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

Category: Usual Suspects

  • “First they came for my Buck knife….”

    The Washington Times reports this morning that the Obama Administration, not content to change firearms regulations are looking at expanding the definition of switchblade knives in an effort to restrict access to all knives that can be opened with one hand;

    “Boy Scout knives, Swiss Army knives – the most basic of knives can be opened one-handed if you know what you are doing,” said Doug Ritter, executive director of Knife Rights, an advocacy group fighting to defeat the measure.

    “The outrage is gaining steam,” he said.

    Customs officials dismiss fears that the new language will outlaw ordinary pocket knives, saying the change was issued to clear up conflicting guidelines for border agents about what constitutes an illegal switchblade that cannot be imported into the United States. The rule could be imposed within 30 days if not blocked.

    Even Congress is worried about the regulation;

    The bipartisan Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus, boasting one of the largest memberships on Capitol Hill, last week sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who oversees CBP, urging her to quash the proposed rule change. The letter was signed by 61 Republican and 18 Democratic lawmakers.

    “This classification could render millions of law-abiding knife owners in violation of the law and expose major market retailers, manufacturers, dealers and importers to possible federal felony charges, and could drive domestic manufacturers and importers out of business, potentially costing thousands of jobs,” said caucus member Rep. Robert E. Latta, Ohio Republican.

    More of the nanny state trying to protect us from ourselves.

  • Blame everything but the cause

    I’ve been following the story on the Metro train crash yesterday and I’ve seen the various newscasts that toss blame every where but where it belongs. They’ve blamed sensors, old train cars, mechanical over rides, brush on the side of the tracks, a curve in the track – everything but what it really is.

    I’ve spent a long time on this planet and I’ve seen some pretty incompetent people do some really stupid crap in my life. I’ve even spent time in third world countries. But until I moved to Washington, DC, I’d never seen incompetence – at least not on the scale I’ve witnessed here.

    When I talk to people who are coming here for the first time, I tell them they’ll be OK if they live by one simple rule; everyone in this city is more important than you are. Everyone in this city is too important to do whatever job it is they’re getting paid for. None of the traffic regulations apply to whoever it is that’s on your right, left, front or rear.

    The smartest person in the entire city is whoever you’re talking to at a given moment.

    I’ve seen fat-assed female cops direct traffic from inside their air-conditioned squad car parked in the center of the intersection. I’ve seen deaf bus drivers who yelled at a bus-load of people because they didn’t ring the bell to stop the bus (actually he was so old and deaf he couldn’t hear the bell). Even the hobos are incompetent – one guy pretending to be crippled had a T-shirt wrapped around his leg to simulate a cast.

    It’s not DC that sucks – it’s the morons who populate the place. Taxi drivers who don’t know their way around the city, waiters that can’t bring you what you ordered, ticket-dollies who write you a parking ticket before your meter expires.

    Was I surprised at the crash yesterday? Not in the least. I’ve watched the drivers of those things and their antics with their friends in the cabs of those trains for ten years (ten years next week as a matter of fact). The only thing that surprises is me is that it hasn’t happened more often.

    Like the Metro train driver who, on the Blue Line near Arlington Cemetery saw smoke coming out the tunnel near Roslyn during rush hour and he decided to drive his train full of rush hour passengers coming from the Pentagon into the tunnel to “investigate” the fire. Brilliant, huh?

    Why do you think the Army is moving Walter Reed from Georgia Avenue to Fort Belvoir and Bethesda? Because they have hundreds of incompetent people working at Walter Reed that they can’t fire, so they’re moving it so they can let them go. But everyone is afraid to say so.

  • ACORN by any other name….

    So what if your company was involved in scandals and took a huge hit reputation-wise, do you think you could fix things just by changing it’s name? Well, ACORN thinks it’s their silver bullet cure for their piss-poor reputation according to Kevin Mooney of the Washington Examiner;

    “We’ve known for many months now that the name ACORN is going to be retired,” Reid said. “The name has been so damaged to the point where the leadership knows it simply can’t go on as it has with the ACORN label out front and center, especially after all of the reporting.”

    In fact, the process has already begun, she noted. Wade Rathke, who founded the organization, announced on his blog that ACORN International has officially changed its name to “Community Organizations International.”

    Reid also said ACORN is in the process of dismantling Citizen’s Consulting Inc. (CCI), a New-Orleans based non-profit, which has been used to maintain centralized financial control, ACORN 8 activists claim. Tax records show that CCI is interlinked with several ACORN affiliates.

    So that ought to clear their name, huh? I mean the same corrupt boards, the same corrupt members and the same corrupt ideology, but the gilded turd will certainly smell better…right?

  • Whew! Tighe is OK.

    I know many of you were worried about poor Tighe Barry, the Code Pink doofus who thought he could push the Israeli police around like he does in this country. Since Tighe and I are special friends, he sent me news of his condition;

    tighe

    I know you’re relieved like I am. One of those links goes to an article on Huffington Post by Ann Wright who describes the incident;

    Israeli police and military violently shoved the group back into a wall. Delegation member Tighe Barry from Santa Monica, Cali. was struck in the face with the butt of a military rifle and pushed to the ground where he could barely breathe. He was taken by ambulance to the Trauma Center of Tal-Hashomer hospital in Tel Aviv where he was treated for a concussion, an injured neck and an asthma attack. Benjamin and several other delegation members were bruised in the arms and upper body from being shoved and manhandled by the police and military.

    The journalist was taken to a local police station and released an hour later without charges. Mr. Barry was treated overnight at the hospital.

    Yeah, can someone show me the screen shot of Barry getting buttstroked? If there was one I’d have already blown it up wall poster size and put it in the window next to my son’s Blue Star. After reviewing the video a few times, none of the police involved in pushing the protesters back even had a long gun with which he could buttstroke Barry. I call BS. And who paid for his night in the hospital? George Soros?

    “Is this the great democracy that the U.S. taxpayers pay for with $3 billion dollars a year?” Benjamin cried, as she was being dragged away by the police.

    Did anyone see Benjamin getting dragged off by the police in the video? No she’s getting pushed back by the police.

    If you watch the video at my first post about this (at this link), at about 1:30, you can see Wright screaming her ass off and she’s no where near the police – just screaming for dramatic effect. Then she runs around the small crowd and intentionally wedges her widebody between a pole and a barrier and starts flailing around like the police put her there.

    There’s nothing in the video or Ann Wright’s account of the incident related to teargas, except in Barry’s email.

    Buncha ignorant drama queens.

  • Generals and pricks

    Yesterday at a Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee hearing, Brigadier General Michael Walsh was testifying on the Louisiana coastal restoration process in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Here’s the General’s Biography;

    bg-walsh-bio

    The General was testifying to Barbara Boxer, the junior senator from California. Here’s Barbara Boxer’s bio from her website;

    boxer-bio

    Before the General got more than few words into the testimony, the junior senator from California interrupted him;

    If she was a man, I’d call Boxer a prick, but she’s not a man and I can’t call her what we call a prick that is a woman. But my point is; the general worked a damn sight harder to get where he is – I mean look at that bio – than some woman prick who has been in Congress and then the Senate. Some prick woman who has been an “advocate” all of her life – advocating for her ego. While this general is saving the world so people like Boxer can be pricks to him.

    Now look at the general’s chest (I searched for a picture of him in his greens, but I couldn’t find one…sorry it’s so fuzzy);

    walsh-screen-cap

    That’s General Walsh’s experience on his chest while that Boxer woman is sitting on her experience. Just for the record, I think generals are included in that “we support the troops” thing I hear all of the time.

    This post was done on the request of our favorite fan at the Pentagon.

  • Navy preparing for ops against Nork shipping

    You’ve probably all read by now that the Pentagon on Tuesday warned that North Korea is about three years out of having missiles that can strike the mainland US;

    North Korea’s missiles could hit the United States in as few as three years if the reclusive rogue nation continues to ramp up its weapons system, Pentagon officials said Tuesday.

    At a Tuesday morning Senate hearing on missile defense, Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn pointed to Pyongyang’s recent steps to accelerate its long-range weapons program and agreed with Sen. John McCain, a Republican that the U.S. should be prepared for a “worst-case scenario” with North Korea.

    And that a Japanese newspaper is warning that North Korea will try to fire a missile towards Hawaii in the next few weeks;

    North Korea may fire a long-range ballistic missile toward Hawaii in early July, a Japanese news report said Thursday, as Russia and China urged the regime to return to international disarmament talks on its rogue nuclear program.

    The missile, believed to be a Taepodong-2 with a range of up to 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometers), would be launched from North Korea’s Dongchang-ni site on the northwestern coast, said the Yomiuri daily, Japan’s top-selling newspaper. It cited an analysis by the Japanese Defense Ministry and intelligence gathered by U.S. reconnaissance satellites.

    The missile launch could come between July 4 and 8, the paper said.

    The Star and Stripes is reporting that US Navy elements are preparing to conduct operations against North Korean shipping;

    The U.S. Navy, acting on authority granted by the United Nations, is prepared to intercept North Korean ships and request permission to search them for arms or nuclear technology, a Pentagon official said Tuesday.

    Sailors cannot board a ship by force, but if an inspection is refused, the Navy can follow it to the next port and again press for an inspection. The approach is authorized by a U.N. Security Council resolution approved Friday.

    President Barack Obama and visiting South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said at the White House on Tuesday that the resolution must be fully enforced, but noted that it did not authorize military force. Lee said he and Obama agreed that “under no circumstance are we going to allow North Korea to possess nuclear weapons.”

    “Under no circumstances”…well, unless the North Koreans insist on possessing nuclear weapons, of course. And lets tell them all in advance that we can’t use force. That won’t cost any unnecessary casualties, will it? What’s the point?

    Obama missed his opportunity to get tough with the North Koreans when he didn’t shoot down that first missile a few weeks back. Tough talk won’t stop Il, just like it hasn’t stopped anyone else. Maybe if the Navy parked off the North Korean shores (outside the 12 mile limit, of course) and shook their fists in unison – that might stop them.

  • Rip VanBaradei wakes from 20-year sleep

    Stunning, stunning news from the United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei yesterday;

    Iran wants the ability to build nuclear weapons to gain the reputation of a major power in the Middle East, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said in a BBC interview broadcast Wednesday.

    I’m shocked, aren’t you? This is the first I’d heard of this. But, ElBaradei may have made this announcement without examining all of the facts;

    Tehran denied the assertion.

    Oh, well, I feel better. Go back to sleep ElBaradei.

  • “You’re pushing women! You’re pushing women!”

    TSO sent me this;

    Code Pink took their street fair to Israel the other day and ran into some Israeli police. I’ll have the video up in a minute, but first let me explain a little bit about what you’ll see. First Lil Suzie Benjamin suddenly has relatives who suffered in the Holocaust to lend herself some credibility – you know like folks who come here and try to get creds on military issues by telling us that their nephew’s neighbor’s grandfather watched the History Channel on Memorial Day.

    Then (at about 1:30 in the video) Tighe Barry (Suzie’s poodle), Ann Wright and Suze try to push through Israeli police barriers. The police push back (duh) while Tighe has to tell the police “you’re pushing women, you’re pushing women….” probably because none of the women the Israeli cops are pushing look like women in Israel (well, speaking from my own personal experience).

    Tighe is totally faking (he’s such a drama queen). He might have got conked on his noggin but you can’t see any blood or marks. So he lays on the pavement and writhes like a two-year-old so Suzie will touch him.

    Just so you recognize him in the video, this is Tighe last year at the Code Pink Mothers’ Day;
    Tighe Barry
    Here’s the video;

    Now we know why Tighe Barry left Hollywood and took up with the Code Pink Street Theater Company – he’s such a bad actor.