Just Tripping Along On Cruise Control

There was a movie a while back about a guy who was given a remote control for his life. One of the big plot twists came when he realized that, having fast-forwarded to the interesting bits, he had missed out on the daily life of his family and his body was living a mindless existence without him meaningfully guiding it.

Fatigue means not doing even all the basic household chores some days. We refer to it as "blah" and that's all the description necessary on a "blah" day because we both feel it. So it turns out, you need to get more than 1-hour naps several times a night, in order to feel alert and perform optimally. Who'd'a thunk it?

The Recognition Phase, Round Two

Mainstream economists are starting to recognize that the Great Recession is back on. Now Mish is confirming my gut instinct has been correct all along:

"...in light of today's GDP report sporting 3 Years of Massive Downward GDP Revisions it is becoming increasingly likely that the recession that started in 2007 never ended."

"It got less-bad-looking for a while, and then fell down again" will be the theme of reporting going forward, beginning in a few months from now. If the government continues to [deleted] it up, it will be "and stayed down for n years." where n is at least one more than the government was trying to "stimulate" a recovery.

Bureau of Economic Activity "Advance" Q3 2010 Estimate To Be Delayed?

~or, I Don't Put It Past Them ~

Mish quotes an article on the way to making a different point, but catch this: " . . . the BEA's "advance" estimate for Q3 2010 might be brutal, just 4 days before the U.S. mid-term election."

Make that, it might be brutal the week after the mid-term. You know, when some excuse or other comes along to delay the report so you don't quite notice the Great Recession is still well underway and blame the Democrats -who are causing it- at the ballot box. I don't know who runs the BEA, but it wouldn't surprise me one little bit to see just such shenanigans pulled. Would it really surprise you?

Bill White Keeps 10ft. Pole Handy

Barack Obama is coming to Texas. Bill White, Democrat candidate for Governor of Texas (God forbid) has told President Obama that he would be happy to receive a phone call from him. He's just too busy for an in-person visit with President Obama. That is, he'll take a phone call instead of being caught dead on camera with the political-campaign-DEATH-machine that is Barack Obama. This is probably a canny move for Mr. White. Governor-for-Life Rick Perry has said he would like to meet with the President to discuss why the President refuses to enforce the border.

Less Is Not An Option.

This is yet another example of a problem that is ubiquitous in America during the current economic depression. City, state, and national government agencies with the power to destroy tax are increasing their rates of taxation. They have to, you see. Tax revenues are falling because you are spending less money on everything. They, of course, never could spend less, even though you are being bled dry. Less is not an option. It is only, always, more!

It's sickening, really. You are making do with less, but we have to expand the library. You stopped going out to eat, but the cafeteria for the bums downtown on the city dole needs more money. Your car is broken down but we have to re-pave the perfectly good street by the Mayor's house (again) because it stimulates the economy. It's your money they want. Are you involved in seeing you get to keep more of it? Fewer than 2000 people took part in Austin's online budget wish-list survey. That's something like 1%. That means nobody cares. Heck, why not spend more? I mean if YOU don't care, why should your State government? What's the worst that could happen? It's not like they'll repossess the State Capitol when you default on the bonds issued to pay for it, right? LOL

:(

You Stay Classy, Mister President!

The Boy Scouts had their 100th anniversary this year, and 45,000 Scouts turned out for the Jamboree. So of course, instead of showing up in person the President sent them a video tape (probably of him reading a speech off a teleprompter, having never given it a thought) and went to go say how great he was with the gals on The View.

Good job sir, way to keep up appearances and uphold tradition. Or something.

Who Needs Laws Anyway?

~ or, Regularization Through Executive Fiat ~

If you have not heard of this by now, you are not listening to the proper news outlets. You remember how there was a big push for Obamacare and Financial Reform before each bill was passed? Have you wondered why there has not been such a big push for amnesty for illegal immigrants Comprehensive Immigration Reform in the last year and a half? Well, maybe here's why. Here's also what might be the impetus to begin the push for the next amnesty bill, if public outcry forces The Leader to publicly disclaim this strategy. But remember: he has blatantly lied (or else been genuinely, wholly, utterly ignorant of what was written into law) about what he wanted to do before. Remember also: the people in high places in the US government right now serve at the pleasure of The Leader.

Senator Charles Grassley laid hands on a memorandum written to the Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which lays out ways that the Executive branch of the US Government could effect comprehensive immigration reforms without having to make a new law. They are working up ways to reduce the threat of deportation to persons who legally ought to be deported. The main idea seems to be simply not prosecuting offenders. Start out with refugees and students, maybe then work your way up to parents of 'anchor babies.' Just don't prosecute them. Sure it would be controversial, but who cares? It's the right thing for America!

If the Executive branch bypasses the Legislative branch by rule making and guidelines, and if lawbreakers never make it to the Judicial branch because illegal activity is not prosecuted, where does the power then lie? It lies wholly under the umbrella of the Executive branch of government, under the benevolent hand of The Leader. I still hold out a faint hope that President Obama is acting out of well-intentioned incompetence. God forbid that I should turn out to be wrong. . . . but ask yourself: is an attempt to consolidate all governmental authority under the President the action of a democrat, or a dictator?

Obama said (on the television show The View) " . . . When you feel as if every single initiative that we're doing is subject to Washington politics instead of is this good for the country, that can be frustrating." and the translation of this is: 'I know what I am doing is right, but that darned legal system and that pesky Congress keep preventing me from carrying out my agenda!' He has a majority in both houses of Congress. He should be able to pass any GOOD idea into law at any time. But Congresscritters know they have to run for re-election sooner or later, and if something they vote for is too outrageous, they might just lose their jobs. So it is pressure from the People which is thwarting the President's 'every single initiative,' not Washington politics!

Consider: if the only reason 20,000,000 people here illegally are not kicked out of the country is because The Leader is in office, do you think they might be inclined to do what they can to help keep him in office? Sure, and so does the current Democrat party leadership. And that is just another reason you need to kick them out of Congress this November.

Amazing Medical Breakthrough Roundup

When Democrats are given control, they like to take control. Hence Obamacare, which dictates that you must buy health care payment insurance. Take that a few steps further, and you end up with a mandate to have a device implanted in your vagina, just in case you might maybe possibly end up in premature labor without realizing it. It would save billions of taxpayer dollars, don't you see. And as you are a wage slave for the taxpayer (read: moocher class) you MUST take this thing into your body. It is for the greater good! Aside from that sort of mandate, I can't see too many women lining up to be fitted with one of these.

Doctors cost too much. They foolishly expect to be able to repay their capitalist pig student loans out of illegitimate, greed-driven, evil PROFITS. We may soon eliminate your eeeeEEEEeeeevil human surgeon and replace him. Robotic surgery, minus the surgeon. "No thanks doctor robot, I think I'll just die."

When I was a boy, I imagined being able to use my bionic eye and zoom in to look at what the men on the moon bases were doing. Well, there are already various types of implantable optics for changing how eyes work, but this is the first one they are actually calling a "telescope" . . . and it's FDA approved! Unfortunately, in order to use this telescope, you have to be old and legally blind already. Under the new Socialized medicine regime of the future, you useless old people won't have enough Quality-Adjusted Life Years remaining on the tail end of your existence to justify the cost of such a surgery, even if it is done by a robot surgeon. The rest of the taxpayers would appreciate it if you would just find yourself a convenient ice floe somewhere or just bite a bullet or something and DIE already! Don't you know how expensive you are to maintain at your age? Jeez, how inconsiderate you are!

Snark? Sometimes I think it comes from cynicism. What do you think?

Locally Grown Food: Better. www.localharvest.org

Food which is carefully grown on quality soil is more nutritious. Food which has to be shipped around the country must be preserved, usually by means of chemical additives. Your local economy is more important to you than mine is to you. . .

So go to Local Harvest and find a local source for high quality foodstuffs.

Legislative Grenades

This country is being turned into a place where sanity and legislation do not coincide.

I heard on the radio news today that my company will not have to make a special room where lactating "mothers" can go express breast milk. It's not that we have four women amongst 24 men, none of whom are in the market for children (much less with infants). It's not that we already have small, private, out-of-the-way rooms where milk might be expressed. No, it's because we have fewer than 50 employees, and we may be able to demonstrate that it would be an excessive hardship for us to construct a room for the sole purpose of providing lactating women privacy to express their milk. Thanks Obamacare!

Also: the "most open and honest" Congress EVAR just passed 2000 pages of financial regulatory "reforms." I called this one: liberty crushing by way of making the financial regulatory reform body completely opaque to the people. A Christian will understand that the only reason to NOT want accountability in government is so the government can engage in evil deeds.

Citizen: Securities and Exchange Commision employee, I would like to know about this scandalous thing that's going on please.
SEC Lackey: Tough. We're not talking.
Citizen: Freedom of Information Act Request SERVED! Answer up!
SEC Lackey: We're not talking and you can't make us.
Citizen: Why?
SEC Lackey: We reformed that.

THIS is fundamental change. Obama did promise fundamental change. Going from "you have to tell us what our government is doing" to "you don't have to tell us jack [deleted]" is change.

Is this the change you were hoping for?

Listening Between The Lines:

I don't watch TV but my talking heads play the sound bytes for me, and I heard all of the following with my own two ears. If you listened closely to the interview the President just gave to a woman's gab show on national television, you heard:

He completely dodged the question "is America a racist country?"

He admitted people in his administration moved too quickly to fire Sherrod*.

Amusingly, he had an old fashioned Freudian slip and admitted that he and his wife have sub-optimal attitudes when it comes to race relations in America.

ETA: oh, he also called blacks "a mongrel people" which would be political death to any lighter-colored person. But they elected him for being black, and he likely can say anything the rappers say (hint: mongrel is mild in comparison) and still get a bunch of racist blacks to vote for his skin color.

********

That would be the same Sherrod who was appointed to a high position in the USDA by the administration of The Obama after a racist lawsuit against the USDA. The one who said Breitbart wants us to go back to the times of slavery, and that he has never tried, and is not interested in getting past black vs. white, unlike her. Because she is an expert on Breitbart even though she never heard of him before two weeks ago. The Sherrod who is suing Breitbart for libel for using her own words as a public servant. That Sherrod is the one to whom I refer, in case you had any doubt.

Where's A Cop When You Need One?

On the way home from work, pulling up to a red light behind 4 or 5 cars in the #1 lane at a 3-lane intersection. I see a silver compact car at the end of the line in #2 lane with a door open. Set Condition Orange! I kept watching as I slowed to a stop, thinking about where the nearest firearm was. It so happened that I stopped almost dead-even with the car in question. As I was stopping, I watched a hand open a clear glass bottle which was wrapped in a brown paper sack, and the contents were poured out on to the street. I stopped, and it turned out the person pouring was a woman, mid 20s to mid 30s. She gave me a bleary-eyed look and closed the door, took a LIQUOR bottle out of its bag, and set the bottle on the floor next to her in the car.

Wow. I took off like a shot when it was my turn to go after the light changed. A drunk woman driver I need next to me like a goblin with a shotgun . . . because the results can be very similar, indeed!

Another Airbus Loses Control, Crashes.

An Airbus 321 has gone down in bad weather. All souls on board presumably lost. This time in Pakistan. Witnesses say it laid over on its side before crashing into a hillside near the Pakistani capital.

On the off chance I ever have to fly somewhere, I would rather drive and take ships, than fly on an Airbus airliner of any type, or one of the new Boeing products with composite primary surfaces. Why? Because tailfins are kinda important equipment to keep attached to the airplane. You know, on account of all the crashing and dying that goes on when they snap off in mid flight.

There's A Joke Here Somewhere

The Federal Bureau of Intelligence has a scandal about agents cheating on a test?

No.

So what if Texas is going to build a race track so a billionaire can get richer?
So what if British Petroleum released a terrorist under false pretenses so they could drill in Libya?

I've got a vise clamped on my head and the pills aren't loosening it fast enough. It rains, and the mold says "that's sporific!" and here I go. I don't even have to look at the counts to tell why I am hurting. Anything over 500 and I notice it. Over a thousand hurts and I have to medicate my head . . .



No blogging during such times. Call me again in a day, when I've had about half a gram of pseudoephedrine in little tiny doses. If they ever start making noises about banning sudafed outright, I'm going to have to get my friends and neighbors to make some straw purchases for me so I can stock up. Or leave Central Texas, one. . .

Tolerance on College Campuses

Tolerance means you get to believe what I want, or you can't get a degree. At least, not from government-funded universities.

"Not that there's anything wrong with that!"

Speak For Yourself There, Pal!

~or, Falling for The Trap~

Laura Ingraham has left her job and children behind to go on a promotional tour for her new book. Today she had a stand-in host who mentioned a story I had previously ignored on purpose. It seems some neonazis are doing the jobs the American (government) people won't do, and finally the MSM has a finger to point.

So anyway, this host says '"You" don't want some white supremacist neo nazi group patrolling the border with guns!' My response (to the radio) was: "Sure I do!" Look, I don't care if it's the Black Japanese Nazi Transgendered Transexual Lesbians for Jesus down on the border, I want SOMEBODY on the border, with GUNS, to keep murderous drug gangs out of the United States of America! Let them wear white hoods and strap-on 'marital aids', just so long as they hold down the fort!

********

This is a trap. It's a ruse, even. President Obama wants to have amnesty for 30 million illegal aliens before the next Presidential election, and the only way to make it happen is to get a bill passed before the next Congressional election. The press is to happy to try to get you to want to side with the President on immigration issues. The President's side is "we are not going to enforce the border without you (Republicans) granting amnesty to the people who cross it illegally." The press, therefore, has to do something difficult. They have to convince 85% of the nation (who are against illegal immigration) that they are wrong. One way to convince you that you are wrong is to conflate your right-headed conclusions with wrong-headed people who share the same conclusions. Follow the bouncing ball:

These guys are racists and nazis and bad

These guys want armed patrols on the border so bad they are doing it themselves

You are not a racist and nazi and bad

Therefore, you do not want to prevent drug gangs from entering the country to spread the drug wars farther north!

It sounds ridiculous when it is actually spelled out, but that is the subtext when news like this (the story I deliberately didn't write about the day it crossed the wires) is published.

They have been looking so hard for somebody who is against the President's agenda to be a genuine racist, and then this (very small) group of people is discovered. Here we have genuine racists doing things that sound vaguely illegal and scary, and you really don't want to be associated with them, now do you? Of course not! Now, just come back over to the "don't enforce the border" side of the aisle and vote Democrat yes on amnesty as part of comprehensive immigration reform!

The reason this is a bad choice of examples for the MSM is that the persons in question are not right-wingers. They are National Socialist types (Nazis = National Socialist Party). Socialism is the far-LEFT side of the political spectrum. Socialism is the same part of the political spectrum where you find President Obama, and even amongst THOSE people you find enough patriotism to want the border enforced! Do NOT be intimidated away from the message by this story.

What's the message?

ENFORCE THE BORDER before you even start talking about immigration reform. Shut it off to illegal aliens on foot as well as in trucks driven by coyotes, and push the drug wars back South where they came from. Do it in a verifiable way, and give it a year or two. THEN we'll start talking about speeding up the legal immigration process. You don't get to mix the two into one bill. I had rather hoped the last immigration reform bill's crushing defeat (due to popular outrage) a few years ago would have taught a few Democrats the message, but as Hannity says: There ARE NO moderate Democrats these days.

Spin: An Example

"Austin homes sales up 24 percent in May"
"New home sales rebound 24% - Jul. 26, 2010"
"New home sales up nearly 24%"
"GTA new home sales up 24 per cent in 2009"

Today I heard this headline and I said "waitaminnit, what about that -34% reported last time the statistic was published!"

Well, my gut was more correct than what passes for news on some local radio stations. Calculated Risk brings the charts:



You have to squint at the full-sized version (click on the chart) to see that this month's report is a huge upswing. It's a record bad month for June and that's the story unless you are a leftist who wants Obama's economy not to look so bad when you report on it. More complete reportage might also include the fact that the huge dip the previous month was due to what people thought would be the end of a government handout.

More Of What's Wrong? That's What's Needed!

In some communities, small and large, the wages and benefits for Police and Fire departments are eating half to 70% of the budget. Those benefits were generally agreed to by cities which were sitting across the table from UNIONized police negotiators. In yet another industry we see the strange attitude of the modern union: "Pay our dues and if you lose your job, blame your boss and not the union rules that made him want to fire you." Small towns have started to disband their police forces and rely on (cheaper, retirement-obligation free) contracts with Sherrif's associations.

So, at a time when it is increasingly obvious that unionized public safety organizations are a huge part of the problem, what does Harry Reid want? NATIONAL Union Rules. You think it's hard to fire a bad cop now, wait until the local union is based in D.C.! Think negotiations for pay are tough? Think time-off rules are ridiculous? This is one of the worst ideas possible. Election 2010 can't come soon enough.

Arizona Law Working Great, Still Not Even Implemented!

This speaks volumes about the complete contempt that the Federal government has had for the past couple of decades for 1/3 of our country (borders, language, culture).

The mere threat of enforcement of a law that mirrors Federal law, when Federal law has been an open joke all these years, is enough to send hundreds of thousands of people packing. I would link up the Yahoo!/Reuters article on the subject but it's full of misleading phrasing and half-truths so I'll leave the link out. It's not even worth the trouble to fisk the article but this will give you an idea of the quality, 100% pure unbiased journalism:

"It makes me sad and angry too because I feel I have the right to be here"

Well [deleted] welcome to my world baby. I've been sad and angry that you and your parents flouted the law and disrespected my country for so long. Don't let the doorknob hit you on the way out.

********

As I was telling my Darling Wife this morning: this is what you get when victims of the government schools go to Journalism School so that they can "make a difference."

Adjust Your LCD Monitor (Properly!)

You will visit this LCD Monitor Test Images page at lagom.com and read the directions. You will adjust your monitor's settings in accordance with the directions on each page. You will then write the settings down on an index card in case some helpful individual comes along and changes them for you. Tape the card to the back of your monitor.

*******

I stare at a computer screen about 1/2 of my work day, and half of that is graphics work. I must have a computer monitor that is properly set up. It makes me crazy a little, when the adjustments are off a little. If the adjustments are off a lot, I will change them, even if it is someone else's machine. Most people will not notice, if they are not right there watching me do the adjustments.

We were (thanks Jesus) just given a flat panel monitor for use at the house. My previous monitor was a lovely CRT which plays nicely with the analog video output of my PC. This is an LCD, and . . . well, it was unsatisfactory. While my computer was running security scans on itself in the background (you DO run Spybot on all your computers, RIGHT?) I was adjusting my new monitor. It is finally, barely, satisfactory.

Wal-Mart Tracking Tags On Clothing: Not a Problem.

Well, a minor problem. Wal-Mart is the 800lbs gorilla, and if they want something from a supplier they usually get it. This time they want the suppliers to put an extra-cost tag on the clothing they sell to Wal-Mart. What, Wal-Mart can't put them on when they take delivery? Oh well, anyway, the main concern people have is privacy.

This is a non-issue. You don't want to be tracked in your underwear and jeans purchases when you leave the store? Take the tag off. Better yet, make an angry phone call and demand that corporate policy says the tags come off at the check stand. Then it is literally no different from the antitheft tags currently on the clothes.

The real problem comes years down the road. When you are driving down the road with a box of generic cookies in your trunk, and an ad comes up on an active billboard (or worse, your cell phone or car navigation display) about how the name brand is better than the generic. I'm for manual checkout machines and cars without traction control, but if you won't demand more of people you have to invent new ways to compensate for their foibles. Of those, this is one. Demand better, or get used to the idea.

Timing: Perfect!

The North sank a ship from the South with a torpedo from a submarine. This is as far as we know the worst in a series of exchanges of fire between the two Koreas. Now our bungling Secretary of State (Mrs. Clinton) has set up some joint military exercises. Make that, she set up joint military exercises beginning on the very day when, 57 years ago, the "Korean War" was joined.

North Korea always threatens to fight when these joint exercises are held. This time they are threatening to use nukes on our friends and us. It's always hard to tell when the crazy guy will snap, so this might just get very interesting in a hurry. We'll see. Prayers that this is another routing bluff are definitely in order.

Madness @ Work!

I was using compressed air (regulated at an OSHA-mandated 35PSI) to blow off some dusty equipment. CB walked by . . .

CB: You want to use a mask for that VFD?
VFD: *gasp* I'm holding my breath.
CB: No, I meant so I wouldn't have to see your face! LOL
VFD: LOL thanks CB very funny
CB: LOL
VFD: I'll remember that when I'm walking by your car LOL
CB: LOL

********

I was carrying a heavy water pump to a scale in TA's area. He says, in a tone and with body language which tell me he would help, but he thought I had it, so not offering any help . . .

TA: That looks pretty heavy VFD
VFD: (wrestles glove out from under pump motor, looks at scale head) Nah, only 97lbs.

RH walks up to ask me an unrelated question . . .

RH: You shouldn't be picking that up like that, OSHA would throw a fit!
VFD: Then I really shouldn't have been picking up those 181lbs ones over there! (points to 181lbs pumps)
RH: !!!
VFD: LOL

Video Games: For Children And Singletons

I would have posted last night. The coming Madness post was written already. But I got roped into playing The Legend of Zelda, the Ocarina of Time so that #2 could see what it was like. It was hard on #3 who wanted to play with somebody, and everybody was watching me play. I knocked off until we put him down . . . THEN I played through the first boss. Then it was too late for posting. *yawn* sorry about that.

It's Probably Going To Be FINE!

They are making plans to evacuate the Gulf of Mexico in advance of a coming storm. The cap on the leaking well is to remain in place if they go . . . and nobody will be watching it. Washington's Blog points out that this could mean a leak out the side with nobody there to relieve pressure out the top again, resulting in a disastrous leak which could only be stopped by the relief wells, if at all.

My first thought was: in light of the fact that one of the pieces of equipment down there is rated at 5000PSI working pressure, and pressure is higher than that and rising already, I wonder if that part will hold? I'm tired. . . I think I read about this in comments at Naked Capitalism . . . but leaving a part holding back the gusher unattended, at 150% of MAWP is, to use a euphemsim, highly irregular.

I hope it will be okay. We'll see what happens, when they get back and start looking again. Prayers would probably be a good idea.

Here;s To You, Mister Safety/Revenue Officer Guy!

Reeeeal Men of Geeeenius!

The Austin Police Department has announced an 18-month progrm of enhanced enforcement of the law, and I for one think it is brilliant. There is a very strong negative reaction from some of the citizenry, to whom I can only retort: "Then why don't you slow the [deleted] down in a construction zone!?"

The idea is to put APD officers in construction zones, dressed up as construction workers (and yes, the Village People jokes are rife) with a radar gun on a tripod as if it were a surveying instrument. Some [deleted] goes blasting through the construction zone -as they do every day- and the plainclothes officer calls ahead to his buddy who then issues a citation for speeding. Make that, speeding in a construction zone with workers present, for a DOUBLE fine. At the pilot location, tickets were issuing at a rate of 15/hour. So let's see: a $150/ticket * 2 for a construction zone * 15/hr * 4hrs of rush-hour = a nice little benefit for the city's $10M+ lacking budget.

Jeff Ward was quick to decry it as pointless the first day, because after all, who would know until it was too late? People are going to speed anyway, right?

Yes but (and remember that "yes but" means "no") if for a YEAR AND A HALF people around town are made to think that a construction zone = double fine tickets because there might be a COP there, people will be MUCH less-inclined to speed in construction zones. The safety of construction workers being a nice side-benefit to the enforcement of the law, I fail to see how this is a bad thing. Sure you will have to go slower. Leave earlier already - this includes me, by the way, with a stupid 45-in-a-60-zone construction zone for several MILES of my commute. I'll deal with it, and so will thousands of Austinites, by getting into the habit of slowing down in construction zones. Then I hope, when the year and a half are over, we will all have a safe new habit to live with.

********

But it puts the officers at increased risk!

You mean the officers who routinely walk around parked patrol and citizen/suspect cars in traffic every day? The ones who just might catch a bullet for saying "good morning ma'am" when a window rolls down? Those officers? Risk is part of being a police officer, and this is only a different type.

Well, There Goes China.

Mish says that the housing bubble in China has apparently collapsed. Blame may be (incorrectly) laid at the feet of the Chinese government, which tried to slow the apparent growth in the Chinese economy recently. That wasn't the problem (bubbles always burst, was the problem) but if it helps convince the people in China that the Communists need to be evicted from power, I'm all for it.

Note: this happens just after Canada's housing bubble began to burst, and when the US is slipping into the double-dip we have been waiting for.

The economic news heading into this mid-term election is going to be murderous on incumbents.

Cap and Trade is Dead, Long Live Cap and Trade!

They say that the Senate has abandoned plans to try to cram Cap and Trade through. I have four words for you:

Beware the Lame Duck!

Some of the worst legislation ever, was passed when there were barely enough Senators present to constitute a quorum. With socialists in charge of a representative republic, eternal vigilance is very much the price of liberty.

Besides which, now that the supremes have said the EPA can regulate the very gas you generate by breathing, they can do all they like with executive rulemaking anyway. Because they know better than you, don't you know.

Alvin Greene For Civilian in 2010!

This story will surprise no one who ever heard a single oral interview with Alvin Greene. That he managed to get on a ballot at all is frankly a huge surprise. If he had a new pair of boots, one gets the impression it would take him several tries to get them tied. The man is apparently, as we used to say in the Navy, a rock. If this guy can get elected to the most exclusive club in the world, you will know two things:

The international financiers who wanted a puppet can get anything they want, and

YOU have no real excuse for not running. He can get $10k, you can. He can get on a ballot, you can.

Seriously, South Carolina: I expect this guy to go down in a flaming landslide of defeat. Otherwise, the rest of us may just force you to secede from the Union or something.

P.S. yes, I am aware that this post is racist because he is black. Deal with it.

Bear With Me For A Moment

I took a little bit of a break from writing here, but not from making notes on the outrages of the day. I'm going through my notes and posting perhaps slightly more than I used to, but on older stories. My spleen is still not fully vented. Please humor me, and remember why I rant here instead of in my kitchen.

I Agree With Chairman Steele

He said the war in Afghanistan is "unwinnable" and caught lots of flak for it, but RNC Chairman Michael Steele is correct. He may have arrived at this conclusion from a different path than I did, so here is my own thinking (since you asked):

To win a war, you must have an objective. When that objective is met, you have won. We refuse to define an objective, so we cannot win.

To win a war, you must declare an enemy. The war is won when the enemy is defeated. We refuse to name our enemy ("terror" doesn't count), so we cannot win.

Hence: the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable. Therefore we are sending our sons to a grist mill to profit the military-industrial complex. Are we not? Then pray tell me:

Why are we there?

Thanks, President Clinton!

I just remembered a study I heard about, that says teen pregnancy is on the rise. That is to say, the people who were little girls when President Clinton was schtupping Lewinsky in our Office are now out there getting knocked up. Of course, the President's personal conduct does not have any effect on the behavior of the children of the land, though, so never mind I guess. . .

New Phrase: Van Jonesed

When someone is known to be a kook, but they keep it out of the public eye, they are tolerated and/or celebrated in positions of power. When someone is EXPOSED as a kook, and then public outcry causes them to be fired, they are said to have been Van Jonesed.
-Coined by Laura Ingraham this morning on her radio show, talking about the racist recently unemployed by the Department of Agriculture.

The firing was reported to be in accordance with the will of The Obama. Now Gibbs has apologized to her, and she has accepted. The secretary of agriculture has asked for her forgiveness and offered her another job. The forgiveness she grants, the job she is pondering.

Should she have been pressured to resign? Maybe not, as it turns out.
Should she have held that position in the first place? No.

LEFTWING MEDIA CONSPIRACY!!!1!

Surely you have heard by now how, across several "journalistic" companies, there was an ACTUAL conspiracy to quash the story about Rev. Wright during the recent Presidential campaign. That, opposed to the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy comprising most of the country full of normal-thinking people merely thinking alike.

Well, just now I was reminded of the conspiracy when I saw a Yahoo! News headline saying how Obamacare was going to force changes to many employer-sponsored health insurance programs. Ding ding, that means changes to the policies. Changes to the policy means . . . drumroll . . . you don't get to keep your existing plan. You won't be grandfathered in. So I clicked the link from Yahoo's web page and got:



Okay, then. Click the first link with the same title, and I get:



Well I'm glad that's been cleared right up! Sure, the next link with the same title (down the first page) went to AN article, but not THE original article. It makes me reflexively wonder what thing they said which made Obama look bad, that they immediately pulled the article down.

Journalistic integrity. Right.

Static Kill = Top Kill, Likely Also To Fail, Not Be Reported A Failure

So they have stopped the leak at the top, where the cameras show that BP owes Uncle Sam a few million dollars in penalties for pouring a jillion gallons of oil into the sea. Fine. Some of us will take some convincing that the casing is not pouring oil in to plausibly-deniable seeps elsewhere on the ocean floor.

Now they are talking about a "static kill" of the broken well. The "top kill" procedure was risky and it failed. I had high hopes for it as did many people, but that was before it became drastically obvious that the casing of the well is badly compromised. The top kill would have worked but the mud leaked out the sides of the pipe, into the ocean floor. BP has not repaired those leaking sections of casing. Allow me to make a humble prediction, with regret:

The "static kill" will also leak mud out into the ocean floor, far, far below the range of video cameras. The procedure will continue, until BP is forced to admit that it has failed. The relief wells continue to be the only somewhat-sure way to close off the gusher of oil. Not that you would get that impression from the highly-positive coverage the "static kill" will be getting in the coming days, if they decide to move forward with it. I will be very pleased indeed, if I am proved wrong. The new worst-case scenario is that they call it a job with a few thousand feet of mud in the top of the pipe. The relief wells, mere yards from success, are abandoned. The gusher continues to blast out the sides of the pipe, into places where it can seep into the Gulf of Mexico. Then the seals on the top cap fail and the gusher re-opens after BP has gone home and nobody notices, until the satellite imagery shows a fresh slick on the surface.

*sigh*

BP Whistles, Looks At Sky, Shuffles Foot

Heylookthegoodyearblimp!

Okay, I admit my timing was off. Initially, my gut reaction said "next week" but "next month" is what I published. Turns out reality split the difference. Now I'm not one to say "I told you so," but just go ahead and click on that first link, in case you forgot what I said a couple of weeks ago.

Shirley Sherrod: Say Hi To Obama Grandmamma Under The Bus!

Shirley Sherrod is a racist. She is also black. Until not-so many hours ago, she was a mid-level functionary in the Department of Agriculture under Obama. Having made the grave mistake of being caught on film saying blatantly racist things (which are also admissions of dereliction of duty) she has been thrown under the bus. I hope she enjoys spending time with President Obama's "typical white" grandmother down there.

Fired. Good. Even the NAA(l)CP says so.

Howa M1500 in .30-06? Hm-mmmmm

How would you like:

a rifle in God's Caliber

with a Hogue stock

with a scope

with a claim of MOA accuracy

with a price tag under $700 including transfer fees?

I'll take TWO!

Too bad it's from Japan, but still, if you are in the market for a budget rifle that is "interesting" then you might want to consider a Howa.

ACA Litigation Blog: Read It!

There are a huge number of problems with Obamacare, and many of them have resulted in lawsuits being brought. The lawsuits are being followed by someone who apparently knows how such things work. They are writing about the legal action in accessible terms, at ACA Litigation Blog. Interested parties are advised to check it frequently (multiple articles are posted daily).

Note: you will be very surprised at some of the arguments being made, if your only source of news comes through the television. Keep reading, it gets worse.

Follow the Shell! It's A Shell Game!

Find the Queen! You gotta watch her! Okay, pick the card, which is the Queen? That they are grasping at straws does not reassure me, given some of the recent decisions out of the US' courts, that they will lose their 20+ cases against Obamacare.

During the run-up to the passage of Obamacare, it was said (by Obama himself, among others) that forcing people at gunpoint to give the government money instead of buying a health insurance plan was not a tax.

Today we found out, not only is it a tax, it is a darned good one! In fact, the Congress' power to tax is farther-reaching than their power over interstate commerce! It's not that they are regulating interstate commerce forcing you to buy something! No, no my friends! They are merely taxing you for not buying it! You see, it all makes sense now. Big brother loves you.

The law that came before them be damned, their power will not be thwarted by mere PEOPLE! You can shake your head at England all you like. If this President's agenda is allowed to continue past November, the United States as you knew it is gone. We're just waiting for the fizzle.

Pray For Our Supreme Court . . . Kagan Vote Tomorrow

Christians, please take the time tomorrow to pray that Elana Kagan will go down in flames when the final vote on her nomination to the supreme Court is held. It is hard to say just how bad a candidate she is, but I would recommend literally any bum on the street over her.

Sexist!

Okay make it a female bum, she'll still be better than Kagan.

My brain is having trouble making up fresh content today, so here are three fun bits for you from Synthstuff:

He bought a rock that was exactly 65 years old. How do they know? No carbon dating was involved. This rock was created when the Trinity test blast liqquified the desert sands. with a picture of said rock.

My math is bad when I'm tired, so it struck me as funny: the other half of a hundred, when you take out 65%? Why, that would equal the unemployment rate of Spaniards under thirty. They get out of school and suddenly find out they are NINIs.

Senator Al Franken was apparently fraudulently elected by felons. Who woulda thunkit?

Sleep. Sleep Would Have Been Nice.

#4 is 2 weeks old tomorrow. We each have yet to get more than 5 hours of continuous sleep in the past 2 weeks. 3 hours is a lot these days. No wonder leftists don't want to have any children - parentin' is hard. As I often say, "Everything is worse when you're tired" and when you're a fresh parent, you're ALWAYS tired. This means life seems bad/hard and leftists don't like a hard life for themselves.

No point, just sayin'.

Because Everyone Needs To Feel Elegant After A Disaster . . .

Elena Udrea, a Romanian a tourism ministress sparked brought female flood victims high-heel shoes. 22 people died in the swollen river, crops were destroyed, etc., etc., but at least she brought the ladies some nice shoesies.

Here's a hint for you: adult women and blonde women never coincide. Every grown-up blonde is a bottle blonde. It is customary to also bleach the eyebrows, but evidently she missed that part. Does it surprise you that she spends money to alter her hair color, after you learn she wanted to "let them eat cake?"

Out of touch with the needs of the people:

A Retread? Is That The Best I Can Come Up With?

No, but it's a pretty darn well-said piece of logic if I say it myself. Click here to read my post from over a year ago on the rights to life and property. It also covers abortion, suicide, murder and theft, among other topics. It's long. Read the whole thing. I just did and I'm pretty proud of it.

Machines Deserve Nothing At All

[human U]sers deserve privacy and clean, generic information. Machines, on the other hand, don't deserve anything at all.

The people at www.scroogle.org have been having a little problem with script-driven searches cluttering up their bandwidth. It is being filtered by scroogle's security software, but it is a nuisance. The above quote is from scroogle's web page describing the problem, and it raises an interesting point to ponder.

People are created by God, and endowed by Him with "certain unalienable rights" which are enforceable against both the State and other people. Scroogle is a web site that allows you to search the Internet using (arguably) the best web search engine in the world (www.google.com) without being subjected to paid links, tracking of your behaviour, outright targeted advertisements, and other behaviors generally not in line with Google's "don't be evil" motto. I use Scroogle because I don't need the miscellany, I just need search results and they deliver. You should use Scroogle also, but that is not the point of this posting.

Machines are created by men. The computer you are using to read this is, at its core, nothing more complicated than a few billion switches going on and off at a few billion cycles per second. If the electrical power is cut off, the computer is reduced to a useless amalgamation of metal, plastic, and a bit of paint. It is nothing more. You owe it nothing. If it were stolen or lost, you would be sad, but only because you lost money and data. It is not a person. This is changing, probably within my lifetime, from a clear-cut answer to something slightly less intuitively-so.

Computers are only as smart as they are programmed to be. They can only do as they are told and they only do exactly as they are told. If something goes haywire, you may rest assured a software or hardware engineer, or else mechanical or electrical failure is to blame. Programs exist which can carry on basic conversations with humans, but they can only carry on basic conversations. Google can find search results you might want, but only because it is using clever algorithms written by clever people. There are also programs which can write new programs. There are people out there whose sole aim is to make a computer which can think for itself, using deductive logic and something like intuition to arrive at an un-programmed, unique, and useful response. There are, in other words, people seeking to create machines with personalities. Sentient computers. Robots with *real* minds of their own.

These people have not learned the lessons taught by the Terminator series of movies, and they are also working up a moral/ethical dilemma for the rest of us: At what point does a machine stop being merely a machine, and start being entitled to rights as a person, per se?

If you are a paleoconservative such as I am, you will say either "never" or "no sooner than a post-conception fetus". Some bleeding hearts will say, if your computer has feelings which can be hurt, you must respect them. God forbid we should have to answer this question while people like the current Democrat leadership are running the show.

So is there a point to all this, then?

No. I'm just saying, machines are machines, not persons.

Financial Reform Bill Is A Stunning Success!

So says Michael Shedlock and I tend to agree, with my own reservations. I just can't help but think that somewhere in those 2,000 pages of legislative interference with capital markets is bound to be some pretty hard-core crushing of individual peoples' liberty. If this line from Mish surprises you, it's because you need to understand where he's coming from before you understand what he's saying:

Medical Reform vs. Financial Reform

Medical reform not only accomplished nothing, it actually made matters substantially worse.

In sharp contrast to medical reform, I cannot come up with any financial reform provisions that make matters substantially worse.

Given the absolute best we could ever expect out of a major piece of legislation supported and promoted by Obama is nothing, and given that nothing was accomplished with no major detriments making matters much worse, the financial reform bill must be considered a stunning success.

Radiant Barrier Performance Data/Update

As I was working on the fabulous image you see below, #2 came around wanting to go do stuff with me outside the house. His mother turned him out to play in the back yard for a little while. He went under the shaded deck cover (the coolest part of the yard) and swung on the swing for literally about 20 seconds. He came straight back inside and said "It's hot outside."

. . . which made it a perfect day to record some performance numbers for my DIY radiant barrier in the attic! It is 95ºF outside, and the sun is blasting down, with no clouds to stop it and barely any wind to speak of. I went over to my garage with the ol' digital thermocouple thermometer and did some measuring.

At the underside of the garage ceiling, it is 87º. On top of that single 5/8" layer of uninsulated drywall, it is 92º. I went straight for the big money: on top of the atticfoil.com barrier material, between the barrier and the roof deck. 132º I left a gap at the top of the foil, to accommodate ventilation when we can finally get a ridge vent installed. This house currently has NO soffit vents and only two gable end vents. The foil over the garage is folded back over the garage ceiling as shown below, to keep the eventually-to-be-blown-in insulation from clogging the eventually-to-be-installed soffit vents. There is NO source of cool air in there, aside from the scuttle used to access the attic. There is a river of HOT air flowing at the top of the attic, where the air flows out from over the barrier material, on the way to a gable vent on the other end of the house.

I have mentioned before how, near the floor of the attic, it is relatively pleasant. Standing up in the attic is like stepping into a furnace, literally. Two feet down from the peak of the roof, in the stream of hot air, it was 112º. Two feet further down, mostly out of the stream, it was 102º, and then as mentioned before it was "only" 92º on the floor of the attic. Curious, I moved over two yards to the end of the garage. The end of the garage, where the attic is open to the attic over the rest of the house. The end of the garage, where the radiant barrier installation stopped at the last work day. 6 feet over, there is no barrier yet, and it is hot, just moving over to that part of the attic. I laid the thermocouple on top of the 4" of insulation between the attic air and the ceiling below. The top of the insulation was sitting at 105º. That insulation is separated from air-conditioned inside air by a 1/2" sheet of drywall.

No wonder our old air conditioner couldn't keep up. It was working in a blast furnace all day. The new one, working under this radiant barrier, shrugs off 95º like water off a duck's back. I have GOT to get the rest of that radiant barrier in. Then, as promised: PICTURES! :D

Click to see full size:

My Paint skillz, admire them:

Raise Your Hand If You Notice A Pattern

In the last couple of days I have stumbled across Washington's Blog, where some actual expert reporting is going on about the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster. Today an interesting point has been made.

The banks went through a "stress test" that was nothing more than a publicity stunt designed to lull a gullible populace into thinking everything was okay. Now a possibly critically damaged well is going to be put through a stress test designed to lull a dullible populace into thinking everything is okay.

********

Except that in the case of the well, success means Max. Working Pressure of some of the pipes is exceeded by half-again. For days. This, while the permanent solution (relief well) is single-digits of yards from possible total success and it has been put on hold for the duration of the stress test.

Why? So you can stop bothering about looking at live camera shots of spewing oil. Not because it is going to stop the oil, but because it stops you seeing the oil.

So Long, RDTiburon.com

For several years now I have been an active member of RDTiburon.com. It was THE place to go if you wanted technical information about RD platform Hyundai cars (1996-2000 Elantra/1997-2001 Tiburon). Not much off-topic discussion at all. No tolerance for disrespect of the members, and a good moderating/administration team. They encouraged grown-up level conversation and discouraged spoon-feeding of information that had been posted repeatedly before, encouraging new members to search for themselves. It was a place for adults to learn about RDs. It felt like a club, not small or exclusive, but moderately tight-knit.

Traffic was declining for the last couple of years, and tomorrow it will be gone. The owner of HyundaiAftermarket.org is a big supporter of the online Hyundai tuning community, and genuinely wants to have the best site out there, so that there will be at least one REALLY good site. He is going to be merging the databases (members, threads, DIY articles, etc) from RDTiburon.com with Hyundaiaftermarket.org. Effective tomorrow afternoon, former RDTiburon.com members will be members of Hyundaiaftermarket.org if they were not already.

In the beginning was FXtreme.com. The Hyundai Tiburon FX was the inspiration for the site name, and it was THE RD platform message board. I am unreasonably happy to say I was an active member there. Traffic started declining, some of the better members got distracted by life for a while, and bandwidth costs started eating the owner up. It sunk, and was absorbed into Hyundaiaftermarket.org. There was Team Shark Racing, which fell apart while I was living life instead of spending time on the message boards. It was absorbed into Hyundaiaftermarket.org as well. In the interim, HyundaiPerformance got started, turned into the best forum, was bought by some jerk who only wanted to sell ads, and it now sucks and has low traffic. Also in the interim, RDTiburon.com started up. The people at RDTiburon.com were a splinter cell from the larger Hyundai tuners' online message board community.

Tomorrow, the splinter will be grafted back into the community. It is sad in a way, but I think it will probably work out for the best. Still, I will miss it.

*sigh*

I Didn't Want To Point Fingers At The Time, But . . .

. . . but I will admit that the timing seemed awfully fishy. You remember how Toyota had all those reports of runaway acceleration in their fancy Japanese cars? And do you also remember that GM and Chrysler were sucking wind pretty hard at exactly the same time? I am generally inclined to chalk things up to incompetence, rather than malice, and coincidence rather than conspiracy. However. . .

The USDOT says that those Toyotas with runaway acceleration problems were not defective. The black boxes in the cars help the Department of Transportation to be confident in calling it all "driver error."

Those who espoused conspiracy theories at the time, may now feel free to say "I told you so" I still hope you were/are wrong, but feel free to crow now, if you like.

Madness @ Work!

CG took his wife to a Cedar Park, Texas city office so she could conduct some business. The day was rainy, so he and his 10 year-old son stayed in the car. Be advised that CB is as white as rice. He was sitting there for an hour and a half, and saw repeated instances of city employees taking 1/2-hour smoke breaks. One female employee took no fewer than FOUR smoke breaks in an hour and a half. But that's not the madness part.

They called the cops on him. A guy sitting in the PASSENGER seat of a car in your office parking lot with a little kid in the backseat, and you call the cops on him? The chick cop asked what he was doing there, and she didn't much appreciate it when he told her he was affiliated with Al Quaeda, and Cedar Park is the next big target. She reportedly had the wind taken out of her sails when, in reply to "Do you have any warrants, sir?" CB replied "I've never been arrested in my life."

Here's a clue: get on down to actually conducting city business and the guy waiting in the car for your slow [deleted] to help his wife won't bother you by hanging out in the parking lot! Your taxpayer dollars hard at work, Cedar Parkers. I told CB he should get a little video camera and film these highly dedicated SLACKERS, then send the film to the Mayor and the local news outlets, and ask them why these people aren't working, if they are drawing a city salary and I'm paying city pension benefits for them.

Marxist's Sectarian Media

I can in good conscience begin again, calling the people who have broadcast and print "news" outlets the MSM. They used to like to be referred to as "mainstream media" but then they fell off the left side of the political spectrum and nobody who IS mainstream pays them much heed. The bell ringer was when Moonbattery called them not just partisan but sectarian. Then all I needed was another M word, and if they don't support the Marxist in Chief then a monkey's my uncle.

Marxist's
Sectarian
Media:

Turn it off.

A Racist In Every Face A Racist Sees

I am offended that you are offended, so take that!

It should be no surprise that people who base their professional identities on racism, see racism everywhere. That would include a tax protest movement which enjoys very broad-based support, and which has NEVER shown any racist tendencies. The NAA(L)CP condemns the scary racist bits of wanting to not spend our grandchildrens' life savings away. I condemn the NAACP for still existing in the first place, so there!

BP To Cap SURFACE Oil Leak

Headline tomorrow: BP installs new cap, will shut off flow from the damaged riser to 0%, everybody rejoices! Live camera shows NO oil spewing into the gulf, great PR success, high five!

Headline next month: Mysterious new seepage of a whole lot of oil from the seabed, miles from the Deepwater Horizon site. BP last seen whistling, looking at sky, shuffling foot.

You cap the top off, and the oil pours up a pipeline to a waiting ship. Great. A million gallons a day captured instead of spilled. Fantastic. That million gallons is pushing against the weight of a mile-long pipeline-full of oil. A sign off a successful installation for this cap will be HIGH pressure inside the pipeline.

THE CASING IS BROKEN. High pressure. On the TOP end of the pipe which is broken to an unknown degree somewhere a thousand feet or more beneath the seabed. Oil is going to "surprise" BP by breaking out of the casing in increasing volume. You may even see stories about the pressure in the cap falling. I wonder if we will see this link drawn by the lamestream media.

Whatever the case may be, the ultimate solution -if the well can be stopped- is the relief wells. WellS. They know full well that one, two, or four relief wells may not do the trick. Don't be surprised if the first relief well can't get it plugged. And don't forget that the oil which is currently leaking down there, is less than leaks onto land from normal surface wells in 3rd-world countries in Africa.

Oil is messy.

Nuke-you-ler.

Economy To Crash Harder-er

Here's an angle I have not heard mentioned anywhere yet.

The tax cuts installed by President Bush will expire at the end of 2010. This includes capital gains taxes going up a bunch. Increasing capital gains taxes hurts investors, who invest less (because they have less -after taxes are counted- to invest).

There will be less investment activity on the US stock exchanges come January 1st, 2011, unless something is done about the coming increase in taxes on capital gains. Fewer dollars being poured into American corporations means fewer dollars being poured into the American economy. The economy takes a hit.

Smack in the middle of the Double-Dip that will be announced as having begun in February, while it actually started this month.

Congress could do something about it, but the rest of the Congressional working schedule until the mid-term election is about 14 days of good solid work. They have very important campaigns holidays to attend, you see. The lame-duck session after the election will probably not be able to do anything about the capital gains taxes going up. At best, there will be a January dip in the economy because of this. At worst, Obama will refuse to sign a tax cut, and the hit we take as a nation from the tax increases will linger indefinitely.

Californians May Show Us How Dumb They Are

. . . or else, to what extent their political system has been corrupted by the Left. A candidate for Governor wants to seize the assets of the State. I'm not sure how one part of the government seizing another part even makes sense, but nobody ever really ever accused Moonbeam of being an ubermensch.

"Not That There's Anything Wrong With That!"

So said Jerry Seinfeld, just about anytime anything related to gays was mentioned on his sitcom. The audience knew it was an untrue thing to say, but he was making a point.

Why do I frequently talk bad about queers, you ask? Aside from the fact that God says their behavior is abominable, let's have a look at a few (dozen) secular reasons why being MSM or WSW is unhealthy. WARNING: Graphic text enclosed. Reader discretion is advised.

The Health Risks of Homosexuality, as described by a medical doctor. Read the whole thing, if your stomach is strong enough.

Hat tip to Moonbattery, where you can read about a religion professor who was fired for agreeing with a religion, against the practice of homosex.

It's Amazing What a Little Sleep Will Do

Very little sleep. Very little interest in writing. Things might be a bit thin around here until #4 is sleeping through the night. Sorry about that, in advance.

The Economy Finally Turns The Corner?

Mish says so, and I think he's probably close, give or take a month or two.

Click here to see which way the economy turns!

Uncle Says: Stay Informed!

I get my news from several sources, some of which are not primary sources. Say Uncle is one of my favorite aggregators of headline news regarding firearms and the right to bear them. He also does libertarianish, family, and cooking stuff, etc. If you aren't hitting up Say Uncle once in a while, you have missed, in the last two days, among other interesting stories:

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Handgun ownership Violence admits you have a right to a handgun.

Typically left-leaning NPR says: "Strict gun-control policies have failed to deliver on their essential promise . . . no surprise, since gun control has always been about control, not guns."

Louisiana lets churches decide whether or not to allow patrons to carry arms in them

Getting around Pennsylvania's "may-issue" gun permitting system

. . . and a case of flagrant discrimination in a different "may-issue" jurisdiction

A man who helped lay the groundwork for McDonald comments on the lessons to be learned from the case

The groundwork to restrict our newly-incorporated rights has begun

The lawsuits to defend our newly incorporated rights has also begun

The other side is getting silly, saying the supreme Court is fomenting insurrection

. . . but neither you nor anyone you know is buying their story

Victory in the area of gun rights may be coming, but it is slow going

A few thousand good reasons why you really do "need" a rifle

As well as links to pictures of beautiful guns

. . . and even links to contests where you might win one for yourself

I Should Have Asked for Six!

This morning, I prayed for four hours of uninterrupted sleep. I figured that was probably pushing too long for a newborn to go without eating. Judging from his pas sleeping habits, four hours seemed as likely as four days.

Four hours later, he woke us up, saying he was wet and hungry. Thanks Jesus.

Daquan Wilson, Goblin, Dead at 18. Good.

There has been a shooting death in the city (my the city) and this is big time news around here as it (almost) never happens. Rule 4 was violated big-time and it resulted in the death of a teenager who should probably have been arrested instead.

Stepdad goes to park to take AWOL teenaged stepdaughter home

Stepdad gets in oral confrontation with punk friend of stepdaughter

Stepdad receives phone call asking where he lives, and then a threat that whoever opened his front door would be shot

Pounding on front door ensues shortly, with a half-dozen church choir boys   perfect angels   boys with promising futures  [deleted] THUGS talking about killing Stepdad outside the house

Stepdad fires 15 shots THROUGH the front door to scare off the door pounders.

One of the pounders is pronounced DOA at an area hospital.

Stepdad faces felony manslaughter charges.

This looks like it was a Bad Shoot. Bad situation also, sure, and I'd probably give him a no-bill and then a lecture on The Four Rules, but it's still a Bad Shoot.

Stepdad should have called the cops at least twice during the above sequence. Probably also should have left Stepdaughter's mom alone to begin with. Now he's in a heap of trouble. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that because the News hasn't said, and judging from the decedent's name and the skin color of the shooter (victim) whose photograph was published, all the idiots pounding on this poor man's door were likely BLACK. Yes BLACK. It's racist, I know. I'm a horrible racist for pointing out once again that in some places there is a horrible systemic problem in American black culture. You go ahead and tell me Daquan Wilson had a good, loving relationship with a father who is a well-rounded individual himself, and I'll show you a bridge I happen to have for sale.

Note to the family and friends of the decedent: your boy was a piece of [deleted] and the world is very likely better off without him. Seriously. Who goes threatening to kill their girlfriend's stepdad in his own home, and is not simultaneously a worthless piece of trash? Hmm? What, because you personally liked him he was a Good Person who should not be shot when he is pounding on a man's door threatening to kill him? No, he's a Goblin.

One less. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

A Shutterbug Is Born?

#2 came with me to stop by my workplace today so I could do some "I'm not working for a while" type paperwork, as well as to pick up some stuff I wanted to bring home. I stopped by the recycle pile and happened to spot a cheezy old digital camera. I grabbed it and showed him how opening the lens cover pops up the flash. He played with that for the next hour or so, "taking pictures" left and right.

What kind of camera is it? The old, inexpensive kind. The kind that we probably lost money on, as a company, during the time it took to look it up and decide it is Low Grade Scrap, and walk it over to the recycle pile. 1.3Megapixels. We got home and decided to toss some batteries in it, on the off chance it might work.

It does. 100%. And it had a memory card in it. I've got a card reader for that old school memory card, and we've already downloaded half a card full of pictures to a folder on the PC with his name on it. The only time he didn't have his finger on the shutter button was when we made him stop shooting so he didn't catch a candid of Mommy feeding the baby. I downloaded and printed out the manual and quick start guide for it from the manufacturer's website (well down the Legacy Products support page).

I'm not complaining, I'm just saying. We'll see how he likes it in the long run, but for now he's got a toy he actually put away, he cares for it that much. I know at least 4 people making full or part-time livings as photographers. How cool would it be if this was his "first camera?" :)

Shared Sacrifice. I'd Like A Share Of That Sacrifice.

Illinois is bankrupt but they continue racking up bills without paying them and people continue to pretend that there is a State government anymore. With a budget deficit over 20x as large, they have decided to "share" a sacrifice to the tune of cutting $1.4Bn out of their budget. Part of the sacrifice they are making is apparently to give state (read: union) workers 11% to 14% pay rises. Okay, then. I just hope the poor dears will manage to survive on 7% raises per annum during a time of falling prices.

Elimination Of Fraud, Waste, and Abuse:

Not the top priorities of the man Obama put in charge of eliminating a brazillion dollars from Medicare spending.

Because good medicine is synonymous with Socialism.

Seriously. Click it, if you don't believe me.

Nuke The Well Already! What's The Worst That Could Happen?

Sean Hannity has been a vocal advocate of using a nuclear bomb to seal the leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. For once, he has is even agreeing with world-renowned oil industry expert Bill Clinton.

Hold on there.

It might not work. the only trials of this sort of thing were under vastly different circumstances and it has proven less-than-100% effective. AND if it doesn't work, it makes the leaking oil problem much, much worse PLUS adding radioactive materials into the ocean right before hurricane season.

More reading here which leads you to here and then to here. That link trail originated at Mish's place.

Note that Hannity is also a big fan of another sounds-good-but-isn't-necessarily-good idea, building sand berms to keep oil off the existing coastline. That, as with the nuke idea, is a bad choice which should only be made to stave off a worse consequence, which carries horrendous consequences of its own to the party.

The relief wells will likely work, unless they don't, including unless the relief well drilling rigs also go up in fireballs. Two relief wells might not work, but don't be alarmed . . . five have been required for other bad spills.

Have a nice day!

Unabated Insanity Update

I dropped completely off the grid there for a couple of days, maintaining physical security of #4 in a hospital without an internet cafe or radios in the rooms. I took a quick drive to get some baby stuff, and in 2 minutes' listening to the radio I heard:

Bill Clinton completely excused Robert Bird for being a Klansman, because that's just what one had to do in order to be elected in those days. Then he went on doing great things for the People like opposing civil rights and bankrupting the country. Yeah, great, thanks. . . . and good riddance.

Congress may not pass a budget for the next year. They don't want to have an open discussion of the type a bill would receive, because then you would know how much of a train wreck Obama has made of our national economy. Instead it is rumored they may "deem" a budget passed. Sure, why not.

Also in the "sure why not" category: 52% of the bailout money has not been spent. They were saving it for what, Christmas? The Democrats have repeatedly refused to spend this money on extensions of unemployment benefits, and now comes word they may try to bail out the State budgets (read: state UNION budgets) with the bailout money. Quite literally robbing private taxpayers to pay exorbitant union obligations during an economic depression.

If you voted for Obama just remember: the mid-term elections for Democrats will be held December 1st, 2010.

#4 is Home.

My Darling Wife and VFDOffspring #4 are finally home. Between them both there are 20 fingers, 20 toes, 4 eyes, etc. and that's good enough.

Meanwhile, it appears the insanity of the Obama administration has continued unabated in my absence from the world outside the hospital. I was almost surprised, until I remembered not to be.

Rejoice With Me

#4 is born. Mommy & baby doing fine. No internet/blogging @hospital.com. Try back in 2 days.

Silent Car Noises, A Modest Proposal

In a nation where mildly risky things get legislated more-safe at the expense of individual liberties, Something Must Be Done. If silent-running hybrid (coal-powered) cars were not involved in more car-pedestrian collisions, there would be no need for them to make some sort of a warning noise.

But they are. Silent-running cars are TWICE as likely as noisy ones to be involved in crashes with pedestrians.

They have to be made to make noise. People are being killed by the lovely silence of these cars. You tell a hybrid car owner, "Your car must warn pedestrians it is moving" and they may react with well-justified outrage. Why must it be my car doing the warning? It is the pedestrian's responsibility to get out of my way! (etc. etc.)

The main problem people seem to have with the idea of adding noise to silent cars, is that the drivers of the car will be annoyed by the noise. They are acting on a faulty assumption that the driver will hear the noise at all. It doesn't have to be loud as an F-14 in afterburner. It doesn't even have to sound like a car. It just has to be audible. This article mentions a whirring noise that gets louder with increasing speed, until the car is making normal/regular car noises. They mention a bell sound when the car is moving in reverse. It also mentions the problem of standardization.

The car makers must see the writing on the wall on this subject. Federal legislators will be entirely unable to stay out of it, and local (think: San Francisco) lawmakers will probably seek to regulate it as well. Before the legislatures make them have their cars produce a truly obnoxious sound, the car makers have to have a very public research project into the type and volume of sounds that their new cars will have to make. Then they ought to have ONE sound set for everybody's cars, so that no matter whose car is coming toward a pedestrian, the pedestrian will know a car is coming. THEN they need to have a prominent sales item: "Safe noises for pedestrians, quiet efficiency for car occupants." The car should make noises, yes. But it should be fairly simple to project the noises AWAY from the car's occupants, so that the driver need not hear it.

If car makers are smart, they will head Congress off at the pass and come out with a standardized "car" noise for silent coal-powered cars. Otherwise, something nobody but a Congressional committee likes will be forced on them. If you were a car manufacturer, which would you choose?

Independence Day, 2010

As our current President is likely to deliver something less than satisfactory, if he even makes a speech at all, I present to you the Independence Day speech of one of our former Presidents.

This man was considered quite a liberal in his day. Today, he would be an extremist right-winger. Presented for your perusal: "Some Elements of the American Character" by John F. Kennedy, candidate for the 11th Congressional District, delivered on Independence Day, 1946

Go read that, and ask yourself if any graduate of government school today, or even any sitting politician today, would be capable of delivering a speech like that. Then consider the rhetoric coming from the Tea Party, and make plans to vote anti-incumbent, or at least anti-Democrat, this November.

There's Something About Brightwork

I have a puzzle. It is in the shape of a cannon, about 3.5" long. The object is to extract the cannon ball, after unscrewing four different parts of what at first glance appears to be a machined piece of solid brass.

My grandmother gave it to me when I was a boy. For the last several years it has been sitting, untouched, in an out of the way part of my home. Today I dug it out and showed it to #1, who was fascinated by it for one attention span. Then I started explaining the concept of tarnished brass to her. I am not entirely sure she got it. The lesson ended with me getting an old tin of Brasso out and polishing the cannon up until it shines like gold, and it is smooth as silk to the touch. She was suitably impressed, from the first black patch of paper towel, to the final wipe-down, three paper towels later. She sat and watched the whole transformation.

Just now when I walked by, I couldn't help admiring the little thing. It is so bright and shiny and perfect-looking. Perhaps it is the Navy man in me, or perhaps it is the male in me, but this golden, mirror-smooth thing gives me a simple pleasure the way few other things can.

:)

I am also glad I'm not the seaman responsible for this:

The Little Things That Make Big Differences.

How about a retrofit for your jumbo jet's wingtips that saves 600,000 gallons of jet fuel, per year, per airplane? Consider how small a change this is, then have a look at half the reason your old pickup only gets 13MPG:



Even the vaunted Prius has about a zillion little drag points underneath it.



Mythbusters added 800lbs of dimpled clay to a Ford Taurus and got ~10% better fuel economy. That's not exactly a "little thing" but it does prove a point.

What's your point, VFD?

It took legislators bullying them to do it, but finally OEMs are budging a little. With two relatively minor changes, Ford bumped a heavy pickup's fuel economy ~10% and nobody died because the thing had to me made lighter/weaker so it crumples like a tin can to achieve the difference.

Next time you hear someone complaining about CAFE standards being increased by the watermelons in D.C. (to include ME being the complainer) remember: making a car lighter is not the only, and not even the easiest, way to dramatically improve fuel economy. With the frikken ridiculous new CAFE standards recently passed into law by the watermelons in D.C., I suppose this sort of thing will be increasingly popular with car makers.

Good.

Gizmag Demonstrates The Demise Of Intellectualism?

Because you can't think far enough ahead to acquire sanitary wipes to clean your phone, a device to do it for you

Because it's just too confusing to figure out which way to insert a battery with only two possible choices, a battery with no "wrong way".

Because you are too simple to stand your toothbrush up, a toothbrush that stands up by itself.

The next two at least have some debatable redeeming value: a disposable (earth hater!) EEG helmet supersedes 20 wires placed by an expert, and remote probes to monitor heartbeats from a yard away.

And finally, because you are being dumbed-down so rapidly that the government must do for you what you ought to do, and because "less" is never an option when the government runs short on money, California looks at selling advertisements for your license plate. Nevermind whose car it is.

Quote of The Day 01 July 2010

"The whole continent of Africa is crying tonight" -Ed Clements

One last-play missed kick by Ghana, and the last of Africa's chances at a World Cup are dashed. Ouch.

Unemployment Insurance Money Is A CRUTCH!

Speaker Pelosi, being afflicted with a mental disorder (liberalism) is to be pitied when she says stupid things. Our nation of course is to be pitied for having such a woman in a high position. She says unemployment 'benefit' money stimulates the economy. The Republicans are superbad because they want to take this stimulating money away from the formerly-working, now merely poor, poor working stiffs out there. For some reason the "stimulus" money which was already appropriated (for TARP) but not spent, can't be put toward paying for the extension of unemployment benefits, because -why? Is adding to the national debt is a positive good in itself or something? We MUST appropriate (borrow) more money to give out unemployment checks, why exactly? Please NOTE: Those are HER Democrats preventing paying for these billions of dollars of 'stimulating' unemployment checks, because they don't want to spend billions of dollars that have not been spent for another crooked bailout scheme. Shades of Sgt. Rizzo.

Somehow, if money is taken at gunpoint from employed people and filtered through the Government, with perhaps a little off the top, and given to the poor poor pitiful poor people, that stimulates the economy. But if the actual "working man" people are allowed to keep their obscene profits, and leave them in a bank for the bank to invest and/or lend out, or if they spend their capitalist pig profits, the money of the employed people somehow wouldn't stimulate the economy? If 100% of us were on unemployment checks, would that stimulate the economy 100%? Who then would be paying for it? Why, the same people as are paying for the currently unemployed living on borrowed (from China) money: your children and grandchildren!

So your unemployment runs out. You tap out your savings, you run out of favors from your family, and your credit cards are maxed out. Or maybe just your unemployment runs out. What do you do? You go out and get a frikken JOB that's what. Then you have money to spend. So maybe you have to work two jobs. Maybe you have to do "the work Americans won't do" in order to make ends meet. Then what? Then nothing. You're employed, but you don't like your job. You knew you wouldn't like it, which is why you waited TWO YEARS to go out and get a job. But you didn't have to work while the unemployment checks kept coming. Now you have to get a crappy job, so you do. What were you leaning on for those two years, which prevented you from/allowed you to avoid working? The largesse of your fellow citizen, a.k.a.

a crutch.

Solar Powerplant In/For Pflugerville . . . Qui Bono?

I am not sure who benefits how, exactly, but some investors in India have agreed to part with their money. A 600-acre plot of land near the city (my the city) is going to be made into a power plant. Not a nuclear plant, where the M would be a G, but a 60MW solar plant. Acres and acres of glass gathering the sunlight. The City and the ISD want in on that "Green Energy" action, and the company somehow thinks they are going to make money by GIVING away three-quarters of a BILLION dollars worth of equipment. The city won't annex (read: tax) the land, but the investors will pay the city a couple of million dollars for Pflugerville being such swell cats.

Leaving aside for the moment that mass-produced solar panels still take more energy to make than they will ever produce, this sounds all well and good. One supposes they will make money by selling the electricity generated by God shining the sun on the panels. Good jobs will be available while the place is being built (5 permanent jobs when it is up and running). But I just can't help but wonder if those investors in India, the City of Pflugerville, or both, are being screwed over without realizing it (yet).

We'll see, I suppose.

Pico De Gallo

I came home to find fresh pico de gallo waiting for me. Sometimes it is very nice to be wed to a woman born to gen-u-wine Mexican parents :D

Pray With Me For Virginia

The healthcare reform bill recently passed into law does not ensure everyone will get the health care they need. They already do, which is why the system is going bankrupt. What it will do is force private insurance providers out of business, and tax the everlovin' snot out of your wallet. Yes, even your wallet, because you are going to be FORCED at the point of a gun to buy health insurance or pay a penalty for not buying it.

Virginia's is the first lawsuit against this unconstitutional mandate for every citizen to engage in commerce. Christians, please pray that Virginia and all the other States which have filed suit against this law prevail. Even if we don't get a veto-proof majority in Congress, the courts can still find this law to be a step too far by Congress, and strike it down.

zOMG REFINERY PERMITS REJECTED!!!1! EVERYBODY PANIC

Depending on whom you ask, that is. This is yet another reason why you must seek news from several sources. You not only can't trust the old media, you can't even trust ME! Or, as President Reagan said, "Trust, but verify"

A caller gave Sean Hannity a tip about the Environmental Protection Agency removing authorization to continue operations at 122 industrial facilities in Texas, including a couple of oil refineries. The more accurate way to say it is they have to change their permits for reasons which may or may not have anything to do with protecting the environment. Here is the money quote from a lawyer for local energy companies:

"I don't think anybody is going to shut down; it's just more of an environment-permitting nightmare," -Richard Alonso, counsel for Bracewell & Guiliani LLP

Thanks, You Jerk.

I got an e-mail in my spam folder, with something about a will in the subject line. This, shortly after I posted a note about the death of my grandmother. The e-mail came from a domain in the UK. I don't have any relatives in the UK. I didn't (and won't) click on it.

What kind of an [deleted] do you have to be, to prey on people who have just lost a loved one? It's fortunate for that sender I'm not a malicious hacker in my spare time.