Obama's Vote

Now you tell me, is this report on Barry in Iraq accurate or just willfully distorting the truth? One paragraph should be all that's needed.

The Illinois senator, who voted against the March 2003 war to topple Saddam Hussein, is in Iraq at a time when violence has fallen to a four-year low -- partly on the back of the controversial troop "surge" which he had strongly opposed.

Now where exactly did he make that vote? He wasn't in the senate, so how did he make that vote?

According the wiki page on him he didn't start his tenure until January 4, 2005.

Good ole fact checking at the AFP.

Canadian "Human Rights" Censorship Commision

Always wonderful to hear Canadian courts taking out free speech on the side of the loser that started the whole problem in the first place. It may not be nice to be cruel or really rude to a heckler, but as far as I'm concerned, if you don't want to hear it, don't start it.

He claims it was his dedication to his art that led to the events at Vancouver’s Zesty’s Restaurant on May 22, 2007; he wanted some hecklers to give the evening’s final open mic comic a break. He told Pajamas Media it’s something he’s done countless times before as an MC:

I’ve said some awfully derogatory remarks to people who show no respect to a live stage show. My remarks are meant to shock and silence an unruly, disruptive group or person. I have generally offended a few people over the years but I never regret it because it is a function of being in a live and dynamic show and my jabs never come unsolicited. I can be accused of acting in poor taste but I cannot be accused of hating.

The Vancouver Sun tried to sort out the “he saids” and “she saids” of the booze-fueled event, but only Earle agreed to speak on the record:

Earle said he was the show’s MC when [Lorna] Pardy and two of her friends walked in, sat in the booth closest to the stage, and began heckling him and other comics.

“Two of them started making out, flipping me the bird, and saying I hated lesbians,” he said.

Earle said Pardy misconstrued some of his remarks and took others out of context.

“They were drunk, they were being jerks, and I was very rude and visceral to them because, like I said, if you have a heckler, what you want to do is put them in their place by offending them, so I tried to hit them where it hurts and the only thing I had to key on was the fact that they were lesbians.”

Earle says the women threw drinks in his face, and he admits he broke Pardy’s sunglasses. It wasn’t pretty and it sure wasn’t comedy. The sorry situation sounds like a matter for the management, or maybe the police. But the British Columbia Human Rights Commission?

No doubt the comedian will lose to this thin-skinned harpy. Canadian justice at its finest no doubt.

This is the same commission that is trying to take Steyn out. Frankly the US should do something in response regarding things that originate in our land of freedom.

Read the rest.

Childish in Frisco

I constantly read news from California and nearly always come to the conclusion that they either need a spanking or a lecture on when it's time to grow up. Here is one that tops the list of stupidity.

San Francisco voters will be asked to decide whether to name a city sewage plant in honor of President Bush, after a satiric measure qualified for the November ballot Thursday.

Backers of the measure, who for several months circulated a petition to place the measure on the ballot, turned in more than 12,000 signatures on July 7, said organizer Brian McConnell. The Department of Elections on Thursday informed those supporters, the self-proclaimed Presidential Memorial Commission, that they had enough valid signatures - a minimum of 7,168 registered San Francisco voters - to qualify for the November ballot.

McConnell, who came up with the idea over beers with friends, often donned an Uncle Sam outfit to drum up support for the petition. The all-volunteer group of signature gatherers often carried around an American flag and blasted patriotic music from a boom box to attract attention. He said the campaign to pass the measure will be an equally grassroots effort.

The measure, if passed, would rename the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant the George W. Bush Sewage Plant. McConnell said the intent is to remember the Bush administration and what the group sees as the president's mistakes, including the war in Iraq.

Yes, the rest of the country gets you message loud and clear. If I can't have it my way I'll whine and call you names until you change.

Maybe the rest of the country should break down and make California a synonym for cry-baby.

Mayor Daley and Other Morons

SayUncle linked this, but he only spoke of one moron. The quoted morons in this are frightening.

“This is not really an issue about the Constitution, the Second Amendment. It’s really about personal safety,” Prof. Charles Ogletree of the Harvard University School of Law told The Final Call. “It’s about the integrity of a process where we don’t have peace. We have hundreds of millions of guns in the United States today, almost as many guns circulating as there are people.

“And that just tells me, that’s not an answer to the problem. It hasn’t been an answer in any other country in the universe. And I just hope that we don’t regret the day, that we’re applauding the fact that we’re armed like the criminals, but it doesn’t solve a problem, it just creates a bigger problem, accidental shootings and other risks, particularly to our children and our families,” said Prof. Ogletree.

Not just the world, but the UNIVERSE. Damn!

And it is about the constitution and allowing people to use their right to self-defense in this specific case with a firearm. He seems to think that the ownership of a firearm can have absolutely no affect on personal safety. Well, good for him, hope he never needs one when he doesn't have one. Personally, I'll exercise my right.

Then there is Mayor Daley:

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley called the ruling “very frightening” and vowed to vigorously fight any attempt to invalidate that city’s gun ban.

“Does this lead to everyone having a gun in our society?” Mr. Daley asked June 27, according to published reports. “If (the justices) think that’s the answer, then they’re greatly mistaken. Then why don’t we do away with the court system and go back to the Old West, you have a gun and I have a gun and we’ll settle it in the streets?” said Mr. Daley.

Sorry, the Supremes never made any decision about whether guns were the answer to violence. They merely answered the question of whether it was a constitutionally protected right. That is all they did. Daley may want to take a second and calm down and actually talk about what happened rather than whine about what the effect is.

Next Idiot:

The decision contained some bad news and some good news, D.C. officials said. “The bad news is no handgun in your home is going to remain in your home,” D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton told Pacifica Radio’s “Democracy Now!” “These handguns—first of all, handguns in the home, according to the data, are used primarily for suicides and for friend to friend domestic violence.”

They don't stay in the home? I've never seen any of mine move, so I'm a bit dubious as to their ability to move otherwise. Or maybe she means that a person could perform an illegal act and steel them. But wait there's more:

“This court, which calls itself a conservative, strict constructionist court, simply reached around that, called it a preamble and said the use of the words ‘militia’ and ‘people’ was about individual rights. When you look at all of the amendments, six other amendments, the word ‘people’ is used, it is referring collectively, usually to the states,” Ms. Norton said.

Collective rights? You've got to be kidding me. No other right is seen as a collective right. I agree with SayUncle, if DC reps are this stupid then they really shouldn't be allowed the rights of a state.

Tired of Apologies

I'm really tired of this political tactic of holding the candidate responsible for people's statements that aren't directly concerned with their campaign. I don't see any problem about them being asked about it, but when they have to do "damage control" related to someone else's remarks, that's just foolish.

But a day after a top McCain economic adviser dismissed the nation's struggles as a "mental recession," the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's message landed with a thud, as workers sat in stony silence.

McCain was already running into a stiff headwind because of an ailing economy, and his task became tougher after former Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, suggested the United States has "become a nation of whiners."

Gramm, who has helped shape McCain's presidential campaign and is a close friend of the candidate, expressed no regret Thursday for the comments he made in an interview with the Washington Times, saying: "I'm not going to retract any of it. Every word I said was true."

The McCain campaign quickly shifted into damage-control mode, distancing the candidate from his friend's assessment.

Gramm "does not speak for me. I speak for me. I strongly disagree," McCain said in Belleville just as Gramm was wrapping up a discussion with The Wall Street Journal editorial board about the candidate's economic program.

Personally, I think McCain is wrong. This country has slowly crept into a country of whiners who can't see beyond their own desires and feelings. I find it fascinating though that he sounds like he's having to defend himself from the statement, which makes one wonder what the question really was.

As for the "mental recession" it sounds right to me, since most of the reported indicators show a slowed economy but not a recession. Should I also mention the fact that we'd have to have gone through three down quarters to qualify, and we haven't been through one yet? Maybe it's coming, but the mind set is sinking in that we are in collapse and people don't actually care to look at the facts.

I'd also like to throw the fear-mongering flag at the Dems who are now raving about the economy being so poor. Isn't that the same tactic that they themselves call fear-mongering when the Repubs use it with regards to National Security? Or is it ok to do that for the economy or global-warming? Sorry, both sides play the game, they just use different sticks.

Obsoleting the Second Amendment

I found this at the Volokh Conspiracy, they discuss legal stuff around it, but I think the writer of this article is completely clueless when attaching his descriptions of non-lethal defense mechanisms to the problems of self-defense.

The states impose carefully defined limitations on the use of deadly force in self-defense. (These rules are fairly uniform, state to state; most are based on the American Law Institute’s Model Penal Code of 1962.) A person may use only as much force as is “immediately necessary.” If a less lethal means of defense is available, the use of deadly force is illegal. Firearms are by law deadly force. (The police are given somewhat greater authority to use force, even aggressive force.)

Guns have been considered a primary weapon for self-defense. But now there are nonlethal alternatives — some not yet on the market — that can quickly disable an attacker even more reliably than a firearm can.

The best known of these are Tasers, handgun-shaped devices that fire a dart that delivers a painful electrical shock. A hit from a Taser causes an instant muscular spasm that can disable any attacker, no matter how determined. And the Taser works no matter where on the attacker’s body the dart hits. A bullet, in contrast, instantly disables only if it hits a couple of vulnerable spots, like the space between the eyes. A shot to the arm, the leg or even the torso may not stop an attacker.

First, it would have been nice if he had thought to discuss what "immediately necessary" means to the person being attacked. Being assailed in your home by an unknown entity with unknown intentions in an extremely short time span doesn't give one a lot of time to analyze what is reasonable or necessary. It also leaves other issues in the unknown which he completely ignores, such as is there a second assailant on the premise.

Which leads me to the next point of how very useless the taser is against multiple attackers. Especially if they have a gun. Yep, you tased the first scum bag, now the second is shooting at you. That taser is now worthless. But sure, we should have laws that leave you as the weakest in such a conflict. Makes sense when you lobotomize yourself and follow this guys logic.

Newer kinds of hand-held weapons that are less lethal than guns — many already in prototype — may be even more effective than Tasers. These include light lasers, designed to blind temporarily, and microwave beams that instantly cause the skin to feel as if it is on fire, but cause no lasting harm.

Of course, anyone who uses a gun in self-defense may argue that he would have used a less lethal weapon if he had had one at hand, but there was only the firearm. The problem with this argument is that the limited option is the person’s choice, and the law may not be blind to that choice

Another limited thought game. I'm sure those less than lethals will never have anyone figuring out a way to counter them. Never happens in any other contexts. Hackers never have figured how to get by firewalls (trojans, viruses etc.) The military has never had to obsolete weapons because some one has figured out a way to defeat them or get around them now have they?

If you are a surgeon and you leave your glasses behind on the way to the operating room, then botch a delicate procedure, you can’t convince a judge that the resulting death wasn’t your fault because you couldn’t see well. If, on your way to confront an intruder, you choose your gun rather than your more effective but less lethal weapon, you can hardly complain later about your limited options.

Incredibly poor analogy. Surgeons aren't awoken in the middle of the night with their life threatened in order to perform surgery. This is an argument so close to blaming the victim for the attack that its pathetic. If I'm attacked, why should I have to be the one showing extreme caution. I'm not acting illegally or seeking to harm anyone intentionally. I'm trying to protect my life and that of my family. If you have chosen to violate my rights you have chosen to lose yours.

Similarly, when a person shops for a weapon of self-defense, anticipating some day a confrontation with an attacker, his choice of a gun over something less lethal but more effective is a choice to limit his options in a confrontation.

Should we worry that by expecting people to use only nonlethal weapons in self-defense we would sacrifice our personal autonomy and safety? No. On the contrary, personal autonomy would be even more vigilantly protected.

I love the whole logic that the killer or thief has some right to life above your own. How is it that the victim has to respect the assailants rights over their own? I also would love to see his logic that these less-than-lethal weapons are more effective. I'm betting that someone racking their shotgun is more likely to have a non-lethal interaction with an assailant than their fingering their taser. And how exactly is personal autonomy more vigilantly protected? I don't see any justification of the point.

But I'll say where he's wrong, he misses the point that he assumes that all these non-lethals will cover all of the various scenarios that a person may be put into and he also assumes that a gun can't cover them all and do so more effectively. That is not a set of assumptions I wish to risk my life with.

The reason for this is a second limitation on the use of defensive force, what might be called the “proportionality” requirement. Typically, a defender can lawfully use deadly force only to prevent death, rape, kidnapping or bodily injury serious enough to cause long-term loss or impairment of a body part or organ. But a nondeadly weapon can be used to defend against any threat of unlawful force.

I always love the "proportionality" requirement. Generally a useless bit of logic in a situation where you are the one being attacked by an unknown assailant for unknown reasons. Makes you wonder what this dolt thinks is reasonable. Someone has broken into your home and you have to figure out if he's there to rape or kill or kidnap you. I wonder how he would determine such a thing? And since he never addressed any of the problems of the non-lethal defenses or the ability of the assailant to avoid such devices, how can he say that a gun isn't appropriate?

The writer also seems to avoid some very interesting trends away from his logic being enacted in states across the country. Even the most liberal states have decided that the extreme retreat requirements are not logical. The castle doctrines being further enacted in more and more states are reactions to such poor logic as this guy applies to what is reasonable for the defender.

This article's logic may be sufficient for those who have lots of money and live in nice places, but it completely ignores the realities of most of peoples lives.

Reruns

Someone tell me what is new here, because all I see is the MSM playing politics in rehashing information that isn't new merely to benefit a political agenda.

US interrogators questioning detainees at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base employed harsh techniques borrowed directly from the Communist Chinese during the Korean War, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

The daily reported that military trainers at Guantanamo in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart created from a 1957 Air Force study on Communist Chinese methods.

The harsh questioning techniques were used by the Chinese to obtain confessions from American prisoners, including many false ones, the daily reported.

The chart, made public at a June 17 US Senate hearing, detailed the effects of "coercive management techniques" such as "sleep deprivation," "prolonged constraint," and "exposure."

Oh, I suppose it must be that the MSM brain trust figured out that these previously reported methods once were used in Korea. Who cares?

Then they go to their master of intelligence Carl Levin for a quote:

"These were techniques to get false confessions," US Senator Carl Levin was quoted as saying in the Times.

"People say we need intelligence, and we do. But we don't need false intelligence," he said.

Being an expert on interrogations, or not, Carl makes the assumption that many in the MSM and the left keep making, that our intelligence services are full of people as stupid as they are. No Doubt Carl will be breaking out the fluffy pillows and giving those trying to kill us more hugs to make them happy and not want to kill us.

Idiots.