Kamis, 31 Mei 2012

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Priceline: Learn To Use It and Never Pay Full Price Again!

Posted: 31 May 2012 07:49 AM PDT

With a tanking economy and gas prices that are all over the place, families are having to scale back this year in a big way. I hear it all the time–”We just cannot afford to travel! Gas and hotel prices have gotten out of hand!” Gas prices I cannot help you with, hotel prices I can. Well…Priceline can…If you’ll just learn how to use it.

Years ago, my first experience using the “bid now” button on Priceline was a bit scary. My Aunt and Uncle were meeting me in Charleston, SC, and I’d been boasting about this new-found tool I could use to get us a cheap hotel room. They were concerned about a. getting ripped off, and b. getting stuck in a dump. I assured them neither would happen, asked them to trust me, and followed my dad’s careful instructions as I placed my first bid. When I was successful after just one offer, I was skeptical…but all skepticism got swept aside later in the day when we pulled into the gorgeous Courtyard Charleston Waterfront hotel in Charleston, SC. Ours for the incredible price of $45/night plus taxes and fees. My Uncle was convinced I was either some sort of miracle worker, or that the “catch” would get sprung on him at checkout. He was wrong on both counts. I used tools that anyone with a computer has access to, and there really was no “catch” at all.

How in the world did I manage to pull that off? It’s quite simple, I assure you. It’s a bit of a gamble, but I can offer some tips that should help you to never be disappointed, and to always have some extra cash in your pocket when traveling. One of the common complaints I hear when I talk about Priceline is that you can never guarantee getting that complimentary breakfast that so many hotels offer these days. That’s right. Some people choose to pay $80 and up for a hotel room just so they can score big on that breakfast buffet in the lobby. Never mind that they could go across the street to Cracker Barrel and spend $15-20 and still come out cheaper than what they spent on the hotel room.

There are two different ways to shop on Priceline. When you visit the site, you are immediately asked for your destination and the dates you’ll be headed to said destination. This portion of the site is much like Expedia (my second favorite site of this kind), where discount prices are offered for hotel rooms, flights, car rentals, and vacation packages. Using this portion of the site will, indeed, help you to score some pretty great prices on travel. You can scroll down just a few inches, however, and find the “name your own price” portion of the web page. This is where you can score some amazing prices on travel if you’re willing to be a little daring.

I’ll just tell you up front that the down side for some people is that once your offer is accepted, it’s a DONE deal. There’s no turning back, no refunds are given, so just be certain about your travel before you begin bidding. Another disadvantage for some is that you cannot choose your hotel. I’ll explain more about that in a minute.

To score your deal on a fabulous hotel room, click on the little green “bid now” icon in the center box that says “save up to 60% on hotels.” Enter your destination city, the dates for check-in, check-out, and the number of rooms for which you wish to bid. Click the “bid now” icon and you’ll be taken to the next page.

Step 1 asks you to choose where you wish to stay. This step is very important. You cannot choose specific locations, just areas. Be sure to study each spot carefully so that you’ll be put in the general area that you wish to stay. Step 2 asks you to choose your star level. This is key. Unless you wish to stay in a dump, do NOT choose anything less than a 3-Star Upscale setting on this step, and unless you wish to be guaranteed a hotel room that is 4-Star, you can choose 3-Star Upscale and you’ll be guaranteed to get a hotel room that is 3-Star or better. I have never had a bad experience, and I believe it’s in large part due to the fact that I’ve always chosen correctly on this step. Step 3 asks you to name your own price. Now, be reasonable here, because if your offer is denied, you have to change something about your offer AND up the price. You want to be reasonable with your offer, otherwise you’re wasting your time. The price you offer depends totally on the area to which you’re traveling. If you’re going to be visiting the oceanfront in Ft. Lauderdale, bidding $45 a night is going to be a waste of your time. I typically bid 50-60% lower than what Priceline says is the going rate for hotels in the area, and more often than not, my bids are accepted immediately.

For example, my husband and I recently visited Greenville, SC, and we wanted to stay downtown. The going rate for that area for a 3-Star and above hotel is $108 and up. So, I bid $50, and got our hotel room immediately, staying just a few miles from downtown at Hyatt Place. The hotel was absolutely beautiful, and though we weren’t staying downtown, we were just a few miles away.

After entering Step 3, you’ll be asked for your credit card information, given a list showing your total cost (including Priceline fees and taxes for the hotel room), asked to initial a box showing that you understand your purchase, and then you place your bid. Within seconds, you’ll have an answer–either your bid will be accepted, or you will have to go back to the drawing board.

I have used Priceline for securing hotel rooms, car rentals, and airline tickets, and have never had a problem. This has been a wonderful tool that has made if affordable for us to travel when it would have otherwise been financially impossible, and we’ve never paid more than $70 for a hotel. (that’s rare–our average price is $45) The trick with purchasing airline tickets is that you are not able to choose your departure time OR the airline, so it’s a bit more of a gamble than purchasing a hotel room. Often, however, it’s very worth the savings.

How can Priceline offer such great deals? It’s simple. Hotels turn to them to fill empty beds, offering significantly discounted rates without advertising what rates they’re allowing Priceline to accept. (even the hotel clerk will have no clue what you paid for your room unless you tell her) In my humble opinion, it’s crazy to pay full price for a hotel room, when sites like this are available. I encourage you to take a leap and give Priceline a try. You won’t be sorry!

Have your own Priceline story? Share it with our readers below. (whether it’s positive OR negative–we’d love to hear both)

Clearing the Browser Tabs – Congrats to All American Duane Edition

Posted: 31 May 2012 05:01 AM PDT

Five years ago Monday, my friend Duane Lester started his blog All American Blogger. Since then, he’s launched a podcast or two, taught the blogosphere an important lesson about standing up for your creative rights, and established himself as one of the most professional and hardest-working people I’ve ever met. He’s also my friend.

Spend a minute or two today reading your way around his blog, then visit Liberty News, where Duane has recently taken the full-time position as editor. He’s a good guy and you won’t regret the time you spend with his work.

And now, links!
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Selasa, 29 Mei 2012

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The Delivery Presents – Barack Obama and William Howard Taft, Together Again!

Posted: 28 May 2012 01:44 PM PDT

So let me see if I have this right. Barack Obama is the first actually black President, the first gay President, and (now it can be told in Episode 148) also the first time-traveling President. It’s true! I reveal the stunning truth, History Channel-style, in the first half of the show. Alas, my hair is only of normal stature so there was a limit to how large a revelation I could make, but I think you’ll find it stunning. And shocking.

There are some goodies about the Facebook IPO, rich people, and a healthy dollop of baseball to take you the rest of the way through the show. The baseball, part, especially is worth considering because, well, baseball! Also, I say bad things about Bud Selig, the Worst Commissioner Ever in the History of the Game.

The Delivery - Episode 148

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Why Do You Create?

Posted: 28 May 2012 01:20 PM PDT

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

Have you ever read something that was the emotional or intellectual equivalent of a punch in the gut from a large and angry man named Knuckles? It doesn’t happen to me often, but when it does, I do my best to figure out exactly why what I read affected me so profoundly. Also, I like to make sure I didn’t actually get punched in the gut because, if I did, I have a completely different problem.

Tycho Brahe, one of the two obscenely-creative guys from Penny Arcade, wrote something about quitting that delivered a well-timed Knuckles-punch. Here’s the pertinent bit.

You have to get back on the horse. Somehow, and I don't know how this kind of thing starts, we have started to lionize horseback-not-getting-on: these casual, a priori assertions of inevitable failure, which is nothing more than a gauze draped over your own pulsing terror. Every creative act is open war against The Way It Is. What you are saying when you make something is that the universe is not sufficient, and what it really needs is more you. And it does, actually; it does. Go look outside. You can't tell me that we are done making the world.

[Emphasis Mine]

I’m asked, from time to time, why I keep The Shack running and why I do The Delivery every week. It’s true, I hope to build a couple few things here and there that will allow me to do the things I love, for pay, all the time. Really though, I started each of them because of the very reason Tycho gave. I believed, and still believe, that I have valuable and useful things to offer and these are the ways by which I offer them. I believed the universe needed more me.

And I’ll let you in on a little secret. I still believe it needs more me. I’m not done creating things, so watch this space. There is a lot more fun to come.

Memorial Day 2012: Private Sadao Munemori and A Request for Hollywood

Posted: 28 May 2012 09:51 AM PDT

Sadao Munemori was a hero, who loved his country to an extent we can not measure. He was American, born in Glendale, CA to parents who immigrated from Japan in the 1920s. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Munemori’s family were sent to the Manzanar internment camp. Munemori didn’t become bitter. He wanted to fight. He was already a member of the Army — he had joined before Pearl Harbor — but because of his heritage, he was assigned to be a translator. Like I said, he wanted to fight, so he made trouble, just enough to get assigned to a combat unit, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team of the 100th Infantry Brigade . Munemori was eventually sent as a replacement to Italy, where his team, which motto is “Go For Broke”, was already in combat in Italy.

In 1945, the 442nd was part of a spearhead of an attack on the “Gothic Line”, a fortification in the Apennines Mountains the Germans had built over 9 months with the work of some 15,000 Italian slave laborers. It was the last, big push into the German homeland, the blow that could break the Nazis if it was successful. From here, I’ll go to Wikipedia for the narrative.

In front of the 442nd lay mountains code-named Georgia, Florida, Ohio 1, Ohio 2, Ohio 3, Monte Cerrata, Monte Folgorita, Monte Belvedere, Moente Carchio, and Monte Altissimo. These objectives hinged on surprising the Germans. The 100th went after Georgia Hill and the 3rd Battalion attacked Mount Folgorita. On April 3 the 442nd moved into position under the cover of nightfall to hide from the Germans who had good sight lines from their location on the mountains. The next day the 442nd waited. At 0500 the following morning they were ready to strike. A little over 30 minutes later objectives Georgia and Mount Folgorita were taken, cracking the Gothic Line. They achieved surprise and forced the enemy to retreat. After counterattacking, the Germans were defeated. During this time, 2nd Battalion was moving into position at Mount Belvedere, which overlooked Massa and the Frigido River.

The 442nd made a continuous push against the German Army and objectives began to fall: Ohio 1, 2, and 3, Mount Belvedere on April 6 by 2nd Battalion, Montignoso April 8 by 3rd Battalion, Mount Brugiana on April 11 by 2nd Battalion, Carrara by 3rd Battalion on April 11, and Ortonovo by the 100th on April 15. The 442 turned a surprise diversionary attack into an all-out offensive. The advance came so quickly that supply units had a hard time keeping up.

The attack pushed the Germans off the mountains and through the Po River Valley. The war ended in Italy about two weeks later and the Nazi war machine surrendered unconditionally shortly thereafter.

Private Murimori and his fellows were on Monte Folgorita, pinned down by German machine gun fire. He took charge after his squad leader was gunned down. I’ll now turn the narrative over to his Medal of Honor citation.

He fought with great gallantry and intrepidity near Seravezza, Italy. When his unit was pinned down by grazing fire from the enemy’s strong mountain defense and command of the squad devolved on him with the wounding of its regular leader, he made frontal, l-man attacks through direct fire and knocked out 2 machineguns with grenades Withdrawing under murderous fire and showers of grenades from other enemy emplacements, he had nearly reached a shell crater occupied by 2 of his men when an unexploded grenade bounced on his helmet and rolled toward his helpless comrades. He arose into the withering fire, dived for the missile and smothered its blast with his body. By his swift, supremely heroic action Pfc. Munemori saved 2 of his men at the cost of his own life and did much to clear the path for his company’s victorious advance.

Pfc. Munemori was, until the year 2000, the only soldier born in America of Japanese immigrant parents to be awarded the Medal of Honor.

I appreciate George Johnston and Investors Business Daily who told us Pfc. Munemori’s story. I’d like to see more stories like his. It would be a very good idea (and good business) if Hollywood built on the successes they made with movies like We Were Soldiers and miniseries like Band of Brothers and discovered more stories of real American heroism.

Earlier today, on Twitter, I said I’d like to see a Band Of Brothers style series made about units in Korea and Vietnam. I’m very sure an enterprising producer could find stories of heroism and humanity and bring them to the big screen and our televisions in fairly short order. It’s not like there’s a paucity of such stories. Unfortunately, too many in Hollywood share a mind with MS-NBC’s Chris Hayes, whose lips stumble over “hero” as  if he had just discovered the word existed. There are some, though, who could pull off those new projects, though, and I’d be willing to help them get them done any way I can. History slips away from us very easily. It would be a good idea to capture these tales of true heroism for posterity while we still can.

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Senin, 28 Mei 2012

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They Call It Puppy “Like”

Posted: 28 May 2012 07:34 AM PDT

If this is representative of young political leaders, we really don’t have to worry about the “youth vote” in November.

A 2009 Pew Research Center study indicates that 10 percent of internet users ages 18 and older have used a social networking site for some sort of political or civic engagement. With just younger voters, 18 to 29, that number jumps to 37 percent.

That’s not exactly a tidal wave of civic engagement. But Thor Lund, the University of Texas at Austin’s student body president, says that for college students, it feels like marching in the streets.

"Social media is a huge tool to get people interested in things, and honestly, the biggest way to create interest — to spur the civic engagement — is numbers, people being involved," [Thor] Lund said. "So whether or not someone thinks it's a civic engagement issue that they're starting out and that they're trying to do, when people get behind an idea, the power of people is amazing."

And when you’ve got a full semester and an evening job, being able to click “like” before studying can make you feel engaged without taking up too much time.

"When we're tabling and fliering, we let folks know, hey, like us on Facebook, even if you can't come at every meeting, even if you can't be there physically, at least be aware of what we're doing," said Huey Fischer, president of the University Democrats at UT. "So that way, when you do have time, when you can make a commitment, you'll know what's up."

Let me get this out up-front. I love social media. I think it’s frightfully important for political campaigns to have people on board to whom they regularly listen who get social media. When used well, social media can be the least expensive and most effective clip of projectiles in the ammo pack of any campaign (or business, for that matter).

But getting someone to push a “like” button in a spare moment is not engagement and it doesn’t necessarily lead to engagement. It’s a one-off, like throwing a couple pennies in a charity jar on the counter at the corner convenience store. In fact, it’s worse, because a “like” doesn’t do anything substantial. It pays no bills, gets no one to the voting booth, puts no feet in the streets, makes no phone calls, and get absolutely no one elected. What it does do is give the person who pushed the button a little warm tickle in their happy place, like they did something important with very little effort. It’s like the feeling of goodness a rat gets for pushing the little red food button, except the rat doesn’t get any food (could you then say young people aren’t quite as bright as rats? Hmmm…).

Those of you who use Facebook, think back a month. Can you remember all the “like” buttons you pushed? Can you remember half of them? How many of them led to real engagement with a brand, cause, or political party to which you weren’t already inclined to engage?

I do think that Facebook has plenty of uses and the Like button is a valuable tool to get people to make that initial buy-in that can lead to more. But a “like, in and of itself, means nothing at all and if political parties or businesses out there believe it is a replacement for engagement, they’re fooling themselves and they ought to fire whoever is working on their social media campaigns.

 
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Sabtu, 26 Mei 2012

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Think it can’t happen to you? Think again.

Posted: 26 May 2012 12:03 AM PDT

As Jimmie has already so eloquently pointed out, yesterday was Everybody Blog About Brett Kimberlin Day, and–as expected–the conservative blogging community came together in a truly amazing way.

Reading the stories that emerged yesterday was not as shocking to me as it may have been to many who live outside the realm of the political blogosphere and all that it entails. I have my own story, albeit far from the hell that bloggers like Stacy McCain, Mandy Nagy, Aaron Worthing, Patterico, and others have experienced. Most effective conservative bloggers experience harassment on a daily basis. It comes with the territory, and one either develops a very thick skin, or quits writing altogether.

Earlier this week, my young friend Madeleine McCaulay announced, in an appearance on Fox & Friends, that she’d received death threats after voicing her opinion on gay marriage. The next day, another blogger friend emailed me, asking for advice on how to handle hate-filled comments from the left. These bloggers learned what many more did today–we can expect the uncivilized, shrill, often vulgar and downright dangerous rhetoric/actions of the left to grow exponentially as the 2012 election approaches. It’s simply how the left rolls. And they need to be exposed.

When I started blogging in 2008, I was completely new to the world of politics. I voted, but was otherwise completely uninvolved. I didn’t claim to be an expert, just a mom expressing my own opinion, learning alongside those gracious enough to read my scribbling. My topic, however, was big news–after all, she was the first Republican woman to ever be nominated for Vice President. The local newspaper soon learned about my blogging, and ran a feature article that was originally intended to be a tale of two opinions–pro and anti-Sarah Palin. Because I was the only one to respond, the reporter ran a full feature article in the local section about my blog. This infuriated some local reporters, who decided they’d have a bit of fun at my expense. I made the mistake of reading the posts that were being written about me, and in a moment that showed my complete ignorance of journalistic terms, I left a comment poking fun at the misspelling of the word “lede” in one of the articles. This sparked a bit of a firestorm and, in the local media, I paid dearly for it. (many posts that were written are no longer available) Leftists began leaving comments under the online article, and one lovely woman decided it would be funny to post my street address and phone number for those wishing to make calls for sexual services. (which was soon removed, at my request)

To be honest, I hated every second of the attention. I started blogging for two main reasons: to defend Sarah Palin, and to reach other women who–like me–were uninvolved. I wanted to make a difference and motivate others to jump in like I had. So, I knew I couldn’t throw in the towel. Instead, I continued to try to learn all I could about  how to articulate the conservative political beliefs I’d claimed to espouse for so many years, and as I learned, I shared.

Before long, I began receiving calls and–honestly–I thought they were pranks. Several came from local radio shows wanting me to do on-air debates with Democrat women. I was far from ready for that sort of thing, so I ignored the calls completely. Jokingly, I told my husband that the only media request I’d be responding to would be the one that came from Fox News. You can imagine, then, how surprised I was when he called to tell me that a producer from AC360 had left a message on the answering machine. “You have got to be kidding,” I told him. “Erase it.” He did not, and strongly advised me to return the call.

Within a few days, a CNN crew came to my house, turned my living room into a makeshift set, and so began my first media interview. For several hours we filmed and at the request of Randi Kaye, the CNN reporter that interviewed me, six of my friends joined us for a portion of the interview to create a sort of round-table discussion. It went well, the cameraman was especially grateful that I fed him while he was there, and the producer was wonderful. I joked with them several times that they had completely changed my opinion about people from CNN. And they had.

The CNN audience, however, was a different story altogether. Within seconds of the first mention of my blog on the Campbell Brown show on the evening of October 9, 2008, the haters began to flood my blog. I’m sure many were locals, after bloggers like Kyle Munzenrieder at the Miami New Times felt the need to follow my story, even suggesting I enjoyed the attention I was getting. He couldn’t have been more wrong. Hate would be too mild a word to express my sentiments for any attention I was getting. I started blogging to make a difference, and that’s truly all I cared about. I agreed to do an interview because I thought it might have a bigger impact and motivate more women like me to get involved. (and, by the way, it did) Once the show aired on AC360 that evening, I realized I’d made a huge mistake. Blogging novice that I was, I had put no counter or filter in place on the blog, so thousands of comments began rolling in. Because I was intent on keeping filth off my blog, I began to read each comment, and was soon overwhelmed with what I was seeing. Vile comments were pouring in faster than I could keep up, in what I believe was a coordinated attempt to completely shut down the blog. Before long, I gave friends passwords to the account so they could help me delete them as quickly as possible. Soon, we realized we weren’t going to be able to stop them, so I put a filter in place, and tried to digest what I was reading.

The comments were unbelievable. There were threats of violence, not only against me but also against Sarah Palin. There were multiple threats against me, my children, and my husband–rape threats, death threats–and then the phone calls began. For months, phone calls would come at all hours of the night. Shortly thereafter, I began to receive hate mail at my home address–the address that had been posted in the comment section on the blog where the original article was reposted. Before long, there was even a blog created just to post hate about me and Sarah Palin, as if we were the best of friends. There were several women that seemed to be obsessed with taking me down. They would post at all hours of the day/night, were relentless in their pursuit, and…well…it was all rather eerie and didn’t stop until my family and I moved, and took measures that would ensure we were at least a little more protected than we were prior to this undertaking.

The thing that I learned during the mild and thankfully fairly short-lived attack that was launched against me was that these attacks are coordinated. Several of the people who constantly made threats of physical violence against me repeatedly very proudly announced that they were working for the Obama campaign. While some scoffed at the notion, I did not. It is now widely known that the Tides Foundation, George Soros, and others are actively involved in trying to silence conservative bloggers. Wonder why? Conservative bloggers, along with Fox News, have become  a much more trusted news source than many of the mainstream media outlets that have previously driven the narrative. The truth must be told, and apparently, according to domestic terrorists like Brett Kimberlin, must be stopped.

But how in the world do we stop them?

We expose them.

For far too long, many of us who have been subjected to the harassment–regardless of severity–of these disgusting human beings have remained silent. Some of us have fought back in our own way, sometimes responding, other times ignoring (which drives them batty). We must remember, however, that we have truth on our side, and it is vital that we share that truth. We must remain strong, continue to rally like we did today, and expose these criminals for what they really are. Most importantly, we must not allow them to win. We must continue the fight for truth, we cannot falter. Will we stop them? Not completely. But we can certainly take measures to protect ourselves, and fight back.

**Many who are reading this and other posts on this topic are completely taken aback by the lengths to which the left will go to stop people like Patterico and others from speaking the truth. If you’re one of them, you can help too. Please visit conservative blogs and show your support. Do so by reading and commenting once in a while! We love to hear from our readers–YOU are the very reason we continue to do what we do.**

Why this #BrettKimberlin Thing Matters

Posted: 25 May 2012 02:47 PM PDT

Today is “Everybody Blog About Brett Kimberlin Day” and I’m doing my part. To be perfectly honest, I’d rather not write another post about lying felon Brett Kimberlin beyond the two I’ve already written, but it’s important that I do.

I know what you may be saying to yourself right now. “Jimmie, lying felon Brett Kimberlin has done some reprehensible things, sure, but why on Earth should I care what one guy I’ve never heard of is doing to a bunch of other people I’ve never heard of?”. That’s a great question. Here’s your answer.

Because it can happen to you, too.

Let’s say you find a political issue that really fires you up. It doesn’t have to be a national issue. Maybe your state wants to pass a voter ID law that ensures people can’t just walk into a polling place, give the name of a dead person or the Attorney General of the United States, and get a ballot without even a cursory attempt by the state to confirm they are who they say they are. This becomes a big deal to you and so you start a little blog to put your opinion into the public arena. You want to exercise your First Amendment rights just like everyone else.

After a couple weeks, and a few posts, the phone rings in the office of your boss at work. On the other end is someone who professes awful and untrue things about you. You have to go in and explain yourself. Your boss believes you, this time, but why should this have happened in the first place? You put that on your blog, too, because it seems awfully germane to what you’ve been doing.

It happens again. And again. It’s getting more difficult for you to do your job because you and your boss have to spend time dealing with the nuisance accusations. All that goes on your blog, including the name given by the person making the accusations.

Then you get a knock at the door. There stands a police officer who serves you with court papers. It seems the person you named in your blog post has accused you of harassment and demands you take down blog entries and stop using his name. Now what? You have to go to court and fight this, but that’s going to take a day of leave from work (assuming you get paid leave, of course) and a lawyer. Ever priced a good lawyer? They’re not cheap.

You spring for the lawyer after a long, and not entirely pleasant, conversation with your spouse during which you rearrange some of the family finances (Goodbye summer vacation. Goodbye new clothes for the kids for a few months!). You go to court and win. Problem solved, right?

Not so fast. There’s another knock at the door a couple of days later. Another police officer stands there and this time he has a criminal summons for harassment and some other stuff. Your accuser claims you assaulted him outside the courtroom, menaced him, put him in fear for his life. You didn’t, but now you have to prove it. Another spousal conversation ensues during which there are some heated words. More shuffling of the family finances (Goodbye repairs to your family car. Goodbye dinners not made out of a box!). Another call to your lawyer.

Before that court case can land, though, there’s a knock at the door in the middle of the night. You get up to answer it to find yourself shoved into your house by a masked man with a gun. He’s yelling at you — WHERE IS YOUR WIFE! WHERE ARE YOUR KIDS! ARE THEY ALIVE?? — and you croak out “yes” about the same time you finally figure out he’s a police officer. There are other officers, too, filling your house, tromping up the stairs, dragging you out into a waiting squad car. They wake your wife and kids, who have to see their Daddy taken away in handcuffs. Crying. Screaming. Questions you can’t answer because you’re under arrest.

By the time you get to the police station, you learn that someone called 911, pretended to be you, and said you killed your wife. The cops thought they had a hot murder scene and sent in the SWAT team. Now you know, because you pay attention to the news, that sometimes things get a bit crazy when SWAT teams go into a house. People get killed — sometimes cops, sometimes innocent homeowners. You’re fortunate. Yes, you still have a court case or two and the bill for that lawyer has pushed well past your ability to easily pay for it, but you’re alive and your kids are alive.

A few more days pass, uneventfully. You’re starting to feel more safe. Your lawyer is handling things in court. To be sure, your defense isn’t quite a slam-dunk, but you’ll come out of it okay, albeit lighter in your pocketbook by many thousand dollars. Then your wife calls from her work place and her voice trembles in a way that raises the hairs on the back of your neck. Her boss got a telephone call from the same guy who called you, a guy whose background you know because he’s reportedly done it to other people as well. This time he dropped a few more nuggets and one of them was a reference to where you live.

Think about that for a second. This guy who apparently knows where you live? He was convicted of setting bombs all over the town of Speedway, Indiana. One of those bombs was in a high school parking lot while an football game was going on. It crippled the man who picked it up. This same guy, police say, plotted to get rid of at least one witness and others who prosecuted his case and planned to have someone plant another bomb in the hopes it would help overturn his conviction. Obviously, it is time to pack up and go. That’s going to cost more money, though. It’ll also uproot your kids from their schools and friends. Your life will change in one of the biggest ways possible, and you’ll still have to come back for the court proceedings.

In the meantime, though, that one issue that brought you to the public arena in the first place, what happened to that? You haven’t been able to write much about it. You haven’t been able to get to any of the public meetings or report on the legislative hearings. You haven’t been able to talk to your friends and neighbors about it — all they want to know about are the court cases and the job thing and what the heck happened last night with that SWAT team? The issue is nearly forgotten because you’re in a fight for your freedom and ability to live peaceable as a responsible citizen of your community.

That, folks, is why this story is important. The story of lying felon Brett Kimberlin’s lawfare efforts, his various criminal convictions and schemes to deal with those convictions through yet more violent crimes, the massive amount of money left-wing groups have poured into his political non-profit organization, and the work he’s done win the U.S. State Department through that group, are all about the First Amendment and what I see as his attempts to use our civil and criminal legal systems to stop people from freely engaging in the political process. My hypothetical story (and it is entirely hypothetical though I’ve provided a few illustrative links) may never happen to you or anyone you know. But you can’t be entirely sure of that. I thought I was until I learned that my friend Stacy was leaving his home, uprooting his family, and heading off to Parts Unknown.

What lying felon Brett Kimberlin and his political allies have done to Mandy Nagy, Aaron Worthing, Patterico, Stacy McCain, and others (including Senator Orrin Hatch) is unconscionable. It ought to make you just a little bit angry. None of us ought to stand for it, and that includes out elected officials who have it within their power to make life very difficult for lying felon Brett Kimberlin and anyone else who abuses our legal systems to squelch the First Amendment rights of ordinary law-abiding citizens. Ace has it exactly right here. It’s going to take Congressional action to look into the possible abuse of the 501(c)3 charity and to make sure such abuse is far more difficult in the future. It’s going to take Congressional action to punish harassment and intimidation that squelch free speech. It’s going to take Congressional action to ensure that vexatious litigant laws get passed and have real teeth in them when they do.

Your free speech is at stake here. What happened to Stacy, et. al. can happen to you. But there are a few things you can do to make that less likely.

  1. Practice good security.
  2. Read up on lying felon Brett Kimberlin and his associates. Make yourself familiar with at least the basics so that you can tell other people about what has happened. Then spread the word.
  3. Contact your members of Congress and ask them to put Ace’s ideas in play. If they don’t know what’s happening, let them know there are people using the legal systems as weapons against law-abiding citizens. The abuse needs to stop and they can help, a lot. Some Democrats may resist, but you need to let them know that lying felon Brett Kimberlin is a serious liability for them.
  4. Contact Senator Orrin Hatch’s office and ask him, very politely, to lead the charge for these changes in the Senate. He knows of lying felon Brett Kimberlin and can get his associates up to speed pretty quickly by reading Kimberlin’s history into the Congressional Record.
  5. Visit this site and donate a few bucks. It’s a site run by the National Bloggers Club that will provide relief for those harassed out of their jobs and homes by lying felon Brett Kimberlin and his associates. I understand that the National Bloggers Club, which is by no means a fly-by-night organization, is also building a legal fund to help harassed bloggers with legal matters.

Get involved. Help out, even if it’s just with a ten dollar donation. There’s a reason political speech is protected as carefully as it is in the Constitution and we all must make sure it stays that way.
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Kamis, 24 Mei 2012

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From an Undisclosed Location to Herman Cain’s Facebook Wall, the Truth Issues Forth

Posted: 23 May 2012 07:53 PM PDT

“My first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye
Askance to watch the working of his lie
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford
Suppression of the glee that pursed and scored
Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.”
– Robert Browning, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

“I did my little time in Hoodlumville…”, Stacy McCain told me on the phone tonight from the Undisclosed Location where he’s been since early this week. Stacy, you’ll remember, left his house to protect the safety of his family and others from lying felon Brett Kimberlin, the Speedway Bomber. He is in good spirits and is in no way cowed. All across the new media world, bloggers big and small have turned their spotlights on the swinish bully whose political activities are funded by some of the most prestigious left-wing foundations: Glenn Reynolds, Michelle Malkin, Richard Fernandez and Bryan Preston of PJM, Ed Morrissey, Ace, Dan Riehl, Melissa Clouthier, Kathy Shaidle, Hillbuzz, Rosslyn Smith of American Thinker, the awesome Chris Muir, and Bob Belvedere, to name only a few. The story has even gotten the attention of former Presidential candidate Herman Cain, who came down without equivocation on the side of right and truth.

Kimberlin’s serial targeting of bloggers< who did nothing more than mention his criminal past, or help people who did, has been going on for a while. You can get a very good summation of what he did to just one man at this post by Dan Collins or this video by Lee Stranahan.

And there’s more, much more. So much more. The facts are all there. I invent nothing. Indeed, I am careful to invent nothing because I, unlike a certain subject of a certain exhaustively-researched book, I play square and by the rules. I fight my fights in the open, in the arena of ideas, where free and civilized citizens take their battles.

That is where Stacy McCain sought to battle lying felon Brett Kimberlin as well and, despite Kimberlin’s best efforts, that is where this fight will take place. I wrote earlier that Stacy is not cowed, but that’s not exactly true. He is the opposite of cowed. He is energized, his tanks filled to overflowing with gonzo fuel and righteous vigor. As he told me tonight, “I’m a fugitive of injustice, accused of the crime of committing journalism…I am not going to let this [expletive deleted] win”. Were I Kimberlin, I’d be awfully worried about all the attention that his harassment of McCain and others has brought and will continue to bring. See, thanks to a blog post by Lee Stranahan who, as a close associate of Andrew Breitbart knows a thing or two about getting threatened for reporting the truth, a very hard rain is about to fall on lying felon Brett Kimberlin. This Friday, May 25, is “Everybody Blog About Brett Kimberlin Day”. There are a few simple, sensible guidelines (I added the fifth).

  1. Research Brett Kimberlin on your own. Don't trust secondary sources; look for the original articles articles published about him, too.
  2. On Friday, May 25th — write an honest, factually accurate post about what you learned and what your OPINION is. Brett may try and sue you, so be accurate, factual and separate fact from opinion.
  3. The post doesn't have to be long — ANYTHING helps.
  4. After you post, Tweet, share, whatever — get the post out there.
  5. Remember how powerful anchor text can be when paired with the right factual article inside a blog post.

I suspect that the torrent of posts about him over the past couple of days will become a raging flood that will lift him to heights of notoriety that he never in his life ever wanted. I can’t say that for sure, but I do suspect it. After all, we must remember what happened when the blogosphere converged on one little tweet by Anthony Weiner? Weiner didn’t threaten anyone’s family nor their livelihood and look what happened to him. How much worse might it be for someone who did, once the focused of the blogosphere drew the attention of an MSM outlet or two?

I imagine that lying felon Brett Kimberlin, like Browning’s hoary cripple, has smiled a time or two at what his various schemes have wrought. I’d love to see his face when he’s suddenly presented with far more targets than his usual attack pattern can handle and he finds that a great many of those targets are far better equipped to use the criminal and civil legal systems than he. For that matter, I’d love to see Stacy’s face when those Memeorandum threads start exploding onto the internet like the bombs that lying felon Brett Kimberlin left all over Speedway, Indiana. Unlike his bombs, though, ours will be figurative and they won’t damage anything important, just what’s left of the reputation of a man who ought to have been relegated to the halls of infamy years ago.

(Graphic of an eye-opening story of lying felon Brett Kimberlin’s plot to escape prison courtesy of Patterico)
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Selasa, 22 Mei 2012

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The Delivery Presents – What Rocks Harder than a Piece of Wood? A Duck!

Posted: 21 May 2012 09:35 PM PDT

Episode 147 is all about the ego. Not mine, mind you. I’m still an up-and-coming podcaster. I can’t afford an ego. Our President, on the other hand? Well, he’s playing with our money, so he can afford all the ego he can cram into the nightly news. And believe me, he’s stuffing those newscasts just as full as he can, and not just today’s newscasts but yesterday’s history. You won’t believe where Barack Obama’s Ego has traveled and what it’s done in its travels through time and space.

We lost a good one in Donald “Duck” Dunn and I spent a good chunk of the second half talking about Dunn’s music and the immense influence he had on the music that we still hear today. In my quiet times, I hope that I can leave half as large a footprint on the world as the one he left. I also spent a bit of time holding back my nerdrage on the subject of the coming second season of Falling Skies. You should tune in just for that.

And tell your friends, too!

The Delivery - Episode 147

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Clearing the Browser Tabs – Go Help a Brother Out Who Needs Your Back-Up.

Posted: 21 May 2012 07:21 PM PDT

Stacy McCain has gone into hiding. I wish I was kidding about that, that it was some new blogospheric bit of fluff engineered to crank up the ol’ traffic numbers.  I’m not. I’m deadly serious. Some lying felon named Brett Kimberlin, who did time for a string of bombings that left at least one man horribly injured, has put the strong-arm on him and Stacy, to protect his family, has had to pull a fade.

That, folks is wrong. Kimberlin has locked himself firmly into a well-run left-wing attack machine that, to date, has used means legal and otherwise, to try to squelch the free speech out of law-abiding and honorable Americans. That’s not conjecture. It is what has happened. Read Stacy’s posts, or this post by one of Kimberlin’s victims, to get a detailed but small taste of the vileness he’s used to pressure people to shut up, shut down, and voluntarily give up their First Amendment rights.

It’s wrong and it needs to stop.

Go hit Stacy’s tip jar. Hit it loudly. Make some noise on your blog, or Stacy’s comment section, or on Twitter or Facebook. Bring some attention to what’s happening so that folks like Stacy and Aaron all all the others who have come under this guy’s cross-hairs know very well that they aren’t alone.

And now, links!

  • Folks, I have no answer for this. It’s a skyscraper-high pile of crap heaped onto an Everest of delusion. Paula has given it the proper amount of disdain and I can’t add anything else to it.
  • Big numbers are very, very scary, especially if they’re shouted at you by a raving madman.
  • Want to see a supermassive black hole? No, I don’t mean the federal government, I mean an actual black hole. In space. Well, you can’t exactly see it, but you can see what it has created, which is cool all by itself.
  • Didn’t Watergate break wide open after a suspicious break-in? Just saying…
  • Twitter matters as a social media platform. Oh, you may read some curmudgeon here and there who will pooh-pooh it as a fad or a frippery, but as someone who uses Twitter every day and has seen what a concerted effort on Twitter can do in the real world, I can tell you those naysayers are full of crap. Get on it and get involved. Today.
  • Barack Obama, the first Mood Ring President? Yeah, that’s accurate.
  • Hmm…perhaps there’s a reason China isn’t quite as antagnostic toward us as its perceived economic situation suggests it should be.
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Senin, 14 Mei 2012

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Clearing the Browser Tabs – Thanks for Everything, Duck.

Posted: 14 May 2012 09:07 AM PDT

We lost another great musician yesterday. Donald “Duck” Dunn, who provided the bassline for Memphis R&B and Soul for a good chunk of the 60s died in his sleep at the age of 70. Dunn was in Tokyo, where he had played a double-set with long-time musical partner Steve Cropper and the legendary singer Eddie Floyd the night before.

You’ve heard Dunn’s work, even if you didn’t know who was playing the bass. He was part of the Mar-Keys and later Booker T and the MG’s, which group also doubled as the house band for the Stax-Volt recording studio when Booker T wasn’t playing with them. Dunn recorded with Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, and Arthur Conley as well as many others during his career. He was also, famously, part of the Blues Brothers band.

See? You did too know who he was. And now he’s gone. Let’s hope a thousand young bass players pick up where he left off. We could use some more funk on the bottom.

And now, links!

The Delivery Presents – The Tea Party Avengers

Posted: 14 May 2012 07:25 AM PDT

I really did have an entirely different set of notes for the first half of Episode 146, but tossed them all out the window when I learned that the Tea Parties had knocked off perma-Senator Dick Lugar. You may not know who Lugar is nor why it’s a big deal that after January, he won’t be drawing a paycheck from the taxpayers anymore, but after you listen to the show this week, you’ll know everything you need to mount your own voter rebellion against the professional politicians who have come to believe that they and not we are in charge.

I slipped into my Pure Geek outfit for the second half. I really like that particular outfit — I am a geek by birth and upbringing — and it’s nice to get away from politics for a few minutes and talk about the fun parts of life. So, you’ll get some Avengers talk, an early review of my new iPhone, and some hockey love just in time for the second round of the playoffs. Note that the show was recorded before My Beloved Capitals bowed out, so there will be less pain and far more optimism in my voice than you’d expect.

I also co-hosted Strictly Right last week with Ben Swenson. Andrew Lawton, man about town, was down for the day, and I was glad to jump in and help out. Take a listen!

The Delivery - Episode 146

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