Why I Can't Get A Job

H/T MoralMatters

Por Favor, No Más

Dear Lord, let this be the last of it for the season.

It doesn't look very bad in the picture, but the snow is coming down at 3/4" to an inch an hour. It's supposed to keep snowing for the next sixteen hours.

That's not clouds in the background, that's snow. You should be able to see four or five houses right behind me, the interstate and a whole bunch of other homes. Only one, the closest on the left, is visible.

Yesterday it was beautiful, 50 and sunny.

The County let us go early this afternoon and I came home to about 7-8" in the driveway. And it is that wet, heavy snow. It's like shoveling cement.

One of my daughters was over to do her wash and helped me shovel much of the driveway. My cardiologist would bury his boot up my arrhythmia if he knew I was shoveling snow.

Pete, my good guy neighbor across the street, is out now with his snow blower doing driveways and sidewalks. God bless him.

Connecticut Gun Grabbers Stymied

I haven't been able to establish the veracity of this article and other gun news from CT is suspect. I'll keep trying to get confirmation if this story is true.


 Perhaps over 80% of Connecticut gun owners refused to register their firearms under a new state law. The powers that be were planning to send thecops after them, until they found out that 68% of the cops in the state had also refused to comply.

When the cops tell you to kiss their ass it's time to listen.

Connecticut has been making news due to their hastily passed gun registration laws. According to some sources as few as 15% of gun owners have actually registered their firearms. News Blogs have been warning state officials are talking about mass confiscations of the unregistered firearms.

Plans for these confiscations hit a snag when a legislative intern dared to ask a question. “Who will be going door to door to take all the guns away?” asked the 21-year-old college senior.

Reportedly multiple people in the room in the most sarcastic voices they could muster said “the police”.

The unnamed intern then pointed at the list and said, “my dad’s name is on the list, and he is the police chief. I see three other names on this list of family members, all cops.”

Story here.

UPDATE: Still no conformation but nothing to say it isn't true either. Another story about 250 CT officers refusing to enforce the law is falling apart.

When You Know Fate Just Has It In For You

A gun in donated clothes killed Carmen Dominguez, 54, just before 10 a.m. on Friday at the Unique Thrift store in the 9300 block of South Ashland Avenue in Chicago. Dominguez and another woman worker at the store were sorting through donated clothing in the thrift store in Chicago’s Brainerd neighborhood on the Far South Side when a gun went off accidentally and shot Dominguez in the chest, according to the Chicago Tribune on Friday.

Story here.

Ukraine Explained

Makes sense to me.

Tit For Tat

Putin has a big set of balls when dealing with the Dancing Queen of DC.

From the UK Telegraph:

A new frontier has been laid down within Europe as Russian forces laid landmines at the top of the Crimean peninsula and fired warning shots at a European observer mission.

A convoy from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) was stopped by Russian soldiers and armed militias on a main road into the Crimean peninsula.

Three bursts of automatic gunfire were fired into the air as the checkpoint commanders insisted the OSCE had no authorisation to enter the area. Witness said the shots were fired by men in balaclavas.

The Russian's Black Sea outlet to the Mediterranean can be bottled up in a heart beat - mine the Dardanelles.

The Germans did it a hundred years ago to keep the Brits out during WW I and there are much better mines now to keep the Rooskies in.  Of course the Turks may have something to say about that...

Herod Antipas And John The Baptist

As our pastor has been in the Book of Matthew for over a month now, I was doing some research on the circumstances regarding the imprisonment and execution of John the Baptist. John was related to Jesus; Mary being a "kinsman" of John's mother Elizabeth as seen in Luke, chapter 1:

35 And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.
36 Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren.
37 For with God nothing will be impossible.”

In Matt. 11, John is in prison for speaking against Herod Antipas, King of Galilee - well, parts of Galilee and Perea. Things got kind of rowdy in the royal line and you can blame some of it on Alexander the Great who made the terribly inconsiderate mistake of dying at an early age. His generals got greedy...

And Herod Antipas (Herod is a title that means hero or heroic) was not really a king, he was a tetrarch - ruler of a quarter - due to his father, Herod the Great, changing his mind about his succession just before he died in 4 BC. Also terribly inconsiderate.

But first, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade...

Look familiar? This is where the Holy Grail was hiding out for all those centuries until Indie and his father found it.

Actually this was the tomb of King Aretas IV Philopatris of Nabataea, a former Edomite kingdom which abutted Herod Antipas' kingdom on the south. Aretas had a daughter, Phasaelis, who as a teenager married Herod Antipas . The marriage lasted for thirty years.

And they were joyfully married right up until Antipas got a look at his brother Philip's wife, Herodias, who was actually their niece. Herodias was the daughter of Aristobulus IV, son of Herod the great, and his wife (also his cousin) Berenice.

Aristobulus IV and his brother, Alexandros, were both strangled as punishment for unspecified treachery (rumors of which were initiated by their half-brother Antipas). Just days before his death Herod also has his oldest son, Antipater, executed. His mother was Herod's first wife, Doris.

Herod the Great had five wives: we already met Doris, who Herod divorced in order to marry Mariamne, a Hasmonean princess possibly related to the Maccabees. As mentioned previously, her sons Aristobulus and Alexandros, were strangled; Herod also had her executed.

Herod Antipas' mother was Malthace who also had another son, Herod Archelaus. Philip's mom was Cleopatra (no, not that one! Cleopatra of Jerusalem).

Herod the Great also had a sister,  Salome, whose granddaughter was Herodias, who married Philip, then his brother, Antipas. Oh well.

When Herod the Great died, Antipas wanted the whole kingdom as his father's previous will (written after he killed his two sons by Mariamne) had stated. The Roman Emperor Augustus decided against that and insisted that the later will and testament stay in effect.

So the kingdom was divided among the three surviving sons - therefore Herod Archelaus became ethnarch (ruler of a kingdom but not a king, he was subject to Rome) of Judea, Herod Antipas became tetrarch (literally ruler of a quarter of a province)  of Galilee and Perea (this was land west of the Dead Sea and extended south to Nabataea), and Herod Philip became tetrarch of a good chunk of land east of the Jordan River which included parts of Syria but north of Nabataea.

But before we go back to Herod Antipas, who still has a real bad case of happy pants for Herodias, let's visit with Alexander the Great.

Alexander the Great died suddenly in  323 BC at the age of 33. He did not name a successor to his vast Macedonian kingdom; instead, murder, intrigue and war was to be his legacy for many years. Two generals were murdered outright. Another commander, Antigonus, became ruler of what is now Turkey and Syria; Antipater had control of  Thrace (Bulgaria) but he was getting on in years and died in 319 BC. Antigonus was killed by two other generals, Ptolemy (he got Egypt) and Seleucus (controlled much of Asia). Seleucus got most of Antigonus' land holdings and established what we now call the Seleucid Empire. It lasted until about 64 BC. These are the people who really pissed off the Jews (not a hard thing to do, they were a contentious lot to begin with)and helped set the stage for John the Baptist's beheading and even the crowd greeting Christ's entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

The Seleucid rulers were Hellenistic to the bone. They were everything Greek and loved it. They also sought to impose Greek culture on their subjects which did not endear them  to the Jews. But the Jews kept a wrap on it ... until Antiochus IV, or Antiochus Epiphanes as he liked to be called.

Gaining the throne in 175 BC, Mr. Call Me Epiphanes was a solid gold jerk.  Antiochus forbade the observance of Jewish religious rituals and instituted animal sacrifices to Greek gods in public places.. Circumcision became punishable by death.  Then on December 25, 168 BC, he rededicated the Jewish Temple to the Greek god Zeus  Quite a few Jews had become Hellenistic by now; the Seleucid rulers encouraged and rewarded those who did. But there were still many, many Jews who were infuriated by this. Enter the Macabees.

Starting in 167 BC, the five sons of a Jewish priest named Mattathias followed their father's example and raised a bit of hell for the Seleucids. So much in fact that their followers routed various armies sent by The Seleucid and Ptolemaic Emperors to defeat them. The sons of Mattathias were given the title "Maccabee" which means Hammer or Extinguisher. The name stuck.

The Jewish festival, Hanukkah, commemorates the cleansing of the Temple in 164 BC. When the Maccabean soldiers entered Jerusalem, the crowds cheered their saviors "with a chorus of praise and the waving of palm branches" (1 Macc 13.51). Even the praise "Hosanna!" means literally "Save us now!" and it is the same praise that was used to welcome Jesus.

But when the Maccabee brothers died, their successors were not as enthralled of their Jewish traditions as their fathers. The rebellion's strength was in their conservative Jewish following which slowly turned against them. The Maccabees turned into the Hasmonean dynasty which ruled Judea. The Hasmonean rulers did not adhere to the strict Jewish doctrine of the ultra conservative Jews who originally supported them. These conservative Jews became an opposition party to the Hasmoneans. Ultimately this opposition became the core of the conservative Pharisee sect who hated Jesus and plotted His death.

The Seleucid Empire collapsed in 129 BC and Israel was an independent nation under the Hasmoneans. Israel became a vassal state again in 63 BC when the Romans became dominant in the region and things got even worse when Herod the Great began his kingship in 37 BC.

Herod was an incredibly cruel man who would not hesitate to destroy anyone he perceived as a threat. Modern psychologists have examined his public actions as recorded by Josephus and other contemporary historians and concluded that he was a psycho. He was also enamored of Greek culture which was reflected in his architecture and dealings with the Jews.

The Jews welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem expected the same kind of deliverance that the Maccabees had delivered. They completely ignored His teachings and the Old Testament prophesies. This is just my opinion, but when they saw Jesus standing before Pilate, bound, beaten and bloodied, they were completely disappointed and perhaps even angry, reasoning that He had deceived them into believing that He would be their king. The pathetic mess before them was not worthy of consideration. So the cry "Give us Barabbas" echoed through the courtyards. Barabbas was a notorious criminal, a fierce rebel who fought against the Romans. He was the type of man the crowd was looking for, not some meek, forgiving carpenter from Galilee.

Herod the Great became ruler over Judea because of his father, Antipater, a powerful government official from Idumaea (Edom) who assisted Julius Caesar in the civil war against Pompey, 49 to 45 BC. Antipater was given Roman citizenship and appointed regent in 47 BC. Eventually he appointed his sons as governors in the region; Herod becoming Governor of Judea. Herod was elected "King of the Jews" by the Roman Senate seven years later in 40 BC. It was as King of the Jews that Herod ordered the slaughter of Jewish children (more of that here) shortly before his death.

Returning to the execution of John the Baptist. Herod Antipas marries Herodias and John loudly proclaims that it is evil for a Jew (Herod considered himself a Jew, most likely of the Sadducee persuasion) to divorce and remarry and that it was an incestuous relationship as Herodias was his niece. It is reported in the Gospels that Antipas did not want to execute John, but reluctantly did so after he promised his step daughter, Salome, that she could have anything she wanted after dancing for him at his birthday celebration (Mark 6:14-29). Herodias wanted John dead for obvious reasons and seizes this opportunity. She prompts her daughter to ask for John's head. This occurs circa 28 AD.

So who was this murderous woman?

Remember Aristobulus IV? The one strangled by Herod the Great? Herodias was his daughter; her mother was Berenice, daughter of Salome, Herod's sister.
Yes, Herodias' parents were first cousins.
Her grandfather was Costabarus, governor of Idumea - also executed by Herod the Great in 28 BC.
She was also the sister of Herod V (king of Chalkis), Herod Agrippa (king of Judea), Aristobulus V, and Mariamne III (who was engaged to her uncle Crown Prince Antipater who was killed by Herod the Great, she later married another of her uncles, Herod Archelaus).
What a family.

Herod Antipas' first wife, Phasaelis, moved back to Nabataea before the divorce. Antipas' brother, Philip, dies in 34 AD and his tetrarchy is no longer under his control.

Jump ahead to 36 AD; Phasaelis' father, Aretas IV, is angry over the mistreatment of his daughter and there are some other issues with Herod Antipas, territorial disputes. War ensues. Herod gets his ass kicked by Nabataea and implores the Roman Emperor Tiberius for military assistance. Emperor Tiberius authorizes his Syrian legate to provide an army, but then dies in March of 37 AD. The Roman legate, Vitellius, hates Antipas, is slow to provide assistance and then completely withdraws his troops upon hearing of the death of Tiberius.

The next Emperor, Caligula, is persuaded by Antipas' nephew, Agrippa, that Antipas is plotting against him. In 39 AD Caligula removes Antipas as tetrarch of Galilee. All his possessions and his tetrarchy are given to Agrippa. Now it gets cloudy as to Herod Antipas' fate. A few sources state he dies in 39 AD at the hands of the Emperor, but most reliable texts indicate that he is exiled to Gaul (France) with his wife Herodias. Born sometime prior to 20 BC, at his exile he is at least 60 years old.

I know have omitted Herod Antipas' role in the crucifixion of our Lord and Savior. That is deliberate.

North New York? New Texas? Works For Me.

Although small, the secessionist movement in various states across the Union is growing. Voters have disconnected from their previous political ties and want new states in which they may exercise their rights as guaranteed under the Constitution.

GREELEY, Colo. -- If you mention the word "secession" most people think of the South during the Civil War. But today, a new movement is gaining steam because of frustration over a growing, out-of-control federal government.

A number of conservative, rural Americans are taking about seceding and creating their own states, meaning a new map of the United States of America could include the following:

A 51st state called Jefferson, made up of Northern California and Southern Oregon
A new state called Western Maryland
A new state called North Colorado

These are real movements gaining traction with voters across the country. Jeffrey Hare runs the 51st State Initiative in Colorado, an effort to fight an out-of-control legislature trying to ram big government policies down the throats of voters.

Here in New York there are murmurs of a secessionist movement. Many people have had it with Cuomo and the Albany liberals who have driven almost twenty Congressional seats out of the state due to residents moving away. What was once a beautiful state is gradually turning into another liberal wasteland. Detroit, here we come.

Creating a new state isn't easy. The last time a state actually gave up territory was in 1820, when Maine split from Massachusetts. Since then, additional efforts have been unsuccessful.

The first step is getting it passed by the state legislature and then the U.S. Congress.

"This is a valid constitutional process that our founding fathers specifically wrote into the Constitution," Hare said. "Well, if they didn't write this into the Constitution to be used, then why did they write it in?"

More here.

Putin: Bring It! -- Obama: Fore!

Apparently the Poles are paying attention; they know what it's like to get mauled by the Russian Bear.. Obama, the wanker, can't even be bothered to attend his own security meetings.

SEVASTOPOL, Crimea – After blocking Ukrainian military bases in Crimea on Sunday, Russia issued ultimatums to the Ukrainian army and two ships on Monday to surrender or face a “military storm.”

“If they (Ukrainian troops) do not give up by 5 a.m. tomorrow (March 4), there will be a real storm of subdivisions and units of Ukraine's military forces all over Crimea,” Russian Black Sea Fleet Commander Aleksandr Vitko was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry denied information about ultimatums as “utter nonsense.” The Ukrainian defense and foreign ministries insisted that ultimatums were, in fact, real, and part of psychological warfare against Ukraine.

Poland took the threat seriously enough to call an Article 4 meeting of NATO. This article is used when one of the military alliance members feels that its security or territorial integrity is under threat.

More here.

Is It Getting Real?

Back in the 60's there was a comedic movie starring Ernie Kovacs, "Wake Me When It's Over."

I pretty much feel that way now.

From the NY Slimes:

SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine — As Russian-backed armed forces effectively seized control of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula on Saturday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia requested —and received — authorization from the Russian Senate to use military force in Ukraine.

The actions signaled publicly for the first time the Kremlin’s readiness to intervene militarily in Ukraine, and it served as a blunt response to President Obama, who just hours earlier pointedly warned Russia to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty.

Within hours after receiving Mr. Putin’s request, Russia’s upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, voted to approve it, after a debate that warned of the apocalyptic consequences of failing to stop a fascist threat from spreading to Russia’s borders. The lawmakers direct considerable fury at President Obama and others in the West they accused of fomenting the upheaval in Ukraine.

And to stir the pot even more, the Rooskies want to recall their ambassador to the US.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's upper house of parliament will ask President Vladimir Putin to recall Moscow's ambassador from the United States, the chamber's speaker said on Saturday.

Valentina Matviyenko, the head of the Federation Council, asked the Council's Committee on Foreign Affairs to draw up a proposal setting out the demands to Putin.

I think every country should have a community organizer as their leader and a drunken lesbian as Secretary of State.

Yeah I'm referring to Kerry.

Into The Valley Of Death ... Again?

It seems like an obscure treaty signed in 1994 by Bill Clinton could land us side by side with the Brits in the Crimea defending the Ukraine from the Rooskies. Tennyson is not pleased...

The new Ukrainian government said Friday it had been invaded by Russia and appealed for the United States and United Kingdom to protect it, as guaranteed under a 1994 agreement.

The move came after a series of armed takeovers and provocations in the Crimea region that began on Thursday with the seizure of the regional parliament building and continued on Friday:

• Armed groups took over access to both main airports on the Crimean Peninsula.
• The Ukrainian border guard service claimed that more than 10 Russian military helicopters flew from Russia into Ukrainian airspace over the Crimea region. It also said eight Russian transport planes had landed in Crimea with unknown cargo.
• Russia confirmed that armoured vehicles attached to its naval base were moving around Crimea for “security” reasons.
• Uniformed Russian servicemen were blocking off a unit of Ukrainian border guards in the port city of Sevastopol, where part of the Russian Black Sea fleet is based, according to Ukraine’s border service.
• Ukrainian International, Ukraine’s biggest airline, said the airspace over the Crimea region had been closed.

The U.N. Security Council will hold private consultations to discuss the crisis in Ukraine on Friday afternoon, a U.N spokesman said. Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the situation in separate phone calls with European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron.

In Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper pledged Canada’s unwavering support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity in the face of “worrying” developments in the former Soviet state, even as Foreign Minister John Baird met with the new leadership in Kiev.

In Washington, President Barack Obama expressed concern about reported Russian military movement inside crisis-torn Ukraine and warned of consequences.

“Any violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity would be deeply destabilizing,” he said in a brief appearance. “The United States will stand with the international community in affirming that there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine.”

Story here and here.

Just Kidding

Shootists

H/T iOTW

Horsewhip, String Up, Rinse, Repeat

These guys need to get bounced --- hard. They should lose everything.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A second wave of retired New York firefighters and police was arrested on Tuesday on disability fraud charges tied to a September 11 pension fraud, said a source involved in the investigation.

A massive ongoing investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance's office had, in January, led to disability fraud charges against 106 suspects - 80 of them retired New York cops and firefighters - with some accused of falsely claiming to have been traumatized by the September 11, 2001 attacks on the city.

This is truly despicable. There must be a resounding penalty to this to discourage others from defrauding the public trust.

Obama Stabbing Vets In The Back

In Los Angeles the Veterans Administration has destroyed countless requests for assistance in order to reduce its backlog. Lord only knows how many vets suffered physical harm because of this.

Employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) destroyed veterans’ medical files in a systematic attempt to eliminate backlogged veteran medical exam requests, a former VA employee told The Daily Caller.

Audio of an internal VA meeting obtained by The DC confirms that VA officials in Los Angeles intentionally canceled backlogged patient exam requests.

“The committee was called System Redesign and the purpose of the meeting was to figure out ways to correct the department’s efficiency. And one of the issues at the time was the backlog,” Oliver Mitchell, a Marine veteran and former patient services assistant in the VA Greater Los Angeles Medical Center...

Of course illegals are pouring across the border in order to obtain free healthcare while our vets are left twisting in the wind.

Story here.