Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Obama Administration Edited A Safety Report To Support Their Political Agenda?

Say it isn't so!

"...The latest complaint from scientists comes in a report by the Interior
Department's inspector general, which concluded that the White House edited a drilling safety report in a way that made it falsely appear that scientists and experts supported the administration's six-month ban on new deep-water drilling. The AP obtained the report early Wednesday.

The inspector general said the editing changes by the White House resulted "in the implication that the moratorium recommendation had been peer reviewed." But it hadn't been. Outside scientists were asked only to review new safety measures for offshore drilling.

...After one of the reviewers complained, the Interior Department promptly issued an apology during a conference call, in a formal letter and during a personal meeting in June.

All seven experts asked to review the Interior Department's work expressed concern about the change made by the White House, saying that it differed in important ways from the draft they had approved."


Now I'm not ignorant enough to think this has never happened before, but this is the second time in just a few months that reports surfaced about some one in or appointed by the Obama Administration used their power to edit a report.

Other complaints have been about the handling of the failed blow-out preventor. It was cleaned by Transocean back in September, but no other effort has been taken. This is vital to prevent corrosion, which could weaken the strength of the device.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Mmmmm Sexy.

Enhanced Pat Downs

I was flipping through Drudge and stumbled across an article about TSA's new Enhanced Pat Downs. Short story is that if you are randomly selected for a pass through the millimeter wave imaging machine and decline it, instead of a palm away frisk, the TSA has enacted what they call "Enhanced Pat Downs."

They are a palm forward once over of all areas of the body...ALL areas. For a woman wearing a skirt this includes a up-skirt run up the inside of both legs, and a bump in another area. For guys, the same. As far as I can tell right now there are no restrictions for same sex pat-downs and there are no limitations to the minimum age. I'm not even sure if you can request a different person to perform the pat-down.

I can sense lawsuits coming in the future for this and personally I am going to write my representative about the policy. Although I am ok with the scanner and would have one taken, I do feel this goes a bit too far.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Yes, I Can't Wait


Black Ops Countdown by: http://lazygamer247.com

It's Been A *Little* While

In the past couple years, as you saw I graduated, got a job, and got married. I haven't really blogged in the past year, mostly because I got sick of the crap being shoved down our throats by the Obama Administration and Dems in the Capitol Building.

But now we have our chance. But I have to disagree with conservatives who expect republicans to magically repeal ObamaCare. In order to do this, we need a little bit of legislation and a LOT of timing.

Part of the reason that we were able to gain this much ground was timing. The population was shown how Democrats don't care about what the country thinks with the passing of ObamaCare even though it was highly opposed and 60% of the country immediately wanted it repealed. Time allowed the fervor over that to subside a little bit. The Approval index soared to over 20 points, but then fell back to around 12 percent in September. The the question came back up about what to do about the tax rates instated by former President Bush. Democrats at first were planning on reverting all rates to the previous rates.

Needless to say, the electorate spoke, and suddenly it is back to the "promise" of "We're only going to soak the rich," from 2008. That wasn't enough and Republicans completely flipped the house and won 6 senate seats. But unfortunately that's not going to be enough to make massive changes quickly. The biggest chance are the 2012 elections where 21 Democrat seats are coming for reelection in areas where they are not well secured, compared to 19 this year that were in heavily liberal areas (East and West Coasts).

What we need is another case of good timing in September and October of 2012. Here's what we should do. I am not opposed to the idea of reverting the tax rates for income above $250,000 per year, under the strict stipulation that ALL budgets must be at or below their 2009 levels. If we are going to gain $700 Billion in tax income, it should ONLY go to paying down the principle on the national debt, not another stimulus. The other rates should extend for 2 more years.

The next and biggest thing that Republicans need to do is to do nothing on ObamaCare...for now. Very publicly try to make small changes to ObamaCare to remind people you are still looking out for them. But right away, very publicly announce that you will propose a bill in July of 2012 for a full repeal of ObamaCare. Put the democrats against the wall at the time where it hurts them the most. Make them choose their agenda, or their job...again.

This will put the reminder in people's minds about who Democrats really care about right before election time, and it will be before the major changes take affect.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

A Little Update

I haven't blogged much recently. Partly because of work, and partly from going back to school for my M.B.A.

But one thing has kept me away more than any other...

I GOT MARRIED!

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Boise Calls For High Caliber Opponent

Yahoo has an article about how Boise State is looking for a high caliber opponent to face in the 2011 season to justify their current 9-0 record. Of course they are up in arms because they have 9 weeks still open.

Boise State athletic director Gene Bleymaier complains about how schools who gripe about Boise's unbelievably weak schedule are not signing up in groves to challenge them.

What Gene doesn't take into account is that those schools already have full schedules for the 2011 season. Florida, Texas, Southern Cal, and others all have full schedules even through 2012. In the SEC, Alabama and LSU would be able to challenge Boise, but only have a few days available. Other conferences are the same way.

The fact is that most schools are already booked up for the next 2, 3, sometimes 4 and 5 years. But that fact is ignored, and Boise gets to continue to play the victim of an unfair BCS system, and continue to defeat everyone else in the walk-over WAC conference (WAC teams are 17-18 out of conference, SEC teams are 33-6, Big 12 are 35-13, and PAC 10 are 20-9) without facing anyone of any difficulty outside of their conference.

Shut-up Boise, I hope you continue to win, Florida and Bama play undefeated in the SEC title, and the others above Boise fall out. I want to see Boise get crushed, and if this scenario plays out, I urge whichever team plays Boise to never let up.

Play first string all game, and settle for nothing less than 70 points.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Knee Jerk Much?

A big face palm for HotAir today with the knee jerk reaction to Shepard Smith's pretty blatant sarcasm when "apologizing" for not being fair and balanced.

Shep gets a little smirk when he says the line and makes me think that it was a jab at fairness doctrine advocates.

In the clip, Shep asks when the Democrat candidate will be interviewed, to which she responds that he had ignored multiple requests. Even a longer clip done by Townhall.com has a pretty significant cut in it. I would like to see if the Fairness Doctrine was mentioned in the interview.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

TTU Highlights MIT Department and Theta Tau Member

It's always good to read breaking articles about your Alma Mater. In this case, even though I graduated in Mechanical Engineering, many of my Theta Tau brothers were in the MIT (Manufacturing and Industrial Technology) department. Recently, they have been highlighted in the effort to take used canola oil from the cafeteria and turn it into biofuel.
Now, granted I'm not one who believes that humans are the primary cause of "Climate change" (I strongly believe the sun is the main instigator in that), but the process of turning used oil into biofuel is just cool!

Another person highlighted is member, and girlfriend to another Theta Tau member, Azurae Johnson. Azurae is a chemical engineering major who is researching nanocomposites at TTU.

How awesome is that? GO TECH!

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Fail And A HALF!!!

Looks like the game plan of the Dems with a majority in the House, Senate and the presidency...BUT THEY STILL CAN'T GET ANYTHING USEFUL DONE!!!