New ID Laws in Effect

The Poor (and Canadians) Hardest Hit!

Seriously, that is the essence of this post at leftist hate-monger, Dave Neiwert’s, site.

According to the Pew report, the new federal ID standards are also wreaking havoc at social service agencies, as people who apply for public assistance are going for weeks without heat and food — or losing their homes entirely — while they order newly-required birth certificates and wait for them to arrive in the mail.

(snip)

Up here in the great frozen north, the news headlines for the past few days have dominated by stories of people queueing up at Canadian government offices at six in the morning to apply for passports. The reason for this sudden rush? On January 23, a new Homeland Security rule will require all Canadians boarding flights going through US airspace to show a passport. (They’ll also be required at land border crossings starting later this year.) Which means that Canadians who’ve long been used to coming and going throughout North America on the strength of a birth certificate alone are suddenly going to be grounded if they don’t get that little blue book. This has created (polite, Canadian-style) mass panic at passport offices from Victoria to Halifax, and is threatening to stall the migration of quite a few of the snowbirds who would otherwise be heading off to Florida or Arizona this time of year.

This post was written by Neiwert’s co-poster “Sara Robinson”, who is an American ex-patriot. She left after one of the national elections didn’t go the way she wanted it to, and now she sits in BC, Canuckistan, whining about “how fascist America is becoming”.

While she still holds citizenship here, I would like to know just what her tax status is and how much she sends to the US Fed here. I suspect it is in the “little to none” category, which may account for her apathy at the giving away of US Citizen tax dollars to just anyone who shows up.

While I am absolutely no fan of the “Real ID” program or a friend to anyone who longs for a “National ID Card”, I cannot see why having to present your ID to vote, another topic which she touches on in her screed, is such a burden.

I also wonder why people having to show ID to register so that they can get money from the state is such a problem for leftists like her? Get them on a roll about fraud and they’ll bitch all day long, but making people prove: 1. That they need it, and 2. Who they are (you know, things that will stop the fraud) is abhorrent to those on the left.

One final, and rather funny note, about “Sara Robinson” is this: She is actually studying to be, get this: “A Professional Futurist”.

If you don’t know what a Futurist is, then you don’t listen to enough Coast to Coast AM with George Noory and Art Bell. Basically, they sit around and think of what the world might be like “in the future”. Yeah, really hard stuff.

I was an Amateur Futurist in high school. During my second year Electronics class we would listen to our boomboxes at the workstations while we built projects or repaired school equipment. One day, in frustration at having a CD (new technology then) skip because of a scratch, I held up a memory chip and told my partner “Someday, we’ll just be buying our music on these things”.

And lo, we now have thumbdrives and MP3 players. Damn I’m good.

Sorry “Mrs. Robinson”, but with your whining, I’m rather glad you moved away. Just stay away, won’t you?

Posted in Dare To Be Stupid | 2 Comments

Eating Their Own

Seattle is full of condescending liberals who think that they know what is best for you, even if you don’t know it (or refuse to believe it).

However, one of the premier liberal writers in the area, Josh Feit, is even getting sick of some of their shit. Feit writes at the weekly Seattle “alternative paper” The Stranger, and this bit is from the paper’s blog: The Slog

Just got back from a Transportation Choices Coalition brown bag at the downtown Y where the group presented its legislative agenda to its members. (I’m a dues paying member.)

TCC is grass roots pro-transit group that used to be a bit more radical, but has moderated its politics lately (open to more compromises on roads construction while not pushing as hard for progressive transit solutions)—which has enabled them to be more of a playah. Sigh, those are the trade offs.

Anyway, their top legislative agenda is: shoring up the Sound Transit/RTID package so that ST Phase II is fully funded; fixing roads before expanding roads; and integrating transit with roads development.

(snip)

All of this stuff seems okay—I’m not as thoroughly opposed to coupling ST and RTID as I was a few weeks ago—

… but there was one thing on their agenda that irked me.

It seems like a minor thing, I guess, but it defined everything that’s wrong with liberalism. TCC is advocating to have transit alternatives taught in driver’s ed classes, so that soon-to-be drivers can learn that cars aren’t the only transportation option in the world.

Uggggh.

I have written about the dumb local drivers, as well as the poor “driver’s ed” classed required for a driver’s license, that kids can take via the public school system (which I believe is why it is so piss poor).

But now that the anti-private vehicle nutjobs want to take even more on-the-road time away from soon-to-be=drivers so that the teacher can tell them how they can ride a bike or a bus to where they need to go, I’m expecting even worse drivers to come out of the public driver’s ed courses.

Pretty soon I’m going to need a roll-cage around my truck and the cabin filled with those styrofoam packing peanuts.

Posted in The Left is Never Right | 1 Comment

That is what you get

When you hang around retards all day.

Due to the sheer number of “9/11 was an Inside Job” posts at the dKos Petting Zoo and Animal Farm, The Man himself had to post the following:

DailyKos accepts that the 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by agents of Al-Qaeda. It is forbidden to write diaries that:

1. refer to claims that American, British, Israeli, or any government assisted in the attacks

2. refer to claims that the airplanes that crashed into the WTC and Pentagon were not the cause of the damage to those buildings or their subsequent collapse

Authoring or recommending these diaries may result in banning from Daily Kos.

In my own little part of the world, I have been edging closer and closer to the belief that the reason the left doesn’t support killing terrorists is because, somewhere in the back of their pointy, little, tin-foil covered heads, they are all Fox Mulders: They want to believe the Truthers.

Because Bush/Cheney are soooo eevviill!

Found at The AoSHQ

Posted in Too Stupid to Live | 3 Comments

Do I have to repeat myself?

Back in June of last year, a “a nonpartisan advisory panel created by Congress” came out with a report that “the government should guarantee a core set of health benefits for all Americans by 2012 even if it means raising taxes.”

I blogged it here.

As you can see at that link, I reported a fact that the folks on the panel decided to ignore: Anyone who wanders into any hospital can get any kind of care they need. The hippocratic oath, and the newsmedia guarantees that.

This panel just wants it so that no one has to pay for it out of their own pocket.

So imagine my non-surprize when I click on this:

State commission recommends more access to health care by 2012

Every person in Washington should have access to affordable and high-quality health care in five years if the state takes decisive action now, a commission appointed by Gov. Chris Gregoire says.

Do the Dems have no imagination or do they just think that we don’t remember these things?

Everyone has the same access to healthcare. No one is getting turned away from a clinic or an ER, as can be easily evidenced by the number of illegals who come to America for medical needs. And despite what the leftists will tell you, America has the absolute best in medical care, as can be evidenced by the sheer number of foreigners who leave their home countries to come here for proceedures.

Some people just don’t want people to pay for anything medical-wise, unless they’re “The ealthy”. Those would be Democrats (and Ahnold the Governator).

Another thing that none of these “Blue-Ribbon Panels” ever remembers to say, is that instead of lifting up the level of healthcare for a minority of Americans, the system they propose would lower the level of healthcare for the majority of Americans.

To which I repeat a paraphrase of what I wrote back in June of last year:

Phil recommends more kissing of his ass by 2012 by Her Governorship’s Blue Ribbon Panel

Posted in The Left is Never Right | 1 Comment

Can you say “Ugly”?

I knew you could. Now try “Overpriced”.

Excellent. You have just described the two vehicles that will put GM even deeper in the red than they already are.

The new Camaro

camaro_convertible_concept.jpg
And the new Firebird

hppp_0607_2009_trans_am_concept_z.jpg
Of the two, I’d run the Pontiac. But for my money, I’d rather just have the Vette for 10K more, because I have one more word for you: “Overweight”.

Just like 86 1/2 to 91 Supras, this thing is a luxo-whale, not a sportscar. The 400hp 6.0L will move it nicely, for $42K, but watch the V6’s get eaten my 6cyl Mustangs (and and 4cyl Celicas) all the live long day.

Posted in Kewel! | 3 Comments

How Much Money Can You Come Up With On Short Notice?

Sealand is for sale!

For sale: the world’s smallest country with its own flag, stamps, currency and passports.

Apply to Prince Michael of Sealand if you want to run your own storm-tossed nation — even if it is just a wartime fort perched on two concrete towers in the North Sea.

Built in World War Two as an anti-aircraft base against German bombers, the derelict platform was taken over 40 years ago by retired army major Paddy Roy Bates who went to live there with his family.

Imagine this: You could declare everyone who is a citizen, with strict requirements (and no illegal immigration) to be an “Ambassador” and all embassadors are allowed to own whatever firearms they feel they need.

Instant by-pass of US federal firearms laws, including Class 3.

No price is listed, however, which leads me to believe that the old saying “If you have to ask, it costs too much” is probably in effect here.

Found @ Samizdata

Posted in Kewel! | 2 Comments

One Good Thing

To indirectly come out of the debacle that is the 110th Congress

US President George W Bush has lifted a ban on oil and gas drilling in Bristol Bay.

Ignore the insipid re-mentioning of all the enviro-wacko nonsense in that BBC article (which is why I took the liberty of modifying the sub-head).

Just remember that the 109th Congress was wishy-washy on this, bowing to the Dems threat of a filibuster.

Also remember that Bush is a card player, and that this is essentially a “Put-Up or Shut-Up” to the Dems pandering to the eco-socialists. If they pander, they lose the rest of the US for 2008 by helping keep gas prices high in the public perception. If they fold, they lose the green-weenie vote in 08 to the Nader fill-in.

Found at Right Thinking

Posted in Order of the imperial upraised middle finger. | Leave a comment

Bok-bok-bok-bok

BWOK!

Florida Gators (corrected) head coach, Urban Meyer on the topic of Boise State

Let’s go play ’em next week.

Followed very quickly by

I love Boise State, but I wouldn’t want to do that. We’re done.

Yep, your ass would be well done. They’d be eatin’ Gator in Id-e-ho.

Posted in Life in the Atomic Age | 3 Comments

That’ll teach me

Last week I complained about an El Nino moderating the weather so that I wouldn’t get a chance to test my new Glock’s worth of tires.

That was dumb.

Here is my six day forecast

Puget Sound:

Wind advisory in effect from 7 am this morning to 9 pm pst this evening,

Today: cloudy with a chance of rain this morning, then rain developing. Windy. Highs in the 40s. South wind 20 to 30 mph with gusts to 45 mph.

Tonight: rain showers, changing to snow showers overnight. Lows in the upper 20s to lower 30s. Southwest wind 20 to 30 mph with gusts to 45 mph, subsiding to 10 to 15 mph. Snow accumulations up to 1 inch late.

Wednesday: snow showers and a chance of thunderstorms. Snow accumulations a trace to 2 inches, and locally higher. Highs in the lower to mid 30s. West wind to 10 mph.

Wednesday Night: mostly cloudy with a chance of snow showers. Lows in the upper teens to mid 20s. North wind 10 to 15 mph shifting to the northeast after midnight.

Thursday: sunny. Highs in the mid 20s to around 30. Northeast wind 10 to 15 mph.

Thursday Night: clear. Lows in the teens.

Friday: sunny. Highs in the upper 20s to lower 30s.

Friday Night: partly cloudy. Lows in the upper teens to mid 20s.

Saturday And Saturday Night: partly cloudy. Highs in the upper 30s. Lows in the 20s.

Sunday: mostly sunny. Highs in the upper 30s.

Sunday Night: partly cloudy. Lows 25 to 30.

Martin Luther King Jr Day: mostly sunny. Highs in the upper 30s.

It looks as though I’ll be testing the “Ice Traction” for the next week or thereabouts.

Posted in Life in the Atomic Age | 3 Comments

This is what happens

When I get behind at work and can’t spend my lunch reading this here interweb tube thingie.

I have posted the QotD and something else I’m sure you’ll enjoy below, but right now, I would like to ask you for a favor. Don’t worry, it is a time favor and nothing much more.

I want you to click on this link right here. Let me explain.

When I made the video of Polly the Hungry Turtle last week, I tried to watch it at work, off a CD-R using Windows Media Player, but it would not play. It told me I was missing some “codec” that WMP couldn’t find on the net.

However, I can watch it at the RNS Blogstation just fine, using every MPEG-2 compatable player I have. SO, I am asking y’all to download that short video off the RNS server and tell me whether you can watch it or not, and then leave your results, along with what program you used to get them. I will be wanting to try and separate myself from the Google monoploy on interweb streaming video in the future and am trying to figure out if I am doing something wrong or if the WMP at work is just retarded.

The vid was shot by the wife over the weekend. I was out firing up Grimm to take him for a spin and top off the fuel tanks, and she thought it’d be cute to use my new video cam against me.

I’ve edited it down to less than 4 seconds long/2.02MB for a quick download, and yes, there is sound.

As a thank you/reward of sorts, I am also offering up this video of a rather scary bit of new Big Brother Tech being put to use by the po-po in British Columbia, Canada.

It’ll read 3000 license plates in an hour and the list of who and what gets loaded into it’s recognition DB is a bit scary, though they justify it as “For the Common Good” and “Making police work easier”.

Make sure you watch it all the way through. The last line sounds a bit creepy to me, coming from a police officer from another soverign nation.

Sent to me by my co-worker, Paul.

Posted in Life in the Atomic Age | 11 Comments