Say Anything Blog

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,526972,00.html

A written exam administered by the Pentagon labels “protests” as a form of “low-level terrorism” — enraging civil liberties advocates and activist groups who say it shows blatant disregard of the First Amendment.

The written exam, given as part of Department of Defense employees’ routine training, includes a multiple-choice question that asks:

“Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorism?”

— Attacking the Pentagon

— IEDs

— Hate crimes against racial groups

— Protests

The correct answer, according to the exam, is “Protests.”

“Its part of a pattern of equating dissent and protest with terrorism,” said Ann Brick, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, which obtained a copy of the question after a Defense Department employee who was taking the test printed the screen on his or her computer terminal.

This is wrong, wrong, wrong and I agree with the ACLU completely.  Protest is one of the freedoms we enjoy as American’s and to equate it to terrorism is an anathema to American political thought.  Its good that the ACLU is standing up for our right to protest.  (I never thought I would type that sentence)

The Army is 234 years old today.  Happy Birthday to the Army.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Whats-behind-Obamas-sudden-firing-of-the-AmeriCorps-inspector-general-47877797.html

Hope and Change come to Washington

The Inspector Generals were created to independently investigate allegations of fraud and waste in government programs.  Obama has decided to fire the IG for the AmeriCorps, Gerald Walpin.  They told him he had one hour to resign or be fired.  No reason was given.  Sen. Charles Grassley immediately protested.

Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, who is something of a guardian angel for inspectors general, fired off a letter to the White House about the affair.

“I was troubled to learn that last night your staff reportedly issued an ultimatum to the AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin that he had one hour to resign or be terminated,” Grassley wrote.  “As you know, Inspectors General were created by Congress as a means to combat waste, fraud, and abuse and to be independent watchdogs ensuring that federal agencies were held accountable for their actions.  Inspectors General were designed to have a dual role reporting to both the President and Congress so that they would be free from undue political pressure.  This independence is the hallmark of all Inspectors General and is essential so they may operate independently, without political pressure or interference from agencies attempting to keep their failings from public scrutiny.”

Sen. Grassley pointed out the law requires a reason be give to fire an Inspector General.  The Obama administration gave its reason today.  It stems from the investigation of an Obama supporter, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson into the misuse of federal grants by a nonprofit group named the St. HOPE Academy.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/11/obama-plans-americorps-inspector-general-scandal/

The IG found that Johnson, a former all-star point guard for the Phoenix Suns, had used AmeriCorps grants to pay volunteers to engage in school-board political activities, run personal errands for Johnson and even wash his car…The U.S. attorney’s office reached a settlement in the matter. Brown cited press accounts that said Johnson and the nonprofit would repay half of nearly $850,000 in grants it received.

More Hope and Change!

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/11/slain-guard-recalled-as-a-gentle-giant/?feat=home_headlines

We have forgotten the hero’s of the Holocaust Museum shooting, the guards.  The nut entered the museum and started shooting.  Mr Johns was wounded, two other guards stood their ground eliminated the killer.  I would like to thank the two guards and Mr. Johns for saving the lives of untold numbers of museum goers.

Thank you, words are not enough to express the debt owed to you.

One of my buddies in the 82nd sent this to me this morning.  I thought I would pass it on.

“To Combined Joint Task Force 82,

65 years ago, at 2h30 (French Local time), you jumped from hundreds of DAKOTAS in the dark skies over Normandie in order to liberate France and Europe.

That D-Day, you wrote the most glorious page of your history and the name of your Division is forever famous in France.

That D-Day, you and the allied forces met their rendezvous with destiny.

6 June 2009, Afghanistan; we are still brothers in arms.

We will never forget what you did on D-Day.

In the name of all the French soldiers embedded with CJTF-82, thank you for what you have done.

Today, in celebration of those events 65 years ago, we are “All Americans.”

Airborne!

Ltc Pierre V.
French LNO

The French haven’t forgotten the actions of our brave men or our allies.  We shouldn’t either.

We won, reich-wingers! It’s gonna be so awesome watching you hatemongers starve to death after my man B-rock destroys America, assuming I’m still alive to watch and I haven’t yet been eaten and had my fat rendered to make soap.

I saw this at Ace of Spades, over there it was sarcastic.  I got to thinking that this sarcasm reminded me of one our trolls.  Anyone else?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/12/2568402.htm

An Indian man who fathered seven daughters has not washed for 35 years in an apparent attempt to ensure his next child is a boy, newspapers reported.

Kailash “Kalau” Singh replaces bathing and brushing his teeth with a “fire bath” every evening when he stands on one leg beside a bonfire, smokes marijuana and says prayers to Lord Shiva, according to the Hindustan Times.

I don’t know about your spouse, but if I didn’t bathe for 35 years I would never get the chance to have another kid.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1179549/The-real-Top-Guns-Never-mind-health-safety—worlds-dangerous-sport—Royal-Navys-field-gun-race.html

If you have never seen it, it is one hell of a race.  Words can’t describe it, it is a fine display of team work.  That is a 1200 pound gun.  Just watch.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2010/assets/trs.pdf

  TERMINATION: MULTIPLE KILL VEHICLE PROGRAM; Department of Defense

  The Administration proposes to terminate the Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV), which is a long-term research and development program designed to counter ballistic missile threats by using several “kill” vehicles launched from a single interceptor, or missile. The Administration will instead focus on proven, near-term missile defense programs that can provide more immediate defenses of the United States, its deployed forces, and allies against ballistic missile attack.

  Justification

  The primary reason the Administration proposes to terminate this long-term development program is to focus, instead, on proven, near-term missile defense programs, such as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense programs. The capabilities of the THAAD and Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense programs have been demonstrated through numerous successful flight tests. This termination of MKV will save over $4 billion from 2010 through 2015.

Now that the one has spoken we will hear of “unproven missle defenses” no more!

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article/article?f=/c/a/2009/04/21/BAK9176EGO.DTL

District Attorney Robert Kochly has refused to prosecute many misdemeanors because of “budget cuts”.  The list of crimes that will not be prosecuted include assault, theft, burglary, traffic laws, shoplifting, trespass, vandalism and minor drug crimes. 

Barry Grove, a deputy district attorney who is president of the Contra Costa County District Attorneys Association, said, “There’s no question that these kinds of crimes are going to drastically affect the quality of life for all the citizens of Contra Costa County.”

The decision not to go after any perpetrators of certain offenses, Grove said, amounts to “holding up a sign and advertising to the criminal element to come to Contra Costa County, because we’re no longer going to prosecute you.”

Why would you advertise that you are not going to prosecute certain crimes?  It just tells criminals what they can get away with.  I guess it is open season on the citizens of Contra Costra.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/world/middleeast/19baghdad.html?_r=1

A few quotes…

“This is great,” Walid Brahim said. “We used to buy alcohol and just drink secretly in our house.”

The bar is men-only, as pretty much all respectable taverns are, but the brothers look forward to an even brighter future.

“If this security continues,” Farat Brahim said, “within a year all the waiters will be girls.”

The local police, weary of years of dodging assassins and cleaning up after car bombings, are blasé about a little vice.

“Today we are dealing with more normal things. All the world is facing such problems,” said Col. Abdel Jaber Qassim Sadir, assistant police chief in Karada, a central Baghdad neighborhood.

One with the quote of the year…

One police detective said he would not dream of enforcing the law against prostitutes. “They’re the best sources we have,” said the detective, whose name is being withheld for his safety. “They know everything about JAM and Al Qaeda members,” he said, using the acronym for Jaish al-Mahdi or Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia.

The detective added that the only problem his men had was that neighbors got the wrong idea when detectives visited the houses where prostitutes were known to live. They really do just want to talk, he said.

“If I had my way, I’d destroy all the mosques and spread the whores around a little more,” the detective said. “At least they’re not sectarian.”

I don’t even know what to say…

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/04/super-snipers.html

US Navy Seals ended the pirate hostage situation with three well placed shots in medium to heavy seas.  DARPA has a program in place to make them even deadlier.  They are trying to make scopes that will use laser pulses to map eddies in the air.  If successful, US Snipers will have a range of 2000 meters in 40MPH winds. 

The agency is also working on ways to radically upgrade snipers’ scopes and spotting gear. Researchers in the “One Shot” program are trying to build an optical system that’ll compensate for hiccups in the local atmosphere. By using thousands of laser pulses, agency-funded investigators are hoping to create a profile of the “eddies” in the air, as the light bounces back. The scope, through a series of algorithms, can take those eddies into account, as the sniper team aims. Darpa hopes the new scope will give snipers lethal precision at a range of up to 2000 meters, in winds up to 40 miles per hour. If it happens, Defense Department researchers say, it’ll boost a sniper’s kill-rate by ten-fold, or more, and let snipers “engage and pull the trigger” in “less than one second.”

They will also make US Snipers “invisible”. 

A companion project, Super-Resolution Vision System (SRVS), wouldn’t just make snipers more accurate. It would make them functionally invisible, as well. The system is trying to use “heat haze”—that shimmer you see on summer days, out in the distance—for helping snipers, instead of inhibiting them. In any given instant, the heated air acts as a series of lenses; you may be able to look right through them and see a magnified view of the scene beyond. The trick is to use digital technology to identify the “lucky regions” or “lucky frames” when a clear view appears and assemble them into a complete picture. SRVS researchers are aiming to do just that.

Outstanding!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1168940/Obamas-fly-chef-860-miles-White-House—just-make-pizza.html

   

“WASHINGTON (Associated Press) - The president’s new science adviser said Wednesday that global warming is so dire, the Obama administration is discussing radical technologies to cool Earth’s air.”

In his February 24 address to Congress, President Obama asked for “legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution.” But don’t assume that this administration, in contrast to its predecessor, is overly concerned about the threat to humanity from global warming.

Democrats tell us that we need to reduce our carbon footprint.  We need to use florescent light bulbs, drive smaller cars, place huge taxes on energy with a cap and trade scheme and lower our carbon footprint.  How do they act?  They raise the level of heating in the White House to green house levels and then fly a pizza chef 1720 miles round trip to make pizza for Obama and his staff.  Hypocrites anyone?  I’ll believe global warming is real when the people that push me to make sacrifices LEAD BY EXAMPLE.  A wise man in the military once told me leadership is not a position, leadership is ACTION.

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h875/text

This is a travesty of a bill.  It strips the power to regulate food from the States and creates the Federal Food Safety Administration.  It regulates all slaughterhouses and farms to include the farm your family grows in the backyard.

http://www.ftcldf.org/news/news-02mar2009.htm

HR 875 mandates that FSA issue regulations that “require each food production facility to have a written food safety plan that describes the likely hazards and preventive controls implemented to address those hazards” [Section 206(c)(2)].  If such a regulation does in fact call for a HACCP plan (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point, ’Hass-sepp’), farmers will be required to do the following in developing a plan for their farming operation: It would require each farm to do the following.

  1.  Conduct a hazard analysis (e.g., list the pathogens that could be present in the farming operation);
  2. Determine the critical control points (e.g., identify points in the operation where pathogens would most likely be present or could be introduced);
  3. Establish critical limits;
  4. Establish monitoring procedures;
  5. Establish corrective actions;
  6. Establish verification procedures; and
  7. Establish record-keeping and documentation procedures.

Any violation of the law comes with a one million dollar a day fine per violation and up to five years in jail.  It also allows the FSA to keep those fines and spend the money unappropriated on enforcement and inspection activities.  It opens farms to unannounced inspections by the Federal Government were they have to prove they are following the guidelines outlined in HR 875.  It regulates what the farmer can do on the farm. 

HR 875 requires the agency to issue regulations that establish ”minimum standards related to fertilizer use, nutrients, hygiene, packaging, temperature controls, animal encroachment, and water” with respect to “growing, harvesting, sorting, and storage operations” [Section 206(c)(3)]; and, “with respect to animals raised for food”, the regulations are to establish “minimum standards related to the animal’s health, feed, and environment which bear on the safety of food for human consumption” [Section 206(c)(4)]. It also places the burden of proof on the farmer to prove that any food produced will not be used in interstate commerce. 

HR 875 has expanded the definition of “adulteration” in the FFDCA to include “bearing or containing a contaminant that causes illness or death among sensitive populations” [Section 3(3)(b)].  “Contaminant” is defined in the bill as “a bacterium, chemical, natural toxin or manufactured toxicant, virus, parasite, prion, physical hazard, or other human pathogen that when found on or in food can cause human illness, injury or death” [Section 3(10)].  What this means is that with this new definition of adulterated food, FSA will be lowering tolerance levels for contaminants that can be safely and lawfully present in food [Section 204(c)(1)(A)].  Many foods that would not be considered adulterated under current standards would be found to be adulterated under the definition contained in HR 875.

It also requires the farmer keep lists that track the history, use and location of a “food item”.  The bill also requires a farmer to keep customer lists and provide them to the FSA.  What this means is the day of the roadside vegetable stand or up pick em strawberry or apple orchard are over. So goodbye to the farmers market, organic farming and locally grown food.  How are they going to make this regulation apply to all farms even your backyard garden.  It is up to the farmer to prove any food he sells or gives away is not being taken across state lines.  Section 406 states that…SEC. 406. PRESUMPTION. 1 In any action to enforce the requirements of the food safety law, the connection with interstate commerce required for jurisdiction shall be presumed to exist.

In effect this bill shifts farming to the large corporate farm.  They are already required to do most of these things anyway so why not make your small farmer do them too, right?  Its no shock to me that the sponsor of this bill is is Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT). Her husband has Monsanto as one of his clients.