FY 2010 Defense Bill
"Ending the Department of Defense's pay-for-performance personnel system, the National Security Personnel System or NSPS, restoring employees to the federal General Schedule pay system"
Showing posts with label Defense. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Defense. Show all posts
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Monday, June 08, 2009
Easier then getting a Drivers License....
I don't think so...
When turning in my paper work, the court clerk told me I had to go to Police head quarters on VB Blvd to get finger printed, (already fingerprinted several times by the fed for my security clearance) then drive several miles (down town) to the county courthouse to deliver the paper work. Then wait for 45-days while my criminal record was reviewed and a judge to sign off on the application. Then I had to return to the court house, pay the $50 fee. Oh, I also needed a notary to sign the paper work I submitted and show proof of firearm experience. Maybe I should have asked for all of my paperwork to be in Spanish or Arabic? -Nutz
Virginia's permit requests, gun sales rise at record clip | HamptonRoads.com | PilotOnline.com
When turning in my paper work, the court clerk told me I had to go to Police head quarters on VB Blvd to get finger printed, (already fingerprinted several times by the fed for my security clearance) then drive several miles (down town) to the county courthouse to deliver the paper work. Then wait for 45-days while my criminal record was reviewed and a judge to sign off on the application. Then I had to return to the court house, pay the $50 fee. Oh, I also needed a notary to sign the paper work I submitted and show proof of firearm experience. Maybe I should have asked for all of my paperwork to be in Spanish or Arabic? -Nutz
Virginia's permit requests, gun sales rise at record clip | HamptonRoads.com | PilotOnline.com
Erin King squeezed into a packed classroom at Bob's Gun Shop with a new pistol and a mission.
She sat through two hours of instruction and fired off several dozen rounds at the range with her Guardian .32-caliber. The 26-year-old from Suffolk bought her first gun a few weeks ago and plans to get a concealed-carry permit next month.
She'll slip her pistol into a hidden holster and protect herself commuting to her part-time job cleaning offices at night. "I'm responsible for myself," King said.
As the classroom shows, she's not alone.
Driven by safety concerns or political angst, gun sales and applications for concealed-carry permits are booming.
Applications for concealed-carry permits statewide have jumped 42 percent from the same period last year, when the state issued a record number, according to the Virginia Supreme Court. In South Hampton Roads, this year's requests are running nearly 40 percent over last year's. Most are granted.
In May, the number of active concealed-weapons permits in Virginia reached 188,900,
according to the Virginia State Police. More people than ever are eligible to carry concealed handguns in the state.
Reported firearms sales by licensed dealers and gun shops in Virginia have also skyrocketed.
Dealers sold 60 percent more guns in November 2008 than they had in November 2007, according to State Police records. Sales by licensed dealers are on pace to break last year's record by more than 30 percent. The totals do not include private sales.
Steve Dowdy, firearms instructor at Bob's Gun Shop in Norfolk, said gun owners fear they will lose their rights under President Barack Obama and a Democratic Congress. "I hear this every day: 'I want to get this while I can,' " Dowdy said.
Aaron Karp, a consultant with Small Arms Survey, a think tank studying international policies and proliferation of firearms, agrees that political motivations and a strong gun lobby have driven the increases.
A perception of growing lawlessness in communities can also drive people to buy and carry handguns, he said. For example, a proliferation of gangs in Hampton Roads could spur residents to purchase more handguns, said Karp, also a political science lecturer at Old Dominion University.
Gun sales have historically increased in healthy economic times, which makes the recent spike during this recession unusual, Karp said.
To obtain a concealed-handgun permit in Virginia, a person must be at least 21 and demonstrate handgun competency, which can be accomplished by completing an approved gun safety course or showing proof of military service. The person must also undergo a criminal background check. Total fees are capped at $50.
"A driver's license is harder to get," Karp said.
A survey of recently approved applications at the Chesapeake courthouse show a wide range of permit holders: fathers and sons, active-duty Navy officers, enlisted sailors and even a retired Baptist minister.
Jim Coppage, 66, received his permit about a month after he filed his application in Chesapeake Circuit Court. The long time gun owner said he did it to make a political statement.
He renewed his membership to the National Rifle Association. He said he noticed that it's become difficult to find ammunition in outdoors stores. He watched gun-control laws tighten in Illinois, where Obama served as senator.
"I don't trust the president," he said. "I wanted to do it and express my rights."
But he has no intention of carrying a concealed handgun. "I don't expect a war," said the retired Navy senior chief petty officer. "Some people are. I'm not."
Jimmi Bonavita, a former Virginia Beach police officer, said the handgun activity is probably the most he's seen in his 35 years as a weapons instructor.
He began teaching a new concealed-weapons permit class in September after noticing a growing demand, he said. When properly handled, he said, a concealed weapon "gives you better protection for you and your family."
Doug Pennington, spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said statistics actually show reported violent crime decreasing. According to the FBI, violent crimes reported to police decreased 2.5 percent between 2007 and 2008.
Pennington dismissed the argument that tougher gun-control laws would completely strip gun owners' rights. "It's never going to happen," he said. "Nobody is ever going to take all the guns away."
Bob's Gun Shop, housed in a old brick building on Granby Street in downtown Norfolk, is one of several shops that offer training courses for concealed weapons. They've been running full classes at least once a week since the fall, Dowdy said.
On a recent Tuesday night, he ran through the basics of safely handling a gun for about 30 students. After that, the students went to the top-floor shooting range.
Shanika Pledger, 27, brought her cousin and a friend to the course. Although they joked about their shooting skills on the paper targets, they planned to buy their own guns and get concealed-carry permits.
Pledger and her husband, Dontay, decided they need a handgun for protection because of growing crime in their Norfolk neighborhood.
"He thought it was a good idea," Pledger said. "We're living in different times."
Louis Hansen, (757) 222-5221, louis.hansen@pilotonline.com
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Maybe Savage was correct?
Maybe it was a rogue pilot who took AF1 for a spin to send a distress signal to the world? Why else would the pictures be kept from the public?
PHOTOS OF AIR FORCE ONE BACKUP PLANE FLYING OVER NYC NOT TO BE SEEN BY PUBLIC - New York Post
PHOTOS OF AIR FORCE ONE BACKUP PLANE FLYING OVER NYC NOT TO BE SEEN BY PUBLIC - New York Post
By JEREMY OLSHAN
TODAY'S HOT TOPICS
Last updated: 11:24 am
May 5, 2009
Posted: 1:56 am
May 5, 2009
The $328,835 snapshots of an Air Force One backup plane buzzing lower Manhattan last week will not be shown to the public, the White House said yesterday.
"We have no plans to release them," an aide to President Obama told The Post, refusing to comment further.
The sole purpose of the secret photo-op, which sent thousands of New Yorkers running for cover, was to take new publicity shots of the presidential jet over the city.
"The photos . . . are classified -- that's ridiculous," Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., said.
The photos have not technically been "classified," a White House aide said, but they are being kept from public view.
New Yorkers said they could not understand how a president who shares intimate snapshots from the White House could justify keeping these secret.
"So we're not gonna see the fruits of this cruel joke?" said Frank Antonelli, 39, one of the Wall Street traders spooked by last week's flyover.
"I'm not surprised. Obama . . . wouldn't further all the bad publicity by putting out those pictures."
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
To protect and defend against all enemies...
...foreign and most importantly, domestic! Least we forget our oath.
From the Institute for Policy Innovation
Number 09.13
April 20, 2009
On Tea Parties and the Tenth Amendment
Allow us to make some informed observations about the “Tea Party protests” that have apparently escaped the mainstream media and those currently in political power in our nation’s capital.
(“Informed because IPI Resident Fellow Dr. Merrill Matthews spoke at the <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMB1K4wU5ZQ> Dallas Tea Party event <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMB1K4wU5ZQ> , and IPI president Tom Giovanetti spoke at the Denton County event.)
The Obama administration has dismissed the tea parties with feigned confusion. “We don’t understand what all these people are worked up about? After all, we gave 95% of them a tax cut, didn’t we?”
But people aren’t that stupid, and the tea party protesters aren’t just worked up about taxes. They understand that in the last 9 months or so, the growth of the federal government has reached a critical mass such that now almost everyone, regardless of political flavor, can agree that the federal government is out-of-control in its spending and in its grab for power over an even greater share of the economy. They may not agree precisely about how big the federal government should be, but they all agree that it shouldn’t be THIS big.
These voters seem angrier and more highly motivated than they were in 1994, we hasten to add.
It’s in this context that Texas Governor Rick Perry’s recent statements about reasserting Tenth Amendment rights come into play.
You wouldn’t know it from the last fifty or so years of federal government behavior, but the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution—the tag end of the Bill of Rights, enacted in 1791—reserves to the states or “the people” those “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States.”
But these days apparently claiming the states have rights gets you branded as a secessionist, or worse.
Governor Rick Perry knows. A few days ago after he affirmed support for a legislative initiative urging states to reassert their Constitutional rights under the Tenth Amendment, he was widely praised by the tea party crowd, but roundly ridiculed by the powers that be, who have misread the power of Perry’s words as much as they’ve misread the tea partiers.
Perry, it seems to us, is defending the Constitution as much as he’s defending states’ rights.
Federalism has never been more important than it is today. We may all be Americans, but what plays in New York City and San Francisco may not play well in Dallas or Houston. And states should be able to reflect those differences. In an age that seems to value tolerance over virtually everything else, federalism is the answer. “They do WHAT in Vermont? Oh, well, that’s their business.”
We’d like to see other states follow Texas’ lead, telling the federal government: If it isn’t enumerated in the Constitution, you have no authority to make the states do it.
Sounds radical, you say? You bet it is. Even revolutionary. Just ask the Founding Fathers.
From the Institute for Policy Innovation
Number 09.13
April 20, 2009
On Tea Parties and the Tenth Amendment
Allow us to make some informed observations about the “Tea Party protests” that have apparently escaped the mainstream media and those currently in political power in our nation’s capital.
(“Informed because IPI Resident Fellow Dr. Merrill Matthews spoke at the <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMB1K4wU5ZQ> Dallas Tea Party event <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMB1K4wU5ZQ> , and IPI president Tom Giovanetti spoke at the Denton County event.)
The Obama administration has dismissed the tea parties with feigned confusion. “We don’t understand what all these people are worked up about? After all, we gave 95% of them a tax cut, didn’t we?”
But people aren’t that stupid, and the tea party protesters aren’t just worked up about taxes. They understand that in the last 9 months or so, the growth of the federal government has reached a critical mass such that now almost everyone, regardless of political flavor, can agree that the federal government is out-of-control in its spending and in its grab for power over an even greater share of the economy. They may not agree precisely about how big the federal government should be, but they all agree that it shouldn’t be THIS big.
These voters seem angrier and more highly motivated than they were in 1994, we hasten to add.
It’s in this context that Texas Governor Rick Perry’s recent statements about reasserting Tenth Amendment rights come into play.
You wouldn’t know it from the last fifty or so years of federal government behavior, but the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution—the tag end of the Bill of Rights, enacted in 1791—reserves to the states or “the people” those “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States.”
But these days apparently claiming the states have rights gets you branded as a secessionist, or worse.
Governor Rick Perry knows. A few days ago after he affirmed support for a legislative initiative urging states to reassert their Constitutional rights under the Tenth Amendment, he was widely praised by the tea party crowd, but roundly ridiculed by the powers that be, who have misread the power of Perry’s words as much as they’ve misread the tea partiers.
Perry, it seems to us, is defending the Constitution as much as he’s defending states’ rights.
Federalism has never been more important than it is today. We may all be Americans, but what plays in New York City and San Francisco may not play well in Dallas or Houston. And states should be able to reflect those differences. In an age that seems to value tolerance over virtually everything else, federalism is the answer. “They do WHAT in Vermont? Oh, well, that’s their business.”
We’d like to see other states follow Texas’ lead, telling the federal government: If it isn’t enumerated in the Constitution, you have no authority to make the states do it.
Sounds radical, you say? You bet it is. Even revolutionary. Just ask the Founding Fathers.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Confidence in our 2nd Amendment
LATEST CMP SALES NEWS:
SOLD OUT - 415-CN. As a result over 9,000 orders already in estore and the many hundreds of other orders (received through the mail and via phone) that have not yet been entered into our system, and the number of orders estimated to already be in the mail coming our way, we have posted item 415-CN as sold out and removed it from the Estore. M2 Ball, HXP, 240 rounds in 20 round cartons, in spam cans. We will be able to fill all orders already received and in the pipeline.
.30-06 M2 BALL PURCHASE LIMITS ESTABLISHED. Effective immediately, CMP is setting a purchase limit for items 407-CAN (.30-06 M2 Ball, HXP, clipped, in spam cans) and 407DCAN (.30-06 M2 Ball, clipped, in .30 cal ammo can). The new purchase limit is total of 10 cans of HXP ammo per year, per customer, regardless of item numbers ordered.
ORDER BACKLOG. For the past six months, the number of orders received by CMP for rifles, ammunition, and all other products has been unprecedented. As of today, 10 April 2009, our Sales Order Processing Dept is up to processing / shipping orders received at the end of Jan 2009, with several thousand orders still to go for Feb and Mar. Because of the large volume of orders that we continue to receive daily in the mail and through the estore, customers should not expect any acknowledgment of our receiving orders for
30-45 days after mailing the order, and should not expect delivery for 90-120 days from placing an order. We ask our customers to bear with us. We will eventually recover from this surge. The CMP staff thanks you for your support and patience.
COMMUNICATION RESPONSE DELAYS. CMP is receiving hundreds of calls a day, as well as hundreds of emails. Each morning there are dozens of voicemails from the night before. Because of the large volume of constant calls in the daytime, it may take a few days for response. We have a state of the art phone system for a company our size, but the volume of calls is causing the system to do unexpected things. We apologize for any delay in responding to emails or telephone calls.
SOLD OUT - 415-CN. As a result over 9,000 orders already in estore and the many hundreds of other orders (received through the mail and via phone) that have not yet been entered into our system, and the number of orders estimated to already be in the mail coming our way, we have posted item 415-CN as sold out and removed it from the Estore. M2 Ball, HXP, 240 rounds in 20 round cartons, in spam cans. We will be able to fill all orders already received and in the pipeline.
.30-06 M2 BALL PURCHASE LIMITS ESTABLISHED. Effective immediately, CMP is setting a purchase limit for items 407-CAN (.30-06 M2 Ball, HXP, clipped, in spam cans) and 407DCAN (.30-06 M2 Ball, clipped, in .30 cal ammo can). The new purchase limit is total of 10 cans of HXP ammo per year, per customer, regardless of item numbers ordered.
ORDER BACKLOG. For the past six months, the number of orders received by CMP for rifles, ammunition, and all other products has been unprecedented. As of today, 10 April 2009, our Sales Order Processing Dept is up to processing / shipping orders received at the end of Jan 2009, with several thousand orders still to go for Feb and Mar. Because of the large volume of orders that we continue to receive daily in the mail and through the estore, customers should not expect any acknowledgment of our receiving orders for
30-45 days after mailing the order, and should not expect delivery for 90-120 days from placing an order. We ask our customers to bear with us. We will eventually recover from this surge. The CMP staff thanks you for your support and patience.
COMMUNICATION RESPONSE DELAYS. CMP is receiving hundreds of calls a day, as well as hundreds of emails. Each morning there are dozens of voicemails from the night before. Because of the large volume of constant calls in the daytime, it may take a few days for response. We have a state of the art phone system for a company our size, but the volume of calls is causing the system to do unexpected things. We apologize for any delay in responding to emails or telephone calls.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Arrrg we be Pirates!
From JKOPED
Our Navy and entire military command structure has piddled around long enough that the Captain of a huge American flag container ship has been kidnapped by a bunch of "pirates".
First, fire the joint chiefs of staff. Tell the new bunch of bureaucrats/warriors that they should position one destroyer and warn the populace of Somalia that any vessel over 14' LOA will be destroyed if it leaves any Somali port. After two weeks of a blockade such as that, the populace of indigenous fishermen will find a way to kindly ask their pirate guests to leave, probably by opening the sea cocks on the pirates' boats at 0300 one morning. Oh, do you really think that any US citizens care if any Somali citizen is inconvenienced by such a blockade? We have a tough time igniting support for flood victims in Iowa much less citizens of Somalia!
We have an orbital satellite tracking system that is supposed to be able to protect us from all manner of threats; but, we can't seem to be able to track high speed, pirate intercept vessels leaving a few Somali ports tracking large container ships? Who's kidding who?
Lots of folks need to lose their jobs. No one will. Are we afraid that the gray paint will be scratched on one of our hulls if we blow a few pirates out of the water? Is this the same military organization that will probably have to fight the Red Chinese on land and sea soon enough?
Yep, I feel better already! Time to check the inventory in the ammo closet!
Nutz: I mirror JKs comments. It is an embarrassment to my former line of business that we have had a ship Pirated, or more correctly attacked by terrorist. However, with chaos brings opportunity. I am going to purchase a cigarette boat with TARP funds and start taking over ships in the channel. Looks like an easy way to make a buck and Uncle Sugar does not seem interested in protecting our deep, rich maritime tradition.
Our Navy and entire military command structure has piddled around long enough that the Captain of a huge American flag container ship has been kidnapped by a bunch of "pirates".
First, fire the joint chiefs of staff. Tell the new bunch of bureaucrats/warriors that they should position one destroyer and warn the populace of Somalia that any vessel over 14' LOA will be destroyed if it leaves any Somali port. After two weeks of a blockade such as that, the populace of indigenous fishermen will find a way to kindly ask their pirate guests to leave, probably by opening the sea cocks on the pirates' boats at 0300 one morning. Oh, do you really think that any US citizens care if any Somali citizen is inconvenienced by such a blockade? We have a tough time igniting support for flood victims in Iowa much less citizens of Somalia!
We have an orbital satellite tracking system that is supposed to be able to protect us from all manner of threats; but, we can't seem to be able to track high speed, pirate intercept vessels leaving a few Somali ports tracking large container ships? Who's kidding who?
Lots of folks need to lose their jobs. No one will. Are we afraid that the gray paint will be scratched on one of our hulls if we blow a few pirates out of the water? Is this the same military organization that will probably have to fight the Red Chinese on land and sea soon enough?
Yep, I feel better already! Time to check the inventory in the ammo closet!
Nutz: I mirror JKs comments. It is an embarrassment to my former line of business that we have had a ship Pirated, or more correctly attacked by terrorist. However, with chaos brings opportunity. I am going to purchase a cigarette boat with TARP funds and start taking over ships in the channel. Looks like an easy way to make a buck and Uncle Sugar does not seem interested in protecting our deep, rich maritime tradition.
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