Bill Whittle’s latest Afterburner:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjrnmBKwuf8?rel=0]
Month: October 2013
Don’t Kid Yourself – They’re Still Working Toward It
So Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, goes on The Daily Show to be interviewed by Jon Stewart. I watched the whole thing.
I didn’t hear what Journolist Andrea Mitchell apparently heard:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQLtvnzEIPM?rel=0]
I’m Safe!
Did my annual Mining Safety and Heath Administration refresher today. Good for another year.
XKCD Spikes the Ball
Quote of the Day – .Gov Shutdown Edition
From a comment at Instapundit:
All this havoc wreaked through the Park Service. Consider that for a moment. The National Park Service has managed to barricade scenic vistas in North Dakota, piss off World War 2 vets in DC, and keep small children from getting home to their parents after school in Tennessee. And it’s just the Park Service! Imagine if the federal government were as omnipresent and powerful as the left wishes it were. “Sorry; we’d love for you to have your kidney transplant, but the government is shut down. All because you pesky citizens wouldn’t behave!”
But holy crap, it’s the Park Service! The absurdity is stupefying. Just the thought of using something as innocuous as the PARK SERVICE to cause so much damage–all for the sake of causing damage and pissing people off–confounds the mind. It’s like a confederacy of clowns on tricycles, swarming over the nation, wreaking havoc with balloon animals and confetti–because those are the only tools at their disposal.
But, in any case, Obama’s intended lesson was meant to be, “See how awful life is without your Federal Family?” But the lesson learned–I hope–is, “See how awful your Federal Family can make your life if you tick it off?” We’re not seeing the absence of government; we’re seeing an excess of bad government.
But only if you go online and look for it.
My brother posted this picture on Facebook a day or so ago. Pretty much says it all:
Your Moment of Zen
I needed this:
I don’t know where this is, but it is calming.
Quote of the Day – Barrycade Edition
From Dave Carter at his Ricochet post When the Bleeding Heart Becomes the Iron Fist:
Welcome to liberal utopia, where barriers are not erected against terrorists or illegal aliens on our nation’s borders, but rather against citizens, and where wheelchair-bound veterans enroute to honor their comrades face tighter security than terrorists enroute to murder a US Ambassador. This is where up is down, wrong is right, illegality is celebrated as progress, and where Constitutionalism is derided as racist. No longer relegated to the fever swamps of academic fancy, utopia has acquired real estate and made known its demands.
“Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual…” the First Lady warned us, and she wasn’t just whistling Alinsky either.
As usual, RTWT.
I’m reminded once again of something from an earlier piece, True Believers, wherein I quoted Glen Wishard from his (currently abandoned) blog Canis Iratus – specifically his post A Thumbnail History of the Twentieth Century. That quote was this (emphasis in the original):
The rise and fall of the Marxist ideal is rather neatly contained in the Twentieth Century, and comprises its central political phenomenon. Fascism and democratic defeatism are its sun-dogs. The common theme is politics as a theology of salvation, with a heroic transformation of the human condition (nothing less) promised to those who will agitate for it. Political activity becomes the highest human vocation. The various socialisms are only the most prominent manifestation of this delusion, which our future historian calls “politicism”. In all its forms, it defines human beings as exclusively political animals, based on characteristics which are largely or entirely beyond human control: ethnicity, nationality, gender, and social class. It claims universal relevance, and so divides the entire human race into heroes and enemies. To be on the correct side of this equation is considered full moral justification in and of itself, while no courtesy or concession can be afforded to those on the other. Therefore, politicism has no conscience whatsoever, no charity, and no mercy.
“…politics as a theology of salvation…. Political activity becomes the highest human vocation…and so divides the entire human race into heroes and enemies.”
Well, we know for sure who Barack’s enemies are now, don’t we? And doesn’t “no conscience whatsoever, no charity, and no mercy” pretty much describe today’s Political Class?
But When a Long Train of Abuses and Usurpations…
Let’s see…
First there was the “Barrycading” of the WWII Memorial, Vietnam Memorial and Lincoln Memorial, and the not-so barricading of the WWI Memorial. Then there was the not-National Park that was closed by the National Park Service, and the parking lots for Mt. Vernon were closed, even though Mt. Vernon is also not run by the Park Service. Then the National Park Service evicted people from their homes and houseboats on Lake Mead. If that’s not petty enough for you:
But there’s more! Unknown to me before today, I discovered that the Pentagon spent $5.5 billion in the days leading up to the “government shutdown,” and I was told today by a reliable source that the Marine Air Station in Yuma, Arizona has been “flying every aircraft in its inventory” over the last several days – beginning last Friday. Also apparently the “government shutdown” has caused Catholic priests in military (to) face arrest for celebrating Mass.
And in what is quite possibly the single greatest example of .gov hubris in modern history,
Just before the weekend, the National Park Service informed charter boat captains in Florida that the Florida Bay was “closed” due to the shutdown. Until government funding is restored, the fishing boats are prohibited from taking anglers into 1,100 square-miles of open ocean. Fishing is also prohibited at Biscayne National Park during the shutdown.
Yup. The government is trying to close the ocean.
As one Park Ranger has been quoted:
We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting.
This shot pretty much sums up the whole thing for me:
I was blog-surfing tonight, and I visited /var/log/otto as I do about once a week or so. In Otto’s post from Thursday, Fence Sitting is No Longer an Option was this:
This morning on the radio they played clips of Obama and company comparing Republicans and Tea Partiers to terrorists … I was in the car with my wife – who doesn’t actively follow the political scene, but she’s not ignorant either – and after hearing the clips she said, “He’s trying to start a civil war.” And you know, I don’t think she’s wrong. He has to frame it correctly, of course, he can’t look like the bad guy, but he’s got the American media in his pocket, they are his puppets and they do what he says. The international scene is a distraction from what he wants to do- crush the American way and any who would defend it. He doesn’t attack any international crisis with the relish and enthusiasm he attacks and mocks his political enemies. I say Obama, but he has a huge array of like-minded comrades both in and out of government. They are a real and present danger. They want an uprising so they can crush it. I don’t doubt this any longer.
It certainly appears that way. The Media Narrative™ is that hordes of violent, racist TEA Partiers who hate the .gov and have been stockpiling weapons and ammunition are just waiting for the spark that will give rise to anti-government riots.
And Obama has fired up the grinder and is throwing all the sparks he possibly can.
I don’t see another explanation, do you?
Edited to add: Brietbart has a more complete list of closures and other idiocy.
Folks who live in the Great Smoky Mountains have just about reached their breaking point with the federal government.
“It’s almost like they are pushing to see how far they can push before the American people say enough is enough,” said Ed Mitchell, the mayor of Blount County, Tenn.
Almost?
“We were founded on a declaration of independence. And they are about to push the people to the line again.”
Nearly a third of Blount County is inside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. So when the federal government shut down the park, it also shut down one of the area’s chief sources of revenue.
The National Park Service also closed the Foothills Parkway, a major thoroughfare in the county. The closure came without warning and left the local school district scrambling to get children back to their homes.
The children live in the eastern Tennessee community of Top of the World – serviced by School Bus 49. Normally, the bus travels along the Foothills Parkway. Other roads leading to the isolated mountain community are impassible by bus.
“It’s dangerous,” said Nancy Kemp, the spokesperson for Blount County Schools. “It’s very curvy and straight up the mountain. It’s just not a safe route.”
One local resident told Knoxville television station WBIR that the alternative roads are “white knuckle routes.”
“White knuckle”? That’s RACIST!
So much for “Doing it for the CHIIILLLDDDREN! Of course, if a busload of kids dies in a horrible accident, the media will report it as being the fault of House Republicans the TEA Party.
As Instapundit says:
If the press covered Obama the way they’d cover a GOP President who did this kind of thing, he’d be toast. But they don’t, because they’re on his team. Just think of them as Dem operatives with bylines and you won’t go far wrong.
Out With the Old, In With the … Older! (Pt. II)
So, back in 2005 I suspended my search for a Smith & Wesson Model 25-5 Lew Horton special N-frame 5″ barreled .45 Colt and instead purchased a 4″ Model 25-13 Mountain Gun in that caliber. Then, early the following year I bought a Winchester ’94 rifle in the same caliber. Early this year, I traded my ’94 for a smaller, handier Rossi ’92 – again in .45 Colt.
Today I went to see my favorite Merchant O’Death, and he said, “Kevin, you like Smith & Wesson revolvers! Wanna see something interesting?”
It’s not a Lew Horton, but it is a custom Model 25-7, 5″ .45 Colt. No stupid lock, heavy barrel, unfluted cylinder, firing pin on the hammer. Looks like this:
(click for full size)
Now I need to get it to the range to see how it shoots. It weighs about 5 oz. more than the Mountain Gun and a lot of that is in the barrel, so hopefully it’ll be a bit less brisk with the 285 grain cast load I shoot in that caliber.
It belonged to the guy who owns the gun shop I bought it from, so I’m expecting good things.
More Truth in Fiction
I recently picked up Larry Correia’s latest, Swords of Exodus and I started reading it tonight. I’m only a short way into the book, but this passage struck me:
I’ve lived in every shit hole on Earth, and they’re all the same. It pisses me off to see the same thing creeping in here. There are always assholes who want to hurt the regular people, and then along come the control freaks who want to capitalize on fear of the scary assholes to control the regular people. The scary assholes just don’t care, so repeat, repeat, repeat. Government’s like a ratchet, and it just keeps on cranking down. This isn’t the country I grew up in anymore. People got too scared of the assholes so now the ratchet’s getting real tight. People think they’re trading chaos for order, but they’re just trading normal human evil for the really dangerous organized kind of evil, the kind that simply does not give a shit. Only bureaucrats can give you true evil.
Word.