I mean, really.

So what if a former FBI agent misled Congress about inappropriately using his authority as an FBI agent.

You people act all surprised about someone abusing Federal authority in this administration like it's something new.

At least it's a different aspect this time, from all appearances, he's not a tax cheat.

But it does follow a pattern. Put tax cheats in charge of tax policy and put someone who's abused his power as a Federal officer in charge of the TSA. Makes sense to me.

The science is settled

Isn't that what Algore has told us ad nauseum??

Well apparently, as we've been saying all along.... the science is NOT settled.

No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research

Hopefully, the recent climategate email fiasco will move this debate back into the realm of science uncorrupted by politics and money.... I'm not entirely hopeful, but at least for the time being, that looks like at least a possibility.

Boo Freakin' Hoo

After a sleepless, overnight flight to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this month, President Barack Obama made a not altogether surprising admission. He was tired.

Who could blame him? The president was on his ninth foreign trip to his 21st country; he added a 10th trip the following week. The year had been bookended by the two most intense periods of his young presidency — the early decisions to bail out the nation’s banks and automobile industry, steps the president deemed unpopular but necessary, and his December orders to deploy 30,000 additional U.S. troops to fight the war in Afghanistan.

Throw in an unemployment rate in the double-digits, a health care bill still stuck on Capitol Hill, and last-minute negotiations on a global climate change agreement, and aides say it’s no secret that the president is tired, and looking forward to recharging during his year-end family vacation in Hawaii.

Not that the commander in chief really thinks he can escape his duties, even on an island. Amid golf, tennis, gym workouts and dinner, Obama has been called on to monitor the airliner attack in Detroit last Friday and what appeared to be another attack on Sunday — that incident turned out to be a false alarm. On Monday, Obama worked out in the morning and played tennis before making his first public remarks on airline security, then hit the golf course.

So much for putting aside the stress of work. Obama himself has been candid about the pressures of being president during what he has called an “extraordinary year.”

“You have a convergence of factors that have made this a difficult year not so much for me but for the American people,” he said in an interview with CBS News last month. “Absolutely that weighs on me.”

The first 20 or so seconds of this video about sum it up!

Dude, you volunteered for the job. Stop whining!

It's an easy solution

Instead of punishing normal folks who aren't interested in getting to paradise and their 72 virgins, the solution to the seemingly endless stream of muslims willing to blow themselves up is an easy one.

Muslims don't fly on American flagged airplanes. If you don't have the stones to take the step necessary to protect the American flying public, then just drop the charade of the TSA searching granny and her walker.

If you want to be PC about it, you could say that muslim males aged 18-50 can't fly on American flagged aircraft and let muslim women, children, and old timers fly. At least up to the point that they also start blowing themselves up. But the sad fact of the matter is that muslim males in that demographic constitute nearly 100% of all suicide bombers or wanna be suicide bombers around the world.

Keep them isolated from the rest of the population and by and large, your problem is solved.

Christmas 2009

Well, it's only 3 years until the end of the world, so let's take stock of where we are: World. Hell. Handbasket.

What's happened to Christmas? It's the celebration of the birth of Christ, but we've turned it into a bacchanalian festivus of commercialism and nonsense. It's turned into something that's all about us, and not...everyone else. Have we become so self-centered that we've lost our ability to care for anyone else?

This Christmas, try something new, and do something selfless. Think about someone else. Then consider that the gift of Christmas is about that, only magnified beyond your human comprehension. Yes, you're smart and wise. But you're a mere speck in this universe, and you need to consider that you might not be the center of it.

If you can't be thankful, at least say thank you to someone. We're better than what it appears we've become.

Merry Christmas.

Priceless

Sight Picture

Posted this article on my photography blog here, but figured since it involves shooting as well, that perhaps some of the gun folks would enjoy it as well.

More from the most transparent government in history

Hmmmm. Let's see. East coast socked in from a nasty snow storm. Christmas Holiday in full swing. Health care debate taking place in the dark of night, behind closed doors and occupying most of the country's political attention.

LOTS of things going on to distract an ADD populace.

And what does the most ethical and transparent administration in history do over the weekend?

They release a dozen terrorist scumbags - scumbags captured on the field of battle - back to their countries of origin.

Over the weekend, four Afghan detainees were transferred to their home country. Two Somali detainees were transferred to authorities in Somaliland, the semi-autonomous northern region of Somalia. Six Yemeni detainees also were sent home.

Let's see. Afghanistan continues to see heavy fighting. I'm sure none of the turds going home will soon be pulling the trigger against our troops. Somalia continues to be a hotbed of terror - remember all of the pirates from this summer? And the Yemini contingent? I'm sure it is completely and totally a coincidence that our massively corrupt Attorney General's law firm was representing Yemenis who were being held at Gitmo. Follow the money, because if I were a betting man, I'd have to say that I'd expect a large donation to be made from the Yemeni government to Holder's firm in the future. After all, it's the Chicago way.

It's been awhile

Since I last ranted about shooting.... so buckle up that seat-belt Dorothy!

Once again, I keep running head first up against the wall that is tactical trainers. We've had some new shooters come out to play and despite showing them as empirically as possible that their way of shooting is not the best way, they continue to fall back on the mantra of:

I shoot this way because I'm training for real life and not this game.

And I cannot tell you how nuts this makes me. Shooting poorly, yet tactically, is not an excuse for sucking. And it gets used as an excuse constantly.

I have a buddy who I actually like quite a bit. He started shooting with us a year or so ago, and he recently discovered cigars. He's on one of the local SWAT teams and is a heckuva nice guy. Over cigars a few weeks ago, he told me that the reason he shoots so much slower than me is that because he's had it drilled into him that target acquisition is key and he's willing to take his time to find and verify the target. My response was that if we can teach him to verify the target quicker - to see faster - then isn't that a good thing?

My point is, the guys that fall back on the tactical excuse refuse to accept the concept that there is a better and faster way because that way has been developed in competition in a game.

It's pathetic is what it is, and I'm getting damn well sick and tired of it.

A fellow showed up at our local IDPA match today. In 6 stages I believe he nearly doubled my time. I'm shooting a new gun that I'm nowhere near up to speed with in addition to earning a penalty. And I beat him by over a minute. He was a nice enough guy, worked hard at the match, helped out and was a pleasure to be around. However, just by watching him shoot I knew he'd received some training from somewhere. I asked him and when he told me where he went and had learned from I was not surprised as I have come to expect that kind of skill from that particular school. As we talked over the course of the day, you could see he was not buying the information I was trying to help him with until the end of the day when he hung around while I practiced for a bit.

I helped him with his grip and how he manipulates the trigger. No one had ever shown him how to do that before. He probably learned more, and had more to think about based on 30 minutes of evaluation from a competition shooter than he had in any of the other "tactical" classes he had taken in the past.

Tactical trainers believe that your mindset is the building block, the foundation of your shooting. After mindset comes tactics. After tactics comes skill. I would argue that they are bass-ackward. The foundation, the core of your shooting should be your skill. You can know all of the tactics in the world but if you can't put steel on target and manipulate your firearm you suck. And you're going to lose. Tactics are completely and totally worthless if you can't hit what you are aiming at.

And sadly, I have yet to see a shooter come out of one of "those" schools that knows how to shoot. When asked by new shooters why some folks continue to shoot and train with outdated methods when a better, proven system exists, I have recently come to the conclusion that dogma is king, and they refuse to do anything, to SEE anything that would change that dogma.

For example, the entire world was made aware during the American Civil War that line tactics were a bad idea. Yet nearly 50 years later, The Brits, German, and French were still using line tactics. It only took a few million men getting killed before they realized that they were wrong to fight as they had been taught - despite the evidence from a generation before that line tactics were a bad plan.

I see the fight against Weaver shooting and step dragging instructors to be the same thing. Their dogma sucks and does not stand up to the light of day. Period. End of story.

If you are looking to learn how to shoot, here's how to tell if you need to run out the door as fast as you can:

1. If you are taking a 2 or 3 day class and all you shoot is a couple hundred rounds.
2. If your instructor shoots Weaver - or even uses the ridiculous excuse that it's just another tool in the toolbox.
3. If your instructor does not shoot competition. (believe it or not, there are a ton of well known, well respected instructors who also happen to be phenomenal competition shooters)
4. If you ask your instructor "why" and all that person says is "because I said so" - a competent instructor should, nay, must be able and willing to explain in exquisite detail why they do what they do. If they cannot, DO NOT give them your hard earned money.
5. If your instructor says that their way is the only way. Within the general framework of the way "we" shoot, there are many variables; a good instructor will not teach you the way HE shoots, but the best way for YOU to shoot and have the flexibility and experience to guide you to your top level of performance.
6. If your instructor yells at you like R. Lee Emry.
7. If your instructor insists that if your pistol doesn't have a "4" in the caliber then it's worthless. (I invite any of them to step downrange and catch a mag full of 9mm)

This is just a start. But seriously folks, there's a reason that the best combat shooters in the world - Special Forces, SEALS, HRT, etc are trained by the best competition shooters in the world.

Thus endeth the sermon.

This my friends

is what you call being bitch slapped:

At an emergency meeting convened at the Bella Center this morning, Barack Obama and Gordon Brown assembled 26 heads of state in an attempt to revive a deal. But China's Premier Wen Jiabao did not attend and was replaced by vice foreign minister He Yafei.

And oh, it gets better, friends:

This afternoon, the US president and his secretary of state Hillary Clinton called another meeting with China, but were snubbed again when only three low-level Chinese delegates arrived.

The man-child running this country get his feelings hurt a bit:

According to a high level source, the US president clearly regarded Premier Wen’s absence as a major diplomatic insult, and snapped: “It would be nice to negotiate with somebody who can make political decisions.”

You see, when you are neither respected nor feared, no one tends to listen to or care what you have to say. Let's see... so far, the Chinese have snubbed the great one. The Iranians have snubbed the great one. The Cubans have snubbed the great one. And Chavez continues to poke the great one in the eye at every opportunity. That's some leadership there, fellas, let me tell ya.

How's that hope and change workin' out for ya?

Proof indeed

that God has a sense of humor.

Blizzard Dumps Snow on Copenhagen as Leaders Battle Warming

By Christian Wienberg

Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) -- World leaders flying into Copenhagen today to discuss a solution to global warming will first face freezing weather as a blizzard dumped 10 centimeters (4 inches) of snow on the Danish capital overnight.

“Temperatures will stay low at least the next three days,” Henning Gisseloe, an official at Denmark’s Meteorological Institute, said today by telephone, forecasting more snow in coming days. “There’s a good chance of a white Christmas.”

Delegates from 193 countries have been in Copenhagen since Dec. 7 to discuss how to fund global greenhouse gas emission cuts. U.S. President Barack Obama will arrive before the summit is scheduled to end tomorrow.

Denmark has a maritime climate and milder winters than its Scandinavian neighbors. It hasn’t had a white Christmas for 14 years, under the DMI’s definition, and only had seven last century. Temperatures today fell as low as minus 4 Celsius (25 Fahrenheit).

DMI defines a white Christmas as 90 percent of the country being covered by at least 2 centimeters of snow on the afternoon of Dec. 24.

To contact the reporter on this story: Christian Wienberg in Copenhagen at cwienberg@bloomberg.net

Irony

I believe this would fit under the definition of irony....

It would appear that the day before the chosen one accepted his Nobel Peace Prize, the Ruskies launched a practice ICBM from a submarine near Norway.

Close enough, it would seem, that

(t)he failure of a new Russian intercontinental ballistic missile during testing was the cause of the spectacular, spiraling, blue lights seen early Wednesday in the skies over northern Norway, analysts said.

How ironic that the man who's stated goal is to rid the world of nuclear weapons was greeted in Norway with a (failed) test of a Russian ICBM. I'm sure that the test's timing was purely coincidental....

How to lose a war

This, my friends, is how you lose a war.

No, not because Blackwater was used to conduct operations against our enemy.

But when you start suggesting that killing and capturing al qaeda turds is somehow a bad thing, it's a dangerous, slippery slope to the end of the road.

I don't give a damn if it was Delta, Rangers, SEALs, Recon, line infantry, airborne units or, dare I say, contractors who are killing the bad guys. That's getting the job done that needs doin', plain and simple.

But when you start suggesting that a relationship between the CIA and Blackwater to kill or capture terrorists is somehow a negative, we're screwed.

We've been screwed since last November anyway, but this is just more icing on the cake.

Nobel peace prize: Norwegians incensed over Barack Obama's snubs

Maybe the chosen one hurt his back with all the bowing he did on his Asian trip and wasn't up for another bow to another monarch?

Obama's 47 Percent Approval Lowest of Any President at This Point

When people ask why the messiah is in such a hurry to completely alter the course of the United States, all you need to do is take a look at the latest Gallup Poll. At 47% approval, he's lower than anyone else has been at this point in their presidency since Gallup started when FDR was president.

The reason Obama is in such a hurry is that he knows time is short and he needs to get as much done as he can in as short a period of time possible.

12/7/09

As part of my job, I had the opportunity a year or two ago to conduct an oral history interview with a gentleman who had served in the US Navy during WWII and was a survivor of Pearl Harbor.

It was one of the most interesting, entertaining, and downright sad interviews that I have conducted - sad mostly because his generation is dying off and not many people remember any more.

In fact, this fellow passed away himself a few weeks ago, right after Veteran's Day.

I'm glad I got to know him and proud I had the opportunity to share his memories from that day.

I won't forget.

Lego gun at work brings in the SWAT team

Oh dear God. At least this happened to our wonderful neighbors to the north but seriously people...

"I was surrounded by about six SWAT guys armed with shotguns and assault rifles," he said. "Once they confirmed I wasn't packing any Lego heat, I walked backwards towards them, was then cuffed, pulled into the stairwell and thrown against the wall."

While two members of the SWAT team kept Mr. Bell pressed against the wall, he explained that there was a Lego gun in pieces in his office. Sure enough, a few minutes later, an officer confirmed it.

"We found it ... it's Lego," Mr. Bell recalled the officer saying, as the police promptly uncuffed him.

It turns out police were tipped off by a neighbour whose apartment looks in on Mr. Bell's office. Police say a call came in shortly after 5:30 p.m. with the caller reporting that a man was sitting in his office with a gun on his desk and the door closed (Mr. Bell had been on an earlier conference call so had closed the door).

The last couple of sentences sum up a PC gone crazy world:

As for why he bought the toy gun in the first place, blame it on a love for Lego.

"I've always been a fan of Lego, so I decided to pick it up," Mr. Bell said. "I wish I had a decent reason for purchasing it, but I don't. For shame, I suppose."

Now our wonderful friends to the north are shamed for even buying play guns.

Crikey.

Disgraceful.

Utterly and completely disgraceful. The managers of this particular HOA should be taken outside, tarred, feathered and whipped.

Henrico Medal of Honor recipient, 90, ordered to remove flagpole

Make an exception to your HOA guidelines that allows Medal of Honor recepients to fly the flag if you're that worried about the Col's flagpole. The man has earned the right.

Dead old white guys

"We are either a United people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all maters of general concern act as a nation, which have national objects to promote, and a national character to support. If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending to it." --George Washington, letter to James Madison, 1785.

How bad is it when some old dead white guy could see the evils of multiculturalism and PC a coupla hundred years ago??

I sure hope someone's taken a good look!

Blue Whale Song Mystery Baffles Scientists

All around the world, blue whales aren’t singing like they used to, and scientists have no idea why.

The largest animals on Earth are singing in ever-deeper voices every year. Among the suggested explanations are ocean noise pollution, changing population dynamics and new mating strategies. But none of them is entirely convincing.

I hope someone in a position of authority is checking out ALL the possibilities here.