Armored Facilities Manager

2:43am: A thousand apes banging on typewriters....

5:17pm: Well, these guys are kinda shiny....


I love the warbly vocals. It's kinda like Siouxsie Sioux...

9:31pm: One more, with feeling...


Something of a requiem for the Royal Navy's carriers....

9:21pm: RN flight deck operations...
An old admiralty training film...

8:54pm: The last carrier....


From the BBC documentary, "Sailors".

1:14pm: Defensive firearms training...
Once again, with the recent spate of 3 crimes in the news targeting women (two very brazen kidnapping attempts and the rape near Kennesaw State University), I suspect more folks (especially women) are thinking about security again. If anyone reading this in the Atlanta area (ITP or near) would like some gratis introductory firearms training, I am willing to help out and provide such training.

12:31pm: Police, probable cause and due process.
One of the points made in the previous video relates to the EPA being able to show up on private property issue a compliance order with a substantial fine and the defendants in the case get ZERO day in court unless the EPA so decides to do so AND if they do, until the court date arrives, you're accruing fines.

This is best summed up in the case of Sackett v EPA.

From Oyez.org's page on the case:
Chantell and Mike Sackett own a half-acre lot in a residential area near Priest Lake, Idaho. In April and May of 2007, the Sacketts filled in about one-half acre of that property with dirt and rock in preparation for building a house. On November 26, 2007, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a compliance order against the Sacketts. The compliance order alleged that the parcel is a wetland subject to the Clean Water Act and that the Sacketts violated the CWA by filling in their property without first obtaining a permit. The order required the Sacketts to remove the fill material and restore the parcel to its original condition.

The Sacketts sought a hearing with the EPA to challenge the finding that the Parcel is subject to the CWA. The EPA did not grant the Sacketts a hearing and continued to assert CWA jurisdiction over the parcel. The Sacketts filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho seeking injunctive and declaratory relief. They challenged the compliance order as (1) arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act; (2) issued without a hearing in violation of the Sacketts' procedural due process rights; and (3) issued on the basis of an "any information available" standard that is unconstitutionally vague. The district court granted the EPA's motion to dismiss, finding that the CWA precludes judicial review of compliance orders before EPA has started an enforcement action in federal court. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the lower court order.


In this instance the EPA was able to level a fine of $35,000 per DAY all before they'd even taken the Sacketts to court. As Justice Alito stated in his concurrence:


The reach of the Clean Water Act is notoriously unclear. Any piece of land that is wet at least part of the year is in danger of being classified by EPA employees as wetlands covered by the Act, and according to the Federal Government, if property owners begin to construct a home on a lot that the agency thinks possesses the requisite wetness, the property owners are at the agency’s mercy. The EPA may issue a compliance order demanding that the own- ers cease construction, engage in expensive remedial measures, and abandon any use of the property. If the owners do not do the EPA’s bidding, they may be fined up to $75,000 per day ($37,500 for violating the Act and another $37,500 for violating the compliance order). And if the owners want their day in court to show that their lot does not include covered wetlands, well, as a practical matter, that is just too bad. Until the EPA sues them, they are blocked from access to the courts, and the EPA may wait as long as it wants before deciding to sue. By that time, the potential fines may easily have reached the millions. In a nation that values due process, not to men- tion private property, such treatment is unthinkable.

How does this even pass the smell test for someone who is supposed to adhere to the Constitution? ie the EPA officials who are specifically bound by the constitution? Due process rights, who gets those?

Dear readers, if you're not grasping the implications of this, this is the same as a police officer who stops you for speeding and demands an on the spot fine which you have ZERO ability to challenge in court. While we have perfunctory abilities to pay such things ahead of time as a short cut to getting it dealt with, a fine of $35,000 per day which will accrue up to the court date on top of other fines is absurd. No one, not any family in the US should have to expect this sort of treatment and yet that's the pattern and it was argued all the way up to the supreme court.

The path should be Accusation of crime - Charges - Court Date - Punishment if convicted.

NOT

Accusation of crime - Fines - Court date (if they feel like it) - those previous fines and more fines if convicted.

I guess this falls under what this EPA manager would call, making an example of people and corporations by crucifying them.

Oh and the above cited case, it was decided 9-0 AGAINST the EPA. Even the Liberals on the court had a hard time taking the lines of reasoning the EPA had. The same week the president was lauding the EPA for a great job going around making the drinking water safe for everyone. If anyone thinks that this is making the drinking water safe, we're throwing the baby out with the bath water. This sort of behavior by ANY government agency should not be tolerated. Again the fact it went as high as it did, shows that the folks in the EPA don't see any particular limit on what they do. This could only get worse if they were given guns (kind of like the BAFTE).

4:26pm: wanting to fail...


All of those things are happening.

1:51pm: The Corporate Machine is another tool of modern society.
The more I learn about even just 1940s technologies and the amount of material, technology and the size of the industrial base that lays beneath something as simple as steel with tin plating, a vacuum tube or other bits of effectively ancient technology, I become more and more bemused at the folks who decry the "corporate machine" and yet ignore the vast amount of modern technology in their lives that was made possible by the efficiencies of that same corporate machine.

You could have your hand made tools, a change of two of clothes, but you'd hardly be able to afford them or the materials to have more than a basic sustenance of food and life giving resources. Odds are, without that corporate machine, if you injured your hand and got an infection you could easily die. You wouldn't have an iPod, the computer you're reading this on, no electronics, books would cost a fortune and you'd hear music when a local musician came around and played. Hopefully you could afford to feed him some food in exchange for his services.

Yes a lot of modern jobs are very simple and basic rote work. They have to be. you're not going to magically get non-simple and basic rote work jobs with old technology like working iron ore in a furnace to make iron to then work in a forge just to make basic tools. Someone has to cut all the wood, fold the clay for the furnace and walk around in fields digging up bog ore. Heck, just pumping the forge bellows....do that for 2 days straight for an ore smelt. You can't stop. Someone has to work in shifts on it and you have to keep wood going into it as well, which means before you start the whole process you're stockpiling wood and clay and all the rest of the materials involved.

It's crazy, every time I sit down and look at a new technology like say something as theoretically simple as a vacuum tube or a basic 1940s relay, I'm amazed at the craftsmanship that went into them and yet we were turning out millions of them because of corporate industrialization. Something as simple as the electrical control box on our car is something that would take me, several years to build bit by bit by hand and yet CAV was turning them out hundreds per day because of their precise specialization for each task.

All of these things turn into efficiencies that allow us to have highly efficient coal fired electrical plants rather than smoky houses heated by wood or coal burning fires that require constant attention and generators we have to tend ourselves. All of that efficiency is dividends back to society with things costing less than if they were each made by individual craftsmen making those complex items.

That's not to say that the corporation should ignore the human element. Far from it. There must be between the hands and the head the heart.

12:48pm: Disgust....
Sent to my Senators today....

Today I have been looking at the photos and video of one of the Shuttles going off to their retirement/storage at the Smithsonian. We have nothing flying to replace them, no heavy lift rockets, no regularly scheduled brand new orbiters or crew transport vehicles, no derivatives of the shuttle program, nothing. Just recycled Titan Missiles for satellites and Russian Soyuz Capsules that we have to hitch rides on.

That's really pathetic.

I grew up in the 70s, I remember all the high hopes we had for the new modern space program. We were supposed to have LARGE permanent stations in orbit with hundreds of people. Colonies on the moon. Prospecting and mining facilities on the moon and in the asteroid belt. Space-borne foundries to process the large quantities of nickel and iron and aluminum all to build more bigger and better facilities. Heck we were supposed to REALLY get things going with a bean stalk if materials science could get that going and support the loads.

Instead we've got more people than ever before on welfare and wild parties with hot tubs and hookers for government employees (I'm sure, there's blow somewhere in there too).

It's just pathetic. Disgust doesn't even begin to describe what I'm feeling right now. Where is this country going? Is it going to be another has been 1st world nation that can barely afford to keep the lights on while everyone gets their free bread and circus? What happened to the dream?

Oh, happy tax day.

12:41am: Humbers!

2:23am: Drops, Rain and Sea

4:31pm: Soundpool
And now a little bit of shoegaze....

4:12pm: This is how pirates should be dealt with...
A handful of armed security contractors onboard the ships in the danger zone.

*WARNING THIS IS PEOPLE BEING SHOT*

They're pirates, they lost their contract with society as a whole when they decided that attacking a Cargo Vessel for purposes of robbing, kidnapping and/or killing the occupants is a great way to make their living.




Men in a small craft, trying to board in broad daylight have ZERO chance of any success. Note how the first skiff is left a floating wreck after ~2 men with rifles firing down into the craft eliminate the threat leaving the other craft to veer away and prevaricate as to their next course of action.

No doubt about it though, the occupants of that first skiff were probably not long for the world. Also to be noted, given that the response here was shooting them with deadly force vs turning hoses on them, these pirates will likely NOT be bothering anyone, which if they'd been turned away with netting and water hoses, would mean they'd bother someone else who was less prepared. Dead pirates bother no one.

3:46pm: Vox Populi
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/obamas-pre-emptive-strike-scotus/459281

President Obama today said that he was "confident" that his signature Health care law would be upheld by the Supreme Court but warned that should the court rule the law unconstitutional, it would be an "unprecedented extraordinary event."

"Ultimately I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress," Obama told reporters today while speaking with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon.


You hear that? That's the declaration that what makes a law constitutional is the weight of votes behind it and not it's legal structure or how it's impacted by other legal restrictions.

Want to pass a law confining a small minority to the gas chambers, it's constitutional because enough people want it. Any evil in the history of the US, say like the forced relocation of a people who won a court case (Worcester v. Georgia), was not allowed legally but still pushed through by authority figures because of the desires of the democratic body politic.

Do not mistake this for a declaration that "ObamaCare = gas chambers".

This is in fact an observation that just "because most of congress voted for it" != Constitutional."


Lets look at that statement again.
"Ultimately I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress..."

The Communications Decency Act was passed by a strong majority of Congress. It was found to be VERY unconstitutional. Such is HARDLY unprecedented. The test for Constitutionality is NOT whether there was a 2/3rds or 3/4's vote by Congress for the passage of a bill.

The whole point of a Constitution on the limits of government, even a very democratic government is to preclude that "because enough people want it", it's Ok to herd people off against their will and in violation of their rights whether it is to inter them collectively or to drive them up the steps one by one to the guillotine.

12:09pm: Win in Maryland!
MAY issue permits in Maryland are unconstitutional

"The Court finds that Maryland‘s requirement of a ―good and substantial reason‖ for issuance of a handgun permit is insufficiently tailored to the State‘s interest in public safety and crime prevention. The law impermissibly infringes the right to keep and bear arms, guaranteed by the Second Amendment. The Court will, by separate Order of even date, GRANT Woollard‘s Motion for Summary Judgment and DENY Defendants‘ Motion for Summary Judgment."

4:07pm: A comment on Greece...
Greece, 20% unemployment, ~$27,700 GDP per capita, Debt at 144% of GDP or, nearly $40,000 of debt per capita.

In days past Greeks could rely upon Turks and Persians to come in and destroy their civilization. Now, through the advances in social programs and spendthrift government, Greeks can take the middleman out of the equation and do this all themselves!

1:50am: Watchtower....

1:57pm: Wait....what????
Looking at an article in reference to something the Flea posted, there's been a movement in Saudi Arabia to destroy old sites associated with the Prophet Mohammed.

"The Kingdom's ultraconservative clerics believe that the veneration of ancient sites associated with the Prophet Mohammad and his family is heretical, and want potential shrines obliterated.
In October last year, a Saudi clerical body was reported to have renewed long-standing calls for the demolition of several historic Islamic sites – including the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad and the grave of his mother."

I can't wrap my brain around this. If the Prophet is to be so venerated, why are the sites associated with him being destroyed deliberately? Is this some sort of slow drift to make him no longer human or some such? A shifting from the tangible to the intangible?

This is probably why I have a hard time being religious, among other things....

1:37pm: Sharp!
Robb, over at Sharp as a Marble posts the following in response to a rather nonsensical ATF exchange elsewhere.

"The problem is that governments, instead of being disinterested arbiters of disputes using a generalized framework of rules to judge by, become micromanagers thinking that every problem has a perfectly constructed set of solutions that they can enforce with clarity."

1:54pm: Key points of social welfare issues...
If social welfare programs, high tax rates and union protectionism in the form of labor laws are the end all be all of a society, why is Detroit a festering sink hole?

Can anyone answer this key question?

3:50am: ....

8:50am: Icelandic music...
This makes me want to read some Robert E. Howard....

9:56pm: Not so much of a surprise I guess...



One of the 1000 militant prisoners captured and imprisoned and then exchanged for one Israeli. She failed to get to her admitted target, a hospital. She wants to try again. Next time the Israeli's see her, they need to put a bullet in her head and not think twice.

Used to be, you were captured and paroled once, your life was forfeit if you were captured again.

2:15am: Christopher Hitchens dead at 62
Hitchens passed away today from cancer. Sadly fitting that he does so. He was an adamant supporter of the Iraq invasion and the destruction of the Baathist regime in Iraq.



Rest in peace sir....