Monthly Archives: June 2009

North Korea: Continuing To Push The Nuclear Envelope

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Perhaps you were unaware, but North Korea conducted its second nuclear test by exploding a device just this past May 25th. The first underground test occurred May 2nd.

Because of this and other violations, the UN Security Council issued a resolution which asks for all 192 U.N. member states to inspect vessels on the high seas “if they have information that provides reasonable grounds to believe that the cargo” contains banned weapons or material to make them, and if approval is given by the country whose flag the ship sails under.

Yes, you read that correct. The country whose flag is flown on the target ship must be asked for permission to board said ship.

Oh well, that pretty much solves things.
With one caveat: if the country refuses to give approval, it must direct the vessel “to an appropriate and convenient port for the required inspection by the local authorities.” However, “the new UN Security Council resolution calls for ports to withhold fuel and supplies from ships thought to be carrying prohibited items, unless those ships allow themselves to be searched.”

So now, our guided missile destroyer USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) is following the North Korean cargo ship Kang Nam as it heads towards Myanmar (formerly Burma), the Kang Nam suspected of carrying illegal weapons proscribed by the UN sanction. Mr Obama, I’m certain, counts himself “present” in terms of “monitoring” the situation.

You know the Kang Nam’s captain will refuse to allow her to be boarded for any reason at any location. With that in mind, here’s the beauty of the UN resolution: it does not authorize use of force to carry out its provisions.

No. I am not kidding.

BZ
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My Blog Conventions: Things Are Changing

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My blog operates under certain conventions, the likes of which perhaps ought to be revealed now:

1. I do my best to post every day.
2. I likewise enjoy blogs that post every day.
3. I hold out my “The Usual Suspects” list to those whom I read frequently and who post regularly;
4. I don’t add to my “The Usual Suspects” list in order to increase readership. I actually possess some ethics. I only add you if I read you, or if I think you have a Voice. Capital V. Blogs that have hundreds of links bore me. Yeah. Like you read all those blogs every day. Yadda yadda yadda.
5. If you post frequently, you ascend; if you post infrequently you descend — or I delete you.
6. I used to make announcements for every addition or deletion. I don’t do that any more. Should I bring these announcements back?

Further:

1. I try to post daily. Occasionally I will make two posts daily. If I leave for a period of time, I make an announcement.

2. My masthead rarely changes. I am an HTML idiot. TF was my first HTML guru; now it is Robert at American & Proud who is my guru. I’ve figured out a few things; changing my masthead frequently isn’t one of them.

3. I like links. I will make a link whenever possible, in order to ‘justify” whatever point I’m attempting to make at the time.

4. I very much dislike minimalist obscure posts. Make your point. Make it soon. Don’t just provide links to other sites with a word or two. They’ve done the work. You haven’t. If you constantly refer me to another site to make your point, then why am I reading YOU? You are not Instapundit or Powerline.

5. Why do I read most blogs? Easy: to acquire a taste and a sense of who you are. Aggregator blogs are gone from my The Usual Suspects list. I want you to editorialize. That’s why Common Cents is gone. Anyone can puke out a bunch of links. And, no matter what you might think, you are most definitely not Drudge.

6. I may like you. I may agree 100% with your philosophy. But if you don’t work at your posts, you’re gone. Be active.

7. Blogger offers to “monetize” my blog. Bullshit. I’m not “monetizing” anything. I’ve not made ONE CENT from this blog. I may enjoy politically-related ads on a blog, but I can certainly and easily tell the DIFFERENCE between a blog displaying random ads and one that focuses on Conservative issues.

8. Pay attention to your posts. Pay attention to your spelling. Pay attention to your paragraphs. Pay attention to how your post looks upon publication. If you’re on Blogger, before you publish a post you’ll need to click back and forth between “COMPOSE” and “PREVIEW” in order to determine if your paragraphs are full.

9. Make it simple. Make it cogent. Make it entertaining.

10. If you make your blog confusing or obdurate, I’m done with you. Life is too short for you, clearly. If you are nothing but an example for TechnoWhizBang, u b gone.

One of my favorite blogs in terms of layout? TexasFred. I wish he’d use more photos and graphics, but that’s a minimal observation. His HEADLINES are clear, short, concise. I may occasionally disagree with his points or philosophies. He makes his reference quotes and then gets right to the meat of the matter. You can CLEARLY delineate between his resources and his editorialization. He is brilliant in terms of making and then backing-up his point. I submit that’s why he’s read so much. You may hate him. You may love him. But his blog is CLEAR, it is SIMPLE, it is OBVIOUS, it is CONCISE, it is plain. He is NUMBER ONE in my TUS blogroll because he pulls no punches and he embraces these two very important points:

He is FIRM and he is CONSISTENT. You can depend upon, at minimum, a new post every day.

One of my favorite blogs in terms of background, depth, breadth, massive content, knowledge, is A Jacksonian. I’ll write this up front: YOU don’t have the hours in the day to do the investigation that HE does on EVERY post. I’ve written to him and I’ll write to you: the entire federal STATE DEPARTMENT pales in comparison to his insight, training, education and experience. You think I’m kidding? Read his blog.

In terms of other Blog Conventions:

I enjoy posting, at the minimum, one photo per post. I’ve finally learned how to import photos and then drag and drop them into specific points on a given post. I’ve learned that the top photo can be clicked-on, and then enlarged. I’ve learned, through Blogger, that if you want to make ALL of your photos enlargeable, you must pre-load every photo and only THEN add your words, comments, links.

So many bloggers I’ve embraced over the past few years have left the realm. People start by thinking that blogging is child’s play. As you all know, it is not. I cannot tell you how many blogs I’ve found that I’ve enjoyed yet — they published two or three good posts then simply disappeared. To those not involved this seems silly but I realize it to be true: blogging is hard work. Consistent blogging is even more difficult. It can damned near take over your life. But, on the other hand, people enjoy visiting a blog that’s current and hasn’t let a post sit for a month. I sense the Blogosphere is in a vast upheaval right now. If you have a voice — and you can keep it — please let it be heard. We need as many Conservatives in the choir as possible.

My priority in my blogroll: it isn’t because I don’t necessarily disagree with you. It’s because you don’t predominatly post, at minimum, a number of times per week.

After all, honestly — don’t you enjoy reading an active blog?

BZ
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HR 1207: Ron Paul Is Correct

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Proposed bill HR 1207, called the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, would allow an audit of the Federal Reserve. This bill needs more co-sponsors and clear bipartisan support.

This bill would remove the restriction upon the Federal Reserve to reveal fiscal information. Up to this point there is no lawful way to audit or monitor the Federal Reserve.

Rep. Ron Paul originally proposed HR 877 in 1983, a bill that would allow the GAO (General Accounting Office) to audit the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Advisory Council, the Federal Open Market Committee and the federal banks and branches themselves.

With its power and influence, the Federal Reserve must be examined. Couldn’t you say or at least infer that the Fed Chair has, in many cases, just as much power or more than anyone sitting in the President’s chair?

Let your voice be heard. The US Capital switchboard: 1 (877) 851-6437.

This is simply common sense.

Why the secrecy?

BZ

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Father’s Day

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And I find this one much less than happy. It is my first Father’s Day without my father.

This post was very difficult to write. I stopped and started, beginning last night, three times. It’s 11 am on Sunday at this point, and I’m starting again. Half the day is almost gone.

My father passed away, at the age of 88, on February 11th of this year. He barely missed his 89th birthday on April 13th. My brothers and I were able to provide a military funeral for him; he served in the United States Army Air Corps during WWII as a pilot; he later served active duty during Vietnam.

On Sunday, March 22nd, I published this post about a letter sent to my father from his, in 1941. My eyes clouded up, as they are now.

It’s so true: you never really know and appreciate what you have until it’s gone. So many things left unsaid and unknown between me and my father. And of course, now, so terribly late. I still cannot quite express my true feelings and emotions about the loss of my father. I started a post two months ago in an attempt to encapsulate what I’ve learned after my father’s passing. I can’t seem to finish it; it sits in a “draft” stage.

We’ve sold my father’s house; it now belongs to other people. When it’s said that you can’t go back, it’s true: you literally cannot go back.

God bless you Dad; I miss you so terribly much. More today than when you passed. Though you never once said you loved me, I knew you did. And I should have said it so much more to you.

This is a tough day, folks. Later, my wife and I will be going to my brother’s home for a barbeque. There will be one chair conspicuously absent. A chair we cannot fill.

I must keep telling myself, as I wrote on the day he passed, and said the day of his funeral: “I’ll bet my Dad’s flying high above the earth right now, in an open cockpit Consolidated Vultee BT-13, canopy slided back, where the skies are blue, the weather fair, and he’s young, strong and free. So free.”

That first night of the 11th, I had a dream. I awakened with it in my head. Carole King was singing “So Far Away.” I remembered that most distinctly.

Last night I had a dream. Many dreams. I seldom remember any of my dreams but I remembered this: my father placed his hand upon my head.

I miss you and love you, Dad. Happy Father’s day.

BZ
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YOUR Local Agencies: Coming For YOUR Money

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My consistent readers know that there’s one aspect of me that I don’t hide; I’m a peace officer for a major Left Coast agency in Fornicalia. Let’s pause right there for a moment. Why do I call my state Fornicalia? Because my state essentially manages to screw over its taxpayers and then disseminate its scat about the rest of the outlying states.

With that in mind, I’ll make my point directly up front: beware. All of your local agencies, utilities, governments, are looking to make up their budget deficits on the back of YOU, the local citizen, the local taxpayer.

Trust me, your local police department has had meetings about bringing up the number of citations issued. Your local electric generation utility has had meetings about ways to increase their revenue and increase your bill. Your local recreation or park district has had meetings about increasing fees. All would like to be able to pass blanket levies and taxes. Their blockade is the average taxpayer. Absent ballots where taxpayers actually get to vote, the only venues left are fees and rates.

For example, let’s review your local police department.

The area where I work — and not where I live — is peppered with red light cameras. These are high-population areas with like high-density traffic. The unincorporated area has a smattering of red light cameras. The outlying and much smaller newly-incorated cities are rife with red light cameras. The justification for red light cameras is nothing more than “safety.”

“These cameras will enhance safety!” bleat the local jurisdictions. Well, except for the fact that they haven’t. They have, however, done one thing rather icily and stentorily: increase revenue.

Let me break things down to their basics: red light cameras are a scam. Their purpose is to be a money-making scheme for the applying agency and government. They cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase and install. The installing company historically GETS A CUT OF THE REVENUE. So, do you suspect they have an uninfluenced reason to trot their product out to as many police departments as possible?

This is the proverbial WIN/WIN situation for the installing company and the local government. Local revenues increase due to, ostensibly, “unimpeachable” red light camera photos. The contractor gets a percentile of this revenue.

With this dirty little secret: in many jurisdictions — and you can’t PROVE this because no one possesses the prior requisite statistics and timings — the yellow aspect of many of these camera-monitored intersections has been purposely shortened by one second or more.

Okay: so PROVE that. You can’t.

If these agencies really wanted to improve safety at intersections, all they’d have to do is hit the utility boxes at designated intersections and INCREASE the yellow aspect by a second. Or perhaps two. That would cost nothing more than generating a “work ticket” for a local utility work truck and operator.

Red light cameras and “speed cameras” are a scam. They exist solely to generate revenue. This is where the Libertarian in me comes out. And, as I mentioned above, I predicate this post and this opinion upon the fact that I am a cop. Red light cameras disgust me. Speed cameras disgust me. They are an abomination. They gut the ethics that exist in me. The local population associates red light cameras and their concomitant technology with the local cops. They associate the cameras with “cheating” and the local cops, therefore, with “cheating.” They cheapen and reduce the perceived authority and authenticity of your local police officers.

They reduce respect for authority in general — and rightly so. Because these techno pieces of crap completely de-humanize law enforcement. People can contest other people and feel as though they can actually have an opinion and a demand and are invested, at least a bit, in the governmental system. With technology, they are run by robots.

If I weren’t a cop, and if I didn’t have any ethics within me, I’d completely advocate for the long distance sniping of every red light camera and speed camera in existence. But, of course, I couldn’t advocate for that.

What brought, by the way, this post to the foreground of my mind? Why, that would be my most recent ocean vacation in May. I noted that the police presence in this coastal city of roughly 8,000 increased geometically since my last visit — and that those officers were making vehicle stop after vehicle stop after vehicle stop. I’ve been consistently visiting this coastal town for the past five years and, never before, have I seen its officers conducting so many vehicle stops. Click on the photo above to see the agency involved.

I should care to point out these were not simply calls for service where you see a unit parked in front of somebody’s house and the citizens talking on the lawn. No. These were only vehicle stops. Their originating source was a violation of some perceived vehicle code section. I had one of these officers follow me for a number of blocks during my vacation, but I was aware. I drove like I was taking a DMV test.

That department was doing nothing much more than attempting to increase its governmental revenue through traffic citations.

Here is an elderly woman in the state of Washington whose water bill increased from $30 per month to $1,181. The water authority insists she must pay the bill.

Be forewarned, people. You think the fed poses a great threat?

No. It doesn’t stop there. Beware your LOCAL governments. They are scrambling for cash.

Add the “i”. Governments don’t run — they ruin.

BZ
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