Glass-fronted buildings plus substandard construction

equals bad news.

How does the New York Effin' Times lie?

Codrea counts some of the ways.

Anybody else think TSA

needs its collective ass kicked? And reined in, HARD?

By the way, Joan Peterson

has had a new attack of the vapors. How DARE that Marine have a picture of himself with that icky firearm?

Pajamas media is stating flat-out

that Gunwalker was intended to give the Obama administration a way to call for trashing the 2nd Amendment. Nice to have that flatly and openly in public.

Also,
You can read more about the timeline of what happened after Gunwalker was exposed on several blogs (this is a good rundown), and you will find calls for those responsible for this nightmare to be removed from office. Acting ATF Director Ken Melson will be the first official likely dismissed as a result of Gunwalker, but there are significant indications that more senior administration officials knew about and perhaps have lied about their knowledge of the program.

This operation could not have taken place without the cooperation of the Department of Homeland Security — DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano should bear responsibility for her agency’s actions. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has apparently lied to Congress about when he knew of Gunwalker, and considering the scope of the operation it is implausible that he was not involved in its implementation.

Meanwhile, in Californicated,

In more cheery CA news Companies Are Leaving California in Record Numbers. Which isn't really surprising given that California ranks #49 in the nation in business climate. And it turns out that retired San Francisco city employees get more in retirement benefits than the average working private worker in the city earns.

While getting the Gunwalker story out in whatever way

that gets it in front of people is important, every time I read something like this:
Over the weekend, Pajamas Media (where they have been doing a bang-up job breaking and covering this story) brought forth more damning details coming from Darrell Issa’s investigation. In particular, some of the comments from whistle-blowers inside the ATF have been beyond alarming.
it reminds me that an awful lot of places either don't know or don't want to mention the work done by Sipsey Street and Codrea in digging this up and yelling about it for- how long?- before damn near anyone else started paying attention. Hell, some of the major media STILL don't want to touch it; and if they do, it's to give some Democrats or gun-ban people like the CSGV a megaphone to declare "This happened because BATFE needs MORE money and MORE authority!" And helping them keep trumpeting the Mexican Gun Lie.

Speaking of Sipsey
Sheesh. What a tough crowd. Don't they realize that Obama did Gunwalker for them? He at least was smart enough to recognize that some more bodies had to be stacked up before the political winds could start blowing back in the direct of more firearm restrictions. He's got to be thinking, "Man, I just engaged in the greatest conspiracy against the Second Amendment ever, stacked up hundreds, maybe thousands, of dead Mexicans to get these gun control clowns what they wanted and all they do is bitch, bitch, bitch. I should never have listened to Rahm Emanuel."

If the Gunwalker Scandal is fully exposed, the gun confiscationist piranha will be gasping and flopping around for another ten years before anyone listens to their "let's give more power and money to the ATF" chanting. Gunwalker will suck all the water out of their tank. I am glad to see, however, that they still possess the capacity to bite each other.

and Codrea,
Later that morning, after the program, I received the following communication:

Melson out. Insert Traver.

Still not enough to go on without more details and independent corroboration. As Vanderboegh wrote, we’ve learned to be very careful about rumors as you don’t need to get too many things wrong before credibility is shot. And that’s not to say we don’t trust our sources. Far from it, their information continues to be confirmed every step of the way. It’s that we understand our obligation to protect them, and they know that, and that means validating that they haven’t been fed deliberate disinformation that could help discredit or even ID them.

4th intallment of analysis of the Guerenha shooting

at Confederate Yankee. One line, referring to something the Sheriff said:
My experience isn’t unusual—I had many more like it—and untold thousands of people are alive today because police officers around the nation were sufficiently trained and competent not to have to shoot at the first hint of potential danger. Isn’t that what we should expect of every police officer? Isn’t that particularly what we should expect of the most highly trained and experienced officers with the best equipment?

The idea that when a SWAT team breaks down the door of a home without a no-knock warrant and is thereby justified in firing on anyone who has a weapon in their hands--in their own home--particularly if that weapon might be aimed in their direction, is nothing less than horrifying. It is essentially saying that officers may shoot first—in fact that they may plan beforehand to shoot first--and be reasonably certain later. If that is the case, anyone living in Sheriff Dupnik’s jurisdiction does indeed have to worry about “confrontation with the cops.”

My newest favoritist shirt

Well, gee, ya think MAYBE?

The most damning revelations coming out of the hearings on Operation Fast and Furious held by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform are the unmistakable indications that the program was never designed to succeed as a law enforcement operation at all.
So it would seem.

"How to save money, if you are

complete and total idiot." Just go; it's worth it.

Part II here

"Well, of COURSE felons will vote Democrat!

We're who they'll feel at home with!"
So they seem to think.

Some interesting connections

Weiners' wife has; married to a Congressman, aide to the SecState and all this in the family...


Remember the Tiger Mom noise? O'Rourke gives us the Irish Setter Dad.


Unless there's a lot more to this case, Judge Jose Longoria should be stripped of that robe. Immediately. For spanking? Jeez.


So Obama waives his own rule to appoint someone from a racist organization to a powerful position, and the racist organization has been getting LOTS of money because of it. Just effing wonderful.


A: This is not exactly a surprise, is it?
B: Really makes you feel safe when a hotel has a 'no guns allowed' policy, doesn't it?
C: Hotel safety systems and firefighters do their best: is that up to a bunch of terrorists deliberately trying to burn the place down?


So the EffingBI can't be bothered to actually, y'know, Investigate(like their name says) before sending the ninja-suited door-kickers in? Jeez.
But Hunter hadn't lived at that address for almost two years, while Adams and his family had been living there for more than a year, according to the lawsuit filed by Adams and 10 other family members.
...
Hunter was still at large at the end of the sweep, and court records show that she was living in Long Beach, Calif., at the time. She returned to Pittsburgh when she heard she was wanted by the police.


“Land… cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is also a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice; if unchecked, it may become a major obstacle in the planning and implementation of development schemes. The provision of decent dwellings and healthy conditions for the people can only be achieved if land is used in the interests of society as a whole. Public control of land use is therefore indispensable….”

Governments must maintain full jurisdiction and exercise complete sovereignty over such land with a view to freely planning development of human settlements….
Guess who?
The founders of this country considered the right to property to be extremely important; transport any of them to now to read this, and they'd ask us why we haven't told this organization to go to hell? And were are our muskets, rifles, powder and ball?


Well, isn't this a fascinating statement from somebody on a SWAT team that recently killed a man guilty of nothing?


Hey, Obama has previously warned us that his plans would cause energy costs to skyrocket; what did those dumbass union reps think, he'd make some exception to cover their jobs and state?


And that's it. For now. Further bitching, yelling and "WTF?!?" later

Lots of stuff's been written

about what to do in a self-defense/shooting situation. Tam points to an article that has some very good advice; I'm going to copy part of it here:
Here's my formula to Finish the Fight:
1. Shoot until the threat is gone
2. Reload, ‘cuz a full gun is a happy gun
3. Move to cover
4. Scan to see if anyone else needs to be shot
5. Call for help
6. Verify incapacitation. Shoot him again if needed
7. Self-assess. If you see red fluid, you’ve been hit
8. Verify incapacitation again
9. Scan
10. Wait!
The priority is shooting until he’s down. Everything else is an after-action. Moving to cover is third and calling for help is halfway down the list.

Not your normal Mythbusters

at all

Possibly Gunwalker actions in other states

Lankford: Special Agent Dodson, let me ask you a series of questions, and this will be for several agents. Give me your best guess, and it's going to be just a guess on this. How many weapons do we have in the United States or in Mexico, that are out there, that are a result of "Fast and Furious," that we do not know where they are?

Dodson: Well sir, my best guess estimate at that, and remembering that Fast and Furious was one case, from one group, in one field division.

He went on with numbers, of course (2,500 that BATFE facilitated the trafficking of, with from 300 to 800 since recovered), but today let's look at how Special Agent Dodson qualifiied those numbers: "Fast and Furious was one case, from one group, in one field division." The implication is, of course, that there could be other "Operations Fast and Furious," doing their own "gunwalking."

Much more here

Holder's either a friggin' idiot,

or such a left-wing squirrel that he actually believes this:
"I am determined to defeat our enemies," Holder said in his address to the American Constitution Society. "But victory and security will not come easily. And they won’t come at all if we adhere to a rigid ideology, adopt a narrow methodology, or abandon our most effective terror-fighting weapon -- our Article Three [civilian] court system."

"Without civilian law enforcement and Article Three courts, our ability to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat terror plots; to secure actionable intelligence; to enlist international cooperation; and to punish those who have -- and who intend to -- harm Americans would be seriously damaged," Holder declared to considerable applause from the audience of about 700. "We must speak out. And we must set the record straight."
And left-wing lawyers- the kind who volunteer to defend terrorists and enemy combatants- cheer. Big surprise.

He actually seems to believe you can fight a war according to the niceties of civilian courts and law.

Issa asked one of THE questions

This is not a discovery process of what happened--we know what happened. We know that this administration, at the highest levels, approved a process that allowed thousands of high-powered weapons--basically AK-47 and M-16 look-alikes--to go to the worst of the worst on both sides of the borders, that those weapons have been used to commit crimes, and they have led to the death of federal agents on our side of the border, obviously, also Mexicans on their side of the border. This is known. The real question is what were they thinking.
No kidding. As to the answer to that,
So let me just ask a question for your supposition, but I think it's a very well educated one. If you only look at the beginning and the end of the dot, isn't the only thing you've proven is that guns in America go to Mexico? Now could that be a political decision? Could that be a decision that basically, we just want to substantiate that guns in America go to Mexico--something we all knew, but would have considerable political impact, as Mexico began complaining about these, and they could say, "Well, yeah--we're even rolling up the straw purchasers." It wouldn't change the fact that Mexicans were dying at the behest of the United States, but wouldn't it ultimately meet a political goal?

Forcelli: I imagine, sir, that it's possible. In this instance, I think it's more just as I said earlier. A case agent had a bad idea; a group supervisor who failed to rein her in; an ASAC who failed to rein in--the chain of command, all the way up, failed.

Issa: But you'd agree that it doesn't meet any criminal goal--goal of prosecuting, the way it was handled?

Forcelli: No, because you can't show the chain of how those pieces of evidence went from Point A to Point B, which you'd need to prove at a trial.

Issa: I hope it was just a terrible mistake.
I've reached the point that I don't believe it was a mistake: they managed exactly what they wanted. Problem is, some people in BATFE with some integrity and honor blew the whistle.

This I have to stea- borrow

and post:
Gear’s rules
#1 When pouring or transferring materials, the quantity spilled is directly proportional to either it’s value, hazard, or the degree of difficulty in cleaning it up.

#2 Improve our national marital statistics: Stay out of SWMBO’S kitchen with boolit stuff.

#3 Box o’ Truth rule: Shooting stuff is fun.

#4 Just because others couldn’t do it doesn’t mean you will. Think about it.

#5 The mould will finally start dropping gems five minutes before suppertime.

#6 Don’t argue with stupid people, argue with interesting people who happen to be wrong.

#7 Properly stored ammo doesn't spoil, eat, or increase your rent. So stock up.

#8 You can't shoot straight wheel weights, they have to be made into boolits first.

#9 Hodgdon will discontinue the only powder that ever shot straight in your favorite rifle.

#10 Things go awry when you least expect it, and are particularly deficient in armor plate.

#11 Beware the loose nut behind someone else’s reloading press.

#12. If one accumulates more than 1,000 rifle or 2500 pistol cases of a given caliber, it becomes immediately necessary to purchase a gun chambered in that caliber, along with dies, moulds, sizers, top punches, powder, primers, membership to a public shooting center with a long enough rifle range, ad nauseum.

#13 Your best groups will be multiple, 10-shot ragged holes you made with no witnesses and won’t ever be able to duplicate again with the same gun and load, even when alone.

#14 No matter what you think now, you will never have enough gun stuff. Only the President does, he’s got the four long arms of the military, plus about 2500 ICBMs with the trigger in a suitcase.

Found over at Cast Boolits

My, it's busy out there

I've been trying to keep up with the Gunwalker hearings; here's something new, that also involves guns smuggled into Mexico and a ATF biggie named Gillett:
In Operation Wide Receiver, Tucson agents allowed the sales of more than 500 firearms to known straw purchasers. Like Gunrunner/Fast and Furious, the operation apparently backfired.

Some firearms in Wide Receive were equipped with RFID tracking devices. In Wide Receiver, it seems the illegal purchasers seemed more than slightly knowledgeable of the way the ATF and how to take their aerial and electronic tracking procedures down.

Knowing the time aloft numbers for virtually all planes used in government surveillance, the buyers had a simple method of getting their purchases across the border undetected. They simply drove four-hour loops around the area.

As surveillance planes were forced to return to base for re-fueling, the smugglers simply turned and sprinted their cargo across the border.

The RFID tags also turned out to be problematic.

Rather than making large enough holes for the tags to be laid out inside weapons, agents force-fit them into the rifles.

That cramming caused the antennae to be folded, reducing the effective range of the tags. And an already short battery life (36-48 hours maximum) meant that should purchasers allow the firearms to sit, the tracking devices eliminated themselves.

This sounds like something out of "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight" but it's not.

To date, Wide Receiver hasn't really amounted to much in the way of interdiction, enforcement or prosecution, despite the huge amounts of surveillance video and audio evidence collected and the millions of dollars expended.

To date, sources tell us the only charges filed in the ongoing investigation are for falsifying Form 4473s. Not much of a return on an investigation that consumed millions of dollars in man-hours and money and placed the lives of law-abiding firearms dealers and their families in jeopardy.
One guy calls it Gunrunner II; I don't doubt Issa and Grassley have been told about it.
Pic from Michelle Malkin

SiH says the CSGV should be ashamed at what they're doing; but that would require they have a sense of honor, or shame, or some integrity.


"So we've had three House Speakers convicted of felonies; why should we change anything?"
One indignant pol even took personal offense when a Herald reporter asked if the guilty verdict would change the culture at the State House.

“What has to be changed on Beacon Hill? Why would you say something like that?” snapped state Sen. Steven Tolman (D-Brighton).

“That’s outrageous. Come on. There are 199 people up here that work their hearts out — 200 people — every single day. I’m insulted,” Tolman said, correcting himself on the total number of legislators.
Yeah, no indication at all that something in the culture of the place needs to change, no sir!


Back to Gunwalker:
After more than two months of back-and-forth between DOJ officials and Issa’s staff, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich told lawmakers that the department was cooperating and actively working to respond to the committee’s request.

Outraged, Issa held up a piece of white paper with a giant black box of entirely redacted text on it.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” Issa said to Weich. “It doesn’t take so long if you don’t spend your life redacting it.

“The pages go on like this forever,” he said, referencing the blackened piece of paper. “You’ve given us black paper instead of white paper. You might as well have given us a ream still in its original binder. How dare you make an opening statement of cooperation.”
Because he's a slimy little bastard with no honor. Or sense of shame. My opinion, anyway.


So, if Israel becomes a major oil-producing state... oh, that's got real potential.


Yeah, socialized medicine is just great for older folks, isn't it?


Uncle pointed to some comparisons of self-defense insurance plans


Unrelated to news, took a ride last night and found myself reflecting(after I came out of that left/right curve) on an odd thing about motorcycles: countersteering. If you're not familiar, it means you steer the front wheel in the opposite direction of where you want to go.
If you're tooling down the street in a straight line and give the handlebars a nudge to the left, you will curve right; I once read the physics description of how it works, but I can't remember it(no, it did not give me a headache). Which means, for instance, that if you realize you're a little wide to complete this turn you don't cut the throttle; you actually- for a left curve- put a little more pressure to the right on the 'bars to tighten your turn(I also shifted my weight a bit more to the inside).

This is the kind of thing that took a while to get used to on this bike. You countersteer with any bike, but in fast curves on the Vulcan I mostly leaned a bit; on this bike you have to shift your weight. For most stuff it was described by son as 'kiss the mirror': you lean yourself into the rear-view mirror on the inside of the turn. If you don't, you will not turn as fast. Which can lead to unpleasant meetings with shoulders or retaining walls. The bike's great, just took a bit of getting used to.


Over at Watt's Up,
It is totally unacceptable that IPCC should have had a Greenpeace employee as a Lead Author of the critical Chapter 10, that the Greenpeace employee, as an IPCC Lead Author, should (like Michael Mann and Keith Briffa in comparable situations) have been responsible for assessing his own work and that, with such inadequate and non-independent ‘due diligence’, IPCC should have featured the Greenpeace scenario in its press release on renewables.

Everyone in IPCC WG3 should be terminated and, if the institution is to continue, it should be re-structured from scratch.
And this is about?
Steve McIntyre has uncovered a blunder on the part of Pachauri and the IPCC that is causing waves of doubt and calls for retooling on both sides of the debate. In a nutshell, the IPCC made yet another inflated claim that:

…80 percent of the world‘s energy supply could be met by renewables by mid-century…

Unfortunately, it has been revealed that this claim is similar to the Himalayan glacier melt by 2035 fiasco, with nothing independent to back it up. Worse, it isn’t the opinion of the IPCC per se, but rather that of Greenpeace. It gets worse.


And there are predictions of a big drop in solar activity. OK has now had blizzards two years running(almost a second this past winter, but we lucked out); I'm going to have to buy that snow shovel.

And with that, I leave you for now.