Saturday, October 31, 2009
Look at one of the clowns in charge of helping Obama screw Honduras
The Obama Latin America Team is composed of: Thomas Shannon, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs; Frank Mora, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Western Hemisphere Affairs and most importantly Dan Restrepo, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs at The National Security Council… Since assuming the presidency in January of 2009, the Obama White House mainly follows the expertise of Mr. Daniel Restrepo on issues pertaining to Latin America.
Dan Restrepo and The Center for American Progress
Prior to moving to the National Security Council, Dan Restrepo was the director of the Americas Project at the Center for American Progress (CAP), a liberal think tank, whose President and Chief Executive Officer is John Podesta, who served as chief of staff to then President Bill Clinton. This think tank has become so influential making personnel appointments in the Obama Administration that Time Magazine recently declared “there is no group in Washington with more influence at this moment in history.” [8]
One of CAP’s main contributors is billionaire speculator, George Soros. In fact, some independent groups that are more transparent, such as the Sunlight Foundation and the Campaign Legal Center, criticize the Center’s failure to disclose its contributors, particularly since it is so influential in appointments to the Obama administration.
Trick or effing Treat, huh?
Pelosi's 'health care' bill is in part the "Trial Lawyer Protection Act",
it seems:
Section 2531, entitled “Medical Liability Alternatives,” establishes an incentive program for states to adopt and implement alternatives to medical liability litigation. [But]…… a state is not eligible for the incentive payments if that state puts a law on the books that limits attorneys’ fees or imposes caps on damages.
Tam started with a slightly off-angle reaction
to this story, so of course I had to go read it. Short version, girl hiking in woods attacked by a pack of tricksters, and died about twelve hours later. Nasty way to go, sad story. Until I got to this:
"We take a calculated risk when spending time in nature's fold -- it's the wildlife's terrain," Emily Mitchell's statement continued. "When the decision had been made to kill the pack of coyotes, I clearly heard Taylor's voice say, 'please don't, this is their space.' She wouldn't have wanted their demise, especially as a result of her own. She was passionate about animals, was an environmentalist, and was also planning to volunteer at the Toronto Wildlife Centre in the coming months."
Oh, for (your favorite bleep's) sake. Lady, maybe you and your daughter wouldn't want the critters whacked; I doubt many other people would agree, especially those with kids. Especially when, if they've done it once, they'll do it again.
That's one of the idiocies that bothers me when a bear or a cougar or whatever eats someone and the immediate cry of the Bambiists is heard: "They were here first! It's their world!! It's our fault for being in the woods!" So many of these clowns have decided that it's perfectly acceptable for the carnivores to eat other people, and if you disagree you become The Hatemonger Bigoted Speciest Destroyer of Mother Earth. On a pogo stick. With herpes.
Screw you people. I like humans being on the top of the predator pyramid. Jeez. I wonder if she'd be willing to lecture some parents, after the pack eats their kid, about how "After all, it's the coyote's space, and you can volunteer at the nature center in memory of your child."
"We take a calculated risk when spending time in nature's fold -- it's the wildlife's terrain," Emily Mitchell's statement continued. "When the decision had been made to kill the pack of coyotes, I clearly heard Taylor's voice say, 'please don't, this is their space.' She wouldn't have wanted their demise, especially as a result of her own. She was passionate about animals, was an environmentalist, and was also planning to volunteer at the Toronto Wildlife Centre in the coming months."
Oh, for (your favorite bleep's) sake. Lady, maybe you and your daughter wouldn't want the critters whacked; I doubt many other people would agree, especially those with kids. Especially when, if they've done it once, they'll do it again.
That's one of the idiocies that bothers me when a bear or a cougar or whatever eats someone and the immediate cry of the Bambiists is heard: "They were here first! It's their world!! It's our fault for being in the woods!" So many of these clowns have decided that it's perfectly acceptable for the carnivores to eat other people, and if you disagree you become The Hatemonger Bigoted Speciest Destroyer of Mother Earth. On a pogo stick. With herpes.
Screw you people. I like humans being on the top of the predator pyramid. Jeez. I wonder if she'd be willing to lecture some parents, after the pack eats their kid, about how "After all, it's the coyote's space, and you can volunteer at the nature center in memory of your child."
By the way, if someone starts the 'We have lousy health care!' noise,
point them to this:
American health care is simply the best in the world, and by many measures ithe competition isn't even close:
American health care is simply the best in the world, and by many measures ithe competition isn't even close:
U.S. does 2x as many transplants as OECD average
U.S. has best cancer survival rates in OECD
Death panels in Britain are putting people to death who could have recovered
Death panels: now in kids' sizes too! Infants being left to die.
And remember, this is what the socialists in the Evil Party, and a few in the Stupid Party, want to take over and screw up.Friday, October 30, 2009
Among this evening's news, the Obama Administration lied
(big surprise, huh?) about being involved in the 'subvert the NEA' action:
Former actor and present White House associate director of public engagement Kalpen Modi was directly involved in planning the controversial conference call hosted by a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) flack to encourage tax-supported artists to create propaganda for President Obama, according to emails obtained by Judicial Watch via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
The piece of walking excrement who was convicted the other day in the Newsom/Christian murders is sentenced to death. With the usual "Please spare him" crap being thrown out:
Foster mother Flo Rudd and group home mother Alice Rhea told jurors Davidson was worth saving despite the fact that he turned to robbery and, ultimately, murder despite their efforts to rescue him from a troubled upbringing.
"He's my son," Rhea said. "I love him. He has such potential. If you put him in a structured environment, he does everything he should. I think he can be an influence to young men for years to come."
Yeah, I bet he'd be an influence; to a whole 'nother bunch of raping murderers. Ms. Rudd and Rhea, it may have escaped you but they discovered that one reason so many violent criminals do so well at the 'rehabilitation' game is that when they're in a highly-structured environment- like a prison- they play the game well and behave; and then when they get out- parole or escape- they commit more violent crimes. This piece of garbage can play 'bad childhood' all you want, it doesn't change what he is, and that he had some say in it. You'd better deal with that.
Insty points to Peggy Noonan discovering that having a bunch of socialists, commies and fascists in the White House and Congress is a Bad Thing; how could she every have managed this great discovery?[/sarcasm]
Hell with it, I've got dishes to wash. And I need to find something to get the bad taste out of my mouth.
Former actor and present White House associate director of public engagement Kalpen Modi was directly involved in planning the controversial conference call hosted by a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) flack to encourage tax-supported artists to create propaganda for President Obama, according to emails obtained by Judicial Watch via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
The piece of walking excrement who was convicted the other day in the Newsom/Christian murders is sentenced to death. With the usual "Please spare him" crap being thrown out:
Foster mother Flo Rudd and group home mother Alice Rhea told jurors Davidson was worth saving despite the fact that he turned to robbery and, ultimately, murder despite their efforts to rescue him from a troubled upbringing.
"He's my son," Rhea said. "I love him. He has such potential. If you put him in a structured environment, he does everything he should. I think he can be an influence to young men for years to come."
Yeah, I bet he'd be an influence; to a whole 'nother bunch of raping murderers. Ms. Rudd and Rhea, it may have escaped you but they discovered that one reason so many violent criminals do so well at the 'rehabilitation' game is that when they're in a highly-structured environment- like a prison- they play the game well and behave; and then when they get out- parole or escape- they commit more violent crimes. This piece of garbage can play 'bad childhood' all you want, it doesn't change what he is, and that he had some say in it. You'd better deal with that.
Insty points to Peggy Noonan discovering that having a bunch of socialists, commies and fascists in the White House and Congress is a Bad Thing; how could she every have managed this great discovery?[/sarcasm]
Hell with it, I've got dishes to wash. And I need to find something to get the bad taste out of my mouth.
It's kind of amazing how it freaks out liberals- modern version-
when someone says "I will hold to my oath. No matter what."
And how paranoid is the group? The list of commands its members have pledged to refuse includes some that don't strike me as likely, e.g., "orders to assist or support the use of any foreign troops on U.S. soil against the American people." But it also includes commands that are easier to imagine -- or which have already become standard operating procedure. One item on the list is "orders which infringe on the right of the people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of grievances." Maybe Waters and Potok haven't noticed, but American police forces infringe on free speech and free assembly at pretty much every major political summit. I wish there had been some Oath Keepers on the force in Pittsburgh during the G20 meeting last month, or at the Republican National Convention last year.
If you review Rhodes' writings online, you'll find complaints about the militarization of police work, a process he links to both the war on drugs and the war on terror; about the expansion of federal power in wartime; about the illegal disarmament of civilians after Hurricane Katrina. In other words, normal civil libertarian concerns about policies already in place, not frantic speculation about the apocalypse to come. (Note that two of the last three links go to essays Rhodes wrote during the Bush presidency. The Oath Keepers were founded this year, but the organizers behind them didn't need a Democratic president to discover the dangers of state power.)
This is the group that has the Southern Poverty Law Center invoking the specters of fascism and terrorism: a network of present and former public employees who are vigilant about the state of our civil liberties. If their vigilance sometimes shades over into paranoia, well, that's a hundred times truer of the SPLC.
And how paranoid is the group? The list of commands its members have pledged to refuse includes some that don't strike me as likely, e.g., "orders to assist or support the use of any foreign troops on U.S. soil against the American people." But it also includes commands that are easier to imagine -- or which have already become standard operating procedure. One item on the list is "orders which infringe on the right of the people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of grievances." Maybe Waters and Potok haven't noticed, but American police forces infringe on free speech and free assembly at pretty much every major political summit. I wish there had been some Oath Keepers on the force in Pittsburgh during the G20 meeting last month, or at the Republican National Convention last year.
If you review Rhodes' writings online, you'll find complaints about the militarization of police work, a process he links to both the war on drugs and the war on terror; about the expansion of federal power in wartime; about the illegal disarmament of civilians after Hurricane Katrina. In other words, normal civil libertarian concerns about policies already in place, not frantic speculation about the apocalypse to come. (Note that two of the last three links go to essays Rhodes wrote during the Bush presidency. The Oath Keepers were founded this year, but the organizers behind them didn't need a Democratic president to discover the dangers of state power.)
This is the group that has the Southern Poverty Law Center invoking the specters of fascism and terrorism: a network of present and former public employees who are vigilant about the state of our civil liberties. If their vigilance sometimes shades over into paranoia, well, that's a hundred times truer of the SPLC.
If the Annointed Oneess has this, what does The One have
taking care of him?
Michelle Obama, as we reported on July 7, is not served by twenty-two attendants who stand by to cater to her every whim.
She is served by twenty-six attendants, including a hair dresser and make-up artist.
The annual cost to taxpayers for such unprecedented attention is approximately $1,750,000 without taking into account the expense of the lavish benefit packages afforded to every attendant.
Little did American voters realize the call for “change” would result in the establishment of an Obama oligarchy.
Uh, guy? Some of us were expecting crap like this; unfortunately, too many fell for the 'Change!' bullcrap and desperate hopes, and we've got this socialist(or would fascist be more accurate?) clown in the Oval Office.
I rather doubt stories like this would be coming out about McCain & wife, which is one of the few ways he'd have differed from this pair of hypocrites.
Michelle Obama, as we reported on July 7, is not served by twenty-two attendants who stand by to cater to her every whim.
She is served by twenty-six attendants, including a hair dresser and make-up artist.
The annual cost to taxpayers for such unprecedented attention is approximately $1,750,000 without taking into account the expense of the lavish benefit packages afforded to every attendant.
Little did American voters realize the call for “change” would result in the establishment of an Obama oligarchy.
Uh, guy? Some of us were expecting crap like this; unfortunately, too many fell for the 'Change!' bullcrap and desperate hopes, and we've got this socialist(or would fascist be more accurate?) clown in the Oval Office.
I rather doubt stories like this would be coming out about McCain & wife, which is one of the few ways he'd have differed from this pair of hypocrites.
Senator Baucus(Evil Party Sleaze-MT) needs to be dragged into the town square
and horsewhipped. And then charged extra- excuse me, taxed- on any medical supplies used on his sorry ass.
When Sen. Max Baucus, Montana Democrat and Senate Finance Committee chairman, proposed taxing medical devices to raise $40 billion over the next 10 years for his health care plan, opponents started digging in and looking at what would be taxed.
It turned out feminine products, like tampons, were classified as "class I medical devices" and thus, the "tampon tax" was born.
The backlash was quick and severe enough against the idea that the committee quickly drafted new language that would exempt those necessities from the tax, along with all other class I devices, like tongue depressors, and decided to only tax class II medical devices and higher that cost more than $100.
Hey, almost nothing will cost more than that, so it'll be a tax that rarely hits people, right?
Not exactly.
But, just wait for the revolt to start again because women will still pay a price under the new structure, such as new moms who want to use a powered breast pump to bottle milk for their babies. Those devices, labeled class II, typically retails for more than $100.
And all the rest of the more expensive, higher-class medical devices used by both men and women - such as pacemakers, ventilators, X-ray machines, powered wheelchairs and surgical needles - will also be taxed whether purchased by patients or doctors.
So for daring to need the Nanny State-provided 'high-class' devices(SURGICAL NEEDLES?!?), Baucus and the other tax monkeys want to rape you; somehow, in their minds, it's only fair after all, to screw you so they can have more of your money to entrench themselves in power wi- er, take care of you with.
Hey, Montana, he's YOUR senator; what'cha gonna do?
Found at Sondra's place
When Sen. Max Baucus, Montana Democrat and Senate Finance Committee chairman, proposed taxing medical devices to raise $40 billion over the next 10 years for his health care plan, opponents started digging in and looking at what would be taxed.
It turned out feminine products, like tampons, were classified as "class I medical devices" and thus, the "tampon tax" was born.
The backlash was quick and severe enough against the idea that the committee quickly drafted new language that would exempt those necessities from the tax, along with all other class I devices, like tongue depressors, and decided to only tax class II medical devices and higher that cost more than $100.
Hey, almost nothing will cost more than that, so it'll be a tax that rarely hits people, right?
Not exactly.
But, just wait for the revolt to start again because women will still pay a price under the new structure, such as new moms who want to use a powered breast pump to bottle milk for their babies. Those devices, labeled class II, typically retails for more than $100.
And all the rest of the more expensive, higher-class medical devices used by both men and women - such as pacemakers, ventilators, X-ray machines, powered wheelchairs and surgical needles - will also be taxed whether purchased by patients or doctors.
So for daring to need the Nanny State-provided 'high-class' devices(SURGICAL NEEDLES?!?), Baucus and the other tax monkeys want to rape you; somehow, in their minds, it's only fair after all, to screw you so they can have more of your money to entrench themselves in power wi- er, take care of you with.
Hey, Montana, he's YOUR senator; what'cha gonna do?
Found at Sondra's place
'DNA sample may be required for hiring'
The new rules at Akron were adopted by the Board of Trustees in August, but most faculty members only learned of them in a recent e-mail list of announcements sent by the university to all employees. The rules state that background checks will be performed on all candidates selected for employment and that all offers will be "contingent on successful completion" of the check. Further, they state that all applicants "may be asked to submit a DNA sample." The rules specifically state that all employees, including faculty members, are covered.
Laura Martinez Massie, spokeswoman for Akron, said that the university would not comment on the resignation of Williams. She also said that to date, the university has not collected DNA and has no plans to do so, but is "merely reserving the right to do so."
'Merely reserving the right', yeah. And they wouldn't do that if they didn't have plans to use it.
Pointed to by Insty
Laura Martinez Massie, spokeswoman for Akron, said that the university would not comment on the resignation of Williams. She also said that to date, the university has not collected DNA and has no plans to do so, but is "merely reserving the right to do so."
'Merely reserving the right', yeah. And they wouldn't do that if they didn't have plans to use it.
Pointed to by Insty
Since the word on Honduras has already ruined the morning,
here's something that's slightly better, except for the background: they've arraigned four in the gang-rape. That they've got four of them is good; that these miserable little excuses for humans did this at all, and a bunch of people stood around approving- some joining in- is truly disgusting. Were it possible I'd like to see everyone who just stood around also charged and prosecuted.
I'll make a wager: an investigation will show either no fathers in the homes, or 'fathers' who change around depending on who the mother is sleeping with currently and who's in jail. A lot of the people whining and moaning about 'hate against women', etc., are- many of them- people who've insisted for years that fathers aren't necessary, marriage is slavery and so forth. And this is part of the end result of their work. They ought to be happy in one way: it gives them more ways to talk about how horrible males are.
Hey, wait, wouldn't that make them guilty of a hate crime, with all the hating on men?
Oh, that's right, women and minorities can't be guilty of such; I forgot. Unless they're white women hating on a minority, then they can. Sometimes.
I'll make a wager: an investigation will show either no fathers in the homes, or 'fathers' who change around depending on who the mother is sleeping with currently and who's in jail. A lot of the people whining and moaning about 'hate against women', etc., are- many of them- people who've insisted for years that fathers aren't necessary, marriage is slavery and so forth. And this is part of the end result of their work. They ought to be happy in one way: it gives them more ways to talk about how horrible males are.
Hey, wait, wouldn't that make them guilty of a hate crime, with all the hating on men?
Oh, that's right, women and minorities can't be guilty of such; I forgot. Unless they're white women hating on a minority, then they can. Sometimes.
Worst news of all:
supposedly Thomas Shannon has been pressuring the congressmen to vote for the restoration of Zelay or else! The exact words were that “Shannon scared the living hell out of everyone here including Micheletti.” Yeah, remember the press conference? “We’re just here to help. We aren’t going to intervene. We’ll respect any decision that the Hondurans make.” Yeah, right. Now they are even threatening elected Honduran officials that they won’t recognize elections unless they vote yes. I’m sure there must be economic threats as well.
El Heraldo (in Spanish) makes it clear that US State Dept. envoy for Latin America Thomas Shannon went to Honduras to twist arms: his position was that the November 29 elections would not be recognized unless Zelaya was returned to power. I guess nothing ensures democracy like restoring to power the guy who did his outmost to undermine democracy, at least in Shannon’s eyes.
So Obama has shown his true colors, if there were any doubt: he and his striped-pants thugs in the State Department(headed by Hillary Clinton, let us not forget) has forced a communist Chavez thug back into power; he must be so proud, now he can feel like he deserves a real pat on the head from Hugo and Fidel. I'll bet his tail is wagging fast enough to start a small dust devil.
El Heraldo (in Spanish) makes it clear that US State Dept. envoy for Latin America Thomas Shannon went to Honduras to twist arms: his position was that the November 29 elections would not be recognized unless Zelaya was returned to power. I guess nothing ensures democracy like restoring to power the guy who did his outmost to undermine democracy, at least in Shannon’s eyes.
So Obama has shown his true colors, if there were any doubt: he and his striped-pants thugs in the State Department(headed by Hillary Clinton, let us not forget) has forced a communist Chavez thug back into power; he must be so proud, now he can feel like he deserves a real pat on the head from Hugo and Fidel. I'll bet his tail is wagging fast enough to start a small dust devil.
One of the end results of the 'self-esteem at any cost-
bullcrap is whining like this:
The thug rang us and said: "I'm going to sue. I've got everyone staring at me because of this.
"He should be apologising to me. What have I got to apologise for ? I got arrested for it at the time and I got a fine. Now I feel all depressed."
Well, boo-freakin'-hoo. If you've not run across this before, here's what brought this on:
After complaining to police FIFTY times in a year, the 15st karate and jiu-jitsu black belt snapped when Andrews swore and pushed him on his doorstep.
Yesterday Jason said: "These thugs repeatedly abused me and my family and damaged our property. I've never gone out looking for trouble but think you've got to be able to defend yourself." He has now moved away from the estate with daughter Boudiccia, 22 months, and wife Rebecca, 23.
Attention British Police: If you don't do the damned job, people are going to start doing it themselves. In this case, the troublemaker got decked; if things get worse, it wouldn't surprise me if clowns like this started turning up dead. Or just disappearing(shallow graves, LOTS of watery places in Britain, etc.) Because there are a lot of people in Britain who DO remember something about being British.
The thug rang us and said: "I'm going to sue. I've got everyone staring at me because of this.
"He should be apologising to me. What have I got to apologise for ? I got arrested for it at the time and I got a fine. Now I feel all depressed."
Well, boo-freakin'-hoo. If you've not run across this before, here's what brought this on:
After complaining to police FIFTY times in a year, the 15st karate and jiu-jitsu black belt snapped when Andrews swore and pushed him on his doorstep.
Yesterday Jason said: "These thugs repeatedly abused me and my family and damaged our property. I've never gone out looking for trouble but think you've got to be able to defend yourself." He has now moved away from the estate with daughter Boudiccia, 22 months, and wife Rebecca, 23.
Attention British Police: If you don't do the damned job, people are going to start doing it themselves. In this case, the troublemaker got decked; if things get worse, it wouldn't surprise me if clowns like this started turning up dead. Or just disappearing(shallow graves, LOTS of watery places in Britain, etc.) Because there are a lot of people in Britain who DO remember something about being British.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Asset forfeiture, British style,
and just as effed-up as it often is here; but rarely on such a scale.
The police rolled through London in a convoy: scores of patrol cars, armed-response vehicles, outriders on their bikes, vans with their windows shielded by metal cages. With a Met film unit recording everything, detectives forced their way past startled security guards, demanding receptionists open the secure doors that led to the normally hushed strong rooms, which in the three centres housed 6,717 safety deposit boxes
...
There was a lot at stake. Never before had the British police been granted a warrant as broad as this. The raids had been made possible under a controversial law, the Proceeds Of Crime Act (POCA), which came into being in 2002 and introduced an array of wide-ranging new powers to seek out and confiscate dirty money - the houses, cars and boats bought by criminals.
However, lawyers watching the police operation unfold were quick to warn that the strong-arming of these vaults and the crashing into each and every box was tantamount to the police having obtained permission to smash down the doors of an entire housing estate.
David Sonn, of Sonn Macmillan Walker, one of the largest criminal defence practices in London, says, 'POCA was never intended for this. No one objects when criminals are caught and their assets seized - but shaking down everyone to get to them is specifically not what lawmakers wanted.'.
Big raid, lots of rehearsal, lots of evidence found. But there's a slight problem:
However, by talking to scores of box-holders, none of whom have spoken before, Live has uncovered a different version of Operation Rize, one that shows how the vast majority of those caught up in the raids were innocent. They have had their lives turned upside down over the past 17 months. Many have struggled to recoup their money and possessions, been forced into legal trench warfare with police lawyers and told they must prove how they came by the contents of their boxes.
This is also a story told through secret legal papers, including confidentiality agreements struck with some vault depositors whose cases threatened to topple the entire operation. Although the police told a judge that 'nine out of ten' of all of the thousands of box-holders were probably criminally minded, criminally connected or felons, the paper trail reveals that perhaps only as few as ten per cent of the boxes have any connection to serious crime.
Which is bad enough, but when you get further in, you run into the same mindset we run into over here:
Many of the clientele were families who had fled turmoil, pogroms, coups and wars and long had a cultural preference for locking away money and jewels, building up a vehement distrust for the integrity of traditional banks. Here, stepping down the spiral staircase at the back to the darkened boxes below, they felt reassured that their most important possessions were safe.
One survivor of Nazi Germany in his seventies told us how he had placed a bag of diamonds there - security if ever he or his descendents needed to run again.
...
A Hindu priest described to Live how his family's valuables had been carried in the Sixties from Madhya Pradesh, India, to London 'in a gunny sack'.
Among the possessions seized by the police were elaborate handcrafted bracelets, gold rings set with uncut stones, and a bejewelled wedding tikka ornament to be draped on the forehead of a new bride. 'These items had always been in our family,' the priest said, 'We had cash in there too. But now we had to prove how we bought them and where that money, saved over the years, had come from.'
There've been lots of horror stories over here about police seizing property and, if you could not prove it was 'innocent' they assume it's illegal profits/property and they keep it. Same thing here, and just as disgusting: how does someone prove that property that may have been in the family for years, or generations, is yours? How do you 'prove' to people convinced you're a crook that the cash you saved over years, sometimes decades, is honestly gained?
And it's not just money and valuables seized:
One angry box-holder rented Box 73 at the Park Lane depository. Alexander Temerko, formerly a vice president of Russian oil giant Yukos, whose billionaire boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky had fallen foul of President Putin, had fled to London as Khodorkovsky was jailed for eight years in Russia.
On his arrival in the UK, Temerko had locked five crates of legal documents into his safety-deposit box. However, as a result of Rize, the papers were now in the hands of the Met, which claimed they were evidence of an alleged criminal conspiracy whose participants were British, obliging the police to investigate.
Depending on your situation, records like that can be worth far more to you than money. This was one of the people who were able to hire serious legal assistance:
Montgomery and Burton highlighted case law that specifically stipulated 'fishing expeditions' were barred to the police, even under POCA. In other words, the police were not allowed to seize property in the hope that it would later prove to be criminal. The legal team also demanded sight of the police evidence that had convinced the judge to issue the warrant in the first place.
And here's where the story starts coming out in ways the Met had tried very hard to prevent:
The Met hired Kennedy Talbot, one of Britain's most experienced barristers dealing with POCA. Talbot approached a senior judge at Southwark Crown Court in November 2007. But Southwark rejected the request. The police application was also riddled with simple errors, according to the skeleton document, including a claim by undercover officers that there were 18,000 boxes, three times the actual number.
Police also named Leslie Sieff as a director, when available records showed that he had sold the majority of his shareholding as far back as 1998 and would soon resign as a director.
And on:
Having amended the number of safety-deposit boxes to a correct 6,717, and after admitting 'there is a lot we don't know', the police claimed to have found a shredded list behind one of the centres that when reconstituted revealed the identities of boxholders. SCD6 had analysed it and concluded that in a sample of 391 names between '82 per cent and 90 per cent were suspicious or connected to crime'.
A statistician was then hired who used this sample of only five per cent of the total client base to conclude that nine out of ten of all of the thousands of box-holders were probably criminally minded or felons, an opinion later expressed more stridently with Judge Macrae, who was told that 'all of the boxes might contain criminal property'. Macrae was swayed. He authorised a warrant under POCA on May 30 2008.
And on:
Minutes had been taken of the judge's meetings with Talbot and Ponting. They tell how the Rize plan had been rejected by one senior judge only to be put to a second who was wooed with statistics rather than hard new evidence. Other court documents obtained show that the legal teams preparing their judicial reviews took the 32-page transcript to pieces and in so doing lambasted the whole Rize operation.
'The warrant was extraordinarily broad,' Temerko's team warned, and 'completely unprecedented', representing the widest ever seen by lawyers in Britain, one that on this ground alone was liable to be quashed by High Court judges. The police had only provided the court with 'bare assertions' rather than hard evidence.
A High Court judge was advised, 'The gross interference in privacy outweighed any benefit to the investigation.'
And friggin' on:
Siobhan Egan from lawyers Lewis Nedas added: 'The police had also made some bizarre errors.' The POCA legislation barred the seizing of legal papers but they had five crates belonging to Temerko.
The police changed course. They notified Temerko's legal team that they were now acting under the Criminal Justice and Police Act, which allowed such privileged documents to be held.
'However, this law can only be invoked when a written notice has been given to everyone, box-holders and vault owners,' said Egan. Alerted, the police ran around serving the directors of the Park Lane vault and their box-holders with written notices - without realising that the law could not be applied retrospectively, and that the notice had to be handed over 'at the time' of the raids.
'Coverup after the fact', anyone? And it gets even worse.
Eight out of ten box owners were provably innocent. Taylor said: 'Of the £53 million in cash that the police took, £20 million has also been given back and £33 million is now being referred to as "under investigation", of which only £2.83 million has been confiscated or forfeited by the courts.'
This figure represents just over five per cent of the total money stored in the vaults, although the Met has 690 ' suspect' boxes that it is still investigating.
That means of the total number of boxes, around ten per cent are being probed for villainy, a long way from the nine out of ten cases the Met surmised they would find while wooing Judge Macrae.
Lawyers have seen their Rize cases squeezed and intimidated. Sara Teasdale revealed how the police were first adamant that her client's money was criminal cash, threatening forfeiture, only to try and turn the box-holder's business partner against him, enticing him to wear a wire so as to entrap him into admitting it was also money stolen from his own company.
Teasdale said: 'They first tried "wrong money". Then it was company money. Even when they dropped criminal proceedings against him in February 2009, they inexplicably continued with civil forfeiture proceedings.' The Yard was trying all it could to get the cash.
'They were sitting on almost £1 million, and having referred to my client anonymously in press releases as an example of why they had raided, they needed to win.'
But this case was recently lost by the Met too, leaving the box-holder with £200,000 in fees, money he is now seeking back from the police.
To make very bad even worse, the inevitable:
One goldsmith from north London fought for over a year to get his £40,000 cash and valuables back, then claimed it was not all there. He has now filed an o fficial complaint.
'The police kept saying, "Why have you got all this cash?" and I showed them my books.'
His premises were raided twice, the second time by 20 o fficers.
'They found nothing because I had done nothing and eventually this summer, everything was returned to me. But £10,000 was gone - and my wife's diamond earrings.'
...
The Met has strenuously denied all allegations of theft, pointing out that anyone stealing from the boxes would have been caught on camera since offi cers videoed the entire operation.
Another box-holder who is alleging theft, a wealthy Russian émigré party-planner from north London, who had £64,000 in cash and £250,000 worth of jewellery, including heirlooms from Russia, successfully challenged the police to produce the video.
'I am meticulous,' she said. 'I have a receipt for everything. When I got my box back, £9,000 cash and some smaller items of jewellery were missing - a gold baby's bracelet and an 18-carat gold ring.'
The initial police footage, she claims, had a time code and showed her box being carried to a table. But then the tape was interrupted and when it restarted the footage was being shot from a new camera, at a diff erent angle and without a time code, with real time having moved on many seconds.
She told Live: 'It only takes seconds for a small envelope of cash or a gold ring to be swiped from the table and into someone's pocket. I was staggered.' After failing to get adequate answers from the Met's own Directorate of Professional Standards, her lawyers have gone to the independent Police Complaints Authority, along with 70 other box-holders.
So now you've got either messed-up procedure on documenting the process, or deliberate gaps in the recordings. And accusations of missing property. With the Met still claiming it was an 'absolute success', of course. This part near the end points to the same mindset that leads to so many of the problems here:
Facing hefty fees for defending itself before two Judicial Reviews, being pursued for millions of pounds in legal fees by innocent box-holders, and now facing inquiries into theft, the political, judicial and financial costs of the operation are beginning to stack up.
And yet when it first kicked o ff, one of the things that had endeared Rize to everyone was its revenue-earning capacity, something revealed in a tucked-away minute of the Metropolitan Police Authority from September 2008.
Warning that the police were lagging behind in meeting targets set to seize criminals' assets, it stated: 'To achieve the target a further £36.6 million of assets need to be seized in the remaining nine months.' This was 'a challenging target'. However, 'with the emerging results from Operation Rize, the seizures are likely to make a major contribution toward the final total.'
Just effing wonderful. Deliberately setting targets of 'assets' to seize is a serious indication of trouble in the making, because if you aren't near your target, there's going to be real pressure to do things you probably shouldn't to meet the target. Which looks like was a big factor in this mess.
I'd suggest reading the whole article; it's worth the time. One thing that really surprise me was this line: Determined to clear their names, the Selts put up the £50,000 needed to launch their own Judicial Review that also focused on the lawfulness of the original warrant.
So not only do you have to find a way to prove your money and possessions are really yours, and legitimate, you have to come up with a serious amount of cash to get this type of review started. Which makes it even harder for you, and even easier for the government to keep your property; wonderful thing for official thieves, isn't it?
The police rolled through London in a convoy: scores of patrol cars, armed-response vehicles, outriders on their bikes, vans with their windows shielded by metal cages. With a Met film unit recording everything, detectives forced their way past startled security guards, demanding receptionists open the secure doors that led to the normally hushed strong rooms, which in the three centres housed 6,717 safety deposit boxes
...
There was a lot at stake. Never before had the British police been granted a warrant as broad as this. The raids had been made possible under a controversial law, the Proceeds Of Crime Act (POCA), which came into being in 2002 and introduced an array of wide-ranging new powers to seek out and confiscate dirty money - the houses, cars and boats bought by criminals.
However, lawyers watching the police operation unfold were quick to warn that the strong-arming of these vaults and the crashing into each and every box was tantamount to the police having obtained permission to smash down the doors of an entire housing estate.
David Sonn, of Sonn Macmillan Walker, one of the largest criminal defence practices in London, says, 'POCA was never intended for this. No one objects when criminals are caught and their assets seized - but shaking down everyone to get to them is specifically not what lawmakers wanted.'.
Big raid, lots of rehearsal, lots of evidence found. But there's a slight problem:
However, by talking to scores of box-holders, none of whom have spoken before, Live has uncovered a different version of Operation Rize, one that shows how the vast majority of those caught up in the raids were innocent. They have had their lives turned upside down over the past 17 months. Many have struggled to recoup their money and possessions, been forced into legal trench warfare with police lawyers and told they must prove how they came by the contents of their boxes.
This is also a story told through secret legal papers, including confidentiality agreements struck with some vault depositors whose cases threatened to topple the entire operation. Although the police told a judge that 'nine out of ten' of all of the thousands of box-holders were probably criminally minded, criminally connected or felons, the paper trail reveals that perhaps only as few as ten per cent of the boxes have any connection to serious crime.
Which is bad enough, but when you get further in, you run into the same mindset we run into over here:
Many of the clientele were families who had fled turmoil, pogroms, coups and wars and long had a cultural preference for locking away money and jewels, building up a vehement distrust for the integrity of traditional banks. Here, stepping down the spiral staircase at the back to the darkened boxes below, they felt reassured that their most important possessions were safe.
One survivor of Nazi Germany in his seventies told us how he had placed a bag of diamonds there - security if ever he or his descendents needed to run again.
...
A Hindu priest described to Live how his family's valuables had been carried in the Sixties from Madhya Pradesh, India, to London 'in a gunny sack'.
Among the possessions seized by the police were elaborate handcrafted bracelets, gold rings set with uncut stones, and a bejewelled wedding tikka ornament to be draped on the forehead of a new bride. 'These items had always been in our family,' the priest said, 'We had cash in there too. But now we had to prove how we bought them and where that money, saved over the years, had come from.'
There've been lots of horror stories over here about police seizing property and, if you could not prove it was 'innocent' they assume it's illegal profits/property and they keep it. Same thing here, and just as disgusting: how does someone prove that property that may have been in the family for years, or generations, is yours? How do you 'prove' to people convinced you're a crook that the cash you saved over years, sometimes decades, is honestly gained?
And it's not just money and valuables seized:
One angry box-holder rented Box 73 at the Park Lane depository. Alexander Temerko, formerly a vice president of Russian oil giant Yukos, whose billionaire boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky had fallen foul of President Putin, had fled to London as Khodorkovsky was jailed for eight years in Russia.
On his arrival in the UK, Temerko had locked five crates of legal documents into his safety-deposit box. However, as a result of Rize, the papers were now in the hands of the Met, which claimed they were evidence of an alleged criminal conspiracy whose participants were British, obliging the police to investigate.
Depending on your situation, records like that can be worth far more to you than money. This was one of the people who were able to hire serious legal assistance:
Montgomery and Burton highlighted case law that specifically stipulated 'fishing expeditions' were barred to the police, even under POCA. In other words, the police were not allowed to seize property in the hope that it would later prove to be criminal. The legal team also demanded sight of the police evidence that had convinced the judge to issue the warrant in the first place.
And here's where the story starts coming out in ways the Met had tried very hard to prevent:
The Met hired Kennedy Talbot, one of Britain's most experienced barristers dealing with POCA. Talbot approached a senior judge at Southwark Crown Court in November 2007. But Southwark rejected the request. The police application was also riddled with simple errors, according to the skeleton document, including a claim by undercover officers that there were 18,000 boxes, three times the actual number.
Police also named Leslie Sieff as a director, when available records showed that he had sold the majority of his shareholding as far back as 1998 and would soon resign as a director.
And on:
Having amended the number of safety-deposit boxes to a correct 6,717, and after admitting 'there is a lot we don't know', the police claimed to have found a shredded list behind one of the centres that when reconstituted revealed the identities of boxholders. SCD6 had analysed it and concluded that in a sample of 391 names between '82 per cent and 90 per cent were suspicious or connected to crime'.
A statistician was then hired who used this sample of only five per cent of the total client base to conclude that nine out of ten of all of the thousands of box-holders were probably criminally minded or felons, an opinion later expressed more stridently with Judge Macrae, who was told that 'all of the boxes might contain criminal property'. Macrae was swayed. He authorised a warrant under POCA on May 30 2008.
And on:
Minutes had been taken of the judge's meetings with Talbot and Ponting. They tell how the Rize plan had been rejected by one senior judge only to be put to a second who was wooed with statistics rather than hard new evidence. Other court documents obtained show that the legal teams preparing their judicial reviews took the 32-page transcript to pieces and in so doing lambasted the whole Rize operation.
'The warrant was extraordinarily broad,' Temerko's team warned, and 'completely unprecedented', representing the widest ever seen by lawyers in Britain, one that on this ground alone was liable to be quashed by High Court judges. The police had only provided the court with 'bare assertions' rather than hard evidence.
A High Court judge was advised, 'The gross interference in privacy outweighed any benefit to the investigation.'
And friggin' on:
Siobhan Egan from lawyers Lewis Nedas added: 'The police had also made some bizarre errors.' The POCA legislation barred the seizing of legal papers but they had five crates belonging to Temerko.
The police changed course. They notified Temerko's legal team that they were now acting under the Criminal Justice and Police Act, which allowed such privileged documents to be held.
'However, this law can only be invoked when a written notice has been given to everyone, box-holders and vault owners,' said Egan. Alerted, the police ran around serving the directors of the Park Lane vault and their box-holders with written notices - without realising that the law could not be applied retrospectively, and that the notice had to be handed over 'at the time' of the raids.
'Coverup after the fact', anyone? And it gets even worse.
Eight out of ten box owners were provably innocent. Taylor said: 'Of the £53 million in cash that the police took, £20 million has also been given back and £33 million is now being referred to as "under investigation", of which only £2.83 million has been confiscated or forfeited by the courts.'
This figure represents just over five per cent of the total money stored in the vaults, although the Met has 690 ' suspect' boxes that it is still investigating.
That means of the total number of boxes, around ten per cent are being probed for villainy, a long way from the nine out of ten cases the Met surmised they would find while wooing Judge Macrae.
Lawyers have seen their Rize cases squeezed and intimidated. Sara Teasdale revealed how the police were first adamant that her client's money was criminal cash, threatening forfeiture, only to try and turn the box-holder's business partner against him, enticing him to wear a wire so as to entrap him into admitting it was also money stolen from his own company.
Teasdale said: 'They first tried "wrong money". Then it was company money. Even when they dropped criminal proceedings against him in February 2009, they inexplicably continued with civil forfeiture proceedings.' The Yard was trying all it could to get the cash.
'They were sitting on almost £1 million, and having referred to my client anonymously in press releases as an example of why they had raided, they needed to win.'
But this case was recently lost by the Met too, leaving the box-holder with £200,000 in fees, money he is now seeking back from the police.
To make very bad even worse, the inevitable:
One goldsmith from north London fought for over a year to get his £40,000 cash and valuables back, then claimed it was not all there. He has now filed an o fficial complaint.
'The police kept saying, "Why have you got all this cash?" and I showed them my books.'
His premises were raided twice, the second time by 20 o fficers.
'They found nothing because I had done nothing and eventually this summer, everything was returned to me. But £10,000 was gone - and my wife's diamond earrings.'
...
The Met has strenuously denied all allegations of theft, pointing out that anyone stealing from the boxes would have been caught on camera since offi cers videoed the entire operation.
Another box-holder who is alleging theft, a wealthy Russian émigré party-planner from north London, who had £64,000 in cash and £250,000 worth of jewellery, including heirlooms from Russia, successfully challenged the police to produce the video.
'I am meticulous,' she said. 'I have a receipt for everything. When I got my box back, £9,000 cash and some smaller items of jewellery were missing - a gold baby's bracelet and an 18-carat gold ring.'
The initial police footage, she claims, had a time code and showed her box being carried to a table. But then the tape was interrupted and when it restarted the footage was being shot from a new camera, at a diff erent angle and without a time code, with real time having moved on many seconds.
She told Live: 'It only takes seconds for a small envelope of cash or a gold ring to be swiped from the table and into someone's pocket. I was staggered.' After failing to get adequate answers from the Met's own Directorate of Professional Standards, her lawyers have gone to the independent Police Complaints Authority, along with 70 other box-holders.
So now you've got either messed-up procedure on documenting the process, or deliberate gaps in the recordings. And accusations of missing property. With the Met still claiming it was an 'absolute success', of course. This part near the end points to the same mindset that leads to so many of the problems here:
Facing hefty fees for defending itself before two Judicial Reviews, being pursued for millions of pounds in legal fees by innocent box-holders, and now facing inquiries into theft, the political, judicial and financial costs of the operation are beginning to stack up.
And yet when it first kicked o ff, one of the things that had endeared Rize to everyone was its revenue-earning capacity, something revealed in a tucked-away minute of the Metropolitan Police Authority from September 2008.
Warning that the police were lagging behind in meeting targets set to seize criminals' assets, it stated: 'To achieve the target a further £36.6 million of assets need to be seized in the remaining nine months.' This was 'a challenging target'. However, 'with the emerging results from Operation Rize, the seizures are likely to make a major contribution toward the final total.'
Just effing wonderful. Deliberately setting targets of 'assets' to seize is a serious indication of trouble in the making, because if you aren't near your target, there's going to be real pressure to do things you probably shouldn't to meet the target. Which looks like was a big factor in this mess.
I'd suggest reading the whole article; it's worth the time. One thing that really surprise me was this line: Determined to clear their names, the Selts put up the £50,000 needed to launch their own Judicial Review that also focused on the lawfulness of the original warrant.
So not only do you have to find a way to prove your money and possessions are really yours, and legitimate, you have to come up with a serious amount of cash to get this type of review started. Which makes it even harder for you, and even easier for the government to keep your property; wonderful thing for official thieves, isn't it?
So this is the kind of foreign policy advice Sen. John Effing Kerry
(Evil Party Slimeball-MA) is giving the President: (Updated)
A month ago, the Law Library of Congress reviewed the removal of Manuel Zelaya from his post as President of Honduras, an act that the Obama administration called a “coup” and demanded reversed for its illegality. To the embarrassment of the White House and State Department, the Congressional body determined that Honduras acted lawfully in removing Zelaya for his crimes against their constitution, although they determined that his exile broke Honduran law. Now John Kerry wants the Law Library to retract its findings, apparently trying to rewrite history to hide the facts of the case:
Wonderful, isn't it?
Update: Sailor Curt has a lot more detail, go take a look.
A month ago, the Law Library of Congress reviewed the removal of Manuel Zelaya from his post as President of Honduras, an act that the Obama administration called a “coup” and demanded reversed for its illegality. To the embarrassment of the White House and State Department, the Congressional body determined that Honduras acted lawfully in removing Zelaya for his crimes against their constitution, although they determined that his exile broke Honduran law. Now John Kerry wants the Law Library to retract its findings, apparently trying to rewrite history to hide the facts of the case:
Wonderful, isn't it?
Update: Sailor Curt has a lot more detail, go take a look.
Ok, what the hell is the Attorney General doing?
President Obama isn’t taking kindly to a television ad that criticizes his opposition to a popular scholarship program for poor children, and his administration wants the ad pulled.
Former D.C. Councilmember Kevin Chavous of D.C. Children First said October 16 that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder had recently approached him and told him to kill the ad.
Former D.C. Councilmember Kevin Chavous of D.C. Children First said October 16 that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder had recently approached him and told him to kill the ad.
Apparently the Reclusive Leftist doesn't like questions
She has a post up on the Protected Species Crime Bill(no, she doesn't call it that) the Evil Party tacked onto the defense bill, and how there should have been more noise made about protecting women from hate crime. So I asked a question in comments: Why hate crime laws? Why not prosecute a rape as a rape, murder as murder, etc.? Why screw around with 'hate crime' legislation?
I just checked back, and the comment/question has been deleted. Apparently you're not supposed to question the need for some groups to receive special protection. Which is exactly what this crap is, you're saying that some groups are more human, or more important than others, therefore a crime against the protected species is worse than a crime against a plain old not-as-important human.
I just checked back, and the comment/question has been deleted. Apparently you're not supposed to question the need for some groups to receive special protection. Which is exactly what this crap is, you're saying that some groups are more human, or more important than others, therefore a crime against the protected species is worse than a crime against a plain old not-as-important human.
I was going to say 'well done' to Obama for meeting the returning dead,
until I read this:
Meanwhile, he managed to slip off to Dover AFB between 12:30 and 4 AM last nightto greet returning caskets of 18 servicemen recently killed in Afghanistan. Despite the late hour, the event was anything but discreet. Turns out they managed to get a family of one, Army Sargent Dale R. Griffin, to agree to allow press coverage of the 15 minute ceremony, securing an inspiring photo op for the event.
Damn the bastard. He can screw around for months trying to decide whether or not to take Gen. McChrystal's call for more troops("Because I care about them"), and then he does this. For a God-cursed photo op, to show how much he 'respects' the troops. If he actually had any respect for them, he'd do the same thing I've heard Bush often did: meet the incoming with no media and keep it quiet. I'm still mad as hell at Bush for a number of things, but this damn sure ain't one of them.
Meanwhile, he managed to slip off to Dover AFB between 12:30 and 4 AM last nightto greet returning caskets of 18 servicemen recently killed in Afghanistan. Despite the late hour, the event was anything but discreet. Turns out they managed to get a family of one, Army Sargent Dale R. Griffin, to agree to allow press coverage of the 15 minute ceremony, securing an inspiring photo op for the event.
Damn the bastard. He can screw around for months trying to decide whether or not to take Gen. McChrystal's call for more troops("Because I care about them"), and then he does this. For a God-cursed photo op, to show how much he 'respects' the troops. If he actually had any respect for them, he'd do the same thing I've heard Bush often did: meet the incoming with no media and keep it quiet. I'm still mad as hell at Bush for a number of things, but this damn sure ain't one of them.
This kind of idiocy ought to come up on a Monday
Taking a hot shower is harmful to Mother Gaia, and the enviroweenies want you to stop. Hey, they want to use cold water only when it's coming out of the tap at make-your-balls-disappear temperature, they're welcome to.
Connections, connections... and this is the kind of thing that makes me think that, whatever it is, there's something at least highly embarrassing(to them at least) in the documents.
Hey, if Obama can blame all his problems on Bush, Anita Dunn can blame hers on a dead Republican.
Who's lying to who? Interesting question. Did Gingrich just not make sure of the facts, or is there some idiot reason he's pushing the liberal?
Hmmm. US federal agents said they shot dead the leader of a radical fundamentalist Islamist group after he refused to surrender on several criminal charges. The US attorney’s office said Luqman Ameen Abdullah, 53, was killed while exchanging gunfire with agents yesterday at a warehouse in Dearborn, near Detroit.
Ok, if this little bastard Levi Johnston wants to make veiled threats, maybe someone should start digging into everything about him. For starters, is he paying child support out of all this money he's making?
If only they reacted so swiftly to developments in other wars, such as in Afghanistan. They seem to care more about their own political image than they do about our military.
Now while they claim these job numbers are being corrected, their own web site still has what they claim is the wrong information.
Oops.
Like he says, Hey, AP, welcome to the enemies list!
Question has become not "Will the Brits reach a tipping point?", but "Did it pass and they let it?"
A council has banned parents from supervising their children in public playgrounds until they have undergone criminal record checks.
Adults have been excluded from two adventure play areas in Watford, apart from a handful of council-vetted 'play rangers' who will assist youngsters, it emerged today.
Parents will be forced to watch their children from outside the perimeter fence.
Watford Borough Council claims it is just following Government guidelines and cannot allow adults to walk around playgrounds 'unchecked'.
The Nanny State has your own interests at heart. And control of your kids. Wonder what these kids are hearing at school?
She said: 'Sadly, in today's climate, you can't have adults walking around unchecked in a children's playground and the adventure playground is not a meeting place for adults.
Actually, for parents it often is, while the kids play; just because you don't like it doesn't make it untrue.
And get this part:
'We have reviewed our procedures, so although previously some parents have stayed with their children at the discretion of our play workers, this is not something we can continue to do.
So they're claiming that even before this, their 'play workers' had the power to tell parents to leave their kids. Isn't socialism wonderful, where Great Britain used to be?
Even more risible, though, is the claim that the administration “is going to speak truth to power.” Hello, Valerie? Your boss is the president of the United States! No one is more powerful. As we suggested Friday, it really seems as if Obama and his men do not understand what it means to be president. Because their power is constrained–thank you, Founding Fathers!–they labor under the delusion that they are powerless.
Yet while this is all hilarious, it is also scary when you think it through. Great power entails great responsibility. There is little to suggest that Obama and his aides appreciate their responsibility, and much, including their incessant complaining that the previous president did a lousy job, to suggest an attitude of total irresponsibility.
The job of those in power is not to “speak truth to power,” though it would be nice if they spoke the truth once in a while.
Yeah. From the comment Insty published,
But he’s finding out that governing by fiat doesn’t work for long in this country. The tags for his presidency so far seem to be Radical, Naive, FDR, Jimmy Carter, Socialism and Screw Up.
I'd change that slightly, to 'Screw You'.
Here's a bit more on the islamist in Detroit; think the AG will charge them with hate crimes over this language?
The complaint says that the imam or leader of the group, Luqman Ameen Abdullah, repeatedly used rhetoric that urged Muslims to seize power with violence and establish a society where Muslims would rule over non-Muslims.
“America must fall,” Abdullah said, according to the complaint. At another point, he “told followers that they need to be with the Taliban, Hizballah, and with Sheikh Bin Laden.”
“We should be figuring out how to fight the Kuffar,” Abdullah said at another point, the indictment states. Kuffar “is a highly derogatory term” used to describe non-Mulisms, the document states.
Nah, I don't think so either; how can he charge a protected species with a hate crime, racial coward that he is?
Gee, it's nice that Obama nominates such wonderful people for such critical offices...
FBI interview summaries describe Stephanie Villafuerte as saying she had “no conversations” with anyone at the DA’s office about the illegal immigrant, Carlos Estrada-Medina.
But the FBI apparently never asked Villafuerte, the former chief deputy DA who was then working for Bill Ritter’s campaign, why she left a phone message for DA spokeswoman Lynn Kimbrough that Kimbrough noted was about Estrada-Medina. The FBI also apparently never asked her about the nature of a series of phone calls she exchanged over the next two days with Kimbrough and First Assistant DA Chuck Lepley. Those calls came both before and after an order by Lepley to a subordinate to run a criminal history check of Estrada-Medina in a restricted federal database.
And, as I've pointed out many times,
It can be a crime to access the National Crime Information Center computer for a non-law-enforcement purpose.
So not only did President Obama's appointee lie- under oath, yet- about matters, the FBI failed to do their damn job right. Wonderful, isn't it, how some questions don't get asked of Obama appointees? Of course, it's possible this was simply incompetence, but I doubt it.
The Working Families Party, yeah; breaking the law fortheiryour own good...
Lots of links from Malkin today.
I noticed the other day that while the defense appropriations bill being signed was reported, most media stressed the Special Protected Species "They're more human than you" Hate Crimes Law" that was tacked onto it; probably because if you actually talk about the bill, you might have to discuss all the slimy politicians raiding the troops funds for vote-buying earmarks.
Oh, goody. Maybe they'll call the company Jackson's Whole. And start farming clones for parts.
Bleah. I need tea. And it's raining, again, and a front coming in this afternoon just to chill things again. Talked to son last night, and daughter-in-law is sick, and it's worse than it should be because she didn't want to go to the doctor for days; yeah, she'll fit right into the family.
Connections, connections... and this is the kind of thing that makes me think that, whatever it is, there's something at least highly embarrassing(to them at least) in the documents.
Hey, if Obama can blame all his problems on Bush, Anita Dunn can blame hers on a dead Republican.
Who's lying to who? Interesting question. Did Gingrich just not make sure of the facts, or is there some idiot reason he's pushing the liberal?
Hmmm. US federal agents said they shot dead the leader of a radical fundamentalist Islamist group after he refused to surrender on several criminal charges. The US attorney’s office said Luqman Ameen Abdullah, 53, was killed while exchanging gunfire with agents yesterday at a warehouse in Dearborn, near Detroit.
Ok, if this little bastard Levi Johnston wants to make veiled threats, maybe someone should start digging into everything about him. For starters, is he paying child support out of all this money he's making?
If only they reacted so swiftly to developments in other wars, such as in Afghanistan. They seem to care more about their own political image than they do about our military.
Now while they claim these job numbers are being corrected, their own web site still has what they claim is the wrong information.
Oops.
Like he says, Hey, AP, welcome to the enemies list!
Question has become not "Will the Brits reach a tipping point?", but "Did it pass and they let it?"
A council has banned parents from supervising their children in public playgrounds until they have undergone criminal record checks.
Adults have been excluded from two adventure play areas in Watford, apart from a handful of council-vetted 'play rangers' who will assist youngsters, it emerged today.
Parents will be forced to watch their children from outside the perimeter fence.
Watford Borough Council claims it is just following Government guidelines and cannot allow adults to walk around playgrounds 'unchecked'.
The Nanny State has your own interests at heart. And control of your kids. Wonder what these kids are hearing at school?
She said: 'Sadly, in today's climate, you can't have adults walking around unchecked in a children's playground and the adventure playground is not a meeting place for adults.
Actually, for parents it often is, while the kids play; just because you don't like it doesn't make it untrue.
And get this part:
'We have reviewed our procedures, so although previously some parents have stayed with their children at the discretion of our play workers, this is not something we can continue to do.
So they're claiming that even before this, their 'play workers' had the power to tell parents to leave their kids. Isn't socialism wonderful, where Great Britain used to be?
Even more risible, though, is the claim that the administration “is going to speak truth to power.” Hello, Valerie? Your boss is the president of the United States! No one is more powerful. As we suggested Friday, it really seems as if Obama and his men do not understand what it means to be president. Because their power is constrained–thank you, Founding Fathers!–they labor under the delusion that they are powerless.
Yet while this is all hilarious, it is also scary when you think it through. Great power entails great responsibility. There is little to suggest that Obama and his aides appreciate their responsibility, and much, including their incessant complaining that the previous president did a lousy job, to suggest an attitude of total irresponsibility.
The job of those in power is not to “speak truth to power,” though it would be nice if they spoke the truth once in a while.
Yeah. From the comment Insty published,
But he’s finding out that governing by fiat doesn’t work for long in this country. The tags for his presidency so far seem to be Radical, Naive, FDR, Jimmy Carter, Socialism and Screw Up.
I'd change that slightly, to 'Screw You'.
Here's a bit more on the islamist in Detroit; think the AG will charge them with hate crimes over this language?
The complaint says that the imam or leader of the group, Luqman Ameen Abdullah, repeatedly used rhetoric that urged Muslims to seize power with violence and establish a society where Muslims would rule over non-Muslims.
“America must fall,” Abdullah said, according to the complaint. At another point, he “told followers that they need to be with the Taliban, Hizballah, and with Sheikh Bin Laden.”
“We should be figuring out how to fight the Kuffar,” Abdullah said at another point, the indictment states. Kuffar “is a highly derogatory term” used to describe non-Mulisms, the document states.
Nah, I don't think so either; how can he charge a protected species with a hate crime, racial coward that he is?
Gee, it's nice that Obama nominates such wonderful people for such critical offices...
FBI interview summaries describe Stephanie Villafuerte as saying she had “no conversations” with anyone at the DA’s office about the illegal immigrant, Carlos Estrada-Medina.
But the FBI apparently never asked Villafuerte, the former chief deputy DA who was then working for Bill Ritter’s campaign, why she left a phone message for DA spokeswoman Lynn Kimbrough that Kimbrough noted was about Estrada-Medina. The FBI also apparently never asked her about the nature of a series of phone calls she exchanged over the next two days with Kimbrough and First Assistant DA Chuck Lepley. Those calls came both before and after an order by Lepley to a subordinate to run a criminal history check of Estrada-Medina in a restricted federal database.
And, as I've pointed out many times,
It can be a crime to access the National Crime Information Center computer for a non-law-enforcement purpose.
So not only did President Obama's appointee lie- under oath, yet- about matters, the FBI failed to do their damn job right. Wonderful, isn't it, how some questions don't get asked of Obama appointees? Of course, it's possible this was simply incompetence, but I doubt it.
The Working Families Party, yeah; breaking the law for
Lots of links from Malkin today.
I noticed the other day that while the defense appropriations bill being signed was reported, most media stressed the Special Protected Species "They're more human than you" Hate Crimes Law" that was tacked onto it; probably because if you actually talk about the bill, you might have to discuss all the slimy politicians raiding the troops funds for vote-buying earmarks.
Oh, goody. Maybe they'll call the company Jackson's Whole. And start farming clones for parts.
Bleah. I need tea. And it's raining, again, and a front coming in this afternoon just to chill things again. Talked to son last night, and daughter-in-law is sick, and it's worse than it should be because she didn't want to go to the doctor for days; yeah, she'll fit right into the family.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Ah yes, the mindset of our cultural elite...
In September, director Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland for leaving the U.S. in 1978 before being sentenced to prison for raping a 13-year-old girl at Jack Nicholson’s house in Hollywood. During the time of the original incident, you were working in the industry, and you and Polanski had a common friend in theater critic and producer Kenneth Tynan. So what’s your take on Polanski, this many years later?
I really don’t give a fuck. Look, am I going to sit and weep every time a young hooker feels as though she’s been taken advantage of?
I’ve certainly never heard that take on the story before.
First, I was in the middle of all that. Back then, we all were. Everybody knew everybody else. There was a totally different story at the time that doesn’t resemble anything that we’re now being told.
What do you mean?
The media can’t get anything straight. Plus, there’s usually an anti-Semitic and anti-fag thing going on with the press – lots of crazy things. The idea that this girl was in her communion dress, a little angel all in white, being raped by this awful Jew, Polacko – that’s what people were calling him – well, the story is totally different now from what it was then.
That's the quote Sondra had; I'd like to point out this one:
Well, Obama actually wrote them himself.
I’m sure he did. He’s highly educated – and rather better than a country like this deserves. Put that in red letters.
And we're supposed to look up to these morons?
The huge increases in migrants over the last decade
were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and "rub the Right's nose in diversity", according to Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett.
Well, isn't that just so Special? So progressive?
He wrote: "Earlier drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural.
"I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended – even if this wasn't its main purpose – to rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date."
So making the UK 'truly multicultural' included letting lots of illegals in, refusing to actually enforce the law, and doing it to try to make the Labour Party stay in power forever... Isn't the mindset of socialists wonderful?
There's a very telling quote further on in this:
"But ministers wouldn't talk about it. In part they probably realised the conservatism of their core voters: while ministers might have been passionately in favour of a more diverse society, it wasn't necessarily a debate they wanted to have in working men's clubs in Sheffield or Sunderland.
Translation: "We don't want to have to talk to the common rabble about this; they won't understand that it's for the proper progressive ends!" In plain language: "The peasants won't want us to do this, so we'll just not let them know about it."
And the current excuses and bullshit from the politicians behind this:
“Britain's borders are stronger than ever before and we are rolling out ID cards to foreign nationals, we have introduced civil penalties for those employing illegal workers and from the end of next year our electronic border system will monitor 95 per cent of journeys in and out of the UK.
“The British people can be confident that immigration is under control.”
Which explains all the islamists calling for death and sharia who are there illegally and won't be deported, and all the other illegals currently and previously snuck in who won't be deported; that's the progressive version of 'under control'.
Which sounds an awful lot like what Ted Kennedy and Obama and McCain and all those other slimy politicians wanted to shove down our throats. Hell are still trying to shove down our throats, preferably without us knowing until it's too late. Just like their progressive brethren in Britain, the bastards.
Well, isn't that just so Special? So progressive?
He wrote: "Earlier drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural.
"I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended – even if this wasn't its main purpose – to rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date."
So making the UK 'truly multicultural' included letting lots of illegals in, refusing to actually enforce the law, and doing it to try to make the Labour Party stay in power forever... Isn't the mindset of socialists wonderful?
There's a very telling quote further on in this:
"But ministers wouldn't talk about it. In part they probably realised the conservatism of their core voters: while ministers might have been passionately in favour of a more diverse society, it wasn't necessarily a debate they wanted to have in working men's clubs in Sheffield or Sunderland.
Translation: "We don't want to have to talk to the common rabble about this; they won't understand that it's for the proper progressive ends!" In plain language: "The peasants won't want us to do this, so we'll just not let them know about it."
And the current excuses and bullshit from the politicians behind this:
“Britain's borders are stronger than ever before and we are rolling out ID cards to foreign nationals, we have introduced civil penalties for those employing illegal workers and from the end of next year our electronic border system will monitor 95 per cent of journeys in and out of the UK.
“The British people can be confident that immigration is under control.”
Which explains all the islamists calling for death and sharia who are there illegally and won't be deported, and all the other illegals currently and previously snuck in who won't be deported; that's the progressive version of 'under control'.
Which sounds an awful lot like what Ted Kennedy and Obama and McCain and all those other slimy politicians wanted to shove down our throats. Hell are still trying to shove down our throats, preferably without us knowing until it's too late. Just like their progressive brethren in Britain, the bastards.
Hannah Giles has some questions about ACORN coverage
- or the lack thereof- from the major media. Like
· Baltimore-Why no mention of the toddlers that were in the room while James and I were being counseled on how to manage our underage prostitution ring?
· San Bernardino-The content of this video was largely ignored except for the part where Tresa Kaelke mentions she shot her husband. What about when she told us not to educate our sex-slaves because they won’t want to work for us? Or when we talked about making more money off clients who are permitted to physically abuse the girls? What about the whole transport-the-girls-in-a-school-bus-to-avoid-suspicion discussion?
and
· San Bernardino: What happened to the list of politicians that Ms. Kaelke rattled off when she spoke of her ACORN office’s community involvement and influence? Has anyone set out to uncover just how close these politicians relationships are with the San Bernardino ACORN? Does anyone even remember the names?
· San Diego: Has anyone questioned why Juan Carlos would want to help smuggle girls across the Mexican border right after an ACORN-sponsored immigration parade???
Damn. It's like the mm doesn't WANT to investigate, or something...
· Baltimore-Why no mention of the toddlers that were in the room while James and I were being counseled on how to manage our underage prostitution ring?
· San Bernardino-The content of this video was largely ignored except for the part where Tresa Kaelke mentions she shot her husband. What about when she told us not to educate our sex-slaves because they won’t want to work for us? Or when we talked about making more money off clients who are permitted to physically abuse the girls? What about the whole transport-the-girls-in-a-school-bus-to-avoid-suspicion discussion?
and
· San Bernardino: What happened to the list of politicians that Ms. Kaelke rattled off when she spoke of her ACORN office’s community involvement and influence? Has anyone set out to uncover just how close these politicians relationships are with the San Bernardino ACORN? Does anyone even remember the names?
· San Diego: Has anyone questioned why Juan Carlos would want to help smuggle girls across the Mexican border right after an ACORN-sponsored immigration parade???
Damn. It's like the mm doesn't WANT to investigate, or something...
So some of the socialized medicine plan is rationing
by taxes:
The more the fiscal details of the healthcare bills emerge, the more appalling they seem. The Senate Finance Committee bill includes a broad provision taxing all manner of medical devices. This tax includes such frivolous luxuries as pacemakers, stents, artificial heart valves, defibrillators, automated wheelchairs, mechanized artificial limbs, replacement hips and knees, surgical gurneys, laparoscopic equipment and the like.
Isn't that just wonderful, that The Obama and the socialists in Congress care so much that they want to tax people to death for things like that?
The more the fiscal details of the healthcare bills emerge, the more appalling they seem. The Senate Finance Committee bill includes a broad provision taxing all manner of medical devices. This tax includes such frivolous luxuries as pacemakers, stents, artificial heart valves, defibrillators, automated wheelchairs, mechanized artificial limbs, replacement hips and knees, surgical gurneys, laparoscopic equipment and the like.
Isn't that just wonderful, that The Obama and the socialists in Congress care so much that they want to tax people to death for things like that?
Another of the miserable excuses for humans in the Christian/Newsom murders
gets guilty verdicts. Which means this lower-than-pond scum being will get to sit on death row, eating well and breathing, for at least ten years before he actually faces the penalty.
I scanned through the comments, and there's the usual leavening of 'Forgiveness is called for' stuff.
Forgiveness needs to be asked for. For real.It's not something that's due to the bastard. And it's real easy to sit far removed from the families of the victims and lecture on forgiveness.
Hell with it. And him. Which is where he belongs, he and all the others.
Why yes, I am judgmental on things like this.
I scanned through the comments, and there's the usual leavening of 'Forgiveness is called for' stuff.
Forgiveness needs to be asked for. For real.It's not something that's due to the bastard. And it's real easy to sit far removed from the families of the victims and lecture on forgiveness.
Hell with it. And him. Which is where he belongs, he and all the others.
Why yes, I am judgmental on things like this.
So British authorities can't deal with people being robbed and raped
and murdered, and they can't keep crooks from getting guns, but they can do this:
Draconian police powers designed to deprive crime barons of luxury lifestyles are being extended to councils, quangos and agencies to use against the public, The Times has learnt.
The right to search homes, seize cash, freeze bank accounts and confiscate property will be given to town hall officials and civilian investigators employed by organisations as diverse as Royal Mail, the Rural Payments Agency and Transport for London.
I would note that this isn't a 'right'; it's a power, and we know what politicians do with that.
The measure, being pushed through by Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, comes into force next week and will deploy some of the most powerful tools available to detectives against fare dodgers, families in arrears with council tax and other minor offenders.
Can you freakin' believe this?
The radical extension of the Proceeds of Crime Act, through a Statutory Instrument which is not debated by parliament, has been condemned by the chairman of the Police Federation. Paul McKeever said that he was shocked to learn that the decision to hand over “intrusive powers” to people who were not police was made without consultation or debate.
Why debate? They're your progressive masters, and they know best. And if debate were allowed, you might say things they don't want to hear.
And, just like the 'incentives' that have caused property forfeiture to become such a bullshit moneymaking scheme here,
An “explanatory memorandum” says that a swath of financial investigators attached to the newly empowered bodies will be accredited, trained and monitored by another quango, the National Policing Improvement Agency. The memo adds that asset seizure will result in financial rewards: “Investigation bodies will receive a share of money recovered as additional funding to incentivise further work in recovering the proceeds of crime.”
...
“Having these Al Capone powers in the back pocket is very valuable for a senior prosecutor but in the hands of someone less experienced and less skilled, particularly when combined with the incentive of their department collecting a share of the confiscated money, there is the potential for charges to be brought which are intended to maximise confiscation recovery rather than reflect the level of criminality concerned.”
Well, damn, you think maybe?!?
“Far worse is the encouragement being given to non-police bodies to search for what they think are proceeds of crime but may not be and subject the victim to the draconian and manifestly unjust processes of the Proceeds of Crime Act. Does anyone in Government understand that if you give prosecutors, who are supposed to be unbiased ministers of justice, the bribe of a proportion of the money they can find, you are actually poisoning the roots of justice in our society?”
That's a very critical question, which brings up another: what if they WANT to poison the roots?
The defense for this crap?
A Home Office spokesman defended the extension of the powers. “Seizing ill-gotten gains is a key part of the fight against criminals — whether it is from small-time offences or organised crime,” he said.
Methinks the Home Office needs to be dealt with using the same kind of compassion and concern they show for the peasants.
Draconian police powers designed to deprive crime barons of luxury lifestyles are being extended to councils, quangos and agencies to use against the public, The Times has learnt.
The right to search homes, seize cash, freeze bank accounts and confiscate property will be given to town hall officials and civilian investigators employed by organisations as diverse as Royal Mail, the Rural Payments Agency and Transport for London.
I would note that this isn't a 'right'; it's a power, and we know what politicians do with that.
The measure, being pushed through by Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, comes into force next week and will deploy some of the most powerful tools available to detectives against fare dodgers, families in arrears with council tax and other minor offenders.
Can you freakin' believe this?
The radical extension of the Proceeds of Crime Act, through a Statutory Instrument which is not debated by parliament, has been condemned by the chairman of the Police Federation. Paul McKeever said that he was shocked to learn that the decision to hand over “intrusive powers” to people who were not police was made without consultation or debate.
Why debate? They're your progressive masters, and they know best. And if debate were allowed, you might say things they don't want to hear.
And, just like the 'incentives' that have caused property forfeiture to become such a bullshit moneymaking scheme here,
An “explanatory memorandum” says that a swath of financial investigators attached to the newly empowered bodies will be accredited, trained and monitored by another quango, the National Policing Improvement Agency. The memo adds that asset seizure will result in financial rewards: “Investigation bodies will receive a share of money recovered as additional funding to incentivise further work in recovering the proceeds of crime.”
...
“Having these Al Capone powers in the back pocket is very valuable for a senior prosecutor but in the hands of someone less experienced and less skilled, particularly when combined with the incentive of their department collecting a share of the confiscated money, there is the potential for charges to be brought which are intended to maximise confiscation recovery rather than reflect the level of criminality concerned.”
Well, damn, you think maybe?!?
“Far worse is the encouragement being given to non-police bodies to search for what they think are proceeds of crime but may not be and subject the victim to the draconian and manifestly unjust processes of the Proceeds of Crime Act. Does anyone in Government understand that if you give prosecutors, who are supposed to be unbiased ministers of justice, the bribe of a proportion of the money they can find, you are actually poisoning the roots of justice in our society?”
That's a very critical question, which brings up another: what if they WANT to poison the roots?
The defense for this crap?
A Home Office spokesman defended the extension of the powers. “Seizing ill-gotten gains is a key part of the fight against criminals — whether it is from small-time offences or organised crime,” he said.
Methinks the Home Office needs to be dealt with using the same kind of compassion and concern they show for the peasants.
Let's see, let's start this with Obama wanting to give the unions
more of your money by giving another bailout to Government Motors:
The U.S. Treasury Department is in talks with GMAC Financial Services Inc about a possible third cash infusion to the company, an Obama administration official confirmed. The official declined to say how much additional money was under discussion for GMAC, which already has received $12.5 billion of taxpayer funds. The Wall Street Journal said the government may have to inject another $2.8 billion to $5.6 billion into the Detroit-based lender.
It seems that nutcase from Florida, Rep. Grayson(Evil Party Squirrel-FL) may be more than some fries short of his happy meal:
Kipling's statements were chronicled in an interview set to be released on November 5. Kipling stated that while Grayson touted that he was a respected economist he had actually failed an economics course in his sophomore year. In addition, some of Grayson's senior papers were accused of widespread plagiarism.
In addition, Kipling stated that Grayson's campaign had a glaring omission. During 1988, when Grayson had just turned thirty and while working for the Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson law firm, he spent four days in the Psychiatric Institute of Washington. What the cause of this stay was is yet unclear, although testimony from co-workers suggests that Grayson was extremely combative with fellow employees, including slapping a female intern in the face. Grayson was released after PIW doctors declared him "not to be a threat to the public."
Well. I guess compared to that calling a lobbyist a whore is a step up in behavior; at least he wasn't committing assault in the House.
Well, looks like Lieberman isn't going to stay on the reservation:
“I can’t see a way in which I could vote for cloture on any bill that contained a creation of a government-operated-run insurance company,” Lieberman added. “It’s just asking for trouble – in the end, the taxpayers are going to pay and probably all people will have health insurance are going to see their premiums go up because there’s going to be cost shifting as there has been for Medicare and Medicaid.”
Lieberman said he “very much” wants to vote for health care reform but that he’s worried about stifling “the economic recovery we’re in” or adding to the federal debt.
I do have to wonder whether it's actual concern with spending, or people back home telling him they'll throw his ass out if he votes for it; that 'wants to vote for reform' line bothers me.
These people were running a business helping immigrants; gee, isn't that nice?
Two U.S. residents, one an American citizen, one a Canadian citizen, educated and assimilated, and enjoying a nice enough living to be able to afford to fly to Denmark to kill a couple of guys over a cartoon. In the long run, Afghan cave-dwellers and Waziristani goatherds are less of a threat than fellows like Messrs Headley and Rana. The company name — "First World Immigration Services" — is a rather droll jest.
A study has discovered that most guys don't like women who look like they're starving to death; isn't that a damn surprise? What was the first clue, I wonder; maybe the guys saying the chick from the 'Pirates' movies needs to start eating, maybe?
Let's see, the social justice(i.e., "We'll take all your money and use it better because We're Progressive!") groups want to use the FCC to silence people who disagree with them. And the Obama buttmonkey in the FCC wants to help. Yeah, great regard they have for the 1st Amendment, huh?
La Raza president Janet Murguia called for TV networks to keep immigration enforcement proponents off the airwaves and argued that hate speech should not be tolerated, “even if such censorship were a violation of First Amendment rights,” according to the NYTimes.
So a racist member of a real racist organization wants to trash the Constitution because it prevents them from silencing opponents... Yeah, real progressive of them, isn't it?
I've noticed that ammo supplies are getting better; not a whole lot, but definitely better.
Got something to read; this looks interesting...
The U.S. Treasury Department is in talks with GMAC Financial Services Inc about a possible third cash infusion to the company, an Obama administration official confirmed. The official declined to say how much additional money was under discussion for GMAC, which already has received $12.5 billion of taxpayer funds. The Wall Street Journal said the government may have to inject another $2.8 billion to $5.6 billion into the Detroit-based lender.
It seems that nutcase from Florida, Rep. Grayson(Evil Party Squirrel-FL) may be more than some fries short of his happy meal:
Kipling's statements were chronicled in an interview set to be released on November 5. Kipling stated that while Grayson touted that he was a respected economist he had actually failed an economics course in his sophomore year. In addition, some of Grayson's senior papers were accused of widespread plagiarism.
In addition, Kipling stated that Grayson's campaign had a glaring omission. During 1988, when Grayson had just turned thirty and while working for the Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson law firm, he spent four days in the Psychiatric Institute of Washington. What the cause of this stay was is yet unclear, although testimony from co-workers suggests that Grayson was extremely combative with fellow employees, including slapping a female intern in the face. Grayson was released after PIW doctors declared him "not to be a threat to the public."
Well. I guess compared to that calling a lobbyist a whore is a step up in behavior; at least he wasn't committing assault in the House.
Well, looks like Lieberman isn't going to stay on the reservation:
“I can’t see a way in which I could vote for cloture on any bill that contained a creation of a government-operated-run insurance company,” Lieberman added. “It’s just asking for trouble – in the end, the taxpayers are going to pay and probably all people will have health insurance are going to see their premiums go up because there’s going to be cost shifting as there has been for Medicare and Medicaid.”
Lieberman said he “very much” wants to vote for health care reform but that he’s worried about stifling “the economic recovery we’re in” or adding to the federal debt.
I do have to wonder whether it's actual concern with spending, or people back home telling him they'll throw his ass out if he votes for it; that 'wants to vote for reform' line bothers me.
These people were running a business helping immigrants; gee, isn't that nice?
Two U.S. residents, one an American citizen, one a Canadian citizen, educated and assimilated, and enjoying a nice enough living to be able to afford to fly to Denmark to kill a couple of guys over a cartoon. In the long run, Afghan cave-dwellers and Waziristani goatherds are less of a threat than fellows like Messrs Headley and Rana. The company name — "First World Immigration Services" — is a rather droll jest.
A study has discovered that most guys don't like women who look like they're starving to death; isn't that a damn surprise? What was the first clue, I wonder; maybe the guys saying the chick from the 'Pirates' movies needs to start eating, maybe?
Let's see, the social justice(i.e., "We'll take all your money and use it better because We're Progressive!") groups want to use the FCC to silence people who disagree with them. And the Obama buttmonkey in the FCC wants to help. Yeah, great regard they have for the 1st Amendment, huh?
La Raza president Janet Murguia called for TV networks to keep immigration enforcement proponents off the airwaves and argued that hate speech should not be tolerated, “even if such censorship were a violation of First Amendment rights,” according to the NYTimes.
So a racist member of a real racist organization wants to trash the Constitution because it prevents them from silencing opponents... Yeah, real progressive of them, isn't it?
I've noticed that ammo supplies are getting better; not a whole lot, but definitely better.
Got something to read; this looks interesting...
So Ahnold can screw honest gun owners with no problem,
and be part of the big damned mess in CA budgeting(if you can call it that), but he gets kind of thin-skinned about someone being nasty to him. Wonderful.
Hey, Ahnold? As to your bitching about the Legislature 'kicking the can down the alley', you're part of the bullshit. Ever heard of a 'veto'?
To San Francisco: maybe this was a substantive bill here that would have helped San Francisco; well, maybe if the Governor had been far more willing to tell cities "No, you can't loot the pockets of the whole state to help yourself", or if cities and counties had been less willing to screw the rest of the state for their own goodies, you wouldn't be in the mess you are. Hard as that may be for such a progressive place to understand.
As is, you keep raising taxes and regulating to death, and people keep moving to other states. Bitch at yourself in the mirror, dumbass, as you're the damn problem.
Hey, Ahnold? As to your bitching about the Legislature 'kicking the can down the alley', you're part of the bullshit. Ever heard of a 'veto'?
To San Francisco: maybe this was a substantive bill here that would have helped San Francisco; well, maybe if the Governor had been far more willing to tell cities "No, you can't loot the pockets of the whole state to help yourself", or if cities and counties had been less willing to screw the rest of the state for their own goodies, you wouldn't be in the mess you are. Hard as that may be for such a progressive place to understand.
As is, you keep raising taxes and regulating to death, and people keep moving to other states. Bitch at yourself in the mirror, dumbass, as you're the damn problem.
A while back in a Range Day post I indicated 'more to come';
here 'tis.
I don't have an AR15. Thought about it a few times, but A: expense and B: another cartridge. Which got kind of hard to find for a while there, as well as the price going up. Well, last month Dad came up for a gun show, and when we broke for lunch we went over to H&H to check for reloading gear(they've expanded what they carry a lot) and Dad wanted to see one of the S&W .22 rimfire rifles. They had two. Dad looked one over and bought it; and due to circumstances(like not much at the show, and I had some retirement money left), I made one of the sillier buys ever.
So I have a S&W M&P 15-22 rifle.
Few days later I had time to hit the range, so gathered up some of every .22 ammo I had and tried it out.
It's quite accurate. With two of the brands(Centurion and Federal 36-grain hollowpoints) I got several 1" and less groups at 50 yards.
Good sights. Front & rear will take off the rail if you want to mount optics, and the rear has both large and small apertures.
Good trigger. It's not a match rifle, trigger's a bit heavy and there's a touch of creep; on the latter, little enough that unless you're on a rest and looking for such you wouldn't notice it.
Fun to shoot.
But ran into one problem: 3-5 times out of every magazine an empty wouldn't eject from the receiver, it'd stay in and block the bolt from closing. Which might be fine for practicing failure drills, but otherwise it's a pain in the ass. Especially if you got it for target and general plinking use. This didn't help shooting for groups either, as I kept trying to see if the empty ejected, which takes away from concentration on the sights.
There's always the chance that it was a break-in thing, so I ran a bit over 200 rounds through, cleaned and lubed it at home and waited for another range day. Where it did the same thing, with all five brands of ammo*. So I called S&W, they e-mailed a shipping label and off it went.
It came back a touch over two weeks from the time they received it. AND they threw in two new magazines. I gathered ammo for it and some other stuff and headed to H&H.
All the letter that came with it said was "Repaired: Updated to latest spec.", so no idea just what they did. Whatever it was, it ran through everything with no failures except one Remington that got the rim caught in the magazine top in a very weird way; I have to lay that one on the magazine or some oddity with that cartridge, and it didn't happen again. More than 200 rounds, all ejecting with no problem. Actually, it was better than before in another way: before originally it didn't much like Remington Golden Bullet ammo, which often wouldn't feed properly; now the stuff ran right through.
Overall, I like the thing. It's light, handy, fun to shoot(now) and surprisingly accurate; with ammo it likes and a scope I think I can consistently get groups under an inch at 50. And if you have an AR, since the controls are the same it's a good practice rifle with much cheaper ammo**. I'm told most AR accessories will fit***; be interesting if they'd threaded the muzzle, as this thing would be fun with a suppressor(of course, any good gunsmith with a lathe could take care of that for you; I know the NFA permit is $200, what's a good .22 suppressor cost?).
That's the original post I put together. Since then I've had it to the range another time with probably another 200-250 rounds through(don't you love .22's?) I had one FTF(again with Remington Golden Bullet; it's the only brand it's had any feeding problems with) and no other problems. It was windy as hell and gusting, so it was hard to get really good groups(for me, anyway), but the accuracy of the thing continues to impress; I really need to put a scope on it for some accuracy tests. I also noticed that when it was zeroed at 50 yards with the large aperture, the small aperture put it dead-on at 100, which is nice; and even with all the wind I had no trouble keeping all shots in a 6" bull at 100, which for me with combat-type iron(well, plastic) sights ain't bad.
I will compliment S&W customer service: there was no BS or argument, heard what the problem was, got my e-mail for the return label, told me to include the ammo information in my cover letter and that was it. It was taken care of and shipped back quickly, which if you do have a problem is what you want. I will, however, advise you to call if you need help; I tried their customer service e-mail twice before I called, and never got a reply. I don't know if they don't check it or what, but it's a pain, and they do need to fix that.
So that's the 'more that was coming'. I will add that Dad has had no problems with his, so I guess I- same as with the Trailside- am the guy who got The one with Problems.
*I used Centurion, Federal hollowpoints, Winchester 36-grain hollowpoints, Remington GB and Federal Champion. The GB I already mentioned; the Winchester and Champion didn't have enough oomph to consistently cycle the action(as in 'almost never', making it a straight-pull bolt rifle). The Centurion and Federal hp both gave the best groups.(After the repairs, it shoots the Champion with some FTF, but the Winchester 36-grain still won't cut it)
**Dad took his to the range when he qualified and tried it out; the rangemaster runs training for the local PD and went nuts over it; he wants a few for training.
*** Salesman at H&H said one of the guys there put in a AR15 match trigger; dropped right in and doubled the cost of the rig right there.
I don't have an AR15. Thought about it a few times, but A: expense and B: another cartridge. Which got kind of hard to find for a while there, as well as the price going up. Well, last month Dad came up for a gun show, and when we broke for lunch we went over to H&H to check for reloading gear(they've expanded what they carry a lot) and Dad wanted to see one of the S&W .22 rimfire rifles. They had two. Dad looked one over and bought it; and due to circumstances(like not much at the show, and I had some retirement money left), I made one of the sillier buys ever.
So I have a S&W M&P 15-22 rifle.
Few days later I had time to hit the range, so gathered up some of every .22 ammo I had and tried it out.
It's quite accurate. With two of the brands(Centurion and Federal 36-grain hollowpoints) I got several 1" and less groups at 50 yards.
Good sights. Front & rear will take off the rail if you want to mount optics, and the rear has both large and small apertures.
Good trigger. It's not a match rifle, trigger's a bit heavy and there's a touch of creep; on the latter, little enough that unless you're on a rest and looking for such you wouldn't notice it.
Fun to shoot.
But ran into one problem: 3-5 times out of every magazine an empty wouldn't eject from the receiver, it'd stay in and block the bolt from closing. Which might be fine for practicing failure drills, but otherwise it's a pain in the ass. Especially if you got it for target and general plinking use. This didn't help shooting for groups either, as I kept trying to see if the empty ejected, which takes away from concentration on the sights.
There's always the chance that it was a break-in thing, so I ran a bit over 200 rounds through, cleaned and lubed it at home and waited for another range day. Where it did the same thing, with all five brands of ammo*. So I called S&W, they e-mailed a shipping label and off it went.
It came back a touch over two weeks from the time they received it. AND they threw in two new magazines. I gathered ammo for it and some other stuff and headed to H&H.
All the letter that came with it said was "Repaired: Updated to latest spec.", so no idea just what they did. Whatever it was, it ran through everything with no failures except one Remington that got the rim caught in the magazine top in a very weird way; I have to lay that one on the magazine or some oddity with that cartridge, and it didn't happen again. More than 200 rounds, all ejecting with no problem. Actually, it was better than before in another way: before originally it didn't much like Remington Golden Bullet ammo, which often wouldn't feed properly; now the stuff ran right through.
Overall, I like the thing. It's light, handy, fun to shoot(now) and surprisingly accurate; with ammo it likes and a scope I think I can consistently get groups under an inch at 50. And if you have an AR, since the controls are the same it's a good practice rifle with much cheaper ammo**. I'm told most AR accessories will fit***; be interesting if they'd threaded the muzzle, as this thing would be fun with a suppressor(of course, any good gunsmith with a lathe could take care of that for you; I know the NFA permit is $200, what's a good .22 suppressor cost?).
That's the original post I put together. Since then I've had it to the range another time with probably another 200-250 rounds through(don't you love .22's?) I had one FTF(again with Remington Golden Bullet; it's the only brand it's had any feeding problems with) and no other problems. It was windy as hell and gusting, so it was hard to get really good groups(for me, anyway), but the accuracy of the thing continues to impress; I really need to put a scope on it for some accuracy tests. I also noticed that when it was zeroed at 50 yards with the large aperture, the small aperture put it dead-on at 100, which is nice; and even with all the wind I had no trouble keeping all shots in a 6" bull at 100, which for me with combat-type iron(well, plastic) sights ain't bad.
I will compliment S&W customer service: there was no BS or argument, heard what the problem was, got my e-mail for the return label, told me to include the ammo information in my cover letter and that was it. It was taken care of and shipped back quickly, which if you do have a problem is what you want. I will, however, advise you to call if you need help; I tried their customer service e-mail twice before I called, and never got a reply. I don't know if they don't check it or what, but it's a pain, and they do need to fix that.
So that's the 'more that was coming'. I will add that Dad has had no problems with his, so I guess I- same as with the Trailside- am the guy who got The one with Problems.
*I used Centurion, Federal hollowpoints, Winchester 36-grain hollowpoints, Remington GB and Federal Champion. The GB I already mentioned; the Winchester and Champion didn't have enough oomph to consistently cycle the action(as in 'almost never', making it a straight-pull bolt rifle). The Centurion and Federal hp both gave the best groups.(After the repairs, it shoots the Champion with some FTF, but the Winchester 36-grain still won't cut it)
**Dad took his to the range when he qualified and tried it out; the rangemaster runs training for the local PD and went nuts over it; he wants a few for training.
*** Salesman at H&H said one of the guys there put in a AR15 match trigger; dropped right in and doubled the cost of the rig right there.
Israel better be making preparations, because if this doesn't tell them
Obama doesn't care what happens to them, nothing else will:
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is quietly laying the groundwork for long-range strategy that could be used to contain a nuclear-equipped Iran and deter its leaders from using atomic weapons.
U.S. officials insist they are not resigned to a nuclear Iran and are pressing negotiations to prevent it from joining the world's nuclear club. But at the same time, the administration has set in place the building blocks of policies to contend with an Iran armed with atomic weapons.
"Oh no, we're not giving up; we still have great hopes that Ahmadogcrap will come to the table and recognize the holiness of The Obama and do what He wants." Despite being lied to and ignored and laughed at...
In recent weeks, U.S. diplomats have pushed with its international partners to nudge Iran into agreeing not to use its nuclear facilities to build atomic weapons.
Uh huh. Like leaving the Poles and Czechs hanging in the name of 'better missile defense' that won't be, but makes the Russians happy because it reduces the defenses of the Poles and Czechs. And won't help them against Iranian missiles, but since Obama is into appeasing the 12th Imam nutcases, so that's a small price!(to Obama)
And at the end,
Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian human rights advocate and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said in an AP interview that Washington is mistaken in insisting that it would be intolerable for Iran to have nuclear weapons.
"Just as the world tolerates North Korea and Pakistan it would have to tolerate Iran as well," she said.
Exactly. Pakistan at least had the point of being run by people who weren't willing, for instance, to see half or more of their people dead in the name of killing Jews; North Korea has been run for decades by first-class communist dirtbag murderers, and nobody likes them but nobody wants to deal with them, either. And if the mullahs in Iran pop a couple of nukes at Israel, the EUnuchs and company will whine and moan and bitch, and I'd estimate at 90%+ that they'll actually do nothing. And Iran knows it.
Hell, Obama doesn't even like the word 'victory' when he's the CIC of American troops in battle; does anyone actually think he has the balls, integrity or will to stand up to Iran?
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is quietly laying the groundwork for long-range strategy that could be used to contain a nuclear-equipped Iran and deter its leaders from using atomic weapons.
U.S. officials insist they are not resigned to a nuclear Iran and are pressing negotiations to prevent it from joining the world's nuclear club. But at the same time, the administration has set in place the building blocks of policies to contend with an Iran armed with atomic weapons.
"Oh no, we're not giving up; we still have great hopes that Ahmadogcrap will come to the table and recognize the holiness of The Obama and do what He wants." Despite being lied to and ignored and laughed at...
In recent weeks, U.S. diplomats have pushed with its international partners to nudge Iran into agreeing not to use its nuclear facilities to build atomic weapons.
Uh huh. Like leaving the Poles and Czechs hanging in the name of 'better missile defense' that won't be, but makes the Russians happy because it reduces the defenses of the Poles and Czechs. And won't help them against Iranian missiles, but since Obama is into appeasing the 12th Imam nutcases, so that's a small price!(to Obama)
And at the end,
Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian human rights advocate and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said in an AP interview that Washington is mistaken in insisting that it would be intolerable for Iran to have nuclear weapons.
"Just as the world tolerates North Korea and Pakistan it would have to tolerate Iran as well," she said.
Exactly. Pakistan at least had the point of being run by people who weren't willing, for instance, to see half or more of their people dead in the name of killing Jews; North Korea has been run for decades by first-class communist dirtbag murderers, and nobody likes them but nobody wants to deal with them, either. And if the mullahs in Iran pop a couple of nukes at Israel, the EUnuchs and company will whine and moan and bitch, and I'd estimate at 90%+ that they'll actually do nothing. And Iran knows it.
Hell, Obama doesn't even like the word 'victory' when he's the CIC of American troops in battle; does anyone actually think he has the balls, integrity or will to stand up to Iran?
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
So either they think they can do whatever they want,
or know it's a very dangerous question.
Q: I just want to know where, in your opinion, does the Constitution give specific authority for Congress to give an individual mandate for health insurance?
LEAHY: What — we have plenty of authority. Are you saying there is no authority?
Q: I’m asking –
LEAHY: Why would you say there is no authority? I mean, there’s no question there’s authority. Nobody questions that.
Q: But where — I mean, which –
LEAHY: Where do we have authority to set speed limits on an interstate highway?
Q: Well, the states do that.
LEAHY: No, no, the federal government does that.
No, it doesn’t. But that’s not important now. There’s something missing there–did you catch it?
By my count, that was three Bare Assertion Fallacies, two of which are also False Generalizations, and three Answering a Question with a Question, one of which is also a Red Herring. And a partridge in a pear tree.
Followed by
CNSNews.com: “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?”
Pelosi: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”
CNSNews.com: “Yes, yes I am.”
Pelosi then shook her head before taking a question from another reporter. Her press spokesman, Nadeam Elshami, then told CNSNews.com that asking the speaker of the House where the Constitution authorized Congress to mandated that individual Americans buy health insurance as not a “serious question.”
“You can put this on the record,” said Elshami. “That is not a serious question. That is not a serious question.”
It’s not a serious question–but you assigned lawyers to research and prepare a booklet on the subject subject?
And it IS a very dangerous question; they're- at the least- wildly overstepping their legitimate authority, as is Obama on a number of things.
I wonder what'll be the first lawsuit someone files on exactly that?
Quote of the day
The question he raises is this: if philosophers themselves argue that man is no more valuable than an animal, then how much longer before the state starts calculating the cost of bullets?
More hate mail to Larry from the "Because you suck
and we hate you" post:
So apparently it is now illegal to even TOUCH the majesty that is HK, unless you have a license so special that it doesn’t actuallyEXIST. So, help me out here, do if a regular person goes to the range and rents a full auto weapon, does he have to get a provisional imaginary license to shoot it?
Holy crap, exercise some critical thinking skills once in awhile.
So apparently it is now illegal to even TOUCH the majesty that is HK, unless you have a license so special that it doesn’t actuallyEXIST. So, help me out here, do if a regular person goes to the range and rents a full auto weapon, does he have to get a provisional imaginary license to shoot it?
Holy crap, exercise some critical thinking skills once in awhile.
How're those British gun-control laws working out?
Not too well.
Gun crime has almost doubled in the last decade despite high profile Government campaigns to tackle the problem.
Offences involving firearms have increased in all but four police areas in England and Wales since 1998, figures obtained by the Tories reveal.
One part of the country has seen the problem increase almost seven fold as the availability of guns, and criminals' williness to use them rises.
One of the standard noises we hear in the US is "We need to have laws like Britain does to control crime"; as I say, that's not actually working out.
There were 9,865 firearm offences in 2007/08, a rise of 89 per cent on the 5,209 recorded in 1998/99.
Lancashire Police saw a 598 per cent increase from just 50 to 349 over the period while Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Essex all saw five fold increases.
In total, 21 forces saw offences at least double over the decade while just four, Cleveland, Humberside, Cambridgeshire and Sussex, saw the number fall.
It should be pointed out that the 'saw the number fall' has to be viewed with suspicion; the Brit government has been caught cooking the books to make things look better far too many times. Speaking of which,
A Home Office spokeswoman said: "It is misleading to compare figures for 2007 / 08 with those from 2002 and before, due to changes in recording practices.
"There has been an 11 per cent fall in gun crime since 2005 and provisional figures for firearm offences recorded by the police show they account for 0.2 per cent of all recorded crime.
Yeah, it's 'changes in recording practices' that makes it look bad, uh huh.
So, once again, it's demonstrated that on an island they can't keep bad guys from getting arms; they can only disarm the honest citizen.
Ah, just looked at Kevin for the first time in a few days, and I find this post, which includes this reaction to armed police on patrols:
Gun crime has almost doubled in the last decade despite high profile Government campaigns to tackle the problem.
Offences involving firearms have increased in all but four police areas in England and Wales since 1998, figures obtained by the Tories reveal.
One part of the country has seen the problem increase almost seven fold as the availability of guns, and criminals' williness to use them rises.
One of the standard noises we hear in the US is "We need to have laws like Britain does to control crime"; as I say, that's not actually working out.
There were 9,865 firearm offences in 2007/08, a rise of 89 per cent on the 5,209 recorded in 1998/99.
Lancashire Police saw a 598 per cent increase from just 50 to 349 over the period while Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Essex all saw five fold increases.
In total, 21 forces saw offences at least double over the decade while just four, Cleveland, Humberside, Cambridgeshire and Sussex, saw the number fall.
It should be pointed out that the 'saw the number fall' has to be viewed with suspicion; the Brit government has been caught cooking the books to make things look better far too many times. Speaking of which,
A Home Office spokeswoman said: "It is misleading to compare figures for 2007 / 08 with those from 2002 and before, due to changes in recording practices.
"There has been an 11 per cent fall in gun crime since 2005 and provisional figures for firearm offences recorded by the police show they account for 0.2 per cent of all recorded crime.
Yeah, it's 'changes in recording practices' that makes it look bad, uh huh.
So, once again, it's demonstrated that on an island they can't keep bad guys from getting arms; they can only disarm the honest citizen.
Ah, just looked at Kevin for the first time in a few days, and I find this post, which includes this reaction to armed police on patrols:
"No one asked us or the people I represent if this was acceptable and when they do I shall tell them it isn't. It isn't acceptable to throw away the principle of policing by consent," she said.Soooo, you're saying that having armed foot patrols in the area might "escalate the situation"? Who do you represent, Ms. Marshall-Andrews? The residents or the thugs?
Gill Marshall-Andrews, chairwoman of the Gun Control Network campaign group, described the routine arming of officers as a "very retrograde step" and warned that it could lead to higher levels of gun crime.
"This is likely to raise the stakes and encourage more criminals, especially young criminals, to arm themselves," she said.
Found two bits that just keep dragging at me
in the comments of this post:
...Reminds me of the story of how men felt during the Atlanta sniper crime spree. Many men were surprised at how ‘vulnerable’ they felt because at any given moment, no matter what they were doing, they could be victimized. Sound familiar?? Welcome to our world. Sucks to have to always assume that those with penises will hurt those of us with vaginas, but hey, that’s the way it is, isn’t it?...
and
Yep. Same thing happened during 9/11. All of a sudden men knew what it was like to feel vulnerable.
In case you don't want to go through it all, the story is here; girl was gang-raped, and then individually raped by some who came upon the scene. And, just to make it even better, other people who walked by couldn't be bothered to call the cops. Horrible thing. Problem is, the post is basically "Oh yes, she had a drink and ventured out, so of course she was asking for it" bullcrap.
Two things: First, there is no excuse for this kind of crime. Period. The penalty should be severe for any actual rape. Period.
Second, if you place yourself in a dangerous place, you do have responsibility for having done so. Period. That's not excusing the crime, and it goes for men or women. Guy goes to a bar where he knows there are lots of fights and other badness and gets caught up in one and gets hurt, or is beaten and raped(not real common but does happen) the same thing goes: putting yourself in a bad place was not a real smart thing to do. Neither is drinking to the point of passing out in company of people you don't know. Yes, you should be able to go anywhere you want and drink all you want without being in danger; that's the absolute view, and it ignores reality.
Which is getting away from the main point: do these women actually believe that A: ALL men are looking to hurt women? and B: do they actually believe that men- outside of extraordinary situations- never feel vulnerable? 'A' speaks to a level of hatred of males that's just downright scary, and sad; 'B' is just idiotic. Both speak of a level of "Womyn are ALWAYS victims!" that's just... not sure of the proper words for that.
...Reminds me of the story of how men felt during the Atlanta sniper crime spree. Many men were surprised at how ‘vulnerable’ they felt because at any given moment, no matter what they were doing, they could be victimized. Sound familiar?? Welcome to our world. Sucks to have to always assume that those with penises will hurt those of us with vaginas, but hey, that’s the way it is, isn’t it?...
and
Yep. Same thing happened during 9/11. All of a sudden men knew what it was like to feel vulnerable.
In case you don't want to go through it all, the story is here; girl was gang-raped, and then individually raped by some who came upon the scene. And, just to make it even better, other people who walked by couldn't be bothered to call the cops. Horrible thing. Problem is, the post is basically "Oh yes, she had a drink and ventured out, so of course she was asking for it" bullcrap.
Two things: First, there is no excuse for this kind of crime. Period. The penalty should be severe for any actual rape. Period.
Second, if you place yourself in a dangerous place, you do have responsibility for having done so. Period. That's not excusing the crime, and it goes for men or women. Guy goes to a bar where he knows there are lots of fights and other badness and gets caught up in one and gets hurt, or is beaten and raped(not real common but does happen) the same thing goes: putting yourself in a bad place was not a real smart thing to do. Neither is drinking to the point of passing out in company of people you don't know. Yes, you should be able to go anywhere you want and drink all you want without being in danger; that's the absolute view, and it ignores reality.
Which is getting away from the main point: do these women actually believe that A: ALL men are looking to hurt women? and B: do they actually believe that men- outside of extraordinary situations- never feel vulnerable? 'A' speaks to a level of hatred of males that's just downright scary, and sad; 'B' is just idiotic. Both speak of a level of "Womyn are ALWAYS victims!" that's just... not sure of the proper words for that.
Want to know exactly why I flat cannot agree with so many on the left?
But in my opinion, the Republican agenda — even the basic beltway GOP agenda — is batshit. “Small government, local government, free markets, and individual liberty” are euphemisms for irresponsible and grossly unfair policies that have no place in the modern world. In my opinion. So when I say Republican ideas are batshit, that’s what I mean.
There you have it. Violet, those are not just Stupid Party agenda items; there's an awful lot of people who are members of the Evil Party who believe in the same things, and not as 'euphimisms' for anything; they believe those are important things.
I'm writing this without knowing what she considers them euphemisms for; I've written asking. I'll be curious to see what she says.
There you have it. Violet, those are not just Stupid Party agenda items; there's an awful lot of people who are members of the Evil Party who believe in the same things, and not as 'euphimisms' for anything; they believe those are important things.
I'm writing this without knowing what she considers them euphemisms for; I've written asking. I'll be curious to see what she says.
Where to start... I guess with Sen. John Effing Kerry
and his speech: (updated)
And Kerry's argument for a more limited approach than more troops would provide Obama political cover.
...
Sounds remarkably similar to the Obama argument after killing the Bush-initiated Eastern European missile defense shield: Not less defense, but a cheaper, smarter defense. Remember, Obama opposed Bush's 2007 troop surge in Iraq. The ex-senator could try the same argument in favor of dispatching a fraction of McChrystal's request.
Or as Kerry puts it: "It’s not how many troops that matters most – it’s what they do."
And what they want the troops to 'do' is provide political cover for Obama & Co.; which means, I'm convinced, "How do we cut and run without actually owning up to it?"
At this point I'm convinced Obama & Co. flatly do not want to win; they are not only uncomfortable with the word 'victory', they do not want that. Victory would mean the US smashes the Taliban & AQ in 'Stan, the US wins; and they don't want to. The only 'victory' they want is screwing up the US military and letting the bad guys take over so they can concentrate on trying to completely socialize(in a USSR fashion) the US.
Yeah, that is a fairly nasty indictment, and I'm not happy about it for a variety of reasons. Here's a President who's 'uncomfortable' with victory, who refused to 'officially' accept McChrystal's report for, what, a month? and is STILL 'thinking about it'. And so on. Actual troops are fighting and dying and these people stall, and delay, because they don't want to have to announce an actual decision of doing anything. See, if you say "All right, if we don't actually win the Taliban will take over Afghanistan again and plan and run more major and minor terrorist attacks from there, so we have to stomp them and win" the left- which in far too many cases actually means the communists and socialists who hate America- will piss and moan and not kiss his ass, and he wants their support more than anything else. And if he cuts and runs like he plainly wants to, always has, everyone else will blow up; and if you add that to his trying to take over our health care and take over industry, he's screwed. So, rather than actually announce either way and take the heat(requires integrity and balls, and he has neither apparently) he leaves the troops hanging- and bleeding- while he plays games. After all, he doesn't really give a crap about those troops(I've become convinced*), so what's the downside of them bleeding, as long as it gives him time?
A bit drastic? Unfortunately, I don't think so, based on his own past words and actions and the people he surrounds himself with:
Barack Obama has not only said that he is out to "change the United States of America," the people he has been associated with for years have expressed in words and deeds their hostility to the values, the principles and the people of this country.
Jeremiah Wright said it with words: "God damn America!" Bill Ayers said it with bombs that he planted. Community activist goons have said it with their contempt for the rights of other people.
Among the people appointed as czars by President Obama have been people who have praised enemy dictators like Mao, who have seen the public schools as places to promote sexual practices contrary to the values of most Americans, to a captive audience of children.
Those who say that the Obama administration should have investigated those people more thoroughly before appointing them are missing the point completely. Why should we assume that Barack Obama didn't know what such people were like, when he has been associating with precisely these kinds of people for decades before he reached the White House?
Update: Uncle Jimbo speaks to JEffin'K:
John Kerry spoke today at the Council on Foreign Relations on his cunning plan for A-Stan. He is not a bright or wise man and his plan basically involves kicking the can down the road and then cutting and running sometime before the next election, or 2012 at the latest.
and it goes from there.
*He might have somewhat greater regard for them if he thought they were a bunch of drones who'd blindly follow all orders; that would mean he could use them however he chose. Unfortunately, most of the troops, from the privates on up, hold a high regard for their country and their oath, so he can't use them that way.
And Kerry's argument for a more limited approach than more troops would provide Obama political cover.
...
Sounds remarkably similar to the Obama argument after killing the Bush-initiated Eastern European missile defense shield: Not less defense, but a cheaper, smarter defense. Remember, Obama opposed Bush's 2007 troop surge in Iraq. The ex-senator could try the same argument in favor of dispatching a fraction of McChrystal's request.
Or as Kerry puts it: "It’s not how many troops that matters most – it’s what they do."
And what they want the troops to 'do' is provide political cover for Obama & Co.; which means, I'm convinced, "How do we cut and run without actually owning up to it?"
At this point I'm convinced Obama & Co. flatly do not want to win; they are not only uncomfortable with the word 'victory', they do not want that. Victory would mean the US smashes the Taliban & AQ in 'Stan, the US wins; and they don't want to. The only 'victory' they want is screwing up the US military and letting the bad guys take over so they can concentrate on trying to completely socialize(in a USSR fashion) the US.
Yeah, that is a fairly nasty indictment, and I'm not happy about it for a variety of reasons. Here's a President who's 'uncomfortable' with victory, who refused to 'officially' accept McChrystal's report for, what, a month? and is STILL 'thinking about it'. And so on. Actual troops are fighting and dying and these people stall, and delay, because they don't want to have to announce an actual decision of doing anything. See, if you say "All right, if we don't actually win the Taliban will take over Afghanistan again and plan and run more major and minor terrorist attacks from there, so we have to stomp them and win" the left- which in far too many cases actually means the communists and socialists who hate America- will piss and moan and not kiss his ass, and he wants their support more than anything else. And if he cuts and runs like he plainly wants to, always has, everyone else will blow up; and if you add that to his trying to take over our health care and take over industry, he's screwed. So, rather than actually announce either way and take the heat(requires integrity and balls, and he has neither apparently) he leaves the troops hanging- and bleeding- while he plays games. After all, he doesn't really give a crap about those troops(I've become convinced*), so what's the downside of them bleeding, as long as it gives him time?
A bit drastic? Unfortunately, I don't think so, based on his own past words and actions and the people he surrounds himself with:
Barack Obama has not only said that he is out to "change the United States of America," the people he has been associated with for years have expressed in words and deeds their hostility to the values, the principles and the people of this country.
Jeremiah Wright said it with words: "God damn America!" Bill Ayers said it with bombs that he planted. Community activist goons have said it with their contempt for the rights of other people.
Among the people appointed as czars by President Obama have been people who have praised enemy dictators like Mao, who have seen the public schools as places to promote sexual practices contrary to the values of most Americans, to a captive audience of children.
Those who say that the Obama administration should have investigated those people more thoroughly before appointing them are missing the point completely. Why should we assume that Barack Obama didn't know what such people were like, when he has been associating with precisely these kinds of people for decades before he reached the White House?
Update: Uncle Jimbo speaks to JEffin'K:
John Kerry spoke today at the Council on Foreign Relations on his cunning plan for A-Stan. He is not a bright or wise man and his plan basically involves kicking the can down the road and then cutting and running sometime before the next election, or 2012 at the latest.
and it goes from there.
*He might have somewhat greater regard for them if he thought they were a bunch of drones who'd blindly follow all orders; that would mean he could use them however he chose. Unfortunately, most of the troops, from the privates on up, hold a high regard for their country and their oath, so he can't use them that way.
Monday, October 26, 2009
What just might happen in Britain would be a rerun of
Mussolini and Hitler in some ways, it seems:
Via Instapundit comes a disturbing report that one-fifth of the British electorate would consider voting for the British Nationalist Party (BNP), which is considered by almost everyone left or right to be a genuine fascist party.
How did Britain come to this state?
Short version: the government has been playing socialist and PC games and screwing over people who actually work, and make a country work, and that pushes people who see little or no hope into reaching out to someone they normally wouldn't. I'll excerpt this part:
By smearing as racist everyone concerned with illegal immigration and the overboard tolerance for radical Islam, the British left is desensitizing everyone to the legitimate charge when it is directed at the BNP. People think, “Well, I’m concerned about illegal immigration, Islamists, the white poor, etc., and I’m not a racist so maybe the BNP isn’t either.” The overuse of the left’s catch-all denunciation deprives it of meaning and force. People may simply stop listening to the left’s warnings because they’ve so many times labeled people with legitimate concerns as racist. By their own narcissism, self-righteousness and contempt, the left is actively driving people to fascist solutions just as their more radical ideological ancestors did back in the 1920s.
Worse, entire generations of Britons have been conditioned to believe that the state has a mo26ral obligation to care for them cradle-to-grave. It is a short step from there to the belief that the government has a moral obligation to care for native Britons first and foremost before all others. Such a longstanding belief in Germany certainly made National Socialism an easy sell to the German working class and poor.
Remember the sign the guy had at a tea party? "No matter what the sign says, they'll call it racist." He was right, and in the longer term this is the outcome. One of them, anyway.
Via Instapundit comes a disturbing report that one-fifth of the British electorate would consider voting for the British Nationalist Party (BNP), which is considered by almost everyone left or right to be a genuine fascist party.
How did Britain come to this state?
Short version: the government has been playing socialist and PC games and screwing over people who actually work, and make a country work, and that pushes people who see little or no hope into reaching out to someone they normally wouldn't. I'll excerpt this part:
By smearing as racist everyone concerned with illegal immigration and the overboard tolerance for radical Islam, the British left is desensitizing everyone to the legitimate charge when it is directed at the BNP. People think, “Well, I’m concerned about illegal immigration, Islamists, the white poor, etc., and I’m not a racist so maybe the BNP isn’t either.” The overuse of the left’s catch-all denunciation deprives it of meaning and force. People may simply stop listening to the left’s warnings because they’ve so many times labeled people with legitimate concerns as racist. By their own narcissism, self-righteousness and contempt, the left is actively driving people to fascist solutions just as their more radical ideological ancestors did back in the 1920s.
Worse, entire generations of Britons have been conditioned to believe that the state has a mo26ral obligation to care for them cradle-to-grave. It is a short step from there to the belief that the government has a moral obligation to care for native Britons first and foremost before all others. Such a longstanding belief in Germany certainly made National Socialism an easy sell to the German working class and poor.
Remember the sign the guy had at a tea party? "No matter what the sign says, they'll call it racist." He was right, and in the longer term this is the outcome. One of them, anyway.
I think this will be Beat On The Socialist Bureaucrat Day
due to bullcrap like this on the swine flu:
As evidence continues to mount that swine flu is more of a piglet than a raging razorback, why isn’t curiosity mounting as to why the World Health Organization declared it a pandemic? And definitions aside, why does the agency continue to insist we’re going to get hammered? The answers have far less to do with world health than with redistribution of world wealth.
Medically, the pandemic moniker is unjustifiable. When the sacrosanct World Health Organization (WHO) made its official declaration in June, we were 11 weeks into the outbreak, and swine flu had only killed 144 people worldwide — the same number who die of seasonal flu worldwide every few hours. The mildest pandemics of the 20th century killed at least a million people worldwide. And even after six months, swine flu has killed about as many people as the seasonal flu does every six days.
So how could WHO make such an outrageous claim?
Simple. It rewrote the definition of "pandemic."
The socialists making use of a 'crisis' for a power grab:
What may be surprising is that it wants to use that power to help bring about a global economic and social revolution--and that Director-General Chan was so blunt about it in a speech in Copenhagen last month.
She said "ministers of health" should take advantage of the "devastating impact" swine flu will have on poorer nations to tell "heads of state and ministers of finance, tourism and trade" that:
* The belief that "living conditions and health status of the poor would somehow automatically improve as countries modernized, liberalized their trade and improved their economies" is false. Wealth doesn’t equal health.
* "Changes in the functioning of the global economy" are needed to "distribute wealth on the basis of" values "like community, solidarity, equity and social justice."
* "The international policies and systems that govern financial markets, economies, commerce, trade and foreign affairs have not operated with fairness as an explicit policy objective."
Splendid! So let’s put the WHO in charge of worldwide economic and social engineering.
So who listened to who first: WHO or Rahm the Crisis Monger?
Then we have this from Kaus:
...Indeed, NBC promiscuously conflates a) swine flu (H1N1); b) regular flu and c) "flu like symptoms" which may not be any kind of flu at all. ... That may be because the CDC itself has decided to conflate at least the first two categories, as noted in this seemingly damning CBS story and confirmed in the CDC report itself:
This new system was implemented on August 30, 2009, and replaces the weekly report of laboratory confirmed 2009 H1N1-related hospitalizations and deaths that began in April 2009. Jurisdictions can now report to CDC either laboratory confirmed or pneumonia and influenza syndromic-based counts of hospitalizations and deaths resulting from all types or subtypes of influenza, not just those from 2009 H1N1 influenza virus. [E.A.]
"You can't let a crisis go to waste, even if you have to create it yourself."
Couple of months ago I spoke with my secret contact in the state health department and asked what the word was on H1N1; they just about blew a gasket. "It's classified as 'mild flue', but we've got all these idiots trying to scare people to death over it!" And some of those people will be helpingruinrun your health care if Obama & Co. get their way.
As evidence continues to mount that swine flu is more of a piglet than a raging razorback, why isn’t curiosity mounting as to why the World Health Organization declared it a pandemic? And definitions aside, why does the agency continue to insist we’re going to get hammered? The answers have far less to do with world health than with redistribution of world wealth.
Medically, the pandemic moniker is unjustifiable. When the sacrosanct World Health Organization (WHO) made its official declaration in June, we were 11 weeks into the outbreak, and swine flu had only killed 144 people worldwide — the same number who die of seasonal flu worldwide every few hours. The mildest pandemics of the 20th century killed at least a million people worldwide. And even after six months, swine flu has killed about as many people as the seasonal flu does every six days.
So how could WHO make such an outrageous claim?
Simple. It rewrote the definition of "pandemic."
The socialists making use of a 'crisis' for a power grab:
What may be surprising is that it wants to use that power to help bring about a global economic and social revolution--and that Director-General Chan was so blunt about it in a speech in Copenhagen last month.
She said "ministers of health" should take advantage of the "devastating impact" swine flu will have on poorer nations to tell "heads of state and ministers of finance, tourism and trade" that:
* The belief that "living conditions and health status of the poor would somehow automatically improve as countries modernized, liberalized their trade and improved their economies" is false. Wealth doesn’t equal health.
* "Changes in the functioning of the global economy" are needed to "distribute wealth on the basis of" values "like community, solidarity, equity and social justice."
* "The international policies and systems that govern financial markets, economies, commerce, trade and foreign affairs have not operated with fairness as an explicit policy objective."
Splendid! So let’s put the WHO in charge of worldwide economic and social engineering.
So who listened to who first: WHO or Rahm the Crisis Monger?
Then we have this from Kaus:
...Indeed, NBC promiscuously conflates a) swine flu (H1N1); b) regular flu and c) "flu like symptoms" which may not be any kind of flu at all. ... That may be because the CDC itself has decided to conflate at least the first two categories, as noted in this seemingly damning CBS story and confirmed in the CDC report itself:
This new system was implemented on August 30, 2009, and replaces the weekly report of laboratory confirmed 2009 H1N1-related hospitalizations and deaths that began in April 2009. Jurisdictions can now report to CDC either laboratory confirmed or pneumonia and influenza syndromic-based counts of hospitalizations and deaths resulting from all types or subtypes of influenza, not just those from 2009 H1N1 influenza virus. [E.A.]
"You can't let a crisis go to waste, even if you have to create it yourself."
Couple of months ago I spoke with my secret contact in the state health department and asked what the word was on H1N1; they just about blew a gasket. "It's classified as 'mild flue', but we've got all these idiots trying to scare people to death over it!" And some of those people will be helping
Yes, I'm back to looking at all the usual crap
good and bad. Had a good weekend with people I hadn't seen in a while, and met a couple of new. Lucked out today and found some stuff I needed and some I wanted. Now, for some of the daily
bitching I know some of you come here for,
In case anyone needs to know, Eliot Spitzer is still a miserable, two-faced disgusting example of a hypocritical nanny-state politician.
Speaking of crooked, hypocritical politicians, look who's working to keep Rep. Charles Rangel(Slimy Taxdodger-NY) afloat and in office;
The lobbyists, including former City Council Speaker Peter Vallone Sr., "bundled" more contributions for Rangel than for any other member of Congress in the last quarter, enabling the Harlem Democrat to raise hefty sums without lifting a finger.
Federal Election Commission records show that Rangel has received more than $213,000 in donations bundled by lobbyists since new rules requiring disclosure of those donations went into effect at the beginning of the year. Last quarter alone, Rangel, beset by tax woes despite heading the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, got $125,000 in bundled donations.
Makes you wonder how many donations were received and how many favors doled out before, doesn't it?
Blackfive has a letter to the Procrastinator-in-Chief(at least in military matters):
Mr. President, deciding to do nothing is still a decision.
I demand, decency demands, Americans who believe in victory demand, and most importantly, the American families with family members in the fight, who certainly have the most invested and unquestionably the most to lose demand that the politics, excuse making and dithering end and that you give the necessary support to the men and women who are bearing the battle and taking the fight to our enemies. I am not asking, I am telling you to listen to those with the knowledge and skills that can turn the tide of this rapidly resurgent enemy we face and to give them the resources they ask for.
A-bloody-men.
Oh. Oh, God-DAMN the Park Service, those slimy little bastards, they're still screwing around with the Flight 93 'Memorial'; maybe a number of bureaucrats need to be added to the 'introduce to a rope' category.
Dammit, that just ruined a good mood. More later.
bitching I know some of you come here for,
In case anyone needs to know, Eliot Spitzer is still a miserable, two-faced disgusting example of a hypocritical nanny-state politician.
Speaking of crooked, hypocritical politicians, look who's working to keep Rep. Charles Rangel(Slimy Taxdodger-NY) afloat and in office;
The lobbyists, including former City Council Speaker Peter Vallone Sr., "bundled" more contributions for Rangel than for any other member of Congress in the last quarter, enabling the Harlem Democrat to raise hefty sums without lifting a finger.
Federal Election Commission records show that Rangel has received more than $213,000 in donations bundled by lobbyists since new rules requiring disclosure of those donations went into effect at the beginning of the year. Last quarter alone, Rangel, beset by tax woes despite heading the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, got $125,000 in bundled donations.
Makes you wonder how many donations were received and how many favors doled out before, doesn't it?
Blackfive has a letter to the Procrastinator-in-Chief(at least in military matters):
Mr. President, deciding to do nothing is still a decision.
I demand, decency demands, Americans who believe in victory demand, and most importantly, the American families with family members in the fight, who certainly have the most invested and unquestionably the most to lose demand that the politics, excuse making and dithering end and that you give the necessary support to the men and women who are bearing the battle and taking the fight to our enemies. I am not asking, I am telling you to listen to those with the knowledge and skills that can turn the tide of this rapidly resurgent enemy we face and to give them the resources they ask for.
A-bloody-men.
Oh. Oh, God-DAMN the Park Service, those slimy little bastards, they're still screwing around with the Flight 93 'Memorial'; maybe a number of bureaucrats need to be added to the 'introduce to a rope' category.
Dammit, that just ruined a good mood. More later.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)