Monday - June 17, 2013

Hot Time In The City

It ain’t just Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, and Birmingham

A Newark store owner gunned down a man who was trying to rob him this afternoon, police said.

This was the city’s fifth shooting in a violent 36 hours that left four injured and one dead. A 56-year-old man also died in a car accident Sunday afternoon [not gun related].

Police Director Samuel DeMaio said the owner of Top Dollar LLC. — a “Cash For Gold” store that also appeared to sell jewelery, watches and cell phones — shot and killed a man who robbed his store at gunpoint around 3:30 p.m.

The robber, who was not identified, allegedly barged into the store and made off with an undisclosed amount of merchandise. As he left, the store owner drew a handgun from behind the counter and shot him once, DeMaio said. The alleged thief ran out of the store but died a short time later, according to DeMaio.

DeMaio did not identify the store owner. No one had been charged as of 6 p.m., said Katherine Carter, a spokeswoman for the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office.

Really? Because, hey, once the guy is running away, he’s no threat is he? So isn’t this some kind of instant vendetta thing, and thus murder?

The killing marked the second shooting in the city today, coming hours after a police officer shot and wounded a teenage carjacking suspect who was trying to ram two officers with a stolen vehicle during an escape attempt in the city’s West Ward.

Around 9:30 a.m., officers tried to stop a carjacked vehicle near Abinger Place and Sunset Avenue, according to James Stewart Jr., president of the Newark Fraternal Order of Police. The driver, a 15-year-old Newark boy, allegedly threw the car in reverse and barreled towards the officers on a one-way street, causing one officer to open fire, Stewart Jr. said.

The teen was shot in the leg and suffered non-life threatening injuries, Stewart Jr. said. Both suspects, identified only as 15-year-old Newark residents, were arrested and charged with aggravated assault on a police officer, carjacking, weapons offenses, eluding and receiving stolen property, according to Carter.

Stewart Jr. described both officers as veteran members of the department and said he was disheartened by the age of the carjacking suspects.

“It is very discouraging to see such young children committing such violent crimes. A 14-year-old should not be driving carjacked vehicles the wrong way down one-way streets with a 15-year-old co-pilot,” he said. “They have no concern for the lives of others and would do anything to escape. The officers involved have been cops longer than the two suspects have been alive.”

No names or photographs released. So you know what that means. They’re all ... Urban Democrats.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/17/2013 at 06:12 PM   
Filed Under: • Crime •  
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Wasn’t Me

Window washer dangling from Trenton high-rise is rescued

A window washer was stuck hanging in the air between the 8th and 9th floors of an office building in downtown Trenton for more than half an hour this afternoon before being rescued.

The man was washing windows on the Mary Roebling building at 20 W. State St., at the corner with North Warren Street, when his rigging failed, Battalion Chief Ron Kosztyu said. Fire crews were called just after 4 p.m. and found him suspended on the outside of the building.

With a small crowd watching from the sidewalk below, firefighters first extended a ladder toward the man, which was not quite long enough to reach him.

The crews went in through the building to a roof ledge on the 9th floor, above the spot where the window washer was hanging, and were able to pull him to safety, Kosztyu said.

And this is why I don’t do the high wire jobs. IMO, no matter what kind of rig you have, no matter how many safety lines, if you don’t have a spotter up top you just aren’t safe.

Why he had no ascender, even a manual one, is beyond me.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/17/2013 at 06:02 PM   
Filed Under: • work and the workplace •  
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power to the people right on

Yay, electricity!! Woo hoo!!!

We had another one of those rip roaring summer thunderstorms come through here about 4 hours ago. Rained like insanity. The kind of endless, solid, no-visibility downpour you usually have to be on family vacation to witness. And then the wind rose, and the vertical deluge became a horizontal one. Kaboom, crack pow! said the thunder, and the world went dark.

No, I wasn’t struck. I was drenched, because the sky opened up while I was taking a bag of garbage out to the dumpster. By the time I got to the top of our outside stairs here, a river was running across the parking lot to the storm sewer. I tossed the trash and ran back inside, but I was already sodden, and the power was gone. We almost never loose the power here; all our wires are underground. But we’re on a grid with others, somewhere, who aren’t.

A powerful storm that blew through central Hunterdon County about 3 p.m. left trees and wires down on local and county roads in the Alexandria, Clinton Township, Readington and Union Township.

At least 4,500 people in the county are without power, according to Brayden Fahey, director of the county Office of Emergency Management.

“The top three municipalities being impacted are Clinton Township, Readington Township and Union Township,” said Fahey at about 4 p.m. “Anyone with an outage should report it to be sure JCP&L has it in the system.”

The county communications center in Cherryville has been reporting closed roads for at least an hour and seeking assistance from Jersey Central Power and Light to determine whether crews can approach trees and open the roads.

According to a 3:52 p.m. HART traffic alert, drivers should avoid the Town of Clinton until further notice because of downed trees and wires.

So, ta da, I’m back. And all is fine. No trees lost this time, just some leaves and small branches. But I think the storm hit here a bit before that, around 2 or 2:30 at the latest.

I do NOT like the way Windows 7 recovers from an unexpected power loss. The PC came back on, but acted punch drunk for 2 or 3 minutes. I’ve got some massive UPS around here somewhere, some 25lb Waldo with 8 outlets and some Cat-5 jacks. Guess I’ll hook that up. I’ve been using a plain old Isobar surge protector because the UPS is an annoying little bitch when the power goes down. Beep beep beep beep ... for DAYS. s.t.f.UP!!

Posted by Drew458     on 06/17/2013 at 05:41 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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change up

model Natalia Contreras, the new face of Orocan plasticware.  Clicky piccy.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/17/2013 at 12:29 PM   
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy •  
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Somebody Cue Fats Domino

An idea suggesting massive stone statues that encircle Easter Island may have been “walked” into place has run into controversy.

In October 2012, researchers came up with the “walking” theory by creating a 5-ton replica of one of the statues (or “moai"), and actually moving it in an upright position, and have published a more thorough justification in the June issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science. If the statues were walked into place, then the islanders didn’t need to cut down the island’s palm trees to make way for moving the massive carvings, the researchers argue.

The findings may help dismantle the traditional storyline of Easter Island, or Rapa Nui: that a “crazed maniacal group destroyed their environment,” by cutting down trees to transport gigantic statues, said study co-author Carl Lipo, an anthropologist at California State University, Long Beach.

I never did like that greenie thesis. Of course the islanders may have cut down all their trees for firewood, like in modern Haiti and Madagascar. But for some oddball stone carving game? Not likely.

Along the road to the platforms are moai whose bases curved so they couldn’t stand upright, but instead would topple forward, meaning the ones in transit would have to be modified once they reached the platform. That made the researchers wonder why the statues weren’t made to stand upright in the first place if they were meant to be rolled into place, not walked, Lipo said

And the statues found on the roads to the platforms all had wider bases than shoulders, which physical models suggested would help them rock forward in an upright position.

To see whether the statues may have been walked, the team transformed photos of one 10-foot-tall statue into a 3D computer model, and then created a 5-ton concrete replica. Last October, on a NOVA documentary, the team tried walking the replica, using people holding ropes on each side to rock the statue forward and back on a dirt path in Hawaii.

The statue moved easily. ... The movers walked the replica about 328 feet in 40 minutes.

“It goes from something you can’t imagine moving at all, to kind of dancing down the road,” Lipo told LiveScience.

You know, this just makes sense. And the counter argument that the islanders had to deal with hills and valleys and sharp corners in the road doesn’t hold water with me. I use the walking method to move heavy things all the time. We’ve got a set of speakers that must weigh 250lb, along with plenty of other big pieces of furniture. And I’ve moved them all up and down stairs, through narrow doorways, etc. You just wobble the things a bit, spin them a little, then wobble them the other way. And pretty quickly you can Weeble™ them right up a flight of stairs or across a room, and you never really have to lift anything. It’s a natural idea, and it works.

And for a primitive culture, I’m sure a stone man being released from the earth (by carving), getting up and walking across the island to his assigned spot, greatly enhanced the symbolism. That’s magic.

I wonder if it worked in ancient Egypt too? Can’t you just see a long line of workers with ropes, stretching back to the horizon, dancing a thousand massive stone blocks up the road and building a giant pyramid ... in about 5 years?

A&R Monday? That’s not how we do things around here. Thursdays, as a rule. But ... what the hell. Let me dig around and see if I can’t find something freckle-tastic.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/17/2013 at 08:44 AM   
Filed Under: • Archeology / Anthropology • Eye-Candy • Fun-Stuff • History •  
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   Sunday - June 16, 2013

people who don’t have the stomach for hard measures

Not a novel way but apparently works as Brits allow detainees to simply walk.

How not to run a country and an immigration service. 

A detention center is being forced to release asylum seekers who try to starve themselves to death in what security people say is a lose-lose situation.
So far, four vermin have had to be released from a detention center where up to 17 inmate scum were starving themselves recently.

Problem is, if a few are successful and so far some have been, it will encourage others to do the same thing.

Jeesh … a simple bullet in front of the others and the problem could be solved quickly and easily. 
They just haven’t the stomach for doing the logical problem solving thing.  That weakness dooms their country.  It does not make it better or stronger.  Just weak and stupid.

Drew has reminded me that I neglected to tell people the source here.  It’s the UK.  Merry old England.  Where else would the authorities allow the detainees to walk out cos they were afraid of them dying?

Posted by peiper     on 06/16/2013 at 12:14 PM   
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eye candy sunday

TAYLOR SWIFT

Clint’s little girl.

FRANCESCA EASTWOOD

Posted by peiper     on 06/16/2013 at 11:46 AM   
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The lunatics have taken over the asylum.  - or - Innocent by reason of amnesia

Drew’s post and comments on mental health fit right in with an article I read in the paper this morning.

Everybody that it accused of some sort of crime or misdemeanor manages to come up with some new illness that excuses their actions.
Well here’s another excuse for the books and this time I think the judge is the crazy for allowing this action to go forward.

At first read I was angry with the woman involved.  Knee jerk reaction.  In all truth it is the fault of the system that allows this.
A system that declares loud and clear and shouts it from a mountain top.

SCREW ME, SCREW ME, SCREW ME!

So you can’t really blame someone who takes them (the system) up on the offer.  I mean people, after all.  How many would turn down an offer like that?
This one sure didn’t. 

Thief sues police for refusing to make her a WPC… and claims amnesia made her forget her conviction

Background checks revealed that Rachida Sobhi had a criminal record

Was a cashier in department store and arrested for stealing make-up

Launched legal action as her amnesia made her forget her crime

She has not forgotten any other aspect of her life

By Martin Beckford

A woman who failed to reveal she was a convicted thief when she applied to become a police constable is suing Scotland Yard for discrimination.

Rachida Sobhi’s bid to become a WPC was turned down when background checks revealed she had a criminal record for stealing from a previous employer. But she has launched legal action against the force, claiming that she has amnesia that caused her to forget her crime – but no other aspect of her life.

It is believed that Ms Sobhi is the first person with amnesia to have been declared disabled for the purposes of an employment tribunal.

Police is ‘vigorously’ contesting her case, arguing that her condition is irrelevant as she would not be allowed to become a constable with her criminal record in any case.

The case, which has been described as ‘bizarre’, has raised fresh concerns about the compensation culture in the police. Earlier this year The Mail on Sunday revealed that PC Kelly Jones was suing a petrol station owner because she tripped over his kerb while investigating a possible break-in.

Ms Sobhi, who is already employed by the Met as a Police Community Support Officer, has had her case dismissed by an employment tribunal. But she won the right to a fresh hearing after a senior judge ruled she was indeed disabled when she filled in the application form.

As a PCSO – nicknamed ‘plastic police’ because of their lack of arrest powers – she can earn up to £28,539 ( $44,763.53 ) a year. She previously worked in Notting Hill in West London and continues to be employed by the Met as part of a ‘safer neighbourhoods team’ in Bromley, South East London, patrolling local streets with regular police officers and attending community events.

In August 2008 she applied to become a constable but when her fingerprints were taken as part of the process it emerged that she had a criminal record.

Ms Sobhi, who is of Moroccan background and thought to be in her early 40s, filed a claim in the London Central employment tribunal ‘complaining of discrimination on the ground of her sex, her sexual orientation, her religion or beliefs, her age and her disability’ against the Met and several individuals.

It was claimed that the Met treated her ‘less favourably’ because of her condition and failed to take ‘reasonable steps’ to accommodate her.

The Met apparently accepts she was suffering from ‘dissociative amnesia’ – a form of mental illness that involves gaps in memory – when she filled in the questionnaire.

READ MORE

???  “Thought to be in her 40s”
Thought to be?  They don’t even know for sure?
What else do they not know about her?

The lunatics have taken over the asylum.

- Big Len Davinci , Tuscany, 16/6/2013

Posted by peiper     on 06/16/2013 at 10:52 AM   
Filed Under: • CULTURE IN DECLINE • Daily Life • UK •  
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Happy Father’s Day

Remember, the thing that makes you a dad is that you have children. So enjoy them while you can. No matter what.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/16/2013 at 08:12 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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   Saturday - June 15, 2013

No Gunz Fer Yew Crazy Peeple

My goodness, what an amazing syzygy.  In reaction to any number of recent mass shootings, while most efforts for stricter gun control have failed, the argument that better screening for mental wellness has gained plenty of traction.

Problem is that it’s government, and their wholly owned minions, who get to decide what    bughouse nuts    "unwellness" means. And it was just a couple of weeks ago we all had a little chortle over the “caffeine addiction is a mental illness” story.  That comes on top of things I’ve heard from people in the medical profession that say that no psychiatrist ("in his right mind”, pardon the pun) is going to sign off on anyone ever as being mentally fit enough to own a firearm.

And now? Forget those lowered bars that now say that 1 boy in 10 has autism, or 1 kid in 5 has ADHD or some other mental problem, or that the list of established syndromes gets bigger by the day.

Forget all that. Because now the CDC is saying 1 in 4 adult Americans are ALREADY crazy, and nearly half of us will loosen our screws at some point.

[ I’m using common terms to generalize on the whole mental illness topic. There are plenty of people with real, significant mental conditions, and I’m compassionate towards them. And I’m sure they and their families prefer some sort of specific medical terminology, and they deserve it. But I’ve had my fill of PC blunting reality until it becomes meaningless, so I’m going old school on terms to make my point: if you lower the bar down into the mud then we all qualify, and that’s pure crap. I humbly beg your pardon if this offends your sensitivity. On the other hand, lipstick on a pig and all that.]

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention says that at any given moment about a quarter of American adults are mentally ill and that over the course of their lifetimes about half of all Americans will develop at least one mental illness.

A CDC mental-health fact sheet--Mental Illness Surveillance Among U.S. Adults--says that “published studies report that about 25% of all U.S. adults have a mental illness and that nearly 50% of U.S. adults will develop at least one mental illness during their lifetime.”

The fact sheet also notes that the authors of a 2011 CDC mental health surveillance report pointed out that “currently, no surveillance efforts at the national or state level are directed toward documenting anxiety disorders.” The authors thus call for “initiating national-level anxiety disorder surveillance activities.”

You read that right. Now we need a whole new army of government workers, to watch us all at all times. “surveillance activities”.  And who better for that than experienced government trouble spotters, like Child Services and social workers?

In addition, says the agency, “mental illness is associated with increased occurrence of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, asthma, epilepsy, and cancer.”

The CDC said: “Mental illness also is associated with use of tobacco products and alcohol abuse.”

Hey you! Yes you, the fatty at the bar lighting up a Marlboro! You’re a triple nutcase, turn in your guns!


Up until now, the process has been unidirectional: you can’t have a gun if you’re already known to have a history of mental illness. But the next step, the “common sense” step that ought to prevent all those mass shootings done by whackos, is to turn the process around: prove yourself right in the head first, and then you can be armed. And with this opus from the government gods of medicine, such a scheme would disarm nearly the whole nation. Because you’re already nuts, or probably soon will be.

On the other hand, if we’re all crazy, doesn’t that make us all sane, since the majority by definition has to be normal?

Huh. Will you look at that? I saw the link to this article at a news feeder sight, and realized immediately that this was another branch of government in the Obama Regime playing politics. And that gun control was the likely result. I went and read the comments, and damned if just about everybody didn’t figure that out instantly as well. So let’s scratch the CDC off the short list of government agencies we can faith in for being above politics, just like we gave up on the FBI, CIA, DEA, EPA, DOJ, IRS, BATFE, ICE, SCOTUS ... they’re all sold out.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/15/2013 at 09:35 AM   
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control • Health-Medicine •  
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we’ll just arm the good rebels in syria

I am no great fan of this guy.  In fact, no fan at all.
He is far to the left and quite anti-American.  He might deny it but I think he hates us.  If not, at the least has little use for us and even less for the Israelis.  Keep in mind that is my take having read him on and off for a short time.

In this article by Fisk, who is mainly based in the Middle East and has been writing for a very left wing paper for 30 years, it has to be said that he is not entirely wrong.  That is, he is dubious of possible American involvement in Syria. In point of fact, he’s against it, and so are many of us.

In case some of you readers missed it, I posted this link yesterday and do so again today.  I do not think American newspapers do this kind of detail and hardly ever on TV which is more about sound bites. 

Anyway …. here’s Fisk today, because people, every now and then we should give a spot of space to a liberal lefty who doesn’t like us.
Uncensored and unedited.

SO AMERICA WILL ARM ONLY THE NICE REBELS?  OH, PLEASE …

by Robert Fisk

Tosh! That’s the only sane reaction to the White House’s announcement that America the Brave is to arm the Syrian rebels.

The US doesn’t plan to send weapons to the horrid rebels, mark you – not to the al-Qa’ida-inspired al-Nusra Front whose chaps film themselves eating Alawites for YouTube videos, barbecue the heads of captured Syrian troops and murder 14-year-old schoolboys for blasphemy. Only to the nice rebels, the Free Syrian Army deserters who are battling the forces of Assad darkness in the interests of freedom, liberty, women’s rights and democracy.

Anyone who believes this knows nothing about war, killing, barbarity and, especially, greed. Because weapons are not just guns. They are currency. They are money. They are saleable commodities the moment you send them across any border. Their value in US dollars, pounds sterling, Syrian pounds or Qatari dinars is infinitely more important than their use in battle.

The Western powers are dangerously close to flooding Syria with weapons and ammunition which will officially go to the nice rebels – but will quickly pass to the horrid rebels, who will sell some of them to al-Qa’ida, Iraqi insurgents, Syrian government troops, Malian militiamen, Taliban fighters and Pakistani hitmen. Guns are about money.

IT WORKS LIKE THIS

The nice rebels could be given anti-aircaft missiles (shoulder-fired variety preferred) to use against Assad’s helicopters and Migs. Thank you – “shukran” – the nice rebels will say. But once over the border, the horrid rebel Nusra chaps will make an offer the nice rebels can’t refuse: either many thousands of dollars or a threat to seize the munitions (head-chopping optional), or a mixture of both. For a hefty sum, the horrid rebels will then split the proceeds with their chaps in Iraq. Ask the Syrian government soldiers – as I have – and they’ll tell you that they too would prefer the weapons to go to the nice rebels, who always run away – because the horrid rebels of the Nusra always fight to the last man.

In the Lebanese civil war, not a single gun I ever saw was actually donated to the men who carried them. The Phalangists used weapons they received from the Israelis, who got them from the Americans (or with American money, the same thing). The Palestinians used guns from Syria, which had in turn imported them from the Soviet Union. Hezbollah even have a few self-loading rifles which appear to have come long ago from the Lebanese Army, which received them as surplus from the British Ministry of Defence after our chaps left Northern Ireland following the Good Friday Agreement.

Back in the Eighties, the US handed out missiles and other goodies to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the super-freedom fighters trying to kill lots of Russians in Afghanistan. But Mr Hekmatyar then became a super-terrorist and decided to kill lots of post-2001 American occupiers of his country – using the same weapons donated to him by those grand arms dealers Messrs Carter and Reagan Inc.

In 1991, the Israelis took delivery of AGM-114C missiles from the Americans – manufactured for the US Marine Corps, who were supposed to fire them at Iraqi soldiers – and used one of them to blow up an ambulance full of Lebanese women and children in 1996.

History lesson. The weapons used by both sides in the 1922-3 Irish civil war – and you can see them in museums – included Lee-Enfield .303 rifles, each bearing the imprint of a British crown on the butt. They had been made for the Brits to use against Germans in the First World War. Whoops…

CAUTION, the source is a very lefty newspaper

“and used one of them to blow up an ambulance full of Lebanese women and children in 1996.”

Mr. Fisk writes as though the Israelis intentionally target these people.  It could have happened but I would be willing to bet there is far more to the story then he presents in this one line.
On the other hand there is also this.

The Hadassah convoy massacre took place on April 13, 1948, when a convoy, escorted by Haganah militia, bringing medical and military supplies and personnel to Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus was ambushed by Arab forces.

Seventy-eight Jewish doctors, nurses, students, patients, faculty members and Haganah fighters, and one British soldier were killed in the attack. Dozens of unidentified bodies, burned beyond recognition, were buried in a mass grave in the Sanhedria Cemetery. The Jewish Agency claimed that the massacre was a gross violation of international humanitarian law, and demanded action be taken against a breach of the Geneva Conventions. The Arabs claimed they had attacked a military formation, that all members of the convoy had engaged in combat, and that it had been impossible to distinguish combatants from civilians. An enquiry was conducted. Eventually an agreement was reached to separate military from humanitarian convoys.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadassah_medical_convoy_massacre

“ it had been impossible to distinguish combatants from civilians.”

You know, it is possible the Arabs could have been telling the truth in this case. Maybe.  I don’t know. 
But I find it very interesting that the many times this situation has been faced by the Israelis, in every single case this reasoning has been rejected by the haters of Jews and of Israel. And by people like Robert Fisk.
It can not be denied by any fair minded people that Israel sometimes gets things very wrong.  They can not be right ALL of the time, any more than we can.
And that’s a damn shame.  However, for some folks, the Israelis are never right. Ever. 

Posted by peiper     on 06/15/2013 at 05:07 AM   
Filed Under: • UK • USA • War-Stories •  
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   Friday - June 14, 2013

Thanks Allan

Good grief.

Y’all remember Batty?

Batty was our little barking moonbat dude waaaaay back when.

I just found him ... online ... at Cafe Press. Seems Allan was working on setting up a line of merchandise. I never knew. He got the batty image uploaded, and it’s available on coffee mugs. I set up my own line there ages ago, with the Barking Moonbat Early Warning System mug over there on the right sidebar. And as far as I know, in all the years since, I’ve sold exactly ONE mug. To myself. Cafe Press has never come across with so much as a penny for my part of the profit sharing.

Anyway, if you want a Batty mug as designed by Allan Kelly, you can go right to his page and buy one. Right HERE. Still up and running, after all these years. Since 2006 actually, which is so long ago the BMEWS mast head looked like this:

Of course, if you’d prefer the more modern, more artistic Barking Moonbat Early Warning System mugs - or hats, I have hats too!!, then go Right HERE.

One. Mug. Sold. Sob. 6 years. So sad, so lonely.

Golly but this blog has been around a long time. Does the VRWC even still exist? Because we were always a part of it.

Yup, ages

Nine and a half years, actually [some early posts had to be wiped once upon a time, but I kept the first one. Blog space used to be costly!]

and in all those years ... one ... measly ... lonely ... coffee mug. Sigh.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/14/2013 at 10:10 PM   
Filed Under: • Blog Stuff •  
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Your Daily Suck It

From Breitbart, a short essay on gun maker Smith & Wesson’s historic stock dividend -

It is hard to judge who Smith & Wesson should thank most: Gun-grabber President Obama, murdered-child-exploiter Piers Morgan, or insufferable-sell-out Joe Scarborough.

Or maybe the gun maker should just send a big fat bouquet to all of the media:

JournOlist HQ

Hollowed-Out Volcano Lane

Water Carrier, DC 66666

Hey, maybe you can get some Obamacare for that burn.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/14/2013 at 07:09 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Guns and Gun Control •  
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fat lady sings, swipes her EBT, gets a 40, leaves

A team led by a state-appointed emergency manager said Friday that Detroit is defaulting on about $2.5 billion in unsecured debt and is asking creditors to take about 10 cents on the dollar of what the city owes them.

Kevyn Orr spent two hours with about 180 bond insurers, pension trustees, union representatives and other creditors in a move to avoid what bankruptcy experts have said would be the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Underfunded pension claims likely would get less than the 10 cents on the dollar. An assessment of the plan’s progress will come in the next 30 days or so.

Orr also announced that Detroit stopped paying on its unsecured debt Friday to “conserve cash” for police, fire and other services in the city of 700,000 people. The debt not being paid includes $39 million owed to a certificate of participation.

”We will not pay that today,” Orr told reporters after the meeting with creditors at a hotel at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in Romulus.

Nice. Looks like “our city” has been utterly sucked dry. Where will the subhuman roaches go now?

And so the next casualty of the inevitable municipal collapse appears, which is, as expected, that one-time symbol of all that was right with a (once upon a time) manufacturing America, having since been replaced with the anti-symbol of all that is broken: Detroit.

DETROIT BEGINS MORATORIUM ON ALL DEBT SERVICE PAYMENTS FOR UNSECURED FUNDED DEBT
DETROIT TO DEFAULT ON CERTIFICATES OF PARTICIPATION DUE TODAY

And, true to from in the New Normal America, where the “fairness doctrine” rules supreme under Big Brother’s watchful eye, the premise of the upcoming glorious recovery is a well-known one: “the shared-sacrifice.” To wit: “The City currently faces approximately $17 billion in total liabilities. Detroit is insolvent and cannot meet its financial obligations without a significant restructuring.  Mr. Orr’s plan provides for shared sacrifice among all creditor groups – from Wall Street and Main Street consistent with their legal rights – in order to return Detroit to a sustainable financial foundation and to permit much-needed reinvestment in the City.” The punchline: “Detroit’s road to recovery begins today"… By defaulting.

Nice. Detroit, almost solid black people, and almost solid Democrats. For 40 years now. Took the greatest, hardest working city in America, and ran it straight to shit. Things are so bad in parts of the city that the damn PRAIRIE has taken over once more. (Seriously. 1/3 of Detroit is already gone)

Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr hopes to know within 30 days whether his restructuring plan pitched to creditors Friday is enough to keep Detroit from filing the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Orr spoke with reporters after a 2.5-hour closed-door meeting with about 150 representatives from banks, bondholders, unions and pension funds, all of whom were asked Friday to make steep concessions.

“I think it went well. I tried to emphasize the first clear, objective and candid view of the financial condition of the city,” Orr told reporters at the Westin Detroit Metropolitan Airport hotel.

He stuck to an earlier calculation that the odds of a Chapter 9 bankruptcy are “50-50.”

During the meeting, Orr outlined a plan for creditors to stop Detroit’s downward spiral by spending $1.25 billion on public safety and other city services, money that could come from slashing the city’s $17 billion in debt.

The historic proposal spreads painful cuts among bondholders and creditors, spins off the city’s water department and would revamp retiree pensions and health care.

In a surprise, Orr announced the city is temporarily stopping debt payments, including a $39 million bill due Friday to conserve dwindling city cash.

“We are tapped out,” Orr said.

So, what am I supposed to say? Told ya so? That’s pretty mean spirited. Some other race based observation? While utterly and completely true, that doesn’t help anything here. Actually, nothing helps anything here. Just like Birmingham, just like Camden, just like Baltimore. Same condition, same cause. How long is it going to be until we can face the truth? The WHOLE truth? My guess ... is the 13th of Never.

Most tales of the bankruptcy of Detroit, featured in newspapers and on Web sites the globe over, fail to mention that the city is now 82 percent black; that forty years of uninterrupted black political rule, once bragged about, has doomed the city.

Doomed.

With the demise of Detroit under the aegis of black people, so dies the myth of racial equality.

Our descendants will learn about this day in their history books, a moment right before the European Spring of 2013 commenced, when the city the New York Times dubbed the “black capital of nation” defaulted.

Once the “Paris of the West” and the “Arsenal of Democracy,” Detroit now represents the “Mogadishu of the West” and the “Exemplifier of Inequality” for all to see.

And that’s all, folks. Mogadishu in America. Just like Rhodesia into Zimbabwe: bread basket to basket case.

Game. Over.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/14/2013 at 06:16 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists •  
• Comments (5) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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