Thank Goodness for Government

You might wonder why the following DHS video had to be made; especially considering that 47% of its production was paid for with borrowed money. Never mind the dubious value of a video telling you what to do should you come in contact with a lunatic shooting up your workplace or school.

I think most of us would run or hide. Isn't that common sense? "Fight back with whatever is available if you absolutely can't get away or hide," is also pretty much a no brainer. Is there evidence that any victims of a mass shooting had continued their ping-pong game?

The only bit of it that isn't common sense is just plain wrong. It says don't assist any wounded victims on your way out of the building. What if you assess the situation and decide that you are willing to expose yourself to a bit more danger in order to help a fellow human being?



Peter Falk was just as helpful: Serpentine! Serpentine!:



Sure, this is the same government that brought you this:



But they weren't borrowing from the Chinese to make the clip.

thanks: NRO

Is It Already Cute Thursday?

Funny: And if you're happy with the insurance you have now, you can keep it.

Me Too

clickabiggen

xkcd

If I Could Have Your Attention, and Quarters

h/t: NRO

Catch a Wave

and you're sittin' on top of the world

found on the internet

Obama is an Avid Shooter

Sure he is.

Update:

from an early age...

on into adultery...

President Obama doesn't know the meaning of this "trigger discipline" you speak of.

The Baltimore Plot

Cypriano Ferrandini

Phone rings, it's: "Please press one to update your free business listing..." I'm all, leave me alone, I'm reading about how Abraham Lincoln almost didn't make it to the White House:

In the coming weeks, the task of planning Lincoln’s railway journey to his inauguration in the nation’s capital on March 4 would present daunting logistical and security challenges. The task would prove all the more formidable because Lincoln insisted that he utterly disliked “ostentatious display and empty pageantry,” and would make his way to Washington without a military escort.

Far from Springfield, in Philadelphia, at least one railway executive—Samuel Morse Felton, president of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad—believed that the president-elect had failed to grasp the seriousness of his position. Rumors had reached Felton—a stolid, bespectacled blueblood whose brother was president of Harvard at the time—that secessionists might be mounting a “deep-laid conspiracy to capture Washington, destroy all the avenues leading to it from the North, East, and West, and thus prevent the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln in the Capitol of the country.” For Felton, whose track formed a crucial link between Washington and the North, the threat against Lincoln and his government also constituted a danger to the railroad that had been his life’s great labor.

“I then determined,” Felton recalled later, “to investigate the matter in my own way.” What was needed, he realized, was an independent operative who had already proven his mettle in the service of the railroads. Snatching up his pen, Felton dashed off an urgent plea to “a celebrated detective, who resided in the west.”

By the end of January, with barely two weeks remaining before Lincoln was to depart Springfield, Allan Pinkerton was on the case.

A Scottish immigrant, Pinkerton had started out as a cooper making barrels in a village on the Illinois prairies. He had made a name for himself when he helped his neighbors snare a ring of counterfeiters, proving himself fearless and quick-witted. He had gone on to serve as the first official detective for the city of Chicago, admired as an incorruptible lawman. By the time Felton sought him out, the ambitious 41-year-old Pinkerton presided over the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Among his clients was the Illinois Central Railroad....

But the railroad wasn't the target:

Captain Ferrandini, he said, “had a plan fixed to prevent Lincoln from passing through Baltimore.” He would see to it that Lincoln would never reach Washington, and never become president. “Every Southern Rights man has confidence in Ferrandini,” Luckett declared. “Before Lincoln should pass through Baltimore, Ferrandini would kill him.” Smiling broadly, Luckett gave a crisp salute and left the room, leaving a stunned Pinkerton staring after him.

Pinkerton had come to Baltimore to protect Samuel Felton’s railroad. With Lincoln’s train already underway, he found himself forced to consider the possibility that Lincoln himself was the target.

Now it was clear to Pinkerton that a warning must be sent to Lincoln...

Brush on Your Sassyface

Just watch for as long as you can stand it.

Still Not Getting that Free Market Thing

James Taranto in the WSJ, Tax That Fellow Behind That Tree:

One of the many ObamaCare provisions to take effect at the beginning of this year is a 2.3% tax on medical devices. Novation, a company that purchases medical devices for hospitals, announces in a press release that it is shocked to learn that the price of such devices is going up:

The community-based, pediatric and academic hospitals served by Novation are reporting that many are being directly billed by at least one medical device manufacturer to cover the costs associated with the Affordable Care Act's medical device tax. But Novation . . . is taking a firm stance with suppliers who are trying to pass their medical device excise tax obligations on to hospitals.

While the administration of the Medical Device Excise Tax is complex and still evolving, it is clear that Congress did not intend to impose this tax on hospitals. . . .

"Novation is taking a firm position with manufacturers that the Medical Device Tax may not be passed onto the hospital members we serve," says Jody Hatcher, President and CEO of Novation....

Well what did they think would happen?

You run a business to make money. If the cost of supplies goes up, you have to raise your prices in order to still make a reasonable profit. If the cost of labor goes up, you have to raise your prices in order to still make a reasonable profit. Why should taxes be any different?

There is a name for a system in which a central authority dictates how businesses are run, what they produce, or how much profit they make.

Also- I've got a pacemaker. That's a $12-14k device I'll need every seven years or so. So that's $3oo-350 in medical device tax every time it's replaced. But I won't pay that directly. The insurance company will buy the pacemaker. Of course the pacemaker will cost more because we want Medtronic to survive as a company, and be there to make the next pacemaker in another seven years. So the insurance company pays more, and they then must raise the price of insurance to pay for the more expensive pacemakers, the free birth control, the annual check-ups, free breast pumps, etc. And the insurance premiums will go up for everyone, not just for people with pacemakers.

So yes, devices will cost more, medical care will cost more, and insurance will cost more. Some people will be able to get things for "free" but we'll all pay.

found on the tumblr

March for Life

For the first time, the Lumberkid wasn't able to make it to the March for Life this year. So I don't have any pictures.

It wasn't the bitter cold or promised snow that stopped her, she just couldn't skip school at this particular time. I'm sure her thoughts were with the marchers; out there in the cold again this year. Mine were.

Gun Ban

Does anyone know if the Nerf N-Strike Maverick is on the list of 150 guns we are not responsible enough to sell, buy, or play with?

Don't laugh; with the spring modification and thumbtack darts, these things could put your eye out.

Lord of the Flies

So cool that Drudge would dare to put up pictures of our fly friendly president. Flies seem to really really like Obama. Especially considering the weather in DC. I haven't seen a fly in months. But they rise from the dead to land on the man.

So, anticipating the day when Global Warming (or cooling) has killed all the flies, here's some PNGs you can use to repopulate the Prez's face:

What's great about PNGs on a transparent background is that you can: select all, copy, then just paste over whoever you think deserves a fly. Like this - Here's an old picture of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Can you see that I've pasted a fly on the future first-lady/Secretary of State/weepy Senate witness? It's there:

OK you've got your PNG's. Go out there and paste like crazy.

Shoetree

Only two things it could be: witches, turning dancers into trees again, or some sort of ballerina gang initiation.

image found on the internet

Will Smith Translated Apple Rope Tiny China

Or something like that. I've long suspected that if you translated long enough you could turn anything into Gorillaz lyrics. There's a rumor (now) that Sunshine In a Bag was an Urdu translation of somebody's spice cake recipe. Listen and see with your eye, or perceive with your mind.

h/t bildschirmarbeiter.com

Waiting on Die Erderwärmung

Here's some good news mixed in with the inaugural newsgasm - The world is starting to admit that the temperature hasn't risen in the last 15 years:

Kautenburger writes that the “authorities have corrected their climate projections significantly downwards” and quotes veteran German meteorologist Klaus E. Puls:

Nature is behaving differently than what the models predicted. However, that fact is being ignored. [...] Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, but its impact is being completely exaggerated. Puls says that the correction by the Met Office is a sign that there’s a change in thinking taking place. Climate science is too politicised. We need an open and fair discussion.“

Like Spiegel, the HAZ also writes that “climate scientists are puzzled” and adds.

The uncertainty shows, if anything, one thing: The climate is still mostly misunderstood. Foremost short-term trends are uncertain, concedes climate scientist Mojib Latif of the Geomar Center for Ocean Science in Kiel.”

This is great because the American Left has a political crush on Euro socialists. Well, on all things Euro really. It's the teenage "why don't we have youth hostels, ganja cafés, and a National Health Service? Gaahh!" all grown up and gone political.

Won't it be nice to point to enlightened Europeans when arguing AGW with liberals? Well ok, I don't argue with them so much as throw rocks at them from posts like this one.

Leonardo DiCaprio says, "I would like to improve the world a bit. I will carbon-fart around the world doing good for the environment." Perhaps he'll descend from the CO2 long enough to actually take in this information that the average global temp isn't changing.

Oh, I know; right now Michael Mann is probably working out some theory claiming that the warming is here, it's just hidden inside sea otters or African spiders or some such. But for now, I'm optimistic.

Know Your Petting Zones

pinterest via

Aerial Surprise

"I'm sad because I got caught."

Why every American should own an airplane:

A Florida pilot caught a man stealing a trailer from his own property while he was flying his personal plane home from North Carolina, NBC affiliate WBBH reported.

The pilot, David Zehntner, was returning home to Glades County, Fla., on Sunday in his Cesna 182 and decided to fly over his home in LaBelle, when he noticed an unfamiliar truck in his driveway. Zehntner told WBBH he hovered over his home for nearly 10 minutes, watching a man try to break into his house.

"Right in front of us, with us making a tight circle around our property here, watching from the air -- and he was clearly looking at us several times, looked up," Zehntner told the TV station.

According to WBBH, Zehntner then flew closer, dropping the plane to 300 feet, and saw the man attaching Zehntner's red trailer to his truck and pulling out of his driveway.

The pilot then called the Glades County Sheriff's Office from the air and continued following the thief as he drove the truck and attached trailer down the road, WBBH reported...

Almost as good as the sales clerk that catches an identity thief trying to make a purchase using credit cards in the clerks name. Only the pilot wasn't in a position to punch the guy in the nose.

Happy inaugural everyone. Obama's second inaugural was like Lincoln's in that I didn't pay the least bit of attention to Lincoln's either.

via

Wow, Look at the Difference

Here you can see how four years have changed Obama. Of course he's aged, just like the rest of us; except I imagine his aging was mitigated by all that golf and those vacations.

The biggest difference is that Getty has gone lighter on the healing brush, hasn't softened the contrast, or lightened the image.

"Oh look how he's aged! He's got shadows now." Sheesh.

Harry Reid Explains It All

Harry Reid on why the Senate hasn't passed a budget in over a thousand days:

A Puppy Would Have Been Better

Winning!

Well, not winning now so much as "always been winning"> But now I have scientific proof:

It’s conventional wisdom that three things in life are inevitable: death, taxes and smelly armpits. But the third trouble on that list, it turns out, only afflicts 98% of us. According to a group of researchers from the University of Bristol in the UK, 2 percent of people (at least in their survey) carry a rare version of the gene ABCC11 that prevents their armpits from producing an offensive odor.

It's a fact. One day, at around the age of 20, I ran out of deodorant. I kept forgetting to buy it, and kept forgetting, and finally realized that I don't need it. It's not the sort of thing you can talk about though. First off, it sounds like bragging. And second, nobody would believe you. Armpits don't stink? More likely there's something wrong with his nose.

I can however grow armpit bacteria if someone has been wearing my shirt. But on my own? My armpits smell more like roses than armpits. I have the armpits Obama pretends to have. In your face Chief Commander!

Wished I'd Done It

I had the idea to do the second one when I first saw this picture, but I snoozed and I losed.

found on the internet

Oh No She Di'int

Exploitation

Michelle Malkin has noticed a pattern:

The president of the United States will release a binder full of new gun-control executive orders on Wednesday. Instead of standing alone, bearing full responsibility for the imperial actions he is about to take, President Obama will surround himself with an audience of kids who wrote to him after the Newtown, Conn., school massacre. This is the most cynical in Beltway theatrical staging — a feckless attempt to invoke “For the Children” immunity by hiding behind them.

What has happened to the deliberative process in this country? Public debate in Washington has deteriorated into Sesame Street sing-a-longs. We are already inundated with logical fallacies: argumentum ad populum (it’s popular, therefore it’s true); argumentum ad nauseam (if you repeat it often enough, it’ll become truth); argumentum ad hominem (sabotage the person, sabotage the truth); and argumentum ad verecundiam (if my favorite authority says it’s true, it’s true).

To that list we can now add “argumentum ad filium”: If politicians appeal to the children, it’s unassailably good and true. The Obama White House has shamelessly employed this kiddie human shield strategy at every turn to blunt substantive criticism and dissent.

During the legislative battle that rammed the federal health care takeover through Capitol Hill and down our throats, President Obama and the Democrats piled up youth props around them like bunker sandbags. Nancy Pelosi wore babies like Wonder Woman bracelets, one on each arm, to deflect troublesome questions about costs and constitutional concerns.

I expect that after the children have lost their effectiveness Obama will go to kittens and puppies. "Look at this little fella swat at this bit of yarn. He won't be purring much longer if we don't raise the debt limit...."

Speaking of which, Where did the "balanced approach" go? Obama promised spending cuts to go along with raising taxes on those puppy-kicking rich folks. We raised taxes but I don't see much in the way of spending cuts.

read the whole article at the link - especially the bit about a Clinton kid-prop gone wrong

Taylor Swift on the Road Again

Ran into Taylor Swift the other day...

found on the internet

Michael Walsh Nails It

Michael Walsh, over at NRO:

...in the post-modern presidency, talk is everything, reality is nothing. If you’ve ever wondered what it would feel like to be governed by the Upper West Side of Manhattan, a neighborhood thick with theoretical talkers but with precious few empirical doers, well . . . you’re living the dream.

Cute, Kid This Time

I listened through once and now I can't get the tune out of my head.

On second thought, I think this may be the tune that's always been in my head.

via

Camouflage

Can you spot the owl?

OK, this one is harder.
Can you spot Obama's economic plan?

I know, trick question.

But if he did have one you wouldn't be able to find it. That's because tax-borrow-spend blends right in with tree bark.

Learning the Hard Way - ESD

h/t: blort

He Only Wants What's Best for You

Having saved his citizens from the deadly effects of overly large carbonated drinks, Mayor Bloomberg now moves to keep them safe from their emergency rooms:

Some of the most common and most powerful prescription painkillers on the market will be restricted sharply in the emergency rooms at New York City’s 11 public hospitals, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Thursday in an effort to crack down on what he called a citywide and national epidemic of prescription drug abuse.

But wait, you say, Bloomberg isn't a doctor.

Well, I'm sure that after Obamacare has strangled us down to single payer, and there are competent bureaucrats in charge of health policy, we'll have uniform rules that are also made by non-doctors. Those rules might be worse, but they might be better.

I, by the way, was a victim of narcotic drug restriction drama: Many years back I had an angiogram to see what was going on with my heart. Bad luck though, the doctor nicked my artery before getting the device in properly.

So over the next day or so the nick ballooned out and caused quite a bit of ouchie. I called the doctor and complained about the pain. The doctor was dubious. I called back and said seriously, I can't even walk this hurts so bad. And I heard it in his voice: he thought I was angling for free pharmacy dope.

So he told me to take advil and sacrifice a chicken. He had made up his mind, doctors were being scrutinized and he'd be damned if he was going to get into trouble over prescribing drugs for something that shouldn't have hurt at all. What he didn't do was consider that there might be something wrong if there's pain where there shouldn't be. The arterial balloon burst a few hours later and almost killed me.

See, every few years there's a unnecessary-prescription witch hunt. Doctors are intimidated and painkillers become harder for abusers to get. Painkillers also become harder for people in pain to get. But even worse, these witch hunts cause doctors to expect lies from their patients. Most often it results in unnecessary pain. Sometimes it's much worse.

It would be best to let doctors decide when painkillers are needed. They will certainly make mistakes but they're the ones sitting in front of the patient; that's where the decision should be made.

Course, that boat has sailed. Bureaucrats are in charge now. You'll have to live with that crippling back pain, but if you want a morning after pill or a breast pump, you're sitting pretty.

image via

Barack as a Young Chinese Soldier

Just kidding, the Chinese fought on our side in WWII.

“I say to you forget the extremists. It’s simple — no one hunts with an assault rifle. No one needs 10 bullets to kill a deer and too many people have died already,”
-Andrew Cuomo

Obviously, Mr Cuomo doesn't understand how badly a deer can irritate a guy, with their prancing, and nuzzling of their young, and loud talking on the cell phone all the time.

Donald Trump's Birdie

via

Desktop Cute

video h/t: N. O'Really