Faces of Corruption: Part one in a series.

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!

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!

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...."

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!

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.

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...

Nine days, and sixty miles...

Talk about burying the Lede!

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

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.

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!

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.

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

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

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....

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

The Catholic Church, has, 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!

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?

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.