Good review for officers

From PoliceOne.com News:

John Farnam's reminders to officers in wake of Wash. ambush

Submitted by:
John Farnam, Defense Training International

Editor’s Note: PoliceOne Member and renowned instructor John Farnam of Defense Training International sent out the following message in yesterday’s mailing of Farnam’s Quips. As John says on his Web site, “Willingness is a state of mind. Readiness is a statement of fact.” PoliceOne would like to thank John for his permission to run this as a P1 Tactical Tip.

The motive of the suspect who murdered four police officers [in Washington State] last Sunday morning is unclear. It is also unclear whether or not the perpetrator targeted police officers in general, or these officers in particular.

Nor am I speculating that this incident necessarily represents a new trend. And, as the prime suspect was shot to death by police early this morning, we may never have answers to these questions.

What is clear is the fact that it was well known that unformed patrol officers routinely congregated at this particular restaurant, at a particular time, on a regular basis.

As a response, I’m suggesting all LEOs, in uniform or not, immediately reevaluate routines and procedures!

Reminders that follow are, I know, elementary and obvious, but they need repeating now:

(1) Vary your “routine.” When someone knows for sure that you will be in a particular place, at a particular time, planning an ambush becomes easy. We have to continuously practice stealth and variance. It goes with the territory. Do the unexpected. Don’t be predictable!

(2) When several officers are gathered together, be it at a restaurant or at roll-call, like a designated-driver, someone needs to be always “on watch.” Of course, we

all need to be alert, but at least one of us needs to be specifically assigned to keep his head up. Subtle alert signals need to be worked out between us and routinely rehearsed, so we can all react quickly, and in a coordinated way, when necessary.

(3) Don’t keep thinking of yourself as the exception! Belief in “guardian-angles” is for children. You do not carry pistols in vain, and you bleed red blood, just like everyone else. When your number is up, only you can save yourself. Recommit yourself to continuous readiness, or do something else for a living!

(4) Appearances only go so far. The brazen act of attacking four, uniformed, armed police officers simultaneously is unusual, but we see that it does happen. Appearances detour much criminal activity every day, but there are plenty of genuine desperados running loose who are not impressed with uniforms and are unafraid to take you on. Again, be ever-prepared to go all the way!

You Gotta Be Kidding Me

I think I've heard it all now:

But O'Brien says Mr Obama spoke candidly about their relationship - which has in the past been described as a "meeting of minds".

"He was quite expansive and quite genuine on what he saw as the commonality and connections between [he and Mr Rudd]. One of which was humility," O'Brien said.

Many words come to mine when I think of B Hussein Obama...but humility....

A Suspect on Death Row Scratching to prevent justice.

Ohio prisoner Darryl Durr is not a great guy

On January 31, 1988, at approximately 10:50 p.m., Norma Jean O’Nan and her husband returned to their home in Elyria and discovered the front door unlocked, the lights and television on, and their sixteen-year-old daughter, Angel Vincent, missing. Only twenty minutes earlier, Mrs. O’Nan had spoken with her daughter by telephone to learn that Angel’s girlfriend, Deborah Mullins, was at her home and that Deborah’s boyfriend, Darryl Durr, was expected to arrive later in the evening. That was the last chance Mrs. O’Nan would have to speak to her daughter alive.... On April 30, 1988, three boys noticed a foul odor coming from two orange traffic barrels while playing in Brookside Park. The barrels and been placed open end to open end, and were underneath a railroad tie. Upon separating the barrels, the boys discovered a severely decomposed female body that had been wrapped in a dirty old blanket. A portion of a leg was visible through a large hole in the blanket. A deputy coroner testified that the only clothing found on the victim was a pink sweater and a pair of white tennis shoes. The pink sweater had been pushed up well above the victim’s breast area. An initial external examination determined the body to be that of a young white female, who was in an advanced state of decomposition. The body was heavily infested with maggots and the body’s eyes and ears had been lost. There was also prominent evidence of animal activity about the inguinal and vulval regions of the body, and in and about the thighs. According to the deputy coroner, the decomposition was consistent with three months exposure. After examining the body, the deputy coroner concluded that the cause of death was homicidal violence. Since the body was so badly decomposed, the deputy coroner could not determine whether ligature marks, scrapes or tears indicating strangulation were present. There was no damage noted to the internal cartilaginous structures of the neck. The deputy coroner declined, however, to rule out strangulation as a cause of death since damage to these structures is not always present in young strangulation victims due to the flexibility of these structures. In No. 00-3353 Durr v. Mitchell Page 3 addition, because the body was so severely infested with bacteria, testing for the presence of acid phosphates and spermatozoa was inconclusive. In September, 1988, after Durr was arrested for two unrelated rapes, Deborah Mullins revealed her knowledge of Angel’s disappearance to the Cleveland Police Department. As the result of her information, an ankle X-ray obtained from Elyria Memorial Hospital, and dental records, the body discovered in Brookside Park was determined to be that of Angel Vincent. At trial, Deborah Mullins testified that on the evening Angel disappeared Deborah had asked Durr to drive to the house of one of Angel’s friends to retrieve a package of cigarettes for Angel. Durr agreed and left. Shortly thereafter, Durr returned to Deborah’s house and, instead of entering through the front door, began throwing stones at her upstairs bedroom window and blew his car horn for her to come out. Deborah and her baby, who had been fathered by Durr, left the house and entered Durr’s car where Durr brandished a knife toward both of them. As Durr was driving, Deborah heard noises from the back seat and after turning around discovered Angel bound on the rear floorboard. According to Deborah’s testimony, Angel was wearing black acid-washed denim jeans, a jean jacket, and tennis shoes when she was last seen in the back of Durr’s car. When Deborah asked Durr why Angel was bound in his car, Durr responded that he intended to “waste” her because “she would tell.” He never revealed just what Angel was going to tell. After threatening the life of both Deborah and his baby, Durr let Deborah out of his car. He returned to her home three or four hours later. Upon returning, Durr told Deborah that he had “wasted” Angel and that she should pack her things because they were leaving. Durr drove Deborah and their baby to his wife’s, Janice Durr’s, Cleveland apartment. After dropping Deborah and the baby off, Durr left with a duffle bag containing two shovels. When Durr returned, he was wet and covered with snow. Upon entering the room, Durr placed a ring and bracelet that belonged to Angel on a coffee table. As he was falling asleep, Durr told Deborah that he had strangled Angel with a dog chain until she “pissed, pooped and shit and made a few gurgling sounds,” took her body to a park, wrapped it in a blanket, placed it between two construction cones, and left her by some railroad tracks. Later that day or the next day, Durr burned a bag of clothing in the basement of Janice Durr’s apartment building and asked Deborah to model the black acid-washed jeans that Angel had worn on the evening of her abduction. Durr then drove Deborah, Janice Durr and his children to the west side of Cleveland where he burned another bag of items, and while driving from Cleveland toward Elyria, Durr threw Angel’s jean jacket out the car window. ...Following a jury trial, Durr was convicted of aggravated murder; kidnapping; aggravated robbery and rape. The trial court followed the jury’s recommendation and sentenced Durr to death.

Now that he is finally coming to his justice, his lawyers are tyring a unique appeal mehtod....he is alergic to anesthesia.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - A condemned Ohio inmate who says he's allergic to anesthesia is undertaking what appears to be a unique legal maneuver, arguing that no one knows how his body will react if state officials are allowed next week to inject him with the one lethal drug they now use.

A doctor is studying what impact, if any, the allergy could have on the execution process after lawyers for Darryl Durr uncovered evidence of Durr's allergy in his 800-page prison medical record. Durr was sentenced to die for raping and strangling a 16-year-old girl in 1988.

"One of the things the Ohio Constitution guarantees is that he has a quick and painless execution," said defense attorney Kathleen McGarry.

I don't know who is the lower form of life...the turd murderer or his lawyer.

Hopefully he assumes room temperature on April 20th as scheduled

Climategate Update

Here it is....

A key piece of evidence in climate change science was slammed as “exaggerated” on Wednesday by the UK’s leading statistician, in a vindication of claims that global warming sceptics have been making for years.

Professor David Hand, president of the Royal Statistical Society, said that a graph shaped like an ice hockey stick that has been used to represent the recent rise in global temperatures had been compiled using “inappropriate” methods.

“It used a particular statistical technique that exaggerated the effect [of recent warming],” he said.

There are lies, damn lies, then there are statistics. But it just shows how much of this crap is just that, crap.

A good look at Russia's Paranoia

Kyrgyzstan and the Russian Resurgence
April 13, 2010


This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR



By Lauren Goodrich
This past week saw another key success in Russia’s resurgence in former Soviet territory when pro-Russian forces took control of Kyrgyzstan.
The Kyrgyz revolution was quick and intense. Within 24 hours, protests that had been simmering for months spun into countrywide riots as the president fled and a replacement government took control. The manner in which every piece necessary to exchange one government for another fell into place in such a short period discredits arguments that this was a spontaneous uprising of the people in response to unsatisfactory economic conditions. Instead, this revolution appears prearranged.
A Prearranged Revolution
Opposition forces in Kyrgyzstan have long held protests, especially since the Tulip Revolution in 2005 that brought recently ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev to power. But various opposition groupings never were capable of pulling off such a full revolution — until Russia became involved.
In the weeks before the revolution, select Kyrgyz opposition members visited Moscow to meet with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. STRATFOR sources in Kyrgyzstan reported the pervasive, noticeable presence of Russia’s Federal Security Service on the ground during the crisis, and Moscow readied 150 elite Russian paratroopers the day after the revolution to fly into Russian bases in Kyrgyzstan. As the dust began to settle, Russia endorsed the still-coalescing government.
There are quite a few reasons why Russia would target a country nearly 600 miles from its borders (and nearly 1,900 miles from capital to capital), though Kyrgyzstan itself is not much of a prize. The country has no economy or strategic resources to speak of and is highly dependent on all its neighbors for foodstuffs and energy. But it does have a valuable geographic location.
Central Asia largely comprises a massive steppe of more than a million square miles, making the region easy to invade. The one major geographic feature other than the steppe are the Tien Shan mountains, a range that divides Central Asia from South Asia and China. Nestled within these mountains is the Fergana Valley, home to most of Central Asia’s population due to its arable land and the protection afforded by the mountains. The Fergana Valley is the core of Central Asia.




To prevent this core from consolidating into the power center of the region, the Soviets sliced up the Fergana Valley between three countries. Uzbekistan holds the valley floor, Tajikistan the entrance to the valley and Kyrgyzstan the highlands surrounding the valley. Kyrgyzstan lacks the economically valuable parts of the valley, but it does benefit from encircling it. Control of Kyrgyzstan equals control of the valley, and hence of Central Asia’s core.
Moreover, the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek is only 120 miles from Kazakhstan’s largest city (and historic and economic capital), Almaty. The Kyrgyz location in the Tien Shan also gives Kyrgyzstan the ability to monitor Chinese moves in the region. And its highlands also overlook China’s Tarim Basin, part of the contentious Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.
Given its strategic location, control of Kyrgyzstan offers the ability to pressure Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and China. Kyrgyzstan is thus a critical piece in Russia’s overall plan to resurge into its former Soviet sphere.
The Russian Resurgence
Russia’s resurgence is a function of its extreme geographic vulnerability. Russia lacks definable geographic barriers between it and other regional powers. The Russian core is the swath of land from Moscow down into the breadbasket of the Volga region. In medieval days, this area was known as Muscovy. It has no rivers, oceans or mountains demarcating its borders. Its only real domestic defenses are its inhospitable weather and dense forests. This led to a history of endless invasions, including depredations by everyone from Mongol hordes to Teutonic knights to the Nazis.
To counter this inherent indefensibility, Russia historically has adopted the principle of expansion. Russia thus has continually sought to expand far enough to anchor its power in a definable geographic barrier — like a mountain chain — or to expand far enough to create a buffer between itself and other regional powers. This objective of expansion has been the key to Russia’s national security and its ability to survive. Each Russian leader has understood this. Ivan the Terrible expanded southwest into the Ukrainian marshlands, Catherine the Great into the Central Asian steppe and the Tien Shan and the Soviet Union into much of Eastern and Central Europe.
Russia’s expansion has been in four strategic directions. The first is to the north and northeast to hold the protection offered by the Ural Mountains. This strategy is more of a “just-in-case” expansion. Thus, in the event Moscow should ever fall, Russia can take refuge in the Urals and prepare for a future resurgence. Stalin used this strategy in World War II when he relocated many of Russia’s industrial towns to Ural territory to protect them from the Nazi invasion.
The second is to the west toward the Carpathians and across the North European Plain. Holding the land up to the Carpathians — traditionally including Ukraine, Moldova and parts of Romania — creates an anchor in Europe with which to protect Russia from the southwest. Meanwhile, the North European Plain is the one of the most indefensible routes into Russia, offering Russia no buffer. Russia’s objective has been to penetrate as deep into the plain as possible, making the sheer distance needed to travel across it toward Russia a challenge for potential invaders.
The third direction is south to the Caucasus. This involves holding both the Greater and Lesser Caucasus mountain ranges, creating a tough geographic barrier between Russia and regional powers Turkey and Iran. It also means controlling Russia’s Muslim regions (like Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan), as well as Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The fourth is to the east and southeast into Siberia and Central Asia. The Tien Shan mountains are the only geographic barrier between the Russian core and Asia; the Central Asian steppe is, as its name implies, flat until it hits Kyrgyzstan’s mountains.
With the exception of the North European Plain, Russia’s expansion strategy focuses on the importance of mountains — the Carpathians, the Caucasus and Tien Shan — as geographic barriers. Holding the land up to these definable barriers is part of Russia’s greater strategy, without which Russia is vulnerable and weak.
The Russia of the Soviet era attained these goals. It held the lands up to these mountain barriers and controlled the North European Plain all the way to the West German border. But its hold on these anchors faltered with the fall of the Soviet Union. This collapse began when Moscow lost control over the fourteen other states of the Soviet Union. The Soviet disintegration did not guarantee, of course, that Russia would not re-emerge in another form. The West — and the United States in particular — thus saw the end of the Cold War as an opportunity to ensure that Russia would never re-emerge as the great Eurasian hegemon.
To do this, the United States began poaching among the states between Russia and its geographic barriers, taking them out of the Russian sphere in a process that ultimately would see Russian influence contained inside the borders of Russia proper. To this end, Washington sought to expand its influence in the countries surrounding Russia. This began with the expansion of the U.S. military club, NATO, into the Baltic states in 2004. This literally put the West on Russia’s doorstep (at their nearest point, the Baltics are less than 100 miles from St. Petersburg) on one of Russia’s weakest points on the North European Plain.
Washington next encouraged pro-American and pro-Western democratic movements in the former Soviet republics. These were the so-called “color revolutions,” which began in Georgia in 2003 and moved on to Ukraine in 2004 and Kyrgyzstan in 2005. This amputated Russia’s three mountain anchors.
The Orange Revolution in Ukraine proved a breaking point in U.S.-Russian relations, however. At that point, Moscow recognized that the United States was seeking to cripple Russia permanently. After Ukraine turned orange, Russia began to organize a response.
The Window of Opportunity
Russia received a golden opportunity to push back on U.S. influence in the former Soviet republics and redefine the region thanks to the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the crisis with Iran. Its focus on the Islamic world has left Washington with a limited ability to continue picking away at the former Soviet space or to counter any Russian responses to Western influence. Moscow knows Washington won’t stay fixated on the Islamic world for much longer, which is why Russia has accelerated its efforts to reverse Western influence in the former Soviet sphere and guarantee Russian national security.
In the past few years, Russia has worked to roll back Western influence in the former Soviet sphere country by country. Moscow has scored a number of major successes in 2010. In January, Moscow signed a customs union agreement to economically reintegrate Russia with Kazakhstan and Belarus. Also in January, a pro-Russian government was elected in Ukraine. And now, a pro-Russian government has taken power in Kyrgyzstan.
The last of these countries is an important milestone for Moscow, given that Russia does not even border Kyrgyzstan. This indicates Moscow must be secure in its control of territory from the Russian core across the Central Asian Steppe.
As it seeks to roll back Western influence, Russia has tested a handful of tools in each of the former Soviet republics. These have included political pressure, social instability, economic weight, energy connections, security services and direct military intervention. Thus far, the pressure brought on by its energy connections — as seen in Ukraine and Lithuania — has proved most useful. Russia has used the cutoffs of supplies to hurt the countries and garner a reaction from Europe against these states. The use of direct military intervention — as seen in Georgia — also has proved successful, with Russia now holding a third of that country’s land. Political pressure in Belarus and Kazakhstan has pushed the countries into signing the aforementioned customs union. And now with Kyrgyzstan, Russia has proved willing to take a page from the U.S. playbook and spark a revolution along the lines of the pro-Western color revolutions. Russian strategy has been tailor-made for each country, taking into account their differences to put them into Moscow’s pocket — or at least make them more pragmatic toward Russia.
Thus far, Russia has nearly returned to its mountain anchors on each side, though it has yet to sew up the North European Plain. And this leaves a much stronger Russia for the United States to contend with when Washington does return its gaze to Eurasia.

Man, you know he thinks this.....

Enough said....

This is too beautiful not to pass on...

We all know the Congress rushed Obamacare through and is praying the public will not be that mad this fall....but a rag of the VRWC, The New York Times, is saying Congress may have shot itself in the foot.

In a new report, the Congressional Research Service says the law may have significant unintended consequences for the “personal health insurance coverage” of senators, representatives and their staff members.

For example, it says, the law may “remove members of Congress and Congressional staff” from their current coverage, in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, before any alternatives are available.

The confusion raises the inevitable question: If they did not know exactly what they were doing to themselves, did lawmakers who wrote and passed the bill fully grasp the details of how it would influence the lives of other Americans? ,,,

The new exchanges do not have to be in operation until 2014. But because of a possible “drafting error,” the report says, Congress did not specify an effective date for the section excluding lawmakers from the existing program.

Under well-established canons of statutory interpretation, the report said, “a law takes effect on the date of its enactment” unless Congress clearly specifies otherwise. And Congress did not specify any other effective date for this part of the health care law. The law was enacted when President Obama signed it three weeks ago.

In addition, the report says, Congress did not designate anyone to resolve these “ambiguities” or to help arrange health insurance for members of Congress in the future.

I would pay money to see Pelosi etc trying to put a bill though clearing this before the elections this fall.... :<)

All I can say is you asked for it guys…

It's no secret most Washington reporters are liberals and they support Obama...but it looks like the love is not reciprocated:

Obama's disregard for media reaches new heights at nuclear summit

World leaders arriving in Washington for President Obama's Nuclear Security Summit must have felt for a moment that they had instead been transported to Soviet-era Moscow.

They entered a capital that had become a military encampment, with camo-wearing military police in Humvees and enough Army vehicles to make it look like a May Day parade on New York Avenue, where a bicyclist was killed Monday by a National Guard truck.

In the middle of it all was Obama -- occupant of an office once informally known as "leader of the free world" -- putting on a clinic for some of the world's greatest dictators in how to circumvent a free press.
The only part of the summit, other than a post-meeting news conference, that was visible to the public was Obama's eight-minute opening statement, which ended with the words: "I'm going to ask that we take a few moments to allow the press to exit before our first session."….

Reporters for foreign outlets, many operating in repressive countries, got the impression that the vaunted American freedoms are not all they're cracked up to be. ….

Reporters, even those on the White House beat for two decades, said it was the most restrictive set of meetings they had ever seen in Washington. They complained to both the administration and White House Correspondents' Association, which will discuss the matter Thursday with White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.....

And money says most of these idiots voted for BO

The restrictions have become a common practice for the Obama White House. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to the White House a couple of weeks ago, reporters were kept away. Soon after that, Obama signed an executive order on abortion, again without any coverage.

Over the weekend, Obama broke with years of protocol and slipped off to a soccer game without the "protective" pool that is always in the vicinity of the president in case the unthinkable occurs. Obama joked about it later to Pakistan's prime minister, saying reporters "were very upset."

Reporters, many in a "filing center" about a quarter-mile away from the leaders' meetings, relied on dispatches from colleagues allowed in as the press pool. The dispatches, over three days, were uniform: "They were too far away to hear conversation. . . . Again, Obama had nothing to say of substance that pooler heard. . . . We were in for all of 30 seconds. No news; no quotes and again no statements. . . . Same deal folks."

Finally, Obama walked over to a group of reporters Monday afternoon. Would he give them an account of his meetings? "I'll let somebody else do it," he said with a smile.

Damned, don't you hate it when you get lied to.... :<)

An Excellent Way to Start the Week

Officer Timothy Abernethy’s End of Watch was Sunday, 7 December 2008. A few minutes ago I got a text from a buddy that the waste of sperm who took him from his family was sentenced to death.

Rest in Peace Bro…We’ll Continue The Watch

Day is done, gone the sun,
From the lake, from the hills,
From the sky.
All is well, safely rest,
God is nigh.

A cool record

A good friend sent this to me and all I could say is damned, I thought I had no life! :)

After a grueling 58 hours of continuous play, John McAllister of Seattle, Washington officially became the best Asteroids player on the planet by scoring an unthinkable 41,338,740 points in the classic 1979 coin-op arcade game. The previous mark of 41,336,440 was set by Scott Safran back in 1982 -- the longest standing record in gaming -- and was considered virtually unbreakable.

"It's basically considered a Holy Grail," he told Portland TV station KGW. "It was a title that a lot of people would want, and I wanted it."

I worked at a pizza place when I was a senior in high school. After closing we would play video games (Asteroids, PACMAN, Wizard of Wor, etc) for hours, tossing one quarter in after another. This has led to one question I’ve always wanted to ask God.

“Lord, just courious, how much money did I waste on those video games when I was a kid?”

First Try

Hello!

Is there anybody out there?

I hope so…this is Mike from the Houston area just starting, so bear with me. Hope we have some good times together on this journey.