"Quote of the week"

Via Western Rifle Shooters Association

LANGUAGE!

The Smallest Majority

Quote of the Day - Lines from Fiction Edition

I was introduced to author Richard K. Morgan's works by my shooting buddy Dusty. Here's a quote from the novel Altered Carbon appropriate to today:

The personal, as everyone's so fucking fond of saying, is political. So if some idiot politician, some power player, tries to execute policies that harm you or those you care about, take it personally. Get angry. The Machinery of Justice will not serve you here – it is slow and cold, and it is theirs, hardware and soft-.

Only the little people suffer at the hands of Justice; the creatures of power slide from under it with a wink and a grin. If you want justice, you will have to claw it from them. Make it personal. Do as much damage as you can. Get your message across. That way, you stand a better chance of being taken seriously next time. Of being considered dangerous. And make no mistake about this: being taken seriously, being considered dangerous marks the difference – the only difference in their eyes – between players and little people.

Players they will make deals with. Little people they liquidate. And time and again they cream your liquidation, your displacement, your torture and brutal execution with the ultimate insult that it's just business, it's politics, it's the way of the world, it's a tough life and that it's nothing personal. Well, fuck them. Make it personal.

When The Man Comes Around

Black man assaults Korean woman on bus in Korea

Via Matthew

And the men do nothing? Guess none of their fathers were ROKs in Vietnam, where it was said

"They only received hostile fire from a village once, since they leveled it afterwards."

(As he should have been.)
====================================

a

More Evidence Obama Did Not Write Dreams From My Father

Well said. My favorite on Michelle:

Mundy charitably describes her senior thesis at Princeton as "dense and turgid." The less charitable Christopher Hitchens observes, "To describe [the thesis] as hard to read would be a mistake; the thesis cannot be 'read' at all, in the strict sense of the verb. This is because it wasn't written in any known language.":)

===========
CONSERVATIVE HERITAGE TIMES
VERBATIM POST

RedPhillips

Jack Cashill has come across another example of Obama’s early writing that demonstrates further, as if any additional evidence was needed, that Obama did not write Dreams From My Father.

I really wish that PJ Foggy and Dr. Conspiracy and all the other prominent debunkers would come on here and state categorically that they think Obama wrote Dreams. I don’t think they’ll do it because I think they KNOW good and well he didn’t. They may be apologists, but they are not stupid.

Mass Exodus of Students from the Public Schools

Love it!:)
==========================

With public schools in Indiana spending anywhere between $9,000 and $14,000 per student annually, one would think the education they provide would be first class. Nine grand a year is quite a lot of money. Most private schools produce good academic results at half that cost; and homeschooling families perform miracles at just a portion of it.

Therefore, public school advocates shouldn’t have worried too much about the new voucher system introduced in the state of Indiana, where parents could take their vouchers and enroll their children in any school they want – provided the school has state accreditation.

But what happened is exactly what the public schools feared: more than 70% of the parents who took advantage of the vouchers transferred their children from the government-run public school system to private schools, mainly Catholic schools who have an established history and network in the state.

The exodus from the government schools is serious enough to alarm the public school bureaucrats in Indiana and force them to do meetings with the parents in attempt to dissuade them from transferring. A group in the state is suing the state to stop the vouchers program, claiming that most of the vouchers end up in religious schools, which supposedly violates the “separation of church and state.” (“Separation of church and state” is an imaginary legal principle conjured up by the secularists in the US to fight the historic public influence of the Christian religion in America; the phrase is not present in any founding document of the American Republic.)

MORE

With Obama Slowdown Here to Stay, Regime Will Sling Dirt in 2012

CONSERVATIVE byte
VERBATIM POST
====================

“Economic growth second quarter slightly weaker than previously estimated.” Slightly. (chuckles) “According to revised US government data released on Friday, the GDP, which is the broadest measure of our economic health, rose at an annual rate of 1% in the second quarter.” The ChiComs are growing at 9.5%. The Cuban growth rate is higher than ours. The Cuban economy is growing faster than ours! We’re at 1%, revised down. This is a piece of news from the usual Friday evening dump, further buried by the hysteria over coverage of the Storm of the Century brought on by global warming. God, folks, the lies that have become rote! The lies that appear as news in every one of these stories! It’s just amazing. Gross domestic product: 1%. In July we were told it was 1.3%, but they revised it down.

“Economists were expecting the rate to be revised down to 1.1%, according to consensus estimates from Briefing.com.” Imagine that, economists getting it wrong! I’m stunned. I can’t believe it. And then we’re told in this story that the slowdown’s here to stay. The slowdown is here to stay. If that’s true (and I think you and I know that it is) what does this portend for the presidential campaign? Dirt. Pure, unadulterated dirt. The regime cannot and will not run on its record. The best that this regime can hope for is to say that their record would have been astoundingly good were it not for Republican obstructionism, but that’s gonna be a tough sell because the Republican presidential nominee will have had nothing to do with any obstructionism.

It's not a Ponzi Scheme if you can't exit!

Via Wolf Files

Pointing out Social Security's similarities to a Ponzi Scheme irritates Social Security's defenders. Nick Baumann at the liberal Mother Jones created a cute Venn Diagram implying that the only overlap between a Ponzi Scheme and Social Security is that Rick Perry calls them both Ponzi Schemes.

I think Baumann left some things out, so I've created my own diagram:

MORE

Maintain Our Electricity Supply: Help REIN in the EPA

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) upcoming air pollution regulation revisions are creating a bit of a stir both in the energy industry and in Congress. The emissions that would fall under more stringent limits are ozone, mercury, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide; coal ash waste; and water used to cool facilities that generate electricity.

Many see the new scheme as one that will unduly burden the power industry, even forcing shut downs of numerous coal-fired plants altogether. Estimated costs of compliance for utility companies are up to $129 billion, with a reduction of up to 81,000 megawatts of electricity generation. Then there’s the jobs at stake. A Commerce Department analysis predicted a loss of 60,000 jobs due to the EPA’s rulings.

With 45 percent of America’s electricity being coal-fired -- a resource that is abundant and cheap with at least a 200-year supply available in the States -- these new EPA regulations seem a direct attack on not only the power companies, but on consumers. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which is responsible for the reliability of the electric system warns that over-regulation of fossil-fueled electricity generation will make it difficult for companies to meet electric demand.

There are at least three proposed bills that could rein in the EPA on this. One is H.R.910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, which has already been approved by the House in a 255-172 vote, and was referred to the Senate. Many claim it has no chance of passing the Democratic-controlled chamber.

Another is H.R. 2018, the Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011, “To amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act” which also passed the House 239-184 and was referred to the Senate. Many claim that this one, too, will not pass the full Senate.

And then there's the REINS Act, S. 299, the Regulations From the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2011, introduced by Sen. Rand Paul, (R-Ky.). Not specifically tailored for the EPA, this bill would rein in all unaccountable federal agencies. Cosponsored by Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.), it would require Congressional approval of any interim or final regulation from the Executive Branch bureaucracy that costs more than $100 million per year or that excessively increases costs or prices or has “significant adverse effects on competition, employment, investment, productivity, innovation, or U.S. competitiveness.” This popular measure already has 28 sponsors and hearings completed. There is a companion bill in the House, H.R. 10, that has garnered 159 cosponsors.

House Republicans and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) have vowed to bring up bills after the summer recess that would repeal or restrict federal regulations, and Cantor intends on starting with a proposal to delay the implementation of these new EPA rules. But we can do better than just delay the rules.

Contact your Senators and Representative and get them to support and pass this common-sense legislation that would REIN in the damaging effects to our utilities, the economy and jobs by a host of unelected czars and their bureaucratic agencies. Make specific mention of the EPA as one of the most out-of-control and draconian agencies within the federal government that needs to be relieved of its regulating power. And pressure the Senate into taking action on the already-passed House bills.

Thanks,

Your friends at The John Birch Society

Will prison officials allow Wayne Fincher to attend wife’s funeral?

Paul W. Davis shares some sad news:

It is with great sorrow and regret that I must inform you of the passing of Linda Fincher, Wayne Fincher's wife. She passed away sometime early in the morning, the 28th of August at her home. At this time the cause of death is determined to be a seizure. She was alone at the time. Miss Linda had been suffering from seizures for some years now.

I am requesting your prayers for the family, particularly for Wayne and the daughters, Connie and Carol Ann. It was ever Miss Linda's concern that she would not see Wayne come home. Sadly, that concern has come true.

Long-time readers of the War on Guns blog will recall Fincher, a lieutenant commander in the Militia of Washington County (AR), was convicted of possession of an unregistered machine gun in a trial where the judge would not allow the Constitution to be mentioned in his defense. Click here to access an extensive archive that chronicles his struggles, and click here, to read “The Silver Bullet,” a document he co-authored that “clearly demonstrates how the National Firearms Act of 1934 is a criminal fraud and levy of war.”

Friend and supporters of the Wayne and Linda Fincher write that they:

[C]alled Judge Hendren who tried Wayne and asked him to request Wayne’s release for the funeral. The judge said he could not do that in his purview but that he would recommend Wayne’s furlough if the prison officials asked his opinion.

The judge did say that if an attorney would call the prison on Hollis Wayne Fincher’s behalf that could probably be of some help.

A Fincher daughter asks via email:

Can anyone help us?

We can try. While nothing formal has been established as the best way to make Wayne’s furlough happen, if we sit around waiting for someone to organize things, it won’t. My recommendation: Fincher is housed at FCI Forrest City Low, which is part of the Federal Bureau of Prisons system. The Acting Director is Thomas R. Kane.

I have three suggestions:

MORE

How al-Qaeda got to rule in Tripoli

Via JADED HAVEN

His name is Abdelhakim Belhaj. Some in the Middle East might have, but few in the West and across the world would have heard of him.

Time to catch up. Because the story of how an al-Qaeda asset turned out to be the top Libyan military commander in still war-torn Tripoli is bound to shatter - once again - that wilderness of mirrors that is the "war on terror", as well as deeply compromising the carefully constructed propaganda of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO's) "humanitarian" intervention in Libya.

Muammar Gaddafi's fortress of Bab-al-Aziziyah was essentially invaded and conquered last week by Belhaj's men - who were at the forefront of a militia of Berbers from the mountains southwest of Tripoli. The militia is the so-called Tripoli Brigade, trained in secret for two months by US Special Forces. This turned out to be the rebels' most effective militia in six months of tribal/civil war.
Already last Tuesday, Belhaj was gloating on how the battle was won, with Gaddafi forces escaping "like rats" (note that's the same metaphor used by Gaddafi himself to designate the rebels).

Abdelhakim Belhaj, aka Abu Abdallah al-Sadek, is a Libyan jihadi. Born in May 1966, he honed his skills with the mujahideen in the 1980s anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan.

He's the founder of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and its de facto emir - with Khaled Chrif and Sami Saadi as his deputies. After the Taliban took power in Kabul in 1996, the LIFG kept two training camps in Afghanistan; one of them, 30 kilometers north of Kabul - run by Abu Yahya - was strictly for al-Qaeda-linked jihadis.

After 9/11, Belhaj moved to Pakistan and also to Iraq, where he befriended none other than ultra-nasty Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - all this before al-Qaeda in Iraq pledged its allegiance to Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri and turbo-charged its gruesome practices.

In Iraq, Libyans happened to be the largest foreign Sunni jihadi contingent, only losing to the Saudis. Moreover, Libyan jihadis have always been superstars in the top echelons of "historic" al-Qaeda - from Abu Faraj al-Libi (military commander until his arrest in 2005, now lingering as one of 16 high-value detainees in the US detention center at Guantanamo) to Abu al-Laith al-Libi (another military commander, killed in Pakistan in early 2008).

Time for an extraordinary rendition

MORE