From My Cold, Dead Hands

Obama, Calderón: Assault-gun ban could curb border violence





I don't own one of these and I don't know anyone who does, but drop me a line if you know where I can get one cheap before these two buffoons heads of state get their way and ban them. My wife and I will have to park both our cars on the street to get it in the carport, but if it saves one life, it's worth it.

Proposition 1D

I have no interest in California's Proposition 1D, a falling-out among thieves over shares of the loot. But Andrea Urton's letter (Proposition 1D bad for young children, San Jose Mercury News, April 12, 2009) struck a responsive chord with me.

California's budget is in deep, deep trouble. Proposition 1D would divert tobacco tax money from its "for the children" pretext commitment to the state's General Fund. California's off-highway vehicle (OHV) community will be familiar with this phenomenon, as their OHV registration (Green Sticker) fees have for years been used for every purpose but that for which they are legally and exclusively earmarked -- the construction and maintenance of OHV recreation areas.

Ms. Urton is Associate Director of EMQ FamiliesFirst in Campbell. No, I don't know why "FamiliesFirst" is run together like that; probably someone thought it was trendy. Her organization is 91% tax-funded, so she has a vested interest in the Prop. 1D squabble. I don't know if she has ever protested the persistent raiding of the Green Sticker fund.

Ms. Urton wants to know "What is wrong with our society that we would even consider disrupting... the values of investing in our children, keeping them safe and facilitating family strength come before anything else?"

Ms. Urton apparently hasn't noticed, but we've been doing just that for decades. Welfare, no-fault divorce, mandatory public "education", Section 8 housing subsidies, glorification of unwed maternity, a tax code that all but forces mothers into the workforce (for their own "liberation," of course), and a host of other intrusions into personal and family life, all work to undermine the very values Ms. Urton extols.

Of Pirates Large and Small

Of Pirates Large and Small

A discourse concerning Somali pirates, and their American, British, and Ethiopian counterparts.

The Audacity of Nope

NATO refuses Lyndon Baines Obama's request for combat troops.

Is it possible that someone finally checked a map and realized that the North Atlantic is some distance from South Asia? Or are the bureaucrats of this long-obsolete organization hoping to shake down the Avatar of Change™ for additional consideration somewhere down the line? I'd feel a lot more comfortable if NATO, on this their Historic™ 60th anniversary, had voted to disband.

A Few of My Favorite Things

A Few of My Favorite Things
Originally uploaded by Daryl Davis

A cheerful little, "Up Yours!" to all the self-righteous, meddlesome, Nanny State prigs out there. You know who you are.

I so need one of these

Ebony Wholeplate Camera

For those who think limiting guns to government employees will keep them out of the hands of criminals

Killer freed by jail guard

Anita Kay Vestal, a 32-year old married mother of four recently hired by the Swain County, NC, Sheriff's Office as a detention officer, decided to indulge her romantic fantasies by helping an accused killer of two escape from jail.

The futility of the government's wars

Fugitive U.S. marshal found dead in Mexico

Deputy U.S. Marshal Vincent Bustamante was found dead in Juarez. He was shot multiple times in the head, in what is being called an execution-style slaying. Bustamante was on administrative leave from the Marshal's Service following his arrest for stealing Marshal's Service firearms and other government property. A bench warrant was issued for Bustamante's arrest after he failed to appear for a court hearing last week. A 17-year veteran of the Marshal's Service, and a former El Paso Police officer, Bustamante leaves behind a wife and two children.

Prohibition corrupts. In 1924, corrupt Prohibition Agent Wiley Lynn murdered the Marshal of Cromwell, Oklahoma, the legendary Western lawman Bill Tilghman. In 1932, Lynn attempted to assassinate Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent Crockett Long. In the exchange of gunfire that followed, both men and an innocent boy were mortally wounded.

Prohibition breeds violence. The violence today in Juarez is the violence of Chicago in the 1920s.

While the gun-grabbers gleefully blame gun-rights advocates for the recent massacre in Oakland, they ignore the fact that Lovelle Mixon legally could not own or possess a firearm. They blame a non-existent "gun show loophole," while they ignore the fact that corrupt government employees with access to guns -- law enforcement officers and military personnel -- have always been prime sources of weapons for criminals, even in the unregulated time prior to the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Gun Control Act of 1968.

The War on Poverty has brought us generations of dependent, entitlement-minded layabouts who supposedly don't have money for their own food, shelter, education, medical care, out-of-wedlock children, etc., but who (like the unemployed Lovelle Mixon) nonetheless have money for tattoos, bling, flashy chrome rims, and gazillion-watt car stereos to blare the latest profanity-laced, bass-driven rap opus into every home, school, church, and hospital they pass. The Vietnam War was, in a way, nearly as destructive to this country as it was to Vietnam, a country that never attacked or threatened the United States. Our wars of choice in Iraq and Afghanistan (yes, even Afghanistan is done on pretext) already have spent us into penury, yet no end is in sight.

No more war.

"Heckuva Job, Timmy!"

Geithner is on his way out at Treasury, as evidenced by Obama's vehement denials.

Next up: Larry Summers

Thought for the Day

"Among individuals, as among nations, respect for the rights of others is peace." Benito Juarez (March 21, 1806 - July 18, 1872)

Trouble At Treasury

President Obama is having difficulty filling Assistant Secretary positions at the Treasury Department. I nominate a couple of candidates here.

Can you say, "Spousal Immunity?"

I knew you could.

Closing the Books on Another Communist Atrocity

DNA proves Bolsheviks killed all of Russian czar's children. DNA evidence confirms scientists' 2008 findings that skeletal remains unearthed in 2007 are those of the two missing children of Czar Nicholas II: 13-year-old Crown Prince Alexei, the emperor's only son and heir to the throne, and his sister Grand Duchess Maria, about 19.

The Black Book of Communism really does belong on every thinking person's bookshelf. Amazingly, even as we continue to track down the lowliest Nazi concentration camp guards, Communist butchers continue to get a free pass.

Astonishing New Discovery!

Saws cut!

A Maryland woman was seriously injured when her partner used a reciprocating saw as a sex toy.

Maybe I can get a federal grant to study this previously unknown phenomenon.

Candidate for Surgeon General

Celebrity doctor Sanjay Gupta has withdrawn from consideration for the post of Surgeon General. President Obama apparently hoped that the 39-year old neurosurgeon and CNN commentator would bring "star power" and "recognition" to the Cabinet post, which has gone largely unnoticed since the days of C. Everett Koop (the clownish Joycelyn Elders having been mercifully forgotten).

In keeping with the Administration's themes of Hope(TM), Change(TM), and Historicalness(TM), I nominate Keith Richards for Surgeon General:

• Historic -- the US has never had a British rock guitarist as Surgeon General. Another barrier would fall. Oprah would weep;
• Change -- after decades of relentless nagging about what we put in our bodies, we would have a Surgeon General who would (and has) put put anything and everything in his;
• Hope -- Richards is still alive; he must know something.

Keith Richards for Surgeon General. If not him, who? If not now, when?

FS: High-Rise Office Building, Close to Recreation

Former New York governor Eliot Spitzer has purchased a 13-story office complex in D.C., just one block from the Mayflower Hotel where he cavorted with a high-priced call girl.

Speaking of his time in public office, as New York's attorney general (where he made his name shutting down prostitution operations -- eliminating competition for the ones he patronized -- and blackmailing innocent businessmen into doing the "right" thing by threatening them with frivolous prosecutions) and governor, Spitzer said, "Obviously it brought great joy for a great period of time." Obviously.

Since Spitzer was a tax-funded parasite and a Democrat, there were no Congressional inquisitions into his executive salary and perks. Contrast the treatment given him by the ruling elite with their spleen vented on private sector CEOs.

Maybe Obama Can Find a Cabinet Post for Bernie Madoff

The reliably evil Senator Christopher Dodd (D - Hell) is pushing a bill to let the FDIC borrow up to $500 Billion from the US Treasury. Round up the usual suspects: Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, and FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair are Dodd's co-conspirators.

Let's see if I have this straight:

• In the middle of a banking collapse, in order to encourage depositors to leave their money in insolvent institutions, the Congress votes to raise the FDIC deposit insurance limit from $100,000 to $250,000;
• The FDIC says it needs to borrow money from the Treasury because more banks are failing than FDIC's present assets can cover;
• The US Treasury, itself bankrupt (approx. $14 - $20 trillion in debt), loans one-half trillion dollars it doesn't have to FDIC;
• Everyone lives happily ever after.

Excuse me, but isn't this the sort of financial trickery we're sending Bernie Madoff to jail for?

Harvey Milk Day

So Sean Penn and Mark Leno think San Francisco should have a Harvey Milk Day. I think this is an excellent idea, but I would like to take it one step further.

San Francisco already has the Moscone Convention Center, named after the martyred mayor. Yet no one, to my knowledge, has proposed any official remembrance for the man who helped both men to power and whom they, in turn, rewarded with the money, prestige, and patronage that made his own grand project possible: the Reverend Jim Jones. I believe he merits, at the very least, a statue in front of City Hall. Justice demands it.

Daniel Flynn has concisely and elegantly recapped the S.F. Left's love affair with the evangelical Communist Jones. It's well worth a read. Don't miss the link to Harvey Milk's letter to then-President Carter, a mere nine months before the Jonestown Massacre, demanding that Jones's critics be silenced.

Heir or Parent?

President Barack Obama's Treasury secretary says the administration has inherited "the worst fiscal situation in American history."

Inherited? I'd say Obama & Co. were instrumental in bringing about the current mess.

The root of the economic disaster is the inflationary regime of fiat money brought about by the creation of the Federal Reserve and FDR's creation (by confiscating all of the monetary gold in private hands and nullifying all contracts, public and private, for payment in gold) of a federal monopoly over money. Geithner was head of the New York Federal Reserve for fifteen years, which means he has been wrong about everything for at least that long.

The Democrats, Obama included, did nothing to reign in Bush's mad imperial ambitions. Sure, they made the obligatory opposition noises but, in action, they gave Bush everything he wanted. Now, in the aftermath of this crime against humanity, the Democrats, including Obama and his oh-so-ethical Attorney General, say that no one will be brought to justice.

Ah, but what about the greedy banks that knowingly made loans to uncreditworthy people? Excuse me, but didn't Obama and ACORN, among others, use the Community Reinvestment Act to browbeat "racist" banks into making the very loans the "community organizers" are now denouncing the "greedy" banks for having made?

Obama didn't inherit this mess; it's his bastard child.

The Swiss Stand Up

The Swiss have been suffering from a huge case of Battered Woman Syndrome. Pilloried for years, for their refusal to participate in the two great slaughters of the last century, by "respectable" members of the international community, the Swiss lately have been seeking respectability by eroding many of their traditional liberties, including gun rights and financial privacy.

There are signs, though, that the sons of William Tell may have located their temporarily misplaced manhood. UBS is standing up to the Empire, telling D.C. that it is subject to Swiss, not American, law. Although UBS on Wednesday agreed to pay a $780 million fine and disclose the names of about 250 American clients, the bank is defying the Injustice Department's demand for the names of all the bank's American clients' -- a list which runs in the thousands.

Meanwhile, the Swiss People's Party is demanding that the government take punitive action against the U.S.

This is an encouraging trend.