Red Ink: Texas

The swath of death widens, but the story just won't die.

2012-01-20T19:56:00.004-06:00

Back in July 2008, I wrote a post about Larry Sinclair, Donald Young, Larry Bland, Nathaniel Spencer and their connection to Barack Obama. Since then, the story has both refused to die, as well as expanded. Wayne Madsen posted a story about Donald Young's mother's contention that Obama's organization murdered him. Now an eyewitness account of a gay sex encounter between Donald Young and Barack Obama has come to light, and conveniently, the woman who saw it has died under questionable circumstances. Now, the way I see it, there are at least two, possibly as many as four, people dead to try to bury this story, but the story just won't die. You know what they say: It isn't the original crime that gets you, it is the cover up, but in this case, it just might be both.

How we will trigger WWIII by refusing to fire a shot

2011-11-02T11:17:00.000-05:00

The Obama admin is making a huge mistake in refusing to strike Iran's nuclear facilities in a limited conventional fashion. By refusing to do so ourselves with our conventional bunker busting weapons capabilities, we are forcing Israel to do so. And unfortunately Israel does not have the long range conventional capability to do so without sending it's pilots on a one-way suicide mission. Which forces Israel to contemplate Nuclear Weapons in order to get the job done. The political fallout (not to mention the nuclear fallout) that will result from an Israeli nuclear attack on Iran will probably result in an all-out war on Israel from all sides, one in which Israel's survival may well be in question. (At least not without the use of more nuclear arms on the combatants.) Do we really want to be the cause of WWIII?

About those Sex Harassment claims against Herman Cain...

2011-10-31T11:51:00.000-05:00

Before everyone jumps all over him for being a perv, I would ask that you stop and think about the situation as a whole first. Sex harassment claims are very difficult to defend against. You usually have no documentation, and few if any unbiased witnesses, and you never know what kind of jury you'll draw either, so you are going into court with the deck stacked against you. Secondly, in these situations, the corporation is named in the lawsuit and therefore the corporations ins. co is in the driver's seat on any settlements. The accused might have to sign off on any settlement, but if you refuse, the ins. co will leave you holding the bag for whatever the jury might decide. So the pressure on the accused to sign on the dotted line is immense. Many women (and lawyers) have figured out that filing a bogus sex harassment claim is tantamount to winning the lottery, there is very little incentive not to. At worst, you are given just enough money to pay the plaintiff's lawyer, at best you retire a rich person. Who cares if nobody would ever hire you again? You're rich! THIS is a perfect example of why Loser Pays must be instituted nation wide, if you are going to make this kind of claim, you need to have some skin in the game.

Measuring the length of the Thread of the Fates.

2011-05-16T09:10:00.004-05:00

In Ancient Greek Lore, Three Women who all shared a single eye, measured the length of each person's life by a thread which they cut when the life was to come to an end. In genetics, this is believed to be analogous to the lengths of a repeating "end of file" or EOF marker in computer parlance, at the end of your DNA called telomeres. The number of repeats dictates the length of our lives based on the fact that when cells replicate, the number of telomeres is reduced by one. So in theory, when the number of "EOF" markers reaches zero, then the replication fails resulting in DNA damage which either results in cell death (apoptosis) outright, or cancer/mutation which may or may not result in apoptosis, but will certainly lead to health effects on the body as a whole.

A company in the UK has developed a genetic test in which they compare the number of telomeres still in your DNA to your chronological age and try to extrapolate how long (approximately) you have to live based on this ratio. Now, this is certainly not proven to be accurate, but there is strong evidence that telomeres are a good guide to the longevity of an organism. Cancer cells and Stem cells replicate without reducing the telomere count and are by all accounts appear to be "immortal" for all practical purposes.

The company plans to make this test available to the public in the UK for the equivalent of about $700USD (at current exchange rates). Which begs the question: Is this a good idea? The test of course almost certainly has a fairly wide margin of error, and does not take into account a number of things that may shorten your life such as accident or poor diet/exercise. So someone could get information that they will live a relatively short life and decide there is no point in saving for retirement and blow all their money, or the reverse is true, someone who thinks they will live a long time saves every penny they have to live on when they get old, only to die in a car wreck five years later. What about the potential for depression/suicide? or someone embarking on risky behaviors in the belief they will die soon?

Adventures in Headline Writing Part 98704

2011-04-27T13:26:00.003-05:00

Yet another headline that does not match the text of the article. I will however note that this is an AP article and the headline MAY be theirs.... And this is a screenshot just in case the article falls down the memory hole as errors are wont to do at 801 Texas Ave....

Adventures in headline writing part 98703

2011-04-27T11:08:00.004-05:00

Today on the Chronicle website we find the following (note the red rectangle):

But the story that it links to says something 180 degrees opposite....

(click on images to enlarge)

Air France Flight 447: A Prediction/Postmortem (updated)

2011-04-15T09:44:00.014-05:00

A couple weeks ago, searchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI)finally discovered the debris field from Air France Flight 447 which went down in severe thunderstorms in the South Atlantic on a flight between Rio and Paris in 2009. The aircraft was an Airbus A330. They've found the tail section mostly intact and the possibility that the flight data recorders may be recovered has increased significantly, although they are below their rated crush depth. They may or may not be readable at this point. I'm going to presume for a moment that they are readable and I am going to predict what I think the data will show.

But first some background information.

The Airbus 3XX series has had a rather bumpy safety history. There have been two documented instances where the rudder has broken clean off the aircraft due to excessive loading, either from turbulence or from excessive rudder engagement at high speeds or a combination of the two. All of the A3XX series share a similar rudder design. When the problem was finally identified, instead of strengthening the rudder or it's attachment point, EADS chose to install a "software fix". They inserted a rule into the flight control software (remember all but the A310 are "fly-by-wire aircraft" meaning that the computer is in ultimate control of the aircraft, not the pilot. Remember this because it will play an important role in my prediction.) that limits the amount of rudder control surface movement the pilot is allowed to command depending on the speed of the aircraft.

All of the A3XX series (except the 310)utilize a flight control computer to control the aircraft because they are designed to be aerodynamically unstable and cannot be controlled by a human. This allows the control surfaces to be much smaller limiting drag and the associated fuel consumption. A very small control surface change results in a very large change in the aircraft's attitude. The A310 is aerodynamically stable, but just barely. Since the control surfaces need not be large to control the aircraft, they are structurally weaker (and lighter) than a similarly sized aerodynamically stable aircraft's are. But this also means that when the control surfaces are buffeted by extreme turbulence, they may fail regardless of the control surface movement or speed of the aircraft at force levels lower than those of other aircraft.

The design philosophy of the Fly-By-Wire system is also different from that of Boeing designs. EADS programmed the aircraft controls to only perform the maneuvers that the computer, taking all of the design loads of the structures involved into account, decides the aircraft can do safely. But when equipment is designed, the design load is usually several times smaller than the calculated load at failure. This difference is called safety margin which is often 4 or more times the design load. Further, structural materials are rated for their minimum strength, which they ALWAYS exceed in real life, so there are levels of safety piled upon more levels of safety so the maneuver could be much more aggressive than the system would allow and still be completed safely. But the Airbus system will not perform it regardless of the actual safety margin available, taking that decision away from the pilot. The Boeing system is predicated on the notion that the Pilot, and not the aircraft, knows what is best for the situation at hand. The system will warn the pilot when he is departing from the safe operating envelope of the airframe but will continue to allow the maneuver up to the absolute bare minimum safety margin on the assumption that if the pilot is commanding such a radical maneuver the aircraft must be in imminent danger of collision/crash and the pilot is given every bit of control the airframe can muster in order to save the aircraft. As you can see, this is a significant difference in design philosophy. The pilot is deemed to need to be saved from himself at all times. Further, since the system assumes that the computer will actually be in control of the aircraft at all times, there is no feedback mechanism in the Airbus's flight controls. The pilot has a joystick which has no force-feedback so he cannot "feel" when he is approaching the flight rule design limits. The Boeing system makes the controls increasingly stiff as the aircraft is deemed to be departing the safe envelope and shakes them when the aircraft is approaching the "hard limits" or when the aircraft begins to stall as well as activating the stall warning horn. This philosophy of saving the pilot from himself breeds complacency by the pilots who do not practice emergency procedures as often because they believe that the computer will save them.

The flight control computer is supplied information about the air temp, humidity, density, airspeed, angle of attack, and altitude by three independent ADIRU's or Air Data Inertial Reference Units, one on each side of the aircraft as well as one in the tail. These are connected to Pitot Tubes which are used to calculate airspeed by comparing the outside barometric pressure to that of a tube bent at a right angle and aimed towards the front of the aircraft. The pressure difference is directly related to the velocity of the air passing around the pitot tube because it creates an area of high pressure in the the tube opening. One problem is that if due to atmospheric conditions, ice forms in either the static port or the pitot tube itself, then that pressure differential can be thrown off. to combat this, the pitot tubes are electrically heated. If the pitot tube were to ice up, the ADIRU would receive bad or no data about airspeed, and we all know about the concept of "garbage in garbage out". If the flight data computer gets bad data then the decisions it makes are just as bad. By supplying three independent systems it was believed that this limitation would be mitigated by redundancy, but since all three are designed identically, if conditions were such that one would fail, all three would likely fail. This is false redundancy and is the bane of control system designers everywhere. It protects against damage, but not against a common failure mode.

There were two manufacturers (now three) of Pitot tubes approved for use on the Airbus A330. One is built by a European company called Thales, the other by BF Goodrich in the US (they sold the tire side of the business to Michelin in 1988 but they still use the same name). Prior to the AF447 crash it was discovered that the revision A of the Thales unit would tend to ice up under the conditions similar to AF447's flight. An airworthiness directive was issued by EADS to all carriers to swap half of the model A units with model B units to prevent icing in the belief that the revision B would solve the issue. Air France, being a government owned carrier and immune to liability, chose to "slow roll" the changes. Further testing in the wake of AF447 revealed that the revision B units would also ice up just as easily. Therefore the only system that was actually reliable was BF Goodrich's. But Air France, being the arrogant European company that they are, chose to use only the Thales units, instead of switching to Goodrich ones, until it was determined that both revisions would fail. I do not know what further remedial changes have been made since that determination was made. I suspect either the Goodrich or the other manufacturer's units (I do not know who that is.) were swapped for at least half the units on each airframe.

One final bit of information you need to understand. At the altitude that the aircraft was flying at the time (40,000 ft., which is the maximum ceiling of the aircraft.) the margin between overspeed (in which the airflow over the wings becomes supersonic and the center of pressure (lift) moves rearward of the center of gravity of the airframe due to the resultant shock wave causing an extremely abrupt nose down and roll condition, known as "Mach tuck".) and stall (where the airflow over the wings is inadequate to create enough lift to keep the aircraft in the air, again causing an abrupt nose down condition), is only about 70 knots. This is the so called "Coffin Corner" of the flight envelope. The aircraft was flying through a line of thunderstorms that reached above 50,000 ft. and wind gusts/shear that likely exceeded 150 knots in multiple directions. The aircraft was able to walk that fine line of airspeed because of it's automated flight controls, at least until the control systems began getting bad ADIRU data.

The final telemetry from the aircraft indicated multiple ADIRU data failures and that the flight control computer had switched from it's normal automated control flight rules to manual override flight rules, which means the computer had given up trying to understand what was happening and dropped the problem in the pilot's lap, but that also removed the "software fix" concerning the rudder too.

Now for the prediction:

The aircraft, flying at the speed and altitude it was at at the time had a very narrow margin of error, was being buffeted by extremely strong winds from variable directions and could not maintain stable flight speed or attitude as a result. Because of the icing conditions, either the plane went into a stall or an overspeed condition, most likely an overspeed. The plane abruptly dived and rolled, and either the abrupt roll itself, or the excessive rudder movement by the pilot fighting to save the aircraft, or perhaps simply from extreme turbulence by itself, caused the rudder to shear off the airframe. (the rudder was found virtually intact, sheared off at it's base, floating only days after the crash). The flight should have been cancelled due to bad weather, but the aircrew chose to fly (or were required to fly, overruling their objections, by the carrier) despite knowing that the weather in flight would be very bad. The carrier should have been more proactive about keeping up with airworthiness directives but they were not. Airbus/EADS should have done more testing on the Thales units prior to specifying them instead of taking Thales' word that they were ok. Thales of course should have also tested their design better. EADS/Airbus should also recognized that their software fix for the rudder was at best a band-aid approach and that the rudder could experience excessive side loading from external factors, and that the "fix" only worked when the computer was getting good ADIRU data.

One final prediction: the french Government and EADS/Airbus will bury these findings and never admit that they were complicit in foisting off a fundamentally flawed airplane design on the world.

Update: Since the publish date of this, the Flight Data Recorders have both been recovered and it has been determined that they are readable despite being in the water below their design crush depth for two years. I will be honest and say that I was actually mildly surprised that the French Gov. admitted that the data was readable. I expected them to use the fact that they were below their crush depth for two years as an excuse to find no data. Now the question is whether they will admit to the flaws in the aircraft design or not. You might recall that they refused to admit to the design flaws of the Concorde fuel tanks and instead blamed Continental for the crash and fire instead of admitting that there was a design retrofit to address this problem that they refused to implement, AND that the airport operations at Charles De Gaul (Airbus's corporate headquarters) failed to properly sweep the runway to remove any potential FOD debris as is required for that aircraft prior to take off. They also refused to admit that the Airbus rudder design is too weak for the potential loading it could experience in flight. Will Realpolitik bury this crash investigation? We can only wait and see.

The Decriminalization Fallacy

2011-03-24T09:21:00.002-05:00

There has been a push from the libertarians and the left to decriminalize some or all drug use. The arguments made are that it puts non-violent people in prison for long sentences who's only crime was getting high (or facilitating others getting high.). But in reality the REAL reason why these people are pushing for decriminalization is that THEY want to be able to get high without going to prison. Almost to a man, those who argue for decriminalization are closeted drug users themselves. But be that as it may, let us look at WHY the drugs are illegal to begin with.

Illegal drugs are illegal because they are far more addictive than "legal" drugs such as alcohol or tobacco. That is not to say that they are all equally addictive, some are far more addictive than others obviously. Marijuana is much less addictive than say "crack" cocaine, but it is still more addictive than Vodka. Drugs are also very dangerous for young kids and young adults whose brains are still developing, as they can severely disrupt normal brain development, leading to an increase in paranoia and schizophrenia, as well as ADD and impulsive risk seeking behaviors.

But even if one were to make the libertarian argument that drug use harms only the drug user so it should be up to the individual to make that choice, that is again false. Drug users will drive under the influence and kill people and damage property. they will go to work under the influence and make stupid mistakes that either cost their employers a lot of money or get themselves or their co-workers killed. They will have drug addled unprotected sex and bring unwanted children into the world with no means of supporting them. These children will be neglected and abused mentally, physically, and sexually. they will also pass STD's along to their partners or contract them themselves, further draining the welfare state. They will be unemployable so they will be drains on the welfare systems as will their offspring and sexual partners. So arguing they will only be hurting themselves is a lie.

Others make the argument that legalization and regulation to keep it out of the hands of juveniles the way alcohol is sold will increase tax revenue as well as dismantle the drug cartels and their reign of terror on Mexico and Central America. this sounds good in theory but in practice this will not be the case. Some will not want to pay the tax, others will want the drugs but will be unable to buy them because they are too young, or the quack doctor writing the script won't write it for as much as they want, so the black market won't go away. And the attempts to control the black market won't either because the government won't want the competition undermining their newfound tax base. So the drug war won't go away, if anything it will get bloodier because of the added profit pressures.

So we are left with only one justification for legalization that makes any real sense, those calling for it just want to get stoned but don't want to risk going to prison. THAT is the only motivation that makes any kind of logic at all.

The Looming Constitutional Crisis

2011-03-17T09:21:00.006-05:00

In 1935, FDR was handed a defeat by the Supreme Court when it struck down a large portion of his New Deal. FDR's response in 1937 was an attempt to water down the Supreme Court by packing the court with his cronies. He was thankfully defeated in his attempt. This was seen then (and still) as a potential constitutional crisis.

Today we are presented with a similar looming Constitutional Crisis involving the Executive and the Judiciary. The Obama Administration has massively overreached both in it's attempt (so far successfully) to halt all oil and gas production from the Gulf of Mexico through a "permitorium" of slow-rolling permit applications and not approving any of them, and in it's attempt to take over 1/6th of the economy through Obamacare. In both instances, Federal courts have found the Executive branch in violation of the constitution and in both cases they were found to be in contempt of court by refusing to abide by the court's rulings. In the case of Judge Feldman's ruling concerning the "permitorium", his order was stayed by the Fifth Circuit only two days before the deadline for the Interior Dept. to act. and Ken Salazar had been quoted as saying that if the Order was not stayed, he would simply deny all of the permit applications outright. In the case of Judge Vinson's ruling concerning Obamacare, the Justice Dept filed a "request for clarification" which was really a request for a stay. Judge Vinson ordered the Justice Dept. to stop slow rolling the appeal to buy time for Obamacare implementation and to file an appeal, either to the Federal Appellate Courts or preferably directly with the Supreme Court within 7 days. As of this writing I am unaware of such an appeal being filed. It is the opinion of some observers that the Stay by the Fifth Circuit in the Judge Feldman Ruling was an attempt by the court to save face by preventing the Administration from openly defying the court.

It is clear to me and many others that the Obama Administration feels it does not have to abide by the Court's rulings. This sets up a looming constitutional crisis. If Obama does finally force the Judiciary's hand and openly defies the courts, who will make him? Who will arrest him? The US Marshall's Service? The FBI? The Secret Service? The US Military? All of them answer to Obama. The courts do not have a means of enforcing their own rulings, they must rely on the Executive Branch.

If the Administration feels it is above the law, and can do anything it likes, what is the liklihood that it will abide by a lawful election in which the administration is removed from power. Will it go quietly?

This will not end well. Mark my words.

In search of the Fourth Amendment.

2011-03-05T14:07:00.003-06:00

Much has been written and said about the TSA and it's total disregard for the fourth amendment. One state rep is doing something about it. David Simpson (R- Longview) has filed HB 1938 which makes it illegal to operate a whole body scanner in the state of Texas. a wgole host of other reps have signed on as co-sponsors, including: Reps. Jose Aliseda (R-Beeville), Leo Berman (R-Tyler), Joe Deshotel (D-Beaumont), Allen Fletcher (R-Tomball), Dan Flynn (R-Vann), John V. Garza (R-San Antonio), Larry Gonzales (R-Round Rock), Ryan Guillen (D-Rio Grande City), Charlie Howard (R-Sugar Land), Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola), Jason Isaac (R-Dripping Springs), Jim Landtroop (R-Big Spring), Jodie Laubenberg (R-Rockwall), Charles Perry (R-Lubbock), Debbie Riddle (R-Houston), Senfronia Thompson (D-Houston), and James White (R-Hillister). In addition, Congressman John Carter also supports the measure.

And as proof that politics spawns strange bedfellows, the Travis County GOP, the Travis County Libertarian party and the ACLU of Texas are all three supporting the measure as well.

Thoughts on Egypt

2011-02-11T14:46:00.002-06:00

Let us be clear from the outset, Mubarak was a ruthless dictator. No question about it. But Egypt is not like the US either. They have very real internal security issues to deal with. That is a not insignificant fraction of the population which is in favor of a unified Arab Middle East lead by the Wahabbist/Shiite arm of Islam. Egypt made peace with Israel many years ago after having it's arse handed to it many many times by the Jews. Under that situation Democracy becomes very dangerous. It is said that Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what is for dinner, and true democracy is the fastest road to anarchy yet known to man. Our own founding fathers had a very justified fear of true democracy, which is why we do not have a democracy in this country, we have a constitutional representative republic where there are mechanisms in place to blunt the claws of true democracy. Mubarak's dictatorship served a similar function, preventing the dangerous radicals from gaining a toehold in Egypt's government. Those mechanisms just went out the window. Will Egypt as a country survive? Will the peace between Israel and Egypt? I do not know but I fear for the worst.

Is Apple a victim of hacking?

2011-02-10T19:13:00.003-06:00

This afternoon at 1:39 PM, New York time, Apple stock took a massive nosedive in the course of 4 minutes. Losing $10 Billion in value before the stock began to recover. This selling pattern is extremely odd. No clear reason has been found to explain it, and no "circuit breaker" kicked in to arrest it. It has been discovered that a group of hackers had penetrated NASDAQ computer systems for some months. But it was believed that no access to the trading computers had been made. I wonder if the two aren't related.

WARNING! Product recall!

2011-02-10T13:12:00.002-06:00

Federal Ammunition is recalling a number of lots of .45 ACP ammunition due to a manufacturing error that put an excessive powder charge in the case. Use of this ammunition could result in violent high speed random disassembly of your firearm (and you!). You can read more about the recall here.

Welcome to the land of Sharia, and the home of the depraved.

2011-02-08T11:13:00.003-06:00

School officials in Mansfield, near DFW, applied for and received a federal grant to teach Arabic language and culture to high school students. But this is not an optional elective, this is going to be MANDATORY. The reason? The Department of Education has declared Arabic the "Language of the Future". Funny thing is, nobody ASKED the parents if they thought this was a good idea or appropriate, so now they are in a bit of a bind, it would seem they've already accepted and spent a large portion of the federal money but the parents are about to march on the schools with pitchforks and torches looking for someone to lynch. What to do, what to do....

Given the demographic makeup of the state, wouldn't it have been smarter to teach say maybe Spanish? But these are school administrators, not exactly the sharpest tools in the drawer now are they?

Pork the one you love....

2011-02-03T14:59:00.003-06:00

Greenwood man caught having sex with hogs

By Monica Land | Posted: Monday, January 24, 2011 9:15 am

Gave hogs vaginal infection

GREENWOOD - Authorities said a man who was caught having sex with show hogs will have his case presented to the Leflore County Grand Jury next month. Andrew Lee Nash, 52, was arrested on Dec. 3, 2010 after police set up surveillance cameras in the owner's stalls near U.S. Highway 82 and the Yazoo River.

Greenwood Police Chief Henry Purnell said the hogs were examined by a local veterinarian, during a routine examination, and the owner was told that four of the hogs had a vaginal infection.

"The owner of the animals knew someone was messing with his animals," said Chief Investigator Huntley Nevels. "And the veterinarian confirmed the sexual assault. So, the owner contacted police and the officers staked it out and caught him out there."

Nash, who lives in the 700 block of Mississippi Avenue, was arrested at the scene and charged with 12 counts of unnatural intercourse.

Nash's bond was initially set at $600,000, but later reduced to $60,000.

Nash remains in custody at the Leflore County jail.

Greenwood authorities said Nash's case is scheduled to be presented before the Leflore County Grand Jury next month. If Nash is indicted and found guilty, he faces up to 120 years in jail.

H/T Michael Berry

The City of Houston is mathematically challenged

2011-02-02T09:36:00.005-06:00

It must be, because since December the Comptroller's office has found $23 million more dollars that the city doesn't have. But yet, for some reason the City still has no problem giving back $3 million if sales tax revenue over 30 years to help build a soccer stadium. Or spending 1.75% of the budget on "art" that is rarely actually delivered on time, if at all and when it is, it is often ugly as sin, (despite the fact that nobody yet knows what that budget is going to look like, they have already allotted the money for this year.), or $30,000 to erect a white wall to let grafitti "artists" to paint to their heart's content....

Is it me or does the city seem to have a problem with spending priorities?

Funny how I didn't read this in OUR newspaper..

2011-01-28T10:20:00.002-06:00

It would appear that our constant complaints that our unsecured border was a avenue for jihadists to enter our country for nefarious purposes has been spot-on for quite some time. Said Jaziri, a hard line Wahabbist Imam from Tunisia who has been banned from both France and Canada for his calls for the death of Danish Cartoonists and other terroristic threats and jihadist activities and lying on immigration paperwork about his prison record in France, was found hiding in the trunk of a Mexican BMW trying to cross the border in California. What is ironic, is that he is not charged with a crime, he is being detained as a material witness against the driver of the vehicle which is charged with immigrant smuggling....

He's "laser focused" on jobs...

2011-01-27T11:44:00.001-06:00

...but first he has to take guns away from those crazy teabaggers!

Chose your weapons....

2011-01-20T13:45:00.004-06:00

A friend of mine who has never owned a gun in his life, and has only shot one once approached me the other day about helping him decide on a weapons purchase. I'm going to take him and his wife shooting with a friend of mine and hopefully between the two of us they'll be able to shoot enough different kinds of weapons that they'll have a better feel for what they want and what to look for. The following is a slightly edit version of what I wrote to him yesterday in preparation for our trip to the range. I thought it might be of use to others as well:

Food for thought on selecting a weapon.

For a household protection weapon, I would suggest something like the Mossberg Maverick Shotgun as the ideal weapon type. It will hold 6 shells and it is mechanically simple and reliable. Shotguns will deliver devastating damage at short ranges and do not tend to "over penetrate" walls. This site shows the relative penetration distances for various weapons. A word about the proper shotgun shell to use for home defense: DON'T use bird shot for self-defense. Cheney used bird shot and the guy walked back to the truck. Use 00 buckshot, nothing less. The only real downside is you only have 6 shells to work with but that is a common problem with shotguns. A wise man once said that the purpose of a handgun is to allow you to fight your way to a long gun. The reasoning being that a long gun, be it a rifle or a shotgun, has an order of magnitude more muzzle energy than the biggest handguns available. The damage capability is not even in the same league as a handgun. The survival rate from being shot with a handgun in the center of mass is generally about 60%, but being shot with a long gun is almost always fatal (90%+) if the shot is even remotely close to the center of mass.

Now if you want something more portable and concealable you have a selection of semi-autos and a revolver to choose from. I personally would steer you away from "modern" Smith and Wesson guns. They have had problems in the past with their integrated gun locks (all manufacturers have had some issue or another, but S&W seems to have had the lion's share of problems.) causing the gun's action to lock up at inappropriate times (like when the hammer is back and the safety is off and the gun loaded!). MAYBE they have resolved those issues, maybe they haven't, but for a self-defense weapon, you want something that is going to go bang every time you pull the trigger (and not go bang when you haven't!). S&W used to be a premier brand, but ever since the sale back in the 80's (thank you very much Bill Clinton and the threat of product liability lawsuits against gunmakers that put them in the position of having to sell!) they have slipped IMHO. On the flip side, Taurus used to be a junk gun, but their quality has come way up in the last 15 years or so as evidenced in the prices being higher than S&W's. The Taurus Judge for instance is a nice revolver that can shoot both a .45 Long Colt or a .410 shotgun shell. Nowhere near as good as a 12 gauge with 00 buckshot but not THAT bad either. (I have to wonder how it gets around the ban/tax on "short barrelled shotguns" though, probably because it can shoot .45 LC as well.) but it has a decent kick too. In revolvers, light weight means more recoil (not true of semi-autos which use springs to eat up recoil.) so for a revolver a heavy gun is easier to shoot, but harder to carry and/or conceal. The mass of the weapon eats up the recoil through inertia. Choosing a gun is an exercise in trade offs. weight vs shootability vs concealability vs simplicity vs complexity. Everybody ends up with a slightly different answer. What works for me might not work for you, which is one reason why there are thousands of different gun designs available. And of course there is the fact that different guns are designed for different jobs, there is no cookie cutter, one size fits all gun for everyone.

IF you wish to get a CHL, there is an issue you need to bear in mind. In Texas, there are TWO different kinds of CHL lisences. One is for revolvers only, and the other is for both revolvers AND semi-auto's. The class is the same and the cost is the same, the only difference is to get the gen purpose CHL you have to qualify with a semi-auto. You have to qualify with a .32 cal or larger, but once you have your CHL you can carry anything you like (depending on the kind of license of course), but a .22LR or .25 is really at best a back-up gun. You won't put a man on the ground immediately with one unless you get real lucky. You might still kill him but it'll be a slow death and he would probably still have time and energy to kill you in the process. That said, many people ask "what is the best gun for self defense" and the answer is "the gun you have with you when you need it." if it is too heavy or too clunky and hard to conceal and/or carry you won't carry it consistently and that means you may not have it when you need it, so picking a gun that is comfortable to carry and shoot is EXTREMELY important. If that means only a single shot .22 derringer, it is still better than nothing. That just means you have to place your shots a HELUVA LOT BETTER.

That brings up one other point. Under duress, even trained police officers have only a 40% hit rate typically (hitting a man sized target at a typical shooting distance of 7-10 feet.). And that is just hitting the guy, not necessarily hitting him with a knockout shot. Now granted, they generally are not as well trained as your average CHL holder either believe it or not. They only have to qualify with their weapon once a year and most never go to the range or do any kind of tactical shooting practice except for their qualification shooting so they tend to be a lot less capable than people give them credit for (there are of course exceptions to this too). Not knocking cops or anything, but that is the reality of the situation. More often than not they are working two or three side jobs to keep a roof over their heads and they don't have time or the energy to go shooting as often as they ought to. CHL holders in general tend to be a bit more motivated to master their weapon so they tend to shoot a lot more than cops. It is also a case of familiarity breeding complacency. Another reason why cops tend to have more Accidental Discharges/Negligent Discharges than CHL holders too. So practicing with your weapon, and learning to use it in a tactical situation particularly (vs just standing still at a shooting bench and wailing away at a stationary paper target) is an important piece of the puzzle. This is a big reason why semi-autos are far and away preferred for CHL (but not the only reason, concealability plays a role too.). They have WAY more rounds in them than revolvers so you have a better chance of being able to put a round in the guy's wheelhouse when you have more shots to fire. Some people like revolvers and women tend to have less hand strength than men and sometimes have problems operating the slide on semi-autos (there are ways to deal with that though, it is a matter of training), and to each his own, but I would strongly suggest you think about that long and hard before you make an expensive decision you and/or your wife might not live to regret.

I really don't know why this surprises me anymore...

2011-01-14T07:49:00.002-06:00

President Obama seems to have a pathological problem about lying. He lies even when there is no consequence for telling the truth. And the sad part is that it is so easy to spot when he does it. In this video, he very clearly and unequivocally states his father served in WWII. This is simply not possible. His biological father, Barack Hussein Obama Sr. was born on 4/4/1936 in Kenya which at the time was a British Territory. He would have been 5 years old when the war started and only 9 and a half when it ended. His Indonesian stepfather Lolo Soetero was born in 1935 so he was only a year older and was in Indonesia at the time. Snopes claims that he was really talking about his maternal grandfather. Sorry, I'm not buying that, Snopes just can't stop carrying the liar-in-chief's water.

A word about the Strauss win.

2011-01-12T10:29:00.002-06:00

OK, I did not want Strauss to win the Speaker race, but he won fair and square. I can hope that he governs Conservatively, but what is done is done. Now we must put aside our differences and make the best of the situation and try to get as much conservative work done as possible. If Strauss interferes with it, we know we will at least have done everything we could to prevent it AND we know who to blame for it for the next go-round. Small comfort I know, but you have to work with the cards you are dealt.

And so it begins anew.... Updated

2011-01-10T09:38:00.004-06:00

Saturday, a crazed lone gunman who was angry at his congresswoman for not being leftist enough apparently showed up at a congressional "town hall" event and started blasting away with his Glock 19. He shot Gabrielle Giffords in the head, and 11 other people, 6 of whom died. One of them was a nine year old girl who wanted to grow up to be a congresswoman herself. Giffords survived and is able to respond to commands but how much brain damage she sustained is still a question mark. It is almost certain she will not be the same person she was before the shooting. few people who undergo even minor brain injury recover fully.

Before the congresswoman even went into surgery, some comentators on the left were already ascribing the shooting to "an angry right wing radical", this turned out to be nowhere near the truth. The shooter turns out to be a "crazy pothead" who appears to be schizophrenic and ascribes to far leftist views, spouting Marx and the communist manifesto. He was apparently also fixated on Giffords who he thought to be "unintelligent".

And before she even left surgery, gungrabber Rep Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) is already talking about making it impossible to buy large amounts of ammunition and "large capacity" magazines and making it illegal for crazy people to buy guns. And another Dem Congressman is talking about restrictions on public speech that could be interpreted as threatening to federal officials. Of course that begs the question what exactly is the definition of "threatening"? or what is the definition of "high capacity"? or "large ammo purchases"? These people are not letting a good crisis go to waste. We need to make sure voices of reason are heard to counter their wild ideas.

UPDATE:
It would appear that Sheriff Dupnik's office has had multiple contacts with this individual for making death threats against people, to Dupnik's bs about right wing hate speech is nothing more than a smoke screen to cover his arse. Apparently his office convinced everyone who was threatened to not file charges against him claiming "it would make things worse". Had he been charged, then it is probable that he would have had a felony conviction and would have been unable to buy the gun from where he did. OR he would have been involuntarily committed for mental evaluation. The failure lies with Dupnik's office.

The cure for HIV is Nigh Updated

2010-12-14T22:42:00.005-06:00

In 2007, an American living in Berlin who was HIV+ contracted Leukemia. He underwent a bone marrow transplant to cure his leukemia and it cured not only his leukemia, but his HIV as well. But this was no ordinary bone marrow transplant. It was from a donor that was not only an unusually good match genetically, but he had a mutation that made him HIV resistant. This is the only known instance of a cure of an HIV infection. But the risks of such a transplant are not trivial. The mortality rate from such transplants is as high as 5% or more. Not to mention the fact that finding suitable donors with just such a rare mutation is not easy either. But what if that problem could be solved? What if you could grow your own custom tailored bone marrow? It should be possible. Craig Venter has already demonstrated that it is possible to grow a completely synthetic organism by replacing the nuclear material in one bacterium with a synthetic one. Further it has been shown that skin cells can be chemically tricked into becoming bone marrow stem cells. And of course the ability to completely sequence a human genome is old hat, again, Craig Venter did that too. So all that is left is to combine the four technologies. DNA from the infected patient is completely sequenced, the HIV resistant mutation is spliced into the patient's DNA and a synthetic copy of the modified DNA is produced. Heck, while they are at it, other beneficial mutations could be spliced in as well. Skin cells from a donor who does not need to be a very close match at all are then stripped of their nuclear material and the material is replaced with the synthetic DNA. The skin cells are cultured and tested to verify that the nuclear transfer was successful and that the cells are now a genetic match with the patient. The cells are then chemically converted to bone marrow stem cells and cultured to again ensure that they are reproducing true to their intended genetic line. Then the patient's bone marrow is destroyed with a combination of radiation and chemotherapy. This is a very delicate point in the process because if any of the bone marrow were to survive the treatment, it would fail. And if the patient were to come down with an infection while immunosuppressed, it would likely kill him. once the original bone marrow is gone, the new hybrid bone marrow is injected. This should then cure the patient, assuming he lives through the procedure. This procedure should also work for other genetic blood disorders like sickle cell, hemophilia, and others.

UPDATE:
The White House has determined that synthetic biology poses limited risks and should be allowed to proceed, so there are no regulatory roadblocks to proceed with this methodology beyond those normally required for FDA medical trials.

Further thought on the ethics of this proposal:
Many would argue that such a procedure poses far more risks than the risks inherent in treating the disease through drug therapy. First, I would submit that the mortality and side effect rates from the drugs involved and complications from the disease itself are only PART of the equation. One must also consider the potential to spread the disease to others and THEIR potential mortality rates as well. This is not at all unlike the ethics of the "Tuskegee Experiment" where blacks with known cases of syphillis were left untreated intentionally when a treatment for the disease existed at the time resulting in the spread of the disease to their sexual partners/spouses and congenital defects in their children as well. One must also consider the ability of a person to make a free choice in his or her own medical destiny. Millions of men and women undergo elective surgeries every year for various reasons. All of these surgeries entail a level of risk. Even a root canal procedure has a certain level of risk involved. They take that informed risk into account when they decide to undergo these procedures (or at least they should be, even if they chose not to consider them). So withholding this potential cure on the basis of someone ELSE's determination that the risk or cost is high is unethical. That decision should be the left to the patient since they are the ones that have skin in the game. After all, we all run similar risks every day when we get out on the road to go to work. The patient may value the ability to have unprotected sex with their partners or the ability to become impregnated without expensive IVF procedures higher than an uninterested third party who may have no skin in the game.

The moral bankruptcy of Europe is now complete, and we aren't far behind.

2010-12-14T12:21:00.002-06:00

Some time back, I posted about a pamphlet distributed by the German government that encouraged parents to masturbate their young children. At the time I thought it an outrage that the German government would do such a thing, as did a number of other people as well. The German government, after being castigated and embarrassed publicly pulled the pamphlets. But of course, the moral depravity didn't disappear with the pamphlets. Today, the Swiss Government is considering eliminating the laws against incest on the grounds that only three cases have been prosecuted since 1984. Meanwhile here in the US, we have a Columbia professor, Huffington Post blogger, and of course liberal Obama supporter who stands accused of having a three year consensual sexual relationship with his adult daughter. AND HE SEES NOTHING WRONG WITH IT.

Obama: "I'm itching for a fight"

2010-12-14T09:31:00.001-06:00

So sayeth the Annointed One. If you ask me however, he probably should see a doctor about that rash...

My kind of grafitti

2010-12-13T10:07:00.002-06:00

Spotted in Boise Idaho.

Is Steele Gone? Update: Not yet...

2010-12-13T09:22:00.004-06:00

That is the analysis by Ed Morrisey at Hot Air. Apparently he has not made any preparations to run for a second term as RNC chair, and he is widely disliked due to his failures both in raising money and reaching out to the tea parties and other angry constituencies. RNC fundraising is tanking and has been for some time, despite the rise of the tea parties. WHY? Because those angry people have been donating (in record amounts by the way!) to individual candidates and causes, not to the RNC. The people have voted with their wallets and Steele and the RNC lost. Why? because the RNC failed to listen to it's grass roots and those roots decided they had had enough of being taken advantage of.

Now the big question is, who will replace him? THAT is the 64 Billion dollar question...
UPDATE:

Well the word is that he will run for a second term, so we'll just have to beat him the hard way.

Obama wears out government printing presses

2010-12-07T08:08:00.002-06:00

The US treasury is having to destroy at least 10% of the latest printing of $100 bills due to printing defects. The paper is getting creased and causing gaps in the printing. This is what happens when you try to run the printing presses 24/7, eventually things start to wear out. Things like your welcome....

Rangel steps in it again

2010-12-06T21:52:00.002-06:00

Charlie Rangel just can't play it straight for even a day. He is being investigated AGAIN for ethics violations. Specifcally using PAC money to defend himself from the LAST ethics charge..... the difference is, the incoming congress is not a bunch of democrat lapdogs........

Racisim is NEVER ok...

2010-12-06T13:24:00.002-06:00

But apparently the head of the FCC never learned that lesson.

Wikileaks, and blackmail

2010-12-06T11:13:00.002-06:00

Julian Assange, the slimeball that is currently disseminating stolen US intelligence/diplomatic information via offshore internet servers is insisting that if he is molested/arrested/killed, a huge encrypted document dump along with the encryption password will be released that will be very damaging to not only the US government but to BofA and BP as well. But here is the problem with capitulating to his demands, he has already shown he cannot be trusted, so all we'd be doing is delaying (if that) the inevitable. He will release the data, whether we give into his demands or not. So why not arrest him, or just shoot him, and be done with it? It will be sending a message to whomever is supervising his "document bomb" that they had better never release the data, or if they do they had better hope we never find out who they are or they'll end up dead too. it will also serve as a warning to anyone else who gets a wild hair to do something similar. When you operate on the level of a nation state, there ARE no rules.

There goes the neighborhood!

2010-12-03T15:50:00.002-06:00

Celebration Florida is a master planned community built by the Disney Corp just a few miles down the road from DisneyWorld, and it is intended to be Norman Rockwellish. It has been in existance for 14 years and in all that time has never once had a killing.... Until this week. They've had two.

John Conyers steps in it yet again.

2010-11-30T15:31:00.002-06:00

You might recall a story that hit the news last week about John Conyers reading a skin mag in public on an airplane. It didn't get a lot of play in the press because it was right in the middle of thanksgiving when it hit (funny how that worked out...).

Well, he just can't keep from stepping in it. It would appear that his 2010 Caddilac Escalade was broken into and two expensive $1,100 Macbooks (aren't they ALL expensive?) and $27,000 worth of concert tickets (what? did he buy the whole damned floor seating section?) were stolen.

But things get hinkyier. Seems it is not at all normal for congressmen to drive GSA owned vehicles, which are SUPPOSED to be for official use only, not for the private use of congressmen. Secondly Conyers was not driving the vehicle at the time, or more precisely John Conyers II wasn't. His son, John Conyers III, was driving it. (the police report can be found here)This is a violation of federal law for a non-governmental employee to drive a government owned vehicle.

Spanish woman claims to own the Sun

2010-11-29T09:03:00.001-06:00

And she wants to charge everyone for the right to use the sunlight.
Perhaps then we can sue her for Global Warming eh?

Napolitano and the first rule of holes

2010-11-24T09:48:00.003-06:00

The first rule of holes states "When you find yourself at the bottom of a hole, stop digging." Apparently, Napolitano never learned that rule.

The war with our government has begun

2010-11-21T09:35:00.002-06:00

Flier busted in San Diego for 'failure to complete security process'...

TSA Pat Down Leaves Bladder Cancer Survivor Humiliated and Covered In Urine.

Young boy strip-searched...

TSA WARNS: SUBMIT OR PAY

Creeping Danger to your 2A: You must be crazy!

2010-11-19T10:35:00.003-06:00

Today the US Government issued a statement that 1 in 5 US residents (I guess that includes illegals too.) are mentally ill. This is a half-point increase over last year due to depression over job losses. Apparently they treat temporary depression over job loss and economic stress as a mental illness instead of a transitory emotional response to a stressor. This means that the government can subjectively declare you mentally ill on no real basis at all. And if they can declare you mentally ill, they can also declare you incompetent, then they can "help you" without your consent. Angry that your government is squandering your tax money? you must be mentally ill. Angry that the TSA can sexually assault you because you have to travel for work and the only way to get there in time is to fly? you must be mentally ill. Depressed because you lost your job because the feds won't issue any drilling permits in the gulf? you must be crazy.

And the feds have declared that if you are mentally ill you may not carry, own, or purchase a weapon.

Remember, they are from the government, and they are here to 'help".

Creeping danger for CHL holders. You may lose your second amendment rights

2010-11-15T13:41:00.005-06:00

Last month, after spending almost 24 straight hours gripping the sides of the toilet to prevent liftoff while bending over a trash can full of puke, I decided that I had better visit the ER before I passed out from dehydration. After waiting what seemed like 6 hours but I'm sure was less than an hour I was called up to the triage desk for the standard vital sign checks and an interview about my symptoms, but there was a new question that I was asked I had never been asked before and it had absolutely nothing to do with my diarrhea or nausea. They asked if I felt afraid or persecuted. Now why on earth would they ask that question? Three little words: Concealed Handgun License.

I don't know how they knew I had a CHL since that information is not supposed to be released to anyone and I certainly didn't tell them, but apparently they DID know because they were intentionally looking for a reason to diagnose me as paranoid. What is funny is that I was not carrying at the time, and my CHL is not visible in my wallet unless I pull it out. So they should not have had any reason to suspect. Heck, my wife dropped me off and went back home to sleep so she could take care of the kids, so they didn't even get to see the TSRA sticker on the back window.

So if you have a CHL, or even think you might want to own a gun at some future date, consider very carefully when a doctor asks you about your mental state or how you feel emotionally. it may well be a trap.

New treatment for PTSD?

2010-11-14T17:57:00.006-06:00

There is encouraging research coming from McGill University in Toronto(correction: Montreal) on the treatment of PTSD. Before I explain the treatment however we must understand some new information on the way in which memory works.

First, situational memory and emotional memory are actually parallel systems that work together, but separately.

Secondly, that the act of recalling a memory is a destructive process which makes the memory unstable and the brain must "reconsolidate" these memories, essentially "rewriting" them back to long term memory. During this process, the memory is subject to being changed, or even deleted. This is the mechanism that is believed to be behind "implanted", or false memories, and also what is behind faulty eye witness testimony. Investigators can inadvertently tamper with a witness's memory of an event and not realize they had done so, by subtly steering a witness inadvertently through leading questions etc.

And third, and this is key to the treatment of PTSD, is that the emotional recollection of the event and the situational or factual recollection of the same event are stored using different parts of the brain using surprisingly different neuro-chemical processes.

PTSD is the inability to emotionally process a traumatic memory because the emotional component of the memory is too painful to process or recall. Emotionally processing these memories requires a grief process. Unprocessed grief leads to all sorts of emotional problems whenever an external or internal trigger causes an unwanted recollection of the unprocessed memory. Until now, the only real treatment offered to those with PTSD is forcing the person to recall the memory over and over again over a period of time in an attempt to force the person to grieve and thereby process the memory, but this has had only limited success because some memories are simply too devastating emotionally to process, no matter how often the person is forced to recall it, and may in fact traumatize the patient even more.

But what if you could reduce the emotional content of the memory without changing the situational or factual part of the memory? This is the key to the new treatment. Since the two memory systems are separate and parallel, it is possible to alter one without changing the other. Neuroscientists at McGill have discovered that the emotional part of the memory is processed by the amygdala and is dependent on adrenaline, and subsequently it's effects on norepinephrine, for the memory to reconsolidate. Adrenaline however does not appear to have a significant role in the reconsolidation of the factual or situational memory of the same event.

This has lead to two new treatments for PTSD that have shown great promise.

First to prevent PTSD in the first place, it has been found that there is a short window after the initial traumatic event where the administration of opiates (morphine/demerol/etc.), Beta-blockers, or benzodiazepines (librium/valium/etc.) immediately after the event prevents the initial consolidation of the traumatic anxiety.

Secondly, that dosing the patient with a drug that interferes with adrenaline just prior to having the patient recall the traumatic memory interferes with the reconsolidation of the emotional anxiety associated with the memory, leading to a greatly reduced anxiety level on subsequent recollections. repeating the treatments further reduces the anxiety level. Such a drug happens to be the lowly beta blocker blood pressure medication propranolol, which has been used since the 1950's.

Ironically, this research has not made wide in-roads in the treatment of PTSD, even though it has been ongoing for some time. The reason would appear to have it's roots in the biases that psychologists have for "talking treatments" over pharmacological ones. Let us hope that this bias falls to a desire to do what is best for the patient instead of what is best for the therapist's ongoing income stream.

Further Reading:

Memory Reconsolidation and Treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress (PTSD)

The Effect of Childhood Trauma on Brain Development

When Remembering Might Mean Forgetting

Today in History

2010-11-09T13:55:00.001-06:00

On this day in 1995, Mr Gorbachev tore down that wall.

I bet this party is a real disaster...

2010-11-09T07:30:00.003-06:00

Nancy Pelosi wants to hold a party to celebrate congress's "accomplishments". Betcha this is going to be one lame party...

Blood banks without the needles

2010-11-08T14:40:00.002-06:00

New research has brought us to the brink of possibly retiring blood banks as we know them. New advances in adult stem cell research have enabled scientists in the laboratory to convert a patient's own skin cells into bone marrow cells and create blood cells identical to the patient's own. This has a number of important implications. First, blood banks would no longer be subject to shortages due to a drop in donations, in fact it is conceivable that donations may no longer even be necessary, although they will probably remain to be the blood bank's mainstay due to cost. Secondly, those in need of a bone marrow transplant no longer need to worry about finding a close enough donor match, because they could be their OWN donor, and the match would be genetically perfect. Clinical trials should begin possibly as soon as 2012.

Today in History (Belated)

2010-11-08T09:25:00.003-06:00

On Nov. 6th in 1956, The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. voted for the Republican President and Vice-President. That would be Eisenhower and Nixon for those who didn't know.

So all of those who find the fact that MLK was a Republican a specious statement, well, here is proof that he WAS a Republican.

Incompetency, thy name is the City of Houston

2010-11-07T06:42:00.002-06:00

On August 24th, 2010, the petition to hold a referendum on the red light cameras in Houston was certified by the city secretary. The Contract between the City and ATS specifies that the contract may be canceled with 120 days notice. By my count, that was 70 days prior to the election. The petition drive was started in April however, so the city knew well in advance of the election that there was a strong possibility that these RLC's would be banned in Houston. So what did the City do to prepare for the possible defeat of the RLC's? NOT A DAMNED THING. An intelligent and competent administration would have taken steps to minimize the economic impact of the potential cancellation my making ATS legally aware that the contract is subject to cancellation pending the outcome of the election. But the city did not do that.

Most contracts have a escape clause called Force Majure, in which one party can declare that they have no choice but to default on the contract without prior notice due to circumstances beyond their control. It would appear that this contract does not have that sort of clause in it. Again, this reflects quite poorly on the city and it's legal team. Are the city Attorneys so incompetent that they could not foresee a legal challenge to these RLC's? After all, they have been controversial from the very beginning, surely someone could imagine that the opponents of the RLC's would not give up without a fight? I thought Bill White was supposed to be smartest guy in the room, regardless of the room. Apparently he wasn't quite so smart after all.

Is the US about to invade India?

2010-11-04T12:56:00.001-05:00

Obama must think so.. he is taking 34 warships to India on his little trip.....

I need a nap...

2010-11-03T13:39:00.002-05:00

Why do I run the elections every year? Why do I put myself through all that? It sure as hell isn't the money, and I'm always so busy doing the paperwork and turning in the ballots that I miss all the political watch parties. Not Fair!

New layout/template on the way.

2010-11-03T12:01:00.002-05:00

I know Big Jolly will like this, but I'm working on a new layout to commemorate the "Historic" GOP Blowout. Please bear with me while I fumble my way through the HTML/CSS.... Look for the new layout in the next few days.

I wish I were a better artist

2010-11-01T09:04:00.000-05:00

I've got this mental image of all the democrat politicians having a day at the beach in some tropical paradise (say... Indonesia maybe?), they've ignored the earthquakes and the volcanic eruptions, and now all the water has flowed out to sea, they are all standing around wondering what happened to all the water, fish are flopping on the ground dying, meanwhile this huge tsunami is bearing down on them from one side and the molten lava is coming from the other and they can't stop watching the flopping fish dying long enough to bother looking up.

NPR and the First Amendment

2010-10-27T15:30:00.003-05:00

There is one aspect of the Juan Williams firing that has been totally ignored as far as I can tell. Private Corporations can and do censor their employees and it is perfectly legal for them to do so under most circumstances. Especially if they are recognizable as representing the corporation as Juan Williams was, because they are then effectively speaking for the corporation. But there is an aspect that everyone seems to be glossing over. NPR is a government entity. They may get significant outside monies as well, but they also obtain government funding and as a result are considered a government entity. The first amendment does not apply to private entities, but it DOES apply to the government. Ergo, NPR does not have the same censorship rights MSNBC or FOX might have over their employees. That is an aspect of this incident that is being completely ignored.

Why elections have consequences....

2010-10-27T13:43:00.002-05:00

Elena Kagan, Obama's Supreme Court pick, is a moron, as is her fellow liberals on the court. She (and they) just voted against an execution, not because she felt the guy was not guilty, or that execution is wrong or any of the typical stuff you'd expect. No, she voted against it because she was concerned about the safety of one of the drugs in the drug cocktail. The SAFETY of the drug! The one that is supposed to KILL THE PRISONER. Um, how exactly is the safety of the drug an issue if the whole point is to kill him?

Keep it on the table!

2010-10-22T13:21:00.002-05:00

Reverend Broden is being lambasted for stating that revolution, in the event that all other means of effecting governmental change should fail, should not be taken off the table. Why is this at all controversial? That is our birthright as a nation! This is how we became a nation to begin with! That is the whole point of the second Amendment. It isn't to hunt, it isn't even for self defense, although it serves both of these functions. It's sole purpose is to ensure that the populace shall ALWAYS have the means of overthrowing a tyrannical government. Because the founding fathers knew, perhaps better than anyone, that ALL governments can, and probably eventually will become, tyrannical. And therefore ultimately the last check and balance on the system is a populace who decide that "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!"

Baby Steps in Wisconsin

2010-10-15T10:31:00.002-05:00

A Clark County Judge in Wisconsin has dismissed a charge of carrying a concealed weapon (a knife in this instance) in violation of Wisconsin's Concealed Weapons law. Wisconsin bans ALL concealed weapons. The judge, citing the recent McDonald V Chicago U.S. Supreme Court ruling, dismissed the charges on the grounds that the law is unconstitutional. However, at this juncture the ruling only applies to his court. It is expected that the ruling will be appealed. The DA has 20 days to do so, however the DA may chose not to do so in order to maintain the Status Quo instead of running the risk of invalidating the law state wide. We will know more in the coming weeks.

And the beat(down) goes on...

2010-10-14T14:47:00.002-05:00

U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson has ruled that 20 states my move forward with their lawsuit against the Obama administration to halt Obamacare on the grounds that it is a constitutional overreach of the commerce clause and it violates the tenth amendment as well.

Fiudiciary Duties

2010-10-08T11:36:00.003-05:00

When a corporation sells an asset, that corporation has a duty to it's shareholders to get the best possible price for the sale of that asset. If it fails to do so, the shareholders have the legal recourse to sue to stop the sale of that asset. Newsmax offered a bid to buy Newsweek from the Washington Post and were widely believed to have offered the most money for the publication. The Washington Post is a publicly traded company traded on the NYSE. WaPo, however decided to sell it to Sidney Harman, for exactly one dollar plus the assumption of outstanding debt. I think it is safe to say Newsmax offered much more than that. So my question to WaPo shareholders is, are you going to sit there and let them screw you like that? or are you going to fight this sale in order to get the maximum returns on your investment?

Inflation coming to a store near you.

2010-10-07T09:52:00.002-05:00

Those of us with half a brain have been saying for a while now that the only possible result of the Fed printing money like it's going out of style is massive inflation. But up until now, the Fed has been holding interest rates at historic lows artificially. The current administration has been pointing at this and saying our fears of hyper-inflation are baseless. Well, those chickens are finally coming home to roost, and covering everything in chickenshit in the process. The Fed is finally admitting that they will be forced to raise interest rates and trigger inflation.

I told you so.

YOU do the math!

2010-10-04T08:14:00.002-05:00

Photo credit CSteven Tucker

New definitions of rape

2010-10-01T12:35:00.002-05:00

A few months ago, I posted a story out if Israel where a Palestinian Arab lied to a Jewish woman about being Jewish in order to have sex with her. At the time I thought this was just a wierd quirk of Israeli law or something, but now a similar case has come from Canada. Where in hell does this end? What if you tell them that you love them to get in the sack with them? Or that you'd call them tomorrow?

These people are insults to every person that has ever truly been raped.

Paranoia Part II: Facecrime

2010-09-30T22:08:00.003-05:00

One of the commenters on Felicia's Facebook post concerning part one of this post pointed out a post from Infowars, ironically posted today, about a program that was shown to the military and law enforcement groups that would scan email, phone calls, and social networking websites looking for persons who resent the government. It supposedly psychologically analyzes either your writing style or your voice stress patterns/words in order to identify people who show signs of harboring resentment about the government in order to identify people for further surveillance as a potential terrorist. The Brit who wrote the program feels such resentment is a sign of mental illness, and obviously those who this program identifies are probably in need of "mental health assistance". probably not unlike the way the Soviets "helped" those who felt resentment against the state. Just remember, Orwell's Airstrip One used to be Britain....

If this does not scare the crap out of you. I really don't know what will.

Paranoia

2010-09-30T11:15:00.003-05:00

I've been told I am a bit paranoid. But I have learned something this morning that gives me real pause. I was just perusing my site stats and ran across a visit from the United States Army Information Systems Command. This is the group tasked with monitoring "chatter" in the internet. The google search string that led them to my blog was "Southern Tragedy". For those of you who don't know, ST is a good friend of mine and a longtime reader, not just here but from the old Lone Star times days. She is very active in the Tea Party. I texted Felicia Cravens and she looked at her stats on the Tea Party Website and discovered something equally disturbing. a similar hit from the same group, looking for Felicia Cravens. Below are the two site stat captures:

Mine:

VISITOR ANALYSIS
Referrer	http://www.google.com/search?q=%E2%80%9CSouthernTragedy%22%2C houston&hl=en&sa=2
Search Engine Phrase	“SouthernTragedy", houston
Search Engine Name	Google
Search Engine Host	www.google.com
Host Name	gnwk91h.nwk.usace.army.mil
IP Address	155.77.2.253 [Label IP Address]
Country	United States
Region	Kansas
City	Kansas City
ISP	Headquarters, Usaisc
Returning Visits	0
Visit Length	0 seconds
VISITOR SYSTEM SPECS
Browser	IE 7.0
Operating System	WinXP
Resolution	Unknown
Javascript	Enabled

Navigation Path

Date	Time	Type	WebPage
September 30th 2010	07:22:08 AM	Page View	www.google.com/search?q=%E2%80%9CSouthernTragedy%22%2C houston&hl=en&sa=2 redinktexas.blogspot.com/2008_09_01_archive.html

and Felicia's:

Domain Name

army.mil ^? (Military)

IP Address

155.77.2.# (United States Army Corps of Engineers)

ISP

United States Army Corps of Engineers

Location

Continent	:	North America
Country	:	United States (Facts)
State	:	Kansas
City	:	Kansas City
Lat/Long	:	39.1111, -94.6904 (Map)

Language

English (U.S.)
en-us

Operating System

Microsoft WinXP

Browser

Internet Explorer 7.0
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; MS-RTC LM 8; InfoPath.2)

Javascript

version 1.3

Monitor

Resolution	:	1920 x 1200
Color Depth	:	32 bits

Time of Visit

Sep 30 2010 7:26:59 am

Last Page View

Sep 30 2010 7:26:59 am

Visit Length

0 seconds

Page Views

Referring URL

http://www.google.co...icia cravens&spell=1

Search Engine

google.com

Search Words

felicia cravens

Visit Entry Page

http://houstontps.org/

Visit Exit Page

http://houstontps.org/

Out Click

Time Zone

UTC-6:00

Visitor's Time

Sep 30 2010 7:26:59 am

Visit Number

146,995

Now remember a while back when they were making noises about the Tea Party being a domestic terrorist group? Also remember that Obama has issued an executive order regarding assassination of US Citizens? And here we have a group tasked with monitoring terrorists on the internet looking for two people I know to be active in the tea party movement.

I'm connecting dots here and I'm not liking the picture I'm seeing develop one bit.

Myrtus

2010-09-30T08:39:00.003-05:00

There has been much speculation recently that the Stuxnet worm that has been mainly infecting Seimens PLC's and SCADA networks in the Far and Middle East and South Asia regions was in fact a directed attack on Iran's nuclear program. Ralph Langner, a German Industrial controls specialist, decoded and disassembled the payload of the Stuxnet worm which used flaws in Windows to propagate a destructive payload to control PLC's which were being controlled by the Windows based SCADA network. He found that the program looked for specific segments of code in specific data blocks and attempted to disrupt the process controlled by that code by swapping out the code and hiding that the swap occurred from the operator. It did this by inserting the malware into the operating system EEPROM of the PLC. essentially this was the first known instance of a rootkit being used on a PLC. Up until recently this was assumed to be the work of either the US or Israel, mainly based on who would stand to benefit from the attack.

Now there would appear to be another clue to it's origins. Researchers have found that the project was named Myrtus, and one of it's processes was named Guava. Myrtus is the name of the genus of Guava plants, and myrtles, cloves and eucalyptus trees among others. Myrtus is also very close to and is an allusion to the Hebrew word for Esther.

Now here is where things start sounding plausible. In the Book of Esther, palace intrigue in the court of Xerxes By Esther, woman who was taken by Xerxes as one of his wives and who is secretly Jewish, thwarts an attempted Jewish genocide.

From the Wikipedia article on the Book of Esther:

The book commences with a feast organized by Ahasuerus (Xerxes), initially for his court and dignitaries and afterwards for all inhabitants of Shushan. Ahasuerus orders his wife Vashti to display her beauty before the guests. She refuses. Ahasuerus removes her as queen. Ahasuerus then orders all "beautiful young girls to be presented to him, so he can choose a new queen to replace Vashti. One of these is Esther, who had no parents and is being fostered by her cousin Mordechai. She finds favor in the king's eyes, and is made his new wife. Esther does not reveal that she is Jewish. Shortly afterwards, Mordechai discovers a plot by courtiers Bigthan and Teresh to assassinate Ahasuerus. They are apprehended and executed, and Mordechai's service to the king is recorded.
Ahasuerus appoints Haman as his prime minister. Mordechai, who sits at the palace gates, falls into Haman's disfavor as he refuses to bow down to him. Having found out that Mordechai is Jewish, Haman plans to kill not just Mordechai but all the Jews in the empire. He obtains Ahasuerus' permission to execute this plan, against payment of ten thousand talents of silver, and he casts lots to choose the date on which to do this—the thirteenth of the month of Adar. When Mordechai finds out about the plans he orders fasting. Mordechai informs Esther what has happened and tells her to intercede with the King. She is afraid to break the law and go to the King unsummoned. This action would incur the death penalty. Mordechai tells her that she must. She requests that all Jews fast and pray for three days together with her, and on the third day she goes to Ahasuerus, who stretches out his sceptre to her which shows that she is not to be punished. She invites him to a feast in the company of Haman. During the feast, she asks them to attend a further feast the next evening. Meanwhile, Haman is again offended by Mordechai and builds a gallows for him. That night, Ahasuerus suffers from insomnia, and when the court's records are read to him to help him sleep, he learns of the services rendered by Mordechai in the previous plot against his life. Ahasuerus is told that Mordechai has not received any recognition for saving the king's life. Just then, Haman appears, and King Ahasuerus asks Haman what should be done for the man that he wishes to honor. Thinking that the man that the king wishes to honor is himself, Haman says that the man should be dressed in the king's royal robes and led around on the king's royal horse, while a herald calls: "See how the king honours a man he wishes to reward!" To his horror, the king instructs Haman to do so to Mordechai.

Later that evening, Ahasuerus and Haman attend Esther's second banquet, at which she reveals that she is Jewish and that Haman is planning to exterminate her people, including her. Overcome by rage, Ahasuerus leaves the room; meanwhile Haman stays behind and begs Esther for his life, falling upon her in desperation. The king comes back in at this moment and thinks Haman is assaulting the queen; this makes him angrier than before and he orders Haman impaled on the stake that had been prepared for Mordechai. The previous decree against the Jews cannot be annulled, but the king allows the Jews to defend themselves during attacks. As a result, on 13 Adar, five hundred attackers and Haman's ten sons are killed in Shushan, followed by a Jewish slaughter of seventy-five thousand Persians, although they took no plunder. Mordechai assumes a prominent position in Ahasuerus' court, and institutes an annual commemoration of the delivery of the Jewish people from annihilation.

So the project and process names refer to an Old Testament story of a Jewish genocide thwarted by palace intrigue. I can certainly see the parallels...

Jessie's Girl

2010-09-22T10:11:00.001-05:00

Why is it that this song comes to mind when I read this story?

Probably because of this....

A Telling Admission

2010-09-18T09:08:00.002-05:00

Janet Napolitano and Eric Holder are currently suing Arizona over the passage of HB1070. The Feds claim that they and they alone have the right and power to enforce immigration laws. But yesterday when Governor Rick Perry requested that Janet Napolitano send more than the piddling 350 National Guard troops that the Feds have sent to the border he was informed that the Feds feel they are doing enough and Napolitano reminded Rick Perry that he had the power to send troops himself at the State of Texas' expense. This is a telling admission. Napolitano just admitted that the States have the right to enforce immigration law. That undermines the Fed's argument in the Arizona case. As was pointed out by a number of the commenters. Funny how the professional journalists didn't pick up on that.

Faces of Corruption: Eleanor Holmes Norton D-DC

2010-09-16T15:52:00.002-05:00

Meet Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-DC. Seems she called up a lobbyist and requested a campaign donation a couple weeks ago, but the lobbyist was not in at the time so she left a voice mail. In the voice mail message it would appear that she is implying that if the lobbyist were to make a campaign donation, she would be in a position to influence things to the benefit of the lobbyist and/or his or her clients. This is skirting very close to (and may in fact be over) the line of soliciting a bribe.

Faces of Corruption: Rick Boucher D-Va

2010-09-16T14:41:00.003-05:00

Meet Rick Boucher, D-Virginia. On 11/11/2009, he purchased a Ford Edge from Bostic Ford for $29,352. How do I know this? He purchased the vehicle with campaign funds and duly reported it on his campaign expendiature reports. He drives this vehicle everywhere. How exactly is this not self-enrichment with campaign funds?

HT Redstate and Not Larry Sabato

It's a BFD!

2010-09-15T09:11:00.001-05:00

Washington DC Fears Next Unemployment Wave

2010-09-14T10:53:00.003-05:00

Oh, they don't care if YOU or your neighbors, friends or loved ones are unemployed! Oh no! They fear that THEY might be unemployed!

Fear is a good thing! It warns you for instance when you are about to stick your male reproductive bits into a meat grinder. Unfortunately for them, and us, in DC, the nerve impulses are a bit slow...

Faces of Corruption: Sanford Bishop D-Ga

2010-09-10T10:56:00.002-05:00

Yet another member of the CBC has been found to have been shunting scholarship money to relatives, Sanford Bishop of Georgia directed scholarships to both his stepdaughter and his wife's niece between 2003 and 2005. He claims that the nepotism rule didn't take effect until 2008 but that claim does not pass muster.

Stephen Broden for CD-30: He is Worthy

2010-09-10T10:53:00.001-05:00

Faces Of Corruption: An update.

2010-09-09T13:01:00.002-05:00

Dallas Morning News notes that Edie Bernice Johnson sent letters to the CBC, directing that the scholarship monies be sent directly to her grandchildren and grand nephews, and not to the schools they were attending, to the tune of $31,000. Again violating the rules of the foundation issuing the checks. This flies in the face of her continued insistence that she had nothing to do with scholarship selection issues and that her aides handled all of that, because the letters bear HER signature, in HER handwriting.

Ms. Johnson has an opponent in the upcoming race for CD-30, I suggest you take a look at him.

The Dangers of Computerized Medical Records

2010-09-09T11:09:00.002-05:00

For years, gun owners have understood the dangers of gun permit databases. We have understood that such a database can be used to identify guns in the event that the powers that be decide that they no longer trust the populace with guns and decide to confiscate them. So far we've been lucky, nobody has trolled CHL databases or NICS databases or Gun Permit databases to confiscate them...yet.

But now the government has opened a new front on the attack on personal freedom and privacy. Part of the Obamacare bill mandated the creation and use of a national electronic medical records database that would be accessible by any medical provider at any time from any place. That alone should have scared you to the core, but just in case it did not, now the North Carolina Sheriffs are demanding access to your prescription records. They want the names and addresses of every person that has ever been prescribed a Schedule IV narcotic. Additionally they want the names of doctors who prescribe them and the names of pharmacies that fill them. Why? Well the stated purpose is to crack down on the illegal use of prescription painkillers. But what they are missing is any presumption of innocence, or any right to privacy, which violates both the fifth as well as the fourteenth amendments. Disclosing this data to non-medical personnel is a violation of HIPAA, as well as the legal precept of doctor/patient privilege.

If this happens, what is next? The names of people who have contracted HIV or other STD's (because they obviously work in or partake of the sex trade)? The names of people with high cholesterol and triglycerides (because they obviously can't stop eating fatty foods and are running the costs of health care up)? People with emphysema (because they obviously smoke)? People with high levels of lead in their system (because they obviously handle ammunition a lot)?

Where does it end? Hopefully here and now before it is too late.

Why I am thankful to live in Texas

2010-09-08T20:41:00.003-05:00

Sunday night in Uniondale NY, on Long Island, a man and his cousin were confronted by 5 gangmembers in his driveway, he runs inside his house, grabs his AK-47S, tells his wife to call the cops and goes back outside where his cousin is still being harrassed by the gangbangers. They are told to leave, they decline to leave and instead commence to start saying things like "you are dead" and "we are gonna kill your family" and other terms of endearment, about that time 20 more gangbangers come around the corner to assist their comrades. Instead of leaving 25 dead gangbangers on his lawn as he truly should have, he fires four warning shots into the dirt. Personally that is four rounds he might have needed if you ask me. But within minutes the cops arrive and they arrest the homeowner, no not for the gun, that was legal, but for reckless endangerment. Yes, the Nassau County Police arrested the homeowner for protecting himself.

In Texas, at night, if someone is on your property and you feel that your life is in danger, you have the legal right to blow their shit away (Texas penal code section 9.41 and 9.42). There is none of this proportional force crap, or "duty to retreat" (Section 9.21) crap here. This guy needs the Joe Horn Medal if you ask me.

Paging Captain Obvious!

2010-09-08T16:59:00.002-05:00

Fidel Castro has had an epiphany, Cuba's Communist Economic model does not work!

Whoda thunk?

Quick! Somebody better tell Hugo Chavez....

Senate Judiciary Committee to hold hearings today on Firearms Regulation UPDATE! This is a good thing!

2010-09-08T09:05:00.006-05:00

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Apparently they didn't read this very closely...

UPDATE:
Apparently they did in fact read it closer than I thought, closer than I read the hearing notice in fact because the notice is for NEXT week, not this week. Mea Culpa.

Anyway, these hearings are in response to a Senate bill S.941 (and it's house companion HR. 2296) which aims to reform the BATFE.

Some of the provisions in the bill:

· Clarify the standard for “willful” violations—allowing penalties for intentional, purposeful violations of the law, but not for simple paperwork mistakes.

· Improve the process for imposing penalties, notably by allowing FFLs to appeal BATFE penalties to a neutral administrative law judge, rather than to an employee of BATFE itself.

· Allow a licensee a period of time to liquidate inventory when he goes out of business. During this period, all firearms sold would be subject to a background check by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

· Allow a grace period for people taking over an existing firearms business to correct problems in the business’s records—so if a person inherited a family gun store (for example), the new owner couldn’t be punished for the previous owner’s recordkeeping violations.

· Reform the procedures for consideration of federal firearms license applications. Under S. 941, denial of an application would require notification to the applicant, complete with reasons for the denial. Additionally, an applicant would be allowed to provide supplemental information and to have a hearing on the application.

· Require BATFE to establish clear investigative guidelines.

· Clarify the licensing requirement for gunsmiths, distinguishing between repair and other gunsmith work and manufacture of a firearm. This would stop BATFE from arguing that minor gunsmithing or refinishing activities require a manufacturers’ license.

· Eliminate a provision of the Youth Handgun Safety Act that requires those under 18 to have written permission to use a handgun for lawful purposes (such as competitive shooting or safety training)—even when the parent or guardian is present.

· Permanently ban creation of a centralized electronic index of out of business dealers’ records—a threat to gun owners’ privacy that Congress has barred through appropriations riders for more than a decade.

· Allow importation and transfer of new machine guns by firearm and ammunition manufacturers for use in developing or testing firearms and ammunition, and training customers. In particular, ammunition manufacturers fulfilling government contracts need to ensure that their ammunition works reliably. S. 941 and H.R. 2296 would also provide for the transfer and possession of new machine guns by professional film and theatrical organizations.

· Repeal the Brady Act’s “interim” waiting period provisions, which expired in 1998.

· Give BATFE sole responsibility for receiving reports of multiple handgun sales. (Currently, dealers also have to report multiple sales to state or local agencies, a requirement that has shown little or no law enforcement value.) State and local agencies could receive these reports upon request to BATFE, but would have to comply strictly with current requirements to destroy these records after 20 days, unless the person buying the guns turns out to be prohibited from receiving firearms.

· Restore a policy that allowed importation of barrels, frames and receivers for non-importable firearms, when they can be used as repair or replacement parts.

You can read more about these bills here.

H/T The Virginia Citizen's Defense League.

News Flash! It's about the quality of life stupid!

2010-09-03T11:27:00.007-05:00

Earlier in the week, an email meme from an unnamed blogger among a group of bloggers we all hang out with noted that the Chronicle editorial board seems to have a hang-up about Houston and how it compares to "world class" cities like NYC. He noted the following line in this story by Mike Tolson about traffic congestion:

What the city lacks in charm, scenery and sites of historical interest, it makes up in hours spent behind the wheel.

And he asked us if we had noted how the Chronicle was so down on the city itself. We all replied that yes, we've noted that for quite some time, and that it was a sort of running joke among us. The endless quest for the Editorial board to turn Houston into NYC or some "world class" semblance of same.

Well, not everybody thinks that is such a good idea.... (language warning)

Ok, so it is the satire site "The Onion", but satire is only effective when there is a germ of truth to it. I'd submit that there is more than a little truth to be found here.

Yet another Obama Gun Ban

2010-09-02T10:11:00.003-05:00

There are about 850,000 M1's and M1 Carbines that are in South Korea's inventory. They were given to South Korea during the Korean War by the US Military. South Korea would like to re-import them back to the US and sell them as Antique and Curio firearms. Since they were given to the South Korean Government by the US Government, the re-importation must be approved by the State Dept. Originally that approval had been given, but it has since been withdrawn and nobody will say why. If you ask the State Dept, they refer you to BATFE, if you ask BATFE they refer you to the Justice Dept., if you ask the Justice Dept, they refer you back to the State Dept. 'Round and round and round the finger pointing goes... but nobody will give an actual reason for the re-importation ban. And the State Department spokesman's comments, that they are looking for alternative means of "disposing" of the weapons would imply that they are wanting to destroy the weapons instead of allowing them to be sold. These weapons are of strong historical value and are highly prized by collectors as a result. These are also the types of weapons sold through the Civilian Marksmanship Program of the Department of Defense.

Connecting the Dots: The coming Obama crime wave

2010-09-01T12:02:00.003-05:00

Doug Ross, is usually pretty snarky, but today he posts a very serious, non-snarky post that hits on themes I have commented upon before but then he goes and makes a prediction: That the current increases in welfare entitlement programs are priming the pump for an unprecedented crime wave in about 12 years or so. And for the life of me, I can find no flaw in his logic.

Here is the executive summary:

• Fact: There are a record number of Americans dependent upon government anti-poverty programs thanks to the Obama Democrats
• Fact: Expanded access to welfare and food stamps greatly increases the number of children born to unwed mothers
• Fact: Single-parent families correlate to higher crime rates
• Conclusion: with the unprecedented increase in welfare, food stamps and unemployment, we will also see an unparalleled increase in violent crime within the next dozen or so years.

Faces of Corruption: Part one in a series.

2010-08-30T11:18:00.005-05:00

I'm going to start a recurring series here at RIT. I will call it Faces of Corruption. It will focus on politicians who use their position of power illegitimately. I will not pull punches. Republican as well as Democrat will get equal treatment.

Today's Guest of Dishonor is Eddie Bernice Johnson (D TX-30).

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus are allowed to direct scholarships to deserving students within their district. There are rules against directing these scholarships outside of the district and to individuals who are related to the congressperson or their staffers. Personally I see this as a means to buy votes and I think the practice is reprehensible and unethical. But even within this unethical framework, Congresswoman Johnson still can't even follow the rules. She has directed 15 of these scholarships to her grandchildren and to children of her staff. What is worse, none of these kids are in her district. EVEN WORSE, she insists that had there been more deserving kids in her district she would not have done so. So are the residents of her district that stupid that they don't deserve scholarships? Is that what she is saying? That her district only turns out mental defectives that don't deserve to go to college?

If the residents re-elect her when she shows that much contempt for her own constituents, maybe she has a point.

UPDATE:

The Dallas Morning News is now reporting that the number of scholarships she has directed to friends and relatives now stands at 23.

Harris County voters are so very Screwed!

2010-08-27T12:45:00.003-05:00

Ladies and gents, I'm taking my partisan hack hat off for a moment and putting my election judge hat on.

This is a very important announcement to ALL voters in Harris County!

Early this morning every election machine in Harris County's inventory, all 10,000 of them, burned to the ground. Early voting starts on Oct. 2, and election day is Nov. 2, it is August 27th. we have 37 days until early voting and 67 days until election day. This is not a whole lot of time to replace these machines, frankly I don't think we can. Harris County plans to borrow machines from Montgomery and Ft Bend and other surrounding counties that use the Hart Intercivic E-Slate system for use during early voting, and this is probably doable since not as many machines will be needed for this. But this election cycle is going to be huge and well it should be. The electorate are not happy about the status quo and they are primed to take their wrath out on their elected representatives. This means that a LOT of people are going to want to vote and we will have a shortage of machines to vote them with. For those whose knee-jerk reaction is to revert to paper ballots, sorry but that is simply not an option. All of that equipment got chucked years ago.

So we face a dilemma, one that quite frankly I do not really look forward to dealing with, but I must. I am an Election Judge and I took an oath that I must do everything I humanly can to ensure that every legal ballot counts and that nobody is turned away without just cause. So what I am about to say might sound like I am violating that oath, but I'm not, I'm actually trying to facilitate it.

DO NOT VOTE ON ELECTION DAY, PLEASE!

PLEASE VOTE EARLY instead. The lines will be shorter (but maybe not by lots.), we will have enough voting machines to handle the onslaught, and the process will flow more smoothly. And besides, you can vote early at any early voting location, you do not have to go to a specific polling location during early voting. And if you have moved and haven't updated your voter's registration (which you still have 16 days to do!) with your new address, you can vote early, give them your new address and it will be updated for you the next time around. If you show up at my polling location and are not on my precinct's voter rolls, I will be forced to tell you to either go to the correct precinct, or you will be allowed to vote provisionally but that the odds are that it will not count. And all this will do is make an already hectic day for me even more hectic and will slow down processing for everyone else in line. So please, I'm begging you, if you can't get your residency squared away by the deadline, PLEASE go vote early. I will thank you, everyone in line behind you will thank you, and your vote WILL count. And ultimately that is the most important reason of all.

Here comes the bullet ban. UPDATED: DEFEATED!

2010-08-26T21:13:00.004-05:00

I've been expecting this for a while now, frankly I'm kind of surprised it has taken this long. The EPA is currently in a public comment period on a section 21 petition under the toxic substances control act by a coalition of environmental groups requesting the EPA to ban lead in bullets, shotgun shot, and fishing weights.

This is truly nothing more than an attempt to ban guns by other means. Since the constitution specifically enjoins the government from banning guns, gun banners have taken the tack of attacking the ammunition instead. Other attempts in this vein have already occurred such as requiring the serialization and registration of ammunition, requiring all guns to be modified with "microstamping" technology on their firing pins, and other onerous attempts at making our guns worthless paperweights. All of these measures have failed before being implemented so far. The alternatives to lead are simply not as good. they are not as dense so the bullet is lighter for a given size (and bullets cannot grow large enough to equal the weight of the lead bullet they are replacing in many calibers and in those cases where it is possible, the aerodynamics and terminal ballistics of the bullet are very different from the lead bullet it replaces. Lighter bullets move faster, and in some calibers that may actually increase penetration is some instances depending on what they impact. non-lead bullets are harder than lead, and therefore they do not expand properly leading to further increases in penetration. In some instances these are essentially armor piercing rounds which are already banned. non-lead bullets tend to break up instead of mushroom, ironically resulting in less stopping power.

It is time to tell the EPA that they do not have the constitutional authority to do this.

UPDATE:

The EPA, after being buried under an onslaught of negative comments from gun owners, and being clearly notified that they do not have the constitutional authority to regulate commerce in firearms (which is what a bullet ban is, without bullets a gun is an expensive paperweight.). They have decided that discretion is the better part of valor and have rejected the petition.

Agreeing with the position of the NRA and the firearms industry, the agency explained in a news release that it “does not have the legal authority to regulate this type of product under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).” Further crushing the hopes of anti-gun and anti-hunting activists, the release added: “nor is the agency seeking such authority.”

At least, for now that is....

"I meant to do that...."

2010-08-25T12:34:00.002-05:00

That is my reading of the current meme being floated that Obama does not intend to run for a second term. What it really is, is his way of saving face and claiming that was really his intent all along. But you know and I know that it is all bullshit. He's gone and screwed the pooch nigh unto death, and his popularity numbers are tanking and the economy is tanking and neither one is going to come back as long as he holds office. There is no way he will be allowed anywhere near a second term, hell, he'll be lucky if he is allowed to finish this term before being carted off to prison and he well knows that. Too many skeletons are falling out of the closet on his past dealings and too many of his cohorts are looking at prison time. He knows it is only a matter of time before somebody rolls over on his ass and they indict him on something.

Name that Adverb!

2010-08-25T11:23:00.006-05:00

You know the one I mean... The one the DemMedia keeps using when they are once again forced to announce yet another bleak economic report.... Yeah you know the word I mean. "Unexpectedly".

Well now they are using a slightly different form of the word, but it is still "unexpected".

Who is this idiot that doesn't expect more bad news out of this mentally retarded administration anyway? And why is it he is allowed to play with the big boy toys? Aren't they afraid he might hurt himself or others with those sharp edges?

The ONLY bright part of this economic meltdown Obama has given us is that it has driven home the abject stupidity of electing Democrats and RINOS. Like when you let little kids play with sharp tools, they invariably hurt themselves and make a mess of any and every piece of equipment they decide to "fix". At some point the adult has to come along and take the tools away and try to repair the damage.

I only hope the republic can survive until then.

How to stop the ground zero mosque in it's tracks.

2010-08-23T15:18:00.002-05:00

It's simple really, all we have to do is buy the building out from under him. Seems that the "developer" does not have the money to buy the land, he doesn't even have the money to put a down payment on the land. The solution is to put together some finance people and buy it out from under him and tell him to shove it up his burka.

You just THOUGHT the evac ahead of Rita was bad...

2010-08-23T11:45:00.002-05:00

Nine days, and sixty miles...

Talk about burying the Lede!

2010-08-18T09:48:00.002-05:00

Today The Economist posted a story "Japan overtakes China as the world's third largest economy". Sounds like it is saying that Japan is pulling it's arse out of the fire and has finally moved ahead of China right? Eh, not exactly. What it is REALLY about is the fact that Japan's economy has fallen off a cliff and China has surged ahead to the #2 spot. Japan is now at #3 and falling. China's economy is poised for a fall too, but so far it has managed to massage the numbers to make it continue to look good even though the reality is that the numbers aren't sustainable or justified, it is all propaganda. Who is #1 BTW? The US, but that won't last either. This time next year look for US to be #3 behind Japan and falling.

Compare and Contrast: Health Control Edition

2010-08-16T15:24:00.002-05:00

Pelosi pulled strings to let dying Dallas lawyer Baron try experimental cancer drug.

Berwick's First Strike: Susan G. Komen Foundation and Ovarian Cancer Alliance Decry First-ever Medicare Denials of FDA Approved Cancer Drugs.

Do you get the feeling that Baron's life was worth more simply because he was such a good Democrat fundraiser?

Karma can be a real bitch.

2010-08-16T07:59:00.005-05:00

Last week, two Hispanics, Jonathan Lopez-Torres, 18, a legal resident alien and Melvin Alvarado, 22, an illegal criminal alien from El Salvador who had been deported twice before were arrested and charged in the cold blooded murder of a 14 year old girl. The shooting happened in the 1100 block of Langwick, near West Hardy and Greens road, about 1:00 am in the morning. Now this is not the best neighborhood around, it is in the "Gunspoint" area not far from Greenspoint Mall. I certainly would not be wandering about at 1 am in that neighborhood, much less letting my 14 year old daughter do so. Alvarado was the trigger man who killed the teen. Alvarado was sent to the hospital ward of the Harris County Jail this weekend. Seems that another prisoner beat the crap out of him this weekend. There is no word yet if the prisoner that beat the crap out of him will be getting a reduced sentence or not... or if anyone actually saw anything for that matter....

42!

2010-08-11T08:19:00.007-05:00

It's the answer to life, the universe, and everything! * Ok, well, maybe not life, and maybe not everything either, but very possibly the universe... And that is a VERY BIG DEAL. What am I talking about? Very possibly a Unified Field Theory that marries Quantum Theory with General Relativity. Up until now, the two theories contradicted each other on the quantum scale. Quantum theory demanded that space-time be a fixed, flat, space for quantum mechanical objects to interact upon. Like a table for marbles to roll about on. If the table were tilted or not flat, the marbles would roll unpredictably. But General Relativity demanded that space-time be distorted by the masses arrayed upon it, like a sheet of rubber. And at the scales involved, those distortions were so huge that Quantum mechanics did not work and gave nonsensical answers, even in the context of Quantum mechanics which often does not make sense to the uninitiated anyway.

Enter Petr Horava, who was playing around with graphene, in a scene reminiscent of Sheldon's problem in "The Big Bang Theory". Graphene is a two dimensional sheet of carbon atoms in a hexagonal array, which is what the the walls of a buckytube are made of. He was thinking about how the motions of electrons along the chickenwire shaped lattice changed based on temperature. Above a certain temperature the electrons moved relatively slowly and did not require General Relativity to describe their motion, but below a certain temperature the electrons sped up to the speed of light and required General Relativity to describe their motions. This triggered a thought. What if space-time is not a single unified entity but is instead an emergent function, like that of superconductivity? What if space and time were in fact separate values that expanded and contracted at slightly different rates? By breaking the Lorentz Symmetry that marries the two together, Horava found that a lot of things that were impossible to describe through General Relativity or Quantum Mechanics, or required the addition of additional forces (dark matter) and energies that were far larger than could be observed (dark energy which GR requires to be 1200 times stronger than has been observed), suddenly fell out of the equations very simply. He also found that time could be given a preferred direction which GR did not allow. While this would seem to crush any hope of time travel, it does however seem to explain the way the universe works much much better than any other current theory. And it describes gravity on quantum mechanical scales that the current theory cannot.

Is this the "Theory of Everything" Physicists have been searching for? Can't say at this point, but it is certainly a good candidate for it.

* gratuitous Douglas Adams reference.

Obama's Iranian plan.

2010-08-10T19:55:00.002-05:00

Obama has been sitting on his arse letting Iran build nukes while the public despair over his inaction (among many many other things) grows. But Obama has a plan, one that may well get him re-elected. He is hoping that he can whistle past the graveyard for just a little bit longer and get past the midterm elections before he makes his move. He's hoping he can make it to at least the end of 2011 before he has to put his plan in motion. The closer to the 2012 campaign he can get the better (for him). He plans on a "Wag the Dog" style assault on Iran, possibly in cooperation with Israel, or possibly unilaterally, in the hope of triggering a revolution in Iran. Meanwhile he will dump Biden and put Hillary in place as VP, which will assuage some of the anger by the Clintonistas who abandoned the Democrat party and almost threw the election to McCain. He's hoping that those two moves will get him over the hump on election day 2012.

Don't let him manipulate us into re-electing him, because you KNOW what he will do come January 20, 2013. He'll double down and pull out ALL the stops. After all, he no longer gives a crap about re-election at that point. And for all of you Clintonistas who might be persuaded to listen to him, Hillary will be the one left holding the bag when 2016 comes along. She'll get all of the blame for his pogroms and won't have a snowball's chance at the election.

The man never learned the lesson about not shitting where you eat.... And neither has the Democrat party, but then again, I'm not so sure the GOP has either.

Good Neighbors

2010-08-10T11:53:00.002-05:00

Everyone has heard about the plans to build the Cordoba Mosque across the street from Ground Zero in NYC as a means to "mark their territory" not unlike the way a dog does. If you haven't you must be in a cave in Afghanistan or something. Greg Gutfeld has proposed a Gay Bar next door. While that is one idea, I personally don't think it goes NEARLY far enough. And judging by the comments, neither does anyone else. I propose not only opening a gay bar on one side, but a BBQ place (serving pork ribs of course!) on the other side, preferably on the upwind side, and a titty bar across the street and next to that, the world's largest synagogue. And next to THAT a huge christian church, or perhaps a huge Masonic lodge.

Thin Skinned Liberals and Blogging Updated

2010-08-05T08:41:00.004-05:00

Ladies and Gents, It would appear to be pretty obvious to me that if you are going to post something IN PUBLIC on the WORLD WIDE WEB for ALL TO SEE, you might just garner some criticism or perhaps outright mockery, depending on how half baked your brain is. There is a biligual ESL education faculty member at UH by the name of Michelle Huff who is quite literally a couple dozen bricks shy of a full load. She operates a wordpress blog by the name of Calle Viena, where she obsesses about the most insane crap. I had to ban her crazy ass from this place (she posted under the moniker of "michellines", then she tried to post anonymously but her personal brand of crazy always showed through no matter what name she used.) because I just decided I was tired of wrestling with that pig, euphemistically speaking, (you get dirty and the pig likes it.). She is apparently obsessed with all things conservative, Jared Woodfill, Myself, Kevin Whited, Cory Crow, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, you name it, she obsesses about it. She apparently thinks we all get personalized talking points memos from Satan himself signed in our own blood or some such because she acts as if it is all one big conspiracy to attack liberals and her specifically. As if we are all on first name basis and get together at lunch every day to plan our personal attacks on her. Frankly in my professional opinion, she needs to be strapped to a gurney with a continuous Thorazine IV drip and on the surgical schedule for a pre-frontal lobotomy if you ask me. But then again I'm a mechanical designer so what in hell do I know right? She is quite literally clinically paranoid in my opinion. Kevin has taken to mocking her with his personal MyDiigo account, tagging her posts with the "nacho" tag, for his own amusement (don't ask me what he means by "nacho". He says he'll tell me over beers one day). Now this account is technically public but he really doesn't publicize it, it is a mechanism he uses to drive certain RSS feeds he uses. It is the raw data stream for his multiple data feeds. It has to be public for the feeds to be able to log into the account as I understand the way it works. I'm not quite so sophisticated, I read all of the blogs I'm interested in personally. But to each his own.
ANYHOO, Ms. Huff takes special offense at Kevin linking to her blog. I mean she is batshit crazy pissed about it. To the point of posting upteen jillion comments to the MyDiigo link begging him to stop linking to her, which of course just eggs Kevin on. He finds watching her squirm quite amusing. I gotta admit, I rather enjoy watching it myself, not unlike the way you slow down and look when you pass a really bad accident on the freeway.

Look, posting stuff on the internet for the whole world to see means that some of those people who read your stuff will either take offense to it or mock it brutally. That is the price you pay for posting your stuff for all the world to see. You have to grow a thick skin to deal with it. You either ignore them or you offend/mock them back. Life goes on. Get Over It!

Waiting for Huff's brain case to explode in 5...4....3....

Update:
Well, that didn't take long... Now she is posting veiled threats of violence.
Ms. Huff (if that is truly your real name), please consider yourself put on notice. What you posted is skirting very close to the legal definition of verbal assault and terroristic threats, or at a minimum encouraging others to carry out acts of violence against myself and/or Kevin. If you come near me or mine, I am prepared to defend myself and my family, up to and including deadly force if legally authorized. Playtime is now officially OVER. Unlike most Libtards, I do legally own weapons and am versed in their use. So are all of the members of my family, including my youngest daughter. It was funny when you took politics personally, but I take threats of violence personally too. Consider yourself warned.

Little White Lies....

2010-08-04T20:35:00.003-05:00

Bill White has been running a TV ad up in North Texas, where he is relatively unknown in an effort to introduce himself to the electorate. Most of the ad is typical politicial pablum except for the bit where he calls himself a successful businessman. At that point WFAA reporter Brad Watson's ears twitched. He knew that Bill White was not quite as successful as he is painting himself to be. Frontera Resources, which he founded in 1996 is a failure and is only worth pennies (six of them per share to be exact.) on the dollar today. He also noted that Bill White claimed to have lowered taxes six times as mayor of Houston, which is technically correct, but he also notes that since property values were on a steep incline at the time, the actual tax bills were skyrocketing, even while the tax RATE was declining. Way to mince words there Bill! And of course there is the vague promises about doing something about improving education and job training without any specifics as to what exactly he would do, and more importantly how to pay for it all.

Then there is the story filed by AP's Jay Root. It would seem that Bill White not only profited handily from recommending BTEC, a subsidiary of The Wedge Group (which he was on the board of directors of until he was elected mayor and in which he purchased a hefty amount of stock afterwards.) to the Coastal Water Authority (which the Mayor of Houston appoints the majority of the board members) for a no-bid emergency contract to supply gas turbine generators to keep the pumps running after Hurricane Ike. It would seem that not only did he use undue influence to direct a no-bid contract to a company he shortly thereafter purchased a large financial stake in, but he then used his position as mayor to intervene in a nasty billing dispute that arose as a result of the contract. Then shortly after the dispute was settled, he invested a million dollars in BTEC, and got half a million in profits back shortly thereafter. Nice work if you can get it if you ask me. But don't tell me this was all on the up and up here. I was born at night but not LAST night. Apparently neither was Jay Root. It isn't gambling if the game is rigged and you know what the result will be.

Why does this song come to mind I wonder?

Hat Tips: Kevin Whited, and an anonymous media insider who wishes to remain employed.

Karmic Symmetry

2010-08-03T13:21:00.002-05:00

The Catholic Church, ha s, on numerous occasions, supported illegal immigration both in word and in deed. So it is with great irony that I read that one Catholic nun was killed and two others critically injured by a drunk driver in Virginia. This particular drunk driver was an illegal alien who has been caught by ICE and released on his own recognizance pending a deportation hearing. He had no license, nor insurance, and was driving while drunk. This was his THIRD drunk driving offense.

Note to the Catholic Church.... You reap what you sow!

The wonders of Socialized Medicine, coming to an ER near you!

2010-08-03T11:36:00.002-05:00

Today, there are two reports that landed at about the same time that goes to show what Obamacare has in store for us all.

The first story comes from Sweden where a man who had cut his leg badly on the sharp edge of a stove while he was renovating a house, sat in the ER for so long that he eventually gave up waiting and took needle and thread in hand and sewed his own leg wound closed.

And in Canada, a woman who was nine weeks pregnant and was experiencing bleeding went to the ER. She sat in the waiting room for three hours, bleeding and crying while only a single patient was taken back to see the doctor. Eventually she and her husband left and drove 45 minutes to another ER where she was seen immediately and was informed that she had miscarried while waiting int he other ER.

Ain't Socialism grand?

Is the House Ethics Committe Targeting Blacks?

2010-08-02T13:09:00.003-05:00

That is the question asked by The Politico, and the answer is yes, they are, but not for the reasons that the Politico and the Congressional Black Caucus think. They are getting cause and effect confused. The reason why more blacks than whites are being investigated has more to do with the fact that for decades, blacks in congress had virtual immunity from prosecution simply because the race card was always played and the prosecution was abandoned out of fear of public opinion. Many congressmembers realized this de facto immunity existed and it emboldened them to partake in even more corruption. But the race card has been played so much so often during the reign of Obama that it no longer has any real force behind it. nobody fears reprisals as a result of it. Suddenly those who believed themselves above the law are being forced to answer to it and their crimes cannot withstand examination in the cold light of day. But being creatures of habit, they still don't grasp that the immunity of the race card has been stripped away, so they are attempting to play it once again. I predict that they will find that the race card has lost much of it's potency.

Update:
It would appear that Brian Garst agrees with me that there are other forces at work.

Rapist lie, but do liars rape?

2010-07-21T14:06:00.002-05:00

Apparently, in Israel, if you lie about yourself in order to get a woman to have sex with you , you can be charged with rape. At least that is the case of a Palestinian Arab who told a Jewish woman he too was Jewish in order to get her to have sex with him. When she found out he was in fact an Arab, she filed rape charges against him... And he was convicted.

My earliest memory...

2010-07-21T07:30:00.001-05:00

And I daily ask myself where we would be today if we had continued on this path instead of throwing it all away in the name of "social justice" and Wealth Redistribution.

Plugging the Hole

2010-07-15T19:37:00.000-05:00

Now this is what we need to deploy along the border

2010-07-14T11:21:00.003-05:00

South Korea has deployed Sentry Robots with heat and low light imaging systems as well as 40mm grenade launchers and machine guns.

Here come the Taxpayer funded Abortions

2010-07-14T11:05:00.005-05:00

They said wouldn't happen...And if you believed that bullshit line from Obama/Stupak, you are an idiot.

Newt Gingrich For President?

2010-07-13T12:45:00.000-05:00

Uh, I don't THINK so....

Red Ink: Texas

The swath of death widens, but the story just won't die.

How we will trigger WWIII by refusing to fire a shot

About those Sex Harassment claims against Herman Cain...

Measuring the length of the Thread of the Fates.

Adventures in Headline Writing Part 98704

Adventures in headline writing part 98703

Air France Flight 447: A Prediction/Postmortem (updated)

The Decriminalization Fallacy

The Looming Constitutional Crisis

In search of the Fourth Amendment.

Thoughts on Egypt

Is Apple a victim of hacking?

WARNING! Product recall!

Welcome to the land of Sharia, and the home of the depraved.

Pork the one you love....

Greenwood man caught having sex with hogs

The City of Houston is mathematically challenged

Funny how I didn't read this in OUR newspaper..

He's "laser focused" on jobs...

Chose your weapons....

I really don't know why this surprises me anymore...

A word about the Strauss win.

And so it begins anew.... Updated

The cure for HIV is Nigh *Updated*

The moral bankruptcy of Europe is now complete, and we aren't far behind.

Obama: "I'm itching for a fight"

My kind of grafitti

Is Steele Gone? Update: Not yet...

Obama wears out government printing presses

Rangel steps in it again

Racisim is NEVER ok...

Wikileaks, and blackmail

There goes the neighborhood!

John Conyers steps in it yet again.

Spanish woman claims to own the Sun

Napolitano and the first rule of holes

The war with our government has begun

Creeping Danger to your 2A: You must be crazy!

Creeping danger for CHL holders. You may lose your second amendment rights

New treatment for PTSD?

Today in History

I bet this party is a real disaster...

Blood banks without the needles

Today in History (Belated)

Incompetency, thy name is the City of Houston

Is the US about to invade India?

I need a nap...

New layout/template on the way.

I wish I were a better artist

NPR and the First Amendment

Why elections have consequences....

Keep it on the table!

Baby Steps in Wisconsin

And the beat(down) goes on...

Fiudiciary Duties

Inflation coming to a store near you.

YOU do the math!

New definitions of rape

Paranoia Part II: Facecrime

Paranoia

Navigation Path

Myrtus

Jessie's Girl

A Telling Admission

Faces of Corruption: Eleanor Holmes Norton D-DC

Faces of Corruption: Rick Boucher D-Va

It's a BFD!

Washington DC Fears Next Unemployment Wave

Faces of Corruption: Sanford Bishop D-Ga

Stephen Broden for CD-30: He is Worthy

Faces Of Corruption: An update.

The Dangers of Computerized Medical Records

Why I am thankful to live in Texas

Paging Captain Obvious!

Senate Judiciary Committee to hold hearings today on Firearms Regulation UPDATE! This is a good thing!

News Flash! It's about the quality of life stupid!

Yet another Obama Gun Ban

Connecting the Dots: The coming Obama crime wave

Faces of Corruption: Part one in a series.

The cure for HIV is Nigh Updated