CNN:

“The father of a Marine whose funeral was picketed by the Westboro Baptist Church says an order to pay the protesters’ legal costs in a civil claim is nothing less than a “slap in the face.”
“By the court making this decision, they’re not only telling me that they’re taking their side, but I have to pay them money to do this to more soldiers and their families,” said Albert Snyder, whose son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, was killed in action in Iraq in 2006.”

Via MaRooned I found this info…

Link to donate to help HERE.

I sent $50. You can, if you wish.

If the Phelps family were on fire, I wouldn’t unzip to put them out…..While I am all for free speech, this is insane. The courts have rulesd that there ARE limits to free speech, and this is a case where I think that we need one.

Or then again, just let someone open up on their ass without consequencees. 


I am sure that there would be no lack of volunteers.

“Uhm, piss off, wankers. If you want to sign your life and liberty over to your Benevolent Government, more power to you, but the second you start forcing folks to follow your lead, whether they want to or not, you start to greatly annoy people like me, and given that I tend to be at the “reasonable” side of the “people like me” spectrum, annoying us is probably not a good idea.”

RTWT

To correspond to the service cuts the US Postal Service has proposed.

Since they are cutting 1/6 of their service, can we expect to see 1/6 of the managerial jobs cut as well? How about a salary reduction for the rest of the workers since they will be doing 1/6 less work?

Perhaps 1/6 less benefits or 1/6 less retirement funding? Are they gonna cut the cost of postage by 1/6?

Didn’t think so.

Ther was once a time when working for the Postal service, much like other federal civil service jobs, meant low pay, but excellent benefits, and a kick ass retirement after your 20 years was up. Now they get higher pay than an equivalent private employee AND kick ass bennies AND kick ass retirement. If the feds can’t make the postal service work, what makes you think that they can make Health Care work?

If I am not gonna get my mail on Saturdays (really not that big of a deal anyway, as most of my mail is junk mail and bills) then I wanna see some savings for my service cut.

Via ScecondCityCOP comes this gem: And from a liberal bastion like MSNBC!

Seems that the more handguns carried by citizens, the fewer firearms deaths happen.  You gotta get to page 3 to find the statistics, but they are there.

“In the 1980s and ’90s, as the concealed-carry movement gained steam, Americans were killed by others with guns at the rate of about 5.66 per 100,000 population. In this decade, the rate has fallen to just over 4.07 per 100,000, a 28 percent drop. The decline follows a fivefold increase in the number of “shall-issue” and unrestricted concealed-carry states from 1986 to 2006.

Seems the Large Hadron Collider is gonna do the thing that they were supposed to do before they had those breakdowns…..Supposedly gonna cause some kind of quantum black hole issues which could spell (OMG!OMG!) the end of the world as we know it or something like that..

The good news is that this will solve the Deficit Spending issue for the US, and at least we won’t have to deal with the issue of Socialized Medicine anymore…

Timeline here…Note that all times are CEST (Central European Summer Time) which is 6 hours ahead of us EST.

So if you are reading this on Tuesday, then………..Never mind.

Why would our government do this?

Every other country does this just before devaluing its currency.

Or so history tells us.

Scary, ain’t it?

Best use those FRNs to buy precious metals (silver, gold, copper, lead, and brass…) while they are worth something…

If you fear this, which I am not sure if we should.

But then again, except for gold, I am fairly well stocked.

But it IS something to think about. 

Taught a firearms class this Saturday (6 new safe (I hope) shooters), then spent Sunday morning at the range as well, this time for me.

200 rounds of .45 ACP through my 1911 Para, and 50 though my 3″ carry gun.

Plus .22 in large quantity though my Buckmark.

Not  a bad way to do a weekend.

(As far as anyone can prove, all of the targets were volunteers)

As “splained by Penn and Teller.

Not much else to say after that, is there?

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

Other view HERE.

So, Saturday,  people all over the world had an opportunity to feel good about themselves if they chose to participate in Earth Hour. For one hour some cities and individuals turned off some of their lights.

It’s not like this is anything more than symbolic. Wanna do something for the environment? You can. But you have to change your lifestyle, and not for one hour. It matters little if you believe in AGW or not, if you change your lifestyle, you can save money and reduce your carbon footprint. Turn off lights, use higher efficiency lighting, turn down your thermostat in winter and up in summer (programmable thermostats can be  had for as little as $20)

The thing is, you have to be MORE than just symbolic, or you are fooling yourselves. One hour out of 8766 (hours per year)  of reduced energy consumption is a nice gesture, but really it is meaningless.

Wanna do something that matters? Turn off every other (or even 2 out of three) streetlights in your town. Turn your thermostat up by 4 degrees on the summer and down by 4 degrees in winter. There are other things you can do…

Never happen. Most people will not sacrifice their feeling of security or their comfort.

So we are stuck with symbolic bullshit like “Earth Hour”.