>Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano does not have the authority to refuse to enforce laws that require illegal immigrants to face deportation, according to the federal judge hearing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement union’s lawsuit against DHS.

“The court finds that DHS does not have discretion to refuse to initiate removal proceedings [when the law requires it],” U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor said Wednesday, per Business Week. O’Connor asked DHS and the ICE union to offer additional arguments before he makes a final ruling on the legality of President Obama’s “deferred action on childhood arrivals” program, which invoked prosecutorial discretion as a means of allowing people to stay in the country if they would have qualified for amnesty under the Dream Act, which never passed Congress.

The judge’s comments come one day after Napolitano scolded the union, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Gang of Eight’s immigration bill, for challenging the policy she and Obama have implemented.

Sessions faulted Napolitano for refusing to meet with the ICE officers’ union. “I have never heard of a situation in which a group of law officers sued their supervisor, and you, for blocking them from following the law,” he said. “They weren’t complaining about pay, benefits, working conditions — they were saying their very oath they took to enforce the law is being blocked by rules and regulations and policies established from on high, and that this is undermining their ability to do what they are sworn to do.”

Ok, this judge O’Connor wasn’t appointed by Reagen. He was appointed by G.W. Bush. And he’s from Texas.

yeee-haa!

Posted by Drew458     on 04/24/2013 at 02:40 PM   
Filed Under: • Judges-Courts-Lawyers •  
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A Note To Christopher

The process of breaking in a new gun barrel can be shortened considerably by lapping. Lapping is a friction process that uses jeweler’s rouge or rubbing compound to polish out the rough spots in a gun barrel.

I’ve used the formal fire lapping process and the excellent kit sold by NECO. While it does produce an excellent finish, it will lengthen the throat a little bit. And it is one major pain in the bee-hind trying to impregnate lapping compound into jacketed rifle bullets. Doing the job with cast lead bullets takes twice of forever, so forget that approach.

A better process can be found here that is easier, faster, and less expensive. Plug the chamber with a dummy round and swab the barrel two dozen strokes with J-B paste, then fire it once or twice. Use low power ammo if you can get it. Clean, repeat 3-5 times. Repeat process with J-B Bore Shine (the fine grit stuff).

I would enhance the method just a tiny bit by stuffing a patch or a couple cotton balls through the chamber ahead of the dummy round, just to make sure the throat is protected. And I’d make up a dummy round with either a round nose bullet or a blunt ended wadcutter, seated out to just contact the rifling. But I do all my own reloading, so that option may not be available to you. So use a Snap Cap. Don’t ever use a live round. And I would absolutely insist on heavily swabbing the bore with TSI-301 ahead of time, to fill in all the micro-pores in the steel, to ensure that no grit got stuck in them.

Looks to me that the whole job, shooting included, can be done at the range in less than an hour, and for under $25. And you’ll have enough J-B left over to do every gun you’ll ever own. That’s hard to beat.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/24/2013 at 01:12 PM   
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control •  
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When Diversities Clash

It’s a helluva read, and will probably take you an hour if you hit all the comments. Right here.

And the comments are at least as good as the article; the whole county is wound up about it, but good, and in no uncertain terms. One small example from hundreds:

The strategy—to use politics to starve a place of resources so that one ethnic group will leave, abandoning it to another—is so strange that the only contemporary example that scholars offer took place in Zimbabwe, where the Mugabe regime seized the land of the last remaining white farmers. Some of the public-school parents have come to see the situation in East Ramapo through a lens similar to this.

I grew up in another part of this county. The Hasidim have always been there, in a very small gated world of their own making. But lately it seems their population is exploding. The Blacks and Hispanics and the South of the Border immigrants have always been there too, but in far lesser numbers in the past. With White Flight, now it seems that the buffer zone between them is eroding. As is the tax base. Uh oh.

Oh, and if the political might of this one little enclave seems a bit familiar, look back in history just a few years to the last days of the Clinton presidency and Hillary’s first win as a carpetbagging Senator. Hey, they were ripping off tax dollars earmarked for education then too, and boy did they cut a deal!

You might find the article a bit broken. The author starts out saying one thing, then shifts gears and turns the corner to try and say something completely different. I think a better written piece, or a follow-up, would have a much stronger perspective from the Black/Hispanic side of the issue, besides the short tales of a Haitian immigrant or two.

h/t to my brother for the link

Posted by Drew458     on 04/24/2013 at 12:31 PM   
Filed Under: • Education • Racism and race relations • Religion •  
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The simplest answers are often the best.

A few days ago I posted an article that told about a fellow voicing an opinion with regard to busing in some kids I believe regarded as ‘disadvantaged’ to a rural village to attend a special school there.  He was an MP and as I mentioned, he has to resign and offered an apology for stating what most folks know to be true.
Which is, there really are some people from some cultures that will excel while others will wither on the vine.  Caused as you may imagine lots of huffing and puffing from the righteous left and anyone else who wanted to be seen as non racists.  Cos of course, everyone who understood what the man was saying but couldn’t or wouldn’t say it themselves, are all racist baddies.  And that includes anyone who speaks out against immigration.  Seems one can not even be anti illegal immigration without getting a label attached.  Fact is, the face (and not the color of) immigration has changed a lot over the years.  Our LyndonB here at bmews in fact can give you chapter and verse. 

Enter Mr. Andrew Alexander of the Daily Mail who writes as follows.

Are kissing cousins best for Britain?

By Andrew Alexander

For more than a year, Government ministers have been claiming that only ‘the brightest and the best’ of immigrants will be admitted to the UK in future. We shall see. Most of us dumb Anglo-Saxons probably thought that we were operating on that principle anyway.

Why not pick and choose when demand is so high, particularly from the Indian sub-continent? But that isn’t how it works at all.

Most non-EU immigrants come from the poorer areas of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. In the latter case, it is reckoned that 95 per cent come from the Sylhet area, which makes up six per cent of the Bangladeshi population. It hardly ranks as a centre for the brightest and best.

In the case of India, according to figures unearthed by the publication Eurofacts, some 60 per cent are reckoned to come from the Punjab, specifically the Jullundur area, which again hardly provides the brightest and the best.

Of course, we are using statistics with a strong backward bias, since we have a census only once a decade. Some academic studies are useful, but they cannot by definition provide today’s absolute figures. Still, it provides some intriguing trends and comparisons.

Suppose that 60-75 per cent of British emigrants to the U.S. or Australia proved to have been born in Middlesbrough, which contains 0.2 per cent of the UK population — about the same proportion as Jullundur bears to the whole of India or Mirpur, a centre of emigration, bears to the whole of Pakistan.It would need explanation and we can find it in the immigration legislation since 1962, supposed to curb any large inflows. The BBC, improbably, carried out a survey in 2005 which found that 55 per cent of British Pakistanis were married to their first cousins!

It all started in the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 that was supposed to clamp down on uncontrolled immigration. Of course, Britain would not be so cruel as to separate breadwinners from those dependant on them.

So those immigrants already here brought in their sisters, their cousins, their uncles and their aunts.

Then there was the great marriage racket. Immigrants already here dashed off to their old countries to find spouses (and dowries, of course). The next generation can repeat the process.

It is all very well for David Cameron to dress up our new immigration policy as providing an inflow of brains and talents.

But while our visa offices puzzle over whether so-and-so really is a promising astrophysicist, in another office some British Pakistani will be insisting that his new bride (and near or distant cousin) has an automatic right to UK residency. Many of us dumb Anglo-Saxons will guess that the second case will go through fastest.

No such niceties about visas or brightness clutter up the arguments about the Romanians and Bulgarians whom we shall have to welcome next January.

It’s not as if this crisis could not have been foreseen a mile off. Cameron’s failure to do anything about it suggests to the public not just a lack of means, but a lack of will.

Surely Britain can decide such crucial matters on its own? Only if we leave the EU, replies UKIP.

The simplest answers are often the best.

Posted by peiper     on 04/24/2013 at 12:19 PM   
Filed Under: • Illegal-Aliens and Immigration • UK •  
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et tu California?

H/T Doc Jeff for this, especially as it reminds me somewhat of the post I did just the other day, about unwelcome visitors.

calif. doc jeff

That in this case it’s California won’t surprise anyone I’m sure.  But please don’t believe everyone there is some kind of fruit loop by which I mean brainless and weird.  And yeah we have more than our share of those in Ca. I am embarrassingly aware of that.  I think loving Calif. is kin to being in love with an unfaithful mistress.  Some things drive me up the wall but there are things to like. El Paseo Drive and the art galleries for one, the desert, the weather (sometimes) the Dodgers (okay they haven’t been well for awhile) the weather again cos women aren’t always bundled up head to toe for months out of the year which is important when all one can do is look. lol. Hmmmm. Seems to be a rather short list so far.  I guess I am just not familiar enough with other parts of our country or I might find places better.  But honestly, being warmer in older age is a boon. Who needs snow removal once past 50 anyway?  I loved Tennessee when we lived there (Franklin) but didn’t care much for the humid summers.  And really did enjoy Paducah with a passion, even though winters could be harsh and summers again, humid. But in the case of Paducah, I think it was the people I knew there. Some of the nicest darn folks I ever knew.  I miss that place.
But back to Ca, and the heads up Doc gave me on my home state.
Jeesh. 

Updated homeless ‘bill of rights’ passes CA legislative committee

An amended version of a bill that would extend new protections to California’s homeless population cleared the Assembly Judiciary Committee on Tuesday morning.
Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, framed Assembly Bill 5 as an attempt to create a statewide baseline of homeless civil rights, citing a proliferation of municipal ordinances cracking down on behavior like lying or sleeping on the sidewalk as examples of the “criminalization of poor people.”
“Today numerous laws infringe on poor peoples’ ability to exist in public space, to acquire housing, employment and basic services and to equal protection under the laws,” Ammiano said at a Tuesday morning hearing.

Ammiano’s legislation faced a backlash from critics who said the bill would sanction behavior like urinating in public.

So I was reminded again of this, with of course the location being London.  Where these insects have actually been seen doing the above and more.

The prime minister of Romania has admitted there is a problem with citizens of his country coming to Britain and committing crimes.

Victor Ponta said Roma gypsies, in particular, posed a ‘huge challenge’ to law enforcement by begging and stealing mobile phones.

He said he supported Britain’s moves to tighten up access to benefits for Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants.

A 40-strong band did exactly that a year ago, turning the site into a rubbish dump and being accused of knife-point robberies and other crimes.

Suitcases in tow, they have taken over a patch of grass near Marble Arch and it is feared they may set up a camp.

And come January 1st next year, there are expected to be thousands more.

Posted by peiper     on 04/24/2013 at 10:06 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Travelers/Gypsies/Squatters •  
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bridge post or bedpost?

Here’s one you don’t see very often. I didn’t visit it myself, I only read about it.

A Warren truss is the kind made from equilateral triangles. This kind of truss really didn’t come into favor until the advent of inexpensive good steel. While cast iron excels at compression loading, and wrought iron excels at tension loading, both are poor when used for the opposite purpose. Steel is very good for both compression and tension loading, and in a Warren truss, as the dynamic load shifts (ie vehicles drive across the bridge), the diagonals shift from one loading form to another.

Alternating vertical uprights on a Warren truss operate in tension (ie being stretched) and shift some of the dynamic and static load to the top chord sections. In other words, they make the bridge stronger. In a Warren truss the top chords are always in compression, so the alternating verticals pull those beams into tension, which actually neutralizes most of the stress on the top chords. Which is pretty neat.

A Pony truss, as I’ve pointed out before, is a truss bridge that is open across the top. It isn’t a big box of girders like a Through truss is. Pony truss bridges are generally smaller than Through truss ones, although with modern H beams and construction techniques they can be up to a couple hundred feet long.

A Bedstead truss is what makes this kind of bridge unusual. Instead of the typical diagonal end chord that most Warrens have, the Bedstead truss has heavy weight vertical end sections added. Instead of the bridge sitting on rocker or roller feet as most bridges do, the Bedstead extends those vertical ends well past the bottom of the bridge and sets them directly in the stone abutments. So the naked bridge really does look like an old iron four post bed frame. And this works just fine ... unless the abutments shift or breakdown. Rocker feet or roller feet allow a bridge and it’s base to expand and contract more without damaging anything; Bedstead posts set directly in concrete don’t allow for any movement at all, so any expansion joints have to be in the bridge itself, which weakens the design.

The above picture was taken in 1993; information on this bridge that spans the Snake Creek south of Bixby can be found here. A photo essay showing the current dilapidated condition of the bridge once the abutments shifted can be found here. I gather it is the last bridge standing built by the Oklahoma Iron Works with a clean pedigree. Shame it will be little more than rust in another 10 years.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/24/2013 at 08:38 AM   
Filed Under: • Bridges •  
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Saved By Climate Change

A mysterious, circular structure, with a diameter greater than the length of a Boeing 747 jet, has been discovered submerged about 30 feet (9 meters) underneath the Sea of Galilee in Israel.

Scientists first made the discovery by accident in 2003 using sonar to survey the bottom of the lake but published their findings only recently.

“We just bumped into it,” recalls Shmuel Marco, a geophysicist from Tel Aviv University who worked on the project. “Usually the bottom of the lake is quite smooth. We were surprised to find a large mound. Initially we didn’t realize the importance of this but we consulted with a couple of archaeologists, and they said it looked like an unusually large Bronze Age statue.”

The structure is comprised of basalt rocks, arranged in the shape of a cone. It measures 230 feet (70 meters) at the base of the structure, is 32 feet (10 meters) tall, and weighs an estimated 60,000 tons. It is twice the size of the ancient stone circle at Stonehenge in England.

The exact age of the structure has been difficult to pinpoint, but calculations based on the six to ten feet (two to three meters) of sand that have accumulated over the bottom of the base—sand accumulates an average of one to four millimeters per year—as well as comparisons to other structures in the region, put the estimate anywhere between 2,000 and 12,000 years old.

The possible purpose of the structure is even more enigmatic.

What archeologists are certain of is that the monument was likely of great importance to the people who built it. Marco notes that the nearest basalt outcrop was a few hundred meters from the site, and that the stones, which were three to six feet (one to two meters) in width, would have weighed over 200 pounds (90 kilograms) at times.

“We see a society that was capable of organizing the construction of such a large structure. It’s unique to transport these stones and unique to arrange them. You need to plan and to mobilize people, because they’re too heavy to be carried by a single person.”

Neat. No useful pictures in the press yet though. Perhaps this was another observatory like the Rujim al-Hiri, better known as Gilgal Refaim, a mult-ring paleolithic construction in the Golan Heights that is far older than the pyramids.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/24/2013 at 07:58 AM   
Filed Under: • Archeology / Anthropology • Architecture •  
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$3.19 here in NJ

The sharp drop in gas prices over the last month or so could provide America’s economy with a much-needed jolt, putting money into consumers’ pockets just as the impact of federal spending cuts reverberates through the economy.

In fact, some economists believe they could balance each other out nearly dollar for dollar.

Gasoline prices have fallen some 30 cents a gallon since hitting a high of nearly $3.80 a gallon earlier this year. The drop is mostly due to declining oil prices.

If the gas price drop continues—and many expect it will—prices could slip below $3.40 a gallon by summer, according to the research firm Capital Economics.

If prices stay that low, the savings for drivers over the course of a year could top $80 billion. That’s $80 billion to spend on other things like clothes, electronics or entertainment.

“To put that into context, it is roughly the same size as the sequestration spending cuts that took effect at the start of last month,” researchers at Capital Economics wrote in a recent note. As a result, economic growth “might not be as bad as we had initially feared.”

When I can fill my old Saturn’s 11 gallon tank up for under $20 again, I’ll know that a real Recovery is happening, and that all the years of the Obama Effect have been wiped away like the bird poo on the windshield that they are. I could do that when Bush left office (gas was $1.85 when Teh Won came to power).

Our local stations are selling 87 for $3.19 - 3.25/gal cash price. The current NJ state average price is $3.30/gal.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/24/2013 at 07:46 AM   
Filed Under: • Economics • No Shit, Sherlock •  
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Why Am I Not Surprised?

Charges of sending ricin-laced letters to President Barack Obama and others were dropped Tuesday against an Elvis impersonator from Mississippi who has said since his arrest last week that he had nothing to do with the case.

Meanwhile, in Tupelo, numerous law enforcement officers, including some in hazmat suits, converged on the home of another Mississippi man, Everett Dutschke. At around 11 p.m. CDT, they concluded a 10-hour search of the man’s property and nearby ditches and culverts. Investigators declined to say afterward what if anything they had found.

No charges have been filed against Dutschke and he hasn’t been arrested. Both Dutschke and 45-year-old Paul Kevin Curtis, who had faced charges in the case, say they have no idea how to make the poisonous ricin and had nothing to do with sending them to Obama, U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and a state judge.

Referring to officials’ questions for him about the case, Curtis said after he was released from custody Tuesday afternoon, “I thought they said rice and I said, `I don’t even eat rice.“‘

Posted by Drew458     on 04/24/2013 at 07:39 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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Pat Condell, the best he has ever done.

I have been saying it for years, that in fact I thought it was us, those who are conservatives, who really are the true liberals.

This video is one to save I think.

Posted by peiper     on 04/24/2013 at 06:28 AM   
Filed Under: • PAT CONDELL •  
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