The Rest of the Story…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

Peter over at Bayou Renaissance Man put up an excellent post HERE on how badly we are screwed by the latest debt shenanigans…

But there IS more to that story where the military is concerned, and it’s NOT good…

These extracts are from various news stories both online and dead tree.

The White House has already ordered the Pentagon to come up with about $400 billion in savings over the next 12 years, a reduction that would slow the growth in defense spending to about the current rate of inflation.

The larger and more painful cuts of an additional $600 billion would be triggered only if Republicans and Democrats cannot come to an agreement on a second round of spending cuts in the next four months.

“You could reasonably make those cuts as long as you were willing to rethink our military strategy, not allow for any sacred cows and cut ruthlessly,” said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, an influential defense think tank with close ties to the Pentagon.

On Monday, almost no one was advocating such big reductions, totaling as much as $1 trillion over the next decade, in defense spending. “The president does not – has not called for – and would not support these kinds of cuts in defense spending,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

Republicans warned that the cuts would be catastrophic to the U.S. military at a time of growing threats to the nation.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon has been struggling to even come up with the $400 billion in cuts over 12 years that the president requested. “I don’t think the Defense Department has fully accepted the new budget environment,” said a senior U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing budget negotiations. “They are acting as if the $400 billion cut is the maximum and pushing back. But congressional plans seem to have gone far beyond that.”

To find $1 trillion in savings, the White House would have to make major changes to its current global military strategy, under which the Pentagon should be able to fight two wars such as Iraq and Afghanistan simultaneously.

Scaling back that requirement would allow for big cuts to the Army and Marine Corps, which collectively have grown by about 92,000 men and women since 2001 and would probably have to shrink at a minimum to pre-2001 levels. In shrinking the force, Congress would be betting that the Afghan war will wind down as planned and that the country will not be drawn into any big, costly counterinsurgency wars in the next 10 to 15 years.


Now here are a couple of statements that are counter to the above…

Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, President Obama’s nominee to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned last week that proposed cuts as high as $800 billion to $1 trillion to the military budget would be “extraordinarily difficult and very high risk.”


“If they would exceed $400 billion, we would start to have to make some fundamental changes in the capability of the Marine Corps,” said Gen. Joseph Dunford, assistant commandant.


The bottom line is that a $1 Trillion cut would effectively gut the military, and I am at the point that I believe the Democrats will purposely screw this “super congress” up to the point that no bills will pass and they WILL force the cuts to the highest level to gut the military to support their entitlement programs and damn the rest of the world or our mutual aid agreements…

And here is the letter from all the Republicans on the HASC to the President.  After you read it, I’ll be interested in your comments…
Especially the last sentence on page 1 and the following paragraph on page 2…

Guy with the gun robbed of his gun…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
Open carry proponent robbed of his gun at gun point…
Just because you’re carrying, you can’t sit in Condition White and think you’re safe… sigh…

And some of the ‘comments’ are rather interesting too…

It’s official, Knives are SHARP…

Posted on by March 6, 2013


And in other news I’m stupid…


NON-PC pic follows...

Teh stupid it burns (and hurts too)…


THIS is what happens when you do stupid things with sharp knives, like pry something.  I was helping a friend’s wife fix a new blind in the kitchen, and was trying to pop a plug holding the cord in the bottom of the blind out.  I could NOT get a screwdriver under the last @#*(*) plug, after a number of attempts, I pulled out my Benchmade and was trying to pry the plug up enough to get a screw driver under it.  Needless to say, it decided to pop out, she let go of the other end of the blind, and it twisted my off hand up as I was trying to not cut any cords on the blind…


Instead, I cut the hell outta my thumb… 10 stiches, 5 internal, 5 external, antibiotics, and no pain meds. At least I missed the tendon, but not by much (they are real shiny when not covered with blood)…


The female doc called me an idiot (true), said I didn’t deserve pain meds, and needed to hurt to ‘remember’ not to do stupid things…


So I’m chewing ibuprofen like candy and cussing my stupidity… 


Accidents DO happen, especially when we do stupid things- The old right tool for the job would have prevented this.   


Don’t be stupid…


That is the PSA for today…

Humor??? Or the NEW Reality if we continue down the path we’re on…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
Thanksgiving 2022

Winston, come into the dining room, it’s time to eat,” Julia yelled to her husband. “In a minute, honey, it’s a tie score,” he answered. Actually Winston wasn’t very interested in the traditional holiday football game between Detroit and Washington. Ever since the government passed the Civility in Sports Statute of 2017, outlawing tackle football for its “unseemly violence” and the “bad example it sets for the rest of the world”,Winston was far less of a football fan than he used to be. Two-hand touch wasn’t nearly as exciting.
Yet it wasn’t the game that Winston was uninterested in. It was more the thought of eating another Tofu Turkey. Even though it was the best type of Veggie Meat available after the government revised the American Anti-Obesity Act of 2018, adding fowl to the list of federally-forbidden foods, (which already included potatoes, cranberry sauce, and mincemeat pie), it wasn’t anything like real turkey.

And that was the year they took all the guns, since “hunting” was officially outlawed under the same act, so there was no need to have any guns.  The NRA was disbanded as a terrorist organization, and their entire membership list was added to the terrorist watch list, put on GPS monitoring and most lost their jobs, as they were restricted to no more than 2 miles of travel from home.  Winston absently rubbed his ankle, remembering those two years until he ‘proved’ he was safe.
And ever since the government officially changed the name of “Thanksgiving Day” to “A National Day of Atonement” in 2020, to  officially acknowledge the Pilgrims’ historically brutal treatment of Native Americans, the holiday had lost a lot of its luster. Eating in the dining room was also a bit daunting. The unearthly gleam of government-mandated fluorescent light bulbs made the Tofu Turkey look even weirder than it actually was, and the room was always cold.
Ever since Congress passed the Power Conservation Act of 2016, mandating all thermostats – which were monitored and controlled by the electric company – be kept at 68 degrees, every room on the north side of the house was barely tolerable throughout the entire winter.
         

Still, it was good getting together with family. Or at least most of the family. Winston missed his mother, who passed on in October, when she had used up her legal allotment of life-saving medical treatment. He had had many heated conversations with the Regional Health Consortium, spawned when the private insurance market finally went bankrupt, and everyone was forced into the government health care program. And though he demanded she be kept on her treatment, it was a futile effort. “The RHC’s resources are limited”, explained the government bureaucrat Winston spoke with on the phone. “Your mother received all the benefits to which she was entitled. I’m sorry for your loss.”
         

Ed couldn’t make it either. He had forgotten to plug in his electric car last night, the only kind available after the Anti-Fossil Fuel Bill of 2021 outlawed the use of the combustion engines – for everyone but government officials. The fifty mile round trip was about ten miles too far, and Ed didn’t want to spend a frosty night on the road somewhere between here and there.
         

Thankfully, Winston’s brother, John, and his wife were flying in. Winston made sure that the dining room chairs had extra cushions for the occasion. No one complained more than John about the pain of sitting down so soon after the government-mandated cavity searches at airports, which severely aggravated his hemorrhoids. Ever since a terrorist successfully smuggled a cavity bomb onto a jetliner, the TSA told Americans the added “inconvenience” was an “absolute necessity” in order to stay “one step ahead of the terrorists.”
         

Winston’s own body had grown accustomed to such probing ever since the government expanded their scope to just about anywhere a crowd gathered, via Anti-Profiling Act of 2022. That law made it a crime to single out any group or individual for “unequal scrutiny,” even when probable cause was involved. Thus, cavity searches at malls, train stations, bus depots, etc., etc., had become almost routine. Almost.
         

The Supreme Court is reviewing the statute, but most Americans expect a Court composed of six progressives and three conservatives to leave the law intact. “A living Constitution is extremely flexible”, said the Court’s eldest member, Elena Kagan. ” Europe has had laws like this one for years. We should learn from their example”, she added.
Winston’s thoughts turned to his own children.  He got along fairly well with his 12-year-old daughter, Brittany, mostly because she ignored him. Winston had long ago surrendered to the idea that she could text anyone at any time, even during Atonement Dinner. Their only real confrontation had occurred when he limited her to 50,000 texts a month, explaining that was all he could afford. She whined for a week, but got over it.
         

His 16-year-old son, Jason, was another matter altogether. Perhaps it was the constant bombarding he got in public school that global warming, the bird flu, terrorism, or any of a number of other calamities were “just around the corner”, but Jason had developed a kind of nihilistic attitude that ranged between simmering surliness and outright hostility. It didn’t help that Jason had reported his father to the police for smoking a cigarette in the house, an act made criminal by the Smoking Control Statute of 2018, which outlawed smoking anywhere within 500 feet of another human being. Winston paid the $5,000 fine, which might have been considered excessive before the American dollar became virtually
worthless as a result of QE13.

         

The latest round of quantitative easing the federal government initiated was, once again, to “spur economic growth.” This time, they promised to push unemployment below its years-long rate of 18%, but Winston was not particularly hopeful.
         

Yet the family had a lot for which to be thankful, Winston thought, before remembering it was a Day of Atonement. At least, he had his memories. He felt a twinge of sadness when he realized his children would never know what life was like in the Good Old Days, long before government promises to make life “fair for everyone” realized their full potential.

Hearing the roar of a big Detroit V8, riding in a convertible, going to the range for friendly competition, actually LISTENING to one’s parents, cooking a real steak on a grill; oh man, now all they get is what the government ‘lets’ them do.
         

Winston, like so many of his fellow Americans, never realized how much things could change when they didn’t happen all at once, but little by little, so people could get used to them. He wondered what might have happened if the public had stood up while there was still time, maybe back around 2011, when all the real nonsense began. “Maybe we wouldn’t be where we are today if we’d just said ‘enough is enough’ when we had the chance,” he thought. Maybe so, Winston. Maybe so.

Truth- In short form…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

Six short sentences that say it all:
1.  You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity, by legislating the wealth out of prosperity.
2.  What one person receives without working for…another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.
5. When half of the people get the  idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work, because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation!

6.  Bottom line- The problems we face today are there because the people who work for a living are out-numbered by those who vote for a living.


This is, I believe, in a nutshell where we are today. The Congresscritters in DC just don’t get the fact that we the people are TIRED of working our asses off so that others may reap the fruits of our labor.  President Unicorn wants us to call our Senators and Representatives; I did and told all four offices I was fed up, and to NOT pass anything that did not include a balanced budget, and I also told both offices if we can get term limits into a Constitutional Amendment I’m all for that too…


h/t JP

Here We Go Again, Part 439???

Posted on by March 6, 2013
Go HERE and view the latest video from DHS on terrorists… Then come back and read what’s below the video… 

A new promotional video released by the Department of Homeland Security characterizes white middle class Americans as the most likely terrorists, as Big Sis continues its relentless drive to cement the myth that mad bombers are hiding around every corner, when in reality Americans are just as likely to be killed by lightning strikes or peanut allergies.

Comment by Alex Jones: This DHS video is purposefully designed to transmit fear and hatred of Muslims over to white Americans. Look at the part of the clip where an image of “Jihad Jane” is displayed, the blue eyes are artificially intensified in order to get the message across.

This is about playing minorities off against whites, creating further resentment and suspicion, getting us at each other’s throats just as how different racial groups were set upon each other in Hitler’s Germany to create an environment of fear and distrust, motivating people to inform on each other for the state.


They just continue to come after us any way they can… White, Religious, gun owner, veteran, middle class, and working for a living, yep YOU are a terrorist!!!


Sigh…


H/T to Infowars for getting this one out

Recoil Therapy = GOOD!!!

Posted on by March 6, 2013


I feel MUCH better now 🙂  


Yesterday I got together with Chris and Laura from Insert Witty Title Here, Newbuis from the Newbuis Papers,  R A Bear from Sipsey Street and a couple of their friends for a visit to the NRA Museum, lunch and shoot at the NRA range.


Folks, if you haven’t been to the NRA Museum, it is DEFINITELY worth the trip, an education into what our history with firearms is, and for Chris, it was kid in a candy store time 🙂


Lunch was hilarious, stories abounding, and people just enjoying themselves and as usual, the conversations ranged far and wide, from cooking to movies, to life, to cars, and oh yeah, guns!!!


We headed back over to the range, had about a 1/2 hour wait (better than the 2 hour wait in the morning), but finally got a couple of lanes and started ‘therapy’.  


Chris brought a .44 Bulldog, Laura brought her new Rock Island Match 1911 and the Bersa in .380, and Suds had an HK 45 USP (that is one HEAVY pistol).   


I screwed up, as I figured since Laura had a .45 she’d be ‘comfortable’ shooting mine, but when I put her on my C&S .45 with 230gr Gold Dots up the pipe, she shot the first round and looked around at me with a really strange expression.  She finished off the mag, and we stepped behind the line, and she told me that was the FIRST time she’d ever shot a .45 with full power loads!!!


Note to self- CHECK with folks about their experience…


Chris shot it with no problems (hell, ANYBODY that shoots a Bulldog .44 can handle a .45)!  


I ran the target out to 25 yards and brought out the Clark Heavy Slide and handed that one to Laura and she actually got all but 1 round on paper at 25 yards (she had never shot at that range either).  She came up with the perfect definition of the stippling on the front strap, she said it looked and felt like a cheese grater after looking at her hand!  🙂


We kept cycling through the pistols, reloading mags and stepping back up and as usual, I did my token head shot miss and ran one round by the right ear… sigh… I CANNOT get through a round without doing that at least once!!!


We were running low on ammo and running out of time, so we decided to call it a day, but I’d call it a GOOD day!


Good food, good friends, good shooting… It doesn’t get any better than that!  


And we stepped outside and it was 102 degrees at 6pm… Came home and cleaned guns (the pain after the pleasure)…

Back in Battery…

Posted on by March 6, 2013


“Survived” the trip… bout all I can say… Don’t EVER fly Delta if you can help it… They absolutely SUCK!!!


Wed- Worked all day, haul ass to DCA, get through security and barely make the airplane for a 1700 takeoff; which backs away from the gate and immediately goes on a 48 minute ‘ground hold’ due to WX in ATL.  90 minutes later, pilot says we’re going as soon as he can start the fans we have 7 minutes to make our takeoff slot…


BUT…


Dumbass pilot tries to start the fans off the APU while still pumping AC into the cabin, result?  One APU shutdown… So there we sit on the ramp on 28VDC, not moving and no APU (and blocking the ramp).  20 minutes later he finally gets the APU to restart, and both fans going; we taxi to the holding area and sit for another 30 ish minutes…


1 1/2 hours later we land at ATL, only to spend 45 minutes in the penalty box, since there are no open gates (and I watch my connecting airplane taxi out and take off)… Finally get to a B gate, get off, harried agent won’t even talk to us, she is “Too Busy”… so go stand in line at ‘customer service’ (NOT!!!); it’s now 2130 and I’m looking up flights on my phone, while I stand in line.  I finally get up the front, only to be told I’ve been resked for 0800 Thurs AM departure-


Nope- Not accepting that, point out there is a 2225 departure on ASA going to Panama City; but agent doesn’t want to do it.  I force the issue and finally get a boarding pass.  Problem is, I’m in Terminal B, ASA is Terminal E and it’s now 2205, do the OJ through the terminal to the tram, do the OJ to the E gate, only to find out that in fact I was NOT assigned a seat and am standby for the flight…  sigh…


Get the last seat on the airplane, finally get to Panama City at 2315, only to find they have cancelled my car rental, the only thing available is now $97 a day, vice the $37 a day I had (Thank you VERY much Avis, I’ll never darken your doorstep again)…


Oh lovely, it’s a black car, with black vinyl interior… In FLORIDA no less, in the middle of the summer.


Finally get to the hotel at midnight-30, at least they didn’t give my room away… Get a 0400 wake up call and crash.


Up at 0400, pierside at 0500, underway at 0530.  Computer problems, but finally get them solved and get systems up, and get to work.  Problem is, units are NOT working… After about 4 units, tech ‘remembers’ they changed the initiation procedure… Lovely…


Knock off at sunset, finally get some sleep, back up at 0500, more work until sunset, go to crash and no air in the bunk room… Lost one of the AC units, only cooling is on the bridge and in Ops Center.  Damn…


Too hot to sleep, go back to work on other stuff.  Finish up at 0500, speed run back to the beach at 1100; flight is available just after noon, jump off the boat, run to the car, throw bag in trunk, jump in car and promptly scream foul words… Remember the black car, with black interior, in Florida?  Yeah, I’ve got waffle burns on the backs of my legs (shorts), and my butt… 


Go get water out of the hydrant, pour over driver’s seat- It literally steams off, but after two glasses I can at least sit in the seat.  Haul ass to the airport, get picked for “random” security check, make the flight by literally about 2 minutes.  


Get to ATL, this time I only have to go from B to A terminals, get to the gate, only to find out I have no seat on the connecting flight??? WTF???  Apparently my seat was “mis-assigned”, e.g. somebody put a non-rev or buddy fare in my seat and I got bumped.  I sit for two hours in ATL, can’t afford to pay for food in that damn place when a BAGEL and a 12 oz cup of coffee is $9…


Finally get on a flight, literally the LAST frikkin row of the airplane, grumpy flight attendant, and the third of three airplanes with NO water in the Lavs.  I’m wondering if Delta is so broke they can’t afford water?  I mean, THREE flights out of three with no water??? WTF??? 


Finally get back to DCA, and I ‘hope’ it was the FO making the landing and then he JUMPS on the brakes rather than tap checking em;  cause if that was the Captain, it was pretty frikkin sad… 


All in all, another “fun”, “exciting” trip… Yeah, right…


I needs me some recoil therapy tomorrow to put me in a better mood!!! Night all…

Another Gun Lawsuit… Against DC yet again…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
Current District of Columbia Housing Authority (DCHA) rules forbid law-abiding residents from owning a firearm for any lawful purpose. The National Rifle Association (NRA) is supporting and financing a lawsuit to challenge this policy.  The case is Scott v. District of Columbia Housing Authority.

DCHA residents, just like all Americans, have a fundamental, individual right to keep firearms in their homes for self-defense.  This right, affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in its landmark Heller and McDonald decisions, is guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  Denying anyone a basic right based on their zip code or tax bracket is unacceptable.  The NRA will continue our fight to ensure that all law-abiding Americans can fully exercise their constitutional freedoms.

The NRA has successfully challenged a similar ban on firearms in public housing in San Francisco and is currently challenging one in Delaware. 

LIght Blogging and Commenting…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

Due to work related stuff, gonna be off the grid for a couple of days… Should be back Saturday-ish…


Go read the good folks on the sidebar, they are MUCH more interesting than I am.