Missing the Logic Train

Posted on December 30, 2009 by Phil Kadath

A company named Canopy Financial, which specializes in Health Savings Accounts (HSA’s), had its CEO run off with a large chunk of money from people’s accounts.

Definitely a bad thing. Bad CEO. He needs to go to jail for a very long time.

However, Jon DeVore at HorsesAss.Org says that this means that HSA’s are bad and that they either need to be more heavily regulated or done away with altogether. Oh, and Libertarians are stupid doodie-heads for thinking HSA’s are good things and this CEO’s crime is their fault.

Did I miss the Logic Train, or did he?

Posted in Too Stupid to Live | 3 Comments

Getting Requests

Posted on December 30, 2009 by Phil Kadath

I’m getting emails from folks wondering why I haven’t yet blogged about the E.O. President Obama signed that essentially gives INTERPOL carte blanche on US soil.

What is there really to say about it that the pros haven’t said? We all knew he’d do something that outrageous. Some folks thought he’d wait a little longer. Other folks are surprised it took him eleven months.

Why did he do it? There are two possibilities: Because he’s an idiot who has no idea what he is doing, or because when he decides that he’s had enough from the opposition, he’s going to need a police force that will have no objections to rounding up any Tom, Dick and Harry that he and his people want grabbed.

Say what you will about them, but even the alphabet soup agencies ask questions from time to time and they leak like a colander. He can’t farm up enough Brownshirts from the Progressive Caucus in four or even eight years because the logistics of it are just too big. This move is something under the radar and already has boots on the ground.

Jackboots, to be exact.

There’s only one MSM’er who is asking any questions about it and the Administration keeps responding by acting as though his query is about what makes the apple pies in the press room so damn tasty.

What can we do about it? Not a damn thing. Which is why the Executive Order privilege needs to be taken away.

Oh sure, Congress can undercut the E.O. via legislation. But the current one won’t, so we’re ass-out until 2010 or 2012.

Why am I not worried? Because he didn’t import artificially intelligent armored robots. Just like any other US based jackboot force, these guys can be shot and killed.

I long ago resigned myself to the likelihood of having to defend my human rights via violence at some point in my life, and I don’t rightly care if their jackets say INTERPOL, or ATF, or FBI, or Treasury, or IRS, or FDA, or NEA.

Nihilism does have its upsides.

Read the header and remember: Live to Train and Train to Live.

I work so that I can afford to put rounds downrange as frequently as possible, and I put rounds downrange as frequently as possible so that I can stand a chance against the agents of a tyrannical government.

Posted in Armageddon, Life in the Atomic Age | 4 Comments

RNS Quote of the Day: 12/30/09

Posted on December 30, 2009 by Phil Kadath

Snarkurity Theater

For some years after 9/11, passengers were forbidden to get up and use the lavatory on the Washington-New York shuttle. Zero tolerance! I suppose it must eventually have occurred to somebody that this ban would not deter a person who was willing to die, so the rule was scrapped. But now the principle has been revisited for international flights. For many years after the explosion of the TWA plane over Long Island (a disaster that was later found to have nothing at all to do with international religious nihilism), you could not board an aircraft without being asked whether you had packed your own bags and had them under your control at all times. These two questions are the very ones to which a would-be hijacker or bomber would honestly and logically have to answer “yes.” But answering “yes” to both was a condition of being allowed on the plane! Eventually, that heroic piece of stupidity was dropped as well. But now fresh idiocies are in store. Nothing in your lap during final approach. Do you feel safer? If you were a suicide-killer, would you feel thwarted or deterred?

Why do we fail to detect or defeat the guilty, and why do we do so well at collective punishment of the innocent? The answer to the first question is: Because we can’t—or won’t. The answer to the second question is: Because we can. The fault here is not just with our endlessly incompetent security services, who give the benefit of the doubt to people who should have been arrested long ago or at least had their visas and travel rights revoked. It is also with a public opinion that sheepishly bleats to be made to “feel safe.” The demand to satisfy that sad illusion can be met with relative ease if you pay enough people to stand around and stare significantly at the citizens’ toothpaste. My impression as a frequent traveler is that intelligent Americans fail to protest at this inanity in case it is they who attract attention and end up on a no-fly list instead. Perfect.

Christopher Hitchens

Of course, RTWT. In fact, read it twice.

Posted in Quote of the Day | Leave a comment

Don’t bother waking up that Editor

Posted on December 30, 2009 by Phil Kadath

I prefer the local paper to be a source of comedy

originaewetl.jpg

Found via Say Anything

As an FYI, Haywood Jablome’s brother by marriage is Mike Litoris.

mike-litoris.jpg

Just remember, newspapers and TV news shows are “legitimate” news sources made by people who are SO much smarter than bloggers.

Posted in Freaks, Mutants, and Morons | 4 Comments

RNS Quote of the Day, 12/29/09

Posted on December 29, 2009 by Alaska

Somehow I’d missed this gem:

This year, I think we can all agree to remember what the Christmas season is really about: Executing a daring and risky surprise attack against some cocky Hessians and blowing them the hell away, resulting in a massive propaganda victory, thus setting the stage for the defeat of a major superpower by a motley crew of philosopher nerds and gun nuts, resulting in the longest-lasting legitimate representational government in human history.

–Papadeltabravo, Season’s Greetings!

Posted in Quote of the Day | Leave a comment

The Gunny Hook-Up: New dates

Posted on December 29, 2009 by Phil Kadath

For those of you who were thinking of taking the non-resident Utah Concealed Pistol License course at the Federal Way Wholesale Sports location on the 16th, that date has been canceled and is now scheduled for the Saturday, January 23rd.

I’ll be there, along with co-worker Scott, gettin’ certified!

And you should be too.

Posted in Kewel! | 1 Comment

Time to get the black tape out

Posted on December 29, 2009 by Phil Kadath

Again.

Before he was taken off life support, deputy Kent Mundell’s family gathered with him in his hospital room.

They had story time with him, and his wife stood by his side while doctors removed him from life support. At 5:04 p.m. Monday, the deputy died of his wounds.

“It’s obvious that everybody was waiting for a miracle that didn’t come,” Pierce County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Ed Troyer said in announcing Mundell’s death.

Mundell, 44, and Sgt. Nick Hausner were shot Dec. 21 while responding to a domestic violence call near Eatonville. Hausner was treated and later released, but Mundell had been in critical condition at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle since that night.

Mundell and Hausner were dispatched to the small house near Tanwax Lake after someone there called 911 to report that a man was “drunk and belligerent” and refusing to leave. David Edward Crable – who had a history of domestic violence – initially agreed to leave the home but later pulled out a pistol and opened fire. Mundell traded fire with Crable, killing him.

Mundell was hit multiple times, though none of the shots made it through his Level IIIA vest. From what I’ve been able to gather from various LEO sources, either the multiple hits attributed so much trauma that his body went into shock. He was put into a medically induced coma to try and speed the healing, but even that didn’t work.

Godspeed, Deputy Mundell.

In related news, the murderer’s own daughter attacked her father after he started shooting, not only putting herself in the line of fire, but very likely saving not only the other deputy’s life, but also those of her aunt and uncle.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Who loves a SNAFU?

Posted on December 29, 2009 by Phil Kadath

The TSA, that’s who!

And I mean SNAFU in the most literal sense of the term.

You are now free to move about the cabin. Or not. After a two-day security clampdown prompted by a thwarted attempt to bomb a jetliner, some airline officials told The Associated Press that the in-flight restrictions had been eased. And it was now up to captains on each flight to decide whether passengers can have blankets and other items on their laps or can move around during the final phase of flight.

Confused? So were scores of passengers who flew Monday on one of the busiest travel days of the year. On some flights, passengers were told to keep their hands visible and not to listen to iPods. Even babies were frisked. But on other planes, security appeared no tighter than usual.

The Transportation Security Administration did little to explain the rules. And that inconsistency might well have been deliberate: What’s confusing to passengers is also confusing to potential terrorists.

“It keeps them guessing,” transportation expert Joseph Schwieterman said.

By not making public a point-by-point list of new security rules, federal officials also retain more flexibility, the DePaul University professor added, enabling them to target responses to certain airports or flights seen as more vulnerable.

They’re now not even attempting to hide they know this is all just Security Theater. It is almost like they’re proud of it.

Posted in Freaks, Mutants, and Morons | Leave a comment

Wait until the officials at Washington schools hear about this one!

Posted on December 29, 2009 by Phil Kadath

If students aren’t passing a certain test required for them to graduate, Washington schools officials just get rid of the test.

Always needing to be ahead of the curve, Berkeley High School officials don’t like how non-white students aren’t taking science lab classes, so they’re going to get rid of the classes.

Berkeley High School is considering a controversial proposal to eliminate science labs and the five science teachers who teach them to free up more resources to help struggling students.

The proposal to put the science-lab cuts on the table was approved recently by Berkeley High’s School Governance Council, a body of teachers, parents, and students who oversee a plan to change the structure of the high school to address Berkeley’s dismal racial achievement gap, where white students are doing far better than the state average while black and Latino students are doing worse.

Paul Gibson, an alternate parent representative on the School Governance Council, said that information presented at council meetings suggests that the science labs were largely classes for white students. He said the decision to consider cutting the labs in order to redirect resources to underperforming students was virtually unanimous.

Science teachers were understandably horrified by the proposal. “The majority of the science department believes that this major policy decision affecting the entire student body, the faculty, and the community has been made without any notification, without a hearing,” said Mardi Sicular-Mertens, the senior member of Berkeley High School’s science department, at last week’s school board meeting.

Of course there was no notification or hearing. That would be democratic.

Also never mind that the white (and I’d assume, and asian) students are doing just fine and that there will be no replacement for these classes.

Just add this to the pile of proof that Leftism prefers to bring everyone down to a common level instead of lifting the level up.

Posted in Academia and Other Nonsense | Leave a comment

Rock and Roll ain’t noise pollution

Posted on December 29, 2009 by Phil Kadath

Unless you’re an eco-mentalist

Aussie rockers AC/DC could have to cancel a sold-out concert because their big sound poses a danger to rare birds.

Animal rights campaigners are threatening legal action if the veteran band goes ahead with a gig planned for Wels airport in Austria in May.

Hans Uhl of BirdLife said birds nesting in the area at the time would be threatened by anthems such as Highway To Hell and You Shook Me All Night Long.

“The second biggest colony of curlews in Upper Austria and various other ground-nesting birds must not become endangered,” Mr Uhl said.

If the concert gets canceled because of his idiocy, I can imagine that a number of Austrian AC/DC fans would have little difficulty helping Mr. Uhl become “endangered”.

And they’d be right.

These birds apparently live next to a damn airport. Angus and crew might make their ears bleed a bit, but it’s not like the birds are going to be permenently scared away?

Posted in Order of the imperial upraised middle finger., Rampant Eco Socialism | 2 Comments