Someone has too much time...

Apparently the GOP in Maine has too much time and money on its hands.  They have decided to attack an opposing candidate over... World of Warcraft. 

Policy proposals?  Nah. 

Experience?  Nope.

Budget plans?  No interested.

Game character in an online game based on a fantasy world peopled by elves, orcs, dragons and fairies?  All over that like stink on sh*t.

Someone at the GOP national headquarters should be discussing the relevance of this information with the state GOP.  Maybe point out to them how much of a joke they are looking to be with the voters.  Might even want to point out that there are actual issues to discuss, like taxes, health care, etc...  Pointing out the flaws in your opponent's plans is even a good idea.  This?  This looks like the GOP is paying interns to play WoW to get the screen captures.  The GOP has generally been characterized as always using yesterdays technology.  This is not how to demonstrate that your party knows how to use the internet.  You are not a frat, stop acting like it.

The presidential debate stream of thought

The Economy plans:  both candidates are blowing air.  Obama keeps going back to Romney’s “5 trillion dollar tax cuts” and won’t move on.

What will you do?  Romney has presented proper facts about the president and stayed on time.  Obama is going to the emotional plea and ran over time significantly.  Romney is also more polite with the host.  Obama has made some good points regarding corporate tax items.  However, Romney has pointed out correctly that more people working bring in more tax revenue.  Romney brought up Solyndra, oh snap!  He shot down the oil company tax breaks by bringing up the green tax breaks being equal to 50 years of oil company tax breaks.

Social security:  Obama tells story of his grandmother, brings in the emotional plea right away.  He turned it into a wonderful story of Obamacare, medicare.  Romney is pointing out the cuts that Obama made to medicare.  Obama has come back with pointing out that Romney’s medicare voucher program will be problematic.  Obama likes the name Obamacare.  Romney has rebutted competently. 

Economy regulation:  Romney has brought up dodd-frank, pointing out the poor clauses in the law.  Obama has come back with how wonderful TARP was.  He has stated that Romney wants to repeal it entirely, which he did not say.  He stated that he wants to fix it. 

Health Care:  Romney has started in on his views, some of which I know are inaccurate.  However, he addressed the Romneycare issue before the president could use it against him.  Obama has brought up the good points of his plan, treatment limits and pre-existing conditions.  Ah, here is the Romneycare example used to justify the Obamacare.  Romney has come back with good arguments, mentioned Scott Browns election.  Romney brought up the damage to the 10^th amendment.

Education:  Tie.

Role of government:  Romney scores points for specifically pointing out the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.  Obama referenced Abraham Lincoln, not properly in my opinion.  Obama has gone back to complaining about Romney’s budget.  I am not impressed with Romney’s rebuttal. 

What would you do to fix gridlock in DC?

Romney has pressed the point well showing what has been accomplished in MA.  Obama claims to be responsible for ending the wars, despite the fact that those deadlines were in place before he was president. 

Closing statements: 

Obama:  He is a good speaker and has a great sense of humor.  Still hasn’t sold me.

Romney:  good speaker, pointed out details.  Still hasn’t sold me, but I lean towards him over Obama.

My wife’s winning quote:  They both seemed baffled by each other’s idiocy.

Lack of results? That never stops government...

Today I read an article from the AP (that comes strikingly close to journalism) about a senate subcommittee actually doing its job in a bipartisan way.  I had to check to make sure that no airborne bacon corps were passing my window.

It seems that in the frantic days after the 2001 9/11 attacks (I feel I must differentiate since someone decided to appropriate that anniversary this year) it was recognized that maybe the immense amounts of law enforcement organizations that have infested come into existence in our fair nation should possibly talk to one another occasionally.  So the idea of Fusion Centers was born to fight terrorism.  I am not sure if this preceded the creation of the Homeland Security fiasco Department, but if fell under their purview either way.  So, unknown amounts of money was supplied by congress and Fusion Centers were created in every state.  Currently, congress "thinks" between 300 million and 1.4 billion has been spent by fedgov on this project.  (I wish I could be that vague on my taxes.)  Based on past performance, I would estimate that we are looking at the higher end, not the lower end.  The frightening part is that this is apparently only 20-30% of the funding for these things.  Remember all of those state budgets that were in the red?

Now, what have they found that these wonderful centers for fighting terrorism have accomplished?  Well, in addition to publishing reports on huge amounts of people exercising their first amendment rights, spending questionably and not stopping (or even finding) any actual terrorist threats, not much.  On the other hand, since we have a new tool in the toolbox, it was decided to expand the mission.  Now we use it to fight crime.  So the same people who wrote inane reports on how Ron Paul supporters and returning veterans were a possible threat to the US are going to be trusted to do the same thing for non-terrorist criminal investigations.  This is like asking the guy who burned down his house by feeding an intact two month old Christmas tree into the fireplace to write a report on fire safety. 

Still, the department spokesman tried valiantly to deny that there was possibly a problem:
"Homeland Security Department spokesman Matthew Chandler called the report "out of date, inaccurate and misleading." He said that it focused entirely on information being produced by fusion centers and did not consider the benefit the involved officials got receiving intelligence from the federal government."

See, when the job of the centers is to PRODUCE INFORMATION, it seems, well, stupid to say that the report is inaccurate because it focused on the information that the centers produced.  Its their job, and they should do it well.  Otherwise, all you would need is a conference center for the different departments to meet in, minus the cubicle farm of analysts who appear to live a little too much in Tom Clancy novels and not enough in the real world.  I might suggest some form of benchmarks and job evaluations, since none exist.  However, if you intend to keep this inane operation running, I might want a job.  Better yet, hire Larry Correia as an analyst.  Then the reports would still be wild works of fiction, but much more entertaining and well written.  And they would have monsters.  Oh, and his publisher would need copies, so they couldn't be leaked early. 

So yet another federal level law enforcement organization is effectively entrenched on the public dime.  And despite the scathing report by this committee, not a thing will be done to remove this wart from the nose of our government because congressional spending and common sense rarely go hand in hand.    On the bright side, this entry will likely get me my own file in a fusion center!

Dear Mr Qandil: Please work on your own country and leave mine out of it.

I have been watching the current protests and violence over a really crappy piece of amature film making for several days.  I keep noticing that what is purported to be a peaceful religion is constantly burning down buildings, threatening to kill people and actually killing people.  Normally, I am ambivalent to their issues because generally they burn down their own cities in other countries.  And generally, their death threats are just that, unless someone is stupid enough to visit one of those countries, at which point I site Darwin and call it a day. 

However, when our embassy is violated, I become irate.  When our ambassador and citizens are killed, I go beyond into flat out pissed off.  And when our commander in chief doesn't park a carrier off that coast post haste, I am just beside myself.  This is the reason that I wish we still had battleships in fleet service.  No, they are not practical for modern warfare.  However, when you park a ship in the harbor capable of throwing sixteen inch shells so far that the gunners must take the curvature of the earth into account while aiming, it sends a message.  The Tomahawk Missiles were just added benefit.

Still, I realize that the attack in Benghazi was likely to happen no matter what, since they were well prepared on short notice.  Timing of the attack was just waiting for the opportunity.  I am more disappointed with the lack of security in a country that "lost" almost the entire armoury of the previous standing army.  Overall, I blame our government, from the top down, and will hold them responsible when it comes time to vote in November.

So as I am reading further on the BBC World News website, I see an interview by BBC Arabic's Khaled Ezz El-Arab with the Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil regarding the unhappiness over the film.

"KEA: When you say a balance between freedom of expression and not insulting other people you know there been a lot of calls recently, not from official corners in the Egyptian government but from other public figures, calling for the US to put laws in action that would prevent such a movie, a similar movie taking place in the future. Do you think this is reasonable to ask the US to do this?
HQ: I think we need to work out something around this because we cannot wait and see this happen again. This is a small group number of people doing irresponsible work and everybody's paying the price for these peoples' work and we have to do all it takes to stop this happening again.
KEA: Just so I've got this right are you calling for the US and other countries to take another look into their existing laws and...?

HQ: I'm calling on them to take the necessary measures to ensure insulting billions of people, one-and-a-half billion people and their beliefs, does not happen and people pay for what they do and at the same time make sure that the reflections of the true Egyptian and Muslims is well in the Western media."

While I will be the first to admit that my country is not perfect, do not suggest that my countrymen and I should change our laws or behaviour just because it might offend the followers of islam in your country.  Do not preach to me that islam as practiced around the world is "peaceful" when its followers are putting people to death for saying something bad about your prophet or depict him in any way.  It has just as much blood on its hands as does all other major religions.  You want to stop the violence?  Try taking all of those islamic leaders calling for the protests and violence and put them in jail for inciting their followers to violence.  That will likely cut down on the violence.  Might bring up property values as well. 

While you may not like it, we have free speech guaranteed in the document that frames our government, in the same entry that guarantees freedom of religion. I do notice that the followers of islam in the US have managed to avoid buring down any buildings or killing anyone.  Amazingly enough, if you want to look for peaceful followers of islam, you apparently can look to America.  Funny, ain't it?

All this technological advancement...

I was reading the news and came across and article about a southern California family that lost everything in their home when it was siezed for forclosure.  The home was boarded up, the contents taken away to the dump.  Only one problem:  They didn't have a loan on the house.  Its a minor detail, I guess, since banks have been doing it for years.  However, this led me down another rabbit hole that i didn't think about, incorrect demolition. 

I saw a story on a house in Little Rock that was incorrectly demolished.  A quick google search showed immediate results in Texas, Pittsburgh and one in Georgia where the demolition company did not relay on pesky thinks like an address written on a document, they had GPS coordinates!  GPS coordinates do you no good when you have no idea what side of the street it is on.  Guess who guessed wrong?  (Perhaps they could speak to Lawdog about GPS...)

Is it really so hard to get an original copy of the order on paper, even, and maybe confirm the address?  Oh, wait, don't tell me, they have an app for that?

Ah, the peaceful utopia...

Annnnd once again we are entertained by the place where Great Britain used to be...

Although the details are light, even lighter if you look at the police website, four men decided that a rural farmstead would be a great place to conduct a burglary.  They were untroubled by the possibility that someone may be home.  After all, this is the very unarmed British Empire. 

This illusion was shattered for them by the farmer and his wife, who were for some reason unwilling to be victims.  And based on what I have read (again, not deeply detailed) they registered their unwillingness to be victims with a legally owned shotgun.  Unfortunately, this is where the laws of Not So Great Britain take over.  Although I applaud the local police for arresting the burglars, they also arrested the victims.  The victims are being charged with "suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm".  The four men intent on burglary have been charged with Burglary. 

So, for those of you playing along, the victims currently are charged with a crime (for defending themselves with a legally owned shotgun) that would see them put in prison for years (3 to 16, depending on the application of law) while the actual criminals stand to spend 6.5 months to 6 years in jail.  And, even if the victims are not found guilty, even if they are found to be justified in their actions, I guarantee that they will never be allowed to keep that shotgun (or any other firearms) for the rest of their lives. 

Don't think so?  Go ask Tracy St Clair Pearce, a 50 year old cancer patient.  When travellers set up camp nearby, they trespassed on her property, destroyed her property and threaten her life when told to leave.  The police response?  Why, you go and confiscate the shotguns owned by the victim.  The shotguns that never left the safe.  The shotguns that were never even thought to be used or mentioned in the altercation.  Those shotguns.  Even better was the statement by the top officer in that department that the police had acted correctly.  The best part was that they were considering revoking the firearms certificate.  For being victimized and calling the police, as people are instructed to do.  And the criminals?  Oh they already planned to move on and basically avoid facing the charges.  Way to go, Britain, that'll show criminals that you mean business!

This is the sad state that has befallen the once great empire.  Sad really.

Update:  Apparently, common sense does prevail, as the victims are not going to be charged.  No mention of returning the shotgun, tho...

I guess it depends on who's buying...

I read today that (apparently) people are up in arms over the fact that the Social Scurity Administration is purchasing 174k bullets for its investigators.  The CNN article quotes several "right wing" bloggers predicting mass homicide.  Interestingly, Pelosi and her crowd are silent about this massive influx of devastating bullets. 

Still, when one combines simple math with camparisons of what various bloggers state is their usual round count when going to the range, we see a different story.  I have never read a blog entry that states a round count of less than 100 rounds.  A number of my favorite bloggers double or triple that, depending on the caliber being used that day.

As the agency states, they have 295 investigators, all of whom will need range time.  The simple math shows that 174000 rounds divided between those agents equates to 589.8305084745763 each, so we'll round to 590.  Figuring that they all use high capacity magazines for their service pistols, we'll say that 90 are reserved for duty use and 500 are for range time.  If they fire 100 rounds per session, that is a mere 5 trips to the range to maintain proficiency with their firearm.  As recent events in NYC showed, proficiency with your pistol is paramount when preserving your life and the lives of those around you requires the use of deadly force. 

In reality, that bullet count seems a little low...