Hope, indeed

Posted on February 23, 2009 by Phil Kadath

That is all I’ll be able to do with Biden and HRC at the helm of America’s foreign policy.

Hope for the best and expect the worst.

Keep an eye on Bahrain. Over the last month, Iranian rhetoric against the continued independence of the tiny Arab island nation has really picked up, with repeated declarations that Bahrain isn’t independent, but really just a province of Iran. (Historically, Bahrain was part of Iran until the Portuguese separated it in 1522; it later became a British protectorate and a 1970 plebiscite confirmed the Bahraini desire to be independent). Iranian authorities have recently suggested seating Bahraini representatives in the Iranian parliament, categorizing Ahmadinejad’s trips to the island nation as provincial trips, and broadcast interviews with Bahraini Shi’a predicting revolution within a year. Yesterday, Bahrain stopped allowing Iranians to travel to the island, and announced they were cutting off oil imports from Iran.

Of course, much of this may be simple rhetoric, but then again, so was Saddam Hussein’s Kuwait-is-our-19th province rhetoric until he made good on his threats.

Bahrain is more complicated because of the U.S. navy’s presence on the island.

Click on your favorite web based map program/site. Inspect Bahrain’s locale in relation to Iran.

Laugh.

Then start hoping.

Posted in Freaks, Mutants, and Morons | 6 Comments

To Perchance To Dream

Posted on February 23, 2009 by Phil Kadath

That I might get something like this here in Washington

We are going to collect 40,000+ signatures and pass a Constitutional Measure in North Dakota that protects secret ballots.

The ballot language is very simple: “To preserve and protect the fundamental right of individuals to vote by secret ballot, where local, state or federal law requires elections for public office or ballot measures, or requires designations or authorizations for employee representation, the right of individuals to vote by secret ballot shall be guaranteed.”

Because your co-worker’s opinion should not dictate how you are treated at work.

And because the unions are already at work with their intimidation tactics

Big Labor wants members to make house calls to gin up support for their agenda, which includes “card check ” legislation Congress is expected to begin work on soon.

Check out this flyer below from the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.

“You’ll probe and start organizing campaigns, develop worker committees and conduct house calls to workers,” it says.

House calls to workers? Notice it doesn’t say “to members.” It says workers. That means these union advocates, also known as “thugs” in many locales, are going to be showing up on your doorstep to talk about card check, whether you want to talk about it or not. They’re going to be looking up home addresses and sending people out. Pulling in your driveway and knocking on your door.

Don’t tell me that’s not intimidation.

A .gif of the flyer is at the link.

Posted in Order of the imperial upraised middle finger. | 1 Comment

Help! Brain Hurts!

Posted on February 23, 2009 by Phil Kadath

And so does my gut from laughing so damn hard.

One of the inmates at the dKos Animal Farm and Petting Zoo dared dissent from the partyline opinion on the topic of the NY Post “shot chimp” cartoon. His basic argument was that the only reason people were seeing said cartoon in the light portrayed by the race-baiting huckster and poverty pimp, Al Shaprton, was because they wanted to and that any honest individual had to admit that they were blowing the thing out of proportion.

I’ve been lurking at the dKos for years and have not seen a kerfuffle that large since the Hillary supporter vs. Obama supporter deathmatches. Comments numbering four figures with probably less than 2% in support of the author. By the end of it, I would predict that most of the lesser animals there had a macro built so that they could single key stroke the word “racist” when they accused the guy of being one.

Now, we all know that the dKos regularly spills cups of stupid on their corner of the internet. In this case, a double trailer tanker truck full of stupid tipped over and caught fire because it ends up the author of that post has the same skin tone as President Obama.

Ooops!

Now, you’d think that would stop the quislings in their tracks.

Nope.

In the comments section of the followup post, 500 white liberals say he’s just too stupid to see the racism.

You gotta love the loyalty they have to their brainwashers.

OK, you don’t gotta love it, but it sure makes for entertaining reading.

Posted in Dare To Be Stupid | 2 Comments

RNS Quote of the Day: 02/23/09

Posted on February 23, 2009 by Phil Kadath

Yes, I’m ten days late with this. My only excuse is that I just plain forgot.

But none of that matters as this is one of the best Tolkien quote adaptations I’ve read in long time.

One key to rule them all and in the darkness unlock them.

DirtCrashr

I suppose that, in a rather twisted way, I have to thank the government of the state of California for the inspiration behind the quote. But I must stress that said thanks in no way removes said government from blame for the deaths of thousands.

Posted in Quote of the Day | Leave a comment

Who are these people

Posted on February 23, 2009 by Phil Kadath

And how quickly can they repopulate the UK?

The government is considering plans that would lead to thousands more British Muslims being branded as extremists, the Guardian has learned. The proposals are in a counterterrorism strategy which ministers and security officials are drawing up that is due to be unveiled next month.

Some say the plans would see views held by most Muslims in Britain being classed by the government as extreme.

According to a draft of the strategy, Contest 2 as it is known in Whitehall, people would be considered as extremists if:

• They advocate a caliphate, a pan-Islamic state encompassing many countries.

• They promote Sharia law.

• They believe in jihad, or armed resistance, anywhere in the world. This would include armed resistance by Palestinians against the Israeli military.

• They argue that Islam bans homosexuality and that it is a sin against Allah.

• They fail to condemn the killing of British soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Contest 2 would widen the definition of extremists to those who hold views that clash with what the government defines as shared British values. Those who advocate the wider definition say hardline Islamist interpretation of the Qur’an leads to views that are the root cause of the terrorism threat Britain faces. But opponents say the strategy would brand the vast majority of British Muslims as extremists and alienate them even further.

If it alienates them enough that they leave, then the plan will have been successful. As it is, numbers 1-3 alienate native Brits enough that they emigrate. If they only keep those three I will be quite happy with Contest 2. In fact, upon reflection, number 4 and 5 seem a bit thought police. For seven years, we couldn’t get an entire political party to do #5.
Found via CCinZ

Posted in Evil walks the earth | Leave a comment

It’s Still America, Folks….

Posted on February 21, 2009 by Alaska

Update from Michael Bane (via Matthew Bracken!) on the “weapons dealer training exercise” — it’s been scrapped. Not only was there a lot of public outcry about it, but the .mil paid attention to it. They claim that’s not the reason the exercise was called off, but I’ve got my doubts.

I still think this was probably the brainchild of a clueless mid-level REMF  (who’s likely getting his ass handed to him right now). Even so, I’m glad they stopped it. With some of the comments on my earlier post, I was beginning to feel like the proverbial lobster figuring out a bit too late that the water’s starting to boil.

Posted in Armageddon, Color me confused, Dare To Be Stupid | 6 Comments

Boomershoot Picture of the Day

Posted on February 21, 2009 by Alaska

Here’s the forerunner, from Boomershoot 2008, of Bruce the Squirrel Hunter’s ultimate tripod for Boomershoot 2009 (at right).

Note the 55-lb. segment of steel rail used as ballast in the earlier version at left.

Bruce has certainly put lots of time and effort into his impressive recoil-eliminating creations. I’d just note that when I was shooting rifles at Boomershoot, I got a similar effect from the much cheaper Caldwell Lead Sled with 50 lbs. of lead shot. And I got to sit down while I was shooting. On the other hand, his newest tripod looks to be much more precise than anything I’ve worked with, and gives you a much greater vertical range when in the field, which I believe is important when whacking Belding’s ground squirrels.

It’s all part of the same goal — to eliminate as much of the error induced by your equipment as you can, so that any failure to hit your target is your own damned fault. Makes it much easier to isolate and rectify the sources of your errors.

Sweet rigs, Bruce!

Posted in Boomershoot | Leave a comment

Boomershoot Picture of the Day

Posted on February 20, 2009 by Alaska

Entertainingly close Boomerhunting. Video here. Also, crank the bass on the video here to get an idea of the thumping shockwaves hitting your chest.

Posted in Boomershoot | 1 Comment

Listening to Katrina

Posted on February 20, 2009 by Alaska

Excellent Survival tutorial here.

Posted in By Ourselves, For Ourselves | Leave a comment

Michael Drinks the Kool-Aid

Posted on February 20, 2009 by Alaska

…or maybe not. You decide: paranoid overreaction or wise perception?

The Carroll National Guard unit will train on urban military operations by holding a four-day exercise at Arcadia.

The purpose of the April 2-5 drill will be to gather intelligence, then search for and apprehend a suspected weapons dealer, according to Sgt. Mike Kots, readiness NCO for Alpha Company.

Citizens, law enforcement, media and other supporters will participate.

Read the whole thing.

Call me a fool, but I’m not jumping to the same conclusion as Michael Bane, who says:

This “exercise” is a test run for door-to-door gun confiscation. There is no other way to read it.

Look, to me a lot of the article reads like the reporter regurgitated the standard boilerplate the military hands out to the media for any “urban warfare” exercise. We have one of these every couple of years somewhere in California — complete with water landings — and somebody always starts bleating about how it’s evidence they’re training for operations against US civilians, yada yada. It seems to me much more likely that here, some clueless REMF decided troops rotated back home needed something to do, and set up a standard Iraq/Afghanistan training exercise — searching for a weapons dealer — without (heavens!) thinking of how a small minority of gun-rights advocates might react.

That being said, this might be an interesting opportunity to educate the clueless REMF on just how badly he or she screwed up the PR on this one. Make it a search for a kidnapper or roadside bomb-maker, instead of a weapons dealer, and nobody would have complained.
The other thing is, I have no military experience on which to draw to evaluate this. RNS readers have a bunch. Michael Bane notes:

I spend a lot of time with military trainers…if a unit thinks they can train for Iraq by running exercises of these types in Iowa, they are worse than stupid…they are risking their people’s lives.

Opinions, please?

Posted in Armageddon, Color me confused | 9 Comments