Good news from Colorado....

A formerly solid red state, Colorado has been turning slightly purple lately. But the recall of the two state senators last month gave me a warm and fuzzy, telling those leeches they serve at the pleasure of the people. Now some more news from my former home, showing the libtards may have awoken a sleeping giant.

Colorado gun-rights advocates plan another recall effort

Gun-rights advocates in Colorado have started gathering signatures in support of another recall effort against a Democratic state senator following two successful recalls of lawmakers over votes in support of gun control laws.

Recall organizers received certification Friday from the Colorado Secretary of State’s office to gather signatures in the effort to recall Sen. Evie Hudak, a Democrat from Westminster, Colo., who backed the controversial gun measures, the Denver Post reported.

“She has infringed upon our constitutional right to keep and bear arms. She has voted to make all citizens less safe and to drive hundreds of jobs from Colorado,” Mike McAlpine, a spokesman for the group behind the recall effort, said in a statement emailed to the Denver Post.

In May, a different group suspended a separate recall effort targeting Hudak after they were unable to collect enough signatures. The group must gather 18,900 valid signatures within a 60-day time frame to force the recall question onto the ballot, the newspaper reported.

Hudak received criticism from gun-rights activists earlier this year over remarks she made to a rape victim at a committee hearing on a bill that would ban concealed weapons on public college campuses.

The legislator told Amanda Collins, testified that she may have been able to defend herself during the attack at University of Nevada, Reno, if she had been carrying her gun.

Hudak responded, "I just want to say that, actually, statistics are not on your side even if you had a gun...And chances are that if you would have had a gun, then he would have been able to get that from you and possibly use it against you."...

Now we know NOW and other "feminist" groups will scream from their hind legs over this flippant remark over rape....oh yea, this is a Democrat so that don't count!

Two Republicans were sworn in last week to replace Sens. John Morse and Angela Giron, the defeated Democrats who remained firm over their support for the new gun laws. The limits on ammunition magazines and expanding background checks to private and online firearm sales were reactions to mass shootings at a suburban Denver movie theater and a Connecticut elementary school last year.

Former Colorado Springs Councilman Bernie Herpin and retired Pueblo police officer George Rivera took the oath of office Oct. 3 in front of a Senate packed with Republican lawmakers and other supporters in the gallery.

The recalls last month marked the first time in state history legislators were ousted from office and reflected the continued debate over what gun restrictions, if any, are needed...

I've mentioned multiple times that Reagan said his greatest error as Governor of California was in approving full time state legislators. These people have to be grounded in reality and reminded often they are only in office because of the consent of the governed. Hopefully the people in the Colorado legislature are being reminded of that. Hopefully Mrs. Hudak will soon be on the unemployed list in this great Obama economy.

Officer Down

Police Officer Jon Coutchie
Laguna Beach California Police Department
End of Watch: Saturday, September 21, 2013
Age: 42
Tour: 6 years
Military veteran

Police Officer Jon Coutchie was killed in a motorcycle accident at the intersection of South Coast Highway and Cleo Street while looking for a speeding vehicle that had evaded other officers.

His motorcycle was involved in a collision with a pickup truck in the intersection.

Officer Coutchie was a U.S. Army veteran. He had served with the Laguna Beach Police Department as a police officer for four years and had previously served with the agency as a part-time jailer for two years.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got 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.

Weiner pops up in the most unexpected places!

In all seriousness, I am sorry to see Carlos Danger, aka Anthony Weiner didn't make it past of the first round in the NY Democratic primary. I've said many times, of all the Democrats on the ballot, he sucks the least.

Now this joke of a has been is arisen. He's come back. You can't make this up...and it can't be any more appropriate.

Weiner's sexts take center stage on Broadway

'The Weiner Monologues' looks at what's public and what's private in modern era

Even well after his epic primary loss, Anthony Weiner still can't escape the headlines, and now the trials and tribulations of being Weiner are headed to the stage.

The ex-congressman is making his off-off Broadway debut, or at least the saga of his downfall is.

"The Weiner Monologues" -- the brainchild of two Hunter College alums -- comes together with transcripts from press conferences, interviews and of course, the now-infamous, sexually-explicit messages that made Weiner a hard name to forget.

"I think what we tried to do was to present what happened in the course of events as faithfully and weirdly we could, just to make this larger point of what's public and private," director and co-creator Jonathan Harper Schlieman told WPIX.

Schlieman along with co-creator John Oros say they had a bigger story to tell outside of the Weiner scandal.

"It kind of plays with the question of how we have Facebook and Twitter, and now with the NSA scandal -- [among the things] online, what's actually private?" Oros said. "Probably nothing."

It's a reality that Weiner himself is still learning. One thing many credit to the embattled politician was his handle -- or lack thereof -- of his smartphone, an element that will be incorporated in the Weiner Monologues.

"Instead of telling the audience to turn off their phone, we're going to tell [them] to keep the phone on," Schlieman revealed. "We'll be transmitting the pics that Weiner sent out… completely uncensored."

The big question on everyone's mind -- will Weiner himself rise to the occasion for opening night of the play?

"It would be great if Weiner would reach out and touch us," Schlieman joked. "He was asked earlier if he heard about us … and he said he never heard of us. So that's going to be one of our major reviews for us before we go up."

"Right on the poster."

The Weiner Monologues hits the stage next month at the Access Theater in lower Manhattan and it's safe to say, this play is for adults and adults only.

I would be careful who you ask to touch you, Mr Schliieman. You don't know where that hand has been man! :<) A seak peak of what Anthony's weiner can get him into!
The Weiner Monologues Trailer from Weiner Monologues on Vimeo.
As I've said, this is so stupid you can't tmake it up. But you knew Weiner wouild come back up somehow!

Officer Down

Deputy Sheriff Daniel Rivera
Broward County Florida Sheriff's Office
End of Watch: Saturday, September 21, 2013
Age: 32
Tour: 10 years
Badge # 12278

Deputy Sheriff Daniel Rivera succumbed to injuries sustained 10 days earlier when he was involved in a single-vehicle crash along I-95, near Copans Road, in Pompano Beach.

He was en route to the police station at approximately 6:15 am when his patrol car left the roadway during a period of rain. The vehicle struck a tree on the passenger side, causing Deputy Rivera to suffer severe head injuries. He was transported to Broward Health North where he remained in critical condition until passing away on the night of September 21st, 2013.

Deputy Rivera had served with the Broward County Sheriff's Office for 10 years and was assigned to the Pompano Beach District Office. He is survived by his parents and siblings.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got 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.

Security Weekly: 'White Widows' and Knickers: Diversions from Real Threats, October 3, 2013

By Scott Stewart

In the wake of the assault on Nairobi's Westgate Mall, one of the media narratives that has fascinated me has been the focus on Samantha Lewthwaite, the so-called "white widow" of deceased suicide bomber Germaine Lindsay, who was one of the men responsible for the London Subway bombings on July 7, 2005. Really, the press coverage of Lewthwaite following the Westgate attack has been more like a media storm than a narrative, especially in Lewthwaite's home country, the United Kingdom. A British newspaper even published an article about the style of knickers she prefers.

The nonsensical media coverage of Lewthwaite (and her knickers) typifies an issue that has bothered me for some time. The press, and indeed even some analysts, tend to overstate the importance of some jihadists merely because they speak English, or were born in an English-speaking country.

The Lewthwaite Case

Despite some witness reports from Nairobi claiming that an English-speaking woman was involved and perhaps led the Westgate attack, no evidence has corroborated claims of her involvement. Al Shabaab, the group that conducted the attack, even denied Lewthwaite's participation, saying it would never permit a woman to be involved in a military operation. While al Shabaab should not necessarily be automatically trusted for obvious reasons, the group tends to be truthful about its operations -- and in any case, it has little reason to lie in this particular instance. Moreover, al Shabaab has never been known to use a female operative (Western or Somali) in a meaningful attack.

There are also strong theological reasons for a jihadist group like al Shabaab to exclude women from the battlefield. Unlike Hamas and Chechen groups who have used female suicide bombers, most jihadists do not believe women belong in battle. For example, the the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant has condemned the Kurdish People's Defense Units, which have employed female fighters to defend Kurdish areas against jihadist aggression in northern Syria. Notably, Iraqi jihadists have recruited and even employed female suicide bombers in the past out of tactical necessity. However, these efforts ultimately hindered recruitment and fundraising operations, and the practice did not become widespread.

What we do know is that Lewthwaite and a man believed to be her current husband, British citizen Habib Saleh Ghani, have spent time in Kenya. In fact, the two currently are wanted by Kenyan authorities for allegedly plotting to stage attacks in Mombasa, Kenya, during the Christmas holiday in 2011. Jermaine Grant, a British citizen allegedly associated with Lewthwaite and Ghani, is currently on trial in connection with the Mombasa plot, and according to testimony offered in court during the trial, the plotters were linked to al Shabaab. Still, despite Lewthwaite's links to Kenya and al Shabaab, there is no real proof that she has been involved in any militant or terrorist operations. Furthermore, while Lewthwaite has become something of a media "terrorist legend," there is certainly no indication that she is more dangerous than the lesser known Ghani or even Jermaine Grant, both of whom are fluent English speakers but do not happen to be Caucasian women and thus generate less press coverage.

A Premium on English Speakers

The situation with Lewthwaite is somewhat reminiscent of that involving another al Shabaab-linked Westerner, U.S. citizen Omar Hammami, also known as Abu Mansur al-Amriki. Hammami, who served as an English-speaking spokesman and recruiter for the group prior to being executed by his colleagues, rose to infamy after releasing a few laughably bad jihadi rap videos and because of his frequent activity on Twitter.

While Hammami did help recruit some foreign fighters and raise some funds for al Shabaab, he was never a significant battlefield commander for the group. He was always a marginal figure at best. Yet despite this, he enjoyed a far larger media profile than important al Shabaab figures including group leader Ahmad Abdi Godane, also known as Abu Zubayr, who maintains very strict operational security; Sheikh Mukhtar Robow, an important al Shabaab leader from the Rahanweyn clan; and the now-deceased Ibrahim Haji Mead, also known as Ibrahim al-Afghani, who had vied with Godane for leadership of the group.

But it is not just the media that tend to confer a celebrity status on English speakers. The U.S. government's Rewards for Justice program, for example, offered a reward of $5 million for information leading to the capture or death of Hammami. This is the same amount offered for Robow, Mead and several other significant militant leaders such as Mokhtar Belmokhtar, Sirajuddin Haqqani and Hakeemullah Mehsud.

This bias in the Rewards for Justice program applies to another American-born jihadist in Somalia, Jehad Serwan Mostafa, for whom the U.S. government is currently offering $5 million. Mostafa has an even lower profile than Hammami and yet there are only eight terrorist suspects in the entire world that have higher rewards offered for their death or capture by the U.S. program. Clearly his importance is inflated, given that Washington did not offer such rewards for the operational leadership of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula -- namely, Nasir al-Wahayshi (aka Abu Basir), Qasim al-Raymi and Ibrahim al-Asiri, all of whom have directly planned and executed attacks against the United States.

While these "native" members of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula were deemed less important by the Rewards for Justice program, the United States placed a higher premium on the group's English-speaking members, including Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, who drew attention away from operational militants like al-Wahayshi and his staff. As we forecast in 2011, al-Awlaki's death would not be the end of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's ideological efforts, much less its physical struggle, despite the hype al-Awlaki and his death had received in the media. That forecast has proved true.

The premium on English speakers is a natural reaction for English-speaking agents and analysts, who can read written statements or listen to audio or video recordings from English-speaking jihadists without any need for translation. I can personally relate to this, because although I speak Spanish, I have to rely on our Arabic or Somali-speaking analysts and area specialists for translations before I can begin my analysis. It was much quicker and easier for me to subscribe to Hammami's Twitter feed than to read translations of Arabic-language message boards. It is also easier for me to read Inspire than al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's Arabic language Sada al-Malahim magazine. Even in the U.S. government, there are very few agents and analysts who speak Arabic, much less Somali or Hausa, and translation takes a lot of time and effort.

This does not apply only to American and British press and authorities. We have also seen the German press and authorities focus heavily on individuals such as Yassin and Monour Chouka, two German-born jihadists associated with the Islamic Jihad Union who posted German-language videos threatening attacks against Germany. The French-speaking world has its own version of the "white widow," a woman named Malika el-Aroud, (aka Oum Obeyda), the Moroccan-born Belgian citizen whose first husband was involved in the assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud two days before the 9/11 attacks. She has been investigated several times (and convicted in Switzerland) for raising funds and recruiting fighters for al Qaeda and the wider jihadist movement.

Real Threats

For the most part, these high-profile English-speaking militants do not pose direct physical threats. They are too well known to travel back to their native countries to conduct attacks, and they generally are not operationally active. This means that they are far more significant as propagandists, fundraisers and recruiters. In the case of al Shabaab, they have used figures like Hammami to raise money and recruit fighters to travel to Somalia.

On the other hand, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has used its English-language propaganda to attempt to "inspire" jihadists living in the West to conduct terrorist attacks where they live. To date, these efforts have been largely unsuccessful. As we noted when Inspire Magazine's 10th edition was published, there have been a number of thwarted plots in which the organizers were informed by the magazine, but there has not been the type of massive global grassroots uprising al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has sought to foment. Instead, such incidents -- the Boston Marathon bombing, for example -- have been few and far between.

This is not to suggest that such people should be ignored. Certainly, intelligence and law enforcement efforts to locate and apprehend them should continue, as should the monitoring of their English-language communications despite the very real risk of disinformation. But these efforts must be kept in the proper context, and these English speakers should not divert attention from non-English speakers who pose more acute and deadly threats.

Copyright:  STRATFOR.COM

Officer Down

Police Officer Rod Bradway
Indianapolis Indiana Metropolitan Police Department
End of Watch: Friday, September 20, 2013
Age: 41
Tour: 5 years

Officer Rod Bradway was shot and killed while responding to a domestic dispute call in a northwest Indianapolis apartment complex. Upon arrival, Officer Bradway heard cries for help and made entry into an apartment where he came under fire and was mortally wounded.

Officer Bradway was able to return fire on the subject and is credited with saving the life of the domestic dispute victim. Officer Bradway was transported to Wishard Hospital, where he succumbed to his wounds several hours later.

Officer Bradway was a five-year veteran of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and is survived by his wife and two children.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got 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. 

RIP Thomas Leo Clancy, Jr.

I got home this morning after my tenth day on night shift (have I said I really hate night shift!) and made it in just before my beautiful wife (and got the best parking spot! ;<) ). As I was heading to the bedroom she gave me this bad news. RIP Tom.

Tom Clancy, Best-Selling Novelist of Military Thrillers, Dies at 66Tom Clancy, whose complex, adrenaline-fueled military novels spawned a new genre of thrillers and made him one of the world’s best-selling and best-known authors, died on Tuesday in a hospital in Baltimore. He was 66... 

...Mr. Clancy’s books were successfully transformed into blockbuster Hollywood films, including “Patriot Games,” “The Hunt for Red October“ and “Clear and Present Danger.” 

His next book, “Command Authority,” is planned for publication on Dec. 3.
Seventeen of his novels were No. 1 New York Times best sellers, including his most recent, “Threat Vector,” which was released in December 2012. More than 100 million copies of his books are in print... 

...Mr. Clancy was an insurance salesman when he sold his first novel, “The Hunt for Red October,” to the Naval Institute Press for only $5,000.That publisher had never released a novel before, but the editors were taken with Mr. Clancy’s manuscript. They were concerned, however, that there were too many technical descriptions, so they asked him to make cuts. Mr. Clancy made revisions and cut at least 100 pages. 

The book took off when President Ronald Reagan, who had received a copy, called it “my kind of yarn” and said that he couldn’t put it down. 

After the book’s publication in 1985, Mr. Clancy was praised for his mastery of technical details about Soviet submarines and weaponry. Even high-ranking members of the military took notice of the book’s apparent inside knowledge. 

In an interview in 1986, Mr. Clancy said, “When I met Navy Secretary John Lehman last year, the first thing he asked me about the book was, ‘Who the hell cleared it?’ “
David Shanks, a Penguin executive who worked with Mr. Clancy for decades, called him “a consummate author, creating the modern-day thriller, and one of the most visionary storytellers of our time.” 

Born to a middle-class family in Baltimore on April 12, 1947, Mr. Clancy skipped over the usual children’s literature and became obsessed by naval history from a young age, reading journals and books whose intended audience was career military officers and engineering experts. 

He absorbed details of submarine warfare, espionage, missile systems and covert plots between superpowers. 

He attended Loyola College in Baltimore, where he majored in English, and graduated in 1969. While Mr. Clancy harbored ambitions to join the military, even joining the Army R.O.T.C., he was told that he was too nearsighted to qualify. 

Mr. Clancy began working at a small insurance agency in rural Maryland that was founded by his wife’s grandfather. 

After “The Hunt for Red October” was published, Mr. Clancy’s fame was fairly instant. Frequently posing for photographs in darkened aviator sunglasses, jeans and holding a cigarette, Mr. Clancy spoke of the laserlike focus required to succeed. 

“I tell them you learn to write the same way you learn to play golf,” he said.  

“You do it, and keep doing it until you get it right. A lot of people think something mystical happens to you, that maybe the muse kisses you on the ear. But writing isn’t divinely inspired — it’s hard work.” 

He followed “The Hunt for Red October” with “Red Storm Rising“ in 1986, “Patriot Games” in 1987, “The Cardinal of the Kremlin“ in 1988 and “Clear and Present Danger” in 1989. 

War Story:  No s$%^, there I was.  In the summer of 1988 I was a 23 year old Army Lieutenant about the leave for my first assignment in Korea.  And like many a young man with a credit card I had charged too much and promised myself I would not use it again.  Well I was walking in Lakeside Mall in Metairie LA when I just happened to look at Barnes and Noble and there it was, “The Cardinal of the Kremlin“ calling out "Buy me Mike!"  Oh well, that was another promise out the window.

Well, I few to Korea the next day, I was in my new unit (1st Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division (The Iron Brigade!) and I happened to have the book at my new desk.  Within ten minutes I had the brigade master gunner asked to borrow it and five minutes later the brigade engineer and fire support officer asked.  I got popular quick.

I handed the book SFC Peters at the close of business the next day and he killed it in one evening.  That's how great it was.

...The critical reception to his novels was gushing from the start. Reviewing “Red Storm Rising” in The New York Times in 1986, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote that the book “far surpassed” Mr. Clancy’s debut novel. 

“Red Storm Rising” is a “superpower thriller,” he wrote, “the verbal equivalent of a high-tech video game.” (Mr. Clancy would eventually venture into video games, which were easily adapted from his novels.)... 

I've often said this was his finest work and my favorite.  In "Red Storm Rising” Mr Clancy went out of his  grove.  There was no Tom Clancy and he brought in dozens of new characters to life.  I remember killing off that 700 page plus book in three days.  Reading until the eyes were worn out, screaming "No More!" and still reading.  This man knew how to write.

...Mr. Clancy is survived by his wife, Alexandra; their daughter, Alexis; and four children from a previous marriage to Wanda King: Michelle Bandy, Christine Blocksidge, Kathleen Clancy and Thomas Clancy III. 

Deborah Grosvenor, the editor who acquired Mr. Clancy’s first novel, said she initially had a hard time persuading her boss at the Naval Institute Press, to read it, since Mr. Clancy was an unknown and the publisher had no experience with fiction. 

“I said, ‘I think we have a potential best seller here, and if we don’t grab this thing, somebody else would,’ ” Ms. Grosvenor, who is now a literary agent, said in an interview. “But he had this innate storytelling ability, and his characters had this very witty dialogue. The gift of the Irish or whatever it was, the man could tell a story.” 

Mr. Clancy was frequently accused of using classified information in his novels, a claim that amused him. While he spent time on military bases, visited the Pentagon and dined with high-level military officials, he insisted that he didn’t want to know any classified information. 

“I hang my hat on getting as many things right as I can,” Mr. Clancy once said in an interview. “I’ve made up stuff that’s turned out to be real — that’s the spooky part.”

When looking today on the news of Mr. Clancy's death I found this and it shows how much his novels entered the American mindset.

‘Like a Tom Clancy Novel’ 

Tom Clancy, who died on Tuesday, was so popular — 17 of his novels were No. 1 New York Times best sellers—that his name meant something even to people who had never read a word of his work, a rare achievement for a contemporary writer. His name was a byword signifying spies, military equipment and covert plots against the American government. 

Which is probably why so many Times writers invoked Mr. Clancy over the years, without introduction, to give their stories a little color. He was handy in a simile. 

A few examples: 

Anna Quindlen, “Informed Opinion,” Jan. 10, 1991: “We’ve played out military scenarios, analyzed polls and plumbed history, more like folks researching a Tom Clancy novel than plunging headlong into war.” 

Maureen Dowd, “West Wing Chaperone,” Oct. 8, 2000: “If Dick Cheney were in a Tom Clancy-style thriller, he’d be the White House official who blends into the woodwork in the first act, only to quietly usurp the president in the second — the bespectacled puppetmaster who blackmails uncooperative congressmen, fakes authorizations for C.I.A. covert operations and makes deals with cartels.” 

Joe Goldiamond, “Meanwhile: A powerless pawn in Colombia’s war,” Nov. 26, 2002: “Your name is Juan Carlos Lecompte. And this is not the movie adaptation of a Tom Clancy novel; it is your life.” 

David Ignatius, “America’s Blessed Isolation Has Gone Up in Flames,” Sept. 12, 2001: “New Yorkers were reported to be moving up the streets of Manhattan in fear of further attacks; Washingtonians were said to be gazing into the skies, watching for airplanes that might next attack the Capitol or the White House. It was like one of those improbable Tom Clancy novels come horribly to life.” 

Nicholas D. Kristof, “Why Didn’t We Stop 9/11?” April 17, 2004: “Bush: What about the Tom Clancy novel where the pilot crashes a plane into the Capitol during a joint session of Congress? Could Big Beard be planning something like that?” 

Maureen Dowd, “We Need Chloe!” June 24, 2006: “Lulled by our spy thrillers and Tom Clancy novels, we used to take for granted that our intelligence agencies were just as capable as heroes on the screen. Jack Ryan, either the Harrison Ford, the Alec Baldwin or even the Ben Affleck version, could have gotten Osama single-handedly in the two hours allotted.” 

Tobin Harshaw, “About Those Assassination Squads…” July 17, 2009: “Hmmm, that last name alone is enough to set off a blogswarm, and combined with all the elements of a bad Tom Clancy book (Congress out of the loop, swooping global hit teams, shaky foreign allies) and everything everybody hates about Washington (bureaucratic inertia, legal hurdles, the triumph of vagueness) it garnered a lot of heated and relatively intelligent debate among the twittering classes.”

I remember talking to friends about Clancy's latest novel and one said "Mike, I woke up at three in the morning because I had to take a leak.  After that I saw the book by my bed stand and it was just calling to me."  That is a complement to an author!

RIP Tom Clancy.  A life well lived and too damned short.  I think I hear “The Hunt for Red October“ calling me!

Officer Down

Investigator Michael Dale Stockwell
Orange Beach Alabama Police Department
End of Watch: Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Age: 45
Tour: 20 years

Investigator Mike Stockwell was killed in a two-vehicle crash at the intersection of the Foley Beach Expressway and County Road 12, in Foley, at approximately 9:00 pm.

His unmarked department vehicle collided with another vehicle in the intersection. He succumbed to his injuries at the scene. The driver of the other vehicle was uninjured.

Investigator Stockwell had served in law enforcement for 20 years.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got 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. 

Wow! Everything is so green!

Saw this from FB and it's kinda amusing...


Thanks Butch A for the picture.

Sunday morning…..

Got started off after a long night. Finished my final paper for my class on Collection Management. Got the draft next to me and after a few checks should be ready to turn it. For the first time I’m not pulling it out my ass with less than an hour to go before I’m late. I’m not used to this!

Got the morning started with some excellent Community Coffee, a shot of 1865 Bourbon in it (medicinal purposed only) and Saturday Night Live is back for it’s 39th Season. Great opening, really love it shows the problem of Obamacare with comedy. I wish the rest of the media would publish that with more seriousness.


Speaking of propaganda, I read the Houston Chronicle and even for that rag, this was bad. Granted, a lot of the articles they have in here are from other sources, but come on:

Southern states move to tighten voting laws
MIAMI — Emboldened by the Supreme Court decision that struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act in June, a growing number of Republican-led states are moving aggressively to tighten voting rules. Lawsuits by the Obama administration and voting rights activists say those efforts disproportionately affect minorities.

At least five Southern states, no longer required to ask Washington’s permission before changing election procedures, are adopting strict voter identification laws or toughening existing requirements.

Got it. Having to show an ID is strict. Having to show an ID to get your Obamaphone while talking on your iPhone is not a problem.

Also, the "heart of the Voting Rights Act." The fact they cannot use demographic data from 1970, that reviews of voting districts should show who is actually there, not who was there in the 1960s, that's really racist. Pathetic.

Texas officials are battling the U.S. Justice Department to put in place a voter ID law that a federal court has ruled was discriminatory. In North Carolina, the GOP-controlled Legislature scaled back early voting and ended a pre-registration program for students.

Got it. It’s discriminatory to not allow people to register on voting day or allow them to vote a month ahead of election. We all know the purpose it to allow people to vote as different people at differ location’s. The dead rise all month. And for some read son they all vote as Democrats. I wonder if there is a pattern?

Nowhere is the debate more heated than in Florida, where the chaotic recount in the disputed 2000 presidential race took place.

x
Yes, it’s disputed because the Florida Supreme Court stuck it’s nose into it and tried to rewrite Florida election law after the election had already been decided. Gotta give these leftist this, they don’t take their toys and walk home after they loose an election. They fight to the bitter end.

Now my favorite.

Florida election officials are set to resume an effort to remove noncitizens from the state’s voting rolls. A purge last year ended in embarrassment after hundreds of American citizens, most of whom were black or Hispanic, were asked to prove their citizenship or risk losing their right to vote.

Hey morons, if the are not citizens, they cannot vote.

Next was on the front page. Here is the Chron showing it’s still boot licking the regieme of B Hussein and being a propaganda piece for Obamacare. From the front page.

What the new health care law means to you
Enrollment opens Tuesday. Here are answers to the most frequent questions

Right. The fact your employer’s insurance company has stopped issuing policies in your state, the new policies are 2-3 times more expensive, no, that don’t affect you.

…Q: I’ve heard that states were supposed to expand Medicaid coverage under this law and that Texas did not. How does that affect who can buy insurance?
A: You’re right. When Congress approved the law, it was believed that most states would expand Medicaid coverage for the poor. The federal government offered states billions of dollars to pay for the expansion. However, some states, like Texas, opted out of the expansion because of objections to expanding the Medicaid program. That left many low-income people ineligible for coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
Q: Who will be left out because Texas did not expand Medicaid?
A: Individuals who will not receive expanded Medicaid coverage earn roughly between $11,500 and about $15,870. Families of four earn between an estimated $23,500 and $31,800.

For some reason this leaves out the fact the “billions of dollars to pay for” Medicaid expansion is only temporary and the states that agree with it are going to be stuck with the full bill in a few years. Then again they are probably booking on the transition to single payer to relieve them of these cost.

Here is a classic:

…Q: What’s the penalty if I do not sign up?
A: The individual penalty will be 1 percent of a person’s income or $95 — whichever is higher. The penalty will grow to 2.5 percent of income or $695 per adult by 2016. The penalty for a child will be half that of an adult. The penalty will be due at the time of the 2014 federal income tax filing.
Q: If I’m low-income and don’t qualify for Medicaid, yet I still can’t afford to buy insurance on the exchange, am I going to be penalized if I don’t buy it?
A: No.

But you will have a penalty of 1 percent of a person’s income….

What a waste of electrons.

Well, at least my class finished. Final checks on my paper, uploaded it, DONE A LAST! DONE A LAST! THANK GOD ALMIGHTY, DONE A LAST!

Football, Texans are giving me a heart attack but hopefully they still pull this out. And Chicago got its ass handed to itself. Gotta love it. Saints tomorrow which means I'll be dead on Tuesday afternoon. But hey, it's football….some sacrafices must be made.

Hope you have a great week.

PS: Thanks Texans...

Officer Down

Police Officer Rodney Wayne Jones
Detroit Michigan Police Department
End of Watch: Saturday, September 14, 2013
Age: 49
Tour: 28 years

Police Officer Rodney Jones died while representing the Detroit Police Department during a police motorcycle training and skills competition event at the annual Bikes on the Bricks in Flint, Michigan.

He was performing maneuvers on his department motorcycle on the 400 block of South Saginaw Street when he suddenly stopped it and fell to the ground. He was immediately treated by nearby paramedics and transferred to Hurley Medical Center, where he passed away.

Officer Jones had served with the Detroit Police Department for 28 years. He is survived by his wife and son.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got 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. 

Some more hope coming from the Republican Party

One of the problems the Republican Party has is the RINO's running it have no idea how to use technology. John McCain didn't use Twitter until this year. Enough said. Give this to Democrats, they know how to organize.

Now the usual suspects are screaming about Ted Cruz using an age old technique called a fillibuster. However, Cruz knows how to use other things. From of all things The New York Times.

Thanks to the Digital Revolution, a Conservative Uprising Can Rally Its Troops

WASHINGTON — Ask conservatives what went wrong for them the last time the government shut down, and many of them will bring up the cover of The Daily News of New York from Nov. 16, 1995.

Under the block-lettered headline “Cry Baby,” it showed a cartoon of Newt Gingrich, then speaker of the Republican-led House, in tears, clutching a bottle and wearing nothing but a cloth diaper.

Back then, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News Channel was a year from its debut, Andrew Breitbart was a lowly assistant at E! Online, and The Drudge Report was an obscure gossip and news digest sent by e-mail — to the lucky few who had e-mail.

But today, a fervent group of conservatives — bloggers, pundits, activists and even members of Congress — is harnessing the power of the Internet, determined to tell the story of the current budget showdown on its terms.

Even if their version of events does not help change popular perceptions enough to give Republicans the upper hand when it comes to public opinion, their efforts are, at a minimum, helping to stoke energy on the right that is invigorating the party’s base.

“This time the energy is being fueled by a lot of forces that did not exist back then,” said Christopher Ruddy, chief executive of Newsmax, the conservative magazine, Web site and publisher. Its “ObamaCare Survival Guide,” a New York Times best seller, has sold a half-million copies, he said.

“There’s this new conservative media constellation, and that’s playing into this,” he said.

In this telling of current events, the antagonists are the Republicans standing in the way of Senator Ted Cruz, the Texan who has crusaded this week to kill President Obama’s health care overhaul. Republican Party divisions are presented as a superficial distraction from the real issue at hand: the ruin the economy will suffer once the law goes into effect. And the only repercussion for the party worth discussing is not how much political damage the Republicans will sustain, but how the Tea Party giant has been awakened in this fight.

Democrats usually get more credit for their social media expertise, thanks in large part to the successful tactics of Mr. Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns. But conservatives’ use of blogs and, increasingly, Twitter to drive their messages and spur online protests have been a major factor in Mr. Cruz’s movement.

Few Republicans have been more savvy about the media game than Mr. Cruz, who hit the phones almost immediately after his 21-hour marathon speech ended Wednesday. One of his first calls was to Rush Limbaugh’s radio program. Glenn Beck would come later, as would a conference call with conservative bloggers. There were two Fox News interviews.

On Thursday afternoon, as he and Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, were planning their next steps, Mr. Cruz joined a group of demonstrators in an unrelated cause who knelt in prayer outside the White House. A reporter from the Christian Broadcast Network blogged about it.

Mr. Cruz and Mr. Lee’s strategy was to force a procedural delay that would push a pivotal vote on the budget bill back to Friday so they could give their online movement as much time as possible to pressure their Senate colleagues. This led to an angry confrontation on the Senate floor on Thursday after Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee accused Mr. Cruz of turning the vote into a publicity stunt.

“My friends have sent e-mails around the world and turned this into a show,” complained Mr. Corker, who said his office had been inundated with calls.

With the help of groups like FreedomWorks and the Tea Party Patriots, Mr. Cruz and Mr. Lee urged their followers to besiege Senate Republicans like Mr. Corker, John McCain of Arizona and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, with phone calls and Twitter messages. “Melt their mention,” was the way FreedomWorks characterized its online assault — a reference to the “mention” feature on Twitter where users can inform one another what has been posted about them.

Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, said she owned a PalmPilot — then a cutting-edge device — during the 1995-96 shutdowns. In those days, she said, conservatives felt more disconnected from one another, their voices more muffled.

Now, “people don’t feel like they’re alone,” she said. “You feel like you’ve got allies with you and your voice isn’t just in the wilderness.”

A case in point was how the Corker-Cruz exchange was reported in the conservative news media. By the decorous standards of the Senate, it was a heated confrontation, but hardly a knockout. Yet RedState, the blog and newsletter published by the conservative activist and pundit Erick Erickson, declared Mr. Cruz the uncontested winner, saying in essence that he had devoured Mr. Corker’s liver, Hannibal Lecter-style. “I think I saw some fava beans and a fine Chianti on Cruz’s desk after he was finished,” Mr. Erickson wrote.

In many news accounts, Mr. Cruz has been portrayed as the aggressor, battling his party’s leaders as they urged him to stand down from what has ended up being a losing battle, just as they had warned.

But an article on Breitbart.com, one of the most popular conservative Web sites, succinctly captured the competing story line: “McCain Decries the G.O.P. Civil War He Started.”

The senators who voted with Mr. Cruz to prevent the budget bill from moving forward were hailed as “heroes” in many comments posted online — a far different take from the more conventional reports that they were a rebellious bunch.

Many Republicans have accused Mr. Cruz and his allies of exploiting the raw emotions of conservatives on the political fringe. And it is impossible to know how long the enthusiasm for their campaign will last. On Friday, there were two lone Tea Party protesters near the steps that lead into the Senate chamber. One was waving a yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flag.

They were feeding off the week’s momentum, trying to summon the spirit that propelled the Tea Party to power in the House in 2010.

“This is what it feels like to take on Washington,” Mr. Lee said Friday in a speech from the Senate floor. “Those of you who’ve been involved in this effort should feel proud and energized.”

I rarely say this but NY Times, this is an excellent article. You actually showed how the Republican Party leadership is divorced from its base and divorced from contemporary political tactics. One of the first acts Reagan in 1980 did was purge the leadership of the campaign committees so they would support more conservative candidates. Hopefully a conservative Republican president will purge the party leadership soon enough...like January 2017.

Officer Down

Police Officer Jamie Buenting
Rockwell City Iowa Police Department
End of Watch: Friday, September 13, 2013
Age: 37
Tour: 12 years
Badge # 13-24

Police Officer Jamie Buenting was shot and killed during a standoff at a home on Pleasant Street at approximately 1:40 am.

Officers had responded to the home approximately four hours earlier after receiving a report that a man wanted for felony domestic assault was at the location. The man refused to exit the home when officers arrived and barricade himself inside. The subject fired a single shot at approximately 1:40 am and struck Officer Buenting, killing him.

The subject remained barricaded inside his home until surrendering at approximately 5:30 am. He was charged with first degree murder.

Officer Buenting had served with the 4-officer Rockwell City Police Department for eight years and had served in law enforcement for a total of 12 years. He is survived by his wife and two young children.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got 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. 

You may find a pattern here.....

New York, New Jersey, etc used to be the industrial heartland of this country, where people made money. Not anymore.

I found this article about why doctors are leaving New Jersey and you will be shocked why:

New Jersey’s Disappearing Doctors

New Jersey is experiencing a shortage of doctors. In fact, it’s projected that by 2020 the state will be about 3,000 primary care physicians short of what is needed to give optimal health care.

So why are doctors fleeing the Garden State?

According to Deborah Briggs, the President and CEO of the Council of Teaching Hospitals, New Jersey loses nearly 70% of the doctors it educates to other states. This is well below the national average of a 48% retention rate.

In other words, in 2013 New Jersey only kept about 34% of the doctors who were educated and trained in the state.

The Council of Teaching Hospitals and a nationwide study done by Merritt Hawkins, says New Jersey is just not competitive when it comes to keeping doctors in state.

The top five reasons for physicians leaving are:

Better salary offered outside of New Jersey

Cost of living in New Jersey

Better job/practice opportunities in desired locations outside of New Jersey

Taxes in New Jersey

Affordable Housing

...The room was filled with 40 or so doctors who also added malpractice insurance issues to the list, explaining that it’s just too expensive to start a practice here.

Malpractice reform has greatly helped Texas retain doctors by limiting putative damages to 250K while while not limiting actual damages. Lawyers hate that but it makes doctors want to stay.

Now granted, MD's are in high demand (that will only get worse) and other areas offer higher salaries and there is a high cost of living. But of all the things listed, is anyone specific to the practice of medicine? A mechanic can take his skills and get a job in Texas where housing is less than half that of the NE corridor, there is no state income tax and you don't have to pay 11 dollars on a toll road for five miles (sticker shock from a vacation a few years ago).

But again, I wonder if the powers that be in the area would look at this list and say maybe that's why people are leaving the NE and moving west and south. If you make it too damned high (like the the rent) to live there, people will move. And moving they are.

Officer Down

Deputy Sheriff David E. Allford
Okfuskee County Oklahoma Sheriff's Office
End of Watch: Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Age: 37
Tour: 13 years

Deputy Sheriff David Allford was killed in a single vehicle crash while responding to backup a state trooper who was dealing with a combative subject.

He was traveling on I-40, near mile marker 218, when one of the tires on his Chevy Tahoe patrol vehicle suffered a blowout. The blowout caused the patrol vehicle to overturn twice. Deputy Allford was ejected from the vehicle and suffered fatal injuries.

Deputy Allford was a U.S. Army veteran and had served with the Okfuskee County Sheriff's Office for 13 years. He is survived by his wife and two children.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got 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. 

Geopolitical Weekly: Geopolitical Journey: The U.S.-European Relationship, Then and Now, September 24, 2013

By George Friedman

I am writing this from Greece, having spent the past week in Europe and having moved among various capitals. Most discussions I've had in my travels concern U.S. President Barack Obama's failure to move decisively against Syria and how Russian President Vladimir Putin outmatched him. Of course, the Syrian intervention had many aspects, and one of the most important ones, which was not fully examined, was what it told us about the state of U.S.-European relations and of relations among European countries. This is perhaps the most important question on the table.

We have spoken of the Russians, but for all the flash in their Syria performance, they are economically and militarily weak -- something they would change if they had the means to do so. It is Europe, taken as a whole, that is the competitor for the United States. Its economy is still slightly larger than the United States', and its military is weak, though unlike Russia this is partly by design.

The U.S.-European relationship helped shape the 20th century. American intervention helped win World War I, and American involvement in Europe during World War II helped ensure an allied victory. The Cold War was a transatlantic enterprise, resulting in the withdrawal of Soviet forces from the European Peninsula. The question now is: What will the relationship be between these two great economic entities, which together account for roughly 50 percent of the world's gross domestic product, in the 21st century? That question towers over all others globally.

A Fluid Concept

The events surrounding the Syria intervention, which never materialized, hint at the answer to this question. The Syrian crisis began not with the United States claiming that action must be taken against al Assad's use of chemical weapons but with calls to arms from the United Kingdom, France and Turkey. The United States was rather reluctant, but ultimately it joined these and several other European countries. Only then did the Europeans' opinions diverge. In the United Kingdom, the parliament voted against intervention. In Turkey, the government favored intervention on a much larger scale than the United States wanted. And in France, which actually had the ability to lend a hand, the president favored intervention but faced a less enthusiastic parliament.

Most important to note was the division of Europe. Each country crafted its own response -- or lack of response -- to the Syrian crisis. The most interesting position was taken by Germany, which was unwilling to participate and until quite late unwilling to endorse participation. I've talked about the fragmentation of Europe. Nothing is more striking than the foreign policy split between France and Germany not only on Syria but on Mali and Libya as well. One of the central drivers behind the creation of the European Union and its post-war precursors was the need to bind France and Germany economically. French and German divergence was the root of European wars. It had to be avoided at all costs.

Yet that divergence has returned. Their differences have not manifested as virulently as they did before 1945, but still, it can no longer be said that their foreign policies are synchronized. In fact, the three major powers on the European Peninsula currently are pursuing very different foreign policies. The United Kingdom is moving in its own direction, limiting its involvement in Europe and trying to find its own course between Europe and the United States. France is focused to the south, on the Mediterranean and Africa. Germany is trying to preserve the trade zone and is looking east at Russia.

Nothing has ruptured in Europe, but then Europe as a concept has always been fluid. The European Union is a free trade zone that excludes some European countries. It is a monetary union that excludes some members of the free trade zone. It has a parliament but leaves defense and foreign policy prerogatives to sovereign nation-states. It has not become more organized since 1945; in some fundamental ways, it has become less organized. Where previously there were only geographical divisions, now there are also conceptual divisions.

Differences between the United States and Europe were made clear in the Syrian crisis. Had President Obama chosen to intervene, he could have acted in Syria as he saw fit -- he didn't necessarily need congressional approval but sought it anyway. Europe could not act because there really isn't a singular European foreign or defense policy. But more important, no individual European nation has the ability by itself to conduct an air attack on Syria. As Libya showed, France and Italy could not execute a sustained air campaign. They needed the United States.

Cowboys and Naifs

Here in Europe, Obama is criticized for his handling of the Syria intervention. There is also a general belief that Putin's foreign policy is a failure. But I am old enough to remember that Europeans have always thought of U.S. presidents as either naive, as they did with Jimmy Carter, or as cowboys, as they did with Lyndon Johnson, and held them in contempt in either case. (Richard Nixon's being honored by the French is an interesting exception.) After some irrational exuberance from the European left, Obama has now been deemed naive, just as George W. Bush was deemed a cowboy.

Europeans obsess much more over U.S. presidents than Americans obsess over European leaders. They have strong opinions, most of them negative, about whomever is in office. My response to such criticism has always been a tricky one. Imagine the fine sophisticates of 1914 and 1939 with nuclear weapons. Do you think the ones responsible for entering two horrible wars could have resisted using nuclear weapons? It is the good fortune of Europe that when leaders were wont to use nuclear weapons, the Europeans didn't have their fingers on the launch buttons.

These weapons were controlled by American cowboys and fools and by Russian "conspirators" -- the European vision of all Russian leaders. Amid profound differences and distrust, U.S. and Soviet leaders managed to avoid the worst. Given their track record, Europe's leaders might have plunged the world further into disaster. The Europeans think well of the sophistication of their diplomacy. I have never understood why they feel that way.

We saw this in Syria. First, Europe was all over the place. Then the coalition that coaxed the Americans in fell apart, leaving the United States virtually alone. When Obama went back to his original position, they decided that he had been outfoxed by the Russians. Had he attacked, he would have been dismissed as another cowboy. Whichever way it had gone, and whatever role Europe played in it, it would have been the Americans that simply didn't understand one thing or another.

The sentiment differs throughout Europe. The British were indifferent to the entire matter; they were far more interested in what the Federal Reserve would say. The Eastern Europeans, feeling the pressure of the Russians -- both in reality and in their nightmares -- can't imagine why the Americans would let this happen to them. A friendly diplomat from the Caucasus told me that he wondered if the Americans weren't aware they were in a showdown with the Russians.

The American view of Europe is a combination of indifference and bafflement. Europe has not mattered all that much to the United States since the end of the Cold War. Since the first Gulf War, what has mattered is the Muslim world, with various levels of intensity. Europe was seen as a prosperous backwater, or as I once put it in 1991, all of Europe became Scandinavia. It was quite prosperous, a pleasure to visit, but not the place in which history was being made.

When Americans can be bothered to think of Europe, they think of it as a continent with strong opinions of what others should do but with little inclination to do something itself. As an American diplomat told me, "I always go to Paris if I want to be told what America should do." The American perception of Europe is that it is unhelpful and irritating but ultimately weak and therefore harmless. The Europeans are obsessed with the U.S. president because, fool or cowboy or both, he is extraordinarily powerful. The Americans are indifferent to the Europeans not because they don't have sophisticated leaders but because ultimately their policies matter more to each other than they do to the United States. Americans think little of Europe and then really don't understand what happens there. It's not clear to me that Europeans get it either.

But the most profound rift between the Americans and Europeans, however, is not perception or attitude. It is the notion of singularity, and many of the strange impressions or profound indifferences between the two stem from this notion. For example, a friend pointed out that he spoke four languages but Americans seem unable to learn one. I pointed out that if he took a weekend trip he would need to speak four languages. Citizens of the United States don't need to learn four languages to drive 3,000 miles. The dialogue between the United States and Europe is a dialogue between a single entity and the tower of Babel.

The United States is a unified country with unified economic, foreign and defense policies. Europe never fully came together; in fact, for the past five years it has been disintegrating. Division, as well as a fascinating pride in that division, is one of Europe's defining characteristics. Unity, as well as fascinating convictions that everything is coming apart, is one of the United States' defining characteristics.

Obsession and Fear

Europe's past is magnificent, and its magnificence can be seen on the streets of any European capital. Its past haunts and frightens it. Its future is not defined, but its present is characterized by a denial and a distance from its past. U.S. history is much shallower. Americans build shopping malls on top of hallowed battlefields and tear down buildings after 20 years. The United States is a country of amnesia. It is obsessed with its future, and Europe is paralyzed by its past.

Whenever I visit Europe -- and I was born in Europe -- I am struck by how profoundly different the two places are. I am struck at how the United States is disliked and held in contempt by Europeans. I am also struck at how little Americans notice or care.

There is talk of the transatlantic relationship. It is not gone, nor even frayed. Europeans come to the United States and Americans go to Europe and both take pleasure in the other. But the connection is thin. Where once we made wars together, we now take vacations. It is hard to build a Syria policy on that framework, let alone a North Atlantic strategy.

Geopolitical Journey: The U.S.-European Relationship, Then and Now is republished with permission of Stratfor.

Officer Down

Trooper Paul Butterfield
Michigan State Police
End of Watch: Monday, September 9, 2013
Bio & Incident Details
Age: 43
Tour: 14 years
Badge # 1190

Trooper Paul Butterfield was shot and killed while making a traffic stop on Custer Road, near Townline Road, in Mason County, at approximately 6:20 pm.

A few minutes after radioing in the stop, a citizen called 911 to report a trooper had been shot. Responding units located Trooper Butterfield on the ground suffering from a gunshot wound to the head. He was flown to Munson Medical Center where he succumbed to his wounds while in surgery.

Using a vehicle description provided by Trooper Butterfield as he stopped the vehicle, investigators were able to identify a suspect and located him, along with a female accomplice, at a convenience store in a neighboring county approximately two hours later. Officers exchanged gunfire with him as they made contact, wounding the male subject before taking them both into custody.

Trooper Butterfield was a U.S. Army veteran and had served with the Michigan State Police for 14 years. He is survived by his fiancee and his father.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got 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. 

I thought science would question things....

I heard about this on Limbaugh today I heard how Popular Science was comments on stories. You can read the whole story but here is the pertinent part.

Why We're Shutting Off Our Comments | Popular Science

Why We're Shutting Off Our Comments
Starting today, PopularScience.com will no longer accept comments on new articles. Here's why.

Comments can be bad for science. That's why, here at PopularScience.com, we're shutting them off.

...Even a fractious minority wields enough power to skew a reader's perception of a story.

A politically motivated, decades-long war on expertise has eroded the popular consensus on a wide variety of scientifically validated topics. Everything, from evolution to the origins of climate change, is mistakenly up for grabs again. Scientific certainty is just another thing for two people to "debate" on television. And because comments sections tend to be a grotesque reflection of the media culture surrounding them, the cynical work of undermining bedrock scientific doctrine is now being done beneath our own stories, within a website devoted to championing science.

There are plenty of other ways to talk back to us, and to each other: through Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, livechats, email, and more. We also plan to open the comments section on select articles that lend themselves to vigorous and intelligent discussion. We hope you'll chime in with your brightest thoughts. Don't do it for us. Do it for science.

Consensus has nothing to do with the accuracy of science. Even peer reviewed beliefs can be wrong. But you must never stop questioning, unless there is no real discussion. Those items are generally called Laws of Science, such as the Law of Gravity. To look at this let's have a definition of what we're talking about:

LAW

1) An empirical generalization; a statement of a biological principle that appears to be without exception at the time it is made, and has become consolidated by repeated successful testing; rule (Lincoln et al., 1990)

2) A theoretical principle deduced from particular facts, applicable to a defined group or class of phenomena, and expressible by a statement that a particular phenomenon always occurs if certain conditions be present (Oxford English Dictionary as quoted in Futuyma, 1979).

3) A set of observed regularities expressed in a concise verbal or mathematical statement. (Krimsley, 1995).

THEORY

1) The grandest synthesis of a large and important body of information about some related group of natural phenomena (Moore, 1984)

2) A body of knowledge and explanatory concepts that seek to increase our understanding ("explain") a major phenomenon of nature (Moore, 1984).

3) A scientifically accepted general principle supported by a substantial body of evidence offered to provide an explanation of observed facts and as a basis for future discussion or investigation (Lincoln et al., 1990).

4) 1. The abstract principles of a science as distinguished from basic or applied science. 2. A reasonable explanation or assumption advanced to explain a natural phenomenon but lacking confirming proof (Steen, 1971). [NB: I don't like this one but I include it to show you that even in "Science dictionaries" there is variation in definitions which leads to confusion].

5) A scheme or system of ideas or statements held as an explanation or account of a group of facts or phenomena; a hypothesis that has been confirmed or established by observation or experiment, and is propounded or accepted as accounting for the known facts; a statement of what are held to be the general laws, principles or causes of something known or observed. (Oxford English Dictionary, 1961; [emphasis added]).

6) An explanation for an observation or series of observations that is substantiated by a considerable body of evidence (Krimsley, 1995).

And let us say what this woman is really talking about: Global Cooling, err Global Warming, oh Climate Change, yea, Man Made Global Climate Change.  So there is no legitimate question of this fraud where every moron out there is saying?  Right!  There has not been any cooling in 15 years, the Arctic Ice has been growing, the people who area really pushing this are making a killing on it, etc.  So yes, we need to question it.  And Popular Science, you're just a joke of a magazine if you can't stand being challenged in your political beliefs.

Officer Down

Deputy Sheriff Michael Neal Freeman
Harrison County Texas Sheriff's Office
End of Watch: Sunday, September 8, 2013
Age: 61
Tour: 28 years
Cause: Vehicle pursuit
Incident Date: 6/28/2007

Deputy Sheriff Mike Freeman succumbed to injuries sustained in a vehicle pursuit on June 28th, 2007.

He was responding to assist other units who were pursuing a vehicle on I-20, near FM 2199. The vehicle was driving at approximately 100 mph when it struck the rear of Deputy Freeman's patrol car, pushing it into oncoming traffic. Two vehicles struck the patrol car, critically injuring Deputy Freeman and two citizens.

Deputy Freeman suffered severe head and neck injuries. His condition worsened and he was left bedridden and on a ventilator until succumbing to complications from the injuries on September 8th, 2013.

Deputy Freeman had served in law enforcement for 28 years. He is survived by his wife and three children.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got 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. 

Some good people in Detroit...

Handled a turd in Detroit. This would really help me with scene management.

From the news:
Fox 2 News Headlines

They Are Tying Criminals to Trees in Detroit

Detroit is notorious for its police officers taking too long to respond to calls. So citizens decided to tie an alleged robber to a tree.

One week ago, some neighbors and a construction crew spotted a young man breaking into cars near Joy and Birwood early in the morning. They say he was stealing the batteries and cutting cables.

When they approached him, they say the suspect took off down Birwood with one of the batteries.

The witnesses ran after him and eventually caught up to the suspect, apprehended him, and proceeded to tie him to a tree while they waited for police to get there.

To the men at the shop, thank you for handling this piece of s#$%. Hopefully the word gets around town to stay off your place.

Military Intelligence put about right....

Thank you Marc C for the poster!

Life goes on….

Been a long week. I finished up Phase One of Sergeant Field Training and all goes well. I have started Phase II and I’m dealing with great people, it’s the night shift. I hate night shift. I guess the reason is I could never get used to it. I would do two weeks on nights and then the Army would have me for a few days. Then I’d have to get back on day.

Thursday was one long ass day. After getting off at 700am I checked into court and fortunately was able to take a nap in the officers down room. I get told just after lunch I will have a trial for a speeding ticket. After three hours with that I get a conviction. And nine hours of overtime. I drive home, take a long shower, dinner and I take the next night off. Called in to my station and told them after 17 straight hours there was no way I would make it through the night and they agreed. How the hell I made it to 1000pm I still don’t know. With the exception of a three-hour nap I was up 32 hours. But I slept the sleep of the dead until 900am Friday.

Did get to have a great lunch with Beth to celebrate her 30 days of not smoking and then spent a few hours looking at possible lots to buy for a future home. We know this place is a good for us now bit big for retirement. But it will be paid off long time before we retire so it will make a great rental property.

God help us all, got all the kids over here. Adele turned 14 and we had the family dinner on Friday night and it was great to get out with everyone. Everything was great but the weather. Rained all night. Not that I’m really objecting, we needed the water but it could have waited one day! ☺

Then the real fun was upon Beth and I. We have six teenage girls upstairs for the night. Adele’s party is a sleepover and tomorrow we get to feed them all breakfast. That is always fun. Elmer has a lot of fun begging people for bacon.

Some good news on our favorite dog. He seems to be putting on some weight. After we came home from a week long vacation he looked emaciated. He probably didn’t eat much at he boarder because he missed the family. But we’ve been feeding him like a horse and he is looking fuller.

After two almost heart attacks last week, I hope for a more certain end of the game tomorrow with the Saints and the Texans. A couple of days ago I made a bet with an old friend who is a life long Bears fan. Dinner on whoever’s team drops from undefeated first. Looking at the schedule of both New Orleans and Chicago I’ll give it a better than 50/50 chance that our bet will be decided when New Orleans goes to the Windy City on October 6. Hopefully the Saints make it alive from the airport to the stadium. I see 13 people got shot in one drive by in the Windy City. Damned that gun control works!

And on the good side, one more assignment in my 3rd class for the masters degree. Barring a major oh s%^&, next Sunday I’ll be one quarter of the way done. Thank God. With a little luck it will be finished by this time next year.

To celebrate I’m outside with Beth smoking an excellent Monte Cristo Cabinet Selection and enjoying it with some great scotch. Bugs are alive but not that bad. Beth has told me a lot of things taste different now without the smoking. She tried a puff of the cigar (granted, this is a Robusto not a medium cigar) and it was overpowering. But she has gone down to the 14mg patches and is slowing weaning herself off the nicotine. In another month she’ll be off the patches and only using the eCigs to keep up with a smoking habit.

And good to know I can still start something on my blog with some comments. I really like it when one of the "Anon" commentators calls be out for "...losing all objectivity." Yo moron, I'm not objective, don't claim to be. If you want to be lied to about being objective, look up PBS.

Well, here’s to a great week starting off with a fantastic Sunday of football. Hope you are enjoying this time as well as I. Night all

Officer Down

Corporal Van Perry
Carthage Mississippi Police Department
End of Watch: Thursday, September 5, 2013
Age: 49
Tour: 15 years
Badge # 7
Incident Date: 8/28/2013

Corporal Van Perry suffered a heart attack shortly after arresting a shoplifting suspect on August 28th, 2013.

He had transported the suspect to the police station and began to interview him when he suddenly collapsed. The suspect then alerted other personnel. Corporal Perry was transported to a local hospital before being flown to the University of Mississippi Medical Center. He remained there until passing away on September 5th, 2013.

Corporal Perry had served with the Carthage Police Department for 15 years. He is survived by his wife, daughter, and two sons.

Corporal Perry's father, Chief Deputy Willie Perry, of the Leake County Sheriff's Office, was killed in the line of duty on July 29th, 2001, when he was struck by a vehicle while conducting a roadside checkpoint.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got 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. 

The term human is not appropriate for this version of life...

A few years ago I testified in a trail of a defendant who raped an infant. Most of the witnesses were on the stand longer than it took the jury to sentence him to life in prison. He can thank God a federal law keeps him in segregated population. In general population he's a dead man in less time than the jury took.

This is not a human being, this is an animal. Hopefully he will be put down like the rabid animal he is. It would be better if he were hanged in the public square, but that's not allowed anymore.

Matthew Flugence claimed 6-year-old Ahlittia North seduced him before he killed her

Matthew Flugence, 20, was ordered held in jail without bond on a charge of first-degree murder in the death of 6-year-old Ahlittia North. His brother, Russell Flugence, 21, right, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a charge of failing to report a felony. He allegedly has confessed his younger brother admitted he killed Ahlittia, and yet did not report it. 

Booked with one of Jefferson Parish's most heinous child slayings, Matthew Flugence allegedly confessed to a detective that 6-year-old Ahlittia North seduced him behind a row of Harvey apartment buildings, spreading out a blanket on the ground and enticing him into having intercourse.

"In his words, the little girl, she wanted to have sex with him," Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office Detective Travis Eserman testified Wednesday during a preliminary examination.

The detective said Flugence told him he had sex with the girl on July 14, the day she was killed. "That's when he snapped," Eserman testified. Flugence stabbed her four times and watched her fall to the blanket writhing in pain, Eserman testified.

"He said he just watched her die," Eserman testified, adding that Flugence carried on with his day. "He goes to a family birthday party," the detective testified.

Two days later, following a wide search of Harvey's Woodmere subdivision, deputies found her body. She had been wrapped in a blanket and put inside a garbage bag, then dumped in a residential trash bin that was rolled out to the curb on Destrehan Avenue near where she lived.
The autopsy revealed that North had been stabbed twice in the lower abdomen and twice in the neck, Eserman testified.

After hearing the testimony, Magistrate Commissioner Patricia Joyce of the 24th Judicial District Court ruled that the Sheriff's Office has sufficient evidence to continue holding Flugence in jail on a charge of first-degree murder. She also denied a request by Flugence's attorneys for a bond for their client.

Flugence also is held on a charge of sexual battery, for allegedly touching a 10-year-old girl's genitals in April or May of 2012. Sheriff's Office Detective Ronald David Ray testified Wednesday that the girl, who is related to Flugence, disclosed the incident on July 14. Ahlittia also had family ties to Flugence: His uncle was her stepfather, authorities have said.

...Flugence gave four recorded statements, the last of which was his admission to stabbing Ahlittia, Eserman testified. In the statements, Flugence appeared to concede to an array of details. For instance, explaining why bullet casings were found near Ahlittia's blood, Flugence allegedly claimed he shot the girl, Eserman testified. However there's no evidence she was shot.

"In his first statement, he says he shot her," Eserman testified. "Then he goes into, 'I don't know how she was hurt. There was just blood.'"
Of the weapon he allegedly used to stab the child, "He described it as a sword at one point. And he advised it was a pocket knife," Eserman testified...

You can read the rest if you want but this extracts give you the main point. Hopefully my old hometown does what my new hometown would certainly do. I could say this is what happens when you degrade the roll of parents till they are nothing but "baby momma" and "baby daddy", that every failure is excused as a lack of funding for one government program or another. It's too late for the girl. We're can't bring her back, but hopefully she will rest a little easier.