Another day, another search that leads to the death of the searchee.

Tactics that kill. All in the name of good.

“its for the children!”

Or something.

69 years old. Walks with a cane. Likely his response was the same as mine would be at 10 am on a Saturday. door breaks open and men in military(ish) garb rush in? You betcha. Cordite and fire and flying lead.Bad for everyone. On both sides.

And, of course, an unnamed “informant”.  Who may or may not exist. Who will likely never be identified or questioned.

Look: I know not the answer to this mans guilt or innocence. But break down the door of a mans home and NOT expect an armed response is foolish.

You want in my home? Have a warrant? KNOCK. For your safety and mine. Wait for a response. I’ll answer the door. maybe with a firearm. Show me a badge and the warrant. I’ll cooperate.

Kick down my door if I don’t respond fast enough for you? Trouble. For both of us. You gotta give me more than 15 seconds to answer the door. Safer for all of us. For gods sake officers: THINK before you act.

I really don’t want to kill a cop. And I really don’t want him to try and kill me.

But cops aren’t invaders. Stormtroopers. And good cops knock and wait until you answer the door. And are polite but firm.

No-Knock raids might be necessary…But this wasn’t a no knock warrant.

Yet they acted like it was, and man is dead because of it.

Read all the links. Think. Get angry.

How many more will we allow? When do we say ENOUGH! ?

“I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.”
– General Douglas MacArthur

Killed the vikings in Greenland. Long before AlGore ever heard of CO2.

Hard to make a living when your growing season keeps getting shorter and shorter. Perhaps we should think about our food supply in the future, and buy (soon to be) farmland in the desert southwest? 

Mayhaps Jimmeh C. was right when his folks predicted global cooling…Their predictions actually seemed to predict where we are right now…

He is right.

Now we need to get a few other folks to understand.

Do you?

Or are you too comfortable to care?

You’d better understand. And soon.

What you do after that is up to you.

More thoughts HERE

No, not Gestapo….

TSA.

Seems that they are invading bus terminals in unwarranted searches and (if they can get away with it) seizures of cash and such…

Checking for immigration status of travellers too. (wasn’t this a bad thing when Arizona wanted to do that????)

No worries about that pesky 4th amendment either.  While there may be some small argument that in order to get onto an airplane you have to enter federal property and therefore the TSA has the right to search  you upon entering (not that I really buy that argument, but that is the one they seem to be using?) I see NO way for them to justify searching people in a semi-public place with no warrants or other probable cause.

Now you know why I don’t take publik transportation. Or fly.

‘Cause sure as shit, I’d get arrested. For resisting….or “disturbing da piece” or something like that.

HT: WRSA

One of the businesses I operate occasionally has to do business with the state. The details really don’t matter, but the conversation that I had this morning with a man who works for the government does…

Last night, around 5, I got a call from one of my employees. She had an issue and needed guidance. The local  government wanted to purchase a service from my business. Normally this is worked out beforehand, usually with a phone call or a fax….., but in this case, a person with whom I had never had  prior contact needed wanted those services fairly quickly and outside of “normal” channels. And was insistent. And threatening….So she called me.  (now, note that I have worked outside of normal channels in the past, with people who I have done business with before…..Sometimes things CAN happen with just a phone call….if the relationship is there beforehand)

He wanted me to accept a “voucher”. It has been my sad experience that the “vouchers” are not worth the paper they are written upon, unless the person issuing them is willing to fight to see that I get paid. I have enough unredeemed “vouchers” to paper the walls of my office

Ergo: we don’t accept “vouchers” for payment. We do accept purchase orders drawn on a government account, as I will EVENTUALLY get paid. Or checks on a government account… I suggested the check as an alternative to the unacceptable “Voucher”. Alternatively, I suggested a credit card, either government issued or private, until the issue could be better resolved when all parties were available during “normal” business hours. He didn’t like that idea….. He didn’t get his services. And I thought that this issue was over…

Not so. Complaint after complaint have rolled into my office, and forwarded complaints from the corporate people (it is a franchise). He is pissed that going outside of channels didn’t work for him.

Basically, his issue is that:

A. I did not let him do what he wanted..I did NOT cooperate.

2. I did not want to take a government voucher (which is not a legal document, and not a promise to pay, and not a purchase order, and not worth the paper it is written upon unless someone decided to see that it is paid at some later date…..).

AND:

III.  (and I quote here) “I am a government official and you have to do what I say” .

[Pause to let the laughter and jeers die down] But I must say that when he stated that, I passed nearly a whole cup of (extremely hot) tea through my nose.

Yeah, right. I have to do what some small time county (and not even the county in which the business resides)
government clerk says. I have to provide services with no payment (or promise to pay). Just take HIS orders. With no documentation except a (many times) photocopied form with an illegible signature.

Except that I don’t. And I didn’t. And I won’t.

The sad part is that he was totally serious. He really believed that he had the right to demand goods and services. Demand. Just because he is an “acting” head of XXXXXX

 “You are lucky that I did not get the police involved last night……You’d have gone to jail”.

I really really tried. And tried again. I even took the time to count to 10….Once forwards and once backwards.

Then I suggested that he examine the limits of his petty office….And that he show me where his office had the right or authority to compel goods and services from a private business. And suggested that perhaps next time he involve the police. Perhaps from the beginning. And bring friends. And a lunch…

I did try very hard not to call him a sniveling little nincompoop…and a tiny pissant with delusions of power. I tried to keep the derision out of my voice as I explained to him how little I cared about his office

I tried. Really, I did.

He found out that he isn’t that powerful….And that there are limits to what he can and cannot do

I don’t think that he is happy right now.

But I find his attitude somewhat disturbing.

On a whim, we bought some of the Off Clip-On mosquito repellent devices.

I gotta say that they work. And work Really Really Well.

We have mosquitoes the size of small birds, and in numbers that make the Mongol Hordes seem to be sparse. .

And they are HUNGRY. Very. Very. Hungry. They attack as soon as you step out the door, and they feed until you feel faint. Seriously. I turned white last week. Thought I was gonna need a transfusion…..And they hurt. A lot.

It makes working outdoors difficult. Painful. And to do any exacting work requires smelly bug repellent.

Until today, I was resigned to having to live smelling like bug repellent.

I really really like this new device. Clip it to your belt. Turn it on. Give it a few minutes (like 2), and it works!

It isn’t perfect. If you move around a lot, or move too quickly, you can move away from the cloud of repellent.

But working in the yard, I got zero bites. It’ll be great if you are sitting around barbecuing or shooting the breeze…Drinking beer with friends.

I doubt if it’ll work well in a strong breeze.

Having said that, I would recommend that you purchase this product.

It’s better than the spray, and it WORKS!. And when you no longer need it, you can turn it off. And you don’t have that “outdoorsy” smell afterwards.

FTC disclaimer: I got nothing for this endorsement….Nothing. I paid for the items myself. So go pound sand.

But I like ’em.

You will too.

Worth the money.

Once again, it is Fathers day. (and my Dads birthday).

My father taught me much. Many times he was working way too hard to put food on the table and clothes on my back, and to provide shelter. Much of the time when I was growing up, he wasn’t there when I wished he could have been.

I didn’t appreciate the sacrifices he made bu not being there in order to provide for me.

But the times he was there, he taught me many things. Many of the lessons I didn’t even know I had learned until later in life.

Likely, I will never be father. Never have the opportunities to pass those lessons on to a son of the same name (he’s a junior, I’m a third). I am sure that he is disappointed by that.
But I do my best every day to be an example of what he taught me to be. He and his father as well.

He is (and, in the case of my grandfather, were) mighty men. Men of character, and resolve, and hidden strengths. And I am but a shadow of them. I will find it hard to surpass them (or even match them) in deeds or strength or resolve. I live a better life because of the help my father gave me and the foundation he laid during those too few times when we were together during my formative years.

Thanks, Dad, for being my father. Hope I can match your example when I am your age. I am often amazed how wise you become, the older and more experienced I get.

I love you.

Preach it, my man.

“you are free to go your own way and prove your worth in the marketplace as you see fit”

Read the whole thing. 

Now go after all the other tax breaks for business (that are mostly social engineering gone crazily wrong).

First Ethanol, then the others. Bet you can name a few right off the bat that are either useless, outmoded, or just plain wrong. 

Let the market decide. If something is good, the people will buy it. If it isn’t, then all the tax breaks won’t really make the product any more accepted.

As it is, there is still a government mandate that we have to use 10%  (soon to be 15%) ethanol in our gasoline. There is a government mandated market for the product, with a tariff on imported ethanol.

Someone like me, who was cynical, might wonder how much it cost to purchase persuade those Congressmen that this was a good idea in the first place….

Instead of (gasp) have them be NON UNION!

Is there any doubt that the DNC is (at least partially) controlled by the unions?

I really don’t see where the federal government has any standing in this matter anyway, and I applaud South Carolina for doing what it can to BRING JOBS TO THE STATE, and a good, caring government should.

If these folks on S.C. want to unionize, there is no law stopping them…..But if they’d rather be non union, then the state law allows that too.  Betcha they will choose the non union way….and the union loses out of all that money.

So they (the unions) are crying to their bought and paid for oh so helpful Democratic legislators for help. ’cause without dues, you know, there might not be campaign contributions and speaking fees.

DNC: The best government money can buy.