Wednesday - October 20, 2010

A laugh before bedtime

Thanks Rich, I needed this one!

Horry Clap, nutjobs to left of me, nutjobs to lefter of me, nutjobs behind, tantrums and hypocrisy!

Obama tried TOO HARD to work with Republicans

WASHINGTON — Amplified by the right-wing message machine, Republicans paint President Obama as an unyielding left-winger, an unreconstructed liberal who refuses to compromise. The president’s critics have turned the truth inside out: One of Obama’s greatest political weaknesses has been his stubborn — and unrequited — love for bipartisanship.

The president has made some of his biggest mistakes trying to woo a GOP opposition that has committed itself to frustrating him at every turn. If he had ignored recalcitrant Republicans, for example, his health care legislation might have become law without months of damaging political drama.

In an interview last week in his West Wing office, David Axelrod, one of Obama’s closest advisers, acknowledged that the administration had been surprised by the unified Republican resistance to the president’s agenda.

“I think the Republicans have been diabolically clever about how they’ve portrayed this,” Axelrod conceded. “They stood on the sidelines and made a decision that ‘we’re going to let him wrestle with this mess that we created. And then in two years we can try and hang him with it.’ “

After the stimulus, Obama and his Democratic allies tried to negotiate with GOP leaders on health insurance reform — a decision that gave critics time to mischaracterize the proposal and gin up opposition. Remember death panels? Government-funded abortions? Rationing?

Still, Obama kept going back with proposals meant to lure a few Republican votes for his agenda. That led to his disastrous announcement, just weeks before the Deepwater Horizon explosion, to expand off-shore drilling.

A naïve expectation of bipartisan cooperation hasn’t been Obama’s only mistake. He waited until the last possible moment to try to inspire his base for the mid-term elections. Unlike Ronald Reagan, whose poll ratings were slightly lower than Obama’s just before the 1982 mid-term elections, Obama didn’t take every possible opportunity to pin the economic mess on his predecessor.

Read the rest at the above link, if your stomach is strong enough.

Oh, this essay was written by Cynthia Tucker, PULITZER PRIZE winning journalist for the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Remember Cynthia, inhale on the upstroke.

The AJC brings a southern flair to all their hard hitting news stories, like this one about 8 cows that were stolen. Seriously. Front page news. And some of the cows were pregnant.

Some Raw Meat To Chew On

Here you go little wolf pups!

This was in my inbox.

HOW WE LOST AMERICA IN TEN EASY STEPS

Preface:  For anyone of predominantly white European Anglo-Saxon Protestant heritage to bemoan “How We Lost America” is hypocrisy.  But for the sake of the Cherokee blood in my veins mixed with that of the Aztecs in my children, I continue:

1.  Whether God preceded Greed or Greed preceded God is debatable.  The fact that all forms of government and all flavors of politics are the spawn of their unholy union is not.

2.  At the core of Christianity is the pursuit of good.  At the core of Capitalism is the pursuit of gold.  Beginning in 1492 at the latest, these pursuits connected all continents, corruptly conflating in the process.

3.  Global empires constructed on this corrupt conflation collided in what we called “the Great War”, the bloody battlegrounds of which provided ideal breeding pools for false profits ... and false prophets.

4.  Massive military machinations offered Sheeple on all sides salvation from one or the other.  And with the end of what we called “World War II”, an American military-industrial machine of unprecedented power prevailed.

5.  Not wishing to part with their power or profits, the “rising military-industrial complex” Ike warned us about began clandestinely fomenting fear of foreign foes and feeding puppet politicians to the flock.

6.  The demise of the Soviet Union brought about the need for a new Boogie Man to keep billions for bullets, bandages and bridges in the federal budget.  And after some bargaining by the Good Ole boys, the Bedouins were happy to oblige.

7.  In the “Coup d’etat of 2000”, the Kleptocracy overrode our Constitution and the electorate to install the idiot son of a former CIA Director as POTUS (knowing that although they controlled Gore as well, he’d be harder to manage).

8.  On 11 September 2001, the Kleptocracy either allowed or orchestrated the massacre of thousands of innocent American Sheeple as pretext for the perpetuation of their war profiteering and Peak Oil reserve pursuits.

9.  With the debris of the three towers still smoldering in Manhattan, political puppets Left and Right proudly voted away large portions of our Bill of Rights in what must have been laughingly labelled “The Patriot Act”.

10. There was no “Change” in 2008, as Gates stayed on at DOD and Goldman-Sachs kept their hands in the Treasury.  And to assure no change in 2010, “Citizens United” legalized unlimited anonymous multinational corporate political donations.


And THAT’s how we lost America, children…

And he’s a Truther too. I won’t like to his web page, but I did reply with “unsubscribe” as fast as I could.

day late, dollar short

I hear that Crowder is going back to making videos every week once again. Guess he’s done waiting around to be a “young Conservative” guest on Fox News. So he sent out a mass email telling everyone that he’s back. Which I didn’t get. Even though I’m one of the half dozen blogs that carried his stuff from the very beginning. Sigh. They grow up so fast, then leave the nest. And then when life gives them lemons, they come crawling back, expecting to be allowed to live in the basement. Rent free.

If it wasn’t for Dr. Rusty and Frank J including me in their response email, I’d never have known. Sigh.  Or maybe I should check my email more often. That could help too.

Where ya bin?

Not much posting from me the past few days. What time I’ve had for internet surfing has been eaten up studying. Yeah, I went down another one of those digital tangents, and got deep into some seriously esoteric knowledge. It happens.

It all started when I read something about some Viking raid back in the late Dark Ages. And the memory that those guys used something called a “klondorf” sword popped into my head. And that got me Googling. Well, it turns out that it wasn’t “klondorf” it was “clontarf”, named after a long ago battle in Ireland in which the Vikings got whupped but good.

I was pretty amazed that the minute by minute details of that battle were still known, along with all the political squabbling, temporary alliances, and dirty deeds that lead up to it. It’s a colorful story in the best Irish tradition, and in the end there are no real winners. Oh sure, the battle itself was quite decisive. But afterwards the folks went right back to squabbling and dirty dealing, so nothing was really gained by it.

But it made me think of just how courageously mad and how physically strong these warriors must have been to go at it in the dirt with these massive choppers, protected by little more than a leather shirt and a wooden shield. So I looked into it, and found out some things that I thought were very interesting. And that’s when I got on the Express Bus to ride down Esoterica Street.

For starters, swords were much lighter than I realized. I was a fencer in college, and the foils, epees, and sabres we used all weigh only a few ounces. A pound at most, IIRC. That doesn’t count; that’s modern sporting equipment. But I’ve got some sort of cultural memory, fueled by Bugs Bunny cartoons and Errol Flynn movies in which the plucky princess can barely lift a sword in emergency circumstances to save her own honor ... these things had to weigh a ton, yes? No. Surprise! A broadsword, any broadsword, from the early kind the Vikings used right up until they went away in the early days of the Renaissance, only weighed about 2 1/2 pounds. The seriously huge ones, like the double handed Claymores, only weighed a pound more. Nor were they point heavy imbalanced cudgels; thousands of ancient swords are still around, and almost all of them balance within a hand-span of the hilt. And they were sharp. We tend to denigrate the skills of the ancients these days, poo-pooing their feeble efforts in just about everything. But we are wrong to do so. Vainglorious. These guys may not have turned out 5000 tons of chromaloy steel a day like today’s mills, but what they wrought, they wrought well.

Another thing that really caught me off guard was the flexibility these blades had. I’d never really thought about it, but if anything, I’d figured that they were all stiff as rocks; great clanging iron I beams with a bit of a sharp edge. Wrong again Sherlock. A properly tempered broadsword can flex nearly 90 degrees and still not take a bend. Try that with your fancy kitchen knives! This is a very long way from the smithing process used to make the Roman Gladius, which was a short sword that was very stiff. That one was built up out of bars of twisted wrought iron hammer forged together ... go and read Jack Whyte’s Camulod Chronicles series of novels for a very detailed explanation of that process ... plus it’s a great read, and a wonderful telling of the “coulda been” story of the shaping of early Britain behind the Arthurian legend. Well, read the first 6 novels in the series. The last few books aren’t as good; the series really ought to have ended with Metamorphosis with young Arthur, the newly crowned Christian high king, rushing off to his first major battle, Excalibur in hand.

Then I found out that the evolutionary history of edged weapons has been classified by this guy Ewert Oakeshott, who spent the better part of his life studying the things, and developed the typology used by everyone today that shows the kind of swords used, who use them, where, and when. He figured out the arms race of those days, how swords grew and changed across the centuries in response to different armor, different metallurgy, and different ways of fighting wars. Impressive as all get out, and about as esoteric a field of expertise as you could ever hope to find. Which makes it pretty obvious he was an Englishman. Well done, that man.

But I was still interested in the metallurgy aspect. The mining, the smelting, the smithing. I’m still looking into that, still learning. And I think this is the core issue that marks the difference between western swords, those knightly weapons of the Middle Ages, and their counterparts in the Far East, the Katana blades of the samurai. Europe has had iron mines since forever. And coal. And may have had coke ( as charcoal is to wood, coke is to coal ) in small quantities for a very long time. But when they smelted iron their results had either no carbon (wrought iron) or too much carbon (cast iron), and very little steel (just a bit of carbon). Ancient Japan got most of its iron ore from the beaches. They have iron sands. And no coal. So their smelting was done at a much lower temperature, which gave them a non-homogeneous result, but that mixed result had both kinds or iron and both low and high carbon steel in it. This in turn forced the smiths to take an entirely different path to smithing and making weapons. That lead to all that hammering and folding, that near-mythical forging knowledge and level of labor that was required to build those fabled blades. ( for a great, lengthy, but simple read on the history of Japanese steel making, read this. ) Following that path for a bit I learned that a typical Katana was just about the same size and weight as it’s European counterpart, but with a shorter, heavier, but equally flexible blade. Because it was made from mixed steels. And they had a much more forward weight balance, due to their long two-handed grip and not much in the way of a pommel. I had always thought things were exactly the opposite, that samurai swords were the utter peak of the swordsmith’s art in all things, balance included. Horrible snark opportunity: different strokes for different folks!

model of a takadono, an ancient Japanese blast furnace

Tamahagane steel is made by building and firing a Tatara, the traditional Japanese sword-steel smelter. This charcoal- fired furnace produces a very pure steel from iron sand, and this steel ‘’Kera’’ or bloom can be broken and separated into high- and low-carbon pieces, which respectively form the ‘’skin’’ steel and ‘’core’’ steel of the blade. The skin steel is forged and folded repeatedly, to remove slag inclusions and voids and is then wrapped around the core steel before the resulting billet is forged into a blade. Careful heat treating, shaping and polishing reveals the tight ‘’Hada’’ or layer pattern of the blade and the white particles of the ‘’Hamon’’ or temper line. While this process results in the aesthetic qualities much admired by collectors it also produces a very functional blade, as the high carbon content of the skin steel makes a very hard edge possible while the softer core steel gives the blade its resilience and ability to absorb shock.

I took a left turn somewhere along this road and delved into modern swords. Yes, they are out there, and not just the wall hanger bit of crap you can pick up for $24.95 at the mall and use to impress your drunken friends with when cutting watermelons. No, I’m talking real swords. Razor sharp lengths of properly forged and tempered steel, built to slice off heads, chop through chainmail and stab through armor plate. Battle ready weapons, modern heirlooms. Toys for boys with way too much money. Swordmaking is not a lost art; the best of today’s swords are every bit as good as the ones built 600 years ago. Better perhaps, although the very best ones strive to be as authentic as possible, which can mean making a slightly lesser weapon than what current technology could actually produce. They come in every shape and variety and at every price point. So do samurai swords. But eastern or western, the real real deal will set you back between nearly one and a bit more than two thousand dollars.

I simply can not make up my mind. They’re all favorites!
Not that I have the cash to waste on toys like these. But it’s tempting. They speak to me. They call to me.

   Tuesday - October 19, 2010

An ObamaCare Owie

Boeing: 90,000 employees must pay lots more for health insurance


Union employees exempt from insurance rate hike hit in their paychecks

In what could be a game changer for the deadlocked Washington Senate race, Boeing notified 90,000 employees, concentrated in huge plants in Washington, thattheir health premiums would increase next year as the company braces for the impact of President Obama’s national health care law.

Citing the need to shift plans to avoid new taxes in the plan, the company will increase annual deductibles for employees’ family plans by $300 to $900.

The letters to tens of thousands of Boeing employees in Washington will powerfully reinforce the message from Sen. Patty Murray’s Republican challenger, Dino Rossi, that the president’s health care law is bad for the state’s top employer.

At their debate Thursday, Murray defended the law and said that it would help the state, rebutting Rossi’s claim that the legislation had passed without being read by saying “Not only did I read it, I helped write it.”

Aerospace giant Boeing is joining the list of companies that say the new health care law could have a potential downside for their workers.

In a letter mailed to employees late last week, the company cited the overhaul as part of the reason it is asking some 90,000 nonunion workers to pay significantly more for their health plan next year.

This seems like conflicting stories here. Which is it: lowered benefits (ie higher deductible) or raised premiums? YES. It’s both. Why? Because Boeing has a very good insurance plan for it’s workers. So good, in fact, that it falls into the government’s “Cadillac” category. So to avoid having to pay a FORTY PERCENT TAX on this “excessive” package, they have to stick it to the workers and cut the benefits by some degree. This creates a new group policy, and that means a large rate increase. The talking heads on TV were saying it could be upwards of $1000 per worker. Gee, thanks Odumbo.

Spokeswoman Karen Forte said the Boeing plan is more generous than what its closest competitors offer, and the company was concerned it would get hit with a new tax under the law.

The tax on so-called “Cadillac” health plans doesn’t take effect until 2018, but employers are already beginning to assess their exposure because it is hefty: at 40 percent of the value above $10,200 for individual coverage and $27,500 for a family plan.

Deductibles, the share of medical costs that employees pay annually before their plan kicks in, will go up to $300 for individuals, an increase of $100. For families, the new deductible will be $900, an increase of $300.

In addition, Boeing is instituting a copayment of 10 percent after the deductible has been met. The copayment will rise to 20 percent in 2012.

Those changes will reduce the value of the Boeing plan, but it’s unclear whether that will allow the company to escape the tax looming in 2018.

So much for having a good job with good benefits. ALL ROUND PEGS WILL BE HAMMERED DOWN UNTIL THEY FIT THE SQUARE HOLES. Did you notice that the new “Cadillac” tax is higher than the top income tax bracket? Just saying. Because the guy who screws the wheels onto 747s is rich you know. And the rich have to be taxed until they’re just as poor as the rest of us.

More and more I am seeing the talking heads on Fox News come right out and say that the only real goal of ObamaCare is a one payer system: health insurance run by the government. It is their intent, and they wrote this massive law specifically, to put the thousands and thousands of private insurance companies out of business. Gee, no kidding. That’s what we said 2 years ago, and nobody listened.

less law, more disorder on planet stupid ….

Man is this crazy er what?

This creep is dangerous but the judge sets him free. Even the judge acknowledges future problems. When will they lock up the bastard? After he’s he’s killed a few ppl?  Unbelievable?  Nope.  Par for the course.

He has a learning problem. Awwww ... So do I. I can’t figure out this damn computer.  That’s a learning problem.

Thug branded ‘lethal human cocktail’ for drunken attacks spared jail despite fears he will re-offend for decades

By David Wilkes

A drunken and violent robber was spared jail ­yesterday – despite a judge calling him a lethal human cocktail likely to reoffend for decades to come.

Rory Fagan left a teenager traumatised after mugging him and attacked a supermarket worker during a theft.

After hearing the 21-year-old thug had learning difficulties and an alcohol problem, Judge Peter Moss said: ‘Put the two together and he becomes a lethal cocktail.

‘He can appear very frightening.’

He went on: ‘I can envisage you in 21 years’ time still drinking and committing this sort of offending again and again.’

But despite this, the judge gave Fagan a community sentence, saying: ‘He’s not a well lad.

‘Prison is just the wrong place.’

The judge added that he was ‘taking a leap of faith’ and that he hoped his prediction for Fagan’s future did not come true.

more here

uh huh ... So judgey-wudgy is willing to risk public safety in the grand hope judgey may be wrong but really doesn’t think so.
I can live in the hope that judges like this will be the next victim of a violent crime, but we know that isn’t in the cards.  Just doesn’t happen.

The answer is and always has been ....

EUTHANASIA!  Because it works

And how about this one?  Oh boy. Talk about sever punishment. 

Freed, yobs who beat up commuter and laughed

Byline: Ryan Kisiel

THREE young professionals who celebrated after launching a ‘shocking’ drunken assault on a train passenger have been spared prison.

Frederick Doe, Michael Tebbutt Michael Tebbutt and Samantha Vander subjected their victim to a ‘volley of punches and kicks’ and repeatedly stamped on his head after he asked them to keep the noise down.

Vander even used her stiletto shoes as a weapon during the attack, which was captured on CCTV.

The trio were handed a four month suspended sentence and 300 hours’ community service at St Albans Crown Court.
A sentence given after the formal conviction of a crime that the convicted person is not required to serve.

The court heard Doe, 25, Tebbutt, 24, and Vander, 25, pounced on the 38-year-old man after an alcohol-fueled night in London.
‘Doe and Tebbutt floored the man and then assaulted him with a volley of punches and kicks.

‘Vander joined in and stamped on the victim’s head and body using the stiletto heels she was wearing - laughing as she did so.’ The assault, on a train from Liverpool Street to Hertford East, continued until another passenger came to the victim’s aid.

Doe, an estate agent, Tebbutt, a financial officer, and Vander, a personal assistant, were caught on camera laughing and congratulating each other. Detective Sergeant Ghersinich said: ‘The level of violence that these people directed towards their victim was shocking.’ Doe, from Ware, Tebbutt, from Stanstead Abbotts and Vander, from Hertford, all in Hertfordshire, admitted violent disorder and causing actual bodily harm.

H/T thefreelibrary.com

EUTHANASIA!  Because it works

a rather sad photo ….

Right, it isn’t much of a story except that the darn thing still runs.  The photo at the link has better detail and is full screen. Worth a look I think.

All steamed up: 130-year-old engine crashes through garden wall .. at top speed of 5mph

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 4:34 PM on 19th October 2010

Despite it only going at 5mph, there was only going to be one outcome when this steam engine collided with a garden wall.

The driver of the 130-year-old runaway traction engine lost control on a steep hill in Ford, Gloucestershire, and the vintage vehicle bounced off a parked car before smashing into the wall.

‘The engine appears to have gone down the hill and skidded on the cats eyes - sending it across the road.

‘It then hit the end of a neighbour’s car and crashed into the wall. If it hadn’t have hit that wall, it could have crashed into a house.

‘It was such a sad sight to see the engine, which had obviously been lovingly restored, lying shattered.

‘My neighbour had just spent the summer repairing his wall too!’

The traction engine, bearing the name ‘S Kavanagh, road contractor, Surrey’, was towing a caravan when it crashed on Saturday at 9.30am.

Neighbours believed it was travelling from the nearby Toddington Steam Fair.

Traction steam engines - often called road locomotives - became popular in Britain from the 1850s.

The metal-wheeled vehicles were used to tow heavy equipment and usually travel at around 3-4mph.

source and larger photo

skidded on the cats eyes… OK, someone has to tell what the heck cats eyes are in relation to this machine.

   Monday - October 18, 2010

Dead Democrats

Only my second attempt at creating a demotivator. Yes? No? Go home you infidel?

Multiculturalism in Germany has ‘utterly failed. Of course it has. It’s been a poor,unwanted graft.

Nothing but damn PC problems I can’t work out, which is frustrating, didn’t even look for humor to start the day and then found this. Well DUH!  It took this successful and highly educated head of state this long to figure out this policy was a pile of rubbish all along. But at least someone is saying it out loud. Finally.

Alas, I think it’s too little too late.  Even if they learn German (or English or French, pik ur fav), it’s too late.  The cancer has spread. Not just to Germany.
The French in their way are trying to stall the inevitable, they say the Brits are helping terrorists just by not issuing a burka ban. One of the libtard writers in the Times here thinks that’s awful. He ridiculed the French suggestion, asking, (he really did) how many burka wearing women have you seen lately carrying out terror attacks.  Again, DUH! He doesn’t get, the left generally doesn’t get it and they do not want to.
Till now and maybe still, the Germans spend so much time and effort bending over backwards in every sort of way to prove that they are no longer Nazis, that they’ve turned a somewhat blind eye to a threat more serious in their homeland.  Too late. Too late.

There is only one recourse, only one way to stem and reverse the tide, but nobody wants to go down that road. And so the cancer spreads and eats up what is left of European and English civilization.

Oh well, at least when they fall, they will go down gween.  Now that’s a war they feel confident fighting.  (schmucks)

Here ... take my country. Please! (with a nod to Henny Youngman)

Multiculturalism in Germany has ‘utterly failed’, claims Chancellor Angela Merkel

By Alan Hall In Berlin
Last updated at 8:57 AM on 18th October 2010

* ‘Too little required of immigrants’ says tough-talking Christian Democrat leader

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said her country’s attempts to build a post-war multicultural society have ‘utterly failed’.

In a landmark speech, she broke one of Germany’s last taboos and courted anti-immigration support by claiming those from a different background failed to live happily side-by-side with native Germans.

Her comments, to the youth wing of her own Christian Democrat Union party, came amid growing resentment about immigration in Germany.

There are about seven million foreign residents living in the country. Some 4.3million of these are Muslim and there are more than 3,000 mosques across Germany.

Mrs Merkel said the so-called ‘multikulti’ concept – ‘that we are now living side by side and are happy about it’ – does not work. ‘This approach has failed, utterly,’ she said just days after a poll showed a third of all Germans viewed immigrants as nothing more than welfare cheats.

Addressing fears of ‘German-ness’ being lost amid new mosques, headscarves in classrooms and Turkish ghettos in cities like Berlin, she added: ‘We feel bound to the Christian image of humanity – that is what defines us. Those who do not accept this are in the wrong place here.’

Mrs Merkel joined leading political and business leaders who have questioned immigration policies in recent months.

The rest can be read HERE

   Sunday - October 17, 2010

Today in History

539 BC – Cyrus the Great takes Babylon, releases the Jews from 70 years of exile.
1777 – American troops defeat the British at Saratoga.
1781 – Cornwallis surrenders to Washington at Yorktown.
1814 – Nine drown in the London Beer Flood.
1973 – OPEC oil embargo begins.
1979 – Department of Education created. (FYI, I graduated in ‘78. Can’t imagine how I did it without DepEd.)

Stolen From Theo’s

but I came up with the title*

The Pirate of Pissant

* what, you want to understand the asterisk? Fine:

   Saturday - October 16, 2010

Andrew Cuomo: dirtbag

The Man Who Would Be Governor of NY




He’s an arm twisting thug. Period. A scumbag lawyer. No, not a scumbag like most lawyers, but a real scumbag, scumbag lawyer. Here’s a reminder from Walter Olson, looking at Cuomo’s deep involvement in the nearly infinite number of harassment lawsuits against the gun companies 8 to 10 years ago. The intent was never to win. They knew they had no chance. The intent was to bankrupt the companies by drowning them in legal costs. “bankruptcy lawyers will be knocking at your door” as fellow dirtbag gun-suit proponent Elliot ( client # 9 ) Spitzer put it.

Some fret about the Democrat’s reputation for political hardball: former governor Eliot Spitzer (Eliot Spitzer!) last month called Cuomo the “dirtiest, nastiest political player out there,” which is like being called overdressed by Lady Gaga. Others find Cuomo too much of a camera-chaser as attorney general in Albany, and almost everyone is queasy over his role (as Clinton-era housing secretary) in encouraging risk-taking by federally backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, leading by direct steps to today’s ongoing mortgage crisis.

No, what I find permanently hard to forgive is the way Cuomo threw himself into the role of chief national cheerleader for the municipal anti-gun litigation of the 1990s and early 2000s.

Because that litigation mostly fizzled out, it is now only half remembered and doesn’t much feature in Cuomo profiles. At the time, though, it was a close-fought battle and a big story. More than 30 cities and counties sued firearms makers, alleging that courts should hold them financially responsible for the costs of urban shootings.

Mindful of traditional tenets of legal ethics that forbid lawyers from using the cost of legal process as a bludgeon, most backers of the suits prudently refrained from any hint that imposing unsustainable legal costs was part of the plan. One exception was Cuomo, who warned gunmakers that unless they cooperated, they’d suffer “death by a thousand cuts.”

Read the rest here, and make sure to read his piece from 2000 that detailed more of the arm twisting and dirty legal machinations. How soon we forget? Um, no. The internet is forever, and not all of us are oblivions.

Eventually the feds had to pass a new law that exempted gun makers from this kind of junk lawsuit. But it took years to get all the cases out of the court rooms. Now the only players left in that game of harassment are NYC Mayor Bloomberg and the other idiotic Mayors Against Guns. Here is a link to how things were back then, before that law was even a bill: Litigation Without Justification Is Tyranny.

But there is more to this than just Cuomos obvious anti-2A stance. It’s the utter lack of ethics that he showed the world by being part of this. By being a leader of this. The man has no scruples whatsoever. Is this the guy you want running the corrupt mess in Albany that is the NY state government? Do you really think he’s going to clean them up? That state needs a savior, but Andrew Cuomo is the anti-Christie.

Don’t Look Down

Hoover Damn ByPass Bridge Ready To Open


the new bypass bridge is ready for traffic

LAS VEGAS – A soaring bypass bridge high above the Colorado River near Hoover Dam is set to open after nearly eight years and $240 million worth of work.

The 1,900-foot engineering wonder perched 890 feet above the water is expected to drastically cut travel time along the main route between Las Vegas and Phoenix, as motorists will no longer have to make their way across the dam and its security checkpoints at a snail’s pace.

Cars previously were routed across Hoover Dam to cross the border between Arizona and Nevada, and checkpoints added after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, often caused miles-long backups of traffic. Federal officials also heavily restricted the types of vehicles and cargo that could cross the dam, sending semis and other large vehicles an extra 23 miles through the resort town of Laughlin.

The new bridge allows travelers to bypass the dam much more quickly and with no checkpoints. The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates it will cut at least 30 minutes from the trip.

Those going to the dam will no longer be able to pass over it to cross the border by car, though it will remain open as a tourist attraction.

It’s the longest bridge built with concrete arches in the western hemisphere, according to the Transportation Department. The arches measure 1,060 feet.

Nearly 900 feet up in the air? Holy cow. And with the awesomeness of the Hoover Damn right next to it. That’s no distraction, no sir. For the sake of the folks driving this new wonder, I hope the sides of the bridge are solid walls about 9 feet tall. So you can’t see anything, and you just have to drive the quarter mile corridor. And not watch the damn instead of the road, and not worry about how far down it is, and not even think that there are no wires holding this bridge up. Yikes.

the bypass bridge under construction

Too Big To Fail, Or To Fine

SEC fines Countrywide CEO $67.5 Million


Too bad there’s no ruling that he actually has to pay them the money

Countrywide Financial Corp. co-founder Angelo Mozilo has agreed to a $67.5 million settlement to avoid trial on civil fraud and insider trading charges that alleged he profited from doling out risky mortgages while misleading investors about the risks.

Two other former Countrywide executives also settled before trial next week on charges filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. But employment agreements that protect the men from lawsuits involving the failed lender mean Bank of America Corp., which bought Countrywide in July 2008, will pick up most of the tab.

The agreement requires Mozilo to repay $45 million in ill-gotten profits and $22.5 million in civil penalties. Former Countrywide President David Sambol owes $5 million in profits and $520,000 in civil penalties, and former Chief Financial Officer Eric P. Sieracki will pay $130,000 in civil penalties.

It’s “the fitting outcome for a corporate executive who deliberately disregarded his duty to investors by hiding what he saw in the executive suite,” SEC Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami said in a conference call with reporters.

But $25 million of Mozilo’s restitution will come from an escrow fund the company set up to cover shareholder litigation and Mozilo has no obligation to pay the remaining amount, according to the settlement agreement.

Sambol’s agreement stipulates that his entire $5 million forfeiture will come from the escrow fund.
...
The SEC accused the men of misleading shareholders about the quality of the loans on Countrywide’s books. The civil complaint also accused Mozilo of acting on his inside knowledge of the company’s precarious state when he sold shares between November 2006 and October 2007 ahead of its collapse, reaping more than $139 million.

Under the settlement, the three men did not admit wrongdoing.
...
Under the settlement, Mozilo agreed to never again serve as an officer or director of a publicly traded company. Sambol agreed not to do so for three years.

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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

1. Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
2. Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
3. Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
4. Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere

It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

THE INFORMATION AND OTHER CONTENTS OF THIS WEBSITE ARE DESIGNED TO COMPLY WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS WEBSITE SHALL BE GOVERNED BY AND CONSTRUED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND ALL PARTIES IRREVOCABLY SUBMIT TO THE JURISDICTION OF THE AMERICAN COURTS. IF ANYTHING ON THIS WEBSITE IS CONSTRUED AS BEING CONTRARY TO THE LAWS APPLICABLE IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY, THEN THIS WEBSITE IS NOT INTENDED TO BE ACCESSED BY PERSONS FROM THAT COUNTRY AND ANY PERSONS WHO ARE SUBJECT TO SUCH LAWS SHALL NOT BE ENTITLED TO USE OUR SERVICES UNLESS THEY CAN SATISFY US THAT SUCH USE WOULD BE LAWFUL.

Copyright © 2004-2015 Domain Owner

GNU Terry Pratchett

Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.

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