Archive for May, 2009

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Some good news for a change..?

May 30, 2009

Yes, most folks are all taken up with the news of the day. Arlen Specter involved in a murder investigation. A sexist racist being installed in the Supreme Court. An ugly as hell woman with the voice of an angel losing a damned popularity contest. We have people that are standing up for the ethical use of firearms catching some hell. Not to mention, that this past weekend I won the Chili Cook Off! Ok, there were only three entrants… But, I won! No, that is not the good news that I refer to in the title of this post.

Seems that the Pakistani Army is solidly kicking some terrorist butt! That’s something that few organized Army’s have ever accomplished. Rangers did it to the Lefts Godhead, and it’s happened a few times before. I will address the things that factor into such victories at a later time.

In the mean time?

Sua Sponte!

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Posted in Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Immigration, Law, Military Science, mysandry, News, Politics, Profiles in Valor, Wordpress Political Blogs | 3 Comments »

Things that go boom in the night: Nuclear North Korea

May 28, 2009

Growing up in Oceanside and being a Marine Corps brat I can remember the Cold War only too well. I remember being taught about spent munitions and more importantly what not to do if you happened to come across, say, a mortar round that failed to detonate. If Merry reads this I’m sure she too will remember the class. We did not however, do the celebrated “duck and cover” drills. They would, after all, be useless if indeed we were hit with nuclear weapons.

At North Terrace Elementary School, we had more immediate problems to worry about. We had, as do most schools, bully’s. How to deal with a bully was a lesson that most of us learned the hard way. In a nutshell though, the solution was to place a fist deeply and squarely in the bully’s face prior to him gaining some advantage over you. This is called a preemptive defense, and generally was good for at least a swat from Mister Trainer (sp?), the Principle. A sore butt was well worth having the bully off your back seemingly forever. Perhaps that was my introduction to political economics? The point though, is that it worked.

What does this schoolyard scenario have to do with North Korea? The analogy should be easy to define. North Korea is a bully nation. North Korea is also now a bully that has a big stick called nuclear weaponry. The United Nations is much like the teachers that used to insist that you “talk things out” with the schoolyard bully’s. Talking things over with North Korea only embolden ‘s them, just like it would embolden the bully in the schoolyard. Not to mention that this bully has a few friends called China,  Iran and Syria. Not real friends of course. They just want a big stick also, or, in China’s case it’s more like an errant cousin that you’re stuck with defending even when you know that the cousin is an insane jerk.

Preemptive defense got a bum rap when George Bush sent the United States into an unneeded war with Iraq that we are still entangled with. That however, is not a problem with the doctrine. It is the result of some very poor judgment on the part of the powers that be at the time it was used. That very same doctrine may be what is needed to tame a tiger before it grows to large to tame. The use of surgical strikes that are so devastating that the North Koreans will never again be a threat to anyone beyond it’s borders may be the only solution for a world that is weary of the games being played by others with the lives of others. Simultaneous actions toward Iran and Syria might get the attention of the various up and coming would be world conquerors as well.

Will that happen while we have as President a man that would rather talk than fight? Who refuses to defend the nation from criminal invaders and blames another nations inability to control it’s criminals on the people of the United States? For some reason I am thinking that a man that bows to Kings will not have the honor or integrity to stand up to a schoolyard bully. One that threatens the entire world… Indeed, he would much rather disarm the very people that he swore an oath to defend.

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Posted in Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Immigration, Law, Military Science, News, Politics, Wordpress Political Blogs | 7 Comments »

Sotomayor for the Supreme Court

May 27, 2009

I’ve been holding off a bit with regards to the nomination of Judge Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. As noted in a previous entry I favored Ken Salazar for the position. Nevertheless, I feel that a few things need to be addressed with her selection.

Certainly everything that noted barrister David Kopel in his short assessment, found HERE should be looked over closely. As should the many concerns and comments there as well as over at my good friend TexasFreds.

In various places around the Internet I saw references to “reverse racism.” That, in and of itself is “bass ackwards” to quote an old Marine that I knew when I was growing up. Racism is racism. End of discussion. Same thing with sexism. Ms Sotomayor appears, at least from her history as reported too widely to cite, to have more than a bit of racist and sexist in her. I’d hoped that we as a nation had grown beyond all that sort of thing. Yet, in the last election cycle we were inundated with being told that it was not about race at all, but “change.” Then no sooner than the ballots were counted all that could be heard was how the United States had elected it’s first “Black President.” So much for a nation outgrowing it’s past like an adolescent outgrowing poor social skills. Not to mention that the man is half white, and half Arab… I suppose some things never do really change.

Also, having read the quotations from the Kopel piece I have to seriously wonder about the woman’s grasp of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Yes, I read her bio, and what came immediately into my mind were the words of a Professor Emeritus said to me many years ago. I shall repeat them here; “Never, young man, confuse education with intelligence.”

I shall leave me readers with that tiny bit of wisdom that I was blessed to be able to learn in years gone by.

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Posted in Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Immigration, Law, Men's Issues, mysandry, News, Non Compos Mentis, Politics, Wordpress Political Blogs | 6 Comments »

Memorial Day

May 25, 2009

Out of respect for those that have given all in defense of the freedoms and liberty that I enjoy as well as those that defend those things today I will not be posting today, other than this.

Click on the categories Valhalla, and Profiles in Valor on the sidebar.

Molan Labe!

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Posted in Editorial, Opinion, Education, Military Science, News, Politics, Valhalla, War, Warfare, Wordpress Political Blogs | Comments Off on Memorial Day

Justice Ken Salazar?

May 24, 2009

As I have posted elsewhere, Ken Salazar is a nice guy. He appears to work very hard at pleasing as many people and causes as he possibly can. That, however, is not leadership. Leadership is about making hard choices based upon personal beliefs and solid ethics. It’s decidedly not about pleasing groups or popularity. That is “leading” by way of polls and political correctness. Soon, the impostor in chief will submit a nominee for the Supreme Court. The obama has a lot of political debts left to be paid off. Not the least of which is the Latino contingent. So will obama toss the Latinos a bone or continue to hold them out in front of a bus where they will be easy to toss under as a matter of political expediency? The obama also has some real serious debt politically in Colorado. Two birds with one stone perhaps? As much as I disagree with obama I’m not about to call him stupid when it comes to obfuscation and related “skills.”

I’m thinking that the heavy hitters in Colorado may have hit a home run on this one. After all, being a Justice on the Supreme Court isn’t at all about intestinal fortitude, and hasn’t been for quite some time, if indeed it ever was. It is about turning any argument away from the true issue at hand. Witness the recent decisions in the Heller case, and another having to do with domestic violence that was really about ex post facto law. The Supreme Court was at best disingenuous, and in the worst sense kowtowing to political correctness.

Based upon the preceeding realizations of truth I whole heartedly support Ken Salazar for a position on the Supreme Court of the United States of America. He would fit right in.

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Posted in Domestic Violence, Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Law, Local Politics Colorado, mysandry, Non Compos Mentis, Politics, Uncategorized, Wordpress Political Blogs | 2 Comments »

Profiles in Valor: 10th Special Forces (ABN)

May 24, 2009

Based out of Colorado Springs the Tenth Special Forces Group displays Valor and courage. It is said that Navy Seals leave craters but that when it comes the the Special Forces, you never knew they were there. Well, that is not always the case. Read on …

On 10 September 2007, a team of three Army Green Berets led by Capt. Matthew A. Chaney, along with nine Iraqi police, began an assault from two helicopters near Samarra, Iraq. The team was targeting Abu Obaeideah, a leader of the Islamic State of Iraq in the area. The field designated for landing was covered with water, so the helicopters had to land closer to the insurgents’ safe house, where they came under heavy enemy fire.

Practically blinded by dust from the second helicopter, the Iraqis were all but taken out of the fight from the start, so Chaney, Sgt. 1st Class Michael D. Lindsay and Staff Sgt. Jarion Halbisengibbs led a charge against the building where the hostile fire was originating. Halbisengibbs threw in a fragmentation grenade, killing two, and the soldiers rushed in. Lindsay was hit in the throat by an AK-47 round, and Chaney took a hit to the pelvis. Then both were thrown from the doorway by a grenade blast. Lindsay, who couldn’t raise his rifle, fired at the enemy with his pistol. Chaney couldn’t feel his legs, but he kept firing, killing a jihadi. Halbisengibbs “continued to clear the structure in complete darkness as his night vision goggles and personal radio were all destroyed by enemy gunfire at point blank range,” the official narrative read. He was shot in the thumb and knocked down by a grenade blast but continued fighting, killing another terrorist. As he moved back to the courtyard to protect his wounded comrades, Halbisengibbs was shot through the abdomen but managed to kill another jihadi on his way to the ground. He then directed the Iraqi police to finish the fight. Obaeideah was killed, along with 12 other insurgents, six by Halbisengibbs.

All three Green Berets have recovered from their injuries. Chaney and Lindsay were each awarded the Silver Star; Halbisengibbs received the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army’s second highest combat medal.

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More on taxation…

May 24, 2009

So the Tea Party’s were just a bunch of fringe lunatics? At least that seems to be what the politicians and MSM thought. It’s too bad that they couldn’t come up with a better descriptive than having to borrow a term from the porn industry to call the supporters of the latest tax rebellion. This week, arguably the most liberal state in America told the big government types to go away with their ever expanding and oppressive form of government. The election results told the tale; the people are “Taxed Enough Already!” And that friends, is not “tea bagging.”

The Golden State is seeing red — lots of it. After voters Tuesday nixed state legislators’ hopes of supplementing federal stimulus money with another taxpayer-funded “bailout,” California’s budget deficit ballooned from $15 billion to $21 billion. Voters rejected five of six ballot measures that would have, among other things, extended tax increases, let the state borrow against future revenue, and redirected education and mental-health money into the state’s general fund. The vote against each of the five defeated measures exceeded 60 percent. The only initiative that passed bans pay raises for elected officials in a year with a budget deficit — it passed with 74 percent of the vote.

The problem isn’t lack of revenue — far from it. As columnist George Will notes, if “state spending increases [since 1990] had been held to the inflation rate plus population growth, the state would have a $15 billion surplus.” Instead, in the past six years, inflation-adjusted per capita government spending has skyrocketed almost 20 percent — under the “Republican” governor who replaced a Democrat in a recall election with his promise to pull California back from financial ruin.

Failing to mention the causes of California’s financial disaster, The New York Times headlined its story with “Calif. Voters Reject Measures to Keep State Solvent,” and ABC was no better, bemoaning the state’s “unwillingness to raise taxes.” Perhaps the most troubling quote, however, comes from columnist Jack Kelly, disturbing not for its distortion but for its truth: “Pay attention to what happens in California. It’s a harbinger of things to come everywhere.”

Then we have this to show as further repudiation of socialism’s promise…

Speaking of higher taxes, Americans are saying good-bye to higher taxes — literally. According to a study recently conducted for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), from 1998 to 2007, more than 1,100 people per day — many of them high-income earners — moved from the nine highest-income-tax states primarily to the nine no-income-tax states. For example, after New Jersey implemented its “half-millionaire” tax hike in 2005, the state lost 4,000 half-millionaires. And as billionaire Tom Golisano recently wrote in The New York Post, his move from the Empire State to the Sunshine State will save him more than $5 million annually in state taxes.

High taxes are not only the antagonist to population retention but are also the toxin that kills economic growth. When the University of Colorado’s Barry W. Poulson examined reasons for states’ prosperity or lack thereof from 1964 to 2004, he found “a significant negative impact of higher marginal tax rates on state economic growth.” The ALEC study confirmed this, finding that from 1998 to 2007, states with no income tax created 89 percent more jobs and boasted 32 percent faster personal income growth than high-tax states.

Still, liberals cry for tax hikes on the rich to alleviate state budget deficits. It turns out that by talking with their feet, the “rich” are saying, “No thanks.”

SOURCE

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Posted in Economics, Editorial, Opinion, Law, News, Politics, Wordpress Political Blogs | 1 Comment »

The three “non’s” of PBS

May 24, 2009

In a swiftly changing political climate that seems to be affecting nearly every aspect of American life, switching from the news channel to, say, a documentary on Antarctica or a sermon by your local televised church on PBS is a good way to drown out the incessant babble. Or at least, it was.

The word is that PBS is living up to its company motto to “Be More” by threatening to yank its association with stations that broadcast “sectarian” content. Sounds like “Be Less” to us. Back in 1985, PBS enacted a policy of “Three Nons,” meaning PBS affiliate stations could only air material that met the following criteria: noncommercial, nonpartisan and nonsectarian. Noting the irony, Newsbusters reports, “PBS routinely fails at nonpartisanship, and its programs have long been a commercial bonanza for savvy ‘nonprofiteers.’ The ‘sectarian’ use of PBS, by comparison, is quite rare and localized.”

So what’s the focus of this action? Apparently if PBS enforces the “Three Nons,” a station that airs religious material, such as WLAE in New Orleans, which has broadcast its Catholic Mass for 25 years without any viewer complaints, would lose its affiliation.

The Washington Post reports that the number of affiliate stations carrying religious programming is small — PBS isn’t even sure of the number. But “religious services of faith-based groups” will be barred, said Jennifer Lawson, chairwoman of the PBS committee that is scheduled to vote next month on enforcing the “Three Nons.” But lest readers be confused, “The intent is for [PBS stations] to show editorial independence,” Lawson added. So censoring religious programming is meant to be a show of “editorial independence?” Thanks for clearing that up.

SOURCE

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Posted in Editorial, Opinion, Education, Law, News, Non Compos Mentis, Politics, Wordpress Political Blogs | 2 Comments »

Joe Biden, the gift that keeps on giving!

May 24, 2009

The next time that a Vice President needs a hidy hole the terrorist will know exactly where to find him…

Joe Biden is at it again. Known for his loose lips, Biden is constantly in the position of issuing clarifying statements regarding some off-the-wall comment. The VP has outdone himself this time, though. At the recent Gridiron Club dinner in Washington, Biden informed his companions of the secret bunker where the vice president remains if he needs a secure location — it’s under the old U.S. Naval Observatory, which is now home to the vice president. A spokesperson did clarify later that Biden meant the “upstairs workspace.” Sure. We can only imagine that Biden was thinking, “I’ll show Cheney. I’ll tell everyone where he was hiding, that slime ball.” The only problem is the next time the vice president — which would be Joe Biden — needs a secure location, everyone knows the first place to look. For his slack jaw, Biden was sent on a super secret mission to the Balkans, where he claimed that he came under sniper fire in 1993. The gift that keeps on giving…

SOURCE

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Bag ’em and Tag ’em, Cap ’em and tax ’em

May 24, 2009

This is trophy hunting at it’s best! (sarcasm)

Democrats Hot for Global Warming Legislation

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) won a victory on his 1,000-page cap and trade (read: cap and tax) bill Thursday when it passed his committee on a party line 33-25 vote. The bill ostensibly tackles global warming by creating a system in which industrial producers of greenhouse gas emissions would be required to meet a government-imposed cap on their emissions, but would allow them to purchase credits that cover emissions exceeding the cap.

Initially, Obama wanted the credits to be auctioned off, with the estimated $629 billion in proceeds to go to other government-subsidized programs, of which he has no shortage. Congress thought otherwise, though, and instead will allow the EPA to dole out 85 percent of the credits for free to various energy producers and states. The remaining 15 percent would be auctioned off, with the proceeds going to low- and middle-income families hardest hit by the inevitable rise in electricity costs that will come after the program is in place.

This brings us to why Waxman is in such a hurry to get this bill through the House. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 80 percent of Americans can expect a rise in their energy bills and a reduction in real income because of the cap and trade bill. What amounts to a national energy tax also will cost jobs, as the bill itself admits. Part 2, section 426, states: “An eligible worker, specifically workers who lose their jobs as a result of this measure, may receive a climate change adjustment allowance under this subsection for a period of not longer than 156 weeks.” That’s three years for those educated in public schools.

Unfortunately, consumers know very little about the cap and trade legislation (and as seen in this video, neither does Waxman. According to a recent Rasmussen poll, only 24 percent of voters know what cap and trade is; 29 percent thought it was related to Wall Street and 17 percent thought it was related to health care reform. Fully 30 percent didn’t have a clue what the term even meant. And that fits perfectly into the Democrats’ plan.

SOURCE

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Posted in Economics, Editorial, Opinion, Education, Law, News, Non Compos Mentis, Politics, Wordpress Political Blogs | Comments Off on Bag ’em and Tag ’em, Cap ’em and tax ’em

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