More Military Equipment Being Deployed Domestically.

WASHINGTON, Ia. – The police chief has yet to mount flashing lights and a siren and plaster his department's official logo on the sides of his new vehicle.

Not that Greg Goodman needs such window dressings so that this 49,000-pound, 10-foot-tall, six-wheel-drive behemoth will cause necks to crane and local motorists to veer out of the way.

Twenty-nine years ago when he joined the Washington Police Department, Goodman never imagined he would crave such a thing. The newest and by far bulkiest addition to his fleet makes a Chevy Tahoe SUV look like a Hot Wheels collectible: a fully armored military vehicle designed to prowl a desert war zone.

This MRAP — pronounced "em-rap" and short for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected — is the talk of southeast Iowa.

Military recycling after more than a decade of warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan has led to this: Through a federal program, seven of these metal beasts have been donated to Iowa law enforcement agencies — five of them in recent weeks.

These are high dollar items.

It could be much, much worse, The U.S.government has decided to either abandon or destroy BILLIONS of dollars worth of war making equipment as they pull our forces out of Afghanistan.

I can only imagine what they would be doing to dispose of all that equipment if they had decided to pay to bring it all back home.

Every podunk police station in the country would be armed to the teeth with offensive weapons.

Police departments in Mason City and Storm Lake also have received MRAPs, as well as sheriffs in Buena Vista, Jasper, Scott and Story counties.

Goodman and his counterparts in other cities tend to describe the MRAP as merely "another tool" to keep officers safe when a pistol and body armor are insufficient.

Washington's "Crisis Response Unit" (a mobile command center) is just an old, converted ambulance. And none of its squad cars are bulletproof, let alone designed with a v-shaped belly to deflect bomb blasts.

So Goodman envisions the MRAP as an extreme option during tense standoffs, (God forbid) school shootings or even a tornado.

"I hope it's not used a lot," he said. "That means things are going very well."

The Washington City Council took convincing before it approved this controversial freebie, and Councilman Robert Shellmyer held firm last month with the lone "no" vote that he wears as a badge of honor.

"We're being laughed at," said Shellmyer, 78. "I went to Ainsworth the other day, and everybody wants to ask me if we're sleeping better at night now that we have the 'tank.' "

As it is, these armored monsters have the ability to drive through a house.

One aspect that all these police departments seem to overlook while they are kicking the tires and drooling over these huge vehicles is the costs to operate and maintain these things.

At five miles to the gallon and hundreds of dollars just to change the oil, these costs are going to become a real issue when these bills start getting handed to the taxpayers.


I can imagine where they come to the point that they tell these police chiefs that you either decide to keep this thing or start laying off employees.

Police departments all over the country are already having trouble getting enough money to keep up the level of services they have become accustomed to.
Throw one of these in the motor pool and watch what happens in the next couple of years.

NYPD AND NYFD Duke It Out At Charity Hockey Game

I love the crowds reaction.

"PD Sucks", "Assholes", "Dunkin' Donuts".

Popular bunch ain't they?

Assholes on or off the job, that's for sure.




H/T Huffpo for the link.

For Chief Nose Wetter

Step up to the bar my man and let me buy you a drink.

Miley Cirus Like You Never Imagined

This version is far superior to the original .

I've been waiting for horns to burst out of her forehead anyway.


Damn that girl is skanky.

Not Something You Hear Every Day

If you stopped by yesterday, you are aware that my wife's car took a shit the other night and that I was bitching about the whole thing.

Well, I got lucky, it was still parked where she left it.

Not only was I surprised but the tow truck driver was too.
Right around the corner from a major thoroughfare and straddling a bike lane.
The cops in that area have a well deserved reputation for being dicks about broke down cars in that area to begin with.

When I talked to her about it the other night, she said she thought it was the timing belt.

Here is the announcement;


My wife was right.

Not exactly the first time in history that a guy has said this in public but still pretty damn rare.

When I tried to start it, I could tell right away that was it without even opening the hood.

Four cylinder engines have a distinctive sound when the belt is broken and I have heard it many times.

$200 plus a $20 dollar tip later, it was nosed into the driveway right in front of the garage.

The tip was because the guy was nice enough to drop it out front and then pull in behind it, rehook it and back it into the driveway nose first for me.

That saved me at least an hour of fucking around.

Nice guy.

Another $200 for a timing belt kit, water pump and a gallon of anti freeze.


Just as an aside, regular full strength anti freeze was $12.

Pre diluted 50/50 anti freeze was $11.

For $12 dollars, I can make two gallons of diluted anti freeze.

Please don't be an idiot, pay the extra buck.


Anyways, I still have to put the inner fender back in and put the front passenger tire back on the damn thing but it runs again.

I have been working on it all day pretty much but the nice thing is that I'm not in any hurry.

I worked on cars for a living for ten years.

When my lower back and my shoulders started hurting today, I said Fuck You and came in the house for a while.

That's why I quit working on the miserable little fuckers all those years ago, they got so damn low to the ground it was killing my back bending over the sonsabitches all day.

I had my lower back fused 27 years ago and now I don't play that game anymore.

I'll finish it up here in a bit and put it in the WIN column for Bustednuckles.

Now that I have half of the garage cleaned out to get hers in, I may just start pulling shit off the little car some tomorrow so I can yank the engine back out of that bitch.

That was what I was going to do this weekend before this came about.

There is a serious difference between fixing my wife's daily driver and some toy I haven't driven in five years.

I could give a shit how much I get done on the toy, the wife on the other hand, needs her vehicle.

World Leaders As Drag Queens.

There are more, not so current, leaders here.
I found the link on my usual trip to FARK to see what's going on.

I personally think Hitler made one Hell of a Hip Drag Queen.

LOL!!



First, a couple of current samples, the obvious ones any way.

How Fucking Wonderful

I saw a text message from my wife that she had sent two hours earlier, right before I left work.
She said she was with her sister over in Portland and would be home when the sister dropped her off.

I have been working my ass off all damn week and something didn't sound right because she was supposed to drop her kid off over there earlier in the afternoon.

I figured the sister must have showed up and they all went in one car.

No big deal, I was freaking tired and my brain wasn't firing on all cylinders anyway.

I get home later and her car ain't in the driveway.

Now I am wondering what the fuck is going on.

I came in to find one of the cats had been locked in the bathroom while they were gone and shit all over the rug just to show her displeasure.

Needless to say I ain't real happy about that.

So I finally kick back in the old recliner and start relaxing.
Nobody is here and that motherfucking television isn't on for once.

Nirvana baby.
Checkin' the Emails, checking the comments, checking out whats going on in the world.... and it's quiet.


Of course this is short lived just like I knew it would be.

Pretty soon the door opens and her and both sisters and her oldest boy come piling in, mouths going full blast.

She asks me if I got her text message.
I said yeah, a few minutes before I left work.

"Well, what are we going to do about it?"

About what.

"The car".

What about the fucking car.

"You said you got my text, it's broke down over in Portland, I think the timing belt went out, it just quit like it did the last time that happened"

WHAT?!!

Fuck me, I'm digging out my phone and checking the messages.

Sure as shit, she had sent me two and I only saw the last one.

She says she didn't know what to do so she called her sister, who was only a few blocks away, Thank God, and they pushed in onto a side street.

Remember that Mall shooting at Clackamas Town Center a couple years ago?

It's right across the street from that motherfucker, in another State.

She apparently couldn't figure out that the phone she was texting me with actually makes phone calls.

Like to 411, for Information, to get a number, to call a fucking tow truck.
Or maybe, just maybe, to actually CALL ME, instead of fucking texting me at work, where the usual noise level is right at ninety decibels in some places.
My phone chirps once for a text message.
It rings and is on vibrate both, for phone calls.

So now I get to get up and go see if the fucking thing is actually still there tomorrow.
If it is, then I can call a tow truck and have it towed twenty miles for a small fortune.
if it's not there, then I will have to track it down and pay a large fortune to get the miserable cocksucker out of impound, THEN pay ANOTHER small fortune, to have it dragged over here.

THEN, I get to figure out what's wrong with the miserable sonofabitch and spend my weekend wrenching on the cocksucker. This will be shortly after I move a shit ton of my stuff out of the way so I can get it in the garage.

Oh. Joy..

I can't fucking wait.

I may just get the damn thing running just enough to yank it out.

Makes it easier to work on that way.

Stretch

That sweater will never be the same again.

By the way, thanks are in order for those of you who stop by.

I just went past 200,000 hits.

Telling It Like It Is

The political cartoonists must be exhausted in this country.

Thursday Break Time

Take a break.

Now don't you feel better?

Until later,

Supreme Court strikes down limits on federal campaign donations

In a sweeping campaign finance decision, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down aggregate limits -- or rules for how much an individual can give in one campaign cycle

A split Supreme Court Wednesday struck down limits on the total amount of money an individual may spend on political candidates as a violation of free speech rights, a decision sure to increase the role of money in political campaigns.
Social Show

The 5 to 4 decision sparked a sharp dissent from liberal justices, who said the decision reflects a wrong-headed hostility to campaign finance laws that the court’s conservatives showed in Citizens United v. FEC , which allowed corporate spending on elections.

There is more verbal diarrhea at the link.

Really all this does is bring the money out front so you can see who is buying your Congressman.

As the saying goes, we are done arguing about what you are, now we are just haggling the price.


If you ever entertained any thoughts about trying to save this country, I believe it is beyond redemption at this point. The Oligarchy just had it announced to make it official.

Money talks and bullshit walks.

I hope you have sturdy shoes.

Idiot

When you look up the definition of that word, you will see this picture,

Far-Right Texas Terrorist Planned Murder And Robbery Spree in the Name of ‘Liberty’

Robert James Talbot, Jr. woke up on the morning of March 27 ready to carry out the plan he’d allegedly been concocting for months. He drove to a storage facility in Houston, Texas where he met the three other members of “Operation Liberty.” According to a criminal complaint filed against him, Talbot had recruited his teammates via a Facebook group called the American Insurgent Movement to help him rob armored cars; the first phase of his larger scheme to kill police officers and blow up mosques and government buildings. Talbot allegedly provided his team with detailed maps of the financial institution he wanted to target, and escape routes for best avoiding law enforcement. He put two Composition 4, or C4, plastic explosive devices in his black backpack and asked one of his team members to read a “manifesto” he’d brought with him.

“We must rebel. There is no other option,” it read, according to the complaint. “Blood and bullets are the only two things that will change this world, short of divine action.”

On his way to carry out the robbery, Talbot was arrested by an FBI SWAT team.

Duh.

Of course, two of the willing "team members" were undercover FBI agents who strung this fool along until he had enough rope to hang himself with.

According to the complaint against him, the FBI began investigating Talbot in August 2013 after he unwittingly met with an unnamed informant and allegedly expressed his desire to rob banks and use that money to equip his “resistance” group with weapons with which they would kill law enforcement.

Over the next eight months, the FBI complaint alleges, Talbot set his plan into motion: He created a Facebook group titled “American Insurgent Movement” or “AIM.” He described it as “a Pre-Constitutionalist Community that offers those who seek True patriotism and are looking for absolute Freedom by doing the Will of God. Who want to restore America Pre-Constitutionally and look forward to stopping the Regime with action by bloodshed.”

Say goodbye to this moron for the next twenty years.

The article then goes on to paint all Patriots with the broad brush of the government approved Southern Poverty Law Center definition.

What is clear from the American Insurgent Movement Facebook page, is that whoever created it identifies with a wide-range of radical, right-wing, anti-government beliefs often ascribed to “Patriotism.”

I'd like to slap the taste out of someones mouth for that crap, twice.

There is a whole lot more in this article, I tried to cut it down for brevity.

You can read the rest here, if you can stomach it.


H/T to FARK for the link.

ObamaCare Dental Plan

Yep, Left The Seat Up Again

Awesome Firearm History And Technology Blog

I just found this place,Firearms History, Technology & Development , thanks to The Gun Blog Black List and Oh Boy am I stoked.


For one thing, I love old machinery,history and learning about old technology.
This place has it all clear up to modern weapons.
I can't even begin to describe it properly, there is so much there.

The different ways people have used to put rifling in gun barrels?

Several ways, explained in detail and then backed up with video.


Crazy antique guns you never heard of, bizarre guns, modern guns,explanations of the technology that was available and when innovations came about. Educational articles about every aspect of firearms, Ballistics, bullets, powder, primers, reloading, rifles, cannons, Modern jargon explained, definitions of terminology with illustrations,you name it, it's there.

Absolutely fascinating information.

I took a peek and hit a time warp, the next thing I know I have been there 45 minutes already and that was just browsing!

Go take a gander but be prepared to spend some time there, you won't be able to help yourself.
It's like an encyclopedia and a museum combined with Ripley's Believe It or Not.