We need some joys in the evening

from Sondra









And from Seraphic Secret:

1. Israel allowed 50 trucks full of food supplies into Gaza today. Before that, most Gazans had been forced to eat surplus explosives.

2. Palestinians say the supplies of flour and milk Israel allowed into Gaza today were "insufficient"... mostly because they can't figure out how to set them on fire.

3. The European Commission is condemning Israel's actions to stop Palestinian rocket attacks as “collective punishment"... because stopping the attacks unfairly keeps Palestinians from dancing in the streets when Jews die.

4. Israel has shut off all power to Gaza. Apparently, suicide bombers and exploding rockets are not an acceptable payment for the electric bill.

5. Hamas leaders are strongly protesting the move, especially since darkness makes it hard to continue killing people.

I'd love to have seen the face of the Arab

when he looked up:
As he grew, he became a key member of the unit, being trained to carry mortar shells.
In the heat of summer, he reportedly learned to work the shower of the unit's bath hut.
On one occasion, Voytek was delighted to find the door ajar - and discovered an Arab who was spying for a raiding party.

The intruder confessed all, and the enemy were rounded up. Hailed a hero, Voytek was given two bottles of beer and allowed to spend all morning splashing happily in the bath hut.
I'll bet he was.

It's not a Righteous Shooting,

unfortunately, but at least the bad guys got hammered.
Despite being temporarily knocked unconscious and then stabbed three times in the head, he said he became "invigorated" by the sight of the attackers threatening his 13-year-old daughter Aisling.

In a rage he wrestled a gun from the arms of one attacker and then beat and chased the masked raiders from his home.

The Old Bailey heard how the armed trio turned up at Mr Dwyer's luxury home in Uxbridge, west London, a day after battering to death restaurant owner Helen Chung, 65.

Just a bunch of little choirboys out for a lark, weren't they?
...
"These b**tards were out of control. We were going to die anyway, that's what I thought.

"I thought if I am going to die then I would rather die like a man than a dog. The guy was standing over me with the gun and I thought if I can move the gun with my arm and make the bullet go into the wall I could come up and bash him."

Mr Dwyer described how he pushed the weapon away from his face before rising up to strike his attacker.

"I hit him several times, I hit him plenty," he said.

"The man with the knuckle-duster screamed, 'He's fighting back the b**tard, kill the b**tard, he's fighting back."

Take note of that last(bold mine). These little shits are so used to nobody daring to stand up to them, it's an actual shock when someone does.

But the businessman, who is married to wife Jane and has a second son Shaun, 19, told the court how the pair would not leave and tried to push back into the bedroom.

"So we had another bout of fisticuffs," said Mr Dwyer, "But this time I’m in charge of this battle. I let the door go and let them fall in and then, bam, had a go at them again.

"I have never used a weapon in my life and it was a great feeling. I grabbed the gun and bashed it across the knuckle-duster guy.

"Next thing is they took off and I chased them down the stairs. I bashed knuckle-duster man with the gun and I broke the handle on his head."

The burglars fled empty handed in the car they had stolen from Mrs Chung minutes earlier, the jury has heard.

Mr Dwyer was left with broken ribs in the attack as well as 30 cuts to his body and head including a gaping 3cm wound in his thigh.

What's the one thing that's been pointed out by many over time? The single most important thing is your mindset: if it happens, fight to win no matter what.

Mr. Dwyer, your nation needs more people like you, and if there was a way I'd buy you a drink. It's too bad you don't know how to shoot, you could have punched the tickets of the bastards when you got the gun away from them. Better yet, if your government wasn't so full of GFW nannies you could have had something appropriate of your own.

In any case, as happy an ending as could probably be in Britain these days, brought to you by the Englishman.

Og leads to the Broad,

and the Broad leads to this.

Drink alert is in effect.

On John McCain and

'learning his lesson on immigration'.
The ethnocentrist, border obliteration activist is in tight with the top echelons of the McCain camp. McCain campaign guru Mark MacKinnon is in the foreground. Maybe sending e-mails about their future shamnesty plans with Teddy Kennedy and Lindsay Graham.
...
Hernandez was a close advisor to Vicente “Welcome to North America” Fox and headed up a Mexican bureaucracy called the “Presidential Office for Mexicans Abroad.” It was designed to allow Hernandez to travel across the country, meddling with local, state, and federal immigration enforcement on behalf of millions of illegal aliens in America. He lobbied for illegal alien driver’s licenses and Mexico first, defended Mexican bus operators carrying illegal aliens to the USA, and promoted extending banking privileges to illegal aliens.

Miserable, lying politician. And that goes for both of them.

Idiocy roundup

I've heard a lot of nasty things about New Jersey, and this fits right in:
The administrator walked away when Lonegan said that they had a right to protest a public meeting peacefully and that he wanted to see the board's written policy on the matter. A dozen police officers then insisted that Lonegan move at least one-quarter mile from the school. When Lonegan replied: "Nope," he was handcuffed and placed under arrest. Former Atlantic City Councilman Seth Grossman was likewise arrested for being among those holding signs that read: "No Toll Hikes!!! Repudiate Unconstitutional Debt!" Bold mine

Not enough to say "You can't stand here", they wanted them "at least" a quarter-mile away? What's Jersey for 'bullshit'?

University PC idiocy:
Nor is the University's explanation for its silence remotely justifiable. As best I can tell from the accounts, the University's argument is that it can't describe what specifically was said because it needs to protect the student's confidentiality — but if this was supposedly said in open class, why would revealing the statement jeopardize the student's confidentiality? (The article that quotes Jane quotes her as saying that she "came to [her] professor and said, 'this is crazy'"; presumably she means someone other than Hindley when she says "my professor," but if she did tell him, then I'm still more baffled by how there could be any risk to the student's confidentiality here.)
And at another of our bastions of education:
But in any event, the university doesn't even claim that the student is punished solely because of the alleged threat: It expressly says that part of the reason for the investigation (and, one can infer, the ultimate punishment) was the anti-gay viewpoint of the statements. That's a pretty clear violation of the First Amendment.
But, as we've been told, the 1st only counts if you're not hurting the feelings of a protected group. Or being generally non-PC.

Remember the tiger at the San Francisco zoo? Well, look at this. The damn wall was 1/3 shorter than it should have been. And it looks like there's some other problems there. You know, I don't care if the clowns were yelling at the cat: that makes them jerks, but it does not relieve the zoo of its responsibility in this mess.

On this, I can't decide for certain whether to be worried or not; you could make the case either way, just an unfortunate piece of wording or a sympathizer with the enemy speaking.

It's official: Some of the boys in blue

are out of their frikkin' minds:
...Hello, F-ing cover fire Gents, get the job done! This is really something that pisses me off, we are breeding a bunch of victimsnot warriors! If your fellow Warrior is going to be on point and he/she takes a round or gun fire???? Lay down SUPPRESSIVE FIRE A.S.A.P. so you can get your fellow Officer out of the kill zone! We out here on LAPD had a bunch of Officers serving a warrant on a 187 suspect and after the knock and notice, he put 7 , 45 caliber rounds from a Glock 21 through the door, and NO ONE in the stack laid down any cover fire!!! WTF???...
Sailor Curt has that post on another SWAT raid gone bad, which has gotten a lot of press on the web the last few days.

I wrote a while back about a magazine with an article about "Dallas SWAT: Street Warriors" and commented on the problem with that mindset; up above you've got one of the aspects of the problem. Freakin' SUPPRESSIVE FIRE? In an urban area? Hello, dumbass, have you heard of danger to innocent people? Like in the house or other apartments? Or down the damn street, depending on weapons and just where they're aimed? In a terrorist incident you MIGHT be able to legitimately argue that, but not here. YOU ARE NOT A SOLDIER: you are SUPPOSED to be a LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER. They are NOT the same job.

Among other things Sailor Curt notes "What I found especially interesting was the list of items seized. Note that there is no mention of drugs or drug paraphernalia." And since drugs were the reason for the raid...

By the way, I saw a comment at one site by someone that 8:30 PM isn't too late, people aren't generally asleep, etc. Some shifts I work, that time is about halfway between when I go to bed and get up: I'm sound asleep. Somebody yells "Police!" and then breaks in my door, all I'm going to hear is the door breaking and intruders in my home. Considering how many people work different shifts, that would cover a bunch of folks.

A site you might want to check out

These folks left a comment in my last post about the nonsense in Canada. I've only had a couple of minutes to look over it, but I'll be checking it out further: Muslims Against Sharia.

Also, Iowahawk has snitched, uh, stolen, uhfound the notes from Ezra Levant's hearing. And Sondra points to some interesting notes from Mr. Levant, including
My lawyer has received two upset calls from the Alberta Human Rights Commission. The first, from Shirlene McGovern herself, complained about the publicity she is receiving. I'm surprised at her reaction -- you'd think someone who regularly interrogates citizens about their private political views would be comfortable with the concept of public scrutiny. Imagine if she actually had to expose her private thoughts, not just her public actions as a government officer.
Yeah, just imagine...

And to touch back on things in Britain,

we find the Home Secretary admitting that it's not quite as safe as she'd claimed:
Jacqui Smith suffered a barrage of criticism yesterday after admitting she would not feel safe walking the streets after dark.

Opposition MPs said the Home Secretary had made an "admission of failure" to the millions of shift-workers who have no option but to brave the threat of violence.

Aides of Miss Smith compounded her gaffe with a desperate attempt to undo the damage by claiming she had recently popped out in the evening to "buy a kebab in Peckham".

In fact, she has round-the-clock police protection.

Kind of like our "You don't need to be armed, just call the police. And ignore the security people who keep my fat ass safe." politicians and celebrities.

She also states She insisted individuals were much less likely to be a victim of crime since Labour came to power, but admitted it was a "big job" to persuade them that towns and cities had not become more dangerous. However, if you look at a response article here, you find this:
The rest of us, of course, who don't enjoy our own personalised police officer, have to play Russian roulette with the risk of being robbed or attacked every time we venture out alone.

Yet the Government's insulting response is to parrot the mantra that crime is going down.

The Home Secretary was at it again when she claimed people were now safer than they had been ten years ago, and that the main problem was to convince them that crime was diminishing.

In other words, the problem was not crime but the fear of crime that was exaggerated out of all proportion.

If this is so, why then does Ms Smith herself feel unsafe when on the streets alone after dark?

The fact is that citizen Smith is right while Home Secretary Smith is wrong. As was revealed yesterday, violent crime by children and teenagers has gone up by a third in only three years, while offences in general by this group have gone up by more than 20 per cent.

And so on. I think it was about two years ago the then-head of the Metropolitan Police made a big speech about how an area had improved so much that 'people don't have to lock their doors'. And was then loudly called a liar and a fool by the people who actually lived there, who would have answered the door with a shotgun if they'd been allowed to own one.

Last week, for example, three teenagers were convicted of the murder of Garry Newlove, who was kicked to death when he confronted them outside his home.

The gang leader, Adam Swellings, had been freed on bail only hours before the killing, despite a history of increasingly violent behaviour spanning more than two years before Mr Newlove's murder.

Yet even though this included the intimidation of witnesses and an attack on a 16-year- old girl, Swellings was repeatedly bailed only to commit more offences - culminating in the entirely preventable killing of Mr Newlove.

What on earth goes through the minds of magistrates who bail someone with this kind of record?

Madam, I'm afraid it's the same kind of bovine excrement that dwells between the ears of your Home Secretary. And a lot of your other political masters.

Oh boy, I think the Canadian Human Rights Commision

needs to do some housecleaning.

Just before they're thrown out on their collective ass.

First, check out what Mark Steyn has up, especially on a clown named Warman.

Then, go to Small Dead Animals, and just start scrolling down, too much stuff to link to each one. For a lot of it, look for 'Warman' again.

After that, if you're interested, go to Five Feet of Fury and- again- scroll down, but especially look at this: a tv show produced by the CBC called (I kid you not) Little Mosque on the Prarie.

And finally, check out this article by Ezra Levant on the current inquisitionhearings he's facing at the hands of the 'Human Rights Officers':
Early in her interrogation, she said "I always ask people … what was your intent and purpose of your article?"

It wasn't even a question about what we had published in the magazine. It was a question about my private thoughts. I asked her why my private feelings were of interest to the government. She said, very calmly, that they would be a factor taken into account by the government in determining whether or not I was guilty.

Officer McGovern said it as calmly as if I had asked her what time it was.
and
One of the complainants against me is someone I would describe as a radical Muslim imam, Syed Soharwardy. He grew up in the madrassas of Pakistan and he lectures on the Saudi circuit. He advocates sharia law for all countries, including Canada. His website is rife with Islamic supremacism — offensive to many Canadian Jews, gentiles, women and gays. But his sensitivities — his Saudi-Pakistani values — have been offended by me.

And so now the secular government of Alberta is enforcing his fatwa against the cartoons.

It's the same for Mohamed Elmasry, the complainant against Maclean's magazine for publishing an excerpt from Mark Steyn's book, America Alone. Egyptian-born Elmasry has publicly said that any adult Jew in Israel is a legitimate target for a terrorist attack, a grossly offensive statement.

Both the Canadian and B.C. Human Rights Commissions are now hearing his complaints against Maclean's.

One question: what the hell happened to Canada, and can they save themselves?

And remember, that miserable bozo McCain

doesn't want to put up a fence.
Aguilar was trying to place spike strips in the path of two vehicles believed to have illegally entered the country from Mexico when one of the vehicles hit him, agent Michael Bernacke, a spokesman for the agency's Yuma sector, told The Associated Press.

And what makes this even worse is if he'd managed to dodge the vehicle, and fired on it, he'd probably have that jackass prosecutor Sutton trying to put him in prison.

Remember the Chicago lawyer who keyed the Marine's car?

The Emperor pointed to this piece in the Chicago Tribune about the hearing. Some bits from it:
Grodner was late to court for the second time in the case. Grodner called Assistant State's Attorney Patrick Kelly, (Marine Corps/Vietnam 1969-1972), informing Kelly that he would be late to court.

"He wanted to avoid the media," Kelly said Friday. "So he's coming a half hour late."
Awww, he didn't like the attention for some reason.

Grodner told me he'd describe himself as a "radical liberal" who's ready to leave Chicago now with all this negative publicity and move to the south of France and do some traveling.

Let's see, 'radical liberal' = chickenshit vandal. Kind of like those clowns in Olympia and Seattle. And he wants to run away to France. BIG surprise.

During the proceedings, the judge described the offense as anger rose in his voice, especially as Grodner started balking on a plea arrangement he'd made with prosecutors.

"Is this what you did? Yes or no," Judge O'Malley asked Grodner.

"Without knowing, yes," Grodner said, sticking to his I-might-have-done-it-but-didn't-really-mean-it defense.
Ok, this has got to be the most chickenshit part of this. He was CAUGHT keying the car, made bullcrap comments about it, and now says THIS?
O'Malley asked again, in a stronger voice, not that of a judge but of a cop on the street or a Marine who meant business.

"DID YOU KNOWINGLY CAUSE DAMAGE TO THIS CAR?" O'Malley asked.

Grodner bowed his head, meekly, and responded in an equally meek voice:

"Yes," he said.

And after the hearing was over:
We stood outside, in the parking lot, talking for 20 minutes. He smoked, and I didn't. He explained that he wasn't anti-military and why he pleaded guilty.
He's not 'anti-military', but he keyed the car. Because it had Marine stuff on it. Yeah.
"The judge, he's the guy with the black robes," Grodner said. He could have been slapped with a felony, but Sgt. McNulty's family said they wanted to put this behind them and let it go as a misdemeanor.
Translation: "I pled guilty because I was afraid of a trial."
Grodner showed no remorse, and I asked if he'd apologize.
This pretty much sums up the 'radical liberal' lawyer:
"Yes, I'd say, 'I'm sorry if I scratched your car.' It escalated. That's when he wanted me locked up and thrown away," said Grodner, always the victim.

Lying piece of crap. If it had 'escalated' the Marine would have put discipline aside and beat the crap out of you. And you'd have deserved it, you miserable bastard.

A fine representative of the legal profession and liberalism, isn't he?

This is not a fun day in some ways

First, Fred Thompson just dropped out of the race. Just freakin' great. It's come to the point I have to decide if there are any of these clowns left in the race I can hold my nose for, or just say to hell with it. Unless the Stupid & BackstabbingRepublican party can actually straighten some things up, we're looking at looting politicians screwing us over fast or slow. Some damn choice.

As Kim notes, the ADL has decided that supporting gun bans is "to allow states to protect their citizens’ lives, liberty and property by regulating the purchase and possession of firearms. The League urged the Court to ensure that states retain the ability to keep guns out of the hands of “violent bigots.” I pulled up the ADL site and started to write them, but cancelled it; why bother? They've made it plain, in the past and now, that people like me are considered just as dirty as some clown with a swastika on his arm. I mean, hell, I not only posted that quote from George MacDonald Fraser, I commented that it was true; I'm probably on the same list as Kevin.

Which, mind you, is good company. Screw you, ADL.

Gee, why would we worry about the state of university education, and the politics of professors?

And while this would explain some things about Chavez(Stalin Wannabe, VZ), the basic is still that he IS a Stalin wannabe. And any excuse will do for adding to his power.

And while the sun is shining, it's cold and windy outside. I've got a dozen milk jugs, and the lumber to build a rack to set them up to test the .30 Carbine loads, but not in this weather: numb, stiff hands make accurate shooting difficult and this it to test loads, not me.

To quote Raj Whitehall, "How truly joyous."

And as a followon to the previous,

I'll direct you to this article by Mark Stein on the attempted post-birth abortion of free speech being set up in Canada.

If you don't want to read it, I ask you to think about this little excerpt:
Consider this statement, part of the criteria by which the star chamber determines when a Section XIII crime has occurred. What does it look for as evidence?

"Messages that make use of allegedly true stories, news reports, pictures and references to apparently reputable sources in an attempt to lend an air of objectivity and truthfulness to the extremely negative characterization of the targeted group have been found to be likely to expose members of the targeted group to hatred and contempt."

Read that again slowly. Citing news reports, reputable sources, facts, statistics, documentation, quotations, references, scholarly studies, etc., has been "found" to be clear evidence of your "likely" "pre-crime.

Read it. Then the next time some brainless rat's knackerswell-meaning idiot starts talking about the necessity of 'hate-speech' laws, consider some possible way to make them understand. Or just kick them somewhere sensitive since they may have lost the ability to actually think.

A depressing and enraging line of thought

Had a friend from down south visit over the weekend. This was both a good and a bad thing: the Good because it was nice to see them; Bad because I had to clean up(it's not dirty, but messy seems to be my standard operating mode). Overall a nice weekend, but one part far more stressful than I needed and I'd have skipped it if I could.

Friend had never seen the Murrah Building Memorial for the April 19 bombing, and wanted to see it before leaving. I live in Oklahoma City, but I'd never been there. Matter of fact, I'd made a point of not going. I was working that day, and down the road I'll write about what I was doing and what happened on my end, but not now. Let's put it this way, I never went for the same reason I've never watched Schindler's List: I have no desire to get that pissed off. Or angered. Or enraged. Put it as you will.

Night had fallen before we arrived, and as we walked around I did not look directly at the empty chairs, or the names, except in response to a question. Told some parts of the story they hadn't heard. Really, it was about as bad as I'd expected it to be, not only for my reaction to the particular incident, but for the chain of associations it set off.

One of the people responsible died by the executioners hand, one is in prison. But I think there were others, and I don't think McVeigh dreamed- and set up- this on his own. And that started me thinking about our current enemy. About people who speak with enthusiasm of wiping an entire people off the face of the planet. Of people who well send their own children into a restaurant with a bomb around their belly because "You will please god if you kill Jews while you die." Of Beslan. Of the people who want to recreate Beslan, worse if possible, here. People who'll murder a woman for accidentally showing an ankle in the market, or beat them senseless- and maybe kill them- for being out of the house without a male family escort. There's a school a few blocks from my home, and these disgusting excuses for humans would like to take it over and kill everyone in it.

The level of, I don't really have the words for it, 'rage' will have to do, that this causes is almost debilitating, because- barring some flat miracles- I think it'll happen somewhere. Like it was said a long time ago, we have to get lucky a lot; they only have to get lucky once. And when it does, not only will we have to deal with the incident and the aftermath, we'll have to listen to the idiots and freedom-haters tell us how it's our fault, that if only we'd (fill in the damn blank) it wouldn't have happened. And a lot of people, like me, will have to deal with the fact that they cannot individually do anything about it, and that's one of the worst parts.

Friend had never heard of Beslan. Since I'd brought the name up I had to give a basic 'what happened', and I think I nearly made them sick. The told me later that they tried not to think about such things because they couldn't deal with it(they'd made it maybe a third through Schindler's List and left the theater). You know something? I wish I could do that. I wish I could simply not think about it, push those thoughts and the information aside. But I can't.

I'm hoping that there are some amongst the islamists who realize the consequences if they do pull that off here, but I fear that, if there are any, they'll either stay quiet or be ignored. And the followup is that there will be people here who'll work hard to keep us from doing anything about it.

Shit. I need a drink.

Mossberg 702 Plinkster

Range test







I had the chance to help in the shakeout run of one of these today. If you haven't seen one before, this is a .22lr semi-auto rifle. The one I fired has a blue finish(the above picture is a chromed model), and a polymer stock. Sights are your basic bead front with hood and U-shaped rear notch, with the welcome feature that the rear adjusts for both windage and elevation, both screw adjustments. And (of course) the receiver is grooved for mounting a scope. Cross-bolt safety. The barrel is 18", and the overall length* about 37". It does have a bolt hold-open, which is the magazine follower: after the last round is fired the follower sticks up high enough to block the bolt.

This thing is light. That polymer stock is injection-molded from the looks, and hollow, helping the rifle into a total weight of 4.1 pounds. Durability? Open question, I have no previous knowledge of these so time will tell. The forend does leave the barrel free-floated

The owner said the trigger, as it came out of the box, was pretty rough; apparently that was from some crud left on the hammer & sear surfaces, as after wiping them clean and putting a dab of grease on them, it became much lighter and cleaner. He did not take the fire-control group apart, as he could find no information on doing so. You may notice from the picture, that the receiver/barrel looks a lot like the Marlin Model 60; disassembly is very similar, but the FCG does not look the same.

The weather being cloudy, cold and windy, this was tried out on a 25-yard indoor range. And the lights at the backstop were out, which didn't exactly help with aiming. We tried it out with four different brands: Remington Golden Bullet hollowpoints, Winchester hollowpoints, Federal Champion and Russian Vostok target ammo(had a couple of boxes I bought to try.

The trigger broke cleanly, I'd guess at about five pounds. And the thing ate all the ammo, including the Vostok, with only one bobble. At the very end, I loaded a mag with a few of each, all mixed together, and one of the (I think) Vostok cases didn't clear the bolt before it closed. That was the only problem in about 200 rounds, which isn't bad for an inexpensive rifle on its first outing. Ejection varied from forward and left(a long way forward) for the Remington and Winchester, less so on angle and distance with the Federal, and slightly back and only a couple of feet away for Vostok.

As I mentioned above, with basic sights and not-too-good light I'm not going to state "This is the level of accuracy"; I will say that all these cartridges easily stayed within 1.5" groups. I'd love to put a scope on this and try it at 50 yards with a solid rest.

There was one problem, and that was with the magazine. There's an open slot at the back corner on the left side, and I think that's where the trouble lies. You'd get five rounds in and sometimes something would stick. You'd have to push on the top cartridge and/or on the rims of the cartridges below to get things free. It did this several times. Being new to this, I have no way of knowing if it was this particular magazine, or something in the design.

Overall, not a bad little rifle. Short, light, it ate all ammo tried and showed good accuracy. And the guy picked it up for the price of $99. Not on sale, regular price. Kim has referred to a .22 rifle as a household commodity, and this thing seems to fit the bill: something you could stick in the closet or by the door to deal with pests, or put in the trunk or back of the truck for the same reasons.

*The chrome version has a 21" barrel, and it can be had in a 'Bantam' version with a 2" shorter stock.

I kind of like this roundup thing

so I'll keep it going.

First, (and I already told you this) Hillary Clinton is a socialist without the courage or integrity to admit it:
According to the New York Times, Hillary Clinton says that if she becomes president the federal government will take a more active role in the economy “to address what she called the excesses of the market and of the Bush administration.” Scary stuff for anyone who still believes in the free market.

Second, remember a few days go, the post on canaries in the coal mine?
The government officers who entered the sprawling, country club-like complex were ostensibly looking for a stash of weapons and for evidence of “subversive activity.” They found neither. In the subsequent days, the Venezuelan Jewish community’s umbrella organization, the Confederation of Israelite Associations of Venezuela, fired off a statement denouncing the raid as an “unjustifiable act” aimed at creating tensions between the community and the government of socialist President Hugo Chavez.
Ooooh, yeah, Chavez will really straighten up! A statement has been made! Especially considering this:
Jewish communal leaders also believe that another element might be at work. Sultan noted that Tarek al Assaimi, a former far-left student leader whose father was the representative of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party in Venezuela, is the deputy Interior and Justice minister in charge of internal security and, as such, could have been involved in initiating the raid.

Third, George Clooney: Messenger of Peace. Question is, will the Messenger do anything about the child abusers and porn rings? Or are they not worthy of notice by the Messenger when it's UN personnel doing it? And that mass murder/slavery thing in Darfur, it's really annoying, isn't it, Georgie?

Fourth, Kevin has one of his pieces up, this one on media bias and the blindness of so many media weenies to it. Which includes this quote from Bernard Goldberg:
"I understand how you feel," I told him, trying to diffuse a bad situation. "But I didn't say anything in the piece about how even you, Andrew, have agreed with me about the liberal bias."

Instead of calming things down, my comment made him go ballistic. "That would have been like raping my wife and kidnapping my kids!" he screamed at me.
Talk about a telling statement...

Fifth, will you third-world peasants stop trying to become un-Gaia-friendly? Your betters like it so much better with you living in dung huts.

Sixth, "Buy GloballyLocally Grown!"

And finally, some information on how the gun and self-defense bans in England have helped matters:
Violent crime rate wasn’t the only type of crime that skyrocketed. As a matter of fact, gun crimes period increased. Read that again: handgun crime increased. Gun control utterly failed. AsBBC reports in 2001, “[a] new study suggests the use of handguns in crime rose by 40% in the two years after the weapons were banned.” The crime rates didn’t stop there. AsBBC reports in 2003, “Gun crime has risen by 35% in a year, new Home Office figures show. There were 9,974 incidents involving firearms in the 12 months to April 2002 - a rise from 7,362 over the previous year.”
...
Other forms of crime increased too. As the same BBC article in 2003 reports, “Overall crime in the year to September was up 9.3%, with domestic burglary up 7.9%, drugs offences up 12.3% and sex offences up 18.2%.”
Amazing how that works, isn't it?

It should not surprise me that this piece of walking crap

is from California. Poor little baby caught lying, and demands he face no penalty for it.
Alvarez, an elected representative to the Three Valleys Municipal Water District, said last year at a water district meeting that he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his deeds as a Marine.

After admitting he never served in the military, he was charged with violating the Stolen Valor Act. He pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charge.

Alvarez's lawyer Brianna J. Fuller argued in the motion to dismiss, which will be heard Jan. 14 in federal court, that "protecting the reputation of military decorations" is not a compelling enough reason to place "restrictions on false statements."

I'm guessing you actually know this, you miserable bastard shyster, but this is not to 'protect the reputation' of a decoration: it's to punish stinking bastards like your client for claiming they served at this level and were decorated for it.

Your abscess on the ass of mankindclient couldn't simply lie, oh no, he claimed not only to have been a Marine, but to have committed such an act of bravery as to be noted by the Medal. And now he thinks it 'not fair' that he pay the price for his lies.

Make you a deal: all charges dropped, and we offer a selection of Marines the chance to make their displeasure with him known. How 'bout that?

The Last Testament of George MacDonald Fraser

is found here. And I very much thank Sondra for linking to it, as I hadn't seen it before.

I'll just take note of two things here. The first:
Furthermore, it makes grieving part of the national culture, as it was on such a nauseating scale when large areas were carpeted in rotting vegetation in "mourning" for the Princess of Wales;
Shortly after the death, I was at the Scottish country dance group that used to run every Thursday night, started and run by a gentleman named Ellis. He'd emigrated here after WWII(once mentioned, looking at my bike, that he'd been a motorcycle messenger in the Royal Greenjackets), set up a tailor business and did quite well. Just before the night ended a guy mention to Ellis that "There's a card downstairs at the bookstore that people are signing to send to the Royal Family, if you want to sign it." Ellis just looked at him and said "Why?" It shocked the guy, Ellis was supposed to be ready to run right down and put his signature on the card. But Ellis was of Mr. Fraser's generation, and that didn't happen.

The other:
Whether the public can be blamed for letting them pursue their ruinous policies is debatable.

Short of assassination there is little people can do when their political masters have forgotten the true meaning of the democracy of which they are forever prating, are determined to have their own way at all costs and hold public opinion in contempt.

I feel I speak not just for myself but for the huge majority of my generation who think as I do but whose voices are so often lost in the clamour.

Damn. It's a good thing this was printed now; I can see a variety of politicians and bootlickers having cows over that passage and demanding 'something be done' about him for saying it if he were still walking around. Especially since it can be argued to be quite true.

Ah well, he was a good man.

Roundup time

Digging around, remember the "We're all gonna get Mad Cow Disease and Die!" dance a while back? Not so fast, Guido. Lots of "Everybody who eats meat isn't dying, but we might still be in danger" stuff, with this at the end:
But Frances Hall, of the Human BSE Foundation said she would rather see researchers focus on developing a test that could pick up early signs of the test in those who were affected.

"I don't think estimates of numbers makes a lot of difference to people who have been affected, or people who are worried about it." Bold mine

That's part of the damn problem: a lot of media weenies worked damn hard to scare people to death over it. And if you're one of the unlucky few the numbers mean little; if you're one of everyone else, they point out just how overblown this was.

Next, something on the atrocity against free speech known as the Alberta Human Rights Commission:
...Levant was the clear winner in the debate and that offended Soharwardy, who marched down to a Calgary Police station and demanded that they arrest Levant for offending him during the debate and simply discussing the cartoons in the media.

After the officers explained that they didn’t do that in Canada, Soharwardy filed a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission. The Commission is made up of individuals appointed by the government to hear human rights complaints. The commissioners are a mish-mash of lawyers, nurses, politicians, engineers, who may or may not have direct legal experience. It costs nothing to file a complaint, so Soharwardy could avail himself of it at no charge while the defendant bears the cost of his defense.

Wonderful, isn't it? Any jackass of the legions of the perpetually offended clown who feels 'offended' can complain at no cost to themselves, and- if nothing else- try to bankrupt whoever offended them. I remembered something about these people, and dug this up:
"'I told him that it seemed to be an abuse of the Human Rights Act for someone to try and use it as an instrument of censorship. And when I said that, on the phone, there was a pause and then he said, in a somewhat astonished tone: "But the Human Rights Act is about censorship." Then it was my turn to be silent on my end, because I found that breath-taking. For the Human Rights Commission's own mediator to acknowledge that censorship was the purpose of their Act."

Next up, Insty pointed to this at the Huffer-Puffer site, summed up by this:
At one end of the spectrum, former Senator Gary Hart warns that Democrats are vulnerable and unprepared. "The ghost of Karl Rove will raise the specter of terrorism and swift boat whomever the Democrats nominate. The fear card is the last resort of the collapsing W. coalition," he said.
GARY FREAKIN' HART!?! "The ghost of Karl Rove"?!? "The fear card"?!? As Lawdog might say, Sweet Shiva, these people are nuts! And this:
Similarly, Brookings Institution foreign policy scholar Ivo Daalder argued, "Terror and fear are the only things the Reps can run on -- and so they will. Every Democrat knows that. But the country is clearly hunkering for a leader who can also address their real and current fears, which are economic first and foremost. So the Democrats have to talk about these issues, which surely aren't peripheral to the voters. That doesn't mean that they should not talk about national security -- they should, they do, and they will."
Well, Ivo, I've got to tell you something: I have concerns about the economy, but that thing about the people who want to kill us all, that kind of takes a serious position, too. Being the dumb guy in flyover country that I am. Damn, this is enough to make me wonder if these people have had their shots.

Speaking of which, Peters has this on the 'study' the NYEffin' Times put out on vets:
To a darkly humorous degree, all this reflects the Freudian terrors leftists feel when confronted with men who don't have concave chests. But it goes far beyond that.

Pretending to pity tormented veterans (vets don't want our pity - they want our respect), the Times' feature was an artful example of hate-speech disguised as a public service.

The image we all were supposed to take away from that story was of hopelessly damaged, victimized, infected human beings who've become outcasts from civilized society. The Times cast our vets as freaks from a slasher flick.

The hard left's hatred of our military has deteriorated from a political stance into a pathology: The only good soldier is a dead soldier who can be wielded as a statistic (out of context again). Or a deserter who complains bitterly that he didn't join the Army to fight . . .

Lastly, this from Michelle Malkin on the 'housing crisis'. Which I'm not all that impressed with, so far as a lot of the people being whacked by it.(I'm very concerned with how it screws with the economy). When I was looking for a house, I was pre-approved for a loan that was, let us say, rather generous. As in "I can make payments on a loan that size. If I don't eat too much or buy any clothes for the next few years." I only looked at houses that I could afford the payments on. I've got damn little sympathy for someone who 'bought' a house they couldn't really afford the payments on, or got one of those idiot 'interest only for x years' loans. Especially when they start whining now that everyone else should bail them out.
And let us not forget the idiots who approved these loans, and the ones who made them, who are now coming around with their hands out: Screw you, dumbass.