Friday - July 17, 2015

so, is this a good idea? or the usual political vote hunt?  gosh, lets see.

I am certain there are any number of young people, of teens, who are pretty savvy and read more than the latest celeb. rags.
But I also very much doubt that’s true of a majority. One thing they do have in common is idealism in the same foolish was many of us did as teens.
I don’t know about you but when I was 15 I already knew everything and most ancients of 30 years had it all wrong.
Overall tho, I was more interested in baseball and especially the farm teams locally.  The Htfd. Chiefs (?) were the training grounds for the Boston Braves, and we had one other team I just can’t recall at the moment.  It’s been so long ago.
But that was far more interesting than boring politics and income tax, which we didn’t pay anyway.
I guess times and attitudes have changed but not too sure todays crop is overall any more qualified than we were.
I could be wrong.

What I do believe is that the folks who are hot to stay in the EU, are counting on the very young who do travel and do have exposure to Europe, will be more prone to vote to stay in, if they are allowed to vote in that referendum in another couple of years.

Votes for 16 and 17-year-olds has been given a boost

By Greg Dawson Newsbeat politics reporter

The campaign to allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote in elections has been given a small boost.

Liberal Democrat and Labour politicians have approved a measure in the House of Lords to lower the voting age for local council elections in England and Wales.

The plan is likely be defeated by the Conservative government in the House of Commons.
David Cameron is against lowering the voting age from 18.

However, pressure to change the rules has grown since 16-year-olds were allowed to vote in the Scottish Independence referendum in 2014. In June, 16 year-olds were given the right to vote in all Scottish and local government elections.

The Lords vote adds further pressure to the campaign to allow votes at 16 in future general elections and the forthcoming referendum on whether the UK should remain in the European Union.

source

Posted by peiper     on 07/17/2015 at 07:18 AM   
Filed Under: • Politics • UK •  
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   Monday - May 04, 2015

happy talk from lib but it’s still all bs!

In a few days time there will be a major election here to decide the govt. for the next five years.

For months now, the various scoundrels running for office have been making ever more promises on all manner of things. It just seems like as soon as one comes up with a promise to hold up the sky so it doesn’t fall, someone else tops even that with some other grand scheme and frankly they’re all piss ants.  Except for a couple perhaps.  Even the green party has a candidate with a following and in what passed for a recent debate on TV among the ppl running, there must have been 4 or 5 different parties represented on that stage.  And one party, the SNP of Scotland, is not open to votes by English citizens. There was also a lady from a tiny party in Wales. 

Election 2015: Despite the flaws, our political system has much to be proud of - especially when compared to many other nations

For all the grumbling, our country is a pretty well-governed place

By Ian Birrell

all the rest

That’s the headline, can’t say it wasn’t interesting but.

What caught most of my attention was the following few lines.

Step back from the froth and fury of the electoral fight.

Then consider why people risk their lives to come here, why our values are globally admired and why our flag has usurped the Stars and Stripes as the coolest such icon. I remember last year that beside the Crimean parliament seized by Russian special forces was a shop with mannequins in the window wearing Union Jack underwear.

I’m not too certain what flag underwear prove, but Mr. Birrell seems to have missed a bit with regard to people risking lives to come here. If Brit values are admired, I doubt that thousands of illegals trying to gain entry not just to the UK, but specific parts of Europe, do so because they have any idea what those values might be. Half of them may not even be able to read, at least not the languages of the several nations they invade every week.  Over 5,000 of them were most unfortunately saved from drowning just over the weekend.  I very much doubt western values play any part in their most unwelcome intrusion on civilization.

If my flag isn’t an icon for those folks, that’s a good thing.  I’d be quite happy if none of them ever heard of the USA.  And there are a large number of Brits who wish they’d never heard of the UK as well.  But in this politically correct world, those opinions don’t count.  The truth doesn’t matter, which is that uncontrolled immigration has caused great stress on all services and they are a curse.

The left keeps telling us how much immigration had aided and advanced the cultures they overrun.  Uh huh.  What the left will never admit to is that the kind of immigrants arriving uninvited and mostly illegally these days, are not the same sort who did migrate once and came here with skills and education.  To be certain, that isn’t true of all of the past immigrants. But it’s true of a larger number than we see these days.  As well, in former times when it was found that foreign criminals had managed to sneak through, they were deported quickly without having to answer to a court in another country, and remain in the host country at public expense for years and years and years.

OK so with apologies to Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein and Josh Logan who wrote the book with Oscar Hammerstein for SOUTH PACIFIC,

I dedicate the following to the libtards and especially Mr Birrell.

“Happy Talk keep talking happy talk”

feel free to add your own

Posted by peiper     on 05/04/2015 at 01:04 PM   
Filed Under: • Politically Correct B.S. • Politics •  
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   Sunday - April 12, 2015

the hill with that

Campaign Season lasts 6 months. Primary season lasts 2 months. Every contender puts his hat in the ring on the same day, and 2 months later every state votes. All on the same day. So no state has an advantage going first, or last, or being a “battleground” or getting short shrift because the best candidates dropped out long before the primary voting got to them. No open ballots: show you party ID or you don’t vote in the primaries. They aren’t public. Once the candidates are picked, you get 6 months of campaigning. That’s 4 months more than is really needed, so consider cutting that down to 3 months. And then it’s time to vote. This 18 month, 24 month, 48 month, endless campaign nonsense is nonsense, is totally wasteful, and is really boring. Frankly, after 2 months of it, I’m sick to death of the whole thing.

And let’s be really, really honest. Secretly, inside your own head, you already know who you’re going to vote for. At the very least, you know whether you’ll go Red or Blue. You might yearn for two other viable parties to exist to help break the power blocks, but everyone who goes to DC joins the Ruling Elite anyway. So if you are an old school Democrat, and bless you for that if you are, then you’re already cheesed off that your party is sticking you with the Wicked Witch and all her baggage. (True Liberals, here’s your new party). If you are generally on the Republican side, but not a drum beater for Jesus or the anti-abortion plank, then you’ve got to start paying attention. And it’s high time that you figured out what’s important to fixing America. Taxes, immigration, wages, production (vs regulation??), nationalism, education, racism, etc. So pick your favorites and start examining the platoon of contenders for like mindedness. And if the ones who preach low taxes and limited government really appeal to you, then you’ve found your other new party (Tea Party renamed as Freedom Party). But make your list go all the way down, so that when the contenders start dropping like flies you still have someone to support. Because if you don’t ... well, see that picture up above??

I’m sure it’s going to be an uphill fight for old Hillary. What a tough row to hoe the poor thing has. Did you know that there are actually a couple other candidates out there? I had no idea. And the Doofus Presumptive isn’t even under consideration. Joe “lemmee sniff your wife” Biden. He never was. That itself is a darn rare thing. So it looks like she’ll have to make at least a couple speeches, and go out to Flyover Country and visit some of those boring smelly states once or twice so it at least looks like she’s trying. But I doubt that she’ll debate anyone. Why bother? What possible difference could it make? The Democrat Party is a machine, and she is their candidate. That’s how they run things, and that’s what those people like. Because it still “feels” like an election, but somebody else makes the decision. Somebody even smarter than you. So they say. And that’s good enough.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/12/2015 at 10:26 AM   
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   Saturday - March 28, 2015

which way does it go again?

Was it “The Power of Truth” or “The Truth of Power”??

Google is the dominant search engine on the internet. Without question. Absolute domination.

Businesses can grow or die based on how they come up in a Google search.

More than 9 out of 10 people never go past the first page of search results, and I’d bet half of that 9 don’t even go halfway down the page. That’s why businesses exist to “seed” your business to the internet so that it ranks higher in Google’s databases, and thus comes out higher in the search pile. The blog email gets ads for this every single day.

Google is not at all political. Didn’t we see some firings there a year back, a bit of backstabbing to get rid of an executive or two who supported some legal political initiative that passed years ago, but is antithetical today? Oh, wait, sorry that was Mozilla, aka Firefox. Nothing to do with Google. Google must be pure as freshly fallen snow, I’m sure, and not involved politically a bit. Right?

Wrong. Guess again.

Guess which company was the second largest employee contributor to Obama’s campaigns? Guess who lent technical staff and leadership to those campaigns?

Guess who could make billions off of Net Neutrality and has been pushing hard for it?

Yep, you got it in one, both times.

Guess who has the ability, or damn close to it already in this dumbed down lazy age, to “determine” what truth is for a huge piece of the global population, simply by diddling their search results weighing algorithms?

Because if you don’t see it, it isn’t there. And if it isn’t there, it isn’t true. As the kids say “video or it ain’t real”.

All the more reason to use DogPile, or any of the other search engines. Even Yahoo. Except that none of them are even half as good as Google, usually. Truth has become a popularity contest.

Read an interesting essay on the whole thing, with a big lean towards the Obama Regime’s connections, right here.

… Still, all of this is easily forgiven compared to what’s coming next: politically filtered information.

Google says that in the future, its determinations about what is true and what is untrue will play a role in how search-engine rankings are configured.

Google has the power to bump an article it doesn’t like off the table and under the rug. Even moving information off the first page of search results would effectively neutralize it: According to a 2013 study, 91.5 percent of Google search users click through on a first-page result.

To put it mildly, your idea of whether Fox News or MSNBC is a more reliable purveyor of “truth” might differ substantially from your neighbor’s.

Google’s idea of ranking results based on truth is an excellent one that it should implement just as soon as it comes up with an absolutely, unbiased and objective system of determining truth.

I’m sure of it. Cough, cough, hack, snerch, ach, hem, cough cough.

You know, just a few years ago this would have been the grandest tinfoil hat theory of all time. Now, not so much. The only tinfoil is in the GoogleBlindfold™ they want you to wear most of the time.

PS - have you wiped your browsing history today?

Posted by Drew458     on 03/28/2015 at 09:53 PM   
Filed Under: • Government • Corruption and Greed • Politics •  
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   Wednesday - March 18, 2015

Four Times For Benji

In an effort to save Israel from the Left, huge voter turnout gives Benjamin Netanyahu an unprecedented fourth victory as Israel’s Prime Minister.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s impressive victory in Tuesday’s elections can be explained by going back to the early days of the state.

The Ashkenazi immigrants from Eastern Europe were seen as having an unfair advantage over their Sephardic counterparts from North Africa and the Middle East. The people who are called “the second Israel” have complained since then that the “elites” in the Israeli Left, the media and academia have discriminated against them.

The “second Israel” did not like the the way the media seemed to be deposing of Netanyahu and bringing to power the Left under the leadership of Zionist Union leaders Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni, who were raised not far from each other in North Tel Aviv and are both the children of former Knesset members.

The Zionist Union inadvertently played into Netanyahu’s hands with a campaign of “anyone but Bibi.”

...

Many who considered staying home, or voting for one of the Likud’s satellite parties, hurried to the polling stations to cast ballots for Likud. People who have not voted in years - or at least not for Likud - felt the need to save Israel from the Left, Iran and from a hostile international community.

On Monday, Shaviv revealed a poll that for the first time, less than 50 percent of the public thought Netanyahu would form the next government. Shaviv said at the time that if it gets closer to 40 percent the Likud will win the election.

In Netanyahu’s appeal to the “second Israel’ he succeeded, and because of that, he won a fourth term.

Well, most of this is lost on me. All I understand is that Obama hates him, so that’s more than enough reason to support the guy. Plus, I love the way he talks. And I think he’s one smart cookie with his head on straight.

Ok, I want to write more on this, but I’m having internet issues this morning. So publish now, update later.

Spring may be days away but don’t count on a thaw in the chilly relationship between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the White House—which, even after election results showed Netanyahu’s party scoring a major victory, congratulated the Israeli people but ignored the winning candidate.

The election results point to another two years of confrontation between President Obama and his Israeli counterpart, who is poised to secure a third consecutive term as prime minister. While tensions have flared for years between the two leaders, the last several weeks have seen their relationship further fray.

In the run-up to the election, Netanyahu took a hardline stance on the two issues on which his government and the Obama administration are most intertwined—Iran nuclear talks and the seemingly far-off prospects for an agreement with the Palestinians.

Netanyahu pronounced earlier this week he would not allow the creation of a Palestinian state—something Obama supports and a key demand of the Palestinians for any peace agreement.

And Netanyahu infuriated the White House early this month when he delivered a speech to the U.S. Congress criticizing an emerging nuclear deal with Iran.

Obama is such a pouty little brat.

Posted by Drew458     on 03/18/2015 at 09:40 AM   
Filed Under: • Israel • Politics •  
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   Thursday - December 18, 2014

Defense Yes, But Against Whom?

The U.S. military is testing a new cruise-missile defense system by launching a blimp-like airship near Baltimore.

Wednesday’s event at Aberdeen Proving Ground gives the region its first look at JLENS, short for Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System.

By February, two helium-filled airships will be tethered to concrete pads four miles apart, floating 10,000 feet high for the three-year test.

Radar on one ship will scan in a 340-mile radius, roughly from Norfolk, Virginia, to upstate New York. Controllers on the ground will use radar on the other vehicle to pinpoint targets. The airships won’t carry weapons.

The military says the balloons also won’t carry cameras. But privacy advocates are leery of the system’s ability to constantly monitor moving objects, including cars on the ground.

JLENS, which is short for Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, is a system of two aerostats, or tethered airships, that float 10,000 feet in the air. The helium filled aerostats, each nearly as long as a football field, carry powerful radars that can protect a territory roughly the size of Texas from airborne threats.

JLENS provides 360-degrees of defensive radar coverage and can detect and track objects like missiles, and manned and unmanned aircraft from up to 340 miles away. JLENS can also remain aloft and operational for up to 30 days at a time. This potent combination of persistence and capability give defenders more time and more distance to:

Identify potential threats
Make critical decisions
Conduct crucial notifications

JLENS allows the military to safeguard hundreds of miles of territory at a fraction of the cost of fixed wing aircraft, and it can integrate with defensive systems including:

Patriot
Standard Missile 6
Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile
National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System

One JLENS system, known as an orbit, can provide the same 24/7 coverage for a 30-day period that 4-5 fixed wing surveillance aircraft (AWACS, JSTARS or E-2C) can provide.

An affordable, elevated, persistent over-the-horizon sensor system, JLENS uses a powerful integrated radar system mounted on two aerostats to detect, track and target a variety of threats. This capability better enables commanders to defend against threats, including hostile cruise missiles; low-flying manned and unmanned aircraft; and moving surface vehicles such as boats, mobile missile launchers, automobiles, trucks and tanks. JLENS also provides ascent phase detection of tactical ballistic missiles and large-caliber rockets.

“Over the horizon” is right; from 10,000 feet up, the line of sight horizon is 122 miles away (a 244 mile circle). For a direct 340 mile horizon, you’d have to be 77,000 feet up, nearly in space.

So what we have here, now flying or soon to be flying over eastern America, is a flying thing with a design that looks borrowed from toilet graffiti that can - if given enough computer power and if the diagrams above can be believed - can track any (every???) moving object as small as an RPG, on land, sea, or air, at any given speed (tanks and trucks aren’t exactly supersonic) in an area from Kingston Ontario in the North to the North Carolina’s Outer Banks in the South, to Columbus Ohio in the West to Cape Cod MA in the Northeast to the edge of TN in the Southwest to a long long way out to sea in the east.

But not to worry; the balloons aren’t armed. No, they’re merely linked in to any and every missile system that we have, along with all the combat ships and aircraft up and down the coast. And all the troops on the ground. And I’m certain that our over-reaching, unitized, universal, all-powerful, unlimited, law-abiding, limited, Constitution, “take care of our friends and punish our enemies”, nearly tyrannical government would never even consider linking in DHS, the FBI or all the police departments, nor ever condone using the tracking abilities inherent in this years long “test” for any “civilian” “law enforcement” operation. It’s just a coincidence that, “for your own good” - to protect us against terrorists and Chinese cruise missiles - that the government also just happens to now have a gun pointed at your head every minute of the day. If they feel like it. And you’ll never know. Probably damn near half the population under that circle. At least a third of us.

He sees you when you’re sleeping
He knows when you’re awake
He knows if you’ve been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake

Additional equipment could offer commanders extensive communications relay capabilities, or even area surveillance of the ground. The JLENS program reportedly deployed a smaller 15 meter aerostat to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. In late November 2003, the Army announced its intention to redeploy the Rapid Aerostat Initial Deployment (RAID) force protection aerostat from Afghanistan to Iraq. RAID, adapted out of JLENS via the Army Rapid Equipping Force, became its own program, involving both flying aerostats and fixed-tower configurations like GBOSS.

A privately-funded January 2013 test mounted similar equipment on a JLENS system, successfully demonstrating its ability to monitor humans walking near roads.

more info - http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/jlens-coordinating-cruise-missile-defense-and-more-02921/
PS this is the marketing success story of the decade - http://www.bulldogreporter.com/dailydog/article/winning-pr-campaigns/pr-message-mapping-in-the-digital-era-a-real-life-case-study-f

Posted by Drew458     on 12/18/2014 at 11:12 AM   
Filed Under: • Homeland-Security • Jack Booted Thugs • Military • Politics •  
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   Friday - December 12, 2014

Your Morning Gak

I was going to call this “your morning wake up call”, but if you aren’t awake already, it’s too late. You’re probably dead.

So, here’s to the GOP, the Gasbags Of Putrescence. Who, having won a huge victory in the mid-term elections, put up a gigantic 3 second fight against Obama’s virtual, not actually existent or signed, Executive Order on amnesty before caving. And went right back to being the chumsy Old Boys Club, spending unimaginable amounts of money they don’t really have on things that make no sense. Business as usual, government by fools and thieves.

House Speaker John Boehner and President Barack Obama joined forces today to push their respective party members to provide 219 votes--one more than was needed--to ensure passage of an omnibus government funding bill that permits the administration to spend money implementing Obamacare and Obama’s planned unilateral actions that will effectively amnesty as many as five million illegal aliens.

The bill, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will allow the administration to spend $1,188,927,000,000 on discretionary government programs. It provides funding for amost all of the government through the end of this fiscal year--which occurs on Sept. 30, 2015--and for the Department of Homeland Security through Feb. 27, 2015.

Because it does not prohibit the president from using appropriated money to implement his plan to legalize illegal aliens, the president may move forward--drawing taxed and borrowed money from the Treasury--to carry out this plan.

The bill also allows the president to withdraw taxed and borrowed money from the Treasury to continue implementing Obamacare.

Additionally, the bill also does not prohibit the administration from continuing its annual federal grants to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider.

Nor does it include language prohibiting the administration from continuing to enforce the regulations it issued under Obamacare requiring almost all health-care plans in the United States to provide co-pay free coverage for sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs.

More at the link, but mostly the article then spins off into an anti-abortion death spiral.

Posted by Drew458     on 12/12/2014 at 08:56 AM   
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   Friday - November 21, 2014

Polling The Pirogue

A pirogue is a bayou canoe. It’s similar to a rowboat, but longer and thinner. Unlike a canoe, which is usually round bottomed, a pirogue is generally flat on the underside. Classically these boats were carved from tree trunks, but these days they’re mostly made from sheets of plywood. While you could set one up to use oars or a little outboard motor, you could also get along with a kayak paddle or a canoe paddle. Or you could stand up in the back in the classic manner, and push your little boat around the swamp with a big long stick. This is called polling. Shove a stick in the mud and see what you come up with, then move along. How apt.

Looks like forcing a Keystone XL vote didn’t help her at all. Louisiana’s special run-off election is on December 6th, and things aren’t looking good for this bitter Democrat candidate for Senate at all.

Rasmussen Reports’ first survey of the Louisiana Senate runoff shows Republican challenger Bill Cassidy comfortably on his way to joining the new GOP Senate majority.

Cassidy posts a 15-point lead – 56% to 41%- over incumbent Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu among Likely Louisiana Voters in our latest statewide telephone survey. Just three percent (3%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Landrieu edged Cassidy, a U.S. congressman, 42% to 41% on Election Day earlier this month, with eight candidates officially in the race. But under Louisiana’s so-called “jungle primary” rules, the contest will now be decided by a December 6 runoff because no candidate cleared the 50% mark.

Eighty-seven percent (87%) of the state’s likely voters say they are certain to vote in the runoff, and Cassidy leads 57% to 41% among these voters.

In hopes of swaying voters in her energy-conscious state, Landrieu pushed hard this week for Senate passage of legislation approving the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to Texas, but liberal senators in her own party defeated her. However, our survey, taken while the Senate was debating this action, doesn’t show that Landrieu was likely to benefit much from passage of the pipeline measure.

Seventy percent (70%) of Louisiana voters favor building the Keystone pipeline, compared to 58% of voters nationwide. In the Pelican State, this includes 52% who Strongly Favor it. Just 15% are somewhat or Strongly Opposed.

Among voters who Strongly Favor the Keystone pipeline, Cassidy leads Landrieu 78% to 20%.

If Cassidy wins, that makes it, what, + 10 for the Repubs? How many do they need to be filibuster proof?

Posted by Drew458     on 11/21/2014 at 09:45 AM   
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   Wednesday - November 05, 2014

Want A Mandate? Here: Save The Nation, Don’t Screw It Up

Republicans claim Senate majority, take control of Congress

Voters handed control of the Senate to Republicans for the first time in eight years on Tuesday, putting the GOP in charge of Congress for the remainder of President Obama’s term.

Republicans swept to victory in a string of contests across the country, retaining every one of the GOP-held seats up for grabs and picking up more than the six seats needed to take control of the Senate. Republicans enjoyed a banner night after mounting campaigns from coast to coast that, almost without exception, sought to cast their opponents as rubber stamps for the unpopular president. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who fended off a Democratic challenge in Kentucky, is now poised to ascend to majority leader next year.

Republicans also are projected to retain control of the House—and gain at least 12 seats, expanding their majority beyond their post-World War II record of 246 seats set in 1946.

The landscape means Republicans will have new powers to challenge Obama’s agenda in the final two years of his term, able to launch investigations and hold hearings from both chambers; hold up key appointments; and pass GOP-favored legislation, if only to force the president to employ his veto pen. The division of power also could yield areas of agreement, on areas ranging from immigration to energy—though the Affordable Care Act and efforts to undermine it could continue to sour talks on other issues.

McConnell, after winning his own race, said some things won’t change next year—but stressed that lawmakers and the White House don’t have to be in “perpetual conflict” and “have an obligation to work together.”

“Tomorrow, the papers will say I won this race, but the truth is ... tonight we begin another one, one that’s far more important than mine—and that’s the race to turn this country around,” McConnell said in Louisville.

That’s how strong the anti-Obama backlash is; the sweep is stronger than what followed FDR, our previous Red President, at the end of WWII.

36 states were also up for governors, and with the votes in from all but 4 of those states, it looks like another sweep, with Republicans dominating 24 to 8, and the races leaning, but too close to call, in the other 4 states. 

Unfortunately, Minnesota managed to re-elect Al Franken by a huge margin, and New Jersey managed to keep Cory Booker, as expected. Hey, you can’t win ‘em all. But maybe this will be enough to plug the dyke, and hopefully turn the tide.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2014/2014-midterm-elections

Posted by Drew458     on 11/05/2014 at 05:29 AM   
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   Monday - November 03, 2014

I’m such a slacker

Not the best day for me today. Nothing really bad, just ... well, blah.

Get out there and vote Tuesday. And question your poll workers - “How do I know that this machine is going to cast a vote the way I want? What proof do you have that this one doesn’t have ‘calibration errors’?” You have the right to ask. Up until now I have been very happy with our voting machines, all of them electronic and super easy to use. But we don’t get a printed receipt, or a barcode printout, or anything like that, and we don’t get to see a physical counter counting, because there aren’t any. So, how do we know?

I love my election ladies. One is my pal from downstairs from before we moved, the other two I’ve worked for many times over the years. So I have no doubts about them, but they just monitor the gates, so to speak. After all the crap in the news this past few weeks, I’d like to see some kind of proof.

Granted, just typing out that last sentence was enough time for me to figure out how to hack that. What I’d really want was a way to see my individual vote at county after the election. I doubt if showing me the machine’s totals before my vote and after it is even legal.

So I don’t know how to proof that pudding right now. But I think that going back to a manual paper vote is the wrong decision. It’s a step backwards into tried and true vote cheating methods, instead of boldly finding new, high technology ways of cheating. Right, like those entire counties in 2012 with not a single vote for Romney. Or those areas with 143% voter turnout. And yet, not one arrest, not one investigation, not one intervention disqualification ("you cheated, therefore every vote in this place is invalid now").

Speaking of legal and voting, I saw Reince Priebus on FoxNews talking about the way the early voting was going in several states. It sure sounded like somebody was looking at those votes and letting the information be made public. Not once in that segment did anyone say “exit poll”. I’m not sure how the rules are set up, but aside from checking the voter’s name against the list, and marking them as having voted for this election, I wouldn’t want anybody looking at those ballots.

Oh, perhaps I owe you guys an Emily Latella “Never Mind”:  Rince Prius Mr. GOP was probably talking about the numbers of early ballots cast by Democrats and Republicans, and crowing about upcoming victory and big margins AS IF everyone voting would be voting the straight party line. Which may or may not be true. Bet it is to a high degree, in this polarized age. Betcha at least 60% of the voters stick with their party, no matter what, unless their side is running a total doofus. Or has a total doofus in office that everyone is sick to death of. And his Klingon wife.

Right. Whatevs.

At least try to be part of the system tomorrow. And show them your ID. Even if they don’t want to see it. Photo ID and voter registration card. Just because. 

Posted by Drew458     on 11/03/2014 at 09:32 PM   
Filed Under: • Politics •  
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   Thursday - October 02, 2014

promises by the dozen and a warning by brit prime minister at the conservative party conference

I recently did a rant of sorts on the defamation (as I see it ) committed by the Tories (Conservative Party) against the party they fear will upset their applecart. UKIP.

OK, I know politics can be dirty.  Part of the game.  Of course, the media and in this case a major paper called the Daily Mail, has their own crusade going against Nigel Farage and his UKIP party.

This week, the Tories held what Americans would call their national convention. Over here it a conference.  Speech making and promises, lower taxes and in some cases no taxes.

The current Prime Minister is pledging a UK bill of rights, is now promising to take on Europe re. Brit sovereignty on some issues and he says,
“We don’t need lessons from Europe.”
Indeed not.

So … in today’s issue of the Mail, the Tories got the kind of coverage you should expect, especially as the Mail supports them.

The PM was quite clever in referring to Farage and votes for UKIP.

‘Go to bed with Farage, wake up with Miliband,’ Cameron jokes in warning that a vote for UKIP will hand power to Labour

· Prime Minister warns there is a ‘straight choice’ between him or Miliband
· A vote for UKIP makes a Labour government more likely in 2015, he says
· Hours after attack, Tory donor Arron Banks handed UKIP £1million.

So why am I doing this ukip/tory thing again?
Just to show the Mail’s reaction to a millionaire who donated over one million 600 hundred thousand dollars, putting it in USA terms.
Of all the photos they could have used of Arron Banks, this is the one they picked.

Out of focus, needing a shave and of course, this person must be some kind of gun loving nutter.
I just wanted to point this out is all.
I guess the Mail is as frightened as many ppl here, at the thought of next May’s election going to a fellow called,
(Red) Ed Miliband and the Labour Party.

Posted by peiper     on 10/02/2014 at 01:48 PM   
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   Wednesday - October 01, 2014

is this just poilitics as usual, with an eye on the may elections?

ECHR = European Court of Human Rights, which member states are the collective slaves of.

Tories = Conservatives

With elections coming in May, and quite a fight by the looks of things altho May is still a long way off, promises are being made left and right by all concerned.
Isn’t that always the way of it?
The ECHR has been a worthless miserable canker in the body politic for how F****** long now?
And suddenly the conservative party says they will try and block it. Why not last year?  Why not the year before that?

I know the USA has problems in what is laughingly referred to as the ‘justice’ as in hahahaha system. But trust me my fellow Americans.
You ain’t seen nothin’ like what the Brits have had forced upon them.  And it isn’t like ppl have been quiet about it.  But now ... with UKIP breathing down the Tory throat and the Tory worry that UKIP will take enuff votes away from the Tories, that the worst possible scenario will take place next May.
A victory by the left wing Labour Party, who on this date have less than a 35% approval rating.  I’m not even a citizen and that thought scares me. And my Brit wife is scared beyond the words to describe it. 

So now ... and so far as I can judge, this only refers to the military. Which at least is a start.  The hope here is that the UK will be able somehow to opt out of the ECHR.  Better yet they should get the hell out of the EU. UKIP would bring that about if they could win in May. But it’s very doubtful they can without a coalition govt.  And the only party I can see that they could align themselves with, would be the Tories.  Who say they won’t do it and if I recall, about a year ago the head of UKIP said he had no interest in aligning with the Tories. So where does that leave everyone pray tell?

LABOUR

Oh good grief Charlie Brown please. Not Them!

Tories move to block £85m ‘spurious’ ECHR MoD lawsuits

The Defence Secretary has said a future Conservative government would move to block human rights lawsuits against the Ministry of Defence.

Michael Fallon suggested the effect of ECHR on British law could be “restrained” if the Tories won the next election.

Mr Fallon told a Total Politics fringe event at the Conservative conference that he was “appalled” by the way human rights law is being used against the Armed Forces, and suggests the effect of ECHR on British law could be “restrained” under a future Tory government

He revealed that the Ministry of Defence had spent £85m on lawsuits brought against the Armed Forces under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Speaking at a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference, Mr Fallon said he was “appalled” at the way human rights law was being used against the British military, with the result that millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money were being spent on fighting “fairly spurious cases” rather than on kit and personnel.

Human rights law is “not just being used, it is being abused”, the defence secretary said.

The complaint from Mr Fallon means he joins the ranks of senior Tory figures calling for a diminished British membership of the European Convention on Human Rights.

“We already have military law, we already have international humanitarian law. We certainly do not need European law in this area hamstringing the efforts of our armed forces in very dangerous situations – the efforts they’re making to keep people safe, to detain suspected terrorists and so on,” Fallon said.

“What I’m appalled about is that the ministry has already spent some £85m of taxpayers’ money, not on the Armed Forces or on new kit or equipment for the Armed Forces, but on London law firms who are bringing forward these fairly spurious cases.

“That seems to me wholly wrong and I have agreed now with the Lord Chancellor that his plans to restrict the application of the European Convention on Human Rights will apply to the military side as well. Otherwise we’ll end up with every platoon taking a legal adviser out on patrol and that is simply unacceptable,” he said.

The Armed Forces were already aware of the restraints, and what they were allowed to do, Mr Fallon said, adding that the last thing they needed was more European law “enveloping the way they work”.

When pressed on how such a use of the ECHR against the MoD’s operations would be redressed, Mr Fallon said:

“You’re going to hear, I hope, from the Lord Chancellor what plans he has in the manifesto for the next government to restrain the effect of the Convention on our domestic law, and that in my view – and he agrees – should include its growing application to military operations.”

PoliticsHome

I’ll trust LyndonB to correct me if I have it all wrong.

The May election as I see it now, could be a turning point.  There’s almost always hope at least. That does not read like I’m very positive. Does it?

Posted by peiper     on 10/01/2014 at 10:46 AM   
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   Thursday - June 12, 2014

Chris’ Picks of the Day

Haven’t posted much because I’m in the process of slowly moving. Can’t say where yet, just that I’m moving into Confederate territory. Nice rural area with a moderately large city fairly nearby with mucho job opportunities. My friend has a few acres, wooded, nearest neighbor is across the street, next neighbors are a mile down the road either way. So until I get situated I’ll just try to post my ‘must read’ links each day. Vilmar used to do this.

Keep The Week

It would appear that writers for Slate wake, stretch, yawn, and think: What comfortable, familiar, harmless aspect of life can we destroy today? What means of arranging society, accumulated over the centuries, can be torn asunder by whelps hungry for novelty? Latest case: the need to rethink “the week.”

Cantor Fell Because He Wouldn’t Fight the Good Fight

Mr. Cantor lost not because people decided to “throw the bums out.” He lost because he, in this particular primary race, became the national symbol of a Republican Party unwilling to represent our people in our need to stop a corrupt and dictatorial President and his party.

Colleges Use ‘Anti-Discrimination’ Rules Against Christians

The incident at Bowdoin has occurred at many other colleges and universities in recent years. While the universities present the absolute non-discrimination demands as an effort to rid their campuses of intolerance and exclusivity, religious students see it as an encroachment on their religious freedom perpetrated by liberal academia who are hostile toward conservative Christianity.

Beware a Beneficent Government

Progressives hate the states because they can be laboratories of less government. They love central government and all of its creations, such as the cash-printing Federal Reserve, the wealth-stealing progressive income tax, and the concept of a federal safety net for all persons. None of this, except the income tax (which Wilson promised would not exceed 3 percent of adjusted gross income), is authorized by the Constitution.

Posted by Christopher     on 06/12/2014 at 02:57 PM   
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   Wednesday - June 11, 2014

my isp, new router, farage and ukip and may election and thieving romanians

Got a new router from isp, finally got it up and working and far easier than I first thought it would be.  Kinda proves that, “ the only thing we have to fear is ……”
Actually that is not entirely true, but I suppose when FDR first used the phrase it was needed. Anyway very busy and up to ears in things and don’t expect to post too much unless it’s something a bit more off the wall than my usual crime and grime stuff.  Those things never change, only the ppl involved.
For example, another ‘honor’ murder. That’s not news anymore. Guy killed wife because she was becoming too westernised.  Why the hell do they bother living here anyway?  Oh. Right. Maybe he was getting benefits. Don’t know. Doesn’t matter.

This new router has fewer wires and one less plug to stick in the wall, supposed to be faster than older one which was giving good service and no probs at all.  Now I have the joy of buffering on a tablet that I never had before.  Speaking of the buffering.
So spent a whole hour after coming in from yard work which I know I shouldn’t be doing now, anyway, an hour with ISP tech to alter the speed settings or something.

So ,,,, I found a story to share that really as I see things, proves how duplicitous and hypocritical even a fairly conservative paper can be.  Gee, when we can not even trust our own damn side …. ?

There’s a political party here called UKIP, which is UK Independence Party.
It’s leader, Nigel Farage, is a genius and a damn good speaker who puts the rest of these clowns and the EU in the shade.  He makes his critics look like the dumb asses they are.  But there’s a problem.  Everyone is out to get him and whenever the Daily Mail can publish an unflattering photo of him they will.  Or point out his race bias and his immigration phobia and his awful anti Romanian rhetoric, they will. But hang on. That’s how they paint him but that isn’t him.  But they want it to be, because lots of ppl are seriously worried that there’s a chance UKIP could split the conservative vote and hand the country back to the Labour Party.  In other words, even a conservative paper will twist what he says to suit their own agenda. 

A few weeks ago in an interview, when asked a question about his mistake on the numbers of Bulgarians and Romanians who were supposed to flood the borders and apparently may not have, in the numbers he quoted, he said that he would not want to live next door to a Romanian family.  So, was he anti immigrant?  His wife after all is German.  So the usual talking heads all dumped on him, he made no grovelling apology and stated why he wouldn’t and most Brits understood him well.  Oh boy, did they understand.  His critics thought the sky would fall on him, and the Daily Mail, that bastion of conservative thought, joined in the abuse and finger pointing.
UKIP went on to win lots of seats in the Euro elections and his party is now being taken a bit more seriously. All of a sudden politicians both left and right are outdoing each other with promises of utopia.  Suddenly politicians are using words like, we must pay more attention to the people.  Sure. Now that their faces have been rubbed in the dirt a bit. 

I do not know personally, if UKIP will turn out to be a one or two issue thing. I have no idea if they will fold or gain new strength.  But a scary number of voters from both left and right who somehow manage to agree on some basic level, have deserted their parties and joined UKIP.

In reply, the mouthpiece of liberal conservatism has run articles not once but 2wice, by the original founder of UKIP who quit years ago, saying that Farage is a racist,
and again pointing out again that Mr. Farage thinks living next door to Romanians is a bad thing.  As if we can assume that a family of that group will be upstanding and present no problems. We only hear about the bad after all.  Cos they are the ones who make the news.  Where’s the excitement in writing about good people. You know, if it bleeds, it leads. So with that thought in mind, may I present the following story from the Daily Mail.

Caught on CCTV: Moment ‘polite and charming’ Eastern European scammers stole £300 from woman at a cashpoint by pretending she had dropped £5 on the floor

· Wendy Cleasby was conned as she withdrew cash from Santander bank
· The 53-year-old said scammers appeared to be ‘polite and charming’ men
· Duo told her she dropped £5 and stole her £300 when she went to pick it up
· Pair were arrested by police after being identified from CCTV footage
· Both handed a 16-week prison sentence and ordered to pay compensation
By Larisa Brown

BREAK –

Whoa. Hang on.

The DM has changed their headline for the on line version.

Here is what I have from the hard copy version.

MOMENT ROMANIAN CASHPOINT CONMEN STRUCK INSIDE A BANK.

It was a hefty withdrawal, so Wendy Cleasby thought taking her cash out inside the bank was the safest option.
But that’s exactly where a pair of conmen were waiting to pounce.
Just inside the high street branch, the two Romanians who pointed out that she had just dropped £5 were actually tricking her into turning away… so they could steal her money from a cashpoint machine.

Visit the link here and look at the following pix. 

£1M COST OF INTERPRETERS

The cost of providing interpreters to assist Romanians appearing at magistrates and crown courts for criminal cases has hit more than £800,000.

Freedom of Information requests to the Ministry of Justice revealed that the bill was £804,846 for the period from February 2012 to January 2013.

The money was paid to Capita Translation and Interpreting, which won the contract to provide translations services in January 2012. The bill for the final month was £89,387.

Previously, courts in England relied on local interpreters.

Last month the Mail revealed that the annual cost to the taxpayer of hiring court interpreters to assist all non-English speakers had almost doubled in just one year to £15.5million

Below is very interesting most especially because it was done in Nov., and his prediction of the recent May election seems to have been pretty much spot on. The pols are scared for the first time. And the 2nd party currently in power here, the Lib/Dems, have been left in the dust after the May elections.

FARAGE WEB PAGE

Posted by peiper     on 06/11/2014 at 09:07 AM   
Filed Under: • Politics • UK •  
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