We were wondering where he'd got off to

Al Gore emerges from his luxurious world of huge, energy-sucking mansions, private jets, idling for hours SUVs and ownership of frivolous, atmosphere-killing toys such as Jet-Skis in order to try and save his carbon-credit personal enrichment scheme from its deserved fate:

"I, for one, genuinely wish that the climate crisis were an illusion. But unfortunately, the reality of the danger we are courting has not been changed by the discovery of at least two mistakes in the thousands of pages of careful scientific work over the last 22 years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In fact, the crisis is still growing because we are continuing to dump 90 million tons of global-warming pollution every 24 hours into the atmosphere — as if it were an open sewer."

You're emitting more pollutants than the average small town all by yourself, dear ol' Al.  Why don't you downsize your own opulent, wasteful lifestyle a little bit first, then we'll talk, mmkay?

From the Department of Glaringly Obvious Headlines

CNN Poll: Majority says government a threat to citizens' rights

"Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government's become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens."

It's heartening to see so many of our fellow Americans beginning to wake up and realize that fact.  They've no doubt been shaken from their slumber by our current President's continued attempts to significantly expand and strengthen the behemoth that's been so ruthlessly strangling their liberties and emptying their pockets.

Apologies

Sorry for the lack of production lately.  We're beginning graduate school this evening, and have also been tapped for jury duty tomorrow (for the first time ever). 

We will be back hard at it on Saturday.

Health Care Ponzi 2.0

"The larger political message of this new proposal is that Mr. Obama and Democrats have no intention of compromising on an incremental reform, or of listening to Republican, or any other, ideas on health care. They want what they want, and they're going to play by Chicago Rules and try to dragoon it into law on a narrow partisan vote via Congressional rules that have never been used for such a major change in national policy. If you want to know why Democratic Washington is "ungovernable," this is it."

The Wall Street Journal's editorial board exposes President Obama's "updated" health-care proposal (and their intention to pass it by any means necessary) point-by-point as the transparent sham it really is.

Go read the entire piece.

A Nanny-state ripoff artist

An unemployed single mother of six with a deadbeat lawyer ex-husband in London, England apparently felt that her three bedroom public housing unit just wasn't big (or swanky) enough to suit her and the products of her fertile womb, so instead of going through the official process of applying for a bigger dwelling with the local council (the minor-league dictators that hold sway over just about every aspect of the subjects' lives in Britain) she just went ahead and rented a private house on her own - for $130,000 (U.S.) a year.  Her new next-door neighbor?  Paul McCartney. 

Incredibly, the Westminster council (with funds confiscated from taxpayers, of course) is actually footing the entire bill for her and her brood to live in this mansion:

"The four-storey house in Maida Vale has five bedrooms, two bathrooms, a double living room, large fitted kitchen-diner with French doors on to the landscaped garden and a state-of-the art buzzer entry system.
Astonishingly, it is understood Miss Marjam found the house on the internet through a private letting agency, rather than waiting for Westminster council to give her a vacant property on their books."

That's not the only money this professional leech sucks from the few hard-working taxpayers still left over there:

"She also receives an estimated £15,000 [$23,000] a year in other payouts, such as child benefit, to help look after her children, aged from five months to 14."

Even though she is putatively "destitute" enough to warrant all of these generous benefits, she nonetheless manages to somehow scrape up the money for the luxury items she wishes to purchase in order to complete her new home:

"She does, however, have two large flat-screen televisions and several leather sofas, plus a large amount of children's toys scattered over the wooden floorboards. 

During the week, vans from Argos and other home stores dropped off large purchases."

Insanity.  We imagine that she is also planning to add satellite television and maid service to her cushy new digs as well.

A direct quote right from the lady in question nicely sums up the mentality of the socialist welfare state that England has become:

"Miss Marjam said: 'I moved here at the beginning of the month as I'm entitled to a five-bedroom house.'"  (emphasis mine)

You're not entitled to a darn thing, ma'am, and it's about time someone over there cut you off from the public teat in recognition of that fact.

America is unfortunately headed right down the road to this kind of entitlement mentality as well, should we as a nation be dumb enough to acquiesce and adopt President Obama's many Britain-copycat legislative proposals.

Stepped out for a moment

Out of town to take care of some business.  Back late tomorrow.

English jurors are finally starting to get it

A jury in Hull, England has taken less than 50 minutes to acquit local builder and law-abiding subject David Fullard of a charge of "unlawful wounding" after he was forced to use an antique samurai sword (which sadly seems to have been the only defensive weapon available, seeing as how most other guns and knives in that country have been outlawed for the commoners by the ruling martinets) to cut the ear off one of a pair of armed young thugs who had burst into his house one night last year with the intention of robbing the occupants, threatening them with death and great bodily harm in the process:

"Their ordeal came last March when [Michael] Severs and pal Michael Smith - both high on vodka and cannabis - stormed into the Fullards' home in Brough, East Yorks, demanding money.

They were armed with a spade and knuckle-duster. Smith picked up the sword as they threatened to rape Mr Fullard's partner Sue, 53. 

They also said they would kill his sons Tom, 17, and Danny, 14, and torch the house."

The homeowner then struck Severs with the sword, "sever"ing his ear in what appears to be a triumph of poetic justice.

Mr. Fullard faced up to eight years in prison if he had been convicted of the crime with which he was wrongly charged, which is quite a heavy penalty especially when one compares it to the pitiful sanctions that the two "yobs" received for so brazenly invading his home that evening:

"Yesterday the two jobless thugs got six-month suspended sentences and 100 hours of community service after admitting affray."

In other words, they skated.  Severs even got his ear reattached for him courtesy of the NHS, for Pete's sake.  

That's maddeningly what passes for justice in England these days, although at least juries there seem to be finally waking up and are refusing to obediently go along with the official railroading of innocent peasants who are merely defending their homes and families from these types of remorseless thugs, using whatever crude implements at hand that haven't yet been confiscated or outlawed by their overlords.  

The jurors no doubt realize that next time it might be themselves who are in the dock facing years behind bars for daring to protect themselves and their loved ones. 

Off topic but interesting, at least to me

A helpful hint for smokers whose habit has unfortunately caught up with them:

"Oxygen feeds fire.  [Fire department spokeswoman Kristen] Thorstenson urged smokers who take oxygen not to smoke while using an oxygen tank."

That statement would seem to be patently obvious, but Ms. Phyllis Ballam of Marysville, Washington didn't follow that quite reasonable advice, and she is now deceased as a result of the conflagration that erupted when she decided to simultaneously partake in both activities.

We wonder if her family is now going to sue the oxygen company for delivering such a "dangerous product" to her home.

Want a good chuckle?

In today's Arizona Republic article concerning the large number of speed-camera tickets that Maricopa County employees are receiving while driving official vehicles (departments other than the ones which involve law-enforcement vehicles responding to emergencies; those citations are rightly excused), we find the following unbelievably pathetic excuse offered up from the head of one of the worst offending agencies:

"Others gave explanations of why their employees may have been pushing speed limits.

R.J. Cardin, director of parks and recreation said workers are stretched thin with years of budget cuts and are 'in a hurry to get where they need to be.'"

Yep, he really put that on the record. 

Mr. Cardin apparently is under the impression that just because the duties he and the apparatchiks under his command perform happen to be for the local government (merely the likes of parks and recreation, mind you), those tasks, however mundane, are far more important than the "hurry" reasons of any common peasant and therefore justifies the wanton breaking by the little martinets of the many onerous laws imposed on the general public ostensibly for everyone's "safety".

The simple concept of "everyone has to follow the same laws" seems to elude the witless Mr. Cardin, that's for sure.

We can only imagine how lit up his phone has been today.

The Jack-Booted Thug of the Week...

... is East Palo Alto, California police detective Rod Tuason for his open advocacy, however "humorously" intended, of the harassment and even outright murder of law-abiding citizens of that city who choose to openly carry unloaded firearms in belt holsters to protest their being unable to obtain concealed carry permits as they are not rich enough, famous enough or politically connected enough in San Mateo County, which practices a discriminatory "may-issue" policy with regard to such licenses:

"Detective Rod Tuason apparently made the remarks in response to a friend's status update, which joked that gun advocates who carry unloaded weapons in plain view as a political statement should start doing so in places such as Oakland, Richmond and East Palo Alto 'and not limit themselves to hoity toity cities.'

'Haha, we had one guy last week try to do it!' Tuason replied, referring to a Redwood City man who strolled into the Mi Pueblo Food Center in East Palo Alto on Jan. 27 with a gun on his hip. 'He got proned out and reminded where he was at and that turds will jack him for his gun in a heartbeat!'

After several more comments in the thread, Tuason apparently joked that officers should shoot the advocates, who have made recent headlines throughout the Bay Area for sipping coffee at cafes and performing other everyday acts with visible weapons.

'Sounds like you had someone practicing their 2nd amendment rights last night!' Tuason wrote. 'Should've pulled the AR out and prone them all out! And if one of them makes a furtive movement ... 2 weeks off!!!'"

How completely unprofessional of you, "Detective".  You'd better fervently hope that you're never involved in such a shooting scenario, as the jerkish words you so flippantly tossed off will come back to haunt you in the worst way, as they clearly show a predisposition (and even eagerness) on your part to using excessive force on a person who is not breaking the law in any way, shape or form.

Naturally, his enablers bosses on the force are working overtime to minimize the justified public outrage over Tuason's bloviating as to what exactly he thinks is his job description:

"Tuason didn't return a phone message seeking comment Monday. But East Palo Alto police Capt. Carl Estelle said the department's professional standards division is looking into the Facebook remarks to see if they violate any rules or policies.

'We have to be careful because they're on his own personal private Web page,' Estelle said. 'We have to be careful not to violate his First Amendment rights.'"

No sale, Captain.  Tuason certainly has the same First Amendment rights as anyone else.  However, he doesn't have the right to a public service job, particularly one in which the employee is putatively never off duty (remember, that's why you fellows get to carry firearms 24 hours a day, unlike the regular peasants who you purport to "serve") and is expected to maintain a professional decorum at all times, particularly when publicly discussing their official policies and actions.

Tuason's right to free speech most definitely doesn't cover his enthusiastic support of his fellow officers misusing their government-granted police powers to intimidate law-abiding citizens into not exercising their Constitutional rights, as well as his openly joking about killing citizens on the flimisiest of excuses in order to earn a two-week vacation (Let's see an ordinary peasant make an online comment about similarly killing police officers, even in jest, and see if the local department sees the humor in the statement as well as advocates the writer's "First Amendment right" to post such inflammatory speech).

The East Palo Alto Police Department's phone number is 650-853-3160, and Tuason's chief is Ronald L. Davis.  Let's remind Chief Davis in large numbers and in no uncertain terms that behavior such as Tuason's is completely unbecoming of a police officer, and that his employee must be appropriately disciplined.

Off topic but interesting, at least to me

Some low-life thug decided to take full advantage of the current blizzard conditions in the D.C. area and broke into our brother's car last night while it was parked outside his condo in Annapolis, Maryland:

One would think that the bone-chilling cold and wind as well as near-impassable road conditions would temporarily deter such nuisance crimes, but that appears to not be the case.

As irritating as our own vehicle burglary was to contend with, at least we didn't have to deal with such bad weather while trying to sort out the aftermath of the crime.

We're at least glad that he and his wife are fine, and hope that the situation is quickly resolved.

Frightening, not funny

The Super Bowl commercial for Audi, that is:





This is a picture-perfect portrayal of Al Gore's dream society (one that dear ol' Al himself wouldn't have to endure, of course, seeing as how he's one of the "elites").

This sort of governmental overreach into every aspect of the lives of the peasants is already pretty much reality in today's England:

"The UK's soft-crime initiative is now a multimillion-pound industry: parking fines levied last year totalled £330m, with another £100m from speed cameras. These numbers are expected to grow, along with fines for a burgeoning range of offences for everything from overloading wheelie bins to feeding the ducks. Some 200,000 spot fines for these garnered £12m last year...

  

...Watching you, watching me

Parking

Millions of aggrieved motorists will tell you that parking wardens have no interest in reasonable excuses, such as "I only stopped for two minutes to look at a map" or "The yellow lines were obscured by snow." Appeal away – but in the meantime drivers often risk seeing the fine double after two weeks. Wardens in Islington, north London, recently ticketed a woman who left her scooter at the scene of a crash. Another familiar complaint is the use of anti-crime CCTV – supposedly meant to catch crooks stealing cars, and record street muggings – being used to dole out yet more tickets. In total, drivers paid out £330m in parking penalties last year. Another £100m was raised in speed-trap fines.

Putting out the rubbish

Some local authorities are so strict on wheelie-bin etiquette that even the slightest shred of black bin-bag poking out of the top of the bin can lead to a fine being issued. A family in Copeland, Cumbria, were given a £210 penalty when it was discovered – horror of horrors – that their bin was over-filled by four inches. Leicester City Council recently began fining residents £100 if their wheelie bins were put out on the wrong day.

Smoking

We all know that pubs, cafés, offices – and any other public place with a roof over it – are no-go areas for smokers. But surely you can puff away in your own home or car? Aberystwyth Town Council handed out a £30 fine to a decorator for smoking in his van, arguing that the vehicle represented his workplace.

Litter

You might think this one would come with a sliding scale, with fines relevant to how much mess you leave behind. How much, then, for a dropped ice-lolly stick? Schoolgirl Sorrell Walsh, 16 at the time, was told to pay £75 in an on-the-spot fine in 2006 after leaving one on a wall. Flicking a dab of ash out of a car window and dropping a slice of tomato out of a sandwich have led to fines elsewhere. Police officers issue around 200,000 on-the-spot fines each year, roughly amounting to £12m.

Feeding the ducks

The traditional fun of kids throwing bread for the birds in the park is fraught with financial danger in the West Midlands. Sandwell Council issued a £75 penalty to Vanessa Kelly in November last year for feeding geese "outside designated feeding areas". Her son, Harry, had the last laugh: At 17 months, he's too young to be prosecuted and can fatten up the birds to his heart's content.

On your bike

If police officers in Yorkshire manage to spot unwary cyclists riding without lights at night, they will issue them with a £30 fine. In London, around 100 people a month are fined for riding their bicycles on the pavement."

and is well on its way to becoming solidly entrenched in this country as well, unless we as a nation wake up and prevent it from happening.

Audi may have unintentionally done the U.S. a huge favor by airing this ad.  Once regular people see exactly what liberal Democrats and the eco-Nazis have in mind for us, they just may be nauseated enough to change their minds about blindly going "green".

UPDATE:  Edited to add additional content quoted from the Independent article.

What a pleasant surprise

Via far too many online sources to credit we learn that Starbucks, a corporation long known for their knee-jerk leftist tendencies, has stepped up to the plate and summarily refused a demand request from the Brady Campaign that the coffee empire ban the lawful open carry of handguns by law-abiding customers from their stores in California:

"The national Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence made the request in the wake of a series of meetings in local restaurants over the past few months by Bay Area Open Carry, a group that hopes to make it legal to carry loaded guns in California... [BAOC member Brad] Huffman said Open Carry advocates often visit Starbucks displaying [the article's author appears to choose the wrong descriptive here, perhaps intentionally; the participants all have their firearms safely and properly secured in holsters, which doesn't seem to quite merit the term "displaying", which in our opinion implies that the group's members are somehow waving their sidearms around willy-nilly] unloaded weapons, either during formal events or informally"

(The group's cause in a nutshell:  Californians currently suffer under a "may-issue" policy for concealed handgun permits, which for non-celebrities, the non-rich and the non-politically connected usually results in a "may-not" answer to their permit application.  Under that state's laws, however, the open carry of an unloaded firearm with the ammunition readily available elsewhere on one's person is perfectly legal, as long as it isn't in a prohibited building like a courthouse or within 1000 feet of a school.  Consequently, Bay Area Open Carry and other such groups carry openly as much as possible in order to gently persuade the state legislature to pass a "shall-issue" concealed-carry permitting system, a strategy that has been previously used with great success in states such as Ohio.)

"I don't want someone who carries a gun into a store to be making life-and-death decisions. I don't think it's safe for them to be there," said [local Brady Campaign ninny] Griffin Dix, who leads the Oakland-Alameda County chapter, which has more than 500 members and other chapters in San Mateo and Contra Costa counties."

We would very much prefer to have a trained law-abiding citizen present to make such a "life-and-death" decision when armed criminals (who are extremely common in Oakland, the last time we checked) decide to break countless laws (to say nothing of a given store's policy) and enter an establishment with the intent to rob and assault the innocent employees and patrons inside, rather than being stuck with the alternative of having all those victims be otherwise completely unable to defend themselves from those thugs.  We're sorry that you can't see the obvious good sense in that line of thinking for yourself, Mr. Dix.

Excellent job of turning down the hysterics, Starbucks management.  Please keep up the good work.

"Unsustainable"

Mark Steyn hits another column about President Obama and his profligate budget proposals (all in the name of our government somehow spending their way out of a complete lack of money) right out of the park.  Our favorite bit:

"The palpable whiff given off by the White House inner circle is that they're the last people on the planet still besotted by Barack Obama, and that they're having such a cool time starring in their own reality-show remake of "The West Wing" they can only conceive of the public – and, indeed, the world – as crowd-scene extras in "The Barack Obama Show." They expect you to cheer and wave flags when the floor manager tells you to, but the notion that, in return, he should be able to persuade you of the merits of his policies seems entirely to have eluded them."

Testify, Brother Steyn.

The whole thing's well worth a read.

"Corpse-man"

Anyone else catch the gaffe that our Dear Leader made (twice!) when he misread his security blanket teleprompter at the National Prayer Breakfast the other day?



We understand that people who speak publicly many times a day often make minor mistakes, and don't intend to castigate President Obama over this one; we only mention it because we are positive that had former President Bush said this when he was President we would immediately have been subjected to the elite mainstream media liberals who would take the opportunity to once again pontificate about how "this once again proves how dumb and uneducated Chimpy McHitler really is".  Because Obama's their shining hero, though, we get dead silence from those very same media types about his unfortunate boo-boos.

"Corpse-man".  Heh.  You'd think he would have caught his error after saying it out loud the first time.

A snapshot of life

Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Scottsdale, Arizona
8:15 p.m.

Seen posted on the bulletin board of our local gym:

 

Just how many Latin American-born legal residents and U.S. citizens are going to need to communicate with an exclusively Spanish-speaking Census worker?

Not nearly enough to warrant this kind of mass advertising for significant numbers of such helpful employees, we wager.  This flier is obviously recruiting canvassers who will be targeting the illegal immigrants present in our country, which will have the (intended?) effect of wrongly and unfairly skewing such items as the number of a given state's Congressional seats or the distribution of Federal funds for various projects, things which are supposed to be calculated based on the legal population of America.

The statement below the image of a hand translates to "It's in our hands".

It most certainly is, to our government's eternal shame.

It's good to be in charge

Newfoundland, Canada Premier Danny Williams has announced that he's going to be undergoing heart surgery this week.

In the U.S.

Agonizingly long waits and substandard care are perfectly O.K. for the average Canadian peasant, it seems, but the ruling elite up there just won't tolerate those conditions for themselves.

"Mr. Williams' decision to leave Canada for the surgery has raised eyebrows over his apparent shunning of Canada's health-care system."

This turn of events really shouldn't come as a shock to Canadians.  Leaders from all over the world regularly flock to America for the best treatment available, despite their constant bashing of our lack of the type of socialized medicine scheme that ironically fails them in their home countries.

"'It was never an option offered to him to have this procedure done in this province,' said Ms. Dunderdale, refusing to answer whether the procedure could be done elsewhere in Canada."

A no-win situation.  If the procedure is available, he will get severe criticism for not having the operation there.  If it isn't, he will be quizzed mercilessly as to why not, since their system is so obviously superior (at least in their minds) to America's.  No wonder spokeswoman Dunderdale is having to dance in that manner.

Mr. Williams is of course a devotee of leftist politics, which therefore makes him a hypocrite of the first order:
  
"A popular Progressive Conservative premier, Mr. Williams has also seen his share of controversy. During the 2008 federal election, Mr. Williams vehemently opposed the Conservative government, launching his "Anything But Conservative" -- which has been credited with keeping the Tories from winning any seats in the province."

His new slogan would appear to be "Anything But Socialized Medicine For Me".

We wish him a successful operation and a speedy recovery.