How to get criminals to leave in a hurry

Once again, a law-abiding gun-owner uses his gun to protect himself and his belongings.  This time, it's especially fun, because the law-abiding gun-owner happens to be in his 80's.  Damn that 2nd ammendment, letting senior citizens protect themselves from criminals ...

An 81-year-old veteran pulled out a gun and turned the table on a pair of robbers, Sacramento police said.

Police said Howard "Buck" Buckner fell victim to a common ploy that robbers use in an attempt to get inside of a home.

The robbers faked an emergency, claiming their car had broken down and that they needed to use a phone.

But when Buckner turned to get a phone, the robbers attacked, police said.

"So he stepped inside, pulled out a gun and said, 'Turn off the light and back up. This is a robbery!'" Buckner said.

Buckner said the robbers paraded him through his Hollyhurst Way home at gunpoint in a search for his wallet.

"He kept saying he was going to pistol-whip me if I didn't find that wallet," Buckner said.

When Buckner could not find his wallet in the kitchen, they took him to his bedroom and left to continue searching the house.

Buckner picked his gun and sought to defend himself.

"I just reached in and grabbed my gun," Buckner said. "I hadn't fired it since 1960."

He wasn't sure if the gun would go off, but it didn't let him down.

"I pulled that trigger, and it worked," Buckner said.

He fired three shots from his bedroom, scaring off the robbers.

"They left," he said. "They left in a hurry."

 

Posted by: Ember at 07:24 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Good on him for saying it

I am, of course, hesitant to say anything nice about our (heretofore) Worst President EVAR, but, on the other hand, better late than never.

Now, a little bit of condemnation of Palestinian terrorism might be nice, but I'm not holding my breath.

Posted by: Sean M. at 12:28 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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60-40

Under the cover of darkness. There isn't even anything up on the news sites yet.

Update: So, here's the WaPo on this shit...

The 60-40 tally, taken shortly after 1 a.m., followed 12 hours of acrimonious debate and required senators to trek to the Capitol in the aftermath of a snowstorm. The vote was the first of three procedural hurdles that Democrats must cross before a final vote on passage of the measure, now scheduled for Christmas Eve.

Why? Why did they feel the need to do this at 1 a.m.? Why did they feel the need to do this when their offices went directly to voicemail? (And I tried calling both of my California Senators, even though I knew it would be a futile gesture.)

Because they know this is a shit sandwich, and the people they claim to represent can't stand it.

November, 2010. If we don't make a statement then, we never will.

Posted by: Sean M. at 01:25 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Where Not To Eat.

I don't eat a lot of fast food.  Aside from the fact that I try to watch my slim, girlish figure, I'm just not crazy about most of their food.  Their boasts of all-white-meat chicken and prime USDA beef never convinced me.  You ever eat a McDonald's burger or chicken nugget and had your teeth crunch down on something hard?  I have.  Hence, the avoidance of fast food.

Apparently, I should be comfortable with fast food - since, chances are, it's safer than your average school lunch:

In the past three years, the government has provided the nation's schools with millions of pounds of beef and chicken that wouldn't meet the quality or safety standards of many fast-food restaurants, from Jack in the Box and other burger places to chicken chains such as KFC, a USA TODAY investigation found.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the meat it buys for the National School Lunch Program "meets or exceeds standards in commercial products."

That isn't always the case. McDonald's, Burger King, and Costco, for instance, are far more rigorous in checking for bacteria and dangerous pathogens. They test the ground beef they buy five to 10 times more often than the USDA tests beef made for schools during a typical production day.

And the limits Jack in the Box and other big retailers set for certain bacteria in their burgers are up to 10 times more stringent than what the USDA sets for school beef.

For chicken, the USDA has supplied schools with thousands of tons of meat from old birds that might otherwise go to compost or pet food. Called "spent hens" because they're past their egg-laying prime, the chickens don't pass muster with Colonel Sanders — KFC won't buy them — and they don't pass the soup test, either. The Campbell Soup Company says it stopped using them a decade ago based on "quality considerations."

Kids in public school may be eating pet food.  This is why my daughter will not be going to public school.  The best line of the article, by the way:

President Obama noted earlier this year that, for many children, school lunches are "their most nutritious meal — sometimes their only meal — of the day."

Yummy, nutritious pet-food.

Posted by: Ember at 07:55 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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Barletta in for 2010

Attention NEPA morons, Lou is in for another round.


http://www.loubarletta.com

Posted by: JoeCollins at 10:44 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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The Latest From "Climategate"

With an Alabama connection.

The furor is now a full-blown media event dubbed Climategate, and very near its center are Christy, Alabama's state climatologist, a handful of other researchers and, to a lesser extent, Christy's fellow researcher at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Dr. Roy Spencer, also known as "the official climatologist of the Rush Limbaugh Show."

Christy was named in 51 of about 1,000 e-mails either hacked or leaked late last month from the University of East Anglia in eastern England. Spencer was named in 15.

The British university's Hadley Climatic Research Unit (CRU) is one of the world's leading centers for climate study. On its staff are prominent advocates of the theory that people are causing global warming by releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere from auto exhausts and power plants.

The e-mails were between CRU scientists and other climate researchers at such top laboratories as California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. They concerned how to minimize skeptics such as Christy, and how to adjust data that don't seem to support their view.

One of the advocates and e-mailers, CRU Director Phil Jones, stepped down last week pending an investigation.

The 51 references made Christy second only to Canadian global-warming skeptic Stephen McIntyre as a subject of discussion.

Since the e-mails first appeared Nov. 19, Christy has been quoted by news organizations around the world including, in America, CBS News, the Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio and the New York Times.

Thanks to Cuffy.

Posted by: eddiebear at 01:25 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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China is waging economic war on us again

Can we please limit our importation of Chinese goods to bullets?  Bullets are supposed to have lead in them, and bullets are supposed to inflict massive damage and kill people. 

The good news is, we get to shell out federal bucks to fix this.  And our snazzy world-traveling president can go to China pretending to try to get some sort of financial recompense for our outlay, get an unearned black belt in kung fu to match his unearned black belt* in taekwondo**, and grin from ear to ear pretending he accomplished something.

*Why is it when I do an image search trying to find a picture of our fearless leader getting his fake belt, I only get pictures of M'Shell and her boobie belt?

**And seriously, did Obama not recognize that his honorary taekwondo black belt when he's only achieved an middling level of mastery is a reflection of his entire political career? 

Posted by: Alice H at 01:04 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Those aren't hobos!

Posted by: Veeshir at 03:38 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Looks like South Park is going after Glenn Beck

I don't really watch his show or follow him in any way so I'm not sure if its funny or way off base as relates to reality so I'm going to try and just enjoy what there is to enjoy from a position of total ignorance.

You can set me and South Park straight in the comments if you feel the need.

Update:  Apparently, it was about Sarah Palin?  Or Olbermann?  Or all of them?  Plus a jab at Avatar?

Looks like it was one of those South Parks without any single coherent point.

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 10:15 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Interesting survey released for Veterans Day

Over at This Ain't Hell, two articles highlighting a recent survey of US vets, how returning/retiring veterans are viewed in the community, and how they'd like to be viewed.  Many veterans feel their communities think of them as broken victims, or that vets have done their service, so they should be free to kick back and relax.  Most veterans however want to more actively serve their communities, but aren't being called upon to do so.  So if you're active with a church group, charity or club, maybe offer a vet a chance to get involved, it might be the best way to honor them and their service.

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 10:08 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I'm guessing you're all over at the Head Moron's

If not, either head there or check the news.  Shooting at Ft. Hood, not much in the way of details yet.  The Ft. Hood website is down.  The Twitter hashtag is #FtHood.

Posted by: Alice H at 04:05 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Finally!

This will really come in handy when SkyNet is cleaning out the last survivors in urban areas:

Security agencies have long used the canine nose to sniff out contraband like explosives, drugs, human traffic and the like by picking up the scent of criminals’ illegal cargo. Now British scientists are developing two sensor systems that sniff out the criminals themselves by zeroing in on a specific pheromone emitted when humans are in stressful, fearful situations.

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 05:01 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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An event of cosmic proportions

This is bigger than the Harmonic Convergence, guys.  This is immensely and hugely important.

November 1 at 2 am is when clocks change over for Daylight Savings, meaning that at 2:00 am it's really 1:00 am.  Sure, you say, it happens every year - but how often does your Halloween drinking get to carry over an extra hour?

Posted by: Alice H at 09:14 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Shocka! Democrat Activists And Pollsters Are Burying Bad News For Them

I always get a chuckle out of how the Democrats and the MSM (BIRM) treat polling data: if it is good for Democrats, then hype, hype hype, while bad polling gets buried.

In that vein, I doubt this poll will get much play in the MSM. I learned my lessons in the past not to scream and hop up and down over one particular poll. As Ace and others have stated, trendlines and the like are more important than a day to day +1,-1 type of movement.

So, what trendlines are we seeing?

So the Democratic party is more or less as popular in these swing district as the Republican party. And voters with a Republican Congressman are noticeably 'warmer' toward their Representative than those represented by Democrats. The Democratic party has lost 13 points since April. The Democratic incumbents have lost 9 points, and the GOP incumbents have lost just 5 points.

I know it's a long way off, but thinking about the election for Congress next year, if the election for U.S. Congress were held today, would you be voting for - (DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE) or (REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE)
                                  Dem District     GOP District
Democratic Candidate.........48                  39
Republican Candidate.........45                   48

So the Democratic incumbents have a 3 point edge in their own districts, while the GOP incumbents hold a 9 point advantage. The Democrats have lost 10 points from their April margin, while the GOP has gained 3.

The poll also shows how much ground Democrats have lost on the issues. In April they held a 16 point edge in these battleground districts on handling the economy; now they trail by 3. Democrats had a 24 point edge on health care; now the two parties are tied. Republicans have improved their edge on taxes and on spending.

In both Republican and Democratic districts, a plurality of voters say 'I really want to be able to vote for a Republican for Congress because at least he or she won't be a rubber stamp for national Democrats and all of their wasteful spending.'

In both Republican and Democratic districts, a plurality of voters say 'President Obama's economic policies have run up a record federal deficit while failing to end the recession or slow the record pace of job losses.'

It's early, but now only the GOP Leadership could stand in the way of big GOP Gains.

Posted by: eddiebear at 11:35 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Blame Harold Koh for stupid Honduras policy

Sen. DeMint's op/ed about his trip to Honduras tells us who screwed the pooch with our moronic policy - one Harold Koh.  NiceDeb has the write-up.

Not to let everybody else off the hook... The buck pauses on Hillary Clinton's desk before stopping with Obama.

Posted by: JoeCollins at 11:12 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Deep Thought, By Edward Von Bear, 54th Margrave Of Dipshittystan

I stole this from a famous Lemmy line about Motorhead and updated it for blogging, but I think this should describe how to approach to Teh Innertubes:

"We want to be the dirtiest political blog in the world. If this site moved in next to you, your lawn would die."
Thank you, and G-d Bless.

Posted by: eddiebear at 12:35 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I can't help but wonder...

...if this guy had participated in an ad for the other side, would there be any "outrage" or even "controversy"?

Just kidding.  There's no reason to wonder about it at all.  Nobody (well, nobody who matters, anyway) would have said a thing.

Posted by: Sean M. at 08:46 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Russian arms manufacturers MiG and Izhevsk both looking at bankruptcy

MiG is looking to restructure and merge with several other Russian aircraft manufacturers in reorganization, MiG is of course famous for their fighter jets.  Ishevsk or Izhmash is also looking at bankruptcy, one of their main suppliers is owed over $13 million US.  Ishevsk is the manufacturer of most of Russia's small arms, most famously the Kalashnikov series of rifles, and is one of the largest weapons manufacturers in the world.  Their largest problem is that the AK is easy to produce and manufacture, so they have all these former Soviet Bloc nations and Soviet-allied Third World states producing them at a much lower cost then they are, and the AK was never patented, so they usually aren't seeing royalties on it either. 

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 09:23 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Time To Abolish Idiotic Cold Medicine Restrictions

Turns out (SURPRISE!) the drug addicts went and figured out a better way to make meth that doesn't require as much psuedophedrine or an elaborate manufacturing process. 

But now drug users are making their own meth in small batches using a faster, cheaper and much simpler method with ingredients that can be carried in a knapsack and mixed on the run. The "shake-and-bake" approach has become popular because it requires a relatively small number of pills of the decongestant pseudoephedrine — an amount easily obtained under even the toughest anti-meth laws that have been adopted across the nation to restrict large purchases of some cold medication.

"Somebody somewhere said 'Wait this requires a lot less pseudoephedrine, and I can fly under the radar,'" said Mark Woodward, spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control.

An Associated Press review of lab seizures and interviews with state and federal law enforcement agents found that the new method is rapidly spreading across the nation's midsection and is contributing to a spike in the number of meth cases after years of declining arrests.

So, the restriction that inconveniences everyone (full disclosure, I have a cold right now) is now totally ineffective.  Of course, they're probably not going to remove the restriction, probably just ban it outright because what's the first rule of Government Regulations? 

We NEVER roll back Government Regulations.

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 09:14 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Battery Energy Drink?

I often find it amazing which markets various companies choose to enter.  Case in point:  Duracell Energy Drink:

Yes, Duracell has an energy drink—with a masterful coppertop can design—that's actually been out in the Czech market since 2008.

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 09:06 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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