Thoughts on Umar Abdulmutallab

Most people see the Pantybomber (thank to Amy Alkon for that name) as a failure but is he really? John Robb over at Global Guerrillas has some thoughts on that.

If a faith-based fruitcake with a bit of explosive in his sneaker justifies the TSA’s foot-fetish, imagine what Leviathan can accomplish in the wake of the Pantybomber. It's a near certainly fliers are going to get virtual strip-searches with millimeter-wave scanning and there are persistent rumors the TSA now wants to do away with carry on luggage.

Once the terrorists figure out how to hide explosives in the parts being "obscured" in the images or in body cavities, fliers can expect even more friendly inspections. Given enough time, the safety worshipers will have Americans stripping down, bending over for cavity searches and boarding the plane wearing only government provided disposable loincloths and, maybe, halters for the women.

The Pantybomber didn't kill any infidels but he sure has them running about in a tizzy looking for new ways to treat airline passengers as cattle. Give the almighty nanny state a few more failures like this and all those freedoms the Muslims supposedly hate us for will no longer be an issue.

Mike Vanderboegh Rattles Some Cages

Apparently Chapter 32 of Absolved, Ten Thousand Lawyers, has a few government employees in high dudgeon. Mike patiently and with appropriate derision explains to the idiots that it is a work of fiction.

Read the offending chapter for yourself
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

More Bad News on the Economy

Or more of the same:

We're Screwed!

ShadowStats.com founder John Williams explains the risk of hyperinflation. Worst-case scenario? Rioting in the streets and devolution to a bartering system.

An interview with John Williams.

Dave Workman Finally Admits it!

The truth is out: Workman is a moron

Not really. He is just demonstrating absurdity by being absurd. After ridiculing the anti-gun nuts he concludes with:

For the folks who have been offended by what they read here, please rest assured that I meant every damn word.

Right On, Brother!

The Economy is so Bad

Gathered from an assortment of places.

The economy is so bad that:

• When I ordered a burger at McDonald's the kid behind the counter asked, “Can you afford fries with that?”
• Hot Wheels and Matchbox stocks are trading higher than GM.
• McDonalds is selling the 1/4 ouncer.
• A truckload of Americans was caught sneaking into Mexico .
• I got a pre-declined credit card in the mail.
• Dick Cheney took his stockbroker hunting.
• Motel Six won’t leave the light on anymore.
• The Mafia is laying off judges.
• Exxon-Mobil laid off 25 Congressmen.
• Parents in Beverly Hills fired their nannies and learned their childrens' names.

To top it off, Congress claims they are investigating Bernard Madoff. The guy who made $50 Billion disappear is being investigated by the people who made $1.5 Trillion disappear!

Killer Empowerment Zones

From a posting at Spartan Cops

Killer Empowerment Zones

“Killer Empowerment Zones”© are more commonly known as “Gun-Free” zones by the “Reality-Challenged”. The Utopian intent of course, is a delusion that the law, or warning signs at a public facility will be sufficient to protect the public. The otherwise perfectly legal concealed weapon civilians are disarmed and rendered as defenseless as everyone else. While this Utopian theory has no validated tracking history of success, it certainly has a documented record of failure. Even as we concede that the Utopians may deserve an “A” for their good intentions, they certainly have earned an “”F” as in FATAL for ACTUAL results.

KMZ: Unintended Consequences are Fatal

The consequence of disarming the law-abiding public is the creation of a zone that is perfectly designed for the health, welfare and safety of the mass murderer. He is virtually guaranteed that a law-abiding public will have no realistic ability to protect themselves or others. The active killer has been given a cart-blanche opportunity to decide who and how many die, almost as if he wrote the law supporting gun free zones himself. These zones are very attractive to him!

More Here

Killer Empowerment Zones. Great summation of the real world consequences of restricting the rights of the individual to protect himself.

What if there is a fire?

From The West Seattle Herald

It is a fine thing to have a watchdog monitoring our constitutional rights. Bob Warden is to be commended for ensuring that our right to carry our concealed weapons everywhere is protected. The audacity of Mayor Nickels in trying to keep guns out of city parks and recreational areas has to be condemned and overturned.

How can our children and grandchildren’s safety be guaranteed on the playfields and in the swimming areas in the city unless anyone who chooses to carry a gun there has that right. No one should have their Second Amendment rights infringed at any time. It would be like limiting someone’s freedom speech to yell “fire” in a crowded theater as a joke.

Oh, right. You can limit the right of free speech in cases like that. Well, thank goodness the state doesn’t allow such limitations on guns. Way to go Bob.

Bruce Colwell
1220 SW 132nd Lane
Burien

If there is a fire I can choose to warn others by shouting "fire!"   When there is a threat to life and limb I can choose to use a firearm to stop it.   What the idiot above is really advocating (admittedly, he may not be smart enough to understand this) is to deprive citizens of the right to make those choices.  That is not a limitation on a right it is the complete abrogation of it.

New Scout Scope

I just put a new Leupold FX II 2.5X28 Scout Scope on the BLR

It's too wet out right now to do more than bore sight it and punch holes in some paper but it sure is a nice scope.

Is There Intelligent Life on Earth?

Cleveland Gun Rights Examiner, Daniel White reports,

Students at the University of Colorado are being told by campus police that their planned game of "Humans vs. Zombies" must be canceled because of a campus ban on toys that look like guns.

The planned game would divide participants into "humans" and "zombies" with the human team defending themselves with NERF guns. Campus police "[fear] they could be painted to look like a real weapon and someone could become alarmed and notify authorities, who would have to respond."

CU campus police shut down NERF game

Are Colorado University students really this stupid? Is it true that the students cannot tell this:
from this:



or this:

?

Maybe it is true.

It become more obvious with each incident like the above that "zero tolerance" is the the wrong term for this behavior. It should be, instead, "zero intelligence". If the trend continues, the answer to the great question, "Is there intelligent life on Earth?", will soon become painfully obvious:

"Not any more."

Why I like the Scout Rifle Concept

When I bought my BLR takedown I originally intended to put a conventional over the receiver scope on it. Probably a 2-7X33 like on its older brother. However, three factor contributed to trying a scout set up.

First, I had carpal tunnel relief surgery on my wrists this year. The surgeon warned me that, while I will be able to return to work in a few days, it may be six months before I get full strength and use back. That pretty much meant that any hunting plans for this year were out. There was no time pressure to get the rifle ready for a hunt.

Second, I already had an XS scout mount on my Marlin 1894C which I paired with a Bushnell holosight. This turned out to be a good combination.

Thirdly, Browning offers a scout mount for the take down model. So I figured, "what the heck." I could always go back to a regular scope. Because I mount my scopes as low as the rifle allows I remove the factory rear sight on the BLR anyways so there would be no loss there.

At first, I put on one of the "spare" holosights. This worked as well as expected but the lack of magnification limited me to 150 yards which, while adequate for many purposes, is well below the capability of the 308 round. I decided to try an el cheapo pistol scope just to see if this scout thing was viable. I ordered an NcStar 2-7X32 LER scope with illuminated reticule for $55 from Opticsplanet.

The weekend after the scope arrived, I mounted it to the BLR using a set of Leupold QRW rings. The first time I shouldered the rifle to check to see if the eye relief was good I noticed something remarkable.

I am right handed with a left dominant eye -- a situation found in about one-third of all right handed persons. In 30 years of shooting, I've tried numerous peep sights, scopes, red dots, and holosights and with every one I had the same problem: When I bring the rifle to my shoulder, my brain wants to pick the left eye image and it takes 500 milliseconds or so to shift my perception and get a proper sight picture. Even with years of practice I still sometimes have to close or partially close my left eye to use any of the above sights right handed.

With the forward mounted scope my brain immediately picked out the magnified image as the correct one. I was so surprised at this that I got a rifle with a conventionally mounted scope to double check. Sure enough, with the the conventional mounting I had to concentrate to pick out the proper sight picture from the double image. With the forward mounted scope the right eye image immediately was the preferred one.

Out of curiosity, I put a Nikon 1X20 Buckmaster on the BLR. With an eye relief of 4.5 to 14 inches I could put it at about the same distance from my eye as the NcStar scope. Since the Nikon lacks any magnification, I could get an idea if it was the forward mount alone or the combination of forward mounting with magnification that was making the difference. I suspected the latter case because the holosights in the forward position on my Marlin 1894 didn't make any difference.

When I shouldered the rifle with the Nikon scope in place it was business as usual: Double image, concentrate, then see the crosshair on the target. So, for some reason, the combination of magnification and long eye relief enables my brain to shift gears fast enough that I don't know it's happening. I don't yet understand why this is so but I certainly welcome it.

Now I have to find the perfect scout scope.

Atheists in the Three Percent

In a recent posting on leverguns forum the question was asked:

Hmmmmm,... so, you think Christians are forcing Atheists to financially support Christianity?

Yes, I do.

Every time tax money is used to support or promote religious belief, the collectivists are stealing from me to support a belief I do not hold to. That's an aspect of socialism and I want no part of it.

In the Big Picture, there is a reality the God talkers had better face if they want this to end well. A significant minority of the so called "three percent" are atheists. Another minority are pagans. I know of a few gays and some Jews in there too. Get over it.

The only ideological purity test I have for an ally in in the fight against the collectivists is a belief in the rights and liberties that were codified by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and that these rights extend to all sapients regardless of race, creed, color, religion, sexual orientation, etc. I don't give a crap if you're an anarchist, libertarian, atheist or Catholic. Even Baptists are welcome.

You can save your ideological carping for the day after the collectivist boot is shoved back up their own arses or you can look in the mirror to see why you lost.

It Takes a Tragedy

David Michaels writes:

In the U.S., we see an average of one gun-related homicide every 45 minutes, or 32 each day.* These are usually treated as isolated incidents, until a horrific event like the Virginia Tech massacre reawakens the public and strengthens public health advocates who are attempting to prevent gun violence. More

As I was reading the above and some of the comments I was struck by an "Aha!" moment. This guy is not interested in logic or in reason. He wants the criminals to have the upper hand because the fear they cause will give him power over others. He is like the Neanderthal men in The Clan of the Cave Bear who would not let a woman even touch a weapon lest the power of the men be diminished. He secretly imagines himself at the top of the hierarchy and wants to preserve its power at all costs.

Buy a Policy or Go to Jail

According to this and this (PDF), the new House "Health care" bill requires you either purchase an "acceptable" health insurance plan or be subject to criminal penalties.  However, it will be the IRS that will enforce this and they will probably opt for civil penalties whenever possible.  Once the IRS has determined you owe them, the burden of proof is reversed and you have to prove you don't.

Billy Beck emails me (quoted by permission)

They will play bloody hell at attempting to collect one thin dime from me.

*Never*. I will go to prison, first.

"For thirty years, I have cultivated my love of my native land, and I will neither expect nor miss your leniency." (Solzhenitsyn -- "Gulag")

Love 'im or hate 'im you have to admire his determination to live free.

More here.

Giving New Meaning to the Term "Honest Cop"

See video here

Then read David Codrea's commentary.

The more of I see of this kind of arrogance, the less sanguine I am about the situation in the US ending well.

Some Thoughts about Fort Hood

Right now the blogosphere appears to be buzzing with the revelation that the active shooter at Fort Hood -- Major Malik Nadal Hasan -- was one of those dreaded Muslims.  Jeez!

The problem with Hasan was Hasan.  He was miserable. He wanted to die.  He wanted his fifteen minutes of fame by taking people not responsible for his misery with him.  He was an arsehole.

Howard Nemerov has this to add (First responders at Fort Hood: Fox News gets it wrong)

Ron Borsch is consultant trainer for the Bedford (Ohio) Police Department, specializing in tactically training first-responders (bio in previous article). In an email today, Borsch summarized his up-to-date research into how mass murders are stopped:

My latest stats have not changed much, but CIVILIANS lead aborting rapid mass murder at 71%, and with a SINGLE actor initiating the stoppage, and often completing it at 82% of the total.

When police abort rapid mass murder, it is 29%, and with a "Single Officer Lifesaving Others"(C) SOLO at 75% of the total.

The "POSSE" Theory of rounding up a formation of officers to combat a lone (98%) and suicidal (90%) active killer in the precious 1 to 3 "Golden Minutes"(C) of a perishable opportunity has NO tracking history of success that I can find.

[Note: Borsch defines the active killer as “one who commits rapid mass murder, (4 or more intentionally killed). Active Killers typically do NOT negotiate or take hostages.” He defines rapid mass murder as one that occurs in 20 minutes or less.]

How about that.  Civilians stop 71% of  the mass murder rampages and three quarters of the remainder are stopped by a single officer.  This makes sense since it is generally those "civilians" who are the intended victims.  I'll also wager that those civilians who stop an active shooter are either armed or familiar enough with guns to know when the aggressor is reloading and vulnerable.

See also: L. Neil Smith

ATF Admits They Have a National Gun Registry.

A press release from the New Jersey  Democratic State Committee (Also at JPFO) reveals what peaceable gun owners have suspected for a long time: The ATF is building a national registry of firearms and firearm owners.

E-trace is a nationwide database maintained by the ATF that lists a firearm's first purchaser, date of purchase and the retailer from which it was purchased. The information is compiled from police records of gun purchases provided by local departments, but until today was only accessible by the ATF and the police department that provided it.

This comes as no surprise but it's nice to see to confirmed.  Two immediate consequences I see are:

1. The Brady Bill supposedly made it illegal for any Federal agency to build such a database.  The ATF now admits ignoring the law, cementing the perception of it as a lawless agency.
2. Gun owners who hesitated to act politically because, "I don't want to get on a list" can stop worrying -- you're already on a list -- and start acting.

Difference between Pro Gun and Anti Gun People.

Dave Workman's Column of Nov 3 illusrates what I think is a fundamental difference between the gun banner and the gun rights personae.

Ralph Fascitelli, President of Washington CeaseFire intends to exploit the recent killing of Seattle Police Officer Timothy Q. Brenton to promote a ban on so-called "assault weapons." He is quoted by Nina Shapiro writing for the Seattle Weekly as saying,

Maybe this particular [police victim] wasn't killed with an assault weapon, but the next one maybe will be

In the meantime, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is trying to raise money for the Brenton Family Assistance Fund.

In my experience, the believer in gun control sees any death where a firearms was the weapon as a political opportunity. The gun rights defender, on the other hand, sees a tragedy. That difference is not very subtle. To the gun grabber, the individual is a tools and is only valuable in inasmuch as he can further statist controls. The gun rights advocate views each individual -- even gun grabbers -- as a person with value independent of any agenda.

What the Beck?

OK, he's back online

My Daughter, the Terror Suspect

Original here

Mr Brown recently discovered his four-year-old daughter is on the terrorist watch list. He also discovered that the TSA unloads the cost of their false positives onto the victim. What is really instructive, however, are some of the comments from the wearers of kneepads. One commenter with the initials "CM" writes in part:

Speaking as someone who was flagged for several months and travels regularly, you are overreacting. The inconvenience of checking-in in person is relatively minor. Being flagged does not subject you to additional searches, simply the requirement that the airline confirm your date of birth.

Ever notice when someone is defending the indefensible they use weasel words? When compared to a heart attack or an attack of the gout, checking-in in person may be "relatively minor". However, the sane and intelligent member of the human species will compare it to the alternative of checking-in online. Being sane, intelligent and having done both I can testify that, by that much more reasonable standard, it is not relatively minor. In fact it is an inconvenience. At times a major inconvenience.

Hat tip to The Advice Goddess

Stewart Rhodes on Chris Matthews Show

Stewart Rhodes was on the Chris Matthews Show along with Mark Potok of the SPLC. By all accounts he fared well despite hostile questioning by Matthews. During the interview Rhodes delivered a line something like,

"We swear an oath to the Constitution, not to a man, even if he makes a thrill run up your leg when he talks."

Apparently Matthews was taken aback by this.  It took him several seconds to get his stride back.  Great lines like that only happen once in while. I hope it goes viral on the Internet and talk radio.

Part of the interview is now up on YouTube.  You can see how Matthews tries to turn the whole thing into a monologue.

Read more at Sipsey Street Irregulars, "Rhodes takes the raving wild punches of Matthews and delivers one right between the eyes."

Maxine on Obama Care

Let me get this straight..

...we're going to pass a health care plan written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it,

passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts themselves from it,

to be signed by a president that also hasn't read it and who smokes,

with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes,

all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese,

and financed by a country that's nearly broke.

What could possibly go wrong?

The Eye of Sauron

Just playing with the Gimp

Another effort here

FOIA Response About MIAC Report on Militias

In August of 2009, Nathan Paul Mehrens, counsel for American fro Limnueted Gvernet, sent a FOIA request to the Missouri Department of Public Safety requesting information about the MIAC report they released in February of the same year. Specifically Mr. Mehrens requested:

1. All draft versions of the Report that exist;
2. All data and all studies, reports, or other documents regarding data and any other background material created or reviewed by the MIAC in general to draft the Report;
3. Name, title, grade, and salary of all personnel involved in drafting the Report;
4. All records of communications and the communications themselves between any MIAC official and any private citizens, i.e., persons who are not MIAC or state employees regarding the Report prior to or contemporaneous with its drafting; and
5. All records relating to information received from groups outside the MIAC that influenced the drafting of the Report.

Original here

From the response

1. A copy of the only draft version of "Modern Militia Movement" MIAC Strategic Product is enclosed
2. None.  Background materils was not retained by the author druign draftng.
   
3. There is no record listing the individual who wrote the report 
4. None.
5. There are no records relating to information received from groups outside MIAC that influenced the drafting of the report.

Scanned copy here

OK.

"They" (whatever that means) don't know:

1. Who wrote it
2. Where the information came from.
3. Who, if anyone, the author(s) interviewed about the subject.
   

Yet this report was sent to police department around the country as a legitimate warning.  Is there any doubt as to why many American no longer take the Department of Homeland Security seriously?

Hat tip to Sipsey Street Irregulars

Zinger of the Week

Really, we should stop comparing Obama to Hitler. At least Hitler got the Olympics to come to Berlin.

Seen over at the MINIONRepot

Dazzle them with brilliance

or baffle them with bullshit. The Nobel Peace Prize Committee doesn't wait to sort it out.

Barack Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize

[F]or his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples

After Yasser Arafat was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 I lost all respect for it. Subsequent awards have done nothing to change that opinion and this award certainly doesn't help that situation. Frankly if I were Bobo I'd be embarrassed by this. He has done nothing of any substance to earn it. It is plainly a political award.

OTOH, I don't have an ego big enough to want to be President of the US.

Who brings a Bible to a Gunfight?

A new Henry Repeating Arms ad:

"Stupid Christian; bringing a Bible to a gunfight."

I understand the sentiment but it just seems silly to me.

Hat tip to Sipsey Street Irregulars

What Movie Hero are You?

Slow day.


Find out Which Movie Hero Are You at LiquidGeneration.com!

Except I'm not really as good looking as Mel Gibson.

Annie Le had time to fight back

ABC News reports:

Sources also said investigators are finding evidence that the pint-size scientist who weighed only 90 pounds put up a fierce struggle against her attacker.

Blood spatter was found on a laundry cart, and a bead from her necklace was found on the floor of the basement lab where she was killed and stuffed into a wall panel.

More here

Hat tip to Hecate's Crossroad

Being legally disarmed she would had little chance against a larger stronger attacker like the man accused of the crime.  In light of this new evidence anyone who claim a weapon would have her no good are full of crap or just refusing to live in the real world. Even a small knife would have helped her get away.

Or maybe they just have a secret hankering to commit murder and want to know their victims will be helpless:

Never forget, even for an instant, that the one and only reason anybody has for taking your gun away is to make you weaker than he is, so he can do something to you that you wouldn't allow him to do if you were equipped to prevent it. This goes for burglars, muggers, and rapists, and even more so for policemen, bureaucrats, and politicians.

-Alexander Hope, from the novel "Hope" by L. Neil Smith and Aaron Zelman

I have a daughter not much older than Annie Le.  The thought that she might end up dead because some bureaucrat wants to make it easy for the criminals to ply their trade makes me so mad I can't see straight.

Free Speech is now Obstruction of Justice -- Followup

Jacob Sullman at ReasonOnline has a followup on this story

Drug Control Becomes Speech Control

When the government accuses a doctor of running a "pill mill," prosecutors portray every aspect of his practice in a sinister light. Prescribing painkillers becomes drug trafficking, applying for insurance reimbursement becomes fraud, making bank deposits becomes money laundering, and working with people at the office becomes conspiracy.

When Siobhan Reynolds thinks a doctor has been unfairly targeted for such a prosecution, she tries to counter the official narrative by highlighting the patients he has helped and dramatizing the conflict between drug control and pain control. But now the government has turned its reinterpretive powers on Reynolds, portraying the pain treatment activist's advocacy as obstruction of justice and thereby threatening the freedom of anyone who dares to suggest there is more than one side to a criminal case.

more

Hat tip to Radley Balko

The Wages of Socialism are Death

The Telegraph (UK) reports

Sentenced to death on the NHS
Patients with terminal illnesses are being made to die prematurely under an NHS scheme to help end their lives, leading doctors warn today.

---

By Kate Devlin, Medical Correspondent
Published: 10:00PM BST 02 Sep 2009

---

In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group of experts who care for the terminally ill claim that some patients are being wrongly judged as close to death.

Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away.

But this approach can also mask the signs that their condition is improving, the experts warn.

As a result the scheme is causing a “national crisis” in patient care, the letter states. It has been signed palliative care experts including Professor Peter Millard, Emeritus Professor of Geriatrics, University of London, Dr Peter Hargreaves, a consultant in Palliative Medicine at St Luke’s cancer centre in Guildford, and four others.

“Forecasting death is an inexact science,”they say. Patients are being diagnosed as being close to death “without regard to the fact that the diagnosis could be wrong.

“As a result a national wave of discontent is building up, as family and friends witness the denial of fluids and food to patients."

The warning comes just a week after a report by the Patients Association estimated that up to one million patients had received poor or cruel care on the NHS.

The scheme, called the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP), was designed to reduce patient suffering in their final hours.

Developed by Marie Curie, the cancer charity, in a Liverpool hospice it was initially developed for cancer patients but now includes other life threatening conditions.

It was recommended as a model by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), the Government’s health scrutiny body, in 2004.

It has been gradually adopted nationwide and more than 300 hospitals, 130 hospices and 560 care homes in England currently use the system.

Under the guidelines the decision to diagnose that a patient is close to death is made by the entire medical team treating them, including a senior doctor.

They look for signs that a patient is approaching their final hours, which can include if patients have lost consciousness or whether they are having difficulty swallowing medication.

However, doctors warn that these signs can point to other medical problems.

Patients can become semi-conscious and confused as a side effect of pain-killing drugs such as morphine if they are also dehydrated, for instance.

When a decision has been made to place a patient on the pathway doctors are then recommended to consider removing medication or invasive procedures, such as intravenous drips, which are no longer of benefit.

If a patient is judged to still be able to eat or drink food and water will still be offered to them, as this is considered nursing care rather than medical intervention.

Dr Hargreaves said that this depended, however, on constant assessment of a patient’s condition.

He added that some patients were being “wrongly” put on the pathway, which created a “self-fulfilling prophecy” that they would die.

He said: “I have been practising palliative medicine for more than 20 years and I am getting more concerned about this “death pathway” that is coming in.

“It is supposed to let people die with dignity but it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“Patients who are allowed to become dehydrated and then become confused can be wrongly put on this pathway.”

He added: “What they are trying to do is stop people being overtreated as they are dying.

“It is a very laudable idea. But the concern is that it is tick box medicine that stops people thinking.”

He said that he had personally taken patients off the pathway who went on to live for “significant” amounts of time and warned that many doctors were not checking the progress of patients enough to notice improvement in their condition.

Prof Millard said that it was “worrying” that patients were being “terminally” sedated, using syringe drivers, which continually empty their contents into a patient over the course of 24 hours.

In 2007-08 16.5 per cent of deaths in Britain came about after continuous deep sedation, according to researchers at the Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, twice as many as in Belgium and the Netherlands.

“If they are sedated it is much harder to see that a patient is getting better,” Prof Millard said.

Katherine Murphy, director of the Patients Association, said: “Even the tiniest things that happen towards the end of a patient’s life can have a huge and lasting affect on patients and their families feelings about their care.

“Guidelines like the LCP can be very helpful but healthcare professionals always need to keep in mind the individual needs of patients.

“There is no one size fits all approach.”

A spokesman for Marie Curie said: “The letter highlights some complex issues related to care of the dying.

“The Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient was developed in response to a societal need to transfer best practice of care of the dying from the hospice to other care settings.

“The LCP is not the answer to all the complex elements of this area of health care but we believe it is a step in the right direction.”

The pathway also includes advice on the spiritual care of the patient and their family both before and after the death.

It has also been used in 800 instances outside care homes, hospices and hospitals, including for people who have died in their own homes.

The letter has also been signed by Dr Anthony Cole, the chairman of the Medical Ethics Alliance, Dr David Hill, an anaesthetist, Dowager Lady Salisbury, chairman of the Choose Life campaign and Dr Elizabeth Negus a lecturer in English at Barking University.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: “People coming to the end of their lives should have a right to high quality, compassionate and dignified care.

"The Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP) is an established and recommended tool that provides clinicians with an evidence-based framework to help delivery of high quality care for people at the end of their lives.

"Many people receive excellent care at the end of their lives. We are investing £286 million over the two years to 2011 to support implementation of the End of Life Care Strategy to help improve end of life care for all adults, regardless of where they live.”

Note the weasel wording, "Many people receive excellent care at the end of their lives." Not most or a majority but an indeterminate many. Sorry "spokesman for the Department of Health" but many doesn't really mean much in this context. One thousand would still be "many" even if selected from 100 thousand patients.

Next "spokesman for the Department of Health" tells the reader just how much money is being spent -- £286 million -- "...to help improve end of life care for all adults." More political damage control. When you can't dazzle them with success (ie brag about your accomplishments) baffle them with bullshit (ie brag about how much money you are spending not accomplishing).

Free Speech is now Obstruction of Justice

Apparently the Department of Justice thinks so.

Wichita Witch Hunt

No good deed goes unpunished when a private citizen is up against the federal drug warriors--those members of the Department of Justice who have been seeking, with increasing success in recent decades, to effectively control the practice of pain relief medicine. But a current drama being played out in federal court in Kansas portends an even darker turn in the DOJ's war--a private citizen is being threatened with prosecution for seeking to raise public and news media consciousness of the Feds' war against doctors and patients.

The current contretemps in Wichita has its roots in 2002 when Sean Greenwood, who for more than a decade suffered from a rare but debilitating connective tissue disorder, finally found a remedy. William Hurwitz, a Virginia doctor, prescribed the high doses of pain relief medicine necessary for Greenwood to be able to function day-to-day.

Yet when federal agents raided Hurwitz's clinic in 2003 and charged the pain management specialist with illegal drug trafficking, Greenwood's short-lived return to normalcy ended. He couldn't find another doctor willing to treat his pain--the chances were too good that the "narcs" and the federal prosecutors who work with them would assert impossibly vague federal criminal drug laws. Three years later, Greenwood died from a brain hemorrhage, likely brought on by the blood pressure build-up from years of untreated pain.

Greenwood's wife, Siobhan Reynolds, decided to fight back. In 2003 she founded the Pain Relief Network (PRN), a group of activists, doctors and patients who oppose the federal government's tyranny over pain relief specialists.

Now, the PRN's campaign to raise public awareness of pain-doctor prosecutions has made Reynolds herself the target of drug warriors. Prosecutors in Wichita have asked a federal grand jury to decide whether Reynolds engaged in "obstruction of justice" for her role in seeking to create public awareness, and to otherwise assist the defense, in an ongoing prosecution of Kansas pain relief providers. The feds' message is clear: In the pursuit of pain doctors, private citizen-activists--not just physicians--will be targeted.

For Reynolds, the script of the Kansas prosecution has become all too familiar: The feds announced a 34-count indictment at a December 2007 press conference. Local media dutifully reported the charges with minimal scrutiny and the accused--Dr. Stephen Schneider and his wife, Linda, a nurse--were convicted in the court of public opinion before their trial even began.

In such an atmosphere, it is very difficult to make the point that physicians engaged in the good faith practice of medicine are being second-guessed--not by fellow physicians, but by the federal government--and punished under the criminal law for administering what the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) of the Department of Justice considers more narcotics than is necessary to alleviate a patient's pain.

When pain doctors administer too much of a controlled substance, or do so knowing that they will be diverted to narcotic addicts, they are deemed no longer engaged in the legitimate practice of medicine. But the dividing line is far from clear and not subject to universal agreement even within the profession. Any patient in need of relief can, over time, develop a chemical dependence on a lawful drug--much like a diabetic becomes dependent on insulin. And, once a treatment regimen begins, many patients' tolerance to the drug increases. Thus, to produce the same analgesic effect, doctors sometimes need to increase the prescribed amount, and that amount varies from person to person.

It is notoriously difficult even for trained physicians to distinguish an addict's abuse from a patient's dependence. Nonetheless, federal narcotics officers have increasingly terrorized physicians, wielding the criminal law and harsh prison terms to punish perceived violators. Since 2003, over 400 doctors have been criminally prosecuted by the federal government, according to the DEA. One result is that chronic pain patients in this country are routinely under-medicated.

The litany of abusive prosecutorial tactics could fill a volume. A "win-at-all-costs" mentality dominates federal prosecutors and drug agents involved in these cases. After a Miami Beach doctor was acquitted of 141 counts of illegally prescribing pain medication in March 2009, federal district court Judge Alan Gold rebuked the prosecution for introducing government informants--former patients of the doctor who were cooperating to avoid their own prosecution--as impartial witnesses at trial.

Improprieties galore marked the prosecution of Dr. Hurwitz. Before his trial in federal court in Virginia in 2004, the DEA published a "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQ) pamphlet for prescription pain medications. In a remarkable admission, the DEA wrote that confusion over dependence and addiction "can lead to inappropriate targeting of practitioners and patients for investigation and prosecution." Yet on the eve trial, the DEA, realizing that Hurwitz could rely on this government-published pamphlet to defend his treatment methods, withdrew the FAQ from its Web site. Winning the case proved more important than facilitating sound medical practice. Hurwitz was convicted.

In Kansas, it appears that zealous prosecutors are targeting not only the doctors, but also their public advocates. When Reynolds wrote op-eds in local newspapers and granted interviews to other media outlets, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tanya Treadway attempted to impose a gag order on her public advocacy. The district judge correctly denied this extraordinary request.

Undeterred, Treadway filed on March 27 a subpoena demanding a broad range of documents and records, obviously hoping to deter the peripatetic pain relief advocate, or even target her for a criminal trial of her own. Just what was Reynolds' suspected criminal activity?

"Obstruction of justice" is the subpoena's listed offense being investigated, but some of the requested records could, in no possible way, prove such a crime. The prosecutor has demanded copies of an ominous-sounding "movie," which, in reality, is a PRN-produced documentary showing the plight of pain physicians. Also requested were records relating to a billboard Reynolds paid to have erected over a busy Wichita highway. It read: "Dr. Schneider never killed anyone." Suddenly, a rather ordinary exercise in free speech and political activism became evidence of an obstruction of justice.

On Sept. 3, a federal judge will decide whether to enforce this subpoena, which Reynolds' lawyers have sought to invalidate on free speech and other grounds. The citizen's liberty to loudly and publicly oppose the drug warriors' long-running reign of terror on the medical profession and its patients should not be in question. Rather, the question should be how the federal government has managed to accumulate the power to punish doctors who, in good faith, are attempting to alleviate excruciating pain in their patients.

My guess is Siobhan Reynolds' campaign was starting to yield results and the cockroaches are trying to turn off the lights. I really do not understand the thinking of someone who will sentence even one person to unnecessary pain in the pursuit of a paycheck. That kind of evil needs some end-of-rope counseling.

Hat tip to The Advice Goddess Blog

Anti Second; Anti First

Conor Clarke in Can You Carry A Gun Near Barack Obama? tries to use the "fire in a crowded theater" argument.

...This isn't complicated. Let's say we have a crowded theater. And let's say I exercise my seemingly enumerated First Amendment right and shout the word "Fire!" And let's say that several dozen people are grievously injured in the ensuing chaos. (Let's further assume that many of these people are recipients of generous, reliable Medicare benefits, so the state bears a cost.)

The fact that this situation is so preposterous is exactly why the law prevents it from happening: courts have created common-law doctrines like "fighting words" and "clear and present danger" for the obvious reason that the exercise of a right can have dire consequences, and some consequences are too costly to bear. Will might think that in this circumstance the cost is not prohibitively high, but there's nothing silly about a suggestion to the contrary.

For Clarke and all the other anti gun rights ignoramuses out there, the correct quote is "You cannot falsely shout fire in a crowded theater."

It was penned by Oliver Wendell Holmes writing for the majority in Schenk V United States (U.S. 47 1919) in which the Supreme Court unanimously ruled it was illegal to distribute fliers opposing the draft during World War I. Holmes argued this abridgment was permissible because opposing the draft presented a "clear and present danger" to the government's recruitment efforts for the war.

Misusing a clearly anti First Amendment decision in an anti Second Amendment argument reveals an ignorance of history and a lot about the real goals of the writer.

When is Enough, Enough?

Once upon a time I might have agreed that putting nutritional information on vending machines is a good idea. However, seeing how the nanny fascists abuse every power they can get I have to agree with this:

It’s enough to make me want to have a dinner that consists only of a steak the size of an actual Holstein and two beers so dark and rich they form their own food group. Then, a dessert with more calories than the average NFL lineman eats for breakfast. I’ll give my meal plenty of time to settle because I’ll be smoking the fattest cigar I can find — one that required the efforts of an entire Dominican village to make. Then, I want to hop into a 1966 Ford Mustang Shelby GT 500, crank up Van Halen’s version of “You Really Got Me”, drive 100 miles an hour until I get to the nearest left-wing, totalitarian bastard of a Congressman and slow down just long enough for him to figure out that I’m flipping him the bird.

More at Keep Your Hands off my Vending Machines, You Damned Dirty Bureaucrats!

Reminds me of Edgar Friendly (Dennis Leary) in the classic* movie Demolition Man

You see, according to Cocteau's plan I'm the enemy, 'cause I like to think; I like to read. I'm into freedom of speech and freedom of choice. I'm the kind of guy likes to sit in a greasy spoon and wonder - "Gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the jumbo rack of barbecued ribs with the side order of gravy fries?" I WANT high cholesterol. I wanna eat bacon and butter and BUCKETS of cheese, okay? I want to smoke a Cuban cigar the size of Cincinnati in the non-smoking section. I want to run through the streets naked with green Jell-o all over my body reading Playboy magazine. Why? Because I suddenly might feel the need to, okay, pal? I've SEEN the future. Do you know what it is? It's a 47-year-old virgin sitting around in his beige pajamas, drinking a banana-broccoli shake, singing "I'm an Oscar Meyer Wiener".

*well it should be

Ted Kennedy is Dead

I wasn't going to comment on this. Who cares if an old brain dead collectivist troll dies? Maybe the family of Mary Jo Kopechne. Then I remembered a guy I went to college with. His brother died on Hamburger Hill in Vietnam. He might be dancing now.

So here's my comment: Good riddance.

Billy Beck's Eulogy
Mike Vanderboegh has some comments

More on the Window Breaker

Infoshop indetifies Schwenkler as a transgender known as Arial Attack

Ariel Attack, a Denver-based anarchist, was arrested at 2:27am Tues, 24 here in Denver for allegedly smashing 11 windows of the Democratic Party headquaters at 777 Santa Fe Drive.

Apparently heesh* made bail

*Heesh: A person of indeterminate sex. With apologies to Poul Anderson.

Medical Opinions on Deathcare

Originally found here: The AMA On Health Care Reform

---

The American Medical Association has weighed in on the new Universal Health Plan.

• Allergists voted to scratch it, but the Dermatologists advised not to make any rash moves.
• The Gastroenterologists had sort of a gut feeling about it, but the Neurologists thought the Administration had a lot of nerve.
• The Obstetricians felt they were all laboring under a misconception.
• Ophthalmologists considered the idea shortsighted.
• Pathologists yelled, "Over my dead body!" while the Pediatricians said, "Oh, Grow up!"
• The Psychiatrists thought the whole idea was madness, while the Radiologists could see right through it.
• Surgeons decided to wash their hands of the whole thing.
• The Internists thought it was a bitter pill to swallow, and the Plastic Surgeons said, "This puts a whole new face on the matter."
• The Podiatrists thought it was a step forward, but the Urologists were pissed off at the whole idea.
• The Anesthesiologists thought the whole idea was a gas, and the Cardiologists didn't have the heart to say "no".

In the end, the Proctologists won out, leaving the entire decision up to the assholes in Washington.

---

False Flag Operation?

Several windows at the Colorado Democratic Party headquarters were broken Tuesday morning. A suspect, Maurice Schwenkler, is in custody.

1 suspect in custody following Dem HQ vandalism in Denver

Immediately the State Democratic Party Chairwoman, Pat Waak, blamed the vandalism on "other side".

"We ought to be having a serious, conscientious debate about what's best for the country," Waak said. "Clearly there's been an effort on the other side to stir up hate. I think this is the consequence of it."

According to this article at the Denver Westword Blogs the suspect may be a liberal activist.

[I]n his mug shot, Schewenkler looks more Sonic Youth than Reagan-youth. Plus, it turns out that someone bearing his exact name -- a fairly rare one, to say the least -- was once an employee of a progressive political action committee based in Colorado.

According to campaign finance records, someone named "Maurice Schewenkler" was paid $500 on November 6, 2008, by a group called the Colorado Citizens' Coalition. Judging by the contributors, this 527 political organization falls on the liberal side of the spectrum.

Peter Marcus reports in The Denver Daily News that Schwenkler may be connected to leftist groups.

Originally assumed by many that the incident was committed by Republicans angry over the reform proposal, a trail of evidence connects Schwenkler to ultra-liberal groups investigated by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.

A woman listed as a resident of Schwenkler’s home in the 1000 block of Lipan Street was once questioned by investigators over various protests, including plans to disrupt the 2004 Republican and Democratic national conventions and the 2004 presidential election.

More at Gateway Pundit and People's Press Collective

[Update] Mike Vanderboegh, naturally, has some commentary at Sipsey Street Irregulars including,

Breaking windows was and is the job of the Sons of Liberty, which is say, it is our job. And now, a young SEIU sponsored "progressive" has gone and done what Three Percenters should have been doing for years to both parties. I don't know whether to hang my head in shame or cheer, "Go get 'em, Maurice!"

Congress Votes to Outsource Presidency

Received in E-mail

Washington,
DC -- May 28, 2009

Congress today announced that the office of President of the United States of America will be outsourced to India as of September 1, 2009. The move is being made in order to save the President's $500,000 yearly salary, and also a record $750 billion in deficit expenditures and related overhead that his office has incurred during the last 3 months.

It is anticipated that $7 trillion can be saved to the end of the President's term. "We believe this is a wise financial move. The cost savings are huge," stated Congressman Thomas Reynolds (R-WA). "We cannot remain competitive on the world stage with the current level of cash outlay," Reynolds noted.

Mr. Obama was informed by email this morning of his termination. Preparations for the job move have been underway for some time.

Gurvinder Singh, a tele-technician for Indus Teleservices, Mumbai, India will assume the office of President as of September 1, 2009. Mr. Singh was born in the United States while his Indian parents were vacationing at Niagara Falls, NY. Thus making him eligible for the position. He will receive a salary of $320 (USD) a month, but no health coverage or other benefits.

It is believed that Mr. Singh will be able to handle his job responsibilities without a support staff. Due to the time difference between the US and India, he will be working primarily at night. "Working nights will allow me to keep my day job at the Dell Computer call center", stated Mr. Singh in an exclusive interview.

"I am excited about this position. I always hoped I would be President." A Congressional spokesperson noted that while Mr. Singh may not be fully aware of all the issues involved in the office of President, this should not be a problem as President Obama had never been familiar with the issues either.

Mr. Singh will rely upon a script tree that will enable him to respond effectively to most topics of concern. Using these canned responses, he can address common concerns without having to understand the underlying issue at all. "We know these scripting tools work," stated the spokesperson.

"President Obama has used them successfully for years, with the result that some people actually thought he knew what he was talking about."

Obama will receive health coverage, expenses, and salary until his final day of employment. Following a two-week waiting period, he will be eligible for $140 a week unemployment for 26 weeks. Unfortunately he will not be eligible for Medicaid, as his unemployment benefits will exceed the allowed limit.

Mr. Obama has been provided with the outplacement services of Manpower, Inc. to help him write a resume and prepare for his upcoming job transition. According to Manpower, Mr. Obama may have difficulties in securing a new position due to a lack of any successful work experience during his lifetime.

A greeter position at Wal-Mart was suggested due to Obama's extensive experience at shaking hands, as well as his special smile.

Between this and the Jokerbama poster, perhaps history will remember him as Barack "Rodney" Obama. Even Jimmy Carter got more respect.

DNA Evidence can be Falsified

Once the stuff of science fiction, faking DNA evidence is a reality. The New York Time reports that some Israeli scientists have found a way to fabricate DNA evidence.

The scientists fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. They also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person.

This is the part that concerns me:

The other technique relied on DNA profiles, stored in law enforcement databases as a series of numbers and letters corresponding to variations at 13 spots in a person’s genome.

It is unlikely a petty criminal will have access to the necessary profiles but, more persons being put into government DNA databases, all DNA evidence can now be challenged as suspect.

Summary: Authentication of forensic DNA samples

Jokerbama Artist Unmasked -- Sort of

Obama Joker artist unmasked: A fellow Chicagoan

Bored during his winter school break, Firas Alkhateeb, a senior history major at the University of Illinois, crafted the picture of Obama with the recognizable clown makeup using Adobe's Photoshop software.

Alkhateeb had been tinkering with the program to improve the looks of photos he had taken on his clunky Kodak camera. The Joker project was his grandest undertaking yet. Using a tutorial he'd found online about how to "Jokerize" portraits, he downloaded the October 23 Time Magazine cover of Obama and began digitally painting over it.

Mr. Alkhateeb did a "jokerization" of a digital image of the October 23 Time Magazine cover. The still anonymous creator of the poster that began appearing in Los Angeles about a month qago apparently downloaded that image and removed all the extraneous references before adding the word "Socialism". He remains at large.

The guerrilla uses the tools at hand and adapts them to his purpose. The Jokerbama poster had proven so far to be an effective tool for ridiculing the current administration and that, ladies and gentlemen, is what this about.

Further comment by Mike Vanderbeogh at Sipsey Street Irregulars

The Jokerbama Arrives in Florida

This is how to do street propaganda.

CLERMONT, Fla. -- A vocal and graphic Internet campaign attacking President Barack Obama just hit Central Florida and one of its first targets was a U.S. Post Office (see images). Several Lake County residents called WFTV when they spotted the 'Joker' posters on stop signs and saw workers scraping them off the post office in Clermont. [more]

California will not accept its own IOU's?

Frankly this look like a good argument to stop doing business with the state government.

From Courthouse News Services

Small businesses that received $682 million in IOUs from the state say California expects them to pay taxes on the worthless scraps of paper, but refuses to accept its own IOUs to pay debts or taxes. The vendors' federal class action claims the state is trying to balance its budget on their backs.
Lead plaintiff Nancy Baird filled her contract with California to provide embroidered polo shirts to a youth camp run by the National Guard, but never was paid the $27,000 she was owed. She says California "paid" her with an IOU that two banks refused to accept - yet she had to pay California sales tax on the so-called "sale" of the uniforms.

The class consists mostly of small business owners, many of whom rely on income from government contracts to keep afloat. They say California has used them as "suckers" as it looks for a way to bankroll its operations while avoiding its own financial obligations.

"Instead of seeking funds through proper channels, the State has created a nightmare," the class says. "Many of these businesses will not survive if they are required to wait until October 2009 to have these forced IOUs redeemed by the State."

The class claims the state is violating the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. It demands that California be ordered to honor its own IOUs, plus interest. They are represented by William Audet.

Complaint (PDF)

Jokerbama Goes Viral

and judging by the Bobots reactions I'd think it was the fictional rage virus.

Here Noel Sheppard points to some very unflattering images of George Bush including the Vanity Fair depiction of Bush as the Joker!

Obama Joker Poster Stirs Outrage, Bush Joker Poster Not So Much

Oops!

Maybe the real problem here is the Bobots are just too thin-skinned to play outside.

Poster in 8 ½ X 11 PDF format
Color PDF
Grayscale PDF

More on the Jokerbama

Obama as The Joker: Racial Fear's Ugly Face


The image of Obama as the Joker with the "socialism" label is undoubtedly a powerful visual statement. I didn't think it would amount to much but it has obviously struck a nerve with the Bobots. I wonder if articles like the one linked above are not just a lure to the unknown artist tempting him to reveal himself. I hope he (or she) resists the temptation to grab fifteen minutes of fame because, more likely, it will be days of misery as the Bobots drag him through whatever mud they can manage to make stick.

Bureaucrashers at work?

Obama 'Joker' Poster Causing a Stir in L.A
Obama Joker Poster Popping Up In Los Angeles
April 25 article from Bedlam Magazine
Photoshopped?

From the first article linked above:

"Depicting the president as demonic and a socialist goes beyond political spoofery," says Hutchinson, "it is mean-spirited and dangerous."

Mean spirited? Maybe.

Dangerous? It's a picture you idiot! Are leftists afraid of pictures now? Can we expect to see demands for registration of art supplies? Background checks for Photoshop? Waiting periods to install the Gimp?

I have no idea who is behind this piece of work and I think it works better that way. However, it does not indicate real trouble for Obama. He is using the momentum of an already entrenched Amsoc to hurry events to their logical conclusion. The image is, I suspect, just an indication that some people know what that conclusion will be. Remember the Joker was an unprincipled, murderous thug.

Bureaucrash Website

Nordyke v King En Banc

Volokh Conspiracy Ninth Circuit Will Rehear Nordyke v. King En Banc
Law.com Giving Gun Case Another Look

The whole gun rights blogosphere is abuzz with speculation on this. I'll post more as information comes in.

Window War?

A few years ago I read a short story by Mike Vanderboegh called The Window War in which civil disobedience took the shape of breaking windows in public buildings and the headquarters of the major political parties. I doubt this story is related but it is an interesting coincidence.

More commentary on Sipseystreetirregulars

---

Man throws brick through City Hall, police HQ windows

Austin police say a man tossed a rock through the window of police headquarters after he hit Austin City Hall with a big rock minutes earlier late Monday night. On Wednesday, 47-year-old Jesse Elmer Whited was charged with criminal mischief for the crime.

Police say first a security guard on duty saw Whited smash the glass and sprint down Cesar Chavez.

Then 14 minutes later police say the scruffy suspect was captured committing a crime on camera outside police headquarters. On video Whited is seen shattering the glass and taking off.

The glass at City Hall has been replaced but some are upset city hall was targeted with this misdemeanor madness.

“It’s pretty upsetting. I would have to wonder why someone would do something like that," says Austin lawyer Nikelle Meade. "It’s a beautiful building. It’s a safety issue they could have really hurt somebody.”

“There's no evidence to show he was trying to commit a burglary. He didn’t stay. He didn’t try to pull the windows open or anything like that," says APD spokesman Scott Perry. "He walks up throws the rock turns around and runs off.”

He also created a problem for the cash-strapped city that now has to replace all the broken glass.

“It’s about $500 for the window here at city hall. We don’t know the cost estimate for the one that was broken at APD yet," says Austin building service officer Jill Maness. "It’s a bit of an inconvenience the glass has to ordered, it’s a double pane safety glass. We’ve made a temporary Plexiglas replacement.”

Police haven’t added any officers to their patrol but say they will patrol city owned buildings more often.

Praetorian Presumptions

Highly recommended
Pro Libertate: Praetorian Presumptions

What little respect I had left for President Obama dissolved when he apologized to Sgt. Crowley. It may be just the Stopped Clock Syndrome but this time Bobo was right. If he had a fraction of the spine I expect from a President of the United States he should simply have said that once Crowley was convinced that Gates was the rightful resident of the house his responsibility ended! Anything beyond that was an abuse of power.

If this was a civilized country, once Gates showed his ID and it was verified as valid, Crowley should have simply apologized for the inconvenience and wished Gates a good night. If Gates was still upset, he could complain all he wanted but then he'd be the dickhead.

Do Californians really want to keep their guns?

Fighting the law-abiding doesn't fight crime.

For years now, gun control has succeeded in back-door confiscations by restricting and punishing ammunition the type of ammunition, type of weapon, where it can be carried, owned or changed, then the regulation of ammo, then the amount you can buy and how you must qualify for that. Nothing new, just more of the same. Why? Because it works in Europe. It’s not supposed to work their either, but it depends on what you’re trying to get working. Gun control or Safety? You'll never have both.

More guns are sold in California than any other state. Estimates put the number of legal gun owners in the State at somewhere over 10 million. In a state with an estimated 23 million eligible voters (not all of whom are registered), gun owners represents the single largest potential voting block in the State. If those gun owners made it plain that they will vote against any incumbent who

1. Votes for an antigun bill or


2. Against a progun bill.

The onerous gun laws in California would disappear in a decade or less.

People get the government they deserve. In California gun owners are getting it good and hard. If they want it otherwise they will have to stop presenting their naked rumps like a bunch of whipped chimpanzees.

If you want to stand erect like free men and women the first thing to do is straighten your spine.

DIY Speed Loader for 22 rifle tube magazines

For trips to the range I have one of the fancy speed loaders like this on from Cabelas or Cheaperthandirt

At home I sometimes need to quickly load specialty ammo like CB caps or SSS so I keep a few in homemade "speed loaders".

Materials:

1. Straw or other tube large enough to let a 22 round slide freely. (Any tube with an appropiate inside diameter will work. I have a couple made from sections of an old aluminum arrow)
2. Used foam ear plug.
3. White glue.

Instructions:

1. Put few drops of white glue on the inside surface of the straw.
2. Compress the ear plug and insert it about 1/2" into the straw.




3. Let the earplug expand and set the assembly aside.
4. Let the glue dry overnight.
5. Clip the exposed part of the earplug off.
6. Fill with the desired ammunition and use the remainder of the earplug to cap the end.
   

To load your 22 rifle:

1. Pull out the magazine follower.
2. Uncap the straw.
3. Upend the straw spilling the ammunition into the magazine tube.
4. Replace the follower.

Looking to be Offended?

Dr Boyce: Yes, The Transformers Movie Was Quite Racist

Meet Skids and Mudflap, two Transformers who may as well have been called Lil Wayne and Random Black Male idiot. One of them actually has a gold grill, and neither of them can read. They are bungling buffoons and cowards with barely an ounce of intelligence. One of them rides around as an Ice cream truck with the words "suck my popsicle" on the side, yelling "get your ice cream bitches" to those who might want to buy from his dirty little truck. They also remind you in every other sentence that you are a "punk ass bitch" and that they want to "bust a cap in your ass."

I tried to see his point but understanding just doesn't happen. One of the characteristics of the Transformers is they learn about human culture thru TV and Radio. Skids and Mudflap seem to have been over exposed to Hip Hop and Rap. If there is any intended message -- and I doubt there is -- they are an indictment of an entertainment industry that turns violence and ignorance into cardinal virtues and cash cows.

The ACLU Gets it Right!

From USA Today:

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A New Orleans man is suing the city and its district attorney for refusing to give back a gun that police seized when he was arrested on drug and firearms charges that were later dropped.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana filed the federal lawsuit Thursday on behalf of Errol Houston Jr., who was arrested last year following a traffic stop. The lawsuit says the district attorney's office declined to prosecute Houston but has refused to return his .40-caliber firearm.

WDSU Reports:
ACLU Sues Cannizzaro, Riley Over Gun Confiscation

"For the government to keep property that someone is legally entitled to own, there must be good cause, and the owner is entitled to due process," ACLU Executive Director Marjorie Esman said. "Mr. Houston has done nothing wrong. There are no criminal charges against him.

"His firearm, which he is and was entitled to carry, has been confiscated for no reason. It is past time for NOPD and the District Attorney to return it."

The suit claims that by keeping the firearms, the City is violating the plaintiff's Second Amendment rights and due process rights.

PDF file:http://www.laaclu.org/PDF_documents/Houston_v_CityofNO_Complaint.pdf

The National ACLU still maintains that the "Militia Clause" somehow converts the Second Amendment into a collective right. Anyone who paid attention in High School English knows that the first part of the Second Amendment -- "A Well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state" -- is grammatically a nominative absolute and does not alter the meaning of "The Right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Perhaps the leadership of the Louisiana ACLU paid attention in school.

Jaysus Aych Krist!

Pro-gun pastor says come armed to church

You’re kind of getting it from all sides. You have the critics, again, who say “Would Jesus have carried a weapon,” but you’ve got critics among gun advocates who say the fact that you stipulated that people had to bring their weapons into church unloaded and the only loaded weapon belonged to a police officer kind of rankles them. David Codrea, who is a gun rights advocate, wrote in Examiner.com “The idea that police are the only ones who can be entrusted with loaded firearms should be offensive to everyone who believes in the right of the people to keep and bear arms.” Everybody’s kind of ganging up on you from the right and left.

Would Jesus have carried a weapon?

What kind of stupid question is that? According to the Nicene press release Jesus could transform elements, revive the dead (presumably he could do the reverse?), levitate, control the weather, read minds, had power over several diseases and replicate matter. At the least. He was most of the X-Men all rolled into one package. If I had powers like that I wouldn't need to carry a gun either.

Hat Tip to David Codrea

Government corruption is to blame, not US gun sellers

Good commentary from David Codrea

Who in their right mind believes Mexican police and military personnel rely on "straw purchasers" at U.S. gun shops and gun shows to obtain military-grade firepower? Who in their right mind does not believe these corrupt LEOs and soldiers haven't exploited their access to state-procured weapons--to the advantage of their drug cartel patrons?

I sometimes think the reason Obama dropped his push for repeal of the Tihart Amendment is the data would reveal just how many of the guns seized from the cartels were originally from DOJ approved sales or DOD "gifts" to the Mexican government.

Guilty until Proven Guilty

Court Upholds States in DNA Testing of Convicts

"A criminal defendant proved guilty after a fair trial does not have the same liberty interests as a free man," Chief Justice Roberts wrote, adding that it remains an "open question"whether "proof of 'actual innocence'" is enough to overturn a conviction after a fair trial.

WTH? If proof of innocence isn't enough to overturn a conviction then what is?

My Car is Private Property

Or so I thought. Apparently Clark Neily disagrees

The bills in question do not prevent a business owner from forbidding guns on his property only that he post it for all to see. Otherwise how are people to know? It switches the default from "no" to "yes" where it should have been all the time.

A corporation is not a person. It is a creation of the state and every "right" it has is really a privilege granted by that creator. By applying to the state for special powers and immunities, a corporation becomes an extension of the state. Whatever the purported rights of a state created fictional person are they do not trump the natural of rights of a real person.

Immigration Codex

Speaking in code words to disguise what they really mean

I agree with Vin that unregulated immigration is not necessarily a good thing. I also admit he says it better than I can.

How Far can the English Fall?

Ben Kinsella's murderers 'face retribution' during life jail term.

Earlier, lawyers for the three killers confirmed that they had received letters warning them they may be under threat from members of a notorious crime family.

I have no sympathy whatsoever for the killers. However, I think it is instructive that the only justice that may be done will come from ".. a notorious crime family." When the state fails in its duty then another gang will move in on the territory. That is lesson Americans should learn.

Evil Kitchen Knife

First 'anti-stab' knife to go on sale in Britain.

The first “anti-stab” knife is to go on sale in Britain, designed to work as normal in the kitchen but to be ineffective as a weapon.

The knife has a rounded edge instead of a point and will snag on clothing and skin to make it more difficult to stab someone.

Okay... Maybe women stabbing their husbands is epidemic in England.

New Use for Gitmo?

Bonnie Erbe wants to round up anyone who promotes hate.

It's not enough to prosecute these murders as murders. They are hate-motivated crimes and each of these men had been under some sort of police surveillance prior to their actions. Isn't it time we started rounding up promoters of hate before they kill?

Billy Beck in his usual acerbically honest manner sums it up:

Well, Bonnie, that makes as much sense to me as rounding up journalists before they lie and act like fulminant retards in the public prints.

Wild Animals are Called "Wild" for a Reason.

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Haverhill woman says she was surrounded by coyotes

June 11, 2009 05:03 PM

By Stewart Bishop, Globe Correspondent

A Haverhill woman says she had a harrowing brush with the wild, when she was surrounded by coyotes while walking her dogs in a wooded area.

Mary Burke, 47, was out walking her four Labrador retrievers at around 7 a.m. Monday in an area off Groveland Road in the town of Groveland, which is adjacent to Haverhill, when she looked up and saw a coyote staring her down.

"I was talking on the phone to a friend when all of a sudden there was one, then there was four, and they surrounded me," Burke said today. As I turned around, I started crying, I said to my friend, 'Oh my God, I'm not going to make it out of here.' "

Burke called 911.

"We got a call that a woman was being aggressively followed by coyotes," said Groveland Police Chief Robert Kirmelewicz. "She had four good-sized dogs with her, but [the coyotes] weren't backing down."

The police were able to locate Burke's exact position using their enhanced 911 system, which pinpointed Burke's cellphone, said Kirmelewicz.

"The GPS feature proved to be a great tool in this instance," Kirmelewicz said. "If we hadn't been able to locate her, who knows what could have happened?"

The dispatcher was able to guide Burke out of the woods as officers rushed to help, but the coyotes kept pursuing.

"They followed me all the way out of the woods," Burke said. "All the while I was talking to my dogs, telling them to stay with me."

As Burke reached the edge of the wooded area, Groveland police cruisers arrived on scene, sirens blaring, and the coyotes fled.

"It was the most scary experience of my life, and I'm a cancer survivor twice over," Burke said.

"They were so close, I could've touched them with a pool cue."

Chief Kirmelewicz said the officers didn't see the coyotes when they arrived.

Burke said this experience has made her think that more should be done to control the coyote population.

"We used to do controlled hunts for coyotes," she said. "But that's not the case anymore, and the population is out of control."

Kirmelewicz said that while coyote sightings are not uncommon, it's unusual for them to act this way, and he urged people to take certain precautions when out in rural, wooded areas.

"I would suggest the best thing to do, if you're approached by coyotes, is to make a lot of noise to try and scare them off," he said. "And always carry a cellphone."

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Reading the comments I have to wonder at the ignorance of some people. Real life is not a Disney movie. Wild animal are opportunists and will eat when and what they can.

About 30 years ago, when I was in college the first time around, a girl from the apartment complex I lived in went missing. Several of us from the college hiking club volunteered to help search the area where a witness claimed to have seen her the day before she disappeared. This was a more civilized time when the police welcomed help from "unorganized militia".

I was one of the three that found her body. It was pretty badly chewed up and the medical examiner later determined she bad been shot with a 22 caliber but the bullet didn't kill her. Cause of death was blood loss and trauma from animal bites.

Some of the dried blood on a rock originally suspected as the "murder" weapon was from coyotes. She apparently tried to fight back so was still alive and conscious when the coyotes came out that night for a free meal.

Don't tell me coyotes don't attack and kill humans. I know better.

The poor excuse for man who shot her and left her to die eventually turned himself in. He was convicted but I don't remember the exact charges.

Hat Tip to The War on Guns: Coyote Ugly

I Need This

A T-shirt for the 21st Century. Perfect for my next trip to the rifle range.

Hat tip to Billy Beck

Seventy Three Percenter

Geek That is...

73% Geek
This is lower than previous tests. I guess the medication is working.

Abortion is Still the Issue the Left Uses to Divide Us.

Mike Vanderboegh has some commentary on an article by Julia Duin of the Washington Time which contains an incredibly stupid quote from Dr. LeRoy Carhart:

"This is the equivalent of Martin Luther King being assassinated," he said of the killing of one of the nation's best known late-term abortion doctors. "This is the equivalent of Pearl Harbor, the sinking of the Lusitania and any other major historic event where we've tolerated the intolerable for too long."

Read the Comments section then read this excerpt from Hope by by Aaron Zelman and L. Neil Smith.

Edited to add:

After reading some of the comments on Sipsey Street Irregulars all I have to say is be careful what you wish for.

If you outlaw a thing you must have enforcement to insure that people don't do it. The Pregnancy Enforcement Administration (PEA) can be staffed with people hired out of BATFE. They have the experience to oversee the licensing of shops that sell knitting needles and chopsticks. Make sure every one is properly serialized and registered. Of course a background check will be required to purchase abortion tools but it'll be an "instant" check.

Congress will have to take up the issue of the "Craft Show Loophole."

Because women can go to other countries that still allow abortion all nubile women leaving the country will have to be checked for pregnancy. The TSA can mandate fetal heartbeat monitors in all the airports and border crossing so any women leaving the the country can be checked for pregnancy and their passports appropriately tagged. On returning they can be checked to make sure the pregnancy hasn't been terminated.

Then there is the problem of Fetal Abuse. If the fetus is a person then it must be protected from dangerous chemicals that cross the placenta. Any pregnant woman caught smoking or drinking will be prosecuted. For a first offense, imprisonment or maybe house arrest until the baby is born. For the second, a lobotomy and life support until parturition.

It's for the children!

The Left may fight this legislation but if it gets passed they will exploit it. Some states will pass parental licensing laws giving the local medical chief the power to decide who can have a child. Some states will have shall-issue licensing allowing a license if you pay a fee, pass a background check and attend an approved parenting class. Unlicensed babies will be taken and raised in creches.

Golfers arrested after fighting off gang attempting to steal clubs

Link

Despite the group threatening to attack them if they did not hand over their golfing equipment, the golfers apparently fought back. An eyewitness, who did not wish to be named, said: "Everyone had a weapon and they were just trading blows."

I had to read the above paragraph several time to be sure I was seeing what I was seeing. Can it be true that when threatened by thugs in England the intended victims are not supposed to fight back?

If so, it's official. The English have finally gone completely around the bend.

Hat tip to David Codrea