Blog Heap o'Links for April 2012

“And I came to Washington as a 29-year-old kid," said Biden. "...And my image of the military commanders at the time was... [in 'Dr. Strangelove'] where Slim Pickens is on the back of an atom bomb, dropping out of an aircraft, yelling, yippee-ki-yay!"

"Jimmy Kimmel and President Obama roasted the Secret Service, Washington's political and media elite--and each other--at the 98th annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner on Saturday night at the Washington Hilton." —ABC
[WNUed:] I watched the above video .... and leave with an underwhelming feeling. Sighhh .... moments like now makes me miss this President and the style that he always brought to a White House Correspondents' Association dinner.

Now, let’s cut through the drivel: play-acting at being married with someone to whom you have not committed will delay that commitment, or finding the person you really want to commit to. Acting like someone’s wife, when that person has not wed you in front of his family and friends, will just make you feel like you’re in a perpetual audition – because you’re in a perpetual audition. Not to go all Ayn Rand, but you wouldn’t take that from an employer (it would be “hire me, enough already, or I’ll find another job”); why do you take that from a man?

Still classy, President Bush dances with a wounded warrior. He looks a little lead-footed, but she seems to be enjoying it. [Photo]

the school administrators, through Social Justice Week, gave a platform to community organizers who in turn provided students biased information and encouraged them to take specific steps to protest.... When we heard about the week, we contacted school officials requesting to observe and record the events. All parties consented. [video]

Only Pelosi could put together a floor speech on how gas subsidies are an assault on women. [Video]

Biden: “I guess what I’m trying to say without boring you too long at breakfast – and you all look dull as hell, I might add. The dullest audience I have ever spoken to. Just sitting there, staring at me. Pretend you like me!” he said according to the pool report.

Four days ago, Andrew Breitbart — who had vowed his release of Obama’s college videos would change the 2012 elections — suddenly died, after he collapsed while “walking near his home” in southern California. His media organization Breitbart.com says it’s from “natural causes,” although the L.A. coroner’s office hasn’t even completed an autopsy. ... Comic actor and impersonator Steve Bridges, known for his impressions of U.S. presidents, especially — with the help of prosthetics — of Barack Obama, was found dead at his Los Angeles home on Saturday. It is believed Bridges died of natural causes. An autopsy is scheduled, but the Los Angeles County coroner’s office said foul play was not suspected.

At around four o’clock they decided to move from the playhouse to the side yard 200 yards away. It was a decision that kept them from becoming the first Americans killed by a nuclear weapon released on U.S. territory. Minutes later the woods behind the playhouse were destroyed by a nuclear bomb. [Sort-of]

...female scooter rider killed a man by squeezing his testicles for the packing dispute, in Haikou City, Hainan Province...

The Secret Service is having a party with hookers...

The 52-year-old blind victim said she was threatened before being choked and falling down a flight of stairs. Officers said that after witnessing the assault, the woman’s seeing-eye dog fought off the attacker. She told them that once the home was secure, the dog used a specially manufactured device to phone police and alert them.

A black bear that had wandered around the campus of the University of Colorado was tranquilised by wildlife officials before dropping with a thud onto a heavy mattress. [Video]

A citizen with a gun stopped a knife wielding man as he began stabbing people Thursday evening at the downtown Salt Lake City Smith's store. ... [Knife-weilder] just started stabbing people and yelling you killed my people. You killed my people." ...

The Department of Labor (DOL) has apparently heard the voice of the American farmer (and the American people) and backed off its plan to restrict or severely limit family members under the age of 16 from working on family farms.

It’s pretty clear by now that any 6 year-old would have ordered the hit on Osama Bin Laden last year. Yet, it took Barack Obama hours, and possibly days, to give the military permission to pull off the attack. Now Barack Obama in a new web ad claims Mitt Romney wouldn’thave ordered Bin Laden raid.

I was the proverbial wise-ass kid with a permanent seat in the rear of the classroom where I could safely heckle the nuns without collecting too many stripes across the back of my knuckles. Then, on September 11th, 2001, everything changed. ... Every day, I grew more disgusted by my cowardice. But the most intolerable aspect of living under a self-imposed gag order by far was the loneliness, alienation and isolation. Then I met Andrew Breitbart. ... We are in the middle of a War of Ideas. At stake is nothing less than the principles of inalienable rights and freedom upon which the United States was founded. And Andrew Breitbart is dead. ...

...in a span of 1½ months, all three men “conveniently” died... Now, Young’s elderly mother is speaking out about her suspicions that her son was murdered to protect Obama’s reputation and assure his political future as President. ... The Globe reported in May 2008 that a top Chicago private detective said he believed Young was “rubbed out” because of his relationship with Obama. Sinclair has echoed the private eye’s beliefs about Young and Obama. The Globe reports that before his death, Young was planning to flee to Africa to teach. The information was provided to The Globe by Young’s mother, who also now fears for her life and plans to leave her Peoria, Illinois home for a secret location. Mrs. Young said the Chicago police have warned her that her life is in danger. [story from Nov 12, 2011]

The dangers of academic deification are numerous. Those who dominate the educational language of the times determine the moral compass (or lack of compass) of the curriculum. They control who is accepted and who is rejected, not by measure of intelligence or skill, but by their willingness to conform to the establishment ideal. They construct a kind of automaton class, which has been taught not to learn independently, but to parrot propaganda without question. Simultaneously, those of us who do not “make the grade” are relegated to the role of obliged worshippers; accepting the claims of the professional class as gospel regardless of how incorrect they happen to be. To put it simply; the whole thing is disgustingly inbred.

Your credit card's been stolen- and the punk that did it has been running hog-wild ever since [graphics]

A cop friend ( an excellent target shooter) once shot it out with a suspect across the width of a double bed. Both emptied their magazines. Neither scored a single hit. But, a four-year-old who picks up a gun and shoots it at someone will drill that person between the eyes. Every. Single. Time.

...50-year-old [man] was opening a bag of coffee with a knife... wife asked him a question... turned to her... a cat ran under his feet and he fell with the knife in his hand... steak knife went about an inch into [his] chest... treated at a hospital and police say he will be fine. [Cat thinks: FAIL!]

"I think the F ring is Saturn's weirdest ring, and these latest Cassini results go to show how the F ring is even more dynamic than we ever thought," Carl Murray, a Cassini imaging team member based at London's Queen Mary University, said in a statement. "These findings show us that the F ring region is like a bustling zoo of objects from a half mile in size to moons like Prometheus a hundred miles in size, creating a spectacular show." The F ring is held in check by two tiny moons, Prometheus and Pandora, which weave inside and outside the outer ring. Sometimes these moons perturb the ring, creating channels and snowballs. Now scientists think that some of these snowballs survive to become the weird objects punching new holes in the ring. [Video here, after commercial]

I grew up playing in hardcore punk bands and fighting skinheads, and the political mantra for that scene was “Anarchy and Peace.” It seems incredibly naïve in retrospect, but being into punk rock was actually great training for becoming a rational, libertarian, paleoconservative adult. Here are 10 reasons why:

1. IF YOU’RE NOT AN ANARCHIST WHEN YOU’RE YOUNG, YOU HAVE NO HEART; IF YOU’RE NOT A LIBERTARIAN WHEN YOU’RE OLD, YOU HAVE NO BRAIN

Here's my theoretical fun campaign youtube commercial

Romney says, "I am different...

I have no idea if dog tastes like chicken....

When I hear BLT I think sandwich not Black Liberation Theology....

When I hear CRT I think old giant tube screens not Critical Race Theory....

In other words, I am not an incurious thin skinned little bitch who never had a real job and "grew up" in the circle jerk bubble of radical academia....

While I am not exactly like you, we are twins compared to Professor Arugula prissy pants."

...the memo doesn’t show a gutsy call. It doesn’t show a president willing to take the blame for a mission gone wrong. It shows a CYA maneuver by the White House. The memo puts all control in the hands of Admiral McRaven – the “timing, operational decision making and control” are all up to McRaven. So the notion that Obama and his team were walking through every stage of the operation is incorrect. The hero here was McRaven, not Obama. And had the mission gone wrong, McRaven surely would have been thrown under the bus. The memo is crystal clear on that point. ...

President Obama’s new campaign pitch is that Americans should have his back. He’s released posters via his campaign for African Americans for Obama; campaign email after campaign email has asked Americans to get Obama’s back. ... We shouldn’t have Obama’s back because he hasn’t had ours. ... And there’s another implication to the “get my back” routine – the notion that somebody has to protect Obama from evil people who want to harm him.

Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) released this video today. In the video, an Obama EPA official promises to “crucify” potential foes of the EPA who disagree with the agency’s war on fossil fuel.

Breitbart News has discovered a letter sent by Obama to [radical Critical Race Theory professor Derrick] Bell in February 1995 in which Obama asks Bell to review--and to blurb--an early version of Obama’s autobiography, then entitled Dreams of My Father.

The sentence came naturally. I assume it was unplanned. But it carried the weight of a freight train. “You know when Castro took power, none of us knew he was a Communist”.

We sat stunned. He continued, “Yes, we all thought he was a patriot, a nationalist. Before the revolution he didn’t sound like a radical.”

The comparison at this point was easy, and I interjected, “You mean just like Barack Obama?”

He responded; “Yes, just like Barack Obama.”

Iran is recruiting a hacker army to target the U.S. power grid, water systems and other vital infrastructure for cyberattack in a future confrontation with the United States, security specialists will warn Congress Thursday. [War News Updates editor comments:] Iran is not the only country preparing for cyberwar against the U.S. .... off hand I can thnk of Russia, China, North Korea, etc...

FreeMarketAmerica released the video in response to Earth Day, which “fizzled badly” this year, in part because of the continued revelations regarding the hysteria rhetoric of Gaia catastrophists, and in part, I’m guessing, because people have other things to worry about, such as how to scrape together the money to pay for their mortgages, pay off their student loans, buy gas for their climate-destroying automobiles and oh my God will you freaking people please shut up? Because it went viral, I saw no need of posting it here . . . until Michelle Malkin and others were notified by the creators that YouTube has suspended their account ... Whether this was a matter that YouTube took up on its own volition, or whether it succumbed to lefty pressure is impossible to know without more information. Until I’m presented with evidence that this was an internal decision generated without any outside pressure, I’m inclined to give YouTube the benefit of the doubt.

Breitbart News has discovered previously unknown handwritten notes from Elena Kagan to radical professor Derrick Bell, sent to Bell as Kagan worked on his seminal 1985 article on Critical Race Theory in the Harvard Law Review

On Sunday night Huntsman equated being dis-invited by the Republican Party from a Florida fundraiser in March after he floated the idea of a third party to "what they do in China on party matters if you talk off script," according to political blog BuzzFeed. On Monday, the former Utah governor, who served as U.S. ambassador to China under President Barack Obama, blamed blogs for taking a sentence out of context but repeated the sentiment.

“It was kind of like how the Romans used to, you know, conquer villages in the Mediterranean. They’d go in to a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw and they’d crucify them.

“Then, you know, that town was really easy to manage for the next few years.”

“It’s a deterrent factor,” Armendariz said, explaining that the EPA is following the Romans’ philosophy for subjugating conquered villages.

“It was kind of like how the Romans used to, you know, conquer villages in the Mediterranean. They’d go in to a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw and they’d crucify them.

“Then, you know, that town was really easy to manage for the next few years.”

“It’s a deterrent factor,” Armendariz said, explaining that the EPA is following the Romans’ philosophy for subjugating conquered villages.

Lovelace had a talent for popularizing sexual attitudes and for being at the center of the storm when change was occurring. Never a deliberate trendsetter, she nonetheless had an impact on what became normal in our bedrooms. She’s also one of the most misunderstood icons of the 1970s.

At the heart of this great argument lies the assumption on the part of the anti-religion camp that this is a battle between reason and obscurantism, between rationality on the one hand and knuckle-dragging ignorance and prejudice on the other. And of course, that anti-religion camp is on the side of reason, and thus of intelligence, science, progress and freedom; whereas religious believers would undo the Enlightenment and take us all back to the dark ages of credulity, superstition and the shackling of the mind.

Now add to that three more potentially dangerous faults in the Bellingham Basin, a tectonically active area along the coast of Washington, near the Canadian border. A team of researchers has discovered active tectonic faults in this region nearly 40 miles (60 kilometers) north of any previously known faults. ... capable of triggering magnitude-6.0 to -6.5 earthquakes ... "...if they ruptured again along their entire length, some of that rupture would be out in the water, and there might be a tsunami hazard related to that...."

Environmentalists have persuaded the Department of the Interior to remove four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River. These dams not only provide clean, green energy to the Klamath community, they sustain area ranches and farms with continual access to water. An environmentalist’s dream, right? But the fish! We must always put fish ahead of people!

...starved to death after embarking on a spiritual diet that required her to stop eating or drinking and live off sunlight alone. ... unnamed Swiss woman in her fifties decided to follow the radical fast in 2010 after viewing an Austrian documentary about an Indian guru who claims to have lived this way for 70 years. ...

There are quite a few hasty methods of illegal restraint, and zip ties are a method that’s available to any would-be kidnapper. A few of the other methods seen are duct tape, rope and phone cord, but with a little education you’ll see that all of these methods can easily be defeated. [Several articles, videos]

“I think [Obama] is our president. I think he was duly elected, and I believe he is a citizen. And I do believe [the eligibility question] is a distraction,” Flake responded. “My job is to make sure we beat him in November.” Not content to let the matter lie until November, Ballantyne asked the assembly, “How many here would like to see Congress investigate the president? Please stand up.” A hidden video camera revealed many, if not the majority, of the participants stood up to signify their demand. [Videos]

Dodd-Frank... gives dictatorial power to new agencies and allows unlimited collecting and sharing of your information. The agencies have no accountability to congress or voters. [Video]

"If a robot in combat accidentally kills a civilian, who is to blame? This isn't as straightforward of a question as it sounds. A team of scientists presented a study at the International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction and found that although robots don't have free will, people sometimes treat them as if they do. ..."

An operator anywhere within 2,500 feet of the robot directs its four cameras to locate IEDs and its gripper arm to dismantle them. ...can be blown up and repaired about a dozen times before being decommissioned....

“It seems to me the federal government just doesn’t want to know who’s here illegally,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said at one point.

The Supreme Court appears likely to side with Arizona over a key part of its controversial anti-illegal immigration law, rejecting the Obama administration’s claim that the state overreached its authority by requiring local police to check the immigration status of people suspected of being in the country illegally. However, during oral arguments Wednesday, the court’s liberal justices and some of its conservatives expressed concern that holding people who have been arrested until a check of their immigration status is complete could violate their rights by prolonging their detention.

Abandon antiquated notions of liberty! [Graphic]

After some 300 years of use, most oil-based paints are beginning to be phased out, destined to become the buggy whips and Easter bonnets of architectural coatings. Even die-hard traditionalists like me have accepted the changes, while painters and do-it-yourselfers say that, after decades of constant reformulations for oil and latex paints (also called waterborne paints because they're thinned with water), it's about time manufacturers left their product lines alone and gave people a chance to adjust to the latest technology.

Since retiring from the NSA in 2001, he has warned that the NSA’s data-mining program has become so vast that it could "create an Orwellian state." Today marks the first time Binney has spoken on national TV about NSA surveillance. Starting with his pre-9-11 identification of the world-wide-web as a voluminous problem since the NSA was 'falling behind the rate-of-change', his success in creating a system (codenamed Thin-Thread) for 'grabbing' all the data and the critical 'lawful' anonymization of that data (according to mandate at the time) which as soon as 9-11 occurred went out of the window as all domestic and foreign communications was now stored (starting with AT&T's forking over their data). This direct violation of the constitutional rights of everybody in the country was why Binney decided he could not stay (leaving one month after 9-11) along with the violation of almost every privacy and intelligence act as near-bottomless databases store all forms of communication collected by the agency, including private emails, cell phone calls, Google searches and other personal data. [Emphases in the original.

Researchers at a Texas university have designed a chip that could give smartphones the long-envied ability of comic book her Superman to see through walls, clothes or other objects. ... "The combination of CMOS and terahertz means you could put this chip and a transmitter on the back of a cell phone, turning it into a device carried in your pocket that can see through objects." ...

EVANSTON, Ill. — An Indiana man died overnight, after coming into contact with the electrified third rail as he urinated on the Purple Line ‘L’ tracks in Evanston. [Apparently googly-researched reflections on whether urinating on the third rail actually can kill. Short form: No.]

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday endorsed a movement announced by other congressional Democrats on Wednesday to ratify an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would allow Congress to regulate political speech when it is engaged in by corporations as opposed to individuals.

Now for something really terrifying: a list of what Obama has in store for America in a second term if he can fool independents into voting for him again. ... would double down on ObamaCare... ration Medicare services for the elderly... cut and run from Afghanistan... leave Israel vulnerable... gut the U.S. military....

Ron Paul [hasn't] been present for 92 percent of House votes this year.... Paul missed 136 votes in 2012 and showed up for just 15. He missed 69 votes in a row. Apparently Paul’s desire to represent his constituents took a back seat to his desire to amass a fantastic campaign warchest – a warchest that will not be used in the general election.

Picking out the most disturbing moments of Barack Obama's presidency is kind of like trying to choose the wettest parts of the ocean.
7) Obama bows to a Saudi King
6) Obama sides with a foreign leader against an American state
5) Obama shoves through history's single most wasteful spending bill
4) The manned space program comes to an end

In an April 3rd appearance on the left-wing Democracy Now TV show, Van Jones has offered his own behind-the-scenes take on an incident that made race a political issue three years before the Trayvon Martin case. As Jones describes it, the infamous "beer summit" on the White House lawn was a case where President Obama was "forced" into a meeting with a "racist" police officer. [I don't have all the facts, but I'd say the President acts stupidly!]

My father served in the Soviet Army during the Second World War, and while it was easy to make him talk about the war (especially after a few drinks .... and always with his war buddies) .... he and his war buddies always got silent whenever one of them would mention the time that they liberated a small Polish camp filled with Russian Slavs and Jews near the end of the war.

As a young child .... and later as an adult .... seeing 5-6 hardened decorated Soviet veterans of the Second World War going completely silent at the same instant when that war experience was mentioned .... the hard look on their faces when they sipped or gulped their vodka .... not even able to look at each other .... I have .... and I will .... never forget that. I know that my father and his comrades experienced some horrible things in that war .... and they always talked about it among themselves .... but that experience of liberating that camp is the only one that they could never talk about in depth .... even when they were totally stoned drunk.

Michigan Department of Natural Resources has, in total violation of the Fourth Amendment, conducted two armed raids on pig farmers in that state, one in Kalkaska County at Fife Lake and another in Cheboygan County. Staging raids involving six vehicles and ten armed men, DNA conducted unconstitutional, illegal and arguably criminal armed raids on these two farms with the intent of shooting all the farmers' pigs under a bizarre new "Invasive Species Order" (ISO) that has suddenly declared traditional livestock to be an invasive species.

[h/t TheWrightWing at Moonbattery]

Just in one little corner of culture -- cuisine -- there's so much that people blow off. According to these guys, "There are over 20,000 species of edible plants in the world yet fewer than 20 species now provide 90% of our food." Somewhere, there's a culture that makes something awfully tasty out of plant #14,247.

Octopuses have the largest brains of any invertebrate.... The common octopus has about 130 million of them in its brain. A human has 100 billion.... Three-fifths of an octopus's neurons are not in the brain; they're in its arms. "It is as if each arm has a mind of its own...."

WTF? I thought it was just a movie! [Tweets from twits]

[Photos of the US Secretary of State doing somber business in Columbia. H/t Beef at Moonbattery.]

Walt Disney Co., the world’s largest entertainment company, plans to co-produce “Iron Man 3” with Beijing film studio DMG Entertainment as collaborations between Hollywood and Chinese studios increase. [So, in the comics, originally, Tony Stark became Iron Man after he was wounded, held captive, and forced to work for the Communists of North Viet Nam. Now, Walt Disney is going to be making Iron Man 3 with the descendents of Mao in China. Sure. Right. I see. No problem.]

will take 12 years to build... intended to combine all the information so far uncovered about its mysterious workings - and replicate them on a screen, right down to the level of individual cells and molecules....

Unbelievably, the loss of life was equal to more than six sinkings of the Titanic. It is arguably the greatest unknown single disaster in modern history. Furthermore, the true story surrounding the Gustloff is not only tragic but absolutely incredible – filled with a wide spectrum of human drama – during one of the most terrifying periods in history: World War II.

[The relative scale of things. Javascript required.]

[XKCD explores the depths around the world.]

...going into poll locations in DC on April 3, being offered ballots for one Ben Jealous; one Bill Maher; and David Brock. ... also depicts Project Veritas going to a polling place and asking about Alicia Menendez, daughter of New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez (D) and a political commentator on MSNBC; a poll worker asks to see ID, preventing Project Veritas from being offered Menendez’s ballot. The point: voter ID works in preventing voter fraud. ...

At the bottom of that site there was the image of this woman, now identified as his girlfriend, with a sign that read "PwNd by w0rmer & CabinCr3w <3 u BiTch's !" The picture—taken with an iPhone—had GPS information which showed that the photo was taken at the woman's home in Wantirna South. The GPS information was embedded in the photo's EXIF data....

It may look like a hoax, but this photo of a rare lynx is apparently real

Mary Lou was born October 20, 1935 to Chloe Davis (Mathis) (of Monroe) and John Alvin (of New Orleans) Bairnsfather. She grew up in West Monroe and attended Ouachita Parish High School and ultimately Northeast Louisiana University (now ULM) where she studied Dance and Administrative Management. At 16 she met Buck Hatten ("He made me feel like such an adult"). Buck was smooth and cool; being 5 years older gave him a certain advantages over his teenage rivals. Soon she was married and started trying to make babies. After a year and a half she had her first son, Dean Edward Hatten ("Edward" being the last name of the delivering doctor). It took her four years to make another son, Kelton Bruce Hatten. Said she found the name Kelton in a High School yearbook, and Bruce was the name of her eldest brother. After that her life changed substantially and she quit making babies. In 1959 she and Buck divorced and after a year of being single with two kids (tough deal back in 1959) she married Pat Craven (of Mississippi). Pat was a ranking member of the U.S. Army at the time stationed in Lawton, OK. She packed up her two boys and headed to Oklahoma. Pat was soon transferred to Germany (1961). Mary Lou and the kids followed. She loved to travel and took full advantage of the opportunity to see Europe. She learned the German language and immersed herself in the culture and society. After three years in Germany the family moved to Fort Hood, Texas (Killeen). A couple of years there and then to San Antonio, Texas. Pat got out of the Army and they moved to Monroe. Although she and Pat had a wonderful, happy life together it just didn't last long after the return to Monroe and she divorced Pat in 1969. Subsequently she married a swash-buckling sailor named Barrett Campbell (of Alexandria, Louisiana). The family packed up and moved to Memphis, Tennessee were Barrett was stationed at the Naval Air Station. This turned out to be her shortest marriage, lasting only 6 months. Back to Monroe with the family. A few years in Monroe and she moved with her youngest son, Kelton, to New Orleans (her older son had gone off to the Marine Corps). After a few years in New Orleans, and after her youngest son joined the U.S. Navy, she married a prominent New Orleans attorney, E. Gordon Schaefer Jr. She lived in a beautiful house on the New Orleans lakefront. Hobnobbed with New Orleans society and made merry for the better part of 15 years. Then the marriage fell apart and she moved back to Monroe. She lived since the New Orleans days quietly in Rayville and Monroe.

Through all the years Mary Lou loved to dance. She danced a million dances with her life-long friend Bob Stuckey. She square-danced to wide acclaim both locally and nationally with her cousin Roy Bairnsfather. She taught ballroom dancing in the 60's. She loved to party. She was always up to listening to other people's problems.

She loved to sit at the dining room table and drink coffee and talk. She liked anchovies and hearts-of-palm and other weird stuff. She loved glass figurines and fake flowers. She always had a little dog, and she took in motherless creatures like baby squirrels and possums. She adored her friend Sally Dunlap.

Mary Lou was loved dearly by her two sons; Dean now a retire Investment Banker living in Montana and Kelton a local Professional Aerial Applicator (Ag Pilot).

Mary Lou ultimately passed away at the age of 76 on December 16, 2011 at St. Francis Hospital due to complications of old age (and smoking too much). She outlived her three brothers and all her ex-husbands.

According to her wishes her body was donated to LSU Medical School in Sheveport to be used for teaching and research.

Mary Lou disliked funerals and services and never wanted any such for herself. Therefore, a happy gathering in her memory will be held Jan. 7, 2012, from 1:00 p.m. until 4:00 p.m. at the Atrium Hotel, 2001 Louisville Ave., Monroe, LA 71201. (318) 410-4000.

Brothers - Bruce (Edna), Ellis (Mary Lou), and Lee Roy (Robin) Bairnsfather.

[h/t HungryKitty at Ace of Spades]

31. When I retire, I'm movin' north.

30. Oh I just couldn't, she's only sixteen.

29. I'll take Shakespeare for 1000, Alex.

28. Duct tape won't fix that.

According to the British Sunday Times, sources have said President Obama asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold off on bombing Iran's nuclear facilities until after the November 2012 election.

[h/t Pistol Pete at PoliNation]

The manner and progression in which the internet was cut reminds me of how both Iran and Egypt cut their internet during the height of their uprisings. This was a Chinese kill-switch test .... and yes .... it was successful.

“Mike wanted it known that he died as a result of being stubborn, refusing to follow doctors’ orders and raising hell for more than six decades. He enjoyed booze, guns, cars and younger women until the day he died.”
[h/t Pistol Pete at PoliNation]

History will laugh at us for ever taking Obama seriously.

Fifty years ago, Ann Romney's life would have made her just a regular woman.

Backfired [Ramirez cartoon. H/t Bob Roberts at Moonbattery]

FOR SALE: FIFTY YEAR OLD MANURE SPREADER – $1 ( WASHINGTON , D.C. )

Fifty-year old manure spreader. Not sure of brand. Said to have been produced in Kenya. Used for a few years in Indonesia before being smuggled into the US via Hawaii. Of questionable pedigree. Does not appear to have ever been worked hard. Apparently it was pampered by various owners over the years. It doesn’t work very often, but when it does it can really sling the manure for amazing distances. I am hoping to retire the manure spreader next November.

I really don’t want it hanging around getting in the way. I would prefer a foreign buyer to relocate the manure spreader out of the country. I would be willing to trade it for a nicely framed copy of the United States Constitution.

Location: Currently being stored in the Oval Office of a big white house in Washington, D.C.

Guy goes into a bar in Louisiana where there’s a robot bartender!
The robot says, “What will you have?”
The guy says, “Whiskey.”
The robot brings back his drink and says to the man, “What’s your IQ?”
The guy says, “168.”
The robot then proceeds to talk about physics, space, exploration and medical technology.
The guy leaves, . . . but he is curious . . . So he goes back into the bar.
The robot bartender says, “What will you have?”
The guy says, “Whiskey.”
Again, the robot brings the man his drink and says, “What’s your IQ?”
The guy says, “100.”
The robot then starts to talk about Nascar, Budweiser, the Saints and LSU Tigers
The guy leaves, but finds this very interesting, so he thinks he will try it one more time.
He goes back into the bar.
The robot says, “What will you have?”
The guy says, “Whiskey,” and the robot brings him his whiskey.
The robot then says, “What’s your IQ?
The guy says, “Uh, about 50.”
The robot leans in real close and says,
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
“So, . . . you people still happy with Barack Obama?”

It’s instructive to compare the taqiyya from one of the Ikhwan’s emissaries to the Great Satan with the words of a Muslim Brotherhood leader to his own comrades, at home, in his own language.

Barack Obama is my college classmate (Columbia University, class of '83). As Glenn Beck correctly predicted from day one, Obama is following the plan of Cloward & Piven, two professors at Columbia University. They outlined a plan to socialize America by overwhelming the system with government spending and entitlement demands. Add up the clues below. Taken individually they're alarming. Taken as a whole, it is a brilliant, Machiavellian game plan to turn the United States into a socialist/Marxist state with a permanent majority that desperately needs government for survival ... and can be counted on to always vote for bigger government.
[h/t Chrissy at PoliNation]

Bottom line: For the last three years, Hilary Rosen has met nearly three dozen times with top Obama communications and political strategists from Valerie Jarrett to David Axelrod to Anita Dunn to Jim Messina to the president himself.

Any notion that her frontal assault on GOP women was an accident or lone wolf move is contradicted by the long paper trail of her intimate working relationship with the White House campaign/media team. The data also puts the disavowals of Messina/Axelrod last night into much-needed perspective.

They can’t disassociate themselves from one of their most frequent visitors and associates.

They just never expected the fierce online/social media pushback they got from conservative women, who are beating them at their own medium.

...that is a real problem. a lot of good bass parts are hypnotic. my problem is they tend to hypnotize the bass player. too. But, we are not alone. I remember an interview where BB King said he doesn't play and sing at the same time cuz he has 'stupid fingers....'

The real major expenses for publishers are the Manhattan offices and other perks, like hiring English lit majors at 80K a year to do proofreading any decent high school grad could perform for a few hundred bucks per book. (Also, an established author can easily crowd source a book's proofreading to a small group of fans. I was part of such an effort recently. We produced an almost perfect draft in less than 24 hours in terms of correcting basic text errors and continuity issues.) The big publishers are going to die. It's that simple. There is simply no reason for them to exist any more. Many small agencies will emerge from the wreckage and earn their keep with meaningful service with a low overhead. A home office in the suburbs is just as good as a Manhattan skyscraper for this purpose.

America is addicted to chocolate. Foreign chocolate.

A majority of us consume chocolate each day. Although the U.S. produces only 6% of the world’s cocoa, we consume more than 20%.

The threat is obvious. It’s time for government to step in and promote alternatives.

[Former Okla. Congressman Ernest Istook, chocolate-covered tongue in cheek]

Reagan, Bush, and Obama, the whole story in three pictures

The National Chairman of the New Black Panther Party, Malik Zulu Shabazz, details his plans for an all black army in Florida.

Of course, the Obama Administration will ignore this just like the $10,000 NBP bounty on George Zimmerman.

But then again Obama and the panthers go back a few years. They marched together in Alabama.

lefties are functional psychopaths, with the same brain PET scans as psychopaths
they are moral imbeciles, with juvenile levels of brain development, incapable of character, honesty, charity, or empathy, and only focused on self-gratifications, including power for power’s sake

The operator told Reat to return to the scene of the incident. Reat at first refused and argued with the operator but relented after the operator threatened to not send police if he didn't go back. Reat went back to the scene to wait on police, where he was shot and killed by the occupants of the Jeep.

Mountains and oceans are hard to move, but portions of cyberspace can be turned on and off by throwing a switch. ... barriers to entry in the cyber domain are so low that non-state actors and small states can play a significant role at low cost. ... it makes little sense to speak of dominance in cyberspace. If anything, dependence on complex cyber systems for support of military and economic activities creates new vulnerabilities in large states that can be exploited by non-state actors. ... greater dependence on networked computers and communication leaves the US more vulnerable to attack than many other countries, and cyberspace has become a major source of insecurity, because, at this stage of technological development, offense prevails over defense there. ... actors are diverse (and sometimes anonymous), physical distance is immaterial, and some forms of offense are cheap. Because the Internet was designed for ease of use rather than security, attackers currently have the advantage over defenders. ... [No good conclusion to this except that "states need to sit down" to address the threat. Yeah. H/t War News Update]

So, what are you waiting for, conservatives? There are coordinated shakedowns taking place right now that involve some of America’s most prominent companies who’ve chosen to surrender to progressive bullying and race-card opportunism. Silence is complicity. On Tuesday, McDonald’s told liberal magazine Mother Jones that the company had “decided to cut ties with ALEC, the corporate-backed group that drafts pro-free-market legislation for state lawmakers around the country.” The fast-food conglomerate follows in the feckless footsteps of Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Intuit (maker of Quick and Quicken Books software) and Kraft Foods — which have all withdrawn support for ALEC after drum-banging from Color of Change. That’s the minority community-activist outfit founded by former Obama green-jobs czar and radical Occupy Wall Street supporter Van Jones. ... McDonald’s, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Intuit, Kraft, Arby’s, and Walgreens have shown their true colors: appeasement yellow. It’s time for conservatives to stand their ground and stop showing these corporate cowards their money.

[Photos of food-lite life in Cuba]

Allen West: 78-81 members (in Congress) of the Democratic Party who belong to the Communist Party [video]

Just as Jim Hansen, the head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has recently likened man-made global warming to “a great moral issue” like “slavery,” a group of 49 former NASA scientists issued a letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolton asking for the administration refrain from including “unproven and unsupported remarks” about climate science in its communications.

When the Spanish, online voting company SKYTL bought the largest vote processing corporation in the United States, it also acquired the means of manufacturing the outcome of the 2012 election. For SOE, the Tampa based corporation purchased by SKYTL in January supplies the election software which records, counts and reports the votes of Americans in 26 states–900 total jurisdictions–across the nation.

As the largest election results reporting company in the US, SOE provides reports right down to the precinct level. But before going anywhere else, those election returns are routed to individual, company servers where the people who run them “…get ‘first look’ at results and the ability to immediately and privately examine vote details throughout the USA.” In short, “this redirects results …to a centralized privately held server which is not just for Ohio, but national; not just USA-based, but global.”

And although the votes will be cast in hometown, American precincts on election day, with the Barcelona-based SKYTL taking charge of the process, they will be routed and counted overseas.

SKYTL itself is a leader in internet voting technology and in 2010 was involved in modernizing election systems for the midterm election in 14 American states.

But although SKYTL’s self-proclaimed reputation for security had won the company the Congressionally approved task of handling internet voting for American citizens and members of the military overseas, upon opening the system for use in the District of Columbia, the University of Michigan fight song “The Victors” was suddenly heard after the casting of each ballot. The system had been hacked by U of M computer teachers and students in response to a challenge by SKYTL that anyone who wished to do so, might try!

Nevertheless, in spite of warnings by experts across the nation, American soldiers overseas will once again vote via the internet in 2012. And because SKYTL will control the method of voting and—thanks to the purchase of SOE–the method of counting the votes as well, there “…will be no ballots, no physical evidence, no way for the public to authenticate who actually cast the votes…or the count.”

The American advocacy group Project Vote has concluded that SKYTL’s internet voting system is vulnerable to attack from the outside AND the inside, a situation which could result in “…an election that does not accurately reflect the will of the voters…” Talk about having a flair for understatement!

It has also been claimed that SKYTL CEO Pere Valles is a socialist who donated heavily to the 2008 Obama campaign and lived in Chicago during Obama’s time as Illinois State Senator. Unfortunately, given what is known about the character of Barack Obama, such rumors must be taken as serious threats to the integrity of the 2012 vote and the legitimate outcome of the election.

Though much has been written about the threat of nationwide voting by illegals in November, it is still true that most election fraud is an “inside” job. And there now exists a purely electronic voting service which uses no physical ballots to which an electronic count can be matched should questions arise. Add to this the fact that the same company will have “first count” on all votes made in 14 US states and hundreds of jurisdictions in 12 others and the stage is set for election fraud on a scale unimaginable just a decade ago.

Perhaps Obama had reason for supreme confidence when he said “After my election” rather than “in case of” to Russian President Medvedev a week ago. ...

While developing an understanding of great communication skills is easier than one might think, being able to appropriately draw upon said skills when the chips are down is not always as easy as one might hope for. ... Great communicators are skilled a reading a person/group by sensing the moods, dynamics, attitudes, values and concerns of those being communicated with. Not only do they read they environment well, but they possess the uncanny ability to adapt their messaging to said environment without missing a beat. ... So, how do you know when your skills have matured to the point that you’ve become an excellent communicator? The answer is you’ll have reached the point where your interactions with others consistently use the following ten principles. ... Most importantly of all, keep in mind that communication is not about you, your opinions, your positions or your circumstances. It’s about helping others by meeting their needs, understanding their concerns, and adding value to their world.
[h/t War News Updates]

Be aware that once they allow the IRS to block international travel is there one among us who does not believe it will then be extended to travel within the United States?

There are going to be those who will just brush the issue aside. It will thus befall the knowledgeable and concerned patriots to stop this dangerous action. Many people don’t even realize that the courts have for years exempted the IRS from the restriction of the Fifth Amendment’s protection from self-incrimination.

Millions of Internet users in Iran will be permanently denied access to the World Wide Web and cut off from popular social networking sites and email services, as the government has announced its plans to establish a national Intranet within five months.

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee took his first phone call of his new talk radio call-in show yesterday. From "Mike in San Francisco." Remember: the show is being positioned by the Cumulus Media Network as the conservative show with "more conversation, less confrontation." Or, as it is certainly being pushed in the anti-Rush Limbaugh media, the show for moderate Republicans that will Take Rush Out. RINO Radio, as we noted here last week. … In fact, "Mike from San Francisco" turned out after some digging to be one Mike McVay, the senior vice president of programming for… wait for it… the Cumulus Media Network. None of which was acknowledged on the air by either "Mike from San Francisco" or, more to the point, Mike Huckabee. … the entire venture has taken onto itself the image that it is about far more than just a talk radio show. It is about replacing Reagan conservatism — represented here by Rush Limbaugh — with RINO Radio. …

Pentagon Plans For Telepathic Troops Who Can Read Each Others' Minds... And They Could Be In The Field Within Five Years

Sarah Palin: With the death of Breitbart, the conservative movement didn’t just lose a General – we lost an entire Special Forces Division.

The sinking of the Titanic on its maiden voyage cost more than 1,500 human beings their lives. But the ship's fate also caused a tremendous loss of material goods, including some irreplaceable cultural artifacts.

In a new video provided to Breitbart.com, James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas demonstrates why Holder should stop attacking voter ID laws--by walking into Holder’s voting precinct and showing the world that anyone can obtain Eric Holder’s primary ballot. Literally.
[h/t Drudge Report]

Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign violated Democratic Party rules and engaged in improper and possibly illegal actions to steal the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination from Hillary Clinton, according to a worker for Hillary’s campaign. Michele Thomas, a professional photographer in Hollywood, told WND in an exclusive interview that her resistance to the Obama campaign made her a target of intimidation. ... “You can see it in the caucus states with what Ron Paul is experiencing. It is no different from what we experienced. There’s systematic fraud done by the party leadership to manipulate our votes to whatever they want it to be. It has nothing to do with what the American people want.”
[Two dramatic videos. H/t TheTamminator at HillBuzz.]

classic Obama: patronizing, dishonest, syntactically muddled, and grammatically challenged.... inability to make subject and predicate agree.... allow[s] a string of words to float in space.... uninspired assemblage of words with a nearly random application of commas and tenses.... Scarier than Obama's style, however, is his thinking. A neophyte race-hustler after his three years in Chicago....

In the case of Michelle Obama.... Sympathetic biographer Liza Mundy writes, "Michelle frequently deplores the modern reliance on test scores, describing herself as a person who did not test well." She did not write well, either. 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." Michelle had to have been as anxious at Harvard Law as Bart Simpson was at Genius School. Almost assuredly, the gap between her writing and that of her highly talented colleagues marked her as an affirmative action admission, and the profs finessed her through.
[Blogged before maybe? H/t Crusty B at IMAO]

ask yourself, “what kind of person would you have to be to write over 60 pages of emotion-focussed, self-indulgent, race-centered twaddle?” Also “who hands in their diary and calls it a thesis?”

In a remarkable about-face, the White House is reportedly open to an Iranian nuclear program, as long as Tehran can provide strict assurances the program remains civilian focused. [Right. Just like Korea. h/t War News Update]

America, beware of the wolf in sheep’s clothing. I have been saying for the past three and a half years that America needs to look at the big picture of what is going on. Obama and his regime have been laying the groundwork for a communist take over of the United States, but the majority of Americans have barely noticed. [Video]

wear the Internet on your face? ... Google Glasses, now in an early prototype phase [video] ... also slightly scary for anyone concerned about the prying eyes of government surveillance.
[Brings to mind this video about CIA and the Internet]

On Wednesday, Arby's inflamed the conservative blogosphere with the announcement on Twitter that it will no longer advertise on Rush Limbaugh's show. Big mistake. The statement probably would've blown over, like all the rest of them, but Arby's moves following the announcement have awakened a sleeping giant. Shortly after its statement, the Arby's Twitter account went on a rampage blocking users who disagreed with the franchise....
[h/t Cuz ]

[graphic]

Shirley Marks was five feet tall and barely 100 pounds in 1943 when she finally managed to enlist in the Marine Corps, after trying three times to meet the physical requirements. It was World War II, and she, like 23,000 other American women, answered the call to serve at home so that male Marines could fight overseas. After boot camp, she boarded a troop train to San Diego, where she was assigned to drive trucks at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot. …

In 1955, as a seventh grader, Levina spotted a boy she wanted to meet. Finding out he would be at the local skating rink later, she and her friends decided to go as well. That boy noticed her immediately. John T. Reynolds invited her to join him in a couple's skate, and they spent the rest of their lives together. [Obituary for C. Levina Reynolds (1941-2012)]

The First Amendment applies to all Americans. Our nation affirms the truth of inalienable rights for all, working for more than 200 years to make the ideals expressed in the First Amendment a reality in the lives of all Americans. These rights were so important to early citizens and their leaders, many states refused to ratify the Constitution of the United States without the promise of amendments that would protect individual rights.

new armor relies on a liquid that hardens when something hits it, promising unprecedented protection while letting soldiers move freely, unrestricted by bulk and weight.... When the force of the disturbance is large enough, the particles will then actually “lock” together. So when a bullet hits the material at speed, the liquid armor absorbs the impact energy and hardens extremely quickly.
[h/t War News Updates]

The loyal animals are often seen as too fierce to be retrained as pets later, with 807 destroyed in the past decade.

The number has soared thanks to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

[h/t War News Update]

After years of administrative battle a military dog handler was finally reunited with her loyal friend. Former Marine Cpl. Megan Leavey was told in March that she would be allowed to give a home to Sgt. Rex, the german shepherd she spent two military tours serving with. On Friday night the two were brought back together again in an emotional ceremony at Camp Pendleton’s K-9 Unit which marked the end of Rex's ten-year service…. She launched a high-profile campaign, back[ed] by the owners of the Yankees, where Leavey now provides independent security during baseball games and concerts with her new working dog, Patriot.
[h/t War News Update]

462 453 #440 What is wrong with them, to say something so reprehensible to a wonderful person like Jane? It's beneath contempt. It's just so hard to believe anyone could be so vile.
Posted by: Hummingbird at April 07, 2012 01:04 AM (R5yLq)

It is a glimpse into the nature of evil.

Mostly, evil is boring. It tries to shock, but falls into predictable patterns of behavior. It depends on good to create space for it to work. It contributes nothing but hate and bile, but wants nothing more that to be the focus.

Posted by: cthulhu at April 07, 2012 01:09 AM (kaalw)

Remember back in 2006 when the bumble bees started disappearing? Well, it seems we might have an answer. Mass Bee Colony Collapse Linked To High Fructose Corn Syrup. Yeah, that's right. High fructose syrup. -CDR M

So between being largely responsible for the diabetes epidemic and killing bees the progs still want to ban REAL SUGAR while allowing this crap, largely made with massive government farming subsidies, to be used in our food? -BlueFalcon in Boston

It was not a sugar ban per se, but ridiculous tariffs on imported sugar, to protect less than 100,000 producers in the U.S. It would not be a silver bullet, but allowing Haiti to export sugar to the States would sure relive a lot of economic pain in the country. -logprof

The specific breed of corn used to make HFCS is subsidized (to make food production cheaper) in addition to the protectionism of the US Sugar market.
Mind you if we had free market sugar there would be no financial incentive to produce HFCS or use it as a sugar substitute.

HFCS is utter crap on the dietary scale. Makes people crave even more sweets, without the satiation of real sugar, so everyone loads up on more calories and the rockets up glycemic index. Billions of dollars worth of healthcare would probably be saved from people not being overweight and suffering from diabetes from unconsciously overeating if HFCS wasn't replacing sugar in almost everything we eat.

Another big example of government intervention causing all sorts of unintended consequences. -BlueFalcon in Boston

High fructose corn syrup is real sugar. Same molecular composition, just a different ratio of isomers. The jury still seems to be out as to whether or not it is metabolized differently. -Y-not

203 #183, HFCS is the equivalent of highly processed sugar. It is more quickly absorbed into your blood stream than regular sugar. It's like comparing highly bleached white flour to whole grain flour. Anything overly processed is metabolized too quickly for our physiology to feel satiated and know how to use the calories. People wind up overeating processed foods with highly refined flours and sugars, compared to less refined flours sugars, because they still feel hungry even though they've consumed more calories than the less processed alternatives. -BlueFalcon in Boston

223 @203
I think you are over-reacting and misinformed. It's a mixture of glucose and fructose. I've read that there are some isomers that are produced during processing that may be metabolized differently, but the last time I check the scientific literature that was not proven.

But if you're afraid of it, don't eat it. -Y-not

275 #223, I'm stating all of this having spoken to a nutritionist and some sort of metabolic researcher at a Boston hospital. There's a big difference with how the body treats calories from refined vs. raw materials. Not all calories are as equal as was once though. It's not just how the body digest these things but the way the brain perceives what has been digested. It's part of the reason why some people keep storing large amounts of fat while their brains are telling to keep eating because their brains perceive the body as starving. -BlueFalcon in Boston

Some union leaders are waking up to the fact that, like everyone else except lawyers and bureaucrats, unions don’t fare well under Obamunism. Cecil Roberts helped usher in Hope & Change in 2008. This is what he has to say about it now: The coal industry will suffer the same fate as Osama bin Laden under new climate regulations proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, the head of the United Mine Workers of America said this week.

A former science adviser to the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation was fired in February, shortly after he alleged that the Obama administration intentionally falsified scientific fact in a proposal for dam removal in the Klamath River. Professor Paul Houser of George Mason University, in a written Feb. 24 allegation to the Office of the Executive Secretariat and Regulatory Affairs in the Department of the Interior, said that Sec. Ken Salazar’s determination to remove the dams resulted in “intentional biased (falsification) reporting of scientific results.” He also alleged that when he voiced his concern about the scientific integrity of the Department of the Interior’s decision-making process, “[m]y disclosure was never directly addressed.”
[h/t Vic at Ace of Spades]

Lead Investigator Zullo revealed in this conversation that several individuals have come forth to provide testimony; the identity of these witnesses is being withheld for their protection. They identify producers, reporters, T.V. and radio personalities who have been told specifically by intimidating individuals who state clearly, they are not going to report on this story. These witnesses have been told: “If you breathe a word about it on air, we will make certain you never work in this business again,” said Investigator Zullo. Apparently those making the threats have the power to carry through on them. Some of these witnesses have been told this along with a sinister inquiry into how a family member is doing over at XYZ (details have been changed to protect witness identity), or some other means of letting that person know the powers that be know exactly where their family members are… As unbelievable as it sounds, it is a fact that the actual legal identity of the individual who has occupied the office of the President of the United States for the last 3-1/2 years remains a very legitimate and valid question. It is also a fact that this individual has used Barry Soetoro as his legal name, and there has been no authenticated evidence to show that he legally changed it back to Barack Hussein Obama II at any time during his adult life….
[h/t wingmann at Moonbattery]

A presentation by WND’s Jerome Corsi to a standing-room-only crowd has convinced a New Jersey lawmaker and a local sheriff that the issue of President Obama’s eligibility for office “will have to be addressed.”
[h/t Bloodless Coup on Moonbattery]

No matter how many times they step on the rake of reality, left-wing ideologues can’t figure out how the handle came to fly up and whack their slack-jawed faces.

The most destructive addiction to afflict American Indians isn’t alcohol; it’s government help

Wrote Alinsky: “In war, the end justifies almost any means.” And for Alinsky, as for Lenin and now for Obama, politics is war. Thus a politician is justified in hiding his intention to ban guns while running for office, and likewise justified in reversing position and working “under the radar” for gun bans once in office. Also, a politician is justified in pointing out the problems with a healthcare mandate while running for office, and also justified in reversing course and pushing a healthcare mandate once in office. These are the Rules for Radicals.

Valerie Jarrett is not only one of President Barack Obama’s closest advisors; she also is one of the most radical, with close connections to the Chicago left that nurtured Obama in his early political career.

Mind-bending ‘psychotronic’ guns that can effectively turn people into zombies have been given the go-ahead by Russian president Vladimir Putin.

[h/t Kratos (Ghost of Sparta) at Ace of Spades]

Because it’s all about the Trayvon, no matter what the actual facts of the case:

The Congressional Black Caucus unveiled a resolution on Wednesday that honors the life of Trayvon Martin and calls for the repeal of “Stand Your Ground” gun laws in every state that has one, including Florida, where Martin was killed.

Please be aware that leftists have taken to committing identity theft to impersonate me in comments sections of blogs and are using a fraudulent email that looks similar to my public email address to make it look as if I am saying horrible offensive things in an attempt to destroy my reputation, apparently because I did well in a recent contest for political bloggers, they have been doing this to the winner of the contest, The Lonely Conservative, as well. If you see something that appears to have come from me but is totally out of character for me to say, know that it is in all likelihood, NOT ME, but a leftist troll who thinks a campaign of personal destruction against a person who is fighting serious and potentially fatal illness is a good and proper thing to do.

Jim Marshall, who helped shape the sound of rock ’n’ roll with his groundbreaking amplifier designs, died in a hospice Thursday morning, his family said. He was 88.

So far, scientists know that squirrels, upon detecting a rattler, "approach it head-first in an elongated posture, making flaggin movements with its tail," according to a UC Davis report. The robosquirrel can flick its tail as well as heat it -- features controlled independently. Now the research team has determined the snakes respond to the heated tail. "It was the first example of infrared communication in the animal world…."

True confession: I was once among the late adopters. I freely put down the techno enthusiasts. I wrote a highly negative review to Virginia Postrel’s provocative book The Future and Its Enemies, which turns out to have seen what I did not see. After the digital revolution advanced more and more, I began to notice something. By being a late adopter, I gained no advantage whatsoever. All it meant was that I paid a high price in the form of foregone opportunities. If something is highly useful tomorrow, chances are that it is highly useful today, too. It took me a long time to learn this lesson.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeal has handed down a big decision in Viacom's $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube. The appellate circuit rules Thursday that while the district court judge correctly interpreted the safe harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which YouTube parent company Google said shielded it from Viacom's copyright claims, the judge shouldn't have dismissed the case on summary judgment. The appellate circuit judges ruled that a reasonable jury could conclude that YouTube had knowledge or awareness of infringing clips on its system. As such, the case has been remanded back to the trial court.

Courts are expanding rights but cops are cracking down. Find out how to keep your footage, and yourself, out of trouble. If you choose to record the police you can reduce the risk of terrible legal consequences and video loss by understanding your state’s laws and carefully adhering to the following rules.

The emerging demographic situation developing here between Russia and China is simply catastrophic. The crisis is due to the creeping expansion of thousands of Chinese migrants. Chinese workers entering Siberia are replacing Russians who are not prepared to toil 12 hours a day for a pittance. Chinese students are taught that Siberia is their land, stolen from China in the 19th century. It is suspected by many Russians here that China is subsidizing the migration of its citizens. Demographers predict that by 2025 Chinese will be the Russian Far East's predominant ethnic group. Then, it is feared, they will gain the right to vote and demand union with China.

Russia's military is as bad off as its health care system. Its draftee troops are mercilessly mistreated and have no morale. Its equipment old and rusted, its technology obsolete, it couldn't take on Poland much less China. Its nukes are useless as the Chinese have lots as well and would be the last men standing in an exchange.Russia's GDP is smaller than Mexico's (766 billion vs. 768 billion - the US is 12.5 trillion). And it will get smaller as its main export, oil, becomes less competitive given high extraction costs.The geopolitical bottom line is that there is no way Russia is going to be able to hold on to Siberia for much longer. Within 20 years or less, it's going to be Chinese Siberia.It won't take a war. The demographics will become so overwhelming that Moscow will just give up and sell the place. Maybe not all at once. Maybe in bites.

The core problem is shaving cream itself, and the solution is a radical one: throw it out and never buy it again. It is destroying you and making your skin weak and sickly.

To write the new constitution, the people of Iceland elected twenty-five citizens from among 522 adults not belonging to any political party but recommended by at least thirty citizens. This document was not the work of a handful of politicians, but was written on the internet. The constituent’s meetings are streamed on-line, and citizens can send their comments and suggestions, witnessing the document as it takes shape. The constitution that eventually emerges from this participatory democratic process will be submitted to parliament for approval after the next elections. … Today, that country is recovering from its financial collapse in ways just the opposite of those generally considered unavoidable….

Allow me to remind the American people of the only US President who violated a SCOTUS order, and the despicable outcome of his actions.

It was 1830, and Andrew Jackson, one of the founding pillars* of the Democratic Party, had signed the "Indian Removal Act of 1830."

Seven months from the election, we find Obama regressing to play what Fineman calls the “Grim Warrior.” Tuesday’s speech announces to the world that Team Obama has no confidence the economy will improve much between April and November. Tuesday’s speech announces that Obama does not believe he can win on his record. Tuesday’s speech announces that Obama thinks he must convince voters mushy Mitt Romney is a radical extremist to win. Conservatives and libertarians may be disgusted by the text of Obama’s speech, but they should be delighted by the subtext.

[Elena Kagen, photo. Warning: NSFW or weak stomachs]

Obama says the GOP budget will make weather reporting less accurate.

Really Barack?… Really?

With impunity, foul mouths like Bill Maher can call Sarah Palin a “c*nt” and a “dumb twat” and be excused by Obama’s hatchet man David Axelrod. Vile morons like Ed Schultz can characterize Laura Ingraham as “a talk slut,” Republicans as Nazis, and wish former VP Dick Cheney were dead. Mike Malloy can refer to Rep. Bachmann as a “hatemonger” and an evil bitch. Matt Taibbi can blog about Michelle Malkin “with a big, hairy set of balls in her mouth.”

Yet, Rush Limbaugh is the misogynist? Yup, in the twisted left dictionary!

I have a few news flashes for liberals. One, your hypocrisy and contempt for women are showing and two, both FOX News and Rush Limbaugh will be around long after liberalism is exposed for what it is, a despicable, hateful, and deceitful ideology more suited for the old Soviet Union than for America.

[h/t berlet98 at Moonbattery]

A Beatles reunion might be impossible, but music fans may yet get to see Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starkey on stage together, because the Beatles' sons have mooted the idea of starting a band.

a new tyrannosaur species in northeastern China that lived 60 million years before T. rex. The fossil record preserved remains of fluffy down, making it the largest feathered dinosaur ever found.

If a T. rex relative had feathers, why not T. rex? Scientists said the evidence is trending in that direction
[h/t Ace of Spades]

The Obama campaign apparently has taken down a web video that featured an actress touting the fact the incumbent president wouldn't "have to worry" about re-election in a second term.

The video on the Obama campaign site was first reported on Tuesday by a Daily Caller article. The video was subsequently unavailable on the site.

[h/t SeaFoamGreen on Moonbattery]

Dean Singleton, chairman of the Associated Press board, introduced President Obama this afternoon at a speech to news editors in Washington. But Singleton didn’t just tell the audience the president was the next speaker—the supposed newsman offered lavish praise for the Democratic president. … went on to detail the challenges Obama faced, much in the same way Obama himself details his own presidency
[h/t Cuz BD]

80 In the greatest of all ironies the svr spent milliions of precious black market dollars etablishing and running a second rate spy ring to get secrets from the obama administration by cozying up to administration officials, when ALL THEY HAD TO DO IS ASK!

zero: "Hey med, jsut tell vald that is a sill waste of time if you need to know something i have not already told you jsut ask ok? all this cloak and dagger nonsense is wasting my time."

medvedev: :I will transmit your message to vlad."

President Obama made another joke in a speech to newspaper editors about his hot mic moment last week with his Russian counterpart. "It is a pleasure to speak to all of you, and to have a microphone that I can see," Obama said. "Feel free to transmit any of this to Vladimir if you see him."
[No shame. No embarrassment. No morals. No conscience. Remarkably pure evil. h/t Jane D'oh at Ace of Spades]

The idea of separated powers was first put down in plain language in our laws in the constitution of Massachusetts, which noted that the aim was to have a government of laws rather than of men. It is a mark of our cynical age that Mr. Obama would challenge these assumptions. One can attribute the error of judgment to the fear that once the Court gets its back up and decides to hold the Congress to the powers that are enumerated in the Constitution, it’s not just Obamacare that is in danger but the whole regime of runaway power in Washington.

Arizona will make it possible to prosecute you for posting something offensive on the net.

A. It is unlawful for any person, with intent to terrify, intimidate, threaten, harass, annoy or offend, to use a telephone any electronic or digital device and use any obscene, lewd or profane language or suggest any lewd or lascivious act, or threaten to inflict physical harm to the person or property of any person. It is also unlawful to otherwise disturb by repeated anonymous telephone calls electronic or digital communications the peace, quiet or right of privacy of any person at the place where the telephone call or calls communications were received.

[Joe Biden:] You know the bulk of the people who are shot with a weapon other than these drug gangs taking on one another end up being shot with their own weapon…

No. No they don’t….

A senior government official resigned Monday after a report concluded her agency improperly paid for an 'over-the-top' training session near Las Vegas that allegedly featured a mind reader, a clown, a comedian, bicycle giveaways and lavish after-hour receptions in resort suites for federal workers.

The White House accepted General Services Administration chief Martha Johnson's resignation after she dismissed two deputies and suspended other career federal employees over the $820,000 conference.

The 300-person event at the M Resort Spa and Casino in Henderson, Nevada, included $3,200 for a mind reader, $6,300 on commemorative coin sets, and $75,000 on a training exercise to build a bicycle in 2010.

BARTLESVILLE, Okla. - The Price Tower Art Center in January opened an exhibit displaying the work of Swedish-American architect and designer Greta Magnusson Grossman, known for her design of Swedish-inspired furniture. On Tuesday morning, the inspiration went a little further as three toddler-aged children got an opportunity to design miniature furniture — a table and a lamp stand — with Grossman's designs being the source of their inspiration.

[Five-neck guitar - photo, or photoshop?]

[Print newspaper advertising, 1950-2011 - chart]

Officials with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said the demand for wind turbines in North America had stagnated, with new contracts difficult to obtain. The company is also in an ongoing legal battle with General Electric related to patent claims on wind-turbine equipment.

Oakland's Oaksterdam University was taken over by federal officials Monday.

Officers wearing U.S. Marshals, IRS and DEA jackets swarmed the Oakland medical marijuana facility on Broadway before 8 a.m. Investigators put yellow crime tape around the entire building.

The nearby Oaksterdam Museum was also being blocked off, according to NBC Bay Area's Christie Smith, as was the Oaksterdam gift shop and the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative.

179 The Army plans to stick with its current helicopter inventory over the next two decades, opting to wait until 2030 at the earliest to revolutionize a fleet flown hard around Iraq and Afghanistan. Army helicopters will receive upgrades over the next two decades, as they always have, but the austere budget environment has forced the Army to try and keep its current fleet in the air for as long as it can. Army aviation leaders have gotten the message that helicopters don't sit atop the service's modernization priority list. Any money the service has in its shrinking defense modernization budget will go to new radios, the Ground Combat Vehicle and the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle.

They are ripping out Military apart piece by piece

The new World Trade Center has reached a milestone: The skyscraper being built to replace the terror-wrecked twin towers is now 100 stories high - on its way to becoming New York's tallest building. Another four feet, and it will surpass the Empire State Building.

The new World Trade Center has reached a milestone: The skyscraper being built to replace the terror-wrecked twin towers is now 100 stories high - on its way to becoming New York's tallest building. Another four feet, and it will surpass the Empire State Building.

A government document found buried in the online reference section of a Boston Public Library archive bolsters a growing mountain of evidentiary data against Barack Obama’s constitutional eligibility to be president. The document indicates that a consular officer issued a single certificate of statutory citizenship, within the time frame including August 4, 1961, to a child born to a U.S. citizen between July 1st and December 31st, 1961 in the Kenyan region of Africa. The record also reveals that the certificate was the only one issued for this specific type of arrival in the U.S. over a span of more than 18 months, among thousands from other parts of the world.

It's important that people be put in a position where their Second Amendment rights are protected, but that they also don't, as a consequence of the laws, unintendedly put themselves in harm's way … The idea that there's this overwhelming additional security in the ownership and carrying concealed and deadly weapons… I think it's the premise, not the constitutional right, but the premise that it makes people safer is one that I'm not so sure of.

Now the "classy" Democratic President of the United States is selling a BFD t-shirt!

North Korea is planning another long-range missile launch, and the United States and our allies are still vulnerable to the threat of ballistic missiles. Our president has done nothing to alleviate this vulnerability; in fact, he’s done just the opposite. He has consistently taken a position of weakness and naïve trust in Putin’s Russia. Consider that one-sided New START Treaty as an example of this. Or consider those cuts to Alaska’s missile defense system, which leaves us much more vulnerable in the face of a nuclear North Korea. Now consider the state of our national defense under a President who whispers to a foreign power that he needs even “more flexibility” to weaken us further. -Sarah Palin

longtime D.C. political operative indicates “serious” discussions among high ranking members of Barack Obama’s re-election team on how to handle a possible Supreme Court ruling against Obamacare – discussions that include a “Healthcare Warfare” operation that will purposely create widespread chaos throughout the American healthcare industry – putting you and your loved ones at risk.

These exercises are often called "evacuation drills" or "relocation drills" and they are more than a little disturbing. Sometimes parents are notified in advance where the kids are being taken and sometimes they are only told that the children are being taken to an "undisclosed location". In the years since 9/11 and the Columbine school shootings, there has been a concerted effort to make school emergency drills much more "realistic" and much more intense.

Jodi replied that she would not be comfortable answering the questions if she couldn’t know the allegations. Immediately the social worker proclaimed, “Since you’re not going to cooperate, I’ll just go and call the police and we can take custody of the baby.”

Hillary Clinton’s political methods were founded on the theories of a 1960s radical about whom she wrote her college thesis in 1969. It may take a village to raise a child, but Clinton’s college thesis seems to say that the village politicos need an enemy to mobilize against.

On Monday, April 2, the leaders of the United States, Mexico, and Canada will meet at what is billed as the North American Leaders Summit. Here is the agenda, as posted on the website of the White House.

On April 2, 2012, President Obama will host Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada and President Felipe Calderon of Mexico for the North American Leaders' Summit (NALS) in Washington, DC. This meeting will build on wide-ranging and ongoing cooperation among the United States, Canada, and Mexico with a particular focus on economic growth and competitiveness, citizen security, energy, and climate change. The leaders will also discuss North America's role in the Americas in anticipation of the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia later in April, as well as other global economic, political, and security issues.

Note: This summit is preliminary to a hemispheric summit to be held later in April. Note these words: citizen security, energy, and climate change. Allow me to translate: police state, rationing, and regulation.

If you think I am exaggerating, consider the following….

What Communism really looks like [Photo]

Obama's good friend and political sponsor, left-wing terrorist Bill Ayers: “I Get Up Every Morning And Think … Today I’m Going To End Capitalism”…. [video]

here are all thirteen of Alinsky'a rules for radicals, from the book:

1. Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
2. Never go outside the experience of your people.
3. Wherever possible go outside the experience of the enemy.
4. Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.
5. Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.
6. A good tactic is one your people enjoy.
7. A tactic that drags on too long is a drag.
8. Keep the pressure on.
9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
10. The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.
11. If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counter side.
12. The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize and polarize it.
    

Billions of potentially habitable planets may exist within our galaxy, the Milky Way, raising new prospects that life could exist near Earth, a study has found.

Weichel saw the massive truck bearing down on the girl and grabbed her out of the way. But in the process, the armored truck ran him over, Riel said.

The little girl is fine. Weichel died a short time later of his injuries.

"He was a big kid at heart. He always had a smile on his face, and he made everyone laugh," 1st Sgt. Nicky Peppe, who served with Weichel in Iraq, is quoted as saying in an Army story.

"But as much as Weichel was funny, he was also a professional. When it was time to go outside the wire for a combat patrol, he was all business."

One of the BEST reactions! Jun 12, 2010 Welcome Home [Video]

I'm uploading this for family. This was the day I came back from Kandahar in Sept. 2005. Life has changed since then. But Gracie is still a good dog.
[From 2008. Over 9 million views, and deservedly so. Video]