You know it’s a tough sport when the referee has to tell you that eye gouging is illegal. That’s usually a given!

I like UFC and the other mixed martial arts (MMA) fightig circuits out there. Given that I wrestled for about 10 years in my life it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that I find the sport interesting.

I found out on Saturday night that a fellow from my old high school wrestling team is looking to get into the sport. Nick Piccard. His father boxed and his younger brothers were wrestlers too. Good ones at that; all of them. Here’s the youngest one’s list of accomplishments.

This should be interesting. Nick’s a tough bastard and I think well suited to the sport. I remember once watching him tear a dude’s rib off from his sternum in a match. It was all on the up-and-up, totally legal, but damn that had to hurt. I forget the name of the move (Mark and Phil, help me out!) but the opponent is broken down, you’ve got a lock on his wrist through the crotch, you drop your elbow into the middle of their back, grip their shoulder, and use that as a lever to turn them. It’s just a move for a quick turn and some backpoints, not to stick them. When the guy wouldn’t turn Nick torqued on him hard enough to pull a rib off his sternum. That hurts.

I regret to inform you that Mr. Davis has now passed on.

Rest in peace, Mr. Davis.

See Bill St. Clair’s place for more.

Michelle Malkin has a good round-up showing what the blog world is finding. Lots of “Photoshopping” of the images to make the situation look different than it actually is.

Looks like they’re making up stories rather than just reporting the news.

If you want more details click to see below the fold.

So, my buddy Josh and I are on a trip to hang out with the owner of KT Ordnance and whoever else ends up showing up. I have no idea who will be there.

That and I really thought it would be a good reason for me to take some vacation time and finally see some of the western US. Plus, Josh loves this area. Aside from Arizona (flew there) I haven’t really seen anything.

For various dull reasons I didn’t get around to picking up Josh until the early afternoon and we got everything sorted, loaded up, and were on the road around 3:00pm on I-196 in Grand Rapids Michigan.

Summary:
I-196 to I-94 to I-80 to I-35 (Des Moines, Iowa) north to I-90 again and took that all the way to Billings, Montana heading straight across South Dakota (1 hour nap there), into Wyoming, and finally north into Montana, then west to Billings.

I’ve done the route to Iowa before, and that’s all pretty boring stuff. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, unless perhaps it is the inner city, that flat open fields of Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa don’t bring much to the table.

I took a 1 hour nap a couple hundred miles into South Dakota. I heed the advice of my father, once a truck driver: A good nap is better than strong coffee.

South Dakota is pretty boring. I knew that already, having briefly been into the state before, but driving across the whole thing is a nightmare. It’s about 420 miles wide. The speed-limit there (thankfully) is 75mph. After construction it took 7 hours of driving in a mostly straight line plus the 1 hour nap to get across it.

The construction started to piss me off. Slowing down from 75 to 65 to 45 to pass over an overpass that’s under construction only to accelerate to 75 and do it all over again a few miles later. I would have ignored the signs but the actual blockades put up to narrow things down to one lane of traffic on the overpasses really meant you had to go 45mph to do it safely.

Why can’t they gang up to fix one REALLY fast and then move onto the next one? Why shutdown 20 of them in a row to be slowly worked on?

I’m starting to think that all construction planners should be required to try and drive across the US, or at least their own state, during construction season so that they see how stupid this stuff appears. There might very well be a good reason for this system, but it might do us all a bit of good if we could look at the problem again.

I got a glimpse at the Badlands in South Dakota. Interesting. I’d like to know more about why they exist so I’ll look that up tonight. We’ll take the scenic route back, I think, so that I can get a better look at them. Josh has already been through them at least once. Quite pretty.

We saw plenty of signs for tourist-trap like stuff too in South Dakota. A gator park? You really think people traveling in South Dakota have “gators” on their mind? I know why it exists — it’s just some guy with his own personal liking for gators trying to make a buck of letting people look at his pets, but it’s a bit out of place.

The other fucks were the people plastering the name “Wall Drug” all over the place. Apparently they had everything but no coherent message. I began pondering just what in the heck they were selling to the point that it pissed me off. I wasn’t going to stop, but, shit, it made me curious! Josh also noticed that they only had signs facing our side of the highway which had me thinking along the lines of “ignorant yahoos trying to make a quick buck with some junk shop.” One of the last signs I saw while heading west (and the direction we were heading is key to what Josh noted) said to look them up online.

Folks, we’re talking about 12 hours later through some shit we’ll get to in a bit and I was STILL pissed at this people. What’s your game? What’s your angle?

So I look them up online. An avalanche commences in my brain. The website is an online store. They sell western styled gear. Cowboy stuff. You know, the kind of thing that a guy that’s going from the east side of the US to the west side might be interested in. The exact kind of stuff that two guys that love guns (us) that are prone to getting active into Cowboy Action Shooting (us) would like to purchase online (us).

They probably get stragglers wondering “what the?” walking in that are prone to buying a pair of boots and such, but they might be onto a really cheap billboard campaign that plays on stereotypical demographics with relation to typical migration of folks that share an interest in the goods that they sell.

Twelve hours ago I didn’t like this business. Now? Hell I might shop there. Smart folk.

By now we’re in Wyoming. My biggest issue back in South Dakota was the plastering of signs. It kept me reading and kept my mind off the real issues, that being what do I do if it things go wrong.

When we get to Wyoming I get worried. Lakes? Ponds? Rivers? Where did they go!?

Michigan boys don’t like not being around water. It isn’t that we like to swim — we just like to drink water! It is kind of essential to living.

This one is a new challenge — and I have no answer aside from the bottled water in the back of the truck. I’ve got no answer. I couldn’t even tell you where to find a river -IF- you had a filter kit with you. In Michigan? Uhm, walk somewhere. Anywhere. You’re an idiot if you can’t find water in Michigan within 20 minutes.

In Wyoming? Fuck, 20 minutes would make you my saviour! You need MAPS to find water around that place! That SCARES me. Water doesn’t grow on trees, but trees grow on water and we got a LOT of trees in Michigan.

Wyoming? Lots of rocks and sand. Not my happy place.

We’ll see how well I deal with Montana. So far it looks better, but it still scares me. Not enough water.

Apparently, in Michigan, you can get a DUI if any THC is found in your system. Which is, I think, about a week long period after you’ve smoked some marijuana.

Seems a might bit unreasonable to me.

I’ve had some guy, named Hyman Brenner, post over and over again that he wants to get in contact with me. Just check the comments on this post to see it.

Initially I deleted the stuff. I thought it was just spam. When he emailed me personally I responed to his vague request that he should email me his questions so that I can respond to them.

No response. I figured it was just a spam bot.

Apparently not. Now I’ve got MEMBERS OF MY FAMILY getting postcards from this idiot trying to contact me.

I tried calling his toll-free number a few times today. I get voice-mail every time. The message is like this. “Hello. Please leave your name and telephone call back number. “.

Who the fuck is this guy?! He’s apparently willing to mail shit to people that share my last name but NOT willing to answer compliant emails that I send him? That doesn’t make shit for sense!

I don’t know what you are, but you are pissing me off. I was perfectly happy enjoying your annoying non-responsive idiocy until you fucked with somebody that shares my last name.

You’re making me angry, and that is not good.

UPDATE: I called again and left a voice mail explaining my position. It was not very polite. I gave him my phone num ber in the event that he has any actual questions for me. Smart move? No, but it’s better than having this ass-hat mail shit to people related to me.

UPDATE II: I left another message. I am not a nice person when you start involving my family. The words “ya fuck” will probably spew forth from my mouth. They did on the last one!

Unanswered questions at Dulles Airport

Go and read the whole thing, please. I found it rather chilling.

The summary is that a person that writes columns on traveling likes to keep a good eye on the differences between various airports in the post 9/11 era so other travelers know what to expect. When stopped by somebody not wearing a TSA uniform demanded ID he questioned who they were and inquired as to why he was supposed to show them ID.

After that the writer was given a nice reminder of what a free country we live in:

“I see, sir. Thank you for clarifying that. So do these people with the badges that say ‘Airserv’ work for the TSA?”

“No.”

“That’s what I thought, sir. But this man claimed that they work for the TSA, and said that’s why they have the TSA logo on their badges.”

“TSA logo? There’s no TSA logo on their badges. That’s the logo of Customs and Border Protection [another division of the Department of Homeland Security]. That shows that they are authorized to be in the secure customs area of the airport.”

“Then are you concerned, sir, that he claimed to be a TSA employee, when he’s not?”

“No, sir. That’s not my concern.” I thought that impersonating a Federal officer was a serious crime, but Mr. Graham didn’t seem to care.

“Sir, does any TSA regulation or other law or government order require me to open my passport for them?”

“No, we [TSA] don’t.”

“I don’t want to do anything wrong, sir. If you as a TSA employee order me to open my passport for you, or for these other people, I will do so. But I’m trying to clarify who these people are, and whether they, or you, or the government, are making a request or giving an order that I show them my passport.”

“No, sir, the TSA doesn’t require you to do anything.”

Take note of that last line.

I’d gotten only a step before Mr. Graham called out, “Wait.”

I stopped immediately, still several steps away from the checkpoint.

“Where are you going?”

“I was going on to the checkpoint, sir, since you told me I didn’t have to show these people my passport.”

Can you smell the freedom?

“If you don’t show your passport to these guys [gesturing toward the group of Airserv employees], I won’t allow you through the checkpoint.”

“Sir, may I proceed through the TSA checkpoint as a ‘selectee’ without showing them my passport? I understand that as a ‘selectee’ I will be subject to a more intrusive search.”

“No, sir, you may not.”

“So do I understand you correctly, sir, that as the TSA supervisor you categorically refuse to allow me to proceed to the checkpoint unless I first show my passport to these people, even though they don’t work for the TSA?”

“That is correct, sir.”

Look, I know that showing ID isn’t a big thing for most people. It certainly isn’t an issue for the writer here, either. He was fully willing to as long as somebody explained the rules and told him why he had to show ID.

One would think that a government employee, or a contractor to a government agency, would explain how and why this was a legal requirement for him to get to the checkpoint. Unfortunately that is not the case. The writer actually voulenteers to go through the extra screening process when he is told he doesn’t have to show ID to the non-TSA folks, but that is refused.

It gets worse from there. The writer eventually gets to his plane but not after being harassed by local police that keep their hand on their pistol the entire time.

I’m curious. How many terrorists question government authority when they’ve got proper identification creditials on them? Do we have a metric on this one? I would hazard to guess none.

It seems that you’re labled a possible terrorist threat these days just because you want to find out why some drone that isn’t wearing an official uniform wants to look at your credentials.

The US government took control of airport security to make it consistent. Obviously it is not.

We don’t even know all the rules with regards to who can and who cannot get onto a plane.

We don’t know the procedures.

We don’t know who is on the “no-fly” lists. Hell Edward Kennedy, a United States Senator, wasn’t allowed on flights for a while.

This is the land of the free? Where we snivel at the feet of some schmuck making $10 an hour in an attempt to make us secure? If we have the audacity to question them we are confronted by police with guns? For trying to travel? Domestically? As a US citizen?

I am fully aware that such actions seem rather childish to some people. As a young tyke I probably asked “Why?” more than anything else. It wasn’t always “Why should I do that?” — I just asked “Why?” about everything.

Is that really wrong? To keep doing that when you’re confused by what is going on around you? When your adult brain can’t make sense of the situation and nobody around you can explain their own actions is it really that nutty to question why you should conform to their requests when they’re not sure about themselves?

As a working adult I rarely ask why management is doing something, unless I have a pretty good idea that they’re asking me to do the wrong thing. In that instance I don’t question them, even when I’m unsure of things, because I trust them to be doing the right thing. I willfully submit to their authority because the entity that pays me has deemed them responsible enough to manage me.

This is not the case when it comes to dealing with government agents. Government agents work by rules that, presumably, a majority of the population agrees with. When the rules are unknown it is only natural to question them.

It makes you wonder. If you dressed up in a cheap black suit, carried around a clipboard, and started asking people for ID an an airport, how many people would just hand it over without ever thinking about it?

This isn’t security, this is compliance. Compliance to almost anonymous individuals that haven’t a clue what they’re actually doing and presume that you will mindlessly submit to their every demand.

The explosion of a missile warhead Monday morning at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant (IAAP) has left two workers missing and presumed dead and two other workers with very minor injuries.

I don’t have anything insightful to say, here, but when I saw this article I was reminded that there’s people out there not in uniform that are doing their part to keep our military going that are risking their lives. In this case, actually losing them.

Okay, so that ranks as the strangest non-profit idea I have ever seen. It also makes me wonder how you become a non-profit incorporation when you’re meddling with systems in three different countries. I would presume this is an awfully complex problem. Further, you have to wonder where they get funding from. I don’t know where it all comes from, but we do know this from their ‘About’ page:

NASCO has received $2.5 million in earmarks from the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) for the development of a technology and tracking project. The project will have a team approach, using members of NASCO as the primary participants in the project, to the extent possible. NASCO believes the deployment of a modern information system will reduce the cost, improve the efficiency, reduce trade-related congestion, and enhance security of cross-border and corridor information, trade and traffic.

The emphasis is mine, not theirs.

Those that fear a global government have been harping on this project for a while it seems, and I have generally wrote it off. It’s just a road system for crying out loud! What possible harm can come from it, aside from abusing eminent domain to make it happen for the sole benefit other countries?

Around 8:00pm today everything finally made sense. I had all the hypotheses from other thinking people in my head, but actually seeing the map today made it all click.

Look, NAFTA was paperwork. It busted down trade barrier walls but didn’t generally affect most people. I know from personal experience that Canadian steel products became very cost effective for us in America, but I gather that the US populace as a whole didn’t notice much.

This SuperCorridor is actually real. It is happening. It is something you’ll actually be able to reach out and touch, if not only with the rubber wheels on your vehicle. It’s a symbol of what I, and many others, see happening.

After NAFTA we got the EU in 1992 which is still being expanded.

After the EU there was CAFTA which puts the US into free trade with a number of Central American countries and the Dominican Republic.

Now, all these treaties are doing is setting laws for international trade between agreeing members. What could possibly go wrong?

I present to you, right from the United States Constitution the Interstate Commerce Clause:

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes

In the USA that clause means that the Federal government can require you to sign for Sudafed when you buy it. That means that they can regulate what guns you can purchase. That also lets them throw you in the slammer if you grow a plant in your backyard and use it for yourself. See US v Reich for proof.

Hell, the reason your state is enforcing seat-belt laws is because of the interstate commerce clause. The Federal government gives the State back some money for their highway system, but they mandate that said State must have mandatory seat-belt laws.

If that doesn’t exemplify the level of fine grained control that a government will exercise over it’s population in the name of commerce I don’t know what does.

If you can regulate commerce then you can regulate anything. More importantly you can control anything which is why the “tracking” abilities of NASCO make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up a bit.

The thinking goes that once enough of these multi-nation trade unions are established one only has to unite these entities to effectively create a global government. What happens with NAFTA, CAFTA, and the EU agree on something? We all have to abide by it. Just as when the USA agrees to something that means my home state of Michigan, by proxy, agrees to it.

I admit, I might be out in “tin-foil hat land” but consider the past. One is hard pressed to find a law in this country post 1930′s that doesn’t relate to the interstate commerce clause. It has been abused and contorted in a myriad of ways to restrict our freedoms all in the name of protecting commerce.

You might think I’m crazy but if you think that a body of politicians won’t abuse their ability to control international commerce just as they have done here in the USA, land of the free, under the guise of inter-state commerce then I’m forced to question your sanity.

In all honestly I don’t think there is anything we can do to stop this from happening. There aren’t enough people paying attention which means the US will just continue down the same path. Our politicians will set us out, we’ll suffer, and a handful of people here in the country will understand what actually happened.

I’m open to ideas, but I’m afraid this post will only amount to an “I told you so!” in the far future.