A Little Fuel For the Fire to Keep You Warm…

Napolitano Cancels Virtual Border Fence Project, Proposes Alternative

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced Friday that she has canceled the troubled virtual fence project along the southwest border, proposing a new plan which she claims will better address each region’s border security needs.

…and some music to read the ARGHticle by.

You gotta admit, you’re happy I put video of Trigger blowing kisses up instead of Big Sis…

Another Reason To Love Pigs

Simply AMAZING ARRRGHticle!!

(I borrowed a college party picture of Bingley for the “color shot”.)

Blackbeard’s Sword, Found!
Archaeologists Discover Pirate Treasure Off North Carolina Coast

How freakedty COOL is this thing?

We got to watch the very infancy of the the Queen Anne’s Revenge excavations when we were still living in Jacksonville, N.C. At that point, they still had their puddies crossed that what they found was the ship, hoping the marks on the first cannons they pulled up would validate all the hard work and skullduggery keeping the site a “secret”. Secret, hell. It was right smack dab in the middle of Bogue Inlet, and we could watch them from Fort Macon every time Kcruella came down to visit and we took the boys up for a tour ’round the battlements.

God, I LOVE unearthing the history of these United States. I just bloody do.

Makes me leg tingle, it does.

University of Arizona T-Shirt Thoughts For the Day

…from my old buddy Dan.

…I’m just thinking . . . if it were a memorial event, it might have been better to donate the money to some charity. But, hey, that’s just me. Anyway, souvenirs from an event memorializing the victims of an atrocity?

“Hey, dude . . . remember that time in college that little girl got shot by that Tea Partier? Good times. I’ve still got the t-shirt.” Or as someone on Twitter said, “A nine-year-old girl was shot and killed, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.” Weird and ghoulish. Did nobody advise anyone in charge that this was nuts?

Never mind. This is the dipshit institution that let Deb Frisch blackmail them into keeping her on faculty for six years, I think it was.

Citizen: “Oh, my God! Six people murdered!”
UofA: “Together We Thrive!”

Film at 11.

And Then I Ask Myself, “Gee Willikers, White House Whiz Kids!”

“What could go wrong?”

The Foreclosure Dump

…I also know there have been many discussions brewing within the government and at the banks with hedge funds looking to buy up bulk foreclosures. So far no big deals we know of, but they’re coming for sure.

The government may even be considering incentives to get more investors to buy foreclosures, which I blogged about last month.

As the numbers mount, the GSE’s and the banks will have to put more resources into unloading these properties, especially as new Spring organic housing supply comes on the market. If they choose to slash prices even more, the dip in overall home prices may fall deeper than expected.

Quelle horreur!!!
“Glut” is not the 4 letter “G” word we should be worried about, I’m thinking right now. The TRULY alarming one is “GOVT”, as in “INCENTIVES”:

…as in $8000 home tax credit? As $4000 “cash for clunkers“?
As in “Cash 4 4Closures”?
How about as in:
“HOLY SHIT, Sherlocks!!! Keep your FREAKIN’ PAWZ OFF STUFF and DON’T DO US ANY MORE F*#&ING FAVORS!!!”

Please.

(Swill Salute to Instapundit)

For Our Friends In Canada

Get subversive!

Now go out there and read Huck Finn!

This Is The Moment When The Oceans Stop Rising…

Ah, the magic of that special Obama oratory never fails

Despite President Obama’s speech about healing, shared responsibility and shared pain, conservative pundit Sarah Palin is plastered, unflatteringly, along one San Francisco street (so far).

The posters — found and publisehd by SFist.com — espouse “Enrage them with fear until they feel justified in their violence.”

Of course, being an NBC affiliate, they couldn’t resist adding

Granted, Palin has brought even more spotlight on herself with a recent diatribe against “irresponsible journalists.”

Because, you know, she has been calling for the white youth of ‘Merkuh to rise up and strike down the corrupt godless Congress Critter oligarchs who oppress us.

Or at least that’s what all the MSM outlets told me Saturday afternoon.

Your Henny Penny/Dogs and Cats Lying Down Together Moment of the Day

Courtesy of The True Believers at World News Tonight.

Raging Waters In Australia and Brazil Product of Global Warming
Scientists: Climate Change No Longer a Theory, It’s Happening

…Every time we burn fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas, Sommerville said, we emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Now, climate scientists see “the changed odds, the loaded dice that favors more extreme events and more high temperature records being broken,” he said.

The decade that just ended saw nine of the 10 warmest years on record, and warmer temperatures mean more moisture in the air. That moisture can fall as torrential, flooding rains in the summertime or blizzards in the winter.

Warming = DROUGHT, pestilence and disASSter? BWAhahahaha!!!!
That’s so LAST decade!!!!

You just KNEW they’d come up with an “explanation”, didn’t you?

(Supposed to be 19° here in Pensacola again tonight. They need to work out the cold spin next.)
UPDATE: Oh, WHOOPEE!! They posted the video!

Watch and weep, DOUBTERS….

Best Trifecta Ever

Besides Cringing at the Sound of His Voice, the Other Reason I Didn’t Watch Obama Last Night?

That speech should have been given DAYS ago. To calm things down immediately. It wasn’t an hour after the shooting and you could already see where it was going. Cut controversy off at the knees, soothingly let folks know adults are in charge and, sternly, that ONLY the facts, ma’am, are acceptable.

He needed to establish command before the Krugmans Pod People had a chance to take over the narrative.

He blew it.

Again.

You decide what he gained by waiting. I’ve got my own bitterclingerhater ideas about that.

The Future Does Not Belong To The Faint-Hearted

No hooting and cheering crowds.

No sloganed t-shirts.

Terror In Teresopolis

Over 300 people so far have died

RIO DE JANEIRO — Driving rains sent tons of rusty red earth sliding into mountain towns, killing at least 335 people and leaving dozens more missing, Brazilian media reported Thursday.

Hillsides and river banks in the picturesque Serrana region north of Rio de Janeiro buckled under about 10 inches of rain — the equivalent of a month’s rainfall in 24 hours — destroying houses and killing many people early Wednesday, rescue officials said.

Television footage showed many houses buried in mud as desperate residents and rescue workers searched for survivors.

“There was no way of telling which house would fall. Rich and poor — everything was destroyed,” resident Fernanda Carvalho was quoted as saying by the Globo network’s website.

In the hardest-hit town of Teresopolis, hundreds of family members crowded at a morgue Wednesday night waiting to identify bodies. Officials there raised the death toll from 130 to 146, Globo reported.

I’ve been in Teresopolis many times. It’s a lovely town about an hour outside of Rio, high in the mountains, nestled in a steeply-sided valley that has a pleasing climate and houses of all types clinging to the hillsides.

Update: Some pictures.

…”It’s Safe to Say There Was a Collective Sigh of Brown Relief…”

“…when the Tucson killer turned out to be a gringo.“

An NPR reporter explains how awful it is to be Hispanic in Arizona the United States with all these haters.

…In short, the only reason the nation is taking a few days to reflect on the animosity in politics today is precisely that the shooter was not Latino….

… I admit sadly that it was only after I saw the shooter’s gringo surname that I was able to go on and read the rest of the news about those who lost their lives on Saturday and those who, like Rep. Giffords, were severely wounded. I admit also that I felt some small relief in knowing that at least this shooting wouldn’t be used as a reason for yet another backlash against immigrants, or at least that’s what I’m hoping. In this political climate, it’s hard to tell.

I think she’s forgotten who took the bullets here, don’t you?

Bingley Update:

Boy, the way the comment thread has devolved makes me want to buy someone a beer

I Love the Obituaries

The stories they tell that we would never, ever know otherwise. Sometimes they’re quiet, wonderful lives ~ full of love, community and children. Then, sometimes, like today…you just go, “Wow”. And I have to share.
There’s a jaunty picture of a hardcharging Marine ~ caught our eye immediately. (Duh, right?)
Mr. Winfred Hubert Kiser, 1918-2011. Oh, he did a ton.

…He often said, “The Corps established my humility. My experience with the Marines formed my life. Through the Marine Corps I learned my core values of Honor, Courage and Commitment. I learned to be a leader of men.”

He was honored to receive three Bronze Stars with valor and Purple Heart for his actions sustained during his war time service.

After the war, he married his sweetheart and left the Marine Corp to establish many successful businesses within the furniture, electronics, and floor covering and appliance sectors of the retail markets by establishing chains and innovative marking concepts.

He was a sterling example of honor and moral values, an inspiration, who will be missed by all who knew him.

Lord, that’s just beautiful. Semper Fi, good sir, and God speed.

But then, there was another smiling gentleman and a much shorter passage ~ Jack Boney Dunn, 1924-2011. And, again, an awestruck, “Wow!”… …when I got to the few matter-of-fact sentences encapsulating some of LCDR Dunn’s noteworthies…

…He served as Skipper of LCT 619, Easy Red Third Wave, D Day invasion of Omaha Beach. Jack served in numerous aircraft Fleet Squadrons on numerous Fleet aircraft carriers. He served as Director of Flight Program, NAS, Pensacola. He was Chief Project Coordinator for the Hubble Space Telescope for Lockheed, Inc.

Just another day on the beach, Commander? Gracious.

Hard to believe I had one more “Wow!” to go…
Mr. John Gott 1917-2011

…John worked for the N & W Railroad prior to the start of WWII. He joined the Navy after Pearl Harbor. His career included serving in the Pacific with Bull Hulsey. He was on Secretary of Defense James Forrestal’s staff shortly after the war and worked in Naval Attache with Chaing Kai-shek in Formosa. John also appeared in the Navy TV show “Navy Log” about JFK and his PT109.

Extraordinary! And I hope there are grandchildren, or someone, who has their stories down, somewhere. And now, we have a little of their sacrifice and service saved here.

Thank you, gentlemen. God bless you, every one.

So, While We’re Expectin’ 19° Tomorrow Morning in Balmy Banglacola

…and Bingster’s got ten inches of Gorebal warming to slog through on the way into Manhattan (while Kcruella just phones it in from Old Bridge), I thought I should pass along a little weather nugget from our taxpayer funded experts at…how did they put it? Oh, yeah!
No Observation At All!!

NOAA says 2010 tied with 2005 for warmest year in the surface temperature record

–Pensacola Beach school children line up for recess last Wednesday.

Figure that oughta give you a little flush of laughter to warm the cockles of your hearts for a brief, wintry second!

(Or at least help DonnaD’s husband defrost after getting the driveway done for the third time…)

She Nails It

UPDATE: I sense a disturbance in the FORCE. The video has SUDDENLY gone “PASSWORD PROTECTED” all over?!?!?! Thanks to Brian1972 over at HotAir, I got a YouTube version. Oh, they HAVE to be sweating…big time to do something like this. Or it could JUST be MASSIVE traffic, right? The Vimeo video came back up eventually.

And is exceedingly civil, although I don’t know how.
(Swill Salute to Instapundit.)

Floods In Australia

Tim is of course covering this constantly; some of the videos are just horrific.

If you are able, please give what you can. I’m using the Salvation Army because they do amazing work and keep their overhead costs very low; designate “Australian Floods” in the appropriate box.

Thanks, and god bless.

Update: Good god

Don’t Touch My Junket!

Ya know, I’m staring to like the TSA

A top House Democrat said the attack on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) should change how members of Congress are screened at airports.

“I really believe that that is the place where we feel the most ill at ease, is going through airports,” Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), who serves as assistant minority leader in the House, said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Clyburn called for the Transportation Security Administration, which administers airport security checkpoints, to interact “a little better” with the Capitol Hill Police.

“We’ve had some incidents where TSA authorities think that congresspeople should be treated like everybody else,” he said. “Well, the fact of the matter is, we are held to a higher standard in so many other areas, and I think we need to take a hard look at exactly how the TSA interact with members of Congress.”

I think that absolutely everyone who flies commercial, everyone from Cabinet Members to car wash attendants, should have to go through the exact same security procedures.

And be subject to all the same laws and regulations.

Mike Bloomberg

If he’d put half the effort into putting salt on the streets that he puts into removing it from our fries the City would be a hell of a lot better off.

Let’s see how Mayor Nanny does tonight

* LOCATIONS… NEW YORK CITY… AND NORTHEAST NEW JERSEY.

* HAZARDS… SNOW… HEAVY AT TIMES.

* ACCUMULATIONS… 8 TO 14 INCHES… WITH LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS POSSIBLE.

* WINDS… GUSTS 20 TO 25 MPH.

Quote Of The Day

From Andrew Klavan, writing at The City Journal

The Left—which has been unable to discover any common feature uniting acts of Islamist violence worldwide—nonetheless instantly noticed a bridge between the Tucson shooting and its own political opponents.

The Only Thing Missing From Last Night’s NBC Nightly News Sunday Report on the Extreme, “Increasingly Heated Rhetoric That Has Turned Friends into Enemies”

…was a PICTURE of Rush Limbaugh or Beck, because they’re alluded to, believe me. I guess even NBC doesn’t want THAT fight. Just yet.
All the other ee-ville, everything in common, obviously related in the rush-to-make-political-scores characters are front, center and accounted for:
Timothy McVeigh?
Check!
Palin?
Check!
And her crosshairs?
Check!
WHITE Tea Partiers en masse, WITH signs?
And check!
____
*Effectively and emotionally counterbalanced by the Voice of Reason squad:
Sheriff Dupnik?
Check!
Somber Democratic Black Congressional Caucus member speaking softly?
Check!
And a shot of Civil Rights marchers to illustrate “other times of ‘unrest'”. (HUH?) (But that’s just me.)

THIS is some masterful vilification, all wrapped up in rainbows and unicorns, brought to you courtesy of a major broadcast network. Just so YOU know who the real bad guys are, since you’re obviously not smart enough to figure it out, because you just voted a whole bunch of them into office.

As for my girlfriend…Palin ought to just get it over with and let the streak we all know is hidden in her hair by that $85 Wasilla colorist to just come on out. Jig’s up, baby…

Total Whack Job

Not surprisingly, someone who would gun down a 9 year old girl had some…issues

A sinister shrine reveals a chilling occult dimension in the mind of the deranged gunman accused of shooting a member of Congress and 19 others.

Hidden within a camouflage tent behind Jared Lee Loughner’s home sits an alarming altar with a skull sitting atop a pot filled with shriveled oranges.

A row of ceremonial candles and a bag of potting soil lay nearby, photos reveal.

We’ve all seen these exact same things on “Sarah Palin’s Alaska“, right?

As commenter “t-bird” said a Ace’s

Either he’s a Tea Party extremist or… please, no labels.

Speechless

From the comments [January 9, 2011 5:38 PM] on a WaPo story:

…But even if this man was a liberal who was mad at Gifford for voting against Pelosi, it is the right wing rhetoric that has made killing democratic congressperson’s seem like the normal thing to do if you have a grievance against them.

UPDATE: NBC’s Lester Holt also made sure he spent tonight’s Weekend News [ths sends: via Pete Williams’ report, video just added] telling us the kid reportedly had association with “right wing extremist” groups:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

and then exclusively used footage of Tea Party events to illustrate extremist rhetoric for that segment of the broadcast. [ths sends: I’ve got the video of THAT despicable hack job in the post above]

We are going to have quite a slog ahead of us.

BREAKING NEWS: Horrific Beyond Words

Dear God. Our prayers go out to everyone.

Representative Giffords shot in Arizona, gunman held

Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was shot in the head while holding a public event in Tucson, Fox News and National Public Radio reported on Saturday.

Something of this magnitude…

Arizona congresswoman among 12 shot at Tucson grocery

…and they’re saying upwards of 15 poor folks shot, with multiple fatalities ~ and the f*cking major networks couldn’t possibly break into their BASKETBALL GAME, could they?

Thank God they’ve got the bastard.

UPDATE: Miraculously Rep. Giffords was wounded in the gunfire, along with 18 others ~ killing six of them (that nine year old was one among them) ~ by this unhinged loser and what the Pima County Sheriff insists is not a lone assailant:

Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, from the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, said at a press conference that he is “not convinced he acted alone,” and that there is a second suspect believed to be a white male in his 50s. He went on to describe the shooter as ‘unstable’ with a troubled past.

Great. More dickweeds. UnSPEAKABLE.

Little shithead 22 year old.
God. Damn. Tin Foil Hat Rubber Suit Man. Who killed a nine year old. Think about that lad for a moment. He was SO conflicted, instead of reasoning out his anger, the pitiful creature…
WHILE SHOOTING A WOMAN POINT BLANK IN THE FACE, KILLED a NINE YEAR OLD, not to mention FIVE other human beings FAR more worthy than himself.

WHAT a man.

Please. If there’s any justice. Burn in HELL.

What Happens When Joe Biden Recites The Preamble…