Nom de plume: Rivrdog

It must be an election year...

There's flip-flopping in progress...el Presidente, who was for "traditional marriage" yesterday, isn't for it today.

Look, if you want to declare your love for another person ot even another member of another species, fine. If you want to share your fortune with that person/whatever, fine.

"Marriage" is specifically defined as a union of two humans, of opposite sex, of other appropriate pre-requisites, as approved by the State, and that's where the rub is, that "approved by the State" part. Since the Forefathers could never have forseen the mainstreaming of homosexuality as a cultural norm, we have to forgive them for being so obtuse about what marriage is and isn't.

It's time to update the law to the cultural norm, though. Here's the Rivrdog solution:

Congress needs to send out an Amendment to the US Constitution that wipes the word and meaning of "marriage" off of all law books, substitutes the word and meaning for "union" in it's place, and leaves the definition of unions between peoples up to Congress. This removes religion from the question entirely. 

In the Forefather's day, religion had a place in the moral lives of every American citizen, and the religious definition of marriage was perfectly acceptable. Since Federal courts have given their imprimatur to "civil unions", there is no more place in our culture for a religious definition of them to be the law of the land.

You see, Campers, we have this little clause prohibiting "establishment" of religion into law. There is no better definition of "establishment" than accepting the religious definition of Marriage instead of our constitutional Court definition.

Establishment of religion has it's place, and that place is in our hearts and minds, not our books of Law.

Genocide by Malaria?

Fifty years ago, Rachel Carson wrote "Silent Spring", the book which claimed that the widespread use of DDT was going to eliminate all the songbirds from the Earth (and eagles and all other birds). The world believed her, and followed her suggestion, which was to ban the manufacture and use of the chemical almost everywhere.

The problem was, that with the then-widespread use of DDT and long-range aircraft to spray it with, we had just about eliminated the most deadly pest in the world fifty years ago, the malaria-carrying mosquito. Once the ban went into place, the mosquito rebounded rapidly, and since then, untold millions of tropical-world residents have died of malaria, borne almost exclusively by the mosquito, with most of the victims being babies and children.

Now, if any one person, under any other circumstances at all, could be directly linked to the killing of millions of innocent babies and children, the entire civilized world (and most of the less-civilized world as well) would howl for their head.

To my knowledge, no one ever linked Rachel Carson to this form of intentional genocide.

Why not?

Answer below the fold...

MSNBC comes through

This blog doesn't give props often to MSNBC, for the obvious reason, but they deserve them for warning us of these new TVs.

Sort of brings back the old nickname for the TV, "one-eyed monster", doesn't it?

H/T to the Country Gal

Is Impeachment enough justice for this asswipe Judge?

Story here. A State Judge in PA tossed out an assault case against a Muslim, opining that the Muslim was "obligated" to assault the victim in the case, a person who acted as a "zombie" Prophet Muhammad, and thereby insulted the Muslim faith.

The Judge is Muslim, and should have recused himself when the case got to his docket.

The Judge invoked Sharia law, which is NOT the law of the land in PA or anywhere else in the USA.

The Judge is an idiot, because he had a perfectly good reason to toss the assault case, the "fighting words" Doctrine, and instead, chose to cite Sharia law.

Impeachment is too good (and too slow) for this Judge. He needs to be arrested and charged with Official Misconduct, in that he invoked a code of Law which is not recognized, and thereby broke his Oath to support and defend the Constitutions of the United States and the Commonwealth of PA, and therefor committed some grade of Treason. I'll be willing to bet that PA has a law or judical rule that a Judge charged with Official Misconduct may not sit on the bench while such a case is pending.That would get him off the bench the moment he is arrested and charged.

Get him off the bench. What's next for this asswipe? Will he dismiss Murder charges against a Muslim who committs an "honor killing"? Will he permit polygamy? Will he permit divorce without judical review, simply by the Muslim husband uttering "I divorce thee" three times?

This asswipe Judge has officially condoned Anarchy and denied the Constitutional Rule of Law. If there WERE any justice, he would be put on trial for his life for doing so.

The Fourth Amendment lives!

In a scant two weeks, statism has been dealt two sharp kicks to it's collective groin by the Fourth Amendment, which is apparently still alive, thanks to the SCOTUS and the US District Court in Eugene, OR.

The SCOTUS case, the Supremes ruled, unanimously, that the police may not attach a GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) tracker to a suspect's vehicle without first obtaining a warrant.

In the Eugene, OR case, the civil jury empaneled to hear the civil damages case of an arrested enviro-nut returned a verdict in favor of the enviro (but not much money damages, the lawyer got almost all of those), but more importantly, the jury found that the arresting officer had improperly seized the video camera of the protester, which the protester had used to record the initiation of the arrest sequence. The video probably didn't survive the concrete face-plant which ended the arrest sequence, but we don't get to see it, so we don't know.

There are two victories here for the Fourth Amendment, which says that no unreasonable search or seizure may be made, and that persons arrested may expect that warrants will be obtained before seizures of property.

This second case may be one of a less-then-brilliant cop underperforming the standards set by everyone, including his own Department. There IS an Oregon law on "intercepting communications", and it DOES say that both parties of a recorded conversation must agree to be recorded, but there are some exceptions. Being a cop is not, by itself, one of those exceptions.

The other thing the arresting officer could have done is make sure the prisoner's property was protected. The prisoner has a right to expect that. The video camera should have been carefully handled, and after the arrest, during the 5 hours the prisoner remained in jail prior to bailing out, it would have been easy for the officer to consult with a District Attorney, make a case to the DA that he needed a search warrant to examine the recordings of the camera for evidence of his arrest contained thereon (there should have been some such evidence), get the warrant and keep the camera when the suspect made bail, issuing a proper evidence receipt for it to the bailed-out suspect.

The arresting officer did NOT follow that extremely standard procedure which is taught at the Oregon Police Academy, and his penalty for not following it is to lose his case.

The counterculture's vast unwashed street mobs will now fire up an extra spliff or two in celebration, or drain a short dog of Maddog, but they really ought not to celebrate so much. It is the Constitution of the producers which the SCOTUS and the Judge in Eugene have protected, and in the Eugene case, the Judge was simply pointing out some sloppy police work. If I'm a Sheriff or a Chief of Police, I don't lose any sleep over this, I simply call in my Training Division people and remind them to highlight the procedures on treating evidence properly when next they give my officers an update on court decisions, and I might blast a memo to everyone on that advice in meanwhile.

I'm going to celebrate myself, because the Statists have just been told, twice now, that they must encourage their police officers to actually USE the smarts they were supposedly hired with and for. I'm not cheering for the enviro-nuts. They didn't win a thing here, and they ought to remind themselves that while MY Constitution protects their right to assemble and call for the destruction of MY society, that when they actually take STEPS to destroy that society, they WILL be opposed, and that wrapping themselves in that Constitution at that point does not make them bulletproof.

The utter folly of "Green"

...was never revealed more in contrast to common sense than in this project by the Tri-Met transit district here in Stumptown, Oregon. The photo, from Page B1 in today's Oregonian:

Download SCAN0007

You will note that the extended caption provides some interesting data to work with, so we will!

Let's start with the output of the giant solar array costing over a third of a million bucks, 64,000 kw/year. BTW, it was this figure that led me, at the breakfast table, to reach for my calculator. Power figures are rarely quoted in yearly form. 64,000/365 = 175.34246 KW per day, but let's divide again to get an hourly rate: 175.34246/24 = 7.3059358, which we will round off to 7.31 KWH. That's not much electricity. A modern home uses about that much in moderate demand periods.

Would we build a $366,600 solar array on our home to provide 7.31 KWH in electricity? Probably not. I have an acquaintance in Phoenix who built a 5.0 KWH array on his home, complete with a large battery-storage system AND a whole-house-capable inverter, for under $30,000. Since it takes a bit more array to give those results in these northerly climes, let's say that a comparable household array to the featured one could be built for $50K. That's less than one-seventh the cost of this one.

But, let's say we are not going to do solar at all, we just want to provide 7.31 KWH. What does that cost? Hint: it doesn't cost $5000, as the paper quoted. It would if that were Residential rates, but Tri-Met doesn't pay Residential Rates, they probably pay Large Non-residential rates. Those rates are considerably less, and that 64K-KWH would then cost $3,712 before any rebates, and as a Government, there is a rebate. I would have had these exact figures, but Tri-Met has taken it's Budget figures off the 'Net.

So, to save $3712 per year, Tri-Met has just erected a solar array which, at today's rates, will not pay for itself for almost 99 years! Now I somehow doubt that the service life of that solar array is 99 years, probably 30 at the most.

So, this whole endeavor is a giant waste of taxpayer cash, in this case, BUSINESS taxpayer cash, since businesses are the only ones taxed for Tri-Met.

Just in case you want some figures on what YOU could generate this electricity for, if you go to Harbor Freight (yes, I know you call it something else), you can buy a 45-watt solar panel for $150 on sale. To make 7.31 KW, you will need 163 of them, so $24,450. Then you would have to buy the electric stuff to tie it all together and store the power for the dark hours, say another $10K, then probably $15K to put it all up, so our original figure of $50 is about right.

Let's go to Northern Tool instead, and buy an 18KW Briggs & Stratton generator which runs on Natural Gas. It will set you back under $5K, and the switch and installation another $2K. It uses 141 cu/ft/hr (3.53 therms) of natural gas at half-power of 9 KWH, and that gas will cost you about $4.17 to make that 9 KWH, or $3.38 for 7.31 KWH, not including the cost of amortizing the generator.

Since Tri-Met will have to replace that solar array twice, the power generated will also cost triple. Even assuming the subsequent installations will cost the same (unlikely), that makes the cost of the power equal 16 cents per KWH, vice the 5.8 cents the electric utility charges (before discounts). Still think solar is a bargain?

The point of all this math is that "green" doesn't add up. This "feel-good" project by Tri-Met should never have been built, and an entire political structure needs to stand up and be heard on stopping this expensive, runaway "Green Train".

In Oregon, State CCW Pre-Emption trumps the Ivory Towers

Huzzah! Today, the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled that the strong State pre-emption built into the Oregon Concealed Handgun License trumps even the interests of the nannies of Higher Education, and they ruled campus handgun bans Unconstitutional!

Predictably, the ayatollahs of Higher Ed have vowed to make more end runs around the Court's ruling.

I have a clue for those CHL-holders affected: sue the schools for making you less safe. Include the various University Corporations, and since they're all colluding to deny this Civil Right, make that demand for treble damages AND relief under the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization Act. When the Higher Ed jerks go to the leges to get tax money to pay the damages, I'll jump in with a class-action suit or an initiative petition refusing that, and throwing the bill back where it belongs, on the University Presidents' desks.

Students and staff, you have a confirmed RIGHT to refuse to be a target, and your schools are denying you that right.

Fight on!

Hot news about Government default

The Federal Government will probably print all those checks to all those usual recipients, despite default that may happen on or about August 2, 2011.

Story here, via Uncle. The presumption behind the story of how the Federal Reserve is going to decide which to honor and which to not honor makes the LEGAL presumption that the Government will have uttered a false instrument, knowing that it would not be honored.

"Writing a bad check", as most of us know the law legally-stated above, is a crime in all 50 States, and at the Federal level.

At the Federal level, any crime associated with Government checks (aka, "Green Windows") is investigated by the Secret Service. They will be overwhelmed.

I urge any reader getting a Government check that is dishonored by their bank upon deposit to make an official Crime Report to their local policing jurisdiction. We, the People, can stop these Federal monkeyshines in short order if we refuse to roll over. Know that the Gummint will put out a tearful plea, probably by Obumble hisself, to not cash the checks, but just hold on to them and wait. Ignore that. The moment the check enters the US Mail system, the crimes of uttering it and using the US Mail to forward it have been committed.

BTW, if you are due Federal allotments vial electronic bank deposit, as the Gudwife and I are (1 each Social Security and my military retirement, 3 total), you will NOT receive them if you are on Obama's Do Not Pay list (don't kid yourself, there is one, I'd bet on it). I don't expect to receive my Military Retirement allotment, because Valerie Jarrett will have put her ugly stamp on those, and will put them in the Do Not Pay pile.

BTW2, Fox News opined that the Prez blinked just a bit, and now will accept a short-term extension to get his version of the Big Deal, so the 8/2/11 date may have slipped up to a month. Stay tuned.

Brady punks in action - as pirates!

If I read this blog and the comments correctly, Oleg Volk, famous gunblogger and gun photographer, just had a Brady punk steal two of his photos and republish them on a public page (Facebook) without attribution.

Oleg earns his beans from those photos, so this/these punk/punks stole items of value from him. He jacked them up, demanded removal, and they apparently complied (an admission of guilt), but then one of them got snippy in comments and was immediately set upon by Oleg's readers, some of whom are of the opinion that he should sue the Bradys off the face of the earth.

The weak reply of the punk/punks is that Oleg removed one or more of their comments from the blog-post.

Question: since when has removing a comment from a blog-post become a DMCA violation?

Bonus: Quote of the day, attributed to Oleg and his commenter "Jerry":

"Following the incorporation of the [[2nd Amendment]] in the Supreme Court decision [[McDonald vs. Chicago]], and the resulting acknowledgement of the right to keep and bear arms as a “fundamental right” of US citizens, the Brady Campaign subsequently met the definition of a [[hate group]] due to their stated opposition against an established civil right."

The Brady Bunch, a Hate Group. If the shoe fits, Bradys, wear it.

Stop the presses, Secretary Geithner

Assuming this article is true, and I have no reason to doubt it's information, the United States Treasury has just run out of statutory borrowing authority, the gimmick that makes it legal to not have to balance the budget like you and I, every State and municipality, and every business in the USA, has to do.

With no more room to borrow, the Treasury is committing fraud by printing more money (other than to replace currency retired as worn out). The Treasury is commiting fraud by selling T-Bills and T-Bonds, because they are instruments that borrow against the future, and, as of today, there is no more future to borrow from.

So, which United States Attorney will have the courage to indict Tim Geithner when T-Bills and T-Bonds go on sale tomorrow? Which Federal Judge will have the courage to sign that arrest warrant?

I'd say that none of them will, because they're all caught up in the Federal conspiracy which says that laws are for chumps who don't know how to evade them.

The article suggests that the first tactic that Timmy-the-tax-evader will pull is to end Federally-mandated payments to the Federal pension funds, so all the Federal pensioners such as myself (military pension) are the first victims of the properly-challenged conspiracy.

I have coffee with about a dozen or so retired Deputies on Tuesdays, and several of them, like myself, are also retired military officers. I'm going to make a point of asking them if they would like to carpool downtown shortly, and stop by the office of the US Attorney for the Federal District of Oregon, Mr. Dwight C. Holton, and make a formal complaint that our pensions are being deliberately underfunded. We're former Deputies, so we'll have our evidence in hand if we go, and we will ask for a letter from US Atty Holton either denying or confirming that his office is taking the case.

After getting that letter, or after being denied access to the US Attorney, we will hit the local talk shows and stir the pot a bit.

That's how this blogger intends to handle now-illegal Federal Deficit Spending.

What's your plan?

Here are some ideas you might want to consider:

• Talk to your Congressman. Ask them to sponsor a resolution putting the House on record that it considers the Treasury Department in violation of the law, and the resolution should memorialize President Obama to issue a direct order to Geithner to quit borrowing and stop all the "accountant's tricks" to hide more Federal borrowing after exceeding the debt limit.
• If you have some big bucks to risk (and it WILL be risky to own a T-Bill or T-Bond), buy one issued tomorrow or later, and present it to YOUR US Attorney as evidence of wholesale fraud by the Treasury Dept.
• Talk this up. If you belong to any fraternal organizations, go to your next meeting, and see if the chapter President, Exalted Ruler, Grand Dragon or whatever title, will put him or herself on record as opposing this insanity.
• Write letters and emails. THIS issue is one for the history books. In nations with any pride, it would result in the ouster of the Government. It won't here, because said Government is acting under the mistaken belief that they can write the checks which everyone HAS to cash.
• If you know anyone who contracts with the Federal Government as a vendor, ask them to invoice the Feds to pay up the account in full, immediately, and when they are ignored, it starts the clock on a proper collection action which the Federal District Court in their District MUST enforce. If you hold stock in any company which acts as a contractor of services or vendor to the Federal Government, demand that the Board of Directors of that company press the Government for payment on all outstanding invoices, and if the Board refuses, call for a stockholder's meeting to oust the Board.

People, we have to FORCE this issue. We have the tool now to force it, and WE are the fools if we don't use that tool.