The best photo of the iridescent cloud phenomenon I've seen yet

It looks like the remains of a contrail from a plane that seriously lost it's way.

How about a visit to a trout stream.

A calming prospect for a Thursday afternoon.

Good question

Just shutting down the NSA for awhile would be reason enough for me.

Secession talk is getting more mainstream.

Rasmussen reports 17% of people support some form of secession. 

Here is seems to be splitting up states into their blue and red parts, as the two ideological extremes don't want to live with each other.

Further,  it isn't that much of a jump for people to start to consider seriously complete secession, or forming a whole new country out of one or more states.

I don't know if that is consistent or inconsistent with historical data, but to me it seems that if almost one fifth of people are so dissatisfied with how things are going that they think this way, there is trouble a-brewing.

Witness the fruits of electing a Socialist president who convinced the gullible that he was going to heal the country of it's divisions, yet instead widened them.

During Ted Cruz' filibuster, Mitch McConnell's phone lines were overwhelmed with calls, so folks resorted to leaving comments on his facebook page.

They were almost all highly critical of McConnell's lack of support for Cruz.  Some examples:

Ginger Cochran
Where were you last night, Senator? No where in sight and working to undermine Senator Ted Cruz.

Chad Johnson
Courage????? where were you when Ted Cruz was fighting to stop this monster!
If you do not, you are finished in politics, we will send you packing!

Elska Watts
Shame on your Senator McConnell a vote for cloture is a vote for Obamacare, did you run on voting in Obamacare? Are you supporting your voters wants? Turn your vote around and support Ted Cruz and Mike Lee!

Richard Thomas
You sir, are a total sell-out of the people of this country.

Anita Short
We stand with Senator Cruz! If you are not supporting him you are against us and will be voted out! Do the right thing and DEFUND OBAMACARE!!!!!

Craig Peters
Shame on you. Stop spreading lies and fear

Kristen Peterson
if you don’t vote NO on cloture McConnell, consider your political career FINITO!!

Terri Crockford
Defund Obamacare listen to the people for a change.

Carl C. Norman
Stop with the diversion, you need to vote NO to cloture to really want to defund Obamacare. We see what you are doing and we will work hard to see you lose in the next primary.

Debi Lester Doyle
DO NOT VOTE FOR CLOTURE TO CLOSE THE DEBATE UNTIL THERE IS A GUARANTEE OF A CLEAN VOTE FOR THE HOUSE CR. If you are not standing with Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, you are standing with Harry Reid and propping up Obamacare!

The Tea Party's message to the country club Republicans: "DO YOU HEAR ME NOW?!"

Here's a little something that Chrissy Matthews ought to keep in mind.

Since he likes to win the Godwin rule award so often.

Maybe this is why the government is buying all that ammo.

 From CNBC, of all places, on the debt and the effect of interest rates on our national ability to pay it.

   "As of today, interest rates are rising, and if this is a turning point, it is a major one.

Rates in the U.S. peaked in 1980 (remember the 14 percent Treasury bonds?) so if we are at the point of reversing a 33-year downward trend, who wants to predict how this will affect the economy?

One thing is clear: Based on CBO projections, if interest rates just rise to their 20-year average, we will have an untenable, unacceptable interest rate bill whose beneficiaries are China, Japan, and others who own our bonds.

And if Americans find out that the lion's share of their income tax payments are going to service the debt, prepare for a new American revolution. "

Once the rates make the debt unaffordable, or when the taxpayers realize their money is simply servicing the outrageous debt, or when the parasites learn their Obamaphones are now off, along with their EBT cards, or any combination of the above, there will be hell to pay.  That would be a true TEOTWAWKI moment, and all the preppers would be in "I told you so," mode.

Celebrity time travelers.

That Nicolas Cage one is pretty spooky.

The temperature is rising, but it's not global warming.

Modoc County joins Siskiyou in a bid for secession from California.

First of all, the chit is really taking a run at the fan.

Second, all of California north and east of Sacramento and Mendocino has nothing really in common with the rest of the state, and likely has no desire to follow it into the pit.  Sounds like it's time for the new state of Shasta to organize, or Jefferson, as they term it here.

   “This is going to have to be something the people bring forward,” Byrne said. “It’s going to have to be from the bottom up, not from the top down.”

The move makes Modoc the second county to join in the fight to form the State of Jefferson in less than a month. Siskiyou County passed a measure to start the secession process at the supervisor’s Sept. 3 meeting.

Mark Baird, a spokesperson for the Jefferson Declaration Committee, said the group hopes to have a dozen counties commit their support before asking California legislators to allow the formation of the new state.

“California is essentially ungovernable in its present size,” Baird said. “We lack the representation to address the problems that affect the North State.”

“We’re looking for 12 counties, though we can certainly do it with less,” he said.

If all goes according to plan, Baird said the new state’s economy could be 15 percent larger than that of New Mexico."

I'm sure the new state will enjoy releasing business from the insane regulatory and tax burden, and avoid the whole pander to the illegal immigrants.  Let them ruin the rest of the state, and see how many more counties ultimately petition to join.

Paul Rahe tags the significance of the Ted Cruz speech.

 Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.  The whole thing is worth a read, but this is the meat of it.

 "What the hearties in the House are doing — and what Ted Cruz is doing — is signaling to the discontented that there really is another way. They can vote Republican in 2014; and, if they do so big time, there will be a correction of course.

The leadership of the Republican Party hates this. Like Jeb Bush in early 2009, they want “to get beyond Reagan.” They want to surrender on immigration; they have designed a Republican healthcare bill that is little more than Romneycare writ large; and they desperately want to make nice with the Democrats. They do not really want a change of course. They merely want to take their turn as managers of the administrative entitlements state. They want to take advantage of discontent without having to commit themselves to a reduction in the size and scope of the government.

If they hate Ted Cruz — if behind the scenes they are feeding the media attacks on him — it is because he is threatening to throw a monkey wrench into the works. They hated the Tea Party. Initially, in 2009, they tried to dismiss it and get on with the process of surrendering to the Democrats on the healthcare question; and then, in August 2009, all hell broke loose in the town meetings, and Charles Grassley and the rest of them found that they had to back off. The Republican tide of 2010 kept them cornered, but the Tea Party folks did not have a plausible candidate to run for the nomination in 2012 and the whole thing subsided. Now the regulars are once again fully in charge — and along comes this maniac Cruz who threatens to revive the fervor of the Tea Party and force the Republicans to move in the direction of smaller government."

This explains a lot of the reaction we are seeing from both the Democrats and the Rinos.

Like

Cabin Porn

High class edition.

I guess the war is off now.

But they will still blame the hapless Republicans for everything.

It's only Tuesday and it already feels like this

PS: I'm the dog in this story.

No muslims are shooting up her shopping mall