts her finger into their genitalia. The officer wore the same glove to search both women.
Fired.  Horsewhipped.  Sued.  EVERYTHING.


Because laws, and obeying them, are for the peasants, not the President and Congress.
And now the White House is suspending the law to create a double standard. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that runs federal benefits will release regulatory details this week, but leaks to the press suggest that Congress will receive extra payments based on the FEHBP defined-contribution formula, which covers about 75% of the cost of the average insurance plan. For 2013, that's about $4,900 for individuals and $10,000 for families.
How OPM will pull this off is worth watching. Is OPM simply going to cut checks, akin to "cashing out" fringe benefits and increasing wages? Or will OPM cover 75% of the cost of the ObamaCare plan the worker chooses—which could well be costlier than what the feds now contribute via current FEHBP plans? In any case the carve-out for Congress creates a two-tier exchange system, one for the great unwashed and another for the politically connected.


Ok, this is something I had not considered about the current mess in Syria:
Wide Angle Shot#4: Hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees are pouring into Jordan. Among the huddled masses yearning to be free are a goodly number of Islamists who hate the Hashemites almost as much as they hate Jews and Christians. The name of the Jihadist game is to foment revolution in Jordan—the so-called Palestinians make up about 80% of the Jordanian population, which makes Jordan yet another Palestinian state, along with happy-go-lucky Gaza. Thus we can expect a replay of Black September any day now.
Obama & Co. are trying to shove Muslim Brotherhood clowns down the throats of the Egyptians now; can you imagine the hissy fits they'll throw if the Jordanians start whacking Obama's Favored?


And remember, per Tam: “Loophole” = “People Doing Legal $#!t I Don’t Like”.
In this case it's the 'Internet Sales Loophole!!!'

CDR Salamander on the Army's new ammo:

So, anyone consult an infantryman on this?


But they've got it all under control and we can trust them, right?
USA TODAY obtained a copy of the FBI's 2011 report under the Freedom of Information Act. The report does not spell out what types of crimes its agents authorized, or how serious they were. It also did not include any information about crimes the bureau's sources were known to have committed without the government's permission.
...
The rules require the FBI — but not other law enforcement agencies — to report the total number of crimes authorized by its agents each year. USA TODAY asked the FBI for all of the reports it had prepared since 2006, but FBI officials said they could locate only one, which they released after redacting nearly all of the details.
Well, if they can't locate their own damned reports, why should we trust them to find their own ass, let alone bad guys?

Other federal law enforcement agencies, including the ATF and the DEA, said last year that they cannot determine how often their informants are allowed to break the law.
The obvious question being "WHY THE HELL NOT?"


Mark Glaze of Mayors Against People Owning Guns is one of two things:
A freaking dirtbag, or- if he believes what he said-
A freaking moron on the level of Joe Biden.


Miguel speaks to a gun bigot who's either hugely ignorant, or a damned liar.  And making false criminal charges, yet.

It may speak more of my cynicism

than of actual ill intent, but
The IRS mess that was 'intolerable' a while back has become a 'phony scandal',
the investigations into Benghazi are heating up again(damn well better),
revelations about NSA/FBI/CIA spying are pissing off more people,
and-
Suddenly!-
the bad guys are making Serious Threats, and embassies have to be shut down, and 'internal security'(i.e. molestation and theft by TSA and abuses by DHS) has to be ramped up to deal with the threats!  And we really NEED that intelligence the NSA gets from reading your mail and chats and listening in to your calls(don't forget DEA)!

Little as ten years ago I'd have never believed I'd be this willing to believe this ill of the .gov.

Oh, you hadn't heard about the DEA?  I hadn't till this morning:
A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.
Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges.

The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to "recreate" the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant's Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don't know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence - information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses.

I've mentioned before my opinion that a good teacher

is a treasure to be cherished*; just had another example of that.

Speaking to a guy who's an engineer who brought up post-tensioned concrete construction, and since I'd heard of it but knew nothing I asked for details.  It seems that using that method isn't actually taught in school("There are EXPERTS who will do that", etc.).

One of the first jobs at the company he worked for, guess what  the project he was assigned to used?

About oh-dark-thirty he and three other guys were sitting in the office trying to figure out how to make the specs they'd been given work, and it wasn't working no matter how they tweaked it, and they were accelerating down the ramp to screaming when one of the owners walked in("Just dropped by on my way home", which was BS because home was in the other direction from the airport), stopped in the door and asked what were they doing there?

"Trying to make 'X' work."

Heavy sigh.  Slow shake of head.  "Guys, it's not that difficult."  Took a legal pad and, in half-an-hour on ONE SHEET, gave a college-level class on post-tension concrete construction that had all of them saying "Well, shit, it's not hard NOW."

He'd saved that sheet.  And had, a couple of months before we met, used it to clear up the same mysteries for a new engineer with the company working under him(apparently it's STILL not taught).

That owner had been a professor of engineering; and I'll bet the students who came in after he left never knew what they missed.  And probably never had someone who could do what he did.


*The followon is 'and bad teachers need to be thrown the hell out before they do more damage than they already have.'  Which really pisses off the 'All teachers are wonderful!' idiots.

Tab clearing

Starting with "There's plenty of money, we just haven't stolen it yet."


More on efforts in Californicated to ban ammo.


Minimum wage arguments.


Why IS FEMA asking this?


Dead, or just mostly dead?


Judge to federal agents: "So far, looks to me like he CAN sue you for this."