Why can't it be both?

So... in the Whitehouse's official story they offered Sestak a job that he couldn't take anyway. Yeah... that'll defelct questions of coverup and primary quid pro quo.


The Republicans reply:

This is just another strike against the Administration’s story. Why bring in a big gun, like former President Clinton, to offer a meager job to Sestak that he wasn’t even eligible to accept? Either the administration is completely incompetent or there is a cover up. That’s why I’ve called for the FBI to get involved. We’re clearly not going to get a straight story from Sestak or the White House without an official investigation.

Emphasis added, and why can't it be both?

Remember, this is all over rumors that the Whitehouse tried to bribe Sestak to drop out of a primary to ensure Specter's victory. That's... just sad.

Note...

If you happen to go to an outdoor range on a real hot day... bring a bandana or some type of headband.

Sweat in your eyes, especially when you have to keep eye protection on, not so fun.

Something nicer: German High-Tech Range.

Via The Firearm Blog.

No doubt this is an impressive facility. They have the full range of services, from handguns, to rifles, to shotguns and used from bench work, bolted bench work, offhand, to moving targets, to draw from holster.

Vast selection (though did notice a distinct lack of high capacity scary black rifles). Other than the handguns was mostly sporting equipment.

Clean, expansive, modern, high tech, safe, efficient, a bit sterile, and expensive, very expensive.

It's nice to see that a place like this exists in Germany, even if it falls into many of the (positive at least) German stereotypes, and European to some extend. Very polished, a similar facility in the US would be a bit more rough around the edges and have less of a high-end department store look.

More Joy: Taking the 2nd amend via the UN.

I guess our Mr. Constitutional Law Prof. of a president doesn't care much for the bill of rights.

But hey, what's the constitution when compared to the might and glory of the UN.

So what latest transational boondogle does Obama endorse?

According to recent deliberations regarding the treaty, signatory countries would be required to “prevent, combat and eradicate” various classes of guns to undermine “the illicit trade in small arms.” Such a plan would necessarily lead to confiscation of personal firearms.

Why, oh why did the wookie-suiters have to be right?

You see... drugs can't be controled by prohibition but I'm sure a bang up job can be done with firearms.

The first question is if Obama plans to acutally go through with this, and if he does can it pass the Senate, and if it goes in the Senate would the Supremes uphold it?

Fun times.

First of all, not all insurgencies are bad. As U.S. history shows, one way to get rid of a despotic regime is to rise up against it. That threat is why authoritarian regimes such as Syria, Cuba, Rwanda, Vietnam, Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone endorse gun control.

And we've seen how well banning guns works in Chicago. And if they can't get your rights one way they'll do it another.

Know your place, serf.

Joy

The ATF changes their mind, and it just so happens to make purchasing a gun more of a pain.

Reversing an interpretation of the Gun Control Act that has been on the books for more than four decades, ATF today posted a ruling declaring any shipment of a firearm by a manufacturer (FFL) to any agent or business (e.g., an engineering-design firm, patent lawyer, testing lab, gun writer, etc.) for a bona fide business purpose to be a "transfer" under the Gun Control Act of 1968. As a consequence, legitimate business-related shipments will now require the recipient to complete a Form 4473 and undergo a Brady criminal background check. In many instances, these requirements will force shipments to a third party, thereby lengthening the process and the time that the firearm is in transit.

Emphaiss added. More delays, more expense, more paperwork, more red tape. Basically, they want a check at every state of a transfer. Why? Because they can.

Read the rest, it seems that after 40 years the ATF just happened to reverse their own ruling.

That'll show you bitter clingers to try to exercise your rights.

Via Uncle

Lime and Pork

I had half a lime left over after using it for my chili.

And tonight I was cooking some boneless country pork ribs, so I added the lime juice after I had seared the pork and had finished the dry rub (black pepper, cumin, cayane).

Used the rest of the lime half on the slow cooking version where I folded the juices and sauce mix (Frank's, Louisiana Hot, Cholula sauce, and Lee and Perrins).

Worked out rather well. The lime gave a good dimension to the sauce.




Cast iron.




Still moist.

Two Americas

According to Rasmussen there's a bit of a... disconnet.

Percentage of the political class conficent "in members Congress to handle current economic problems"? 88%

Percentage of the rest of the US population? Less than 8%

The message is clear: "Shut up serf, your betters have it in hand."

Via Ace of Spaces.


Meanwhile the Onion has something that's a bit on the nose: Majority Of Government Doesn't Trust Citizens Either

Out of 100 U.S. senators polled, 84 said they don't trust the U.S. populace to do what is right, and 79 said Americans are not qualified to do their jobs. Ninety-one percent of all government officials polled said they find citizens to be every bit as irresponsible, greedy, irrational, and selfishly motivated as government officials are.

The telling difference it that those greedy, irrational, and selfishly motivated goverment officials are... goverment officials. And unlike the population at large their power is growingas they great expanding the control, power, and fiscal instability of the state.

So who do you think is more dangerous? A rube that's got at most the power of a corporation at his beck and call, or a rube with a nation-state?

The Culture war

It's not about religion or morals; it's more about the role of man and State.

There are two views in the US.

One, called progressivism, derives from the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and tends to blame all human problems on imperfect social institutions. Individuals devoted to this worldview concentrate great effort on the perfecting of institutions according to their idea of social justice, which evolves as new problems are created by their efforts to transform society and its institutions.

Their opponents refer to this fundamental problem of progressivism as the Law of Unintended Consequences.

In addition, progressives of all stripes require the development of an aristocracy consisting of political, economic, social, and cultural elites who can implement the proper management of society.

The other worldview, best described as classical liberalism, acknowledges that social conditions circumscribe individuals’ choices, but they nonetheless argue that people have freedom of choice within the conditions under which they live. Such classical liberals argue for political liberty and allowance of social mobility, an essential element of which is the acceptance of the concept of personal responsibility, the willingness of society to allow people to reap the consequences of their
actions, both good and bad.

Emphasis added.

In short one side thinks that people are dumb and that they need the gentle, and not so gentle, guiding hand of their betters. The other side... doesn't.



Give it all a quick read.


Edit:

Here's another article on the same subject.

Mayor Daley shows us the Chicago way.

So how does a gun grabbing thug from a crony political family react to critism?

Well with threats of voilence of course!

Mick Dumke the inquiring reporter explains:

Mayor Daley loves to bag on the local media, and given my recent line of inquiry into his politics and policies, I’ve never expected to be greeted with a fruit basket at City Hall.

But even I was a bit taken aback this morning when the mayor grabbed a rifle and threatened to shoot me.

Oh Chicago.

But even supporters of tough gun regulations—myself included—have to admit that it's not clear how much they reduce violence. Despite having some of the most restrictive laws in the country, Chicago is a national leader in shootings and murders, and the mayor himself noted that “we’ve seen far too many instances in the last few weeks” of firearm violence, including the shooting that left a cop dead last night.

So I asked: since guns are readily available in Chicago even with a ban in place, do you really think it’s been effective?

I have to ask, why does Mr. Dumke support tough gun regulation then? If he's got questions as to their effectiveness?


At least mayor Daley has a reason. Which he explained in between threatening to shove a bayonette up a reporter's behind.

And he went on some more. “We save all these guns that the police department seizes, you know how many lives we’ve saved? You don’t realize it. First of all, they’re taking these guns out of someone’s hands. They save their own life and they save someone else’s. You cannot count how many times this gun can be used. Thirty, forty times in shooting people and discharging a weapon. I think it’s very important.

“Next will be hand grenades, right? We’ll say that hand grenades are OK. I mean, how far can you go in regards to mass weapons? To me, any gun taken off saves thousands of lives in America. I really believe that, I don’t care what people tell me. You have to thank the police officers for seizing all these weapons. We lead the country in seizing weapons. This is unbelievable.”

So in Daley's world he must have saved millions of lives, a regular Norman Borlaug. Nevermind the sky high rates of actual murder in Chicago, he's prevented zillions of potential deaths.

Also if you keep seizing weapons, at a rate higher than any other city in the nation... and yet you still have horrible voilence, doesn't that prove your prohibition is inefective?

And nice to know that logic and facts can't get through to him.

Ed Morrissey comments:

The Second Amendment exists for two reasons. First, the founders knew that law enforcement couldn’t defend everyone against attack — unless they created a police state that would eliminate liberty forever. They encouraged people to arm themselves, an important move in frontier areas especially, where the writ of law didn’t run very strongly. The police are very good at investigating crimes after they occur, but not in providing personal defense, which isn’t their job.

Secondly, arming the populace makes it much more difficult for those in power to seize property and liberty without due process of law. As Daley aptly demonstrated, when only the government and the criminals have guns, they both can dictate at will without fear of opposition. When a reporter asks a tough question, just wield a gun at him and then later laugh it off as a joke.

Hah.

Why can't Barry Read?

So how bad is the Arizona situation? Well... as we saw before the administration refuses to admit to reading the law they're railing against.

Now they're cheering as the President of Mexico makes the same distortions.

From NRO:

Welcome to government by progressive transnationalists, where the opinion of a majority of the American public is dismissed as the ramblings of the racist and xenophobic, while foreign leaders are invited to let us know how we can change our laws to please them. When Democrats control government, sovereignty is dead.

Hot Air:

I don't see how applauding a foreign leader -- whose country is almost singlehandedly responsible for America's endless immigration battles -- for slamming a fantastically popular state law is a net gain in votes. They've already been saddled with the narrative that they can't stop apologizing for America; you'd think they'd try extra
hard here to simply sit in respectful silence while he does his shpiel rather than leaping out of their seats to grandstand. As it is, I guess they . . . really can't stop apologizing for America, even when the optics involved are poisonous to their own electoral interests.

It really is amazing how insular they are.

And it's not just their open borders fetish. Calderone also wants the US to revive and strengthen the Assault Weapons Ban.

This despite Mexico itself having very strict gun laws. Funny how those laws never seem to work. More on that later.

Calderone's claim that more than 80% of guns came from the U.S is a bald-faced lie.

The actual figure is less than 18%, and the number of guns purchased from dealers that made their way to Mexico was only eight percent; the majority of guns traced to the United States were stolen.

The bulk of firearms in the hands of the cartels are military weapons purchased on the black market, with a sizable percentage purchased or stolen from the Mexican government itself.

Same man that got a standing ovation from the Dems when he tore into Arizona's law, despite having far far more restrictive imigration laws in Mexico than the US has.

But the truth doesn't matter, only political power.


And now Cuba gets in on bashing Arizona.

Yes... Cuba.

Consider this the Somewhat Left The Irony On Department entry for today. We’re trying to keep people from illegally entering our country, which is a key national-security issue as noted by the 9/11 Commission almost six years ago. The Cuban junta not only keeps people locked into their country, but also locked into assigned areas of the island, and their police can demand papers of anyone at any time to enforce those oppressive laws.

Jim Geraghty has some perspective too

Speaking before a foreign legislature and declaring that one law must be reinstated (the so-called “Assault Weapons Ban”) and one law must be repealed (Arizona’s wildly popular new approach to illegal immigrants) is the height of arrogance and a supreme insult. Even if you agree with Calderon’s positions on these issues, you ought to recognize that when a foreign leader is invited to address our legislative branch from the floor of the House, basic respect requires him to refrain from denouncing the decisions of his hosts."

But maybe Pres. Calderon isn't so bad.

Although Calderon’s hypocrisy and misplaced sanctimony may be galling and undignified, one could argue that at least he’s doing his job. He is simply tending to the best interests of his own country and people: stricter enforcement of American immigration laws would hurt Mexico, therefore, he opposes it.

Yesterday’s truly scandalous behavior, therefore, was not Calderon’s speech. It was the reaction of many American members of Congress — mostly Democrats — who stood and applauded his dishonest and self-serving invective. It was a despicable scene: Elected American representatives enthusiastically cheering a foreign leader for his salvos against an American law passed by a freely elected legislature, signed by a freely elected governor, and supported by a substantial majority of Americans.

It was a jarring display of how dangerously out of touch our elite “leaders” have become, and how willing they are to (yet again) cheerfully ignore the will and interests of their own countrymen.

So there you go. The elite dems care more about pleasing other nations than their own citizens. The limits of goverment are for other people and laws don't have to be read in order to be judged.

Reading is Fundamental.

Linked from Ace who quips:

Of course they've all read the law -- it's ten pages. Claiming to have not read it allows them to speak of vaguely-defined "concerns" without having to point out specific language in the bill they object to -- because if they did the latter, they'd be unable to find anything illegal here.

What they're attempting to do is claim they support, of course, the substance of the bill -- of course they agree with enforcing the border! -- while pretending their objection is over procedural matters. This pose allows them to pretend for the 70% of the country that supports the bill that they're on their side, at least as regards the big substantive goal of the bill.

Frankly, I'm not so sure they even read it. This is an admin that has the habit of not reading the new laws they're for. And why bother reading the law itself when a flunkie can explain it to them.

Guilty Pleasures

John Ringo books have horrible cover art, fairly stock characters, and a pretty basic writing style, but they have very ammusing settings and technologies.

And most importantly the characters despite being stock are enjoyable to read and people you care about and come up with interesting "solutions".

Very pulpy, and a fun way to have your brain go all idle and read about aliens.

A good break from reading various political/historical books, or just blogs, about how we're all doomed.

So far of Ringo's books I've read the Looking Glass series, The Last Centurion, Von Neumann's War, and am reading the March Upcountry series.

I can't speak for the other series he's wrote (or at least cowrote), but those are some plain scifi fun.

I'll go into each in more detail, but I figured something was better than nothing.

Iron Man gets his wookie suit on.

Tam on some of the feminist and counter-feminist sour grapes of Iron Man 2


Bill Whittle shows just how subversive Iron Man 2 is.

And the kinds of wookie-suit themes that it plays.

"Do you think there's one society that doesn't run on greed?"
Watch it all.


It even explains the idea of mercantalism/crony capitalism versus free market capitalism.

Gotta pay for that hammer somehow...

Continuing from a previous post.


Here's some of Tam's thoughts on the overuse of SWAT. It's a problem of lack of training (dynamic entry is hard and requires constant training to not be dangerous), and there's just not that many times you need to go after armed people who have taken hostages. But you've spent the coin on all these shiny toys...

The net result is that, using various rationalizations from "officer safety" to "preventing the destruction of evidence", tactics and techniques originally developed to allow professionals to resolve a hostage crisis are being used by part-timers, sometimes for reasons as trivial as recovering a bag of dope, often with predictable results.

Montie a policeman with several decades on the force comments on these changes.

When I first got into police work in 1985, many of the larger cities had already formed some sort of special response team. When they are truly professional and have the time to train constantly and are not overused for things like warrant service, etc. they can be a good thing. however, they are only cost effective if you have at least three or four hostage / barracaded suspect calls a year.

....

MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT DYNAMIC ENTRIES SHOULD BE AVOIDED IF AT ALL POSSIBLE. WAY TOO MUCH CAN GO WRONG. That drug warrant should have been done in the daytime. The guy was married with a small child, thank God only the dogs were shot.

Reat it all.

The rest of Montie's comments are good too.

More "Cheer"

So at Tam's recommendation, I picked up Dalrymple's Life at the Bottom


It was only now that I got to it in my reading queue. I've just started and it's already a great depression. Dalrymple's thesis is that the West, despite having less poverty in terms of wealth and health among its pour has far greater levels of dysfunction and depravity. And that this is mostly due to the indulgences of the Left intelligentsia in their culture of victimization, identity politics, and general removal of responsibility.

When people are given an inch and told that they are not responsible for their actions they will take advantage of it.


Hmmm.... sounds familiar. I wonder if any other highly liberal places are being subjected to people taking advantage of the leftist system.


Anyway this passage struck me in the Introduction:

A specter is haunting the Western world: the underclass.

This underclass is not poor, at least by the standards that have prevailed through the great majority of human history. It exists, to a varying degree, in all Western societies. Like every other social class, it has benefited enormously from the fast general increase in wealth of the past hundred years. In certain respects indeed, it enjoys amenities and comforts that would have made a Roman emperor, or and absolute monarch gasp, Nor is it politically oppressed: it fears neither to speak its mind nor the midnight knock on the door. Yet its existence is wrenched nonetheless, with a special wretchedness that is peculiarity its own.

Emphasis mine. This book was published in 2001, and that specific bit seems naive today.


Why? Well often it seems that if your house is silently broken into by a gang of armed in the middle of the night it's being done by government agents.

According to surveys of police departments conducted by University of Eastern Kentucky criminologist Peter Kraska, we've seen about a 1,500 percent increase in SWAT deployments in this country since the early 1980s. The vast majority of that increase has been to serve search warrants on people suspected of nonviolent drug crimes. SWAT teams are inherently violent. In some ways they're an infliction of punishment before conviction. This is why they should only be used in situations where the suspect presents an immediate threat to others. In that case, SWAT teams use violence to defuse an already violent situation. When they're used to serve drug warrants for consensual crimes, however, SWAT tactics create violence where no violence was present before.

...

As horrifying as the video from Columbia, Missouri, is, no human beings were killed. The police got the correct address, and they found the man they were looking for. In many other cases, such raids transpire based on little more than a tip from an anonymous or confidential informant.

...

The Columbia raid wasn't even a "no-knock" raid. The police clearly announced themselves before entering. The Supreme Court has ruled that police must knock and announce themselves before entering a home to serve a search warrant. If they want to enter without knocking, they have to show specific evidence that the suspect could be dangerous or is likely to dispose of contraband if police abide by the knock-and-announce rule. As is evident in the Columbia video, from the perspective of the people inside the home that requirement is largely ceremonial. If you were in a backroom of that house, or asleep, it isn't at all difficult to see how you'd have no idea if the armed men in your home were police officers. The first sounds you heard would have been gunfire.

All emphasis added.

Change! So yeah, and it apparently happens 100-150 times every day. But it only happens to the bad guys in the war on drugs, so you don't have to worry. Unless an anonymous or confidential informant fingers you, or the police simply attack the wrong address.

Fun.

And speaking of depressing changes that I learn about via Tam let's end with a link to Mark Steyn using his tricksy math to show that having more babies means having more people, and the implications of such demographic shifts.


This is why I mix up my heavy books with mindless pulpy scifi books.

Bill Whittle chills the blood.

After listing a series of attacks since Obama came into office, Bill Whittle has this to say:

Now Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano assures us that the system is working. The system, apparently, is predicated on the strategy that the defense of the United States of America is to wait for the terrorist's detonators to fail.

These attacks are on the rise, and they will continue to rise, and it's no mystery why they continue to rise.

Change! It's almost like the enemies of the United States have taken Obama's foreign policies (apology tour, reset button, and self-censoring) as a sign of weakness.

Watch the whole thing and see the willful, and dangerous denial in the US's counter-terrorism strategy.

And of course there's the media's blindness on actual acts of voilence, since they're too busy chasing the Tea Party.

I won't spoil the ending, but you must see it.

Be aware, be on alert.

Winning

Kevin of Smallest Minority talks about "Why we're winning"

Basically it comes down to passion and organization. People are less interested in being told from some top-down masters to work at taking away rights.

Where gun owners are very passionate about keeping, and expanding, what they have. Gun owners also can see how easy it is to have their rights trampled.

There's a lesson in that.

As for how much we're winning, the passage of Shall Issue in Iowa (Jan 1 2011) got me thinking.

With Iowa that's 40 states that are Shall Issue or Unrestricted for handguns.

Now that's 80% of the states, but I wondered what the percentage of the US population was.

Since there are two big states (Cali and NY) that are quite restrictive. NY for example you can't own a handun at all unless you have CCW which depending on the county you live in is extremely difficult to you need "connections" difficult.

So I crunched some numbers. Based on a total US population of around 281 million, the 40 states in question have a population of 187 million: 66.5%

So two thirds of the US population live in states where if you want to carry a handgun for defensive use, the state cannot restrict it unless you are a felon or mentaly dangerous.


That's progress. Especially when you consider this chart, also from Smallest Minority.

Ten states left.

Top # States % Shall Issue
By Population or Unrestricted.
5............40
10............60
20............65
25............72
50............80

Once you get out of the top five most populous states you get a majority with Shall Issue or Unrestricted.


Granted the last 10 will be tought nuts to crack, but progress is being made.
Also the map shows that it's been a matter of under two decades. Rights need to be excercised and having more people actively defending themselves helps make it more difficult to move against them.


And more progress on reciprocity would be real good too. Would make interstate travel easier.

Well.... this is cheery.

President admits he can't use basic technology, thinks that greater informational freedom "put[s] new pressures on our country and on our democracy."


And when faced with the challenges that liberty entails, well, we just have to cut back on that scary, scary liberty.

Gabriel Malor has his thoughts.

Does the President of the United States really believe that technologies that put more information in the hands of the public (and the voters) impede "empowerment" and "emancipation"? I hope not, but let's face it; Leftism has always relied on a certain ignorance. Certainly his speechwriter must have seen similarities between these statements and the most well-known work of political fiction of the twentieth century.

Just this year alone, the President attempted (and succeeded) in rushing through healthcare reform without allowing the true costs to be told. And then they were well on their way to an inquisition of the major corporations who started mentioning the costs. He and the Democrats now face enormous backlash precisely because the technologies that he bewails—blogs and talk radio—empowered us to discover and share the costs of ObamaCare.

For Obama, the engines of argument have become as objectionable as argument itself. The President laments that technology "exposes us to all kinds of arguments", a curious complaint from someone with as much education as Obama. He says this is putting pressure on our country. But preserving "all kinds of arguments" was considered so important for the United States that the principle was enshrined in the First Amendment!

Here's Roger L. Simon's thoughts.

Let’s leave aside the little lie here – you can “know how to work” an iPod and and iPad literally by turning them on and Obama is a known Blackberry user in the first place – and examine the disinformation cum self-pity inherent in his statement. Yes, “some of the craziest claims can quickly claim traction,” but they can be more easily debunked than ever before. Of considerably more significance, in depth information on all issues of public policy are more quickly accessible to the average citizen than ever in history.

Take only one example, which will be of importance in the coming weeks. John Kerry and Joe Lieberman (alas) are moving forward with some new version of cap-and-trade legislation. The enemy of this proposal is knowledge, now accessible to all on the Internet. We can find out details, actual facts, on the science of global warming, or what purports to be the science, in minutes and begin to analyze those facts for ourselves. The iPad is just another device that makes this easy.

Obama, however, comes from a top-down, hierarchical political tradition where elites make policy for the common people, while pretending to themselves they are doing it for the benefit of the downtrodden. No wonder he is threatened by information technology, except where it can be turned to his advantage (as in fund-raising for his recent campaign).

In short, Obama is angry that the people don't "know their place"

Mr. Simon is compeltely correct, Obama, and the greater left, fear the fracturing of the "top down model".

The whole of liberalism seems to have become a series of rules. They are the ones that decide what you can: eat, drive, drink, smoke, shoot, use for medical treatment, and now read.

This is all precepted on the idea that the common person cannot run their lives well enough. That they need government help and regulation in every little detail. Whether it's for their own good or for the "greater" good, the message is "Shut up and do what your betters tell you to do."


Meanwhile Obama's Attorney General thinks that the Miranda warning is too restrictive.

Attorney General Eric Holder said that Congress should “give serious consideration” to updating the Miranda warning which requires law enforcement officials to inform suspects of their rights – including the right to remain silent.

Glen Reynolds quips:

Ah, remember all that talk about the “lawless Bush Administration” trampling civil rights, and the fierce moral urgency of change? Well, if you believed that stuff when they were peddling it. . . hey, rube!

...

Obama and his team have sold out on Iraq, Afghanistan, the Patriot Act, Gitmo, military tribunals, health care reform, financial reform, DADT and offshore drilling, so what’s the big deal about throwing Miranda into the pile? And by the way, what is the ‘new threat’ Holder is talking about?”

Well they're not willing to name the real threat.

But they sure like making hay about using these scares and threats to go after your freedoms.

Don't worry, it's only terrorists that will get the special Miranda warning, and only terrorists that can't buy guns. Just like how RICO is only used against organized crime.

Be prepared.

Sobriant74 has a list of some basic things to prepare for emergencies.

Here's a condensed list:
1. Water (and a plan how to get more)
2. A gun.
3. Food
4. Gardening equipment and seeds.
5. Write it down and share so if you kick it, your friends and family can get to it.
6. Have a productive hobby
7. Don't panic.


Standard stuff. I'll add that you make sure you know how to do all of these things. Having a gun isn't going to be nearly as useful if you don't know how to shoot it, same thing for gardening or feeding yourself. You should know the basics of cooking.

By productive hobby Sobriant74 cites things like making shoes, or matches. Things that are useful skills if things really go to hell.

Myself, I do French and Indian war era reenacting and primative camping.

All this stocking, preparing, and training also has the upside of helping #7. Being prepared helps stave of panic.

But don't worry, disasters never happen.

And even if they do the media will do its duty and tell us all about it.

Oh wait.

The power of the Narrative.

Via Ace. Watch.

So there's a disaster in a major US city. And it gets blacklisted? Why?

Well unlike Katrina Bush couldn't be blamed. Unlike Katrina the populace largly helped themselves and worked together.

Also there was an oil spill on the gulf coast and a car bomb in Times Square. Puts to proof the idea that the Mass Media is incapable of handeling more than two major stories at once.

Especially if one runs counter ot the Narrative.

Review: "The Forgotten Soldier" by Guy Sajer

Welp this is one of the things I've been wanting to do and have put off.

However, I finally made progress on my library project (another thing I had been dawdling on) and here we go.

This is one of the many books I picked up from Bill Whittle's recomendation list.

"The Forgotten Soldier" by Guy Sajer is the story of a French-German who enlists in the wehrmacht and serves in the Eastern Front.

There's some controversy on the historical accuracy of the book. Lazy Wiki link.

But from reading it nothing struck out as false. The story had none of the bravado or "war stories" or Mary Sue nature of a lot of obviously fictional books.

So it could be fake. I don't know.

What I do know is that the book is historically correct on the battles and events, and it gives an amazing feel of the scope, scale, and nature of the Fall part of the "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich".

The Eastern Front doesn't get nearly the coverage of the Western front but it was the dominant part of the European Theater.

If you want a primer on what the mass retreat from the East was like, or how the German war machine was slowly ground down it's recommended.

Crisis. Waste

So the guy behind Mayors against Guns. That has spent gobs of money trying on entrapment schemes in other states has an act of terrorism in the city he's defacto Mayor-for-Life in.

What does Mr. Term-Limits-Are-For-Suckers do when faced with a car bomb?

After he blames it on people against Obamacare.

Try to ban guns of course.

Drew M. has some thoughts.

"Convicted felons, domestic abusers and the mentally ill are forbidden from buying guns and explosives, but nothing in our laws keeps fanatics on the terror watch list from purchasing guns and explosives," Lautenberg said in his prepared testimony. "That is hard to believe -- yet, unfortunately, it is true."

Sounds sort of reasonable under you really think about it.

As of last year there were about one million names on the list. Nobody really knows why people are put on it and it's damn hard to get off it. There's also plenty of cases where the list is just wrong.

Seems Bloomberg (and Keith Olbermann, more about that in a moment) are on board with the idea the government should be able to take away people's rights simply by putting them on a list. I don't think they'd like that idea if say, George W. Bush were president and it was a right they liked. Hey maybe people on the list shouldn't be able to exercise their First Amendment rights and post to Youtube. Why no Youtube? It's a jihadi recruitment tool. Surely that's a danger too.

Now, I'm not a legal expert but I'm pretty sure the 14th Amendment mentions something about "due process" before taking away a person's rights. Again, not a legal expert but I'm thinking the mere act of the government putting your name on a list is not in fact "due process".

Notice that Bloomberg calls people on the list "suspects". Again, I wasn't aware that rights could be taken away from people simply because the government "suspects" you've done something wrong without any notice or opportunity for redress.

Emphasis added. The mask slips. You get put on "a list" and your rights get taken away. Deal with it.

It's like they don't think there should be any limits to the power of the state.

The left now stands for full rights for terror suspects, most of whom are not US citizens or on US soil and for the proposition that illegal aliens can't be required to produced documentation lest the chill of Nazism descend upon us.

They are however pretty excited about stripping Americans of their 2nd Amendment rights by administrative fiat.

Ah, charming. But hey what do you expect? Compare how the Tea Party is treated versus any Anti-War or Pro Amnesty, or Eco protest.


Bill Roggio tears into Bloomberg's tyranical ideas and offers this gem.

And, of course, the alleged Times Square bomber actually got on the plane. Bloomberg’s idea would do nothing to restrict gun crime or hijackings, endlessly hassle innocent people, and further advance the idea that certain parts of the Bill of Rights are optional if the richest guy in New York doesn’t like them.

Remember when the Left screamed Bush's "shredding of the Consitution"?

The cries that people's liberties would be taken away as part of some witch hunt?

That there would be McCarthy-esque enemies lists?

Well if you do remember you're a paranoid hatriot teabagger. Get with the program.

Willful Blindness.

Bill Whittle's analysis. In short: FAIL.
Watch it all.

"If the bomb doesn't go off I don't consider that the system working."
"If their big sucess story is that the detonator didn't work, then we're in trouble."

Here's ThreatWatch's take:

It should be noted here that the crude, technically lacking bomb design itself should be no source of reassurance that the threat to New York City, its citizens, its tourists and its workers is minimal. It was a mistake for authorities and experts to publicly describe it as "amateurish." Americans taking in their information from news reports who see this written and hear it spoken will instinctively conclude that the threat is significantly less than feared. This is a mistake, because upwards of 80% of a successful attack comes from the motivation and desire of the attacker. This is far harder for terrorists to cultivate among recruits than skill levels and tactics. And the motivation and desire to kill innocents on New York City streets was clearly demonstrated Saturday.

Emphasis added: it is far easier to train a person motivated towards these ends, than it is to find a person with the requisit skills and try to motivate them.

Thoughts from Ace.

Still, questions need to be asked about how a wanted terrorist manageto buy a ticket,presumably a one way ticket to Pakistan and still geton a plane. Did the NYPD/FBI not ask State/TSA to flag it? Or did thebreakdown occur in the implementation?

8+ years after 9/11 and we're still treating old ladies at airportslike they are prison drug mules but this can happen?

The system is not working.

And why they keep trying to sugar-coat it.

And that is the truth of crises and crisis management. When it is done well, there should be no sugar-coating. The impulse to sugar-coat is a mark of the conviction among politicians that they are in the same relation to the body politic as a parent is to a child. In our system, a politician is an employee, not a parent. For a rational employer, an employee who gives it to you straight will always be someone you take more seriously than an employee who pretends that everything is fine when everything isn’t.

Emphasis added. Like many things, the heart of the issue lies with the relationship between the citizen and the state. The core of progressivism is the idea that people need the guiding hand of goverment. That they are incapable of running their own lives. Hence the restrictions on what people can buy, eat, invest, drive, and shoot.


But it gets worse:

Now consider Michael Bloomberg. He glibly announces on the CBS Evening News that if forced to bet on who had left the bomb in Time Square he’d bet on the terrorist being “Homegrown, or maybe a mentally deranged person, or somebody with a political agenda that doesn't like the health care bill or something.” Homegrown, mentally deranged, doesn’t like the healthcare bill: These are the three best guesses of the mayor who works a few minutes from ground zero could come up with. To which I say, stick it up your memory hole Mayor.

This liberal tendency is not just offensive because it assumes that American citizens – including vets – are somehow an under-appreciated terrorist threat. Though that is plenty awful in and of itself.

It is also disgustingly undemocratic. Why? because so many of these people, starting with Obama himself but including former Presidents Clinton and Carter, the Democratic Party, the editorial pages of the New York Times, and much of the rest of the liberal dominated media, use this talk about the “rhetorical climate” on the right as a means to bully it into silence. That’s what Obama did in his recent commencement address and that’s what hundreds of commentators and bloggers have been doing in response to the tea parties.

They’re saying, “You people need to shut up because you’re aiding and abetting terrorists.” They’re also trying to say to independents: “If you think the rightwingers are persuasive, you need to think again. They’re all just mouthpieces and stalking horses for the homegrown terrorists and the mentally deranged.”

It will get worse.

And they will blame you for it, because you dare to talk back. Because you refuse to "know your place."

More on that later.

More Communist Jokes

A post that keeps coming up on web searches is the old one on Soviet Union jokes

So in that spirit her's some from the last Stalanist Gov.

- Kim Jong Il and Vladimir Putin are having a summit meeting in Moscow.During a break, they're bored, and they decide to take a bet to seewhose bodyguards are more loyal.

Putin is on the 20th floor and calls on his bodyguard Ivan, opens the window, and says: "Ivan, jump!"

Sobbing, Ivan says: "Mr. President, how can you ask me to do that? Ihave a wife and child waiting for me at home"

Putin sheds a tear himself, apologises to Ivan, and sends him away.
Next, it's Kim Jong Il's turn. He calls his bodyguard Lee Myung Manand yells: "Lee Myung Man, jump!"

Not hesitating for a split second, Lee Myung Man is just about to jumpout the window.

Putin grabs Lee Myung Man to prevent him from jumping and says: "Areyou out of your mind? If you jump out this window, you'll die! This isthe 20th floor!"

Nevertheless, Lee Myung Man is still struggling, trying to escapePutin's embrace and jump out the window: "Mr. Putin, please let me go!I have a wife and child at home!"

Sad.

Briming with confidence

Michael Bloomberg, just asking questions:

"If I had to guess 25 cents, this would be exactly that. Homegrown,
or maybe a mentally deranged person, or somebody with a political agenda that
doesn't like the health care bill or something. It could be anything."

Hey, he's just asking questions. Meanwhile you're a raaaacist if you think that the NYC bomb attempt could be related to Islamic terrorism.

These people are the government. They know better. They'd never influcence an investigation to get the result that's politically convenient.

Oh wait.

Meanwhile here's a bunch of protesters that got angry and started smashing up things.
Will thsoe Tea Partiers never stop their rampage?

An ounce of prevention.

Tam comments on a water main break in Mass:

How much drinking water do you have on hand? Do you have stuff to purify
water in an emergency?

This brings us back to the theory of Zombie Apocalypse: If you are prepared to fort up and survive when the dead rise and walk the earth in search of human brains, then a busted water main is a doddle. Just be sure and refill your water supply after they get the pipe fixed. You know, in case the zombies come the day after.

A little advanced preparedness can turn what would otherwise be a big problem into just a minor hassle.

In short: Be Prepared.

Just stocking up on a few simple things can really get you through a power outtage, water outage, gas outtage, and the like.

Now take this precaution and preparedness idea and apply it to self defense...


Related: Flooding in Nashville

Wouldn't a disater be much easier to deal with if you had a big old bag of everything you needed ot survive that you could dump in your car if you had to evacuate? Or if things were worse a smaller backpack if you had to walk out.