The criticism comes from a senior official of the 56-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The head of its office that monitors democratic practices says the ruling effectively lifting limits on election spending by corporations and unions "threatens to further marginalize candidates without strong financial backing or extensive personal resources."
Well, tell you what, Euro-Boy, screw you. The 1st Amendment is very important to (most of)us, and we hold being able to yell at our politicians a Very Good Thing; so go away, you nanny-state dirtbags. We see what you're doing to Wilders for daring to speak non-PC things, so your criticism doesn't mean a whole lot.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
The previous post on the NYEffin'PD now leads us to another matter
touching on law enforcement:
You may remember that more than two months ago, amid the controversy over the Obama administration's decision to grant full American constitutional rights to, and hold a civilian trial for, accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Republican Sen. Charles Grassley asked Attorney General Eric Holder about Justice Department lawyers who before joining the Obama/Holder team had represented Guantanamo detainees or worked for groups representing them. Grassley pointed to one high-ranking Obama Justice official who formerly represented Osama bin Laden's driver and another who works on detainee issues despite previous advocacy for detainees.
...
Now, two months have passed and the senators have heard nothing. "Sen. Grassley does not have an answer yet," says a Grassley spokesman. "The Justice Department says it's 'in process.'" The Justice Department did not respond to an inquiry about the matter Friday, and it is not clear when the Department will answer Grassley's questions.
This is a serious damned question: any lawyer who worked for these people, and is now- supposedly- prosecuting them is in a serious pile of conflict of interest. To say the least. Holder playing "I don't have to tell you" is bullshit, and if he wasn't pushing an agenda he'd admit it's wrong(of course that assumes he cares about- or actually knows- the difference between 'right' and 'wrong').
Add to that
In the meantime, committee Republicans are starting to wait for Holder's response to another letter, sent yesterday, asking for an explanation of the decision to hold accused al Qaeda Detroit bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in the civilian justice system instead of as an enemy combatant.
Nobody from Holder on down wants to admit having anything to do with this; at least one of them is lying. And we need to know who.
You may remember that more than two months ago, amid the controversy over the Obama administration's decision to grant full American constitutional rights to, and hold a civilian trial for, accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Republican Sen. Charles Grassley asked Attorney General Eric Holder about Justice Department lawyers who before joining the Obama/Holder team had represented Guantanamo detainees or worked for groups representing them. Grassley pointed to one high-ranking Obama Justice official who formerly represented Osama bin Laden's driver and another who works on detainee issues despite previous advocacy for detainees.
...
Now, two months have passed and the senators have heard nothing. "Sen. Grassley does not have an answer yet," says a Grassley spokesman. "The Justice Department says it's 'in process.'" The Justice Department did not respond to an inquiry about the matter Friday, and it is not clear when the Department will answer Grassley's questions.
This is a serious damned question: any lawyer who worked for these people, and is now- supposedly- prosecuting them is in a serious pile of conflict of interest. To say the least. Holder playing "I don't have to tell you" is bullshit, and if he wasn't pushing an agenda he'd admit it's wrong(of course that assumes he cares about- or actually knows- the difference between 'right' and 'wrong').
Add to that
In the meantime, committee Republicans are starting to wait for Holder's response to another letter, sent yesterday, asking for an explanation of the decision to hold accused al Qaeda Detroit bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in the civilian justice system instead of as an enemy combatant.
Nobody from Holder on down wants to admit having anything to do with this; at least one of them is lying. And we need to know who.
You know, there is a reason for the test kits,
and not leaving someone in a cell for a bloody work week before you bother to check the stuff.
And note the response of NYPD:
The "drugs" were finally tested five days later and determined to be popular Coco (coconut) Candy. The charges were dropped -- but there were no apologies from the NYPD.
"Sweet happens," a police source glibly said of the boondoggle.
Well, isn't that such a wonderful, professional response to this crap?
And note the response of NYPD:
The "drugs" were finally tested five days later and determined to be popular Coco (coconut) Candy. The charges were dropped -- but there were no apologies from the NYPD.
"Sweet happens," a police source glibly said of the boondoggle.
Well, isn't that such a wonderful, professional response to this crap?
Hope! Change!!
Transparency!!!
The Justice Department, citing privilege claims, has refused to release e-mails and other documents sought under an open records request by The Washington Times to explain its decision last year to dismiss a civil complaint accusing the New Black Panther Party of intimidating voters at a Philadelphia polling place.
Talk about sorry excuses for law enforcement...
The Justice Department, citing privilege claims, has refused to release e-mails and other documents sought under an open records request by The Washington Times to explain its decision last year to dismiss a civil complaint accusing the New Black Panther Party of intimidating voters at a Philadelphia polling place.
Talk about sorry excuses for law enforcement...
Friday, January 22, 2010
Ref the arrests at the SHOT show,
and wasn't that a bit of grandstanding?, Codrea has some questions. Including
We can ask if grandstanding and getting headlines plays into any of that.
We can ask where ATF is on this, and if their absence is indicative of continued noncooperation and friction between their agency and the FBI.
We can ask how this is likely to boost the career of the guy ramrodding the operation, Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division, an Obama pick who gained notice on the national stage helping represent Bill Clinton during his impeachment.
Go read.
We can ask if grandstanding and getting headlines plays into any of that.
We can ask where ATF is on this, and if their absence is indicative of continued noncooperation and friction between their agency and the FBI.
We can ask how this is likely to boost the career of the guy ramrodding the operation, Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division, an Obama pick who gained notice on the national stage helping represent Bill Clinton during his impeachment.
Go read.
The only way I can put this: most of our local news flat sucks.
In specific, remember a while back I wrote about the MAPS tax vote? The one where the mayor said it would 'energize the city', etc. ad bullshit? The one where the police and fire department unions were warning that they were short on people and equipment now, and this would stretch them further? Well, most of the local news weenies(That'd be KOCO, KWTV and KFOR) went along with the mayor's plans and didn't really ask questions about various, ah, 'problems' and 'associations' involved in this mess.
Guess what?
One- ONE- station, KOKH, the local FOX affiliate, has reported that along with a bunch of other cuts being made due to the economy, Oklahoma City is going to lay off a bunch of cops and firefighters; none of the other 'news' stations are saying one damned word up to this point. And there's not ONE DAMNED WORD about it on their websites. All kinds of OTHER stuff, and about the layoffs in Tulsa, but NOT ONE WORD ABOUT THE POLICE & FIRE LAYOFFS IN OKC.
The Mayor, Mick Cornett, just gave his 'State of the City' address, and of course said not one damned word about it. And there's nothing on the city website right now.
During the leadup to the vote, just about the only one bringing up a lot of the questions was a guy named Mark Shannon who works at KTOK radio; he's got stuff up on his blog about it, but KTOK doesn't have ONE DAMNED WORD that I can find on their website on this crap.(past stuff of his here, for one)
KOKH did a report on their news show; all they've got on their website is this, but the actually have reported on this steaming pile of crap.
KWTV, KOCO, KFOR, you suck. You didn't do the research on the conflicts and bullcrap before the vote, and right now your websites don't have a damned thing on these cuts that I can find. You're some miserable excuses for newsmen. Or 'reporters' if any of the female employees get their knickers in a twist at my using such an old-fashioned word.
On second thought, you can't bother to report on this stuff? Screw you.
Guess what?
One- ONE- station, KOKH, the local FOX affiliate, has reported that along with a bunch of other cuts being made due to the economy, Oklahoma City is going to lay off a bunch of cops and firefighters; none of the other 'news' stations are saying one damned word up to this point. And there's not ONE DAMNED WORD about it on their websites. All kinds of OTHER stuff, and about the layoffs in Tulsa, but NOT ONE WORD ABOUT THE POLICE & FIRE LAYOFFS IN OKC.
The Mayor, Mick Cornett, just gave his 'State of the City' address, and of course said not one damned word about it. And there's nothing on the city website right now.
During the leadup to the vote, just about the only one bringing up a lot of the questions was a guy named Mark Shannon who works at KTOK radio; he's got stuff up on his blog about it, but KTOK doesn't have ONE DAMNED WORD that I can find on their website on this crap.(past stuff of his here, for one)
KOKH did a report on their news show; all they've got on their website is this, but the actually have reported on this steaming pile of crap.
KWTV, KOCO, KFOR, you suck. You didn't do the research on the conflicts and bullcrap before the vote, and right now your websites don't have a damned thing on these cuts that I can find. You're some miserable excuses for newsmen. Or 'reporters' if any of the female employees get their knickers in a twist at my using such an old-fashioned word.
On second thought, you can't bother to report on this stuff? Screw you.
There's just so much stuff out there,
but I think I'll start with Air America going down the toilet. Because they couldn't even get enough liberals and progressives to listen to make advertisers buy time, so they went bankrupt. Buh-bye.
So the UN will hold President Obama to his promise that the United States will reduce carbon emissions even if the Senate cannot pass climate legislation, even if the Copenhagen Accord flops. Well, got news for you, de Boer; screw you and the power grab you're riding on. He can 'promise' anything he wants, but it has to be approved by the representatives of the people before it has any power, and enough of the truth has made it out that that's not going to happen.
If you live in Arizona and are in McCain's district, my personal advice would be to tell any McCain or Stupid Party callers asking for votes or money to kiss your ass. He's proven himself to be one more progressive RINO on most things and cannot be trusted.
This sounds scary-close to the thinking behind the F4 Phantom not having a gun: "We're not going to have this 'dogfight' crap anymore, we're going to use missiles and hit enemy aircraft miles away!", which sounded great. Right up until we had F4s being chased by MiG15s with no missiles but a pair of cannon. Yeah, you can get by with something less than a Typhoon for a lot of missions in Afghanistan, but speaking as if you'll never need something like the Typhoon again... that's dumb, guys. Our AF keeps tried to get rid of the A10 almost from day 1, but it's been a great plane. Get the Tucano for the missions that it's good at(apparently very good), but don't fall into thinking that's all you'll need in the future.
Yeah, I think he's right: Obama & Pelosi & Reid have decided to 'wait until the attention dies down' and then try to sneak or shove Obamacare through. I guess they really don't care how many Democrats get stomped for it, they'll try this power-grab no matter what.
Also from Q&O,
Got that? Passing a bill that circumvents Brown’s vote will be viewed “with some justification” as illegitimate, so let’s go ahead and do just that! Do these people even listen to themselves? Using the reconciliation process (“sidecar” or otherwise) to shove health care legislation down Americans’ throats simply eschews the very legislative process that Barney Frank and Jim Webb cited as the reason to forgo further action on health care until Brown is seated. Yet, Hamsher and her cohorts advocate for legislative legerdemain anyway. Cognitive dissonance in action.
The reason, of course, is that passing health care legislation is such a fundamental issue for progressives that they have thrown all sense (such as was possessed) to the wind. It has nothing to do with what people want, but instead with what progressives want people to want. Apparently it doesn’t even matter that the rosy economic projections upon which these health care bills are based have little to no basis in reality. I guess, since the ultimate goal is a utopian fantasy, employing imaginary thinking is the only way to get there.
Totally unrelated to the above, I took the suggestion of a commenter and used some epoxy putty to build up the front sight of the M95. That worked very nicely to move the POI down to a reasonable point at 100 yards, and having a better-defined front sight helped accuracy, too. The proper fix would be a taller front sight, but I'm wondering about taking a short piece of hacksaw blade, heating and folding it, then opening it up just enough to fit over the front sight and soldering it on; that'd give a taller sight that would be more durable than the putty. You could keep part of the blade squeezed together right at the fold and open a 'skirt' beneath it, and could file the taller part down as needed to zero the POI with your ammo. I'm going to have to fiddle with that.
A Filipino muslim bomb tech killed in Afghanistan; gee, I wonder what he was doing there...
And so it is that I’d like to invite the head muckety-muck of the Evergreen State College, Dr. Les Purce, to put away the pomp and circumstance and come on down.
Dr. Les is wallowing in the wealth of taxpayer generosity.
Having been given a sumptuous residence as part of his presidential Evergreen package, he instead chose to live in a different house and insist on an additional $60,000 a year to pay for it.
Meanwhile, the house the college expected Dr. Les to live in sits empty.
What with repairs, utilities, maintenance and upkeep on the one house along with allowances for the new one, cost to us taxpayers is over $300,000 so far.
And now Dr. les says he wants a maid to take out his trash, wash his dishes and keep things tidy for him.
Well, he IS of the Progressive Elite, y'know, you can't expect him to live like one of the pea- uh, masses, can you?
I haven't tried to build an AR, but I still like the advice that Tam pointed to.
In the Tale of the M&P15-22, put another three mags through at the range the other day, and it's behaving itself nicely. I think I'll put the iron sights back on until I can find some taller(Extra-extra high, I guess) rings for the scope; I have to shove my cheek down on the stock to line it up properly.
Steve has been tempted into using lots of time devising new pizza recipes and methods.
It has to be noted again, the IPCC knew the 'The Glaciers Are Disappearing!' line was bullcrap and pushed it anyway.
The scandal threatens to undermine the panel’s credibility as it begins the marathon process of drafting its Fifth Assessment Reports, which are due out in 2013-14. Georg Kaser, a leading Austrian glaciologist who contributed to the 2007 report, described the glacier mistake as huge and said that he had warned colleagues about it months before publication.
Oh, this is just effing brilliant! on the part of the administration; they don't want to actually win in Afghanistan but don't have to balls to just pull out.
The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and senior Afghan officials have resisted moving forward with a bold and potentially risky initiative to support local militias in Afghanistan that are willing to defend their villages against insurgents, according to U.S. officials.
Their concerns have slowed the implementation of a key effort to provide security in places where there are relatively few NATO forces or Afghan police and Army units. U.S. military officials had wanted to get the initiative -- developed under the leadership of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan -- off to a quick start this year.
Eikenberry's unease about the program as it was structured by the military also reflects a broader difference of opinion at the highest levels of the U.S. military and diplomatic headquarters in Kabul about new approaches to combating the Taliban insurgency. While military commanders are eager to experiment with decentralized grass-roots initiatives that work around the ponderous Afghan bureaucracy in Kabul, civilian officials think it is more important to wait until they have the central government's support, something they regard as essential to sustaining the programs.
As Riehl puts it, The claim is they want to see more from the central government. Yet, this is the same administration that time and again has said the central government is part of the problem. Obama and his team don't seem to want to get out of the way and allow the military to fight the war with the best plan they can come up with. Should we be surprised?
I'm tempted to say it's also standard progressive bullcrap: it can't be allowed to succeed unless the government is in full control of it. Having these Afghan peasants actually defending themselves, on their own? Unthinkable!
Oh, gee, why would he make such a change now, I wonder?
MEMPHIS — A Tennessee man accused of killing a soldier outside a Little Rock, Ark., military recruiting station last year has asked a judge to change his plea to guilty, claiming for the first time that he is affiliated with a Yemen-based affiliate of Al Qaeda.
In a letter to the judge presiding over his case, the accused killer, Abdulhakim Muhammad, calls himself a soldier in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and calls the shooting “a Jihadi Attack” in retribution for the killing of Muslims by American troops.
“I wasn’t insane or post traumatic nor was I forced to do this Act,” Mr. Muhammad said in a two-page, hand-printed note in pencil. The attack, which he said did not go as planned, was “justified according to Islamic Laws and the Islamic Religion. Jihad — to fight those who wage war on Islam and Muslims.”
That's enough for one morning, especially since it's sunny outside. See you later.
So the UN will hold President Obama to his promise that the United States will reduce carbon emissions even if the Senate cannot pass climate legislation, even if the Copenhagen Accord flops. Well, got news for you, de Boer; screw you and the power grab you're riding on. He can 'promise' anything he wants, but it has to be approved by the representatives of the people before it has any power, and enough of the truth has made it out that that's not going to happen.
If you live in Arizona and are in McCain's district, my personal advice would be to tell any McCain or Stupid Party callers asking for votes or money to kiss your ass. He's proven himself to be one more progressive RINO on most things and cannot be trusted.
This sounds scary-close to the thinking behind the F4 Phantom not having a gun: "We're not going to have this 'dogfight' crap anymore, we're going to use missiles and hit enemy aircraft miles away!", which sounded great. Right up until we had F4s being chased by MiG15s with no missiles but a pair of cannon. Yeah, you can get by with something less than a Typhoon for a lot of missions in Afghanistan, but speaking as if you'll never need something like the Typhoon again... that's dumb, guys. Our AF keeps tried to get rid of the A10 almost from day 1, but it's been a great plane. Get the Tucano for the missions that it's good at(apparently very good), but don't fall into thinking that's all you'll need in the future.
Yeah, I think he's right: Obama & Pelosi & Reid have decided to 'wait until the attention dies down' and then try to sneak or shove Obamacare through. I guess they really don't care how many Democrats get stomped for it, they'll try this power-grab no matter what.
Also from Q&O,
Got that? Passing a bill that circumvents Brown’s vote will be viewed “with some justification” as illegitimate, so let’s go ahead and do just that! Do these people even listen to themselves? Using the reconciliation process (“sidecar” or otherwise) to shove health care legislation down Americans’ throats simply eschews the very legislative process that Barney Frank and Jim Webb cited as the reason to forgo further action on health care until Brown is seated. Yet, Hamsher and her cohorts advocate for legislative legerdemain anyway. Cognitive dissonance in action.
The reason, of course, is that passing health care legislation is such a fundamental issue for progressives that they have thrown all sense (such as was possessed) to the wind. It has nothing to do with what people want, but instead with what progressives want people to want. Apparently it doesn’t even matter that the rosy economic projections upon which these health care bills are based have little to no basis in reality. I guess, since the ultimate goal is a utopian fantasy, employing imaginary thinking is the only way to get there.
Totally unrelated to the above, I took the suggestion of a commenter and used some epoxy putty to build up the front sight of the M95. That worked very nicely to move the POI down to a reasonable point at 100 yards, and having a better-defined front sight helped accuracy, too. The proper fix would be a taller front sight, but I'm wondering about taking a short piece of hacksaw blade, heating and folding it, then opening it up just enough to fit over the front sight and soldering it on; that'd give a taller sight that would be more durable than the putty. You could keep part of the blade squeezed together right at the fold and open a 'skirt' beneath it, and could file the taller part down as needed to zero the POI with your ammo. I'm going to have to fiddle with that.
A Filipino muslim bomb tech killed in Afghanistan; gee, I wonder what he was doing there...
And so it is that I’d like to invite the head muckety-muck of the Evergreen State College, Dr. Les Purce, to put away the pomp and circumstance and come on down.
Dr. Les is wallowing in the wealth of taxpayer generosity.
Having been given a sumptuous residence as part of his presidential Evergreen package, he instead chose to live in a different house and insist on an additional $60,000 a year to pay for it.
Meanwhile, the house the college expected Dr. Les to live in sits empty.
What with repairs, utilities, maintenance and upkeep on the one house along with allowances for the new one, cost to us taxpayers is over $300,000 so far.
And now Dr. les says he wants a maid to take out his trash, wash his dishes and keep things tidy for him.
Well, he IS of the Progressive Elite, y'know, you can't expect him to live like one of the pea- uh, masses, can you?
I haven't tried to build an AR, but I still like the advice that Tam pointed to.
In the Tale of the M&P15-22, put another three mags through at the range the other day, and it's behaving itself nicely. I think I'll put the iron sights back on until I can find some taller(Extra-extra high, I guess) rings for the scope; I have to shove my cheek down on the stock to line it up properly.
Steve has been tempted into using lots of time devising new pizza recipes and methods.
It has to be noted again, the IPCC knew the 'The Glaciers Are Disappearing!' line was bullcrap and pushed it anyway.
The scandal threatens to undermine the panel’s credibility as it begins the marathon process of drafting its Fifth Assessment Reports, which are due out in 2013-14. Georg Kaser, a leading Austrian glaciologist who contributed to the 2007 report, described the glacier mistake as huge and said that he had warned colleagues about it months before publication.
Oh, this is just effing brilliant! on the part of the administration; they don't want to actually win in Afghanistan but don't have to balls to just pull out.
The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and senior Afghan officials have resisted moving forward with a bold and potentially risky initiative to support local militias in Afghanistan that are willing to defend their villages against insurgents, according to U.S. officials.
Their concerns have slowed the implementation of a key effort to provide security in places where there are relatively few NATO forces or Afghan police and Army units. U.S. military officials had wanted to get the initiative -- developed under the leadership of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan -- off to a quick start this year.
Eikenberry's unease about the program as it was structured by the military also reflects a broader difference of opinion at the highest levels of the U.S. military and diplomatic headquarters in Kabul about new approaches to combating the Taliban insurgency. While military commanders are eager to experiment with decentralized grass-roots initiatives that work around the ponderous Afghan bureaucracy in Kabul, civilian officials think it is more important to wait until they have the central government's support, something they regard as essential to sustaining the programs.
As Riehl puts it, The claim is they want to see more from the central government. Yet, this is the same administration that time and again has said the central government is part of the problem. Obama and his team don't seem to want to get out of the way and allow the military to fight the war with the best plan they can come up with. Should we be surprised?
I'm tempted to say it's also standard progressive bullcrap: it can't be allowed to succeed unless the government is in full control of it. Having these Afghan peasants actually defending themselves, on their own? Unthinkable!
Oh, gee, why would he make such a change now, I wonder?
MEMPHIS — A Tennessee man accused of killing a soldier outside a Little Rock, Ark., military recruiting station last year has asked a judge to change his plea to guilty, claiming for the first time that he is affiliated with a Yemen-based affiliate of Al Qaeda.
In a letter to the judge presiding over his case, the accused killer, Abdulhakim Muhammad, calls himself a soldier in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and calls the shooting “a Jihadi Attack” in retribution for the killing of Muslims by American troops.
“I wasn’t insane or post traumatic nor was I forced to do this Act,” Mr. Muhammad said in a two-page, hand-printed note in pencil. The attack, which he said did not go as planned, was “justified according to Islamic Laws and the Islamic Religion. Jihad — to fight those who wage war on Islam and Muslims.”
That's enough for one morning, especially since it's sunny outside. See you later.
Lots of noise already about this, but I do want to ask:
is Sen. Specter(Turncoat-PA) a fool, or simply so arrogant as to think this was a good thing to say?
It seems like a pretty simple question.
Who made the decision to charge Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the accused terrorist arrested for trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines jet on Christmas Day, as an everyday criminal, as opposed to an enemy combatant?
After all, Abdulmutallab was trained by al Qaeda, equipped with an al Qaeda-made bomb, and dispatched by al Qaeda to bring down the airliner and its 278 passengers. Even though the Obama administration has mostly abandoned the term "war on terror," the president himself has said clearly that the United States is at war with al Qaeda. So who decided to treat Abdulmutallab as a civilian, read him the Miranda warning, and provide him with a government-paid lawyer -- giving him the right to remain silent and denying the United States potentially valuable intelligence that might have been gained by a military-style interrogation?
It IS a simple question; the problem is nobody involved has the integrity or balls to say "I did".
After all, Abdulmutallab was trained by al Qaeda, equipped with an al Qaeda-made bomb, and dispatched by al Qaeda to bring down the airliner and its 278 passengers. Even though the Obama administration has mostly abandoned the term "war on terror," the president himself has said clearly that the United States is at war with al Qaeda. So who decided to treat Abdulmutallab as a civilian, read him the Miranda warning, and provide him with a government-paid lawyer -- giving him the right to remain silent and denying the United States potentially valuable intelligence that might have been gained by a military-style interrogation?
It IS a simple question; the problem is nobody involved has the integrity or balls to say "I did".
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Something strikes me in this "The End Of Hope" article
from Germany, this passage in particular:
"Obama made a serious misjudgement. Right at the beginning of his first year in office, he saved the banks, rescued the automobile industry from collapse and passed a huge economic stimulus package. He had hoped that these enormous deeds would give him the space to address those issues which are dearest to him: health care reform, climate change and investment in education."
"Those issues, however, are clearly not priorities for people in the US at the moment...
The first thing is that wording: "HE saved, Rescued, Passed".
The second is that they don't seem to realize just how much the way he pushed this crap pissed people off; that an awful lot of the population looked at the Government Motors and union bailout and hated it; that people looked at the 'saving of the banks' and all the conniving and deals involved and weren't real happy with it; that people realized just how badly the future of the country was mortgaged in the stimulus package and just how badly it would- and did- work, and did not like it. And thus these things did NOT 'give him space', it caused people who'd voted for Hope! and Change!! to say "What the hell are you doing? Take over my health care? Not a chance!"
To Nanny-State Europe these things may sound wonderful, but to us they were WAY off key. And Tuesday's result was one of the consequences.
"Obama made a serious misjudgement. Right at the beginning of his first year in office, he saved the banks, rescued the automobile industry from collapse and passed a huge economic stimulus package. He had hoped that these enormous deeds would give him the space to address those issues which are dearest to him: health care reform, climate change and investment in education."
"Those issues, however, are clearly not priorities for people in the US at the moment...
The first thing is that wording: "HE saved, Rescued, Passed".
The second is that they don't seem to realize just how much the way he pushed this crap pissed people off; that an awful lot of the population looked at the Government Motors and union bailout and hated it; that people looked at the 'saving of the banks' and all the conniving and deals involved and weren't real happy with it; that people realized just how badly the future of the country was mortgaged in the stimulus package and just how badly it would- and did- work, and did not like it. And thus these things did NOT 'give him space', it caused people who'd voted for Hope! and Change!! to say "What the hell are you doing? Take over my health care? Not a chance!"
To Nanny-State Europe these things may sound wonderful, but to us they were WAY off key. And Tuesday's result was one of the consequences.
Yeah, all that 'be cautious' stuff is just us trying to take over
There is only one functioning pier. It looks stable, but it is not. Sgt. Joshua Palmer, a U.S. Army diver, said that he and his men have examined every piling and that the news is not good. Many are splintered at the tops, tipped with frayed rebar where there should be solid concrete. It is not clear whether the pier can handle the weight it needs to bear. "I'm just a grunt, but I don't know. There's a lot missing under this pier," Palmer said.
The Americans weren't happy that a French naval vessel, the Francis Garnier, had docked. They weren't being competitive. They were being cautious. The French ship and its cargo could have tipped the pier over like an empty paper cup.
One of the Navy divers said, "Put on your life preservers." He wasn't kidding. Nearby, the civilian engineer for the Navy had made a pendulum out of a piece of string, a twig and a weight -- a half-full plastic eyedropper. He told a sailor to keep an eye on it.
"If it starts to swing, run," he said.
I'm not an engineer, nor do I blog as one: you don't have to be to recognize what's being described here.
And I'll bet that if the pier collapsed- or does- and the French ship takes damage, they'll bitch that our people didn't give them 'sufficient warning' or some other "It's not our fault!" crap.
Pointed to by Ghost of a Flea, who also notes that when you don't care about truth you can say anything:
Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez has once again accused the United States of playing God. But this time it's Haiti's disastrous earthquake that he thinks the U.S. was behind. Spanish newspaper ABC quotes Chavez as saying that the U.S. navy launched a weapon capable of inducing a powerful earthquake off the shore of Haiti. He adds that this time it was only a drill and the final target is ... destroying and taking over Iran.
Hugo, you miserable slut, if we could cause a friggin' earthquake your body would be buried in your Presidential Palace.
And the mullahs would be similarly interned; hey, if we could cause one, we could target it, right?
Normally I ignore the stuff that comes from Andrew Sullivan anymore,
but saw this bit at Dennis the Peasant and I just have to yell about it:
"The second explanation is the Brooks/Noonan theory that somehow everything feels wrong to the Independent or conservative-leaning voters. They have an instinctual fear of more government and, even though the Senate bill couldn't be more minimalist within the confines of expanding access and controlling costs, this gnaws at them. I think this is a legitimate feeling (I have it too) - but an illegitimate argument."
That Sullivan can look at the bloated , bribe-filled mass of corruption Reid shoved through the Senate and refer to it as couldn't be more minimalist within the confines tells me Sullivan is either demented, a friggin' idiot or so in the tank for Obama that they can't pipe oxygen in to him anymore.
"The second explanation is the Brooks/Noonan theory that somehow everything feels wrong to the Independent or conservative-leaning voters. They have an instinctual fear of more government and, even though the Senate bill couldn't be more minimalist within the confines of expanding access and controlling costs, this gnaws at them. I think this is a legitimate feeling (I have it too) - but an illegitimate argument."
That Sullivan can look at the bloated , bribe-filled mass of corruption Reid shoved through the Senate and refer to it as couldn't be more minimalist within the confines tells me Sullivan is either demented, a friggin' idiot or so in the tank for Obama that they can't pipe oxygen in to him anymore.
Just a few things to note this morning Updated! With DBS
First, sounds like the compassionate, tolerant folks of the left are playing "Let's ruin someone who disagreed with us" again.
The report’s respected authors, former Army Secretary Togo West and retired Navy Adm. Vernon Clark, said Defense Secretary Robert Gates did not charge them with finding out what happened. They were tasked with discovering whether there were any gaps or deficiencies that would hobble future efforts to identify internal threats and protect the force.
And they proceed to tap-dance around the truth, the facts, and any questions that would force them to give an actual answer. Just wonderful.
A little more on the level of bullshit here, including
Mr. West, at a second Pentagon news conference with Admiral Clark, said the problem with “self-radicalization” in the military was not rooted in Islam. “Suppose it were fundamentalist-Christian-inspired,” Mr. West said. “Our concern is not with the religion. It is with the potential effect on our soldiers’ ability to do their job.”
Bull-effing-shit. If 'fundamentalist-Christian-inspired' people were going around their units, let alone giving talks at conferences, talking about stoning people and killing anyone who doubted their beliefs truth and primacy, they'd have been noted as a dangerous nut and investigated and dealt with; you cowards have made it worth someones career to do so about a muslim. And you don't have to balls to deal with that, so you say crap like this.
If someones religious beliefs involve killing anyone who won't accept them and supporting terrorists- including at the cost of betraying your oath as an officer- then that religious belief IS of concern, whether you have the integrity to say so or not.
Captain's Journal also has some information on how the Anbar Awakening actually happened, and the problems- in some cases near idiocy- of trying to use the mythology of Anbar to set up actions in Afghanistan.
Note: as I recall, the Brits in Iraq were very big for a time on "We don't walk around in battle-rattle, we wear hats instead of helmets to show a friendly face", etc., and it blew up in their faces in the long run; they were acting as if they were patrolling in Ireland and expecting the same mindset and reactions from Iraqis(As I recall; been a while since I read on this).
Went over to Sipsey Street and ran across(among other things) this bit on the idiotic Brooks column whining about 'the not-well-educated being against the ideas of the educated class'. One part:
Since we can no longer count on being able to plan, we must adapt. When planning doesn’t work, centralization of authority is at best useless and usually harmful. And we must harden: that is, we need to build robustness and the capacity to self-heal and self-defend at every level of the system. I think the rising popular sense of this accounts for the prepper phenomenon. Unlike old-school survivalists, the preppers aren’t gearing up for apocalypse; they’re hedging against the sort of relatively transient failures in the power grid, food distribution, and even civil order that we can expect during the lag time between planning failures and CAS responses.
CAS hardening of the financial system is, comparatively speaking, much easier. Almost trivial, actually. About all it requires is that we re-stigmatize the carrying of debt at more than a very small proportion of assets. By anybody. With that pressure, there would tend to be enough reserve at all levels of the financial system that it would avoid cascade failures in response to unpredictable shocks.
Cycling back to terrorism, the elite planner’s response to threats like underwear bombs is to build elaborate but increasingly brittle security systems in which airline passengers are involved only as victims. The CAS response would be to arm the passengers, concentrate on fielding bomb-sniffers so cheap that hundreds of thousands of civilians can carry one, and pay bounties on dead terrorists.
I'll pass over the brain spasms so many would have over the idea of bounties; the basic idea boils back down to the Israeli criticism that "You are looking for things instead of looking at people." Problem we run into is that the same people who think 'Free Mumia!' is striking at racism and blame any and everything except the person committing the crime are of the same mindset as the clowns setting up a lot of the security theater; don't blame people, don't look for dangerous people, blame and look for things; it's just so much more sensitive and caring...
ShrinkWrapped on Brown. Some good stuff, including this quote:
It never ceases to amaze me that the very same folks who jumped on the Dede Scozzofava is a big fat RINO bandwagon have been going gaga over a candidate who is arguably even more liberal than Scozzofava
1. The Stupid Party was so busy playing games it didn't really want to get into a challenge to Coakley, and ticked-off people took over,
2. It was someone with a 'R' after his name actually going after this Senate seat in MA; even if Brown wasn't someone they'd push for in their home district, he would be a real change in MA in some ways and therefore was worth helping.
We'll see what happens with him.
As of last night, had some storms blow through but the worst stuff was south & east of OKC. At this point, between fall rains, the blizzard and this all the ponds and lakes ought to be up to the brim. Good thing, but it's too wet outside to edge or whatever. Ah well, more cleaning and organizing is always needed inside(I just looked around the room; dammit, where do I put some of this stuff?!?)
The report’s respected authors, former Army Secretary Togo West and retired Navy Adm. Vernon Clark, said Defense Secretary Robert Gates did not charge them with finding out what happened. They were tasked with discovering whether there were any gaps or deficiencies that would hobble future efforts to identify internal threats and protect the force.
And they proceed to tap-dance around the truth, the facts, and any questions that would force them to give an actual answer. Just wonderful.
A little more on the level of bullshit here, including
Mr. West, at a second Pentagon news conference with Admiral Clark, said the problem with “self-radicalization” in the military was not rooted in Islam. “Suppose it were fundamentalist-Christian-inspired,” Mr. West said. “Our concern is not with the religion. It is with the potential effect on our soldiers’ ability to do their job.”
Bull-effing-shit. If 'fundamentalist-Christian-inspired' people were going around their units, let alone giving talks at conferences, talking about stoning people and killing anyone who doubted their beliefs truth and primacy, they'd have been noted as a dangerous nut and investigated and dealt with; you cowards have made it worth someones career to do so about a muslim. And you don't have to balls to deal with that, so you say crap like this.
If someones religious beliefs involve killing anyone who won't accept them and supporting terrorists- including at the cost of betraying your oath as an officer- then that religious belief IS of concern, whether you have the integrity to say so or not.
Captain's Journal also has some information on how the Anbar Awakening actually happened, and the problems- in some cases near idiocy- of trying to use the mythology of Anbar to set up actions in Afghanistan.
Note: as I recall, the Brits in Iraq were very big for a time on "We don't walk around in battle-rattle, we wear hats instead of helmets to show a friendly face", etc., and it blew up in their faces in the long run; they were acting as if they were patrolling in Ireland and expecting the same mindset and reactions from Iraqis(As I recall; been a while since I read on this).
Went over to Sipsey Street and ran across(among other things) this bit on the idiotic Brooks column whining about 'the not-well-educated being against the ideas of the educated class'. One part:
Since we can no longer count on being able to plan, we must adapt. When planning doesn’t work, centralization of authority is at best useless and usually harmful. And we must harden: that is, we need to build robustness and the capacity to self-heal and self-defend at every level of the system. I think the rising popular sense of this accounts for the prepper phenomenon. Unlike old-school survivalists, the preppers aren’t gearing up for apocalypse; they’re hedging against the sort of relatively transient failures in the power grid, food distribution, and even civil order that we can expect during the lag time between planning failures and CAS responses.
CAS hardening of the financial system is, comparatively speaking, much easier. Almost trivial, actually. About all it requires is that we re-stigmatize the carrying of debt at more than a very small proportion of assets. By anybody. With that pressure, there would tend to be enough reserve at all levels of the financial system that it would avoid cascade failures in response to unpredictable shocks.
Cycling back to terrorism, the elite planner’s response to threats like underwear bombs is to build elaborate but increasingly brittle security systems in which airline passengers are involved only as victims. The CAS response would be to arm the passengers, concentrate on fielding bomb-sniffers so cheap that hundreds of thousands of civilians can carry one, and pay bounties on dead terrorists.
I'll pass over the brain spasms so many would have over the idea of bounties; the basic idea boils back down to the Israeli criticism that "You are looking for things instead of looking at people." Problem we run into is that the same people who think 'Free Mumia!' is striking at racism and blame any and everything except the person committing the crime are of the same mindset as the clowns setting up a lot of the security theater; don't blame people, don't look for dangerous people, blame and look for things; it's just so much more sensitive and caring...
ShrinkWrapped on Brown. Some good stuff, including this quote:
It never ceases to amaze me that the very same folks who jumped on the Dede Scozzofava is a big fat RINO bandwagon have been going gaga over a candidate who is arguably even more liberal than Scozzofava
Brown’s score puts him at the 34th percentile of his party in Massachusetts over the 1995-2006 time period. In other words, two thirds of other Massachusetts Republican state legislators were more conservative than he was. This is evidence for my claim that he’s a liberal even in his own party. What’s remarkable about this is the fact that Massachusetts Republicans are the most, or nearly the most, liberal Republicans in the entire country!Shor’s research shows us that even compared to Dede Scozzafava, Scott Brown is a very liberal Republican.
The point is that the "base's" support for Brown is a bit ironic in light of their continual excoriation of so-called RINOs. It's also a vindication for what many moderates (including yours truly) have been saying all along: rigid ideological litmus tests and a small tent approach are a sure fire prescription for staying out of power.
I think it purely boiled down to two things:1. The Stupid Party was so busy playing games it didn't really want to get into a challenge to Coakley, and ticked-off people took over,
2. It was someone with a 'R' after his name actually going after this Senate seat in MA; even if Brown wasn't someone they'd push for in their home district, he would be a real change in MA in some ways and therefore was worth helping.
We'll see what happens with him.
As of last night, had some storms blow through but the worst stuff was south & east of OKC. At this point, between fall rains, the blizzard and this all the ponds and lakes ought to be up to the brim. Good thing, but it's too wet outside to edge or whatever. Ah well, more cleaning and organizing is always needed inside(I just looked around the room; dammit, where do I put some of this stuff?!?)
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Just because it needs to be repeated what a scam and abuse of science
the AGW bullshit is,
The UN’s top climate change body has issued an unprecedented apology over its flawed prediction that Himalayan glaciers were likely to disappear by 2035.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said yesterday that the prediction in its landmark 2007 report was “poorly substantiated” and resulted from a lapse in standards. “In drafting the paragraph in question the clear and well-established standards of evidence, required by the IPCC procedures, were not applied properly,” the panel said. “The chair, vice-chair and co-chairs of the IPCC regret the poor application of IPCC procedures in this instance.”
The stunning admission is certain to embolden critics of the panel, already under fire over a separate scandal involving hacked e-mails last year.
Gee, ya think MAYBE?
It emerged last week that the prediction was based not on a consensus among climate change experts but on a media interview with a single Indian glaciologist in 1999. That scientist, Syed Hasnain, has now told The Times that he never made such a specific forecast in his interview with the New Scientist magazine.
“I have not made any prediction on date as I am not an astrologer but I did say they were shrinking fast,” he said. “I have never written 2035 in any of my research papers or reports.” Professor Hasnain works for The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in Delhi, which is headed by Rajendra Pachauri, head of the climate change panel.
But, of course, the UN insists they're right anyway:
Despite the controversy, the IPCC said that it stood by its overall conclusions about glacier loss this century in big mountain ranges including the Himalayas. “This conclusion is robust, appropriate, and entirely consistent with the underlying science and the broader IPCC assessment,” it said.
Translation: "You're threatening our funding! We must have that money!!" Reason #47,something why the UN is not to be trusted.
Pachauri, you're a miserable little grifter, and should be jailed as such. Eff you, and the socialist pony you want to ride over us.
And Al Gore is full of crap. And knows he's in trouble.
The UN’s top climate change body has issued an unprecedented apology over its flawed prediction that Himalayan glaciers were likely to disappear by 2035.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said yesterday that the prediction in its landmark 2007 report was “poorly substantiated” and resulted from a lapse in standards. “In drafting the paragraph in question the clear and well-established standards of evidence, required by the IPCC procedures, were not applied properly,” the panel said. “The chair, vice-chair and co-chairs of the IPCC regret the poor application of IPCC procedures in this instance.”
The stunning admission is certain to embolden critics of the panel, already under fire over a separate scandal involving hacked e-mails last year.
Gee, ya think MAYBE?
It emerged last week that the prediction was based not on a consensus among climate change experts but on a media interview with a single Indian glaciologist in 1999. That scientist, Syed Hasnain, has now told The Times that he never made such a specific forecast in his interview with the New Scientist magazine.
“I have not made any prediction on date as I am not an astrologer but I did say they were shrinking fast,” he said. “I have never written 2035 in any of my research papers or reports.” Professor Hasnain works for The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in Delhi, which is headed by Rajendra Pachauri, head of the climate change panel.
But, of course, the UN insists they're right anyway:
Despite the controversy, the IPCC said that it stood by its overall conclusions about glacier loss this century in big mountain ranges including the Himalayas. “This conclusion is robust, appropriate, and entirely consistent with the underlying science and the broader IPCC assessment,” it said.
Translation: "You're threatening our funding! We must have that money!!" Reason #47,something why the UN is not to be trusted.
Pachauri, you're a miserable little grifter, and should be jailed as such. Eff you, and the socialist pony you want to ride over us.
And Al Gore is full of crap. And knows he's in trouble.
This just in from the Adminstration: "No tax cheats will get government contracts;
friends of President Obama can still serve on the cabinet. And run the Treasury."
Does this bastard not realize that we actually remember this stuff?
Does this bastard not realize that we actually remember this stuff?
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