Overlapping Jurisdiction

I have a cardinal outside my window at work that apparently doesn't like the challenge to his territory. Unfortunately, it is his own reflection, so all this week he has been fighting with himself. Cute at first, annoying after the first day. He has a lot of energy, I'll give him that. Peck peck peck at the window. I finally saw his wife, a plainish brown cardinal, who seemed to drag him home, as wives are wont to do.

At least it gave me a little peace, if only for awhile. Cardinals are my favorite birds (I like redheads), but enough is enough.

Hope he has a restful weekend, and you do too.

Madre Message

To all Moms everywhere...happy Mother's Day!

Bin Done

Guess that waterboarding works okay....heh.

Crown Royal

You can be a Prince and have a hot Princess, but you can't run away from a balding head in your 20's...

Face the Music II

Another thing--this Bob Schieffer thing--aren't we implicitly just marginalizing the term racist if you are going to say that checking out a President's background is racist?  No journalist claimed any discrimination when John McCain had unfounded rumors printed about him and some woman, or about George Bush's National Guard service.  Is it because you can't discriminate against white people?  When you start using the race card  (Whoopi) over nominal things, it loses its meaning.  This isn't slavery, this isn't burning a cross, this isn't even denying a guy a job (since he got it)--if you are telling me we can't investigate public officials if they are black, then that is racist.  Because you are saying they are lesser people, that they can't stand up to ordinary scrutiny and must be protected because they aren't able to handle the pressure or scrutiny.  That is a hell of a thing to think about the President of the most powerful (for now) nation in history.  When everything becomes racist, then we might as well turn out the lights--there will be no future for us.  I prefer to be like Archie Bunker--I'm not racist, I just hate everybody....!  Seriously--until everyone can quit thinking "was that racist?", we can never move on. 

Face the Music

Bob Schieffer calling Trump a racist is funny--

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Daily Mail--Yesterday Mr Trump called on the President to release his college transcripts.  Reacting to the call, Mr Schieffer said: 'That's just code for saying he got into law school because he's black.  This is an ugly strain of racism that's running through this whole thing.'

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Hey Bob--since when did inquiring about someone's qualifications for the most important job in the world (the job journalists *cough* like you are supposed to be investigating) become racist?  I know how I got into college and law school--it sure wasn't affirmative action.  It was through hard work and perseverance.  Not mine, of course.  I got in the old fashioned way--my Dad got me into school.   I don't care how anyone got into school--but just admit it was affirmative action, or family ties, blind luck or, if you had them, really good grades.  Just admit (and show) how, Barry, if you want to be a leader, not a king.  And Bob--even though you were born in Texas, it was a stupid thing to say.  Maybe it is time to go--you don't want to become some guy like David Brinkley that stuck around one show too long on Face the Nation.

Human Beans

Well, certainly, some can't spell.....

Kung Fu Hustler

This is why , if you get a call from the police, you shouldn't answer any questions....

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(MSNBC) Police arrested a singer on racism charges

after a man reportedly of Chinese descent

complained about his performance of the song

"Kung Fu Fighting," according to reports.

Simon Ledger, 34, told Britain's The Sun

newspaper that he and his band were

performing the 1970s classic at the Driftwood

Beach Bar on the Isle of Wight off the southern

coast of England.

"We were performing Kung Fu Fighting, as we

do during all our sets," he told the newspaper.

"People of all races were loving it. Chinese

people have never been offended by it before."

But Ledger told The Sun an Asian man walking

by with his mother hurled an expletive and

made an obscene hand gesture at the

performers during the Sunday afternoon

performance, then took a photo with his cell

phone.

"We hadn't even seen them when we started

the song. He must have phoned the police,"

The Sun quoted him as saying.

The man claimed he was "subjected to racial

abuse," police told BBC News, and complained

to the police the same evening.

'I thought it was a joke'

Ledger told The Sun that police called him later

that evening — while he was eating at a

Chinese restaurant — to arrange a meeting. It

was at that meeting that police arrested him,

Ledger said.

The BBC report said police released Ledger

after his arrest, intending to question him

further at a later date.

"An investigation into this allegation is

continuing to establish the full circumstances

surrounding what happened," a Hampshire

Constabulary spokesman told the network.

London Not Calling

I am glad to find out that Barack Hussein Obama II is Constitutionally qualified to be President.  He really sucks at it, but glad to know that he was born in HI.  Whee.  Of course, he couldn't resist name calling during his press conference, calling it sideshows and carnival barkers, and doing his little giggle.  He could have done this a long time ago, but decided he was a little too imperial.  Same with his papers, transcripts, etc., which he still hasn't released.  Whatever.  I am sure you had terrible grades and were an affirmative action student, so no need to produce anything.  I can guess what your transcript was like and why you got into Ivy League schools.  Although it would be humorous.

Glad you can get back to your fundraising and apologizing for America.  Maybe you can get back to some actual work when you can fit it in to your schedule.

He is just mad that he didn't get invited to the Royal Wedding.  See, if you hadn't sent back that bust of Winston Churchill, you might have been jetting to London this weekend.

Pride of the Yankees

Dear Chuck (and the NY Daily News),

Fuck You.

Sincerely,

The Citizens of Texas

P.S.  Although thanks to NY for losing two seats in Congress for 2012.  We picked 'em up and added two more on top of that.

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(NY Daily News)--A peeved Utah Congressman, joined by a bunch of poor-loser Texans, is mounting a campaign to yank the NASA shuttle Enterprise from the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) pushed a bill that would reshuffle the deck on where the four retired space shuttles will go.  Under his plan, New York's loss would be Houston's gain.  "I am seeking to restore common sense and fairness to the Space Shuttle retirement home debate," Chaffetz said. "Instead of relying on political guidance systems, these decisions must be steered by history and logic."

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) had this reply: "Fughgeddaboutit." 

"When people from Paris, Beijing, Tokyo and Amsterdam start saying they want to go to Houston, maybe then they'll get a shuttle," Schumer told the Daily News. "I'd say to Texas, don't mess with New York."

This week, NASA announced the retirement homes of its retiring shuttles. The Smithsonian Institution was awarded the Discovery, Cape Canaveral's Kennedy Space Center is keeping the Atlantis and the California Science Center in Los Angeles was granted the Endeavour.

Not Able To Operate

NATO is a joke.  And Barry wants us to let them lead on anything?  This just shows what happens when you decide to become socialist countries more interested in social safety nets, vacations and state health care...you suddenly can't fight a war.  Idiot Europeans.  And Barry wants America to be more like Europe...

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(Washington Post)  Less than a month into the Libyan conflict, NATO is running short of precision bombs, highlighting the limitations of Britain, France and other European countries in sustaining even a relatively small military action over an extended period of time, according to senior NATO and U.S. officials.

The shortage of European munitions, along with the limited number of aircraft available, has raised doubts among some officials about whether the United States can continue to avoid returning to the air campaign if Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi hangs on to power for several more months.

U.S. strike aircraft that participated in the early stage of the operation, before the United States relinquished command to NATO and assumed what President Obama called a “supporting” role, have remained in the theater “on 12-hour standby” with crews “constantly briefed on the current situation,” a NATO official said.

So far, the NATO commander has not requested their deployment. Several U.S. military officials said they anticipated being called back into the fight, although a senior administration official said he expected other countries to announce “in the next few days” that they would contribute aircraft equipped with the laser-guided munitions.

Opposition spokesmen in the western Libyan city of Misurata, under steady bombardment by government shelling, said Friday that Gaddafi’s forces had used cluster bombs, and Human Rights Watch said its representatives on the ground had witnessed the explosion of cluster munitions in civilian areas there. The Libyan government denied the weapons had been used.

A spokesman for the Misurata City Council appealed for NATO to send ground troops to secure the port that is the besieged city’s only remaining humanitarian lifeline.

The opposition has also repeatedly called for an increase in NATO airstrikes. The six countries conducting the air attacks, led by Britain and France, were unsuccessful at a meeting this week in Berlin in persuading more alliance members to join them.

NATO officials said that their operational tempo has not decreased since the United States relinquished command of the Libya operation and withdrew its strike aircraft at the beginning of April. More planes, they said, would not necessarily result immediately in more strike missions.

But, they said, the current bombing rate by the participating nations is not sustainable. “The reason we need more capability isn’t because we aren’t hitting what we see — it’s so that we can sustain the ability to do so. One problem is flight time, the other is munitions,” said another official, one of several who were not authorized to discuss the issue on the record.

European arsenals of laser-guided bombs, the NATO weapon of choice in the Libyan campaign, have been quickly depleted, officials said. Although the United States has significant stockpiles, its munitions do not fit on the British- and French-made planes that have flown the bulk of the missions.

Britain and France have each contributed about 20 strike aircraft to the campaign. Belgium, Norway, Denmark and Canada have each contributed six — all of them U.S.-manufactured and compatible with U.S. weaponry.

Since the end of March, more than 800 strike missions have been flown, with U.S. aircraft conducting only three, targeting static Libyan air defense installations. The United States still conducts about 25 percent of the overall sorties over Libya, largely intelligence, jamming and refueling missions.

Other NATO countries, along with the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Jordan, have contributed planes to enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya to prevent Gaddafi’s use of airpower, but so far have declined to participate in the strike missions.

After the Berlin meeting, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rassmussen said that 10 more aircraft were needed and that he was confident they would be supplied. A U.S. official said that Italy — which earlier in the week said it was not interested — may contribute planes to the ground attack mission, and that the Arab participants might also do so.

But with Gaddafi’s forces and the rebel army locked in a stalemate, Obama has resisted calls from opposition leaders, and some hardline lawmakers in this country, to move U.S. warplanes back into a leading role.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and other have called on Obama to redeploy U.S. AC-130 gunships, which are considered more effective over populated areas.

Although the gunships flew several missions early in the operation, Gen. Carter Ham, who commanded the mission before it was turned over to NATO, said last week that they were frequently grounded because of weather and other concerns.

The slow-moving aircraft, which flew as low as 4,000 feet over Libya, are also considerably more vulnerable than jet fighters to surface-to-air missiles. While much of Libya’s stationary air defenses have been destroyed, Ham said Gaddafi was believed to have about 20,000 shoulder-held SAMS at the beginning of the conflict, and “most” of them are still unaccounted for.

Concerns that supplies of jet-launched precision bombs are growing short in Europe have reignited long-standing controversies over both burden-sharing and compatibility within NATO. While allied jets have largely followed the U.S. lead and converted to precision munitions over the last decade, they have struggled to keep pace, according to senior U.S. military officials.

Libya “has not been a very big war. If [the Europeans] would run out of these munitions this early in such a small operation, you have to wonder what kind of war they were planning on fighting,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a defense think tank. “Maybe they were just planning on using their air force for air shows.”

Despite U.S. badgering, European allies have been slow in some cases to modify their planes and other weapons systems so they can accommodate U.S. bombs. Retooling these fighter jets so that they are compatible with U.S. systems requires money, and all European militaries have faced significant cuts in recent years.

Typically, the British and French militaries buy munitions in batches and stockpile them. When arsenals start to run low, factories must be retooled and production lines restarted to replace the diminished stock, all of which can take time and additional money, said Elizabeth Quintana, an aerospace analyst at the Royal United Service Institute in London.