It's Friday!!

I know it's really Thursday. I'm not that tired, but it is my Friday. I'm off work until next Tuesday at 1:00 PM. I didn't get a heck of a lot of sleep yesterday (my own fault), but work was fairly quiet, so I'll probably just relax and nap today and try to skew my sleep cycle back to nighttime.

What I saw last night:

No paper trail on Obama: Judicial Watch
Via HotAir

The president of a prominent watchdog group said Wednesday that he believes Democratic presidential frontrunner Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) “intended to leave no paper trail” during his time in the Illinois Senate. …

In a statement, Fitton noted that his group has sought access to Obama’s records as a state senator and questioned whether the presidential candidate has been forthcoming with regard to what happened to those documents.

However, he said that “nobody knows where they are, if they exist at all” and claimed that “Obama’s story keeps changing.”

Isn't that just grand? I'm split on whether the records are missingdestroyed, or this man running for POTUS didn't do a damn thing during his 8 years in the Illinois Senate. Either way, it ain't pretty.
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Hot Air TV: Mattera stumps Winter Soldier II tale-tellers

Did he really expect these guys to swear that the tales they're telling are true. Of course not, but it was fun watching them squirm a bit.
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Pennsylvania's Superdelegates Measure Clinton, Obama (Update1)

While the New York senator is leading in polls, some undecided superdelegates -- elected officials who get an automatic vote on the party presidential nomination regardless of the primary's outcome -- say they are concerned that her nomination would motivate greater numbers of Republicans to turn out in November to vote against her, and other Democrats too.

Damned if they do....This is getting to be just to much fun. It seems like every day the Dems come to a fork in the road and neither choice is going to get them to where they want to go.
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This ties in with the above:

Sen. Nelson Wants To Revamp Voting, Scrap Electoral College

Nelson plans to be in Tallahassee this morning to deliver an address from the state Senate floor to propose a major election process overhaul - including the politically improbable notion of dumping the Electoral College in favor of a national popular vote.

"The time for reform is now," Nelson said in an advance copy of the Democratic senator's speech sent out by his staff Wednesday.

We've seen what a fine job the Dems have done with their Primaries, so lets allow them to rewrite the Constitution and we can have this much chaos going on right up to the inauguration.

Nelson, whose own state has been in the center of a series of recent election controversies, has called for electoral changes before.

Now, the senior Florida senator is seizing on the latest controversy - the battle over Florida's Democratic delegates - to renew that effort..

The Democratic National Committee stripped Florida of its delegates to the party's nominating convention because the state moved its primary to Jan. 29, when party rules held that only four other states could hold their contests before Feb. 5.

Now I've heard that Florida is a Republican controlled state and it's the evil GOP that forced the DNC to not recognize the results....but:

From Wikipedia

In May 2007, the Florida Legislature passed House Bill 537, in response to public support for Florida to return to a "paper trail" for elections. During the legislative process, a number of amendments were added, one of which moved the date of the state's primary to January 29, 2008, setting up a confrontation with the DNC.[54] The vote passed with bipartisan support: 118 to 0 in the House, 37 to 2 in the Senate.

[emp-mine]

Sounds like there weren't to many Dems thinking about rules they knew about (passed only 2 years prior) or like typical Libs, they figured that that was what they wanted to do and they could get away with it...because that's what we want.

Effin' children.

Up until this year when we moved our Primary up from November to February (inside the rules)I was always pissed me off that the state with the largest population had no say in our parties candidate. That even then I had to go for my second choice, and lose, was a disappointment, but that's life. That only 20% of the people bothered to vote shouldn't bother me, but maybe that's the number of legal citizens left here.

"In December, I lost that court fight," Nelson said in the early version of his speech. "But I have continued to push for my party to find a way to seat a delegation from Florida, while giving Floridians a meaningful voice in the selection of their party's nominee."

Nelson said."If nothing else, this election has provided further evidence that our system is broken,"

As a result, Nelson is expected to spell out details of a "broader-based" election-reform package that he plans to introduce.

[emp-mine]

Sippy Cup banging of the highest order. "I want!, I want!!, I waaaant!!!!"
And because you went against known rules, you are now ready to throw them all out and make sure they get rewritten in the way you require...until the next time you want to change them.

By far, the most controversial among the list of reforms could be Nelson's call for a resolution for a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College and allow direct election of a president by popular vote.

"If the principle of one-person, one-vote is to mean anything, the candidate who wins a majority of the votes should win the presidency," Nelson said in his prepared speech. "This country cannot afford to wait that long, before we fix the flaws we still see in our election system."

I'm in the process of reading "The Heritage Guide To the Constitution" right now, but I'm only up to "Qualifications for the Senate" (pg 65) and will have to skip ahead to "Electoral College" (pg 186) to really understand how this mechanism works. I did skim over, the related "Electors for the District of Columbia" (pg 426) which only covers giving D.C. representation just to make sure, but for over 200 years this system seems to have worked overall, and from my experience, anytime Congress tries to improve something, it gets worse.

Even if this amendment gets though Congress, I can't see 3/4 of the states ratifying it, it would put to much power in the large population states.

I do have some funny stuff, but I think I'll post it later.

Zzzzzzz...

Woke the boy up yesterday to do his brakes, but he hadn't picked up the parts yet and then I couldn't get to sleep. Not usually a problem with me. If I can lean against something and close my eyes, I can nod off if I want.

Back in the days when I worked a normal schedule, I would watch the end of 11 o'clock news, slide down in bed and be asleep before the "Tonight Show" theme would play.

I use to have a Boss/friend that would suffer from insomnia, but I believe his problem was when he couldn't fall off, he would seriously worry about not falling asleep, thus sending himself into one of those vicious cycles that feeds off itself.

I never really worried, figuring that when I get tired enough, I'll fall asleep.

In 50+ years, I can only think of, maybe, 5 or 6 times I really couldn't sleep for more than one or twos days.

I did get to sleep for about 3 1/2 hours, but as I said yesterday, today was a nonRelief Day (12 hour shift) and I have one more night to go.

I did luck out. When the foreman moseyed in around 8 this morning, he laid out all the big projects he had planned. I just said "Bob will be very excited about getting these things done when he come in at 9, I've got to go do my final rounds and oil up the equipment".


I did get a chance to cruise the web last night, but to tell the truth, I can't remember a whole lot of what I read.

If I can't sleep today, it'll most likely be one of those times tomorrow that I'll get home and sleep for 18 to 24 hours straight.

The only problem when this happens is 1) I lose a whole day of the five I have off, and 2) when I wake up, I am STARVING and either will find that everything in the house must be eaten now, or just the idea of eating anything makes me want to puke.

Thank G-d for beer, "liquid bread" it always seems to fit the bill, however, drink one or two beers on an empty stomach and you want to go back to sleep.

Ahh well, I've managed to survive five years on this schedule, I guess I make make a few more.

Another calm work night, which is a good thing. As soon as the sun and son are up, we get to do the front brakes on the boys car. So today will be a long day, and tomorrow will be long, as it's nonrelief day. It's suppose to be a day where the foreman covers a gap in the shift rotation, but he won't, so the graveyard and afternoon guys have to work extra hours.

On one side, I don't mind the OT, but then the office bitches about how much OT we're getting. Eff'em.

What I perused in the news:

Why do people keep insisting that the BBC is the best news source available? They've been busted as much or more as any other MSM outlet for doctoring their stories. Well here's another.

Pali Home Demolition That Wasn't

“The BBC regrets” (via Malkin)

Which contained two links to fable about the destruction of the families house that belonged to the matyr asshole Ala Abu Dheim, the terrorist who murdered eight students and wounded nine others in the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva (Rabbinical Seminary).

Via Camera:

Against footage of a bulldozer destroying a burning home, BBC reporter Nick Miles was heard in voiceover proclaiming:

In the hours after the attack, Israeli bulldozers destroyed his [the terrorist’s] family home. Later, his mourners set up Hamas and Islamic Jihad banners nearby.

Only one small problem...it's not true.

In fact, the film clip selected by BBC staff could not possibly have been of the terrorist’s family home, as it is still standing (as of March 12) and, together with the nearby public mourning tent erected by the family, serves as a shrine dedicated to the "martyred" terrorist. That such a shrine is still allowed to remain in place has, in fact, prompted public outrage among Israelis and members of Knesset across the political spectrum. On Monday, March 10 – three days after the report aired – Knesset speaker Dalia Itzik (Labor) petitioned the Attorney General to order the demolition of the public tent and the terrorist’s family home.

Not only does the house still stand, but there is a public mourning tent for this murderer, but why would the BBC do this?

BBC's rush to judgement is consistent with its pattern of minimizing Israeli suffering while emphasizing Palestinian victimhood. After all, the BBC – far from being the impartial news organization it claims to be – is well-known for its biased coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict. (See CAMERA critiques of the BBC.) This time, however, the BBC has gone a step further by offering false evidence of Abu Dheim's home demolition that had not even taken place.

On March 13th,seven days after their initial report (and after floggings by numerous blogs) the BBC issued this:

Now, we would like to clarify a report we heard at this hour last Friday about the attack by a Palestinian gunman on a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem. In the report, the day after the attack, BBC World said that the gunman's home in east Jerusalem had been demolished by the Israeli authorities. That was not correct, and the images broadcast were of another demolition.

[Emp-mine]


But a week has past, and who even remembers that there was another terrorist attack. (see "General Info" on right sidebar)
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Diversity for Diversities Sake

Via NRO

What Price ‘Diversity’?
The assault on standards in the LAPD.

By Jack Dunphy

The last true meritocracy in the Los Angeles Police Department, perhaps one of the last to be found anywhere in America outside the military, is about to pass into memory. The LAPD’s Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team, which since its inception in 1971 has confronted and captured thousands of murderers, robbers, kidnappers, and every other type of crazed thug imaginable, will soon be crushed under the accumulating weight of a foe it is ill-equipped to oppose and can but hope to vanquish: misguided but nonetheless inexorably advancing notions of political correctness and social engineering. And what a shame this is.

Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Robert C. J. Parry, a former Army National Guard infantry officer who served in Iraq, exposed the LAPD’s plan to lower the standards for applicants to the department’s SWAT team, this with the transparent aim of placing the first female police officer in its ranks. The Times followed up with added details in this front-page, above-the-fold story last Tuesday, a story for which neither LAPD William Bratton nor anyone else in the LAPD hierarchy would comment. It appears that Bratton, who at every opportunity has proclaimed his commitment to openness and “transparency” within the department, has been caught in his own web of duplicity.

Changes to the long-established SWAT selection process have been instituted without publicity (at least until now), and without the approval or even the knowledge of the civilian Police Commission, ostensibly the policymaking board that oversees the LAPD. The changes were based on a report by a panel convened by Bratton himself and charged with, we were told at the time, investigating a 2005 incident in which a 19-month-old girl, Suzie Peña, was killed by police gunfire. The girl’s father was using her as a shield as he fired at the officers who were trying to rescue her, and she was tragically shot and killed when the officers returned fire. Remarkably, this was the only incident in the unit’s history that resulted in the death of a hostage.

While an examination of this incident was the stated purpose for Bratton’s convening of a “Board of Inquiry,” it is now clear that Suzie Peña’s death was merely a pretext, one that provided cover for Bratton to institute changes to the SWAT team based on the report of a supposedly objective panel of experts. But, as Mr. Parry pointed out in his piece, the board did not interview even a single officer involved in the Peña incident. Moreover, it is now clear that many of the board’s members were selected neither for their objectivity nor their expertise, but rather for their willingness to produce a report that supported the changes Bratton already sought to implement. Only one member of the board had SWAT experience (and what a lonely ordeal it must have been for him), while the others were either police executives or lawyers. None of the members were LAPD officers.

Gotdamn politicians, and this includes "Chief" Bratton, to convene a board for the stated guise of looking into one thing and not even touching on that issue, but to go off on a tangent, and outside of Department input or oversight, decide to rewrite policy and rules.

The selection process for a new group of SWAT officers is currently underway, but it is radically different from the one used in 2006, when the last group of officers was added to the team. What had been a five-day series of evaluations designed to test not only a candidate’s skills but also his dedication and leadership abilities has now been watered down to a four-part process consisting of a physical fitness test, an obstacle course (one that is not all that challenging), an interview, and a background check. Any candidate who passes all four phases will be sent to SWAT school, and all who complete SWAT school will be placed on an eligibility list and selected for SWAT as vacancies occur. Two female officers are among the current applicants, and at least one of them will surely make it through to the SWAT team, even if only because Chief Bratton wishes it so.

I'm not against a female on SWAT, but I am against changing the goalposts, just to get a woman in there. If a woman can pass muster under the old rules, she has my whole hearted backing of her appointment, but if she gets in due to "revised" standards, do you really feel she deserves to be there, or that the ones that work with her are going to trust her to do the job?

I know that women in the military have proven that they can do the job given the chance, but even the LAPD SWAT is a small group. They were formed to respond to extraordinary situations and require extraordinary abilities.

Ahh for the days of Chief Parker and Chief Gates, the men who developed the idea of SWAT. They took a corrupt and demoralized police force and, for a period, made it the hallmark of policing.
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Fun Stuff

How People Count Cash?

I never thought about it before, but I have run into some of these styles and wondered "WTF?". Some of these techniques look like they'd lead to some nasty paper cuts.


How People Count Cash? - The most amazing bloopers are here

One more. If you've been paying attentio to the Shrillary/Tuzla debacle:

Life is better today. Everything is basically the same, it's just my attitude has changed. Work is OK. I'm on graveyard so I don't see anyone and most of the equipment is behaving. It's been busy enough that the night passes quickly, but I'm not having to constantly circle the site looking for what crapped out in the 30 minutes since I checked last.

I'm getting interested in politics again which has probably helped my mood. Watching Shrillary and Obama self destruct while trying to destroy each other has amused me quit a bit.

Yesterday I got to teach my boy how to jack up his car and check his brakes. He needs new pads in the front, so tomorrow I get to show him how to replace them. It's one of those Father/Son moments that are getting too infrequent these days.

Read a few news items last night that I'd like to pass on.

Climate facts to warm to

Anyone in public life who takes a position on the greenhouse gas hypothesis will ignore it at their peril.

Duffy asked Marohasy: "Is the Earth stillwarming?"

She replied: "No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you'd expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years."

Duffy: "Is this a matter of any controversy?"

Marohasy: "Actually, no. The head of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has actually acknowledged it. He talks about the apparent plateau in temperatures so far this century. So he recognises that in this century, over the past eight years, temperatures have plateaued ...

Jeez...You mean the debate isn't over?

Duffy: "Can you tell us about NASA's Aqua satellite, because I understand some of the data we're now getting is quite important in our understanding of how climate works?"

Marohasy: "That's right. The satellite was only launched in 2002 and it enabled the collection of data, not just on temperature but also on cloud formation and water vapour. What all the climate models suggest is that, when you've got warming from additional carbon dioxide, this will result in increased water vapour, so you're going to get a positive feedback. That's what the models have been indicating. What this great data from the NASA Aqua satellite ... (is) actually showing is just the opposite, that with a little bit of warming, weather processes are compensating, so they're actually limiting the greenhouse effect and you're getting a negative rather than a positive feedback."

[Emp-Mine]

In other words, the models that the Global Wormering proponents have been using to predict them imminent demise of life on Earth do not work in the real world.

I'm not against cleaning up our mess on the planet, but it seems we may have a little time to correct our mistakes without shutting down our economy.
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This is out of Britain, but I think it is relevant to the U.S.

Meet the families where no one's worked for THREE generations - and they don't care

Known as the "Shameless" family among horrified neighbours, the McFaddens "boast" three generations of adults who are not working.

All ten members of the clan share a council house and live off benefits amounting to around £32,000 a year. And very happy they are, too.

Matriarch is grandmother Sue McFadden, 54. "Our neighbours are so snobby - they call us the "Shameless" family and say that we ought to go out to work. But how can we work when we have all these children to look after?

"The only problem is," she says without a hint of irony, "that we're living in a three-bedroom council house, which is ridiculous.

"I'm asking the council for a ten-bedroom home for all of us. We need more space. It's awful sometimes when all the children are squabbling. Still, we do have a big TV with Sky, but we need some relaxation."

My G-d, they don't work, get a gov't subsidized house and an income and it's not enough...they need a bigger house. I wanted to have a second kid, but the money we made at the time just wasn't enough, so we made a choice.

... Grandmother Sue is divorced and has three daughters, Theresa, 34, Debbie, 32, and Tammy, 24. None of the adults living in the house in Ellesmere Port, near Chester, has a job, and there are also six grandchildren living at home - Kyle, 18, Clayton , 12, Tyler, nine, Courtney, eight, Jodie, seven, and Lucas, six.

I guess if you don't have a job to go to you have to find something to do with all those hours. Notice there are only women and children living here, no "Dads"

The one thing that kept coming up in the article on the families covered in this acticle that really struck me was:

"It's my right to claim benefits. We're all entitled to do what we want in life".

"I don't like the idea of having to be bossed around at work and I don't want to go to college or anything because I like to stay in bed in the morning. In the meantime, it's my right to claim benefits. One day I'd like a council flat."

[emp-mine]

It's their right? They contribute nothing towards their welfare or the welfare of their children, but they have the right to expect to be fed, housed and clothed because they just don't like to work.

This is a good time to take a good look at what we consider "rights" and set some hard rules as to what they are.
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I wanted to close this on a light note so I'll pick B# above middle C.

Blame My Kid (UPDATED)

Shortly after my last post where I promised (again) I was going to start posting, my boy walked in with a copy of DOOM 3 he found in a bargain bin. I hadn't gamed in quite a while and got hooked. It was more fun to shoot demons than think about politics and try to write something.

I've started cruising around my regular blog sights the last few days and trying to stop in and say hello to my old friends.

I was at Hot Air last night and saw some stuff to pass on:

Does Hillary attend her committee meetings?

One has to wonder after reading this quote from her husband:

He continued to highlight the military issue later in Cary, accentuating his wife’s gender to emphasize his point that more generals have endorsed Clinton than both Obama and Republican candidate John McCain.

“You might wonder why that’s so: Why did they endorse the girl for president? All these generals?” Clinton said.

He said that’s partially because she’s the only member of the Armed Services Committee in the race and also because of her support for wounded veterans.

[em-mine]

Methinks that Bill actually did inhale and never exhaled being:

At the top of the column of Republicans sits John McCain, ranking member on the Committee. According to Wikipedia, he’s been there since 1987, or about four times as long as Hillary, who joined the committee in 2003.

Do these people really believe that they can make up facts and rewrite history and nobody is going to notice? I'm thinking about starting a pool on when Bill gets banished from the campaign. How many times will Shrillary let him spout something stupid off the top of his head and throw her rapidly sinking run off track?

Hosting company pulls the plug on Geert Wilders’s anti-Islam movie?

Well, there they go again. No one has seen the film yet, but the mooselimbs are howling that it's racist/unfair/etc.

Luckily the shift I'm working now allowed me to get home and go to the U.K. web site and find this:

NO FITNA The Movie



It should be fairly obvious by now that there is no "Fitna" movie. No movie to insult Islam or Muslims or anyone else for that matter. The month of April is upon us, we all know the month of April starts with the 1st April and that day is famous for (practical) jokes.

Holland might not be considered as a country with a great sense of humour but ever once in awhile even in Holland they crack a joke. So, bottom line; if you are here to find the Famous Fitna movie I guess you have been had !!!

On the other hand, if you are worried about how much unrest the rumour of a 15 minute movie about Islam can create, maybe it is time to identify and deal with the issues at hand.

When points of view are miles apart, the truth can usually be found near the middle.


ps

Surely this site will soon be hacked and diverted to some muslim site, some people just don't have a sense of humour.


Happy Easter !!!

Months of bitching, moaning and threats over a completely imagined slight. I like the Dutch sense of humor!

UPDATE: Turns out the UK site I went to was a hoax site from the beginning. The movie does exist, it just hasn't been determined by the spineless weasels at the host server whether we will be allowed to see it

Finally just a bit of fun:

Video: Can robots ever really have too much power?

Total Burnout!

I needed a break...badly.

Work, home life, politics, I just reached one of those points where I felt like I was being overwhelmed on all sides and I had no control over any of them. No matter what I tried to do, the problems didn't seem to get any better...if they didn't seem to get worse.

I'm much better now.

Things really haven't improved, but I decided to take a bit of time off, roll with the punches and catch my breath, "Rope-A-Dope" it until I felt like fighting back again.

I could have returned a week ago, but chose to wait it out a little longer and make sure I'd rebuilt my reserves so I wouldn't rant for a week or so and fade off again. Like when you tell yourself that that strained muscle is mostly healed and you can go back to working full-out...if you're just careful. I've had so much wisdom and insight to dispense, but deep inside I knew I wasn't ready.

To all my friends, I apologize for not dropping by, hell the only reason I would keep up with The Rott was because that's my homepage. I'll be by shortly, I've missed you all.

To show I'm in a much better mood, I'm posting my favorite "Far Side" cartoon (click to bigify):