Small Dead Bird and Blue Screen of Death

One of the drawbacks of starting a new job working nights (10:30pm-7:00am) is your life gets reduced to a series of brain bytes. Because I do very little but work and sleep, I pile up issues that need to be addressed when I have the time. In the case of the bird, it was fairly simple, but the source was a mystery to me until Cec got up this morning and explained.

I got up early (day off) to keep an appointment for a pre-employment physical—one of those “heart beating, at least one lung expanding, and able to stand upright”—deals required by corporate heads, who need to justify their existence. Walked the dogs, which in this case was a short one, still wearing my cotton jammies. We came in, I removed Gus’s leash and he headed for the warmth of the bedroom and I headed to the kitchen to make coffee. A while later I was on the way to the bathroom for a shower when I noticed Gus stretched out on the bed with a small dead bird stretched out beside him. For a small dog he has a disproportionately large mouth which has enabled him to smuggle a number of unpalatable specimens into the house over the years. In the case of this morning’s bird I was half asleep, which is probably why I hadn’t noticed the tail and/or the head sticking out of his mouth. Or maybe he had the whole thing crammed in there. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t in the bed when I retired last night; I would have noticed, I think.

Anyway, when Cec got up I mentioned it to him and he explained that the bird was a casualty of the side window, which is often mistaken for a flight pattern. Apparently it had ended up on the deck after breaking its neck and Maggie, our other dog, had relocated it to the front yard, and from there it found its way into Gus’s mouth. Small dead bird mystery solved.

The blue screen of death is another matter. Last week I was attempting to upload a few photographs from my documents onto my blog. I had succeeded in transferring two when that pesky blue screen appeared. You know the one: Fatal Error, indecipherable codes, lines and lines of white lettering that no one has time to even begin to read, much less translate, before the whole computer shuts down.

I tried again. Same thing. Then I decided to mail one at a time to one of our other emails. I got one loaded, hit send, and ten minutes later, got this message: “Unable to display this page.” The photo was gone, the email was gone, and the whole attempt was pretty much a bust. So, now I have files of pictures that I am unable to upload, download, or any other kind of load. I’m not computer savvy enough to solve this one. If anyone out there has even a modicum of knowledge in this area, I would appreciate any help I can get.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to spend my life working and sleeping. Isn’t that how we spread the wealth?

Love

Granny

It Never Ends

There are two things that really annoy me through this whole political travesty: One is my continued surprise at his continued arrogance no matter what transpires. The other is his continued arrogance no matter what transpires. I have a mental picture of the torches and pitchforks and the burning castle. As he goes up in a cloud of acrid smoke, he’s shouting, “Don’t I smell wonderful as I burn? It’s all Bush’s fault!"

He actually had the audacity—and I’m sorry, I run out of descriptive words—to say (paraphrasing) that the anger that swept Brown into office is the same anger that swept him into office, and that it goes back eight years. What??? Let me get this straight. The citizens of Massachusetts are angry at Bush so they elected a Republican senator.

Mr. President, get over Bush. The past eight years include last year, and that, my friend, was all yours. Since the entire universe is about you, let me validate this particular statement. LAST YEAR WAS ALL ABOUT YOU.

So, while the Democrats are setting world records for frenzy, the successor to the world class swimmer is going to Washington, hopefully to lend an air of sanity and credibility to the beleaguered city. No one knows what will happen, and the pundits, bloggers, and blowhards on both ends of the political spectrum have enough silage keep them busy until the next big news yarn comes along.

God bless America


Love

Granny

'Nuff Said

There's absolutely nothing I can say about tonight's election except: "WE DON'T FEEL YOUR PAIN" and "IT'S NOT TED KENNEDY'S SEAT ANYMORE."

God bless America. The people have spoken.

Love

Granny

Review

I'm putting this up as a review, lest we forget what he really is. How were we caught so unaware? Was it the black thing? Was it the hope thing? Was it the change thing? Now all we have is a "black" guy who is changing things so fast we're left with no hope at all. I would have no problem with his being black, but he isn't. He has lied about everything from the git go.

Love

Granny

A Crisis by Many Other Names

There are two kinds of crises in the country: the “I’m gonna get something for nothing” crisis, and the “I’m gonna die” crisis. Notice that the word “I” is used, which tends to bring the whole thing down to where politics resides; with the individual.

Once upon a time, when Barack Obama was a little snot-nosed four-year-old, there were two youngish academics, who resided in New York and were associated with Columbia University. Radical socialists, they performed pretty much as one would expect from academia, and they were in the company of countless other socialist, Marxist haters of capitalism and America. Clintons, Ayers, Dohrn, and people of that ilk which the Viet Nam War and the race riots helped to spawn. Not that they gave a rip about either Viet Nam or the race riots as far as humanitarianism was concerned. Each event was simply an impetus for promoting their agenda: the tearing down of the United States. They all worked hard, and their programs, ideals and schemes have come to fruition in a variety of ways.

In 1965 Cloward and Piven took a ready-made crisis and transformed it into a leftist strategy of major proportions. When the Watts riots occurred they refined a plan that worked and has been gaining momentum for the past forty-four years. And our president (the snot-nosed four-year-old) has raised it to an art form. Imagine that.

Simply put, the Cloward-Piven strategy is a manufactured crisis. In the words of David Horowitz, it is “The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. The 'Cloward-Piven Strategy' seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.” Or, as Michael Eden wrote, “(The Piven-Cloward strategy) was the brainchild of two leftist professors to take total control of America by overwhelming its social support structures to create a ‘crisis’” They were greatly influenced by Saul Alinsky, The Chicago Marxist community organizer.

And it has worked time after time, beginning with an article "The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty" in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation. Cloward and Piven outlined a plan to sabotage the welfare system by a massive drive to recruit the poor onto welfare roles. It worked. "From 1965 to 1974, the number of households on welfare soared from 4.3 million to 10.8 million, despite mostly flush economic times. By the early 1970s, one person was on the welfare rolls in New York City for every two working in the city's private economy." writes Sol Stern. As a result, New York City was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1975. America was horrified, and the road to welfare was paved. Lo and behold, the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act was signed by President Clinton, with Cloward and Piven standing by like proud parents.

Now President Obama, who may have been a student of Cloward, or at least closely connected with him at Columbia, has taken the crisis strategy and run with it. Using the economic panic of 2008, he started his presidency by scaring everybody to death with his unemployment predictions and presented a stimulus package to prevent these predictions. Here’s one result out of Oklahoma. And here’s the result as of December ’09.

2009 was a year of Crises. From the Stimulus package to the auto industry to the banking fiasco to H1N1, the technique is clear: scare everybody to death. Or promise them free stuff.

Now we have the healthcare bill being crammed down our throats, despite 57% of the citizens being opposed.

What we need to understand is that for more than fifty years the left has been hard at work dismantling the private sector, capitalism, and the constitution. This is a very personal opinion, but I see the healthcare “crisis” as the last straw. Remember the strategy: overwhelm, overwhelm, overwhelm. Bring down a system and erect a socialist substitute. Cloward and Piven should be household names. They are not. However, if you take the time to Google them you will find far more information than you want. Keep in mind that this strategy has been working in this country since its birth in the sixties.

While you’re at it, please go to this site and this one (which will help you see why I believe healthcare reform will bring down our country.)

My fellow Americans, it is time to take back our country by any means possible. We desperately need a Lexington moment:

Although the minutemen were far fewer than the British soldiers they stood their ground. Pitcairn fired his pistol, and called to his men, "Fire!" A few guns answered, and then followed a deadly discharge of muskets at short range.

Captain Parker, seeing that his men were too few to withstand so many, ordered them to retreat. Then a few of them, of their own accord, fired at the regulars, but did them no harm. Seven men of Lexington, however, were killed by the British fire, and nine wounded. Jonas Parker had sworn never to run from British troops; he stood his ground and was stabbed by a bayonet as he reloaded his gun. Robert Munroe, a veteran of earlier wars, was killed. Samuel Hadley and John Brown were followed and shot down after they had left the common, and Asahel Porter, who had been captured and was trying to escape, was also shot. Caleb Harrington, who had gone to the meeting-house for powder, was killed by a bullet as he came out, and Jonathan Harrington, Jr., was struck in front of his own house on the common. His wife was at the window. He fell, then got to his knees, and crawled to his doorstep. There he died as his wife reached him.


Daylight found Lexington Common stained with blood, and seven of the town's brave sons dead. Yet Samuel Adams, looking into the future, could exclaim, "Oh, what a glorious morning is this!" for he knew that the heroic stand of that little company was the first step towards the winning of their country's independence. (Emphasis mine)

***This analysis of "The Battle of Lexington" is reprinted from Historic Poems and Ballads. Ed. Rupert S. Holland. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co., 1912.

Following the Lexington and Concord episode, Lord Hugh Percy wrote of the Minutemen: "Whoever looks upon them as an irregular mob will find himself much mistaken." (Emphasis mine)

Love

Granny

And the Answer is . . .

  
While reading a CNS News article today I was struck by a statement by Janet Napolitano. No, not the “system worked” statement. That’s been kicked to death. This statement was a response to the declassified report issued by the White House yesterday. The report came in preparation for yet one more sorry excuse for why the government failed to prevent Umar Farouk Abdulmutallb’s terror plot from going as far as it did, presented by the guy with the recent Hawaiian tan. The guy who said words like, “The preponderance of the intelligence related to the plot was available broadly to the intelligence community.” Well, duh.

But I digress. Included in the report was a question: “what was the most shocking, stunning thing that you found” (That’s a direct quote.)

Does this sound like one of the questions posed to a Miss America candidate? “Tell me, Miss Muffy from the great state of Virginia, what do you feel is the most important thing you can do during your tenure as Miss America?”

“Well, Mr. Lopez, I want to travel to all the third-world countries, feed all the starving children, stop all the wars and rebuild Detroit.”

Janet Napolitano’s answer to “What was the most shocking and stunning thing that you found?”

“the tactic of using an individual to foment an attack, as opposed to a large conspiracy or a multi-person conspiracy such as we saw in 9/11 -- that is something that affects intelligence. It really emphasizes now the renewed importance on how different intelligence is integrated and analyzed, and threat streams are followed through. And again, it will impact how we continue to review the need to improve airport security around the world.”

I read it once. Then again. Then a third time. Aside from all those big words and absolute meaningless of most of them, I was completely taken aback by the one word “individual” in her answer.

Excuse me, Ms Nap, but do you remember Richard Reid, the individual who tried detonating a bomb in his shoe on board Flight 63 in December, 2001? How about Abdulhakim Muhammad, the individual who opened fire at a Marine recruiting station in Arkansas last June 1, killing one young soldier and wounding the other. Then there’s Nidal Malik Hasan the individual who shot and killed thirteen unarmed people at Fort Hood in November.

I suppose that, because most of these individuals don’t bring along their instructors, imams or camels and show up with prayer rugs tucked under their arms, they aren’t something worthy of scrutiny. Apparently our Director of Homeland Security believes all terrorists travel in packs, like cigarettes. What is she really saying, if anything? Why would she make such a brainless statement unless she simply isn’t counting these incidents as acts of terrorism? She’s already demonstrated to the American people that she is incapable of thinking on her feet, a terrifying concept when considering the gravity of her job.

What was the most shocking and stunning thing that you found?


Love

Granny

Terrorism in 2010 and Beyond

For those of you who don’t subscribe to Dick Morris here is an article by him:

“THE CONSEQUENCES OF OBAMA: TERRORISM IS BACK By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN Published on DickMorris.com on January 5, 2010

Rev. Jeremiah Wright said that the "chickens came home to roost" on 9-11. He was wrong. But they have now, indeed, come home to roost as we witness the results of the unilateral disarmament President Obama has practiced in the war on terror. Beset once more by terrorism on our soil and in our airspace, we find ourselves suddenly overmatched by those who the Bush Administration kept away from our shores for seven years.

This new onset of terrorism is not the product of any change in the international environment or some new "systemic" flaw in our intelligence operations. It is due to the policy of President Obama in letting down our guard and inhibiting those charged with our protection.

Under Obama, the hunters have become the hunted as America inverted her priorities. Those who have been working to keep us safe have, themselves, come under scrutiny for profiling, harsh interrogation techniques, and a failure to give terrorists constitutional rights they don't have.

The result is predictable: Timidity and caution have become the order of the day in our intelligence community. In a world where hunch, guesswork, and a willingness to leap to conclusions by imagining the worst are vital to success, a cover your butt mentality has taken over. If you come to the wrong conclusion, if you profile without adequate justification, if you accuse incorrectly, you are finished. Your career and your pension will be gone. Guess right and you are accorded anonymity. Guess wrong and you're through.

The failure of the intelligence operatives to pass along the information about the Ft. Hood shooter or the airline bomber did not flow from a blind spot or a lack of co-ordination, they stemmed from terrorism of a different sort -- the terror of making a mistake and falling on the harsh mercies of Eric Holder.

Now Nigerian terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutall sits, lawyered up, in a federal prison. His interrogation will proceed, if at all, under the watchful eye of his counsel. He will not finger other operatives nor warn us of other impending attacks. He will receive the full panoply of constitutional rights, none of which he is entitled to.

Barack Obama does not seem to understand that these terrorists come here to use our laws and our system, not to protect us, not even to shelter themselves, but to destroy us.

Abdulmutall should be interrogated by the military, without benefit of counsel. The evidence we obtain should not be admissible in a court of law nor used as the basis for his sentencing. But it must be used to ward off future threats and attacks.

But Obama is a true believer. His persistence in downgrading the war on terror to a criminal investigation will continue. And we will experience more and more attacks. Because pessimism is the bodyguard of liberalism, he will explain to us that the world has become more threatening and that he is doing all he can to keep us safe. But the truth will be that it will have been his policies and priorities that are leaving us exposed.

And the attacks will continue.”

And, may I add the government cover-ups and lying will continue. This is a new era. Say what you will about the Bush administration, after 9/11 we didn’t suffer a terrorist attack the whole time he was in office. Now, however, political correctness may just get us all killed, thanks to those whom Obama has put in charge. Count on it; 2010 won’t be pretty.

Find Dick Morris at http://www.dickmorris.com/

Love

Granny

What Could Possibly go Wrong?

This is why I don't fly. To say the system sucks is such an understatement it doesn't bear saying. I have a 14-pound Brussels Griffon-Shih Tzu mix who could do better—and has:

"DHS Plans to Catch Only One in Four Travelers Committing ‘Major’ Criminal Violations While Entering U.S. on International Fights in 2010


Monday, January 04, 2010

By Terence P. Jeffrey, Editor-in-Chief

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano(CNSNews.com) - Documents produced by the Department of Homeland Security indicate that in fiscal 2010 the department is planning to catch only 26 percent of travelers committing major criminal violations while seeking to enter the United States through international airports.

DHS documents also indicate that the department believes it will fail to screen against law enforcement databases 15 percent of travelers entering the United States in 2010 through all official ports of entry.

In fiscal 2008, according to DHS, the department caught only 25 percent of those committing “major violations” while entering the U.S. on international flights. It also planned to catch only 25% in fiscal 2009, which ended on Sept. 30. For fiscal 2010, which began on Oct. 1, DHS set it sites slightly higher, planning to catch 26 percent of “major” violators entering the U.S. on international flights while letting 74 percent get away.

DHS each year calculates what it calls the “air passenger apprehension rate for major violations.” This apprehension rate is used as one measure of whether the department is achieving its goal to “improve the targeting, screening, and apprehension of high-risk international cargo and travelers to prevent terrorist attacks, while providing processes to facilitate the flow of safe and legitimate trade and travel.”

The “major violations” that DHS believes 74 percent of perpetrators will get away with when entering the U.S. by air in 2010, according to a 3,493-page document the department presented to Congress to justify its annual budget, involve “serious criminal activity, including possession of narcotics, smuggling of prohibited products, human smuggling, weapons possession, fraudulent U.S. documents, and other offenses serious enough to result in arrest.”

DHS determines the percentage of “major” violators it catches entering the United States at international airports by subjecting a random sampling of passengers to intensified scrutiny designed to detect any offense they might be committing. “The sample rate is used to estimate the ‘expected’ number of major violations in the general population,” DHS explained in its budget justification. “The major violations found during the regular primary inspection process are then compared to the ‘expected’ number to compute the apprehension rate for major violations among air passengers traveling to the U.S.”

The justification for its 2010 budget that DHS presented to Congress said the department had apprehended 40.3 percent of those committing “major violations” entering the United States on international flights in fiscal 2007, but that the number dropped to only 25 percent in fiscal 2008. For fiscal 2009, the document said, the department set a goal of apprehending 25 percent again, and then raised the goal to 26 percent for fiscal 2010.

An annual performance review updated by DHS in May also said the department caught only 25% of those committing “major violations” while entering the U.S. by air in fiscal 2008 and that the department had set goals of apprehending 25 percent of such violators in 2009 and 26 percent in 2010.

A statement provided to CNSNews.com on September 11, 2009 by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the DHS agency responsible for screening international travelers entering the United States, said “the vast majority of passenger violations that fall into the ‘major violations’ category are narcotics violations.”

Another measure that DHS uses to determine whether it is achieving its goal of preventing terrorist attacks is called the “percent of individuals screened against law enforcement databases for entry into the United States.” The 3,493-page report DHS provided to Congress to justify its 2010 budget said, “This measure identifies the percent of individuals arriving at the ports of entry who have their names and other identification information checked against electronic law enforcement databases.”

According to the document, the department screened only 73.5% of international travelers arriving at all U.S. ports of entry in 2008, and set goals of screening 80 percent in fiscal 2009 and 85 percent in fiscal 2010.

In its annual financial report published on Nov. 16, DHS said it had done law-enforcement database screening on 83.4% of travelers entering the U.S. at official ports of entry in fiscal 2009 and was still planning to screen 85 percent in fiscal 2010—leaving 15 percent of travelers entering the United States unscreened.

A Homeland Security Department official, who spoke to CNSNews.com last week on the condition that his name not be used, said CBP screens 100 percent of international travelers entering the United States at international airports but is not as efficient in screening international travelers entering the country at land ports of entry.

Nonetheless, DHS officials told CNSNews.com that some individuals whose names are discovered on law enforcement databases before they board international flights to the United States are allowed to board the planes and fly to the United States. After they arrive, they are subjected to heightened scrutiny, sometimes being denied final entry into the country by CBP. DHS said individuals dealt with in this way are not included in its “air passenger apprehension rate”

“CBP officials are alerted to all travelers on the terrorist watch list, including those with outstanding criminal warrants, or criminal histories,” CBP told CNSNews.com in the September statement. “This screening is done prior to arrival at the U.S. port of entry. On arrival, such travelers are intercepted and their cases are handled immediately, removing them from the pool of passengers included in the air apprehension rate measure. This means that virtually all potential terrorists and criminal violators are interdicted in our first layer of enforcement, before the apprehension rate is determined.”

A Homeland Security Department official explained last week that international passengers who appear on the “No Fly” list are not allowed to board planes bound for the United States, but that officials at CBP’s National Targeting Center make judgment calls about whether other individuals “flagged” by the agency’s screening system will be permitted to board U.S. bound flights. The screening system checks names of passengers against multiple databases.

The official said that when passengers check-in for U.S. bound flights at foreign airports their names are automatically run against the “No Fly” list which is provided to the airlines. Then, depending on the system the airline is using, the passenger’s name is either instantly transmitted at check-in to CBP’s National Targeting Center or the airline provides CBP with a manifest of all passenger’s on a U.S.-bound flight either 60 minutes or 30 minutes before departure. CBP checks the names by computer and examines any that its system flags to determine whether the person in question should be allowed on the flight.

“The no-fly list is exactly that. They don’t get on a plane,” the DHS official said. “Everyone else that is on that plane and headed for the states, we get that information before the plane pushes back, we are starting our vetting against all these databases and they have different levels of complexity, depending on whose lists they are. So everyone is being vetted against those and that allows us to identify individuals that are coming to the United States that are interest to us for further screening.”

The DHS official stressed that passengers who are not on the “No Fly” list but appear on other databases that trigger more extensive screening after the passenger arrives at a U.S. airport are “not known terrorists” but have aroused the interest of the U.S. government for other reasons. “The individuals we are looking at are not known terrorists. They are not considered a threat to the country,” said the official. But because some law enforcement or federal agency is interested in them, CBP is “made aware of it so that we can talk to them when they do enter the United States.”

Some passengers may be flagged for fairly minor matters, the DHS official said. “I am from Michigan and I have a warrant for failure to appear and that shows up,” said the official, giving a hypothetical. “I am going to get talked to when I enter the United States because there is a law enforcement agency out there that has an interest in me. I am not a threat to national security. I am not on a no-fly list.”

When asked if people on the “No Fly” list were the only travelers automatically excluded from boarding international flights to the United States, the DHS official said travelers with invalid visas are also supposed to be automatically excluded from boarding flights to the United States.

The DHS official also said one reason the department sometimes waits until a passenger flagged by their screening system arrives in the United States before dealing with them is because the department has few resources and no jurisdiction in foreign countries.

“Most of our resources are at our ports of entry. That is where our officers have the authority and the ability to deal with these individuals,” said the official. “Just because someone is trying to get on a flight in a foreign country and they may have a past criminal history that is of interest, we have no authority to act on that at that time.”

The first line of defense in preventing bad actors from boarding planes to come to United States from foreign countries is the State Department, which is responsible for screening would-be travelers who apply for visas.

When CNSNews.com asked CBP in September why DHS’s annual performance report set a goal of apprehending only 26% of those committing “major violations” while entering the United States by air, CBP provided CNSNews.com with a written statement that said the apprehension rate is low because the majority of major violators are smuggling small amounts of drugs that are difficult to detect.

“CBP Officers are always attempting to catch 100% of the major violations occurring at the ports of entry,” said the statement. “This is extremely difficult to do since most major violations at the ports of entry are narcotics violations and narcotics smugglers are very inventive at finding new ways to hide contraband.”

The statement said the DHS conducts a “thorough physical inspection” of a random sampling of passengers to estimate the rate of major violations being committed by those arriving at U.S. international airports.

“We track the ‘results’ for this measure by taking a true random sampling of arriving passengers and conducting a thorough physical inspection of them, their luggage, and travel documents to identify all violations in our sample,” said the statement. 'This information is used to develop a statistically valid estimate of the number of violations occurring in the group of travelers arriving at the port of entry. We then compare the violations we actually find to this estimate to determine the overall apprehension rate.'"

Go here to read the rest. Yeah, there's more. You'll also get to see the picture of Janet, something I'm sure you're all aching for.

Love

Granny

I Guess it Depends on the Meaning of the Term “Smoking Gun”

In an attempt to be as accurate as possible I actually looked up “Smoking Gun” and found the definition: indisputable evidence. I know that every blogger in the universe has something to say about this, but I’ve been steaming all day and I’m simply going to refer those of you who are not familiar with it to RBO which will refer you to Brenda Elliot, both of whom have a real handle on it.

Let me just add, what did Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan mean by “no smoking gun?” The fact that Umar Abdulmatallab’s father ‘s statement—to the American Embassy in Nigeria— held no credibility? Or that young Mr. Abdulmatallab’s association with Yemen meant nothing? (By the way, I hate that names like these are becoming household words.) The Keystone Cops and the Three Stooges would have done better! Oh, I forgot, two of the Three Stooges are already busy with the healthcare bill.

There’s no point in kicking the cash for the airline ticket and NO CHECKED LUGGAGE dead horse. It’s all water under the bridge and our president doesn’t give a hoot anyway. No smoking gun? How about smoking underwear? Does that have any meaning for you, Mr. Deputy National Security Adviser? How about a planeload of people meeting a fiery death because our hapless Director of Homeland Security doesn‘t know what the hell she‘s doing any more than our POTUS does? What’s it going to take?

My big resolution was that I would leave all my sarcasm and name-calling in 2009 and with the left-wing people. They’re better at it anyway because their vocabularies are limited. And yet . . . 2010 is going to be a long year. Heck, it's been a long year already. It must be nearly election day.


Love

Granny