December 17, 2006

The Government Once Again....

.... proves that this is not the free country intended by our founding fathers, interfering, and not for the first time, with the competitive structure of the marketplace.

Of course, scum sucking, piece of shit, treasonous, commie liberal politicians are at the source of this particular infringement, but what's new? They always are!

In this case, the victim is a dairy farmer who chose to charge less money for his milk.

Posted by Seth at 05:08 PM | Comments (6) |

November 16, 2006

NAU Revisited

Not too long ago, I posted about the coming of the North American Union, an agenda which, much to my chagrin, is being engineered by the man I voted for twice for President and his counterparts in Mexico and Canada.

Some commenters took this either with a grain of salt, some with a degree of alarm, some, I thought, may have humored me with their comments.

As they say, it's all good. The very concept sounds both farfetched and absurd, like the plot of a Robert Ludlum novel or the fantasies of a serious paranoid.

After all, conspiracy theories abound, right?

I had thought my research on the subject was pretty extensive, in fact, somewhere along the line I was reminded of my ex-wife's own "ravings", back in the days of the Carter Administration, when she talked about then National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski's ambitions toward what was called the Trilateral Commission.

In those days I was still kinda' sorta' liberal and pretty laid back, and to tell the truth, couldn't give the proverbial "flying fuck" about such things. Please excuse mah French (spit!)....

In the comments section of my post on the North American Union ambitions of those involved, the forever awesome Always On Watch suggested that I contact a great blog called Sixth Column, who had been following the NAU proceedings for some time. I did.

We resolved to share information on anything our respective research unearthed on the subject. In that quarter, they have thus far kicked my ass, LOL.

An emailed article I recently received provides the entire history, names, methods, intentions, chronology and all, of events leading up to what is now the plan for the North American Union. It is lengthy and will require some time, but I urge you to read it in its entirety.

It should convince you, in alarming detail, of what is to come in the next four years, no matter what else occurs in the political spectrum of the United States of America.

It is here.

As I said last time out, we are indeed in grave trouble, because our very sovereignty is about to be sacrificed on the altar of corporate expediency. While our future Congresses and POTUSes will govern our country, they will be like state legislatures, while extranational congresses determine the details of our economy (a collective with Mexico and Canada), eventually becoming part of a global collective consisting of the EU, the NAU, the SAU, the AU, etc....

We are in big trouble here, a world government awaits just around the corner, and most unfortunately, the politicians who might be able to prevent it are being kept outside the loop.

As I said in my previous post about this, the involved congresses/parliaments, etc involved herein have been kept in the dark about it, as has the media.

I am wondering whether we are going to wake up and deal with this, or whether we're simply going to drift into it in blissful ignorance, becoming an entirely different country....

ULTRA-MAJOR and MEGA-GRATEFUL hat tip to CUBED!

Posted by Seth at 11:03 PM | Comments (10) |

October 20, 2006

Shame On The Bush Administration!

Most of us, I assume, are at least conversant with the affair involving (former) Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, two brave and dedicated U.S. Government sentinels of both Law Enforcement and Homeland Security who were screwed over, big time, by our government for doing their job.

A spot-on article about the incident appeared in The New American on 18 September.

The piece opens thus:

While the Bush administration seeks amnesty for illegal aliens and grants immunity to a Mexican drug smuggler, it has thrown the book at two courageous Border Patrol agents.

These two men pursued a drug dealer who was also illegally on our side of the border and attempted to apprehend him. Shots were fired. According to the agents, they did not believe the criminal had been hit, as he was able to run back into Mexico and hop into a waiting van.

A vehicle the foreign criminal had abandoned in the course of the pursuit yielded 800 pounds of freshly smuggled-in marijuana. This evidence is ironclad proof that they were not pursuing an innocent man -- of course, even had he not been smuggling drugs, he was still in this country illegally.

The result of the incident was that the Bush Administration turned on its own officers like a rabid Doberman, arresting them as criminals and prosecuting them as such, so that now each may face as many as 20 years in prison.

The drug trafficker, on the other hand, was brought back to the United States, an honored guest of Homeland Security and DOJ, for free medical treatment for a gunshot wound he allegedly sustained in the hind quarters while fleeing the federal agents. He was granted immunity for testifying against them and is in the process of suing you, me and every other U.S. taxpayer over the incident. This same scumbag has since been busted for the same offense, in the same area, and was still not prosecuted because the Bush Administration is so grateful to him for condemning its own courageous and loyal agents.

I voted for George Bush both times, and have said in the past that I would vote for him again if he could run a third time, but this filthy, disgraceful incident changes my mind completely -- it has significantly lowered my respect for both the President and his administration.

What does this say to Ramos and Compeans' fellow Border Patrol agents, or for that matter to Law Enforcement and National Security operatives throughout the United States? That they don't have the support of their President nor of his appointees?

These men should never have been prosecuted, nor should the trafficante have been pardoned.

For their 15-minute pursuit of Aldrete-Davila on February 17, 2005, and for a couple of split-second decisions they made during that suspenseful chase, agents Ramos and Compean have lost a combined 15-year record of sterling service in the Border Patrol (10 years for Ramos, five for Compean). Even more, that 15-minute pursuit in the line of duty may cost each of them 20 years in prison, possibly alongside dangerous criminals they have apprehended.

Adding terror on top of calamity, both agents and their families have been subjected to death threats. In fact, according to the smuggler Aldrete-Davila, some of his drug-cartel associates from Mexico planned a "hunting party" to track down and execute Ramos and Compean. Both of these law enforcement officers have young school-age and preschool-age children. Agent Compean's wife, Claudia, is pregnant with their third child.
Incredibly, while agents Ramos and Compean and their families face economic ruin, emotional devastation, and real physical danger, as a result of that 15-minute chase, Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila — an admitted felon and drug smuggler — has not only gotten off scot-free, he stands to become a rich man, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayers. In a seemingly unbelievable turn of events, agents for the U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security contacted the smuggler in Mexico and offered him complete immunity if he would testify that Border Patrol agents Ramos and Compean had violated his civil rights.

The two Border Patrol officers were arrested in SWAT-style raids on their homes and taken away in handcuffs in front of their families. By way of contrast, Aldrete-Davila, in exchange for agreeing to testify against the agents, was given free medical treatment in the United States, then escorted back to Mexico and released. He was also coached in his testimony by U.S. government officials, then brought back to the United States and trotted out as the star witness against Ramos and Compean.

In the meantime, during his release, Aldrete-Davila was arrested again with another drug load in the same El Paso sector where Ramos and Compean had previously intercepted him. Nevertheless, he was allowed to testify against the two agents and then was released again! He may have made many more successful drug runs into the United States since then. But he may be able to retire soon in the style of his drug-lord bosses. With encouragement and help from U.S. officials, he is suing the Border Patrol for $5 million

All emphasis mine.

I won't even comment on the crud-sucking bitch of a judge who is doing everything in her power to railroad these two good men into prison -- the fact that she was put on the bench by GWB while he was governor of Texas only reinforces my ire at the Administration.

My misgivings about George Bush's loyalty to his people might be alleviated if he gets up on his hind legs like a true leader and pardons these two men, restoring them to their former jobs with all retroactives. From the aspect of politics -- which are never far from the surface these days -- a pardon and reinstatement of Compean and Ramos would almost certainly have a powerful positive effect for Republicans in the fast approaching elections.

I am not alone in this way of thinking, there's an Ogre out there who feels about the same, along with a Raven and a very Big Dog.

Posted by Seth at 01:41 PM | Comments (8) |

June 26, 2006

A Pay Raise!!!? Talk To The Hand!!!!

A cost-of-living raise for Congress?

Congress is quietly moving to give itself a 2% cost-of-living raise next year, prompting complaints that lawmakers are trying to hide their wage boost.

A provision that would give cost-of-living adjustments to various federal officials — raising lawmakers' pay to $168,500 next year — is tucked into a bill the House of Representatives passed this month to fund the Department of Transportation and other agencies.

Well, I suppose I can see where the cost of living has increased to the point that $168k and change might be a little tough to survive on, those lunches at the Watergate and Sans Souci and trysts at the Hay Adams can add up, and I doubt that the likes of Teddy K imbibe anything less than the best, but... I've always believed that some sort of merit should be attached to a pay hike, and I'm having a really tough time thinking of any reason to give Congress a raise based on merit, or based on anything else for that matter.

Of late, they've been behaving as though they work for themselves rather than functioning as employees of the electorate and their output has been questionable as such. Instead of giving them a raise, why not just give the money to some of the criminal aliens they want to give amnesty to, so they can send it home to help bail Vicente Fox out of some of his myriad economic failures? Or use the money for their next pork barrel "earmark"?

If it were up to me, all proposals for federal pay increases on all levels would appear on the ballot on the relevant election day and we, the voters, would be the yea'ers or nayers. We are, after all, their employers. How often do we see employees anyplace else getting to sit down and vote on their pay raises?

The legislation now moves to the Senate, where Democrats such as Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts are making the raise an issue.

Feingold said last week that he'll try to stop the pay increase; Clinton has authored a bill that would tie increases in congressional pay to increases in the minimum wage. Congress hasn't raised the minimum wage — $5.15 an hour, or $10,700 a year — since 1997. During the same period, annual congressional pay has increased by $31,000.

Tom Schatz, president of the watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste, would prefer to see congressional pay hikes tied to the federal deficit, now projected at $300 billion or more. "If we have a balanced budget, maybe then they deserve a pay raise," he says.

It's got to be a cold day in hell, because on this I agree with the liberals in Congress who plan to fight the raise. I don't agree with Hillary's proposal, her plan is merely a shrewd carrot and stick approach to giving Congress an incentive to raise the minimum wage, but as far as Feingold and Kennedy(spit!) are concerned, well....

I think Tom Schatz has the right idea: Tie congressional pay raises into their performance, their spending habits being a great place to start, since whenever they spend money, it's our money they're spending.

On the supposed other side of the coin:

Congressional pay has long been a sensitive matter, in part because it's substantial. At $165,200 this year, members of Congress earn roughly four times the salary of the average American. On the other hand, they earn the same as federal district judges, deputy Cabinet secretaries, heads of major agencies and some senior federal bureaucrats. Supreme Court justices, top congressional leaders and Cabinet secretaries make more; President Bush earns $400,000 a year.

Some outside experts argue that lawmakers aren't nearly as affluent as their six-figure incomes might lead constituents to believe. "They do have some unusual expenses," says Stephen Hess, a Brookings Institution scholar who studies Congress. Chief among them: the need to maintain homes in two places, one of which is in one of the most expensive areas in the country. According to the National Association of Realtors, Washington, D.C., was the 11th priciest housing market in the nation last year.

"When you take into consideration the cost of living in two cities, the salary is average at best," says Jim Chapman, a former congressman who now works as a lobbyist.

Sure, but how many members of Congress live in middle class neighborhoods and anywhere near as modestly as most of their constituents?

I own a seven room home(not counting the laundry room, kitchen and two full baths) in a residential area in Charlotte, NC, and it costs me about $600.00 a month, give or take, to keep the bills paid, maybe another $600.00 to buy food and other necessities, and I eat well. Too well, in fact. Not counting entertainment and social issues, my annual living expenses, including homeowner's insurance and property taxes, come in at around $25,000.00 a year, and that's only because of a few ongoing luxuries. Unless you live in Georgetown or some other expensive area, you can live comfortably enough in DC on an income of $50,000.00 a year. So if I were a senator or representative, my annual cost of living might average, between living in both places, about $85,000.00 a year plus recreation. If I had a wife and a child or two who still lived at home, maybe 25k or so a year more.

On $168,500.00, that would leave me, after taxes, a good $70,000.00 plus for enjoyment, not to mention my unspent campaign money and the perks that come with being a member of Congress. Hmmm... Members of Congress aren't superstars or gods, they're merely citizens like the rest of us whom we send to DC to represent us in the running of our government. The great majority of their constituents have to budget themselves to various degrees, in fact many have little or nothing left over after taking care of "the inescapable". Perhaps that's what our politicians should have to do as well. It might give them a better perspective of the living situations of those they "govern".

Further, in the private sector, most of us get paid what we're worth to our employer, not what our personal expenses dictate. We have to adjust our lifestyles to our incomes, not the other way around. If Senator Livingston Hamilton Shmoe, lll wants to live in a fifteen room house in an upscale neighborhood back in his home state and a $5,000.00 a month apartment in DC, that's not our lookout. We don't pay Senator Shmoe to live like a baron, we pay him to do a job that he and most of his colleagues aren't doing very well at the moment.

If they aren't happy with what they're being paid for the piss poor job they're doing, let the bums go back into the private sector and practice Law, or whatever they were doing before they became politicians. Congress was never intended to be a career field, anyway -- it was supposed to be a place to which one went for one or two terms, then returned to private life to reap what they'd sewn.

For much of Congress' history, pay raises were enacted late at night, without roll call votes. To free lawmakers from the political embarrassment of having to vote on their own pay raises, Congress made itself eligible for the same cost-of-living adjustments as other federal employees in 1989.

Lately, including last year, the pay hikes have gone into effect quietly. During the 1990s, though, members voted five times to forgo the automatic pay hike. Some members say now's the time to do so again, given the costs of the war in Iraq and Katrina relief. "Maybe Congress should tighten its own belt first," Matheson says. "It would be an important symbol."

Bravo!

Posted by Seth at 05:47 AM |

June 10, 2006

Liberalism In Action

What are we supposed to make of this?

Environmental Protection Agency (Funded by your tax dollars) Celebrates Gay And Lesbian Pride Month The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), your tax supported agency of the federal government, is currently promoting June as Gay and Lesbian Pride Month.

The theme for the month is "Pride, not Prejudice."

The EPA Office of Civil Rights, Diversity Program for Sexual Orientation, is sponsoring an opening event to be held on June 14. On June 28 EPA will hosts Gilles Marchildon, Executive Director for Egale Canada (Equality Canada) as a guest speaker.

Karen Higginbotham, Director, Office of Civil Rights, states there will be other activities in which the homosexual lifestyle will be celebrated in EPA offices across the country.

I thought you might like to know that the EPA, funded by your tax dollars, has joined the push for the homosexual agenda.

To see the official notice which went out to all EPA employees, click here.

But -- What they do “between the sheets” is their concern, not mine, not anyone else’s. It’s a “lifestyle” they chose, are turned on by, belong in, whatever, but it’s their lifestyle, their sexual and social preference, their business.
That said, how does it come to pass that a federal agency whose funding comes out of my tax dollars –- and yours – is using our money to stroke, glorify and otherwise honor an “alternative lifestyle” whose practitioners are an even smaller minority than the smallest ethnic minority we acknowledge? Where is the representation in this taxation?

For that matter, why does the Environmental Protection Agency even have an "Office Of Civil Rights, Diversity Program For Sexual Orientation"? What has that to do with environmental protection, and why am I paying for it? I follow the news and the activities of the government pretty closely, but I sure as hell don’t remember ever hearing or reading that the EPA was spending my taxes on logistics, salaries and benefits for a bunch of folks comprising a “sexual orientation” committee.

I mean, WTF!?

This is exactly what I mean when I expound upon the very real phenomenon of tax-and-spend liberals sneaking up on us. They infect our government agencies with their PC programs, programs that don’t accomplish anything as far as the respective agencies’ responsibilities are concerned, but satisfy, at mega-expense to the American taxpayer, the socialist whims of the liberals that have infested the once credible Democratic Party. In the case-in-point, they are using our money to stroke their gay constituency.

If America’s founding fathers saw this crap going down, they’d hang their heads in shame....

--H/T President Donald E. Wildmon,
American Family Association

Posted by Seth at 04:11 PM | Comments (3) |

May 30, 2006

More Transportation {In}security Administration News

Just when we thought it was safe to get back on an airplane....

SAN ANTONIO --

More than 1,400 identification badges and uniform items have been reported lost or stolen from Transportation Security Administration employees since 2003, according to documents obtained by a San Antonio television station.

Now ain't that grand!

Terrorism experts said the information showed an undeniable threat to security. The Department of Homeland Security has previously warned that stolen badges and uniforms were used by terrorists to stage attacks overseas.

Saul Wilen, a San Antonio-based terrorism prevention consultant, called the issue a very serious problem.
"If you have a badge and a uniform, you are invincible in terms of the system," he said. "Not only can you get in and get around, you can get known and become a regular that becomes more and more recognized, so the next time you are less liable to have to go through the system's security, and the next time even less."

I'll go with Saul Wilen's evaluation anytime, despite the sputtered damage control spewings of the inept bean counters at the TSA.

In a statement, the TSA denied that stolen badges could lead to security breaches. "Transportation security officers, regardless of credentials or uniforms, are screened each time they enter the checkpoint," the statement read. "Badges and uniforms, used individually or collectively, would not allow access to a person with ill intent."

Just like they depend upon terrorist watchlists and the good intentions of applicants for ground crew jobs, and discount the possibility that an airport employee could possibly foster any malevolent intentions toward airplanes and their innocent human cargoes.

What a bunch of assholes!

The television station countered that statement with footage of employees bypassing or being waved through checkpoints in San Antonio and Miami. But Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, said the missing badges and possible screening lapses are "a clear and present danger to homeland security." "We are dealing with people — criminals — who are smart people and will go to great lengths to take advantage of any loopholes in our security," said Smith, who sits on the House Committee on Homeland Security.

Exactly. What are these so-called "security" managers thinking? This isn't like some retail manager screwing up on merchandizing a sale item, it's an exercise in endangering large quantities of human lives. And we pay for this through our taxes, by gum!

He said he has introduced legislation to safeguard TSA badges and uniforms and wants airports to begin issuing heavy fines to TSA employees. "When we start imposing fines and start holding people accountable for their identification, I promise you, fewer will go missing, fewer will be left in unlocked cars to be stolen and that will help our homeland security, as well," Smith said.

Who is he kidding besides himself? There are enough stolen uniforms and badges out there now to equip a major terrorist offensive, and face it: the TSA is an agency that's already proven itself to be almost purely cosmetic, its security measures nearly as porous as our southern border.

It's only a matter of time before their ineptitude proves out in a significant loss of lives.

Posted by Seth at 09:55 PM | Comments (6) |

March 28, 2006

Spinally Challenged, Or Simply Stupid?

The first thing I saw when I got online to do my start-of-the-day news reading this morning was this bunch of idiocy.

WASHINGTON -- Against a backdrop of massive demonstrations by immigration advocates and pressure from the White House, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation to create two guest-worker programs and a plan for legalizing the status of millions of immigrants now in the country illegally.

The measure is the most generous of several immigration proposals before the panel, and passed with the support of committee Democrats and some of the Senate's most conservative Republicans.

In accepting the measure, which among other things offers guest workers the chance to eventually become U.S. citizens, senators rejected another bill sponsored by two border-state Republicans that would have required guest workers and illegal immigrants to eventually return home.

Now, what is wrong with these idiots we have elected and reelected, and continue to pay to enact the laws that govern this country?

Every day we hear figures citing a criminal alien population from Mexico alone as being somewhere between fifteen and twenty million. That doesn't even include the large and constant influx of undocumented Asians, South and Central Americans the U.S. Government has incompetently permitted to enter this country and remain here.

Instead of the government taking responsibility for having allowed this fiasco to become the legal and physical quagmire it is, even the President gives us excuse-based, lame explanations for the policies most of our lazy politicians are dead set on foisting upon us:

The bill passed only hours after President Bush made his strongest appeal yet for a law that would provide employers with enough immigrant workers to keep the economy humming. Appearing at a naturalization ceremony for new citizens, Mr. Bush attempted to head off arguments within his party that a border-security law must come before any effort to help immigrants or their employers.

He called a temporary-worker program "vital to securing our border" by providing a legal channel for workers and freeing up border agents to patrol for criminals and terrorists.

Provide employers with enough illegal, undocumented, should-not-even-be-here, criminal immigrant workers? Millions of 'em? Hey, I might be wrong, here, but doesn't the law stipulate that employers are supposed to confirm that these folks they hire are eligible to work in this country?

And how about all the folks who come here -- illegally -- and live off the taxpayer? And how about all those undocumented, untaxed income dollars that are Western Union'd back to family in the old country? You know, that money that could be better served if spent here in the U.S. to keep our economy moving?

That's pretty much how the system works here, or at least is supposed to work. If taxes are paid by all workers and they reinvest their net pay in the economy by spending it in the United States, American firms of all sizes would have more money to pay employees, and, with the enforcement of employment and immigration laws executed the way they are supposed to be, these employers might feel less compelled to hire criminal aliens under the table, off the books, whatever.

Sounds kind of convoluted, doesn't it, when you really think about it. First, our politicians, who are forever collectively spending our tax dollars on superfluous projects that the people who founded this nation{Smart bunch, those were, they put together the greatest political concept in history and made it work. Too bad they didn't have cryogenics back then, we could have used 'em about now} would have stomped thunderingly down beneath furious size fourteen boots.

Taxation without representation?

How much did that self seeking pillar of politics in Alaska manage to get "earmarked" to rip us off financing construction of the thankfully ill-fated "Bridge to Nowhere"? Even though the bridge allocation got nixed due to a surplus of voter backlash significantly attributeable to the Blogosphere, "the funds", as they undoubtedly regard our tax dollars to be, remain "earmarked" for the same larcenous local politicians to use for other things, instead. But therein was a single excess of wasted taxes that got caught out, and only because the grand larcens in question were a little too hungry.

If Africa's population wasn't as largely Muslim as it is, we could overfeed the entire continent, through decades of famine, disaster and doom with all the pork our Congress generates.

I know, my terrible habit of digressing has joined in...

So. Back on topic, sorry about that.

Not really. :-)

While money has been getting pissed away by irresponsible, self seeking politicians from both sides of the aisle, once-backburnered issues that now constitute an in-your-face political battleground were doing what they do when no one responds to them: growing.

Now a whole bunch of career politicians who know exactly why we have the problem -- decades of their keeping the problem as far away from the table as possible, for reasons related to votes -- they failed to adequately secure our borders or to seriously enforce immigration policies, which, as a collective resume item, well...

Now the usual politics will come into play. Instead of overwhelmingly voting to take strong, positive steps that might be a little painful at first(you know, re-"earmarking" the money that was to finance the preservation of some anti-American graffiti in a small southwestern town, or to subsidize private educational institutions that balk at allowing military recruiters on campus), transforming our pork pesos into border securidad, the career politicians on the Hill will attempt to apply a Band-Aid to a gushing wound so as not to offend anybody who might vote for them.

Here's the kind of thinking these knuckleheads do on our behalf, in exchange for our allowing them to occupy all the trappings of a ruling class on our dime:

The Senate-passed measure is largely based on language offered by John McCain, an Arizona Republican, and Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat. Their temporary-worker plan, passed on an 11-6 vote, would grant visas to 400,000 immigrants a year initially. They would be able to bargain for wages, change jobs, unionize and would be allowed to travel home and return.

Separately, the committee passed a pilot guest-worker plan for agriculture workers that would be capped at 1.5 million workers and cut off after five years. That measure was passed at the insistence of California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, who said she feared that workers admitted under a general guest-worker program would spurn farm jobs for easier work in service or construction industries.

The committee also deferred to the McCain-Kennedy bill in its plan for dealing with an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants now in the country. Those people would have to pay a $1,000 penalty, pass a background check and get a work permit in order to stay in the U.S.

The political solution will only hurt us, big time. We are on the verge of setting a precedent by shoving federal law aside in order to accommodate political convenience, and in so doing make light of all laws. If politicians can advocate breaking the law because it makes finding solutions easier, they're definitely operating outside the boundaries of public service as we define it.

The political solution will also send a message to all potential illegals to "Come one, Come all!", and we'll be swamped by a wave of "immigration" that'll be nothing nice. If our borders aren't secure now, how will we be able to secure them then?

If that's the kind of vim we're getting for our vote, we'd do a whole lot better finding some people who graduated with Jethro Bodine and replacing both the House and the Senate with them.

Posted by Seth at 06:13 AM | Comments (6) |

January 16, 2006

Screwed By Racism

Now this is a crying shame.

Howard Baugh grew up next door to Martin Luther King Jr. and joined the Atlanta Police Department in 1953 as its 12th black recruit. He is a veteran of the civil-rights demonstrations that roiled this city -- and of a long struggle against bigotry within the police force itself.

Mr. Baugh, now 81 years old, is still fighting that battle. Together with a group of fellow officers who crossed the color line decades ago, Mr. Baugh is pressing the state of Georgia to grant him the same pension benefits as his white counterparts from that era.

Mr. Baugh and the other African-American retirees say that early in their police careers, they were blocked from participating in a state-backed supplemental retirement fund because of their color. As a result, Mr. Baugh says, he receives about $700 less each month than white officers who signed up. As many as 200 other retired black officers, many in their 70s and 80s, are in the same boat.

There shouldn't be any kind of an argument here, these guys laid their lives on the line to protect the public, excelled at their jobs and the "powers that be" should find the money to pay them pensions and retirement benefits equal to those of retired white cops.

Posted by Seth at 11:57 AM | Comments (2) |

January 07, 2006

Criminal Negligence

Identity theft and credit card fraud are criminal issues today that need to be addressed as a priority not only by the very firms that allow these crimes to be perpetrated upon their customers, but by the gubmint -- we're not talking micromanagement here, we're talking protecting the public.

Auto mechanic and father of three Joe Shmoe of Kalamazoo, Michigan shouldn't have to worry that swiping his bank card at an ATM for forty bucks' worth of spending money might provide some sleazeball with enough data to clean out his checking account. He also shouldn't have to fear that the sweet young thing at the local Tasty Freeze may be swiping his card through her own device to steal his financial data.

But it happens.

The reason that the Fed hasn't addressed this issue is that they are tied up with such Democrat issues as the Bush use of the NSA to protect our country against future terrorist attacks and the BS racist recriminations attached to Hurricane Katrina, pure Democrat political bullshit interfering with issues of legitimate concern.

Once a hot-button item, data and identity theft protection has stalled in Congress, a research analyst said Thursday, pushed aside by bigger political fish, ranging from Iraq and Hurricane Katrina to domestic spying and Supreme Court nominees.

Despite a year's worth of highly publicized security breaches and a lot of talk in Congress this summer on ways to protect consumers, there's been too little done to protect U.S. consumers' data, said Gartner research director Avivah Litan.

"It's business as usual," she said, citing two recent breaches -- one involving a lost backup tape with data on two million mortgage holders, another related to credit card fraud at gas pumps -- as evidence. "Not enough has changed. Data protection has moved up the priority list, but not nearly enough."

Meanwhile, Americans are being ripped off in significant numbers, for all their savings.

Chalk one up for the left, their strategies of obstruction are paying off, while they tie Congress up with "racist" hurricanes and their opposition to our having liberated the people of Iraq, identity theft lies in the "unattended" category.

Posted by Seth at 11:18 PM | Comments (2) |

December 26, 2005

Something To Be Both Alarmed And Enraged About

There is no excuse for this.

According to federal officials, the theft of 400 pounds of high-powered plastic explosives in New Mexico is one of the largest high explosives heists in recent history.

The material was taken from Cherry Engineering, a company owned by Chris Cherry, a scientist at Sandia National Labs. The site, located outside Albuquerque, had no guards and no surveillance cameras. It was the site's second theft in the past two years.

No guards, no surveillance cameras.

Second theft in the past two years.

"We don't have any suspect," said Wayne Dixie of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. "We don't have any leads at this point."

The stolen goods include 150 pounds of C-4 plastic explosive and 250 pounds of thin sheets of explosives that could be used in letter bombs. Also, 2,500 detonators were missing from a storage explosive container, or magazine, in a bunker owned by Cherry Engineering.

"Believe me, this can cause a catastrophic explosion of unbelievable proportions in the right configuration," said Jack Cloonan, an ABC News consultant and former FBI agent. "So it's very dangerous. We have to find this stuff and find it now."

Not only was this dumbfuck, Chris Cherry, inexcusably negligent by not properly securing the site, but just as irresponsible were whichever state or federal agencies that licensed him to store such quantities of explosives without first ascertaining that necessary security was in place. Especially given the fact that the site had been hit before.

Now, I'm the last person to endorse government micromanagement of private sector concerns, but that sentiment ends when materials or activities of a company are potentially dangerous to large numbers of people and property that have nothing to do with them.

Nuclear power plants, oil refineries, places where all manner of hazardous materials are stored in quantity and sites where explosives are stored should be held to high safety and security standards -- I don't mean that the agencies concerned should take the respective firms' word for anything, I mean that they need to send people onsite to ascertain that all standards, and I mean strict standards, are met to the letter. All too often, bean counters are permitted to gamble with the lives of hundreds or even thousands of innocent people. If companies don't want to comply because the expenses entailed cut into their profits, let them relocate their hazardous sites to remote, unpopulated areas.

As far as this bonehead Cherry is concerned, he should be barred forever from possessing so much as a firecracker.

Posted by Seth at 04:36 AM |

December 23, 2005

Jumpin' Jehoshaphat!

And now more stuff that should not go anywhere near a public forum makes the news.

A classified radiation monitoring program, conducted without warrants, has targeted private U.S. property in an effort to prevent an al-Qaida attack, federal law enforcement officials confirmed Friday. While declining to provide details including the number of cities and sites monitored, the officials said the air monitoring took place since the Sept. 11 attacks and from publicly accessible areas — which they said made warrants and court orders unnecessary.

U.S. News and World Report first reported the program on Friday. The magazine said the monitoring was conducted at more than 100 Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C. area — including Maryland and Virginia suburbs — and at least five other cities when threat levels had risen: Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, New York and Seattle.

The magazine said that at its peak, three vehicles in Washington monitored 120 sites a day, nearly all of them Muslim targets identified by the FBI. Targets included mosques, homes and businesses, the magazine said.

This is what I would most definitely call irresponsible journalism, just as I would the recent New York Times reporting on the monitoring of international telephone conversations by individuals suspected of al-Qaeda ties, which started a barrage of accusations from the left of George Bush and the NSA spying on the average American and likening the President to a dictator.

I blogged not long ago on the strong possibility that terrorists have already acquired such nasty items as suitcase nukes.

How is it a violation of anyone's rights if the government runs radiation detection scans over their property, whether it is public or private?

How many normal, law abiding American households, places of worship or business are likely to emit sufficient radiation to warrant the FBI to believe they may possess quantities of HEU(highly enriched uranium) or perhaps even a suitcase nuke or dirty bomb?

Sure, we've had crazes over pet rocks and such, but since when have we come into a fad for "the family atomic bomb?"

This is insane! The Bush Administration is trying to protect our country and its citizens against horrors that are not only possible, but very likely to occur if we let our guard down, and the Mainstream Media, because they can sell newspapers to leftists by casting aspersions on Bush, pure and simple, are reporting programs that should remain secret(I'll say it again, al-Qaeda reads the newspapers and watches CNN, just like a hundred million other people), in order that the programs' effectiveness be maintained, in their continuing efforts to ignite dialogue against the President's policies.

Okay, so we know where the MSM stands on patriotism, or better still, where they do not stand, and on common sense, again, where they do not stand.

Those insiders that leak this kind of information need to be found(even if irresponsible journalists protecting sources must set up housekeeping in the slammer for indefinite periods) and prosecuted for treason.

You cannot play politics with survival and expect to survive.

Posted by Seth at 04:21 PM |

November 28, 2005

What The Hell?

Now, is this funny, or what?

Even though I must confess that I did kind of chuckle about it, when you stop to think about it, I'd have to say it's a lot less funny than it is "what?"

I mean, how does it come to be that U.S. Border Patrol uniforms are hecho en Mexico? Is the contractor that supplies the uniforms an idjit?

The labels inside the U.S. Border Patrol uniforms have been making many federal agents feel uneasy. It's not the fit or feel of the olive-green shirts and pants, but what their labels read: "Made in Mexico."

"It's embarrassing to be protecting the U.S.-Mexico border and be wearing a uniform made in Mexico," says T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, a 6,500-member union.

I'll just bet it is, T.J., I'll just bet it is...

Posted by Seth at 09:03 PM |

September 02, 2005

Alarming News From Nawlins

The friend I expected to visit with me last night called to say he needed to put off our drinking session for a night or two as his boss had stressed him out to the point that he could not be friendly to man nor beast. I respect his decision, because he works for Jimmy Lee, a little Japanese entrepreneur whose only friend is money and who treats, out of pure prejudice, his American employees like slaves. I've known Jimmy for awhile. He's one of those slumlords(he owns a fleabag hotel in what was formerly Chicago's skid row, a 17 storey building nestled now between a Comfort Inn and a parking lot in the most expensive zip code in this part of the country) who spends much of his time dodging city agencies in court over numerous code violations.

In the man's defense, he does carry good tenants when they fall on hard times, though he tends to make their lives a living hell in the meantime. This is a case of a guy who arrived in the U.S. as a peon and built his own little empire. He's got a good heart, he just doesn't want anyone to know about it. Personally, despite his seeming greed, I like the man. He does a good job of hiding his humanity, but it is there. He simply wants to see others bust their asses and succeed like he did, and if they don't or can't, he views it as inferiority.

Oh, well.

So I went down to the hotel bar for a drink. Gabriel and Rebecca, the bartenders, were excellent at their job. I had a pint of Pilsner Urquel on draft and a shot or two of Sauza Hornitos. Then I returned to my suite and read the news.

I am distressed beyond belief about some of the things happening in Nawlins, according to the Associated Press.

New Orleans descended into anarchy Thursday, as corpses lay abandoned in street medians, fights and fires broke out and storm survivors battled for seats on the buses that would carry them away from the chaos. The tired and hungry seethed, saying they had been forsaken. ``This is a desperate SOS,'' mayor Ray Nagin said.

``We are out here like pure animals,'' the Rev. Issac Clark said outside the New Orleans Convention Center, where he and other evacuees had been waiting for buses for days amid the filth and the dead.

``I'm not sure I'm going to get out of here alive,'' said tourist Larry Mitzel of Saskatoon, Canada, who handed a reporter his business card in case he goes missing. ``I'm scared of riots. I'm scared of the locals. We might get caught in the crossfire.''

I'm having some  technical trouble with links that will change in the near future when I change servers from customer unfriendly Square Space to another forum like Blogger, but here is a link to the story, via the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-5249697,00.html

This majorly sucks, but it's not anything non-understandable where human nature is concerned. These people have been yanked from normal life into an existence not unlike pure horror: Their homes are gone, their entire world has turned into a hell few civilized people can understand and the disruption of communications has cut them off from the money they have in their bank accounts, so they are broke, undomiciled and basically "fucked" for the time being. The despair and the frustration are taking their respective tolls.

I've donated money to one relief venue and am going to donate more to another.

We already know that as usual, America is on its own, despite all the help we give other countries in times of disaster, none of those countries nor any of our "allies" will help us.  If you can, please donate whatever you can afford to help the people of New Orleans. If we don't help our own, they will not be helped, because the rest of the world doesn't give a tinker's damn about the United States except when we can do for them.

Posted by Seth at 08:09 AM | Comments (4) |

July 06, 2005

On Sex Offenders

The illustrious Raven at Rightly So  has posted this  spot-on story about the kind of monster, a child-victimizing sex offender, that we need to do a lot more about eliminating than we have been doing.

The post cites a case of a man who kidnaped an eight year old girl and her nine year old brother and in the girl's case, kept her and abused her for six months. Her brother is presumed dead.

Raven's take on this is completely right, we have to deal with assholes like these in a definitive manner, not treat them like normal people with normal rights that enable them to mingle among the rest of the citizenry and choose their targets at their leisure.

"And the liberal sex freaks will come to his defense...and make excuses for all his "behavior" and blame his upbringing and everyone else but HIM..."

There are too damn many liberals who, not seeing any immediate dangers in sight for their own households, will expound upon this pervert's "rights" while ignoring those of the victim. The scenario's become all too commonplace. This "he suffered as a child" thing is genuinely too bad, but it's not the rest of our fault nor something the rest of us have any reason to feel guilty about. It doesn't excuse the courts for endangering the public by letting them have any kind of benefit of a doubt that lets them walk free. For the protection of the innocent, these types of predators have to be deprived of access to the public, not given a chance to wander the streets in search of new victims, not on bail, not on OR, not on an outpatient basis, parole or probation.

Posted by Seth at 03:51 PM |