How Not to Defend Against Piracy

You have to love articles like this one in the Wall Street Journal. Arthur Bowring, from the Hong Kong Shipowners' Association tells the world how ships should defend themselves. Of course he doesn't want the ships to actually defend themselves.

But in the meantime, shipowners and their seafarers in the Gulf of Aden will protect themselves as best they can. We do not believe that they should do this by arming themselves, or by carrying armed guards, because this could contribute to escalating violence and put the safety of seafarers in jeopardy.

A better solution is to coordinate ships' transits more closely with the naval presence in those waters, and to monitor International Maritime Bureau reports, and other reports, to avoid areas where attacks are taking place. The naval forces working to protect our ships could also improve their effectiveness through better coordination, more defined "rules of engagement" and the organization of regular convoys. Countries should also adopt and enforce legislation that criminalizes piracy at sea, in line with the relevant articles of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, so that pirates may be caught by navy ships and prosecuted, not returned to the beach to pirate again.

That's right. Don't arm yourself, because being taken hostage and having your life threatened is much safer for seafarers, just like not fighting back is the safest response from a rape victim. Not that there aren't any international security firms out there that do these things professionally either.

Convoying works as we all know, but apparently there are reasons that they don't do it. Mainly because no one is willing to provide convoy protections. Bowring should have provided a list of Navies that are standing up and taking on the fiscal responsibility for convoys. Even more entertaining is his contention that they should be checking reports of where piracy is happening. Maybe he missed the point that the latest acts of piracy were far far away from where they normally hunt.

I really like the "rules of engagement" statement. It's quite simple actually. If someone starts shooting at you and trying to take your ship, you shoot at them. It is more difficult for Navies because they have an expected humanitarian behavior toward the pirates. Though India didn't seem to play that game recently. The British have stated they don't want to play because they have no way of prosecuting. As for the UN's Law of the Sea convention, it would have some use, except that it has so many hugely detrimental regulations against countries and their Navies, not to mention their sovereign rights, that it isn't worth being a party to. Of course, this wouldn't stop the piracy, it would just make it clear as to how to prosecute it.

Fixing the Effect Not the Cause

So Obama is stepping up and trying to play president before he's elected. I guess that doesn't matter much since he can't really do anything unless Bush agrees. I think the biggest issue is that most of what ChangeyHopey and the Progressives want is to again fix the after effects of the down turn into recession rather than the what has been causing it. In fact, I don't hear any discussion other than the bank bailouts that are fights against the cause.

"My commitment is to do what's required so that our financial system works and credit flows. President Bush has indicated that he has the same approach, the same attitude," Obama said.

But Obama stepped symbolically away from Bush as well, stressing repeatedly that his stimulus plan was aimed at middle-class wage earners, not just big financial institutions. It was an implicit reminder that many of Bush's economic policies have favored the wealthy.

"We cannot have a thriving Wall Street without a thriving Main Street, that in this country we rise or fall as one nation, as one people," Obama said, promising to make good on his pledge to bring tax relief to families earning less than $250,000 a year.

Obama also used Monday's news conference to lob a warning at the Big Three automakers — and indirectly their powerful union, the United Auto Workers — who have pressed Congress for $25 billion in government loans to wrest them from the brink of bankruptcy.

The problem with this stance is that it ignores that "the wealthy" includes small and medium businesses. Interesting that they are put into the same boat. Missing the point that the economy runs on business not on government handouts. Where is the reform legislation? The US has some of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. You want to keep jobs here in the US and create new ones, how about cutting businesses some slack and leaving their money in their hands.

As for the big three dinosaurs from the auto industry, I still don't see them reforming their ways. And let's not forget the UAW and other unions that are a party to the problems. I don't see any reason to bail the auto industry out. Especially since the Dems don't want to anger their major union voter base by telling them to get in touch with reality. Everyone else in business has to take pay cuts, the pilots unions and other unions for the airlines all finally came to that realization and the airlines seem to be healthier for it. Not that they are an example of a properly functioning industry. But at least they have worked through that difficulty.

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.