Routine Maintenance

This is just routine maintenance to keep those scavenging bastards who snap up inactive blogs away.

I will still occasionally post here just for the hell of it but it is still basically an archive site.

I have a lot of years and a half dead liver invested in the writings here and ain't about to let some low life motherfucker steal it for free.

Try To Keep Up, Will Ya?

Line Or No Line, I'm Seeing Red

According To Cops, America's Neighborhoods Are "Battlefields"

If you have any doubts about how the police forces in this country have been acting more and more like military fighting groups, it's time to put them to rest.

American citizens are now "Enemy Combatants" and our neighborhoods are now "Sectors" to be patrolled with miltary equipment and military tactics.

This country is at war with its self and has been for a long damn time,it is just now that people are finally waking up to the undeniable rise in the rates of SWAT teams being deployed around the United States for formerly routine police duties.

If you still don't believe your lying eyes, go read this article that quotes several police officers from around the country.



SWAT Cop Says American Neighborhoods Are 'Battlefields,' Claims Cops Face Same Dangers As Soldiers In Afghanistan




By Radley Balko Posted: 08/21/2013

One of the central themes of my book is that that too many cops today have been conditioned to see the people they serve not as citizens with rights, but as an enemy. My argument is that this battlefield mindset is the product of a generation of politicians telling police that they're at war with things -- drugs, terrorism, crime, etc. -- and have then equipped them with the uniforms, tactics, weapons, and other accoutrements of war.

Over the last several days, the popular online police magazine PoliceOne site has been rolling out a series of opinion pieces in response to my book. As you might expect, most of them are critical, although a couple have been thoughtful.

One essay by Sgt. Glenn French was particularly disturbing. French serves as commander of a SWAT team in Sterling Heights, Michigan. French doesn't criticize me for arguing that too many police officers have adopted this battlefield mindset. Rather, he embraces the combat mentality, and encourages other cops to do the same. Referring to an article I wrote here at HuffPost, French writes:

“What would it take to dial back such excessive police measures?” the author wrote. “The obvious place to start would be ending the federal grants that encourage police forces to acquire gear that is more appropriate for the battlefield. Beyond that, it is crucial to change the culture of militarization in American law enforcement.”

We trainers have spent the past decade trying to ingrain in our students the concept that the American police officer works a battlefield every day he patrols his sector.

Note the choice of words. Not neighborhood, but "sector." Although I suppose such parsing isn't even necessary when French just comes right out and declares America a battlefield. Note too that French isn't even referring to SWAT teams, here. He's suggesting that all cops be taught to view the streets and neighborhoods they patrol in this way.

My emphasis.

This is going to come to a head someday in the near future, mark my words.

He is right that we already have cities in this country that have neighborhoods that resemble war zones and this constant escalation of force by the police departments is going to be met with an equal force one of these days.
It's just a matter of time.

You can bet your homesick ass the day that happens is the day you see the real military in our streets.

Ya Might Want To Pay A Bit Of Attention To This

I'm sure you have noticed the creeping inflation that producers have been trying to hide the past couple of years.
You know, the price doesn't really go up much but the sizes of the containers have shrunk considerably.

Inflation is real and it hits hard in countries that don't have the discretionary spending that the U.S. has.

" Across the Caribbean, food imports have become a budget-busting problem, prompting one of the world’s most fertile regions to reclaim its agricultural past. But instead of turning to big agribusinesses, officials are recruiting everyone they can to combat the cost of imports, which have roughly doubled in price over the past decade. In Jamaica, Haiti, the Bahamas and elsewhere, local farm-to-table production is not a restaurant sales pitch; it is a government motto.

“We’re in a food crisis,” said Hilson Baptiste, the agriculture minister of Antigua and Barbuda. “Every country is concerned about it. How can we produce our own? How can we feed our own?”

In a region where farming is still often seen as a reminder of plantations and slavery, the challenge runs deep, yet at regional meetings for years, Caribbean officials have emphasized that “food security,” primarily availability and access, is a top priority. Many countries are now responding, branding foreign food like meats and high-calorie snacks a threat, and locally grown food responsible and smart.

Jamaica started earlier than most. A decade ago, the government unveiled a national food security campaign with the slogan “grow what we eat, eat what we grow.” Grocery stores now identify local produce with large stickers and prominent displays.

Members of rival political parties have also been mostly unified in support of expanding agriculture by experimental means; Jamaica is now one of several countries that have given out thousands of seed kits to encourage backyard farming".

Much like Victory Gardens here in the U.S. during WWII, they are planting small gardens wherever they can.
There was a small burst of this same thing here a few years back but it kind of sputtered out.

With the price of everything going up, especially fresh fruit and vegetables,even a five gallon bucket growing a small basket full of tomatoes can very easily save you twenty bucks, all by its self.
One bucket.

For those who are growing their own gardens,the explosion of GMO crops and the consolidation of the seed industry is making it more and more difficult to find true, genetically pure seed to store.
Hybrid seeds do not reproduce the same quality of fruit or vegetable year after year. They revert back to the dominant parents features.

Heirloom varieties have been reproducing naturally for thousands of years without any man made interference and produce the genetically same produce year after year.


Unfortunately, Heirloom seeds are now getting harder and harder to find and the prices keep going up and up.

There is a one man outfit down in Texas who buys these seeds in bulk and doesn't jack the price up for the sole purpose of maximum profits.
Something EXTREMELY rare these days.

The name of this outfit is Jebadiah Fisher Garden Seed.

The proprietor's name is Bill Nye.

I have absolutely no financial incentive for recommending this to you.
No hand outs, kick backs or anything else.

Bill is as honest as the day is long and will customize an order just for your needs. He also has package deals he advertises at his site.

His pricing has caused an uproar in the seed selling world on the internet because he is exposing just how much markup the other dealers are charging.

If you want the best deal you are going to find on true, natural garden seed,herbs or spices, give Bill a yell.


You will save money up front and later down the road when you start to harvest the results.

Best of all, you can start saving mature seeds to keep propagating your gardens year after year.

There Seems To Be Some Confusion

Let me clear that up for ya.


H/T 90 Miles From Tyranny

All American And Bad Assed

This thing is so fucking cool I can't hardly stand it.
Sumbitch has a Detroit Diesel tricked out in a chopped old Peterbilt.

Just by looking and listening to it, by experience with those engines, that thing hauls ass.
Guaranteed.
Notice the torque the fucking thing has.

You Damn Well Know I Was

A Problem Child.

The theme song of my misspent youth.

My Two Fucking Cents In Brief

Benghzai?

Give it a rest you hypocritical motherfuckers.
There is plenty of other bullshit you ignorant fucks could be up in arms about.

The IRS scandal?

You did not see a look of surprise on my face.
Sloppy work though.


The AP scandal?
HA!
How you like it now motherfuckers?
It wasn't such a big deal when the cocksuckers were tapping everyone else's fucking emails and phone calls.

Suck my fucking dick you miserable sonsabitches.

Here's a quarter, call someone who won't laugh in yer fucking faces.

Armageddon Up Close And Personal

Holy. Shit..

The tornado that decimated Moore Oklahoma yesterday was estimated to be TWO MILES WIDE.

I don't give a rusty fuck what your politics are, these are Americans and they are going to desperately need our help.
















Dig in your ass pocket and give.
We all see just how effective the Federal response to natural disasters is. Folks from the Sandy Hurricane are still all fucked up and it took those rotten motherfuckers in Congress THREE FUCKING MONTHS to authorize relief spending while people were living in tents in the dead of winter on the North East coast.

As for the ultimate irony, both Oklahoma Senators have consistently voted against Federal disaster funding. Lets not wait to see how long it takes for those two assholes to stick their hands out now.


Here is the link to the local Red Cross in Oklahoma.
Give directly to them or any Church organizations you know of.

Do it now.

Two Legged Pest Control

Heh, I found a good way to keep the wimmins out of my Man Cave today.
My wife and her two sisters were out in my garage yammering away while I was working on the transmission for my Sprite.
I had been enjoying the peace and quiet because they had all gone to the movies earlier so I was just in my own little world and enjoying the shit out of it too.

I didn't even have the squawk box on.
Pretty soon here they come. Sounded like someone moved a fucking chicken tractor into the joint.
Yack yack yack yack.
We don't smoke in the house so we have a little kiddy table out there and a couple ashtrays.
Jeeze, pretty soon I am kinda gritting my teeth.
While I am wrenching on this little gearbox, I reach over and grabbed a can of Carb Cleaner to do some spot cleaning of some parts.

Let me tell ya, that shit is powerful stuff, especially in an enclosed space.

Shit doesn't bother me because I am used to it to the point I almost like the smell.

It's a guy thing I am certain.

Anyways, pretty soon I hear one of 'em pipe up with something along then lines of "What is that smell, are those fumes?"

I turned around and growled at her, Whattaya fucking think? Yer in my Goddamn garage.
If ya don't like it go outside and smoke.

Oh the trauma. It's too cold, bitch bitch bitch.
So of course I lay it on with the fucking carb cleaner now.

Amazingly enough, it didn't take very long and they all suddenly decided they needed to be somewhere else , pronto.


Perfect.

I recommend this stuff, it works real good for cleaning grease and varnish on parts and as an added bonus it has a powerful stink to it.

It's like bug spray for people too.


Cross posted at The Vulgar Curmudgeon, my other, other blog.

A Dying Art,Pouring Babbitt Bearings

 If you can find someone who still knows how to pour and correctly finish a babbitt bearing then you have a very serious resource that is getting harder and harder to find.
I found this video that shows the correct technique to share. I have seen this guy's videos before and he is very, very good at what he does, old school style.
Sure he has  milling machines and all the cool tools but he also has the old school knowlege to do things that is getting increasingly hard to find.

I know I looked for a week here in the Portland/ Vancouver area before I found someone who still does them in an industrial capacity. I needed a babbitt bearing poured for a six inch main bearing on a crankshaft for a pump I was rebuilding.

A couple of things I noticed here, first is that he carburized the shaft before he poured it to keep the liquid babbitt from sticking to it and two, that he used a grease pencil when he was preheating the parts that melts at a predetermined temperature to let him know when it was hot enough but not too hot.

One thing I can tell you from experience is that you do not let hot babbitt contact anything cold.

Why Don't They Make Fenders Out Of This Stuff?

What the fuck?
Nitinol?


Fuck, make cars out of this shit!
Get in a fender bender?
Just drive it through a hot water car wash and Presto!

Computer Security Alert

For those who use Firefox as a browser, you need to pay attention to this!

There is a spyware company in Britain that works for the government there that has a program that can allow the monitoring and remote use of your computer that is disguised as Firefox.

Mozilla Takes Aim at Spyware That Masquerades as Firefox

Mozilla’s lawyers are sending a nasty gram to a U.K. company that writes spyware for government snoops.

The problem is that FinSpy masquerades as FireFox on the PC, according to researchers at The Citizen Lab, a University of Toronto-backed project that investigates technology and human rights.

snip

Mozilla says it’s sending the U.K. company that makes FinSpy, Gamma International, a cease-and-desist letter later today “demanding that these practices be stopped immediately.” Gamma International couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. FinFisher is the name of Gamma’s command and control server software that collects the surveillance data. It also makes FinSpy, the spyware that runs on the PC.



Gamma International markets its software as a “remote monitoring” program that government agencies can use to take control of computers and snoop on data and communications. In theory, it could be legitimately used for surveillance efforts by crime fighting agencies, but in practice, it has popped up as a spy tool unleashed against dissident movements operating against repressive regimes.

Citizen Lab researchers have seen it used against dissidents from Bahrain and Ethiopia. And in a new report, set to be released today, they’ve found it in 11 new countries: Hungary, Turkey, Romania, Panama, Lithuania, Macedonia, South Africa, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bulgaria, and Austria. That brings the total number of countries that have been spotted with FinFisher to 36.

snip

They found that when they right-clicked on the executable that contained the spyware and opened up the Windows “Properties” dialog box it contained information that was often identical to Firefox.

I originally found this at Boing Boing but their link goes to Wired.com.


From the link about the report in the Wired article, I got this;

Locations of FinFisher Command & Control Servers Found To Date: Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Ethiopia, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Mongolia, Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Qatar, Romania, Serbia, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam.

My bold.

I used Firefox for years and loved it but I switched to Opera a while back. I still have Mozilla Firefox installed on my computer but it has been on there a long time. I'm certainly hoping that my Anti Virus programs would have caught this FinFisher program if it had tried to download its self in the mean time.


The way to tell the difference is at the top of the window when you right click and go to properties.


(Click to enlarge)

I hope Mozilla sues the living dog shit out of these sonsabitches and puts them completely out of business.

My thanks to both Boing Boing and Wired.com for spreading the word.

A Benevolent Dictator

A recent conversation with my wife after I caught myself checking to see what color Bic lighter I was putting in my pocket because I am always absent mindedly stealing hers;

Me,
See what you have me doing now?

Her,Yeah,you did it again last night though. I'm finally getting you trained.

Me, Oh, Bustedus Domesticus huh?

Her Yeah.

Me, Really. I still have my moments.

Her, You only get away with that shit because I let ya.

Me, Oh?
Quite the Benevolent Dictator ain't ya?

Her.You love it.


Damn, she is killing my self image as a Rebel Without A Clue here.

U.S. Intelligence Reports Syria Used Poison Gas, Finally

Damn, these guys are really on the ball.

(CNN) -- The United States has evidence that the chemical weapon sarin has been used in Syria on a small scale, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Thursday. But numerous questions remain about the origins of the chemical and what impact its apparent use could have on the ongoing Syrian civil war and international involvement in it. When asked if the intelligence community's conclusion pushed the situation across President Barack Obama's "red line" that could potentially trigger more U.S. involvement in the war, Hagel said it's too soon to say. "We need all the facts. We need all the information," he said. "What I've just given you is what our intelligence community has said they know. As I also said, they are still assessing and they are still looking at what happened, who was responsible and the other specifics that we'll need."

The only problem I have is that this is old news.

Four fucking months ago Syrian opposition fighters reported several deaths caused by a deadly gas attack and U.S. Intelligence is just now getting around to confirming it?

Way to go fella's. This is just one more example of why I go out of country for news sources.

Constitution V1.0 Obsolete According To His Majesty Bloomberg

This fucking asshole is really starting to bother me. Who the fuck died and left this bastard King?

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday the country’s interpretation of the Constitution will “have to change” to allow for greater security to stave off future attacks. “The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry,” Mr. Bloomberg said during a press conference in Midtown. “But we live in a complex word where you’re going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change.”

Wait for it, waiiiiit for it......

“Look, we live in a very dangerous world. We know there are people who want to take away our freedoms. New Yorkers probably know that as much if not more than anybody else after the terrible tragedy of 9/11,” he said. “We have to understand that in the world going forward, we’re going to have more cameras and that kind of stuff. That’s good in some sense, but it’s different from what we are used to,” he said. The mayor pointed to the gun debate and noted the courts have allowed for increasingly stringent regulations in response to ever-more powerful weapons. “Clearly the Supreme Court has recognized that you have to have different interpretations of the Second Amendment and what it applies to and reasonable gun laws … Here we’re going to to have to live with reasonable levels of security,” he said, pointing to the use of magnetometers to catch weapons in city schools. “It really says something bad about us that we have to do it. But our obligation first and foremost is to keep our kids safe in the schools; first and foremost, to keep you safe if you go to a sporting event; first and foremost is to keep you safe if you walk down the streets or go into our parks,” he said. “We cannot let the terrorists put us in a situation where we can’t do those things. And the ways to do that is to provide what we think is an appropriate level of protection.”

For one thing, clearly the Supreme Court has shown it's self to be a group of partisan hacks that do everything in their power to avoid applying the words of the Constitution ver batim as they were written.

There should not have to be any "interpretation" of the fucking Constitution in the first place. What problem with reading comprehension do these people have anyway?

For another thing, Mayor Bloomberg, who the fuck are you to be telling anyone living outside the City of New York to do any fucking thing? Hey asshole, you are a fucking Mayor, not a fucking Senator and most definitely not a king so shut your fucking pie hole dick weed.

I could care less what you think dickhead.

You worry about your own ass and leave the law making to the other incompetent cocksuckers who are already plenty busy finding ways to strangle our God given freedoms in every way imaginable. You know, actual legislators? They don't need your help,peckerhead.

In short, Fuck You asshole. Get some help for you delusions of granduer complex you Nanny motherfucker, don't you have a city council meeting or something to keep your ass busy?

Your Police State On Full Display

Just in case some of you fucking people still had any doubts about the fact that we live in a police state and have for some time now.

Then we have little clues like this,

The last thing we may want to do is read Boston suspect Miranda Rights telling him to "remain silent."; Senator Lindsey Graham (@GrahamBlog) 

April 19, 2013

Need any more convincing?

Fuck Me Blind

Or should I say, Fuck Me, I AM blind.
I just got back from an eye exam.
It was way overdue and I have been cheating for several years now by going to the Dollar Store and getting cheap asses spectacals.
What the fuck, they work, ya know?

I have had my eyes checked twice now since I was in junior high school.
The last time was about five or six years ago.

At that time, the lady told me I was getting cataracts and gave me a prescription for the same strength glasses I was wearing that I also paid a whopping dollar for.

What a joke.

So today, they ran me through the gamut, put the drops in my eyes, yadda yadda yadda.
No signs of any fucking cataracts.

That kind of pissed me off even though it was a relief.
Nothing like living with the thought of something as serious as that nibbling away in the back of your mind for nothing.

Cheerful fucking bunch, I gotta give 'em credit for that.
The one chick who was having me look at frame samples was obviously distracted by something the whole time I was talking to her though.
This is where it got ,interesting, shall I say.

I need bifocals. OK.
I also have to have safety glasses for work.

I don't want to fuck around with multiple pairs of glasses either.
So she hauls out these boxes of frames, there are hundreds in display cases on the walls, and basically gives me a limited choice of some butt ugly mother, fuckers.
Seriously ugly.

What the fuck ever.
I finally picked out the least hideous set that were some ugly assed tiger striped brown shit. I asked if they came in basic black.
Big mistake.
The old,head to shoulder, head to other shoulder Valley Girl Bleach Blonde, "I dunno, I'll have to go look" answer.

Here we fucking go.

A full five minutes this idiot is gone.
She finally comes back and says no.

What a surprise.
I finally just got some that are smoke colored.
Now the fun part.
Bifocals.
Do I want "progressive" lenses.
yes.
Scratch resistant?
yes.
Glare free coating?
Yes.
OK.
Tapetty tappety on the calculator annnnnd.....

The grand total for one basic ,ugly fucking pair of bifocals with the aforemention accouterments?
$745!!

Uhh, yeah.

That is when I leaned across the table to get her attention and said, "O.K., let's get serious now".

"You see these glasses I am wearing? They cost a dollar. They work just fine.
I'm not paying seven hundred and fifty dollars for those glasses, insurance or not".

The look of cognitive dissonance on her face was quickly followed by shock, disbelief and juuust a flash of anger.
I'll give her credit though, she recovered quickly.

She did get a little pissy but she said that if I just wanted what the insurance covered without having anything other than the copay come out of my ass pocket then they would be bifocals with the line across and none of the fancy coatings.
"Fine" I says.

What a fucking racket.

With a little help, I can see with 20/20 vision.
In two weeks I will get those ugly motherfuckers and call it good for now.
Later down the line I may change my mind but I just can't see paying that kind of money for some butt ugly fucking glasses.

I saw Gucci and Calvin Klein frames on display while I was waiting and my asshole puckers just imagining what they charge for that shit!

Putting The Pressure On

Now that some Republicans caved in the pressure is getting pumped up in the gun control department.

It's looking like universal background checks are coming but nothing is set in stone yet.

Harry Reid doesn't have the votes he needs locked up quite yet.

You can be assured that some sneaky cocksucker is going to try and weasel through some kind of shit so I am hoping at the very least someone is watching like a hawk what is in the language of any fucking amendments they want to come up for a vote.

The Whitehhouse has been getting a lot of mileage out of the parents of those dead children from Sandy Hook.
Obama has even gone so far as to have one woman substitute for him in his weekly address.


THE WHITEHOUSE
WASHINGTON

Hello, everybody --

Each week, like many presidents before me, I sit down to record a short address to the nation. It's something I take very seriously because it offers a chance to bring focus to an issue that needs to be part of the national dialogue.

But today, I've asked someone to take my place.

Francine Wheeler is a mother. She and her family live in Newtown, Connecticut. Four months ago, her six year-old son Ben was murdered in his elementary school, along with 19 other children and six brave educators.

Joined by her husband David, Francine shares her perspective about the steps we can take to reduce gun violence and prevent the kind of tragedy she understands all too well.

It's a message that every American should hear:

Watch Francine, then join her in speaking out to make our country safer.

This week, because people like Francine and like you got involved, the U.S. Senate took a step forward on commonsense reforms to reduce gun violence.

And that's good. Because this shouldn't be about politics. This is about doing the right thing for families that have been torn apart by gun violence, and for all our families going forward.

But we've got a lot of work to do before Congress finishes the job.

So if you believe that we can take sensible steps to protect more of our kids from gun violence and protect our Second Amendment rights, stand up and join us.

Just visit WhiteHouse.gov to get started:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/newtown-address

Thanks,

President Obama

Politics at it finest.

Of course Obama is going to use these people to maximum advantage.

My heart goes out to them in their grief but I'm afraid they misunderstand that their proposals will do jack shit when it comes to gun crime.

By definition criminals ignore the law.

What is being proposed will only make more criminals, the opposite of their objective.

It has been proven beyond the shadow of doubt that even people who fail the background check are not prosecuted in any meaningful numbers.

It goes right back to what has been said about so many other laws and proposed legislation and it needs to be hammered right back in their faces repeatedly until someone finally fucking gets the message we are trying to send.

ENFORCE THE MOTHER FUCKING LAWS ALREADY ON THE BOOKS.

It's like they think this is some kind of sick game of who can pass the most laws and who can pass the most restrictive laws when the ignorant cocksuckers won't mandate that the laws they have already passed be enforced properly.

Look at how many laws that sick fucking bastard Adam Lanza broke before he even pulled into the parking lot at that school.

Didn't make one fucking bit of difference did it?

But no.
Let's pass some more fucking laws.

The police, the legislators and every criminal in this country knows they don't even have the resources to enforce the laws we have now and these misguided idiots seem to think passing another bucket full is going to cure all their ills.

Instead of spending money hiring more law enforcement personnel they spend it on equipment militarizing the forces we have already.

Local podunk police departments who have assault vehicles and weapons to use while breaking down peoples doors and shooting their dogs but not enough bodies to even bother sending someone out to take a report on stolen property should tell you someones priorities are completely fucked up.

But no.
Let's pass some more fucking laws.

The definition of insanity has been described as doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.

I submit this country fits that definition.