Obama's Second Amendment - Eric Holder

David Kopel puts together an excellent description of Eric Holder with regards to gun control. If Obama thinks this is a convincing move to support his claim that he supports the second amendment, I think we can continue to believe him a liar, or at least a politician, which is about the same thing.

As Deputy Attorney General, Holder was a strong supporter of restrictive gun control. He advocated federal licensing of handgun owners, a three day waiting period on handgun sales, rationing handgun sales to no more than one per month, banning possession of handguns and so-called "assault weapons" (cosmetically incorrect guns) by anyone under age of 21, a gun show restriction bill that would have given the federal government the power to shut down all gun shows, national gun registration, and mandatory prison sentences for trivial offenses (e.g., giving your son an heirloom handgun for Christmas, if he were two weeks shy of his 21st birthday). He also promoted the factoid that "Every day that goes by, about 12, 13 more children in this country die from gun violence"--a statistic is true only if one counts 18-year-old gangsters who shoot each other as "children."(Sources: Holder testimony before House Judiciary Committee, Subcommitee on Crime, May 27,1999; Holder Weekly Briefing, May 20, 2000. One of the bills that Holder endorsed is detailed in my 1999 Issue Paper "Unfair and Unconstitutional.")

Read the whole thing. And you should follow the links. If this isn't indicative of a policy that is going to cause major damage to gun owner rights, I'd love to know what it is indicative of.

With this guy as Attorney General can we expect more Janet Reno type actions? Waco and Ruby Ridge seem to leap to mind. God forbid you have a license to carry. The police then will all have standing orders to use paramilitary force to serve warrants. And I'm sure with all that restraint and automatic weapons no one will die.

Wonder where he stands on all those wonderful last minute pardons? Hopefully he'll be taken through the gauntlet during the hearings irrespective of the pass that Patrick Leahy has already given him.

Speaking on the Senate floor, Leahy said that Holder "would bring the kind of leadership, temperament, experience and judgment we need to restore the rule of law and rebuild the reputation of the Department of Justice so that it is worthy of its name."

Restore the rule of law? Nice. I'm going to bet that Ruby Ridge was just fine with Leahy. And letting rich tax evaders off the hook for a nice contribution isn't an issue either.

India's Moon Adventure

I saw this linked at Drudge. Interesting article. Especially since the Indian officials seem to think their achievement is comparable to the space technology developments performed by the USA or USSR. Get this:

Experts said it was a significant feat because India's moonshot was successful in the very first attempt — something that even major space powers like the US and Russia could not achieve. The man who launched the Indian moon mission, Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan, had said, "It's undoubtedly a great moment for India because nearly 50% of the moon missions of other countries have not been successful."

Right. Lets see. India is using computers that were only a dream in 1969. Rocket technology has existed for how many years? I seem to recall that the USA and USSR had to take the primitive rocket technologies from the Gremans and make it viable.

Should we discuss the modern power technologies? How about modern aerospace material technologies?

And they go there unmanned and the USA went there manned. So how about those technologies that they didn't have to develop? Life support, heating, food storage, water usage?

Good for India. Welcome to the Moon, fifty years after those that actually did all the real work go there.

Data Integrity and Global Warming

I'm still fascinated that this happened at all. You'd think that with data base management and programming that this government agency would be capable of the most simplistic of auditioning functions. Apparently the Algorithms top cheerleader has again proven to be untrustworthy.

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.

Their explanation is just pathetic.

A GISS spokesman lamely explained that the reason for the error in the Russian figures was that they were obtained from another body, and that GISS did not have resources to exercise proper quality control over the data it was supplied with. This is an astonishing admission: the figures published by Dr Hansen's institute are not only one of the four data sets that the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relies on to promote its case for global warming, but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others.

So how much of the data they've been feeding into the debate is absolute rubbish? Who knows. And since no one really knows doesn't this make it reasonable for a demand for audit of the methods and data? If this was a business this would have been a reason for people to be investigated. I'm guessing nothing will occur.

You Can't Make This Shit Up

Caught this at damnum absque injuria. I'm pretty much stunned. From the original article:

As he prepares to take office, President-elect Barack Obama is relying on a small team of advisers who will lead his transition operation and help choose the members of a new Obama administration. Following is part of a series of profiles of potential members of the administration.

Name: Jamie S. Gorelick

Being considered for: Attorney general, but associates now say she is not interested in being considered for the job.

Would bring to the job: A wide-ranging Washington résumé that spans corporate, legal and national security affairs. Ms. Gorelick (pronounced Guh-REH-lick) was the No. 2 official at the Justice Department in the Clinton administration, from 1994 to 1997, and if chosen would be the second woman to be named attorney general, following her former boss, Janet Reno. Ms. Gorelick would also bring corporate experience to an Obama administration at a time of financial crisis.

Gorelick for Attorney General? WTF?! This fucking imbecile who put up walls between every intelligence agency and law enforcement agency frustrating any effort to even detect the 9/11 attack, who then sat on the 9/11 commission is up to make a further distaster of the justice deparment is stunning.

Want more entertainment, here's some more of her CV:

Used to work as: Vice chairwoman at Fannie Mae, the giant mortgage lender, where she was paid a reported $25.6 million in salary and other compensation from 1998 to 2003. She went on to join the Washington law firm Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale & Dorr as a partner, where she has represented a range of clients, including Duke University in defending claims brought against it by some of its lacrosse players in a highly publicized rape investigation. She was a Democratic appointee on the 10-member commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks.

With a midas touch like that, I'm sure she won't be another Reno. No Waco's or Ruby Ridges coming.

Who ever considered this train wreck for the position should be shit canned immediately.

I Smell Peanuts

Well, the nannying will begin shortly, though with a minor road-block in the senate. Let's hope the last bit of gridlock allows some sanity. I know it won't block much, but a coarse shit filter is better than none.

I have to agree, for the most part, with Jay Tea over at Wizbang:

Economy a bit on the shaky side: Check

Very unpopular Republican president blamed for the loss of his (would-be) successor: Check

Trouble with Iran brewing: Check

Energy crisis: Check

Smiling, cheerful national newcomer Democrat elected as president:<Check

Career Washington insider elected as vice-president: Check

Russians/Soviets feeling belligerent and expansionistic: Check

Man, we are so screwed...

I don't think we are screwed, but we will be in for some unpleasant times. Hopefully Obama won't make as much of a mess as Jemma did.

Bail Outs and Golden Parachutes

Can't say I agree with a lot of the noise about restricting pay or parachutes for CEOs from the failing or failed banks/lending institutions. I think these things come in different parts that no one seems to want to separate.

First, if one company buys another failing company, usually they purge the managers who oversaw the failure. That is normal. Frankly, I think the politicians need to require that of any bank they bail out of this fiasco. You screwed up, you're gone BEFORE we bail you out.

Then there is the notion of restricting the pay of the new management. That strikes me as foolhardy. I could care less as to what is viewed as obscene. Especially from the context of what politicians make compared to their effectiveness. Do we really want politicians defining what is just compensation? Well, I suppose many Dems/Progressives do. Personally I think the pay should be bound to performance. But that doesn't happen, because in these institutions too much of the profit is directly tied to uncertainties that the manager just can't control.

I think some of the packages, particularly the massive separation packages for failed CEOs and even those of successful CEOs ($400M for departing Exxon-Mobile CEO) are obscene.

However - and this is important here - it is more obscene, nay unconstitutional, for the federal government to be entertaining the directing pay and compensation for private sector employees not on its own payroll. Laws on minimum wage are one thing, but putting a government imposed ceiling on earnings in a capitalist free-market economy smacks of class warfare and incremental socialism.

Incremental socialism indeed. We've had that creeping malignancy clawing into this country for a long time and I don't see any push back. I'm tired of seeing the government wanting to tell everyone what to do all the time. Both sides of the aisle play the game, just in different ways. The only problem is that the citizenry are the ones that end up paying.

Then there is the idea of a profit to be made by this whole bailout scheme. (link via the GeekWife)

There is a saying on Wall Street that goes, "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent." Long Term Capital Management learned this lesson 10 years ago when it got its portfolio picked off by Wall Street as its short-term financing dried up. I had thought the opposite -- hedge funds picking off Wall Street -- would happen today. But in a weird twist, it's the government that is set up to win the prize.

Here's how: As short-term financing dried up, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's deteriorating financials threatened to trigger some $1.4 trillion in credit default swap payments that no one, including giant insurer AIG, had the capital to make good on. So Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson put Fannie and Freddie into conservatorship. This removed any short-term financing hassle. He also put up $85 billion in loan guarantees to AIG in exchange for 80% of the company.

Taxpayers will get their money back on AIG. My models suggest that Fannie and Freddie, on the other hand, are a gold mine. For $2 billion in cash up front and some $200 billion in loan guarantees so far, the U.S. government now controls $5.4 trillion in mortgages and mortgage guarantees.

Fannie and Freddie each own around $800 million in mortgage loans, some of them already at discounted values. They also guarantee the credit-worthiness of another $2.2 trillion and $1.6 trillion in mortgage-backed securities. Held to maturity, they may be worth a lot more than Mr. Paulson paid for them. They're called distressed securities for a reason.

My concern is for what will be done with the "profit." Let's see... We didn't have the money to actually pay for this bail out, and when we make a profit off of the non-existent money, not to mention the return of that money, where exactly will those funds go? I'm going to be really really cynical and place a big wager on they will SPEND it. They being the politicians. Not that we haven't seen similar things before, like say the spending of the Clinton era "surplus" which never came into existence. I understand the S&L debacle was profitable as well. Wonder where all that cash went? I certainly do. (Guess I'll have to try and search the internet for that answer. Though I have a suspicion that it was spent and not utilized on deficit reduction or anything intelligent.)

Read that article it's fairly interesting.

Then there is the rants on protecting the homeowners.

The bailout's structure must be altered. While the credit markets must be reassured, homeowners must also receive help to avoid unnecessary foreclosures. The Center for Responsible Lending projects 6.5 million foreclosures in the next several years. This will cause a $356 billion decline in surrounding property values for the 46 million families that live next to foreclosed homes.

Therefore, once the Treasury purchases distressed financial real-estate assets, I strongly urge the government to require mass modifications to owner-occupied home loans. This moderate investment might prevent thousands of foreclosures and considerable economic damage, much as the FDIC is doing with the loans it manages due to the failure of IndyMac bank.

I suppose I have some heartburn over that. Should we be bailing out homeowners who intentionally took on loans they KNEW they couldn't afford? This especially irks me because I wasn't smart enough to jump into this whole bailout scheme. I could have gone and bought a half-million dollar house on sub-prime and then gotten bailed out by the government. (Well, not really. I wouldn't have qualified for any of those loans from what I have discovered.)

I can understand whacking CEOs that frigged up the market legally since they weren't being responsible, but bailing out the bad loans from the other side is hypocrisy on a grand level. CEOs that make big bucks are held accountable, but if you were irresponsible yourself in buying that home, well, you should be forgiven.

Me I'm getting nothing out of any of this. I didn't make a bad loan and I'm not a CEO. So I'm just bitter all around.

Weekend Pictures from the White Mountains

No link. Just some photos.

This one is from Arathusa Falls. It was a knee jarring walk, but the falls were very pretty. I found it strange that people hiked in and only spent a couple of minutes at the falls before wandering back out.


and

Then there was Diana's Bath. Pretty cool place to wander around. Lot's of people though. It was an easy walk, so there were people all over. I managed to have enough patience to wait till some of the better sites emptied out before taking the picture.



And just a random picture. It looks much nicer enlarged. I seem to have things for red maple leaves in pictures.

I think we got lucky with the weekend. This weekend is pretty much just miserable weather wise.

Fact Checking

I generally don't like politicians because they can't ever seem to tell the truth about anything. When I refer to truth I mean unadulterated, in context, fully disclosed truth. I understand that politics is now a blood sport, with nearly no "sport" being included. Then there are blogs and news blogs doing fact checking. I really like them. I really appreciate them. They do the job that takes me too much time while I fight through life.

This article/blog does some fact checking on Barack "Toom Tabard" Obama's recent advertising.

There are some real factual problems with this ad, which is titled “Dos Caras,” or two faces.

First of all, tying Sen. McCain – especially on the issue of immigration reform – to Limbaugh is unfair.

Limbaugh opposed McCain on that issue. Vociferously. And in a larger sense, it’s unfair to link McCain to Limbaugh on a host of issues since Limbaugh, as any even occasional listener of his knows, doesn’t particularly care for McCain.

Second, the quotes of Limbaugh’s are out of context.

Frankly, Limbaugh leaves himself wide open for such abuses. I can't stand Rush. I find him as offensive as any of the lefty talking heads. But, that's because I think he commonly does the same thing with distorting reality. Funny thing about reality is that we all have our own. Rush and Obama have very different versions, but neither of them sit close to where the majority of American's live.

Read the whole thing. It's pretty informative.

NBC Desperately Seeking Integrity

I'm stunned. You mean even the execs at MSNBC have found that Olbermann is just an opinionated blowhard and moved him off of being a Journalist and now just is a commentator? Wow. That took what, a couple of years. With glacial reaction times like that who knows, maybe someone will actually pretend they know what they are doing.

When MSNBC announced the other day that Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews were being replaced as co-anchors of the cable network's nightly political broadcast, the news was widely taken as evidence that the grownups at the parent network are looking to salvage NBC News' reputation for balance. And who can doubt that Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams--who've had to squirm before the likes of Jon Stewart, pretending to be something other than appalled by the nightly goings-on at MSNBC--had a major hand in this move?

Indeed, during the conventions, what heretofore had merely been an embarrassment on MSNBC blossomed into full-blown travesty. While both Olbermann and Matthews had long since revealed themselves on their own shows as lapdogs for Obama, viewers were now treated to the spectacle of the two of them viciously snapping at one another; and, in Olbermann's case, at just about anyone else with what he took to be an errant take on the campaign or anything else.

Funny how the talking heads always want to abuse Fox for it's commentators, but completely fail to notice their own psychotic journalist issues. There are many Bloggers who have more journalistic integrity than Olbermann, and to a lesser extent Matthews. Letting these jerks rave nonsensically about issues without context or even merit and yet continue to hold them up as journalists in good standing is a joke.

Then there is the foolishness and unbalance of interviewing comedians on politics. Note, CNN isn't trying to pass this as a comedic interview. And Maher is about as funny as a flat tire. (Not an unusual thing.) You'll love his "brother" comment about CNN and HBO supporting the "brother" for president.



I dont' quite understand why anyone interviews actors or comedians with respect to news or politics. All the networks do it, but it always is quite pathetic. These people are not brilliant or even moderately intelligent, would I care what they think?

Maher is a comedian, so he's trying for a laugh, so why is he being interviewed as a news item?

I did watch most of Blitzer's show and never saw a right-leaning comedian discuss Obama's campaign. So, is this fair and balanced or just yellow journalism?

Vulnerability Report

You have to love the MSM, and the AssPress in particular. Why is it they never can tell you who is issuing these reports or even what the name of the report is? Who exactly is the "independent commission?"
A shocking study finds that seven years after 9/11, the U.S. remains "dangerously vulnerable" to chemical, biological and nuclear attacks.

The recent political rupture between Russia and the U.S. over the former Soviet state of Georgia has made the war on terror more difficult, the study by an independent commission also says.

The panel is headed by Lee Hamilton, the former congressman who helped lead the 9/11 commission, and other leaders from that disbanded bipartisan group.

"The threat of a new, major terrorist attack on the U.S. is still very real," concludes the report, which is to be released tomorrow, the same day a congressional panel holds a hearing in lower Manhattan on .nuclear and biological terrorism threats.

"A nuclear, chemical or biological weapon in the hands of terrorists remains the single greatest threat to our nation," reports the independent panel.

"While progress has been made in securing these weapons and materials, we are still dangerously vulnerable."

I suppose I'll have to wait for the report since this isn't providing any supporting evidence. I really like the Russian reference, since we all understand that terrorism by megapowers is so much less terrorizing than that of non-state actors. If anyone actually is question if what Russia did isn't terrorism, they may look at the reaction of the Baltic states, Poland, and Ukraine. No doubt they didn't feel threatened and reacted to move away from Russia and closer to the west.

The report describes the failure of international cooperation to prevent terrorists from obtaining weapons of mass destruction. Many countries continue to ignore a UN mandate to prevent the spread of weapons, and the ability of many countries to monitor potential bioterror is "essentially nonexistent," the report says.

What? Those that wrote the report were expecting the UN to be actually effective? Wow, that is simplicity on a grand scale.

Of course, as expected, though they waited till the last paragraph, it's all Bush's fault.

Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, also have a report out today. Written by the staffs of the House Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs committees, its concludes: "The Bush administration has not delivered on myriad critical homeland and national security mandates."

It's got to be true, I mean, they don't have any ability to legislate or anything like that now do they? No doubt Bush could deliver some of the 9/11 commissions more foolish recommendations, but seeing as he already has, why bother pissing away more money on things that won't make anyone any safer. RealID, TSA "improvements" etc. See Schneier for multiple examples.

I suppose I'll need to do a lot of searching to find the report. No doubt it will be screached about all over the MSM today, but we won't actually be given a link to it in the vast majority of reports.

UPDATE:
Well the WSJ actually gives a name for the commission, though it's hard to tell which of the reports it could be discussing. I'm guessing it's the politician's report.

The Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism will hold public hearings during the run-up to the November election. The first, examining the nature of the threat, is to be held Sept. 10 in New York. The commission's final recommendations are due in mid-November.

The odd part of all this is that they never give you any idea of how real the risk is. If the vulnerability were that simple to use, you'd think it would have occurred.

I think WaPo has the actual name of the independent commision:

Seven years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the federal government has made only limited progress toward preventing a catastrophic nuclear, biological or chemical attack on U.S. soil and combating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction abroad, according to a report card to be issued tomorrow by 22 former U.S. officials.

The bipartisan Partnership for a Secure America gave the United States an overall grade of C. The government received in total three D's, eight C's and seven B's in areas such as sustaining support of foreign scientists and governments, integrating programs to prevent nuclear terrorism and strengthening multilateral law enforcement efforts.

Of course, surfing around their website produced nothing. So we can only wait to see what the report card actually states.

Bill Whittle on National Review

Yep, haven't heard much from him at E3, but glad to see him writing.

Big hat tip to GeekWithA.45 for posting the link.

I'm going to read the article now.

UPDATE:

Bill's Best Line:

As for the speech: yes, it was stilted. Awkward in places, true. Ugly background, cheesy flagpole, lack of polish — got it. But as the northerners said of Abraham Lincoln in the first days of the war, when he was mockingly compared to the effortless grace of Jefferson Davis: “We didn’t get him for ballroom purposes.” Damn right we didn’t.

Nice. That is killer perspective. Especially when you look at Barack Fandango Obama out there doing nothing beyond looking pretty. If he isn't making a speech and actually has to think on his feet, he stumbles and stammers. Yeah, I'd prefer a president that is better at reality than ballroom dancing.

Oh, and Bill has a bit of a hello at his site on the article. And he's saying he'll be publishing a longer piece shortly:

I'll have a long-format essay on this incredible campaign in a few days. Look for FOUR CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF A STORY in the near, near future.

Looking forward to that.

Biden's Preservation of the Law

Joe best be watching what he promises. This one would set a precedence that could come back and bite him in the future. (That is if he gets elected.)

Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden said yesterday that he and running mate Barack Obama could pursue criminal charges against the Bush administration if they are elected in November.

Biden's comments, first reported by ABC news, attracted little notice on a day dominated by the drama surrounding his Republican counterpart, Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

But his statements represent the Democrats' strongest vow so far this year to investigate alleged misdeeds committed during the Bush years.

"If there has been a basis upon which you can pursue someone for a criminal violation, they will be pursued," Biden said during a campaign event in Deerfield Beach, Florida, according to ABC.

"[N]ot out of vengeance, not out of retribution," he added, "out of the need to preserve the notion that no one, no attorney general, no president -- no one is above the law."

Not out for retribution, My Ass. If there was workable criminal charges for the President today they should impeach him, not make lame-ass threats for political posture with the fever-swamp left.

Biden again gives a very good reason not to vote for him. If you can't pursue justice in a timely manner, then there is no reason for us to expect you ever will. Anything other than a timely response in negligence. And this is obviously posturing in the most blatantly foolish of means.

You can note that Obama is on the same page:

Obama sounded a similar note in April, vowing that if elected, he would ask his attorney general to initiate a prompt review of Bush-era actions to distinguish between possible "genuine crimes" and "really bad policies".

"[I]f crimes have been committed, they should be investigated," Obama told the Philadelphia Daily News. "You're also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt, because I think we've got too many problems we've got to solve."

Just remember that Barry, because no doubt the next Repug president will be investigating you for vague and unsubstantiated crimes. And it won't be for retribution either, right?

Whakos Move to Repub Infomercial

Not a big surprise that they are acting more violently to the the repugs. Usual BS you expect from those with throw back ideas to the Fascist era.

Protesters smashed windows, punctured car tires and threw bottles Monday during an anti-war march to the site of the Republican National Convention. Police used pepper spray in confrontations with demonstrators and arrested five.

Instead of the single coherent march that organizers had hoped for, fringe groups of anarchists and others wrought havoc along the streets between the state Capitol and the Xcel Energy Center where the convention was taking place.

I wonder if the MSM will give the police more credit this week for restraint than they did last week.

UPDATE:

Well, I'm not surprised.

Nothing like good ole rhetorical license to distort reality.

News of Sarah Palin and Hurricane Gustav has eclipsed a series of police raids that took place in the Twin Cities over the weekend, in which FBI agents and local law enforcement detained six people on suspicion of conspiracy to riot at the Republican National Convention. The detainees have not been formally charged with any crime and their lawyers are in court today seeking their release. There were no such pre-emptive arrests of protesters at the Democratic Convention in Denver last week.

The raids started Friday night with gun-toting officers entering an anarchist headquarters in downtown St. Paul, known as a “convergence space.” The occupants, ordered to lie on the floor, demanded to see a warrant, as heard on the audio on this not-very-revealing video.

So, it is interesting that they state there were no pre-emptive arrests in Denver, but never state whether the police or any LEO had any worry about such an issue there. I love the bit about "gun-toting" police. I've never heard of the police not having guns with them during an arrest. What do you thing the writer was trying to imply? Oh and the demands for a warrant without ever stating whether one was served or not again implies something nefarious on the police's part, though no evidence of wrong doing is shown. In fact they later state that the warant was served.

I have to say I don't like the ninja cops things and many of the problems LEOs face, but this is supposedly a journalistic report and the work is so shoddy that it's rather pathetic.

Shame on the Left

I think I first saw this discussed at SayUncle. I hadn't heard of this since I don't tend to bother with the stupidity of the DailyKos. (Nor will I link those losers.)

This is from Townhall.com.

Members of the lefty blogosphere haven't stopped perpetuating the rumor Sarah Palin "faked" her last pregnancy and are now humiliating her daughter Bristol on the blatantly incorrect suspicion she is the real mother of baby Trig. "Sarah Palin is NOT the Mother" is the title of this DailyKos blog that accuses Bristol, a completely fit-looking adolescent teen, of having a baby bump" in a photo they allege was taken March 9th of this year.

"Sarah, I'm calling you a liar" wrote blogger ArcXIX. "And not even a good one. Trig Paxson Van Palin is not your son. He is your grandson. The sooner you come forward with this revelation to the public, the better. " Photos of Bristol with detailed commentary about her abdomen are contained in the post.

And I did remove the embedded links.

I'm still waiting for some truth to be stated, but I'm not expecting any. Funny how the left so loudly screech about "swift boating" when they pull stunts like this. The Swift Boaters were at least 85% factual according to the analysis I've read. (Some said more. Some said less. But at least they had demonstrably factual parts.)

Funny how the Dems and the left love to point and shout about hypocrisy on the right, but wallow in it when they come to play.

UPDATE:
Oh, Wait. Apparently they really were wrong.

Weekend Walk

No link, just a picture.


I took my girlfriend M. up for a walk in Pawtuckaway state park. This is on one of the nicer views on North Mountain. These "bushes" in the foreground are actually tree tops. Full sized trees.

It was a nice walk other than it was a bit much for M. It starts out through the appropriately Named "Devil's Den" and then is fairly easy. Well, I find it fairly easy. But that could just be that I don't know how people define these hikes. Funny thing is, I've never met anyone climbing up the hill in Devil's Den, only down.

That's M standing out on a granite knob in the park. The camera we brought was a POS so the photo didn't come out very well, but it's ok for this I suppose.

I bought us some trekking poles, which you can see she has. I don't think she quite got the hang of using them, but I do think they helped on the downward slopes. I know I liked them just for the aid in balancing and getting some of the abuse off of my knees. (The first one who says I'm getting old gets to have me give them the torn cartiledge that I have.)

The mosquitoes were horrid and even the bug spray wasn't the best of a help. But, when it was breezy they weren't so bad.

Anatomy or Jounalistic Malfeasance

Pajamas Media gives us this one. I saw this and didn't thing much of it, because frankly, I saw it was a code-stinker and was during a protest, so I just assumed the police were in fact doing the right thing. I didn't think it was the brightest thing, but understandable. Personally, I think he should have just grabbed her and cuffed her right there and added her to the original arrest.

But then, the code-stink protester was an imbecile for wallowing in her own sudden, it illusory fame and stuck around to gloat. If she had walked away, she would clearly have won.

It's not excessively long, and I think overall it is a balanced report compared to what you may have originally read or saw. They don't even mention that in one of the videos you can catch the code-stinker waving something at the police horse and it gets jumpy. (Also interesting to watch them walk the horses in a circle around the arrest group. Wonder if that helps keep the horses calmer and make it harder for anyone to interfere.)

Mickey Moore Cheering on God

That Malignant Michigan Moron Michael Moore is pontificating again.

To liberal documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, the bounds are seemingly endless. Moore has made a recent career out of attacking President George W. Bush, bashing conservatives and criticizing business. His latest outrage occurred on MSNBC’s August 29 “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” and when he commented about the coincidental timing of an unfortunate disaster – the potential for Hurricane Gustav to make landfall at the beginning of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn.

“I was just thinking, this Gustav is proof that there is a God in heaven,” Moore said, laughing. “To have it planned at the same time – that it would actually be on its way to New Orleans for day one of the Republican Convention, up in the Twin Cities – at the top of the Mississippi River.”

Of course this was all on Keith Olbermann's show. No doubt he's hoping that they can blame all the deaths on Bush and now McCain.

You know, the nice thing about the prospect of the "Fairness" doctrine returning, it that shows like this will get hammered just as often as any conservative talk show. Olbermann isn't a reporter, he's just another editorialist who thinks he can hide behind that journalism badge and expect people to think he's actually honest.

Per Algore: Barry = Lincoln

This is quite humorous. And not unexpected for the usual nebulous attachment of progressives with history.

Gore also compared Obama to Abraham Lincoln, saying that "before he entered the White House, Abraham Lincoln’s experience in elective office consisted of eight years in his state legislature in Springfield, Ill., and one term in Congress –- during which he showed the courage and wisdom to oppose the invasion of another country, that was popular when it started, but later condemned by history.

Now, why did Lincoln oppose the Mexican-American War? Oh, that's right, I'll tell you what Algore was referring to since he seems to have left that little detail out. The answer is that the opposition was because they felt that the inclusion of Texas and the other territories would be a means for the Slavery supporting states to increase their populations and thus voting roles in support of slavery. (Go to Wiki if you doubt me.) That was a admirable stand. The end result wasn't what they feared though, was it.

I also don't agree with the contention that the Mexican-American war was condemned by history. There are good points on both sides of the argument, but the end result was the US got a very large amount of property and a better defined border in an area that was claimed by Mexico, but never actually under their control. In the context of the times, that was pretty much how it worked. Disagree? You might actually want to look at how colonization during that period worked.

Also, Lincoln's opposition actually mattered, since he was in congress and voted against it. Barry was just making noise where it had no effect.

Reasoned Discourse at DemCon

This actually starts of quite humorously with Stephen Green from Vodkapundit.

But the Reasoned Discourse kicks in with Alex Jones (radio host (?)) bellowing at Michele Malkin. Don't bother watching the whole thing. You'll quickly lose interest, if not just want to punch Alex Jones in the face.

Party of Whiners

I must admit, I've listened to some of the tripe that the speakers DemCon and I usually get quickly fed up with the whining. They do preach hope, but they all seem to seem to think that they are the down-trodden masses. I went to read VDH this AM and found he puts this in better perspective than I have.(Probably because I get nauseated by the whole thing and would rather not dwell on my loathing of the type.)

Let us hope that the Republicans avoid the teary-eyed, drippy stories that almost all these Democratic speakers insist on inflicting on us: in this Oprah world, one would think that there is mass starvation, depression, and general mayhem. In every introduction, we hear that the speaker to come was poor, deprived, and a multifaceted victim. Not since reading the Attic Orators has one heard how horrible life has been to such heroic figures, who nonetheless somehow ended up in such a cruel country with big salaries, enormous homes, and influential jobs.

I doubt the Repugs will avoid it, but then, they probably will not have nearly the level of victimhood on display that the Dems have.

Read the rest of Hanson's observations. I pretty much view his views as center/center-right. And please note, that is based on how elections have shown the political bases in the past few presedential elections. Just my opinion.

Well, the DemCon commercial will be over shortly. I plan to NOT see the Obama speech. I don't think I could stand that level of nausea.

Democrat's National Convention

I suppose this really says all you really need to know about those protesting at the Dems convention.


I suppose if they were civilized or even moderately intelligent they would have just ignored Fox News Reporter, but instead they show just how moronic they really are.

I don't know what Griff Jenkins was doing, but he obviously ended up on the wrong end of the protest. Personally, I'd think he'd hire the biggest and meanest looking camera men that he could find to go into such scenarios.

You can also note how little the police did. Makes you wonder how far they would have let that go before they actually stepped in.


UPDATE: Looks like he may have been trying talk to Ward ChickenShit Churchill. No footage of the actual interaction with that piece of crap, but the footage there pretty much sums up why I can't stand the far left.

Obama's Racial Issues

Saw these links at the Vodkapundit.

No doubt Slate is proud of moron Jacob Weisberg's piece. Not that there is any reason for Barry to lose, like his complete lack of experience, complete communist stance on money redistribution or any of that pantheon of other reasons that conservatives cringe about. Nope, it's just about race.

If it makes you feel better, you can rationalize Obama's missing 10-point lead on the basis of Clintonite sulkiness, his slowness in responding to attacks, or the concern that Obama may be too handsome, brilliant, and cool to be elected. But let's be honest: If you break the numbers down, the reason Obama isn't ahead right now is that he trails badly among one group, older white voters. He does so for a simple reason: the color of his skin.

Much evidence points to racial prejudice as a factor that could be large enough to cost Obama the election. That warning is written all over last month's CBS/New York Times poll, which is worth examining in detail if you want a quick grasp of white America's curious sense of racial grievance. In the poll, 26 percent of whites say they have been victims of discrimination. Twenty-seven percent say too much has been made of the problems facing black people. Twenty-four percent say the country isn't ready to elect a black president. Five percent of white voters acknowledge that they, personally, would not vote for a black candidate.

Not sure why the victim thing is relevant, but I'm sure if blacks were asked about who victimized them you'd get at least a similar reaction with whites as an antagonist. But any how, there is little doubt that race is a factor. You'd have to be blind or stupid to ignore it. Of course, Weisberg seems to completely forget the reversal of his topic, how many blacks will vote for Obama just because he's black and against McCain because he's white. Funny how that dichotomy seems to always be left out of the equation.

The best part is the "think of the children" canard.

Many have discoursed on what an Obama victory could mean for America. We would finally be able to see our legacy of slavery, segregation, and racism in the rearview mirror. Our kids would grow up thinking of prejudice as a nonfactor in their lives. The rest of the world would embrace a less fearful and more open post-post-9/11 America. But does it not follow that an Obama defeat would signify the opposite? If Obama loses, our children will grow up thinking of equal opportunity as a myth. His defeat would say that when handed a perfect opportunity to put the worst part of our history behind us, we chose not to. In this event, the world's judgment will be severe and inescapable: The United States had its day but, in the end, couldn't put its own self-interest ahead of its crazy irrationality over race.

What a pile of horse-shit. I love the fact that Obama will somehow cleanse the historical legacy of slavery, segregation and racism. How is that exactly? Those are things that definitely occurred, just having Barry as President won't make that go away, nothing will. And if your children are growing up thinking equal opportunity is a myth, then maybe you have no one to blame but yourself. A presidential election isn't about salving some pretended wounds, its about choosing the person right to direct our country for the next four years. That person is chosen by the majority, not by some made up contention that someone's children need some little push to have good self esteem.

The other link in that post is worth reading as well. George Will throwing darts at Barry "renewable resources" Obama.

Obama is (this is part of liberalism's catechism) leery of nuclear power. He also says -- and might say so even if Nevada were not a swing state -- that he distrusts the safety of Nevada's Yucca Mountain for storage of radioactive waste. Evidently he prefers today's situation -- nuclear waste stored at 126 inherently insecure above-ground sites in 39 states, within 75 miles of where more than 161 million Americans live.

But back to requiring this or that quota of energy from renewable sources. What will that involve? For conservatives, seeing is believing; for liberals, believing is seeing. Obama seems to believe that if a particular outcome is desirable, one can see how to require it. But how does that work? Details to follow, sometime after noon Jan. 20, 2009.

That bit cracked me up. I'd say it is funny, right up until I think about it and realize its true. Then, I get worried. Read the quotes from Will's piece. They have a creepy dictatorial tone.

Obama recently said that he would "require that 10 percent of our energy comes from renewable sources by the end of my first term -- more than double what we have now." Note the verb "require" and the adjective "renewable."

Require? He's not going to be king, so how is he going to require that we have this? Maybe he could legislate it with the assistance of a democrat controlled congress, but that still isn't his requiring.

Obama has also promised that "we will get 1 million 150-mile-per-gallon plug-in hybrids on our roads within six years." What a tranquilizing verb "get" is. This senator, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, is going to get a huge, complex industry to produce, and is going to get a million consumers to buy, these cars. How? Almost certainly by federal financial incentives for both -- billions of dollars of tax subsidies for automakers and billions more to bribe customers to buy cars they otherwise would spurn.

Again, this is another dictatorial statement, though you could take it more lightly if you remove any association with other statements.

I also don't see how Barry thinks this is going to work. Here in the Northeast these battery cars work, but they don't ever get mileage like that. And a plug-in car just moves the tail pipe somewhere else. Will goes on to discuss that. Personally, I won't drive one of these things. I don't like how they drive and I've seen them in the snow and I just don't want to end up that stuck that often.

Oh, and just a last stolen link to add from Vodkapundit. Here is Green Ego and Ham from Watchman's Words.

Heh. Got to love them when they do it well.

Russian Hypocrites

You have to love listening to the Russians. All you have to do is think Chechnya and you can recognize a hypocrite.

Georgia and Russia fought a brief war earlier this month over South Ossetia after Tbilisi sent in troops to try to retake the province by force, provoking a massive counter-attack by land, sea and air from Moscow.

"Today it is clear that after Georgia's aggression against South Ossetia (that) Georgian-South-Ossetian and Georgian-Abkhazian relations cannot be returned to their former state," upper house speaker Sergei Mironov said during the debate.

"The peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia have the right to get independence."

Well, I suppose there is little that Georgia can do about this, but the Russians should recognize that the rest of the world doesn't need to agree with their actions.

By this strategy I'm thinking that the US should be looking at a former Russian ally to crush and free just to the south of our border.

The Problem with Batman...

Now the simpering ladies of the press find Batman's voice to rough for them.

"His Batman rasps his lines in a voice that's deeper and hammier than ever," said NPR's David Edelstein.

The New Yorker's David Denby praised the urgency of Bale's Batman, but lamented that he "delivers his lines in a hoarse voice with an unvarying inflection."

What do they want? I suppose he could have a high whiny lisping voice, but do you think that would work with the dark persona and the fear that he uses as his tool?

Or I suppose they'd prefer Adam West's voice and measured tone. That will strike fear in a 3 year old, but do they actually think a criminal would be intimidated?

Maybe these dolts should actually understand what the story is about rather than fret that his voice is raspy and deep.

You're Either With Me or a Racist

Glad to see I'm not the only one tired of being called a racist because I happen to find BarryO an arrogant ultra Liberal elite.

And Maureen Dowd better watch out when she talks about Obama being proud. Apparently, that is code language and it takes David Gergen to translate that for us. Today on ABC's show This Week, Gergen told us that everyone with a southern heritage knows that when the McCain campaign juxtaposes Obama with Moses and calls him "The One" (something both Maureen Dowd and I have also done) that every southerner knows that that is just code for calling him "uppity." Really!? Does that mean that no one can ever point out that Obama seems quite arrogant and full of himself without Gergen saying that we're playing to subliminal racism? Baloney! Remember the trouble that Biden got in for saying that Obama was articulate? Apparently, that was also racist. What is it when a white guy like John Kerry was ridiculed for being arrogant? And just as there is no defense against this sort of attack where every word is a hidden attack of racism, there is no arguing against Gergen's logic here. He knows this because he's from the South so that gives him an extra spidey-sense to detect this sort of thing. If you disagree, it's either because you're not from the South and don't know whereof you speak or you're from the South and probably just sublimating your inner racist.

This is quite a gig that these people have. Basically, they've drawn the rules so that whatever you say about Obama, you can be called out for catering to racism. I know that the Democrats would like to make Obama immune from all criticism, but this is an election, dang it! Candidates criticize each other in elections and Republicans refuse to unilaterally disarm just because Obama had an African father.

Now it's some mysterious code that conservatives use to racially denigrate BarryO by calling him arrogant, but when BarryO uses an obvious racial statement about not looking like president's on dollar bills, he's saying what exactly?

Sen. Barack Obama's chief strategist conceded that the Democratic presidential candidate was referring to his race when he said Republicans were trying to scare voters by suggesting Obama "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

He's not just playing the scare tactic but the guilt tactic. Not a difficult game considering that large numbers of liberal whites still find some internal guilt over slavery. But that's not playing a racial card is it? No can't be. And every time he throws one of those grenades into the crowd, McCain has to dive for cover.

Nice to see that BarryO is still not playing the negative campaign style he swore not to get into.

Never Talk to the Police

Seen at Schneier's.

I'm not finished listening to this, but I'm convinced.

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.

Military Credentials

Things like this always irritate me. There is no requirement for military service to be president and such criticism from fools like Clark should be turned back on themselves for application to their supported candidate. Note that Barry's credentials can't even stand near this type of criticism without looking completely pathetic.

The retired general Wesley Clark said McCain had not "held executive responsibility" and had not commanded troops in wartime.

McCain's experience in Vietnam, where he was a prisoner of war for five years, has seemed at times almost to grant him invulnerability to criticism of his security background. But on Sunday he was assailed by a fellow military man, a highly decorated one who was once the NATO supreme commander.

McCain frequently points out that he led "the largest squadron in the U.S. Navy," but Clark said on CBS television that that was not enough to support a claim to the presidency.

Clark might want to note that McCain has received the majority of the votes from his party to run for president, which is far more than Clark ever did in his lame ass run. Oh, and how much command experience does Barack "present" Obama have? NONE maybe?

I don't follow the McCain campaign counter that Barry doesn't follow his described "new" politician description. That's a true statement, but a different argument.

The usual lame Liberal arguments. Don't like that he has credentials? Well, just assure the public that they aren't really any good anyway.

Whining on FISA

Let the Whining begin!

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance," Rep Trent Franks (R-AZ) intoned on the floor of the House of Representatives, purporting to invoke the authority of Thomas Jefferson on behalf of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which passed the House by a 293–129 vote yesterday.

If we wanted to pick nits, we could note that this is a misquotation, that Jefferson didn't write it, and that the "eternal vigilance" alluded to in that hoary aphorism is most assuredly not the government's unfettered power to eavesdrop on Americans' international communications without a warrant. But forget it, he's rolling. Why spoil such a rare bipartisan lovefest with quibbling over details?

Floor debate on the measure, which expands executive branch surveillance authority and provides retroactive amnesty for telecoms implicated in warrantless NSA wiretapping, consisted largely of mutual congratulation. Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO) lauded the bill as a shining example of "what we can do when we come together," a sentiment echoed by Rep James Langevin (D-RI), who said that the compromise "illustrates what this House can do when it deliberates with care, holds steady against fearmongering, and acts in the best interests of the country and its citizens."

Hmm. I guess I'd say that if he doesn't want to pick nits he may wish to get his facts straight. First there isn't any expansion of power to the executive branch. He may wish to note that the power merely carries over from the last FISA legislation. And I still haven't heard any logical explanation for allowing the telecoms to be punished for good faith actions when required by the government.

You'd think this was a libertarian tirade, except its not. It's just poorly thought out whining.

Read it yourself. Then go out and get facts from someone that has a clue.

Nuclear Proliferation

Just to show how much damage a single person can do, here's a report on nuclear proliferation to the really bad guys.

The Bush administration and Western governments are voicing renewed fears that advanced nuclear-weapon designs may have been provided to Iran and North Korea through the smuggling network run by Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

These fears have been stoked by evidence obtained by Swiss authorities who are prosecuting three European members of Mr. Khan's network in Bern, Western diplomats said.

Swiss President Pascal Couchepin announced last month that his government had destroyed computer files and other data seized from these men because they posed a national-security risk. The Swiss leader noted that the files contained "detailed construction plans for nuclear weapons, for ultracentrifuges to enrich weapons-grade uranium as well as for guided missile-delivery systems."

In 2003, the U.S. and allied governments broke up Mr. Khan's smuggling network, which had delivered centrifuge equipment for uranium-enrichment work to Tehran and Pyongyang and Chinese-based nuclear-weapons designs to Libya.

And this note on how the Pakistani government will now deal with Kahn.

U.S. counterproliferation officials said the intelligence highlighted why additional efforts needed to be made to interview Mr. Khan in Islamabad to get a greater understanding of his network's activities. Mr. Khan is under house arrest, but Pakistan's newly elected civilian government has suggested that the scientist could be released.

"We don't know for certain if Khan gave the designs to Iran or North Korea," said a U.S. counterproliferation official who worked extensively on the Libya case. "But why would you give them to the Libyans and not the North Koreans?"

Brilliant. Next they'll be giving him his computers back and sending him on trips to Iran.

Well, maybe he and Barry will have time to get together with the Ayatollahs next year.

Moron of the Year

I'm nominating Dennis Kucinich for again proving that someone standing in wings hasn't a clue as to what the audience is doing.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a former Democratic presidential candidate from Ohio, introduced a resolution to impeach President Bush into the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

Kucinich announced his intention to seek Bush's impeachment Monday night, when he read the lengthy document into the record.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly said she would not support a resolution calling for Bush's impeachment, saying such a move was unlikely to succeed and would be divisive.

Most of the congressman's resolution deals with the Iraq war, contending that the president manufactured a false case for the war, violated U.S. and international law to invade Iraq, failed to provide troops with proper equipment and falsified casualty reports for political purposes.

Yes, the Iraq war, APPROVED by the senate was illegal. Sorry, if they weren't smart enough to do their due diligence and verify Bush's claims on the case for removing Sadam, then that doesn't make it illegal. And frankly, international law is irrelevant.

Pelosi is correct of the divisiveness of such a resolution. It was proven with force during the Clinton impeachment and that had more grounds in fact even if the reasoning wasn't very good. No doubt we'll be hearing cheers from the left wing losers on this one. No doubt this will churn up lots of Republican support in time for the elections should they decide to actually move ahead. Good plan Dennis Dipshit.

Kucinich also charges that Bush has illegally detained without charge both U.S. citizens and "foreign captives" and violated numerous U.S. laws through the use of "signing statements" declaring his intention to do so.

Other articles address global warming, voting rights, Medicare, the response to Hurricane Katrina and failure to comply with congressional subpoenas.

That list really should make you wonder. What didn't the president cause to go wrong? As for the signing statements, I don't like that they are used, but he isn't the first to use them and the legality of them is not in question. They just aren't the most honest method of dealing with legislation that doesn't pass the sniff test.

I hope Ohio is happy with this jackass. No doubt he's a star from their state.

Cap and Tax

Here's a wonderful new tax. It's also nice to see that it's being hidden as a market control mechanism.

An unprecedentedly radical government grab for control of the American economy will be debated this week when the Senate considers saving the planet by means of a cap-and-trade system to ration carbon emissions. The plan is co-authored (with John Warner) by Joe Lieberman, an ardent supporter of John McCain, who supports Lieberman's legislation and recently spoke about "the central facts of rising temperatures, rising waters and all the endless troubles that global warming will bring."

Speaking of endless troubles, "cap-and-trade" comes cloaked in reassuring rhetoric about the government merely creating a market, but government actually would create a scarcity so government could sell what it has made scarce. The Wall Street Journal underestimates cap-and-trade's perniciousness when it says the scheme would create a new right ("allowances") to produce carbon dioxide and would put a price on the right. Actually, because freedom is the silence of the law, that right has always existed in the absence of prohibitions. With cap-and-trade, government would create a right for itself -- an extraordinarily lucrative right to ration Americans' exercise of their traditional rights.

Well, McCain is proving his statement about not knowing anything about economics. This rotten egg will, with luck, die quietly in the senate.

If you want to read more on this type of silliness, go and read Krauthammer's Op-Ed. Here's a taste:

Only Monday, a British parliamentary committee proposed that every citizen be required to carry a carbon card that must be presented, under penalty of law, when buying gasoline, taking an airplane or using electricity. The card contains your yearly carbon ration to be drawn down with every purchase, every trip, every swipe.

There's no greater social power than the power to ration. And, other than rationing food, there is no greater instrument of social control than rationing energy, the currency of just about everything one does and uses in an advanced society.

What a brilliant solution. Wonder who is going to get damaged the most by such rationing? I'm also betting that the Brits will be considering taxing anyone who desires to go over their carbon ration. I've been told by a British friend that gasoline (petrol) is so expensive in Great Britain because they tax it at around 80% of the cost.