lumberjack in a desert

Via Cnn:

Washington (CNN) — Army Secretary John McHugh told Congress Wednesday that “unimaginable, unacceptable wrongs” had resulted from the mismanagement of Arlington Cemetery, one of the nation’s most hallowed burial places for its war dead.

A months-long Army investigation initiated by McHugh revealed that 211 graves at the historic cemetery were misidentified or mislocated.

Conceding that “by placing everyone in charge, no one was in charge,” McHugh vowed to do “everything necessary and possible to right these unimaginable, unacceptable wrongs.”

The probe exposed a dysfunctional management team with no oversight, missing documents, poor record keeping, and failure to notify next-of-kin about the problems, according to the Inspector General’s report.

Rep. Howard McKeon, R-California, the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, expressed concerns over the cemetery’s “nearly complete failure to comply with federal, defense, or Army acquisition regulations,” avoiding “basic common sense.

“No oversight, missing documents, and poor record keeping?”  That pretty much covers every government facet from the IRS to the White House to the DMV.    Like I’ve been saying, if you think this sounds bad, just wait until you see how great Obamacare is going to be. You know those documents showing months of medical screenings and tests that show you need that life saving surgery?  Yeah, you can kiss those goodbye.

I heard Dick Morris talking about this on the radio yesterday.  How is this for government incompetence?

It’s one thing to say that Obama’s Administration showed its ineptitude and mismanagement in its handling of the Gulf oil spill. It is quite another to grasp the situation up close as I did during a recent visit to Alabama.

According to state disaster relief officials, Alabama conceived a plan – early on – to erect huge booms off shore to shield the approximately 200 miles of their state’s coastline from oil. Rather than install the relatively light and shallow booms in use elsewhere, the state (with assistance from the Coast Guard) canvassed the world and located enough huge, heavy booms – some weighing tons and seven meters high – to guard their coast.

So, Alabama decided on a backup plan. It would buy snare booms to catch the oil as it began to wash up on the beaches.

But…the Fish and Wildlife Administration vetoed the plan saying it would endanger sea turtles that nest on the beaches.

So, Alabama – ever resourceful – decided to hire 400 workers to patrol the beaches in person scooping up oil that had washed ashore.

But…OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Agency) refused to allow them to work more than twenty minutes out of every hour and required an hour long break after forty minutes of work so the cleanup proceeded at a very slow pace.

The short answer is that every agency – each with its own particular bureaucratic agenda – was able to veto each aspect of any plan to fight the spill with the unintended consequence that nothing stopped the oil from destroying hundreds of miles of wetlands, habitats, beaches, fisheries, and recreational facilities.

Read the whole thing. Makes you feel a lot better knowing they are now in charge of your health care. You know that emergency heart surgery you need to survive?  Yeah, you can forget about that.

I guess one group of rats deserves another.

YONKERS, N.Y. – City officials said that as many as a dozen rats were set loose in the City Council chambers on Tuesday night, when union workers showed up to protest looming layoffs – a showdown that ultimately included expletive-filled taunts and squealing, scurrying rats.

“It borders on not only disobedience in terms of disorderly conduct … but criminal mischief, because I think there were some things that were broken in the chambers,” said Adam Brill, a spokesman for council President Chuck Lesnick.

The incident came as dozens of Teamsters and other union members gathered outside City Hall to demonstrate against job cuts and included the appearance of a giant inflatable rat that is common at union rallies.

It comes as no surprise that unions resort to criminal mischief and threats to try and get their way. In fact, since 1975 there have been over 9,000 incidents of violence by organized labor.  Do the math and that comes out to 2 incidents of violence by unions every 3 days.

Murtagh said he accepts assurances from union leaders who told him that they had no involvement in the release of the rats, an act he called “outrageous conduct by anyone, most especially employees of the city.”

But he also said the incident raised questions about the union leadership.

“If you take them at their word, then that shows to me that they have a complete lack of control over their membership, and indeed that their membership has a complete lack of respect for their leadership,” he said.

Union leaders have complained that they have taken enough hits in recent years as the city has struggled with numerous budget crunches.

This year, lawmakers are facing a $109 million deficit, a shortfall union officials contend can be more easily closed with cuts elsewhere.

Enough is enough.  Its time for union thugs to be put in their place.

If there is one city in Wisconsin that begs for reform it’s Milwaukee.  With one of the worst school systems in the state (one of the lowest graduation rates in the nation for black students) one of the highest crime rates in the country, and a corrupt Democrat stronghold, it’s easy to find reasons why. Lately Milwaukee has been stuck on stupid (more than usual).  Enter Peggy West, geographically challenged Democrat Milwaukee County Board Supervisor who is obviously a graduate of the Milwaukee school system.  She is a perfect example of the lack of intelligence behind those opposed to Arizona’s immigration bill.

While looking for some school stats for Milwaukee I stumbled across a handful of videos taken by students in the Milwaukee public school system.  As you take a good close look at this video of the Bayview High School 2010 graduation ceremony keep this fact in mind: only 41% of black students graduate from Milwaukee public schools.

A perfect example of why I could never be a therapist.  I had to correct Geico’s title from Youtube on this. R. Lee Ermy was in the Marines, not the Army.   Marines have drill instructors, not drill sergeants (not “sargents” either).

Well color me surprised:

Up to 1,000 jobs at Bucyrus International Inc. and its suppliers could be in jeopardy as the result of a decision by the U.S. Export-Import Bank, funded by Congress, to deny several hundred million dollars in loan guarantees to a coal-fired power plant and mine in India.

About 300 of those jobs are at the Bucyrus plant in South Milwaukee, where the company has 1,410 employees and its headquarters. The remaining jobs are spread across 13 states, including Illinois, Minnesota and Indiana.

On Thursday, the Export-Import Bank denied financing for Reliance Power Ltd., an Indian power plant company, effectively wiping out about $600 million in coal mining equipment sales for Bucyrus, chief executive Tim Sullivan said.

The fossil fuel project was the first to come before the government-run bank since it adopted a climate-change policy to settle a lawsuit and to meet Obama administration directives.

“President Obama has made clear his administration’s commitment to transition away from high-carbon investments and toward a cleaner-energy future,” Export-Import Bank Chairman Fred Hochberg said in a statement. “After careful deliberation, the Export-Import Bank board voted not to proceed with this project because of the projected adverse environmental impact.”

Its important to note that this isnt even a coal plant in the U.S., but in India, so Obama’s efforts to stop coal really won’t accomplish anything.  As Ed Morrissey chimes in, it will actually make it worse:

This decision won’t stop one carbon molecule from hitting the air.  In fact, it will likely make carbon emissions worse.  India will look for other vendors to supply the equipment, probably from neighboring Russia or China, as they will continue to build and operate the plant.  Both nations compete in the same marketplace as Bucyrus, but they don’t work as cleanly as the American company does, which means the end result will be lower efficiency and more pollution.

Democrats like Obama keep talking about eeeeeevil corporations that export jobs overseas to save costs rather than keep them in the US.  Well, Obama and his Congress just sent 1,000 jobs overseas — jobs Americans lost, and jobs that either Russian or Chinese workers will get instead. And instead of bankrupting this new coal plant, they just made it dirtier.  Good job!

Two Democrats in Wisconsin, neither up for re-election, scrambled to find political cover in the wake of the devastating decision.  Governor Jim Doyle and Senator Herb Kohl both publicly objected to the decision and promised to push for a reversal, even though there is no appeal at the Export-Import Bank.  Senator Russ Feingold, who is running for re-election, has been quiet about the debacle thus far.  The most liberal member of the Senate has expressed skepticism about cap-and-trade, but only in the way carbon allotments punish Wisconsin in order to benefit California and Massachusetts — the two states where the bill’s authors reside in both the House and Senate versions of the bill.

A whole lot of us (not the state run media of course) were shouting about Obama’s desire to kill the coal industry when he was running for president.  But obviously those on the left in places like Milwaukee and Madison didn’t want to listen.   So as the old saying goes, you reap what you sow.  How’s that hopen’change working out for you Wisconsin? Here is a refresher for everyone who wouldn’t listen during the election.

Its been a while since I’ve posted something creepy and disgusting so I figured, why not? Sorry about the delay on this, I forgot to publish the draft.

Via Jammiewearingfool:

And this little piggy turned into a thumb.

A Long Island woman’s big toe will adapt to function as a thumb after doctors performed a rare transplant operation to replace the vital missing digit.

Shannon Elliott, 25, lost the thumb and two fingers from her left hand in November when a firework exploded in her palm. Elliott happened to be walking by when someone in a passing car tossed the explosive out a window.

It blew up when she bent to see what had landed and tore apart her hand, reports WABC.

“I was devastated. … My fingers exploded into pieces,” she said.

Stony Brook University doctors suggested the toe amputation to restore mobility to Elliott’s hand, and performed an 11-hour surgery after Elliott agreed to go forward.

“To me it was a no brainer. I’d rather lose a toe and gain a whole hand,” said the mother of two.

I know how she feels.  Because of some serious shrapnel damage from getting blown up in Iraq, my ulnar nerve was severed and my ring finger was damaged beyond repair.  Because of this my one remaining hand was cut to pieces by doctors at Walter Reed and pieced back together. Check it out.

They did what is known as a ray section, where my entire ring finger – including the metacarpal – was cut out of the middle of my hand. My hand was then reassembled with my pinky next to my middle finger.

The vast majority of people do not notice that I only have four fingers left.  Unfortunately my pinky is completely unusable because of the ulnar nerve that didn’t heal.  Still, as the above woman can attest, its better to have part of a hand then no hand at all.

If these teachers act this way in public, just imagine how they run their classrooms.

Two Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School teachers who held an anti-war sign during a senior assembly last week are facing disciplinary action.

D-Y world history teacher Marybeth Verani and English teacher Adeline “Carrie” Koscher have been put on paid administrative leave until the end of the school year June 24, Verani said yesterday.

In addition to the paid leave, Verani said she has been given an unpaid suspension for the first 10 days of school in September. Verani said she did not want to comment on what further discipline Koscher might be facing.

Verani and Koscher conducted a silent protest during the part of the assembly in which school officials recognized graduating seniors entering the military.

Here is some background info (with video).  Apparently they missed the memo that dissent is no longer patriotic now that a Democrat has been elected president.

Two teachers at Dennis Yarmouth Regional High School have touched off a firestorm after holding up an “End War” sign at a school assembly where six students who’ve enlisted in the military were being honored.

Many in the community say the teachers crossed a line and treated their own students with disrespect.

The students received a standing ovation, but at that point the two teachers sat down refusing to clap.

Teacher Marybeth Verani defends her protest saying, “I’m showing students in a democracy how to exercise dissent.”

This has been getting almost no coverage thanks to the oil spill.  A gun microstamping bill was shot down in New York:

Albany, NY --(Ammoland.com)- In voting against S6005 yesterday, many lawmakers in the New York State Senate exercised common sense and acted according to the will of their constituents.

S6005 would require all semi-automatic handguns delivered to any licensed firearms dealer in New York to mechanically stamp certain information about the firearm (such as the make, model and serial number) onto the cartridge case when the gun is discharged. This bill does not exempt models currently available, making all of these guns illegal for sale in New York unless they are redesigned by their manufacturers, which would vastly increase the cost of these firearms.

Micro-stamping is an unproven technology that is easily defeated with common household tools and the replacement of a few small parts. If passed, the availability of semi-automatic handguns in New York will be in serious doubt, as manufacturers simply may choose not to build or sell firearms for purchase in the state. Of course, that is the ultimate goal of this legislation. Make no mistake, this is a gun ban and it must be stopped.

Not to be outdone, Democrats in NY are doubling down on stupid:

Manhattan State Sen. (and state AG hopeful) Eric Schneiderman, who saw his hopes for the passage of a bill that would require the gun industry to institute microstamping crumble this week, says he’s launching a grassroots campaign to get the issue back on the table:

“Microstamping ensures that when a gun is fired, information identifying the make, model and serial number of the gun is stamped onto the shell casing. This technology allows law enforcement officials to trace firearms through shell casings found at crime scenes, even if the crime gun is never found,” said Schneiderman, one of the sponsors of the bill — which is strongly backed by Mayor Bloomberg.

“Republicans can run, but they can’t hide. Starting today, advocates are taking this fight to their districts – leafleting and holding press events in the coming days to urge them to stop blocking this commonsense legislation. It’s time to put politics aside and put public safety first. It’s time to pass microstamping in New York State.”

Remember, gun control works!