In another of the series of "Troops the major media

will never tell you about", also known as 'Guys who need a prescription jockstrap to carry that weight', I found this at the Emperor's place:
Staff Sgt. Covel moved under fire to a rooftop forward of the safe house and settled into his battle station, alone except for one still anonymous SF operator who provided security for him.

“I set up my radios and requested air support,” he said. “I figured that if I was in front, then all of my guys would be behind me – so there wouldn’t be the risk of them being hit by our planes.”
...
“I don’t feel that I did anything different than anyone else in that same situation would have done. Any of the other guys who do my job would have done the same thing.” Staff Sgt. Covel said.

Apparently the Green Berets, who Covel spent 36 hours exposed in his “own little corner of hell” protecting with his airstrikes, were slightly more impressed. They were the ones who submitted him for the decoration.

Go. Read. Brave men and lots of dead jihadis.

In another of the series of

Imagine the cops setting up metal detectors on the street-

all for your own good, of course. But if you're in (formerly)Great Britain, you don't have to imagine it:
High-profile plans to tackle knife crime with airport-style scanners have been called into question after it emerged that each police force will be given just two of the new metal detectors.

The Home Office's proposal for the scanners was thrown further into doubt when the police officer in charge of the plan urged pubs and clubs to buy them themselves.
Yeah, the gummint won't pay for enough to keep you peasants in line people safe, so we want the pub to do it for us. All for their own good, of course.

There were also concerns it might be difficult to force people to walk through the scanners on the street if they did not want to, because of stop and search rules which require them to fill out a consent form first.
"The peasants don't have to just do it when ordered, damn their eyes!"

Further down we find this bit if intelligent thought:
Jan Berry, the chairman of the Police Federation which represents rank and file officers, said the proposals were "nothing more than sticking plaster solutions that do nothing to actually address the root of the problem, and the growing lawlessness and loutish behaviour we are experiencing on the streets".
which is encouraging. Except that it's followed by this:
David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: "We called for this in 2004 and, despite ample opportunity and repeated promises by the Government, all we have for years on now is 500 machines.

"That is just a drop in the ocean compared with the thousands of schools, pubs, clubs and other target premises where possession of knives lead to violent crime."

No, you socialist jackass, knives do NOT 'lead to violent crime'; thugs and people with no concern for the lives of others do. Here we see the continuance of the real problem in this approach: blaming objects for what people do. Knives can't 'lead' to anything, any more than guns or cars or tire irons do, but it's so much easier and more politically correct for you to blame objects than to actually hold the bad guys responsible. You friggin' idiots.

I wrote once about one of the most heart-wrenching things I've ever seen, a 14-year-old kid who'd just been grabbed for murder. His first offense and arrest- theft- had happened when he was 9, and he got a nasty talking to. Every step from there, from theft to damaging property to assault, etc., all he ever got was a slap on the hand and probation. Now he was 14 and had murdered someone, and the judge had just informed him he'd be certified as an adult for trial, which meant life in prison if convicted. Two deputies were having to carry the little bastard out of court, he was screaming in flat terror, and I think may have lost control of his bladder because he was actually going to be held to account and it had never happened before. He was scared to death, and rightly so. But due to his never having had a severe kick in the ass, or ANY real penalty before from parent/s or government, no matter what he did(because he's only a CHILD, you heartless pig, how can you punish him?!?) he'd never seen any downside to his actions. Until it finally caught up to him. So people had been injured and finally killed by him, his life was screwed, and a lot of the people responsible for this occurring were bitching and whining racism and 'nobody cares' and all the other bullshit.

Mr. Shadow Home Secretary, start dealing with the bad people, and start teaching kids that there are rules- real ones, not PC bullcrap ones- and penalties for breaking them; you'll be amazed what a difference it'll make.

First they drive people to drink,

and then that costs too much.
The price of a cup of tea is forecast to reach a record high while the cost of a pint of beer could soon hit £4, industry experts warned yesterday.

Shortages of tea from Kenya - currently in the grip of post-election political turmoil - and soaring malted barley prices are behind the increases.

I just looked it up, £4 works out to $15.54 $7.77*a pint. No wonder the Englishman(found this at his place) and Mr. Free Market tend to be pissed off about things.

Last time I bought a six-pack of Sam Adams it was $7, if that went the same as the above it'd go to... WAY too damn much.

*Roger pointed out the currency converter I originally used is screwed. By a considerable margin.

I feel like a roundup,

having been running 'round in circles too much to do anything noteworthy of my own.

Q and O notes a slight problem with the Goreacle's "The ice caps are MELTING!!!" line:
Satellite data shows that concerns over the levels of sea ice may have been premature.

It was feared that the polar caps were vanishing because of the effects of global warming.

But figures from the respected US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that almost all the “lost” ice has come back.

Ice levels which had shrunk from 13million sq km in January 2007 to just four million in October, are almost back to their original levels.

Figures show that there is nearly a third more ice in Antarctica than is usual for the time of year.
Etc. Gee, you'd think the climate does what it does without any concern for us humans. Not even the Enlightened Onces who say they know what it'll do.

Q&O also notes another slight difficulty in the marvelous British National Health System:
Seriously ill patients are being kept in ambulances outside hospitals for hours so NHS trusts do not miss Government targets.

Thousands of people a year are having to wait outside accident and emergency departments because trusts will not let them in until they can treat them within four hours, in line with a Labour pledge.

The hold-ups mean ambulances are not available to answer fresh 999 calls.

Doctors warned last night that the practice of "patient-stacking" was putting patients' health at risk.
Gee, you think maybe? But, of course, it'll all magically work once they try it here. They keep telling us.

If you haven't heard about castro 'retiring', you're even more out of the loop than I am. Babalu Blog dug up this from CNN about how the talking heads should speak of castro:
Some points on Castro – for adding to our anchor reads/reporting:

* Please say in our reporting that Castro stepped down in a letter he wrote to Granma (the communist party daily), as opposed to in a letter attributed to Fidel Castro. We have no reason to doubt he wrote his resignation letter, he has penned numerous articles over the past year and a half.

* Please note Fidel did bring social reforms to Cuba – namely free education and universal health care, and racial integration. in addition to being criticized for oppressing human rights and freedom of speech.

* Also the Cuban government blames a lot of Cuba’s economic problems on the US embargo, and while that has caused some difficulties, (far less so than the collapse of the Soviet Union) the bulk of Cuba’s economic problems are due to Cuba’s failed economic polices. Some analysts would say the US embargo was a benefit to Castro politically – something to blame problems on, by what the Cubans call “the imperialist,” meddling in their affairs.

* While despised by some, he is seen as a revolutionary hero, especially with leftist in Latin America, for standing up to the United States.

Any questions, please call the international desk.
Considering what I've read of how black Cubans are treated by the government, the 'racial integration' crap is amazing; but this is CNN, after all. What's really surprising to me in this is the accurate note of the SU collapse and castro's own policies being what really screwed up the economy; kind of amazing they'd actually make note of that, considering all the past slobbering over him and blaming of the US for all problems. They never seemed before to note that since, as they kept noting 'the rest of the world trades with Cuba', how can our embargo be the cause of all the damn trouble?

Next, Mark Steyn has a question: what would it take to alarm you?
The question then arises: fair enough, guys, what would it take to alarm you? The other day, in a characteristically clotted speech followed by a rather more careless BBC interview, the Archbishop of Canterbury said that it was dangerous to have one law for everyone and that the introduction of sharia — Islamic law — to the United Kingdom was "inevitable." No alarm bells going off yet? Can't say I blame you. After all, de facto creeping sharia is well established in the Western world. Last week, the British and Ontario governments confirmed within days of each other that thousands of polygamous men in their jurisdictions receive welfare payments for each of their wives. Still no alarm bells? I see female Muslim medical students in British hospitals are refusing to comply with hygiene procedures on the grounds that scrubbing requires them to bare their arms, which is un-Islamic. Would it be alarmist to bring that up — say, the day before your operation?
and
The other night at dinner, I found myself sitting next to a Middle Eastern Muslim lady of a certain age. And the conversation went as it often does when you're with Muslim women who were at college in the sixties, seventies or eighties. In this case, my dining companion had just been at a conference on "women's issues," of which there are many in the Muslim world, and she was struck by the phrase used by the "moderate Muslim" chair of the meeting: "authentic women" — by which she meant women wearing hijabs. And my friend pointed out that when she and her unveiled pals had been in their 20s they were the "authentic women": the covering routine was for old village biddies, the Islamic equivalent of gnarled Russian babushkas. It would never have occurred to her that the assumptions of her generation would prove to be off by 180 degrees — that in middle age she would see young Muslim women wearing a garb largely alien to their tradition not just in the Middle East but in Brussels and London and Montreal. If you had said to her in 1968 that Westernized Muslim women working in British hospitals in the early 21st century would reject modern hygiene because it required them to bare their arms, she would have scoffed with the certainty of one who assumes that history moves in only one direction.

Michelle Malkin notes the Iranian and Palistinian version of multiculturalism:
“We, representatives of the honorable Iranian nation, condemn this devil measure. We ask the president … to seriously review Iran’s political and trade ties with these countries,” the lawmakers said in the letter.

In the Gaza Strip, controlled by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, a leader of a militants’ umbrella group called on Muslim faithful to attack Danish embassies and diplomats.

“Blow up the Danish embassies and kill the ambassadors,” Abu Abir, spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), said at an open-air news conference in a Gaza square, where PRC members burnt a Danish flag.

“We urge (Islamist fighters) to track down those who printed the cartoons, those who drew them and those who published them and slaughter them immediately,” he said.

Danish police arrested two Tunisians and a Dane of Moroccan descent last Tuesday, accusing them of planning to kill a cartoonist who drew one of the images.
Multi-culti in these places meaning "Kill anyone who says or writes or does anything that upsets up. And be sure to say it makes us a victim!"

The EU decides "Fireworks bad. Unless we control everything, of course."
Firework displays from the largest Guy Fawkes Night spectacle to the smallest back-garden show are under threat from European legislation.

A directive already approved by MEPs and EU ministers will force Britain and other member nations to tear up their own safety standards and adopt new regulations by 2010.

Health and safety bureaucrats in Brussels also want to make manufacturers pay for the retesting of tens of thousands of fireworks already considered safe in Britain.

The Line is Here notes PSH stupidity and the return fire here.
Uncle and others have noted the projection of these people, the "I can't be trusted and neither can you!" attitude. Fully in evidence here.

Speaking of Uncle, he notes a goblin-whacking with a happy ending:
Ingram, carrying a .40-caliber handgun, ran to the house and found Fleming attacking the other woman, officials said.

When Fleming tried to attack Ingram, Dunavant said Ingram shot Fleming once.

Tipton County Sheriff’s deputies and Brighton Police officers found Fleming dead on the front porch of the home.

Also noted by Unc is the usual level of 'do it again, but harder!' GFW activity:
After joining the mayor for his annual gun control news conference at police headquarters, State Sen. John Cullerton (D-Chicago) acknowledged that none of the bills would have prevented Steve Kazmierczak from opening fire on Valentine’s Day afternoon in a crowded NIU lecture hall.

Different point, there's generally only so much crap someone can stand having fall on their head day after day before they either get nasty themselves or give up. Take a look at this example of what Michelle Malkin gets:
subject Bitch, you’re retarded and your thoughts on Madame President Obama doesn’t count
...
Look at what you job is : “MAKING STUPID RACIST COMMENTS ABOUT A WOMAN OF COLOR, WHEN YOU CLAIM YOU’RE A WOMAN OF COLOR.”
Those are about the most 'presentable' parts of this mess, the rest is WAY worse. And she has to put up with garbage like this coming in all the time. Damn, she's got a tolerance for hatred and stupidity.

Ok, roundup done for now.

Well, this'll take care of part of the tax refund

Electrical problem at the house, and it's beyond my 'I can change a switch or outlet' ability to figure out. Electrician coming tomorrow.

Put breakables out of reach

Then read this:
Coroners blame soldiers' deaths on an acute lack of equipment

Shortages of equipment were blamed yesterday for the deaths of British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan as two coroners in separate inquests made withering attacks on the Ministry of Defence.

One coroner attacked the MoD’s “unforgivable” failure to supply basic equipment, and accused it of a breach of trust. Both inquests showed that an acute lack of equipment had played a part in the deaths of a young officer in Afghanistan and two soldiers in Iraq.

I'm not excerpting anything else, read the whole damn thing. Then, if your eyes haven't crossed or been covered by a red haze, read this:
A SENIOR defence official has warned that the armed forces are heading for a “train crash” because the government is starving them of funds for vital equipment.

In a confidential presentation to colleagues at a meeting in the Ministry of Defence to discuss budget cuts, he said defence spending had been so severely pruned that vitally needed equipment was simply unaffordable. He also warned that the government risked “mortgaging the future” of national defence.

The official, a senior defence equipment capability manager, resorted to black humour, portraying the Treasury as an axeman who has cut off the arms of his MoD victim and is saying: “Stop whingeing . . . at least you have got your legs.” The meeting, one of a series to try to work out how to pay for all the equipment the forces need to meet their commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, was also told that the Treasury has exaggerated the increase in the military budget.

Pardon my language, but God damn Tony Blair, who really started this mess, and Brown who's making it worse. Damn good soldiers being crippled and killed because these socialist bastards wanted to use the money for their little socialist schemes.

It comes but once a year,

but for the most part I don't look forward to birthdays anymore.

Yeah, it's mine. As to the count, I will simply say that I was buying some ammo not long ago and the clerk looked at the 'check age' note that popped up on the register and asked "Are you over 21?"; I said "By a disgusting margin."

Let's leave it at that.

If the Israelis didn't do it,

then somebody else did it, and we owe them a case of good whiskey. Or beer. Or whatever they'd like.

Somebody stop me

Tax refund(the real one). Brownell's. Midway. SOG sale flyer, AIM... AAAAHHHHHHHHH!

I declare this Mohammed Cartoon Day,

as it was two years ago(reminded of this by Michelle Malkin) that that BS started. Marked, as it were, by "the arrests this week of five jihadists accused of plotting to murder one of the Danish cartoonists," so we need to take note of the time.















She's got the rest of the cartoons, too.

We need to come up with a better name than

'honor killings' or 'honor violence' for this kind of garbage:
Up to 17,000 women in Britain are being subjected to "honour" related violence, including murder, every year, according to police chiefs.

And official figures on forced marriages are thetip of the iceberg, says the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO).

It warns that the number of girls falling victim to forced marriages, kidnappings, sexual assaults, beatings and even murder by relatives intent on upholding the "honour" of their family is up to 35 times higher than official figures suggest.
...
Commander Steve Allen, head of ACPO's honour-based violence unit, says the true toll of people falling victim to brutal ancient customs is "massively unreported" and far worse than is traditionally accepted. "We work on a figure which suggests it is about 500 cases shared between us and the Forced Marriage Unit per year," he said: "If the generally accepted statistic is that a victim will suffer 35 experiences of domestic violence before they report, then I suspect if you multiplied our reporting by 35 times you may be somewhere near where people's experience is at." His disturbing assessment, made to a committee of MPs last week, comes amid a series of gruesome murders and attacks on British women at the hands of their relatives.

This is bad enough they have special units to deal with it? Ain't multiculturalism and tolerance grand in what it leads to?

I also ran across this article on the idiocy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who's apparently- finally- been given the idea that people are not real happy about his looking forward to sharia law:
By proposing to concede a permanent role to extralegal violence in the political life of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury pushed his phlegmatic countrymen over the edge. No one is better than the British at pretending that problems really aren't there, but once their spiritual leader admits to an alien source of coercion and proposes to legitimize it, they understand that a limit has been reached.

Williams' exercise in what might be termed the Higher Hypocrisy shows how deeply Europe has descended into the Dar al-Harb, or the "House of War" in the Muslim terms for all that lies outside the "house of submission", or Dar al-Islam. Europe's governments refuse to rule, that is, refuse to enforce their own laws because they fear violence on the part of Muslim immigrant communities who refuse to accept these laws. "No-go" zones proliferate that non-Muslims dare not enter. In the United Kingdom, according to evidence presented by respected journalists and public-interest organizations, Muslim community organizations, Muslim police officers and medical personnel collaborate to stop women from escaping domestic violence.

And where might Williams get his 'understanding' of sharia?
...His authority in matters of sharia is Ramadan, whom the Department of Homeland Security prevented from accepting an American university appointment. Ramadan set off a scandal In 2003 when he refused to condemn violence against women (calling instead for a "moratorium," that is, a temporary cessation) precisely because Islamic law sanctions such violence. The Westernized Ramadan will twist himself into a pretzel rather than disagree with Islamic jurisprudence.
This is an excerpt from the 'moratorium' debate, with my bold:
Ramadan: No, no, wait ... What does a moratorium mean? A moratorium would mean that we absolutely end the application of all of those penalties, in order to have a true debate. And my position is that if we arrive at a consensus among Muslims, it will necessarily end. But you cannot, you know, when you are in a community ... Today on television, I can please the French people who are watching by saying, "Me, my own position." But my own position doesn't count. What matters is to bring about an evolution in Muslim mentalities, Mr Sarkozy. It's necessary that you understand ...

At this point, I think the Brits- and we, for that matter- ought to go back to Napier's method*. Especially in light of this from the first article:
The 19-year-old fled, but less than a month after making the grainy video on a mobile phone, Banaz was dead. Her naked body was found buried in a yard in Birmingham in 2006, more than 100 miles from her London home. She had been raped and tortured by men hired by her uncle to kill her. Mahmood's father, uncle and one of her killers were sentenced to a total of 60 years in jail for the murder.

And the fatal potential of honour disputes was laid bare last month when a coroner said he was convinced that a Muslim teenager who feared she was being forced into an arranged marriage by her parents had suffered a "vile murder." Ian Smith said the concept of an arranged marriage was "central" to the circumstances leading up to the death of 17-year-old Shafilea Ahmed, whose decomposed body was discovered on the banks of the River Kent at Sedgwick, Cumbria, four years ago. After running away from home in February 2003, Shafilea told housing officers: "My parents are going to send me to Pakistan and I'll be married to someone and left there." The tragic story of the bright teenager who wanted to go to university and study law is far from the only example of the anguish suffered by British teenagers in recent years.


*In case you haven't heard of it, when faced with the custom of suttee:
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.

Have I mentioned just how much Sen. Reid(Bleeper-NV)

sucks?
Well, Harry Reid managed to stymie movement on DeMint’s measure. He used a rare maneuver to delay the vote until later today–giving the council a chance to backtrack and giving cover to the Dems. A Senate staffer told me: “It’s truly incredible that they went to such great lengths to avoid having to deal with this.”
...
“The only reason to recess is to block something, and the thing that got blocked by Reid’s stall tactic was the Semper Fi Act,” said spokesman Wesley Denton, referring to the bill introduced by his boss, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.).

“Democrats have chosen not to defend the Marine Corps, but to pander to anti-war protesters and Berkeley officials that are actively trying to impede military recruitment.”

This sure-hell is NOT the 'D' party my parents and I once belonged to.

Reid, you suck like a Hoover on turbo.

I guess if Obama is really the Obamessiah,

then it's understandable who his followers would choose as saints:















In response, I might suggest a shirt from this gentleman:















Found through Insty

Parents, check out the university you're sending the kids to;

you never know what that money is being spent on:
So, some might be surprised to learn that on this year's Super Bowl Sunday, Duke University played host to a group of strippers, prostitutes, phone-sex operators, and others in a "Sex Workers Art Show" to display their "creativity and genius." The university spent $3,500 from student fees and various programs to pay the performers and cover expenses.

And the show was just FULL of artsy things like
"A transvestite, naked except for some strategically placed tape, with the words 'F___ Bush' painted on his chest, kneeled on all fours and lit a sparkler protruding out of his rectum with 'America the Beautiful' playing...

"A stripper, in the guise of a U.S. flag-draped Lady Justice, ... yanked a string of dollar bills out of her posterior as the sound system played Dolly Parton's version of 'God Bless the U.S.A.' She ended her act by saluting and holding up her middle finger to the crowd. The announcer referred to the performance as her 'Infamous Patriot Act.' Her most private area was kept covered by a small American flag...

"A dominatrix donned a large 'strap-on' male sex organ, and pretended to masturbate while the crowd was urged to shout 'faster, faster,' in Chinese."

So just think: that money you and your kids worked to save for their further education, and the loans they're signing years of their life away for, may be going to educational activities like this. And if you object to this, you can get a "Shut up, you don't question US, you Philistine!"explanation like this:
"There is an obvious difference," Lange responded, "between strippers performing at a private party and a group of artists touring university campuses across the country to present a show with political discussion, musical theater, and displays of sexuality."

Ah yes, 'artists', they do so much to enrich our lives, don't they?

Maybe someone needs to put sparklers in some of the officials and professors at Duke; if these idiots are going to screw students over, at least they could look somewhat decorative while doing it.

If they'd take a little advise, I'd suggest a 12-bore

and suitable shot:
The number of violent attacks on fire crews in England and Wales is going up despite government claims to the contrary, the Fire Brigades Union says.

Assaults rose from 1,300 in 2006 to 1,500 in 2007, the union said. Official figures fell from 1,300 to 400.

It said such attacks had become a "recreational activity" with crews facing a daily threat of being ambushed, shot at, stabbed and abused.

The government said it was not complacent about the issue.

Yeah, they're very damn concerned, you bet.

The FBU is calling for fire crews to receive training on dealing with violent attacks, and for more money to be invested in decent protection and catching attackers.
Shotguns, I tell you! Not too expensive and get the point across the first time! And much easier to catch the bastards when they leave a blood trail.

In Tyne and Wear, crews have been given "spit kits" so attackers' DNA can be collected, and in Greater Manchester engines have been fitted with CCTV cameras.

The union's figures, collated from fire services in England and Wales, painted a more accurate picture of the problem than the government's statistics, Mr Wrack said.

He urged the government to take a lead "rather than sitting on the sidelines ignoring the problem as it is doing in England".

They're not 'ignoring' it: they're practicing "Say fierce things(for us, anyway) and hope the problem goes away."

Or something like that.

Whenever someone starts that "Things are better in Britain"

about crime & guns & etc., I remember things like this:
In the intricately planned raid, armed officers, acting on information that guns were being stored at a Pinehurst address, arrived at The Circle in convoy and immediately sealed off the area.

A second wave of officers from the north Swindon neighbourhood policing teams then sealed the outer edges of The Circle, to make sure members of the public did not stray into the line of fire.

A police negotiator spoke to the occupant of the house, before it was thoroughly searched.

During the search, two air rifles and two replica guns were surrendered to police.

Chief Inspector Simon Dicks, leading the operation, said that, although the weapons are not illegal while kept inside the man's home, the raid had helped to make Swindon's streets safer.
The current definition of 'good law enforcement' in Britain: on the word of an 'informant'(sound familiar?) launch a heavily-armed raid on a house, seize two legal airguns and two legal replicas, then declare the 'streets safer'. Oh joy, how do they do it?

"This was absolutely not a waste of time," said Ch Insp Dicks.

"If we have got four firearms less in circulation then I can sleep happier at night.

"These guns look very real, and could cause people to be genuinely scared, and if this man's house was burgled then they could be out on the street.

Uh, dumbass? It WAS a waste of time, they WEREN'T firearms and when you start treating people like this because 'they might be burgled', then you're ALL screwed.

And for the ultimate in GFW wet dreams:
"We will seize any firearms in Swindon, unless there is a lawful purpose for people to have them."
Just wonderful.
"In this case it transpired that the guns were, in fact, lawfully possessed weapons rather than firearms.
Then why did they have to be 'surrendered to police', you sorry excuse for a cop?
"But of course air weapons and BB guns are capable of looking like real fire arms and there is a real risk if people carry them or display them in public."
Oh God, have mercy on the people of Britain, if this is considered Good Police Work.
The occupant of the house was not arrested in the operation.
Gee, how very nice of you to not arrest the poor bastard for having LEGAL objects LEGALLY in his possession. I repeat, you sorry excuse for a cop.

To refresh our memory of the ideals set out by Robert Peel for police officers, let us review:

1. The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.


2. The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon the public approval of police actions.


3. Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observation of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.


4. The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force.


5. Police seek and preserve public favor not by catering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.


6. Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice, and warning is found to be insufficient.


7. Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.


8. Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions, and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.


9. The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.

I added the bold in #7, to emphasize the problem with the "We're cops and you're a lousy civilian" attitude we're dealing with ourselves. We've fallen a long damn way over here, too.

How do I despise Pelosi?

Here's one of the ways:
Pelosi: Iraq 'is a failure' -- surge was bust...

al-Qaeda in Iraq in 'total collapse', say seized letters...

Those are two headlines at Drudge, one right above the other. That vile politician Pelosi is still pushing this crap, still trying to tell us how we've failed, but note this:
“The purpose of the surge was to create a secure time for the government of Iraq to make the political change to bring reconciliation to Iraq,” Pelosi said on CNN’s “Late Edition.” “They have not done that.”

The speaker hastened to add: “The troops have succeeded, God bless them.”

Vile, sorry bleep. Trying to play that game, still. "We hate the mission, but we love the troops, homicidal maniacs that they are." Of course, with things coming out like this:
Al-Qaeda in Iraq faces an “extraordinary crisis”. Last year's mass defection of ordinary Sunnis from al-Qaeda to the US military “created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight”. The terrorist group's security structure suffered “total collapse”.

These are the words not of al-Qaeda's enemies but of one of its own leaders in Anbar province — once the group's stronghold. They were set down last summer in a 39-page letter seized during a US raid on an al-Qaeda base near Samarra in November.

The US military released extracts from that letter yesterday along with a second seized in another November raid that is almost as startling.

That second document is a bitter 16-page testament written last October by a local al-Qaeda leader near Balad, north of Baghdad. “I am Abu-Tariq, emir of the al-Layin and al-Mashahdah sector,” the author begins. He goes on to describe how his force of 600 shrank to fewer than 20.
it's harder for the bleeps like Pelosi and Reid to sell the "WE'VE LOST!" idea. Especially when results have been so good that even the 'help us lose' media have to cover it, or not speak of the war entirely if they can avoid it.

Extracts from letters

Abu-Tariq, al-Qaeda leader

“There were almost 600 fighters in our sector before the tribes changed course 360 degrees . . . Many of our fighters quit and some of them joined the deserters . . . As a result of that the number of fighters dropped down to 20 or less.”

“We were mistreated, cheated and betrayed by some of our brothers who used to be part of the Jihadi movement, therefore we must not have mercy on those traitors until they come back to the right side or get eliminated completely.”

Unnamed emir, Anbar province

“The Islamic State of Iraq [al-Qaeda] is faced with an extraordinary crisis, especially in al-Anbar province. Al-Qaeda’s expulsion from Anbar created weakness and psychological defeat. This also created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight.

“The morale of the fighters went down and they wanted to be transferred to administrative positions rather than be fighters. There was a total collapse in the security structure of the organisation.”

I can honestly say I don't hate Pelosi & Reid & Surrender Monkeys Inc.; I despise them. They suck so bad Hoover would like to discover their secret. And never forget: because they think it'll be good for them and their party, they want us to lose.

We're supposed to trust the feds WHY? Part II

A while back I wrote about this mess that Balko dug up. Couple of excerpts:
Last week, a federal judge excoriated the FBI for not only hiding exculpatory evidence that would have exonerated four innocent men who served more than thirty years in prison, but for rewarding those who did the hiding and covering up with bonuses and promotions. For this crime against American citizens, American taxpayers will now shell out more than $100 million. Thus far, none of the government agents actually responsible for this crime have been held accountable. Only rewarded.
...
The context: Lundgren and Delahunt have cited incidents in the past in which the FBI has covered up evidence that its confidential drug informants have committed violent crimes (including murder) in order to protect their identities, so that they could continue providing the bureau with information. They’ve cited other incidents, including the case above, in which the FBI has hidden exculpatory evidence, and allowed innocent people to go to prison. Lundgren and Delahunt want Murphy to assure them that the FBI has instituted policies to ensure that these sorts of incidents won’t happen again–that murderers won’t be protected and innocent people sent to prison in order to preserve drug investigations.

Remarkably, Murphy refuses to make such assurances.

Now look at this Insty pointed out:
CLEVELAND (AP) - Wes Ballard is trying to put his life back together after serving 10 months in jail because of lies told by an informant who was handled by a federal agent now facing multiple investigations himself.

Ballard and 25 other people were arrested in a sting meant to clean up the drug trade in Mansfield, about halfway between Cleveland and Columbus. Many of those arrested were convicted.

Now, though, prosecutors are asking a federal judge to dismiss charges including conspiracy and cocaine trafficking against most of the defendants, even some who pleaded guilty.

Why, you may ask?
The sting was based on a tips from Jerrell Bray, a small-time operator who was supervised by Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Lee Lucas.

The 34-year-old Bray, enlisted as an informant in 2005, has admitted concocting a fabric of lies to polish his informant credentials and keep suspects flowing through the court system. He's serving 15 years for perjury and civil rights violations against the individuals targeted in his role as an informant.
...
While police sometimes must rely on informants, "It is very disturbing that they simply accepted this person's claim against so many defendants," Katz said.

Katz said prosecutors sometimes fail to assess an informant's reliability in their zeal to lock up criminals.

"Once they get in the competitive atmosphere of a prosecution, unfortunately too many prosecutors fail to second-guess their own evidence," Katz said.

Where have we heard crap like this before? Why, in stories about SWAT teams kicking in doors of innocent people on the word of an informant, apparently without bothering to investigate before they load up the ram and head for the door. And, just like usually happens in those cases,
U.S. Attorney Greg White, whose staff of 75 federal prosecutors in northern Ohio prosecuted the tainted drug cases, said he was satisfied that his staff had acted in good faith.

Once wrongdoing was disclosed, prosecutors asked the judge last month to undo the charges. "Our feeling was, as a matter of fundamental fairness we needed to do this and we did," White said.
Translation: "Once we got caught having screwed up, we tried to make it go away. And of COURSE none of us did anything wrong! How could you even think that?" Apparently the concept of, oh, INVESTIGATING to make sure the informant wasn't full of crap just didn't occur to them. And I'll bet that they'll do any- and everything to keep the people they screwed over from getting compensation; and they'll damn sure try to keep themselves from facing any real penalty over this. Any takers?

White, the federal prosecutor, cautioned against concluding that "everyone was wrongfully charged," but he would not detail how many of the 13 who pleaded guilty were innocent.

"This is not the finest hour of the justice system for sure. However, I think we've done our best to make that right," White said.
Oh, that just give me such a warm feeling, that you think you've 'done your best'. You miserable lawyer.

But we're supposed to trust these people.

You find the nicest things

at Theo's.