Mystery Solved!

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

"Jug Ears" Speak: The New "Communicator"

For several years now we have been treated to the derision of George W. Bush by members of the MSM as well as the leftist punditocracy for his propensity to mangle the spoken English language. Much of this derision can be dismissed as sour grapes due to Bush having bested their darlings in the political contests of 2000 and 2004.

Now that the contest for political power in 2008 is in the home stretch so to speak, one wonders what to make of the leftists reaction to the verbal faux paus of their designated messiah in his quest for political power: to wit Barak (jug ears) Hussein Obama who appears to be "challenged" when bereft of a teleprompter or a prepared script. A sterling example would be the following exchange on the messiah's recent overseas campaign swing. An ABC reporter posed the following question to the candidate:


In case our leftist friends believed they heard an intelligent reply to the reporter's query, here is a transcript:

Q: "If you had to do it over again, knowing what you know now, would you support the surge:"

A: "No, because keep in mind that question, you wouldn't ... but keep in mind that kind of hypothetical is very difficult to know hindsight is 20-20 ... later ... but I think that what I'm absolutely convinced of is that at that time we had to change the political debate because the view of the Bush administration at that time was one that I just disagreed with."

Fun and Government Games

DC Police Department: Sten gun acceptable? Colt Model 1911 not Acceptable!!!

File this under "we knew it was coming". The District of Columbia municipal government, in order to deny Richard Heller ( who recently cleaned their clock in the US Supreme Court) a natural right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution, has had to assert the equivalence of a suspension the law of gravity by categorizing all magazine fed semiautomatic hand guns as "machine guns"!
(screen shot included in case the link vanishes)

"A spokesman for the DC Police says [Heller's] gun was a bottom-loading weapon, and according to their interpretation, all bottom-loading guns are outlawed because they are grouped with machine guns." Heller's gun appears to be a variation of the Colt model 1911. Who knew that there were several million "machine guns" in the hands of ordinary civilians here in the US? You can't make this stuff up. Perhaps the side loading British Sten submachine gun locked in semi auto mode would qualify for these cretins to register.

One commenter on the linked site asks: "So if DC redefines guns as 'footsies' and footsies are banned, is that OK?"

How do you spell "contempt of court"? Oh. I forgot. We're dealing with government here. In the immortal words of my friend Wollf: "Memo to self: time to buy more ammo"

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ!

Copyright Stuff?

This humble writer is hesitant to enter into a copyright fray but the related example has raised his hackles sufficiently to generate the following exception:

As a California libertarian refugee and former resident of Humboldt County, California I have occasion to frequent several of the local blogs there. One said blog is Fred's Humboldt Blog.

Fred posts almost daily and on Saturday 12 July one of his postings, as is typical of Fred, was a light hearted posting on the election process in a rural community in North Dakota. The post was copied from a subscription-generated service to which I shall not link in Colorado. The post was in block quotes and linked by Fred.

The resulting response by the original author identified as "This is True" in the comments simply boggles the mind.

While the posting was a technical violation of the copy right law, Fred neither claimed authorship nor profited monitarily from it. Indeed, the posting would be construed by any sentient reader as a recommendation.

I am forced to conclude that the original author of the essay is either mentally challenged or a serious liberophobe. Unfortunately, he seems to enjoy a wider readership.

cross posted at: Eternity Road

Pointyheaded "Logic"?

This just in from one of those attempting to make sense of the Reid/Pelosi (Democratic party's) talking point that assures us that "We can't drill our way out of this fuel crisis":

Picture if you will, an attempt to address the problem of a food shortage in the nation by those advocating the planting of more crops:
"Plant, plant, plant"

World of Unwarranted Opinion Service
From the Woodpile Report

News that fell through the time warp:

"Plans to put in crops next year have been abandoned because food is scarce now," a Dept. of Agriculture spokesman said. "This is one problem we can't plant our way out of." She pointed to promising initiatives like stomach-staples, phasing out food-guzzling bipeds and switching to alternative sources of calories such as wood chips, termites and recycled street sweepings. "Tragically," she added, "death by starvation hits the poor and minorities the hardest."

"Brave" New World

Many years ago I had occasion to read several science "fiction" novels by Isaac Asimov. In one of his novels of the Foundation series he described the use by henchmen of the tyrant of a distant planet a device which he called a "neuronic whip". The whip as described by Asimov eerily resembled the tasers of today and were used essentially for discouraging groups of citizens who had congregated to protest the most recent ukase issued by the government the "Mule".

Enter stage left the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Regular readers of these postings will understand that the threshold precluding ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ from utilizing commercial airlines for travel was reached when he was subjected to a body search some years ago by one of the recently nationalized incompetent minions of the Transportation Security Administration. Be that as it may, our rulers are now expressing interest in a device which would be required to be worn by all air travelers which would among other handy functions serve as the means to administer "a disabling shock" to the wearer by airline personnel. Imagine the potential for dealing with disgruntled, drunken or otherwise obstreperous passengers , not to mention wailing infants.

In the letter to the manufacturer/developer of this bracelet device Mr. Paul S. Ruwaldt of the US Department of Homeland Security (PDF) states regarding when further development of the "bracelet concept with the localized emitter/interrogator/restraint stations, will occur": "To make it clear, we are interested in the mobile read/write emitter in conjunction with the immobilizing security bracelet, and look forward to receiving a written proposal."


There you have it ladies and gentlemen. Our rulers public servants have plans for those of us unfortunate enough to be forced to engage in commercial air travel. Come to think of it, this is evidence they have plans for the rest of us as well. As for this old Spartan, he will fly again when he either sprouts wings or is allowed to board with his Glock model 23 .40 cal S&W with the 29 round magazine. In the mean time ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ will not be holding his breath.

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ!

"Big Oil" Part II

Your humble scribbler recently posted here on the real impact of US oil companies regarding the price of what consumers are being forced to pay for energy, specifically the fuel used in the transportation segment of our society. He pointed out the fact that 94% of the known petroleum reserves of the planet are controlled by various governments. This of course includes the US government whose vast public lands are blessed with enormous energy potential in the form of oil and natural gas.

The policies of the US and several state governments led by California beginning in the early 1960s up to the present time with regard to the extraction of these resources has been either outright prohibition or regulation to the point of driving up production costs beyond the point of economic feaseability.

What the US government also does not tell you is that it [the government] is the leaseholder and royalty recipient of most oil production, and receives 25% of the gross oil sales before we pay for electricity to lift the oil, and propane to keep the oil-water separators from freezing in the winters. We pay a pumper to visit each well everyday plus we have equipment failures all the time. We pay for that out of our 75% of gross sales. The government does not share in any expenses to run any production well. So, if the Big Oil Companies are making record profits, then so is the federal government from it's 25% tax on every molecule of oil sold to a refinery in this country. Why isn't the government on the stand for "record" profits? What you don't see is this 25% of the sales price of crude oil being siphoned away by the government. That money, plus the road taxes, state taxes, etc., amounts to over $1 per gallon of gasoline you are buying while the governments only admit to about 50 cents per gallon.

On top of all of the aforementioned taxes is added in many states, especially California, a sales tax amounting to as much as 8% of the gross.

Initially the rationale for these policies was to protect the natural environment from damage due to contamination from carelessly handled or accidentally spilled petroleum. The impact of those environmentally motivated regulations has resulted in the tremendous technological advances in the oil and gas industry's production methods. The Alaskan Prudhoe field development and the Alaskan pipeline are noteworthy examples of those improvements as are the offshore fields in the Gulf of Mexico and southern California. Indeed, the several thousand offshore wells in the Gulf have withstood nature's ravages in the form of major hurricanes with no significant impact on the environment other than the exponential increase in sea life habitat.

With the miraculous improvements in the production and handling of petroleum, the ecological objections of the environmentalists have begun to ring hollow in the ears of the public to the extent that they are not concealed or ignored. Enter the propagation of what can be described as a politician's wet dream and the greatest hoax in history, the concept of anthropogenically driven global warming.

It is beyond the scope of this posting to address the myriad refutations of this religiously held hypothesis but some of the best are here, here, here and here.

So America, enjoy your $4.00 per gallon gasoline [and it will be seen as cheap if the current gaggle of politicians of the Democratic party remain in power]. Your dollar is now worth 0.62 Euro-Cents. The lack of American production of GNP, the massive trade deficit (as labor markets have moved overseas to fight insanely high union imposed labor [and regulatory] costs in America) and the run away printing of money (backed by nothing of value here in America) has caused the dollar to become more worthless on the international market. And that's where our oil comes from. It's paid for with dollars that become more worthless everyday. If we had just kept par with the Euro, we'd be paying $62 dollars per barrel for oil (42 gallons) or about $1.50 instead of $2.50 a gallon for crude oil.

Superb Idea!

You're standing in line waiting for your flight to begin boarding as the arriving passengers debark. Suddenly one, two or perhaps a dozen or more military personnel come out off the plane and pass by you. You want to jump over there and shake their hands and tell them, "Thank you," but it just seems so awkward. You don't want to look like some grandstanding showboat.


OK! I have a personal policy that precludes the jail-like booking process of today's commercial air travel. I do however, frequently meet visiting travelers arriving at the local airport (the busiest in the US) and often encounter military personnel arriving and departing. This procedure seems to avoid a lot of potentially awkward situations.
Please steal this video. I did, from HERE.