I have to take note of two things before bed

First, any 'religeon' in which large numbers of people consider killing their own children to be a wonderful act is a diseased culture for which I have little hope. Whether these idiots believe it or not, murdering your own child as part of a political assassination attempt does NOT make it any better. You sorry degenerates.

Second, this is what you get with PC government commissions and 'hate crime' laws:
"And, he says, when he had a conversation with a Commission employee, mediator Bob Fagan, about the specifics of the allegation, he was astonished at what he heard.
"'I told him that it seemed to be an abuse of the Human Rights Act for someone to try and use it as an instrument of censorship. And when I said that, on the phone, there was a pause and then he said, in a somewhat astonished tone: "But the Human Rights Act is about censorship." Then it was my turn to be silent on my end, because I found that breath-taking. For the Human Rights Commission's own mediator to acknowledge that censorship was the purpose of their Act."

'Human Rights Commission' my ass.

I WAS in a good mood,

until Sondra pointed to this piece of idiocy:
The unpleasant scenes broke out at Leatherhead Leisure Centre in Surrey when the wounded veterans, who are at Headley Court Military Hospital, had to use the 25-metre public pool because the hydro-pool at the defence rehabilitation centre is not big enough for swimming.

The servicemen were about to begin their weekly swimming therapy in closed-off lanes when they were verbally abused by the swimmers.

One woman in her 30s was said to be infuriated by the lane closures saying the soldiers did not deserve to be there when she had paid.

It's about as infuriating a piece of bullshit as you will read.

And the proper response to the bitch mentioned above- besides a swift kick in her fat ass- would be "Madam, they HAVE paid; far, far more than you'd ever have the guts to risk."

The aftermath

includes feeling stuffed, tired and entirely unwilling to consider that I have to go back to work in a day.

I spent Thanksgiving at my parents', and my daughter came along. It was nice. And as a good ending, shortly before I had to leave my son called from Iraq. Summarized,
It's cold now. 'Cold' being defined as lows in the 40's. Compared to what they were a month ago...
Lots of turkey & other proper edibles for Thanksgiving.
New vehicles, MRAPs(various links here), coming in.
They've got some really neat equipment on the vehicles for A: indicating direction of incoming small arms fire and B: preventing remotely-triggered IEDs from detonating.
And so far, the only thing he's had to fire at anyone is a paintball gun. Apparently, when delinquent types throw rocks or vehicles won't move out of the way, that's what they use to adjust attitudes. Or get their attention. Or whatever.
Overall, so far he reminds me of something David Drake wrote about his time in Vietnam: so far as he knew he didn't kill anybody, nobody shot at him and he wasn't seriously injured. I certainly hope it continues so.

Times like this, I realize how lucky I am in some things. Both parents are still kicking(read some of Og's posts about missing his father, it'll make you appreciate yours), kids are ok, I know one is and so far as I know the other ex is getting along, and none of my body parts have either refused to function or fallen off.

Son greatly appreciates the good thoughts so many of you have given. He's planning on sending some pictures back soon, I'll post some when they arrive.

It was a good Thanksgiving.

First off, Happy Thanksgiving

to all who read my little yelling on this soapbox.

Second, I want to take note of some things. Have to do it now, because I'm about to go visit family and stuff myself, the parents have been cookingspend a day or so relaxing. And I'm liable to forget where some of this was.

First off, the lies, damn lies and statistics are picking up since SCOTUS decided to decide. Nobody is surprised.

Second, as a lot of us have thought for some time, an awful lot of these 'fearless attackers of fascism'(i.e., churches, western governments, etc.) are a bunch of friggin' cowards:
“I’ve censored myself,” Perry said at a discussion on art and politics organised by the Art Fund. “The reason I haven’t gone all out attacking Islamism in my art is because I feel real fear that someone will slit my throat.”
Uh huh. As someone said, "If you really believed Bush, or the Brit government, was kidnapping anyone who criticized them, and you were actually in fear for your life, you wouldn't be on the street calling them names. You'd be like the protesters in Soviet Russia, fearing any knock in the night or stranger on the street." But where these 'fearless artists' actually DO see a threat, they roll over and offer their belly. "Nice dhimmi, keep behaving and you get to live."

And last, I hadn't heard this about our attorney general:
Carpenter started the TABOR petition drive in 2005, assisted by Jacob and Johnson in an effort that ultimately produced more than 300,000 signatures, nearly a third more than was required to put the issue before voters. But even in a deeply red state like Oklahoma, Big Government has backers — mainly teachers and labor unions — and they persuaded a state court to throw the petition out because nonresidents allegedly helped solicit signatures. The trio now faces up to 10 years in prison if they are convicted on Edmondson’s charges. All three pleaded not guilty and claim they were advised by state officials on how to comply with the law in all respects during the petition drive.

What makes this even more disgusting is this:
State Rep. Mike Reynolds said today that Attorney General Drew Edmondson, who recently admitted receiving illegal campaign contributions, has yet to correct all the “mistakes” his campaign finance reports show.

“Several months ago I questioned whether Attorney General Edmondson truly cared about Ethics laws in Oklahoma. I don’t know if he asked the State Auditor to help him clean up his errors, but it appears that he has many additional mistakes that have not been corrected,” said Reynolds, R-Oklahoma City.

Just friggin' wonderful.

And with that, I'm gone. I'd suggest you follow my lead. And stop eating short of the point at which you'd need a dolly and assistant to move.

The Saudis are not only not our friends,

their government is a running sore on the ass of mankind.

This headline brought to you thanks to Keith. I'd heard something about this yesterday, and in a comment he provided the link.
An unnamed Saudi 19-year old woman -- let us call her Fatima -- has been sentenced to 200 lashes, after being gang-raped 14 times by a group of seven Sunni men in the town of Qatif. Not merely did they repeatedly rape her, but they also raped the male friend they found her with.

Her attackers received sentences of between 10 months and five years. The man she was found with in the car -- we'll call him Abdul-- was sentenced to 90 lashes.

Why were Abdul and Fatima, both of them rape victims, sentenced to anything? Because they were alone in a car, and it is a criminal offence in Saudi Arabia for unrelated men and women to be in one another's company.

So criminal, indeed, that even after being repeatedly raped, the two offenders were considered worthy of further punishment: 90 lashes each, which was increased to 200 lashes for Fatima after she had the temerity to appeal and to speak to the Saudi press about the horror which had befallen her.

There are simply no words to describe the foulness of a government- and people- who consider such a thing to be 'proper'.

Crap like this is one more reason I hope fervently that various energy alternatives advance/are discovered in the near future. Despite a couple of comments in the past, I'm all for such. Nuclear to generate electricity, for instance. At the least, drill in our own territory for all the oil we have available and build/expand refineries to take care of it. Unpleasant fact is we NEED oil for some time to come, and the less of it we need from other places the better off we are. But when the advances come, it will give me a great deal of satisfaction to see the oil ticks once again become the lords of the world's biggest litterbox.

So the Supremes decided to take the case

and lots and lots of commentary is running around. Hit Instapundit and just scroll down a ways, lots of links. Legal commentary, lots at Volokh, again just scroll down. Check around the innernets and you'll see doom & gloom, excitement, hysteria and 'what if'.

I'm half-surprised. The arguments that they'd refuse to review were pretty good; the perils to both sides if they accepted gone over by all. I guess it hit the point they didn't think they could keep ignoring it.

If I had to guess, I'd tend to agree with Bill Quick:
My first take (I have to admit I’m shaking in my boots at the negative possibilities here, given that I thought the SCOTUS would dodge this one) is that the Court will find an individual right, but do so in such a way that almost no gun control laws currently in place are much disturbed, although pestholes like Chicago and San Francisco may be encouraged to permit their citizens to defend themselves once again. The whole issue of incorporation will be much discussed beyond the court as well, I expect.
But I have been wrong before.

One reason I don't expect them to say "Right of the states, all you peasants stop bothering us"? Some of them are arrogant statists, but I don't think anyone on the court is actually stupid; if they thought they got bad press for bringing 'international law' into Constitutional discussions before, they've got to know what would happen here. Etc.

We'll see.

In more ways than one, Pelosi is on

the other side.
It's been less than a week since New York's Sen. Hillary Clinton and Gov. Eliot Spitzer had to climb down from their support of driver's licenses for illegal aliens. Now House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has moved to kill an amendment that would protect employers from federal lawsuits for requiring their workers to speak English. Among the employers targeted by such lawsuits: the Salvation Army.

Just freakin' wonderful.

Once a kidnapping terrorist,

always one
THE kidnappers of five British hostages seized in Baghdad last May have said they could be held for years if demands for the release of an Iranian-backed militia leader are not met.

The warning came as the first detailed information emerged about the plight of the hostages, who enter their 174th day in captivity today.

The people in blue helmets and their political masters

are not your friend.
For months now, Ugandan army troops have been garrisoned in the northeast part of the country under orders to disarm the local populace—pastoral, cattle-herding tribes known as the Karamojong. The army is attempting, and failing, to quash an uprising which was caused by a prior attempt to disarm the same tribes.

But in its effort to "disarm," the Ugandan army, supported by tanks and helicopter gunships, is burning down villages, sexually torturing men, raping women, and plundering what few possessions the tribespeople own. Tens of thousands of victims have been turned into refugees. Human rights scholar Ben Knighton has used the term “ethnocide” to describe the army's campaign.

And what has the UN to do with this?
This time, the pretext for the "disarmament" of the Karamojong is United Nations gun control. The Ugandan military is trying to round up every last firearm in Karamoja, supposedly for the Karamojong's own good.

The procedure is euphemistically called “forcible disarmament.” It works something like this: The misnamed Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) will torture and rape Karamajong, after which some Karamojong might then disclose the location of some hidden guns. Or the army will burn down a village, after which it might find some guns in the ash left behind.

But the UN wouldn't stand for such abuses, would it? Oh, yes, they would:
Last summer, the Ugandan army's atrocities led the United Nations Development Programme to cut off its disarmament aid to Uganda. But the outrage didn't last long. This year, the aid was restored. Although the United Nations does not fund the Ugandan army, the UN does provide a public relations sanction for the disarmament. In November, Louise Arbour, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, stated: “The actions of the UPDF do not comply with international human rights law and domestic law.” But, she also stipulated, “the decision of the Government to undertake renewed efforts to eradicate illegal weapons in Karamoja is essential….” Never mind that the disarmament campaign also eradicates people.

I have a question for you: do you really think the UN would have any more objection than this if the same thing were happening here? After all, we have more guns than the poor bastards being tortured and raped and murdered in Uganda. And the UN has already been trying to force our being turned into serfsdisarmament.

I think the UN would speak some platitude just like the above and excuse anything, because our being disarmed feeds into their desires for control.

Any argument?

Further thoughts on the "legal lynching" and the childhood friends

I've been thinking about the case of goblin-whacking I posted on here, and the idiotic reaction to it. The excusing, the blaming of the one attacked instead of telling the attacker "You're a dirtbag, and you deserve jail."

I reminded me of something, so I dug around in John Ross' site and found this post of his. He was talking to a man about the opposition in much of the black community to the idea of 'shall-issue' concealed carry permits. Considering how people in that community tended to be more often the victims of crimes and would in many cases be the people with more need of the freedom to carry for self-defense, why would they oppose it so strongly?

"When discussing this matter, people inevitably bring up Missouri's 1999 ballot referendum on Right-To-Carry, which was narrowly defeated (with a dismal 30% voter turnout, I might add.) The fact is that the measure passed in almost every county in the state. The defeat came from the fact that two very large urban precincts in St. Louis and Kansas City were over 90% opposed. At the time, I thought this was vote fraud (and to be honest, I still think that was a factor).

A black businessman (who was one of the handful of St. Louis city residents who voted for the referendum) and I were discussing the recent passage of RTC. I brought up the referendum results, and said I could not understand why blacks had been so uniformly against the measure. The proposal was a "shall issue" one, where if you satisfied the requirements (training, fingerprints, no criminal record, no mental illness, etc.) you couldn't be denied the permit just because the sheriff didn't like the idea of people besides the police having guns. The businessman stared at me.

"I thought you were good at math," he said. I allowed as to how I felt that I was. "Then you must never have taken Statistics and Probability." I told him I had done this also, and that it had been one of the most rewarding math classes I had ever taken (and incidentally was taught by Amherst's professor Denton, who is black.) "Then you must be cowed enough by political correctness to never think of applying statistics and probability to anything involving race." Finally I admitted that this last accusation might be true.

"Then I am going to ask you two true-or-false questions. One: Do blacks in the city of St. Louis have large extended families?" I answered in the affirmative. "Two: Is it true that in St. Louis, over 40% of the black males between the ages of 17 and 25 have criminal records?" I told him that was also true, unfortunately.

"So here is the important question: What are the chances of a black person of voting age in St. Louis having at least one relative with a criminal record? Assume we define 'relative' broadly, to include the young men who father the children of our female relatives, whether married to them or not." He sat there waiting for my answer.

"Are we talking fathers, stepfathers, uncles, brothers, stepbrothers, male cousins, sons, stepsons, nephews, mothers' boyfriends, aunts' boyfriends, sisters' boyfriends, daughters' boyfriends, stepdaughters' boyfriends, female cousins' boyfriends, nieces' boyfriends, as well as anyone actually married to a female relative?" I asked. He nodded. "Then I'd say there's nearly 100% probability that at least one relative would have a criminal record." He smiled at me like a teacher who has just gotten the right answer from one of his slower students.

"So," I said, "I'm to believe that the black sentiment in St. Louis was "I wish young Tyrone would stop robbing people, but I don�t want one of the people he robs to shoot him dead." Is that it?" I asked.

"You've got it exactly," he told me.

"But why? I mean, honestly, if some guy was married to my cousin and mugged people for a living, I'd figure he was making his own choices and could damn well take the chance of being blasted. I wouldn't vote away my rights to help his sorry ass."

"What if it wasn't just your one cousin's husband, but 40% of all your male relatives between the ages of 18 and 25? What if that was, oh, I don�t know, a dozen people?" Suddenly I didn't know what to say.

"You don't feel that way," I said finally.

"I�m an Uncle Tom. I've recently come to realize that I now have very few black friends."

Seems to fit in nicely with the crap the other day. Here we're not talking about some deceased/imprisoned criminal's family protesting "He's a good boy, he just made some mistakes, he hung around with some bad people" or "She's not a bad girl, she was pushed into doing this." Here we've got the whole damn grievance industry coming out in full cry. "Racism! They shot those boys because they were black! They just wanted to buy some grass!" and so on. It's like there's a standard script: "The victims(ALWAYS the 'victims') were black/latino/whatever, so they CANNOT BE AT FAULT! Therefore the one who shot/whatever them is the criminal. No matter what." So we have, in this case, three men broke into a home at 4 A.M., beat people severely, and when they get shot, THEY become the 'victims'. The survivor is a 'victim of racism'. Never mind what they did- and let's not be fooled here, chances of this being the first time they did something like this are just about zero-, never mind the one they beat who'll need care for the rest of his life, the deceased goblins and the survivor are the 'victims'.

I've been reading a book called When She Was Bad, Violent omen and the Myth of Innocence by Patricia Pearson. A big part of the book is on the fact that in domestic violence it's been built up that women are ALWAYS the victim. Doesn't matter what happened, doesn't matter that the husband/boyfriend pushed her or hit her because she was swinging at him- sometimes with a knife or heavy object- because HE is the one with the 'power', so she is ALWAYS the victim. Which means if he calls the police for help, chances are he'll wind up in jail. Hell, it's in law in some places that if the police show up on a domestic violence call, they have to arrest him. Even if he's the one bleeding. Scholars have censored their own work to prevent it being shown that women are aggressors as often as men, that the men in the relationship are often the victims, because it doesn't fit the social picture they want to reinforce.
...A 1978 survey conducted by the Kentucky Commission on Violence Against Women uncovered that 38 percent of the assaults in the state were committed by women, but that finding wasn't included when the survey was released. (The information was discovered some years later by scholars.) In Detroit, a tally of emergency medical admissions due to to domestic violence was widely reported by activists as evidence of injuries to women. No one told the media that 38 percent of the admissions were men. In Canada, the federal government allotted $250,000 to a research project on comparative rates of violence in dating relationships. The lead researcher, Carleton University sociologist Walter DeKeseredy, released his data on women, generating a wave of violence agains women headlines and conveying the impression that Canadian college campuses were bastions of violent misogyny. DeKeseredy didn't mention in his report that he had collected evidence of dating violence against men....
and so on.

You read much of this, there's a remarkable similarity between minority groups and womens groups in making excuses for why they cannot be the bad guys. "Because of past racism/because of the patriarchy, they have no power" and so on. There's always a reason why someone cannot/should not be held responsible for, or even capable of doing bad things.

A lot of people more qualified than I have pointed this nonsense out before. If you claim 'victimhood' as a mantle that protects you from being held responsible for what you do, you have renounced any claim to being an intelligent, capable being and basically said "You can't hold me to the same standards you do others: I'm special." And then you bitch and whine when people don't look on you the same as they do others who don't claim victimhood as an excuse for whatever the current problem is. Much like the 'Jena Six' garbage, if someone is a member of your group it's considered a given that they couldn't have actually done wrong, they must have been the 'victim'. Never mind evidence, never mind a group beating an individual unconscious, that group was black so THEY are the 'victims'.

Hell, look at a lot of media reporting. If someone gets shot breaking into a home or attacking someone, attempting a rape, whatever, if the goblin is a member of a minority group there's a very good chance the reporting will be that they were the 'victim' of a shooting. The fact that they were shot by the actual victim, the one they were attacking, is glossed over. They get a twofer here: deflect blame from the criminal and condemn guns and people who own them.

Solution? More people like Bill Cosby saying "Knock off the crap, tell your kids to pull their pants up and stay in school. And stop letting them feed on the image of gangsters as someone to be like." They'd better have very thick skins like him, too, because they'll get the full ration of crap the RWPPs & Co. threw at him.