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December 31, 2004
And here come the thought police
Confiscating computers in beautiful Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Posted by Nukevet at 04:47 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Tribute
As you celebrate the coming of the new year tonight, don't forget about our fighting men and women for whom the fireworks happen every day.
In fact, I am going to be turning off the Times Square Ball and clicking on this link at midnight.
It is a very fitting tribute to the people who make our celebration, and everything else, possible.
Thanks go out to to RNS reader, RJBaxter, for sending it to me.
Posted by Nukevet at 03:37 PM | Comments (0)
Happy New Year
Posted by Nukevet at 03:29 PM | Comments (0)
Lists
I am no good at lists. I, quite literally, suck at making them. But, just for you all, I will show you my lists of New Year's Resolutions.
I tend to not try to put things that will be difficult on my list of resolutions. I like to put them into categories of difficulty from easy to difficult. Except for the difficult ones, I usually succeed in being true to my list every year.
My 'Easy' list of resoltions for 2005:
1. Take longer showers
2. Get more sleep
3. Become a better shooter
My 'Moderate' list of resolutions for 2005:
1. Buy more firearms
2. Get more people to go to the range
3. Make more money
My 'Damn Near Impossible' list of resolutions for 2005:
1. Figure out how to become invisible
2. Learn to fly (w/o an aircraft)
3. Stop laughing at hippies and Democrats and hurting their feelings
Now, Iron Bear, he is good at making lists.
In fact, you should head on over to Who Tends the Fires and read his Best and Worst of Blogistan 2004 list right now.
I would have to say that it is the best and most accurate list I've seen this week.
And now, I will leave you all with that ever annoying farewell for this day "See You Next Year!"
PS: Stop by over the weekend to find out what stupid new laws are going into effect in Washington State as of midnight tonight.
PPS: Also make sure to stop by on Monday, I've got a surprise for you and we'll take on the media, Diane Feinstein, the Oregon Judicial System and, of course, looney lefties.
Have a good New Year's celebration and be safe out there!
Posted by Nukevet at 03:01 PM | Comments (1)
Another Tsunami Post
First up, because this cannot be shown enough, here is the contact list to help with the tsunami.
Next, you may have heard that Michael Moore is in the process of being annoying to phamacutical companies in particular while doing 'research' for his next film on the health care industry, tenatively titled 'Sicko' (or somethng like that).
I wonder if he is going to stop by Pfizer anytime soon?
Oh, those eevviill American corporations and their greediness! Nothing good ever comes from them!
And John Cross at Drumwaster's Rants does some mathmatical calculations that are VERY kewl. BTW, I do not like math one little bit and these are still kewl.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:49 PM | Comments (0)
Everyone has advice
Some of it is worth more than others, though.
For instance, Victor Davis Hanson has somve very valuable advice for those on the left, this one being my favorite;
Quit idolizing Europe. It was a far larger arms merchant to Saddam than was the United States; it supplied most of Dr. Khan�s nuclear laboratory; it financed much of the Oil-for-Food scandal; and it helped to create and tolerate the Balkans genocide. It has never freed any country or intervened to remove fascism and leave behind democracy � silly American notions that are to be caricatured except when it is a matter of saving Europeans
Not wanting to be outdone, the Kossuckers* came up with their own list of advice for Republicans,
By all means demonize our European allies at every opportunity. I mean, we only won two world wars and the Cold War with them. What have you done for me lately right? Of course, always remember to make fun of the French - freedom fries are always a winner.
Do you hear that folks, we won the Cold War WITH the europeans, not in spite of some of them.
Go read the rest. Some of it is quite funny. Like being bitched out by a drag queen, which I have been (I'll tell you all about it sometime). All snaps with no actual substance.
And if you have the time, Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe columnist, has a list of 'Liberal Hate Speech 2004' for you to read.
But the lefties don't have to worry, it isn't illegal to be stupid quite yet.
Although it should be painful.
* Some of the sycophants at the Kos IMC like to label themselves as Kossacks. For them to do that is to insult a large portion of a very fine people. I also find it odd how the little socialistas at the Kos IMC can find the ignorance to call themselves that after the Soviets tried to liquidate everything Cossack?
But then again, they aren't very good students of history, are they?
Posted by Nukevet at 02:21 PM | Comments (1)
Brazil
Go for the Booty-ful girls in thongs!
Stay to beat up the statue of Arafat with a sledgehammer.
That's right folks, the town of Paraiba do Sul has paid Brazilian Sculptor Ivan Pinto an undisclosed amount to create a lifesized statue of Yassir Arafat WITH AN OLIVE BRANCH OF PEACE IN HIS HAND for their town square.
It will be unveiled as the fireworks go off there tonight.
What the hell are they smoking?!
Posted by Nukevet at 10:56 AM | Comments (0)
Radio, Radio!
So I was listening to this shrill harpie of a substitute leftie talk radio host last night and she was bitching about the funds being sent for tsunami relief by the US Gov't.
After a commercial break, she came on with the fact that the aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72-based out of Everett, WA) was heading there to help, along with a number of other vessels from the US Navy fleet.
Being a good leftie, she decided that she couldn't figure out how a carrier could help in this situation, what with it being a 'machine of war' and all.
About 15 minutes later, some mean old 'neo-con' had to call up and correct her way of thinking about the usefulness of an large military vessel in a disaster area. He was both kind and informative, but she still hung up on him and said that he was 'lying'.
One of the facts he brought up is the amount of distilled water the Lincoln can produce, something I had never looked into before.
In 24 hours, a Nimitz Class aircraft carrier can produce 400,000 US Gallons of fresh, distilled water.
Holy crap! That is an lot of freaking water!
Of course, I could have just asked Mollbot. But it was kind of late at night.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:39 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Oooops, He Did It Again
Multi-Billionaire and John Kerry supporter, George Soros, is being investigated for tax fraud in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan via his Open Society Institute.
Of course, the $623,000 dollars is just a drop in the bucket for Soros. He'll probably just buy his way out of this?
Sorry for the corny headline. Any visions it may have caused of Soros dancing around in a Catholic High School girl's uniform were completely unintentional and are actually your fault.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:22 AM | Comments (0)
December 30, 2004
Count ANY Vote: Part Chetyrnadtsat
Well, Dino went and did it.
No, not conceed and save face and time, he made an ass of himself and asked for a Do-Over.
Here is the text of the letter he sent to Gregoire.
Good G*d Man, do you know how much like a sore loser you sound like with that crap?
And of course, the Dems are laughing at him, and as an extension, the Repubs. Including the chuckleheads at places like the Kos IMC.
I just cannot believe that he could be so dense as to think that playing this card would look good. This idea was already dumb last week when former Secretary of State, Ralph Munroe, suggested it.
The only good that can come of this is that the Republicans in the state legislature (now the minority party) can bring this issue up a couple of times in the coming months when they reconvene, making life miserable for the Dems running the show.
BUT, if they push it so hard that nothing else gets done, they'll just look like the national Dems on the level of the fillibustering of judicial seats.
Hey Dino, this is state politics being watched on a national level. There ain't no such thing as a do over.
It already sucks that I will be the one paying for the hand recount that cost my candidate the election (per state law, the Dems got their money back when the rerecount overturned the election, and the bill gets pushed onto the taxpayers), but now I get stuck with 'the whiny candidate'.
**************************
Oh, and remember when I told you that King County would pull delaying tactics on getting the voter rolls to the Repubs?
"King County is still unable to provide conclusive information to validate their vote count.
The voter file, which I obtained earlier today, contains the names of only 895,660 voters recorded as voting on Nov. 2, a significant discrepancy from its hand recount certified total of 899,199.
The Elections Office informed me that they're still doing "quality control" and adding in the names of some of the absentee voters."
Ray Charles could have seen that coming, and he is blind AND dead.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:00 PM | Comments (1)
My Share
This story disturbs me
Iraq's Oil Ministry has awarded its first contract since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, choosing a Turkish, British and local company to develop a northern oil field, a ministry spokesman said.
Oil Ministry spokesman Assim Jihad said the joint venture was awarded a $136 million (US) deal to develop the Kormale Dome field in the northern province of Irbil.
What the hell is this?!?
I was told by the left wing of America that this was a damn war for oil and I bought it hook line and sinker.
Now I find that those Iraqis are almost giving the stuff away to themselves, the Brits and the Turks.
I'm still paying over $2 a gallon for premium unleaded here and I want to know, WHERE THE HELL IS MY CHEAP GAS!!!
If you listen to the left wingers, you would know that instead of guarding the Iraqi museums and letting the looters get away with a dozen or so artifacts, American troops were guarding the Oil Ministry building.
Here we went and got all that bad press for weeks on end and I AM STILL NOT GETTING ANY FREE GAS OVER HERE!!!
Kerry would have gotten me my free gas!
OK, that is enough. I'm dying from laughter here.
Link found @ The Interested Participant
Posted by Nukevet at 10:27 AM | Comments (0)
Talkin' about an Investigation
Cynthia McKinney's older and loopier brother, Representative Jim McDermott (WA-Dodo Party), is going to be investigated by the House Ethics Committee for leaking the tape of an illegally recorded conversation in 1997.
Good.
McDermott, who speaks out against the Patriot Act because, among other things, it gives the government too much power to tap and record the phone conversations of terrorists, proved himself to be a hypocrite by not turning in the Florida couple who recorded the conversation, and instead passed it around to the press.
He first denied being the source, then was caught bragging about it and had to fess up. Now he says he is glad he did it.
Sadly, they HEC can't do a whole lot to him.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:09 AM | Comments (0)
December 29, 2004
Saying 'So Long'
Never 'Goodbye'.
At 1900PST last night I said so long and be careful (among other things) to my brother-in-law.
For those who do not know, he was called up in the early part of September for the mobilization of the 189th Aviation Battalion of the Montana National Guard. He has been at Ft. Sill, OK since then, getting training in a number of things, the main one being desert environment maintenance proceedures for the UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter.
He was released to come home for the Christmas holiday on the 22nd and has been with his wife and three kids since then. You may remember that his third child and first daughter, Meghan Kolleen, was born just this last October.
This morning at 0900PST he will be heading back to Ft. Sill for final prep and his 18 month deployment on January 3rd to Camp Anaconda at Balab Air Base, halfway between Baghdad and Ramadi along the Euphrates River.
He promised the Analog Wife that the only Blackhawk ride he would take would be the one off the base in 18 months. I promised to trade him pics and letters for anything he wants shipped over.
He says that he will be picking up a laptop/notebook computer in the coming days and that he thinks he has figured out how to make his new digital camera work now.
Any comments left here will be sent directly to him and his wife.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:33 PM | Comments (3)
Count ANY Vote: Part Trinadtsat
To open Part 13 of this series, I would first like to welcome Raging Dave back from 92A training and thank him for the linkage yesterday.
Tim, also at 4 Right Wing Wackos, does not agree with my 'respectfully bowing out and biting the Dems in the ass at a later date' theory. I would also like to thank him for his opinion, because it causes me to have to explain myself which, in my haste yesterday, I failed to do.
Here is why I am thinking that 'taking a knee' (to use a football term) would be the better part of valor, in this case.
The Washington State Republicans have requested the information for all of the people who cast votes on November 2nd from King County. That is a list of just over 900,000 names.
After being turned down by the remaining 38 counties in the state to have them take a fourth look at the ballots they did not count previously, the Repubs have now also asked for the information on the voters in their respective areas.
This will add multiple lists of an additional 2.1 Million names for the party to look at.
King County does not plan on having their list to them until the afternoon today and the other 38 counties do not know when or if they will comply.
The election for Governor is set to be certified at 1200 on Thursday (aka tomorrow).
That gives the Repubs less than 24 hours to search through at least 900,000 names and if the other counties do comply with the request, that will just add to the number of names that need to be researched.
Then you have to add that they have to find a judge that will hear their case, if/when they find the necessary evidence from the voter rolls.
The necessary evidence must include, not 1, not 25, not 100, but 131 verifiable cases of fraud or other malfeasance on the part of either the voters or of the election officials.
In less than 24 hours.
In my book and according to my calculations, that is simply not possible, feasable or reasonable.
But if the Repubs are able to do that AND get it seen by a judge BEFORE the election results are certified, the judge would be able to do one of two things,
1. Nullify the hand recount results and declare Rossi the Governor, giving him the "Selected, Not Elected" moniker that we have all lived with for the first four years of GWB, or
2. Nullify the recount results and call for a revote, which Rossi could possibly, but not likely, lose handily.
IF they are able to do this, I will do my best to be the very first person to announce my surprise and apologize profusely in these very pages.
Therefor, with the odds stacked against Rossi, I made the call for him to conceed.
He and his party can go through the information they were given by the 39 counties slowly and with a fine tooth comb for a month or so, after which they can present their evidence to the public, which is not likely to forget this debacle for a long time.
Rossi then would only need to gather approximately 750,000 signatures to have a recall announced, which, depending on the information that they find he could win by a small landslide or a large one.
And still have three years as Governor and the respect of over half of the electorate.
Posted by Nukevet at 12:58 PM | Comments (0)
My Tsunami Post
I got a nifty e-mail yesterday from a teeny little leftie who shall remain nameless. The topic of the message was basically, why wasn't I being a good compassionate conservative and flailing my arms over the tragedy around the Indian Ocean?
Simple answer to they who requested it: Because others, especially Michele of ASV, are kicking ass and, literally, taking names in the effort to get funding, supplies, support and attention to the issue.
But since I am being asked to wave my arms in the air and yell to make sure that everyone knows that there was a horrible act of nature in the eastern hemisphere that will probably end up killing over 100,000 people, I am putting up this section of the post. Because, heaven knows that nothing will get done unless I put up a post.
For those of you who have probably seen all the videos, follow this link to see some of the before and after satellite pics. The small ones are good, but if you click on the links just below the pic viewer, they blow up into at least 1200x1600. (link found at The Blogs of War)
And now, in defiance of Ms. Michele, I am going to act like an asshole and get political. My apologies ahead of time.
First up, is this headline found by Murdoc Online, claiming that America knew about the Tsunami. Nevermind that at least one of the governments knew about the killer wave but refused to give warning in fears that it would be a false alarm and harm tourism. Also notice the monkey banner at the top of the page.
Then we have Jan Englund, UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, calling the US 'stingy' and suggested that taxes here be raised to help pay for the help.
Guess what Jan, I can think of around 10 Billion very bloody reasons why we shouldn't have to give your organization a single red cent of American tax dollars to help with this disaster. Go talk to Kofi, I understand he has a relative with a somewhat recent influx of cash.
You and yours cannot be trusted with anything, money and lives being just the top two items on the list.
Add to that, Kofi Annan's response on the Larry King Show that he wants to wait until JANUARY 6TH to ask for assistance. (Link found by Laurence at TBIFOC)
Shows how much that piece-of-work cares. He must have given his speechwriting staff the holiday off.
Atrios posts a link to a quote in order to justify Englund's statement
"The war on terror will take center stage at next month�s second inauguration for President Bush in Washington, D.C.
The estimated budget for the event is $30-40 million, but that will not cover security costs."
Yeah, that's pretty bad. The country is in debt and approximately $35 Million is being spent on a party. Add that to my list of things I don't like about the current administration. But I don't remember anyone on that side of the aisle complaining about the $30 million cost of Clinton's second inaugural in January of 1997.
Maybe they just forgot about the Yangtze River floods of July and August of 1996. They cost over $19 Billion.
Or maybe they forgot about Hurricane Fran that hit Florida in September of 1996, which cost $3.4 Billion.
They probably also the forgot about Hurricane Hortense in December 1996, costing $1.5 Billion.
Of course, the left fails to mention that the entire EU only gave $4 Million in their initial contribution to the relief efforts. 25 nations could give less than 1/3 of what one single country, America, gave. (link from Right-Thinking)
Add to that the additional $20 Million were are giving to the effort today and the soon to come millions in private donations from the most generous country on the face of the planet and it adds up to a big 'Fuck You' to the anti-American one-worlders both outside and inside the United States.
But hey, why deal in facts when you can bash the Bush Administration in particular and America in General?
Posted by Nukevet at 10:32 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
December 28, 2004
Count ANY Vote: Part Dvenadtsat
Yes, we're up to part 12 (we've moved on to Russian numbers, much easier for me).
56 days after the casting of voters, with the certification of Christine Gregoire as the next Governor of Washington State imminent, the state Republicans have only one avenue left.
They are challenging the validity of some of the votes in the county that basically handed the election to Gregoire, Democrat controlled King County and requesting all of the information about the casting of ballots in said county.
Here is a list of that request,
*A list of all voters who submitted ballots in the Nov. 2 general election, whether those ballots were counted or rejected.
*Any current policies regarding the retention of documents.
*Any documents regarding the issuance, delivery or counting of military and overseas ballots.
*E-mails and other correspondence to or from all county workers connected in any way to the 2004 election.
*Any complaints or records of complaints from voters about problems receiving ballots, voting or obtaining information about whether their ballot was counted.
*Any envelopes, updated signature cards or registration records related to provisional and absentee ballots rejected for signature failings.
*A list of voters who cast provisional ballots on which signatures could not be verified.
*Any training materials related to if, how and when election workers should enhance or duplicate ballots or declare a ballot an undervote or overvote.
King County has said they will comply with the request, but have not given a date or time as to when the materials will be delivered other than to say that tomorrow should be looked at as 'firm'. Expect a delaying action here.
It has also come to light that the majority of the military absentee ballots were sent out so late that they did not arrive until the day AFTER the election. King County said that they kept the date for the return of the ballots open until November 17th, giving the overseas members of our armed services fourteen days to fill out their ballots and get them back here.
Not an impossible task, but not exactly a sure thing either. So far, there are 91 service members asking for their late returning ballots to be counted. Oddly enough, they were never notified by the county that their ballots had returned too late. You'll remember that the county notified people with signature problems ASAP.
I hate to say this, but I am of the mind now that the Repubs will never get this fight started in time and that Rossi should conceed so as to leave an image in the state's citizens that he is not a crybaby.
Then, the Repubs can do their investigation without the hinderence of the press demanding to look over their shoulder. When they find provable evidence of election fraud in King County, they can put out to the public and begin to gather signatures for a recall.
Until then, I am content to call Gregoire my 'Selected, Not Elected' Governor.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:20 PM | Comments (1)
I like the shape of Florida
Because it looks like we're pissing on Cuba.
Ten UC Davis students are paying $11,000 each to go to Cuba for an "intensive 10-week experience filled with side trips across the island to African-Cuban and other cultural enclaves, Spanish and music classes, and individual ethnographic studies of Cubans."
I can picture it now, almost a dozen softheaded Americans wandering aimlessly around this 'worker's paradise' and wondering why AmeriKKKa can't be more like it.
Of course, the Cuban government will be keeping almost $100,000 of this $110K trip. And of course, some of these students will be paying their way with government funded student loans and grants.
Thanks, UC Davis, for organizing this useless expenditure of my tax dollars!
But here is the funniest part,
In Cuba, where food is rationed, they will be eating mostly pork, chicken, rice and beans, which the (Woodland, CA, Daily Democrat) saw as a challenge for the vegetarians in the group.
Oh, the pain in my sides! I can just picture these brainwashed children crying because they have to kill their own food!
On another note, I wonder if any of these dictator suporting students is a member of an environmental organization?
Because, with the ferver that those organizations opposed the drilling in ANWR, they will be right there on Castro's doorstep to protest him drilling in his newly discovered crude oil deposit.
Oh wait, I forgot. There isn't a protester brave enough to demonstrate in Havana. Castro might have them executed.
But remember, AmeriKKKA is the evil empire!
Posted by Nukevet at 01:50 PM | Comments (1)
Caught a live one!
Wulfgar of 'A Chicken is Not a Pillage' blog put up a few posts about acts of racism from near his town.
One of the short-dicked, skinhead dorks followed the trackback home and entered the forum with proclamations of Jewish conspiracies and a discussion of sorts ensued.
Craig of MTPolitics picked up on it and brought the story to his blog. And the 'boyz in da hoods' followed with remarks on the topic of 'queers'.
I implore you to take a look at hatred so vile, that it matches the hatred our men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan are fighting. The only real difference being that these idiot man-children are here.
Other than that, there really isn't much difference. They hate people like me and probably people like you. We stand in their way with ideas like support for Israel against the 'palestinians', acceptance of homosexuals in society at large and our ability to speak kindly with and make friends of others who are not Aryans.
Posted by Nukevet at 11:35 AM | Comments (0)
Extreme Projection
On Christmas Eve, while Markos, leader of the Daily Kos IMC, was away on vacation, one of his substitute posters, "Hunter", put a post up about "The War on Christmas".
Somewhat odd, for someone on the left as they generally do not believe that there actually is one. So I checked it out.
It contains nothing but quotes from people who, I assume, are thought to be 'leaders' on the right.
The quotes can be said to be anti-Jewish, some would say that they border on anti-Semitism and, by my best guess, are meant to imply that people on the right are anti-semites who hate jews because 'they are trying to take away Christmas'.
The list includes Henry Ford, Bill O'Reilly, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Mathey Staver, William Donahue, David Duke and Edgar Steele.
I have only even heard of five of those people. One was a Klan member, two are dunderheaded televangelists, another is a blowhard TV and radio talk show host and the other was a master industrialist with a history that is rumored to have included an admiration of Adolf Hitler.
Not exactly a list of people I, nor anyone I know, would trust to tell me whether or not it was raining.
What 'Hunter' seems to miss is that the folks who the pro-Christmas people refer to when talking about those trying to 'Take the Christ out of Christmas' are the secularists, not the Jews.
But I guess that someone who hangs out at the Kos IMC as much as he does, probably doesn't read much from the real world and has to live in a fantasy.
Posted by Nukevet at 11:13 AM | Comments (0)
Update
On the Rumsfeld comment from yesterday.
After listening to the looney left wing Seattle radio hosts last night, I realized that there was one poll response I had not thought about including for you all to choose from.
This was the basic jist of what the local lefties chose as their response:
Rumsfeld's statement pertaining to the shooting down of Flight 93 on September 11th is proof that he is getting senile and should step down.
How could I have missed that one?
Posted by Nukevet at 11:06 AM | Comments (0)
December 27, 2004
Count ANY Vote: Part Odinnadtsat
Americans voted on the 2nd of November, and here it is, the 27th of December and we here in Washington do not yet know who our next Governor is going to be.
We had a count of the votes. Then a recount via machine. Then a hand recount.
In the first two counts, it was decided for the Republican, Dino Rossi. This was not good enough for the Democrats, who came out with their tired old phrase "Count Every Vote!"
And we did exactly that.
Now that the numbers come up on the side of their candidate, Christine Gregoire, the Dems are saying "OK, That's enough counting of the votes. Now let us inaugurate our candidate."
But, the Republicans are charging vote fraud and threatening to take away some of those precious votes that the Dems demanded be counted.
We have already heard about Precinct SEA 37-1823 in our last installment of the 'Count ANY Vote' series, but here I found something else that is very interesting.
There is a chart here, stop on over and taker a look at it. It is a list all of the counties that added votes in the hand recount and the total number of votes from each county.
Now, by my calculations, if you total up all of the counties, besides King, that added votes in the hand recount, it comes to a grand total of 1419.
All of the other counties in the entire state who added votes, and who were done and certified before King County, put in 105 votes less King County.
I, for one, find that a bit odd.
Not the totals and percentages, mind you. The remainder of the counties total number of votes is 462,436. Almost half of the total number of King County.
What I find odd is that, if you add the orginal 10 votes that was the difference between Gregoire and Rossi at the end of the hand recount before the 'found ballots' were allowed to be counted, and then the mystery ballots total for Gregoire, you get 115.
If you look back a week or so, you will see that the Repubs announced that their totals showed Rossi winning by 15 in King County.
Add that to 115 and you get.......?
130.
Coincidence?
Quite possibly. But we'll see.
Posted by Nukevet at 12:57 PM | Comments (0)
Hmmm, Veddy Eeentarestingk
Rumsfeld says 9-11 plane 'shot down' in Pennsylvania
It might just be all just a bunch of mispeaking and accidental innuendo, but it gives you something to think about.
So lets have a poll:
If this turns out to actually be true, will the Left
1. Decry the use of force to bring down Flight 93?
2. Congratulate the Bush Administration for probably preventing more casualties on the ground?
3. Ask if the fighter pilot that shot down the plane was a Neo-Con/Jew before doing #1?
4. Ignore the new information because it will just bring back memories of September 11th, thereby bringing support back to the war in Iraq?
Or
5. Continue to blame Bush for the attacks, saying he was asleep at the switch, call Condi a 'House Negro', demand Rumsfeld's resignation and bitch about the war in Iraq (aka: Business as Usual)?
YOU make the call
Posted by Nukevet at 12:44 PM | Comments (0)
Legal Beagles
As the stage is getting set to loose the Dogs of the War in the Judicial Nominees battle and Justice Rehnquist gets set to retire in the next year or so, the left has thrown out one of what will be many grenades.
Ten Things President Bush Doesn't Want You To Know About Scalia and Thomas
The left is going to fight tooth and nail against any nominee who doesn't conform to every single one of their special interest groups.
Which means just about every nominee Bush puts up.
And Scalia and Thomas are the two most hated of all the current USSC Justices, held up by the left as everything that is wrong with the current court.
Take a read of the propaganda that "The Center for American Progress" has cooked up in the above link, OR in this handy-dandy and attractive printout.
By my count, I see that six out of the ten examples put forth by "The Center" as states rights issues.
And of course, the left cannot stand for states rights.
Posted by Nukevet at 05:04 AM | Comments (0)
What?!?
George Bush and the Americans are RIGHT?!?
The fight in Iraq isn't about Iraqis fighting for their country's sovreignity or about the actual citizens rising up against their American oppressors?
One of two French journalists released from captivity in Iraq has said he saw other hostages who were later beheaded.
Georges Malbrunot, giving details of his ordeal in the French media, said he and his colleague Christian Chesnot both feared for their lives at times.
Mr Malbrunot said his captors were driven more by Islamic holy war than Iraqi nationalism.
"We were very aware of the fact that it wasn't the Iraqi agenda that motivated our kidnappers, but the internationalist jihadist agenda.
Sacre Bleu!
Found in a number of places, but first at The View from North Central Idaho
Posted by Nukevet at 04:53 AM | Comments (0)
December 26, 2004
Stuff
I hope you all had Merry Christmas, were able to meet up with people you hadn't seen in a while, stuffed your gullets full of tasty foodstuffs and are in the mood to celebrate the coming of the new year.
So wha'd ya git?
The holiday celebrates the birth of Christ and peace on Earth to men (and women) of goodwill, but this is America and we're capitalists. This time of year, we buy stuff and give it away to relatives and friends, in the hopes that their eyes light up with happiness from the sight of their new stuff. We enjoy the giving and the receiving and hopefully, no one hurts themselves with the carving knife.
So, while we can celbrate all of the above, we usually walk away with a trunkload of booty to brag about. So let's talk about it.....
Wha'd ya git?
Mine's below the fold.
Aside from all the candy and other sugary food items that make my dentist cackle with delight as dollar signs scroll across his eyes, here is a partial list,
The Analog Wife went nuts and got me a number of kewl DVD's.
She also got me a gift certificate for 25% down on one of these (the 8-32x50) at the local gun shop and another one that covered the purchase of this and this.
One surprise I got from the Analog Mom, besides the cash that will be going straight to the gunsmith (OK, not all of it), was this new pocket clip folding knife from S&W;. I have been needing one of these for a while now since my last one 'went missing' and I had been getting by using the blade in my Gerber pocket tool.
Needless to say, the knife has yet to see the inside of the presentation case again, being clipped directly into my pocket after inspection, where it currently rests.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A Christmas Tale: Gunny Style
From Woodlief at Sand in the Gears
It all started out so innocent......
My Christmas quest was simple enough: buy toy cowboy guns for my boys. Caleb and Eli have boots and hats, bandanas and sheriff's badges. But they don't have holsters and guns. Without those critical components, however, you've really just got yourself a Village People costume. We've made do until now with two wooden pistols that were originally designed to shoot rubber bands. But I wanted to get them shiny cowboy guns, the kind that make a little boy's heart race, that turn a bad guy's legs to jelly, and that give a damsel that funny climbing-the-rope-in-gym-class feeling when she sees them strapped around your waist.
So I got up early one recent Saturday, and set out to catch Toys R Us right when they opened. This is advisable if like me you find yourself drawing hysterical conclusions about the future of civilization based on your experiences shopping in malls and driving behind school buses. If you can't find anything nice to say about your fellow man, I like to think, then best just to avoid him.
The rest is a must read. Go do so.....
Found @ FreeWillBlog
Posted by Nukevet at 09:37 AM | Comments (0)
December 25, 2004
Merry Christmas
To everyone out there.
Since you seem to have taken the time to stop by, I will leave you all with this item that should go under the "I Found It" designation.
The 12 Days of Christmas, as seen in the eyes of a police dispatcher. (For clarity purposes, a "33" is a 10-33, meaning officer in need of backup, a "Warrant Meet" is the pre-planned aprehension of a someone with a felony warrant for arrest, a "20 call" is a 10-20 aka an insane person, and a "DV" is, of course Domestic Violence call)
(And this is pretty darn close to the night my wife had on the 23rd)
On the First Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me; a Male versus Female DV!
On the Second Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me; 2 20 calls and a MALE VERSUS FEMALE DV!
On the Third Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me; 3 Car Prowls, 2 20 calls and a MALE VERSUS FEMALE DV!
On the Fourth Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me; 4 Accidents, 3 Car Prowls, 2 20 calls and a MALE VERSUS FEMALE DV!
On the Fifth Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me; FIVE WARRANT MEETS, 4 Accidents, 3 Car Prowls, 2 20 calls and a MALE VERSUS FEMALE DV!
On the Sixth Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me; 6 Suicides, FIVE WARRANT MEETS, 4 Accidents, 3 Car Prowls, 2 20 calls and a MALE VERSUS FEMALE DV!
On the Seventh Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me; 7 Gangsters Banging, 6 Suicides, FIVE WARRANT MEETS, 4 Accidents, 3 Car Prowls, 2 20 calls and a MALE VERSUS FEMALE DV!
On the Eighth Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me; 8 Suspects Fleeing, 7 Gangsters Banging, 6 Suicides, FIVE WARRANT MEETS, 4 Accidents, 3 Car Prowls, 2 20 calls and a MALE VERSUS FEMALE DV!
On the Ninth Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me; 9 Fights in Progress, 8 Suspects Fleeing, 7 Gangsters Banging, 6 Suicides, FIVE WARRANT MEETS, 4 Accidents, 3 Car Prowls, 2 20 calls and a MALE VERSUS FEMALE DV!
On the Tenth Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me; 10 33�s, 9 Fights in Progress, 8 Suspects Fleeing, 7 Gangsters Banging, 6 Suicides, FIVE WARRANT MEETS, 4 Accidents, 3 Car Prowls, 2 20 calls and a MALE VERSUS FEMALE DV!
On the Eleventh Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me; 11 False Alarms, 10 33�s, 9 Fights in Progress, 8 Suspects Fleeing, 7 Gangsters Banging, 6 Suicides, FIVE WARRANT MEETS, 4 Accidents, 3 Car Prowls, 2 20 calls and a MALE VERSUS FEMALE DV!
On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me; 12 Phone Reports, 11 False Alarms, 10 33�s, 9 Fights in Progress, 8 Suspects Fleeing, 7 Gangsters Banging, 6 Suicides, FIVE WARRANT MEETS, 4 Accidents, 3 Car Prowls, 2 20 calls and a MALE VERSUS FEMALE DV!
Thanks for stopping by and a Merry Christmas to everyone out there in the ether.
Now go start in on those left-overs.
Posted by Nukevet at 11:46 AM | Comments (2)
December 24, 2004
All I Can Say Is.......
Merry Christmas!
Travelling with no/limited internet access. I wish the best of the season to all
Posted by Nukevet at 07:47 PM | Comments (0)
All I Can Say Is.......
Merry Christmas!
Travelling with no/limited internet access. I wish the best of the season to all
Posted by Nukevet at 07:47 PM | Comments (0)
Awww shucks
Happy Christmas Eve, folks.
I don't know whether its the Christmas Spirit or the overtime, but I just can't get the fire up to get PO'd over anything and have nothing much to write about today.
I will leave you all with this, sent to me yesterday by Brent @ The Ville.
If you're looking for ways to help our troops this Christmas and show your appreciation for their service to our country:
Purchase a $25.00 phone card at Operation Uplink.
Purchase a $25.00 phone card from the USO's Operation Phone Home.
If you don't want to use your credit card on the net, you can donate to the USO 24 hours a day by calling 800-876-7469.
The email Brent received from Operation Uplink after purchasing a $25.00 phone card is below the fold. Read it and you'll see how much we can help our brave troops.
If you have some money left over from your Christmas shopping and other donations this year, I can't think of a better gift than that of the ability of our fighting men and women to be able to call home tomorrow.
Thank you all.
December 23, 2004
On behalf of the thousands of men and women serving our nation in uniform, thank you for your recent gift to Operation Uplink. Your generosity is a testament to your patriotism, as well as your concern for all the individuals who protect our American freedom every day!
Your gift of $25.00 donated in Pat Tillman's Name to Operation Uplink will be used to purchase much-needed phone time for troops on the front line, at a time when they need it most.
And I can't tell you enough how much that means to these brave men and women. On several occasions, I've had the opportunity to personally hand out Operation Uplink cards. There's simply no way I can convey the excitement on a young face realizing that they'll be able to talk to a spouse or child, or reach their parents at such an important time.
Here's just a sampling of the responses we receive from grateful recipients:
"I'm deployed to Bosnia, and my father is a diabetic. He had surgery eight days ago to remove part of his foot due to infection. Thank you for the card." -- CW2, United States Armed Forces
Posted by Nukevet at 01:27 PM | Comments (0)
December 23, 2004
Count ANY Vote: Part Juu
Looks like the Dems in charge of King County managed to fix just enough ballots for the re-re-count to go their way.
Of course, it does help when you take votes away from your opponent,
Christine Gregoire 505883 +47 57.66%
Dino Rossi R 351115 -12 40.02%
Ruth Bennett L 18926 -10 2.16%
Write-in 1361 +39 .16%
Undervotes 21262 -45
Overvotes 86 +40
And of course, NOW the Dems want to quit the counting of ballots.
Including, but not limited to absentee ballots from people in the military. In case you didn't hear, King County sent out the military absentee ballots out more than a week and a half late. If those ballots came in after Nov 19th, they were not counted.
And now we have the disclosure of Precinct SEA 37-1823 in downtown Seattle.
In 1823, 527 of its registered voters are listed as living at 500 4th Ave -- the King County Administration Building and 241 of those registered at that building list the room number of the King County Records and Elections Office (#553).
According to an e-mail from Bobbie Egan of the County Elections Office to Steven Sharkansky, of the SoundPoliticsBlog, the voters who are registered at this location are probably homeless as the state allows this practice.
Oh Joy!!!
At least three of the voters registered as living at the County Building also give foreign mailing addresses: Anuj Rathi - Mumbai India, Rayko Suzuki - Tokyo Japan, Pascal Engi - Bern Switzerland.
Oh Golly!!!
In the machine (first) recount, Christine Gregoire got 203 votes from Precinct 1823. Dino Rossi got only 87 votes.
I think I can figure out why......
465 (61%) of the Precinct 1823 voters registered during 2004 and nearly all of them "live" at 500 4th Ave. By contrast, only 13% of all of King County voters registered in 2004.
Talk about the Gregoire campaign getting out the vote!!!
There was talk on local radio about having to look into the backgrounds of these "homeless" voters to see if any of them are felons, and therefore unable to vote.
I say don't only do that, but look to see if our foregin friends are actually citizens and also see about some of those signatures on the Precinct 1823 ballots to see if two people's handwriting writing styles match.
If that gets blocked I got one word.
RECALL
Posted by Nukevet at 11:17 AM | Comments (2)
Good Riddance
The first of what will hopefully be many Seattlites moving to Canuckistan.
The first of an expected influx of Americans unhappy with the re-election of President George Bush have received their visas to come to Canada.
The Kilbourne family of Seattle has already been approved by Immigration Canada, and they're now looking around B.C. for a place to call home.
The Kilbournes applied more than a year ago after deciding they couldn't take another term with Bush as president.
Tresey Kilbourne says initially they planned to withdraw their applications if the Democrats won.
"With the Republicans in full control of everything, there hasn't been anything that has caused us to think that we weren't doing anything other than the smart thing a year ago," he says.
The Vancouver law firm the Kilbournes first contacted says it has retained more "Bush refugees" � and it predicts dozens of them will be moving to B.C. once their immigration applications are processed.
Get out and don't bother coming back.
Found @ Right Thinking
Posted by Nukevet at 10:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 22, 2004
Santa Claus is Coming to Town
Mean Mr. Mustard has already gotten something he wanted for Christmas,
"I just recieved an acceptance email for a 2L summer position with the USAF."
Slide on over and give the guy some congrats.
**************************
On the north end of the west coast, Santa stopped by my house last week with a gift. Oddly enough, he was wearing a brown uniform and his sleigh was a brown truck. Also, no reindeer in sight.
That is the Remington 700 SA stock I ordered from HS Precision back on the 5th of November. It goes along with this, also from HS.
While the pic doesn't show it, the stock is mud brown with black.
It also has their patented aluminum bedding block that goes from the rear receiver bolt forward to the front sling swivel.
It has been dropped off at the gunsmith's, where I found that Santa had also stopped by and delivered my stainless, Hart 27in, Heavy Varmit Contour barrel that I ordered back in October. I left the smith with a selection of new 308 Win brass to measure so that he can get the barrel chambered and fitted to my recently blueprinted action shortly after the Christmas holiday.
And because I have long monkey arms (as the Analog Wife likes to call them), shortly thereafter, he'll be fitting one of these and a recoil pad of my choosing so that I can get the needed length on that stock.
And then, I'll finally be selecting optics.
In case you missed it (it has been a while since I posted on it) I am building this rifle as my primary gun for Boomershoot 2005, happening on May 1st.
Mollbot of What Hath I Wrought will also be attendance, along with Kim du Toit and many others.
If you like long distance precision shooting and high explosives, this is the gig for you.
From what I hear, there are still spots available on the firing line. Follow the link and check it out.
Also, the sign-up sheet for Gene Econ's Precision Rifle Clinic was put up recently for those who want to learn, or re-learn, or maybe pick up a few things they hadn't known.
I'm still trying to egg the Doc into joining Mollbot and I, but it is a lot longer distance for him to travel and that is crunch time at his work, so we'll see.
(If you care to hear the tale of why it took seven weeks to get my stock delivered, it is below the fold.)
I ordered the stock on Nov 5 and hoped it would be here by Thanksgiving. Needless to say, it wasn't. On Nov 29, I called and inquired about the hold up. I knew they custom made each one, but this was just taking far too long.
It ends up that they misplaced my order and hadn't even started the necessary processes yet. I told them that I needed the thing by Christmas and they apologized profusely and said they would get it done shortly.
Evidently, their definition of 'shortly' is not the same as mine because they didn't get it finished until Dec 10.
I found this out because I called on Dec 13 to inquire about the status of my order. I spoke to the same guy, who again, apologized profusely and credited me $5 for each sling swivel, two of which I didn't actually pay for and bumped the shipping up to Next Day for no charge.
It arrived, but upon inspection, I discovered that they remembered to drill and tap for the adjustable grip stand, but didn't install the damn thing.
Now, this is a $50 item and I was not happy.
I again called back to South Dakota and spoke to my guy, and I swear I could hear him banging his head on the desk as I spoke to him. He once again, credited me for the part of the item ($25) and sent it out Next Day Air.
I have previously dealt with HS Precision and they have never been this boneheaded. But the Customer Service folks saved their bacon this time around and I will do business with them again and encourage others to do business with them and they will stay on the blogroll because they build some great stuff.
Hart Rifle Barrels, on the other hand, I refuse to deal with one-on-one. I pay the gunsmith extra to talk to them. I don't know why, but they have been difficult to talk to in the past. They too, will stay on the blogroll, mostly because I don't think that anyone can beat the product they turn out. No one.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:27 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Count ANY Vote: Part Kyuu
Today is the day that the WSSC will be hearing arguments on the previously thrown out ballots and the 'found' ballots of mysterious origin.
Cross your fingers for sanity, folks. Hopefully the ruling will come down by Friday.
In 'Media Whore' news......
Washington State Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt says that, according to his party's calculation of the data tapes sent to them by the King County Elections Board yesterday, Christine Gregoire has won this recount by EIGHT VOTES. (Seattle PI and Seattle Times)
Berendt "We're confident Christine Gregoire has been elected the governor of the state of Washington," Berendt said. "I believe Dino Rossi should concede."
What a jackass.
End of update.
Copies of the data tapes were also sent to the state Republican Party, but they say that they haven't crunched the numbers yet and have no comment on Berendt's statement.
Personally, I don't believe it. This story broke around 2100 last night and every single news organization in the area was stampeding to get an interview from Berendt.
Remember, the court hears arguments today. I'm thinking it is some sort of media ploy by the Dems to try and influence them.
In 'Stupid Media' news.....
please explain this picture to me.
(found at Michelle Malkin's blog)
What the hell is he looking at?
That is a optical scan ballot, and is more likely an overvote.
Why does it need to be held up to the light? Is he trying to discern 'voter intent' by looking to see which oval was filled in more darkly?
There you are folks, government of the people, by the people, for the people, but scrutinized by idiots.
Anyway, we'll see what the court has to say and talk to you then.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:53 AM | Comments (0)
Good
I found this left in the comments of the top post from yesterday by Chad from Dogtulosba.
More Military Personnel Obtaining Licenses Or Permits To Carry Weapons When Returning From War
I do not mean 'Good' in the terms that these great men and women are having to get licenses so that they can carry firearms, I mean 'Good' in the sense that there are more and more armed Americans walking around.
Another 'Good' is this hint left in the comments by Chad,
"Time to do some ::cough cough:: shopping now"
Good on ya, Chad. Shop well.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:44 AM | Comments (0)
Update on Lego Bush
Remember this post from last week about the GWB MOSAIC made from Legos?
Well, this was left in the comments of that post,
I have relisted it on e-bay as a fixed price auction in my EBay Store. It will be there until someone buys it. At which time I will re-create the item. The price is $350.
You can go here and take a look at the building of this portrait.
Until I get my latest project rifle finished, there will be no way I can afford something of this nature, although it would go really well on the wall next to my 24"x36" 1911 exploded diagram poster, if there is someone out there who would like to help out a needy blogger...
Yeah right.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:28 AM | Comments (0)
My Two Cents
On this lawsuit against Wal_mart for selling a shotgun to a mentally unstable woman who used it to commit suicide, brought by the woman's mother.
If Wal-Mart loses this one, I'll be very surprised.
If Wal-Mart settles this one, I'll never shop there again.
Except for the most socialized and gun controlled cities, the retailer HAS to sell you the firearm if you NICS check comes back as approved or otherwise face a civil rights charge.
The only exceptions to this rule is if they deem you as drunk or otherwise intoxicated and/or if they call up their right of "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" and have you escorted from the premises.
The Wal-Mart pharmacy is legally obligated to keep all medical records private, so even if they knew that the woman was at the sporting goods counter purchasing the shotgun, they couldn't have stpped the purchase without the woman being able to sue them for improper disclosure of her medical records.
The fault for the approval of this purchase lies with the federal government and their ignorant NICS check system. The woman was forcibly hospitalized by the government twice, but this information was never entered to the NICS system, so she was allowed to purchase her firearm.
Whereas, approximately 70% of the time, I am told that I must wait up to three days for approval to purchase a firearm because the ignorant NICS system confuses me with my grandfather.
My grandfather who has been dead for over 22 years.
Just more proof that the entire NICS system should have gone the way of the Assault Weapons Ban.
Found @ The Interested Participant
Posted by Nukevet at 08:54 AM | Comments (0)
December 21, 2004
Our Man, Back from The Stan
(And Movies & Books)
As promised, Chad of Dogtulosba started posting again over the weekend.
And what a busy fella he's been.
Not only has he put up a new header and repainted his place, he's got his Christmas lights up and presents purchased already!
His top post is a link to the teaser trailer of the remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Go tap that link and tell me you don't want to see it!
And speaking of movie teaser trailers, I saw one for The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy when I went and saw 'National Treasure' a couple weeks back.
I think I scared the wife and some of the folks around me when I saw the logo on the big screen and said "YEAAHHH!".
OK, I may have yelled it.
You can go here to see the teaser trailer and some of the concept art.
Oh, and to all the other fans of Douglas Adams out there....
Neener, neener.
(story behind the signature is below the fold)
I worked at a book warehouse appoximately a decade ago when Mr. Adams was passing through on his book tour for the final installment of the Hitchhiker series, 'Mostly Harmless'.
We were the largest book wholesaler in the region and he made a surprise visit to 'take a look around'. Myself and another Adams fan were selected to help him on his tour of the place and we got to talk to him for over an hour.
Neat guy, mind going a mile a minute and stories galore. Whooeee! Also, he insisted on calling me 'Philip'. Phil was just not a good name for him.
After he had seen all he wanted to see, he offered to sign our books.
Sadly, he had made a surprise visit so I had to buy all of his books books off the warehouse shelves for him to sign.
And that was one of my brushes with literary greatness.
The wife worked at the same place near the end of my tenure there. The only author she ever got to meet was Al Franken.
Ewww.
Posted by Nukevet at 11:33 AM | Comments (1)
Count ANY Vote: Part Hachi
Still no news as to when the WSSC will hear the appeal from the Dems on the injuction put on the mysterious ballots 'found' by King County Elections Board.
But we have some new developments that may help the Republicans squash that appeal.
To recap: the problem with the majority of the disputed ballots is that the county did not have a signature on file to match with the signatures on the absentee ballots, making them not valid and not countable.
The county has said that if they can have some time, they can contact each of these people so that they can get a signature for their files, they can then be counted in this hand recount.
The Republicans say "Not so fast, pal! It is your fault that you did not have signatures on file and you should have taken care of it before the election."
The Dems who run the King County Elections Board say "But we didn't know that we needed to do this!"
And that is a lie.
Apparently, the board has been trying to gather these signatures since May of 2004.
Also included in that link is a report about a rally held by the Dems outside of Dino Rossi Headquarters.
After a very short while, a group of Republicans showed up to counter protest. And fun was had by all, with shouting back and forth.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:58 AM | Comments (0)
Remember those tax cuts?
And besides their "Tax Cuts For The Rich!" message, remember the response from the left?
To summarize their message; they said that were willing to pay as much in taxes as it takes to get the country to run the way they want it to and that the folks who wanted the tax cuts were greedy.
Well, apparently, the liberal lefties have found their breaking point on the 'Tax Us Please!' issue.
After years of voting for various tax measures that have made Berkeley's property taxes the highest in the state, voters are now saying: enough already.
On Nov. 2, four tax measures designed to fund basic services such as fire and police, youth programs, medical services and libraries -- yes, libraries -- failed to get the two-thirds vote they needed to pass.
I can understand them not wanting to fund the police. I can almost understand them not wanting to fund the fire department. But 'youth programs', 'medical services' and LIBRARIES?
What kind of liberals are they if they don't want to fund libraries!?!
Oh, and if there is a firehouse that has to close in Berkeley, will the residents and voters blame themselves for voting against them or will they still blame Bush?
OK, that was a dumb question.
Found via Michelle Malkin
Posted by Nukevet at 10:39 AM | Comments (0)
Interviewing 'The Man'
Apparently, Rachel Corrie's alma mater, Evergreen State College, is filling positions for campus security.
Also apparently, the students are allowed to take part in the hiring process.
Here is the invitation that apparently came out on Dec 14th:
Please accept this email as an open invitation to meet the police officer candidates applying for 2 positions with the campus police.
Interviews are being held December 15th & 16th. After meeting with an oral board and the Director, each candidate will spend approximately 30 minutes in Library Room 2218. The first candidate, DEREK OLSON, will be available for comments and questions at 9:00 AM on the 15th.
Please take this opportunity to stop by and have a conversation with the applicants and let us know your thoughts and feelings about their potential "fit" here at Evergreen.
Thank you for your help
Here are some of the responses:
Why have these have been scheduled after the students have left? And why did we only receive a day's notice?
I can't help but think that this has been done intentionally.
Jayne
--------------
I agree with you Jayne. Where is the opportunity for student voice and opinion? Something is definitely wrong with this situation.
Kandi
--------------
I agree too. Last thing we need is more young hot shots fresh out of the academy looking to beat up and pepper spray kids for trying to get drunk after a hard week of class. I call shenanigans on the whole situation.
Ben Longstreth
---------------
But the rebuttal is absolutely the best. It includes plenty of adult language so it is below the fold.
What the fuck are you talking about. Who the fuck got beat up and pepper sprayed for holding a beer? What hot shots fresh out of the academy? That Perez guy is a hardass, no doubt, and I wouldnt ever want to fuck with him on a physical level, but even He doesnt go aggressive without cause. Shit, I saw a homeless guy start cussing him out, a homeless guy accused of pulling a gun in Salvation Army, and not shit came of it.
You fuckwits need to get a little more realistic. Cops give people who break laws shit. Dont wanna catch shit? Mind your goddamn business and drink indoors. Get stupid, risk getting hurt. Its reality. I dont like it much more than anyone else. I've met the cops around Oly, and if they pepper sprayed anyone I'm inclined to say the person in question earned it.
And just as a side question: when has Evergreen ever had a hard week of class?
Posted by Nukevet at 10:25 AM | Comments (1)
It has been a long time
Since I have muddied my boots by treading in the swamps known as my local Indymedia centers.
It didn't take me long to figure out why when I stopped by this morning.....
Gary Webb was the reporter who 'broke' the story about the CIA's supposed involvment in the LA crack cocaine supply. Webb commited suicide last week and the by-line from most of the blogs that reported it was "Let the Conspiracy Theories Begin".
And boy oh boy, have they!
Webb 'Suicide' Looking More Like Murder
We owe it to ourselves, to Gary Webb, and to all truth seekers, to get behind Alex Jones and his courageous DEMAND for a full and independent investigation of Webb's suspicious death, including an autopsy of his body, before his ashes wind up in an urn on a fireplace mantle in Langley, Virginia.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:19 AM | Comments (1)
December 20, 2004
By Ourselves, For Ourselves: Part 2
Allrighty then! Last week we covered the minimums on armament for your home during tough times.
Today, we�ll cover nearly everything else, supply wise. Namely: food, water, power, light and toiletries. I am going to stay away from the subject of medical equipment and supplies as that is a whole topic in and of its self. For now, let me just say this, if you bought it as a kit, you quite probably got ripped off.
We�ll cover the assembly of a quality first aid/medic bag in the next couple weeks, both for at home and in the vehicle. I am compiling my links to medical supply houses and looking of deals.
Continuing on last week�s theme, we are assuming that you are able to stay home in this situation. This means we have the �shelter� portion of the equation taken care of.
Also, please remember that we are doing this in a way so as to not alarm your family. These things are being done to keep them safe, and we don�t need for them to get spooked, scared or frightened that something bad is going to happen or that you have fallen off your rocker. For some reason, seeing people get prepared frightens folks. I have yet to figure that one out.
OK, let�s say that there have been multiple terrorist acts in your locale, including a rash of bombings and shootings in public areas and jihadis driving vans filled with explosives into the transfer stations of your region�s electrical supply and the police and fire stations.
Muhammed and Malvo had a section of Virginia in near lock down after a few random shootings. Imagine that, ten times larger, being done by a sleeper cell of twenty jihadis who watched the television during those couple of weeks.
If that is too much to believe, then just imagine mother nature coming through and kicking ass in your region. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, tsunamis, tornados or even an extra heavy snowstorm can shut down the system and make it so that your life will suck for two to four weeks.
You and your neighbors are screwed and the Red Cross isn�t coming to help any time soon. Also, your state�s national guard is suffering a 50% �No Show� rate due to the guardsmen and women having decided that staying home and protecting their family is more important than being shipped off to protect yours.
This part of the hypothetical is perfectly feasible. While I do believe that folks in the NG are good and honorable people, can you imagine the head of a household, being told that they have to leave their wives and children at home, alone, in the dark, with looters (or terrorists) running around unhindered, so that they can go protect a town 60 miles away that the Governor has concluded is more deserving of protection than their own.
Personally, I�m imagining a bunch of unanswered cell phones.
Food is the first thing you need to think of because you don�t want to starve. It is also the easiest because you know what you like and where to get it.
You can forget the government�s suggestion about having three days worth of food. Think thirty days of two meals a day for each member of your family.
The only real difficult part about food is storage. The food needs to sit for possibly months at a time, unrefridgerated, and still be safe for human consumption.
Myself, I like canned goods. They�re stackable, there is no need for dishes and you can easily count �one can = one meal�. Also, if the societal troubles continue, you can use the empties to set up a perimeter warning system. Sugary snack foods are also good. Salty ones are better as they instill upon you a need to get water into your system.
Again, I like to use the 105mm Arty boxes for storage as you can fill them with about a week�s supply of food each. .50cal ammo cans are good for food storage since even canned food isn�t as heavy as ammunition and they�re watertight. If you can get your hands on 30mm ammo cans, these are even better.
Where you store it is as important as how you store it. A basement, mud room, closet or corner of the garage is the best since we need to keep the supplies at room temperature or cooler. Putting them in a garden shed or something of that nature is problematic as that space generally heats up and cools down with the elements of day/night and the seasons. You want your food�s temperature to be stable. Also, having to drag your supplies into the house during a time of emergency is a pain in the ass.
Remember to date you containers and rotate them out. If your chosen food comes with an expiration date, use that. Even though canned goods are supposedly good for years, I rotate mine yearly.
Now, on to fluids. You will need at least a gallon a day per person for each member of your household. That is just for drinking. Make it two per person per day if you will have to cook with it.
Unless you buy your emergency water supply in cased bottles, you will find that water is a hell of a lot harder to store than food, since almost anything can make water unsafe to drink. If you decide to keep your water in portable containers, first make sure that it is a safe container, then, when you fill up that container, be sure to put in the appropriate amount of those �safe water tabs� in beforehand. There are also �pour through� filters on the market that you can check out, but I�ve found that sugar takes away the taste of the safe water tabs so I�ve never really looked into them and you�ll want to do your own research.
Rotate and refill your supply every six months. Use the old stuff for something useful, like washing the dog or the car.
You will also want to keep a supply of water bladders for bathing. The quantity depends on your climate. If you live in Texas, you will want more than if you live in Wisconsin.
Also, what does your water heater store? Yep, water. My house has a 48-gallon model. But since I�m still currently a renter, I did not get to select it, so I have one with a drain plug instead of a valve. Another thing to keep in mind is where your incoming water filter is. If it is before the tank, you�re probably OK. If it is after the tank, the contents will have to be boiled before use. I have seen filters after the tank more than once, so, if you didn�t build your own house, check it out.
And don�t forget about your pets!
Rover or fluffy will be wanting to eat too. Make sure you have a source of food for them. If, like most pet owners, you spoil them, they�ll get tired of your scraps after about a week or so. You do not want to fight with them for food, they can be very �no holds barred� when they get hungry.
This next topic is somewhat personal, but since you don�t have to tell me, I�m going to ask it anyways.
What are your medical conditions and do you have a thirty day supply of your medicines available. If you are diabetic, you better have a months worth of testing supplies and insulin handy or you�ll be living at the local hospital.
Folks with heart, liver, kidney and intestinal problems all need to make sure they have spare amounts of their prescriptions available. Even if you can get to the pharmacy, it isn�t guaranteed that they�ll be open during tough times.
You can talk to your doctor about getting some emergency quantity meds if you know him or her well, but you will have to be the judge of that relationship. As of late, doctors have been getting nosy about firearms ownership, going so far as to call the police to have them remove firearms from the elderly and infirm. Their justification is that they �don�t want the person to think of suicide�. So be careful when expressing interest in stocking up on your meds.
The same goes for folks with �allergies�. All of you out there with �Hayfever� know what it is like to be stuck in high pollen season with no meds. Stock up and rotate.
Also, are you addicted to anything, like say, tobacco products? You could use the emergency as a good excuse to quit, but going through a full-on nicotine fit in the middle of a disaster would be horrible.
Now, when night falls, it gets dark and you will need light. There are three easy sources of light: electric based (flashlights and lanterns), fire based (candles) and chemical based (glow-sticks). I suggest all three be partaken of since each of them has their own strengths and weaknesses.
Flashlights are best for portable light, but they don�t light up a room well and they run on batteries, which are finite. Even worse, try to charge up a rechargeable model when there is no electricity. The LED flashlights use batteries more slowly than standard bulbs, but they�re more expensive. Battery powered lanterns work well for lighting up a room, but again, they use batteries.
Candles are good for stationary light, but they themselves are of finite supply and can burn down your shelter if not carefully watched. Since the Analog Wife is a big candle fanatic, I encourage her to buy as many as she wants. At any one time, we have a dozen medium and/or large candles in the main room of the house. Also, IKEA sells bags of 100 tea lights for less than $5 and she usually has two of those around. Keep this in mind the next time your wife/girlfriend goes shopping. She can take part of this job off your hands and go shopping at the same time!
Glow-sticks can be used for either portable or stationary light. Tie a string to one end and hang it from the ceiling and you have a decently lit room. You can walk around with it and not worry about fire (plus, if you drop it, it glows, so you can easily find it), but it does not project a beam, and they too, are finite and are more expensive than candles. Though, if you keep them cold, it slows the chemical reaction and they last longer.
Again, take stock of all three and you should be covered. Four sets of batteries for each flashlight or lantern, one flashlight or lantern per person, six to eight medium-sized candles and a hundred or so tea lights and 30 glow-sticks should be a decent supply of light for thirty days.
Other than the candles, none of these light sources provides heat, and even then, a candle�s heat radiation is minimal. If you have a fireplace, just set yourself up with a spare cord of split wood, and you should be fine. If you don�t have a fireplace, and you don�t live in the southern half of America, then you should start thinking about a heat source.
You can bundle up and be your own heater, but playing Nanook of the North in your own home gets old real quick. There are propane heaters that hook directly to you grill�s propane tank. There are also some very common items used in camping that come in very handy for disaster preparedness. Propane camp stoves and lanterns work well in the outdoors, but I would not suggest using these inside your house, even with a partially opened window, but they are options if it is safe to go outside to cook.
Otherwise, we�re talking electricity.
Now, if you don�t generate your own power via solar panels, wind generators or hydro fans, you need to get a generator. They are little expensive, but they can be quite handy around the house. I don�t like to use multiple extension cords when I�m using power tools on my various outdoor projects, so I just roll out the little Honda. You don�t need one that runs the entire house (although that would be nice), just one big enough to run a portable electric heater or a hot plate/toaster oven.
The main downside is that they run on gasoline and gas is dangerous to store. I have a 5-gallon portable tank that we use for the lawnmower. After that, I�m going to have to start siphoning out of the vehicles (remember to never let you vehicle�s tank get lower than half full).
Generators put out two things besides electricity: toxic exhaust and noise. The exhaust will kill you if you keep it indoors and the noise will alert people nearby that something mechanical is running. As I stated in the last entry, if they know that you have electricity, they�ll probably figure out that you also have food and water and want you to share. To try and negate this, you can try running the thing in a garage and piping the exhaust directly from the generator out a window or door or, if available the heat outlet for your dryer. You will need to have a detachable exhaust set-up fabricated and this will cost money and possibly get you strange looks if you go to Midas Mufflers to get it done.
So, if you don�t weld or have a friend who welds, you might just want to gather your materials and tell them it is an �art project� or something. If you decide that you are just going to use a bunch of use muffler clamps, to put everything together, you need to remember that this thing needs to be totally sealed. Get some sort of heat resistant sealant for the joints. Also remember to test it out before you need it.
Now, if you do have equipment that generates electricity, say solar, panels, you will need to take extra caution to protect it. Those big panels say �I have electricity� in huge neon letters to those without power, so be prepared.
I know we have at least one electrical engineer who stops by RNS regularly. I would more than welcome any extra ideas or filling in where I missed anything on this topic.
Another thing to think about is cordoning off the rooms of your home with something like curtains made from wool blankets.
If you have one of those homes with a �convenient open floor plan�, you may need to shrink down the size of the area you are trying to keep warm by getting a hammer and nails and hanging up some wool blankets over door-less passageways between rooms or dividing a room in half via a curtain of these blankets.
If you have a fireplace in the family or recreation room that is, say, 20ft by 40ft, you might want to cut that room down to 20ft by 20ft in order to only have to use half the amount of fuel to keep it warm.
Make your plans ahead of time as it is a real bitch to be sewing together and putting eyelets in wool blankets so that they reach across a 20 foot wide room in the cold and dark.
You might also want to think of materials to cover up your windows. Looters trying gain entry will break through anything to get in, including windows. If your main living area is breeched by an attempt that includes the breaking of the window or sliding glass door, you�re in trouble if you cannot seal that opening up. Cardboard works well. Wood works better. Either way, make sure you have an extra set of blankets to add an extra barrier of insulation.
Now we have come to the ugly part of living without water or electricity. You will have enough food for thirty days, but what happens after you eat? Yes, you�re body wants to get rid of yesterday�s meal.
Unless you get a good deal on �Depends�, you�re going need something to act as a toilet to dispose of bodily wastes. This is surprisingly simple. Go to the hardware store and buy a 5-gallon bucket and a couple bundles of trash bags. If the bucket lids come separately, buy two of them. One lid to cut a big hole in, and the other to seal the bucket up.
That is, unless you want to keep your �poo-bucket� outside in the cold.
Just line the bucket with two bags and change it every couple of days. Put those bags as far away from your living area as possible, for obvious reasons.
And there we are.
Being prepared is just that easy. Minus buying a generator, you can get away with spending less than a couple hundred bucks on getting yourself ready with what is listed here.
And you may never need it. Or you might need it next 4th of July. Take care of yourself and your family members, give yourself peace of mind and thumb your nose at the Jones�. When their lights go out and they�re eating raw cake mix, sit back, kick up your feet on your porch with a good book and a hot cup of cocoa and wave.
Next week, we�ll cover home safety and security tools that aren�t firearms.
Again, any suggestions of anything I may have missed are absolutely welcome. I can�t think of everything that may be necessary, so if you have anything to add, please feel free to do so.
And if there is a topic that you would like discussed, please feel free to let me know and I�ll see what I can do for you.
Posted by Nukevet at 11:08 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Count ANY Vote: Part Shichi
And it don't stop, it keeps rockin' on and on, 'til the break of dawn!
Yeaaaaaahh Homieees!
Ugh.
So let's see here, Dino's new lead has shrunk to 8 votes (plus his original 42 from the previous count, giving him a hypothetical 50 vote lead).
If you saw the Doc's post from Saturday, you read that the Dem in King County have 'lost' 162 of the 763 'found' ballots that were previously rejected or missing.
Hmm, could those 'lost' ballots be Rossi voters?
Also there was a ballot found to be marked "Christine Rossi". And, because the King County Elections Board is two-to-one, Dem vs. Repub, it seems that they counted it for Christine Gregoire's favor. Go figure.
Now, to the legal fine print.
The Republicans filed and won in neighboring Pierce County Superior Court to have an injunction put on the King County ballots to stop them from being counted or even investigated as to authenticity.
And the King County Democrats have, of course, appealed the ruling, sending it to the Washington State Supreme Court. There is no word as of now when the court will hear the case.
Just last week, the WSSC basically said that the Dems couldn't change the rules in the middle of the race by admitting ballots that had been previously tossed out due to errors by the canvassing board or the voter or that had been 'found' inbetween the machine recount and now.
The Dems are going to counter this latest injuction with this story of a woman from Leavenworth, WA.. She mailed in her absentee ballot on time and correctly, but it was rejected because of someone else with the same name had also voted in Chelan County via absentee. She appealed to the board, won and got her vote counted this time around.
Of course, the Dems are also bitching up a storm about it. One woman in Chelan County gets her ballot authorized and counted, and now 762 ballots, most with very suspicious heritage that cannot be authenticated, MUST be counted, in their minds.
And the victimhood goes on.
Headline from the Seattle Low-Intelligencer: Prolonged election reveals cracks in system
Yes, cracks that the Dems had over 20 years available to fix, with their occupation of both the Governor's Office and the Attorney General's Office.
But they wanted to jack around the citizens of Washington instead of straightening out the election process, even in the wake of Florida 2000.
So, as Markos Zuniga of the Daily Kos would say "Screw Them"!
Let's hope that the WSSC thinks the same way.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:19 AM | Comments (0)
Those Goofy Lefties
In a one day series of goofyness, I'll be posting utter stupidity from all over the world and laid it out in distance from you and I.
I will start with general goofiness and radiate out in the following posts.
We start with the wannabe Indymidiots, the Kos IMC and their attempt to prve that the draft is near!
TTagaris lists that the recruitment goal is below expectations, that the NG's are going to be asking for $20 Billion to replace arms and equipment lost or destroyed in Iraq and Afghanistan, that signing bonuses are being increased (you'd think that was a good thing?) and then finally, he says this,
"If you don't believe it yet, you can just take the word of the Commanding Officer for the Army National Gaurd."
Army Reserve, Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, told The Dallas Morning News that the Army Reserve recruiting was in a "precipitous decline" that if unchecked could inspire renewed debate over the draft. General Helmly told the newspaper that he personally opposed reviving the draft.
So, because there could be renewed debate of the draft and the guy in charge is against it, that must mean the draft is imminent!
What a fool.
***************************************
Next up, do you remember the story of Foster Barton, the soldier who was wounded and on leave from Iraq and was attacked at a Toby Keith concert back in September?
Well, accoriding to the attacker, Brent Cornwell, who was a former soldier himself, says that he attacked Barton after they traded insults about each others former units.
And of course, the lefties totally believe him.
Because they believe that military types always attack each other after a good natured ribbing! Especially when one of them is recovering from wounds received in theater!
***************************************
What must be the funniest thing I have heard in the longest time is that the ACLU is data mining their membership list (link goes to Reynolds).
I am still in pain from that one.
Which, of course, proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the ACLU does not stand for anything that you or I would call civil liberites.
They only want to reshape America in their collective vision using the fairest and best damn legal system on the planet.
***************************************
And finally, Natasha at the "Official Weblog of the King County Democratic Central Committee" wants to know what YOU are doing to help the Democrat Party here in Washignton State.
Her e-mail addy is "natasha.the[at]gmail[dot]com" (and if you are a Dem, you need to be told that you have to change the 'at' to an '@' and the 'dot' to a '.').
Why don't you all drop her a line, letting her know what you are doing to help.
At first, I was going to tell her that I am hunting and killing every Republican I can find. But I thought that might frighten her too much for a response.
Then, I was going to say that I'm giving away BJ's in Wal-Mart parking lots, trying to get folks to vote Democrat.
But that sounded creepy in an entirely different way.
I'm sure I'll think of something soon though.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:41 AM | Comments (1)
Those Goofy San Franciscans
Soon to be the next handgun AND ammuntion free zone.
That's right!
According to Professor Volokh, the second part of the proposed San Francisco handgun ban would also forbid the the sale, distribution, transfer and manufacture of all firearms and ammunition.
Now they are targeting handloaders as well. Let's see the "but I only reload and own guns so that I can hunt" types sit through this one.
Found via Michelle Malkin
Posted by Nukevet at 09:30 AM | Comments (1)
Those Goofy Canadians
In another step towards total insignificance, the Canadain Supreme Court has decided that drug testing of people on probation for criminal offenses is a violation of their civil rights as Canadians because if they fail, they can be thrown back in prison.
And they can't have that!
Vancouver B.C.'s highest court has ruled that people on probation shouldn't be forced to submit to drug testing. The court says the tests � a common probation condition � are unconstitutional.
The B.C. Court of Appeal was hearing the case of a man facing such an order. In a 2-1 decision, the court ruled those tests are unconsitutional.
But that is probably for the better since the best selling Christmas gift in the city of Vancouver, BC is a 'Monopoly' style board game in which you pretend you are a marijuana farmer!
Posted by Nukevet at 09:12 AM | Comments (0)
Those Goofy Europeans
From Captain Ed comes a reminder about the proposal in the EU Council to make internet medias outlets give the EU government the ability to respond to any articles or words that they feel are critical to them.
Captain Ed wonders if this will mean American blogs, since they too can be read in Europe?
I certainly hope so. I absolutely do.
First of all, I believe that the comments section of a blog is a formal venue where EU types can voice their responses and I would love to make some chucklehead government official in france have to type into the RNS comment system, his email addy and his governments response IN ENGLISH to be able to respond to an accusation from little old me.
Mostly because I will then have his email addy. Goody for me.
If his email addy is a fake, into the trash goes his response. The rules are very simple, even a french government official should be able to figure them out.
So, as a pledge to you, the RNS reader, if this EU rule goes through and becomes law, I promise to make fun of a member-country of the EU every day until, and then after, we get a response.
And in the spirit of being feisty, I will toss out a preemptive strike at none other than france.
Remember the 'War for Chocolate'?
It appears that the french have, surprise, surprise, raised the white flag and have pulled out of Abidjan.
And in utterly humiliating news for france, the Ivory Coast government wants America to arbitrate the negotiations!
Ivory Coast story found at the FreeWillBlog
Posted by Nukevet at 08:49 AM | Comments (0)
University Threats Update
Hopefully, you all remember the story from last week describing the words of University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point faculty member, Pat Rothfuss,
"why don't you go on a killing spree? I pet you can take out fixteen for sisteen republicans beofre they gun you down. Duke, youd' be like a heroe"
Well, one RNS reader calling himself Arnold stopped by in that opst to drop off an e-mail addy for Mr. Rothfuss.
Please email Pat Rothfuss at prothfus@uwsp.edu
Demand an apology, tell him it's not funny.
Thnak you, Arnold.
Go forth and do what you feel is best, but please, no threats or maniacal ravings. He'll only use it against the WSP College Republicans.
In other stupid college professor news,
From Ipse Dixit comes the story about Dr. John McTigue, a professor in the University of Loisville Sociology Department.
Dr. McTigue: "It was the religious zealots who say they are voting on morals. I think we should all buy AK47's and shoot them all! That's what I would suggest, if it were allowed."
And this wasn't in some silly paper, this was said IN CLASS, DIRECTLY TO STUDENTS.
Luckily, it sounds as if Dr. McTigue doesn't yet have his tenure since his contract for the spring semester has been withdrawn.
But, of course, his comments mean he'll fit right in at a number of other colleges. Watch for him at an institue of higher learning near you.
Posted by Nukevet at 08:31 AM | Comments (0)
December 19, 2004
Beminder
Don't forget to take part in the hypothetical put forward yesterday.
I still have 8 presets unprogrammed.
Posted by Nukevet at 12:41 PM | Comments (0)
Paging Professors Volkoh and Reynolds
Some of you may remember a discussion I was having a while back with Jason of Fish Or Man.
Well, what we were speaking of in those discussions has happened.
I am not casting judgement on him or anyone else involved in the story as I am saddened that what went down actually took place at all.
Please, take a moment and start reading here (because it is blogsnot, you may have to scroll up to get to the start of the tale).
I am in the middle of networking to see if I can slow down/stop the process.
After you are done reading, let Jason know how you feel and give him any advice you can.
Posted by Nukevet at 12:29 PM | Comments (1)
December 18, 2004
Monsters do walk the Earth
Posted by Nukevet at 11:55 PM | Comments (3)
Who knew that the number 75
could cause so many problems?
Wayne Smith, who headed the U.S. mission here during the Carter and Reagan administrations and has long advocated restoring normal diplomatic relations with Cuba, said he thought the images of prisoner abuse in Iraq were an appropriate response by Castro's regime.
"If I were in their shoes, this is what I would do -- call attention to the fact that the United States is now guilty of torture, of massive violations of human rights," Smith said by telephone from Washington.
"Yes, I'd like to see the 75 all released, but we're in no position now to criticize anyone," he said.
But the billboard's Nazi reference went too far, Smith added.
Posted by Nukevet at 04:30 PM | Comments (0)
Hypothetically Speaking.....
I'm busy writing Monday's "By Ourselves" entry, so I leave you all with a hypothetical question/s.........
Let's say that, because of their rules resticting explicit language, the FCC is ruled unconstitutional and because of this ruling, all licenses issued by the FCC are null and void and those stations must stop broadcasting, leaving the airwaves open for anyone who wanted to, to be able to set up their own radio station.
Let's also say that it cost only $10 to set up a 10K watt AM radio station and that you decided that this was a good thing to do with the $10 you won on a scatch ticket you got for Christmas.
What format would you decide on?
If you chose a music format, what genre of music would play?
PS We will also hypothetically get rid of frequency jammers. We'll say that part of your broadcast includes a warning that tells jammers you have mobile broadcast triangulation equipment and cruise missles.
PPS No, you can't back out of the format question and just get the hypothetical cruise missles. Sorry.
Thanks for your answers.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:51 AM | Comments (8)
December 17, 2004
Christine Rossi for Governor
Posted by Nukevet at 11:25 PM | Comments (1)
Armor Problem?
But, swallowed hook, line, and sinker because it made Rumsfeld and Bush look bad.
Posted by Nukevet at 11:16 PM | Comments (0)
This just in,
Bosox win world series, Pedro Martinez still a punk.
Man, I'm glad he didn't end up with the Yankees. This guy is a cancer.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:31 PM | Comments (0)
Count ANY Vote: Part Roku
In Washington State Gubernatorial Election News,
With 36 of the 39 counties reporting, Dino Rossi's lead has dropped down to 32 votes. Only King, Pierce and Spokane counties are left to report.
In Democrat Election Game News, the King County Election Board voted yesterday to change their own rules on over-votes (as a reminder: over-votes are ballots that have votes for more than one candidate in the same race).
The old rule was that the person doing the counting was given the authority to either toss the ballot out or count it for whomever was marked.
Now, it has to go to the KC Elections Board and they will make the final decision (also as a reminder: the KCEB is made up of three people, one Republican, two Democrats).
Guess how the vote for this rule change came down. Yep, 2 to 1.
Also, 245 of those 573 'found' ballots have been approved to be counted. I'm sure I don't need to guess how that vote went.
In good news, as of now, Dino Rossi has gained approximately 15 votes during the recount in King County which is about 3/4 done.
The Republicans are getting ready to head to court to ask about the legality of counting the 'found' votes. I'm not looking forward to that decision.
Addendum: I have switched from counting in Spanish to counting in Japanese as I cannot count past five in Spanish. Excuse me for paying more attention to the girl across from me than Mrs. Sampson, the foreign language teacher in junior high.
If this election thing goes much past ten or so, I may have to switch to either Gaelic or Russian, so be prepared.
FYI: This is Part Six for those keeping track.
If anything happens over the weekend, I'll put it up. Otherwise, look for Part Shichi on Monday.
Posted by Nukevet at 11:16 AM | Comments (5)
From the "About Damn Time" Department....
Grand jury probes Rich-Saddam link
A federal grand-jury investigation of pardoned financier Marc Rich's role in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal has focused on whether he helped Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein reward the families of Palestinian bombers who carried out suicide attacks in Israel, sources said yesterday.
Law-enforcement authorities and congressional investigators said the grand jury wants to know whether cash funneled to Saddam by oil traders � including Mr. Rich � to help arrange multimillion-dollar Iraqi oil deals for political leaders and well-heeled investors was used by the now-deposed dictator to pay the bombers' families.
Uh-oh, this report is from the Washington Times.
And look! It mentions Israel in the first paragraph!
It must be a neo-con conspiracy to get back at Rich for giving money to Hillary's Senate campaign!.
I'll be watching the DU for this one to pop up.
Posted by Nukevet at 11:11 AM | Comments (0)
Somebody Needs A New Hobby
Mr. Sidney Stock apparently has too much time on his hands. So does his wife, Jennifer.
Poor little Sidney is afraid of a Christmas Tree that sits in the lobby of the City Hall in Bellevue, Washington and he wants it removed.
Nevermind that the city has already renamed it 'A Giving Tree' and that it generates almost $25,000 in donations.
It is threatening to Baby Sidney.
Nevermind that the courts have decided that Christmas Trees are secular symbols and are free to be displayed in public areas of public building.
It hurts Sidney the Idiot Manchild's feewings.
A quote from Sappy Sid,
"I try and be aware of injustice and inequality when it affects anybody or everybody," he says. "Certainly this is something that has been a problem for as long as I can remember."
Oh really, Sidney? How about the injustice that it was people like you who made the city change the name to 'A Giving Tree', when it is clearly a Christmas Tree?
Get a life, loser. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that you have a right to not be offended.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:58 AM | Comments (0)
December 16, 2004
Another Place I Can't Go
I was once banned from the town of Yelm.
I got into a shouting match with some chucklehead at a gas station when he pulled into the pumps too fast and got too close to my car for my liking. He threatened to kick my ass and yada, yada, yada.
A bystander told us to knock it off or he was going to call the cops. The guy who I was shouting to said "Go Ahead!".
He finished up what he was doing and took off in the same manner he pulled in. He drove across the street and......into the police sub-station.
I go over to complain, hopefully to the Chief, about the behavior of one of his officers.
Bad move. He was the Chief.
After a haranguing that basically went "If I see your car in this town again, I'm having it impounded and you jailed!", I took off.
Consequently, I left him an actual reason to toss my ass in jail in the form of two very long black streaks down the middle of main street.
That was OK though. The only reason I was in that po-dunk burb was because of a girl I was going to stop dating shortly anyway. Now I had a real reason not to go to her place ever again.
Of Special Note: Do not tell the mentally unstable woman you are trying to dump about defying the constabulary. It only turns them on.
But back to the reason for that tale....
San Francisco is going to try to make their city into a crime infested safehaven for criminals by banning all handguns (except for police, security guards and on duty military).
Because the anti-gun left wing loonies cannot learn that trying something that has failed over and over and over and over again will not make it successful, they are going to do the exact same thing that Washington D.C attempted.
Of course, we all know just how successful that program has been.
The entire island called the UK has tried this: Failure
Canada has banned handguns for decades: Failure (more violent crime, per capita, than the US)
Australia?: Failure
Chicago?: Failure
I was taken to Frisco in February 2000 by the wife. Afterwards. I told her that if she wanted to go again, she would have to go with her sister because I wasn't going again.
Now I have an actual reason: They won't allow me in town.
In other stupid city council/bad self defense legislation news, the city of Bellingham, in northern Washington, is proposing banning the civilian posession of TAZERs.
Idiots.
Frisco story found @ Sworn Enemy
Bellingham story found @ Michelle Malkin
Posted by Nukevet at 11:12 AM | Comments (8)
Count ANY Vote: Part Cinco
As of Wednesday afternoon, with 35 of the 39 counties reporting, Dino Rossi (R) now leads Christine Gregoire (D) by 79 votes.
But hold onto you whistles and noise makers, King County Board of Elections has voted to begin "preparing" the 573 recently 'found' ballots to be counted.
The Republicans have said that they have their lawsuit ready to file to stop the counting of these new 'found' ballots.
Sadly, they'll probably get put in front of the same judge that OK'd the 'modification by interpretation' of ballots by unsupervised pollworkers during the first recount. And once again, that judge will give the thumbs up to changing the rules in the middle of the game.
Those two words, 'found' and 'preparing' bring visions of the Daley and LBJ election crews to my mind.
An old LBJ anecdotal election story: When he was running for a county office back in Texas, he had sent a staffer out to a local cemetary to gather the names off of headstones in order to register them to vote.
There was one name on a grave marker that the staffer was not able to read. When he reported back to election office, LBJ was pissed off. He ordered the staffer to go back to the cemetary and get the name, even if he had to stay there all night to do so.
Supposedly, LBJ said to the guy "That person has the same right to vote as everybody else in that cemetary!"
One of the few things political that the Analog Mom and I agree on is how tired we are of this debacle. I am about ready to just put a pet rock in the Governor's chair and be done with it. At least we'll know it'll actually be at work and not spending my taxpayer money to go on trips to China, like our current Governor, Gary Locke (D).
And I would be remiss to forget again to mention Murdoc Online's election spreadsheet. If you haven't partaken of it, you should.
As of yesterday, the spreadsheet shows that if the 'found' votes get put in the count pile, Gregoire wins by 59. If they don't Rossi wins by 40.
And I also have YET ANOTHER REASON to hope Washington gets a Republican governor for the first time in 20 years,
Gov. Gary Locke, with only a few weeks left in office, is expected to propose a tax increase of about $500 million tomorrow as a way to soften the blow of a projected $1.5 billion budget deficit.
This guy is such a lame duck that he thinks he can get away with tossing a tax increase to the legislature so as to make it look like he didn't leave the state in a huge mess, just a moderately sized one.
What a jackass.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:13 AM | Comments (3)
He did it!
Og was kind enough to fulfill my request for pictures of his successful hunt.
From Og,
It's not a trophy. It's not a huge deer.
It's dinner. It's me, back in the field, being able to provide meat for my family.
When you are away from this for a while, like i was, it's hard to remember how you feel, those moments.
You line up, and take the shot. You have no interest in causing the animal to suffer, so you pay close attention to what you're doing.
Well done, sir. And again, congratulations on a successful return.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:54 AM | Comments (1)
Here's mud in your eye, Castro
I'd rather it was a KA-BAR, but I'm sure you do too.
U.S. diplomats on Wednesday refused to take down their offices' trimmings of Santa Claus, candy canes and white lights wrapped around palm trees, ignoring a demand by Cuba to remove Christmas decorations that include a reference to dissidents jailed by Fidel Castro's government.
The element that irked the Cuban authorities most was a sign among the decorations that reads "75" � a reference to 75 Cuban dissidents jailed last year, according to U.S. Interest Section Chief James Cason.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:47 AM | Comments (0)
Stay Home
From the FreeWillBlog comes the tale of Astrid Proll, longtime member of the terrorist organization, Red Army Faction.
It appears that Ms. Proll was denied a visa for entrance into the US.
It also appears that Der Speigel believes that it is a civil right to be able to travel here, according to their front page headline,
America�s New Enemies:
Why a German can�t travel in the USA (story in german)
Its no wonder the liberals like that paper, they think the same thing in regards to illegal immigrants.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:31 AM | Comments (0)
Well Metalheads...
Whatcha gonna do?
The mother of Nathan Gale, the guy who shot 'Dimebag Darrel' Abbott and three others last week has admitted that she bought him the pistol he used in the murders after he graduated from Marine Corps boot camp.
She also admits that it didn't cross her mind to take it away from him after he was prematurely released from the Marines when he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
"When he came home for Christmas the year he was in the service, I was so proud of that man for cleaning up his life the way he did," Clark said. "And I bought him that gun. I'll never, never be able to live that part down."
I don't like the fact that he shot four people, one of them being one of the best modern guitarists in America, if not the world. But I don't want to hear one word about a lawsuit against the shop that sold it to her or the manufacturer.
If you want to sue her, that is fine with me. He was of the age of majority, but was still not old enough to purchase a handgun. Making her, as the purchaser, the legal owner of the unsecured firearm that was used by a mentally unstable person to commit mass murder.
But there should be NO 'follow the money' lawsuits.
Also, no more threatening family members, real or assumed.
That is all.
All links found @ The Interested Participant
Posted by Nukevet at 09:17 AM | Comments (0)
December 15, 2004
Guess who's back, back again?
Chad is back! Tell a friend!
Our good man Chad, of Dogtulosba fame, has returned home from Afghanistan.
Head on over and give him a round of welcoming applause and good words.
He is going to be busy 'getting settled in' with the wife and home, so he may take a couple days to put up another post. But by this weekend, he thinks he'll have something posted.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:49 AM | Comments (2)
Count ANY Vote: Part Quatro
In a surprising decision, the Washington State Supreme Court told the state Democrat party to piss off. That changing the election rules during the recount process is a no-no.
Sadly, the justices forgot to remind the Dems that they had 20 years of one-sided leadership in the state to take care of this problem, but waited until the rules didn't suit them to make their case for a statewide counting standard.
Too bad, Dems. You wasted your opportunity to get the good work done and instead, worked toward making the state unfriendly to small business, giving us one of the highest unemployment rates in the US.
On the other side of the coin, King County, once again, 'magically' found even more previously uncounted ballots to add to the 561 that I told you about yesterday.
They were supposedly stuck in the bases of the optical scanning machines.
I wonder if they're in alphabetical order or if they are just in the order of the tombstones in Mt. View Cemetary?
Either way, now the Dems are going to fight to get these new ballots into the pile to be counted. The recount law states that all the ballots that can be counted in the hand recount had to be included in the previous count that was certified.
These were not in that count.
The Dems contend that since this recount has not been certified, and that since it was the fault of poll workers forgetting where they put them and not the fault of the voter, that they should be included in this recount.
Once again, the Democrats are claiming that everyone in this election, including people in their own party, are incompetent, and that their incompetence should benefit the Democrat Party.
In numbers news, with 32 of the 39 counties reporting totals, Dino Rossi (R) has gained 248 votes and Christine Gregoire (D) has gained 184 votes, bumping Dino's lead to 64 votes.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:27 AM | Comments (4)
Terrorists vs. The Mob
Ya gotta love it!
Mobsters Bully Terror Suspect in Prison
International terrorism charges and allegations of ties to al Qaeda might be enough to scare away some cellmates, in some countries.
But Italian mobsters jailed on the island of Sardinia, apparently outraged by terrorism, beat up an Algerian terror suspect and threatened to kill him unless he got himself transferred to a new prison.
The same threat was made against at least one other Algerian inmate.
"You guys set off bombs and do massacres. If you don't change prisons, you're dead," the criminals were reported to have told Saadi Nassim, in comments confirmed by his lawyer.
The terrorists are whining and they haven't even had to deal with the Russian mobsters yet.
The Russians will generally work with anyone. But even before Beslan, I think the islamofascists had worked their way onto the "Tebya Nyet Nicokova Shansa" (not a chance in hell) list.
Found @ The Rivrdog's Place
Posted by Nukevet at 10:21 AM | Comments (0)
In Surprising News
Remember the pre-election story about the NAACP organizer that was buying fraudulent voter registrations with Crack?
That was Georgianne Pitts.
Ms. Pitts was found dead on December 6th in her home.
From and apparent drug overdose, though toxicology reports have not yet come back from the Lucas County Coroner's Office.
Another possible vicitm of Post Election Selection Syndrome......?
Found @ Red-State.com via the Interested Participant
Posted by Nukevet at 10:12 AM | Comments (0)
Back in the Game
For the first time in a while, Og the Neanderpundit bagged a bambi.
Head on over and congratulate him.
While your're there, see if he'll share his recipie for heart stew and demand to see the pictures. Jason shared his last month....
Posted by Nukevet at 10:00 AM | Comments (2)
Announcements
If you have not already heard, there have been a couple of blog moves this week.
Ms. Rachel Lucas has been reinvigorated to blog once again. Her new site is called 'Blue-Eyed Infidel'. Hopefully, she will be able to keep words flowing for a goodly long time.
Also, Mr. Tim Blair has repositioned himself.
And I just re-updated the blogroll yesterday, dammit!
Oh well.
And if there is anyone I missed on the roll, drop me a line and I'll remedy that.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:51 AM | Comments (0)
December 14, 2004
By Ourselves, For Ourselves: Part 1
First off, I would like to thank everyone for the response to my poll of sorts yesterday.
This will be the first of what I hope will be a long running weekly series titled �By Ourselves, For Ourselves�
While some are satisfied to discuss and/or complain about how poor of a job the fed and state governments are doing to �protect us�, I am not.
I firmly believe that Americans do everything better when they do it for themselves, and I would like to share any knowledge I may have gathered along my way of trial and error by doing things for myself.
And since the current topic is about the �protection� of citizens, I am going to start with the items that the Founding Fathers had the stability of mind to realize was a birthright in order that we can actually protect ourselves.
Firearms.
This will be quick and easy, but possibly not painless.
To start, count the members of your household who are over the age of 12. You will need one handgun and one long gun, rifle or shotgun, for each of these people.
All others 7 and 12 become ammo bearers/mag loaders. The rest learn how to get low and stay there until told.
Next, make note of the calibers and buy a minimum of 500 rounds for each handgun and a minimum of 1000 rounds for each long gun.
I keep mine in crate such as this 105 arty crates like this one.
Done.
OK, maybe not.
While you do not need to train the members of your family to the point of them being expert marksmen, sight function and mechanical function of each firearm needs to be taught. Make it simple and fun if they are kids, make it interesting if they are teenagers or adults.
Not to be a self-linker, but if you click on the picture of the woman with the rifle on the right hand margin, you will find a number of links as essays that cover items that pertain to this topic in the Bellicose Women's Brigade.
Remember, the point here is to prepare the household without frightening the household. All of the measures in this series are �Just In Case� measures. Hopefully, you will never have to worry about turning your family into a combat expedition team, but �JIC�, having the basics down early will make the transition to defending the home fort with arms go a little more smoothly.
Also, I am not going to start a drawn out ramble on which guns you should own or use. Although suggestion of what you prefer to use will, of course, be allowed in the comments for a discussion arena or if you have questions on a make, model or type.
You know what you do best with, and if you haven't already, you should learn what your family members do best with.
Living in a neighborhood such as the one I do, a shotgun or carbine rifle will do nicely for me, which is good because anything within 50yards is going to get a snapshot and never move again. Some folks may have the need for a little more reach and should arm and train themselves appropriately.
I�m going to assume that the situation is safe enough for the hunkering down in the home and an evacuation is not on the list. We will cover that in a later entry. Aside from a land born invasion or a dirty nuke going of close enough to your home to make it hazardous for residence, home is pretty much the best place to be.
This is mostly because the transport of supplies is dangerous and time consuming, but also because random terror attacks at shopping centers, schools and other populated public places shouldn�t cause you to run to the hills, and those are the most likely scenarios that will be faced.
Now, some would say that 500rnds of pistol ammo per pistol and 1000rnds of rifle ammo per rifle may seem a bit much. It may be, but that is how much I have available for immediate use because I do not know how long I�ll have to stay buttoned down. A couple days, a couple weeks, a couple months, who knows?
I do not foresee a �Mad Max� type environment after a few local terror attacks, but you never know and you want to be the one with the extra ammo in that situation. After a week or so of no food or water, people start to do strange things and if you are the one who has readied themselves with supplies (we will speak of this later as well), they will want what you have and be knocking on your door. If ten to fifteen of these hungry folks get together, they probably won�t be very interested in knocking, hence the need for firearms.
Notice: There will be little to no tactics spoken of here or in any future essay. Tactics are very hands-on and nearly impossible to relay via the written word. You can, however, drop me a line and I can try and set you in the proper direction for the type of training you are looking for in your area.
When you do buy your ammunition (AKA 'Buy it Cheap and Stack it Deep) make sure you date either the outside of the case or the individual boxes. You will want to rotate out your ammo supply every two to four years, if for no other reason than 'Just Because'. Yes there is some korean vintage milsurp stuff coming out, but I buy it to plink with, not cover my ass.
Remember, we're talking about being prepared here.
Along with the firearms and ammunition, you will need two other things: Parts and Cleaning Supplies.
When I purchase a new firearm, I not only have to factor in the cost of the gun and a couple extra magazines, but also how much it will cost me to keep the gun up mechanically?
I try to make sure that within a month or so of the purchase, I can have most, if not all, of the parts necessary to rebuild the gun, minus the frame, receiver, slide and barrel. In the case of the 1911, I DO have a couple of extra barrels prefitted so as to be easily installed.
Springs are the most common breakable part. Wolff Gunsprings makes good quality and reasonably priced parts in a good variety of different firearms. I have two complete spring kits for every gun I own, �JIC�. I also keep firing pins, extractors, ejectors, trigger groups, pins, etc, in plastic sorting bins like this one.
Numrich is a very good source for parts for even obscure firearms
While it is true that a gun is nothing but a tool, I do not plan on using mine as a club after it breaks and I can�t fix it.
And cleaning supplies are a must, if for no other reason than to provide you with an activity to keep away the doldrums of being bunkered up. A dirty gun malfunctions. Malfunctions = Bad.
You should have two complete kits that look something like this,
For more info on this, see this post from last June.
*****************************************
And that concludes our advice for today. Next week, we�ll get into some of the other things you need in order to stay home, safe and happy during tough times.
After that, we�ll cover topics like home safety and security tools that aren�t firearms, what supplies you should keep in your vehicle, what to do if you are at or near a suicide bombing and what if the situation is so bad that you do have to leave your house, among other things.
Any suggestions for other topics you might want covered are welcome and will be taken under consideration.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:27 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Its the Season
The Analog Wife took Sunday night off and we went out for dinner and a movie and to cruise for Chistmas lights.
We went to go see National Treasure.
Verdict: A must see
Historically accurate, as far as known facts go, and very enertaining.
The only downside is that, just as in almost all of Hollywood's adventures, the only people who had and/or used firearms were either 'Bad Guys' or 'Cops'. Would it have hurt to have Nicholas Cage with just one pistol?
But other than that one quibble, it was a great flick.
After that came dinner and then 'Cruising for Christmas Lights'.
I thought I'd be smart and take some pictures for you all, but apparently, the aperture on my camera stays open for too long and most of what I got was a bunch of shiny blurs.
Here are the ones that turned out. They're from a neighborhood that calls itself "Candy Cane Lane" during this time of year.
(all pics are click for bigger)
It's one of those neighborhoods in which everyone tries to make their house visible from space. They have pre-recorded music playing on loudspeakers and people walking around dressed like Santa and/or elves.
Sorry for the blur, but that Merry-Go-Round on the big hedge in the middle of the traffic island is pretty cool.
This one is pretty blurry, but there is a funny story behind it.
If you look on the center of the porch, behind the lights, you should be able to make out a Santa Claus. It was sitting in a rocking chair, going back and forth and waiving its right hand in time with the rocking motion. I figured it was a mechanical Santa and thought it was pretty cool.
The Analog Wife must have too, because as she was staring at it, the left arm came up and waived and the actual guy in the Santa suit called out "Ho-ho-ho, Merrrry Christmas!"
And she screamed her little heart out.
Funny stuff, folks. You should have been there.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:58 PM | Comments (0)
Count ANY Vote: Part Tres
As of 5PM PST yesterday afternoon, the Washington State Supreme Court finished hearing oral arguments in the re-recount case pertaining to the recanvasing of vote totals.
Aside from some of the scathing questions from the justices though, I do not see this thing going in the state Republican's favor.
In other new 'News', King County 'magically' found another 561 votes that they want to count. One of these votes belongs belongs to King County Council Chairman Larry Phillips. A Democrat, of course. And elected out of the Seattle District, no less.
it seems that the King County Elections Board has managed to lose the signatures of these 561 voters. Without the signatures to verify their absentee ballots, the commioners had to set them aside and not count the ballots.
Unsurprisingly, it too them over a month after the election to contact these voters in order to get them to come down and verify their ballots.
The elections board consists of 2 Dems and 1 Repub. And in order to win the Governorship, the state Dems are ready to accuse their own party member of incompetence for losing these signatures.
Anything for power for the Dems, I guess.
As it stands now, Rossi has gained 190 new votes in this hand recount and Gregoire has gained 144 new votes, hypothetically extending Dino's lead from the original 42 vote separation to 55 votes.
But as of now, with 24 of the 39 Washington State counties having finished counting, Dino Rossi leads with 318,100 to Christine Gregoire's 232,019. You can keep track at the above link.
But with King County trying to get another 561 votes added to the pile and our pretty darn liberal Supreme Court deciding whether or not to reconsider previously discarded ballots, all I can say is,
Go Dino!
Posted by Nukevet at 10:31 AM | Comments (0)
Once again, a double standard
Sent to me by RNS reader, Joshua, is the story of Pat Rothfuss, a University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point faculty member.
Mr. Rothfuss has been writing a satirical column in the UWSP student newspaper for years. I think he got too comfortable when he decided that joking about assaulting and killing Republicans in his column, two days after the election.
Excerpt of the UWSP article explaining the story:
A group of students from the UWSP College Republicans organization wasn't laughing Nov. 4 when a post-election Rothfuss column included phrases like "punching smug-looking Republicans in the mouth" and "key every car you see with a Bush bumper sticker." The column's premise was that Rothfuss was drunk while writing to himself, and it suggested, "why don't you go on a killing spree? I pet you can take out fixteen for sisteen republicans beofre they gun you down. Duke, youd' be like a heroe. (sic)
Now, if one of the UWSP College Republicans had gone and written lines like those in the student paper, or anywhere for that matter, you can guarantee that a shitstorm would be circling over the campus.
Hell, it might have even made the national news.
And can you imagine the if the hypothetical Republican writer had admitted to being drunk while writing it? The campus lefties would want to ban alcohol from the conservative students.
But as it is, just about everyone is taking this as some sort of big joke.
Just another acedemic double standard. Nothing to see here. Move along.
UPDATE: Joshua writes back and figured out the link difficulty.
Go here to read their response.
Also, here is a pic of the graphic that came with Rothfuss' atricle,
Tolerant bastard, isn't he?
Posted by Nukevet at 10:15 AM | Comments (1)
December 13, 2004
A Poll of Sorts
After Howard Veit's piece on the impotent Congressional Intel Reform Bill that GWB will be signing today or tomorrow, I have to again repeat that government is, for the most part, an ignorant bureaucracy that operates with a paring knife when it instead needs a baseball bat or double-headed axe.
Once again, their inability to figure out the situation and act to change for the times is shown.
Once again, we, the people of America are going to have to do what we do best and Do It By Ourselves, For Ourselves.
I was wondering if any of our RNS regulars would be interested in tips on safety and preparedness?
I could probably come up with a quick and easy reference guide to firearms and supplies tomorrow and then something more extensive for vehicles, food and medical supplies and necessities, disaster and attack reactions and preparedness, whether to stay home or bug out, target availability, recognition and reaction, etc, in the coming weeks.
These will not be about the government coming down on it's citizens or anything like that in the classic 'survivalist' vein. I want to keep this focused on terrorist attacks (like a suicide bombing at a shopping mall), what if it happens when you're nearby and your neccessary reactions and the possible fallout from them.
Most of us have family whom we don't want to have to worry about these sorts of things, so we try to make sure we do it for them. This would be oriented towards individuals who want to meld their ideas on readiness with someone else's and share in their expertise and/or knowledge.
If anyone would be interested, I would be willing to try and cover a topic per week, and also take requests for topics as I get done writing on the topics I can think of.
Let me know via the comments or email. But here's a hint...I've already got one finished and outlines for most of the rest. I just want to make sure I'm not going to be writing for only ether.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:49 PM | Comments (6)
I really don't now what it is about me....
That sets people off, but I got swamped this weekend with folks on the left who just didn't like what I had to write about this last week.
The one who sticks out in particular is one Carl Ballard who really didn't like what I wrote about Tumwater's discrimination towards Wal-Mart.
I grabbed the original link to the story from him, and in doing so, I graduated to 'Monkey' status on his blog "Washington State Political Report".
In fact, I got top billing for Sunday. You should go read it.
It all started here, with my post about members of the Anti-Corporate Religion.
It then moved into my email box when he came here to comment on my post. His comment was, of course, approved and is posted in the comments here.
He seemed to take offense that I had the gall to challenge his ideas and write him back, so he classified my response as "Monkey Mail", which, since we are only Marauding Marsupails in the TTLB Ecosystem, it would seem that I have stepped up on the ladder, at least for a bit.
My response to his comment is here at his blog, where he reprinted it in full and attempted a fisking. Sadly, he is as familiar with fisking as he is with the truth about his own intentions. While it is entertaining, it really isn't fun verbally duelling with someone who can only argue in hyperbole.
After getting poorly fisked, I decided he needed to be taken to town and treated like a truckstop urinal cake.
My response to the fisk is in the comments on his post. However, he has a 1000 character limit, and my response is around 14 comment posts long. If you want to read it uninterupted, it is below the fold of this post.
Have fun reading. Let me know how you think I did. Let Carl know too.
**************************************
Ahhh, Mr. Ballard,
How kind of you to send me links after I sent a few to you.
Let�s start at the beginning, my decision to write you back was due to your thoughtfulness to write in the first place.
It is something called �courtesy�. If you like, I can go to Webster�s for the definition of this one as well, for you. I find that it helps in most of life�s interaction. If you decide to ever leave your home for the real world, I suggest you work it into your repertoire.
Next, I am one of those folks who works a graveyard shift in order to make those who work in the daytime lives comfortable. That would make 4AM my afternoon. Again, I can understand how adjusting to abnormalities would prove difficult for some.
Especially those who do not know what �diversity� means.
As to your rebuttal (AKA � fisking) of my email, I am allowed to have a go at pointing out the discontinuity and insipidness of your points, aren�t I?
Here I go,
I find it humorous that you believe that I, and others, on the right are unable to understand the concept, if not the meaning of the word �nuance�. But of course, being the prejudiced and discriminatory person you have shown yourself to be, I can understand. Again, try to get out more. Learn by experience.
Onto the point of your assertion that W-M �subverted democracy�,
If there was no actual law on the books to dodge, then there was no subversion, they, just like everyone else, were working within the established rules and regulations. Maybe the Tumwater council should have thought about this new moratorium in previous sessions, or even in previous years. That way, they never have to worry about having their �democracy subverted�.
�An application that you know a democratic process (sadly more on this later) was looking at.�
And,
�To say that something just doesn't apply to you. A law for example.�
Mr. Ballard, unless you have supernatural powers, you have no positive way of knowing that this moratorium was going to pass with a positive vote by the council. Hence, you have no way of knowing that it would have become the law that you say W-M �subverted�. Hence, you are making unjustified accusations. People who live in reality do not do this.
�Locke doesn't have the power to do that. (b) The supremes would overturn it anyway. So your dad should just let the courts work their magic. So should WalMart, rather than say the law shouldn't apply to them.�
Yes, that worked really well in the Dred Scott case, didn't it?
So, until the courts get around to overturning this hypothetical rule, listening to the pro/con arguments and deliberating for who knows how long, my father is not allowed to drive, unless he wants to break the law.
Also, who is to say that they will overturn it? Driving is not a right and can be denied to anyone, including the group I proposed.
�GLBT bookstores don't have a history of violating labor laws, discriminating against women, and depressing wages. Also the Tumwater ban was on size, not on being a specific store.�
I take it from this quote and others you included in your rebuttal, that you believe all of these things about the current state of Wal-Mart, which is good, because it shows you can read and comprehend. Now, if you would only do so to what you write.
If you assert that Wal-Mart is guilty of all of those things, then you have just made yourself out to be an idiot. You want to ban Wal-Mart because of these, which proves that you, and the Tumwater city council (who list items such as these as reasons they would prefer to not have Wal-Mart in their town), are attempting to ban W-M specifically because of them and are only using the size issue as a tool in doing so.
Mr. Ballard, I have attempted to be as friendly as possible here, but this blatant lie on the front page of your site is almost too much for an honest discussion to stand. Especially if you are going to just say that the ends justify the means.
�you seem to be saying that if W-M fills out a form wrong they should get special treatment.�
I said nothing of the sort. In fact, you have shown that you want Wal-Mart to get a very special treatment, in the negative sense, before they are allowed to even file their application. And now that W-M have filed their application, you want it to go through another negative special treatment because of your, and the city council�s prejudice.
I would say that Wal-Mart has followed every rule that the Tumwater democracy has established, and that it is you and they who are doing the actual and real �subverting�.
But of course, you offer no evidence for refute this argument, because you have nothing but �Wal-Mart is Evil� in your mental repository. It must be sad to be you.
�I have no idea what people's friends and relatives stand to lose if WalMart goes in, but you obviously have no evidence that there is any wrong doing.�
My point exactly, Mr. Ballard. Let the people see what, if any, reason the members of the city council may have for denying Wal-Mart due process in their application or even the ability to file one.
If the council members only objection is to W-M�s business practices, then let them say so and raise a moratorium on businesses that have been shown to operate in that manner and not hide behind the issue of facility square footage like cowards.
Again, let us keep the standards equal for both sides here.
And your Adam Smith quotes show that, yes, you have taken the bait and have let people pull you into the anti-corporate religion. Using selective quotes, will only get you so far, Mr. Ballard. Had I more time, I am positive that I could find a quotation from Smith that would directly contradict yours.
Also, I have found in life that those who need to quote others to prove their point have nothing to say for themselves (the one exception being the judiciary profession). As it seems, from your blatant lie and limited argumentative vocabulary, I have been proven correct once again.
(in pertaining to unions breeding sloth and incompetence) �No they don't.�
Is that really all you could come up with, Carl? Did you even try?
And yes, if you talk to police, firefighters and pilots, they will be able to tell a plethora of tales where the union saved someone�s job even though they were incompetent or lazy.
I used to be a Teamster and the wife is currently a member of a union that covers local civil servants. I would relate a story or two to you, but since you complained that my previous response was beyond your attention span, I will digress from relating any of them to you at this time as I would not want to deviate from the subject matter and confuse you.
�The Tumwater council is elected. By the people of Tumwater.�
And,
�The citizenry empowered them to make that up or down vote.�
Hence the term �representative democracy�, Carl, I know that it is difficult for some to recognize the difference between the two terms, but try to concentrate, here. To not do so is rude.
�Because the stand of let locals do what they want is too complex for you?�
How do you know what the locals want? And for that matter, how does the city council?
Did they put this moratorium up for a vote from the citizenry? Or are they just taking their own prejudices into their own hands. Or, again, is their a possibility that they stand to lose financially by Wal-Mart coming to their town?
I would bet money that you would object if the issue was that of council members throwing out the welcome mat to Wal-Mart. You might even want the person/s involved to be investigated to see if they were going to gain financially from W-M coming to town.
But you, being the liar you have been shown to be, have let your standards be lowered by your prejudice against corporations so that what is good for the goose is not good for the gander.
The locals have a very good way to show that Wal-Mart is not a store they want in their town, THEY DO NOT HAVE TO SHOP THERE. Apparently, you need to read up on your free market theories, as that is very near the top of the list of how they function.
�Good use of a paragraph!�
Is that all you have, Ballard?
If so, go to your room and cry. You have had your ass handed to you twice now on this topic, and all you can come up with is elementary insults and hyperbolic statements.
You have been proven a liar who cannot stand by his own professed standards when they do not meet his needs. Therefore, you are no better than you claim Wal-Mart to be.
Carl Ballard, are YOU evil?
Go pound sand, baby-boy
Posted by Nukevet at 02:18 PM | Comments (4)
Good Readin'
Wow, the entertainment world is just popping with good essays and speeches lately. Two that I found this weekend were,
Writer and novelist, Michael Chrichton, and his speech to the Common Wealth Club on the topic of modern day environmentalism, misinformation and disinformation,
The opener.....
I have been asked to talk about what I consider the most important challenge facing mankind, and I have a fundamental answer. The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance.
Found by Mollbot @ Morpholine
And another one from television host, Pat Sajak making the intelligent equating of the First Amendment and the Second Amendment.
Whether it�s David Letterman�s lists, the Lord�s Commandments or The Bill of Rights, we seem to gravitate toward placing things in groups of ten. However, in most cases, ten can be a bit much for us to handle. Dave�s lists would be funnier if the two or three least amusing items were dropped. And, of course, many of us would go to sleep with clearer consciences if a select few of The Ten Commandments were decommissioned.
However, when it comes to The Bill of Rights, that�s where a lot of people really get selective. Liberals, in particular, seem to enjoy �cherry-picking� those first ten amendments. They like The First Amendment very much. They hate The Second. They seem to be in favor of most of them between three and eight (bail, search and seizure, trial by jury and stuff like that). I don�t think they realize nine and ten are there. If they did, I can�t imagine they would approve, given the assignment of powers away from the Federal Government and toward the States and the People.
Wow Pat. Just... wow. I never knew you had it in you. Keep it up.
Found @ Ravenwood's Universe
Here is the link to Pat Sajak's earlier one.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:04 PM | Comments (0)
Ouch, those gotta hurt
I found some good quotage this weekend from the right side of the blogosphere. Mind if I share? Didn't think so....
From the Poor Schmuck on the topic of child molestation in Pakistani Madrassas,
Will the same people that use the sex scandals to denigrate Catholics and Christians speak out against the Muslim Clerics?
Don't hold your breath.
ZING!
-------------------------------
From the Interested Participant on the subject of the raising of a monument to the animals used in lab testing in China,
Interestingly, there seems to be little progress on the monument for the millions of Chinese citizens who were sacrificed to the glory of communism.
POW!
-------------------------------
And from B. Preston at the JunkYardBlog on the topic of EcoTerrorist's ability to strike at Americans from Canada,
They struck in Canada, but their targets were Americans.
ZAP!
-------------------------------
Good reads, one and all
Posted by Nukevet at 01:20 PM | Comments (0)
Hell is for Children
At least it seems that way according to Atrios and his fellow travellers.
BRADENTON - Retired Gen. Tommy Franks has signed on to be the spokesman for a company that uses global positioning system technology in teens' cell phones to let parents know how fast they're driving.
Franks, who as commander of U.S. Central Command based at MacDill Air Force directed the invasion of Iraq, will be the official face of Teen Arrive Alive.
The organization aims to get teens to carry a cell phone containing a GPS chip that sends out regular signals letting parents know where they are and how fast they're going.
If a predetermined speed limit is passed, an alarm goes off in the teen's cell phone and parents are automatically notified.
Of course, Atrios had something pithy to say about this,
"Even before these types of enhancements, I imagine that a lot of teenagers very quickly regretted their new cell phone.."
I'm not quite sure if he is making the argument that children should not be able to be tracked by their parents or if he is just lashing out at Tommy Franks.
But some of his commenters are doing both.
They seem to forget that, as a minor child, your parents are responsible for your actions. Nowadays, not going to school can get parents fines and/or jail time.
So just be a good civil libertarian and forget that a minor child who causes a serious car accident is not responsible for the damages that are over the insurance company's obligations, the parents are.
This attitude also goes along with the Washington State Supreme Court case that was decided last week about the parent who pays the phone bill, but does not have the right to listen into her daughter's phone call with her criminal boyfriend as he tells her about the crime he recently committed.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:02 PM | Comments (0)
Go Howard!
Kos IMC poster, Kid Oakland has a friend who got to meet Howard Dean in a town hall style format. Here is some of what Howard the Angry had to say,
"When asked about 2008, however, Dr. Dean had an interesting response. He said, paraphrasing, if we don't reform this party now, and do the hard work of fixing it, if we don't shake this thing to the core, then we've already as much as lost 2008..."
The you go, Howie. You and your followers go and reform that party into what you think it should be. I beg of you!
And when you lose in 2006 and 2008 and 2010 and 2012, just don't go crying in my direction.
Posted by Nukevet at 12:57 PM | Comments (0)
Stupid Quotes
This weekend was an exceptionally comical time for ignorant word spewage from the left.
Here are two that kept me laughing for a good deal of time,
First from Kos, himself
For our Christian overlords who preach values and death at the same time:
Deuteronomy 24:5:
"If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married."
So how would the wingers respond?
Hey Kos, there are parts of the bible that say that we should be allowed to have slaves, should we reinstitute that one as well so as to not be hypocritical?
And next, something I found at the Kos IMC,
Well, here�s my own big, bold idea: Maybe some Democrat could stand up and say, �The president is lying when he says there is a crisis in Social Security.�
Naw, there ain't nuthing wrong with Social Security. It is all just a right wing conspiracy theory put forward by the right wing media enterprise so as to scare people. When Bill Clinton justified his tax raise by stating that we needed to solidify Social Security, he too had fallen for the lie.
All we have to do is triple payroll contributions from the current generation of payers and everything will be hunky-dory.
-----------------------------------------
My goodness, I think that we have a couple of very good undiagnosed examples of PEST here.
SEEK HELP QUICKLY!
Posted by Nukevet at 12:43 PM | Comments (0)
Something I Want & Something I Do Not Want
Lego Bush!
If I had any money left over from my Christmas shopping (both for others and myself), I would definitely buy this. Not to wish the builder of this any ill will, but if your reserve is not met, put it up AFTER Christmas and I'll take a shot at it. If it does sell, build more.
That was a Sako 75 in Stainless Steel. Thankfully, the shooter WAS NOT SERIOUSLY HURT, according to the photgrapher.
Apparently, when Beretta purchased Sako a year or so bak, they changed the barrelmaking process in order to speed up production and that this is leading to multiple barrel failures from what appears to be 'drawn fractures' (as above) in the stainles and fluted barrels.
Scroll down a bit in the comments and take a look at the bolt.
Again, thankfully, the shooter only seems to have suffered a wrist injury. It could have been instantaneous death.
This is not good for anyone, especially Sako, who should institute a recall immediately if they ever want my business.
Lego Bush found @ Right Thinking
The Sako story was found at Mindless Bit Spew
Posted by Nukevet at 12:11 PM | Comments (3)
The Stupidity of Socialized Medicine: Part 271
'Thousands' face surgery delays
Thousands of people on elective surgery waiting lists faced having their operations delayed as some Sydney hospitals suspend services over the holiday period, the NSW opposition said today.
Doesn't sound TOO bad, does it? I mean, except for emergencies, I can see the hospital wanting to shut down for the Christmas weekend.
But no,
A spokesman from Royal North Shore Hospital confirmed elective surgery has been suspended for six weeks as part of standard practice for the Christmas/New Year holiday period.
SIX WEEKS!?!
And if it is 'standard practice', why did they even bother scheduling the surguries during this time frame?
It leads to this,
Opposition Leader John Brogden: "People who need hip replacements, people who need surgery, now, will have to wait well into next year now, and those who are on the list for March get pushed back to June, July, August," he told reporters in Sydney's west today.
Only the truly ignorant would want to go to a system of this nature. We call these people "Democrats".
Found @ The Interested Participant
Posted by Nukevet at 12:02 PM | Comments (0)
December 12, 2004
What an excellent way
To waste a morning.
From Michele @ ASV comes another addicitve tryst in the form of a marketing device for newly released albums.
The trick is that they don't make it too difficult so that you either get them all or get close so that you keep trying.
But give it a whirl, just remember to pace yourself.
I scored 10 for 10 with Alice in Chains, The Beastie Boys, The Cure, Depeche Mode, Morrissey, Rush (of course), The Smiths, Soundgarden and ZZTop.
9 out of 10 for The Afghan Whigs, Bjork, Danzig, Jamiroquai, Motorhead, Metallica, NIN, Red Hot Chili Peppers ans Steely Dan.
And as a bonus question, I am offering a "How cool is that!" to anyone who can tell me who the KLF are and give me one of their AKA's, without resorting to using their computer.
And no, 'the band who were on the CD that AK was listening to when he posted this' is not an acceptable answer.
UPDATE: Just got 9 out of 10 for both Joy Division and New Order. Moving onto Alphaville. Wish me luck.
I need to learn when to say when.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:00 AM | Comments (1)
December 11, 2004
Giving new meaning
to the term splodeydope.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:07 PM | Comments (0)
Mike the Marine
Opens an express lane for Martyrs.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)
Academic Diversity, Redux
Professor Bainbridge does a much better job addressing Harvard's diversity attempts.
It really is amazing that a small percentage of faculty are trying to censure him purely because they don't like what he believes in. They are all for diversity - as long as it doesn't deviate from what they already believe, of course.....
Posted by Nukevet at 01:28 PM | Comments (0)
As I've said before
Some people just deserve to die.
Personally, I hope Scott Peterson learns of a similar fate in the near future.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:22 PM | Comments (0)
December 10, 2004
They don't like his politics
Therefore, his academic qualifications must be suspect, right?
Amazing that he ended up at Harvard. Not amazing that a few disgruntled academics decide to smear the guy in the newspaper rather than actually debate the merits of his positions.
Here's a bet - compare his scholarly activity with that of the complainers - wanna bet on who's been more productive?
In the first month since he arrived in Cambridge to assume a tenured post at the Law School, Professor Jack L. Goldsmith has received a frosty welcome from a small faction of faculty who have questioned his scholarship and called for an investigation into his work as a Bush administration official.
More than 80 percent of the school�s faculty voted by secret ballot to confirm Goldsmith�s tenure appointment in the spring, and longtime Harvard Law professors have rallied to defend their new colleague as well as to praise his academic credentials.
But a small group of senior faculty members who voted against Goldsmith�s appointment have chosen to go public with their criticism of the professor.
80% of the faculty vote to bring the guy on board (all ballots on faculty appointments are secret, BTW). Now the 20% wants to try to change the will of the majority by smearing the guy in the press. There are lots of words for this kind of behavior, but collegial and professional aren't among them.
Posted by Nukevet at 06:33 PM | Comments (1)
You go, Girl!
My Mom wrote me yesterday to let me know she had a very interesting day while out and about yesterday.
She was at The Dollar Store in her home town. Since it is the Christmas Season, the aisles were packed and my mom was about to back out of one instead of asking a very flustered looking 20-something young woman to let her by, when the woman saw her and asked her a question.
She wanted my mother's opinon on centerpieces for the tables of a Christmas party. A party for 400 that is being held at Fort Lewis.
It seems that the woman's husband is the commander of a unit that will be shipping out to Iraq shortly after New Years and he wanted to make sure that they all get together for something special beforehand.
Together, my mom and the woman spent over an hour picking out the 'perfect' reds and greens to go with the table coverings and then selecting the other decorations.
Way to go Ma! I'm sure those men and women will enoy your special touch.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:17 PM | Comments (1)
Another Stupid Decision
In their (hopefully, not so) eternal wisdon, the Washington State Supreme Court has decided that you child's phone conversations are Constitutionally guaranteed rights.
Mom's eavesdropping violated Privacy Act, Supreme Court rules
SEATTLE (AP) � Striking a blow for rebellious teenagers, the state Supreme Court has ruled that the Privacy Act prohibits a parent from eavesdropping on a child's phone conversations.
The case came to the Supreme Court because of a purse-snatching in Friday Harbor. A 17-year-old boy was convicted of second-degree robbery, based in part on testimony from his girlfriend's mom, who overhead him discussing the crime on the phone with her daughter.
The daughter had taken a cordless phone into her bedroom and closed the door. In another room, the mom pressed the "speakerphone" button on the base of the phone, listened to the conversation and took notes.
The court ruled that the daughter and her boyfriend had a reasonable expectation of privacy on the phone. Washington state law prohibits intercepting or recording conversations without consent from all participants.
"The Washington privacy statute puts a high value on the privacy of communications," Justice Tom Chambers wrote in the unanimous opinion.
The daughter's boyfriend will get a new trial.
The case is State of Washington v. Oliver C. Christensen, No. 74839-0.
Watch this quickly spread to e-mail conversations as well.
They live under your roof, for which you pay all the bills to keep up and you can go to jail for their actions.
But if you try to keep tabs on their activities so as to make sure they are doing nothing to get themselves or yourself in legal troubles, you are denying them their civil rights.
Smart parents will, as of today, put only a wall mounted phone in the kitchen, one computer in the living room, and remove the doors from their childrens bedroom.
No doors and public egress areas mean no expectation of privacy.
Of course, next the courts will require that parents give a child a "private space of their own".
This is the same court that agreed that beating a 22 month old child to death IS NOT MURDER.
And these are the same people who will be interpereting the election laws on Monday afternoon. In case you were wondering why I am worried.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:46 AM | Comments (1)
Re-Recount Update
Day Two
Well, eight more counties finished up their hand recount on Thursday.
As of Wednesday, Dino Rossi was up from 42 votes up (from the original recount) to 45 votes up. Thursday was not as kind, his lead is now only 43 votes up.
The Washington Secretary of State,Sam Reed, has said that he believes that if the state Supreme Court decides to not favor either party after hearing the Dems arguments for the reconsidering of thrown out ballots on Monday afternoon, that they could order a 'Re-Vote'.
Which prompted the Dem candidate, Christine Gregoire to issue the statement that said that she "had no role in the lawsuit".
But alas, you did not conceed either, Christine.
In closing, I found this little ditty at GregoiretheGrinch.com
Twas the month of Christmas, and across Washington State,
Citizens were wondering about their new Governors fate.
Dino Rossi won the election once, then twice,
The Democrats are naughty while Dino�s been nice.
The chads were hung on the ballots with care,
In hopes that a Gregoire vote would somehow be there.
The votes were counted and counted again,
No Chris Gregoire and no Deborah Senn.
Paul Berendt goes to court and sues Sam Reed,
Crying �43 votes are all we need!�
The Republicans have vowed to put up a fight,
So Merry election to all and to all a good night.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:35 AM | Comments (1)
Once again,
They're not anti-war, they're just hoping the other side wins.
Tim Blair finds something very telling from Omar of Iraq, The Model.
Speacking of the sides of the blogosphere, I wanted to say that I only knew about the left side of the blogosphere months after we started. I thought that the right side was the whole thing, as in the beginning I thought we were just posting our thoughts 'into the darkness' and get lots of visitors without having any idea were they come from except Iraqi blogs. Later we found about the major blogs such as Instapundit, Andrew Sullivan, Buzz Machine, LGF, Roger Simon, Right Wing news�Etc and for long months I thought these were the only major bloggers! I didn't know because these were the sites linking to us and from were we get lots of visitors and when I used to go to their sites I would find a somewhat similar list. It turned out to be that the other side top bloggers rarely if ever mentioned us or other Iraqi blogs except for the very anti-American ones. I realized lately that the blogosphere was divided into two major parts with very few bridges.
Don't worry, Omar, the good side won here. The good side will win in Iraq also.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:19 AM | Comments (0)
Notice
To: The Poor Schmuck
I cannot comment on your site and have forgotten you e-mail. Write me, please. Thanks.
To: RNS readers
You should go read his post on the topic of calls coming into his local 911 center.
The come back and read this one,
At 0222 a hang up call was received at a local 911 center. The call taker then called back to see if they could discern what was going on while officers were enroute.
Call taker was told by the person on the other line that there was a man on her porch with a gun. He hasn't threatened her, but she did not want him there. Her grandson was going outside to try and get the gun from the man on the porch.
Officers go Code 3 (lights and sirens) enroute to scene.
Caller then states that the gun is nowhere to be seen now, but that the man is getting undressed and she then hangs up.
Caller then calls back. She apologizes for calling and says that she does not have a porch. Officers arrive and ask for address clarification as the address they have been given does not have a porch.
The call taker instructs the caller to go outside and meet the officers. She puts the phone down and does so.
Ends up, it was all just a dream and she called 911 in her sleep.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:05 AM | Comments (0)
I found it!
Found at a local 911 call center. I have had this sitting around for a while and it is a bit old, but it still rings very true.
Hello, you have reached your (local police department name here)'s voice mail system. Please pay close attention, as we have updated our selections.
Please select one of the following options:
*To whine about us not doing anything to solve a problem you created for yourself, Press 1
*To postulate whether someone will have to die before we'll something about a problem, Press 2
*If you would like US to raise your children, Press 3
*If you would like us to take control of your life due to your alcoholic or chemical dependancy, Press 4
*If you would like us to instantly restore order to a situation that took you years to deteriorate, Press 5
*To provide us with a list of officers you personally know so we will not take enforcement action against you, Press 6
*To sue us, tell us you'll have our badge and take our salary, or proclaim that our career is over, Press 7
*To report an officer for bad manners when all he did was write you ticket, Press 8
*To call us Nazis, Fascists or complain about how your rights were abused when you were fingerprinted, Press 9
*To hear this menu again, wrap tinfoil tightly on your head and turn around to the right 3 times.
Thank you and please call again.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:53 AM | Comments (1)
Come one, Come all
To The Kommissar's Latest Show Trial.
I wonder if its a musical?
Posted by Nukevet at 09:50 AM | Comments (0)
You can have it!
Are they stupid or just spoiled?
MoveOn to Democratic Party: 'We Own It'
Liberal powerhouse MoveOn has a message for the "professional election losers" who run the Democratic Party: "We bought it, we own it, we're going to take it back."
A scathing e-mail from the head of MoveOn's political action committee to the group's supporters on Thursday targets outgoing Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe as a tool of corporate donors who alienated both traditional and progressive Democrats.
"For years, the party has been led by elite Washington insiders who are closer to corporate lobbyists than they are to the Democratic base,'' said the e-mail from MoveOn PAC's Eli Pariser. ``But we can't afford four more years of leadership by a consulting class of professional election losers."
Divide and conquer. Let the self hating cannibalism of the left BEGIN!
Posted by Nukevet at 09:46 AM | Comments (0)
December 09, 2004
Count ANY Vote: Redux
I misspoke yesterday about the hearing of the Democrat's arguments by the Washington State Supreme Court. It was not yesterday that they were to be heard. They will be heard on Monday, December 13th @ 1:30PM.
In updated re-recount news: It has started.
It has also finished for two of the counties.
The first county to report results showed no change from the earlier machine recount. Garfield County, in eastern Washington, reported results in the early afternoon after hand-counting 1,293 votes: 65 percent for Rossi, 33 percent for Gregoire and 2 percent for Libertarian Ruth Bennett. Mason County also finished its hand recount, reporting a net gain of three votes for Rossi.
GO DINO!
I now have an additional reason for Dino Rossi to win.
No freaking way!
Prove to me that humans are the cause of global warming, and maybe I'll reconsider, but until then, I have a very selective place that the outgoing Governor can stick his proposed vehicle emissions standards.
If the legislature, soon to be majority Democrat, passes this, their vote on this will one of the select few bills that I will base my next vote on.
If Gregoire gets elected, she will sign it.
If Rossi wins, he'll most likely veto for the bunk science it is.
Posted by Nukevet at 11:06 AM | Comments (3)
Deserters
You have probably already heard of Pablo Paredes, the Navy petty officer who refused to ship out to Iraq aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard, because it was transporting US Marines.
Citizen Smash, The Indepundit has a few words for him here,
In the big scheme of things, your action will have no impact on the war. The Bonhomme Richard sailed out of San Diego on Monday, along with her entire battle group. Your attempted desertion may have caused a media stir, but you did not delay the battle group�s departure by so much as a minute. The embarked Marines are on their way to the Sandbox, to perform the mission that they were trained to do.
You did, however, manage to fuck up your own future.
As I�m sure you�re aware, the Navy isn�t just going to let you go easily. They�re going to put you on trial for desertion. You will probably end up spending a year or longer in military prison, doing hard labor. And how do you think your fellow prisoners will respond to you? Do you think they�ll respect your decision to shirk your duty? Of course, you will also be reduced in rank to E-1, forfeit all of your pay, be dishonorably discharged, and lose eligibility for the GI bill and any veteran�s benefits you might have otherwise claimed.
To your credit, you�ve stood up before the cameras and said that you are prepared to accept the consequences for your actions. We�ll see about that.
Lee at Right Thinking from the Left Coast also has some words for him here.
"Cowardly pieces of shit like this guy are the reason brigs and firing squads exist, which will no doubt mean that he�ll be hailed as a hero in Michael Moore�s next film."
Make sure you read Lee's follow-up here as well.
And since we're already talking about tools of the left, Judicious Asininity has the words of former US Army Staff Sergeant to the Canadian Immigration Board on behalf of the deserter Jimmy Massey (a true 'Former Marine') who is applying for asylum in Canuckistan.
On several occasions, his soldiers pumped hundreds of bullets into cars that failed to stop at U.S. military checkpoints, killing all occupants - who were later found to be unarmed, Massey said.
"What they were doing was committing murder."
Massey's statements echoed earlier testimony from Hinzman, who says he fled the U.S. military because he believed the invasion of Iraq was illegal, and any violent acts he committed there would be unconscionable.
And in the 'Sit Down Strike' category, The Mudville Gazette finds a report about the punishments that will be given to the soldiers who refused to haul gasoline in late October "Because it was too dangerous".
The American military has ordered punishment, but not courts-martial, for 23 Army Reserve soldiers who refused in October to deliver fuel to a base in Iraq, claiming that it was too dangerous, military officials here said Monday.
The soldiers are receiving nonjudicial punishments under Article 15 of the military justice code, which could include reduction in rank, loss of pay and restricted movements depending on their commander's discretion, said Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, a military spokesman.
Greyhawk says that Article 15's can be quite harsh. I would have prefered they get the 'Big rocks into small rocks' punishment, myself.
Or, at least giving the guys from the 639th QC MNG from Kalispell, MT who VOLUNTEERED to make the SAME TRIP (and did so successfully, without even a scratch) the choice.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:11 AM | Comments (6)
Why, exactly, do we consider these people our allies?
EU ready to end ban on arms sales to China
A new transatlantic rift will open today when the European Union formally tells China that it is prepared to lift its 15-year-old arms embargo.
Washington said that the prospect that its Pacific forces could be threatened by advanced European weapons sold to China was unacceptable and that lifting the embargo would lead to restrictions on American co-operation with Europe on defence issues.
From the EUReferendum Blog
China is spending billions of dollars upgrading its military capability and is rapidly becoming an economic superpower. Now The Times notes that Washington is concerned that East Asia remains militarily unstable, with China threatening Taiwan and North Korea threatening South Korea.
The US is worried that Europe will sell China advanced technology, such as over-the-horizon-targeting systems (guided by Galileo GPS signals) that would enable the Chinese military to strike American ships hundreds of miles out in the Pacific.
The EU leads to China, China leads to the Norks. Enough said.
Found @ Samizdata
Posted by Nukevet at 10:02 AM | Comments (2)
The Anti-Corporate Religion
On Tuesday night at 7PM, the Tumwater, WA city council met to vote on a resolution that would block Wal-Mart from filing a zoning application to build a store in their city. FYI: Tumwater is just south of Olympia, home of Rachel Corrie's alma matter, Evergreen State College.
But they made the mistake of telling Wal-Mart that they were going to do this and Wal-Mart filed their application three hours before the meeting was to take place, making their application exempt from the new resolution.
And some of the members of the city council are pissed. As are a number of their anti-corporate constituents.
Like this guy, who says that "Wal-Mart is EEvviill!"
The propsed site for the new Wal-Mart was in a commercial are, in between a Costco and a Home Depot. But since Wal-Mart has a reputation that the followers of the Anti-Corporate religion love to hate (no unions/lots of sales) the city council decided that Wal-Mart was 'a bad thing' for Tumwater.
I don't shop at Wal-Mart, myself. My local store is always a zoo, the isles are cluttered, the employees rarely speak enough english to be helpful and there is never enough parking. I go to the Target since the last local K-Mart went bye-bye last winter.
And I really cannot figure out why these Anti-Corporate religious types cannot seem to figure out that if people don't shop at the Wal-Mart, the store will close and instead try to single out the store before it is built.
I wonder if these city council supporters would be so supportive if it wasn't a Wal-Mart being built on the edge of town that the council was trying to stop, and instead it was the downtown grand opening of a gay/lesbian bookstore or a porno shop.
Of course they wouldn't.
It would be a 'Free Speech Issue' then.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:33 AM | Comments (1)
Stick It
I found these figures at Ravenwood's Universe
In the past few years, the percentage of new vehicles sold in the United States with manual transmissions has slipped from 19.9 percent to 11.1 percent.
And then I laughed.
I currently own an F150 with an auto trans. And I can't stand it. It has crapped out on me to the tune of over $1500. If I had the time and place to switch it to a manual, I would in a heartbeat.
I have never liked automatics. They are convenient, and that is about it. They never shift in time, they are maintenance heavy and they are expensive. They ruin your gas milage and kill any performance that your vehicle may have. Depending on the manufacturer, an auto trans will cost you $300 to $1000 extra when you buy a new car.
Even if I won lottery style money, the vast majority of the vehicles on my wish list would be sticks. In fact, with the exception of the Excursion and the 1964 Lincoln Continental, I cannot think of any vehicle I would want that has an auto trans.
My opinion is that part of the reason for this trend of disappearing manual transmissions is the spreading of what is called the 'auto stick'.
For those who don't know, an 'auto stick' is an autmatic with a bottom or side get that lets you manually up/down shift with taps in either a side to side or forward/backward motion.
If you are looking for a 'sporty car' (not a sportscar) and this option is available, look into it, it is kind of fun to drive with.
But before you select this option, make sure you take a test drive. And make sure to drive the car like you hate it. Be sure to tell the salesperson before you get rough with it or you may get a scowl from them.
This is how the majority of the 'auto-sticks' work. There are sensors at the shift points in the manual shift selector. When they sensors gets hit, the car's transmission computer takes into account what gear you are currently in, your speed, the position of the accelerator and your grade (uphill/downhill/level).
The transmission then takes all of this information and comes up with a figure and sends it as a signal to your engines computer telling it what RPM it needs to be in so that you don't leave broken transmission parts all over the road surface.
Not everyone has gotten this down yet. If you test out the different manufacturers versions of this system, you'll see what I mean. Most get close, but few actually get it right. The Germans are generally better at this than the Japanese are and the Japanese are slightly better at this than Americans are. But I'm sure that the US companies (ahem, I mean you GM) will get it right soon.
Real quick like: one of the best 'sleeper cars' of the modern day was the Toyota Camry of the late 90's. You could get the V6 with a 5spd option. You could also then option the Toyota Racing Development supercharger, intake and exhaust.
If you could talk to the technician and get him to turn the boost up to 12lbs or so, you could have yourself a good looking family car that would run mid 13's on pump gas and street tires all day long for under $18K and had a factory warranty.
And the look on the face of that owner of the hopped up Civic/Integra/Eclipse you just smoked was priceless.
Neener.
Posted by Nukevet at 08:38 AM | Comments (2)
December 08, 2004
Count ANY Vote
The new slogan of the Washington State Democratic Party.
Today is the day we start re-recounting the ballots in the race for Governor of Washington.
The ballots from around the state have been shipped to a warehouse space south of Seattle (8mi. SW of my residence) to be counted.
To show how big of Drama Queens the King County Dems are, let me just tell you that the county election commissioners (2 Dems, 1 Repub) voted, you guessed it, 2-1 to have the county's ballots transported the 12 miles from a warehouse in Seattle to their current location under an 8 car police escort in Code 3 status (lights and sirens).
No other county in the state did this that I know of or have heard of.
I am surprised they didn't call the news choppers out so as to get 'how much they care' about my vote on celluloid.
Also today, the state Supreme Court will hear the case from the Dems to reconsider any and all ballots cast. These include provisional votes and contested absentee ballots.
These votes were already considered by each county's election board. Some of the absentee ballots were not counted due to no signature, wrong signature or non-matching signature. Some were not counted due to more than one vote per office or no vote for the office.
Of the provisional ballots, some were discounted when it was discovered that the person either voted in the wrong precinct, was not registered or both.
Any and all of the provisional and absentee ballots have already been looked at by the board of elections in the counties in which they were cast.
The last link I placed above is a link to a number of PDF files of the Dems complaint. If you read through it, it boils down to this;
They contend that different counties used different guidlines for qualifying, and yes, disqualifying these ballots.
They also contend that in the smaller counties, the elections board officials are not 'professional' in the terms that they are volunteers who A. only do this type of thing when asked by their respective county council (aka: part-time), B. cannot correctly interpret the rules that they are supposed to follow, which vary from county to county, C. know absolutely nothing about signature verification, and D. are dumb rednecks.
Which is odd, because the Democrat Party has been in power here for over 20 years. In fact, the Dem candidate, Gregoire has been the Washington State Attorney General for TWELVE YEARS. And even after Florida 2000, she never made a peep about the need to get our state's voting laws, which have been on the books, unchanged, for over 50 years, modernized and standardized in case something like Florida 2000 happened here.
And guess what, magically, it did.
Now, she is taking this election to court, as a plaintiff, to get the various laws standardized to meet her and her party's approval.
Which is why she and they are in full denial mode over this little item that came from the Washington Secretary of State's Office yesterday,
"Challenge of Ballots Not Allowed. We are advised by the Attorney General that state law makes no provision for the challenge of ballots or voters (as provided in RCW 29.10.125) during the recount. The recount procedure provided for by statute is a mechanical function of re-tallying the ballots cast and accepted as valid by the precinct election officers or the canvassing board during the canvass of the election. The decision of the canvassing board with respect to the inclusion or exclusion of a particular ballot during the canvass is not open to question during the recount."
That is a 1996 memo from the Sec. of State's office, supposedly from Gregoire, who had been the state AG for four years at that time.
Gregoire is saying that she never issued a statement to the Sec of State in relation to that subject and that the decision must have come from the previous AG (whose name escapes me right now).
Her party chairman, Paul Berendt, on the other hand, said something quite different at around 10:15PM on the loony left wing Mike Webb Show on our local station 710 KIRO.
"That note is nothing short of a major lie. There's no record of this."
I was listening live and can verify that it was said. Webb even made note of the link I supplied at shortly after midnight (he and Orbusmax do not get along. Long story).
So that is where the players stand this morning.
As for the pawns, you might be interested to know that the Washington Education Association (WEA) has put up this ad on their website.
The WEA is basically the state teacher's union. And even though only about 35% of their members identify themselves as Democrats, they are using union money, union time and union space to
"Please sign up today to serve as a Democratic Party observer for this count."
Joining the WEA is the Washington State Labor Council. They are soliciting contributions and encouraging local unions to donate paid staff to the Democratic Party's efforts.
You have to love it when the Dems get dirty. OK. No you don't.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Can you name these medals?
They are from an organization that has been in the sights of the ACLU for at least the last decade for being an "exclusionary and overtly Christian organization".
Mollbot, I know you can ace this one, so no telling. You can give hints in the comments if you want.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:43 PM | Comments (2)
Note to the left
Here's what an attempt steal an election really looks like.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:25 PM | Comments (0)
Good Guys/Bad Guys
So I'm going through my blogroll of left wing blogs and what do I find?
A list compiled by Dems of places to frequent and places to boycott depending on their monetary political contributions.
Since, I have never claimed to be bigger then they in terms of not buying my stuff from folks who actively work against my politcal beliefs, I am posting the list, with necessary title changes (good/bad), of course, and I will not shop at the places or buy the products of companies who give a large portion of their cash to the Democrat Party.
Shouldn't be too difficult. There aren't to any firearms industry names on the list.
FYI: I am not under the illusion that any of these companies will notice the loss of my business or even care about it. Nor am I going ask that anyone who visits this site follow me in my endeavor. It is more of a personal thing, if you get my drift.
Unlike those on the left. A quote from Digby @ Hullabaloo
"Let's be sure to spread some Holiday cheer to the good guys --- and stick it to the others. This is America, after all."
Yes Digby, this is America. Revel in the fact that you CAN choose who to buy from and what you buy. You are not allowed that courtesy in a large number of other nations.
The list is below the fold.....
UPDATE: Found another leftie website with another list of good companies/bad companies. This one includes some of those eevviill oil companies
BP Oil gave $188,000 politically with 65% ($122,200) to Republicans and 35% ($65,800) to Dems.
American Gas gave $179,000 politically with 63% ($112,770) to Repubs and 37% ($66,230) to Dems.
Phoenix Oil & Gas gave $185,000 policically with 100% going to the Dems
Shell Oil gave $212,000 policially with 56% ($118,720) going to the Dems and 44% ($93,280) to Repubs.
If you add that up, The Republicans got $328,250 and the Democrats got $435,750.
The oil companies actually favored the Democrat Party with almost 20% more in monetary contributions.
'No War For Oil' Indeed!
PS: I have written the site moderators to see if they have left off some of the numbers or if they are just misrepresenting the numbers in their statemnts. We'll see.
Good Guys:
WalMart, $467K, 97% to republicans;
K-Mart, $524K, 86% to republicans;
Home Depot, $298K, 89% to republicans;
Target, $226K, 70% to republicans;
Circuit City Stores, $261K, 95% to republicans;
3M Co., $281K, 87% to republicans;
Hallmark Cards, $319K, 92% to republicans;
Amway, $391K, 100% republican;
Kohler Co. (plumbing fixtures), $283K, 100% republicans;
B.F. Goodrich (tires), $215K, 97% to republicans;
Proctor & Gamble, $243K, 79% to republicans;
Coors, $174K, 92% to republicans; (also Budweiser - sd)
Brown-Forman Corp. (Southern Comfort, Jack Daniels, Bushmills, Korbel wines - as well as Lennox China, Dansk, Gorham Silver), $644, 80% to republicans;
Pilgrim's Pride Corp. (chicken), $366K, 100% republican;
Outback Steakhouse, $641K, 95% republican;
Tricon Global Restaurants (KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell), $133K, 87% republican;
Brinker International (Maggiano's, Brinker Cafe, Chili's, On the
Border, Macaroni Grill, Crazymel's, Corner Baker, EatZis), $242K, 83% republican;
Waffle House, $279K, 100% republican;
McDonald's Corp., $197K, 86% republican;
Darden Restaurants (Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Smokey Bones, Bahama Breeze), $121K, 89% republican;
Mariott International, $323K, 81% to republicans;
Holiday Inns, $38K, 71% to republicans
Bad Guys:
* Price Club/Costco donated $225K, of which 99% went to democrats;
* Rite Aid, $517K, 60% to democrats;
* Magla Products (Stanley tools, Mr. Clean), $22K, 100% to democrats;
* Warnaco (undergarments), $55K, 73% to democrats;
* Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, $153K, 99% to democrats;
* Estee Lauder, $448K, 95% to democrats;
* Guess ? Inc., $145K, 98% to democrats;
* Calvin Klein, $78K, 100% to democrats;
* Liz Claiborne, Inc., $34K, 97% to democrats;
* Levi Straus, $26K, 97% to democrats;
* Olan Mills, $175K, 99% to democrats.
* Gallo Winery, $337K, 95% to democrats;
* Southern Wine & Spirits, $213K, 73% to democrats;
* Joseph E. Seagrams & Sons (includes beverage business, plus considerable media interests), $2M+, 67% democrats.
* Sonic Corporation, $83K, 98% democrat;
* Triarc Companies (Arby's, T.J. Cinnamon's, Pasta Connections), $112K, 96% Democrats;
* Hyatt Corporation, $187K, 80% to democrats;
Posted by Nukevet at 09:53 AM | Comments (1)
December 07, 2004
Infamy
Lost on December 7th, 1941
PERSONNEL KILLED
Navy 2001
Marine Corps 109
Army 231
Civilian 54
PERSONNEL WOUNDED
Navy 710
Marine Corps 69
Army 364
Civilian 35
SHIPS
Sunk or beached 12
Damaged 9
AIRCRAFT
Destroyed 164
Damaged 159
Stats borrowed from Mike @ Sworn Enemy
Also from SE Mike, a note that the time is nigh for SlagleRock's Holiday Letter's for the Troops writing campaign. Go Read and contribute.
Also remember what I posted about yesterday. Bottom of the post. Highlighted.
If you can combine the two, that would be even better.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:10 PM | Comments (3)
Oooopsie!
Guess who forgot to get their CPR card renewed this last fall?
Guess who's employer demands that he have one?
Guess who's employer won't take a WFA cert as a substitute?
If you guessed me, you are correct.
So, I just ended a 15 hour workday (10 hours at work + 4 hours in CPR class + 1 hour drive time from class to work) and not much blogging is feeling like it wants to exude.
But, on the plus side, I am getting paid for the training time and travel expenses and I got to re-learn "If it's wet and not yours, don't touch it" and how to have a good time with 'Resuscitation Annie'.
And YAY! I get to do it all over again on Thursday, and I expect to feel about the same.
But on Thursday, I get to re-learn the AED (Automated External Defribullator) and shock the little tramp!
Good Times.
- - - - - - - - -
But I do have a quiz available for those interested....
Can you name this part?
It came in the mail on Friday. (yay!)
Answer below the fold
Go here and then look around.
Caution: Keyboard drool alert is in effect.
Posted by Nukevet at 12:46 PM | Comments (4)
December 06, 2004
Blastorama After Action Report
Is it over already?
The December Edition of the Blogger Blastorama was a smashing success, if I do say so myself. In attendance were The Rivrdog, the gracious Ms. Leigh, newcomer MikeG and myself.
Ammo was expended in quantity, making barrels warm, paper targets had holes punched in them and a good time was had by all.
Almost sounds like a Christmas Carol, doesn't it?
And the guns, can't forget the guns now, can we?
MikeG brough some very, umm, specialized weaponry with him.
(all pics are 'click for bigger')
And holy smokes, do these things get the job done!
1" circle, 30ft, rapid fire. By MikeG and his long barreled High Standard.
He normally practices on bowling pin tops. I feel sorry for those bowling pins.
The Rivrdog also brought a few items of lead projection up from Oregon with him.
That is him with his recently purchased High Standard. I should have also gotten a picture of him with his A-Team, but I was being the host and doing more talking than taking pictures. I will try to do better next time.
And last, but certainly not least, the most heavily armed soccer mom I currently know, Ms. Leigh and her recently purchased AR.
Look at that smile! Just like when the kids come home from school with refridgerator art!
And in case you were wondering what the back of the mini-van of a pistol packin' mama looks like, look under the fold.
Let's see....
Spare blanket, roadside emergency kit, notebooks for the kids and school, 'assault rifle' with case and spare mags, large quantities of ammo and targets.
Looks like she's got everything.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:14 AM | Comments (4)
MilBloggers
First up, as you probably remember, our good man Chad of Dogtulosba is in Afghanistan. His wife informs us in the comments of his last post that he is doing well and will hopefully be able to make it home for the holidays and to look for new posts around that time.
On a sad note, his website is getting spammed to hell during his abscence. Here's wishing that he can come home for Christmas and that he declares a certified spam killer for while he away next time. I have volunteered, but you never know.
---------------------------------------
Others however, are not doing as well. From Mike the Marine:
Yesterday marked the wounding of the third person I personally know in Iraq. The first two are friends. This one is my cousin.
The first two were relatively superficial wounds. This one is pretty serious.
The first two proved to be non-lethal. This one killed another Marine.
ALL of them were caused by IEDs - Improvised Explosive Devices. This one took the bomber to Allah and his 72 raisins.
I want to kill a lot of people right now. My blood was boiling yesterday when this whole thing happened. My FIRST reaction was, of course, fear for my cousin's life. But once I knew he was okay and on his way to Germany, and then home, that fear was replaced by seething hatred.
I'm a Marine. A professional warrior. I do what I'm told, I give orders to those under me that are in accordance with carrying out the Mission I have received from 'higher.' But yesterday and today are the first days since September 11th, 2001 that I have truly been itching to get an order that says it's time to go stomp the ever-loving shit out of some bad guys. (Short point of pride: my cousin enlisted in the Corps on September 10th, 2001, a date he's immensely proud of.)
Make sure you go read the rest. There is some very important request information near the bottom of the post.
---------------------------------------
In happier news, The Indepundit, Citizen Smash reports on moral improvers as spoken of by Greyhawk at The Mudville Gazette
Everything he's opened has included hand made cards and letters from young kids, their childish scrawls wishing us well and ensuring us in no uncertain terms that God is looking out for us. The same sorts of things are viewable on virtually every office wall over here.
It really is that simple sometimes.
I don't have kids myself (and if I did, you all would be looking at the next world conquering ruler of the known planet), but if you do, and they need an activity during a rainy afternoon, you couldn't do much better then having them draw pictures and/or write messages to our men and women in theater.
During the Christmas season, the 'To Any Soldier' packages get set aside for ones with names and destinations, but after the holidays, sending these messages is a real moral booster.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:41 AM | Comments (0)
Poking Fun at Liberals: Part 1
Oh golly!
Lookee Lefties, Saddam's Armor!
Those are FRENCH armored vehicles.
Who exactly sold Saddam his weapons again? Who knew what he had because they had the receipts?
Found @ Murdoc Online
--------------------------------------------
With the media and the left about to go apeshit about those Navy Seal pics, I just want to remind them to STFU!
China 'Carried Out Nearly 90 Per Cent of World's Executions' in 2003
Read your Amnesty International pamphlets, losers!
"Amnesty International said in April that China put 726 people to death last year � nearly two-thirds of all executions reported."
"But it said that figure was based on incomplete official information and the true number was believed to be much higher."
But of course, Amerikkka under Bushitler is still "The Evil Empire", right?
Found @ The Blogs of War
---------------------------------------------
Eric @ isthatlegal.org discovered that Michelle Malkin publishes her books, not under her professional name or Malkin, but under her legal and maiden name of Maglalang.
And for this, she got treated like every other non-white conservative by being labeled self-hating Asian-American.
She writes about it here
But here is the kicker....
Eric writes, "I guess Michelle Malkin is her name . . . for being a Fox News commentator."
Yeah Eric, because, as everyone knows, no one can see your face when you're on television.
And yes Eric, that is the same line I put in your comments on the post. Your idiocy hasn't changed, why should my line describing it?
Posted by Nukevet at 09:37 AM | Comments (1)
Poking Fun at Liberals: Part 2
From the WSJ via the Instapundit and the FreeWillBlog
Set up and run by spooks in 1969, his party, the MLPN, had its own newspaper, De Kommunist, written and edited by the secret service. As well as Mr. Boeve playing Chris Petersen, the secretary-general, it had a chairman (another fraud) and a Central Committee stacked with secret agents. To add authenticity, the party let Mr. Wartena and a handful of other true believers join its otherwise nonexistent ranks, telling them that they were part of a network of underground cells....
"I totally wasted 12 years of my life," says Paul Wartena, an ex-MLPN member who was so dedicated to the cause he used to donate 20% of his salary to the fake party. He says he "had some doubts now and then" about the MLPN but stayed loyal because "I was very naive and Mr. Boeve was such a good actor." Now a researcher at a university in Utrecht, Mr. Wartena wants Dutch intelligence to pay him back for all his donations.
Mr. Boeve, now 74, scoffs at his acolyte: "He was an idiot."
Oh! The Pain! My Side!
---------------------------------------------
And last weeks winning liberal loser idiotarian is.....abarefootboy from the Kos IMC!
New Kos IMC poster 'kid oakland' gets all dreamy about Edward Said and writes about words and items in our modern world that have been brought to us by Arab/Persian culture.
Most of the Kos IMC commenters forgot about the Persians in their comments, but as one of the "uncultured, knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing wingnuts" who occupy this side of the blogosphere, I'll put in a good word for them here.
But a real winner, who is registered at the Kos IMC as 'abarefootboy', posts this buttnugget of idocy, and thereby wins the award for last week.
"I always felt the Spainiards made a big mistake by driving the Moors out of Spain. What cultural flowers might have bloomed , spreading there fragrant intellectual and artistic scent throughout the Western world."
Sadly for 'abarefootboy', the award does not come with a cash prize, so barefoot he will remain.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:29 AM | Comments (0)
Rewriting History
Remember the Wellstone Funeral, where the followers and worshippers of Paul Wellstone booed people they decided weren't worthy to be there. These people are also known as Republicans.
Well, Al Franken is joining the ranks of those who are trying to rewrite what happened.
FRANKEN: This is about the [Senator Paul] Wellstone [D-MN] memorial [after he and seven others died in a plane crash in October 2002]. He [Caldwell] wrote a piece for The Weekly Standard, in which he basically said a number of things. He said that: "The crowd of 20,000 booed a succession of people who had come to pay their respects to a dead colleague." Now, 20,000 people didn't boo anybody. A few people booed. I was there. And I challenge anyone to go to the website. The guy who was booed was Trent Lott and you cannot hear the booing. OK, there's that.
Sorry Al, but we've got the video. We don't need a racist liberal to tell us what he thinks happened.
Posted by Nukevet at 08:19 AM | Comments (0)
Shadow Puppets
I thought I was the only one who did these things!
I didn't grow up during the worst of the Cold War, despite the tens of thousands of ungrateful Germans marching through the streets with cardboard mockups of Pershing missiles as SS18's and SS20's were aimed right back at them by a doddering, feedble dyring Russian bear.
However, it was always my sincere hope that if there were ever a nuclear war, I'd have the opportunity to get enough warning to strike a pose that would leave a shadow on the wall that could befuddle the sociologists for centuries.
At first, I figured the simple middle angry pose with a middle finger extended. That way, alongside the Hiroshima stopped-watch and crumbling ruins in every history book, I'd be flipping the bird to students for generations to come.
Then I thought, why not a Disco pose? Full-on cheerypicking manuever with the slight leg twist as immortalized by John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. Some artist would frame my carbonized shadowy remains and say that not even nuclear war can stop Disco.
And I thought that it was abnormal to think like that.
Posted by Nukevet at 08:11 AM | Comments (0)
Teasips suck
The guy who wrote this piece of anti-Americanism is a full professor (apparently) in the school of journalism at the University of Texas.
Not too hard to figure out where our fine young journalists learn their bias, eh?
The Austin-American Statesman article requires registration, so here's a lenghty excerpt:
The United States has lost the war in Iraq, and that's a good thing.
I don't mean that the loss of American and Iraqi lives is to be celebrated. The death and destruction are numbingly tragic, and the suffering in Iraq is hard for most of us in the United States to comprehend. The tragedy is compounded because these deaths haven't protected Americans or brought freedom to Iraqis � they have come in the quest to extend the American empire in this so-called "new American century."
So, as a U.S. citizen, I welcome the U.S. defeat, for a simple reason: It isn't the defeat of the United States � its people or their ideals � but of that empire. And it's essential the American empire be defeated and dismantled.
The fact the Bush administration says we are fighting for freedom and democracy (having long ago abandoned fictions about weapons of mass destruction and terrorist ties) does not make it so. We must look at the reality, no matter how painful. The people of Iraq are better off without Saddam Hussein's despised regime, but that does not prove our benevolent intentions nor guarantee the United States will work to bring meaningful democracy to Iraq.
Throughout history, our support for democracies has depended on their support for U.S. policy. When democratic governments follow an independent course, they typically end up as targets of U.S. power, military or economic. Ask Venezuela's Hugo Chavez or Haiti's Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
In Iraq, the Bush administration invaded not to liberate but to extend and deepen U.S. domination. When Bush says, "We have no territorial ambitions; we don't seek an empire," he tells a half-truth. The United States doesn't want to absorb Iraq nor take direct possession of its oil. That's not the way of empire today � it's about control over the flow of oil and oil profits, not ownership.
How quaint.
Posted by Nukevet at 12:06 AM | Comments (0)
December 05, 2004
And he swaggers onto the field
No, not Joe Namath,
Your President and Mine, George W. Bush!
Let's see, last time it was the 'fake turkey' scandal...
This year, the left will be trying to say that it was a counterfeit coin that Bush tossed.
Oh wait, the left doesn't watch much football. Bush may be in the clear on this one.
Posted by Nukevet at 03:40 PM | Comments (1)
My current debate
With your typical smugly superior blue stater ("There�s probably no way to say this that red voters can comprehend, but it�s not complicated.") is going on in this thread over at Jay Reding's. I did think it interesting that his defense seems to be that I am too stupid to be able to understand his point. I wonder if I should pull my federal grant submission - someone as stupid as I apparently am probably shouldn't be running around with all the highly infectious viral vectors that I'm using for targetted angiostatic therapy delivery. And I guess I better stop my stem cell research as well - aren't all we red voters supposed to be against that kind of thing as an affront to God, who we may or may not believe in?
I have always enjoyed reading Jay's take on things, and find him to have thoughtful commentary that is pretty much hyperbole free. Unlike that of some of his commenters, it seems.
I wonder if the blue voters who are running around talking about the second civil war have really stopped to ponder what that would mean for their side. Most of the military supports Bush. Most of the ex-military (are you ever really former military?) supports Bush. A majority of us gun nuts support Bush. I think it would be a pretty short civil war, personally.
Posted by Nukevet at 12:52 AM | Comments (2)
Nice little title to this story:
Time to let people kill burglars in their homes, says Met chief.
What the Met chief actually says is that people should be allowed to defend themselves with the presumption of innocence - and that lethal force may be necessary in some instances.
Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said those who defended their families and property should only face prosecution over injuries to intruders in "extreme circumstances", where they could be shown to have used gratuitous violence.
Sounds like a good start, eh? This bit starts to lose me, though:
"The test at the moment is that you use reasonable force in the circumstances. You do not use excessiveness. I think the test of reasonableness needs to be looked at and clarified within statute.
My test of reasonableness is pretty clear - if you are in my house uninvited, do not immediatly leave when I tell you to, or if I perceive that you are a danger to me or mine, you just flunked. It's ludicrous to think that a homeowner should stop and think "will I be prosecuted for this?" while at the same time trying to make life and death decisions when encountering an intruder.
I know you have to start with baby steps - but how many more people in the UK have to die or be assaulted because any attempt to fight back leads to the victim being prosecuted?
Posted by Nukevet at 12:24 AM | Comments (1)
December 04, 2004
Gone Shootin'
No explanation required.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:55 AM | Comments (1)
Making Florida 2000 look like a tea party
Well, the Dems did it. The Re-REcount is en-route.
After a week and a half of whining about not having the money to afford a manual recount of the state, Washington Democrats magically came up with a check for it.
They were able to afford the count of the whole state. King County will start on Monday, the rest of the counties will start recounting on either Wednesday or Thursday. They hope to be done by the 22nd of this month with a hand recount of every vote in the state.
They must have gotten more money than they needed because they are also heading to the Washington State Supreme Court for a fight to get some discounted ballots counted. These ballots are the mismarked and previously rejected provisional votes, most of which reside in King County (a Gregoire stronghold).
They also say they want the mismarked absentee ballots counted, but they do not include the late to arrive military absentee ballots with no postmark.
The proof that the Dems are in full 'panic mode':
State Democratic Chairman Paul Berendt "We will not be bullied by Bush White House lawyers or irresponsible threats from Senator Rossi's campaign,"
Yes, that's right!
The state party who took money from their former Presidential Candiate, a former Party Presidential Primary Candidate and the national party itself is yelling that the Bush White House is behind the Rossi win.
On the Dem fringe, there is talk that if they do not win in this recount, that they will sue for a new election because some of the precincts in two counties (Snohomish and Yakima) use the Diebold Paperless Voting Machines that cannot be recounted.
While I wouldn't put it past them to actually do it. I doubt that they will.
I don't like the 'No Paper Trail' machines anymore than the next guy, but a revote on those same machines is really an ignorant idea, even if the difference between the candidates is only 21 votes.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:28 AM | Comments (0)
Can't make it to the Blastorama?
Just wanted to drop a note on a very worthwile event that I was just reminded of Friday afternoon.
The 26th Annual Olympia Toy Run
The basic premise is that you bring a toy or $15 and get on your bad motorscooter and ride to the Washington State Capitol Building and present your toy to the Salvation Army Major.
Last year they had 6800 riders and they're expecting even more this year.
Here's the info:
December 4, 2004 Olympia Chapter, ABATE presents: Olympia Toy Run
South Sound Mall - Lacey, WA at Exit 108
Gates open at 10am for staging of bikes into parade formation. Parade leaves at 1pm
Bring a toy or $10 per rider/$15 per couple
Performances by Seattle Cossacks & T-9-0 Drill Team at the South Sound Mall prior to the parade of bikes and vendors will be set in the Mall parking area, including coffee, food, t-shirts, etc...
Ride benefits Salvation Army's - Toys "N" Joys Program
For further information contact Joe Sullivan at 360-413-9608
Merry Christmas!
Olympia Chapter, ABATE of WA; a member of the Olympia Toy Run Coalition
Ya gotta love it!
Posted by Nukevet at 10:06 AM | Comments (1)
Is there a machinist in the house?!?
If so, then you might be interested in this...
Up for auction: K&M; Engine Rebuilders equipment sale
Just a few of the items up for bid:
SOUTH BEND engine lathe, 16" swing, 60" center distance, tool post, steady rest, 3-jaw chuck
STORM VULCAN 15A-SP, 15A crankshaft grinders, s/n's: 303-78, 5A-55-286
JET 16 12 speed milling & drilling machine
TOBIN ARP TA14 line boring machine
PETERSON valve guide & seat machine
TRINCO P1480SL sand blast cabinet, s/n: 8181-4
I never had any work done by these guys, I have a very skilled group of folks right near my residence and these guys were 60 miles away, but from what I have heard from others, they did excellent work.
And a good machinist cannot do good work with crappy equipment.
It will be a sad day when they finally close the doors at K&M.;
I hate to get these auction notices for two reasons:
1. Good companies going away, leaving folks in search of a good machinist, and
2. It reminds me I need to get some shop space, badly. Every time I get a notice like this, I get the urge to tear down a head in the family room, something that would cause the Analog Wife to kill me (and rightly so). I usually just tear one of my guns down and get some gun grit under my nails and that quenches the need to be mechanical for a while.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:43 AM | Comments (0)
December 03, 2004
Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow!
Come one, come all, the Santa Security Squad Tryouts at the Blogger Blastorama, tomorrow, at Wade's Indoor Pistol Range in Bellevue, Washington at high noon.
In fact, the guy in that pic right there will be there with that very same firearm.
And because it is the Christmas season, I will have gifts for the first three new folks who show up. It ain't nothing grand, but it something that any good conservative would love to have.
I guess that I have never really made it too clear, but the Blogger Blastorama isn't just for people who write blogs. Anyone can come along for the fun!
Do you just read blogs? Or lurk in the ether?
Come on by and make thyself known, citizen!
We may seem to be a bit grumpy on the web, but we certainly don't bite (that much, anyway).
Never been shooting before? Like to try? We're your 'safe and sane' shooting partners. We've got guns for you to try and possibly a little ammo to share.
Again, Santa hats are optional, but make sure it can fit over your hearing protection.
PS: If anyone else is interested, I will be having a late breakfast/early lunch at the IHOP nearby (here's a map and address) at around 1100. Can't go shooting on an empty stomach, ya know.
Just start walking around to the tables and saying "Blog". I will be the one person who doesn't look at you funny. Yes, I will rescue you if the management trys to throw you out.
Posted by Nukevet at 03:12 PM | Comments (2)
Washington Gubernatorial Update
Well, today is the day.
Friday is the day that the Dems have to have their money in hand, ready to give to the Washington Secretary of State by the the business day for whatever portion of votes they want hand counted in the contested election that has already been through a machine recount.
You have probably already read the story about John Kerry giving the state party a check for $250K to pay for part of the recount.
But also, Howard Dean has opened up his website for donations to go directly to the recount fund.
The National Party has sent an e-mail to all of their contributors asking for money. But tells them to send it to the DNC, not to the Washington State sub-party.
Shows how much they care, I guess.
The Dems will need close to $700K to do the whole state, but the state party has said that they will count as much as they have the money for.
Maybe they should talk to their candidate though.
Yesterday, Christine Gregoire came out with the statement that she doesn't want any vote hand counted and will conceed the whole race if they cannot afford to do the whole state.
But since she's a politician, I do not trust her to refuse the position if her party does a recount of their cherry picked counties and it turns the election in her favor.
I'll have an update tomorrow as to the happenings, if any.
Please, just let it end.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:51 PM | Comments (0)
An Excellent Choice
I am quite happy with Bush's pick for Sec. of Homeland Security, former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik.
Bernard Kerik (l) and Congressmen Michael Burgess(r)
(Pic gratuitously stolen from John Little & The Blogs of War)
Everything I have been able to find on him and his quals is positive. The looney left will probably consider him a Nazi from the get-go, but that is to be expected.
Posted by Nukevet at 11:34 AM | Comments (4)
It is getting personal
Perry de Havilland from the Samizdata Blog has a sad story to tell.
RCOB WARNING is in effect from here on.
Last night I had some friends and business associates around for dinner here in Chelsea. It was an agreeable evening at which some interesting conversations were had, some good food was enjoyed and some nice wine drunk.
And at around 7:00pm while all that was happening in my home, some 50 yards away my neighbour John Monckton was stabbed to death and his wife seriously injured by a pair of young vermin who broke into their house.
Of course the state forbids people like the Moncktons from owning the means to defend themselves. And the CCTV cameras on our street? I cannot tell you how much better they must make everyone around here feel. The police who have closed off my street are festooned with all manner of weapons and body armour but given that their actual role in modern Britain is little more than clearing up the mess after another disarmed householder has been butchered, perhaps waterproof coveralls and mops would be more suitable equipment for our tax funded 'guardians'.
Bitter? You bet. The world is full of predators and we are required to face them disarmed and as much in fear of the law as the criminal who attack us.
The state is not your friend.
Indeed, sir, it is not.
I have been calling foreign consulates for information about buying land in a certain foreign in the future. I'm hoping that I can get ahold of someone in the US INS Department to find out about helping Brits get the hell out of a country that is quickly becoming lawless.
If you read your trackbacks, Mr. de Havilland, the folks at RNS offer you our condolences. I know it is difficult to think about, but dammit, we're over here and we want to help. Come join us.
Posted by Nukevet at 11:15 AM | Comments (0)
Guess who's back..... Back again.
McDermott's Back. Crazy Man.
I didn't vote for him. In fact, I voted for an over-the-top right wing looney in the hopes that she could get rid of him.
I was wrong and now Jim McDermott is back and spouting off his collectivist medicine plan clap-trap to the next generation of physicians at the University of Washington.
U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott (D-7) outlined the need for federally funded universal healthcare in front of a standing-room-only crowd of primarily pre-med and medical students last night in the Health Sciences Building.
McDermott, a licensed psychiatrist, currently has a resolution in committee that would establish healthcare coverage for all U.S. citizens.
And yes, McDermott is still a licensed psychiatrist.
That is a good thing because it sounds like he could use one himself. Let's hope he gets a good referral.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:54 AM | Comments (0)
The Party of the 'Little Guy'
My Pasty White Ass!
They outraised the Repubs by $17 million.
More of which was raised from larger donations from fewer contributors than the Republican Party.
Dumbasses.
Found by Steve of Norway @ Drumwaster's
Posted by Nukevet at 10:39 AM | Comments (0)
Oooh, yeah! Let's be more like them!
On the other hand, let's not!
German unemployment rose 7,000 in November to 4.464 million people, or 10.8% of the workforce.
And the left still thinks the Euro's temporary surge over the dollar is permenant?
Wait until Germany's and France's respective deficits skyrockets next year.
Found @ Digger's Realm
Posted by Nukevet at 10:34 AM | Comments (0)
I think the cold has done something to their brains
I have seen a couple of posts about the Groningen Protocol (a Dutch hospital's criteria for administering pediatric euthanasia) around the blogosphere and just passed over it.
Bad idea.
I thought that they were talking about severely deteriorated newborns who were near death. I discovered I was very incorrect when I passed through the FreeWillBlog.
Under the Groningen protocol, if doctors at the hospital think a child is suffering unbearably from a terminal condition, they have the authority to end the child's life. The protocol is likely to be used primarily for newborns, but it covers any child up to age 12.
A parent's role is limited under the protocol. While experts and critics familiar with the policy said a parent's wishes to let a child live or die naturally most likely would be considered, they note that the decision must be professional, so rests with doctors.
It sounds like this story from Raging Dave a while back about the Brit doctor refusing to save the life of a 10 month old baby.
I'm beginning to wonder if the UK has the Groningen Protocol?
Posted by Nukevet at 10:14 AM | Comments (0)
From the Department of "You Learn Something New Every Day"
I never knew of this before.
For Harvard, writing off Nazi link is a poor move
According to a recently delivered historical paper by Oklahoma University professor Stephen H. Norwood, Harvard University and its newspaper of record, The Crimson, took a series of actions in the 1930s -- unparalleled in academia -- that lauded the Third Reich as a force for good in the world.
In 1936, after the passage of the Nuremberg laws and the eviction of Jewish professors and students from German universities, Harvard sent representatives to attend the 550th anniversary celebration of the University of Heidelberg (the site of a book-burning), where Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and Gestapo Chief Heinrich Himmler sat in attendance. That same year, Albert Einstein refused to attend Harvard's tercentenary because of the university's affiliation with the Nazis. One notorious incident was Harvard's welcoming of Nazi propagandist Ernst Franz Sedgwick Hanfstaengl (Harvard Class of 1909, varsity crew, football cheerleader, Hasty Pudding performer) back to campus for his 25th reunion in 1934. Hanfstaengl attended a tea at Harvard President James Bryant Conant's home and was feted by the university's most prominent alumni. Harvard police tore down anti-Nazi posters when demonstrators, whom Conant labeled "ridiculous," descended upon Cambridge to protest Hanfstaengl's visit. Most offensive, however, was that The Crimson had the audacity to recommend Hanfstaengl for an honorary degree and lauded his homeland as a "great and proud nation."
And I thought that the spreading of anti semitism through our nation's universities was something new.
Interested Participant had the goods.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:07 AM | Comments (1)
December 02, 2004
Been Busy
With a long day at work and being in the middle of a discussion and I haven't read anything worth posting about yet.
If you would like to peek in on the discussion, you can start here. I'm the guy in the comments (1000 character max, so I had to post my comment in multiple posts).
It then moved here, with me being fisked in a manner of sorts.
My response is available below the 'Continue readin...' line in this post, as I don't want to think of how many times I'd have to post with a 1000 char max.
Click if you dare, but be sure to read it all and get the whole story before commenting.
--------------------------------------------
You are darn (I�ll try to abstain from obscenities) right you struck a nerve. Anytime someone comes out with the terms �privileged treatment� and �creating another class of citizenship� and a �woe is me/victim� attitude, it always sets me off.
Also, you took my comment off Morpholine and never bothered to ask how it turned out. FYI, I got written up for 79 in a 60, still a $185 ticket, so I didn�t quite �walk away scot-free�. The other one would have been a tad more difficult to get tossed out, but I probably would have succeeded anyway.
I will admit that if I do get any preferential treatment, I am going to take advantage of it. I am not going to prostrate myself in front of the officer on the shoulder of the interstate and beg for him to charge me to the fullest extent of the law. I may be a goofy bastard, but I am not an idiot.
And I could be completely wrong about the permit being the thing that gave me the cut on the ticket. Maybe it was that I was courteous and admitted to running over the limit from the get go and wasn�t a jackass.
The reason I do not see it as wrong to receive any kind of advantage is that the permit is a sign that I am a generally upstanding citizen or at least I don�t go around mugging little old ladies, beating my wife, or shooting police officers.
That does not mean that those that do not have permits do any of those things. But when the officer sees a CPL, he knows he can go back to his car and run the permit, and as long as it comes back as current, he can be pretty damn sure that the person who handed it to him probably isn�t going to try and harm him.
You might not remember, but before the bastardized NICS system came into play, if you had a current permit, you could avoid the state�s ignorant waiting period and pick up your gun purchase that day. The CCW idea is stupid, as was the waiting period, but you put the two together, and something good happened.
Should I have refused to take advantage of this law (and it was a law)? Should I have said to the dealer �Oh, that�s OK. I want to wait the full 5 days�?
I may have failed to change your mind about my �enjoyment� of any special treatment I may have get because of my permit, but also, you have not shown that every time (or even a decent proportion of the time) someone without one gets jacked up, harassed or some other form of jerking around by the constabulary.
Nor have you been able to show cause for your paranoia of being killed for not having one.
I can probably guarantee that I have been pulled over and my vehicle searched by the police more times than you have. I drove very recognizable vehicles in my younger years and I could guarantee at least one traffic stop every two weeks.
Was it harassment? Probably. Did I deserve it? Probably not. I drove very highly mechanically modified vehicles for a number of years and I am sure that I fit into some sort of a stereotype of a street racer, because that is what I was.
And guess what? I was armed nearly every single time I was pulled over after the age of 18. Rifle/shotgun in the trunk/hatchback from 18-21 and handgun in the cabin after 21.
In fact, I considered getting pulled over a couple times in the same jurisdiction as a plus. Once these officers figured out that I wasn�t a danger and that I didn�t deal/haul/do whatever they were looking for (probably drugs), they�d leave me alone as long as I wasn�t doing anything stupid.
When they�d pull me over, I would inform them of the weapon, its status and it�s location when I handed them my license. Sometimes, they�d ask me to get out of the car, secure the firearm, continue their search, find nothing, put the gun back and I�d be on my way. Sometimes, they just ask me to sit in the car with my hands on the wheel. Sometimes, I�d get the full monty (handcuffs and pat down).
But I never once worried that I was going to be arrested or shot for doing something completely legal. Being courteous and helpful without being snide or snarky goes a long way to ending a traffic stop quickly and without incident, and sometimes, without a ticket.
The reason I switched topics starting my second set of comments was because of your overly paranoid comments about being shot by a cop during a traffic stop. I don�t know what your interaction with the police has been, but jeez-louise, you might need to get a grip.
You cited one rather anecdotal story of an officer shooting someone for your evidence. If that is all that it takes to get you jumpy, switch to decaf.
Hell, Al Sharpton had more evidence in the Tawana Brawley case in that his story teller was actually there. I trust nothing that I read in the news or hear from �friends of the victim�. It�s all biased and mostly unsubstantiated. You sound as if you are implying that the cop shot the guy on purpose because �he knew he could get away with it�. That is libel.
And what the hell was he doing driving down the highway with a shotgun in the passenger seat? Firearms must be secured inside a vehicle on public roads by law. A gun rack is all that it would take to suffice. I had one in my Corolla. In my current truck, all long guns are secured in their cases and locked in the bed under the canopy and bed kit and I go nowhere without my 1911 in the cabin. The 2nd says that you have the right to bear arms. Requiring you to secure the weapon in your vehicle is not a restriction on that by any stretch of the imagination.
As for you California/50cal line of questioning, how many officers were asked to go door to door collecting 50 caliber firearms?
Answer: None.
Exactly the same number that I know of who quit when the 50cal ban came down.
Most of your fourteen links that were supposedly there to show officers taking the law into their own hands are just lame. Let me list the ones that don�t apply�
Link 1: An officer in a burglary ring of fellow officers turns state evidence. Bad cops, committing crimes and going to jail. Exactly how does that violate my civil rights again?
Link 2: A Corrections Officer (who, more than likely, isn�t allowed to carry a firearm as part of his normal duties), calls and harasses his estranged wife and her family with verbal threats off duty. Again, stupid and illegal, but doesn�t constitute a violation of civil rights and had nothing to do with his job.
Link 3: An off duty officer has road rage. And again, not taking the law into his own hands, just being a jerk with a gun.
Link 4: An officer stealing guns that were supposed to be destroyed. Stupid, illegal, not a 2A violation.
Link 5: Retired cop has his 380 fall out of his pocket and accidentally shoots a store owner. The very same thing could happen to anyone who doesn�t secure their firearm. Not taking the law into his own hands.
Link 7: An off duty deputy starts a fistfight in a restaurant and then pulls a pistol to keep from getting his ass kicked. Ignorant, stupid, illegal, but not a civil rights violation.
Link 8: Fratricide. One cop mistakes an undercover cop for a drug dealer after an �officer down� radio call. Not a civil rights violation. The story even implies that the guy is thinking of going back on duty if/when he recovers.
Link 13: Officer on medical leave goes mental and barricades himself inside his house. Sorry, doesn�t apply.
Link 14: Off duty officer accidentally shoots himself in the hand at a party. Bad gun handling skills, not a civil rights violation.
So let�s count them up here�
Nine of your fourteen links have nothing to do with what you were talking about. Most are about officers being louts, jackasses and criminals. You have, if I remember rightly, eight (possibly nine) officers committing 2A or other civil rights violations.
Out of how many tens of thousands of officers from around the country? Did you know that their suicide rates are higher too? And sometimes they do it with their service weapons. We should disarm police officers RIGHT NOW!!
Oh wait, let me calm down for a moment.
I have fallen for your trick, Jason. You cherry picked news stories and gotten my underwear in a knot there for a second.
Do you know who also cherry picks stories, Jason? The Brady Foundation and the Violence Policy Center.
Is that what you�re left to resort to? Huh? How lame!
I�m going to tell you the same thing I tell them, except I am going to put the word �police officers� in the place of �armed citizen�.
Why don�t you go look through the news and find stories of officers saving kittens out of trees, police officers stopping armed robberies while off duty and, oh, I don�t know, how about police officers being killed in the line of duty to save the lives of others!
You really don�t know what you are talking about, do you? You just have a hatred of government officials that cannot be stopped, no matter how much you might be at fault.
You readily admit that your job isn�t as dangerous as that of a police officer. You also show that you have no bones about denying a fellow citizen their right to safety because of their chosen profession.
Sure, a person has to actively try to become a police officer. And that person would be ignorant to not know that the job is dangerous. But put yourself in their shoes for a second.
You pull a vehicle over, and after you get the drivers information and head back to your cruiser. The passenger starts digging around in the backseat and comes up with an object that you do not recognize, but could be a long metal object.
The vehicle registration comes back as odd/possibly stolen and now you have to go back up to that vehicle and try to sort this out.
What would you do?
You seem to think that the officer should have ESP and be able to tell that you are �a nice guy� and should just let you drive off. The trouble is, he still has your brother�s info in his hand and has to give it back before the driver can leave. And we still have that little issue of an unknown object in the hands of at least one of the occupants in the vehicle.
Now, do you get now why the cop was jumpy and asked you questions? Or are you so selfish as to think that you did nothing to make him worry about his safety?
The line about �rape, assault, and murder victims you see every night on TV� that you wrote don�t have to worry about it as a part of their employ. But if they want to, they can do what you do and I do, buy a weapon for protection and learn to use it. If their job restricts them from bringing it to work, they can always find a job that will.
Unless they�re convicted felons, or do you see them as being disarmed by the government as well?
Despite what you might think of their profession, police officers are human beings and DO have the same right to safety that you do. Not more, the same.
Or are you going to start denying others their civil rights based on their profession?
They do not have a right to knowledge of a firearm in your car, but as a courtesy, to put him at ease (and possibly get some of that juicy preferential treatment you speak of), your proper course of action would be, once again, inform him of the firearm, its status and location. If it is under the seat and unloaded, what exactly do you think you have to worry about?
The reason you tell an officer of the firearm and not the people at Wal-Mart or the gas station is because the officer is working in your environment (your car), whereas the gas station attendant and the Wal-Mart people have you in theirs. If the gas station attendant or the tire guy at Wal-Mart has a need to get in the cabin of my car (for reason that escape me right now), I take the firearm out with me. It really isn�t as difficult as you make it sound.
And that really was a very weak analogy, Jason.
And don�t be ignorant. You don�t put an unloaded weapon on the dash of the vehicle when you are pulled over. Again, to be courteous, all you have to do is leave it where it is and tell the officer where it is and its status. He may or may not ask to see it. He may or may not ask you out of the vehicle and the last thing you want to do is start reaching in that area.
You go on to accuse police officers of denying you and myself of our 2A rights by enforcing the CCW laws. Sorry pal, the courts have come down with that as law. Right or wrong, it is the current law. You don�t like, get up and try to change it.
If you believe that the �rights are flying out the window�, then get to fixing the problems you see, start running or start fighting. This �passive aggressive� crap you�re pulling against the state is pure chicken shit.
Jason, there is being prepared and being paranoid. When I go out and about, I prepare myself. I keep an eye open for locations for hard cover, in case the need arises, I keep an eye open for shady looking individuals, hell, I will wait for the tactically correct stall in the men�s room at the movie theater.
But I do not go out convinced that I am absolutely, positively going to have my civil rights violated by a member of the local constabulary.
That is paranoia. And you can keep any �just because I�m paranoid doesn�t mean they�re not out to get me� lines to yourself. I know what it means to have �them� out to get you.
I have weighed the possibility of having the government attempt to disarm me since the age of 10. My father owned his own gun shop and was active with local and regional gun rights groups.
When I turned 15, he half retired from his shop and started lobbying for the GOA and the CCRKBA regionally and then nationally. This pissed the feds off to no end, because he was very good.
The state and federal police agencies harassed him and us. I cannot count on both hands the number of times he had his vehicle searched on a trumped up traffic charge by a �plain clothes officer� who always turned out to be a stater or a fed and I am sure that a few of the vehicle searches I went through while in high school were due to who my father was.
We even had our house tossed once. It took me 2 days to get my bedroom back together after that one.
But guess what, we sued back each and every time and they stopped because they never found anything.
After Oklahoma City, a large number of the members of the rifle and pistol club I was associated with at the time got interviewed by the feds. Why? Because they were looking for white males who might like to get dressed up in camo and play soldier on the weekends.
That wasn�t us. We did once-a-month 3-Gun Combat Matches before the IDPA ever thought of it. We did a lot of metallic plates, bowling pins and things called �jungle walks�.
I refused to let them interview me in my apartment and met them at what I felt was a neutral location, though I am sure they had the restaurant wired for sound and covered with enough steel that I would have looked like Bonnie and Clyde�s car had I done something stupid.
The interview lasted 20 minutes and they bought my breakfast.
I seriously doubt that they ever knew about the large contingent of club members that had banded together and had surrounded the vicinity with enough firepower to make sure that any trigger happy agents would not have walked out of there either, unless they had air support waiting somewhere on the horizon.
We did this for each of the 27 people who were interviewed over a three week period.
You do not want to challenge me on my street cred in the fight to keep our 2A rights, nor do you want to tell me that I am not prepared to defend those rights with the barrel of my gun.
You should tell the folks at GOA and the CCRKBA what you think about open carry and police officers. Give them the same rant you put on your site. They�ll probably be very kind in telling you that while you should be right, you are very wrong.
Start going off and telling them how ready and �prepared� you are to shoot a police officer who is going to �take away your rights� and they�ll probably hang up on you.
The attitude towards law enforcement that you seem to exude is exactly what every gun grabbing asshole thinks is typical of every gun owner.
You can keep up with that attitude, but you can expect a lot of people, including fellow gun owners, to think you are paranoid and write long ass treatises on the subject.
I didn�t want to get into this the last time open carry was discussed at your site, but�.
If you are so sure that you are right about open carry, why not just get the question over with right now, today?
Go to a school and try to get in with your pistol on.
Go to the King County courthouse and try to get through the metal detectors with your pistol on. When the county security guy asks you to hand over your pistol so that he can secure it for the duration of your visit to the building, tell him to piss up a rope because it is your right to carry it. When he asks to see your permit, tell him you do not have one because you do not need one.
C�mon, Jason, if you think you�re right? Put up.
Otherwise, to quote James Brown, �you�re just talking loud, but ain�t saying nothing�
Posted by Nukevet at 04:23 PM | Comments (4)
December 01, 2004
Getting Closer Every Day
Allllllrighty then,
When: Saturday, Dec, 4th
Where: Wade's of Bellevue
Time: 1200 until whenever
If anyone would like to meet for some eats beforehand, let me know via the comments or e-mail.
Again, novices are absolutely welcome to join in the fun to be had. We will have enough firearms of our own for you to borrow, if need be, or Wade's has rentals for you to partake.
I would like to thank Mike of Sworn Enemy and Og the Neanderpundit for the links yesterday.
Posted by Nukevet at 03:35 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
Who Knew
That Pat Sajak could be so on point?
The leaner, meaner, no-holds-barred Pat Sajak....
Picture this:
Somewhere in the world, a filmmaker creates a short documentary that chronicles what he perceives as the excesses of anti-abortion activists. An anti-abortion zealot reacts to the film by killing the filmmaker in broad daylight and stabbing anti-abortion tracts onto his body. How does the Hollywood community react to this atrocity? Would there be angry protests? Candlelight vigils? Outraged letters and columns and articles? Awards named in honor of their fallen comrade? Demands for justice? Calls for protection of artistic freedom? It�s a pretty safe bet that there would be all of the above and much more. And all of the anger would be absolutely justified.
So I�m trying to understand the nearly universal lack of outrage coming from Hollywood over the brutal murder of Dutch director, Theo van Gogh, who was shot on the morning of November 2, while bicycling through the streets of Amsterdam. The killer then stabbed his chest with one knife and slit his throat with another.
Picture this,
Vanna White, in her prime, turning those letters, in a bhurka.
And all the phrases say "Allahu Akbar!"
That is how the islamofascists would like America.
Found @ The JunkYardBlog
Posted by Nukevet at 02:41 PM | Comments (1)
Reach out and touch someone
A U.S. Marine sniper waited patiently inside a one-story house deep within the city. Lying in the prone position for several hours, he scanned the area through his scope before he finally found the three insurgents responsible for two previous mortar attacks.
Sgt. Memo M. Sandoval, a platoon sergeant with Scout Sniper Platoon, Headquarters and Service Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, needed to positively identify the insurgents before he could take his shot.
Sandoval, 26, saw that one of the men was about to place a mortar in a mortar tube. He knew he had to make a well-aimed shot before the insurgent gunner launched the deadly round. Sandoval cleared his thoughts and slowed his breathing as he gently squeezed the trigger of his M-40A3 sniper rifle. The 7.62 mm round covered the 950 yards in a flash, slamming into the chest of the first insurgent.
"The battalion (executive officer) ordered me to 'make the mortars stop,'" said Sandoval, a native of El Paso, Texas. "I took it personally and went out specifically to stop the insurgents."
With two more insurgents still alive and ready to continue the mortar attack, Sandoval composed himself for the next shot at the assistant gunner. The last two shots took out the driver of the vehicle that carried the weapon.
"When I finally spotted them along a tree line, I realized how far they were but it was surprising how easy it was," said Sandoval.
Found @ Murdoc Online
Posted by Nukevet at 02:37 PM | Comments (4)
Watching them laugh, then cry
With the 3rd Circuit Court saying it is OK to ban military recuiters from the university campuses, even if they accept federal money, the left went wild with jubilation and made the correlation with the Boy Scouts decision, calling it "Kharmic Payback".
But the folks over at the Kos IMC found this little tidbit from Nathan Newman and spread it around and now they are starting to cry.
This is a massive and dangerous expansion of the principles underlying the Boy Scouts decision. In that earlier decision, it was held that the government could not force a completely private organization to accept as a leader a person who's public views were at odds with the organizational principles. It's not even clear that the Boy Scouts under that decision are allowed to exclude gays who keep their views quiet, so it could be a limited precedent. However, this Third Circuit decision is far more expansive. Not only can a university refuse to hire peoples whose views they disagree with, they can exclude them altogether from their physical property. And the government is REQUIRED to fund such exclusionary organizations.
By the logic of the case, if the Klu Klux Klan sets up a university to teach hate speech, they would be within their organizational free speech rights to exclude blacks and the government would be required to fully fund that university in the same way as all other colleges.
Not the best analogy, in my mind. I mean, what degrees can you earn at KKKU besides woodshop, knot-tying and 200 Ways to use the word Ni**er? Plus who the hell would hire anyone who attended?
What I think he is trying to point to is something along the lines of how scared the left is about Bush's Christian roots and the possibility of places like Bob Jones University getting federal funds in the future.
He could have just come right out and said it, but that would have probably been too scary for their side.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:22 PM | Comments (0)
And the Dems wonder
Why half the state wants Dino Rossi as Governor.
The growth rate of small businesses in Washington state trails the national growth rate, according to figures released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Nationally, the number of businesses with one or more owners but no paid employees grew at a 3.9 percent rate from 2001 to 2002; in Washington, the growth rate was 2.5 percent.
Two words and a hyphen.
Over-regulation
Also known as 'not business friendly'.
Under the Dems, Boeing has moved its headquarters out of state, Washington was in the top 5 states in unemployment for a couple years and the tax base has been leaving.
Which is probably why 20% of Dems voted for Dino.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:15 PM | Comments (0)
So good, I have to steal it
A terror-supporting *sshole holding a poster of a terror-supporting *sshole holding a poster of a terror-supporting *sshole!
Its funny because its true!
Posted by Nukevet at 02:12 PM | Comments (0)
A Day Late
But a dollar richer.
In case you, like me, forgot that yesterday was the fifth anniversary of the WTO Riots, don't worry, you only missed another group of insipid war protesters trying keep their spirits up by protesting the war in Iraq. Again.
And it looks like I wasn't the only one who forgot about the anniversary.
In other news, hippies smell and there are only 24 shopping days until Christmas.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:04 PM | Comments (0)