Two things fixed

As you can see, I got my modem fixed. So I'm back on the intarwebs.

I also got the motorcycle running. I'm stoked. Took it for a ride last night when I got home from work. Damn, I missed riding. I'll be doing a lot more of it in the future.

Newsweek Jumps The Shark for Good

Has Newsweek given up all pretense of objectivity whatsoever? Guess who is getting loving, front-page caresses from Newsweak?

None other than Michelle "I can finally be proud of my country" Obama. The last female/politician to get such the dedicated front page spotlight? Hillary Clinton. Her tag line? "I Finally Found My Voice."

So what is Michelle's trademark? "Barak's Rock" and "I Can Only Be Who I Can Be." {{The preceeding must be stated while looking off-camera, upwards at a roughly 30 degree angle, a wistfully far way, yet confident and noble look in your eyes.}}

Here's a juicy quote:

If his {Barak's} loftiness can set him apart from the crowd, her bluntness draws them in. Standing up before large audiences wasn't easy at first. "I've never participated at this level in any of his campaigns," she told NEWSWEEK last week. "I have usually chosen to just appear when necessary."

Let there be no doubt. She is not campaigning FOR Barak, she's campaigning WITH him. And apparently, her "bluntness" is what "draws people in." This only solidifies the growing perception that, even moreso than will Billary, Michelle and Barak will be a package deal, as she works to "keep him real" and "not forget what we are fighting for." Without her around, it's beginning to sound like ol' Barry would be prone to drift into indirection, suffer numerous gaffes or get too full of himself. What a gal!

It's almost as if Michelle Obama is being billed as Barak's keeper. His handler. She keeps him centered and on track. {{sniff, dab}} Or, translated another way: she's running the show. I almost have to ask who exactly we'll be voting for on election day if "he" get's the nomination?

We haven't seen such a kid-gloves, soft-coated approach to "journalism" since...since...well, since Bill Clinton was in office.

Michelle Obama makes endearingly "blunt" comments, manages to piss-off or otherwise alienate a large chunk of the American voting populace...and she gets the front page of Newsweek. Nice.

Oh, and check the header graphic at the top: "The End of The Conservative Age."

Newsweak has clearly decided who is going to win the culture war, and thrown its unabashed support in that direction.

Internet out

My modem bit the big one late Friday night. I'm writing this from a friend's house right now. I should have the new modem up and running by tomorrow night, but that's not a guarantee. So, if I don't post, you know why.

See you when I'm back online.

Details, details

Way back when, many moons ago, in a galaxy far, far away.... back when I was an MP, one of the many things drilled into my head by my NCO's was a simple, yet true statement: "If you're going to enforce the law, you had better damned well follow the law!" Simple, yet true. If I pulled you over for speeding, yet I sped in my own car, I was a hypocrite, wasn't I? If I arrested you for driving drunk, yet I got tanked up and drove home, wasn't I breaking the very same law?

In order to enforce the law, you have to follow the law. Doing otherwise makes you a hypocrite, a coward, enforcing a double-standard. One law for me, and one law for thee. It's rotten, foul, and there's not enough horrible things that I can say about someone who does that.

Much like the BATFU.

Just to be clear - the BATF is flat out hammering people for minor paperwork errors. Things just as putting a "Y" into a spot instead of the word "yes". THAT minor. And yet these fucktards are labeling a Glock as a "revolver", or a revolver as a Glock, even though Glock does not make a revolver at all.

Compared to shortening the word "yes" to the letter "Y", what the BATFU has done is a major fuck-up. That's akin to labeling the Grand Canyon as a minor mountain range in Arizona. Huge fuck-up. Massive fuck-up. You're supposed to be enforcing firearms laws, and yet you can't even properly tell what a firearm IS?

I'm reminded of that South Park episode where Cartman becomes a police officer....

CARTMAN: Do you know how fast you were going sir?

DRIVER: Uh... 35?

CARTMAN: Do you know what the speed limit is here sir?

DRIVER: Isn't it 35 miles per hour?

CARTMAN: ......... Step out of the car please sir.

Again, if you're going to enforce the law, you had damned well better follow the law. Since the BATFU has shown that it couldn't even find it's own ass with both hands, a map and a guide dog, the fact that it doesn't even know the difference between a semi-auto and a revolver should come as no surprise. The surprise is the fact that the BATFU is still allowed to enforce the law.

Yet another government agency that should be collectively tarred, feathered, and ridden out of town on a rail.

By the way, Red's Trading Post, a good Idaho company, can be found on the blogroll under "The Second Amendment".

Quote of the Day

Lifted in it's entirety from BabyTrollBlog.

"By the mid-1930's, thanks to the New Deal, all that self-reliance had changed, prompting Mencken to declare: 'There is no genuine justice in any scheme of feeding and coddling the loafer whose only ponderable energies are devoted wholly to reproduction. Nine-tenths of the rights he bellows for are really privileges and he does nothing to deserve them.' Despite the billions spent on an individual, 'he can be lifted transiently but always slips back again.' Thus, the New Deal had been 'the most stupendous digenetic enterprise ever undertaken by man.... We not only acquired a vast population of morons, we have inculcated all morons, old or young, with the doctrine that the decent and industrious people of the country are bound to support them for all time. The effects of that doctrine are bound to be disastrous soon or late.'

When someone asked, "And what, Mr. Mencken, would you do about the unemployed?" He looked up with a bland expression. "We could start by taking away their vote," he said, deadpan. Mencken was not surprised when the majority disagreed. "There can be nothing even remotely approaching a rational solution of the fundamental national problems until we face them in a realistic spirit," he later reflected, and that was impossible so long as educated Americans remained responsive "to the Roosevelt buncombe."

I once said, many moons ago, that if you're not reading Mr. Alger, you're doing yourself a dis-service. I stand by that. Even if we do disagree on a few points, Mark Alger is always able to make me think about my convictions, either good or bad.

Plus, he seems like the kind of guy I'd love to have a drink and a cigar with. That's just a bonus.

By the way...

If you've ever wanted proof that truth and facts don't matter to CNN, here's yet another bit of evidence to add to your files.

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Maybe one day the MSM in this country will stop being partisan pieces of shit and actually report the news. But I'm not holding my breath.

I keep hearing that old saying - "Never attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance." OK, that's all cute and stuff. But what about when the same people have been making the same mistakes for years. The same biases. The same problems with their unobjective reporting, despite literally thousands of people willing, able, and desperately trying to correct them?

Ignorance can no longer be used as an excuse. Which leaves malice. Which means that CNN has allied themselves to the side of government control, less freedom, and socialist tyranny.

Which makes them the enemy.

Adding to the DANEgerus post below

So, Obama is crying about a Captain who says he didn't have adequate troops or equipment.

Jake Tapper, a MSM shitheel reporter, says he spoke to the Captain, and says the story is legit.

First of all, let's state one fact: This action allegedly occurred in 2003. But it was presented as recent news. Nah, no media bias there, eh?

Second of all, if Obama wants to whine about the lack of funding, troops and equipment, well.....

He can go play hide and go fuck himself.

Despite what Jake fucking Tapper and the collective fucking pusswads want to say, it is CONGRESS who appropriates the military budget. It is CONGRESS who decides how much money the military gets. It is CONGRESS who provides the money to recruit, train, and equip soldiers. The president gets to sign the budget. CONGRESS determines how much money is in that budget.

THE VERY SAME CONGRESS THAT OBAMA WAS A PART OF!

So fuck you, Jake Tapper. You're a brainless piece of shit so far out of your depth it's not even funny.

Fuck you, Barak Obama. You're using five year old news to try to be elected to an office you don't even deserve to sniff at.

It's Congress who has failed in their duty to adequately supply the troops. The very same Congress that Barak Hussien Obama was a part of. And Hillary Clinton. And John Fucking McCain. All of them worthless fucking pissants, corrupt parasites, filthy pieces of dog shit who shouldn't be allowed any office higher than FUCKING DOG CATCHER! There's not a single person still running who should be allowed within 50 yards of the Oval Office!

Nobody in Congress has the right to complain about the lack of military funding. They destroyed the military in the 90's, and refused to adequately fund it ever since. Maybe instead of carrying on like fucking sissies, like whiny ass pansy cock-biters, like bitchy pathetic fucksticks, they could have actually funded the military. But they didn't. They refused to do so. They should be tarred, feathered, and ridden out of town on a rail. They're not worth two squirts of piss in the wind.

And Jake Tapper is just another partisan piece of crap, guzzling kool-aid and carrying water like a good little bitch for his masters. So fuck him too.

We are so screwed this election. I truly hope this country can survive, but I have my doubts.

Obama smears the troops...

OBAMA: You know, I've heard from an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon — supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. Ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24 because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq.

And as a consequence, they didn't have enough ammunition, they didn't have enough Humvees. They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief.

Ace responds

Really, Jesus 2.0?

Really?

You really going with that, buddy?

You sure of that?

Really?
...
Below, captured footage of US soldiers forced to fight hand to hand against a Taliban Warlord/dragon-man for lack of ammo. Winess the plight of the undersupplied Captain that Obama was speaking of.

Jake Tapper of ABC tried to excuse this... he contacted the same anonymous party and claims the story "checks out"...

So he wasn't a Captain, who didn't run out of ammunition in theater so he wasn't forced to use captured weapons, whose platoon may have been understrength because of normal turnover but certainly wasn't because platoons are 'split' against Army policy, so... even though the circumstances were misrepresented, and even though the anecdote was not representative of any actual circumstances reported by any other units... yeah... it "checks out".

Cross Posted at DANEgerus

Not That I'd Ever Encourage Such Irresponsible Behavior

Utah students hide guns, head to class

Nick says his gun doesn't make him feel immune from attack. "But I feel that I will be able to protect myself, and I'm confident in my training and my ability," he said.

Or....

His confidence is not shared by fellow student Griselda Espinoza, who recently transferred to the university. Some 28,000 students attend the school, as of the latest enrollment figures.

"I feel less safe knowing that a stranger sitting beside me in class may have a gun in his or her backpack," she said.

"The only people that should carry guns are trained officials."

Uhmmm, yeah. Those highly trained campus police. In a car, on the other side of campus. Who will be there in under five minutes.

A lot can happen in five minutes.

I'm just sayin'.

Under a Blood Red Moon

Here's a shot from last night's lunar eclipse. I managed to get the moon and one solitary star into the shot. Living in the middle of the city like I do, there's not a whole bunch more I could do. I can just imagine what it looked like out in the country, where there's no ambient light to ruin the shot.

Anyways, click click for a bigger version. It's only about 70 KB or so.

Yeah, I do

I still read his website. It's not like he doesn't have a flaming assload of archives to keep me busy. Besides, a lot of what he said then still applies today.

Them Democrats is gonna save mah SOUL!

I have heard sound-bites from both Obama and Shrillery about how they are going to "reclaim the soul of America" or "save the soul of America."

Hey, isn't that a violation of the separation of church and state? [/sarcasm]

Is it really the job of the President to save souls? Isn't that a tad more messianic than presidential?

When your candidates for President talk more about saving a soul than governing a people, you know you've got problems. They want us to see them as standing in white robes, arms outstretched with a staff and flowing silver hair, bathed in light as they lead us forward, out of darkness and into the light of a Grand Progressive Future^tm.

Pastors and politicians serve separate and disinct roles, and they need to stay that way. I'm looking for another Ronald Reagan, not another Jim Jones. A Gipper, not a Ghandi.

How much CO2 is enough?

So, a while back I admitted that there were some questions I had about the whole globule warning thing, and vowed to do some research to rectumify the situation.

In the comments, Mike W made a comment that mirrored something that I had already sort of intuitively guessed at. Essentially, that if the sun creates heat by warming the surface, at some point you will reach an equilibrium state where there isn't enough energy left to heat anything else, so adding more CO2 is essentially irrelevant.

You see, a great deal of the chest-clutching, hair-fire, screaming-in-the-streets catastrophizing about global warming seems to be centered around the idea that all this industrial pollution from capitalist factories and irresponsible SUV owners is CREATING the greenhouse efffect.

'Cept dat, the greenhouse effect was already there. It HAS to be, or life on this planet ceases to exist. There needs to be a certain amount of CO2 "blanket" to prevent radiant heat from escaping too quickly, thus moderating temp extremes, and enabling the kind of warm, humid environment on which so much of life as we know it depends.

So, the question becomes not IF there is a greenhouse effect, but, can we have too much of a good thing?

If the sun creates radiant heat through the absorption of UV and Visible light by "dark" surfaces on the Earth, followed by the "reflection" of this energy as infra-red, it would seem to me to be intuitively obvious that the RATE at which this energy/light strikes the Earth would be the determining factor in how much heat is generated.

Because, as stated by Mike W, if only X amount of energy is created, then only X amount is available to "excite" CO2 molecule to a higher energy state (called "heating" in layman's terms). So, while I can certainly see how you could ultimately have too LITTLE CO2, and thus be unable to retain sufficient heat, I begin to question if you can really have too much? Once you reach a certain threshold amount, or a "point of equilibrium," there will simply not be enough energy left to charge up any more CO2 molecules!

Air is heated by the "blackbody radiation" from the ground. This energy is then transfered via convection to other molecules in the atmosphere: H2O and CO2 being the most popular. As these molecules transfer their heat energy to the other molecules around them, they lose energy by exactly the same amount (conservation of energy), thus cooling down. Since one molecule can transfer energy to several others, and so on in a geometric progression, each successive "bump" transfers less and less energy, until the medium again reaches its thermal equilibrium state (the Zeroth law of thermodynamics). At some point, all of this radiant energy will have convected/dissapated through the atmosphere. The farther away from the stove you get, the less heat you feel, right?

Once the threshold (equilibrium) point has been reached, double or tripling the concentration of CO2 will have no effect. There simply isn't enough energy left to heat the rest of the molecules past their equilibrium state.

The only problem I could see is that as the CO2 heats, it expands, thus taking up more volume, and so the heating could potentially happen closer to the surface, thus increasing the "felt effects." Yet, I just can't get past the idea that radiant heat, behaving as a wave, will propogate through the atmospheric medium at a fairly fixed rate.

Again, I'm still reading stuff, so please point out if my logic here is flawed. But until I'm convinced otherwise, I'm going to lean towards the rate of heating by the sun as a far greater determinent of global temp than the concentration of "greenhouse gases" in the atmosphere.

Gas tank getting cleaned

Remember my gas tank? We put some rust removing stuff into it this weekend. Sloshed it around, let it sit and work.

Whoooooooooooooooooooooooooo boy. It works. And we're getting crap out of the tank that should never exist inside a vehicle component.

Ug.

What's that saying?

It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

If you ever wanted to see a case study in projection, self-delusion, and self-induced ignorance, you can do no better than to observe the tool currently attempting to bite the ankles of Kim du Toit.

Whadda maroon!

Barack's Appease-Mint flavor

Michelle Malkin is using Ben & Jerry's own propaganda generator against them:Name that flavor: Make your own Ben and Jerry’s Obama ice cream

Can you do better?...
Head on over to the flavor generator!

My effort is above... it features a Vanilla & Chocolate swirl with marshmallow & Oreo Cookies tossed in... yet some substance is missing...

Head on over and generate a flavor Mrs O can be proud of... so no Red-White & Blue.

Cross Posted at DANEgerus

I'll give it a go

Since everyone seems to be playing, I'll give it a whirl even if I haven't been tagged with the meme yet.

Which [type of] book do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews?

--Romance novels and anything in a college required reading list.

If you could bring three [fictional] characters to life for a social event (afternoon tea, a night of clubbing, perhaps a world cruise), who would they be and what would the event be?

--Lazarus Long, Honor Harrington and Fiver from Watership Down. It would be a poker game and BBQ. Heheheheheheh.

You are told you can’t die until you read the most boring novel on the planet. While this immortality is great for awhile, eventually you realize it’s past time to die. Which book would you expect to get you a nice grave?

--Flowers for Algernon. Quite possibly the most overused book for high-school drama EVAH! Can't stand it.

Come on, we’ve all been there. Which book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you’ve read, when in fact you’ve been nowhere near it?

Haven't done that. My normal question, if I haven't read the book, is "Can I borrow it?"

As an addition to the last question, has there been a book that you really thought you had read, only to realize when you read a review about it/go to ‘reread’ it that you haven’t? Which book?

--I'm sure there has, but I can't remember it. Wait - maybe "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck. Hell, I don't know. I read books like other people watch TV.

You’ve been appointed Book Adviser to a VIP (who’s not a big reader). What’s the first book you’d recommend and why? (if you feel like you’d have to know the person, go ahead of personalize the VIP).

--You mean, other than being the book adviser to the Ragin' Mrs? She's a VIP, after all! OK, OK.... I suppose "Founding Father", which is a biography of George Washington, who I consider to be one of the most, if not THE most important man in American history.

A good fairy comes and grants you one wish: you will have perfect reading comprehension in the foreign language of your choice. Which language do you go with?

--Korean. I can probably learn any western language if I have enough time, but if you don't start learning Korean from day one in your life, you're screwed. And I'd love to finally figure out what the hell all those signs were saying in Munsan.

A mischievous fairy comes and says that you must choose one book that you will reread once a year for the rest of your life (you can read other books as well). Which book would you pick?

--Parliament of Whores, by P.J. O'Rourke, just to remind myself how worthless and corrupt politicians are.

I know that the book blogging community, and its various challenges, have pushed my reading borders. What’s one bookish thing you ‘discovered’ from book blogging (maybe a new genre, or author, or new appreciation for cover art-anything)?

--for the Ragin' Mrs., it would be tailoring. For me, it would be a new appreciation for other Founding Fathers.

That good fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she’s granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leather bound? Is it full of first edition hardcovers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favorite authors have inscribed their works?

It's not just a library, it's a study. Good solid wooden bookshelves from floor to ceiling, with glass doors to protect the books if I wanted to smoke a cigar at night. How to manuals over there, fiction and fantasy over there, historical to the right, philosophy to the left, and general manuals all the way in the back. The walls would literally be covered in books. I'd have tables, chairs, sofas and ottomans in the middle of the room. A big mahogany computer desk for me, with a mini bar (big enough for a couple of bottles, some glasses, and a humidor). The fastest internet connection possible. It wouldn't just be a place to sit and read, although you could certainly do that if you wished, but it would be a place to study. And I'd have as many leather-bound books as I could fit in there. Because I like leather bound hardback books. They just have a feel to them.

OK, that's it. Anyone else want to give it a try?

Better late than never

Been a while since they did this, but....


Islamo-fascist pricks can kiss my ass.

Refusing to learn

Whenever somebody starts talking about how "universal" (i.e. Socialist) health care would be so great, I'm amazed that these people refuse to see just what happens to a country's health care when the government takes it over.

Case in point: Britain.

Seriously ill patients are being kept in ambulances outside hospitals for hours so NHS trusts do not miss Government targets.

Thousands of people a year are having to wait outside accident and emergency departments because trusts will not let them in until they can treat them within four hours, in line with a Labour pledge.

The hold-ups mean ambulances are not available to answer fresh 999 calls.

You do NOT want the government running your health care. Period, end of story. Just think of how much the bean-counters have already screwed up this country. You want to put THEM in charge?

Or to put it another way: Do you want your health care provider to look at you as a patient and source of revenue, or do you want them to look at you as just another cost to be dealt with?

Found via Sondra K's place.

Why I don't follow the NBA

Went to a friend's house last night to watch the NBA All-Star game. The Ragin' Mrs. made some of her hot wings, we got some beer, and settled down to see the game.

Yawn.

The "Understatement of the Night" goes to Marv Albert, who quipped sometime through the 2nd quarter, "Not much defense being played here tonight!"

No shit, Sherlock.

This is why super-teams of NBA starts are getting their asses handed to them on any international stage. The whole team concept has gone out the window. It's a bunch of people running around, trying to impress everyone else on the floor, damn near screaming "LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT HOW "REAL" I AM! I'M A STAR, DAMMIT!" Hell, with a few exceptions, we shouldn't even call them basketball "teams" anymore, as most of them aren't a team in anything but name. Call 'em corporations. Call 'em money-making ventures. Call 'em anything else. The only actual "team" that I've seen lately is the San Antonio Spurs, which might explain why they've hoisted hardware on a regular basis this past decade.

SOMEBODY has to play defense. SOMEBODY has to get the ball into the right hands at the right time. And most of those somebodies are outside the USA. Since I brought the Spurs up, let's look at their big three: Tony Parker - France. Manu Ginobli - Argentina (IIRC, I could be wrong on that, but he's from South America). Tim Duncan - US Virgin Islands.

Nope, Duncan ain't from the States. And it shows, in the fact that he's a team-member before he's a superstar.

Bah. Anyways, it's not like I have TV in my house to begin with. I just wanted to comment a bit. Now it's back to my chores that I've been ignoring all weekend. Oh, and eating half a batch of my wife's hot wings? I'm about to start taking ice-cubes into the bathroom with me. Ouch. It warms ya up when you eat them, and it warms ya up when they come out the other end.

I bet you all were just dying to know that, weren't you?