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