Category Archives: Current News

This is about stuff in the mass media that generally has a short interest life span. Speculation about an election outcome a few days before the election is an example.

We Get it, Already

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This is an open letter to all the talk show hosts, pundits, party hacks, cheaters, scumbags, sick twisted freaks (you know who you are) and pro-freedom bloggers.  We could spend the rest of our lives cataloging the outrageous behavior of nasty, America-hating, ignorant, self-loathing, cultist, freedom-hating, anti-human, leftist politicians including Progressive Republicans.  We know they’re bad, OK?  If there are three or four people who still don’t get it, that’s all right.


I’d rather try to figure out how we’re going to get some principled Americans nominated so we’re not always forced to choose between bad and worse– between more socialism slower, and more socialism faster.  This last national election was a real puker.  The Republican Party is, at the moment, just as lost, dumbfounded, selfish and clueless as ever.  They’re a herd of does, staring blankly into the headlights of an on-coming truck, and the worst part of it is; they don’t even suspect that they’re clueless.  They in the Republican leadership think they have some really clever answers, which amount to more of what got us into this mess.  I recently heard it described as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.  That fits very well.  The Republicans have some really super great, super ultra smart ideas for rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.  No really, listen…  (all the while we have this simple, proven model for success, and it’s being ignored.)


We need to change that.  You need to change it.  I need to change it.  There isn’t anyone else.  I suppose, since it’s up to us, it will have to be on the local level for most of us, being as we’re not billionaires.  That’s OK.  We can still do what we can do.  A lot of people are jazzed up right now.  They just need somewhere to start.  Well, pick a place, a local issue or a local politician that needs a hand (or a very public spanking) and get to it!


That there are clueless people is not the issue.  There will always be the clueless.  They’ll sit on the sidelines, worrying about who likes them and who doesn’t, trying to figure out where the “center” is so they can position themselves in it and claim superiority for having done so, while someone else does the lifting.  Are you a sitter or a lifter?


I have a bad feeling that things could come to blows before this government is brought under control, and I really don’t want that to happen.  Do you?  This country is far too important in the grand scheme of things.


And with that; I don’t have much more to say on here, other than to repeat myself or talk about the weather and what I did last weekend, unless it’s to tell you what I’m doing on the local level to influence politics.  Now I think I have some calls to make.


(Note that I placed this in nearly every one of Joe’s categories. It’s relevant to everything we do and every opportunity we want for our kids in the future)

It wasn’t me

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Yes, this is within my range of operations but I didn’t make the device:



An Army Ordnance disposal team destroyed a homemade explosive device Friday morning along a busy on-ramp to U.S. Highway 12 just north of Yakima.

The device was described as a plastic beverage bottle with shotgun-shell powder inside. The bottle was wrapped with electrical tape and a metal chain.


While I’m sure with enough shotgun shell powder such a device would be “interesting” Boomerite is much cheaper per unit of fun.


And if you are going to play with things that go boom don’t put metal near the explosives. The rule we use is that we don’t put anything between the explosives and your body that a surgeon or the medical examiner might have to remove from your body.

Political Profiling

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The story from Missouri has been out for some time.  I want to say I’m glad the report was distributed, because it shows us the bigoted, upside-down views a lot of people have, and that they’re eager to act on them.  We knew it already, but we now have a better idea of what to expect.


The people you need to look out for are the several Left-wing groups.  It’s been a long-standing MO of theirs to accuse their opposition of doing what they themselves are already doing, or what they’re planning.

Doing fine

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“Fine” can be a relative word. A prime example is this case:



“For being hit in the face with a shotgun, he’s doing fine,” said Tennant.


I reported on this incident yesterday but the latest news report has a lot more details.


I”m glad the injuries aren’t serious and that the perps were arrested quickly and without incident.

Quote of the day–Chris Cox

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Yesterday afternoon, DoD additionally confirmed the lifting of the suspension to pro-Second Amendment United States Senators Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who sent the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) a joint letter vigorously opposing the suspension, on the grounds that it had “an impact on small businesses who sell reloaded ammunition utilizing these fired casings, and upon individual gun owners who purchase spent military brass at considerable cost savings for their personal use.”


…


DLA also put to rest various theories and rumors that were circulated on the internet, concerning the reason for the suspension. As DLA explained to Senators Baucus and Tester, and to NRA-ILA, DoD officials responsible for the demilitarization of military property temporarily halted the release of the cartridge cases last week, pending review of a policy change issued last year by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, which, in the interest of national security, halted the sale of items within a broad category of government property including, but not limited to, surplus small arms cartridge cases.


Chris Cox
March 18, 2009
Military Surplus Cartridge Case Issue Resolved
[I was working on a post comparing the destruction of the brass to destroying used books that were being sold to underfunded schools in black neighborhoods. But I procrastinated long enough to avoid the appearance of jumping on the Obama conspiracy train.


Appearances are not always what they seem.–Joe]

Arrested at my gas station

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When in Moscow I buy my gas there:



Pullman police arrested a 20-year-old man overnight for allegedly shooting another man in the face.


…


Pullman Police and the Moscow Police Department worked together to find Lawrence, who was arrested at a Tesoro gas station in Moscow a half hour after the shooting.


Just because they are across the state line from each other doesn’t mean they don’t have excellent cooperation. My understanding is the Washington State University Police (in Pullman), Whitman County (Washington), and Latah County (Idaho) police also work closely with the Pullman and Moscow city police. I’ve met a few of them, shoot with some of them and occasionally some of the sniper teams attend Boomershoot. All of seem to be good guys. Perhaps a little grumpy when one of their fellow officers gets shot (pictures here) however.

Quote of the day–Erwin Knoll

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Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true except for the rare story of which you happen to have first-hand knowledge.


Erwin Knoll
[Although I have observed this for myself on many occasions it was Kevin’s post from yesterday which most recently reminded me of this.–Joe]

Arsenal of stolen arms gets six years in club Fed

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I posted about this guy once before. This probably will be the last time. This is just down the road from where I work. I have driven by there many times. Apparently a lot of the items were stolen:



A 65-year-old Spokane man pleaded guilty Thursday to having an arsenal of illegal military weapons and explosives in a Bellevue storage unit.


Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested Ronald Struve in January after his cache of weapons — which included dozens of machine guns and blocks of C-4 plastic explosives — was discovered by a man who bought at auction the contents of the storage unit at 12863 Northup Way after the unit’s rent went unpaid, according to a criminal complaint.


…


Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Woods declined to say what motive Struve had for collecting the weapons other than to note that Struve had said “he might have to use it some day.”


Under terms of a plea agreement, Struve faces a sentence of 63 to 78 months in a federal prison.

Quote of the day–Richard K. Willard

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The District and its supporters also err in extolling the supposed virtues of a world without guns, and condemning the vices of a world without gun regulations. In doing so, they set up a false set of choices. A world without guns is not an option, because hundreds of millions of guns are already in private hands and readily available across either the Virginia or Maryland borders; and even if all handguns in America magically vanished, criminals could still illegally saw off shotguns and rifles to produce concealable weapons that would be more lethal than most handguns. Thus, the District can only hope to dry up the supply of handguns for the law abiding, while criminal access to handguns remains virtually unlimited. It is against this real-world backdrop, and not against that of a utopian gun-free world, that the District’s position must be assessed.


Richard K. Willard
D.C. versus Heller
Brief Amicus Curiae Of The Heartland Institute in support of respondent
[In light of the renewed calls for more gun control after the shootings in Alabama and Germany I thought this was appropriate.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Ed Pilkington

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Maritime experts were given a rare glimpse of the underlying capabilities of the Chinese navy on Sunday, when crewmen involved in a stand-off with a US surveillance ship in the South China Sea revealed the fleet’s previously hidden firepower.


The exposure came as the American vessel USNS Impeccable was attempting to defend itself against what the Pentagon claimed was co-ordinated harassment and aggression from five Chinese ships. Being unarmed, the Impeccable turned its fire water hoses against two of the Chinese vessels that had come within 50 feet in a threatening posture.


Then, the Pentagon records in the admirably restrained language of international diplomacy, “the Chinese crew members disrobed to their underwear and continued closing to within 25 feet.”


In the annals of great naval battles, the contretemps may not rank alongside Trafalgar or Jutland. But it must be a contender for this year’s award for naked aggression.


Ed Pilkington
March 10, 2009
In New York, The Guardian
Stand-off shows Chinese navy’s secret tactics
[I just hope the sailors on the Impeccable got lots of pictures of all that “previously hidden firepower”. I’m sure there is a market for that somewhere outside of the Pentagon. Maybe some magazines would be interested.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Tracy Ambeau Hanson

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Do we really need a gun-fashion police? I just want to be able to exercise my Second Amendment rights without interference from the District government.


Tracy Ambeau Hanson
March 9, 2009
SAF CHALLENGES D.C. HANDGUN BAN SCHEME



[The above picture is from David. See also more on the lawsuit story from David. I find it incredible amusing SAF found a woman of color as the plaintiff in a case about discrimination against a gun that is the wrong color. How much more blatant can the discrimination be before people start realizing the people attempting to infringe our right to keep and bear arms are bigots?


Thank you Ms. Hanson, SAF, and Calguns Foundation.


SAF is getting monthly, tax deductible, donations from my paycheck with matching donations from Microsoft. What are you doing to help?-Joe]

We didn’t do it! No one can prove a thing!

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Although Boomershoot has an ATF approved explosive handler in Memphis she didn’t blow up this car with someone in it today.

Uplifting

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“That was uplifting.” That was what Barb said after I read this to her:



President Barack Obama has set his course for battle with America’s powerful interest groups over his ambitious, some say radical, spending blueprint that aims to remodel American society.


Even as he has rammed through emergency economic spending that easily could top $1 trillion, Obama has asked Congress to adopt a budget that is ripe with programs to improve the lot of lower- and middle-income Americans at the expense of the wealthy and the farming and industrial complexes under their control.


…


On the budget plan Obama presented on Thursday, the president said it would help millions of people but only if Congress overcomes stiff resistance from well-financed lobbies.


“I know these steps won’t sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they’re gearing up for a fight,” Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and video address. “My message to them is this: So am I.”


Under the president’s proposal, America’s wealthiest 5 percent would pay a whopping $1 trillion in higher taxes over the next decade, while most others would get tax cuts. Industries would buy and trade permits to emit heat-trapping gases. Higher-income older people would pay more for government health insurance benefits. Drug companies would receive smaller profits from the government. Banks would play a much smaller role in student loans.


We are living in interesting times.


Sleep well and have a nice day.

Just backward

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How would you deal with someone that got everything exactly backward? When they want the car to stop they step on the accelerator and when they want to go they step on the brake. Instead of washing their hands before meals they soil them in the most foul manner possible. They put water on the campfire that is keeping them warm and they put gasoline on the Christmas tree fire in their living room.


I would have to conclude they are insane. And unless there are some sort of drugs or therapy available for their condition they should be locked up for the protection of themselves and others.


But that’s doesn’t appear to be an option in this case where the political leaders of D.C. are demanding Congress commit an unconstitutional law and object to the a law that brings them in line with the constitution on another matter:



D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and D.C. Council members disagree with that conclusion. They furiously protested the firearms amendment.


“The District of Columbia leadership is fully united in its opposition to unwarranted amendments that would dramatically damage the District’s carefully revised gun law and expose the District to great harm through the undoing of its laws,” D.C. Council President Vincent C. Gray and Council Member Phil Mendelson, chairman of the council’s public-safety commission, said in a letter to Congress released yesterday.


In a statement after the Senate’s vote, Ilir Zherka, executive director of D.C. Vote, a lobbying group, said the city has passed a “significant hurdle in our fight for full democracy for DC residents.”


But he added of the gun amendment: “If anything, this amendment has strengthened our resolve to continue to fight for the rights of Washingtonians. Congress repeatedly treats the District as a testing ground for flawed, dangerous legislation. This has to stop – and we’ll keep fighting to ensure that the bill signed into law is not tainted by this amendment.”

Quote of the day–Rupert Murdoch

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As you all know the downturn we are operating in is more severe and global than anything we have seen before.

We are in the midst of a phase of history in which nations will be redefined and their futures fundamentally altered. Many people will be under extreme pressure and many companies mortally wounded.


Rupert Murdoch
February 24, 2009
Peter Chernin’s little shocker
[Risk and opportunity abound. Keep your eyes open for both. I’m listening to The Black Swan which appears to be applicable to the times as well.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Robert Higgs

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For the economy in general, doing nothing is vastly preferable to doing the stimulus package, but doing nothing is not a political option; indeed, it would be political suicide. Given the dominant ideology and the political institutions that now exist, economically rational public policy is incompatible with political viability…. Having hit bottom, the politicians can only do one thing: keep digging. If Hell is down there, they’ll reach it, sooner or later.


Robert Higgs
Senior Fellow at Independent Institute
The Lighthouse Volume 11, Issue 7: February 16, 2009
[I was tempted to just use “rational public policy is incompatible with political viability” as the QOTD, but the mention of politicians attempting reach Hell was just too appealing.–Joe]

Our New Castro

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Via Limbaugh’s web site, we have a transcript of a PBS broadcast in which Obama is being compared to Fidel Castro.  It’s a favorable piece.  If you’re a 24/7 subscriber you can get the PBS audio.  I heard it this morning on the radio.



And that is, one, this notion of feeling that now we have a guy named Obama in the White House, we have President Obama now, there are many young people who are as ecstatic and as excited and as enthused about President Obama as you were about your new president, Fidel Castro.


They’re “ecstatic and excited”.  Now they have what they believe is the American version of the Cuban revolution, poised and ready to roll.  I would have thought they’d have been a little less overt about it, but I guess they think they can take off the masks now.

Quote of the day–Titanium Halo

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Let me tell you story. I know a guy. He’s a financial planner/investment banker type who from time to time helps me out. In November I had lunch with him after the first initial crash and wanted his opinion on the gather storm clouds I saw just over the horizon. He told me a few interesting things one of which kinda scared your Hero Halo a bit. He said, ‘Halo, I am advising my clients who have enough liquid assets to secure remote, sustainable property. I’m advising this because for very little capital outlay, they can have a lot of security.’


Ted, I looked right into this guys eyes and saw a certain fear that I have never seen before. This is a man who manages literally billions of dollars worth of assets and he looked as though his entire concept of reality had been shaken to the core. I wasn’t really sure what to do. In all the years I had been dealing with him I had never seen this and wondered why now? What’s different this time? Well, there are many things, but when a guy with these kinds of resources at his disposal says stuff like this, it might be time to start listening.


Titanium Halo
February 5, 2009
Sheep Say, “Baaaaaa”
[I’ve been putting a lot of time into economics recently and hope to have a post on the results of my research sometime this weekend. As a teaser let me just say:



  • The “stimulus plan” violates my Jews In The Attic Test.

  • Daughter Kim’s economics class is reading books that talk of the U.S. government and the CIA “forcing free trade”, and how “capitalism destroys community ties”.

  • My research has involved talking to people from China, India, Ireland, Romania, and Sri Lanka. People speak in hushed tones with a very somber demeanor. It’s bad everywhere.

  • While discussing the politics of our new socialist nation, even without explicit mention that my Jews In The Attic Test was being violated, a friend recently told me that an AK has an expected life of about 50K rounds and even though they have several such rifles it wasn’t enough to solve the problem even if they had enough rounds and didn’t encounter resistance.

We have very, very big problems ahead of us. And the worst part is that the people that caused the problems will likely get more support as the situation gets worse. They will demand more and more “help” from those that put everyone in jeopardy. And the unless very aggressive action is taken by people, who have shown very little backbone in the past, the last people to go down are likely going to be the people that created and aggravated the problems.


I know who John Galt is, but where is his gulch?–Joe]

And the bigots were made to pay

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Via the Apex of the Triangle Of Death we get to read about San Francisco Paying NRA $380,000 for Successful Proposition H Lawsuits.


While it makes me happy the bigots had to pay up for conspiring to deprive people of their rights they should have been arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced to time in jail as well. This sort of nonsense is going to continue until the laws against this sort of outrageous behavior are enforced.


Other bloggers have their view on the issue as well:


Just so you know

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From our friend in Israel;



Friends:

 

Considering the number of Kassam and Grad rockets and the increasing number of mortar rounds being fired into Israel by Hamas in Gaza, I’ll keep the “Gaza War” group designation for a while longer.  As a practical matter Israel gained nothing but the world’s condemnation for its recent attempt to stop the terrorist fire.

 

The election rhetoric here is twilight-zone material.  The folks in power speechify as if they were the party in opposition.  They cry about how much change there needs to be.  Hell you are the government.  You should have done long ago what you attack (who?) for not having done.  How dumb do you think the voters are?  Obviously you think they are even dumber than I think they are. 

 

GO STEELERS!

 

Israel and the U.S. do have a lot in common.

 

And being as Israel isn’t doing anything about it right now, it isn’t “news”.

 

How hard is it to understand that since you’re going to be condemned either way, you may as well do the right thing?  The Republican Party leadership, for instance, continues to fail in that regard, though we can hope.

 

The War against the German national socialists and Imperial Japanese wasn’t won through decades of “ceasefires” for example.  It was won and they became allies after they were defeated.  Republicans; are you listening?