Let your kitty cats play in the sinking ruins of the HMS Titanic!

Some how the police forgot not only about the kids they arrested and placed in the van but the van itself.

Police who busted a Fort Lee, N.J., high school house party over the weekend left a van full of teens locked up and parked outside in the freezing cold for 14 hours without food, water or access to a bathroom.

How is it you forgot about a van full of kids for 14 hours?  Not only were they forgotten about, but it was someone else walking by that found them banging on the vehicle. 

You have another instance where a police officer is trying to arrest a judge, his reason, the judge refused to sign off on an arrest warrant.

As time goes on, I’m getting a stronger feeling that the police believe they are above and exempted from the law.  They are exempted from the consequences of negligent discharge and even in some instances have gotten away with murder. 

Running into a cop when he’s having a bad day is starting to look like it will end quite badly for you, he on the other hand will still go home to his family while you’re either dead or forgotten in the back of his cruiser.  No worries though because the officer wont be held accountable for their actions.

“Obama is Jimmy Carter 2.0… Back in Black” –Carl

[This was said in a discussion regarding the differences between candidate Obama and president Obama.  I thought it was funny as hell.]

That's the same Al Baker who went after a bunch of agencies in Nevada. Awesome job Mr. Baker!

H/T to Joe. 

Apparently SEIU has been harassing Sodexo USA, to the point that Sodexo has now filed a civil suit under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

Union thuggery is the only way unions can continue to gain members and power.  Unions are not looking out for the employees or members, they are looking out for themselves.  They take a percentage of the employees pay in “dues.”  The more the worker makes, the more profit the union gets paid.  This means it’s in their best interests to extort as much as they can for pay.  Then when the employee works harder, pulls extra shifts, and does overtime the union gets paid a percentage of that labor.  The union did nothing for the employee all union does is get paid more.

Unions are worthless, they are nothing more that thieves who in many cases can force their people to give up money just for employment.  What do unions really do currently, seriously?  I fail to see any union do anything I can NOT do myself.  If I don’t like the environment I work in, I have every right to quit.  I do not have a right to work for a particular company, just the same a particular company doesn’t have right to retain me as an employee.  Unions are the creation of people who don’t have the balls to deal with problems themselves.  If you don’t like what a company is doing, do not work for them, do not buy their products, and do not support them.  Unions steal from people under the guise of protecting  and helping them, no different from the government. 

Joking about campus carry legislation is well and good until you find yourself on a college campus, confronted by a madman who's chosen to ignore the school's “gun free” policy. Then it's no laughing matter. –W. Scott Lewis, Campus concealed carry bill no laughing matter

[I have written on this previously, but Scott has a wonderful way with words in this article.  (RTWT) –B]

Idaho's house passed H222 yesterday morning. With a vote of 41-28. This vote was a lot closer than I would like to see and the bill is now rolling towards the state senate.

If you're an Idaho resident, contact your state senator and tell them to support this bill. If you regularly visit any of the Idaho campuses, contact the appropriate senators and make sure to tell them to support it and why.

As I live on the border, I'm kicking a letter to Dan Schmidt to support the bill since I often find myself on both the WSU and UI campuses. I hope this can roll through to help in the fight to change the Washington Administrative Code as well.

So while cutting the budget today by 6.5 billion dollars, congress increased the deficit by 72 billion dollars.

The national debt jumped by $72 billion on Tuesday even as the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives passed a continuing resolution to fund the government for just three weeks that will cut $6 billion from government spending.

Only our government could increase the national debt while claiming they were cutting back.  The fun doesn’t stop there though because it ends up the Federal Revenue no longer covers the mandatory spending for required government functions.

The White House Office of Management and Budget projects that in the current fiscal year (2011), mandatory spending alone will exceed all federal receipts. So even if we didn’t spend a single cent on discretionary programs, we still wouldn’t be able to balance our budget this year — let alone pay off any of the $14 trillion in debt that we have already accumulated.

Joe had a great example the other day regarding the current finical situation.  At this point the government couldn’t save money even if it wanted to.  Even then it would require serious cuts including getting rid of unnecessary jobs, social programs, and other things that really aren’t the role of government.

While some are vehemently objecting, others will be upset that what was promised them is no longer possible, and it will require that people return to being productive.  Will it be painful, will many be upset they lost money “promised” them you bet.  However you can’t get money for nothing and with how things are going the only solution is going to be to print the money to pay off the debts.  This will weaken the value of the currency and people will be paid their due with cash that is worthless.

The government is still running flat out ignoring the fact that a mile down the road the bridge is out.  You have city councils giving themselves pay raises.  You have public employee unions working to continue and increase their burden on the public.  Then you have congress who are cutting back their budget while actually spending even more.

If you haven’t started thinking about how you’re going to survive the coming economic collapse, you might want to seriously start thinking about it.  This is unsustainable and it appears our elected officials are actually trying to ensure this crisis occurs.

Millionaires only have 24 hours in a day, just like the rest of us. What separates them from us is time management. While the rest of us go home and flop on the couch in front of the TV, the wealthy are reading and doing things that contribute to their success.

[Many people feel entitled to different things, from money to property, to services.  They look at millionaires and say they got rich by stealing from the poor.  While some, such as Madoff certainly did exactly that most make their fortune by working their ass off.

The government runs much the same scheme as Madoff, except they require mandatory investment at the end of a gun.  They then call this scheme “Social Security”.  The government takes the excess income and instead of saving it for when the payouts will be greater than the input, they spend it elsewhere.

Many of us in America are working hard, constantly trying to get ahead.  While we’re busy trying to save money, our government is squandering what it does have and is now taking even more.   If you want more money, look in the mirror, it’s up to you to earn it.  Though with all of those who feel entitled to your money, it’s becoming harder to keep it after you earn it.  -B ]

As the world focuses on Japan, what is happening right under our noses?  Anything newsworthy is being completely overshadowed.  I am not trying to be crass or insensitive, what's happening in Japan is truly heartbreaking, but some things are being severely exaggerated and creating mass panic. The reality, however, is being buried and only those of us that question everything are finding the truth. 

The mantra, “never let a good crisis go to waste,” is starting to come into play as the politicians attempt to sneak stuff in under the radar.  Just because this is not our crisis does not mean they won’t try to leverage it to their advantage.

Joe has been running a Righthaven blacklist utility which has been quite handy.  If you don’t know why Joe would spend his time creating that web utility, or I would create a plugin to do it, see this.

I spent some of last weekend and this weekend making a blacklist utility for Windows Live Writer.  Today I finished up creating the MSI installer and have a preliminary version (0.1.0) to post into the wild.  Currently the blacklist is hardcoded into the plugin, the actual version (1.0.0) is going to support web updates to the blacklist, along with an additional feature of grey listing.

The grey list will make sure that “no follow” tags are attached to any link that has a domain that matches one in the list.

The default state just puts up a message box with the offending anchor text but the post will still succeed.  You can change this by checking the error on post check box in the options.  You can add your own URLs to the user list.

Play with it, tell me if you find any bugs or issues you would like me to change or features you would like me to add.  I’m going to create a projects website tomorrow with support contact information.  For now just use this contact form.

WLW URL Blacklist Plugin. 

Update: I fixed the msi download. It's now in a zip. It appears the mime-type for the msi is wrong. I've tried changing the htaccess but it is still broken. I am just going to use the .zips from now on. It cut the file size in half anyway.

Lately there has been a lot of yelling that the country isn't broke. This morning it became apparent to me that the country is going through the stages of grief with regards to the economy.

1. Denial, Denial is pretending the problem doesn't exist or cannot be seen. Many are currently doing that, ignoring how bad the financial situation really is.
2. Anger, Anger has been expressed over and over by both people who are still in stage one, as well as people in stage 3.
3. Bargaining, People on both sides of the isle are trying to bargain their way out of the inevitable truth. There is no money to borrow to fix this. It's going to take sweat blood and tears.
4. Depression, Often this stage and the next are rolled together. It's questions like Joe's that get asked when you realize bargaining is no longer useful and the depression of the truth sinks in.
5. Acceptance, You realize this is going to hurt, there is nothing that can be done, but it's better to take your licks now than let it grow and hurt more later.

The sooner you realize the gravity of the situation, the better. That's steps 4 and 5 folks, steps 1-3 are merely trying to prolong the inevitable. In order to be able to survive this, cuts are going to have to be made and people are going to have to accept that. Is it going to hurt, yes, but some times in order to get better you have to go through some pain.

Well crap cracker sandwiches.

Rauðbjorn so kindly consigned me to tell you things you probably don’t know about me.  The rules of the game are simple. I tell you folks seven things you probably don't know about me, and then I pick fifteen of you to do the same.

Even as the economy has recovered, social welfare benefits make up 35 percent of wages and salaries this year, up from 21 percent in 2000 and 10 percent in 1960, according to TrimTabs Investment Research using Bureau of Economic Analysis data.

The government is taking a third of everything you make to do with as they see fit.  You are a slave to the system, all that time and effort you spent getting a good job was for naught.  You would actually probably be better off just living off the government dole.  The government is spending out of control and it is the hardworking American tax payer stuck with the bill.  I seriously wouldn’t care if tomorrow they announced all the social programs were shut down.  I’m sick of the government redistributing the fruits of my labor to others by the threat of force against me.  It is nothing more that “legalized” theft.

Another example of the games unions play in maximizing their leverage to get their way occurred Hawaii.

HECO executives said the strike would slow efforts to restore service to about 8,000 Oahu homes and businesses, mostly in the Ewa Beach area, that were without power last night.

It reminds me of the games Fox plays with different cable and satellite providers just prior to the Super Bowl.  Fox had done the same thing in the past with Time Warner and Comcast.  The crisis is created when the most customers will be in trouble.  Whether or not the raises are justified are inconsequential, people get very upset when their lights don’t come on with a flip of a switch.

If you get enough people to yell and scream, who don’t actually know or understand the facts, who are inconvenienced by your strike, they will support you to end it as quickly as possible.  People who do this are despicable, dishonest, and should just be terminated from their jobs.  This is nothing more than leveraging a crisis for extortion and using it to get their way. 

There  are a couple common sayings where I work.  Many of these sayings are extremely flexible and can be applied just about anywhere in your life.  Here are three of my favorites.

• Hope is not a plan

Hoping that something does or doesn’t happen isn’t a solution to the problem.  This goes for anything from fiscal crisis to violent crime.  Some hope that they will not become the statistical anomaly, however hope is not a plan.  It does nothing to prevent or alter the outcome regarding the events concerned.  Hoping a man doesn’t stab you while he’s mugging you isn’t really a plan to solve your problem.

This can be seen with other things as well.  Hoping a child doesn’t drown isn’t a plan, that’s why there is rescue equipment at most pools.  Hoping a kitchen fire doesn’t happen isn’t a solution to deal with the problem should one occur, instead many have fire extinguishers in their kitchen.  Hoping a tire doesn’t go flat on your car doesn’t prevent it from happening, that’s why you carry a spare.

This also goes for dealing with legislation, both good and bad.  I’ve been following HB 1016 and SB 5112 so closely and contacting those I should because hoping it will pass is not going to make it so.

A plan is a series of actions one is going to take to solve or prevent a problem.  Hope is merely trying to wish the problem away or out of existence. 

• Wait is not a verb

While the word “Wait” can be used as a verb, it is not actually an action.  It is used to indicate the absence of action.  Waiting for someone else to solve your problems is never a solution.  Waiting to do something is like letting a positive feedback loop run while providing no negative feedback negating none of it.  Eventually the problem will be so big you can do nothing about it.

Some would rather wait for someone else to solve their problems.  Some do this because they want to feel morally superior, others do it because they feel waiting isn’t a  problem.  The fact is though, problems get worse over time if nothing is done.  Calling someone else to solve your problem is still waiting because you’re not doing anything.

• If you want to see the future, invent (create) it

If you want to see the future of something you care about, then create it.  Don’t wait for someone else to create it for you, they may even create something that you really dislike.  From a rights and freedoms perspective you can help cement the future.  You can work to get legislation changed, you can work to gather information and rally others, there are numerous things  that can be done to create your future.

Back when I was still growing up, the future was still quite uncertain regarding gun rights.  Thankfully many throughout our culture have stepped up to create the future we have now and are still working so the future is even brighter than it is now.

Can anyone think of any others that should be added?

It is becoming more and more obvious that the war on drugs is a losing battle.

The Midgett crew flew into action. The crews of self-propelled semi-submersible vessels are known to scuttle their vessels upon detection, so the Midgett ordered the sub's crew to the deck of the ship - and prepared to rescue the sub crew from the ocean in the event they sank the boat.

This is not the first submarine to be discovered recently.  Prohibition doesn’t work, it makes considerably money for criminals, because this is how prohibition works.

As I said previously when carrying you’re a diplomat, and Robb Allen does a fantastic job in his interview.

I think Caleb from Gun Nuts Media said it better than I can.

I want everyone who advocates for open carry to go to Robb’s blog and watch the video he did with the local ABC affiliate.  That is how you advocate for open carry.  He looks like a normal dude, doesn’t shout about A RIGHT UNEXERCISED IS LOST, and he certainly didn’t wave a shotgun around.  Instead, he acted like a rational dude and made his points succinctly and intelligently.  And he even wore pants.

Whether or not you like it, while carrying you are having to break down the negative stereotypes associated with carrying from the media.  This is much more easily done by acting and behaving exactly like Robb did.  Serious kudos to you Robb, that’s the way to win hearts and minds!

The house already passed HB 1016, SB 5112 is the Senate Companion Bill.  It was scheduled for a second reading today.  A public hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee has been scheduled for March 9th, at 1:30 PM.

If the date or time change I will update it here.  If you can make it, please go and show your support.

My original letter can be seen here.