Archive for April 26th, 2009

One Week Away; Fly Fishing the Arkansas River

April 26, 2009

Among my various addictions is Fly Fishing, and among the greatest satisfactions of that addiction is a trip to the Arkansas River in Colorado for the famed Caddis Fly Hatch. Having moved away I can only pass on my memoirs in hopes that others will venture forth and enjoy one of natures true wonders.

There are many resources to aid the intrepid outdoors-man on this quest. Here’s my basic rig for this excursion. A nine foot fly rod in five weight, with a six weight, weight forward line. I use a number four or five tapered leader coupled with about eighteen inches of shock tippet one size smaller. Waders are a plus but really are just not necessary to have fun catching trout along this stretch of river in most places. So, if you are just starting out as a fly fisher don’t stay home for lack of gear! I use a surgeons knot to connect the two. It is strong, and easily tied stream side.

As of late there have been many new fly patterns developed, and some may show promise. However, I find that many, if not most of them are designed to catch fishermen rather than fish. Those brilliant sparkly creations appear to spook fish more than anything else from my observations. Stick with tried and true patterns such as the Elk Hair Caddis .  Size’s sixteen and eighteen will be the big producers, and in a few weeks size fourteen gray patterns are real producers about two miles down stream from the prison near Salida.

In my experience there is really no need to hit the water at sunrise, as the real action most often is in the afternoon. For some reason cloud cover plays a big part. It doesn’t matter if the clouds are coming or going overhead, changing conditions get the trout rising. Cast upstream at about a fifty degree angle allowing the fly to drift toward swirls and rocks. Bouncing the fly off of a rock face in a not so delicate presentation is also effective for taking normally well educated, spooky trout.

Should a sudden, and hopefully short chill put the brakes on the Caddis hatch, pull out those Colorado stand-by’s that seem to work year round, BWO’s and Midges! Most of all, enjoy being in one of those majestic places that we are blessed with!

Resources close to the Denver metropolitan area.

Discount Anglers on South Sante Fe is a “best buy” if your pocket book resembles mine!

Speaking of immigration…

April 26, 2009

Coming soon to a place near you..?

Obama Rejects Gitmo Report

Speaking of immigration, we may soon be welcoming a new group of residents to the U.S. Human Events editor Jed Babbin reports, “White House lawyers are refusing to accept the findings of an inter-agency committee that the Uighur Chinese Muslims held at Guantanamo Bay are too dangerous to release inside the U.S., according to Pentagon sources familiar with the action.” Obama has long promised to close Gitmo, but he recently ordered the review by all the national security agencies to determine the status of all detainees. The 17 Uighurs, for example, are members of the “East Turkistan Islamic Movement,” a terrorist cell, and were captured at an al-Qa’ida training camp. After review, the ruling on the field is that these terrorists are too dangerous to be released. But apparently, the White House has demanded that the review group re-do its findings to come up with Obama’s desired answer.

As Babbin writes, “Gitmo holds three classes of terrorist detainees: first, those that are held for prosecution of terrorist acts such as Khalid Sheik Muhammed; second, those who cannot be prosecuted and will be released or transferred to another country for trial or incarceration; and third, those who cannot be prosecuted (because the information against them is intelligence information inadmissible in court) but who pose such a danger that they cannot be released. The last category encompasses a large number of the Gitmo detainees.” Yet Obama thinks these nice folks would make great neighbors for some Americans — just not in the vicinity of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

SOURCE

All Gore brings “change”

April 26, 2009

One things for sure, the Gore is on the “change” bandwagon and it certainly appears that the current administration likes this form of change…

Climate Week Comes to Washington

A series of highly publicized hearings and testimonials were held surrounding Earth Day this week to draw as much attention as possible to the liberal sham that is climate legislation. Even Al Gore showed up on Friday, though, oddly enough, it didn’t snow.

The heads of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Transportation Department and the Energy Department testified on climate change legislation — a bill that is 648 pages in draft form — before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. According to The New York Times, “The House measure, the most far-reaching piece of energy and environmental legislation to come before Congress in years, would require large changes in the way the United States generates electricity, manufactures products, heats and lights its homes and offices, and moves people and goods.”

Political grandstanding was the main order of the week, but passing the cap and trade bill will top the agenda over the coming weeks — with the hope that it will clear the full House before Memorial Day. Some more radical elements, though, would include stricter measures that limit emissions and heavily fine those deemed to be polluters. Either way, the economy will suffer the consequences for actions taken based on dubious theories. As Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) put it, “The debate is not about whether cap-and-trade legislation will raise energy costs; the only dispute is by how much. With a cap-and-trade scheme like that proposed by Chairmen Waxman and Markey, households can expect energy cost increases up to $3,128 per year. Your electricity bill will increase by 77 to 129 percent. Filling up your gas tank will cost anywhere from 60 to 144 percent more. The cost of home heating oil and natural gas will nearly double.” So much for Barack Obama’s oft repeated pledge to “cut taxes for 95 percent of workers and their families.”

In related news, Obama burned about 9,000 gallons of jet fuel on Earth Day to make his speech in Iowa about saving the planet.

SOURCE

The End of the World as we know it…

April 26, 2009

Anthony Martin over at Columbia Conservative Examiner reviews the first one hundred days of the current administrations achievements toward the total destruction of the United States. This theme appears to be the mainstay across the board when one observes blogs as well as the MSM. Although some see it in diametrically different ways to be sure. Those suffering from  various emotional and mental issues jump for joy and get “tingles” up their leg so joyful are they at the destruction of freedom and liberty. Not to mention the self flagellation that the impostor in chief brings upon our nation. Indeed, after observing what has been going on around the world as of late a friend from Germany emailed me asking if the United States was collectively suicidal.

Then, Mark Alexander releases the following from the Patriot Post

The CIA’s Aquatic Sports Program and Obama’s Real Agenda

By Mark Alexander

Leon Panetta was certainly not appointed Director of Central Intelligence because of any related professional qualifications for the post. However, as the former White House Chief of Staff for Bill Clinton, Panetta has the political gravitas to run interference for the Obama regime, to best ensure that nobody will depart the Agency reservation with anything that poses a problem for Obama’s agenda.

Of course, what could possibly pose a problem for a pathological socialist who launched his political career a few years back in the home of his terrorist neighbors, William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn — and is now president?

Though Panetta lacks an intelligence background, at least he passed muster for the requisite DCI clearances. His boss, however, wouldn’t qualify for the clearance level required of a desk clerk at the Social Security Administration. (Is this a great country, or what?)

This week, Panetta greeted Obama in the lobby of the CIA’s Original Headquarters Building in advance of Obama’s teleprompted regurgitation of the most overtly partisan pile of political horse pucky in CIA history. Feigning impartiality, Panetta said, “We must be careful not to spend so much time and energy in laying blame for the past that it interferes with our ability to focus on the fundamental mission we have for today and for tomorrow.”

Notice Panetta did not say that we shouldn’t lay political blame. He just qualified how much time should be spent doing so.

Blame for what?

Last week, Obama released some carefully chosen top-secret memos regarding “enhanced interrogation” techniques used to interview a few al-Qa’ida guests at the fashionable “Chez Gitmo” resort located on the southeast shore of a nearby Caribbean island getaway. (OK, that may not be a fair representation of the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp — and certainly not Castro’s island concentration camp — but the food, sanitation and amenities at Gitmo are much better than that of the detainees’ former dwellings in the dark, dank caves of mountainous Afghanistan.)

The memos pertained to the treatment of three particularly evil Gitmo detainees, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. These three were subjected to waterboarding — the forcible introduction of water to the mouth and nasal passages in order to coerce a captive’s submission and cooperation. (It’s worth noting that thousands of our Special Forces and clandestine operators have been subjected to waterboarding as part of their “Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape” training, and, like the Gitmo detainees, they survived.)

However distasteful you might find this practice, I would argue it is a bit more humane than al-Qa’ida’s terminal interrogation practice, decapitation.

While Obama released the information about the interrogation techniques, the information obtained by those techniques was redacted. Why, you ask?

Both the CIA and the Justice Department have confirmed that intelligence gathered from these detainees, particularly that from KSM (architect of the 9/11 attacks), saved American lives and property, especially information that thwarted planned attacks on Los Angeles and New York, as well as actionable intelligence that led to the arrest of an al-Qa’ida cell in the U.S. and the capture or death of a succession of al-Qa’ida principals in the Middle East and Africa.

Call it selective transparency. Despite the fact that the Bush administration succeeded with the interrogation policy in question, when it comes to Left-partisan politics, no good deed goes unpunished.

Speaking to CIA employees, Obama said, “I have put an end to the interrogation techniques described in those OLC memos, and I want to be very clear and very blunt. I’ve done so for a simple reason: because I believe that our nation is stronger and more secure when we deploy the full measure of both our power and the power of our values — including the rule of law.”

“Values”? Like the values which form Obama’s “vision for America.”

“Rule of law”? Everything the Obama administration has done and plans to do is an affront to constitutional Rule of Law.

In fact, the timing of the memos’ release has nothing to do with “values” or “rule of law.” Let me offer a different rationale for their release from any you’ve heard or read thus far.

While this memo folly seems to be another candidate for the Obama regime’s “ready, fire, aim” botched policy bin, it has a clever, if not obvious, purpose.

First, it serves to both appease and re-energize Obama’s ultra-Leftist cadres, those who made “waterboarding” a rallying point for their anti-Operation Iraqi Freedom protests. Indeed, withdrawal from Iraq was the most prominent theme of both Obama’s 2004 Senate campaign and his 2008 presidential campaign platform.

Second, and more than re-energizing his anti-war base, however, Obama timed and staged this political shenanigan to reignite the anti-Bush sentiment among a much broader cross section of his constituents. To accomplish this, he has left the door open for prosecution of Bush officials, including Condoleezza Rice, who approved of the policy.

In doing so, he hopes to regain the allegiance of his largest and most loyal constituency, Bush-haters, with the objective of deflecting a growing chorus of “buyer’s remorse” among those who elected him but are now increasingly disillusioned.

A charade it may be, but based on the media play it is receiving, Obama is accomplishing his shrewd political objective, which again, has nothing to do with waterboarding.

Obama’s Veep, Joe Biden, primed the pump for this farce in February, when he met with Panetta and CIA employees, and told them that Obama was going to “reverse the [waterboarding] policies that in my view and the view of many in this agency caused America to fall short of its founding principles and which gave al-Qa’ida a powerful recruiting tool.” (Note to Joe: No detainee had been subjected to waterboarding since 2003.)

On Monday, Obama stood in the same location at which Biden delivered his remarks, and completed the act.

CIA Memorial Wall

To be more specific, both Obama and Biden staged their remarks in front of the north wall in the CIA’s Original Headquarters Building lobby. On the marble wall behind them is an inscription: “In honor of those members of the Central Intelligence Agency who gave their lives in the service of their country.” Under those words are 89 stars representing some of the CIA officers who have been killed in covert actions.

Watching that photo op, I was struck by Obama’s unmitigated “audacity,” that he would defile this solemn memorial by using it as a backdrop for delivering remarks to a handpicked audience — comments which served no other purpose than to amplify his anti-American political agenda.

At the entrance to the CIA’s OHB, not far from Obama and his teleprompters, there is another marble wall with the inscription “And Ye Shall Know the Truth and the Truth Shall Make You Free” (John 8:32). The fifth and longest serving DCI, Allen Dulles, had those words from Scripture inscribed there, and they would become the CIA’s motto.

One would hope that our nation would “know the truth,” and moreover, recognize that Obama and Biden are al-Qa’ida’s “powerful recruiting tool,” before our nation suffers another catastrophic attack.