I was telling a friend that this book is like a Clancy thriller, except that it doesn't take 400 pages for things to warm up. Once the action in this book starts, it's non-stop to the end.
As others have said, the hyperpace of the book won't let you put it down. I'm interested in reading a second time to do more thinking and deciphering.
Lonesome Rhodes makes a down-home sounding, everything's going to be okay video extolling the benefits of Obamacare. Story here
Why, I bet we'll even have free Vitajex!
In Elia Kazan's 1957 film, A Face In The Crowd, Andy Griffith plays Lonesome Rhodes.
(Spoiler alert) Patricia Neal's character discovers Lonesome Rhodes and gives him a microphone. Rhodes does the rest and a small-town nobody becomes a superstar. Neal's character becomes aghast at what Rhodes really is and what she helped to create. In an effort to redeem herself, she turns up the microphones to capture Rhodes live on national TV as he vents sheer contempt and derision of his viewers. Rhodes begins the return leg of his trip back down to a nobody. Lee Remick and Walter Matthau are also in this flick.
I suppose that I shouldn't be surprised about this latest video. Where does Rhodes end and Griffith begin? Griffith just didn't have to do much acting for the part of Lonesome Rhodes anyway. And he isn't acting now either. Having grown up watching Sheriff Andy Taylor, this latest video for me is just like the Rhodes rant in the movie. Like an H-bomb on Mayberry itself. In short, Andy Griffith IS Lonesome Rhodes.
And while we're on this movie, Myrna Sokoloff wrote this great article over at Big Government recently paralleling Pres__ent Obama with Lonesome Rhodes. If you know the film, you'll immediately get the comparison.
I received this post the other day and thought, "Gee, what do I do with this?" I could reject it for its nearly 500 words of incoherent rambling Democratic talking points (do they have any other kind?). Seriously, if you have that much to say, then go start your own damn blog.
I could post it and forget about it.
Or I could make it a stand-alone post and offer it up as the pinata du jour for readers at The Cliffs.
Montana has left a new comment on your post "AZ immigration law":
“House Bill 2013” and “SB1070”
0 = Arizona 2 = USA/ Our Constitution/ We the People of the United States
This month of July 2010, our U.S. Federal courts have found the so called State of Arizona hate filled legislation namely “House Bill 2013” and “SB1070” Un-constitution (So much for the intellect of Jan Brewer, “Did you read the bills you signed?”). But we all know that they will go crying to the Supreme Court of the United States, please, please, please go. We will fight you in Arizona, any other state, and yes in Washington DC. We will not tire, we will not be silent and we will persevere, I promise you.
In my opinion the Republican Party has been taken over the most extreme of clans; the Baggers, Birthers and Blowhards (people who love to push their beliefs and hate on others while trying to take away the rights of those they just hate) and that’s who they need to extract from their party if they real want to win in November. Good Luck, because as they said in WACO, “We Ain’t Coming Out”.
It’s all about politics: Jan Brewer you were never elected to be Governor, but you have no problem trying to get elected on the back of undocumented workers, you loser (sure you may win but the long-term effects to your so called State is just beginning). Here is a partial list of your hate filled legislation;
1. S.B. 1070, 2. House Bill 2013 3. No permit conceal weapons law, 4. The famous Birthers law, 5. Banning Ethnic studies law, 6. Banning human-animal hybrid (aren’t most GOPers crossed with the Reptilian race?) or are they just giving Laurence Gonzales, some great promotion material for his new book “Lucy”. 7. Could she be behind the Mural in Prescott, Arizona, ordered to be whiten, 8. On deck to pass, no citizenship to babies born to undocumented workers, 9. If she can read she should look up Arizona’s House Bill 2779 from two years ago (which was un-constitution and failed when legally challenged), 10. The boycotted Martin Luther King Day, what idiots don’t want another holiday? Yes, you guessed it Arizona.
Well Arizona, you can keep boycotting new holidays, passing hate filled legislation and the rest of our country will continue to challenge you in court of law and Boycott your so-called state.
Lets face it, no one can real believe anything that comes out of Brewer’s mouth, in an interview, this year, in an attempt to gain sympathy, she first said her father had died in Germany fighting the Nazi in World War II (which ended 1945) but of course we find out the truth that father was never in Germany and died in California in 1955. But we are suppose to believe everything else she says, right!
As they say in the World Cup: Gooooooooal!
Posted by Montana to The Cliffs of Insanity at July 29, 2010 8:53 AM
Looks like someone is all "wee-weed up out there." Or as we like to say at The Cliffs, "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAALL!"
Lady Zane accuses me of seeing black helicopters from time to time. To which I say, "Honey, that is sooooo 1993. They use Global NightStalkerEvilMidnightMutha*&%! drones with Hellfire missiles now. A black helicopter would be a welcome improvement." I imagine that she'd likewise break out the black helo accusation for this post. ___________
Within the last month at my company (we'll call them the League of Evil after the old Net 10 commercials. It's not that we're evil, but "bigdumbco." is just too easy.), there have been a handful of executives and higher ups who have decided to retire. This is extraordinary at the League of Evil where change usually moves at glacial speeds.
Inside the company, this of course means that the personalities and priorities will change some. (Politics is politics and that never changes.)
But for those retirees who all just happened to chose this year to bail, it's worth venturing a guess at what they're thinking.
Here's what the future looks like: For them personally, the Bush tax cuts expire, the death tax comes back, and dividend taxes are set to go way up. We at the LOE are proud of paying dividends, so this will be a major broadside to those executives who undoubtedly hold tons of shares of LOE stock and would be set to reap dividends.
For any company out there who likewise is proud of paying dividends, it would not surprise me to see a big sell-off of stock and a corresponding drop in price. A number of retirees who love the dividend paying stocks are not going to like this increase in taxes on dividends which are a big part of their monthly income.
Perhaps they are also looking at how Leviathan is already salivating over our 401ks, the last big stash of liquidity out there. (You are aware of this...right?)
Perhaps our executives were also looking to the future of regulations and the attitude with which government is now approaching them. This government isn't interested in fair debate, they want to end debate. They don't want a level playing field, they want to clear the playing field. They are not satisfied with a mere majority of power, they want it all. Even the executives recognize this. They just keep their opinions to themselves because they personally stand to lose much should they open their mouths to "speak truth to power."
Of course, I'm not high enough in the food chain to talk with these executives personally and find out what their true motivations are. What I have read from all of them is just gushing platitudes about how great we are, their confidence in us little people at the LOE, world's greatest, overcome so many challenges, blah, blah, blah. After a while, it just sounds like Mrs. Othmar and I tune it out. Or maybe since it's a whole train of these executives in lockstep, it's just like that Christmas Vacation scene (cue to 1:08).
One way to be perceived as a great success at work is to recognize that everything comes and goes in cycles. Success comes and goes in a circle. The key is when to get on and when to get off. You want to get onto the cycle when it's at rock bottom-or just starting the upward stroke. Get on when there's nowhere to go but up. You want to get off right before the cycle reaches the very top of the stroke. Leave someone else a little room for improvement and success. Why? Because once they get credited with any success after you leave, then the ensuing decline is fully theirs and your hands are clean. They may never say it out loud, but these executives live this in practice and do it very well. It's how they got where they are. So then what does it mean when a whole bunch of them up and retire. It is not mere demographic shifts and happy coincidence that a mass of executives are all moving on at one point in time. In short, many well-informed and highly successful are getting off at the top...just like they always do. Or it could be that they're bailing out while there's still enough altitude to safely eject.
Which way are they facing?
Combine that with Starving the Monkeys. What's the one thing that the collective wants from you? Stay in your cage and keep on producing.
For these and other reasons that I can't articulate, this whole thing really makes my antennae twitch. How close are we to the edge?
WRSA links to a great thought-provoker by Matthew Bracken about what the civil war two (CW2) battlespace will look like. I love accurate visuals like this because of their ability to make quick work of the complex, with few if any words. Link here
For Cliffs readers, here's a visual that I drew up based on Bracken's writing.
A new term is hereby entered into the lexicon at The Cliffs; Flakes.
Flakes is a Frank Zappa tune from the Sheik Yerbouti album that has been in the back of my mind lately. (Which is where all Zappa music should reside.)
It ends with Zappa singing from the perspective of the zombies, explaining it all.
We are millions 'n' millions We're coming to get you We're protected by unions So don't let it upset you Can't escape the conclusion It's probably God's Will That civilization Will grind to a standstill And we are the people Who will make it all happen While yer children is sleepin', Yer puppy is crappin' You might call us Flakes Or something else you might coin us But we know you're so greedy That you'll probably join us We're comin' to get you, we're comin' to get you We're comin' to get you, we're comin' to get you We're comin' to get you, we're comin' to get you We're comin' to get you, we're comin' to get you
A Clinton judicial appointee predictably blocked some portions of the Arizona immigration law.
The reactions seem to be predictable as well. And pathetic.
Consider the contempt that Obama has shown to the court that struck down his moratorium on offshore drilling. You don't like our moratorium, we'll just write a NEW moratorium. A precedent has been set that Arizona could and should follow.
Governor Brewer could call for the Arizona legislature to pass another SB 1070, changing one or two words and making it effective ASAP.
Is there an executive power available to her to circumvent the judge's ruling?
Sheriffs could simply decide that on their own initiative they will ask every person their immigration status. If the illegals don't like it, let them sue.
Contempt is Obama's attitude towards all of America. Arizona will not win this by showing respect and deference for the contemptible.
Mike tees up another one with a link to this article noting the 10 most popular gang affiliated hats. Some interesting reading and thoughts. I guess everybody's doing this whole gang hat thing.
Here we see Pope Benedict, leader of the V.A.T.I.C.A.N. (Very Aged Theologians Impress Catholicism Anywhere Now) in his colors:
Note from Editor: The new cap is great news for the Gulf. I hope it will be the last fix. However, this great news required some rewriting of this piece of fiction which now returns and will continue without delay. _______
Part II After all the starts, stops, twists and turns of the Gulf Oil spill, an older cap attempt was removed. And the wellhead gushed out at full-force to the horror of those tied to the webcams that showed it in all its grainy glory, 5000 feet below the waves.
A new cap attempt was planned. The feds of course had other ideas and delayed the cap for 48 hours. Additional “tests” had to be performed to ensure that the cap would actually perform at the pressures present from the well and from the sea at that depth. At least that’s what they told the press. The truth is that the feds were seeking any reason that they could find to further delay the implementation of the cap.
“Never let a crisis go to waste”, in practical terms means “don’t solve it too soon.” And don’t solve too small of a crisis either. The President’s party had become bogged down in the Congress and unable to really move anything forward. Oh sure, everyone could agree on a few thousand pages of new financial regulation. Few could understand their own credit card terms-much less a few pages of this bill and nobody really got excited about their banker as they would their doctor. So while attention was focused on the spreading crude, Congress passed one more multi-thousand page bill that would effectively be their last significant act before coasting down towards recess and campaign season.
Unnoticed by most and certainly unreported by the press was the second moratorium that had been imposed by the administration regarding offshore drilling. Oh sure, the first one had been overturned. But in a subtle change, the second moratorium was applied to all floating platforms-not just those that drilled in 500 feet of water or more. As a result, no new wells were being drilled. At. All. Great uncertainty surrounded offshore drilling of any kind. As a result, thousands across the Gulf States who had previously worked on such rigs and gone to sea with them were now being laid off-increasing the misery in region that was already miserable.
What no one had been told about the cap was that the feds had imposed terms on the testing and qualification of the cap that would be nearly impossible for any piece of equipment to meet-much less on that was a mile below the sea and impossible to directly inspect or monitor. As one person put it, the criminals were guarding the crime scene. Actually, it was more like “managing” the crime scene.
In this case, the government had figured out exactly what requirements to impose in order to declare the cap unsafe. BP though had anticipated this and had produced enough analysis that answered every government question and problem to a tee. In this, BP had not lied about what the cap would do. They just had the list of key questions beforehand.
Inside the MMS, it was still a mystery as to how exactly BP was able to have the right answer to every question they asked. They were smart enough to suspect a security breach, but thought they were smart enough to handle it themselves and sent out an internal memorandum regarding certain activities. This alerted the MMS engineer on BP’s payroll who had used decent fieldcraft and burned all his bridges to quickly become just as squeaky clean as anyone else. The FBI was called in after that, but thanks to the continued bungling at MMS, an opportunity to further embarrass BP for political gain was missed. Worse, BP now had MMS backed into a corner such that they had to let the cap go forward. Holding all the cards for once, BP had the press releases ready to go and were prepared to completely humiliate MMS for their role in the oil spill as well as their interference in the efforts to cap the well. In short, if MMS hadn’t approved the cap, BP was prepared to reveal everything, tar the MMS, the entire federal government, and forge ahead on their own ignoring the MMS direction.
But BP’s mole and their ability to “cheat on the test” for their cap would catch up with them. When the well was finally capped and closed, the celebration drowned out any critical analysis from the press of how well the cap would actually work.
BP was both lucky and unlucky in this regard. They’d regained some pride in that a fix they sent to sea finally worked. But privately, they began to fret about extremely high pressure spikes that showed up on their screens. At first these were thought to be just bad data points that occurred at irregular intervals. So they were filtered out of the data acquisition program as well as any data shared with the MMS. Later analysis would show that the bad points concurred with seismic activity that had been brewing in the area for the last few months.
It was the blogosphere that saw it first. The webcams showed only a couple of frames of imagery and then went totally dark. What they showed though was horrifying. A pressure wave had been created by a seismic shift under the earth’s crust which propagated to this wellhead. Though the piping could take the “ambient” pressure of the sea from the ocean floor and the pressure inside the well, it could not withstand the pressure wave that it was now subjected to. This wave blew out most of the bolting around the base of the blowout preventer, kicked it over at a 30 degree angle, and then launched it. The leak returned to full strength, the blame game resumed, and despair returned after only a brief respite.
The federal government now unleashed a full investigation into BP, this time over their engineering group that developed the cap. The MMS again missed the mark, accusing BP of falsifying their data in order to prove the cap was suitable and that the true data would have caused MMS to fail the cap. Once again, BP had to just sit there and take it. It’s not like they could announce to the world, “We didn’t lie on the test, we just knew what questions they would ask beforehand.” It didn’t make any difference, the cap was gone and the oil flowed uncontrolled again.
While the investigation droned on and endless requests for information filtered back and forth from the FBI, MMS, and others to BP, new proposals were being developed at Yucca Mountain speed. And without even a suitable flange on the pipe or room enough to install one, the only thing left was a short stub of bare pipe blasting out oil into the ocean at the floor. At least they got new webcams back in action.
In the letter, sent on August 12 last year to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond and justice officials, Mr LeBaron wrote that the US wanted Megrahi to remain imprisoned in view of the nature of the crime.
The note added: "Nevertheless, if Scottish authorities come to the conclusion that Megrahi must be released from Scottish custody, the US position is that conditional release on compassionate grounds would be a far preferable alternative to prisoner transfer, which we strongly oppose."
Mr LeBaron added that freeing the bomber and making him live in Scotland "would mitigate a number of the strong concerns we have expressed with regard to Megrahi's release".
The US administration lobbied the Scottish government more strongly against sending Megrahi home, under a prisoner transfer agreement signed by the British and Libyan governments, in a deal now known to have been linked to a pound stg. 550 million oil contract for BP.
Translation:
Obama adminstration to Scotland: "We really want this guy to stay in prison, but if you want to release him on compassionate grounds, then that would be okay because it would help our big campaign donor BP get that contract to drill in Libyan waters for oil. And as we all know, Momar Qadafifi has behaved okay recently giving up his nuclear weapons program and softening his rhetoric. So clearly he's reformed and won't support terror cells anymore."
My guess is that Qadafifi is broke, out of "Street Cred" on the Arab Street, no desire to test himself against America again, and has dimming prospects for holding on to his power at home.
The powerful are all joined at the top. The merciless continue to be shown mercy. And those of us who protest are treated as evil. Should we call it LockerBP now?
Oh by the way, as far as I know, this miserable bucket of pig pus is doing remarkably well for someone given only three months to live about this time last year. Just saying...
Perhaps to my discredit, I didn't watch any of the videos about who said what with regard to Shirley Sherrod speaking to an NAACP group. But I don't need to watch a penguin over his entire lifetime to know that he's flightless either.
By now, you know about Andrew Breitbart's post regarding Shirley Sherrod. You've heard of the video clip. You know about the firing. You also know that in the context of the entire video, she has a different message. And so we're all about the context now and her firing/resignation/whatever is under further review in the instant replay booth.
You may even know that the NAACP withdrew their statement and released a new and improved statement.
With regard to the initial media coverage of the resignation of USDA Official Shirley Sherrod, we have come to the conclusion we were snookered by Fox News and Tea Party Activist Andrew Breitbart into believing she had harmed white farmers because of racial bias.
Jeff Dunetz crowns this on the head in this blog post.
Snookered??? How could they be snookered, Shirley Sherrod spoke at an NAACP event. Mr. Jealous had access to the entire tape but he never bothered to look at it before he blasted Ms Sherrod.
Sorry Mr. Jealous, but you can’t be snookered when you hold all of the evidence. And you are still missing a major part of the video its not necessarily about Shirley Sherrod. Watch the video again, listen for the approval of the crowd as she talked disparagingly about the white farmer and how she sent him to one of his own for help.
The target was never Sherrod, but the NAACP. If you read Brietbart's original post, then this is clear.
This appears to be an absolutely brilliant piece of work by Breitbart and the folks at Big Government. By using their own tactics and forcing them to live up to their own rules, he's utterly exposed these people for what they are.
One more time; Remember the struggle between Dug and Alpha in the movie UP? At the end, it’s not Dug that puts the cone of shame onto Alpha, it’s Alpha through his own aggression and attack against Dug that puts himself into the cone. Similarly, the NAACP has tried to smear the Tea Party as racists. In the process, they opened themselves up to be exposed. By charging after the Tea Party, they've created an epic, “I’ll show me!” moment where they've stuck their own heads into the cone of shame.
(Sorry, I don't have time at the moment to replace "UP" with "NAACP")
Albuquerque Libertarian Examiner, Kent McManigal does an excellent job of setting the record straight on what rights are and what the Second Amendment really means in this article.
A right is something you can do, without asking permission from anyone, simply because you are alive.
...
You don't have "Second Amendment rights", the government has "Second Amendment limits".
However, a commenter later points out that the Second Amendment
...doesn't limit the government, it forbids the government
So then doesn't that mean that nearly every single law written around guns is an infringement upon our right to keep and bear arms?
Go and read. Your friends at the Examiner will thank you.
I wanted to keep this separate from the previous post. "Xochitl Hinojosa, a Justice Department spokeswoman" has a very odd name. It must be one of those ACORN names like when they registered Mickey Mouse to vote. Or maybe it's an online user identity name gone horribly wrong. Or perhaps I'm not diverse enough. Whatever.
It could be a word scramble that we need to decipher in order to break the code. For example, Xochtil Hinojosa could be code for "I shiat on jox loch." Which I'm sure means, "We have vigorously shiat upon your rights. We will vigorously defend our denial of your rights."
The full title of this story today in the Birmingham News is, "U.S. set to defend Voting Rights Act against Shelby County challenge."
Alabama's state motto is, "We Dare Defend Our Rights." The essence of the United States could be summed up by this dual purpose motto and revised title. "We Dare Deny Your Rights."
Leviathan is always set to defend whatever gains they have made. (And to sue you to prevent any gains you might make.)
Shelby County that is playing offense here and that's a good thing that is long overdue.
The federal lawsuit asks a judge to strike down parts of the Voting Rights Act that require governmental bodies in mostly southern states to get approval from the Justice Department before making any changes related to voting.
The county contends the requirement is an unconstitutional intrusion into the county's right to conduct its elections. The Justice Department argues in a recently filed legal brief that parts of the act being challenged are not unconstitutional, and that Shelby County may not have legal grounds for challenging the Voting Rights Act.
Xochitl Hinojosa, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said in an e-mail response to The Birmingham News that legal briefs filed by the Justice Department speak for themselves and she couldn't "say anything beyond we will vigorously defend the constitutionality of the provisions of the Voting Rights Act in every case where challenges are filed."
Shelby County Attorney Frank C. "Butch" Ellis said the county does have standing to challenge the act. Ellis said the county wants the Justice Department to put up a vigorous defense. The county just wants to have the issue decided by the courts, he said.
If you're not familiar with Section V of the Voting Rights Act, here's a link to Wikipedia's article.
..Section 5 reverses the usual standard that requires the federal government to prove discrimination. Instead, the submitting jurisdiction must prove that its proposed change would not have a discriminatory effect. That’s a very tough standard that can be made even tougher by opposition from partisan career lawyers at the Civil Rights Division. Too often they use Section 5 to try to stop laws (for example, ones requiring voters to show ID) that they find politically objectionable, while ignoring applicable legal standards. Most covered jurisdictions don’t have the resources to fight the Civil Rights Division, even when it is clearly in the wrong.
That is why organizations that serve minority groups love Section 5. Unlike with Section 2, they don’t have to prove a case in court to stop redistricting plans or other legislation they don’t like; they just call their friends and former colleagues at the Civil Rights Division and tell them to object. More than one court decision has noted the embarrassing and highly unethical coordination between the Civil Rights Division and such outside groups.
Read the whole thing.
This whole Voting Rights Act thing, they couldn't use that to disenfranchise a bunch more of We The Productive as voting district lines are redrawn from the 2010 census...could they?
They couldn't use that whole Voting Rights Act thing to sue to invalidate election results from a whole bunch of red states and then refuse to seat their representatives...could they?
I hold out only a sliver of hope here, but it would be a thing of beauty for this to be "vigorusly defended" all the way to the Supreme Court where they vigorously invalidate this 45 year old, temporary, emergency power grating the Federal government the license to discriminate so they could end discrimination.
Check out this story and Birmingham area foreclosure map at al.com
Do you live near a major city? Is there a similar map for your area? Get a copy. Overlay it onto a topographical map. Where is your exit? Where is your immediate retreat and fallback position? Who are your neighbors?
Think.
They are coming.
Whether it is the foreclosers-those who foreclose on houses for real or imagined lapses in payment. Whether it is those who were foreclosed. They are coming.
Why?
What did the bank robber teach us?
"Why did I rob banks? Because I enjoyed it. I loved it. I was more alive when I was inside a bank, robbing it, than at any other time in my life. I enjoyed everything about it so much that one or two weeks later I'd be out looking for the next job. But to me the money was the chips, that's all." "Go where the money is...and go there often." - Wikipedia
By the way, politicians feel the same way when they think about your money and going there often.
But banks and corporations are holding all their capital out of the market. The federal government is broke (FDIC), broke (medicare), broke (Social Security), broke (credit rating). . We’ve already maxed out the borrowing with other nations like China. So what money is there left? Yours.
In your bank account. When your bank goes belly up, the FDIC won’t make you whole.
In your 401k. When the government grabs your 401k, that’ll disappear as well.
In your house. When your property value plummets, your equity goes negative, yet your taxes go up.
Do you not yet understand?
They are coming.
That’s the negative light. Now put this in a positive light. Know thy neighbor. Do you know your neighbor? Do you know their beliefs? Do you know where they stand on certain issues? Can you arm thy neighbor?
Picture this, a group of shipwreck survivors are floating along in a lifeboat. Other survivors are in the water. Sharks appear. They circle. They nip. They bite. Then they frenzy. A couple of floating survivors are pulled into the boat. But you don’t have room for all of them. Soon, the floating survivors will be in a frenzy and will do anything to get into the boat-including pulling people out of the boat.
The foreclosed, the foreclosers, and you are all represented in this paragraph. The sharks would love nothing better than to incite panic inside that boat so as to add to their meal. Is your lifeboat inflatable? Better hope the sharks don't figure out that they could deflate that boat with their teeth. Back here in reality, the foreclosers won't have any problem with stressing the foreclosed to frenzy on those they would like to eat next. __________________
I once saw my dad save a couple from drowning. We had a couple staying with us-a husband and wife from Australia. They were hitchhiking their way across America-making a world trip on a shoestring. My dad, mom, I and the other couple were walking down the hill to the pool. A couple was already in the pool.
Now the rest of us were chatting and talking. My dad was looking ahead.
Without a word, he dropped everything, darted off, and dove into the pool and got both of them to safety. They promptly left-glad to be alive. My dad recounted the story. He dove in, got underneath and behind of the man and just gave him a strong push to the edge. The man said, “my wife, my wife.” Dad hadn’t even seen her when he dove in. He turned around, found her, likewise got her up and to the edge. He told me, “If you’ve got to do this, the best thing is just to get behind them and push them up to the surface. From the front, they could grab onto you and panic and take you down too.”
This both compares and contrasts with what we’re going through right now. It compares because if you can pull people into your “lifeboat”, then you must do it before they’re panicked and in a frenzy. It contrasts because in this case, you can’t simply jump into the ocean and push them up from the bottom. Once they’re in a frenzy-there might not be a way to save them.
We are at the edge of The Cliffs.
Which way are you facing?
For good measure, let’s add something to my perpetual question. Are you moving? Which direction? Are you sleepwalking towards the edge-ignorant of the direction you’re heading and that the powers that be are singing your lullabye to keep you that way? Or are you digging in your heels-your back to the sea and pressing inland against any and all resistance?
The time for ignorance and slumber is over.
They are coming.
Which way are you facing?
And since I can't resist a little humor-even in the darkest of hours...
(I saw this in my search for an LOTR picture and couldn't resist.)
More details emerge. Do any of these signs look familiar? Looks just like the same bunch from the earlier video. Which indicates to me that they rallied, set up tents, got everyone on the talking points, had transportation to the street, and even had "security" to hang around the edges and rough people up. All that to say that they had a plan. I wonder what our side had?
The handycam reporter says this is in Atherton, California on the street where gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman lives. Say...maybe you guys should secede and form your own breakaway Nation City! Just add this latest thugnut adventure to the list of things that help to give the San Francisco Bay Area that "unique identity" they're so proud of.
Looks like 1000 or so people show up to protest up and down here street.
Let's see...where have we seen this before?
Oh yeah, at the home residence of Greg Baer a Bank of America executive. I'll be waiting to hear whether the police escorted them to Whitman's street or whether the thugnuts violated private property to terrorize the residents.
As Codrea has noted before, once you've got three, you've got a spate.
I ask again, who's going to be the lead dog and who's going to wear the cone of shame?
Today, the Cliffs goes on a trip to see: the thugs, Mayberry, the dogs, the Dog Whisperer, UP, the Deacons for Defense, back to Mayberry, and to the bathroom. Enjoy the trip.
Saw this on Breitbart.
I kept waiting for the melee to break out. But it ends peacefully with a policeman coming over to take names and stories. (Which is all they are to him-stories.) Sorry to spoil the ending.
Questions:
So . . . .where is this?
When is this?
Who are these people?
I ran with this immediately off of Breitbart, so maybe they haven't gotten it together yet. The video on YouTube only had 129 views when I saw it.
The surprise is gone, okay. You can't be surprised at a dog for being a dog. We should expect this by now.
As many times as this has happened, why not just go ahead and call the police if you're going to counter-demo at a union event. Call them before you even get out of the car and start walking. You know it's going to happen. Otherwise you wouldn't be there. Go ahead and make the call and perhaps the cops will be there to watch it all for themselves rather than just write down your story and later ignore your video of the event (like they did to Nathan Tabor).
I am not downing the cameramen who went to counter this rally. It takes some stones to do this. But how is success being defined? Went to their rally, got shoved around, got it on camera, didn't shove back, press charges. We Win!
How would our founding fathers have defined victory faced with a similar situation?
Perhaps these need to be thought of as operations that require planning and preparation. Perhaps the team needs to be expanded to include distant cameras as well as others who are side by side with the cameramen and have their hands free.
We can pretend that the law will take care of it. But isn't this subcontracting liberty in a way-asking the law to fight our battles for us? Let's examine some bully psychology. Until you stand up for yourself, the bully will continue to bully. And calling the teacher-sorry, police tells the bully that he wins. It encourages him to do it again. And not just to get away with it, but to try and get away with more.
I love the Andy Griffith Show. Opie and the Bully might shed a machete to our thicket. (I would embed, but embed was blocked by YouTubistan.)
It's true for bullies. It's true for politicians. It was true for Hitler in 1938.
Prime Minister Chamberlain promising that his glass jaw won't hurt Hitler's iron fist
It was true for the Soviet Union during the great detente of the 1970s.
1979, the USSR's doomed, decade-long attempt to subdue Afghanistan begins.
(Say, how are we doing in our decade-long attempt?)
It's also true for dogs. You get the behavior you encourage. Lady Zane loves to watch Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer and I like it as well. What's really happening on most of his cases? It's not the dog that needs reprogramming, but the owner. In many cases, the owner is failing to lead the dog and instead is led by the dog. This encourages the bad behavior that the owner complains about. So the distraught owner who doesn't know what else to do calls Cesar (and I'm sure pays him handsomely) to solve the problem. On one episode, a lady asked him about his pack of dogs and said, "So who your pack's alpha dog?" Cesar just smiled and deadpanned as serious as a heart attack, "Me." There was no pause. No, "uh", no "hmmmm". Without thinking, he knew the answer to that question because it's fundamental to everything else that he's doing. Not surprisingly, a common theme that runs through the show almost without regard to the problem the dog is having is that you the owner have to be the By God Alpha Forkin Dog. Just for kicks, read this article from Cesar, Avoiding a Dog Attack.
The first thing I try to remember if a strange dog is acting aggressively toward me is to not take it personally. I don’t feed any fear in me, or anxiety; I get very calm. Believe it or not, what will be instrumental in blocking the animal from attacking you is for you to be calm and unafraid. An aggressive dog wants you under stress before it attacks. If you are calm and in control of yourself, it slows them down and throws them off.
See anything in there that might parallel? Anything that might apply or be useful? We're obviously not dealing with dogs here. But in accord with what Pete has for us to consider in the last few posts at WRSA, we need to quit trying to play the wrong game.
Who's going to be the alpha dog and who's going to wear the cone of shame?
At the end of the movie "Up", who's wearing the cone of shame, how does he get the cone put on him and who does it to him? At the end it's not Dug who's wearing the cone but Alpha-the bully of the pack. Dug is able to get out of the way, get himself out of the cone, and then through his own aggression, it's Alpha who winds up in the cone. The rest of the pack is stunned, but must now acknowledge that having beaten alpha, Dug is the leader of the pack.
For the time being though, this poster of Dug is the GOP. They're walking around in this cone of shame-distracted by any squirrel that passes by, leading no one, accomplishing little, and ridiculed a lot.
The Deacons for Defense made it clear to all that they would not be intimidated and would not allow their own to be attacked without a response. The Deacons didn't carry the signs. They just stood at the ready. They knew that self-esteem and empty holsters never stopped a lynch mob and that if they wanted to be free they were just going to have to start acting free. (Yes, the Klan's hats are analogous to the cone of shame-glad you noticed.) The Deacons took some hits, did some jail time. But they delivered hits as well. And in the final analysis, it's clear that they won.
(Opie and the Bully spoiler alert) I hadn't ever seen the tag to the end of the Opie and The Bully episode. they never showed them when I was a kid. Andy is ready to treat Opie's eye. Opie is busy admiring that shiner in the mirror, wondering how long it will last. Andy reconsiders, "If a fella gets a medal, it ain't right to ask him to hide it." The converse might be that if a fella doesn't have a medal, he's got nothing to show. Where are our medals?
What would I do for liberty?
I'm taking that question to my bathroom mirror to demand an answer from the man I see. I encourage you to take that question to your mirror and do likewise.
Now, according to the owner of a free WordPress platform which hosts more than 73,000 blogs, his network of sites has been completely shut down on the orders of the authorities.
And as he points out, not a peep from the mainstream press.
Read it all and consider what flipping the kill switch on the internet might mean. Remember what I've said about critical mass and prompt critical. (Seems my work has made it to Resistnet. Woohoo!)
And for good measure, just to make sure that I get scrubbed along with everyone else, here's a link to a Robin Trower song that may set the tone for this. It's called "About To Begin"
I'm not sure what the meaning is for this particular song, but last summer, while I was cleaning my AR to the Bridge of Sighs CD, I got to this song and wondered if I was in a movie or some other reality. Me, of all people field stripping and cleaning a battle weapon in preparation for....what exactly? Battle?
I spent well over an hour reading and digesting this and I commend each and every reader to do likewise.
This explains a great deal about our government and our society.
Note the difference between "family" and "families".
If you work for a BDC (Big Dumb Corporation) as many of us do, then this may explain numerous inexplicable decisions from the top of your company. It may just explain who gets developed, promoted, and celebrated. (and why you don't).
Finally, consider the coming clash. Mere voting won't achieve victory. (Mere voting is what got us here.)
To date, our side has played their game and predictably lost. How do we make them play our game. And just what is our game?
I'm glad that they finally figured out what would work to cap this thing off. What an absolute nightmare the whole thing has been. Government being government though, you can bet that whatever they try to do next won't be good. I give you Thad Allen's quote as an example:
Thad Allen, the retired Coast Guard admiral overseeing the spill for the government, said they are deciding as they go along whether to release oil into the water again. At the end of the 48-hour test it's possible oil will start to flow again — but, theoretically, in a controlled manner.
Thad, please go back to retirement.
Presumably the government can now turn their full attention towards cap and trade, financial reform, card check, suing Arizona, dropping lawsuits against the New Black Panther Party, and threatening the rest of the states not to "be like Arizona."
....oh, and maybe accelerate the cleanup........Right?
Went to CMP today with a friend and picked out a great service grade rifle. It's an H&R, '56 model.
Muzzle and throat were both very good, no pitting on the metal, a good trigger group, and the stock really needs no work at all. Everything fit together well and cycled smoothly. I think the stock and front handguard are different types of wood, but ask me if I care.
Grabbed a can of M2 Ball and even got a free T-shirt.
We broke it down, cleaned the cosmolene, cleaned all the metal parts, and put on some CLP. (Note to self, add tetralube to shopping list.) A short cone of shame moment during reassembly when I put the bullet guide in backwards. We figured this out only at the point of putting the entire receiver group back in.
(I do not like the cone of shame!)
A quick aside. If you ever have one of those duh moments, just use a few seconds of this video:
I even had a USGI sling ready to go once reassembly was complete. Needless to say, I'm tickled pink. Can't wait to send some lead through the barrel.
This is a fictional plot vehicle that will be presented in several parts over the next few weeks. It is not a finished novel or intended to be a complete story. It is written from the point of view of a local observer in the Gulf Coast area-a witness to the oil spill cleanup and recovery efforts. It contains some things which may or may not have happened. If you've read my blog, then you already know some of my thoughts and observations regarding this oil spill.
America for much of my lifetime has been a nation of people that endured actions and reacted little-instead remaining calm and unmoving. A number of leaders apparently have judged that this lack of response means that there’s no real reaction, and they can blithely continue their course without consequence. Emboldened, they now accelerate from incremental, subtle actions to wholesale, outrageous change. Their mental model is a linear one in which any reaction could never be greater than the action. It’s never more than 1:1. What I can get away with today, I can get away with tomorrow. It has not occurred to them that the energy of a reaction might be stored over a long period of time and released all at once in a single, large event. It has also never occurred to them that the magnitude of this reaction could be exponentially larger than their last, inciting action.
Many on the side of liberty, preparedness, and survival have long predicted that a government of this nature would seek to take advantage of a catastrophic event to seize emergency powers that would in one very large, visible, public action strip liberty and freedom and move America into a police state.
My purpose in writing this work of fiction is to consider another model by which this might be attempted and how Sons of Liberty might react. In short, “What if this oil spill is the vehicle by which tyranny intends to takeover?” This work is one possible answer to that question. I write this as a thought provoker for the liberty minded.
Enjoy, Al III __________________________________________________
The Creeping Catastrophe Part I
As the oil began oozing ever closer to their shore, strangers began showing up along the coast. First it was the supervisors and managers setting up staging areas and such. Then more official looking “Czar types” arrived to take over and coordinate the numerous contractors who were showing up. Then there were the contractors themselves. At first the locals welcomed them like heroes and the "beach boys", as they would come to be called, loved it. But that went downhill.
They didn’t pay these men a lot to shovel up oil from the beach and it showed. Most days you could see at least half of them sitting under the tent while a few worked. It brought to mind that old Soviet joke, “As long as they pretend to pay us, we pretend to work.”
For the President’s lone visit to the region, a big crew really got busy cleaning for his arrival. He had made his one visit to show he cared and hey, how much more empathy could you ask for!?
But the beach boys did get paid well enough to go get drunk in town. The tourism really went down the drain once the beaches graduated from tar balls to sludge. Restaurants and bars were glad for whatever customers they could get. For the moment, these were the only customers they would get.
Similarly, the beach boys were glad for whatever jobs they could get in this economy. For the moment, these were the only jobs they could get. A good hard day’s work might have seen most of their number simply go to their hotel rooms and hit the sack, or maybe go back home in fear of actual work. But since the government was running this operation, the leadership of these crews had a decidedly union approach that lent itself to a slow pace-except at quitting time. Further, OSHA mandated work/rest periods that meant that for every hour of the day, only 20 minutes of work might actually be done by any given worker.
The hotel owners were somewhat glad that they spent their time and money at the bars-the better not to tear up their hotels. But some of that happened too. After all, the hotel room was being paid for by the government-not by them personally. No sense of ownership or responsibility meant that they just didn’t care. Since the government was paying the bill, they promised to make good any damages to private property. However, any damages would have to be grieved to the government through a byzantine process that might get them reimbursed (or the room repaired) sometime around next Christmas. Local law enforcement did occasionally have the opportunity to talk to a few of the beach boys and arrest them on outstanding warrants, but not often enough.
The feds seemed in no hurry to get things cleaned up, to build sand berms to pre-emptively stop the oil from getting to the shore, or to put out booms to prevent the oil from getting to the inland waters. The transparency of the government stupidity was appalling. When the state of Alabama had procured themselves 12 miles worth of boom to seal off some key waterways, the Coast Guard confiscated it for use in Louisiana. Apparently, the lessons of Hurricane Katrina hadn’t been learned by everyone. What’s yours is FEMA’s.
For the first time in memory, foreign countries were coming to America’s aid as if the US were suddenly helpless. Rather than putting those vessels to work immediately, they were ordered to a US port, their equipment rigged to another ship (probably union crew) and then sent out for “trials.”
While some 2000 skimming vessels had volunteered, a mere 400 had been allowed to get underway and begin operations. Numerous vessels already at sea, at work were “checked out” by the Coast Guard and told to return to port for “safety violations.” Rather than simply carrying them the necessary equipment so that they could keep working, the Coast Guard handed out fines.
Though the press never seemed to dig hard enough to find this, vessels had been routinely blocked from putting to sea for microscopic details that conveniently never mentioned that the crews were non-union. Card check. Who gave that directive? Some Czar. Unelected, unreviewed by the Senate, and unaccountable to the public.
Those that did put to sea were forced to suck up massive amounts of oil and water and not allowed to return so much as a drop of potentially contaminated oil/water mix to the sea. As if 75% clean wouldn’t have been an improvement over 100% dirty. As if those same skimmer ships couldn’t have continued skimming in their area until they got what they’d missed. That was how a vacuum cleaner worked on carpet. Straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel, the government prevented easing the problem and thus only amplified the pain felt by those on the Gulf Coast.
It became worse for business owners who were faced with a pitiful choice in a pitiful economy. BP offered business owners a check equivalent to 6 months worth of revenues as payout so long as they agreed to forfeit all future claims against BP. Alternatively, they could choose to fight BP in court. The problem was that since the spill hadn’t been stopped and the beach cleaned, there was no way to put a final price tag on what the damages were. Worse, there was a process that you had to go through with BP to verify what your actual revenues were. They wanted to know your monthly revenues for the previous 24 months. Some who erred to the high side on revenues found themselves being visited by the IRS for back taxes for misstating revenues in previous months. And oh, by the way, the IRS wanted to wet their beak in the claim check you got from BP. The IRS was all too happy to settle it with some folks for a mere 30% of their check.
Many took the 6 month payout only to later find to their dismay that “all” really did mean “all.” The ailments and health conditions that came with all that oil spill and the fumes that blanketed their beach towns when the wind blew the wrong way were now their own problem. Hospitals and health care providers struggled to come to grips with those issues. Many who took the BP check were then told that the BP check covered those claims and that their insurance did not. Those who had not taken the BP check were sent through endless series of hoops to prove that their illness or injury was related to the oil spill. And then found themselves being interrogated at the hospital by EPA and OSHA personnel who were interested in knowing exactly how, when, and where they had come into contact with the oil. More than a few of those poor souls found themselves facing fines for attempting to work the oil without proper training or protective equipment. Good Samaritans who had cleaned oil from birds were handed enormous fines.
Thanks to government meddling and collusion with BP, there would be no accounting for this in a court of law or even an attempt to make these victims whole. For BP on the other hand, the $20B escrow fund was a dream come true. They got to limit their company’s damages, deal with the victims as individuals rather than en masse where they would be strongest, and settle with them before the true cost of the damages was really known. Even better, BP delayed payment by several weeks or months for thousands of Gulf Coast residents which might have meant that BP’s total payout could actually be less than the stated $20B. Predictably though, the federal government began to takeover the entire fund which meant that while BP would chip in the entire $20B, not all of that would be paid out in claims. Soon, it wasn’t BP that was delaying and denying claims, but government officials. And of course, when the government started handing out the checks, it becomes an exercise in classic patronage politics where only Democrats and their friends seemed to be treated well.
Some businesses began to close and file insurance claims for their losses and it got worse still. Insurers turned their backs on businesses that took the BP payout and refused their claims. Lost in the fine print of these claim agreements with BP was that “all” also meant that they couldn’t seek damages from anyone else. The clause was meant to protect BP’s business partners who remained largely out of the spotlight. But the way it was written just begged abuse from insurers. How the insurance companies and BP must have scratched each others’ backs for this one! For those few who had refused the BP check and committed to fight, the insurance companies refused to help offset any legal expenses-much less actually pay claims instead encouraging them to take their fight to BP. No one was in good hands.
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