This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: Operator Dan

  • Help needed….to piss off some liberals.

    Tonight I attended an anti-gun event at ASU put on by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Freedom..err I mean Gun Violence. The purpose of the event was to organize opposition to Senate Bill 1467, which would allow students and faculty with concealed carry permits to carry firearms on campus. There was the typical anti-gun rhetoric which isn’t even worth repeating. Of course, the opponents of concealed carry on campus can still not name one violent incident involving firearms on one of the thirty campuses that allow  concealed carry.

    Anyways, one particularly vile professor was encouraging people to vote in a poll to support or oppose concealed carry on campus in order to show that students and faculty don’t support allowing guns on campus. The problem is that the majority of the people attending the event were not students or faculty at ASU, yet they were still being encouraged to vote in the poll. Very well… two can play that game. Accordingly I ask that you all literally take seconds to vote in these two polls:

    http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GunCharter Alternate: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/H26L35L

    http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GunZMT25LG Alternate: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GunSafeCampus

    Normally, I find these unscientific polls a little silly. However there was a State Senator and several members of the Arizona Board of Regents that were using the results of these poll to bolster their arguments against concealed carry on campus. So please, my fine young TAH readers, help Operator Dan piss off some liberals and vote in those two polls.

  • When The “Hope and Change” Crowd Are Against “Change”

    Some of you have probably heard about the “radical” pieces of legislation currently being debated in the Arizona State Legislature, which involve everything from abolishing the state’s Medicaid program to giving the state the power to impound the vehicles of illegal immigrants. Predictably, in the coming weeks (or months) these bills will put Arizona back in the crosshairs of the elitist MSM and I fully expect my state to be smeared in extremely vile ways just like last year (oh wait, its already happening).

    I don’t expect Senate Bill 1115 (or SB 1115) to generate as much press as the other bills dealing with Medicaid and immigration but it will still be attacked by leftists across the country and just as viciously. SB 1115 would abolish the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR), an independent body that oversees and sets policy for Arizona’s three universities. In place of the ABOR, each university would have it own board of trustees that would set tuition levels and the general direction of the university. Additionally, SB 1115 would change how universities are funded by replacing the current funding model of doling out cash based on number of students with one that issues a voucher to each qualified college student which they could use at one of Arizona’s universities and that issues funding based on a series of metrics that include things like graduation rates. This introduces an important element to higher education in the state of Arizona: REAL competition not based on some arbitrary ranking in Newsweak.

    Of course, people who currently serve on  the ABOR hate it. They have traditionally been liberal academics and “moderate” state leaders who have continually endorsed tuition hikes, despite the increasing economic difficulties in Arizona instead of forcing cuts on bloated university administrations. They have also opposed allowing students with concealed carry permits to carry concealed on campus, among other positions that are in line with typical liberal beliefs.

    Worst of all though, is that they have defended and further entrenched a system that is not benefiting the state of Arizona or Arizona’s students. ASU’s six-year graduation rate is 55 percent and its four-year graudation rate is around 30 percent. All those students are subsidized to an extent by the state. The school president likes to carp about putting “15,000 new graduates a year into the work force” but sadly many of those graduates wind up in low-paying jobs and struggle to pay back the debt they amassed to pay for their degree. That is if they can even find a job. In terms of contributing to the local economy, even that is limited. Just drive around the edges of ASU and U of A to see how much the university has “enhanced” the local community.

    I don’t know what the chances of success are for SB 1115. But I hope its passage will be the first step in helping to reform higher education in Arizona and diminish some of the left’s power in academia. But it is only one step.

  • A Start of Another Semester…*SIGH*

    Today was the start of my fourth semester at Arizona State University. Already, I have broken one of my New Years’ Resolutions: not to read the school newspaper. Usually, there is at least one article every other day that just sends me through the roof and I would usually respond by writing a letter to the editor. I realized that this was really a waste of my time since I think that despite the fact that ASU is now the largest school in the country, fewer people regularly read the State Press than TAH. So one of my resolutions was not to pick up the paper on my way to class or to read the website. I would just get worked up, write a letter that maybe a couple of hundred of people would read, and probably waste about a half hour doing it. However, just like with pretty much all my past resolutions I broke it today, not even three weeks into the New Year. So what did I find? Today’s State Press was pretty predictable. An unoriginal yet confusing opinion piece about rhetoric and the Tuscon shooting accompanied by a similar editorial. A story about how the Student Government is going to fight against tuition increases and in doing so will also advocate for a tax increase like they did last year.

    I am sure the budget cuts and accompanying tuition hikes advocated by Arizona’s university presidents will dominate the State Press. I am positive there will be literally dozens of editorials and opinion pieces bashing Arizona and smearing us as a bunch of ignorant and uneducated rednecks. I am certain the anarchists will protest again this year just like last year. I expect my professors to use their position as teachers and instructors to lobby for a particular political party (guess which one?) and for ballot measures that will increase taxes yet protect their jobs and benefits.

    What I hope for is a honest discussion about higher education in the state of Arizona and what it is actually contributing to the state. I am not going to get it. Greg Patterson, a former state legislature here in Arizona, has done a pretty good job documenting the arrogance and elitism of Arizona’s university presidents over at his blog. Basically, these guys think that Arizona’s three universities are the best thing the state has going for it right now. They think that they should have top priority when it comes to funding (and often times they mislead the public about how much they get) and if the state doesn’t “properly invest” in their schools, we will revert to cannibalism and Arizona will look like Somalia (okay a little hyperbole, but you get the point). Likewise, if we give more money, the state’s economic condition will improve and we will be “competitive” with other states and countries. The problem is there is little evidence to back this assertion up.

    Look at where some of the top public and private and universities are located and locate at the economic conditions of those states. California has CalTech, Stanford, UC Davis, and many more top-ranked schools. The state is on the verge of bankruptcy and corporations are fleeing the state by the boatload. University of Michigan is considered one of the best public universities in the country, yet Michigan’s economy has been a disaster for years and the state actually had negative population growth. North Dakota’s economy has been humming along, thanks to oil discoveries in that state, not because of its university. You could go on…

    However, this semester I am not going to waste my breath or my time. The beast can’t sustain itself for much longer and economic and political reality is going to catch up to it. Sooner or later….

  • Pima County Stonewalling AZ Republic Over Documents Related To Loughner (UPDATED)

    Where is WikiLeaks when you need ’em:

    Sheriff’s Department and community-college officials in Pima County are refusing to release a wide range of public documents about the man charged in Saturday’s shooting rampage that left six dead and more than a dozen wounded.

    The Arizona Public Records Law requires that records be “open to inspection by any person at all times” unless officials can prove releasing the information would violate rights of privacy or confidentiality or otherwise harm the best interests of the state.

    How about the “best interests” of Sheriff Dumbass’s political career?

    On Monday, The Republic requested copies of any reports from the Pima County Sheriff’s Department involving contacts with Loughner or calls to his house. Pima County Deputy Rene Carlson said her office would not release the reports without a specific date, though this is not required by state statute.

    This to me is somewhat revealing. It could possibly indicate that the Pima County Sheriff has had more contact with Loughner and his family than they have let on in the past few days (the NY Times has reported multiple police visits to the home prior to the rampage) and maybe even had some evidence that he was planning the massacre. I understand that there are multiple different law enforcement agencies that in play here (local police, sheriff, and campus cops, etc.) that don’t always necessarily communicate effectively, but still the unwillingness to release certain documents (which are fairly mundane) give the impression that the Pima County Sheriff has something to hide.

    UPDATE 1/12/10 4:17 pm EST: The Pima County Sheriff’s office has reversed course and released records pertaining to Loughner. According to the AZ Republic, Loughner on at least two occasions called the police HIMSELF, in regards to his belief his identity was stolen and somebody “sticking him with a pen” while he was in high school. In another incident it appears he had his stomach pumped after he drank too much. The police were also frequently at the Loughner home, usually related to the family complaining about their neighbors.

    I do not know if this is everything that the Pima County Sheriff has on Loughner and if they are withholding more information. However, it i s clear that law enforcement in the area had a significant amount of contact with the family, especially over the last five years.

    UPDATE 1/12/10 6:26pm EST: Pima Community College has released records pertaining to Loughner. He had four incidents in which he dealt with campus police in 2010 alone. Strangely, one of them involved a pilates class.

  • A Public Service Announcement From Operator Dan For My Friends In The Liberal Media

    This is a clip:

    This is a magazine:

    Its not hard to figure this stuff out (all of thirty seconds on Google), but I guess it just takes less time to type clip instead of magazine which leaves you more time to attack Sarah Palin. I betcha she knows the difference however.

  • Another Poser Just Looking For Love

    From The Daily Mail:

    A ‘heartless’ Facebook fraudster has been using pictures of a dead Afghan war hero to seduce a string of women he met on-line.

    Under the name of ‘Dylan Sorvino’ the conman used memorial photos of handsome Sgt Roberto Sanchez, a 24-year-old Army Ranger who died in combat in 2009.

    The fraudster, whose real identify has not been determined, pretended he had grown up in New York then studied law and fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Typically he would wow them with tales of battlefield glory and promise to turn up after he got back from his next tour, only he never showed.

    One email he sent to Carolyn Hinz, 37, a divorcee from Minnesota read: ‘Tomorrow night is my crew’s last Iraqi patrol and we start packing up.

    ‘I’ve been warned by command not to discuss my departure due to national security so we have to keep this talk to a minimum.’

    So you got this clown pretending to be a dead Ranger who is clearly committing fraud by pretending to be someone he is not. You would expect federal law enforcement (particularly the FBI due to the fact that this occurred across several states) to be all over it…..not.

    An FBI spokesman said it would not get involved if there was no financial loss involved, as was the case here.

    So the question is if the FBI didn’t do an investigation how can they know for sure no financial loss was involved? What we at TAH have found with these guys is that there is almost always some type of financial angle for these fakers. It might seem silly to some to go after people who are telling fake war stories on Facebook, but trust me there is always something more. Take Jamie January for instance. At first he seemed just like some clown who stole boot camp stories and pictures from Major Jason Grose’s blog. However, as soon I posted that story about a half dozen people either contacted Jonn or posted in the comments section that they had been defrauded by Jamie January. As a result, Jamie January is sitting in a Michigan jail on fraud charges at this moment.

    Hopefully this guy gets whats coming to home, just don’t expect the FBI to help.

  • Liberal Fascism

    From Politico:

    Pennsylvania Rep. Robert Brady, a Democrat from Philadelphia, told CNN that he also plans to take legislative action. He will introduce a bill that would make it a crime for anyone to use language or symbols that could be seen as threatening or violent against a federal official, including a member of Congress.

    Also some dumbassery from the same the article:

    Loughner legally purchased his weapon – a Glock 19 with an extended magazine – from an Arizona store. The same kind of extended magazine was illegal under the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004.

    A two minute read of the Wikipedia article on the Assault Weapon Ban could have told that those magazine were not outlawed under the ban-they just couldn’t be manufactured for civilian use. But hey I didn’t go to journalism school so what the fuck do I know?

  • Some Quick Thoughts On The Giffords Shooting

    Thought I would lay some things out before I hit the rack.

    1. Tuscon has more than its fair share of wierdos, especially around the University area. There is a lot of drugs and a lot of drug addicts running around. The supposed shooter attended Pima Community College which is next to a hotel called the Tuscon Inn which is full of crack dealers and crackheads. How do I know this? I have made the mistake of staying there before and myself and three other people I was with were the only people in the hotel not addicted to some narcotic.

    2. I don’t buy this story the Pima County’s Sheriff is putting out about a second person being involved in the shooting. Did anybody watch this clown’s news conference? He didn’t have a clue and had to call in his deputy to finish it up for him. He seemed more interested in getting on his soap box and trashing Arizona than learning the facts of the case.

    3. Raul Grijalva of course had to run his fat suck about this.  Grijalva should be one to talk about vitrol. He wins every election by telling his Latino constituents that the White Man is out to get them and stirring class and racial tension.

    More on this later…