Day By Day

Thursday, March 25, 2010

I've been working on my anger management


Here's your chance to grade the arrogant SOB


I don't expect CBS's perky anchor will be touting the results on the news anytime soon though....

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Man Dogs

It's Yon, that's as good as it gets

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/man-dogs.htm

The Minority Report


A mediocre sci-fi film set in the not too distant future where law enforcement utilizes some mysterious technology to view crimes before they take place and then pre-arrest and convict the perp, preventing the crime, and making the world safe for humans, babies and fuzzy creatures. B movie fare, mildly entertaining, don't need to see it twice commercial pap.

or is it? Apparently not.
To hear them tell it, the five police agencies who apprehended 39-year-old Oregonian David Pyles early on the morning of March 8 thwarted another lone wolf mass murderer. The police "were able to successfully take a potentially volatile male subject into protective custody for a mental evaluation," announced a press release put out by the Medford, Oregon, police department. The subject had recently been placed on administrative leave from his job, was "very disgruntled," and had recently purchased several firearms. "Local Law Enforcement agencies were extremely concerned that the subject was planning retaliation against his employers," the release said. Fortunately, Pyles "voluntarily" turned himself over to police custody, and the legally purchased firearms "were seized for safekeeping."
I bet just about any one of us would have "voluntarily" turned ourselves over. Check out why
This voluntary exchange involved two SWAT teams, police officers from Medford and nearby Roseburg, sheriff's deputies from Jackson and Douglas counties, and the Oregon State Police. Oregon State Police Sgt. Jeff Proulx explained to South Oregon's Mail Tribune why the operation was such a success: "Instead of being reactive, we took a proactive approach."
"We took a positive approach"? I guess the report was in; David Pyles was suspect in a terrible crime no doubt....
There's just one problem: David Pyles hadn't committed any crime, nor was he suspected of having committed one. The police never obtained a warrant for either search or arrest. They never consulted with a judge or mental health professional before sending out the military-style tactical teams to take Pyle in.
They preemptively arrested him, and forced him to submit to a mental health evaluation without due process. That evaluation will follow him for the rest of his life; potentially impacting his ability to obtain a job, credit, professional licenses, firearms etc.  Not only did they bring enough force to take down a gang of bootleggers, but they lied to him as to their intentions.
"They woke me up with a phone call at about 5:50 in the morning," Pyles told me in a phone interview Friday. "I looked out the window and saw the SWAT team pointing their guns at my house. The officer on the phone told me to turn myself in. I told them I would, on three conditions: I would not be handcuffed. I would not be taken off my property. And I would not be forced to get a mental health evaluation. He agreed. The second I stepped outside, they jumped me. Then they handcuffed me, took me off my property, and took me to get a mental health evaluation."
So based on the whim of some law enforcement official of some sort, they deployed a heavily armed mob of police to subdue the potential criminal. They didn't interview him, nor did they interview any of his friends, family or neighbors, they just sprang into action.
By noon the same day, Pyles had already been released from the Rogue Valley Medical Center with a clean bill of mental health. Four days later the Medford Police Department returned Pyle’s guns, despite telling him earlier in the week—falsely—that he'd need to undergo a second background check before he could get them back. On Friday the Medford Police Department put out a second press release, this time announcing that the agency had returned the "disgruntled" worker's guns, and "now considers this matter closed.
For any gun owner this is chilling, the stuff nightmares are made of. The police surround your home, assuming that you're willing to fight, armed to the teeth, snipers, flash bangs all sorts of the usual paramilitary toys we've been arming our police with in concert with the idiotic "war on drugs".

Mr. Pyles is apparently a pretty level headed guy and clearly no danger to anyone. This could have been a disaster, but one that would have been a big story, for a day or two, locally, with perhaps some passing national mention about a disgruntled gun nut the police were "forced" to shoot and kill.

Turning our police into ersatz armies is a bad idea. Every year these swat teams raid and terrify, if not kill, innocent people in the mindless pursuit of telling adults what they can and can't do with their bodies. And when they're not raiding your local suspected druggies they're raiding the local gun nuts.

All on the whim of an unnamed law enforcement official. Mr. Pyles certainly has a case that's likely to force some changes in the way the police treat innocent civilians; and well it should. It's high time that we the people started rolling back the blank check the police have written for themselves and start holding them accountable for their actions. Heads should roll in this case, and more than one.

Read the rest here

How's that hope and change working out anyway?

Just about sums it up...

Friday, March 12, 2010

What changed?

One of the few times Byrd makes sense to me, though this was back when he was still lucid...



Now they just want to ram it up our asses

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

They can have my fly rod when

they pry it from my cold, dead hands!

WTF is wrong with these people?

The Obama administration will accept no more public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing the nation's oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.
This announcement comes at the time when the situation supposedly still is "fluid" and the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force still hasn't issued its final report on zoning uses of these waters.
That's a disappointment, but not really a surprise for fishing industry insiders who have negotiated for months with officials at the Council on Environmental Quality and bureaucrats on the task force. These angling advocates have come to suspect that public input into the process was a charade from the beginning.
"When the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) completed their successful campaign to convince the Ontario government to end one of the best scientifically managed big game hunts in North America (spring bear), the results of their agenda had severe economic impacts on small family businesses and the tourism economy of communities across northern and central Ontario," said Phil Morlock, director of environmental affairs for Shimano.
"Now we see NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and the administration planning the future of recreational fishing access in America based on a similar agenda of these same groups and other Big Green anti-use organizations, through an Executive Order by the President. The current U.S. direction with fishing is a direct parallel to what happened in Canada with hunting: The negative economic impacts on hard working American families and small businesses are being ignore
Read the rest here 

The never ending war against human nature

Nice and quite interesting commentary from a reformed drug warrior...

Hawkeye pr0n!

I was in the mood....

First a takeoff



Next a landing, one from the LSO platform



and a different view from vultures row



that's my alma matter but in my day with did it with only 4 blades on the prop

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Obama at the bat

Very clever!

Friday, March 5, 2010

How bad is it?

A friend of mine emailed me today asking how bad I thought it was. This was my answer

I don't think that the US hasn’t paid its bills since Eisenhower was President. And that’s at every level of Government, everyone bought into the borrowing approach. Maine’s a perfect example, every election we’re faced with all these bonds that are dressed up to look really sexy:

“do you want to spend $75million on road improvements knowing that we will receive $225 million in matching Federal funds?”

People think – whoa I can get the feds to pick up most of the bill, that’s free right? All that wealth redistribution is just found money, there’s no cost. They don’t realize they’re voting to raise both their state and federal taxes and that includes all the hidden stuff, taxes on gasoline, tires etc. And in the end it contributes to driving up the cost of everything we consume because it all rides on the roads.

And we’ve been passing those for as long as I can remember and the roads and bridges are still falling apart. What does that tell you? It tells me that the abundance of cash for these repairs hasn’t paid for quality, instead it’s a gravy train of perpetual construction employment that politicians use to bribe us with. Our own money.

I gritted my teeth at the Bush deficits; doubling that isn’t a solution it’s symptom of greater stupidity. Obama is fiscally insane and he’s allowed the perpetual children of his party, the ones dominating the congress, to run around eating all the candy now. I guess we’ll deal with the stomach ache and the rotted teeth later.

If they push this health care bill through we’re finished because we’re signing up to be the free health care provider to anyone who can crawl across a border into an emergency room. The end result of that, no matter how they name it, will be rationing. And that’s ALWAYS been the goal, to be able to say “you’re old, you smoked, you’re fat, you’re useless, take a pill and f’ing die, you no longer generate revenue for the state”. In the end we’re just revenue generation machines for the elites to manipulate so they can scratch their need to accomplish itch. If I had one wish I’d rid the world of “do gooders”. Any genies out there listening? How many bottles must I rub?

Is it going to get bad? Probably. Expect to see some states first file suit, and eventually secede. We know how that went last time. All I know is we can’t afford what we’re doing now and we certainly can’t afford to take over and then manage the health care of the world.

From what I hear China isn’t buying anymore debt. They’ve put O’man on notice. What I’m reading says that we’ve borrowed all the money there is. Think about that. If it’s true, then credit will tighten world wide and it’s all about to cave it. How the EU handles Greece is going to be the indicator of how bad it really is. If they let Greece collapse into ruin, that’s the future. If they bail Greece out, they’ll have to bail out Ireland and the UK. I’m thinking it’s not going to happen. Either way there is a good deal of pain to be felt; right now the Greek unions, hardcore socialists, are at the edge of rioting over cutbacks. The sense that the government owes me is huge there, and that’s the same dependence that the Democrats have been attempting to build into the US for decades, dependence on a government that will not be able to deliver in the end because there aren’t enough rich people to pay for it all. The irony of that is that the politicians made it possible for those ultra rich to get by without paying taxes, or even paying taxes at even the same percentage rates we pay. As Thatcher said “The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people’s money”. All of the first world, that is the west, is about to learn that lesson.

Speaking of other people’s money, the treasury department is putting out feelers on some proposed legislation. They want to federalize our IRAs and 401ks. What does that mean? It means they want to make your 401k into a federally guaranteed annuity. The way it works is simple; they take your money today, and guarantee that when you retire you’ll get annuity payments on it. They get to spend your money today. They get to keep the principal, you no longer own it. That’s over a trillion they plan to confiscate with a promise to pay it someday, similar to social security. Like all the schemes pushed by the Democrats it’s a generational theft, it burdens our kids, grandkids with debt that can’t possibly be managed while at the same time it’s confiscating the wealth of older Americans. It’s our fault after all; we’re part of that evil ‘boomer’ generation. And they’ll pat themselves on the back for not borrowing another trillion dollars to push their social programs. If it happens the guys who bought gold coins and buried them in jars are going to look pretty smart.

It all puts us at risk, because the wolves are at the door, they’re flying airplanes into buildings, blowing themselves up in crowded spots because they want to bring us down. Our success damages their self image. We’re the golden city on the hill and they’re raising goats in tents. So they want to bring us down and they can because we’re risk adverse and soft. We’re entering a time when we’ll need the money and won’t have any. They fight on a shoestring budget, we fight spending more in a year than the GPD of their countries. Who’s going to win? At what cost? Will we like ourselves when it’s over?