The Soundboard: Tax Time Tunage

Posted on February 5, 2009 by Phil Kadath

So the Tuesday tax figurin’ session went well enough. I was wanting more than I got (as usual), and though I won’t be able to afford a new truck this year, I did get enough out of my recently purchased home to be able to reinvest a goodly portion of my return back into the home.

You all will get to see al that stuff when I get it, starting with a little something on Monday. And then whenever someone tells you that returning money to the taxpayer doesn’t yield a return into the economy, you can direct their pointy little heads there.

In the mean time, why not listen to what I was listening to on Tuesday.

Because I was getting paid. Sort of. This money originally came from my paycheck.

Just Got Paid – ZZTop

Because I very much agree with the sentiment contained within.

Dethharmonic – Dethklok

And when I discovered I was going to be a few digits away from a new truck, this was my track.

Red War – Probot (feat. Max Cavalera)

Enjoy!

Posted in Kewel! | 1 Comment

Yes

Posted on February 5, 2009 by Phil Kadath

THAT liberal media.

Objectivity: Optional

Media Research Center (MRC) President L. Brent Bozell, III has written a letter to ABC News President David Westin calling on him to publicly address and resolve what appears to be a clear violation of journalistic ethics by ABC’s Chief Washington Correspondent George Stephanopoulos. Last week a Politico story broke the news that Stephanopoulos has participated in daily phone strategy sessions with now White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel throughout his tenure at ABC.

Mr. Bozell on Thursday issued a statement demanding an explanation, and calling for Stephanopoulos to recuse himself from reporting on an Obama Administration whose plans and messaging he spends every morning helping to craft. Stephanopoulos has remained silent.

He must be hoarse after all that chatting with Emmanuel.

In all seriousness though, the heads of ABC couldn’t have not know this was going on.

So much for the “Right Wing Corporate Media”

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

RNS Quote of the Day, 02/05/09

Posted on February 4, 2009 by Alaska

Tam nominated Edward II as having died the world’s most ignominious death. While I don’t think that’s quite a death “too horrible to contemplate” (I can think of worse), what I noticed was an aside from the linked Wikipedia article on Edward:

“This savagery [of the manner of his murder] also reflected the general malaise, anger, and pessimism of the new age of global cooling.”

–Norman F. Cantor (In the Wake of the Plague, p. 75)

Emphasis mine. The “new age of global cooling” refers, of course, to the Little Ice Age. Hmm. The Goracle to the contrary, we seem to be entering such a new age ourselves….

Good God, it’s the 14th Century all over again! I never finished Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror. Time to dig that bad boy out and see what timely lessons are to be gleaned from immersing myself in the “calamitous 14th Century,” the age of the Black Death and other interesting times.

On an entirely related note I just bought this from AIM Surplus. Got yours yet? It’s Berdan-primed, but as Phil notes, if it’s your SHTF ammo, who cares? You’re not gonna be reloading it.

Posted in Armageddon, Quote of the Day, The Global Warming Death Cult | 7 Comments

Boomershoot Picture of the Day

Posted on February 4, 2009 by Alaska

Joe’s daughter Kim shoots a boomer in January 2003.

Posted in Boomershoot | 1 Comment

Ultimate Shotgun

Posted on February 4, 2009 by Alaska

Continue reading →

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel, Kewel! | 8 Comments

Listen up class

Posted on February 4, 2009 by Phil Kadath

Important information being given here.

There will be a test.

Using a $250 Motorola RFID reader and antenna connected to his laptop, Chris recently drove around San Francisco reading RFID tags from passports, driver licenses, and other identity documents. In just 20 minutes, he found and cloned the passports of two very unaware US citizens. Fortunately, Chris wears a white hat; his video demonstration is meant to raise awareness to what he calls the unsuitability of RFID for tagging people. Specifically, he’s hoping to help get the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative — a homeland security project — scrapped.

Go watch the video.

Then, go tell every asshole you know who is in support of RFID tags to duck. When they ask why, punch them in the face.

Posted in Evil walks the earth | 7 Comments

We have a nickname for this guy

Posted on February 4, 2009 by Phil Kadath

That should warn you what we’re gonna be in for.

Ron “Tax to the Max” Sims has accepted the #2 spot at HUD. He’ll be leaving the comfy little fiefdom he presides over called “King County” as soon as the Senate confirms him. I’d like to say I’m glad to be rid of him, but I know that this job will give his resume a boost for when he makes a run for Governor in 2012 or 16.

Not only is he a bloated big-government money grubber, he is also as crooked as Lombard Street. Never mind that his office has spent large amounts of money and time over the past couple weeks denying this move

On the day that Ron Sims gets nominated to a senior position in the Obama administration, he reveals more ethical shortcomings by committing a serious PDC violation, earning himself a formal complaint.

See the Twitter box in the upper right corner of the King County Executive web page. Since about 6pm Sunday it’s had a link to a P-I editorial promoting Sims’ preferred candidate for Elections Director.

That is a flagrant violation of RCW 42.17.130

And you and I couldn’t tell, but the local left likes to consider the Seattle Times a “right-wing” newspaper. I understand all about niceties and being polite, but I can’t see a “right wing” newspaper posting these headlines for this creep

Sims off to HUD: King County’s loss will be the nation’s gain

and

Ron Sims leaves legacy of change as he heads for HUD

The only legacy he’s leaving is a broken down and heavily indebted county government.

Good riddance. My only wish is that I wasn’t paying for it.

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

If one standard is good

Posted on February 4, 2009 by Phil Kadath

Than two must be great!

After being bombarded with the phrase “Listen to the Generals” for six years by the left, that seems to be the only thing a sane person could glean from this next of angry dung beetles.

If an article by Gareth Porter in run by InterPress is correct that CentCom Commander Gen. David Petraeus and Iraq Commander Gen. Ray Odierno, backed by a group of lower-ranking generals, are planning to mount a public campaign to try and undermine President Obama’s plan for a withdrawal from Iraq in 16 months, Obama needs to act fast and nip this dangerous act of insubordination in the bud.

……

Obama, on a much more serious issue—the conduct of and termination of a war—is now apparently being more or less openly defied by his top generals, who after all get their glory and power by having troops in battle, and who are also worried that a collapse of the puppet regime in Iraq could leave them looking like losers. They are thus opposing a pullout from Iraq (and a hardly precipitous one at that!) out of self-interest and self-preservation.

Because it couldn’t be that they know something that both this dweeblet doesn’t and that Obama wishes to ignore. No, it must be that the Generals are just being selfish children!

I’d agree with the guy if the JCS were invading a country or still in NOLA, but Obama has been President for 20 days. These guys have been n the ground for years.

Posted in Useful Idiots | Leave a comment

Doing that which the UAW won’t

Posted on February 4, 2009 by Phil Kadath

You’d figure that something as simple as “Cake or Death” would be an easy choice for anyone.

Several ferry worker unions decided to forego their awarded pay raises for the year. The alternative was layoffs. Forced to choose between the two options, the workers decided to keep their jobs.

The decision by the ferry worker unions stands in stark contrast to four other unions, which are suing the governor in an attempt to get their pay increases and avoid layoffs -– a tactic described as “ill-timed greed.” At least the ferry unions recognize economic reality when they see it.

I mean, really. How tough is it to figure out “lights on and food in the fridge vs. dark and hungry” (aka: “paycheck vs. no paycheck”).

Especially when it’s a Washington State Ferry worker paycheck.

As an aside, why didn’t anyone mention what this decision would mean for the 189 union-represented ferry employees who have made more than $100,000 in a year? Are they going to be able to make it in this tough economy with six-figure salaries and no pay increases?

Yeah, that would be a real tough decision there if it were me.

(FYI: my employer has already informed my co-workers and I that we’re most likely not going to get a raise this year. After last year’s raise and watching the layoffs around the industry, I’m OK with that.)

Posted in Freaks, Mutants, and Morons | 2 Comments

Pirates

Posted on February 4, 2009 by Phil Kadath

They’re all wet.

And that is about all they’ll be after taking these classes

With an alarming number of tankers and cargo ships getting hijacked on the high seas, the nation’s maritime academies are offering more training to merchant seamen in how to fend off attacks from pirates armed not with cutlasses and flintlocks but automatic weapons and grenade launchers.

Colleges are teaching students to fishtail their vessels at high speed, drive off intruders with high-pressure water hoses and illuminate their decks with floodlights.

Anti-piracy training is not new. Nor are the techniques. But the lessons have taken on new urgency — and more courses are planned — because of the record number of attacks worldwide in 2008 by outlaws who seize ships and hold them for ransom.

Our good man, and former uniformed sea goer, Mollbot, sent me this article. After reading it, I had the exact same reaction as he did; That water cannons and bright lights may work on the Sea Shepherd creepos (and give them something to whine about afterwards), but it will in no way work on violent predators.

The instructor gives multiple excuses as to why the ships can’t or aren’t arming themselves, each of which is lamer than the last. Tell those nations who won’t let ship’s crews be armed that they won’t be getting any shipments anytime soon. Tell the Captains who are afraid of mutiny or crew violence to train and arm a select portion of his crew. One thing about the ocean, you can see them coming from a ways off and you have time to get the guns out of the lockers.

And speaking of the Sea Shepherd creepos, why aren’t they considered pirates? They intend to damage and/or stop the legal activity of ships and their crews. Sounds like piracy to me.

Posted in Evil walks the earth | 4 Comments