Friday, May 31, 2013

The DOJ Says I Can't Post This


WCBM has linked to a Judicial Watch article:
In its latest effort to protect followers of Islam in the U.S. the Obama Justice Department warns against using social media to spread information considered inflammatory against Muslims, threatening that it could constitute a violation of civil rights.
Full article here.

Dear DOJ:



Raaaaaacist!

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Bounced Back

From Detroit.  Bouncity, bouincity, bounce.  Made me wonder how far back towards Detroit one flies when in a holding pattern over Morgantown, WV, due to storms in the D.C. area. 

Then paid for the stress and erratic eating - I wish they'd figure out what the heck is going on with my innards.  This is getting old.  I haven't felt good for weeks.  Mixed with feeling awful.

Between sick and scrambling for work, I haven't had time to do bloggy stuff this week.  So spend some time with Linus instead.  He gets it.


Friday, May 24, 2013

Thursday, May 23, 2013

This Is Why

...magazine capacity laws need to be ignored by citizens and repealed by lawmakers.


Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Woo hoo!

I blogged a little while ago about a life-eating project that turned out to have been dropped without me being informed.  Then about the trials of getting an article about the project through the editing process at my agency.

But today I received word that the article fer shur has been accepted for publication in Professional Surveyor Magazine.  I don't have a pub date yet, but I'm a happy camper. 

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Oh, Stop!

Quite aside from how utterly contemptible blaming the More, OK, tornado on Republicans is, Sen. Whitehouse (D - Disgusting), there's this:


h/t meteorologist Joe Bastardi, via Weasel Zippers

Monday, May 20, 2013

Gang Agley


Guffaw had himself a Bobby Burns day recently – Friday was mine.  I didn’t have huge plans, and up to a point the day went pretty well.  Friday is normally my day to go to the office and, as usual, I drove.   I have a sleep disorder so I get up when my body says to get up, not when the train system going out of Brunswick, MD, says to.  And unless something Very Bad has happened on the highway, I make the 75 mile drive in time to clock in at 9:30.  That rotates my day around so that I then leave after the worst of the traffic is done.

It was a nice day.  There was some frustration because the system had gremlins and I got stalled on several projects because I couldn’t get to the data I needed, but ah well.  I dashed down to the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception for confession on my lunch break – it’s just a couple stops down the subway line from the office.  It was a beautiful day, and apparently also commencement day at Catholic University.


So a bit after 6 pm I packed up and headed for the parking garage.  My plans for the evening:  go home, have a sandwich, read, relax, go to bed.  The “gang agley” factor raised its head when about halfway to the garage I realized that I couldn’t find my car keys.  Back to the office to rummage and dig.  No keys.  Pockets, lunch bag, computer bag emptied out.  No keys. They aren’t in the ignition, either.

Uh-oh.

I’m 75 miles from home.  And public transportation is virtually non-existent between where I live and about 10 miles west of where I’m standing.  Crud.  Crud crud crud.

Fortunately, I have a neighbor who has a key to my house, and much as I hated to do it I called her and asked if she could get my spare keys and meet me at the end of the subway line in Gaithersburg.

The D.C. metro system is not a complete loop.  I was in Silver Spring, I needed to go to Shady Grove.  In the crow flying world they aren't far apart.  In the Metro world it means you go all the way down into D.C. and then up the other side.  So 50 minutes later, having passed through many subway stops that are much more interesting on a weekend, I was in Shady Grove.  My neighbor delivered the keys, we went out to dinner, then I started the trip back to Silver Spring at about 10 pm.  Retrieved the SUV about 11, then did the 1 ½ hour drive home, knowing that I had to be on the other side of the county at 9 am the next morning.  At least traffic was really light by then.


 On this week's to-do list - get a spare key to leave at the office.

Saturday, May 18, 2013

A Couple Questions

So during his testimony the other day, Eric Holder said some version of "I don't know" 57 times.

This leaves me with 2 questions:  If he doesn't know anything about anything, then how can he possibly order investigations?  And what the heck are we paying him +$199,000 a year for?


Friday, May 17, 2013

Blink Blink

Ya just can't make this stuff up, folks.  The IRS asked a pro-life group for the content of its prayers as part of it's determination of whether or not to give the group tax free status.  And Steven Miller isn't sure if that's a proper question to ask.  But he doesn't feel anything wrong has been done.

Either he's been tokin' something special, or I need to toke something special in order to understand the liberal mind.



Add "Unless..."


Latest from Planned Unparenthood.  I would add to it:  "Unless, of course, you pay us to kill her."




It's hard to thank anyone when you are in pieces in the bottom of a bucket.

h/t Weasel Zippers

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Ugh Update

OK, I have no idea what Blogger is doing.  It seems to be grabbing from one place and merging with other places.

So for those who haven't read what I posted before it was eaten - bacterial ulcer test negative, ultrasound found nothing unusual.  I'm better but lots of pressure in left quadrant.  Forcing me to eat several small meals a day instead of 3. 

Next step is scoping both ends.

Sound Familiar?


  1. He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavoured to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposed not authorized by law, and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be intitiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.
 That's from the articles of impeachment of Richard Nixon.

I'm torn.  Benghazi is important because 4 Americans died unnecessarily and because of the dereliction  of duty of this administration, and there was and still is an active attempt to cover up that dereliction of duty. The testimony clearly shows a knowledge of danger, a denial of the required security, and a denial of assistance during the attack itself.  All followed by multiple edits of talking points to conceal the guilt of this administration.  And then there's Fast and Furious - dead Americans, hundreds of dead Mexicans.  This administration should go down for that, as well.

But if the IRS scandal is the beginning of the realization of the level of corruption of this administration, I'll take it.  And I also think that we are only seeing the very tip of an huge iceberg.


And instead of the pretty ice blue of a seagoing iceberg, the pile under the Obama administration reeks to high heaven.

P.S. - Remember that Hillary Clinton was on the Watergate investigative committee.  And fired from it for unethical behavior.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Gotta Get Several to Sell

No, no the information won't be abused.  Of course not.

Come next year's income tax time, we will be required to submit a form with our health insurance information on it along with the good ol' 1040.  We are assured that handing that information to the IRS does not violate HIPAA laws and will not be used for any improper purposes.

This just in - the IRS has already seized the medical records of 10,000,000 California residents:

According to a report by Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in California is suing the IRS, alleging that some 60 million medical records from 10 million patients were stolen by 15 IRS agents. The personal health information seized on March 11, 2011, included psychological counseling, gynecological counseling, sexual/drug treatment and other medical treatment data.  
It ain't paranoia if they really ARE out to get you.  And I gotta got get me a whole supply of bridges to sell.

Full story here.
h/t Weasel Zippers





Dumb and Dumber

So:

The brother of the president of CBS News is the current deputy national security adviser for strategic communication for the Obama administration.

The sister of the president of ABC News is Obama's special assistant.

The husband of a CNN deputy bureau chief is one of Hillary Clinton's deputies.

And there are still people around dumb enough to think that the media is actually going to report the abuses and failures of this administration?




I'm in the wrong business - I need to go to these people and sell them a bridge.


h/t for details that I couldn't remember to Chris Muir via The Drawn Cutlass.

Monday, May 13, 2013

Known So Far

Kermit Gosnell guilty of murder in the first degree on the first counts that I've heard.

Planned Parenthood seen scrambling to explain how fairy dust makes a human being human 1 minute after birth but not 1 minute before.  And hiding their spiritual jars of baby feet.


Thanking Ronald




Saturday, May 11, 2013

44,000

That's how many abortion survivors are estimated to live in the U.S.  I don't mean women who have survived having an abortion - although "safe" abortions kill and injure women every year.  That's the number of people who have survived the legalized murder known as abortion.

They have faces:








They have names:  Gianna Jesson, Brenda Green, Terri LaPoint, Melody.  Oh, and that last little one on the right?  That's Claire.  Her arm isn't hidden.  It was wrenched off during the attempted abortion.  Funny how she wasn't human as the abortionist tried to dismember her but she's human now.

They have stories that no one who calls themselves pro-choice wants to hear: "I survived a partially botched abortion involving twins, with myself being the surviving half, and my sister not so much. I'm 58 years old now, and still trying to come to terms with what has happened to me. I am determined, however, to continue forward in my life"---Anonymous Male, United States.

Kermit Gosnell is not particularly unusual, no matter what anyone says.  The release of taped interviews with late term abortionist Leroy Carhart telling his supposed patient that the baby will be "mushy" like "meat in a crock pot" have been studiously ignored because they demonstrate this, as has Gosnell's trial.

Nobody who calls themselves pro-choice can present evidence that a human being is not present until x.  Whatever x is.  That's why Planned Parenthood trains its mill workers to stay away from a discussion of science.  Because the science doesn't support them.

And its why Florida Planned Parenthood was recently arguing for post-birth abortion.  Because the science doesn't matter. 

Prediction:  Gosnell will walk.  Someone on the jury can't bring themselves to convict because it's abortion, and that's a sacrament.  I hope I'm wrong. He's a monster.  But he's a monster that is fully aided and abetted by the words "It's a woman's choice."

Also a prediction. No pro-choicer will have finished reading this blog because they can't answer the real question abortion poses: when one human being isn't worthy of protection, why do you think any other human being will be safe?



Yes, it is the same belief: the belief that one life is human and worthy of protection and another is not.

http://www.theabortionsurvivors.com/
http://www.teenbreaks.com/abortion/abortionsurvivors.cfm





Friday, May 10, 2013

He's Able

In the midst of news that endlessly shows the logical end results of the denial of religion, in the midst of a country that finds lying and corruption something to yawn about but supports the end of religious freedom and tolerance wherever it can, it's easy to forget:  He is able.

So crank your speakers up, dance around the room if you like, and remember with Darwin Hobbs:


I'll take two kits, please.




Thursday, May 9, 2013

Update. Sort of.

Not much new to tell.  The doc tested me for the bacteria that causes ulcers.  Interesting the way they do it.  You take a deep breath, hold it, then blow into a bag, where it's trapped and used as a baseline.  Then they give you a liquid you have to drink through a straw and while it doesn't taste bad per se it's so sour it makes your eyes water and your jaws hurt.  The purpose,  apparently, of the straw requirement and the sour liquid is to piss off the stomach and make it churn the bacteria up.  Then you blow into another bag. 

Doc says that even though the source of the pain seems like it's on the wrong side it could also be gall stones because everything in that area is all squished together and the pain can transfer. 

So I have prescription antacids to start just in case its ulcer related and now I wait for the test results and the ultrasound.  Although if I have pain at the level I had yesterday again before then I'm just going to go to the ER - I figure they'll automatically do an ultrasound and that'll get me a bit closer to, if not answers, an idea of what it's NOT.  Feel lousy, but not as bad as yesterday.  Have a stack of cans of chicken noodle soup, which seems to be OK in small doses.  And no real interest in eating anything.

Thanks

Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers.  As ML said, I got hold of my dr's office.  They didn't think I needed to go to the emergency room but they did say I needed to come back in today - I figured that.  I don't feel good, and something's obviously not right, but I feel better right now than I did yesterday.  I've discovered that I can eat a banana every couple hours without triggering anything evil.  And the areas that were howling in pain yesterday are sore today. 

I sure needed something more to keep me busy....

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Ugh. And it's becoming more ugh.

Back towards the end of February I noticed a mild ache, sometimes a sense of pressure just under my ribs on the left side.  I was helping the kids and spending an awful lot of time carrying a baby around and I thought maybe I had strained something.  It did go away for a while.  Then it came back.  Never really a pain.  Just sort of a very mild ache.  With all my running hither and thither I didn't get into the doctor's until this Monday.  Told her it really didn't hurt - it just was just a mild ache that was always there and the fact that it wouldn't go away was beginning to concern me. Particularly since my mother had a hereditary disease that destroyed her spleen and the feeling was in the spleen area.  So as expected I got the referrals and appointments to start the look-sees.  Starting with an ultrasound next Tuesday.  Well, apparently my body decided that it hadn't been emphatic enough in telling me that something's wrong.  My stomach started raising hell right after the appointment.  And just got worse all that day.  And it's still raising hell.  It hurts if I start getting hungry. It hurts if I eat much.  Sharp pain, shooting into the shoulders and down to my left hip.  Source of the pain can definitely now be placed at stomach.  Antacids help, but I don't feel very good.  Which is making me wonder if I've got myself an ulcer.  They are caused by bacteria, but stress, exhaustion, erratic eating - that's been my life for months.  All of which runs a body down and and makes one vulnerable to infection.

I am not a happy camper.

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Scripture Alone

Steve Finnell invited me to visit his blog, A Christian View, a few days ago, which was very kind of him.  His blogs are extensive, so I’ve only had a chance to read a bit of them.  The first one that I have even begun to had a chance to actually do justice to was “The Exact Truth”, posted April 30 



Unfortunately I must respectfully disagree, not with his knowledge of Scriptural text, but with his conclusions concerning Scripture.  There’s a question that is being missed.  It’s one that most people don’t think to ask themselves:  where did the Bible come from?  I don’t mean the “inspired by God” sort of come from, but how did such diverse writings as Leviticus and Revelation come to be gathered into the work that Christians call the Bible?

In truth, if we are to take every statement about Scripture that occurs in the New Testament as evidence that Scripture alone is enough for Christian faith, then Christians would need to abandon that very part of the Bible.  What we call the New Testament did not exist at the time that Jesus and his followers spoke and wrote, nor did it exist as a collected work for centuries after.  They had only the Old Testament – the stories and letters of the New Testament era had yet to be written, sifted through, and selected to be the authoritative works, or canon, of the Good News.  Each reference to Scripture that occurs in Scripture itself is a reference to the Old Testament.  The King James Bible did not appear at Pentecost. 

John himself tells us that not everything concerning Christ’s work is in Scripture in John 21:25, saying “There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world could contain the books that could be written.”   Indeed, even if they had been written down, a large part of the population could not have read the books, let alone afford them since they were not as blessed with literacy or ability to buy books as we are.  That is why the New Testament letters repeatedly describe a process of oral teaching and traditions:  “And what you have heard from me through many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will have the ability to teach others as well.” (2 Tim 2:2); “Therefore, brothers, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours.”(2 Thes 2:15); “Thus faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.” (Rom 10:17).  Lacking a written New Testament those first years, it was a preaching church: “They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life; to the breaking of bread and to the prayers.” (Acts 2:42).  That does not mean, of course, that there was no study of the Old Testament - indeed, those are the Scriptures they searched - and with about 80% of the quotations of the New Testament coming from the Greek Septuagint, we've been left with a good idea of what the Old Testament they studied looked like. 

The New Testament writers themselves quoted from sources outside of the Old Testament:  Jude quotes Enoch, a book considered canonical by only a few, in verses 14 and 15 when he says “Enoch, of the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied also about them when he said, “Behold, the Lord has come with his countless holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict everyone for all the godless deeds that they committed and for all the harsh words godless sinners have uttered against him.””  Jude also recounts a dispute between the archangel Michael and the devil over the body of Moses, yet there is no written record of this story – it seems to come from Jewish tradition (Jude 9).
There is nothing in Holy Writ that says that it ALONE is sufficient.  And in the end, somebody had to make the decision and declaration that THESE writings and THESE alone constitute the New Testament and declare that no more would be added.  In 367, Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, listed the 27 books we know as the New Testament and used the word “canonized” in regard to them.   The Council of Rome of Pope Damascus I in 382 issued a list identical to it, and the commissioning of the Latin Vulgate edition of the Bible by the same pope fixed those 27 books in the mind of Christianity as the New Testament for all the centuries since then.  Even Luther’s opinion that James was “an epistle of straw” could not change that.  The Bible of Christianity did not come first – the Christian Church did. 

The Bible is indeed inspired by God and many more should be reading it and paying attention to its teaching than to the seemingly endless adventures of Lindsay Lohan, especially in this multi-media age.  But if each one of us could truly interpret it clearly with no need of anything or anyone else then Christianity would not have fragmented into thousands of pieces, each piece built on someone’s interpretation of the Bible.  
All quotes from Scripture are from The New American Bible.  Because that’s the version I have that has big print…

Friday, May 3, 2013

A Sooper Dooper Pooper

At least it's not MY tax dollars.  At least not the Maryland/Montgomery County tax part.  Federal funds were used - some of those were mine and I'd like them back.  Lotsa luck on that, though.

Our physical office is in downtown Silver Spring, MD.  For years now, the Metro station there has been in the process of becoming a sooper-dooper multi-purpose transit center: 


Construction started in 2008, and +$100 million has been spent on it.  There was a really cool period when they had to dynamite bedrock - we listened for the warning klaxon every day and ran to the windows to watch the carefully controlled blasts.

I happened to ask my boss today if he'd heard of an opening date for the center.  "You obviously don't read local papers." was his reply.  Seems the sooper-dooper is a pooper.  Multiple improper construction issues.  Not safe.  WMTA says "Huh-uh.  We don't want it."  Estimated life span in its current state = 12.5 years.  Concrete too thin, concrete too thick.  Concrete poured without rebar reinforcing. (Let me repeat that - concrete for platforms supposed to hold tons and tons of vehicles and their passengers poured without reinforcing)  Improper joints.  Cracks everywhere.  Fingers pointing in all directions.



Gotta say, the fact that they've already installed the big ol' new sign now makes me smile.  Irked me when I had to walk by it because I have the same amount of respect for Sarbanes as I do for Harry Reid. Seems appropriate now.




A bit more detail here.

Who'da Thought?

I've heard of CAD.  Even 3D CAD.  And I've been hearing about 3D printers and gun magazines.  A little vague on that.  But apparently the first printed gun is here:


Not pretty, but I'm fascinated by the concept of printing a gun.  I still think of printing as involving a piece of paper.

See more here.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Inked Up

Seems a NYC real estate company has offered its employees a 15% pay raise if they get the company logo tatooed on themselves.  I'm not a fan of covering the body with tats, but I'd take that offer in a heartbeat if my agency made it.  I LIKE our logos, even if I do want to retire. 



Full story here.