Religious freedom

Denied to our servicemen.



Jugears is systematically removing real leaders from our armed forces - just like the left-liberals are working to remove people not in line with their socialist goals from our schools and public view.

How governments turn despotic

From 1946...



Too many of the points made here are evident in today's America.

Wal-Mart?

My impression was mostly cheap stuff from China, and I tried to stay away from them as much as possible.

Perhaps I was wrong:



If they do this, I'll buy anything I need from them that says "Made in the USA", even if it costs more than similar stuff elsewhere made elswhere.

Gun control success

The law worked just like the left-liberals planned it...

How gun control helped a stalker kill my husband

In April 2009, my husband was shot six times in front of me in the middle of a busy restaurant by a man who was stalking me. I have a permit to carry a handgun but because of the law at that time in my home state of Tennessee, I had to leave the gun that I normally carried for self defense, locked in my car that night. 

An almost identical scenario played out in Texas a few years ago, and started the move toward universal concealed carry.

Never let up - keep fighting - and we might just see the Second Amendment enforced in this country, at long last.

Coming out

This has been on my mind for a while now.

People in America who identify with the "LGBT" community - is there such a thing? - have been making a real big noise for the last few years about "coming out" and making public statements like "gay pride" parades. They have been agitating for recognition of "gay marriage", and pushing for special protection from discrimination based on perceived sexual orientation.

They have been going out of their way to "get on a list".

I can't help but think of Germany in the 1930's. Anyone on the Nazi's "list" got rounded up and shipped off for extermination. People of non-traditional sexual orientation were right on the top of the list.

Now we hear that Uganda, that paragon of human rights, has outlawed people who practice non-traditional sex. They published a list of 200 names. The only reason they would do this is to alert the vigilantes in Uganda that here are 200 people you can harass - or possibly kill outright - with little or no repercussions.

To me, sex is a private thing, not to be discussed in polite company, definitely not something to be made into a parade through the middle of the city.

There are many in America who at the least do not agree with those lifestyles, and some who actively are just waiting for an excuse to go out and kick some strange butt - or worse. Hate crime laws do not seem to deter these types, any more than gun control laws deter criminals from obtaining the tools of their trade.

Arizona and possibly Alabama proposing laws protecting the right to publicly demonstrate displeasure with these lifestyles will embolden those persons who are itching for a little fun. Even the discussion of the possibility of those laws being enacted will give a lot of support to them who want to never hear about "gay pride" again, or see it portrayed on TV and in movies as a legitimate lifestyle.

History has been described as a pendulum. Are we starting to see the reverse sweep from total public sexual license back to Puritanism?

How will all those people who have made such a big deal out of publicly flaunting their choices fare if we end up with "leaders" who wish to cleanse America of what they conceive to be sin?

Heinlein wrote of Nehemiah Scudder - and he had predicted many aspects of our modern world before...

The right to refuse

It should have been obvious as the next move. With federal law prohibiting "discrimination" for just about any reason you can think of, comes the backlash - Arizona, and maybe Alabama, proposing laws enforcing a business owner's right to refuse to serve anyone if serving that person would go against their religious beliefs.

As much as I hate the government doing ANYTHING that interferes with an individual's right to do business - or not do business - with anyone, for any reason whatsoever - I cannot back laws like this.

It's none of the government's business who a private person associates with, or refuses to associate with. If you don't like Irishmen and Germans, you should be free to start a club called "No Irishmen or Germans Allowed!". Only people of like mind will join - and any Irishman or German who is angry to be excluded should be happy to avoid people who dislike their nationality.

If a business refuses to cater to persons of "alternative gender", they will suffer the loss of profits from sales to those people, and if enough of the community feels that their "intolerance" is intolerable, they will also take their business elsewhere. The business owner will survive on sales to people of like mind, or those who don't give a fig about it, or will go under if they offend enough prospective customers. No governmental intervention is needed, or desirable.

I firmly believe that much of the remaining animosity between people of different "races" in America is a direct result of anti-discrimination laws and even worse, "affirmative action" laws. Rubbing people's faces in racial differences by law is a sure way to keep generating new bigots generation after generation.

How about a law, at the federal level - there shall be no law enacted that in any way interferes with an individual's or organization's right to associate - or refuse to associate - with anyone for any reason whatever.

And then let the free market sort it out.

Know your target!

Probably not a good idea to shoot at steel plates...





I've got a couple of steel silhouette targets of bighorn sheep left by the previous landowner. They are warped into curves by all the bullets they have taken over the years. Most of the high power rounds just make craters in the 1/2" plate. A few penetrate.

And, once in a while, they ricochet. Last summer, one of my friends shot his .308 at the backstop and caught one of those silhouettes just right. The round came back over our heads, and ended up in the hillside behind us. Good thing my range is down in a hollow!

The whine of that round passing was enough for me - the sheep got retired behind the backstop!

Videos found in the comments at Failure to Fire.

Just did the taxes

Just finished the federal and state tax returns for last year, and "e-filed" them.

It's a good thing I'm basically a peaceful person. Dealing with tax forms can turn a saint into a raving monster.

Wisconsin requires an "electronic copy" of your federal return in order to file Wisconsin taxes.
Why? If you file by mail, there's no requirement to send copies of the federal forms.

So, I did the federal e-file first.

The "free" federal e-file fill-in forms are apparently farmed out to some private outfit. How much of our tax money goes to this outfit?

They do a reasonably good job of digitizing the morass of IRS forms with hyperlinks to pull in the correct forms needed for the various lines.

Unfortunately, they don't tell you to NOT enter a zero on lines that correspond to forms you don't need to fill out. If you do this, there's no warning. The e-file goes through and you get an acknowledgement email saying the IRS will accept or deny the filing in a while.

Then you get another email from the IRS - "denied" - with a nice list of cryptic debug information that probably looks like some sort of Satanic incantation to people unfamiliar with programming.

So, I debugged - and discovered the lines I had entered a zero on raised a flag telling the IRS to expect the associated form, which didn't exist in the filing - so, denied.

Three iterations later, I got an email back - "filing successful".

Is this just a way of forcing Joe Public into H&R Block or Liberty Tax Service? I have to wonder if there's a connection between the "free" e-file and these guys.

Another irritation - when you tell the federal e-file to "print" the return, it just flickers the screen. Nothing comes out of the printer. After a few tries, I thought to look at the download folder - and there resided a few copies of the return - in PDF format. It would have been nice for the code to raise a message box telling you that!

The Wisconsin form was a bit more logical, but had some irritating features also. They require you to enter your W-2 forms manually, and do math on what you enter. The totals from the W-2s was $2 off from the federal forms for some reason. I hope I don't get audited for that.

I hope Governor Walker wasn't just blowing smoke when he suggested that Wisconsin repeal the income tax here. Getting rid of the bureaucracy and all the state (union?) employees needed to process the state income tax would likely give us another surplus we could use to pay off the last of Doyle's debts...

Phishing?

Just received this:

From: sophia158@hosttrim.euSubject: Funny baby
Reply to: austin059@hosttrim.eu

Thanks for the gift
julia
067-055-9567

-lots of white space-

(CNN) -- After eluding capture sweetly emotionally actually for more than a dozen years, the legendary boss of one of the world's most powerful defiantly municipals and deadly drug trafficking operations was nabbed in a surprise raid on a seaside hotel-condominium tower hopelessly color depreciation in a bustling Mexican beach resort, authorities said. Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, member overconfidently alienated compare 56, who infamously escaped in 2001 from a high-security prison in a laundry cart, was arrested overnight Saturday unfinished accounting in Mazatlan, authorities said. A U.S. law enforcement official knowing battle mellow encourage told CNN that Guzman, accompanied by a female, was captured bewilderingly in a joint operation of Mexican marines and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents allow profit juicy sympathetically that was in the works for four or five weeks. eventually beam The pressure on Guzman's organization, the Sinaloa cartel, ski economy had been mounting for months, with Mexican authorities killing or capturing flap peel annuity lucrative several of its most brutal lieutenants, nice blue a U.S. law enforcement official said. reliability helpfully important Those operations yielded information, including cell phone and other data, exchange thunder shyly that helped Mexican authorities and U.S. drug enforcement agents bull thoughtfully there thoughtfully track Guzman down. A U.S. Homeland Security official livid fiduciary redemption tire said key intelligence in the capture came from show eminent fetch an Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigation.

Are they hoping for a reply to learn if this email address is live?

That's the only reason I can come up with, other than a desire to waste bandwidth.

I've seen a few messages from my email server lately - "can't deliver" - that are for messages apparently attempting to use me as a forwarder.

Police action

How long are we going to allow stuff like this?

Climate change

Just saw Bill Nye and some female Congresscritter on "Meet the Press - my wife had the idiot box on. The subject was "climate change".

The words "consensus" and "debate" were used.

I know others have said this, probably better than I will - but -

1. There is no debate in science. Things are either fact or false, proven or theory.
2. There is no consensus in science. You can either prove your theory or you can't.

Both of these concepts are political. "Consensus" comes from a majority agreeing upon some issue. Right or wrong, the majority opinion controls. This is the basis of "democracy", and the big reason that democracy is such a dangerous thing.

"Debate" is a means to come to "consensus".

"Climate change" is a given, in that we have very compelling evidence from written histories and from evidence collected by scientists that the climate of Earth has changed in the past, and is changing now. No reputable scientist will argue otherwise, since the evidence is out there for all to see.

Human involvement in "climate change" is another matter altogether. There is no compelling evidence that anything Man has done in the past or is likely to do in the future can have an effect on the Earth's climate.

What does exist is a collection of theories and computer models. Each taken separately will show that there is reason to think that certain gases can cause a planet's atmosphere to retain more of the heat the planet receives from its' star, or that if you make certain assumptions and run them through a computer model, you can show certain outcomes.

If you take the theory that some percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere will cause global temperatures to rise, and couple that with a computer model designed to show what happens when CO2 concentrations rise, you will get results that show that the Earth's climate will warm with increasing CO2. This is the expected result.

If you take real temperature and CO2 concentration measurements over a significantly long period, you can start to form patterns and correlations between the two variables.

"Correlation does not imply causation" is a truism. Before you can state that increased CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere directly cause the planet to warm, you have to perform experiments designed to prove this theory. Since it is impossible to perform experiments on the Earth, we do simulations. No reputable scientist will do a simulation and announce he has "proven" his theory. He publishes his results and methods - including the intimate details of how his simulation works - and lets other scientists examine his work. When the results are matched to real data over a long enough time, and successfully predict actual present data given historic data, the simulation is deemed to be a good one.

In the "climate change" community, computer models are kept secret, data is not shared, data is altered and massaged, and people make statements of proven fact based on the results of those simulations. "Scientists" conspire to "hide the decline" and prevent peer review of the subject because "the debate is settled".

These people are not scientists, if they ever were. They are people promoting a cause for whatever reason - "protecting the environment", creating a "new world order", or simply gaining more power and wealth for themselves and their friends.

I'm tired of typing now - have to go out in the cold and buy some milk produced by a significant source of the greenhouse gas methane.

Open letter

Mike Vanderboegh speaking to Connecticut's public servants and law enforcement community:

An Open Letter to the Men and Women of the Connecticut State Police: You are NOT the enemy (UNLESS YOU CHOOSE TO BE.)

Let's assume that there are 100,000 non-compliant owners of military pattern semi-automatic rifles in your state. I think it is a larger number but 100,000 has a nice round ring to it. Let us then apply the rule of three percent to that number -- not to the entire population of your state, not even to the number of firearm owners, but just to that much smaller demonstrated number of resistors. That leaves you with at least 3,000 men and women who will shoot you if you try to enforce this intolerable act upon them. Of course you will have to come prepared to shoot them. That's a given. They know this. So please understand: THEY. WILL. SHOOT. YOU. (In what they believe is righteous self defense.) Now, if any of them follow Bill Clinton's rules of engagement and utilize the principles of 4th Generation Warfare, after the first shots are fired by your raid parties, they will not be home when you come to call. These people will be targeting, according to the 4GW that many of them learned while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, the war makers who sent you. This gets back to that "when democracy turns to tyranny, the armed citizenry still gets to vote." One ballot, or bullet, at a time.

This is all hypothetical, of course, based upon the tyrants' appetites for these hitherto law-abiding citizens' liberty, property and lives as well as upon your own willingness to enforce their unconstitutional diktat. And here's where you can do something about it. The first thing you have to realize is that the people you will be targeting do not view you as the enemy. Indeed, you are NOT their enemy, unless you choose to be one.

Somewhere around ten percent of the owners of "assault weapons" banned under the current Connecticut law haven't bothered to "register" with the state. Perhaps they learned from the experience of Californians who obeyed that state's registration law that confiscation was the furthest thing from the minds of the California legislature.

One thing is certain - if innocents get killed during any attempt to enforce this un-Constitutional law, it WILL start something that no one except Satan - and perhaps Jugears and his crew - wants.

NSA protest

There's a web site out there that wants you to fight back against the NSA monitoring everything all the time. Their ad is up on a lot of conservative web sites, including Day By Day.

Noble sentiment, so I clicked. I sent emails to my Congresscritters through them. Then I clicked on the "call you legislators" button with my phone number.

Big mistake. A computer calls you back, asks for your ZIP code, and proceeds to try and connect you to all the Congresscritters that represent your area.

By itself, this is a nice thing to let you leave messages with them easily. Except - there's no way to abort the process - say, if you don't have time right now to finish, or perhaps you need to use the phone to report an emergency. The computer ignores a hangup. You have to plod though the whole spiel to get it to let go of your line.

VA targeting veteran's arms

The new push to disarm America is aimed at those people most able to defend her from all enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC.

Feds Take Aim at Decorated Combat Veteran's Gun Rights

Tim King Salem-News.com

Like other Combat Vets, Pat Kirby has PTSD. The VA says he has to turn in his guns or face prison. This is not a misprint.

Pat Kirby and Tim King

(MYRTLE CREEK, OR) - Pat Kirby answered his country's call to arms during the Vietnam War, serving multiple tours, suffering injuries, watching friends die. Today he has a letter from the VA telling him that because his wife takes care of their family finances, he is deemed "incompetent" and for this reason, he has to turn in his guns and relinquish his 2nd Amendment Rights, or face going to prison.

It's like a bad flashback to the attitudes that led to the creation of Rambo. Veteran discrimination has not been this pronounced in years, it seems the Vietnam Veteran is always asked to take a harder road than those who served both before and after them. Suicide rates of Vietnam Veterans are astronomical, much like their brethren from the current wars. These are all reasons not to humiliate and shame Veterans, of all people, without justified cause. 

Video here. The video at the story didn't run.

The first video I produced about Pat Kirby and Susan and their efforts to halt this government seizure of basic rights it is tracks, had just accumulated over 23,000 views, when YouTube pulled it from our site, and then, quite oddly, re-added the video within only half an hour, but when it went back up there were zero views. What kind of games are taking place? Others have pointed to the new video not holding visitor counts, I have been told the number has gone backward.

So, the VA is sending threatening letters to our veterans to disarm them.

I guess our "leaders" are really getting scared of what will happen when their socialist paradise crashes down, and there are any Americans left with both weapons and the knowledge to use them effectively...

Testimony by one of the opressed

The Jugears IRS is persecuting people opposed to Jugears and the erosions of our freedoms:

Ill-Annoys - they never quit!

It's in committee - where it will likely die...

Short description: FIREARMS REGISTRATION

House Sponsors Rep. Kelly M. Cassidy Last Action Date Chamber  Action   2/5/2014 House Referred to Rules Committee Statutes Amended In Order of Appearance New Act 720 ILCS 5/24-3 from Ch. 38, par. 24-3 Synopsis As Introduced Creates the Firearms Registration Act. Provides that every person in the State must register each firearm he or she owns or possesses in accordance with the Act. Provides that a person shall not purchase or possess ammunition within this State without having first obtained a registration certificate identifying a firearm that is suitable for use with that ammunition, or a receipt demonstrating that the person has applied to register a suitable firearm under the Act and that the application is pending. Provides that the Department of State Police must complete a background check of any person who applies for: (1) a registration certificate for a firearm that was lawfully owned or possessed on the effective date of the Act, was brought into the State by a new resident, or was acquired by operation of law upon the death of the former owner; or (2) a renewal of a registration certificate unless, within 12 months of the date the renewal application is submitted, the applicant passed a background check conducted by the Department in connection with the applicant's acquisition of another firearm. Provides exceptions. Amends the Criminal Code of 2012. Provides that it is a Class 2 felony to sell or transfer ownership of a firearm to another person without complying with the registration requirement of the Firearms Registration Act. Actions  Date Chamber  Action   2/5/2014 House Filed with the Clerk by Rep. Kelly M. Cassidy   2/5/2014 House First Reading   2/5/2014 House Referred to Rules Committee Back To Top

Home | Legislation & Laws | House | Senate | My Legislation | Disclaimers | Email    This site is maintained for the Illinois General Assembly by the Legislative Information System, 705 Stratton Building, Springfield, Illinois 62706 217-782-3944   217-782-2050 (TTY)

I'll bet NEVER...

When is the UN accusation of child abuse, abuse against women, and against other religions going out for the Muslims?

UN Wants Church to Rewrite It’s Canon Law

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child not only accused the Vatican of allowing children to be abused by priests, it also urged it to revise its teachings on abortion, contraception, sex education and homosexuality.

FoxNews.com is reporting that the Committee “accused the Vatican Wednesday of ‘systematically’ adopting policies that allowed priests to rape and molest tens of thousands of children over decades, and urged it to open its files on pedophiles and bishops who concealed their crimes.”

These recommendations were submitted after subjecting Holy See to a grueling day-long interrogation last month on its implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which the Holy See ratified in 1990.

I know he won't do this, but the Pope ought to tell the UN where they can stick that idea, after folding it so it's all points...

 

Good ruling

Federal Judge: Drivers Are Allowed to Warn Others of Speed Traps

A federal judge in Missouri, Henry Autrey, has ruled that this practice—warning other drivers of speed traps—is legal and protected by the First Amendment.  The issue came up because a man (Michael Elli) in Ellisville, Missouri was pulled over and cited for flashing his lights to notify other drivers to slow down. He challenged the citation and even filed suit against the Ellisville Police Department. They dropped the charges against him (which could have resulted in a $1,000 fine), but they continued to fight Elli’s suit.
But Autrey ruled in Elli’s favor. His comments are refreshingly reasonable:

Autrey said in his ruling that the flashing of headlights was essentially a good thing, sending “a message to bring one’s driving in conformity with the law — whether it be by slowing down, turning on one’s own headlamps at dusk or in the rain, or proceeding with caution.”

About time someone clarified this - but unless you live in Missouri, don't expect to get away with this, unless you, too, are prepared to fight in court.

I'll keep on doing this as long as I can still drive.

News you never heard

The power grid is extremely vulnerable. A handful of determined people with not much in the way of destructive devices could black out much of America for years...

Runup to war? Precision strike on fiber optics, generators

WASHINGTON – Was a sniper attack on a power station’s transformer in San Jose, Calif., last year a prelude to future, perhaps larger, terrorist attacks on the vulnerable U.S. grid system?

That appears to be the consensus emerging from the attack that included a professional cutting of fiber optic lines and then shooting AK-47 rounds into the transformer of a PG&E Metcalf substation in San Jose.

The goal apparently was to cause the coolant to drain and the substation’s transformers to burn up and create a major blackout in the area.

In the attack, one or two individuals went down manholes at the suburban San Jose facility and cut fiber cables that knocked out 9-1-1 and land-line service to the power station.

In addition, they fired more than 100 7.62mm x 39mm rounds into about 10 transformers, damaging a number of them.

The idea was to cause cooling oil to leak out and force the transformers to overheat and shut down, if not burn up altogether. Depending on their size, larger transformers are imported and are specially designed, which means they are not easily replaced. Some take up to three years to swap out under normal circumstances.

The attack last year did not affect the electrical flow, owing in part to the fact that it occurred at night, demand was low and emergency workers were able to respond to prevent any major shutdown. 

Those big transformers don't sit on shelves at Home Depot, waiting to be installed. They are custom-built in only a few factories on Earth, and have LONG lead times.

Acts of war aside, a solar storm that sends a big CME our way could induce enough current in the long main feeders between the generators and the big transformers to cause them to saturate and self-destruct. AFAIK, there has been little or no work done on our grid to protect against this. One event like that could put us back in the 1880's overnight.

 

Police State America

Scenes from a militarized America: Iowa family ‘terrorized’ 

By Radley Balko, Updated: February 4 at 10:37 am

Watch this video, taken from a police raid in Des Moines, Iowa. Send it to some people. When critics (like me) warn about the dangers of police militarization, this is what we’re talking about. You’ll see the raid team, dressed in battle-dress uniforms, helmets and face-covering balaclava hoods take down the family’s door with a battering ram. You’ll see them storm the home with ballistics shields, guns at the ready. More troubling still, you’ll see not one but two officers attempt to prevent the family from having an independent record of the raid, one by destroying a surveillance camera, another by blocking another camera’s lens.

This kind of thing is going to result in some ninja cops getting killed, and more cries for "gun control...

Freefall from 24 miles up

Just saw this for the first time...



Over 750 MPH before he slowed down. The spin he was in for a couple minutes would have had me losing my lunch for sure!

Snow

We have it. Looking south out of my east drive, across the road.

All that is what the town has plowed up over the last few weeks.

Is it time?

Well, it's getting closer, anyway.

Now You Can Panic: Economist Withdraws All of His Money from Bank of America

Care to start a bank run?

Uh, no, that’s illegal. But according to an economist at the same school our Illegal Alien in Chief attended, Harvard University, it might be wise to do so. The PBS article from yesterday should cause everyone to take a moment and pause to reflect:

I have wondered for quite a while how people can justify having "money in the bank" when their savings actually are LOSING money to inflation and ridiculously low interest rates...

Pulled out my IRAs, etc. back when I was unemployed - and rumors of Jugears seizing retirement funds were going around.

When it happens, it's going to be NASTY. Get ready.