Sunday, September 9, 2012
CLINT CLIP O' the DAY
Clint's empty chair is the epitome of wit & satire - dry, minimalist - brevity is the soul of wit - so cutting edge that a going on a week+ later it is still resounding in the media.
Now is a good time to review, so I dialed it in and had another look at Clint's masterful performance. Have a look for yourself. Dirty Harry is on it, he is sharp as a tack and he got right under the Liberal's skin with that empty chair and they can't stop talking about it . . .
STORMBRINGER SENDS
TIME OUT
Earlier this evening a text came across one of my comms channels: WHEN YOU PLANNING TO START WRITING STORMBRINGER AGAIN???
Sheesh - hate to break it to you heroes but I actually have a life outside of the email machine and the blogosphere, and that life is partly to blame for what happened.
Problem is I've moved up in life and nowadays my work involves a lot of time sitting in a chair - which I hate - but there is a serious management and admin aspect to what I do. At the same time I have to be ready to ride to the sound of the guns and what got me hurt was working out like I'm still in my thirties, without a proper warmup.
I was in a hurry Wednesday morning so I went down into the Jungle Room and just threw around the free weights like they were pick-up sticks - one of my parlor tricks is amazing feats of strength - then got cleaned up and drove in to the office.
Around noon time I realized "Houston - we have a problem." I dealt with it. The next day I had some business to attend to, but it was obvious I wasn't going anywhere near the office. I limped on down to the ER as soon as I was able, and had the Butcher there do his good work.
We have a saying in Special Forces: "To cut is to cure."
That's what I went through on Thursday. Oh yes.
What got me here in the first place is what's taking me so long to bounce back; I ain't twenty years old anymore.
And that's what's taking me so long to heal - I ain't exactly a spring chicken.
I saw the Doc again today he said I'm healing fine.
I'm just laying up sorry and taking it easy. I'm really worried about next week - between some potentially lucrative business development and the ASIS convention it is going to be an EXTREMELY busy schedule - but now I think I'll be able to make it.
The Birds are updated, and I'm working on a 1,000 word post. Stand by to stand by.
- STORMBRINGER SENDS
Thursday, September 6, 2012
STOP FEELING SORRY FOR AMERICA's VETERANS
Some of the men and women returning from the service genuinely need help. But most do not - and we're tired of being pitied.
from The Atlantic
by James Joyner
Judging from media accounts, I'm the rare American veteran who isn't homeless, homicidal, or suicidal.
To be sure, the toll of almost 11 years of constant war has been high. Divorce among military families is at record levels at a time when it's declining among the civilian population. As best we can tell, veterans are half again as likely to be homeless as non-veterans. And more soldiers have killed themselves this year than have died on the battlefield.
These trends are damning and shameful. Thankfully, society has taken notice. In the past few years, there's been more investment in counseling services and other programs to help ameliorate the trauma of war and the pain of separation from family.
At the same time, it's fair to note that the comparative statistics are skewed, and that once we control for age, sex, and level of education, veterans are doing better in all these categories than their non-veteran counterparts. It's vital that we make this distinction, lest we falsely blame service for problems better explained by other variables.
This is a well-written article on a theme that is near and dear to my heart. Yes we veterans carry some baggage but I would argue that anybody and everybody who has ever engaged in any kind of worthy endeavor does so as well. The image of the American Veteran as some kind of ticking time bomb ready to go off in a combat-generated flashback, or some kind of pathetic mentally disturbed borderline psycho is a myth generated post-Vietnam by the liberal media and perpetrated by Hollywood in a series of films like Rambo and The Deer Hunter.
The truth is that veterans are more likely to be successful in their post-military life, and we have learned valuable skills - not least of all self-discipline - to drive that success. This is validated by the fact that employers seek out veterans for all levels of work - notably in management.
I do have one point of contention with the author of this piece, however. He states:
". . . we lure a lot of men and women into military service with the promise of paying for their education."
Correction Mr. Joyner - we do not "lure" anybody into military service - we recruit them. And Americans apparently understand the value of military experience because as long as I have worn the war suit - going back to the early eighties here - we have never wanted for lack of willing volunteers in the United States military. I have often said that if the American public fully understood what a truly great deal the military is, we wouldn't need recruiters, we'd need armed guards to keep out the hordes of people who'd be beating at the gates trying to force their way in.
- STORMBRINGER SENDS
This was sent in by my good friend LUNAR SPOOK - Charter Member of Team STORMBRINGER
from The Atlantic
by James Joyner
Judging from media accounts, I'm the rare American veteran who isn't homeless, homicidal, or suicidal.
To be sure, the toll of almost 11 years of constant war has been high. Divorce among military families is at record levels at a time when it's declining among the civilian population. As best we can tell, veterans are half again as likely to be homeless as non-veterans. And more soldiers have killed themselves this year than have died on the battlefield.
These trends are damning and shameful. Thankfully, society has taken notice. In the past few years, there's been more investment in counseling services and other programs to help ameliorate the trauma of war and the pain of separation from family.
At the same time, it's fair to note that the comparative statistics are skewed, and that once we control for age, sex, and level of education, veterans are doing better in all these categories than their non-veteran counterparts. It's vital that we make this distinction, lest we falsely blame service for problems better explained by other variables.
This is a well-written article on a theme that is near and dear to my heart. Yes we veterans carry some baggage but I would argue that anybody and everybody who has ever engaged in any kind of worthy endeavor does so as well. The image of the American Veteran as some kind of ticking time bomb ready to go off in a combat-generated flashback, or some kind of pathetic mentally disturbed borderline psycho is a myth generated post-Vietnam by the liberal media and perpetrated by Hollywood in a series of films like Rambo and The Deer Hunter.
The truth is that veterans are more likely to be successful in their post-military life, and we have learned valuable skills - not least of all self-discipline - to drive that success. This is validated by the fact that employers seek out veterans for all levels of work - notably in management.
I do have one point of contention with the author of this piece, however. He states:
". . . we lure a lot of men and women into military service with the promise of paying for their education."
Correction Mr. Joyner - we do not "lure" anybody into military service - we recruit them. And Americans apparently understand the value of military experience because as long as I have worn the war suit - going back to the early eighties here - we have never wanted for lack of willing volunteers in the United States military. I have often said that if the American public fully understood what a truly great deal the military is, we wouldn't need recruiters, we'd need armed guards to keep out the hordes of people who'd be beating at the gates trying to force their way in.
- STORMBRINGER SENDS
This was sent in by my good friend LUNAR SPOOK - Charter Member of Team STORMBRINGER
CHUCK NORRIS' DIRE WARNING FOR AMERICA
'Our country as we know it may be lost forever'
Chuck Norris is a bona fide member of the American Warrior Class - he first learned his martial arts skills while stationed in Korea as a member of the United States Air Force. He can talk the talk because he has walked the walk.
- STORMBRINGER SENDS
Chuck Norris is a bona fide member of the American Warrior Class - he first learned his martial arts skills while stationed in Korea as a member of the United States Air Force. He can talk the talk because he has walked the walk.
- STORMBRINGER SENDS
689 REASONS TO FIRE BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
Brilliance from National Review Online
1. Because he was not the one we were waiting for.
2. “Forward.”
3. Because Julia needs to get off her lazy, federally subsidized butt, get a real job, and pay for her own damned birth-control pills.
4. Because lots of people fail at their first real job.
5. Because “Winning the Future” was not a very good slogan back in 2005 when it was Newt’s.
6. Because the country is ready for its first African-American former president.
7. To give him the free time to write his third memoir.
8. Because he’ll have even more “flexibility” after November if he’s back in Chicago.
9. Joe Biden.
10. So that dissent will once again be the highest form of patriotism.
11. Because he didn’t quite get the message in 2010.
12. For claiming that he would cut the deficit in half.
13. And then adding more than $5 trillion in new debt.
14. To remind him that debt used to be, in his own words, “unpatriotic.”
15. Because the buck never stops.
16. For blaming President Bush.
17. For blaming headwinds.
18. For blaming Japanese earthquakes.
19. For blaming ATMs.
20. He can’t get the vice president to stop calling him “Barack” in public.
21. Gabby Giffords shooting commemorative T-shirts and pep rally.
22. Because he listened to the Reverend Wright’s crackpot racist diatribes for years and then gave us a lecture on racism.
23. For ignoring his own deficit commission.
24. Because of an $800 billion stimulus bill.
25. “Shovel-ready” projects.
26. The non-existence of shovel-ready projects.
27. For joking about the non-existence of shovel-ready projects.
28. Because “jobs created or saved” is Enron accounting.
29. Because there were stimulus grants in imaginary ZIP codes.
30. For proposing a $53 billion high-speed-rail project while Amtrak is still losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
31. For repeatedly citing the 2007 Minnesota bridge collapse as evidence of the need for expanded infrastructure spending when federal investigators ruled that bad design, not disrepair, caused the collapse.
32. For 613 new federal regulations in the first 33 months of his presidency.
33. And because 129 of those regulations will each cost the economy more than $100 million a year.
34. Because the Small Business Administration estimates the price of current regulations at $1.75 trillion annually — a bigger burden than the corporate income tax.
35. Because his neck must be hurting from keeping his chin up in the air for nearly four years.
36. Because Cass Sunstein boasted about an “unprecedentedly ambitious government-wide review” of regulation that saved only $2 billion per year, or 0.1 percent of the cost of regulatory compliance.
37. “The private sector is doing fine.”
38. Because the private sector isn’t doing fine.
39. Because his administration predicted the stimulus would keep unemployment below 8 percent.
40. February 9, 2009: “If we get things right, then starting next year, we can start seeing some significant improvement” on the employment front.
41. Because now we have a 24 percent unemployment rate for people 16 to 19 years old.
42. Because the lowest the unemployment rate was during the Obama administration was 8.1 percent.
43. Because the current unemployment rate is 8.3 percent.
44. Because 4 million Americans have been out of work for more than a year.
45. Because the black unemployment rate is 14.4 percent.
46. And the Hispanic unemployment rate is 10.3 percent.
47. And because the real unemployment rate — including those who have abandoned the job hunt — is even higher.
48. Because the percentage of working-age Americans who are employed has dropped from 61 percent to 58 percent — and stayed there.
49. Because, in his own words, his “first job is to make sure the economy is growing, that we’re creating jobs out there.” You said it, not us.
50. Because he spent all of 2007 and 2008 imploring us to send him to Washington and, now that he has the job, he can’t stop whining about how much he hates it there.
51. Because Nicholas Thompson, the vice president of polling firm The Tarrance Group, while discussing public views of Obama, said that “there’s a lot of people who feel sorry for him.” We should help them out.
52. Because when unemployment hit 10.2 percent, he extolled the economy’s “core strengths.”
53. Because in a fundraising e-mail of September 1, 2011, he demanded that Republicans “take action on” a jobs plan that he had not yet released.
54. Revising his tune on the recovery in December 2011, he said: “It’s going to take more than two years. It’s going to take more than one term. It probably takes more than one president.” We agree with that last part.
55. Because he promised to “ban all earmarks.”
56. But he didn’t ban earmarks.
57. And he promised to go “line by line” through legislation.
58. But of course he didn’t go line by line through legislation, and in the case of Obamacare apparently didn’t go through it at all.
59. “Let me be perfectly clear.”
60. Because corpsmen deserve a president who can pronounce “corpsman.”
61. Because Jay Carney is the least credible press secretary since Dee Dee Myers had to stand there pretending that she didn’t know what she knew about Bill Clinton.
62. Because Americans deserve the opportunity to see which White House pet will ride atop the Romney presidential limousine.
63. So you’ll be able to criticize the president again without being called a racist.
64. Because there are 46 million people on food stamps.
65. And spending on food stamps doubled from $39 billion in 2008 to $81 billion in 2012.
66. For the existence of food-stamp parties.
67. And the proliferation of food-stamp advertisements.
68. Because he launched the most harebrained foreclosure scheme imaginable.
69. And because there were a record 2.8 million foreclosures in 2009.
70. And then a record 2.9 million foreclosures in 2010.
71. Recovery Summer.
72. Recovery Summer II.
73. Recovery Summer III.
74. Because America cannot handle any more Recovery Summer sequels.
75. To affirm that 50 states are enough.
76. Because he values Jon Corzine’s advice.
77. Because he values Joe Biden’s advice.
78. The fact that the stimulus spent $9.38 million to renovate a train depot that
has been closed for 30 years.
79. And $762,000 to develop YouTube–like dance software.
80. And invested $2.5 million in dead people.
81. And sent $11 million to Microsoft to build a bridge at its campus.
82. Not to mention millions of stimulus dollars spent advertising the stimulus.
83. And $300,000 to study yoga’s impact on menopause.
84. As well as $30 million to the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies to build a training complex.
85. And $200,000 to help Siberians lobby their legislators.
86. And $700,000 to help crab fishermen to recover their crab pots.
87. And more to get monkeys high on cocaine.
88. For that vice-presidential salute to “the people building smart toasters . . . this is real stuff.”
89. Because the stimulus included an earmark for a Los Angeles–Las Vegas Maglev railway.
90. And there is not going to be a Los Angeles–Las Vegas Maglev railway.
91. Because he didn’t let a crisis go to waste.
92. Because he demonizes Wall Street bankers.
93. Except his first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel of Wasserstein Perella.
94. And his successor, Bill Daley of JP Morgan.
95. And his successor, Jacob Lew of Citigroup.
96. Because we wouldn’t mind seeing Goldman Sachs take a loss on this particular investment.
97. Because since he took office, real median household income is down $4,300.
98. Because he can’t distinguish between conservatism and anarchism.
99. Because his “jobs czar” praised Germany for the fact that “government and business [work] as a pack.”
100. He revived the old “social Darwinism” canard.
101. “Top-down economics.”
Read the rest of them HERE
1. Because he was not the one we were waiting for.
2. “Forward.”
3. Because Julia needs to get off her lazy, federally subsidized butt, get a real job, and pay for her own damned birth-control pills.
4. Because lots of people fail at their first real job.
5. Because “Winning the Future” was not a very good slogan back in 2005 when it was Newt’s.
6. Because the country is ready for its first African-American former president.
7. To give him the free time to write his third memoir.
8. Because he’ll have even more “flexibility” after November if he’s back in Chicago.
9. Joe Biden.
10. So that dissent will once again be the highest form of patriotism.
11. Because he didn’t quite get the message in 2010.
12. For claiming that he would cut the deficit in half.
13. And then adding more than $5 trillion in new debt.
14. To remind him that debt used to be, in his own words, “unpatriotic.”
15. Because the buck never stops.
16. For blaming President Bush.
17. For blaming headwinds.
18. For blaming Japanese earthquakes.
19. For blaming ATMs.
20. He can’t get the vice president to stop calling him “Barack” in public.
21. Gabby Giffords shooting commemorative T-shirts and pep rally.
22. Because he listened to the Reverend Wright’s crackpot racist diatribes for years and then gave us a lecture on racism.
23. For ignoring his own deficit commission.
24. Because of an $800 billion stimulus bill.
25. “Shovel-ready” projects.
26. The non-existence of shovel-ready projects.
27. For joking about the non-existence of shovel-ready projects.
28. Because “jobs created or saved” is Enron accounting.
29. Because there were stimulus grants in imaginary ZIP codes.
30. For proposing a $53 billion high-speed-rail project while Amtrak is still losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
31. For repeatedly citing the 2007 Minnesota bridge collapse as evidence of the need for expanded infrastructure spending when federal investigators ruled that bad design, not disrepair, caused the collapse.
32. For 613 new federal regulations in the first 33 months of his presidency.
33. And because 129 of those regulations will each cost the economy more than $100 million a year.
34. Because the Small Business Administration estimates the price of current regulations at $1.75 trillion annually — a bigger burden than the corporate income tax.
35. Because his neck must be hurting from keeping his chin up in the air for nearly four years.
36. Because Cass Sunstein boasted about an “unprecedentedly ambitious government-wide review” of regulation that saved only $2 billion per year, or 0.1 percent of the cost of regulatory compliance.
37. “The private sector is doing fine.”
38. Because the private sector isn’t doing fine.
39. Because his administration predicted the stimulus would keep unemployment below 8 percent.
40. February 9, 2009: “If we get things right, then starting next year, we can start seeing some significant improvement” on the employment front.
41. Because now we have a 24 percent unemployment rate for people 16 to 19 years old.
42. Because the lowest the unemployment rate was during the Obama administration was 8.1 percent.
43. Because the current unemployment rate is 8.3 percent.
44. Because 4 million Americans have been out of work for more than a year.
45. Because the black unemployment rate is 14.4 percent.
46. And the Hispanic unemployment rate is 10.3 percent.
47. And because the real unemployment rate — including those who have abandoned the job hunt — is even higher.
48. Because the percentage of working-age Americans who are employed has dropped from 61 percent to 58 percent — and stayed there.
49. Because, in his own words, his “first job is to make sure the economy is growing, that we’re creating jobs out there.” You said it, not us.
50. Because he spent all of 2007 and 2008 imploring us to send him to Washington and, now that he has the job, he can’t stop whining about how much he hates it there.
51. Because Nicholas Thompson, the vice president of polling firm The Tarrance Group, while discussing public views of Obama, said that “there’s a lot of people who feel sorry for him.” We should help them out.
52. Because when unemployment hit 10.2 percent, he extolled the economy’s “core strengths.”
53. Because in a fundraising e-mail of September 1, 2011, he demanded that Republicans “take action on” a jobs plan that he had not yet released.
54. Revising his tune on the recovery in December 2011, he said: “It’s going to take more than two years. It’s going to take more than one term. It probably takes more than one president.” We agree with that last part.
55. Because he promised to “ban all earmarks.”
56. But he didn’t ban earmarks.
57. And he promised to go “line by line” through legislation.
58. But of course he didn’t go line by line through legislation, and in the case of Obamacare apparently didn’t go through it at all.
59. “Let me be perfectly clear.”
60. Because corpsmen deserve a president who can pronounce “corpsman.”
61. Because Jay Carney is the least credible press secretary since Dee Dee Myers had to stand there pretending that she didn’t know what she knew about Bill Clinton.
62. Because Americans deserve the opportunity to see which White House pet will ride atop the Romney presidential limousine.
63. So you’ll be able to criticize the president again without being called a racist.
64. Because there are 46 million people on food stamps.
65. And spending on food stamps doubled from $39 billion in 2008 to $81 billion in 2012.
66. For the existence of food-stamp parties.
67. And the proliferation of food-stamp advertisements.
68. Because he launched the most harebrained foreclosure scheme imaginable.
69. And because there were a record 2.8 million foreclosures in 2009.
70. And then a record 2.9 million foreclosures in 2010.
71. Recovery Summer.
72. Recovery Summer II.
73. Recovery Summer III.
74. Because America cannot handle any more Recovery Summer sequels.
75. To affirm that 50 states are enough.
76. Because he values Jon Corzine’s advice.
77. Because he values Joe Biden’s advice.
78. The fact that the stimulus spent $9.38 million to renovate a train depot that
has been closed for 30 years.
79. And $762,000 to develop YouTube–like dance software.
80. And invested $2.5 million in dead people.
81. And sent $11 million to Microsoft to build a bridge at its campus.
82. Not to mention millions of stimulus dollars spent advertising the stimulus.
83. And $300,000 to study yoga’s impact on menopause.
84. As well as $30 million to the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies to build a training complex.
85. And $200,000 to help Siberians lobby their legislators.
86. And $700,000 to help crab fishermen to recover their crab pots.
87. And more to get monkeys high on cocaine.
88. For that vice-presidential salute to “the people building smart toasters . . . this is real stuff.”
89. Because the stimulus included an earmark for a Los Angeles–Las Vegas Maglev railway.
90. And there is not going to be a Los Angeles–Las Vegas Maglev railway.
91. Because he didn’t let a crisis go to waste.
92. Because he demonizes Wall Street bankers.
93. Except his first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel of Wasserstein Perella.
94. And his successor, Bill Daley of JP Morgan.
95. And his successor, Jacob Lew of Citigroup.
96. Because we wouldn’t mind seeing Goldman Sachs take a loss on this particular investment.
97. Because since he took office, real median household income is down $4,300.
98. Because he can’t distinguish between conservatism and anarchism.
99. Because his “jobs czar” praised Germany for the fact that “government and business [work] as a pack.”
100. He revived the old “social Darwinism” canard.
101. “Top-down economics.”
Read the rest of them HERE
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
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