Telling gun owners to vote for Obama is like telling chickens to vote for Colonel Sanders.
John C. Sigler
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Good'un!
Telling gun owners to vote for Obama is like telling chickens to vote for Colonel Sanders.
John C. Sigler
UK: Muslim Students Back Killing In The Name Of Islam
God Save The Queen. And the Brits too.
A third of Muslim university students believe killing in the name of religion can be justified, a survey has revealed.
A study on the attitudes of students has found that 28 per cent said killing could be justified if the religion was under attack and another four per cent supported killing in order to "promote and preserve" the religion.
Over half, 53 per cent, said killing in the name of religion was never justifiable but among non-Muslim students that figure was 94 per cent.
While most students showed a typical generation gap where their parents were more religious than they were – 72 per cent – a significant 18 per cent said they were more strict in their religious observance than their parents.
The importance of sharia law to most Muslim was underlined by the 40 per cent who said they supported its introduction into law for Muslims in Britain, although 37 per cent opposed it.
A third of those surveyed supported the creation of a worldwide Muslim caliphate but 25 per cent opposed it and 42 per cent said they were not sure.
Half of the students said they would not be supportive of a friend who wanted to leave Islam.
Hannah Stuart, from the Centre for Social Cohesion, co-author of the report, said: "These findings are deeply alarming. Students in higher education are the future leaders of their communities yet significant numbers of them appear to hold beliefs which contravene liberal, democratic values.
"In addition there are signs of growing religious segregation on campus. These results are deeply embarrassing for those who have said that there is no extremism in British universities."
There are 90,000 Muslims among Britain's 2.3 million students in high education and the online survey asked 600 Muslims and 800 non-Muslims for their views on the religion.
Radicalisation among students has been a problem since the 1990s, with three of the July 7 bombers having attended university, along with most of the gang which planned a fertilizer bomb attack on the Bluewater shopping centre and the Ministry of Sound night club.
Ahmed Omar Sheikh, convicted of the kidnap and murder of the journalist Daniel Pearl, was a former student at LSE and Waseem Mughal, convicted of running a website for al-Qaeda in Iraq, was a former biochemistry student at Leicester University.
The cut out arabic calligraphy reads 'muslim'! Displayed by a British Muslim artist at the Islam Expo London 2006
Mughal was a member of the university Islamic society, and the fertilizer bomber Jawad Akbar attended Islamic society meetings at Brunel University, while Yassin Nassari, convicted of smuggling plans for a Qassam rocket into Britain, was president of the University of Westminster's Islamic society at its Harrow campus in Northwest London.
The Government has attempted to encourage lecturers to report students they suspect of radical behaviour but the University and College Union has refused to do so.
A quarter of those surveyed were members of their Islamic society – compared with six per cent for other faiths - but only a third said the societies promoted interfaith activities.
Over a third of students said they used the campus prayer room regularly and 42 per cent said they regularly attended Friday prayers, although only a small proportion attending prayers were female.
None of the students admitted to being gay or lesbian and 25 per cent said they had little or no respect for others who were.
When it came to wearing the hijab or headscarf, 59 per cent said it was important, with more women than men agreeing, but 31 per cent said it was not and 10 per cent said they were not sure, with more men than women being uncertain.
A quarter of students said men and women were not equal in the eyes of Allah and seven per cent were not sure, with more women than men feeling unequal.
By contrast 76 per cent of non-muslim believed that men and women were not equal in Islam.
Nearly half of women and 36 per cent of men believe that the "free mixing" of sexes is not acceptable, while nine per cent of women and 17 per cent of men are unsure.
Despite their adherence to religion it did not stop most Muslim from mixing with other religions – 37 per cent said they had friends at university from all sorts of different backgrounds and 38 per cent said religion was not an issue when choosing friends and only eight per cent said most of their friends at university were Muslim.
More than two thirds of the students said Islam was compatible with the Western notion of democracy, and only 13 per cent said it was not, although 19 per cent were not sure.
Half of non-Muslim students thought the two were incompatible.
Three quarters of the students also said that it is possible to be both Muslim and British equally, although only three per cent said being British came first. Nearly half said they were not bothered whether they married a British partner or not.
On the other hand 57 per cent of the students said Muslims serving in the armed forces should have the right to opt out of the army if they are required to fight in Muslim countries and 25 per cent said they were not sure.
The National Union of Students said: "We know there is concern about the serious issue of violent extremism on campus, but there is a wealth of evidence to show that this is not widespread. This report actually undermines cohesion and the joint efforts of students, institutions and government in tackling violent extremism."
From UK Telegraph
A third of Muslim university students believe killing in the name of religion can be justified, a survey has revealed.
A study on the attitudes of students has found that 28 per cent said killing could be justified if the religion was under attack and another four per cent supported killing in order to "promote and preserve" the religion.
Over half, 53 per cent, said killing in the name of religion was never justifiable but among non-Muslim students that figure was 94 per cent.
While most students showed a typical generation gap where their parents were more religious than they were – 72 per cent – a significant 18 per cent said they were more strict in their religious observance than their parents.
The importance of sharia law to most Muslim was underlined by the 40 per cent who said they supported its introduction into law for Muslims in Britain, although 37 per cent opposed it.
A third of those surveyed supported the creation of a worldwide Muslim caliphate but 25 per cent opposed it and 42 per cent said they were not sure.
Half of the students said they would not be supportive of a friend who wanted to leave Islam.
Hannah Stuart, from the Centre for Social Cohesion, co-author of the report, said: "These findings are deeply alarming. Students in higher education are the future leaders of their communities yet significant numbers of them appear to hold beliefs which contravene liberal, democratic values.
"In addition there are signs of growing religious segregation on campus. These results are deeply embarrassing for those who have said that there is no extremism in British universities."
There are 90,000 Muslims among Britain's 2.3 million students in high education and the online survey asked 600 Muslims and 800 non-Muslims for their views on the religion.
Radicalisation among students has been a problem since the 1990s, with three of the July 7 bombers having attended university, along with most of the gang which planned a fertilizer bomb attack on the Bluewater shopping centre and the Ministry of Sound night club.
Ahmed Omar Sheikh, convicted of the kidnap and murder of the journalist Daniel Pearl, was a former student at LSE and Waseem Mughal, convicted of running a website for al-Qaeda in Iraq, was a former biochemistry student at Leicester University.
The cut out arabic calligraphy reads 'muslim'! Displayed by a British Muslim artist at the Islam Expo London 2006 Mughal was a member of the university Islamic society, and the fertilizer bomber Jawad Akbar attended Islamic society meetings at Brunel University, while Yassin Nassari, convicted of smuggling plans for a Qassam rocket into Britain, was president of the University of Westminster's Islamic society at its Harrow campus in Northwest London.
The Government has attempted to encourage lecturers to report students they suspect of radical behaviour but the University and College Union has refused to do so.
A quarter of those surveyed were members of their Islamic society – compared with six per cent for other faiths - but only a third said the societies promoted interfaith activities.
Over a third of students said they used the campus prayer room regularly and 42 per cent said they regularly attended Friday prayers, although only a small proportion attending prayers were female.
None of the students admitted to being gay or lesbian and 25 per cent said they had little or no respect for others who were.
When it came to wearing the hijab or headscarf, 59 per cent said it was important, with more women than men agreeing, but 31 per cent said it was not and 10 per cent said they were not sure, with more men than women being uncertain.
A quarter of students said men and women were not equal in the eyes of Allah and seven per cent were not sure, with more women than men feeling unequal.
By contrast 76 per cent of non-muslim believed that men and women were not equal in Islam.
Nearly half of women and 36 per cent of men believe that the "free mixing" of sexes is not acceptable, while nine per cent of women and 17 per cent of men are unsure.
Despite their adherence to religion it did not stop most Muslim from mixing with other religions – 37 per cent said they had friends at university from all sorts of different backgrounds and 38 per cent said religion was not an issue when choosing friends and only eight per cent said most of their friends at university were Muslim.
More than two thirds of the students said Islam was compatible with the Western notion of democracy, and only 13 per cent said it was not, although 19 per cent were not sure.
Half of non-Muslim students thought the two were incompatible.
Three quarters of the students also said that it is possible to be both Muslim and British equally, although only three per cent said being British came first. Nearly half said they were not bothered whether they married a British partner or not.
On the other hand 57 per cent of the students said Muslims serving in the armed forces should have the right to opt out of the army if they are required to fight in Muslim countries and 25 per cent said they were not sure.
The National Union of Students said: "We know there is concern about the serious issue of violent extremism on campus, but there is a wealth of evidence to show that this is not widespread. This report actually undermines cohesion and the joint efforts of students, institutions and government in tackling violent extremism."
From UK Telegraph
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Ted Kennedy's Favorite Buddy...Err...Pet
Shrew identified as world's hardest drinking creature
Lewis Smith, Environment Reporter
A tropical shrew with a taste for alcoholic nectar has been identified as the hardest-drinking creature in the world.
Pentailed tree shrews have such an appetite for alcohol that each night they imbibe, weight for weight, the equivalent of a human downing up to nine glasses of wine.
Their capacity to hold their drink and keep a clear head, however, puts human boozers to shame. After a night supping at the jungle bar the shrews are not even unsteady on their feet, let alone being copiously sick or starting drunken fights.
They get their drinks from bertam palms, which grow in the jungles of West Malaysia and produce nectar boasting an alcohol content that can match beer.
The strength of the nectar varies but it is sufficiently loaded for the shrews to be drunk every three nights if they got inebriated as easily as people.
Pentailed tree shrews, Ptilocercus lowii, were described by scientists studying them as chronic drinkers with such a high alcoholic consumption that their habit would be likely to kill other mammals, including humans.
The rest of the story here
Lewis Smith, Environment Reporter
A tropical shrew with a taste for alcoholic nectar has been identified as the hardest-drinking creature in the world.
Pentailed tree shrews have such an appetite for alcohol that each night they imbibe, weight for weight, the equivalent of a human downing up to nine glasses of wine.
Their capacity to hold their drink and keep a clear head, however, puts human boozers to shame. After a night supping at the jungle bar the shrews are not even unsteady on their feet, let alone being copiously sick or starting drunken fights.
They get their drinks from bertam palms, which grow in the jungles of West Malaysia and produce nectar boasting an alcohol content that can match beer.
The strength of the nectar varies but it is sufficiently loaded for the shrews to be drunk every three nights if they got inebriated as easily as people.
Pentailed tree shrews, Ptilocercus lowii, were described by scientists studying them as chronic drinkers with such a high alcoholic consumption that their habit would be likely to kill other mammals, including humans.
The rest of the story here
Giant American Flag Will Continue To Fly At Car Dealership
A giant American flag that is larger than a city ordinance allows will be allowed to continue to fly at a popular Central Florida car dealership.
Monday night, Leesburg city commissioners agreed that the flag at the Cecil Clark Chevrolet dealership is more like a landmark since it has been on display for 20 years, and said it could stay.
Earlier this month, the commission wanted the flag removed.
"The community decided that they wanted better standards on the roadways," city manager Jay Evans said during an earlier interview. "We love the American flag and we are patriotic but there are standards that are in place now and we need to talk about whether or not -- in the future -- those are the right standards to have."
Clark launched a full-page ad in a local newspaper asking, "Do you find the sight of this flag objectionable?" with a photo of the American flag before Monday's decision.
The giant flag is 65 feet higher and 120 square feet bigger than the new Leesburg city ordinance allows.
Story from here
Monday night, Leesburg city commissioners agreed that the flag at the Cecil Clark Chevrolet dealership is more like a landmark since it has been on display for 20 years, and said it could stay.
Earlier this month, the commission wanted the flag removed.
"The community decided that they wanted better standards on the roadways," city manager Jay Evans said during an earlier interview. "We love the American flag and we are patriotic but there are standards that are in place now and we need to talk about whether or not -- in the future -- those are the right standards to have."
Clark launched a full-page ad in a local newspaper asking, "Do you find the sight of this flag objectionable?" with a photo of the American flag before Monday's decision.
The giant flag is 65 feet higher and 120 square feet bigger than the new Leesburg city ordinance allows.
Story from here
Monday, July 28, 2008
Heller Fires Second Salvo
Gun Ban Plaintiff Dick Heller Files New Lawsuit Against Washington, D.C.
WASHINGTON — The plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that overturned Washington's 32-year-old handgun ban has filed a new federal lawsuit against the city.
In a complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court, Dick Heller and two other plaintiffs allege that the city's new gun regulations still violate rights guaranteed under the Constitution.
The lawsuit cites the District of Columbia's unusual ban on firearms that carry more than 12 rounds of ammunition, which includes most semiautomatic handguns.
The suit also claims that the city's regulations make it all but impossible for residents to keep a gun ready for immediate self defense in the home.
The Supreme Court struck down Washington's handgun ban June 26. The D.C. Council passed emergency legislation July 15 in an effort to comply with the court's ruling.
From FoxNews
I hope it's a Title 18 lawsuit.
Title 18, U.S.C., Section 242
Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law
This statute makes it a crime for any person acting under color of law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to willfully deprive or cause to be deprived from any person those rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution and laws of the U.S.
This law further prohibits a person acting under color of law, statute, ordinance, regulation or custom to willfully subject or cause to be subjected any person to different punishments, pains, or penalties, than those prescribed for punishment of citizens on account of such person being an alien or by reason of his/her color or race.
Acts under "color of any law" include acts not only done by federal, state, or local officials within the bounds or limits of their lawful authority, but also acts done without and beyond the bounds of their lawful authority; provided that, in order for unlawful acts of any official to be done under "color of any law," the unlawful acts must be done while such official is purporting or pretending to act in the performance of his/her official duties. This definition includes, in addition to law enforcement officials, individuals such as Mayors, Council persons, Judges, Nursing Home Proprietors, Security Guards, etc., persons who are bound by laws, statutes ordinances, or customs.
Punishment varies from a fine or imprisonment of up to one year, or both, and if bodily injury results or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire shall be fined or imprisoned up to ten years or both, and if death results, or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Fox News Special: Murder in the Family - Honor Killing in America
This post is just case you missed the the disturbing but very important report aired this evening by Fox on the Islamic honor killing in America.
I do have a question, maybe somebody can enlighten me: what's "honorable" about murdering young women - that most times are your own daughter or sister?
Because I can see no honor in premeditating and perpetrating in cold blood such a horrible and cowardly act - unless you are a muslim.
(Part 1)
(Part 2)
(Part 3)
(Part 4)
(Part 5)
Read Amina and Sarah's Autopsy Report: Depraved, Brutal
Continues here: Atlas Shrugs
I would gladly volunteer - hell no, I would even pay for the privilege for the authorities to let me put the needle in that bastard's arm when his time comes to go to hell for murdering Amina and Sarah. And I would do the same for his bastard son Islam - who betrayed, conspired and was an accessory to the murder of his sisters.
It beats me but one thing I can't understand: why is that scum of the Earth still free?
I do have a question, maybe somebody can enlighten me: what's "honorable" about murdering young women - that most times are your own daughter or sister?
Because I can see no honor in premeditating and perpetrating in cold blood such a horrible and cowardly act - unless you are a muslim.
(Part 1)
(Part 2)
(Part 3)
(Part 4)
(Part 5)
Read Amina and Sarah's Autopsy Report: Depraved, Brutal
I have been going through the autopsy reports with friend and former prosecutor John Jay (who has seen a fair number of autopsies in his time) and these reports paint a gruesome picture. Yaser Said was a beast. What a brutal death. The islamic curse of honorcide must be stopped.
John Jay provided excellent analysis, observations and extrapolations. What follows is much of his deductions. Important to note, in short, these autopsies appear to have been done on the cheap, fast and dirty, with no intention on the part of the authorities to do anything other that a very cursory and superficial death investigation. John has never, in his 25 years, working in rural counties in Washington state, ever seen anything so superficial, not even the most inexperienced pathologist report he ever saw was so superficial. And, when something was a little novel, and there were not confessions or eyewitnesses or weapons recovered, pathologist were flown in from the state crime lab and pathologist's offices, to perform competent examines.
These girls were tortured. The wounds and and the placement of the gun against the skin were point blank. Sarah in particular had a long painful death. The shots were deliberately placed not to kill immediately, but to prolong the death process.
Continues here: Atlas Shrugs
I would gladly volunteer - hell no, I would even pay for the privilege for the authorities to let me put the needle in that bastard's arm when his time comes to go to hell for murdering Amina and Sarah. And I would do the same for his bastard son Islam - who betrayed, conspired and was an accessory to the murder of his sisters.
It beats me but one thing I can't understand: why is that scum of the Earth still free?
Cleopatra Stratan, world's youngest successful singer
"Ghita" (Romanian abbreviation for the name George) -the hit song you are about to watch a clip of, reached #1 in national charts and was recorded by the 3 year old performer in Romanian, Spanish and English.
The song, featured Cleopatra's double-platinum album " The Age Of Three" also won 3 MTV Romania awards of which the most important are Best Song and Best New Artist.
Ghita - English Version:
Cleopatra gave her first live concert in the front of an audience limited by the event organizers at 400 people at the age 3 when she interpreted 28 songs in 2 hours accompanied by her father, Pavel Stratan. She is actually the first artist ever to perform live on a stage in front of a large audience at such an young age.
The same year she recorded "At The Age Of 3" and sold 150,000 copies. That makes Cleopatra the youngest performer ever to record an entire album - and a double platinum one nevertheless.
On the Christmas Day 2006 a new record was smashed – Cleopatra was paid 10,000 Euros (like 16,000 USD) for one single song performed in front of a large audience in Piatra Neamt, Romania. The entire sum was then donated to a charity helping the poor.
Cleopatra Stratan has just launched her Cleopatra singing-doll last Saturday, selling the first 5,000 lot of dolls in just three days. Cleopatra, the doll, is 35 centimeters high and knows to sing “Ghita”. Available at 150 Romanian lei (about $70), the doll 'lives' in a red traveling bag similar to the one that Cleopatra used to carry in her video for "Ghita".
The Spanish company that produces the doll announced it would also come up with clothes for the doll, imitating the apparel used by the little singer on the stage and in videos.
"Cleopatra Stratan, the 3 year old who has hit the Romanian music charts big, seems to have become famous because her childlike singing and childlike charms are something different . . . she has not been made into a miniature adult, given the wardrobe of a sex symbol, or been thrust into the latest gore-ridden horror flick. In Eastern Europe, children are still children and generally must be protected as such; Cleopatra's father has refused monetary offers to market her. With her oversized suitcase, pink plastic sunglasses, and disheveled pigtails, Cleopatra is singing an innocuous song about a missing person named Ghita, who could be her big brother, uncle, or friend - no innuendos here".
Update: found another Cleopatra videoclip, this time she raps for Santa Claus:
The song, featured Cleopatra's double-platinum album " The Age Of Three" also won 3 MTV Romania awards of which the most important are Best Song and Best New Artist.
Ghita - English Version:
Cleopatra gave her first live concert in the front of an audience limited by the event organizers at 400 people at the age 3 when she interpreted 28 songs in 2 hours accompanied by her father, Pavel Stratan. She is actually the first artist ever to perform live on a stage in front of a large audience at such an young age.
The same year she recorded "At The Age Of 3" and sold 150,000 copies. That makes Cleopatra the youngest performer ever to record an entire album - and a double platinum one nevertheless.
On the Christmas Day 2006 a new record was smashed – Cleopatra was paid 10,000 Euros (like 16,000 USD) for one single song performed in front of a large audience in Piatra Neamt, Romania. The entire sum was then donated to a charity helping the poor.
Cleopatra Stratan has just launched her Cleopatra singing-doll last Saturday, selling the first 5,000 lot of dolls in just three days. Cleopatra, the doll, is 35 centimeters high and knows to sing “Ghita”. Available at 150 Romanian lei (about $70), the doll 'lives' in a red traveling bag similar to the one that Cleopatra used to carry in her video for "Ghita".
The Spanish company that produces the doll announced it would also come up with clothes for the doll, imitating the apparel used by the little singer on the stage and in videos.
"Cleopatra Stratan, the 3 year old who has hit the Romanian music charts big, seems to have become famous because her childlike singing and childlike charms are something different . . . she has not been made into a miniature adult, given the wardrobe of a sex symbol, or been thrust into the latest gore-ridden horror flick. In Eastern Europe, children are still children and generally must be protected as such; Cleopatra's father has refused monetary offers to market her. With her oversized suitcase, pink plastic sunglasses, and disheveled pigtails, Cleopatra is singing an innocuous song about a missing person named Ghita, who could be her big brother, uncle, or friend - no innuendos here".
Update: found another Cleopatra videoclip, this time she raps for Santa Claus:
Buddhist Man Enters Church, Attempts To Rape Woman, Steals Truck, Almost Runs Down Deputy
Wait! What do you mean Abbas Hussein isn't a Bhuddist name?... What is it then, Shinto?
Muslim you say? You racist liar! Muslims are peaceful people, none of them would ever do something like that, it is against the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad!
You say that one more time and I'll call CAIR to sue you for slander!
Story from here
Muslim you say? You racist liar! Muslims are peaceful people, none of them would ever do something like that, it is against the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad!
You say that one more time and I'll call CAIR to sue you for slander!
Man (religion undetermined) critical after alleged crime spree
An Atlanta man who allegedly stole a truck in Shelbyville Wednesday is in critical condition in a Chattanooga hospital after allegedly attempting to sexually assault a woman, run down a deputy and flee from police at high speed through Franklin County.
According to a report by Shelbyville police officer Josh Leverette, Francisco Carrillo told authorities that Abbas Hussein, who was in town "for a camp" at an East Depot Street location described by Leverette as "possibly a Somalian mosque," reached into Carrillo's right front pocket and took his car keys.
Carrillo told police he believed Hussein may have been headed toward Murfreesboro to possibly board a bus for Atlanta, since he asked for a ride to the bus station earlier in the day, the report said.
Instead, Hussein allegedly took the 1996 Ford Explorer and headed south, where he allegedly entered Center Grove Baptist Church between Estill Springs and Tullahoma about 9 p.m. and allegedly attempted to rape a woman in the building.
A report by Franklin County Deputy Charles Stines stated that Hussein entered the church asking for water, but the woman present asked him to leave when she became suspicious of the man.
Hussein then allegedly tried to convince the woman to perform a sex act and when she refused to do so, offered her $10 for the act, with the woman telling Hussein "she was a Christian and married and that he needed to leave."
The report states that Hussein grabbed the woman's hand and twisted it, but she began to kick him and he let her go. She then entered the office of the church with the man behind her, according to police records, with Hussein allegedly grabbing her purse, but the woman "forcibly removed it from his hands."
Following a struggle, the woman was able to shut the door, placing her feet on a cabinet to brace herself against the door to prevent the man from getting into the church office. The woman then called 9-1-1 to report the incident, at which time Hussein left the building.
Following that incident, Franklin County deputies received a report that a 1999 Ford F-250 had been stolen from Speedy Sak Market north of Estill Springs, with Hussein allegedly leaving Carrillo's truck behind. The stolen vehicle was spotted by Sgt. Milton Binkley of the sheriff's department, who attempted to pull it over.
Hussein was driving without lights and pulled into Kennith Wessner Ford but, as Binkley attempted an arrest, Hussein allegedly sped away from the scene, nearly running him down. The officer suffered an injured ankle as he dove out of the path of the stolen truck, according to Lt. Mike Bell of the Franklin County Sheriff Department.
The stolen vehicle was then spotted by Deputy Robert Tipps, who also attempted to stop Hussein, near Speedway Market on U.S. 64 travelling toward Huntland. Tipps' report stated that Hussein was "driving very erratic and was all over the roadway."
Tipps reported that Hussein then crossed the center line and left the roadway, entering the grassy median, where the truck struck an emergency turn around area, went airborne and rolled several times, ejecting the driver. The chase and accident were captured on the dash video camera in Tipps' patrol car.
The report said Hussein appeared dead at the scene, but officers managed to clear his airway and Hussein began to breathe again. Paramedics from Rural Metro Ambulance Service arrived, requesting a helicopter to land at Southern Tennessee Medical Center in Winchester, which flew Hussein to Erlanger Medical Center in Chattanooga.
Tipps' report stated that the truck Hussein was in at Center Grove Baptist Church was the one stolen from Carillo in Shelbyville.
Lt. Bell told the T-G Thursday that Hussein's family in Atlanta explained the man had been "attending a religious conference of some kind in Shelbyville."
Hussein is facing a list of charges including attempted sexual assault, aggravated assault, theft of property, failure to yield to blue lights, among other offenses, Bell said.
"He didn't seem to be under the influence," Bell said. "I don't know what he was thinking when he did it."
Story from here
Friday, July 25, 2008
So This Is What The Democrats Really Mean When They Say "It's For The Children"!
Assemblyman Neil Cohen(D) under child porn investigation
Deputy Assembly Speaker Neil Cohen is being investigated for alleged possession of child pornography, according to two of his Democratic colleagues who said they brought the matter to the attention of law enforcement.
Sick bastard
In a joint statement, Sen. Raymond Lesniak and Assemblyman Joseph Cryan (both D-Union) confirmed they alerted authorities to the possibility Cohen (D-Union) had child pornography on his computers.
"As the facts became apparent in our office, we notified the appropriate agency and will continue to assist in any way possible," Lesniak and Cryan said. "While it was our proactive steps that led to the investigation to this point, we are appalled at what has transpired."
At least one of Cohen's computers from the Union Township legislative office the three lawmakers share was confiscated by the Attorney General's Office, according to three sources who have been briefed on the investigation. Two of the sources said a legislative staffer initially discovered the images, then notified Lesniak and Cryan. The sources declined to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.
"Both of us have known Neil Cohen for more than two decades," Lesniak and Cryan said. "We know him as a compassionate, caring individual but if the allegations prove true, clearly there was a side to him neither of us knew. We have been instructed to not make any further comments regarding this very serious matter."
Sources said Cohen was under psychiatric care Thursday night. He could not be reached for comment.
Read the rest here
Deputy Assembly Speaker Neil Cohen is being investigated for alleged possession of child pornography, according to two of his Democratic colleagues who said they brought the matter to the attention of law enforcement.
Sick bastard "As the facts became apparent in our office, we notified the appropriate agency and will continue to assist in any way possible," Lesniak and Cryan said. "While it was our proactive steps that led to the investigation to this point, we are appalled at what has transpired."
At least one of Cohen's computers from the Union Township legislative office the three lawmakers share was confiscated by the Attorney General's Office, according to three sources who have been briefed on the investigation. Two of the sources said a legislative staffer initially discovered the images, then notified Lesniak and Cryan. The sources declined to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.
"Both of us have known Neil Cohen for more than two decades," Lesniak and Cryan said. "We know him as a compassionate, caring individual but if the allegations prove true, clearly there was a side to him neither of us knew. We have been instructed to not make any further comments regarding this very serious matter."
Sources said Cohen was under psychiatric care Thursday night. He could not be reached for comment.
Read the rest here
Internet photo album of America’s new First Family
Some people might ask, “How come we haven’t seen or known about these pictures before?”
The original source of the photos is unknown but they were passed on by Poland-based journalist and CFP columnist David Dastych. This photo album of what could in November 2008 be America’s new First Family, which may not have been printed anywhere in the mainstream media, is being posted here for the approximate two hundred million Americans who have Internet Access.
Barack Obama’s grandmother, Sarah Hussein Onyango Obama
U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s uncle has been a prisoner in his own home, trapped by post election violence that has left more than 600 Kenyans dead. ‘If Barack Obama were elected, he would improve relations between Africa and America because he had his roots in Africa’, his uncle said.
See the rest of Hussein's family photo album here
You'll be blown away, I promise.
Peaceful Muslims Send Letter Of Support Against Islamic Terrorism To Italy PM Silvio Berlusconi
If you really believed the headline, I have a cheap condo to sell you on the top of the Eiffel Tower ;)
Now that I got your attention, here is the real story:
Italian Newspaper Receives Death Threat Letter Addressed To Italy PM Silvio Berlusconi:
We Will Hit You And The Other Infidels, Allah-U-Akhbar!
(that sounds more like it!)
ROME --Italian daily La Repubblica received a death threat letter Friday aimed at Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the newspaper's Web site reported.
The letter, which contained a bullet and also proclaimed "Allah is Great," vows to "hit" Berlusconi as well as the speakers of Italy's upper and lower parliamentary chambers, Renato Schifani and Gianfranco Fini, the Web site said.
Signor Berlusconi preparing his infidel neck for the Islamic ritual beheading
The left-leaning paper said a similar letter was received by the right-leaning daily Libero in Milan Thursday.
In January, a letter threatening Berlusconi and his brother Paolo - containing two bullets - was received by the Milan daily Il Giornale.
Berlusconi, while prime minister in 2001, infuriated Muslims and appalled Western diplomats with remarks asserting the superiority of Western civilization over Islam.
Translated in English from Ziare.com
Now that I got your attention, here is the real story:
Italian Newspaper Receives Death Threat Letter Addressed To Italy PM Silvio Berlusconi:
We Will Hit You And The Other Infidels, Allah-U-Akhbar!
(that sounds more like it!)
ROME --Italian daily La Repubblica received a death threat letter Friday aimed at Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the newspaper's Web site reported.
The letter, which contained a bullet and also proclaimed "Allah is Great," vows to "hit" Berlusconi as well as the speakers of Italy's upper and lower parliamentary chambers, Renato Schifani and Gianfranco Fini, the Web site said.
Signor Berlusconi preparing his infidel neck for the Islamic ritual beheading
The left-leaning paper said a similar letter was received by the right-leaning daily Libero in Milan Thursday.
In January, a letter threatening Berlusconi and his brother Paolo - containing two bullets - was received by the Milan daily Il Giornale.
Berlusconi, while prime minister in 2001, infuriated Muslims and appalled Western diplomats with remarks asserting the superiority of Western civilization over Islam.
Translated in English from Ziare.com
Howard Stern: 'I Will Never Vote For a Democrat Again'
Even Howard Stern (not exactly the poster boy for Conservatism), can see that the Democrats have become the advocates of hard-core Marxism-Leninism in America:
Welcome to the real world, Howard!
Stern on XM/Sirius Merger: 'I Will Never Vote For a Democrat Again'
Satellite radio talk show star cites 'gangsterism,' 'communism' for holding up deal.
Sirius Satellite Radio host Howard Stern supports the merger of his network with XM Satelitte Radio and is fuming at Democratic opposition on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) panel.
After FCC commissioners announced they have reached a deal to approve the merger of Sirius (NASDAQ:SIRI) and XM (NASDAQ:XMSR), Stern ranted about Democrats’ ‘gangsterism’ and ‘communism’ and the obstacles to the merger.
Stern described a phone conversation he had with his agent, who he described as a “liberal Democrat kind of guy.”
“I go, ‘That’s it!’” Stern said. “[I] go, ‘You know what Don, I’ve voted Republican and I’ve voted Democrat. I have vowed I will never vote for a Democrat again. I don’t give a [expletive] – no matter who they are. I don’t care if God becomes a Democrat.’ I said, ‘I backed Hillary Clinton, I backed Al Gore, I backed John Kerry. I am done with them.’”
Stern took it a step even further and called Democrats on the FCC “communists” and referred to their tactics as “gangsterism.”
“The fact that these Democrats on the FCC are communists,” Stern said. “They’re for communism. They don’t want to see companies – this is gangsterism. I said, ‘This is crazy.’”
The rest of the article here
Welcome to the real world, Howard!
W: The Dark Knight?
I've seen the movie myself. Comparing the President with Batman may look a little silly at first, but there are indeed plenty of parallels between the plot of The Dark Knight and the War on Terror.
For example: the media and some Gotham City citizens accusing Batman - the hero trying to save their own city for escalating the violence by going after the evil doers and causing more harm to the community than good; the scene with the eavesdropping machine, capable of listening to all cellphone conversations in the city - unfortunately, the only device available to Batman capable of locating the bad guys in time and stop an imminent massacre. Then there is also the dilemma confronting our President, the military and the intelligence services: if sometimes the only effective way to fight pure evil is to take the gloves off, get down and dirty and bend the rules, is it OK to go on that road as long as it saves save innocent lives in imminent peril?
There are many others, but I don't want to go into more details and spoil the plot as if any of you didn't see this movie, then you don't know what you are missing.
Here is Andrew Klavan from WSJ with a nice analysis of the parallels between the fictional Batman character and Dubya:
Read The rest of the article here
For example: the media and some Gotham City citizens accusing Batman - the hero trying to save their own city for escalating the violence by going after the evil doers and causing more harm to the community than good; the scene with the eavesdropping machine, capable of listening to all cellphone conversations in the city - unfortunately, the only device available to Batman capable of locating the bad guys in time and stop an imminent massacre. Then there is also the dilemma confronting our President, the military and the intelligence services: if sometimes the only effective way to fight pure evil is to take the gloves off, get down and dirty and bend the rules, is it OK to go on that road as long as it saves save innocent lives in imminent peril?
There are many others, but I don't want to go into more details and spoil the plot as if any of you didn't see this movie, then you don't know what you are missing.
Here is Andrew Klavan from WSJ with a nice analysis of the parallels between the fictional Batman character and Dubya:
What Bush and Batman Have in Common
By ANDREW KLAVAN
July 25, 2008; Page A15
Wall Street Journal
A cry for help goes out from a city beleaguered by violence and fear: A beam of light flashed into the night sky, the dark symbol of a bat projected onto the surface of the racing clouds . . .
Oh, wait a minute. That's not a bat, actually. In fact, when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a "W."
There seems to me no question that the Batman film "The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.
And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society -- in which people sometimes make the wrong choices -- and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell.
"The Dark Knight," then, is a conservative movie about the war on terror. And like another such film, last year's "300," "The Dark Knight" is making a fortune depicting the values and necessities that the Bush administration cannot seem to articulate for beans.
Read The rest of the article here
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Obama lands another endoswment - Gains street cred
Is this what PDiddy, 50 Cents, Paris Hilton and their liberal friends meant with the "Vote or Die" electoral slogan?
The rest here
Dale Leo Bishop put to death:
Apology, Obama endorsment precedes execution
PARCHMAN — Before he died Wednesday evening, death row inmate Dale Leo Bishop apologized to his victim's family, thanked America and urged people to vote for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
"For those who oppose the death penalty and want to see it end, our best bet is to vote for Barack Obama because his supporters have been working behind the scenes to end this practice," Bishop said.
Bishop, 34, was pronounced dead by lethal injection at 6:14 p.m. - the second inmate put to death in Mississippi in two months. Earl Wesley Berry, 49, was executed May 21.
The execution culminated a flurry of last-minute appeals that began late last month seeking to save Bishop's life.
A Lee County jury convicted Bishop in 2000 of participating in the murder of Marcus Gentry, who was beaten to death in December 1998 with a claw hammer. His body was found along a logging road near Saltillo.
The rest here
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
The Hollywood Insurgency
The bad news: like all the good communist dictators they admire,when liberals get unlimited power (like they do in Hollywood), your free speech and political dissent can cost you your job and career. But not your life. Yet.
The good news: it looks like some 600 mostly anonymous men and women working in the film industry, fed-up with the climate of intimidation imposed on them by the overwhelming far-left majority (who decides who is employed and who isn't on the basis of the employee political leaning), came to the conclusion that enough is enough.
They started to meet each other in semi-clandestine meetings and and organize what I ironically named "The Hollywood Insurgency":
Hollywood's Conservative Underground
'Friends of Abe' group meets quietly
A group of politically conservative and centrist Hollywood figures organized by actor Gary Sinise and others has been meeting quietly in restaurants and private homes, forming a loose-knit network of entertainers who share common beliefs like supporting U.S. troops and traditional American values.
Gary Sinise enjoying a little "trigger time" with his Army friends
Some of those involved are taking more public steps to counter the entertainment industry's tilt toward liberalism and Democratic politics, such as campaigning for Republican Sen. John McCain or crafting projects to portray America in a more positive light.
The group, whose members call themselves "Friends of Abe" after Abraham Lincoln, was organized as an underground movement because of fears that prominent industry titans with outspoken liberal views would retaliate, said participants. They often were reluctant to name members of the group in interviews for fear it would hurt their careers.
"It's a growing movement, and word is getting out that there's many of us in this business ...," said 1950s singer Pat Boone, one of the few conservatives to talk about the movement publicly. "If certain studio execs - hirers and firers - learn that this is a movement and growing, and that some of these people that they hire are of this inclination, these people could be unemployed."
The rest of the article and the second Pat Boone video is here
The good news: it looks like some 600 mostly anonymous men and women working in the film industry, fed-up with the climate of intimidation imposed on them by the overwhelming far-left majority (who decides who is employed and who isn't on the basis of the employee political leaning), came to the conclusion that enough is enough.
They started to meet each other in semi-clandestine meetings and and organize what I ironically named "The Hollywood Insurgency":
Hollywood's Conservative Underground
'Friends of Abe' group meets quietly
A group of politically conservative and centrist Hollywood figures organized by actor Gary Sinise and others has been meeting quietly in restaurants and private homes, forming a loose-knit network of entertainers who share common beliefs like supporting U.S. troops and traditional American values.
Gary Sinise enjoying a little "trigger time" with his Army friends
Some of those involved are taking more public steps to counter the entertainment industry's tilt toward liberalism and Democratic politics, such as campaigning for Republican Sen. John McCain or crafting projects to portray America in a more positive light.
The group, whose members call themselves "Friends of Abe" after Abraham Lincoln, was organized as an underground movement because of fears that prominent industry titans with outspoken liberal views would retaliate, said participants. They often were reluctant to name members of the group in interviews for fear it would hurt their careers.
"It's a growing movement, and word is getting out that there's many of us in this business ...," said 1950s singer Pat Boone, one of the few conservatives to talk about the movement publicly. "If certain studio execs - hirers and firers - learn that this is a movement and growing, and that some of these people that they hire are of this inclination, these people could be unemployed."
The rest of the article and the second Pat Boone video is here
Alan Gura, 2nd Amendment Lawyer (represented Heller Vs. DC to the Supreme Court) - July 9th, Speech To The Federalist Society
Part 1
For parts 2 to 4, click on the Youtube video link after videoclip ends.
For parts 2 to 4, click on the Youtube video link after videoclip ends.
Only Eight Days After 9/11, Barak Hussein Obama Apologizes For The Islamic Terrorists
"We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair."
Oh, the poor poor Islamic terrorists, if only they could have more empathy they would not be so mad at us.
Perhaps, we should give them all our treasure (we actually are, paying a ridiculously high price for the free oil flowing under their feet), educate them (we actually do accept them in our Universities) and give them all jobs (we are, sending millions of jobs to Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia) so they would not think about hurting us.
For, according to BHO, their mass murdering actions only stem from the poverty and ignorance brought upon them by the ruthless exploitation of the Western imperialist powers...
From TheFiringLine
Viva Obama!
Just in case you need another reason to get up and vote against Obamessiah:
The shameless cult of personality video above is strikingly similar with the ones I have been "blessed" (read forced) to watch in my youth back in communist Romania. Here are just two samples (captioned in English).
If Obama - the candidate isn't only not bothered, but is actually enjoying the whoring of the mass media and the communist-inspired shameless cult of personality expressed by his propagandists in music, videos, posters and poems, can anyone imagine what Obama -the President will be capable of?
An old "patriotic" tune from my old country (with slightly adapted lyrics) rings in my ears:
"Obama, The Party, USA!"
The shameless cult of personality video above is strikingly similar with the ones I have been "blessed" (read forced) to watch in my youth back in communist Romania. Here are just two samples (captioned in English).
If Obama - the candidate isn't only not bothered, but is actually enjoying the whoring of the mass media and the communist-inspired shameless cult of personality expressed by his propagandists in music, videos, posters and poems, can anyone imagine what Obama -the President will be capable of?
An old "patriotic" tune from my old country (with slightly adapted lyrics) rings in my ears:
"Obama, The Party, USA!"
Video: A Real "Horror" Movie For Thugs And Gun Hating Liberals
Internet Movie Advisory Board Warning:
Rated (GL) for Gungrabbing Liberal Inappropriate Content
Do not drink any liquids when watching video. The end sequence may cause beer or coffee being ejected through through the nostrils on the computer keyboard and monitor. Watch at your own risk. If you are a gun hating liberal, this movie can cause you irreversible neural damage (that means your two last surviving brain cells will wither and die)
Rated (GL) for Gungrabbing Liberal Inappropriate Content
Do not drink any liquids when watching video. The end sequence may cause beer or coffee being ejected through through the nostrils on the computer keyboard and monitor. Watch at your own risk. If you are a gun hating liberal, this movie can cause you irreversible neural damage (that means your two last surviving brain cells will wither and die)
PHILIPPINES: Letter Demands Bishop Convert To Islam Or Pay Jizya Tax To Ensure His Safety
MANILA (UCAN) -- A southern Philippine bishop has reported receiving a letter threatening him with harm if he does not convert to Islam or pay "Islamic taxes."The rest of the story here
Bishop Martin Jumoad of Isabela sent a copy of the letter on July 19 from Isabela City, 870 kilometers southeast of Manila, to Church-run Radio Veritas in Quezon City, northeast of Manila.In an interview with UCA News the same day, Bishop Jumoad said a student of Claret College in Isabela, capital of Basilan province, was told to give the school secretary the letter to pass to the bishop.
The bishop also reported getting text messages from Catholics saying they too had received threatening letters. "Bishop, we are disoriented and we cannot sleep. What is our reaction to this?" he reported being asked by some.
The letter had the names "Puruji Indama" and "Nur Hassan J. Kallitut" printed at the bottom and "Mujahiddin" under each name. The purported senders introduced themselves as "Muslim warriors" who "don't follow any laws other than the Qur'an," Islam's holy book.
They said Bishop Jumoad should choose to convert to Islam or give jizya, Islamic tax, to their group in exchange for protecting him in the "place of Muslims."
If he refuses to convert or pay, the letter threatened "force, weapons or war may be used" against him. It warned him not to feel safe even if he is "surrounded by soldiers," and cited bombings in various cities.
The prelate was given 15 days to respond, with two mobile phone numbers to contact. "If we do not receive response from you, it means you will oppose," the letter added.
A document written in the local dialect, on the letterhead of "Al-Harakatul Islamiyya," accompanied the letter. The bishop said he does not recognize the names, but has encountered the phrase "Al-Harakatul" in kidnapping incidents in Basilan involving the Abu Sayyaf, a group listed on various countries' lists of terrorist organizations.
Two days later, CBCP News, the online news site of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines, reported the kidnapping of Ronnie Ando, Vilma Ayson and Wilma Suharlo and two children, parishioners of St. Vincent Ferrer in Sumisip town.
Encyclopedia Britannica:
Jizya: Islamic tax also spelled jizyah, Arabic: jizyah
Head or poll tax that Islamic rulers demanded from their non-Muslim subjects.
Seriously now: I see no difference between Jizya and the "protection tax" imposed by the Italian Camorra and N'Dranghetta or the American, Russian and Chinese mob and other gangs of various nationalities.
"If some people persist in rejecting the religion of Allaah and stand in the way of ruling by that which Allaah has revealed on earth, or they fight against the call to Allaah, then we give them the choice of three things:
Either they become Muslim; or if they refuse they pay the jizyah (whereby they pay a specified amount to the Muslims in return for being allowed to remain their land, and the Muslims undertake to protect them); or, if they refuse that, there is nothing left but the way which they themselves have chosen, which is fighting and dealing violently with those who have persecuted the Muslims and put obstacles in the path of the Islamic da’wah. In this way the Muslims will gain the upper hand and the enemies will be humiliated; then when we have killed and wounded many of them and gained the upper hand over them, we may take prisoners and bind a bond firmly on them."
Ahkaam al-Sijn wa’l-Sujana’ wa Mu’aamalat al-Sujana’ fi’l-Islam by Hasan Abi’l-Ghuddah, 256"Thou hast to accept Islam, or pay the tax, and obey God and His Messenger and the messengers of His Messenger, and do them honor and dress them in fine clothing, not in the raiment of raiders…for if you satisfy my envoys you will satisfy me. Surely the tax is known to you. Therefore if you wish to be secure on land and on sea, obey God and His Messenger…But be careful lest thou do not satisfy…for then I shall not accept anything from you, but I shall fight you and take the young as captives and slay the elderly…Come then, before a calamity befalls you..."Muhammad addressing an ultimatum letter to the Christians and Jews of Elath
Such practices of extortion and death threats are illegal and it certainly looks like the Islamic Holy Book - the Qu'ran endorses and condones such illegal practices. The Prophet Muhammad, the man who dictated the Qu'ran and founded Islam, did imposed Jizya on unbelievers and his muslim believers are following in his steps and continue to extort the protection tax to this day. If so why aren't we declaring the religion of Islam an illegal mob organization and fight to destroy it in every civilized country?
Democrat Congresswoman Gestapo Tactics
Gun seizure lawsuit:
Gabriel Razzano claims Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (pictured) had cops illegally confiscate his guns a day after he visited her office.
From NY Post:
I'd also like to know exactly what law the guy broke to have his home invaded all his guns taken.
One more detail about Rep Carolyn McCarthy: on Feb. 14, 2007, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) introduced H.R. 1022, a bill with the stated purpose, "to reauthorize the assault weapons ban, and for other purposes.
From NRA-ILA:
Clearly, McCarthy has a deep and irrational hate for guns and gun owners. No wonder in a truly Gestapo manner she felt it was OK t to order the cops to enter the home and confiscate the private property of a law abiding citizen. Mc Carthy wants to make illegal pretty much every single firearm in existence and make criminals out of all of us, American gun owners and hunters. She goes as far as trying to declare illegal semiautomatic shotguns whereas this type of firearm is the "bread and butter" for waterfowl and upland bird hunters or clay shooters.
I have all sympathy for her for the loss of her husband at the hands of a murderer who used a gun to kill her husband. I only can wonder if instead of a gun that criminal would have used an automobile to mow down her husband - or a baseball bat to bash his head in. Would then she tried to pass a law to ban all cars or all baseball bats? Would she have asked the cops to raid Mr. Razzano's home, tow away his automobile and seize his baseball bats -in case if he owned any?
Gabriel Razzano claims Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (pictured) had cops illegally confiscate his guns a day after he visited her office.
From NY Post:
An outspoken Long Island gun owner's home was raided by Nassau County detectives, who seized two dozen weapons he lawfully owns just one day after Rep. Carolyn McCarthy's office made a 911 call about him.I'd love to know what she said in the 9-1-1 call that compelled the PD to raid the home. There should be a recording, no doubt about it. The congrescritter's staff should be asked to testify under oath about what exactly they "felt" to be threatening in Mr. Razzano behavior during his visit. Did he threatened them or their boss with physical violence, or was he just a citizen came to express his displeasure with the release back on the streets of an illegal alien and attempted cop killer?
Freeport resident Gabriel Razzano claims he was targeted in the spring raid for his "unpopular" political beliefs.
He's now filed a $5 million federal lawsuit against the Nassau PD and McCarthy, charging they joined forces to strip him of his guns unconstitutionally.
The case pits Razzano against McCarthy, the most outspoken gun-control advocate in Congress. A crazed gunman murdered her husband in the infamous 1993 Long Island Rail Road Massacre.
The flap arose on March 19, when Razzano visited McCarthy's Garden City office to discuss an article about an illegal immigrant who was deported but was later nabbed in Freeport for the attempted murder of a cop.
"The office staff felt that Razzano's behavior was disruptive and threatening," said Lt. Kevin Smith, a police spokesman.
Razzano's home was raided the next morning.
I'd also like to know exactly what law the guy broke to have his home invaded all his guns taken.
One more detail about Rep Carolyn McCarthy: on Feb. 14, 2007, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) introduced H.R. 1022, a bill with the stated purpose, "to reauthorize the assault weapons ban, and for other purposes.
From NRA-ILA:
Reauthorizing the Clinton ban would be bad enough. The guns that it temporarily banned--very widely used for target shooting, hunting and home protection--are still used in only a small percentage of crime. But McCarthy`s "other purposes" would make matters even worse. H.R. 1022 would ban every gun banned by the Clinton ban, plus millions more guns, including:
- Every gun made to comply with the Clinton ban. (The Clinton ban dictated the kinds of grips, stocks and attachments new guns could have. Manufacturers modified new guns to the Clinton requirements. H.R. 1022 would ban the modified guns too.
- Guns exempted by the Clinton ban. (Ruger Mini-14s and -30s, and Ranch Rifles; .30 cal. carbines; and fixed-magazine, semi-automatic, center-fire rifles that hold more than 10 rounds.)
- All semi-automatic shotguns. (E.g., Remington, Winchester, Beretta and Benelli, used for hunting, sport shooting and self-defense. H.R. 1022 would ban them because they have "any characteristic that can function as a grip," and would also ban their main component, called the "receiver.")
- All detachable-magazine semi-automatic rifles-including, for example, the ubiquitous Ruger 10/22 .22 rimfire-because they have "any characteristic that can function as a grip.
- Target shooting rifles. (E.g., the three centerfire rifles most popular for marksmanship competitions: the Colt AR-15, the Springfield M1A and the M1 "Garand.")
- Any semi-automatic shotgun or rifle an Attorney General one day claims isn`t "sporting," even though the constitutions of the U.S. and 44 states, and the laws of all 50 states, recognize the right to use guns for defense.
- 65 named guns (the Clinton law banned 19 by name); semi-auto fixed-magazine pistols of over 10 rounds capacity; and frames, receivers and parts used to repair or refurbish guns.
Clearly, McCarthy has a deep and irrational hate for guns and gun owners. No wonder in a truly Gestapo manner she felt it was OK t to order the cops to enter the home and confiscate the private property of a law abiding citizen. Mc Carthy wants to make illegal pretty much every single firearm in existence and make criminals out of all of us, American gun owners and hunters. She goes as far as trying to declare illegal semiautomatic shotguns whereas this type of firearm is the "bread and butter" for waterfowl and upland bird hunters or clay shooters.
I have all sympathy for her for the loss of her husband at the hands of a murderer who used a gun to kill her husband. I only can wonder if instead of a gun that criminal would have used an automobile to mow down her husband - or a baseball bat to bash his head in. Would then she tried to pass a law to ban all cars or all baseball bats? Would she have asked the cops to raid Mr. Razzano's home, tow away his automobile and seize his baseball bats -in case if he owned any?
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
The far left media has become our troops worst enemy.
Strategy Page: Troops Angry At Media Bias and Laziness
July 21, 2008: American troops in Afghanistan are not happy with how a July 13th battle with the Taliban was reported. In that action, some 200 Taliban attacked a U.S. "base" and killed or wounded more than half the 50 or so U.S. and Afghan troops found there. Actual U.S. casualties were nine dead and fifteen wounded (including walking wounded).
U.S. troops were irked that, once again, the mass media got lazy and didn't bother to report the action accurately. For one thing, there was no "base". What the Taliban attacked was a temporary parking area for vehicles used to conduct patrols of the area. These are set up regularly, and have been used for years. These are secure areas, but basically a parking lot surrounded by barbed wire and several sandbagged observation posts. This one was set a few days before the attack, and was due to be taken down soon, as the patrol activity moved to another area.
Such defensive precautions are taken any time U.S. troops stop for more than a few hours. That's a tactic pioneered by the Romans over two thousand years ago. In this case, it paid off. The Taliban infiltrated several hundred fighters into a nearby village, and opened fire from homes, businesses and a mosque. The U.S. and Afghan troops called in air support and kept fighting until the Taliban fled, taking most of their dead and wounded with them.
The troops are angry because, while the Taliban got lucky (such attacks are rare), the enemy did not succeed in taking the U.S. position, and fled the battlefield after suffering heavier casualties. The U.S. troops are much better shots, and know they killed far more of the Taliban. Moreover, they saw smart bombs and missiles hitting buildings that Taliban were firing from. From long experience, they know that people inside bombed buildings rarely survive the explosion.
Finally, the troops involved were from the 173rd Airborne Brigade, and paratroopers do not like anyone implying they were beaten at anything. Especially because, in this case, they weren't.
What really happened:
Stripes.com: Soldiers recount deadly attack on Afghanistan outpost
Everything was on fire. The trucks. The bazaar. The grass.
It looked surreal. It looked like a movie.
That was what Spc. Tyler Stafford remembered thinking as he stepped onto the medical evacuation helicopter. The 23-year-old soldier would have been loaded onto the bird, but the poncho that was hastily employed as his stretcher broke. His body speckled with grenade and RPG shrapnel, the Vicenza, Italy, infantryman walked the last few feet to the waiting Black Hawk.
That was Sunday morning in eastern Afghanistan’s Kunar province. At a forward operating base — maybe as big as a football field — established just a few days prior.
Outnumbered but not outgunned, a platoon-plus element of soldiers with 2nd Platoon, Company C, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment (Airborne), 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team accompanied by Afghan soldiers engaged in a fistfight of a firefight.
After maybe two hours of intense combat, some of the soldiers’ guns seized up because they expelled so many rounds so quickly. Insurgent bullets and dozens of rocket-propelled grenades filled the air. So many RPGs were fired at the soldiers that they wondered how the insurgents had so many.
That was July 13. That was when Stafford was blown out of a fighting position by an RPG, survived a grenade blast and had the tail of an RPG strike his helmet.
That was the day nine Chosen Company soldiers died.
It was just days before the unit was scheduled to leave the base.
———
The first RPG and machine gun fire came at dawn, strategically striking the forward operating base’s mortar pit. The insurgents next sighted their RPGs on the tow truck inside the combat outpost, taking it out. That was around 4:30 a.m.
This was not a haphazard attack. The reportedly 200 insurgents fought from several positions. They aimed to overrun the new base. The U.S. soldiers knew it and fought like hell. They knew their lives were on the line.
"I just hope these guys’ wives and their children understand how courageous their husbands and dads were," said Sgt. Jacob Walker. "They fought like warriors."
The next target was the FOB’s observation post, where nine soldiers were positioned on a tiny hill about 50 to 75 meters from the base. Of those nine, five died, and at least three others — Stafford among them — were wounded.
When the attack began, Stafford grabbed his M-240 machine gun off a north-facing sandbag wall and moved it to an east-facing sandbag wall. Moments later, RPGs struck the north-facing wall, knocking Stafford out of the fighting position and wounding another soldier.
Stafford thought he was on fire so he rolled around, regaining his senses. Nearby, Cpl. Gunnar Zwilling, who later died in the fight, had a stunned look on his face.
Immediately, a grenade exploded by Stafford, blowing him down to a lower terrace at the observation post and knocking his helmet off. Stafford put his helmet back on and noticed how badly he was bleeding.
Cpl. Matthew Phillips was close by, so Stafford called to him for help. Phillips was preparing to throw a grenade and shot a look at Stafford that said, "Give me a second. I gotta go kill these guys first."
This was only about 30 to 60 seconds into the attack.
Kneeling behind a sandbag wall, Phillips pulled the grenade pin, but just after he threw it an RPG exploded at his position. The tail of the RPG smacked Stafford’s helmet. The dust cleared. Phillips was slumped over, his chest on his knees and his hands by his side. Stafford called out to his buddy three or four times, but Phillips never answered or moved.
"When I saw Phillips die, I looked down and was bleeding pretty good, that’s probably the most scared I was at any point," Stafford said. "Then I kinda had to calm myself down and be like, ‘All right, I gotta go try to do my job.’ "
The soldier from Parker, Colo., loaded his 9 mm handgun, crawled up to their fighting position, stuck the pistol over the sandbags and fired.
Stafford saw Zwilling’s M-4 rifle nearby so he loaded it, put it on top of the sandbag and fired. Another couple RPGs struck the sandbag wall Stafford used as cover. Shrapnel pierced his hands.
Stafford low-crawled to another fighting position where Cpl. Jason Bogar, Sgt. Matthew Gobble and Sgt. Ryan Pitts were located. Stafford told Pitts that the insurgents were within grenade-tossing range. That got Pitts’ attention.
With blood running down his face, Pitts threw a grenade and then crawled to the position from where Stafford had just come. Pitts started hucking more grenades.
The firefight intensified. Bullets cut down tree limbs that fell on the soldiers. RPGs constantly exploded.
Back at Stafford’s position, so many bullets were coming in that the soldiers could not poke their heads over their sandbag wall. Bogar stuck an M-249 machine gun above the wall and squeezed off rounds to keep fire on the insurgents. In about five minutes, Bogar fired about 600 rounds, causing the M-249 to seize up from heat.
At another spot on the observation post, Cpl. Jonathan Ayers laid down continuous fire from an M-240 machine gun, despite drawing small-arms and RPG fire from the enemy. Ayers kept firing until he was shot and killed. Cpl. Pruitt Rainey radioed the FOB with a casualty report, calling for help. Of the nine soldiers at the observation post, Ayers and Phillips were dead, Zwilling was unaccounted for, and three were wounded. Additionally, several of the soldiers’ machine guns couldn’t fire because of damage. And they needed more ammo.
Rainey, Bogar and another soldier jumped out of their fighting position with the third soldier of the group launching a shoulder-fired missile.
All this happened within the first 20 minutes of the fight.
Platoon leader 1st Lt. Jonathan Brostrom and Cpl. Jason Hovater arrived at the observation post to reinforce the soldiers. By that time, the insurgents had breached the perimeter of the observation post. Gunfire rang out, and Rainey shouted, "He’s right behind the sandbag."
Brostrom could be heard shouting about the insurgent as well.
More gunfire and grenade explosions ensued. Back in the fighting position, Gobble fired a few quick rounds. Gobble then looked to where the soldiers were fighting and told Stafford the soldiers were dead. Of the nine soldiers who died in the battle, at least seven fell in fighting at the observation post.
The insurgents then started chucking rocks at Gobble and Stafford’s fighting position, hoping that the soldiers might think the rocks were grenades, causing them to jump from the safety of their fighting hole. One rock hit a tree behind Stafford and landed directly between his legs. He braced himself for an explosion. He then realized it was a rock.
Stafford didn’t have a weapon, and Gobble was low on ammo. Gobble told Stafford they had to get back to the FOB. They didn’t realize that Pitts was still alive in another fighting position at the observation post. Gobble and Stafford crawled out of their fighting hole. Gobble looked again to where the soldiers had been fighting and reconfirmed to Stafford that Brostrom, Rainey, Bogar and others were dead.
Gobble and Stafford low-crawled and ran back to the FOB. Coming into the FOB, Stafford was asked by a sergeant what was going on at the observation post. Stafford told him all the soldiers there were dead. Stafford lay against a wall, and his fellow soldiers put a tourniquet on him.
From the OP, Pitts got on the radio and told his comrades he was alone. At least three soldiers went to the OP to rescue Pitts, but they suffered wounds after encountering RPG and small-arms fire.
At that time, air support arrived in the form of Apache helicopters, A-10s and F-15s, performing bombing and strafing runs.
When the attack began, Walker was on the FOB. He grabbed an M-249 and started shooting toward a mountain spur where he could see some muzzle flashes. Walker put down 600 to 800 rounds of ammunition.
He got down behind the wall he was shooting from to load more ammo and was told they were taking fire from the southwest. He threw the bipod legs of his machine gun on the hood of a nearby Humvee. A 7.62-millimeter caliber bullet struck Walker’s left wrist, knocking him to the ground. A soldier applied a tourniquet to Walker and bandaged him.
Walker and two other wounded soldiers distributed their ammo and grenades and passed messages.
The whole FOB was covered in dust and smoke, looking like something out of an old Western movie.
"I’ve never seen the enemy do anything like that," said Walker, who was medically evacuated off the FOB in one of the first helicopters to arrive. "It’s usually three RPGs, some sporadic fire and then they’re gone … I don’t where they got all those RPGs. That was crazy."
Two hours after the first shots were fired, Stafford made his way — with help — to the medevac helicopter that arrived.
"It was some of the bravest stuff I’ve ever seen in my life, and I will never see it again because those guys," Stafford said, then paused. "Normal humans wouldn’t do that. You’re not supposed to do that — getting up and firing back when everything around you is popping and whizzing and trees, branches coming down and sandbags exploding and RPGs coming in over your head … It was a fistfight then, and those guys held ’ em off."
Stafford offered a guess as to why his fellow soldiers fought so hard.
"Just hardcoreness I guess," he said. "Just guys kicking ass, basically. Just making sure that we look scary enough that you don’t want to come in and try to get us."
Saturday, July 19, 2008
UK Reaping The Benefits Of The Total Gun Ban: 350 Knife Assaults Commited EVERY DAY,
...and violent crimes perpetrated with knives are spreading toward rural areas:
The rest of the story here
Yep, in just a little over a decade the nanny state liberals in the UK, under the pretext of increasing public safety managed to transform an armed and polite society into a disarmed but incredible violent one.
If only our domestic gun-hating libs would learn something from this...
"Thugs are committing more than 350 knife assaults every day across England and Wales, latest crime figures reveal.
Results from the British Crime Survey showed nearly 130,000 attacks took place last year - a figure which does not include those against under-16s.
Separate figures recorded by police forces reveal 22,000 serious knife assaults including 231 attempted murders, almost 14,000 robberies and more than 8,000 woundings."
Click to enlarge
"There were 231 attempted murders, 13,887 robberies and 8,000 woundings where the offenders used blades to some degree."
The rest of the story here
Yep, in just a little over a decade the nanny state liberals in the UK, under the pretext of increasing public safety managed to transform an armed and polite society into a disarmed but incredible violent one.
If only our domestic gun-hating libs would learn something from this...
Nugent Wisdom
Ted Nugent:
Read the complete Kansas City.com interview with the Motor City Madman here
"...the liberal Democrats would forbid law-abiding Americans the right to keep and bear arms but have the arrogance to force us to pay for their armed security.
A well defined Marxist modus operandi if ever there were one."
Read the complete Kansas City.com interview with the Motor City Madman here
Even more reason for the DailyKos libs to hate Israel...
...and rally their support behind Palestinian terrorists:
From Yahoo News
Israel makes arrests in alleged plot against Bush
Fri Jul 18, 6:30 AM ET
Israel accused six Arabs on Friday of trying to set up an al Qaeda cell in Israel and said one of them had proposed attacking helicopters used during a visit by President George W. Bush.
Israel's Shin Bet counter-intelligence agency said one of the suspects had used his mobile phone to film helicopters at a sports stadium in Jerusalem that was used as a landing site for Bush's delegation.
The suspect then posted queries on Web sites frequented by al Qaeda operatives, asking for guidance on how to shoot down the helicopters, the agency said in a statement.
Bush visited Israel in January and again in May.
Lawyers for the six suspects could not immediately be reached for comment.
The Shin Bet identified four of the suspects as Palestinian residents of Arab East Jerusalem and two as Israeli Arabs.
The Shin Bet said the men had met several times at Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque, seeking to organize a local al Qaeda network. The agency said computers seized from several of the suspects contained bomb-making manuals.
Earlier this month, Israel indicted two of its Bedouin Arab citizens for links to al Qaeda and for planning attacks inside the Jewish state.
From Yahoo News
Friday, July 18, 2008
DC Moonbats Defiant Of The SCOTUS 2nd. Amendment Decision, Dick Heller Promises Another Lawsuit
WASHINGTON — The doors opened Thursday to post-handgun ban era here, with gun rights advocates vowing another legal challenge to the city's newly approved gun control law.Less than a month after the Supreme Court overturned the city's 32-year-old handgun ban — the most restrictive in the nation — the same litigant in the landmark case appeared at police headquarters and said he likely would wage a new fight.
D.C. GUN BAN: Read the court's decisionDick Heller, whose legal challenge prompted the Supreme Court ruling, said he would challenge new city regulations that continue to ban District residents from owning semi-automatic weapons.
"The city still does not yet understand the decision of the Supreme Court," Heller said from the steps of police headquarters. "We have been denied again."
The court struck down the handgun ban June 26, and established for the first time in U.S. history that the Constitution's Second Amendment gives individuals the right to keep guns at home for self-defense. But the court also indicated that a person's right to gun ownership is not unlimited.
Dane von Breichenruchardt, president of the Bill of Rights Foundation, said the city was attempting to make gun ownership as "difficult and restrictive as possible."
"We're going to be back in court. There is no doubt about that," he said.
Under terms of the emergency law, passed earlier this week by the D.C. Council, residents must obtain a city-issued handgun permit and may keep handguns only in their homes for self-defense purposes.
The permits require every gun owner to pass a written test and vision exam, submit the weapons for ballistic testing and offer proof of residency.
The provisions still rank as some of the toughest in the nation. But perhaps the most controversial aspect of the law, gun rights advocates say, mandates that gun owners keep their weapons unloaded, disassembled or secured with trigger locks, unless they face a "threat of immediate harm."
The National Rifle Association has signaled it also will challenge the new D.C. regulation, describing the law as extreme and in "complete defiance of the Supreme Court's decision."
"The current D.C. proposal requires the complete cooperation of the criminal," NRA spokesman Andrew Akulanandum. "It would require the criminal to call and tell you when they plan to come and attack you."
D.C. Assistant Police Chief Peter Newsham said the regulations can be "interpreted" in various ways. "But this isn't a 'gotcha' program. We're trying to accommodate people," he said.
When the doors opened to prospective gun owners at 7 a.m. Thursday, only one other applicant was waiting. Ron Jones, 33, said he had not yet purchased a handgun, but planned to get a start on the registration process.
"I'm interested in self-defense. It's our constitutional right. I'm here to exercise that right. The way things are now, with the kids and the mischief they are making, what are we supposed to do? They have the guns already," he said.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Couldn't happen to a "nicer" city
A disgruntled city computer engineer has virtually commandeered San Francisco's new multimillion-dollar computer network, altering it to deny access to top administrators even as he sits in jail on $5 million bail, authorities said Monday.
Terry Childs, a 43-year-old computer network administrator who lives in Pittsburg, has been charged with four counts of computer tampering and is scheduled to be arraigned today.
Prosecutors say Childs, who works in the Department of Technology at a base salary of just over $126,000, tampered with the city's new FiberWAN (Wide Area Network), where records such as officials' e-mails, city payroll files, confidential law enforcement documents and jail inmates' bookings are stored.
Childs created a password that granted him exclusive access to the system, authorities said. He initially gave pass codes to police, but they didn't work. When pressed, Childs refused to divulge the real code even when threatened with arrest, they said.
He was taken into custody Sunday. City officials said late Monday that they had made some headway into cracking his pass codes and regaining access to the system.
Childs has worked for the city for about five years. One official with knowledge of the case said he had been disciplined on the job in recent months for poor performance and that his supervisors had tried to fire him.
"They weren't able to do it - this was kind of his insurance policy," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the attempted firing was a personnel matter.
Authorities say Childs began tampering with the computer system June 20. The damage is still being assessed, but authorities say undoing his denial of access to other system administrators could cost millions of dollars.
Officials also said they feared that although Childs is in jail, he may have enabled a third party to access the system by telephone or other electronic device and order the destruction of hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents.
Authorities have searched Childs' home and car for a device that could be used in such an attack, but so far no such evidence has been found.
As part of his alleged sabotage, Childs engineered a tracing system to monitor what other administrators were saying and doing related to his personnel case, law enforcement officials said.
Childs became the target of suspicions inside the technology agency this year, and the case was referred for police investigation in late June, authorities say.
At a news conference announcing Childs' arrest, District Attorney Kamala Harris was tightlipped about what his motive may have been.
"Motive is not necessarily an element of a crime," Harris said. "This city employee committed four felonies."
She added, "This involves compromising a public system that we rely on. Its integrity has been compromised."
The system continues to operate even though administrators have limited or no access, officials said.
"Right now our system is up and running and we haven't had any problems so far," said Ron Vinson, chief administrative officer for the Department of Technology.
Vinson said the city is "working around the clock" to make sure the system is maintained and operable.
Nathan Ballard, a spokesman for Mayor Gavin Newsom, said the mayor was "confident that (the Department of Technology) is doing everything necessary to maintain the integrity of the city's computer networks."
Childs appeared in court Monday but did not have a lawyer assigned to him.
Childs, according to payroll records, earned $126,735 in base pay in 2007 and additional premium pay of $22,534, for a total of $149,269. Vinson said the extra money was apparently compensation for being on-call as a trouble-shooter.
Story from SF Gate
ACLU backfire
"Civil liberties" mean just that to the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada.By stating it respects the individual's right to bear arms, subject to constitutionally permissible regulations, and that it will defend this right as it defends other constitutional rights, the state ACLU chapter deserves high praise indeed.
It apparently is the first state affiliate to oppose the national ACLU's position on the Second Amendment, according to The Associated Press.
The Nevada ACLU board of directors was rightly guided by the Supreme Court's landmark June ruling, District of Columbia v. Heller. The court found that the Second Amendment is not a collective right but an individual right. (Incredibly, D.C. Council this week might implement new gun legislation that still doesn't meet constitutional snuff.)
Chapter Executive Director Gary Peck said that the individual's right also is declared in the state Constitution, reflecting Nevada's "long, proud tradition of libertarian skepticism of government overreach," the AP reported.Mr. Peck might be an ideal candidate to succeed Nadine Strossen, who is retiring as president of the national ACLU organization. He might be able to convince others at the ACLU that a civil liberty means no one should be forced to beg the state's permission to be allowed to defend oneself and loved ones.
Story found here
Meanwhile in DC, the Dhimmicrat politicians continue to ignore the law believeing somehow, they are above the law:
It's been barely three weeks since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Second Amendment, tossing the District of Columbia's strict ban on handgun ownership as an unconstitutional infringement on the individual right to bear arms.
As you'd expect, D.C. officials have been busy little bureaucrats since then, trying to figure out a way to get around the high court's decision.
On Monday, the D.C. council announced emergency legislation designed to update the gun ban. As expected, it's a joke.
Instead of simply acknowledging that individuals have a right to own handguns in the district, the legislation would still require that all firearms be kept in the home unloaded and disassembled or equipped with trigger locks.
Some handguns would be allowed, but only those that carry fewer than 12 rounds of ammunition.
Those who wish to register a handgun in the district must pass a battery of tests and will be limited at first to only one weapon.
In other words: Purchase a handgun, but if you're lucky enough to jump through the registration and regulatory hoops, don't count in a practical sense on ever being able to use it to defend your home.
"Clearly, D.C. is doing everything they can to ignore the Supreme Court ruling," said Chris W. Cox, an NRA lobbyist.
The district is setting itself up to lose another costly legal challenge. Last time we checked, D.C. wasn't so flush with cash money that it could afford to keep its lawyers focused on finding ways around the Bill of Rights rather than attempting to comply with them.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Memory and the Left
From American Thinker
By J.R. Dunn
It's difficult to avoid exasperation over the left's absolute refusal to acknowledge the new realities of the Iraq war. The surge, the Anbar awakening, the collapse of the militias (particularly that belonging to everybody's favorite would-be caliph, Moqtada al-Sadr) -- it's as if none of it ever happened, as if one the most impressive turnabouts in modern military annals never took place.
The left, including its Democratic political wing and placeholders in the media, continue on with the same defeatist drone that we've heard since 2003, concentrating on lone (and mercifully rare) suicide bombers, emphasizing Coalition casualties, and highlighting the new government's difficulties. (Nowhere is this more true than in the case of Mr. B.H. Obama, a Democratic senator currently running for president. Reports last week hinted that Obama was about to climb down from his intention to abandon Iraq sixteen months after taking office. But he held tight, assuring reporters he had in no way abandoned his plan for peace in our time.)
There's no point in waiting for the nickel to drop at last. The American left has not missed the unfolding victory in Iraq, nor are they ignoring it. They have forgotten it. They have taken it in, analyzed it, weighed the results, and then flushed it from memory as completely and brutally as a Ministry of Truth goon from 1984.
The process of selective amnesia is an important and often overlooked aspect of the left-wing mentality. It's a direct inheritance from the communists, for whom the capacity to self-edit was often a matter of life and death. In Stalin's Soviet Union, honored heroes of the Revolution could suddenly turn into traitors to the Worker's Paradise and just as suddenly into nonentities on a day-to-day, if not an hour-to-hour basis. Among survivors, the capacity to manipulate memory was honed to a fine instinct. Mentioning the name of a nonperson could get you put on a list, if not shoved aboard the next cattle train headed for the Arctic. Soon, people would be forgetting about you.
This process was also extended to history. At the time of the Bolshevik coup, Stalin was dawdling well to the east of St. Petersberg. He played no serious role in the events that put the Soviets in power. But after he consolidated his position in the early 30s, it turned out he had been everywhere -- advising Lenin, giving speeches to the masses, leading armed revolutionaries. People who remembered differently were soon trying to remember what life was like in regions where the temperature occasionally rose above zero.
The practice -- and the choking terror that provoked it -- soon spread to the international parties, including the CPUSA. Disasters and crimes occurring in the USSR were subject to the same treatment. When Walter Duranty, a paid Soviet propagandist, announced through the New York Times that the Ukrainian Famine hadn't happened, the event was duly put away, even though photographs and eyewitness accounts had been circulating around the country for months. Fifty years later, Robert Conquest's outstanding study of the atrocity, Harvest of Sorrow, was greeted as a revelation.
The same occurred with the purges, the show trials, the mass relocations. Numerous defectors, among them Walter Krivitsky, Igor Gouzenko, and Victor Kravchenko, laid out the facts repeatedly beginning in the late 1930s. All were run through the left's forgetfulness machine.
Possibly the greatest act of selective mass amnesia -- certainly the fastest -- occurred in the summer of 1941. For two years following the August 1939 gangster pact between Hitler and Stalin, international communist parties protested the war against Nazism. The American left worked itself into a frenzy in support of Hitler and his occupation of Europe. A particular target was U.S. materiel aid to Great Britain, at the time standing alone against the Nazi monolith. The campaign's centerpiece was to have been "Peace Week", scheduled for the last week of June 1941. Unfortunately, Hitler chose June 22nd to send three army groups armed with over 4,000 Panzers against the Soviet Union.
Peace Week was called off. Instead, the communists immediately began demonstrating and marching against Hitler and in favor of our brave British allies. (I wonder if Nicholson Baker featured this incident in his "history" of WW II? ...I didn't think so.)
American communism collapsed in the 1950s, confronted by events with too much impact to be ignored (Khrushchev's epoch-making 20th party conference speech and the Hungarian Revolution in particular). But the art of forgetfulness survived, to be picked by New Left and then handed on to "liberalism" when the left took over that moribund ideology in the early 1970s.
Selective memory was applied with force to the Vietnam war. My Lai retains the power to shock to this day, and to many, stands as a representation for the entire conflict. But the contemporaneous Hue massacre, in which as many as 10,000 businessmen, intellectuals, and officials were slaughtered by Viet Cong cadres, is not even a footnote. Those thousands of dead have simply been forgotten.
Similarly, the last two years of the war in which the new strategy of Gen. Creighton Abrams broke the back of the PAVN forces operating in the south and sent the survivors fleeing over the border into Cambodia and Laos, was also fed into the hopper. Instead, the impression that the U.S. was "defeated" survives among the public at large. Works demonstrating the contrary, such as Lewis Sorley's A Better War, have scarcely made a dent.
And now it's Iraq's turn. For one example, we can look to Haditha. A Marine unit was ambushed, responding as trained against their attackers, who were hiding behind helpless civilians, among them women and children, as many as two dozen of whom were killed. Insurgent war at its most ugly, tragic and unavoidable. The blame, to any rational observer, clearly lay with the Al Queda thugs who insisted on using innocents as a shield.
But rationality is sometimes too much to ask. Haditha was trumpeted as an American war crime, the moment that encapsulated the entire war as an atrocity. The media played it as the My Lai of Iraq, while political opportunists, chief among them John Murtha (whose domain begins only a half mile from where I sit), attacked the Marines as "cold-blooded killers". The "Haditha massacre" was given front-page play for weeks, the name effectively becoming shorthand for American efforts in Iraq.
But today, after the prosecution has fallen apart, after seven of the eight men accused have been held blameless and no real case remains against the eighth, the name of Haditha is difficult to find in mass media. Even after ranking USMC officers were found to have interfered in the case (imagine if this had occurred in any other legal proceeding!), and after several of the cleared Marines announced a lawsuit against Murtha, a sitting congressman, Haditha remains, at best, a back-page story. It has been fed into the grinder, and has become one of those things we're not supposed to think about any more.
The same is true of Iraqi yellowcake, which Joe Wilson, ambassador extraordinaire, and his valiant spy bride demonstrated to the world did not, and could not exist. Yet last weekend 550 tons of the stuff -- a pile large enough that even a diplomat couldn't miss it -- was transferred from Iraq to the U.S. with less coverage than this year's soybean harvest. Saddam Hussein's bomb program, one of the greatest threats to world peace of our time, ended without so much as an echo.
The same weekend saw final victory in Iraq draw nearer with the almost complete pacification of the city of Mosul. Mosul was the last urban redoubt of Al-Queda in Iraq. Their ejection from the city has deprived them of a base of operations and turned them into a force of scattered guerilla bands. Stamping out these final remnants may be a drawn-out process, but the Jihadis are no longer a threat to Iraq as a nation. What a change from 2006! Yet what have we heard about it?
The average leftist is not even aware of any of this. If asked about Iraq, he will drone through the standard run of slogans, none of which made much sense in the first place and now come across as sheer raving. But it doesn't matter. It worked with the famine, it worked with the purges, it worked with Nam, and it will work -- so they think -- with Iraq.
How do you debate with such people? You don't. You can't. St. Augustine once said that there's no use wasting your time arguing with someone who won't grant a subject's basic premises. How much more so with people who won't grant a common reality?
Conservatives tend to be exemplars of civility, given to upholding standards of discourse, always giving their opponents the benefit of the doubt. This is a point of pride, and should not simply be thrown away. But after a certain definite point, you simply become an enabler. To cooperate with such behavior is to concur with it. Instead of acquiescing in this form of deceit (or, as is occasionally still seen, acting shocked that it even occurs) we need to find alternatives.
Fortunately, things have changed since the left's heyday. Haditha is not a forgotten name. That twelve-story pile of yellowcake is proving difficult to ignore. At one point, the left controlled virtually the entire national media sphere. This is no longer the case. If the new media is about anything, it is about discovering, highlighting, and promulgating the things that we're not supposed to know, the stories we're not supposed to think about, the events that are supposed to be forgotten. The Holodomor, the Great Purge, the Hue massacre -- all were buried because they could be. They cannot be buried anymore.
Walter Krivitsky was murdered in 1941 as he was about to reveal to Congress the full extent of Soviet espionage in the United States. Silenced forever, so the Kremlin thought. A cursory web search today comes up with 1,350 entries dealing directly with Krivitsky. You can no longer hide events, personalities, or crimes. Archives, morgues, and secret files simply will not hold them.
This in itself marks a change in human affairs more profound than we can easily grasp at the moment. The impossibility of burying information deprives the left of one of its most hallowed weapons. (Attitudes forever lagging behind technology, they are not yet aware of the fact. Obama, in particular, with his habit of saying one thing on Monday and contradicting himself on Wednesday, as if the fix is in down at the newsroom and he can say anything he damn well pleases.)
Of course, the right has been using the new technology, both the Net and talk radio, to confront the left with facts they'd rather not acknowledge for some time now. But certainly more can be done -- more in the way of strategy, more in the way of coordination. We need greater efforts to discover what sets of facts the left particularly wants to hide -- and why. There are reasons why the left needs certain events to be forgotten. Discover those reasons, and it will shake them more than any other single effort. The left has been playing games with reality almost since its inception - let them see how it feels to live with the record like everybody else.
Orwell revealed that control of the past means control of the future. The left has controlled the past for generations. (Not that it's helped them much.) They don't any longer. That the facts can no longer be buried is a victory in and of itself. We will march on from there.
By J.R. Dunn
It's difficult to avoid exasperation over the left's absolute refusal to acknowledge the new realities of the Iraq war. The surge, the Anbar awakening, the collapse of the militias (particularly that belonging to everybody's favorite would-be caliph, Moqtada al-Sadr) -- it's as if none of it ever happened, as if one the most impressive turnabouts in modern military annals never took place.
The left, including its Democratic political wing and placeholders in the media, continue on with the same defeatist drone that we've heard since 2003, concentrating on lone (and mercifully rare) suicide bombers, emphasizing Coalition casualties, and highlighting the new government's difficulties. (Nowhere is this more true than in the case of Mr. B.H. Obama, a Democratic senator currently running for president. Reports last week hinted that Obama was about to climb down from his intention to abandon Iraq sixteen months after taking office. But he held tight, assuring reporters he had in no way abandoned his plan for peace in our time.)
There's no point in waiting for the nickel to drop at last. The American left has not missed the unfolding victory in Iraq, nor are they ignoring it. They have forgotten it. They have taken it in, analyzed it, weighed the results, and then flushed it from memory as completely and brutally as a Ministry of Truth goon from 1984.
The process of selective amnesia is an important and often overlooked aspect of the left-wing mentality. It's a direct inheritance from the communists, for whom the capacity to self-edit was often a matter of life and death. In Stalin's Soviet Union, honored heroes of the Revolution could suddenly turn into traitors to the Worker's Paradise and just as suddenly into nonentities on a day-to-day, if not an hour-to-hour basis. Among survivors, the capacity to manipulate memory was honed to a fine instinct. Mentioning the name of a nonperson could get you put on a list, if not shoved aboard the next cattle train headed for the Arctic. Soon, people would be forgetting about you.
This process was also extended to history. At the time of the Bolshevik coup, Stalin was dawdling well to the east of St. Petersberg. He played no serious role in the events that put the Soviets in power. But after he consolidated his position in the early 30s, it turned out he had been everywhere -- advising Lenin, giving speeches to the masses, leading armed revolutionaries. People who remembered differently were soon trying to remember what life was like in regions where the temperature occasionally rose above zero.
The practice -- and the choking terror that provoked it -- soon spread to the international parties, including the CPUSA. Disasters and crimes occurring in the USSR were subject to the same treatment. When Walter Duranty, a paid Soviet propagandist, announced through the New York Times that the Ukrainian Famine hadn't happened, the event was duly put away, even though photographs and eyewitness accounts had been circulating around the country for months. Fifty years later, Robert Conquest's outstanding study of the atrocity, Harvest of Sorrow, was greeted as a revelation.
The same occurred with the purges, the show trials, the mass relocations. Numerous defectors, among them Walter Krivitsky, Igor Gouzenko, and Victor Kravchenko, laid out the facts repeatedly beginning in the late 1930s. All were run through the left's forgetfulness machine.
Possibly the greatest act of selective mass amnesia -- certainly the fastest -- occurred in the summer of 1941. For two years following the August 1939 gangster pact between Hitler and Stalin, international communist parties protested the war against Nazism. The American left worked itself into a frenzy in support of Hitler and his occupation of Europe. A particular target was U.S. materiel aid to Great Britain, at the time standing alone against the Nazi monolith. The campaign's centerpiece was to have been "Peace Week", scheduled for the last week of June 1941. Unfortunately, Hitler chose June 22nd to send three army groups armed with over 4,000 Panzers against the Soviet Union.
Peace Week was called off. Instead, the communists immediately began demonstrating and marching against Hitler and in favor of our brave British allies. (I wonder if Nicholson Baker featured this incident in his "history" of WW II? ...I didn't think so.)
American communism collapsed in the 1950s, confronted by events with too much impact to be ignored (Khrushchev's epoch-making 20th party conference speech and the Hungarian Revolution in particular). But the art of forgetfulness survived, to be picked by New Left and then handed on to "liberalism" when the left took over that moribund ideology in the early 1970s.
Selective memory was applied with force to the Vietnam war. My Lai retains the power to shock to this day, and to many, stands as a representation for the entire conflict. But the contemporaneous Hue massacre, in which as many as 10,000 businessmen, intellectuals, and officials were slaughtered by Viet Cong cadres, is not even a footnote. Those thousands of dead have simply been forgotten.
Similarly, the last two years of the war in which the new strategy of Gen. Creighton Abrams broke the back of the PAVN forces operating in the south and sent the survivors fleeing over the border into Cambodia and Laos, was also fed into the hopper. Instead, the impression that the U.S. was "defeated" survives among the public at large. Works demonstrating the contrary, such as Lewis Sorley's A Better War, have scarcely made a dent.
And now it's Iraq's turn. For one example, we can look to Haditha. A Marine unit was ambushed, responding as trained against their attackers, who were hiding behind helpless civilians, among them women and children, as many as two dozen of whom were killed. Insurgent war at its most ugly, tragic and unavoidable. The blame, to any rational observer, clearly lay with the Al Queda thugs who insisted on using innocents as a shield.
But rationality is sometimes too much to ask. Haditha was trumpeted as an American war crime, the moment that encapsulated the entire war as an atrocity. The media played it as the My Lai of Iraq, while political opportunists, chief among them John Murtha (whose domain begins only a half mile from where I sit), attacked the Marines as "cold-blooded killers". The "Haditha massacre" was given front-page play for weeks, the name effectively becoming shorthand for American efforts in Iraq.
But today, after the prosecution has fallen apart, after seven of the eight men accused have been held blameless and no real case remains against the eighth, the name of Haditha is difficult to find in mass media. Even after ranking USMC officers were found to have interfered in the case (imagine if this had occurred in any other legal proceeding!), and after several of the cleared Marines announced a lawsuit against Murtha, a sitting congressman, Haditha remains, at best, a back-page story. It has been fed into the grinder, and has become one of those things we're not supposed to think about any more.
The same is true of Iraqi yellowcake, which Joe Wilson, ambassador extraordinaire, and his valiant spy bride demonstrated to the world did not, and could not exist. Yet last weekend 550 tons of the stuff -- a pile large enough that even a diplomat couldn't miss it -- was transferred from Iraq to the U.S. with less coverage than this year's soybean harvest. Saddam Hussein's bomb program, one of the greatest threats to world peace of our time, ended without so much as an echo.
The same weekend saw final victory in Iraq draw nearer with the almost complete pacification of the city of Mosul. Mosul was the last urban redoubt of Al-Queda in Iraq. Their ejection from the city has deprived them of a base of operations and turned them into a force of scattered guerilla bands. Stamping out these final remnants may be a drawn-out process, but the Jihadis are no longer a threat to Iraq as a nation. What a change from 2006! Yet what have we heard about it?
The average leftist is not even aware of any of this. If asked about Iraq, he will drone through the standard run of slogans, none of which made much sense in the first place and now come across as sheer raving. But it doesn't matter. It worked with the famine, it worked with the purges, it worked with Nam, and it will work -- so they think -- with Iraq.
How do you debate with such people? You don't. You can't. St. Augustine once said that there's no use wasting your time arguing with someone who won't grant a subject's basic premises. How much more so with people who won't grant a common reality?
Conservatives tend to be exemplars of civility, given to upholding standards of discourse, always giving their opponents the benefit of the doubt. This is a point of pride, and should not simply be thrown away. But after a certain definite point, you simply become an enabler. To cooperate with such behavior is to concur with it. Instead of acquiescing in this form of deceit (or, as is occasionally still seen, acting shocked that it even occurs) we need to find alternatives.
Fortunately, things have changed since the left's heyday. Haditha is not a forgotten name. That twelve-story pile of yellowcake is proving difficult to ignore. At one point, the left controlled virtually the entire national media sphere. This is no longer the case. If the new media is about anything, it is about discovering, highlighting, and promulgating the things that we're not supposed to know, the stories we're not supposed to think about, the events that are supposed to be forgotten. The Holodomor, the Great Purge, the Hue massacre -- all were buried because they could be. They cannot be buried anymore.
Walter Krivitsky was murdered in 1941 as he was about to reveal to Congress the full extent of Soviet espionage in the United States. Silenced forever, so the Kremlin thought. A cursory web search today comes up with 1,350 entries dealing directly with Krivitsky. You can no longer hide events, personalities, or crimes. Archives, morgues, and secret files simply will not hold them.
This in itself marks a change in human affairs more profound than we can easily grasp at the moment. The impossibility of burying information deprives the left of one of its most hallowed weapons. (Attitudes forever lagging behind technology, they are not yet aware of the fact. Obama, in particular, with his habit of saying one thing on Monday and contradicting himself on Wednesday, as if the fix is in down at the newsroom and he can say anything he damn well pleases.)
Of course, the right has been using the new technology, both the Net and talk radio, to confront the left with facts they'd rather not acknowledge for some time now. But certainly more can be done -- more in the way of strategy, more in the way of coordination. We need greater efforts to discover what sets of facts the left particularly wants to hide -- and why. There are reasons why the left needs certain events to be forgotten. Discover those reasons, and it will shake them more than any other single effort. The left has been playing games with reality almost since its inception - let them see how it feels to live with the record like everybody else.
Orwell revealed that control of the past means control of the future. The left has controlled the past for generations. (Not that it's helped them much.) They don't any longer. That the facts can no longer be buried is a victory in and of itself. We will march on from there.