Mishmash of Miscellanea

Happy Holidays

2011-12-24T11:17:00.002-05:00

And that means Merry Christmas AND a Happy New Year and Feliz Navidad :)

Amrican Czars...who thought it was a good idea to copy the Russians?

2011-10-21T11:57:00.001-04:00

Stunning !

There are very few of us who know just what all of Obama's Czars do, as

they quietly go about their "work" in the nation's capital. Now this listing of

their names and job descriptions should be educational to all Americans, no

matter what your political leaning. If you resent the existence of these

extra-governmental "officials", with their very generous salaries funded by,

you guessed it, you the taxpayer, then get angry with the one who put

these characters on the payroll.

OBAMA'S "CZARS"

See who they are and realize what they want to do:

Richard Holbrooke

AfghanistanCzar

Ultra liberal anti gun former Gov. Of New Mexico.Pro Abortion and legal drug use.Dissolve the 2nd Amendment

Ed Montgomery

Auto recovery Czar

Black radical anti business activist. Affirmative Action and Job Preference for blacks. Univ of Maryland Business School Dean teaches US business has caused world poverty. ACORN board member. Communist DuBois Club member.

Jeffrey Crowley

AIDS Czar

Radical Homosexual.. A Gay Rights activist. Believes in Gay Marriage and especially, a Special Status for homosexuals only, including complete free health care for gays.

Alan Bersin

Border Czar

The former failed superintendent of San Diego . Ultra Liberal friend of Hilary Clinton. Served as Border Czar under Janet Reno - to keep borders open to illegalswithout interference from US

David J. Hayes

California Water Czar

Sr. Fellow of radical environmentalist group, "Progress Policy". No training or experience in water management whatsoever.

Ron Bloom

Car Czar

Auto Union worker.Anti business & anti nuclear. Has worked hard to force US auto makers out of business. Sits on the Board of Chrysler which is now Auto Union owned. How did this happen?

Dennis Ross

Central Region Czar

Believes US policy has caused Mid East wars. Obama apologist to the world. Anti gun and completely pro abortion.

Lynn Rosenthal

Domestic Violence Czar

Director of the National Network to End Domestic Violence. Vicious anti male feminist. Supported male castration.Imagine?

Gil Kerlikowske

Drug Czar

devoted lobbyist for every restrictive gun law proposal, Former Chief of Police in Liberal Seattle. Believes no American should own a firearm. Supports legalization of all drugs

Paul Volcker

Economic Czar

Head of Fed Reserve under Jimmy Carter when US economy nearly failed. Obama appointed head of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board which engineered the Obama economic disaster to US economy. Member of anti business "Progressive Policy" organization

Carol Browner

Energy and Environment Czar

Political Radical Former head of EPA - known for anti-business activism. Strong anti-gun ownership.

Joshua DuBois

Faith-Based Czar

Political Black activist-Degree in Black Nationalism. Anti gun ownership lobbyist.WHAT THE HELL DOES A FAITH BASED CZAR DO???????????

Cameron Davis

Great LakesCzar

Chicago radical anti business environmentalist. Blames George Bush for "Poisoning the water that minorities have to drink." No experience or training in water management. Former ACORN Board member (what does that tell us?)

Van Jones

Green Jobs Czar

(since resigned).. Black activist Member of American communist Party and San Francisco Communist Party who said Geo Bush caused the 911 attack and wanted Bush investigated by the World Court for war crimes. Black activist with strong anti-white views.

Daniel Fried

Guantanamo Closure Czar

Human Rights activist for Foreign Terrorists. Believes America has caused the war on terrorism. Believes terrorists have rights above and beyond Americans.

Nancy-Ann DeParle.

Health Czar

Former head of Medicare / Medicaid. Strong Health Care Rationing proponent. She is married to a reporter for The New York Times.

Vivek Kundra

Information Czar

Born in New Delhi , India . Controls all public information, including labels and news releases. Monitors all private Internet emails. (hello?)

Todd Stern

International Climate Czar

Anti business former White House chief of Staff- Strong supportrer of the Kyoto Accord. Pushing hard for Cap and Trade. Blames US business for Global warming. Anti- US business prosperity.

Dennis Blair

Intelligence Czar

Ret. Navy. Stopped US guided missile program as "provocative". Chair of ultra liberal "Council on Foreign Relations" which blames American organizations for regional wars.

George Mitchell

Mideast Peace Czar

Fmr. Sen from Maine Left wing radical. Has said Israel should be split up into "2 or 3 " smaller more manageable plots".(God forbid) A true Anti-nuclear anti-gun & pro homosexual "special rights" advocate

Kenneth Feinberg

Pay Czar

Chief of Staff to TED KENNEDY. Lawyer who got rich off the 911 victims payoffs.(horribly true)

Cass Sunstein

Regulatory Czar

Liberal activist judge believes free speech needs to be limited for the "common good". Essentially against 1st amendment. Rules against personal freedoms many times -like private gun ownership and right to free speech.This guy has to be run out of Washington!!

John Holdren

Science Czar

Fierce ideological environmentalist, Sierra Club, Anti business activist.Claims US business has caused world poverty. No Science training.

Earl Devaney

Stimulus Accountability Czar

Spent career trying to take guns away from American citizens. Believes in Open Borders to Mexico. Author of statement blaming US gun stores for drug war in Mexico .

J. Scott Gration

Sudan Czar

Native of Democratic Republic of Congo . Believes US does little to help Third World countries. Council of foreign relations, asking for higher US taxes to support United Nations

Herb Allison

TARP Czar

Fannie Mae CEO responsible for the US recession by using real estate mortgages to back up the US stock market. Caused millions of people to lose their life savings.

John Brennan

Terrorism Czar

Anti CIA activist. No training in diplomatic or gov. affairs. Believes Open Borders to Mexico and a dialog with terrorists and has suggested Obama disband US military A TOTAL MORON!!!!!

Aneesh Chopra

Technology Czar

No Technology training. Worked for the Advisory Board Company, a health care think tank for hospitals. Anti doctor activist. Supports Obama Health care Rationing and salaried doctors working exclusively for the Gov. health care plan

Adolfo Carrion Jr.

Urban Affairs Czar

Puerto Rico born Anti-American activist and leftist group member in Latin America . Millionaire "slum lord" of the Bronx , NY. Owns many lavish homes and condos which he got from "sweetheart" deals with labor unions. Wants higher taxes on middle class to pay for minority housing and health care

Ashton Carter

Weapons Czar

Leftist. Wants all private weapons in US destroyed. Supports UN ban on firearms ownership in America.. No Other "policy"

Gary Samore

WMD Policy Czar

Former US Communist. Wants US to destroy all WMD unilaterally as a show of good faith. Has no other "policy".for the Gov. health care plan

Adolfo Carrion Jr.

Urban Affairs Czar

Ashton Carter

Weapons Czar

Leftist. Wants all private weapons in US destroyed. Supports UN ban on firearms ownership in America.. No Other "policy"

Gary Samore

WMD Policy Czar

Former US Communist. Wants US to destroy all WMD unilaterally as a show of good faith. Has no other "policy".

Terra Nova Take Two

2011-10-05T08:55:00.004-04:00

Well, it would be unfair to judge the series by a single 2 hour episode, so we watched another episode last night.

There was no improvement in the writing or characters to be noticed :(
Issues were many and diverse.

1. Ineffectual father figure once again proved incompetent at daily life, being incapable of fixing a meal for his children and being unable to prepare them for bed, getting them bated and tucked in, having to wait instead for his uber competent wife to get home from a long day at work to do these simple chores that were beyond his abilities.

2. We have the wussy disarmed citizen pioneers unable to protect themselves from a flock of bird like creatures that turn nasty...seeing as no one has even a shotgun for protection.

3. We had the Econut Scientist pointing out that in nature animals never attack unless provoked and implying that the people who were going about their lives had in some way brought on the attacks from the bird like creatures.

4. Once again we see the Children being far more competent and skilled than the trained military personnel. The Military person is quickly knocked unconcious by one of the birdlike creatures leaving the children to save his bacon and the day by expertly handling the situation and even equipping and utilizing his weapon more capably and ably than the trained soldier could.

5, Humans once again turned out to be at fault and to blame as they had built their settlement on the bird things spawning grounds. The colony being unable to fend off flocks of birds turn to the econut scientist who in a matter of hours whips up 50 gallons/liters of the bird things pheromones which is used to lure the birds somewhere else to mate.

6. We find a crippled legless man pandering his wares on the street of the commune where all ones basic needs are provided free of charge to learn that there is in fact a currency in use after all and somehow he has accumulated quite stock pile of items to sell.

It is quite clear that the writing staff and creators have zero knowledge about real world pioneering, wilderness, animals or colonizing a wilderness. We see Hollywood emasculation of the men and the lionization of the women and children. This colony deserves to fail and fail big time.

Note, I am not saying Women cannot be uber capable, I actually know someone who reminds me of Friday in the Heinlein Novel of the same name. The sad thing about this is that Hollywood can't seem to write strong female characters without doing so at the expense of the males. Compare this show to Firefly or StarGate SG1 and you see it is a very sad attempt at an exciting show.

I hate Terra Nova

2011-09-28T16:49:00.002-04:00

A show that is quite possibly the laziest, vapid, pandering ignorant writing of all time.

We had all the formulaic players, wussified father figure who lets his children and wife push him around and order him about while he ineffectually just takes it. The angsty teen boy who ignores authority and cannot be told anything, not one but TWO extremely competent highly intelligent beautiful teen age girls who know more than everyone around them and are wise beyond their years, the imbecilic baby who manages to wander off to feed the dinosaurs, the hyper intelligent female doctor who orders her hubby around and is the final word on any decision making even when it comes to the base commander.....an isolated colony with limited resources and power where groups of teens have all the free daylight time to steal one of the colony's highly valuable irreplaceable vehicles to go out to make moonshine amongst the dinosaurs. The colonists are all disarmed patsys with a small military force to protect them with guns that fire bullets that wont even pierce the skin of an animal (dinosaur), an ultra macho uber black woman who commands a break away village while everyone wastes vast quantities of resources, man power and energy on a continuing basis, a tough as nails bad ass base commander that lets a teenage girl off the hook, for participating in activities that got several people killed or maimed and required squandering enough ammunition to fight a small war.

Then there is the whole socialist commune life style which if anyone looked at history would realize that running such a colony in an isolated primitive society is always doomed to failure.
It is as if there is a scripted formula for this kind of garbage where the stereotype check boxes had to be marked off, the only stereotype that I did not see represented in this first 2 hour steaming pile was an openly gay person or gay couple with adopted kids

Remember

2011-09-11T12:13:00.002-04:00

Not the politics, not the rhetoric and not the islamic excuses. Remember those who died just going about their lives, remember the heroes and the bravery. Remember the words "Lets Roll".

I got this from Brigid, and she got it from Frank Herbert

2011-09-02T10:12:00.002-04:00

"Most civilization is based on cowardice. It's so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. You restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame."

Victor Davis Hanson Greatness

2011-07-01T15:28:00.002-04:00

This Fourth of July, what remains is the Founders’ vision of a limited government; the idea of a population united by common values, themes, and ideas; a republican form of checks-and-balances government to prevent demagoguery, factions, and tyranny of the majority; the sanctity and autonomy of the nation-state; and individual freedom and liberty as protected through the Bill of Rights. Everything after and against that has proved a failure.

Indeed, what makes this Fourth different from recent celebrations is the ongoing repudiation of almost everything antithetical to the Founders’ views — the redistributive, all-powerful welfare state, the therapeutic arrogance that believes human nature can be altered by an omnipotent well-meaning government, the postmodern notion that nationhood and borders are passé, and the utopian idea that war can be declared obsolete and the need for defense transcended. From Greece to California such dreams are dead.

The European Union is unwinding for two very simple reasons. First, it is not a constitutional state, but a loose conglomeration of nations run by elites who are not responsible to the people. For decades the undemocratic nature of rule from Brussels was masked by politically correct edicts on everything from global warming to anti-Americanism. But as the money runs out, the elites’ fraud becomes impossible to hide.

For the whole thing go Here!

People one admires.

2011-06-24T15:05:00.003-04:00

Every once in a while you get to meet or talk to someone you look up to and admire. When you do make personal contact you find out that what you thought you knew about the person was only a fraction of what was really there....some times that is a good thing and some times that is a bad thing.

Today I got to talk to a lady I have admired for a long time now...it was a fantastic chat, and a real pleasure and honor. Even our heroes and role models have to deal with the ups and downs of life but this lady manages in an exceptional manner and Im really glad I had the opportunity to connect with her.

To that lady I say, thank you for letting me in and having the chance to talk.

Not too shabby for 4 months of operations.

2011-06-15T09:06:00.002-04:00

Memorial Day

2011-05-30T11:45:00.001-04:00

No Flashy Graphics, no dazzling prose, just a moment of silence and a day of remembrance.

Snapshot of todays Solar Panel Performance.

2011-05-21T11:29:00.002-04:00

A friend was asking about the array so I thought Id post what it looks like this sunny morning.

Not Like a Ponzi Scheme?

2011-05-02T12:01:00.002-04:00

Well this explains it all :P

Bin Laden Dead 4/2011

2011-05-01T23:55:00.000-04:00

Ding Dong the Witch is dead. Osama Bin Laden is dead. Watched President Barak Hussein Obama's speech. It was a decent speech however if Im honest with myself I feel he used the words "I, Me and My" way too often. Other than that it was good. To my brothers and sisters in arms those in the Intelligence services CIA, NSA and DIA and the Fantastic folks in the Special Operations Forces...Job Well Done!.....

This explains why Anti-Gun laws are Fundamentally wrong.

2011-04-16T11:09:00.001-04:00

From Brigid's Home on the Range

My New Favorite political cartoon site

2011-03-02T09:45:00.002-05:00

Battlefield315

Solar Panel Project

2011-01-10T16:29:00.009-05:00

The panels are completely installed. 39 Panels at 235watts each, here are the pictures.

Now we have to wait for the State Inspectors to come round and give their blessing, and for the Power Company to replace our meter with a new Netmeter so we can sell power back to them

The Specs

2011-01-05T19:45:00.003-05:00

Processor: Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 980X 3.33GHz (Six-Core) (Extreme Performance)
Motherboard: ASUS Rampage III Extreme (Intel X58 Chipset)
System Memory: 12GB DDR3 1600MHz Corsair Dominator GT with DHX (3x4GB Sticks)
Power Supply: 1200W Corsair Pro Gold Series (CMPSU-1200AX)
Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (160GB Solid State (By: Intel)
Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: 1x (600GB Western Digital VelociRaptor
Hard Drive Set 3: Backup\Misc.: 2x (2TB Western Digital )
Optical Drive 1: DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 24x / CD-Writer 48x)
Video Card(s): 2x SLI Dual (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 1.5GB)
Sound Card: Creative Labs X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional (PCI-Express Slot Based)
Extreme Cooling: Sub-Zero CPU Liquid Chilled System & Chipset + Dual Video Cards Liquid Cooling
H20 Tube Color: Red Tubing with High-Performance Fluid (UV Lighting Reactive)
Chassis Airflow: Standard Factory Chassis Fans
Internal Lighting: Internal Chassis Lighting System (UV)
CPU Boost: Stage 3: Overclock the processor between 4.2GHz to 4.6GHz
Memory Boost: Memory Fan Kit Only (Does not include memory overclocking service)
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-Bit Edition)

Highest temp under load was 45 degrees.....

The Beast

2011-01-05T19:36:00.003-05:00

Custom built with custom cooling using TEC's or thermoelectric cooling to chill liquid to below 0 degree C.

Front:

Side:

Merry Christmas Everyone

2010-12-25T00:00:00.001-05:00

I hope everyone can spend the day with family and/or Loved ones. Peace on Earth. Good will toward all.

Enjoy these lovely Celtic Ladies singing some awesome Christmas carols.

Oh Holy Night

2010-12-24T18:00:00.000-05:00

Celtic Women with the sound of angels in their voices.

The Odessy begins (Digital Stom Online)

2010-12-23T18:00:00.003-05:00

The following is a fanciful log of the process to order my Digital Storm computer, something to entertain the Forum members and myself while I waited for this custom computer beast to be assembled. This process took quite a while as it was to utilize a brand new never sold before Liquid Chilled cooling system for the CPU which allowed the system to Overclock to 4.6GHz while maintaining very cool hardware temperatures to prevent thermal degradation.

These are the Continuing logs of the MagiK expedition into the uncharted realms of the DSO TEC Liquid Chilled Computer Systems.

11/16 Day 1 Great news, the expedition is fully funded and paid for, Stage 1

11/17 Day 2 The expedition mad eit through the first two stages and into the third today. Everyone is excited. All indications are that we might achieve our goal by the beginning of December. Stage 3

11/23 Day 7 Spirits are high and excitement is still running through the camp though in the background a very minor whisper of delays are in effect....we are still in the early phases of Stage 3.

11/30 Day 14 The excitement has worn off, though the expedition is still in good spirits. One expects some minor delays when venturing into the uncharted realms of super cooled liquid cooling systems. No contact has been received from the Builders of the new system, Expedition is still listed as being in the early phases of stage 3.

12/8 Day 22 The excitement and buzz is pretty much gone now, the crew is still looking forward to the expedition, but it has become routine now. A few members murmur of the possibility of not making the Christmas Deadline but I the captain remain hopeful that DSO will deliver the goods before 12/24. The expedition is still listed as being in the early phases of Stage 3.

12/15 Day 29 Oh my god, they killed Timmy!!!!! The bastards! In the middle of the night the camp was raided by Digital Stealth Ninja Penguins....the carnage was indescribable...they stormed in and went straight for poor Timmy, Timmys pet Collie came to me and told me Timmy had fallen down a well, but by the time I realized what was really going on the the DSNP had dragged Timmy out of camp to feed . No biggie though no one really liked Timmy anyway not even his dog, which explains why the dog was telling me he had fallen down a well.....any way I digress. Timmy's lack of popularity explains why the Penguins were not molested in any way in their forray into camp. On other Expedition news fronts. No reported movement on the Stage 3 issue.....we are still officially stuck waiting for stage 4 to be implemented. There were some changes to my configuration suggested to DSO that were made to prevent more delays and I received assurances that this expedition would see fruition by Christmas day.

12/17 Day 31 During a routine air drop of supplies, a pair of the Ditial Stealth Nija Attack Penguins launched a third penguin into the low flying planes engine intake...while the spray out the back of the engine was very pretty a nice shade of crimson spread agross the snow below, this caused the Digital Storm Supply plane to crash...on the up side we found a bit of paper stuck to the fusalage near the sewage port of the plane.....Apparnetly our Expedition has reached STAGE 4!

12/20 Day 34 Snow and Ice, arctic temperatures and persistant raids by savage wild penguins has really bogged the crew down. Our supply tent was stolen by a rare giant Antarctic Polar bear, we last
saw it being hauled away by two Killer whales that the Giant Polar Bear had harnesed and was using like
self powered water ski's. There have been rumors that the Expeditions water supply may have been contaminated with hallucinogens but I find these rumors highly unlikely. This evenings sing alog was topped off by a broadcast from the DSO home office. The Expedition has reached Stage 5.

12/22 Day 36: Freak blizzards and massive snow storms have struck our supply line, All hopes of resupply by 12/24 had been scuttled. Crew and assorted attack Penguins are engaged in skirmishes
around the camp, Flames everywhere, it appears the expedition is sunk.....but wait....a brilliant light has
pierced the snow filled winds, and is driving back the attack penguins....what is going on.....A white robed
figure riding a white horse appeared and has parted the clouds with his shimmering staff, the suns rays come down and bathe the crew in warmth and send the attack penguins running in fear. The rider looks around, nods to himself and then rides off....I see a name tag on his back, it reads "Alex" As he is about to disappear he gestures and I hear is voice in my ear as if he were standing right next to me. He said
"We will over night it at our expense tomorrow, for you are at STAGE 7!!!"

I have to comment that the cost of overnighting this huge thing is no trivial cost it is many hundreds of dollars. But it is the dedication of the DSO team that they want to keep their word that this system makes it to me by 12/24/10

A new Venture...an Expedition you might say

2010-12-23T12:47:00.004-05:00

A large part of my life and my total income are derived from sitting at a desk working on a cheap company laptop. I decided some time ago that if such a large part of my time and the earning of my income is to come from a computer I was going to have the best for a change. So I undertook a years long research project to identify the Company I wanted to put my hard earned cash into, to make my "dream" machine.

Any computer is just a part of the equation, the ergonomics of the environment have a large impact as well. The desk must be spacious, the lighting good, the room spacious and most important of all, the CHAIR must be of the best quality. Fortunately for me My other half gave me the greatest gift ever, a top end Herman Miller Aeron office chair for my Birthday some time ago...this chair is fabulous and I can't thank her enough for it. My butt has to be in this thing up to 1/3 of my time or more every week. I cannot imagine a better computer/office chair.

Over the last couple of years I investigated any number of designer computer companies, each having its own special niche. For some it was custom paint jobs, some had custom crafting in the chassis, some used proprietary parts and methods.
Eventually I settled on Digital Storm Online as the company that would be getting up to $10,000 of my cold hard cash. I chose Digital Storm Online for several reasons. They had the usual assortment of High End equipment available for their builds and they have a wide array of choices available to choose from on the web site. More importantly than the "usual" things they offered, I found a fun community there on the company forums with a number of new and long time advocates of the Hobbyist and Computer Enthusiast. Names like !ender, Dragoonseal, DST4ME, Justin.Kerr and Venom and many others are constantly there to help new buyers navigate the traps and pitfalls encountered when undertaking to make a cost effective best bang per buck system. The thing that struck me about these forum members was that they did not care if they were advancing Digital Storm's agenda if they thought a mistake was being made they spoke up and DSO listened to them (more on that later). The large population of first time buyers and repeat buyers with this steady crew of knowledgeable people helps DSO give their customers the best chance of being totally satisfied with their final purchase decision.

One suggestion I would make that is of some serious consequence is that the forum lacks a private message function that would allow people to settle their differences of opinion in private, as it is set up now the various egos involved in a difference of opinion are forced to hash it out in public sometimes derailing the Original Posters request for information.

To sum it up, Digital Storm's reputation with the BBB, and the comments from past customers and DSO's beyond peer dedication to customer service and the dedicated band of people on the forums is why I chose DSO for my experiment into HIGH end custom computer purchasing.

In coming posts I will include pictures and some of the inside story about my quest to get my dream machine.

Happens every time

2010-12-10T09:26:00.002-05:00

Every time they hold one of these global climate summits the area the meeting takes place in experiences record low temperatures.....quite a coincidence :D

Cancun 100 year low temp.

Seriously people, Man does not drive the climate, never has and probably never will be able to.

Giving Thanks

2010-11-25T11:50:00.003-05:00

Hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving.

Im not going to make a long post detailing my reasons for giving thanks.
Im just going to go enjoy the company of friends and family and hope everyone else gets to do the same.

I just keep coming back to this.

2010-09-16T19:00:00.003-04:00

I love this song:

The man, and his Administration

2010-08-27T12:53:00.004-04:00

Have absolutely no respect for our honored dead. They disgrace the memory of the Dead at ground Zero by supporting the building of a monument to the attackers and their supporters.

And now they halt the prosecution of one of the men responsible for the deaths of the Men on the USS Cole. You can read about this corrupt soulless governments actions here.

Luddites at the Washington Post

2010-07-12T12:43:00.003-04:00

Are calling for us to ban Air Conditioning for private everyday use.
Citing a range of dubious facts and speculating that 50 years ago we didn't need it and got along just fine. There are many reasons why I think this guy is a moron, but hey, if DC bans AC more power to them. Just another reason Not to live in the Socialist center of the USA.

I'll keep my central air and enjoy the perks of living in the land of the free and home of those who realize you don't have any reason to live in the Stone Age.

Story is here:

Never thought I would ever link to the Daily KOS

2010-07-12T08:30:00.004-04:00

But this article on the 2nd Amendment seem to prove that someone over there actually "GETS" it.
Normally I would nitpick that Liberals do not support the Constitution and tend to want to ignore it, but for the sake of this article Ill skip that discussion and leave it for another day.

Article on why Liberals should love the second amendment.

The great Chicago Shoot Out

2010-06-21T17:36:00.002-04:00

8 Dead out of 52 shot in Chicago

Soooo how are those Zero Tolerance no Guns Allowed laws working out for you?

Russia...the New Capitalists

2010-06-19T12:02:00.004-04:00

“Russia needs a real investment boom”, in order to achieve its modernisation goals, he said. To stimulate that, Mr Medvedev announced Moscow would introduce zero taxation on capital gains for companies working on long-term investments starting from January next year and said Russia was improving the legal system to provide better protection for businesses against the long arm of bureaucracy.

He added Russia had already simplified migration procedures to help attract “highly-qualified specialists” working in investment and high-tech sectors into the country.

Responding to criticism that Russia’s approach to building an innovation economy was driven from the top down and state interference could hinder development, Mr Medvedev said the state would concentrate its efforts on fostering a good business climate. “No matter how many state-owned companies we have, modernization will happen, above all, through private business. And only if there is competition,” he said. “The state should not tear down the apples from the tree of economics. What the government should do is help grow our apple orchard, develop our economic environment.”

Seems to me that that sounds an awful lot like Capitalism...minimal government intrusion, zero capital gains taxes....cutting taxes to increase investment and spending...hmmm where have I heard that?

The article can be found here:

Everyone needs to read Home on the Range

2010-06-19T11:51:00.004-04:00

Find her Brigid's writings here for the rest of this work:

The Right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. The phrase, penned by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence and written 11 years before the U.S. Constitution was adopted, is said to have been influenced by the writings of John Locke, who expressed a similar concept of life, liberty and estate (property) in his work.

What is a Right? It's a principal that defines and sanctions a man's freedom of action within a social framework. There are many rights, but the one true right is the right to life, not in the context of the right to be born, but a man's right to his own life.
What is liberty? Again, I think Jefferson was somewhat influenced by the words of John Locke, who said in The Second Treatise of Civil Government (1690) -

The natural liberty of man is to be free from
any superior power on earth, and not to be under
the will or legislative authority of man,
but to have only the law of nature for his rule...
freedom of men under government is, to have
a standing rule to live by, common to every one
of that society...
and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown,
arbitrary will of another man....

Life and liberty as integral parts to a whole. He goes on to say:

This freedom from absolute, arbitrary power,
is so necessary to, and closely joined with a man’s preservation,
that he cannot part with it,
but by what forfeits his preservation and life together:
for a man, not having the power of his own life,
cannot, by compact, or his own consent,
enslave himself to any one....

A very provocative article

2010-06-11T15:44:00.002-04:00

What is wrong with the President? One Shrink takes a stab at the analysis here

Correction

2010-06-11T11:28:00.001-04:00

Apparently my graph understates the problem....but you can hardly fault people for using the data the government provides.....I didnt expect them to lowball the estimates by an order of magnitude :P My bad, I should know by now, NEVER ever under any circumstances believe anything coming from Barry or his staff :/

Do not believe the hype and hysteria

2010-06-02T08:57:00.002-04:00

Oil spills in perspective. (source was the Limbaugh Web site.)

Outraged? Livid? I don't have the words

2010-05-29T12:27:00.001-04:00

New York has approved plans to build a Mosque on the site of the Twin Towers set to open on 9/11/2011 Im left speechless at this...this...atrocity. I mourn for our Nation.

Some things are just too important to be forgotten

2010-05-20T08:10:00.002-04:00

I really believe that the source of many of our problems is that we have stopped teaching real history. Many elementary and High Schools don't teach history at all, and those that do only at a superficial level. Our elected leaders also seem woefully ignorant on the truths of our past, of our founding principals and of the lessons learned from bitter struggles, trial and error and the shedding of blood sweat and tears. Which is why I urge everyone to read this Lady's post
on the Wild West

Everyman a Rifleman

2010-05-11T13:09:00.005-04:00

The mood struck me so Im writing about our civic duties. The founders of the United States all believed in a citizens duty to bear and use arms. Not just to hunt food, or target practice, but to ensure equality among all men, to protect and defend your own.

Somehow over the decades the idea that one should protect oneself has become contorted into a "You must retreat and give up your home and goods" not stand and protect your family and property and possibly kill evil doers. Somehow it has become evil, to stand against "The poor unfortunates" that wants to forcibly take your property and / or lives.

Some liberals argue the Founders didn't know that Weaponry would become automatic or semi-automatic and more lethal than that possessed in the 1770's. These people are ignoring the words that were spoken and written by the founders, they clearly wanted Men (and women) to be armed sufficiently to not only fend off the wild hoards of groundhogs and pheasents in this Nation, but even GOVERNMENT troops if the need should rise.

Arming oneself is a duty and an obligation. Anyone worthy of being called a Man or Woman should own and know how to use a firearm. Abdicating your safety and protection to a slow to react police force is unwise at Best. The police are there not to protect YOU in a dangerous situation, but to clean up the mess and protect those others who survive the immediate danger..to contain the threat from society at large.

It is our duty to own and know how to use the best arms available to us. It always has been, despite what the Hoplophobes, Hollywood sissies and Washington Weenies want us to think.
So lets all do our duty and go out there and buy more guns, lets go to the range and hone our skills. It is the least we should do to be real men and women and not little children for the nanny State to take care of.

Ok, Im left without a response.

2010-04-05T16:46:00.002-04:00

So umm how does one have a rational discussion about Obama's Health Care law...when the opposing party insists "It is a good thing that the Democrats passed the 2700 page bill without reading it, it allows us to make progress." I mean...what can you say to insane irresponsibility like that? Im left with nothing to say but walk away and wonder if post birth abortion should be included in the Health Care bill....

Obama says "The People" support

2010-03-26T11:16:00.003-04:00

His Health Care take over...the polls seem to indicate that at best he has significantly less than half of the peoples support.

CNN: 39 percent.

CBS News: 42 percent.

Rasmussen: 41 percent.

Fox News: 35 percent.

Economist/YouGov: 48 percent.

Kaiser/PSRA: 46 percent.

NBC/WSJ: 36 percent.

Pew Research Center: 38 percent.

Obama displays lack of class AGAIN

2010-03-26T10:35:00.001-04:00

For a head of government to visit the White House and not pose for photographers is rare. For a key ally to be left to his own devices while the President withdraws to have dinner in private was, until this week, unheard of. Yet that is how Binyamin Netanyahu was treated by President Obama on Tuesday night, according to Israeli reports on a trip viewed in Jerusalem as a humiliation.

After failing to extract a written promise of concessions on settlements, Mr Obama walked out of his meeting with Mr Netanyahu but invited him to stay at the White House, consult with advisers and “let me know if there is anything new”, a US congressman, who spoke to the Prime Minister, said.

The Source:

Administrations Banking Scandal

2010-03-26T08:34:00.002-04:00

Obama is telling banks that they cannot foreclose on the jobless, and the banks are only too eager to comply...of course they are being strong armed but there's another little secret Banks are carrying hundreds of billions of dollars of debt declaring this debt "interest accruing asset". These "Assets" are homes that people are living in, and who have stopped paying their mortgage payments on. These people are spending the money that they should be paying on their mortgage on other things, some necessary some very frivelous like nice cars and plasma TV's. These people have no interest in or motivation to ever pay their mortgage and the Administration is OK with this because that money they are spending is artificially inflating the economic reports....once again our government is encouraging people and banks to rob Peter to pay Paul. Just as they are doing with health care, stealing from our childrens children to wrest control from the people to the ruling elite. The banks will never recover the money owed on those homes, and will eventually have to settle for pennies on the dollar. There is another crash coming and it is when these invented "Assets".

On a side note, Government Motors is SO confident in the value of their products that for the first time in my life it costs more to lease a Car than it does to finance and pay for it out right. You see a Lease is designed to allow you to pay only for the amount of use you get from the vehicle then turn it in and the company then resells it making even more profit.....unfortunately GM is not confident that they can turn a profit if they have to take back a leased vehicle.... Makes one understand why Government is the worst way to run a business.

Green Zone: Movie Review

2010-03-10T08:54:00.006-05:00

My lovely other half scored us a pair of free passes to a pre-screening of this Mat Damon movie, I liked the Bourne movies so figured what the heck...even if it was 35 miles away.

Overall if you just payed attention to the action is was an ok movie, definitely worth the price we paid for it. However while Hollywood didnt go too far out of its way to make the Regular Army look too bad, the only people depicted with any real honor were a single soldier, an old CIA operative and a woman reporter. The rest of the army were depicted with various subtle acts of savage treatment of peaceful well meaning Iraqi civilians who were only trying to help....or innocently standing around. Special Forces members however are depicted as unthinking amoral assassins that did the bidding of a civilian political appointee.

In the end this movie takes a handful of real events then ties it all together with a complete work of fiction to promote the message that Bush lied and that WMD were never actually an issue. It also promoted the idea that no other reason was involved in the second Iraqi war.

The movie ignores the little details like the Kurds in Norther Iraq who had WMD Chemical weapons used on them in the 1990s, and the fact that it was generally accepted by most western powers that there were WMD in Iraq and that there were Other reasons to go to war AND that Democrats in congress authorized the war......pretty lopsided story really.

Summation: If you are a hardcore lefty, you will like this. If you are a conspiracy nut who believes GWB manufactured the whole WMD issue out of nothing, this is a movie for you. If on the other hand you think that our Military is basically honorable, and that Special Forces units are more than lap dog assassins that work for political flunkies then skip the movie.

There was plenty to dislike about the Bush Administration, Hollywood doesn't need to manufacture fake issues.

I don't understand

2010-02-28T09:32:00.002-05:00

Why adult human beings would look to government to provide for them, instead of working to provide for themselves. They don't seem to realize just how much the Government takes away from them. This is by design though, it is why people are not taxed directly but instead have their wages garnished by stealth at the employer level before the worker ever sees what is being taken from them. Do away with the employer middle man as tax collector and instead, give the worker his whole earned due, and make him responsible for paying his own tax debt and the fondue would hit the fan then.

Americans of this time have grown fat and lazy and rather than take responsibility for their actions and their lack of prudent planning. No too many of them would rather empower a Nanny government to take care of them and to give up their rights to do so.

This is the kind of asshat politician that needs

2010-02-17T07:30:00.003-05:00

drummed out of office, it is NOT their town hall for us, it is OUR town hall for him, we allow him to serve us, and he had better run his district the way his constituents tell him to. These butt heads have forgotten that they work for us, not the other way around.

My town hall?

These are the people who are supposed to....

2010-02-16T15:51:00.002-05:00

Run Government Health Care, 2/3 of the US auto industry and the Banking system....

--More than 10,000 census employees were paid more than $300 apiece to attend training for the massive address-canvassing effort, but they quit or were let go before they could perform any work. Cost: $3 million.

--Another 5,000 employees collected $300 for the same training but worked a single day or less. Cost $1.5 million.

--Twenty-three temporary census employees were paid for car mileage at 55 cents a mile, even though the number of miles they reported driving per hour exceeded the number of hours they actually worked.

--Another 581 employees who spent the majority of their time driving instead of conducting field work also received full mileage reimbursements, which investigators called questionable.

From a soon to be released Audit of the Census Beaureau

Snow.

2010-02-07T09:15:00.002-05:00

Well, we got pummeled, two and a half feet in the open, drifted to four and five feet around the house and fences. Not really a lot compared to some places but for Silver Spring Maryland, its huge!

Fortunately for me, we are always well stocked with provisions and can quietly rest at home for the next few days till we get dug out. So far none of the side streets or our street have even been looked at for clearing, so even if I was silly enough to try and shovel this off the drive, there would be no where to drive to.

Wisdom from the past

2010-01-28T08:03:00.001-05:00

"A wise and frugal Government which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry ….and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned…" Thomas Jefferson

Honor,

2010-01-13T09:18:00.003-05:00

Honor: 1. Honesty Fairness, or Integrity in one's beliefs and actions: A man of Honor
2: A source of credit or distinction: To be an honor to one's family

Not many people these days think of honor, integrity or character. In todays life it is too easy to just let your principles go, to flex and sway and not be held to inconvenient and rigid set of rules imposed by Honor, integrity of character.

Everyone seems to think they are honorable, and yet blithely go on their merry way, just doing whatever is easiest to get along. There are a myriad ways we compromise our honor....

Plotting together to embarrass, harass or inconvenience someone who has views we disagree with using the excuse that this person or that person "Deserves it" because they are annoying or pushy. When in point of fact, if one has honor, one does not sneak and connive and plot with excuses like "He/she" deserves it. Honor compels us to conduct ourselves honorably despite the circumstances. While we may fail to meet the challenge, if we make our best effort to follow through with honorable and dignified action our honor remains in tact.

Promising to do something, trivial or substantial brings forth our honor in other ways. If one promises to do things with no intent of following through, one is then a liar, if one promises to do a thing and fails in an honest effort, honor is intact but attempts to do better must be employed, or honor is lost. Making excuses that one did not follow through on one's promise because of action X, Y or Z by another party is disingenuous and is a loss of honor, because the acts of another have no bearing on your promise, unless it was stipulated in the promise.

Honor, is tied to one's word, and integrity and trust, when one diminishes one's honor, there can be no trust, even those who conspire against others will lose honor amongst themselves, as if they can dismiss their honor to plot together against another, what then is to prevent the one from plotting against his former conspirators?

Probably not as deep and profound as I wanted to get, but time limitations prevent me from being more clear.

(edited for grammar and punctuation)

Santa's Little Helper

2009-12-23T13:03:00.003-05:00

Since I was good this year Santa thought I deserved this Custom Sig P220 Super Match....it took 8 months to have delivered.

2009-12-18T08:51:00.001-05:00

Wishing Everyone A Merry Christmas
And A Happy New Year!

Nuff Said

2009-11-04T09:17:00.000-05:00

Weapons are the tools of power. In the hands of the state, they can be the tools of decency or the tools of oppression, depending on the righteousness that state. In the hands of criminals, they are the tools of evil. In the hands of the free and decent citizen, they should be the tools of liberty. Weapons compound man's power to achieve whatever purpose he may have. They amplify the capabilities of both the good man and the bad, and to exactly the same degree, having no will of their own. Thus, we must regard them as servants, not masters and as good servants of good men. Without them, man is diminished and his opportunities to fulfill his destiny are lessened. An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.

-Jeff Cooper

John Wayne, 30 years later

2009-06-11T17:20:00.002-04:00

I guess it is 30 years since the Duke lost his battle with Cancer the guys over at NRO have a tribute to the Duke

Some of my favorite John Wayne films are (in no particular order)

True Grit (1969)
Rooster Cogburn (1975)
The Shootist (1976)
Big Jake (1971)
Chisum (1970)
Rio Lobo (1970)
Donovan's Reef (1963)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (1962)
The Longest Day (1962)
Alamo (1960)
The Green Berets (1968)

Good lord do you know how many films this guy was in?
Obvoiusly I favored his later roles as I was not much of a Cowboy movie fan though I did like many of his. I liked most of his war movies but this guy had a career spanning 1926 to 1976
50 years of film making. Not a lot of Stars had active careers that spanned that kind of time.

I think this week I need to break out some DVD's and get re-aquainted with the Duke.

Why US Companies rate a big fat F

2009-06-10T20:40:00.003-04:00

You know, if you want free porn, you can get it no problem 7x24x365, pay $500 or more to an American software GIANT such as ohhh Say MICROSOFT and try to get customer service you get put on hold for an hour and then told, "Oh we're sorry the department you want to talk to is closed now."

So now I have this wonderful $500 office productivity package that is completely useless till the next business day because the wonderful electronically downloadable product they spew is only SUPPORTED a few hours each day.....Not pacific hours, not east coast hours or central hours....just whenever they freakin decide to pick up the phone. Yes they SELL it to you any time of day or night....just don't expect to be able to use it when you buy it....that requires some time tomorrow...when they feel like pickin up the phone.

You try to be nice, you try to be patient and yet they still flip you the finger with not so much as even an email to let you know.

Wild Weather

2009-06-10T13:30:00.003-04:00

Well the news is full of stories of trees uprooted (even at the whitehouse) and the surrounding locations, further north we got loads of high winds and some of the most awesome cloud formations I have seen since leaving the Midwest decades ago. They were boiling downward and moving in from all directions to swirl around a massive center. C was a bit worried but it was forming to our south and the whole system was headed south southwest from our location so no worries of it hitting our place lightning and thunder were pretty intense but then it started to die down and we hade the reddest sunset that I can remember. Breathtaking.

USA Ammo

2009-06-08T21:29:00.005-04:00

Wanted to give these guys props. While it took almost a month to get my order from them, that is no real surprise these days. An order for 1500 rounds of .45 ACP can be hard to find at all.

On top of actually delivering the full 1500 rounds, they gave me 3 to grow on. Im so used to getting shorted on bulk orders that this was a nice surprise. Their prices may not be rock bottom but then again the places with lower prices don't usually deliver this quickly. Not saying their prices are high, not at all, just not the lowest of the low, but the appearance of the ammo is primo.

I cannot comment on the quality of the stuff because Sig Sauer has still not delivered my P220 Super Match yet well over a month after ordering it, so I have nothing to shoot it with.

So if you are looking to buy Ammo, this start up all american company is worth giving some business.

Their selection right now appeares to be limited to .223, 9mm, .40, .45, .308 Winchester, 5.56 NATO and .50 BMG. (The 5.56 NATO rounds are Armor Piercing)

Give them a look if you are looking for some bulk ammo in those calibers. If/When Sig ever delivers on my P220 I'll give a report on the performance of the ammo.

D-Day Remembered

2009-06-07T12:50:00.004-04:00

Spent yesterday watching movies of WW II, A Bridge Too Far, The Great Raid, Flags of our Fathers, Valkyrie and The Longest Day. Remembering the heroics and valor of our nations heroes and the great good they did the world. A very sobering day for me.

I reflected on the deeds and sacrifice of men mostly gone now, and comparing their courage and acts of heroism against the leaders we have today most of whom have never once faced personal danger for their country, or even served in the armed forces. Leaders who are more likely to hide behind body guards than to leap to the fore and shield those around them. Most of our leaders have no respect for the men and women in Uniform, and the only praise they bestow is self serving and insincere.

While viewing the movies I was proud of our heritage and our nation, only to come back to reality and see reports of "The Great Apologizer" wandering the globe asking forgiveness for all the evil acts of the Nation he is supposed to represent. His wife who has never been proud of her nation, and their friends and confidants who have consistently run the nation down. How can this happen to a once great example for the world?

The backbone of our Nation has let their guard down and those who would destroy what we are have taken charge of our educational system, and now apparently our government. It is all too easy to despair and feel that our nation will never again lead the world in hope and freedom.

I wish the following generations good luck. Reclaiming our greatness is the work of the young, the people of my generation are passing a terrible burden onto our children. All that we older folks can do is encourage them and try to educate them in the history and values our schools no longer teach or support.

We can also vote, we need to vote and we need everyone to vote. Apathy and laziness is what got us to where we are today, and when you cannot find the perfect candidate to vote for, the answer is not simply to "not vote" but to vote to minimize the damage as best as possible. That means that you may not be able to vote third party all the time to meet your Libertarian values because the way the system is set up now, a third party candidate is not able to win the whitehouse or most congressional seats. Not voting or voting for a candidate that has no chance of winning is tantamount to giving the barbarians the key to the city.

Ammo Day!

2009-06-01T09:02:00.002-04:00

1500 Rounds of .45 ACP supposed to arrive with the UPS guy today. Wooohoooo took a month but I am finally getting it. Now if Sig would just get around to delivering my P220 Super Match Id be set for a fun fun fun weekend.

Angels and Demons: MY thoughts.

2009-05-23T10:52:00.003-04:00

Went to see the movie last night (very late) and with all the criticism I have seen about the movie I thought it would be pretty bad. I was pleasently surprised, while the science was waaaay off, we enjoyed the plot and the twists and did not immediately guess who the bad guy really was. The pace was good and there were no long moments of boredom, all in all a watchable movie late at night or early for the matinee prices.

A shout out to the Memory guys.

2009-05-21T12:21:00.003-04:00

Just wanted to give a plug to memorysuppliers.com They helped me find hard to find memory for an off brand lap top. So if you need to beef up your machine give them a look.

I couldnt find the memory Ineeded anywhere, not even on their site, but when I called the 800 number it took all of 2 minutes to get what I needed ordered! Thumbs up.

My Last Day

2009-05-15T11:43:00.003-04:00

For 10 years I worked for Kaiser Permanente, the first 4 years was a wonderful time, the management were people oriented, and cared about you and everyone in the shop was a friend or at least someone you could walk up to and say, hey! lets go grab a beer. Then The West Coast took over and Turned a Regional organization into a National one run out of California.

When California took over, one by one we saw all east coast Managers let go, to be replaced with faceless people on the opposite coast. We saw Management start to ignore the professional advice they were paying us to provide and to follow a strictly California Centric theme, one with lower efficiency and markedly lower Availability of servers. As the numbers and stats declined we saw Re-organization after re-organization as wave after wave of management came and went as things went down the tubes. Never once did the idea that the things that changed were at fault for the flagging statistics, no the problem was the people...the technical experts who were hired for some inexplicable reason could not meet the same numbers they once had. Never once did management consider the fact that they kept increasing the number of servers and continuously reduced the size of the support staff that over work might be the real issue.

But that is all in the past, to "FIX" what was broken the company decided to just outsource most of IT, believeing that the problem lay with the workers and not the management.....we will see how that works for them.

But for now, I am free, no longer is that big carrot of a pension out there encouraging me to endure abuse and over work, no incentive is out there to make me work unpaid over time or 12 hour exhaustive shifts rarely having time for a lunch break. No My new company doesnt have any kind of carrot other than the 401k I contribute to, and thus there is no stick big enough to induce me to work for free anymore.

For some perverse reason I am sad to be leaving Kaiser, it is probably the good memories from before it Nationalized, when we were family and we all worked together and had reasonable expectations of us....and a managementthat actually cared about employee satisfaction. We didnt need a union, we didnt need strong contracts, we just worked together....but that is over probably never to return. Now I take my UNIX Admin skills to whoever makes it worth my wile to work for them. Anyone know of a small company that interested in Quality over Quantity?

I feel free and liberated now....so here is to the future.

More Prevarication from O

2009-05-13T11:31:00.003-04:00

Well for a President who said he would make sure no one making under $250,000 a year would see new taxes, he sure is laying them on thick and heavy.

Cigarrets,Soda's and anything HE classifies as Junk food, and now he is moving to ensure that the pre-tax deductions from your check towards your Medical Benefits are going to be AFTER tax deductions, which does increase your tax burden. Add that to Cap and Trade which even the Democrats call a BIG tax and we see the middle and lower classes getting hammered yet again.

Here is the Article

Take it to heart!

2009-05-09T15:07:00.000-04:00

"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."

Ayn Rand

Where are people going to go?

2009-05-06T08:34:00.003-04:00

The Administration is in full assault mode on Corporations and Investors.
Bringing new confiscatory taxes against businesses (something like a 190 BILLION in new taxes) while people are already being laid off left and right and the unemployment rate is closing in on 9% .

On top of that the Government is singling out individuals they don't like and and targeting them with individual tax policies made just for them.

People who obey the laws and stand up for their rights are then leaned on by the Administration goons known as the White House Press Corps, smearing and villifying them and dragging them through the muck because they had the temerity to want to keep what is theirs (Chrysler Bond Holders) instead of handing it over to the UAW...

Man, I am seriously considering just packing it up and finding a place where the Big O' cant get me....except that they are waging war on foreign nations that don't play ball and give over private banking information on request....

Is it just me or does it seem like suddenly our Government...the Government of the people by the people for the people has become some sinister evil nemesis?

I was going to post this but....

2009-05-03T15:14:00.001-04:00

The Mad Ogre at Madogre.com beat me to it :)

I know how to save GM. Turn a GM factory into an Ammunition Plant. Make Primers and ammo. They could make .45ACP, 9mm, .380, .223, .308, and they could start turning a profit almost immediately. Hell, just Primers alone could get them back on their feet.

Oh I really Like this guy....

2009-05-02T06:43:00.000-04:00

Finally found something useful on Youtube.

Weekend of fun

2009-05-01T13:17:00.005-04:00

Running up to PA to pick up the Remmington .22 Semi-auto rifle that I grew up plinking with.
My dad picked up a new Ruger 10/22 so is willing to let me take the old Remmington Nylon Stock rifle that was with me on every river float and weekend outing into the woods from the age of 14 or so. This gun has been dumped in rivers, sunk in mud bars and banged into trees so often that Im amazed it still shoots, yet shoot it does and quite well.

I think it is a Model 66 but have not actually seen it in decades so will have to wait till I pick it up to see for sure. It loads from the butt of the stock which I have not seen in any other rifle. I am so anxious to get it back in my hands. Dad picked it up in the "Barber Shop / Gun Shop" in our tiny little home town of Reynoldsville in the early 70's for under $100 new. Boy if I knew what the price of Guns and Ammo was going to do then....

Another Politcian screws his electorate.

2009-04-28T15:36:00.002-04:00

While Spectre was never much more than a RINO anyway his announcement that he is becoming a democrat based on his principles is blatant self serving sophistry. He is switching parties because his electorate would in all likelyhood have dumped him for a real Republican. Im not happy with the Republican party but it is the closest thing to a winning Conservative branch that we have. Libertarian parties just do not have the masses needed to win an election on a national scale. This defection means that the republicans have no voice in office if the Dems dont want them to. with 60 seats they are filibuster proof. God help us now.

I find it especially devious and underhanded that this is how he did things:

Specter, 79 and in his fifth term, is one of a handful of Republican moderates remaining in Congress in a party now dominated by conservatives. Several officials said secret talks that preceded his decision reached into the White House, involving both Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden, a longtime colleague in the Senate. Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell as well as Democratic leaders in Congress also were involved.

Secret meetings and closed door deals....to hide his intentions from those who elected him...perhaps tarring and feathering should not have gone out of style....too bad he doesnt have to face his constituents in public and in person to make such an announcement. Good riddance what a waste of skin.

Oh man. I can't believe this

2009-04-28T11:01:00.004-04:00

Ok I used to joke that President Obama's rise in the elections reminded me of Damien Thorn in the Omen...it was a joke, but now there is this.

I just cannot believe people

Where is the Supreme Court?

2009-04-24T13:01:00.000-04:00

With all that is going on and the blatant power grabs by the Obama Administration with the Democrats in the House and Senate assisting in every possible way, where is our last line of defnese? The third leg of Government the Supreme Court......why is there no Constitutional review of all these errosions to the Rights of the People?

The deed is done

2009-04-23T09:34:00.003-04:00

After 8 years of just living together, we finally did it. My other half and I finally got the Government's blessing on our union. I've been living with her for 8 years, and we were fine without the Governments interference but the down side finally outweighed the benefit. Since we are not a Gay Couple my New Employer would not allow me to have her on my Medical and Dental unless we were married....If we were Gay, it would have been no problem I am assured. Makes one wonder who it is that needs to confiscate marriage for their own use....but I digress.

Anyway Im happy and she is happy about being married so its all good. We had a very small ceremony during which we both kept breaking up and laughing even during the vows. So join me in thanking the woman who is making me somewhat more honest :) Thanks C. I love you.

What a Country

2009-04-13T18:19:00.002-04:00

Sorry so quiet on this front but life has taken some twists.
A secure job in a gig that just got gaurenteed Government
funding went to crap as soon as the Big O' put his okie doke
onto the paper....now I and about 1000 other people are being outsourced.
roughly 40% of us will be picked up by the Big Blue outsourcee
and we all find out tomorrow night. Wheee.

If I dont get picked up by Big Blue, no big whup, I'll get 6 months of severance and
have 3 months of Paid Time off coming to me. I plan on taking a month off to
relax and enjoy life before job hunting if Im not one of the 40%.

Hmmm

2009-03-20T21:26:00.001-04:00

You Scored as Batman, the Dark Knight

As the Dark Knight of Gotham, Batman is a vigilante who deals out his own brand of justice to the criminals and corrupt of the city. He follows his own code and is often misunderstood. He has few friends or allies, but finds comfort in his cause.

Batman, the Dark Knight

79%

William Wallace

75%

James Bond, Agent 007

67%

Maximus

63%

Indiana Jones

63%

Lara Croft

63%

Neo, the "One"

58%

The Terminator

54%

El Zorro

54%

Captain Jack Sparrow

54%

The Amazing Spider-Man

42%

This pretty much says it all

2009-03-07T21:21:00.001-05:00

Mr. Obama's $3.6 trillion budget blueprint, by his own admission, redefines the role of government in our economy and society. The budget more than doubles the national debt held by the public, adding more to the debt than all previous presidents -- from George Washington to George W. Bush -- combined.

Source

Must read Poetry

2009-03-05T21:06:00.001-05:00

This is posted with the Authors express permission
you can find more of her work "Here"

TWO THINGS

Two things move under night sky
the thing that came to kill, and I

He, released from prison to roam
and I, peaceably headed to home

He carries a knife and drug addled sense
seeing just prey, without defense

I detect movement, intuitive fear
and put my hand to pistol near

Worried, alone in that gloomy blight
above the fear, I prepare to fight

He hears the click of a chambered round
fleeing quickly to hunt safer ground

No predator dares go hunting for me
for I am armed, that makes me free

I holster my pistol and slowly stand down
heading towards home in a dark, sleeping town

For there are two things that will not die
my right to carry, and this night, I
© Brigid - Home on the Range 2009

Jack Bauer - Good or Evil?

2009-03-04T19:20:00.003-05:00

Personally Id vote the guy in as president.
I think about his actions and I tend to agree with his way
of thinking and doing things. I also agree that the time to grieve
and get emotional is NOT in the middle of the mission, you put it aside
and deal with it when there is time.

I agree with Bauer's comment to the Senator. "You are weak, incapable of facing evil
and doing what is necessary" I find that many of the people I have met and meet
really are weak and not equipped to deal with Hard men who have ill intent. It may not be their fault. It is because they have lived sheltered lives and never been subjected to violence.
To me this seems "Weak" but if we are to have a society of people who are sheltered, then do we
not need people like Bauer to protect them? I say yes.

And if we do need these hard men to protect our soft society, then who is qualified to lead them? Certainly not a Weak demographically palatable soft person as they are not equipped to deal with the savage nature of reality. So who then can lead? In our real world Jack Bauer would be in prison and the Savage men would win every time.

I've noticed especially lately on Television that anytime an agent or cop or citizen is forced into a position to kill a savage attacker intent on violence there is an inordinate amount of emotional grief after the fact which I really do not understand...personal experience and philosophy has taught me that this is not the reality, I care not a whit about those I may have harmed or killed while they were intent on harming or killing me or those I cared about....so what does that make me?

Thinking about this has lead me to wonder.....am I a sociopath? I see no problem with treating
violent, savage people, violently and savagely in the name of keeping others safe. Has my life
living in the rural areas raised to kill animals for food and then in the Military to face down aggressors left me a being unfit for polite society? I feel I fit in well enough, that I have never harmed another person or even threatened them without cause....but should there be cause, I have no hard feelings to cope with, it is just a situation that needs dealt with. I am at a loss to understand those who would defend the "rights" of those savage types at the expense of the soft civilized side of society. So what am I?

So what of Jack Bauer and those who view the world and life as this fictional character does....where do they fit in?

So am I a sociopath? a deviant? What am I?

MD Governor Lets slip that law abiding Citizens are being tracked.

2009-03-01T13:02:00.004-05:00

O'Malley's Gun Owner Mapping Technology & Ammunition Registration
On Wednesday, February 18, 2009, Governor O'Malley was the keynote speaker at the ESRI Federal Users Conference in Washington, D.C.
His topic was the Geospatial Information System (GIS) in Maryland.

The GIS press announcement reads as follows:
"Pioneering Leader Will Discuss Using GIS for Performance Measurement and Transparency in Government
Redlands, California- On Wednesday, February 18, 2009, Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley will deliver the Keynote Address at the ESRI Federal User Conference (FedUC) in Washington, D.C. O'Malley is a longtime advocate of using geographic information systems (GIS) for improved accountability and transparency in government. He will discuss his successful GIS-based performance measurement initiatives and how this approach can be used in federal government.
"GIS is a powerful tool for tracking our progress as a state and improving performance for the citizens we serve. It has become an indispensable tool for government accountability and transparency," said O'Malley. "In Maryland, our GIS applications make public the state's goals, progress, and effectiveness on a variety of public programs and services."
O'Malley began his first GIS-based program, CitiStat, when he was the mayor of Baltimore, Maryland. As governor, he has supported the use of GIS to develop similar GIS-based accountability programs including StateStat, BayStat, GreenPrint, and MD iMap. These online Web mapping applications allow government staff and citizens to evaluate the effectiveness of state government projects, assess Chesapeake Bay restoration projects, and improve planning and decision making related to land conservation and growth. MD iMap is a newly announced Web portal that provides an authoritative basemap with seamless, geocoded statewide centerlines and six-inch imagery of the entire state. Users can access GreenPrint via MD iMap, and government agencies can use a secure login to obtain data from across the state. Eventually, MD iMap will serve as a portal to all accountability programs."

####

This all sounds rather benign until you learn what else this system is being used for: specifically, tracking Maryland citizens who own firearms.
An AGC club member who was present during the event reported:
"Near the end of the speech he (O'Malley) said they were keeping information on the location of felons and those with carry permits. He then casually mentioned the GIS system has the location of homes with guns. It was very matter of fact with no information on where or how they are collecting the information."

On February 19, 2009, Lt. Governor Anthony Brown provided written testimony which reads in part: "Of those 7,146 protection orders, 75 respondents had regulated firearms registered with the Maryland State Police and 95 had hunting licenses issued by the Department of Natural Resources." This statement confirmed our long standing suspicions that the Maryland State Police and the Department of Natural Resources are sharing information between the two agencies as well as the Governor as part of a much large effort to identify gun owners in Maryland.

Next we have HB 1446 Public Safety - Sales of Ammunition - Records being filed at the request of the Maryland State Police. This bill seeks to legitimize and expand the current questionable MSP and local law enforcement practice of coercing gun dealers into keeping a "tattle-tale" record of ammunition purchases.
This bill would pretty much close the noose around the necks of gun owners. When you combine the data from regulated firearm purchases, with the data on hunting licenses, plus ammunition purchase registration list you have a very effective and accurate list of the legally owned guns, who owns them, and where they can be found.

The Governor's speech can be found by clicking here. The Power Point Presentation that accompanied the speech can be viewed by clicking on the icon at the beginning and end of the Governor's speech.

I Know it is a long read. But it comes down to the fact that the Government is wasting no time in taking this opportunity of Democrat rule to turn this into a police state. Tracking innocent people because they own guns or bought ammo. The Constitution is being shredded and thrown out the window now that there is no conservative power in office to stop them. It's going to be a long, long 4 years. Unless people get their heads out of their behinds and do some serious voting when congressional elections come up. NOTE The portion of this in Green came from an AGC news letter. Couldn't figure out how to attribute it properly and there was no where to link to it.

Oh Lovely, just frackin lovely a new "Assault Weapon" ban

2009-02-26T09:11:00.003-05:00

The Obama Administration once again saves the world with this new announcement

Why is it that the (Reputedly) intelligent people in politics can't understand a simple phrase "Shall Not Be Infringed"?

I mean really, how many times does the supreme court have to rule on this? It is clear as day in the Constitution and in the writings of every one from Washington to Jefferson that they wanted our populace armed and able to resist all comers including Our Own Opressive Government.

How hard is it to understand:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Mileage Tax on your car

2009-02-20T14:51:00.003-05:00

Here we have the government crying that the Gas tax isn't collecting enough money to pay for the upkeep of roads and bridges, so they need to put GPS locators in all our cars and track us...so they can tax us per mile we drive...and invade our privacy...

What they do not want you to think about is, the reason the Gas Tax doesn't pay for the road upkeep is because they DON'T SPEND IT ON THE ROADS! they divert it to the "General fund" where it gets spent on every kind of government excess imaginable. They won't eliminate the Gas tax and charge per mile...no, they will ADD this NEW tax to the existing one...and once more put it into the General Fund to spend on even more nanny state projects.

Once again our government trying to squeeze every last drop of blood out of the stone.

Too many people ignornat about the tax sysetem

2009-02-17T16:45:00.004-05:00

You now, for years I have realized that if the government had not instituted the practice of
with holding taxes from the employer side, so that tax payers don't really realize just how much of their income gets stolen away, we would have as a nation rioted long ago.

If people had to sit down each month and write a check to the IRS for their share of the tax, a lot of lefty weenies would suddenly find themselves switching sides of the aisle. Alas and alack the following is all too common.

"Because of income tax withholding, many taxpayers have long since begun looking at tax refunds as a “gift” from the state or federal government, which can’t necessarily be counted on but which is a nice surprise when qualified for and received. Few taxpayers indeed recognize tax refunds for what they are: repayments of a debt incurred when the federal or state government took more money from a worker’s paycheck than they were entitled to."

Remember people this is OUR money, not the Governments, it is OUR work, and OUR sweat that earned this money and Government has become increasingly vulgar about stealing it away from us and misusing it....giving it to dead beats and free loaders and setting themselves up in lavish life styles. Our leaders should not be living in luxury far beyond the means of the average citizen. Raging against the wind I guess, because the fact is, each day I grow older and less relevant to the situation, I have already done what I can to try and fix things, and its time for the next generation of sheep to realize they are not sheep. How to get that message out? I don't know but when you have "Octo-Mom" out there maintaining she is "NOT ON WELFARE" and yet has no job and subsists on government handouts and always has since she was a child....It is hard to see any hope.

Done Deal

2009-02-13T17:15:00.002-05:00

Well it looks like the House has passed the bill with NO GOP votes, and 7 Dems voting no.
Nothing can save us from the stimulus now except impossible event of Judicial branch ruling it illegal.

Hold on to your horses folks things are about to get ugly for anyone who is opposed to Socialized Medicine, or is Pro-Second Amendment, pro-free speech, and against the welfare state.

What they have been careful to hide from you

2009-02-10T11:03:00.002-05:00

The real tragedy and the shame. Too bad old people, get used to the fact that you are gonna die. Unless you are Rich or a Politician, in which case this doesnt apply:

Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they are dangerous to your health. (Page numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version).

The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.

But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”

Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.

New Penalties

Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (511, 518, 540-541)

More Details here

The Stimulus package needs to be scrapped. If they really want to help the economy and the American people they need to do it in such a way that it doesn't destroy the middle class. Personally I am rather depressed by all that is in the gigantic spending bill. Im even more depressed that the man of change means only to change us into a european socialist clone.

Nationalized Health Care

2009-02-09T18:00:00.004-05:00

Well get ready it is coming, most of the framework is in the "Stimulus" bill.
I hope everyone realizes that once this gets started it cannot be stopped easily.
If implemented as planned, the following is the envisioned world of Health Care in the USA.

1. Nationalized Health Care + SCHIP will be implemented with the so called "Stimulus Bill"

2. All patient Health Records will go into the National Database (I see this happening already in my day job)

3. All Health Care professionals will be required to become part of the National Health Care system. This will be mandated no private practices will be allowed.

4. You will go to your doctor with a health complaint. (After a lengthy wait for available service as you see in Canada and the UK and other nations with Nationalized Health Care)

5. You arrive and the Doctor examines you and enters your diagnosis into the National Database

6. The National Health Care system will then decide if your life expectancy justifys the cost of the treatment, next your life style will be examined to ensure you are living an approved life style with an approved diet.

7. If any of the results in step 6 is negative, you will be denied care. You will also not have anywhere to go to pay your own way, at least not in the USA.

This is actually what is being planned, of course certain groups will be "Above" this process, of course Congress will not be limited nor any other Nationally elected official, those with enough wealth will have options of their own, up to and including, leaving the country to go someplace else for their care. (Much like many Canadians come to the USA for treatment).

Personally this is great for the company I work for...and for me...at least up until the Government decides to set my salary to what they think is fair for me to make.

Ugh

2009-02-05T17:45:00.000-05:00

I need to find a better way to make my entries then post, the blogspot editing is killing me.

Porkulus!!!

2009-02-05T16:10:00.009-05:00

I got the following list from the NRO Site Im trying to leave all their links intact so you can view their source material. My comments and thoughts are in blue.

Typical left wing profligate spending:

1. $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts

A Complete waste of the tax payer money and not something the majority of the US tax payers would approve of if it were put up for referendum. This is something like a 30% increase for this non-economy oriented program. Number of jobs created, negligable. Net effect to the national economy, none.

2. $380 million in the Senate bill for the Women, Infants and Children program

This could be argued to be a worthwile program but it has NOTHING to do with stimulating the economy and getting jobs created and business back on its feet. It is basically just a welfare program.

3. $300 million for grants to combat violence against women

Again we just see another program designed to redirect tax money to a particular program that has nothing at all to do with creating large numbers of private sector jobs.

4. $2 billion for federal child care block grants

This would help single mothers and low income families with their bills but does nothing to create jobs for them to go to, necessitating leaving their kids with strangers.

5. $6 billion for university building projects

Large amount of money targeted at a small number of institutions that could fund these in other ways. Very few contruction jobs for the pricetag. If you want to fund educational building programs send this money to the community colleges which handle a far greater number of our citizens.

6. $15 billion for boosting Pell Grant college scholarships

I can agree that this is a good program but it is not a stimulus program, it brings more $$$ to the schools and teahcers but doesnt generate any appreciable number of private sector jobs.

7. $4 billion for job-training programs, including $1.2 billion to provide “youth” summer jobs for people up to the age of 24

Cart before the horse spending here, what jobs you going to train them for? Where will they find employment? this is not related to economic stimulus. Not to mention this program has been determined to be ineffective and unproductive by the GAO .

8. $1 billion for community development block grants

Oh boy more community organizer work, has anyone been to a government housing community recently? Not something we should be investing in to get our business and tax paying citizens back on their feet. Will be nice for the non-tax paying citizens though. You can also read this as ACORN spending.

9. $4.2 billion for “neighborhood stabilization activities”

And even more ACORN money. A nice redistribution of money into someones voting district but NOT a stimulus program.

10. $650 million for digital TV coupons, including $90 million to educate “vulnerable populations”

This is just stupid, TV is in no way a government responsibility, if the people want to see TV they can BUY their TV's. If they dont have the cash, well do what I did when I didnt have the cash....do without. Absolute waste of taxpayer money.

Poorly Designed Tax Relief:

11. $15 billion for business-loss carry-backs

12. $145 billion for “Making Work Pay” tax credits

13. $83 billion for the earned income credit

Scrap these and put the money into Corporate Capital Gains tax cuts and Payroll tax cuts, doing this would create more jobs than any of the other measures. The 83 Billion for EIC is just absolutely NOT a stimulus to the TAX payers but wealth redistribution to those who do not pay in. These people would benefit from a payroll tax cut.

Government Bloat Increase:

14. $150 million for the Smithsonian

15. $34 million to renovate the Department of Commerce headquarters

16. $500 million for improvement projects for National Institutes of Health facilities

17. $44 million for repairs to Department of Agriculture headquarters

18. $350 million for Agriculture Department computers

19. $88 million to help move the Public Health Service into a new building next year

20. $448 million for constructing a new Homeland Security Department headquarters

21. $600 million to convert federal auto fleet to hybrids

22. $450 million for National Aeronautics and Space Administration

23. $600 million for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

24. $1 billion for the Census Bureau

All of these programs come at a net cost to the tax payer, they do not generate wealth, large numbers of tax paying jobs and should be funded via normal means rather than in a bill meant to get the country out of the current economic jam. Now is not the time to start funding the liberal wish list.

INCOME TRANSFERS:

25. $89 billion for Medicaid

26. $30 billion for COBRA insurance extension

27. $36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits

28. $20 billion for food stamps

The header says it all, it is taking money from those who earned it and giving it to someone who did not. While we as a nation may agree to help the less fortunate when we can, the Stimulus package is not the place for it. This is just an attempt to ram the appropriations through on the coat tails of actual needed legislation. Basically a lazymans way of getting what you want...why fight for each funding when you can tack it onto something you can hide it in.

PURE PORK:

29. $4.5 billion for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

30. $850 million for Amtrak

31. $87 million for a polar icebreaking ship

32. $1.7 billion for the National Park System

33. $55 million for Historic Preservation Fund

34. $7.6 billion for “rural community advancement programs”

35. $150 million for agricultural commodity purchases

36. $150 million for “producers of livestock, honeybees, and farm-raised fish”

Header says it all, "Pure Pork." Nuff said

RENEWABLE WASTE:

37. $2 billion for renewable energy research

38. $2 billion for a “clean-coal” power plant in Illinois

39. $6.2 billion shall be for the Weatherization Assistance Program

40. $3.5 billion shall be for energy efficiency and conservation block grants

41. $3.4 billion shall be for the State Energy Program

42. $200 million shall be for state and local electric-transport projects

43. $300 million shall be for energy-efficient appliance rebate programs

44. $400 million for hybrid cars for state and local governments

45. $1 billion for the manufacturing of advanced batteries

46. $1.5 billion for green technology loan guarantees

47. $8 billion for innovative technology loan guarantee program

48. $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects

49. $4.5 billion for electricity grid

Here again we see a bunch of interesting nice to pursue projects but they are NOT related to fixing our current economic crisis, they are geared towards long term change in our economy. But they are not part of the crisis and some of them are just non-sense. Most of which should be pursued in the private sector and can be promoted with tax breaks. Tax breaks which would encourage the research, and if ported to the capital gains and pay roll taxes would cause a nice economic boost.

REWARDING STATE IRRESPONSIBILITY:

50. $79 billion for State Fiscal Stabilization Fund

This last one really irks me, State and Local idiots mismanaged things from the start, rather than using wise spending and investing when they had surpluses they wasted it on uncontrolled spending and expanded government programs. Now they want to hit EVERYONE up a 2nd time to help them out of the mess they created.

Seriously folks, while everyone is demonizing corporate leaders no one is pointing the finger where a LOT of the blame lays, with our elected officials, 2/3 of them should resign immediately as soon as replacements for them can be brought into office. They should be ashamed.

No Stimulus in the Stimulus Package:

2009-01-29T13:44:00.002-05:00

The No Stimulus, Stimulus. What it really is, is a Democrat Christmas wish list.
Note, not a single GOP person voted for this and yet it passed in the House...proof that the DEMS OWN our Government and are not going to worry about Bi-Partisan anything (and why should they?)
The Bill: 647-page, $825 billion

$1 billion for Amtrak (Has not turned a profit in 40 years)
$2 billion for child-care subsidies
$50 million for that economic powerhouse the National Endowment for the Arts
$400 million for global-warming research (economic stimulus?)
$2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects (Demo projects to boost the economy?)
$650 million for digital TV conversion coupons
$30 billion, or less than 5% for fixing bridges or other highway projects
$40 billion for broadband and electric grid development, airports and clean water projects
$20 billion for business tax cuts (Actual stimulus)

That is about 97 billion give or take on the projects that can even remotely argued to be stimulus related. What about the other 728 Billion?

$8 billion renewable energy funding (read that as Ethanol and wind energy which are both cost prohibitive)
$6 billion on mass transit (Fare cover just about 50% of the cost to these systems.)

those two will have a net cost to the economy and are not stimulus.

$600 million more for the federal government to buy new cars (Uncle Sam already spends $3 billion a year on its fleet of 600,000 vehicles)

$7 billion for modernizing federal buildings and facilities
$150 million for the Smithsonian

None of the next group can even remotely be considered Economic Stimulus (Not saying they arent worth wile just not related to economic stimulus and do not create new jobs)

$81 billion for Medicaid
$36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits
$20 billion for food stamps
$83 billion for the earned income credit (giving other peoples money to people who have lower incomes and dont actually pay INTo the income tax system)

The next group of expenditures:
$54 billion will go to federal programs
Economic Development Administration
Small Business Administration
10 federal job training programs

and others. All of which the OMB and GAO have classified as ineffective or unable to pass basic financial audits.

And last but not least:
$66 billion to education, more than the entire Education Department spent a mere 10 years ago
but this is not to help students get educations the bill states on page 257 that "No recipient . . . shall use such funds to provide financial assistance to students to attend private elementary or secondary schools." Can't have money going to nonunion teachers now can we?.

Source Article

Dems are using the economic crisis as a means for throwing money at all their favorite boondogles. *sigh* They Won, they get to do what they want *sigh*

First Formal TV Interview after the inauguration

2009-01-26T20:32:00.000-05:00

Is with an Arabic news service? Uhh Yooohoo Mr. Prsident...before you jump in trying to mediate a cease fire overseas between two other countries, how bout we deal with a few things right here at home first?

Dems and Liberals diplay extreme lack of class

2009-01-21T13:34:00.003-05:00

Not really a surprising thing really, I've always known that the least polite and civilized people I have met were Libs and Democrats. Rude, obnoxious and plain lacking in civility.

The adoring masses gathered at President Obama's inauguration yesterday completely trashed the National Mall, the litter looks like some 3rd world nation where people have never seen a trash can. So much for the concern of the planet these bozos claim to have an exclusive on. Then there is the complete lack of respect and civility for the departing president, chanting and singing in derision. It was a disgrace and to me an ultimate display of ignorance. All this after President Obama made a speach telling us, we are all in this together and we have to work together.

Got news for ya buddy, you have to give respect to get it, and so far your adoring masses haven't earned squat.

President Obama screws up the Oath of office.

2009-01-20T14:35:00.002-05:00

Now imagine if you will that instead of Obama it was George Bush........

Personally Im cutting President Obama some slack, the guy has a lot of shit on his shoulders right now. People of his own color are saying he isnt fit to represent because he has no slave blood and all those damn hillbilly rednecks with their guns taking shots at him....oh wait, only one of those things happened...but still he has a global scale crisis on his head and Nancy Pelosi ready to tell him just what to do....nerves are to be expected.

So cut him some slack, he's got a lot going on.

But again, just think and be honest with your self what the liberals would say if it had been GWB and not BO who messed up something simple like the oath of office.

I'll be watching the Daily show to see John Stewart ripping O a new one....yeah like it's gonna happen.

Way to go Steelers!!!

2009-01-18T22:46:00.001-05:00

What a game. Ravens vs Steelers, knew it was going to be a tough defensive game...wow.

My only gripe about the whole thing is the TV announcers didnt even tell us how the Ravens running back was doing...would have been nice to know what the word was at the end of the game, that was a SERIOUS hit.

Well I pick the Steelers to annihilate the Cardinals in the Super Bowl.

Are you going to watch this inauguration?

2009-01-18T00:47:00.003-05:00

Im not. To me it will be a tribute to all that I think is wrong with our current Government.
$150 MILLION dollars for a party....sorry that is wrong when they are taking tax payers dollars to subsidize bad buisiness practices with the other hand. I also will not watch because it is Barak Obama who is being sworn in. Not because he is dark skinned, there are many black men I would have happily supported and voted for. No I will not be supporting Barak Obama's party because he and I view the world in two radically different ways. He believes in enforced socialism and I do not. I will not however stoop to the liberal lefty level and say "He is not my President" because for good or ill he is, he was elected in the manner that has been set down in law.

Im going to hold my tongue and wait till the man actually DOES something before I criticise. I'll ignore his rhetoric and his speaches to his adoring supporters, and watch to see what is actually enacted....Nancy Pelosi and co. are going to be under close scrutiny, I hope they keep that in mind

Global Warming Strikes again!

2009-01-16T11:21:00.002-05:00

Chicago is experiencing -50 degree wind chill and it is 12 degrees here in Maryland.
The Nation as a whole has been experiencing lower and lower average temps over the last 10 years....Im expecting the "Warming" any time now.....sooner would be better.

Coulter's Ban for Life is over.

2009-01-08T12:38:00.000-05:00

Apparently "Life" isn't as long a period as I thought :)

Coulter was on NBC Wednesday, seems she is only banned for life from
certain parts of NBC, but not he parts that generate ad revenue or get kickbacks from
promoting books etc.

Happy Birthday to me and Feliz Navidad!!!

2009-01-06T09:00:00.000-05:00

Hit 47 today, woohoooo, soon Ill be half a century old....wowzer.

Coulter Banned for Life from NBC

2009-01-05T18:44:00.007-05:00

Ya know, I read Anne Coulters book Treason and found it to be an educated and well written assessment of the literal truths on the subject of McCarthy and the whole scandal of communist infiltrators into American Government and Hollywood. I thought she did an excellent job. So I like her writing and her fact finding. I think that she sources her material better than about anyone I have read recently.

I do not really get into her heavy slam bang idiom, that she uses in her columns and on air talking. I prefer a more....calm and less in your face style. So it was interesting when I ran into this tidbit on the Drudge Report:(it is very short so I just posted it whole, I hope this doesn't violate any CopyRight type stuff. The source is http://www.drudgereport.com/)

Mon Jan 05 2009 17:50:57 ET

The nation's top selling conservative author has been banned from appearing on NBC, insiders tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

Banned for life!

"We are just not going to have her on any more, it's over," a top network source explains.

NBC's TODAY show abruptly cut Ann Coulter from its planned Tuesday broadcast, claiming the schedule was overbooked.

But executives at NBC TODAY replaced Coulter with showbiz reporter Perez Hilton, who recently offered $1,000 to anyone who would throw a pie at Ann Coulter. Hilton is also launching a new book this week, RED CARPET SUICIDE.

Coulter was set to unveil her new book, GUILTY.

But one network insider claims it was the book's theme -- a brutal examination of liberal bias in the new era -- that got executives to dis-invite the controversialist.

"We are just not interested in anyone so highly critical of President-elect Obama, right now," a TODAY insider reveals. "It's such a downer. It's just not the time, and it's not what our audience wants, either."

For the book, Coulter reportedly received the most-lucrative advance ever paid to a conservative author.

The TODAY show eagerly invited the author months ago, for her first network interview on GUILTY.

The exclusive was to air during the show's 7 AM hour. The cut came Monday afternoon.
Coulter was also to appear on the TODAY's fourth hour. A host even teased the segment saying the 'conservative pit bull and bestselling author' would be a guest.
Developing...

On thing I find interesting is that they dont want her being critical of President Elect Obama.....I really wish they had followed that philosophy when it came to President Bush....they certainly had no problem trying to trash talk him. I also note they state that their viewers dont want to hear from Anne....really? No one asked me...my wife, or anyone I know.... Well I have to say, this is ONE reason why Television ratings are in the dumper and that their viewership is falling fast....people just dont want TV execs speaking for them.

Kinda reminds me of Walter Cronkites arrogance when he pointedly informed people that "It isn't news until WE say it is news"

Happy New Year everyone.

2008-12-31T20:33:00.001-05:00

Three and a half hours to go yet, but this is the end of 2008.
Been a heck of a year, I think 2009 will be better but we shall see.
Take Care, drive safe, and don't let the Drunk Drivers get ya.

MagiK

Surviving Christmas

2008-12-29T12:36:00.003-05:00

We managed to get through the most hectic time of the year, our Dog had a shattered limb that had to be pieced together and plated in place, with a large cast. He's doing pretty well now, and We have relaxed again to try and make the most of this most restful part of our year.

Coming up is Fleiz Navidad, My Birthday January 6th, and it brings me one step closer to that big 50....funny, I dont feel any older. Though I will admit that the old joints do ached a bit more.

Well I wish to reach out to two friends of mine who I have not heard from in a while,

Machine Head, hope you and your daughters are well.
Atty, get well soon!

Best Christmas Wishes to you all

2008-12-24T17:32:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas to you all and to all a good night!

Tragedy Strikes when you least expect it

2008-12-21T21:47:00.003-05:00

Our oldest dog, an American Eskimo slipped down the steps on his way out to do his business last night about 3am. He is 16 and can hardly hear, or see but still he has managed those steps fairly well over the years (it is a spiral set down from our deck to the back yard, about 15 feet long)
The other two dogs run up and down these stairs in all weather with nary a problem, but they are much closer to the ground and if they slip its like a sled rids down a hill for them.

Kodiak however is taller and somehow managed to shatter his front right leg, radius and ulna both. It is a really nasty looking X-Ray.

Where I grew up and with pretty much everyone I was raised with, this would mean putting the dog down. (I mean he is 16, and suffering from a number of dog ailments and on more pills than my grandma).

But here in the city C. will be with him during the surgery tomorrow and will have to nurse him back to health for what will be a protracted period. The Surgeons fee alone is about $3k plus a weekend in the ER plus a day or two for recovering in the Animal Hospital plus the cost of X-Rays and the emergency room 3am arrival and the pain meds and other assorted shots...all told this will hit $6k easy. Fun fun fun. Just in time for Jingle Bells. The real pain is that now someone will have to put him on a leash and walk him out front several times a day (the meds he is on means he urinates like a firehose all day long).

Long story short, if Algore would get off his ass and get that global warming here, we wouldn't have had icy steps!

100 Things I have Done or may do....or not

2008-12-06T23:55:00.001-05:00

Saw this over at Roberta X's blog and thought I'd put up mine:

100 Things

THINGS I'VE DONE (in bold):

1. Started your own blog.
2. Slept under the stars. .
3. Played in a Band. (I cannot carry a tune and have no msical talent).
4. Visited Hawaii. (Only for Refueling stops in a P3).
5. Watched a meteor shower. (Many Times)
6. Given more than you can afford to charity. (once by accident, once on purpose)
7. Been to Disneyland. And Disney World.
8. Climbed a mountain. (Mounts Moffit and Adagdak on Adak Island)
9. Held a praying mantis.
10. Sang a solo. (during a disasterous attempt to join the choral group)
11. Bungee jumped. (Are you friggin nuts?)
12. Visited Paris. (I'll stick with photographs. France holds no interest for me.).
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea. (From the shore)
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch. if cooking is an art.
15. Adopted a child. (Grew two of my own though)
16. Had food poisoning. (ohh would that it werent true)
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty.

18. Grown your own vegetables. (grew up on a farm)
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France. (See 12)
20. Slept on an overnight train. Yes in a sleeper car, from Seatle to Pittsburgh
21. Had a pillow fight. Yeah but it lead to lots more :)
22. Hitch hiked. Only a few times.
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill. (of course. Mental Health days are important)
24. Built a snow fort. (We made some huge forts in my day)
25. Held a Lamb. (no but did help deliver and hold a new born foal)
26. Gone skinny dipping. (too many times to count, when you live in the Carribian...)
27. Run a Marathon. (10k's were my longest)
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice. (See 12)
29. Seen a total eclipse.
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset.
31. Hit a home run.
32. Been on a cruise. (Not yet, may still do one, want to do the Alaska coast and maybe a med cruise)
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person. (Absolutely awe inspiring)
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors. (Might do it, some day...Germany and Poland and Ireland)
35. Seen an Amish community. (Sister married a mennonite and they live in Amish country)
36. Taught yourself a new language. (Failed french two years running)
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied. It happens occasionally with varying degrees of frequency.
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person. (See 12)
39. Gone rock climbing. (so many many times)
40. Seen Michelangelo's David. (See 12)
41. Sung karaoke. (only if I was drunk and I dont recall it.)
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt. (All of Yellowstone is on my todo list, if the libs dont lock it down first)
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant. (Not out side of an arranged business deal and I dont count dates)
44. Visited Africa. (No, thank you. Nothing of any interest to me on that continent.).
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight. Many many times. Alone and together.
46. Been transported in an ambulance. (More than once :( )
47. Had your portrait painted.
48. Gone deep sea fishing.
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person. (See 12)
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. (See 12,).
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling. (Snorkling: This, I'd love to do again!)
52. Kissed in the rain. (and made love)
53. Played in the mud. (and tried to make love ;) )
54. Gone to a drive-in theater.
55. Been in a movie. (Extra in Stephen King's Pet Semetary)
56. Visited the Great Wall of China. (Nothing in this region of the world interests me)
57. Started a business.
58. Taken a martial arts class. (Yes in Puerto Rico Kim po tai, I believeit was called)
59. Visited Russia. (Not allowed there due to secret squirrell work in my past)
60. Served at a soup kitchen. (Not a soup kitchen per se, but a Feed the Homeless thing for the Catholic Church)
61. Sold Boy Scout Cookies.
62. Gone whale watching.
63. Got flowers for no reason. (I have received other gifts spontaneously)
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma. (Used to do it regularly when it was more convenient, now they make it more dificult)
65. Gone sky diving. (Are you crazy?)
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp. (Historically fascinating, emotionally to devastating)
67. Bounced a check. (Yes my paycheck bounced so consequently my checks bounced, it was a hoot....not)
68. Flown in a helicopter. (As an Emergency Medical Case....kinda fun except for the blood)
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy. (Dad believed in tossing things out if they were not functional or practical)
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial. (Many times, and all the other memorials in Down Town DC)
71. Eaten Caviar. (Once...ugh bait!)
72. Pieced a quilt.
73. Stood in Times Square. (I try to avoid NY)
74. Toured the Everglades.
75. Been fired from a job. (Once, it was a learning experience)
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London. (Maybe some day if the brits get it together again.).
77. Broken a bone. (several)
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle. (a few times, riding and driving)
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person. (not yet)
80. Published a book. (Had a short story published in my home town news paper though)
81. Visited the Vatican. (Lovely place, maybe some day)
82. Bought a brand new car.
83. Walked in Jerusalem. (Nothing of any real interest there for me to warrent the risks.).
84. Had your picture in the newspaper.
85. Read the entire Bible. (During Navy Basic Training...aka Boot Camp)).
86. Visited the White House. (Also saw President Reagan laying in State at the Capitol).
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating. (Deer, Squirrel, Rabbit and Grouse)
88. Had chickenpox.
89. Saved someone’s life.
90. Sat on a jury. (Murder Case in SanDiego, convicted the guy then learned that the principle Cop involved with the case was sleeping iwth the wife and had as much motive and opportunity, Hope the guy got an appeal. We learned the truth after the fact))
91. Met someone famous. (Several).
92. Joined a book club.
93. Lost a loved one.
94. Had a baby. (Well not myself no...but I planted two of them)
95. Seen the Alamo in person. (I really should.).
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake. (not too into swimming in most landlocked waters, the crystal clear carribean has spoiled me)
97. Been involved in a law suit.
98. Owned a cell phone.
99. Been stung by a bee.
100. Read an entire book in one day.

101. Traveled the world and been to places 99% of the rest of the world will never see. Yeah got that one checked off, and I still prefer home.

Hooray hooray the range is open again.

2008-12-06T19:19:00.000-05:00

Our local indoor range has been closed for months for renovation, but is now open again.
Mysti will have the chance to try out her new Walther now.