Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Not Under the Bus...

...He's Throwing Us Under Water!

Update:

The NYT has a scare article about Romney wanting to privatize FEMA.  Only 'big government' can save us, apparently.  They obviously know nothing about disaster services.

The best part: " ...President George W. Bush, ... neglected it, subsumed it into the Department of Homeland Security, and placed it in the control of political hacks. The disaster of Hurricane Katrina was just waiting to happen.

Previously:

Internet only emergency contact info at White House and FEMA web sites.

When asked where folks should turn for information if they have no power, a FEMA worker said, “Well, those people who have a laptop with a little battery life on it can try that way. Otherwise, you’re right.”

“President Obama is giving out the Web address only is because you normally don’t hear him saying anything before a disaster strikes,” Fuller said. “So they might be getting a little ahead of themselves. What they don’t want to do is give out a phone number and have people start calling if a federal disaster declaration isn’t even declared for their county.”
The problem with that, Thome said, is that it’ll be too late to provide the information once the disaster is under way.

As always, go, read!

Politlco, via Drudge.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Sandy

I'll be blogging Hurrican Sandy over at Window on Red Lion.  (That's something I never expected to say!!)  If you are interested in how south east Pennsylvania, near York is doing, I'll keep you posted for as long as possible.  I expect to be without power (lights, heat, cooking and computers) for a fair while.  I think that water will be OK, but I'm going to stockpile, just in case.

See you there!

Compare and Contrast...

...a lesson in humor.

For something to be funny, there needs to be a) truth, b) a surprise, be it a sharp turn, an inversion of said truth (irony), or logical and probably unlikely extension of said truth.

First, Mr. Muir:



Then, Mr.Doonesbury:


Solution is  left as an exercise to the student.

Friday, October 26, 2012

Democrat Campaign 2012...

...summed up in pictures. 

This is it.  Less than 2 weeks, and this is what  they bring.

This from his Oneness' tumblr page:


And the re-worked Putin ad:


Both at Drudge

Humility...

...the other guys should try it.


"I’m 100% convinced Mitt Romney was shaken to his soul right then and there.  I think at that moment it was sinking in he might really be the next American president, and it humbled him right to his core, in every nerve of his body.  And as he was saying that little prayer, you could hear the sound of thunder from all those thundersticks outside. Like this huge low rumble that just surrounded all of them at once.  A quiet little prayer, and the sound of thunder."

For some reason, I'm reminded of the scene in Camelot, where Vanessa Redgrave's Gunivere angrily counsels Lancelot to try "Hoo-mil-ee-tay!"  Someone should have done that to Obie a long time ago.  And made it stick, too.

Go.  Read.

Via The Ulsterman Report, and of course, Gerard

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Grab 'n' Go

"Grab 'n' Go" Bags" are you first line of defense in a disaster.  They should be in a place where you can grab them on your way out the door.  These are from the Huntington Beach CERT organization, which I belonged to for a couple of years.  Their purpose is to keep you going if you have to evacuate on short notice.  The contents of these are based on the Southern California environment, so adjust accordingly.

 I sent these to Mr Bingley at The Coalition of the Swilling, and decided that with the approach of Sandy, I put them up here, along with my comments to Mr. B.  (Click for full size)


Sone notes:
Adult, left column: 
  • Radio - I have one that runs on its own solar cell, batteries, or juice from its hand crank
  • Money - change, $1s, $5s, and $10s.  If you don't break down your $20s, you'll find that everything costs $20.00
  • Whistle - make sure it's a damned loud one, not a cheapo toy store one.
  • Okay/Help signs - 8 1/2" x 11", 72 point print, red text "Help", green text "OK"  Put the appropriate one in a street-facing window - lets first responders know how you're doing.
  • Out of state contact - I expect you might be that for your family down south.  If they can't raise each other, they call you, and you relay messages.
  • Important docs - old driver's license/passport
  • First aid - no kit is too big.  I like the ones at Sam's - $20.00, great for BLS.  I'd make sure I had tubes of anti-biotic and cortisone creams as well.  Eye drops/wash.  Low dose aspirin, just in case.  Written first aid guide.  
Right column:
  • TP - the new cash.  Need I say more?
  • Good book - bring some of your favorite adult spirits along w/ the books and cards
  • Blanket/tent, etc - I have my camping gear backed in a couple of large plastic storage boxes.
  • Dust mask - I can't use the disposable ones - they fog my glasses when I exhale.  I broke down and got an inexpensive (not "cheap") respirator at Home Depot.  Works much better...
  • Tools - I have an old catalog case that I keep my hard hat and misc b & e tools in (I was the CERT ligtht urban search & rescue team leader for a year.)


Pets - most of the first aid items listed are in a good first aid kit (like the one from Home Depot)
 
Car
  • Get an inverter that will run out of the cigarette lighter - this will allow  you to charge things like laptops, that need a 110/120 v AC outlet.  Got mine at Sam's.
 
Random Notes:
  • I have "FirstAid", "iTriage" and the "U.S. Army (sorry, Marines) Survival Guide" apps on my 'Droid. 
  • Keep a phone charger in your car!!
  • Make sure you have an extra phone charger for each phone.  Radio Shack and Office Depot both sell chargers that have interchangeable plugs, so you can use 1 charger to charge several phones (mine plugs into the wall, the cig lighter, and even take a 9v battery!)
  • Or just get a cigarette lighter powered USB outlet.  (Apple people, YMMV)
 A good practice is to check the batteries on your smoke alarm, and inventory your survival stuff twice a year, on the day the time changes (or on New Year's Day and the 4th of July if you don't switch to/from Daylight Savings Time).  Make sure batteries are fresh (or charged), rotate water and other perishables.

A bottle or two of your favorite Adult Beverage is not a bad thing to have on hand, either.

"Don't look behind you...

...something may be gaining on you".
Satchel Page

Arming Jihad

"In short, it seems President Obama has been engaged in gun-walking on a massive scale. The effect has been to equip America’s enemies to wage jihad not only against regimes it once claimed were our friends, but inevitably against us and our allies as well. That would explain his administration’s desperate and now failing bid to mislead the voters through the serial deflections of Benghazigate."

Go read the whole thing!

Eleven days to go.

Frank Gafney, Jr, Washington Times, via Rodger

Monday, October 22, 2012

Friday, October 19, 2012

20 Only In America Ironies


1) Only in America could politicians talk about the greed of the rich at a $35,000 a plate campaign fund raising event.

2) Only in America could people claim that the government still discriminates against black Americans when we have a black President, a black Attorney General, and roughly 18% of the federal workforce is black.

3) Only in America could we have had the two people most responsible for our tax code, Timothy Geithner, the head of the Treasury Department and Charles Rangel who once ran the Ways and Means Committee, BOTH turn out to be tax cheats who are in favor of higher taxes.

4) Only in America will you find people who burn the American flag and call America an "imperialist nation," but who get offended if you say they're not patriotic.

5) Only in America can we have terrorists kill people in the name of Allah and have the media primarily react by fretting that Muslims might be harmed by the backlash.

6) Only in America could someone drinking a $5 latte and texting to his friends on an iPhone 4 complain that the government allows some people to make too much money.

7) Only in America would people take rappers who brag about shooting people and selling drugs seriously when they complain the police are targeting them unfairly.

8) Only in America would we make people who want to legally become American citizens wait for years in their home countries and pay tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege while we discuss letting anyone who sneaks into the country illegally just become American citizens.

9) Only in America could the people who believe in balancing the budget and sticking by the country's Constitution be thought of as "extremists."

10) Only in America could the most vicious foes of successful conservative women be self-proclaimed feminists and the National Organization for Women.

11) Only in America could you need to present a driver's license to cash a check or buy alcohol, but not to vote.

12) Only in America can we have terrorists fly planes into our buildings and have some people’s first thought be "what did we do to make them hate us?"

13) Only in America would we think teaching kids at college is an appropriate job for communists, terrorists, and other dregs of humanity.

14) Only in America could people demand the government investigate whether the oil companies are gouging the public because the price of gas went up when for every penny of profit the oil companies make, the government tacks on roughly 24 cents’ worth of taxes.

15) Only in America could the first people asked to weigh in on the seriousness of a racial incident by the media be professional race hustlers like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Ben Jealous. In other words, it's like calling in a car dealer as a neutral source on whether or not you need to get a new car.

16) Only in America does airport security put its hands on your underwear....while you're wearing it.

17) Only in America could the government force a skating rink to have handicapped parking spots and Braille on the ATM machines.

18) Only in America could the government collect more tax dollars from the people than any nation ever has before in all of recorded history, still spend a trillion dollars more that it has per year, and complain that it doesn't have nearly enough money.

19) Only in America could the rich people who pay 86% of all income taxes be accused of not paying their "fair share" by people who don't pay any income taxes at all.

20) Only in America could the people who approve of slaughtering 25 million females babies via abortion accuse OTHER PEOPLE of waging a "war on women."

 John Hawkins, via Gerard.

When you've lost Bubba...

...,well.

Friday, October 12, 2012

Veep Debate


Went to a Republican "debate party" last night, held at a local sports bar.  They provided a relatively small corner of the place at the far end of the bar.  They also provided a small appetizer buffet.  And big-screen TVs.

The space was about all that was needed for the 20 or so people who showed up.  The wraps were good, but the hot appetizers were heated fresh from the box in the freezer.  The TVs were easy to see.

But I had a bitch of a time hearing much, between the sports commentary and cheers at the bar, and the distraction of the noise on the patio whenever someone went out to smoke.

As to the debate itself... Joe and Martha vs Paul.  I've seen some of the reviews, but the thought that comes to mind is the old saying, "Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill every time."

Pundette has this: Joe Biden's Inappropriate Affect

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Time to Kick...



Click for Generation-Identitaire.com
...Some Unrepentant Hippie Asses!

Via Gerard

"Our generation are the victims of the 'May '68ers' who wanted to liberate themselves from tradition, from knowledge and authority in education. But they only accomplished to liberate themselves from their own responsibilities."



"It seems that the youth are revolting against their elders everywhere: In France, the kids are declaring war upon the hippies now ruling them." -- Jewel

From the Generation of National Identity: A Declaration of War
"We are Generation-Identitaire"
"We are the generation who get killed for glancing at the wrong person, for refusing someone a cigarette or having an 'attitude' that annoys someone."
"We are the generation of ethnic fracture, total failure of coexistence, and forced mixing of the races."
"We are the generation doubly punished: Condemned to pay into a social system so generous with strangers that it is unsustainable for our own people."
"Our generation are the victims of the 'May '68ers' who wanted to liberate themselves from tradition, from knowledge and authority in education. But they only accomplished to liberate themselves from their own responsibilities."
"We reject your history books, to regather our memories."
"We no longer believe that 'Khader' could ever be our brother. We have stopped believing in the 'Global Village' and the 'Family of Man'."
"We discovered that we have roots, ancestry, and therefore, a future."
"Our heritage is our land, our blood, our identity. We are heirs to our own future."
"We turned off the TV to march in the streets."
"We painted our slogans on walls. Cried through loudspeakers for 'youth in power' and flew our Lambda flags high."
"The Lambda, painted on proud Spartans'shields, is our symbol."
"Don't you understand what this means? We will not back down. We will not give in."
"We are sick and tired of your cowardice."
"You are from the years of post-war prosperity, of retirement benefits, S.O.S. Racism and "diversity", sexual liberation and a bag of rice from Bernard Kouchner."
"We are 25 percent unemployment, social debt, multicultural collapse,and an explosion of anti-white racism."
"We are broken families and young, French soldiers dying in Afghanistan."
"You won't buy us with a condescending look, a state-paid job and a pat on the shoulder."
"We don't need your youth policies. Youth IS our policy."
"Don't think this is simply a manifesto. It is a declaration of war."
"You are of yesterday. We are of tomorrow."
"We are Génération-Identitaire

Embarrassing - the French kids sound ready to kick ass, while the American kids are whining for More Free Stuff.

Mr. Bingley...

...On. A. Roll!!

"I love how Sullivan, who 10 years ago I admired and supported, goes on about Obama’s “admirable record” and how he represents “reality-based government.”
Really.
Look at this chart and tell me again about “reality.”

What planet is he from?

How can any one, any one, look at the record of the past four years and say “this guy has done well”? You can scream about “Bush’s Two Unfunded Wars” as the cause of our budget mess; fair enough but then you need to look at the numbers: during the height of these wars our budget deficits averaged a couple of hundred billion dollars per year. Damn scary and unsustainable numbers I fully agree. So to correct this in a “reality based” way Obama has created deficits averaging 1.2 trillion, and the projections are for these types of numbers for the next few years at least. Furthermore his policies have destroyed US savings income, completely and totally. His economic team has forced everyone to invest fully in the Stock market. Remind me again who’s the Party of Wall Street? The economic security of seniors under his administration has been decimated, plain and simple, by their policy of suppressed interest rates. How anyone living on a fixed income could support this record astounds me.

Another complaint against Bush was the erosion of civil liberties engendered by the rise of Homeland Security, TSA and cries of an “Imperial Presidency.” Valid points all. Homeland Security and TSA should be eliminated. After four years of Hope and Change can anyone say with a straight face that Homeland Security, TSA or the Patriot Act in any way, shape or form have been in any way reined in? Not only have these agencies actually expanded their (over)reach in the past four years but we now also have a government agency that has directly caused the murders of hundreds of Mexican citizens and at least one US citizen via its Fast and Furious gunrunning operation. We have a government that wants to control information flow on the internet and have a kill switch on it. Speaking of Kill Switches and Imperial Presidents, we have a President who has asserted his prerogative to summarily order the execution of US citizens overseas. We have a President who is lauded by the press for his end-runs around Congress to appoint extra-Constitutional “Czars” to implement his policies, a President who refuses to meet with Congressional leaders of the other party then decries “gridlock and intransigence” and does what he wants via Executive Order. An Administration that has through its naive incompetence created the conditions that allowed an Ambassador and three other US citizens to be brutally murdered and then has obfuscated and seemingly disseminated a series of knowingly false stories to cover-up its involvement and actions.

Again, look at the record and tell me how this man, this Administration, this philosophy deserve another four years."

I have nothing to add.

Monday, October 8, 2012

Links du Jour...

A thoughtful Arab (yes, I'm sure there are many, but we never seem to hear about/from them), and Mitt's foreign policy speech.

Arab Spring and the Israeli Enemy

Mitt's Foreign Policy Speech

Go.  Read.

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Addition to the Reading List

I've been an on again, off again reader of Velociman.  As a result, I haven't linked to him before, because he can be, well, a bit out there.  If not downright heated and sometimes vulgar (you have been warned).  On the other hand, I've noticed how this place is trending lately, what with the election and all.  I've been venting a bit, too. 

What changed my mind is his post on reparations for slavery.  It's stupid and idiotic.  (Reparations, that is, not Velociman's post!!)  Reparation is to repair the damage done by one's sins.  Give back things that are stolen.  Public apology for slander.  The death penalty.  But asking me to pay for someone else's sin of slavery is just plain stupid and wrong.  I've never owned any slaves.  I don't plan on owning any slaves.  No one in my family, as far as I can tell, has ever owned slaves.  So, fuck off!  (You see what I mean about how I'm trending... .)

Go read it, and his other good stuff.

Saturday, October 6, 2012

(Updated! - Twice!!) Looks Like the New Yorker...

...is breaking ranks!


Via Gerard

Update



The thrill is gone.

Via Morgan

Update II

 I suppose this was almost inevitable:



Via Zilla

Pray and Act

The Manhattan Declaration and the 40 day fast for America.

I found this while reading through reader comments at Brietbart about  the AFP commercial I linked to in the post below.  The responder did not include any links, so, since Google is my friend, I found a bunch of posts about the 40 day fast for America.

I followed the link to the "Pray and A.C.T." page at the Renewing American Leadership (ReAL) website.  It describes the why and how of the fast.  It also directs you to the Pray and A.C.T. website.  as of today, the link fails, returning a "Server Not Found" error.  I'll poke into that when I'm done here...

The "ACT" part of the page asks that you go to the Manhattan Declaration webite, and read and sign it.  That link goes to the web page.  Here is a link to the declaration as a .PDF.

The declaration is about 4,700 words long, so get comfortable.  It is a clear and concise defense of life, marriage, and religious liberty from a Christian moral perspective.  Two thinks I liked the most about it:  first, it strongly and clearly emphasizes human free will, and the fundamental right and freedom to follow one's own conscience.  (I inferred that one might add "well informed" as a state of said conscience.  Or that could just be the Ghosts of Jesuits Past.)  Second, was the mini-lesson on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s from the Birmingham jail: "...citing Christian writers such as Augustine and Aquinas, King taught that just laws elevate and ennoble human beings because they are rooted in the moral law whose ultimate source is God Himself. Unjust laws degrade human beings. Inasmuch as they can claim no authority beyond sheer human will, they lack any power to bind in conscience. King's willingness to go to jail, rather than comply with legal injustice, was exemplary and inspiring."


Read the whole thing.  Sign it if you feel so moved.  Fast if you feel so moved.  And act, if you feel so moved.

Pax Vobiscum.

(Cross-posted at Window on Red Lion)


Presented without comment:



Via Breitbart

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Debate Drinking Game

Like the debate 'bingo' game floating around the innertubes, this one allows everyone to win, too!

(Be sure to have a designated driver!)

From Cheezburger.com/after12
I'm surprised that the ever suave Mr. Green hasn't noticed this!

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Joe Biden...

...the gift  that just keeps on giving!


That is all...

Faithful Citizenship

As I've mentioned before, I was raised Catholic, and abandoned the faith when I was about 20 or 21.  I honestly didn't agree with the teaching on birth control (I now have a grasp on the reasoning, but issues remain).  In any case, it has informed my spiritual and philosophic views of life, the universe and everything.  As I slowly come to some semblance of maturity, I'm beginning to find that the Church is starting to make more sense to me.

So, I was bouncing around the interwebs (as I do), and found a U.S. News and World Report on the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' (USCCB)  Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship .  The article discusses how there are "Faithful Citizenship" meetings in Dioceses across the country.  One of them, in Cleveland, Ohio, "...led in part by open Obama-supporter Karen Leith, downplay(s) abortion and religious freedom, issues of irreducible importance to Catholic voters."

I'd like to have a discussion with someone knowledeableon the issues, about personal adherence to no abortion in my own life (Ihave no problem with that), versus not making it legally available (life pre-Rowe vs. Wade)  I realize that women are going to have them, and I can't see forcing them into the proverbial dark alley to meet with someone who owns a coat hanger.  Am I morally obligated under the Church's teachings to opposing this?  Knowing that prohibition generally doesn't work, should we make abortion medically safe for the putative mother-to-be (a.k.a., the murderer-to-be)??

Anyway, follow the links, read the whole thing, and vote with a true heart.

And go read this at The Anchoress:  Teddy Roosevelt on how Republics Die…