Quote of the Day

'That second amendment has given us every other amendment"
- A NYC Port Authority cop on Fox News

Quote of the Day

"Winners take responsibility, losers blame others."-Chris Wallace Brit Hume

Apparantly I attributed this to the wrong middle aged guy with black hair in a suit who works for Fox news. Oopsy.

At Home

I am safely back in the wonderful PNW. The trip was a few days long and while uneventful left me totally confused in terms of time, sleep, etc. Slept like a rock last night exept one wakeup where I spent 30 seconds sitting up in bed figuring out where the heck I was.

Got to see Walker this morning (got home late last night and he as already asleep) which was pretty darn cool. He is huge and very active. Quite a change between a 4 month old and a 1 year old. Being able to drink good coffee and watch Fox News this morning was really nice. Spent a lazy morning playing with Walker and then ran around doing some errands.

I don't have many big plans for leave. Going to spend a lot of time with Wifey and Walker and try to see friends and family as much as I can. As for preparedness type goals I am going to do some gun cleaning, give the blog a facelift and that is about it.

I hope everyone has a good weekend. I know I am going to.
-Ryan

My Brain Is Fried

It has been one of those weeks. A combination of being cold and bored and doing very specific tasks for a long time have just fried my brain. I've just got nothing today. There is always stuff in my head but nothing is forming into meaningful phrases let alone turning into a post, let alone a decent one. I do however realize that me barely watching the US news is having positive effects on my overall stress and irritation levels with political stuff. Occasionally I watch a bit of Fox News and I usually get a bit of BBC every day.

The BBC isn't perfect and they have a somewhat leftist perspective. I sort of listen to them from a Joe Friday "Just the facts Ma'am" perspective. They give a better snapshot of world events than any other news channel I have ever seen. 

I get enough of the news to know what is actually happening but not the constant worrying about everything some vaguely prominent liberal Democratic talking head says. In retrospect listening to conservative and Republican talking heads theorize and discuss the stuff the liberal talking heads are trying to do doesn't help either. I do not know what the right level of news/ information is but being able to stay more or less abreast of current events without getting yourself all stressed out is a nice idea.

I have two day off which is nice. No huge plans here. Going to pick up some extra food at the store tomorrow to help in building up the alternate pantry. Plan to fiddle with the shortwave radio some. Also going to fiddle around on the net to find some stations to listen to. Got some various stuff to organize. Also need to give my winter boots the water proofing treatment. They are Gore Tex so my feet don't get wet unless I submerge them fully or stand in water for a long time. However the leather is soaking up water which means my toes freeze.

Got to organize some stuff and try and crank out a few more posts to schedule for the FTX. Also I need to sweep the whole house and do some other mundane but essential tasks.

Got a couple of thoughts about how I am going to fill the weekends posts. Think I am going to bed pretty soon.

quote of the day

"Questions and a dollar ninety three will get you a cup of Starbucks coffee."
-Brit Hume

quote of the day

"Taxes don't redistribute wealth, they redistribute people."
-Art Laffer

 This morning (my time) on Fox News. One of my personal luxuries is that a couple times a week I will spend some time in the morning on a cardio machine watching Fox News instead of running or lifting or whatnot.

Saw this on FB

Why Ayn Rand Still Resonates....

Erin Andrews

To start with, I haven't seen this newest celeb tape... And I don't plan on going out of my way to watch it. To be blunt, I don't really care. However, this is typical of a society which takes its celebrity way, way, way to obsessively.

I don't watch ESPN. I didn't know who Erin Andrews is until this story came out. All I know now is that FoxNews has talked about it for almost a week. CNN wont shut up about objectifying women, and the damage this has done to her reputation (really, she didn't have anything to do with it, so it can't damage her reputation, and shit, I didn't know who she was before, so it has upped her in my book).

All in all, we need to leave each other alone. She's cute, but so are a lot of other people. But when stuff like this happens, its not the end of the world. Lets all take a big breath, and step back.

Professor Gates, Cambridge PD and Experiences with LEO's

Someone sort of hijacked a thread to talk about this. Other people responded to it so now I must also. From what I have heard here are my thoughts.

I can genuinely understand that some disenfranchised peoples can have genuine fear of cops. According to some internet stuff Prof Gated grew up in West Virginia and by his age it could well have been a time and place where white cops kept clan uniforms in their cars and mixed law enforcement and an agenda of fear. I don't think that background really came into play here though. I would suppose a lot of people of that era would be far more inclined to "Yes Sir" "No Sir" their way through a situation like that.

I think this guy was an elitist. He has been teaching at Harvard for a very long time with all of those social trappings. He was also probably tired from the long trip he was coming back from.

It seems like the cops acted in a completely normal manner. The only white one was their diversity expert and the others were black and hispanic. On a side note I can't help but think what would happen if 3 random but completely innocent white cops had gotten this media attention. I think this man was tired and upset. He is an elitist and probably hadn't talked with a cop in decades let alone interacted in a law enforcement capacity.

Cops speak in certain language sometimes. They will very often give you warnings. A friend of mine was pre funking outside of a bar and the cops came. They asked him to dump out his can of beer and he said "let me finish it off" and then was promptly ticketed for an open container. He was stupid and for part of a fucking can of bud light could have saved a lot of grief. I believe the police report said the cop told him something to the effect of "you are starting to be disorderly" which is a pretty fucking blatant warning.

This guys arrest (which was dropped) had nothing to do with breaking into his own house and everything to do with being an asshole to the cops afterwords.

Here I am asking for it.

Thoughts?

Quote of the day 2- Guiliani on Healthcare

"This health care thing worries me even more then all of the spending because this will be very hard to undo if you do it wrong. You put 30-40-50 million people on this government insurance program you're not going to be able to undo that."

-Rudy Guiliani

On Fox News about 30 seconds ago. I have little to say on this. He is right and I think it speaks for itself.

Strike Out

We have a rule in our house. If I yell/ curse/ mutter incoherent profanities under my breath at the news more than 3 times in a sitting the channel gets switched. I reached this point after watching Fox news today for roughly 20 minutes. Also bear in mind that Fox news is by far the most conservative news out there. It isn't the way they report the news it is definitely what is going on. Between universal health care, the pending 'hate crimes' stuff and other miscellaneous junk it makes me angry, sad and stressed out. That is all.

quote of the day

"Honestly, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figger out that gub'mint spending has far surpassed drunken sailor levels, and can't go on forever."
-Mayberry

TOR says: Drunken sailors can spend like they are reputed to because after months of being on ship and spending practically nothing they would come into port for a short period of time. Also as Neil Cavuto noted drunken sailors are spending their own money.

Another Cop Held Accountable

That cop who shot the guy in the subway station in Oakland is going to stand trial. Not exactly sure if he is an idiot or a complete asshole but in any case he is going to stand trial. While the actions of a relatively small amount of cops is unfortunate and in some cases completely deplorable I find it a somewhat positive sign that these cases are making the news and the courts.

quote of the day

"Whether its government or not its not the matter. It is a question of what we can afford."
Rupert Murdoch on health care

This may be a sign of something real bad to come

Bank of America Director resigns.

quote of the day: O'Reilly on Border Security

"Look BIG FENCE OK"
-Bill O'Reilley

We Have No Leverage On China, DUH

Read article.

Totalitarian School Administrators Overstep Boundaries

School shaves boys head. How the fuck could they think that was OK? Schools have standards and whatever, I get that. Being in the mid west this town is probably pretty conservative which is fine. If the kid doesn't meet the dress code/ whatever the fuck they call it just call his parents and say he is not welcome to return until he meets the dress code. If the parent cares they can go to the superintendent and or the school board to argue their case. They had absolutely no call to shave the kids fucking head.

If a school employee cut my kids hair without their (and for a kid that age parental) permission I would go in there and shave their head jackass style. Bet they would like it about as much as my kid like them forcibly cutting his hair.

quote of the day

Why can't people just make their own bad decisions and, ya know, just live with them?

Badass of the week- Jim Brossard

I think the video really says it all. Kudos to Gracie for finding this awesome piece of news.