Well, [deleted] You Too, Yahoo!

Yahoo! mail is trying to get kicked out of my life.  First they switch to a suck-ass new layout/template/format thing despite howls of protest from users - on one account.  The other two accounts I have with them - still on the old template.

Then on this one account, they started bugging me to give them a phone number.  Sure, right they pinky-swear they won't spam the phone.  No. 

Now, after I correctly enter my password, they come up with s security question.  The reason for added security?  I'm logging in from an unrecognized device.  You know, the same one I used the last time I checked my email with this account?  Yeah, that one.  They don't recognize it. 

So I put in the right answer three different ways because god-only knows what the answer was that I put back in 2007 or whatever.

Unsuccessful Login: Account Locked Temporarily.

This account is temporarily locked for 12 hours because of security concerns. Please try signing in later or contact online Yahoo! Customer Care for further assistance.

 

Aaaand the Customer "Care" form requires more information about the account holder.  F if I know.  I made that information up on the spot when I signed up for the free email account.  If they don't let me in in 12 hours, I'll just tell my one contact that uses this particular account, to use another account.

 

 

Gee, wouldn't it be convenient if they had a phoooone they could text me a code to unlock the account?

 

This is passive-aggressive and I won't have it.  I only like yahoo! because they're free and I got to pick my user names.  If they want to become a free pain in my ass, I'll just kick them out of my life like I did to AT&T. 

Nothing to See Here, Citizen!

Please disregard the military helicopters firing machine guns over downtown Miami (and Houston, and more to come for sure).  They are only training.  They are specifically NOT on a mission to desensitize you to seeing military helicopters firing on people in your city.

********

The canopy is armored but the tail rotors are not, and rotor heads probably can't take too many rifle rounds without suffering heavy damage.  A few hundred yards means several feet of bullet drop, and remember your windage.  More effective still would be a mortar round onto the helicopters when they are stationary on the ground.

"Every terrible impliment of the Soldier" includes mortars, but your government does not want you to have them.  Yes, that would be the same government currently in the process of getting you accustomed to being fired-upon by your own troops.  For your own safety, you understand.

********

Yes, we have come to the point of hypothetical consideration firing BACK (not first!) at helicopters flown by our own military forces.  Is this the change you were hoping for?

What Difference, At This Point, Does it Make?

No, I'm not going to bag on Secretary Clinton for trying to shirk responsibility for the four dead Americans in Benghazi.  This is about our BFFs the United Nations Peacekeepers.

Turns out, the difference it makes is THOUSANDS of dead Haitians.  Dead of Cholera, which was unknown in the Caribbean before the UN's Peacekeepers brought it with them from Nepal and dumped it with their kaka in the biggest river in Haiti for people to drink and to bathe in.

According to this piece by Johathan Katz, the UN were pointedly NOT interested in investigating the source of the outbreak because they already knew it was they who were killing those Haitians.  But hey, the dead haitians are black and poor so there's no need to talk about them on the nightly news! 

(which, of course, is why you should get at least some of your news from Instapundit, where I saw this story)

Speaking of What Well-Run Military Strategerie

The latest twist is:

One of the ex-SEALs that disobeyed orders not to go help at the Consulate in Benghazi died because he was spotted by a mortar crew.  The mortar crew that was shelling the Consulate.  The mortar crew he was actively painting with a laser target designator.  They saw his targeting laser and had time to re-aim and fire on him. 

He will have watched them adjusting their aim to hit him.  He likely saw the round launched that killed him.

Why did he stay?

You don't just shine a laser target designator on bad guys in hope that somebody in the sky might see it.  You light up a target when you KNOW a weapon is up there, ready to rain death on a target - THEN you light them up.  This man was a pro-feshinul fighter and he knew what to do with that designator.  It is nearly certain that he KNEW there was a weapons platform in the air, and that they were ready to rain hot death on the peacefulreligionofpeace mortar crew.  Speculation is that there was either an armed drone overhead, or maybe an AC-130 gun ship. 

That aircraft did not fire its weapons.  Did the same "smart diplomacy" and "a gutsy call" leadership team who ordered the CIA Annex to NOT go help the Consulate, also tell the aircraft to hold its fire?

If so, why?

HUGE News, Film at Never

FOX News broke the news: there were THREE separate phone call requests up the chain of command from the CIA Annex about a mile away from the consulate in Benghazi.

The agents heard gunshots and requested to be allowed to go help.  Denied

The agents disobeyed an order to stand down (sit on their hands and listen to the fighting) and went.  They rescued who they could, and brought back a corpse.  They asked for help.  And again.  Denied, and Denied.

We know now that there was a drone flying overhead watching the whole mess unfold, and that it was being watched in the USA at the State department, and probably in the White House Situation Room.  We are being told by the Obama Administration spokesmouths that we didn't have enough information to mount a response.  We are told They didn't get any military assistance moving toward the consulate even though 24 different recipients got e-mailed messages, because "it could take hours" to sort through all the intelligence, before someone might finally stumble across the message of the attack underway.

Then shortly after this news broke today, a caller came on the Rush Limbaugh show ("Doug") and claimed to be the sort of person who used to be in places where this sort of thing could happen.  He said, there were a hundred high-speed low-drag Operators that could all be on the ground with all their gear - killing goblins within 5 hours, probably a few dozen could have been there within a couple of hours.  He said, there is a Protocol.  When a certain type of classified "flash traffic" message is sent and the Ambassador is declared to be In Distress, there is a man on watch at the White House.  He gets this message and hands it to the guy next to him and says

"Get this information to POTUS"

The protocol is very likely to be strictly defined, probably down to the exact verbiage to be used.  The message is required to be handed directly from messenger to messenger, all the way to a man standing beside the President of the United States, within minutes.  There is ZERO chance this communication sat unread in any inbox waiting to be sorted through and found.

President
Obama
KNEW - IMMEDIATELY

And 

Did nothing.

THAT'S why the cover-up.

********
If we had a neutral press, he would be forced to resign tomorrow.  If.

Barbaric Treatment of Prisoners . . . Okay or Not?

I'm not sure how to feel about this one. Connecticut has a prohibition against prisoners committing suicide. They also mandate that jailers must care for the health of their prisoners. On the other hand, who is anyone to force feed another adult, if he be on a hunger strike in protest of his ill treatment? Well, their supreme Court just said the jailers are those anyones. It is (for now) okay for prisoners in CT to be restrained and force-fed against their will. This is barbaric, I freely grant. But in the case of a prisoner whose well-being the State must maintain,

is it acceptable?

Mighty Fine Detective Work, Lou

Thug beats life sentence when his lawyer notices he was locked up when the crime was committed. Alibi: check!

Why's he gotta be a thug?

He's in and out of jail so much, he didn't remember he was in when he was accused of being out committing the crime. Also he's up against five more, unrelated charges currently.

No Exceptions

It is a violation of Federal law to have any dealings with foreign drug cartels.

Yet we have sent them money and guns, possibly also grenades.

This is illegal for our government to do, and there are no "we wanted to see where the stuff ended up" investigation exceptions. SOMEBODY better be going to prison for a long time, or America was lost altogether a long time ago.

They used to say "ignorance of the law is no excuse" but these days the ones violating the laws are government agents. Then what?

YGTBFKM

My reaction: "F*cking kidding me." I turned the computer, saying "Brought to you by the same people that brought you the Fast and the Furious/Project Gunwalker," and let my Darling Wife read the story, and she said, "You've GOT to be kidding me."

The story: Under the same super-genius leadership that sent guns to the Mexican drug cartels to see where they would go, now our tax dollars hard at work have sent straight-up CASH to the drug cartels, to see how their money laundering schemes work. Let's send money and guns to the cartels in Mexico, what's the worst could happen?

But, hey, at least we have the consolation that " . . . agents weren’t laundering money for the sake of laundering money." so it's all right then.

What's The Word?

Hey raise your hand if you know what they call it when the military in a country is also the police force of the country. It is a national shame that we are reduced to this, instead of naming the enemy that declared war on us when I was still a little boy. They are at war with us, but we are not at war with them.

At this rate, who wins the War on Terrah?

They said if I voted for the Republicans the government would try to install a police state and target American citizens in the USA for punishment without trial under military authority . . . and they were right :(

It's Not Corruption When WE Do It!

The FBI was actively trying to incite violence in groups that they didn't like, so they could crush the groups by force. Like at Waco and Ruby Ridge. Seriously. Keyword: PATCON, coming soon to the list of stories the alphabet news nework ignores entirely.

*sniff* Smells Like Trouble Brewing

When the police rally to publicly support fellow officers who openly break the law on a regular basis, and then they make fun of the people of their city who are down on their luck . . . what does that say about the future hope of stability and prosperity in the town? What if that town is New York City?

In Paris in 1820, were they expecting burning barricades a couple decades later?

Just Putting This Out There

Trust your instincts. It works for driving, and it works for reporting.

When everyone else was ganging up on DSK for raping a hotel maid, it smelled fishy and I let it lie without comment. Now the sub-headline is she's a tool of the internationalist elite and he's being prevented by her unprosecutable charge from running for President of France. But that was a private story, then a foreigners' story.

This here is local, but it still smells off somehow. I don't know whether to believe it but wouldn't put it past the current head of State . . . and I don't know quite what to make of the story, either. I usually skim Vanderboegh's long posts if I bother with them at all, but instinct led me to read this one and glad I did. Regular readers know I almost never link something and say "Read the whole thing" but that is today's homework assignment:

Federal TSA agents grope everybody at a high school prom (and other assorted outrages). To prevent the great terrorism!!! Read all about VIPR and tell me why I almost didn't forward this one.

This is When I Start Thinking About Petty Vandalism

I don't think we're to the point of murdering policemen because they are policemen by a very, very long shot. But stuff like this story make me think nobody should be surprised to find one morning there is a parking lot full of police cruisers with slashed tires and keyed paint.

Acting on Federal orders, a SWAT team went in and snatched up a man and his children.
They put them in back of a police car while they searched his house
For 6 hours
Looking for his ex-wife
.
.
.
throwaway line while you think about searching one house for six hours looking for one person
.
.
.
The ex-wife's crime: defaulting on her student loans. The Department of Education called in the order for the raid.

NP says: WHAT!? I feel like you should be able to sue for that. I wanna be on the jury.

I've written my Congressman over this. This is outrageous. Any policeman who takes part in a SWAT home invasion over student loan debt without lodging an official protest needs his head examined.

Home = Castle, Idiot Judges To the Contrary Notwithstanding

If a COP comes into your house with no reason, you can't resist him. Because shut up. And git on der floor. And show your papers. SRSLY Indiana? Are you people going to tolerate this?

Hat tip: Sipsey Street Irregulars

I of course am no advocate of killing police officers and disappearing their bodies, and a COP with an on-body camera is a dead man who does indeed tell tales . . . but I can't help thinking that knives will go through most body armor with a determined thrust, and nobody wears neck armor on regular city patrols (yet). Hint for all policemen everywhere: if you don't have a damn good reason for being there, or at least a valid warrant, stand by to have your ass handed to you by a homeowner in the right, regardless of what the 4th circus has to say on the matter.

Hyppocratic Oath: First, Do No Riot Policing?

Note carefully the job description of the guy speaking softly in the navy blue jacket.



Note to self: be sure to cover the "Medic" jacket with a "Riot Police Beat You Down" yellow vest before delivering a beating in public. Hat tip: Every Day, No Days Off.

Getting Shot: YOU FIRST [deleted]!

Oh HELL NO! You pointing a gun at ME?

Before you watch the video or read the description, the following is the proper course of events when someone points a gun at a COP. For a non-COP, you can cut out the first four lines and skip straight to eliminating a deadly threat with deadly violence.

Goblin: ::points gun at COP::
COP: "PUT THE GUN DOWN!"
Goblin: "NO!"
COP: "PUT THE GUN DOWN OR IMMA SHOOT YOU IN 1 SECOND
Goblin: "FUCK YOU!"
COP's gun: BOO-YA!

This situation right here is a total fail. This [deleted] in front of the Sunbeam store has a gun. The COP shows up on scene and KNOWS he has a gun as we can tell because he calls it out on the video. The felon repeatedly refuses to drop the gun for a couple of MINUTES, pointing the gun at the COP most of that time. Then he goes around and takes cover AND takes aim behind a car, steadying the gun for a better shot? That's 200% past time for bullets to fly! Then BAM! Shot, hit, officer down. OTHER cops who were for some reason standing by take up their jobs again and shoot this [deleted] down on the sidewalk (with a few prominent misses, I'd hate to see what the store looked like inside!)

My (loud) commentary when the climax comes in the video below:
"SUNOVABICH! You couldnt see that comin?"

Here you are dialoggin for TWO MINUTES before YOU end up shot? And you SIR'd this [deleted]? You need to SHOOT this [deleted].



Hat tip: The Things Worth Believing In

Not Even Once.

You know what methamphetamine can do to you? For most people, the first time you do meth, it makes your wallet lighter by the cost of one hit. For some people, it can turn you from being the head law enforcement officer in your region to being arrested for being a meth dealer. It can be addictive the first time you use it, and it can alter your judgment so the most outlandish things you do will seem perfectly sensible. Your life can go very fast, very far down hill before you recover. IF you recover.

Russian Roulette, Putting your head in a crocodile's mouth, and Methamphetamine have one thing in common: unacceptably-high risk of destroying your life the very first time, or making it much worse than it used to be without a way back to good.

Might Fine Detective Work There, Lou!

A woman stopped to fill up her car on the way to get her mother, to take mommy dearest to hospital.

She was arrested for leaving the filling station without paying for her gas.

She was released several hours later after the four week-old footage revealed she actually had paid.

In the meantime her car was stolen. Police were quick to say they had no liability*.

Turns out, the clerk had told Police they were looking for a MAN but that never made it onto the reports.

Good job, Essex. Way to make Policemen everywhere appear totally incompetent!

Might Fine Detective Work There, Lou!

What did I JUST say about the ability of government agents to keep your personal data secure? Granted, there is a gap between 3.5 Million Texans and 150 Million Americans, but for the one person who has a second full-time job clearing up their stolen identity, it is a distinction without a difference.

So far as anyone officially "knows" nobody's identity was compromised. Those who received notices, however, would still be well advised to put a freeze on their credit with the major reporting agencies, now that it is free and warranted.