Obama: Osama bin Laden is dead. The terror threat is gone. Ooops!

Early in 2012, a State Department official commented that the war on terror was over, and about a year later President Barack Obama repeated that idea.

With that declaration began an active effort to cleanse the national dialog of the idea of Islamic terrorism and the use of any words used to describe it. The term “War on Terror” was replaced with the euphemism “Overseas Contingency Operations,” and the murder of 13 people at Ft. Hood by a Muslim U.S. Army doctor was termed “Workplace Violence.”

Since terrorism was no longer a threat, Mr. Obama removed our troops from Iraq, and reiterated his pledge to close our terrorist detainment facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and do something with the accused terrorists being held there. In fact, five of them were traded not long ago for the suspected Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl.

But now reality again rears its ugly head. ISIS or ISIL, Hamas, Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda, Ansar al-Islam … names that are synonymous with brutality, mayhem and murder, are prominent in the news, and we frequently hear about cutting off fingers and hands, and mercy killings of people for their crimes, or beheadings and mass executions for the indiscretion of not believing as the members of these organizations insist that you must believe.

Recent events in the Middle East and Africa have shown the brutal, uncivilized acts committed by the savages in these organizations more frequently than ever before. The war on Christians and against Israel reached levels that broke through the administration’s well-developed immunity against the reality of Islamic atrocities and terrorism, and has refocused their attention on it again, at last.

Hamas dug tunnels from Gaza into Israel to murder Israelis with rocket-propelled grenades, it fires rockets deliberately aimed at civilian areas and protects its rockets by hiding them in schools and other public structures, resulting in the deaths of more than a thousand Palestinians when Israel targets places from which attacks have been launched. USA Today reported that Hamas firing squads publicly executed 18 Gaza Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel. Later, gunmen in black Hamas garb lined up seven hooded men and shot them dead as hundreds watched.

“Northern Nigeria's riot police training academy has been overrun by Boko Haram Islamist militants,” a witness in Borno state told the BBC. “Boko Haram is blamed for the killing of more than 10,000 people since the start of its militant Islamist offensive in 2009 across northeastern Nigeria,” said the Daily Kos online.

CNN reports that in the areas of Syria “controlled by ISIS, public floggings and executions have become commonplace. Most recently ISIS has battled other opposition groups in fighting that has left well over 2,000 people dead.”

“The militant Sunni group ISIS has said it is establishing a caliphate, or Islamic state, in the territories it controls in Iraq and Syria. It also proclaimed the group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as caliph and ‘leader for Muslims everywhere,’” according to the UK Guardian online.

But Iraq, Israel, Syria and Nigeria have no patent on this savagery, and our essentially non-existent southern border is an invitation for that evil to enter the U.S. Some Islamists probably have “sneaked in” legally through airports.

Members of ISIS/ISIR in Iraq have said they will raise their black flag over the White House. People in the know in the United States believe this threat is not an idle one, and that we must take action to prevent attack from within.

This threat highlights the absolute idiocy, recklessness, and irresponsibility of the Obama administration’s “hands-off” policy on the southern border, and means our government has no idea who is coming across the border or how many Islamic terrorists are here already.

Oklahoma Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe, ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told an Oklahoma TV station that ISIS has now set its sights on Americans and targets on U.S. soil. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, told a Pentagon press briefing that “because of open borders and immigration issues,” ISIS/ISIL is an “immediate threat.” “We're in the most dangerous position we've ever been in as a nation," he said.

A former CIA officer told CNN that ISIS is already on this side of the Atlantic. "I have been told with no uncertainty there are ISIS sleeper cells in this country," Bob Baer said. While CNN reported that two U.S. officials had refuted his claim, the network said the officials are worried that ISIS militants with passports might travel to the U.S. to launch attacks on American soil.



“The West are idiots and fools," one ISIS fighter told a Reuters reporter. "They think we are waiting for them to give us visas to go and attack them,” and implied that attacks could take place through sleeper cells in both Europe and the United States. 


The war on terror isn’t over at all, and it never was, except in the Never-Never Land that is the Obama White House. The critical question is whether Mr. Obama will free himself from the bonds of his ideology and satisfactorily address this very serious threat.

What scandals? There are no scandals here. Please keep moving.

The broiling controversies of the Benghazi scandal, the IRS wrongdoing, and the questionable seizure of Associated Press telephone records by the Department of Justice have forced those on the left and those that don't pay much attention to what goes on in the political realm to recognize that our government indulges in improper and oppressive behavior. And this tumultuous atmosphere has spawned some wild and crazy things.     

Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program and vociferous gun control advocate, had an epiphany brought on by the federal government's improper behavior. During a roundtable discussion on the show he said, “My argument [for gun control] is less persuasive today because of these scandals.” He went on to explain that “People say, ‘Hey, if they do this with the IRS, asking people what books you read, then how can I trust them with information about my Second Amendment rights?’” There was general agreement among the show’s other participants.

Another unusual thing was former White House senior advisor David Axelrod’s defense of President Barack Obama. He said that the president can't be held responsible for what underlings do. The reason is that our government is so large that no one person can control what all of the two million Executive Branch employees do.

He's right: government is way too big and far too powerful. David Axelrod is a limited government guy. Who knew?

But the fact that government is too big doesn't relieve the President of the United States, whomever that might be at any given time, of the duty to manage the Executive Branch and keep it within its constitutional limits, and to always respect the citizens it serves. Plainly, Mr. Obama has not done that.

In our highly charged political environment, not everything that the president's loyal opposition calls a scandal is truly a scandal. But conversely, everything that Mr. Obama's sycophantic fans wish was not a scandal isn't a scandal, and their efforts to explain them away often border on silliness. Columnist Reg Henry ably demonstrated that with inadequate attempts to downplay a few of them and make them go away.

Of the Fast and Furious debacle Mr. Henry said it "was a crackpot scheme to trace guns to Mexican drug cartels, but it was a hard sell because, as you know, guns don't kill people."

He is obviously correct about it being a crackpot scheme, although that characterization does not do justice to this colossal idiocy. And his sarcastic comment about guns not killing people unintentionally conveyed the truth.

But he's totally wrong about whether Fast and Furious is a scandal. Not only did the the Justice Department fail to achieve the fundamental goal of this misadventure — to trace the guns they provided to the Mexican cartels — but an American Border Patrol officer was murdered with one of them. That indeed is a scandal.

Next, in trying to wish away the Green Energy fiasco, he states, "The Solyndra scandal involved a big waste of public money, but the real offense seemed to be that the administration was promoting solar power. Oh, the horror."

So-called "public money" is money taxed away from taxpayers ostensibly to be used responsibly and for beneficial purposes, not so that billions can be wasted on the personal whim of the president to prop up a preferred industry, one that is so unstable that it cannot succeed even after being propped up. Mr. Henry is apparently unaware that it is neither within the president's nor the federal government's authority to decide which industries succeed and which do not.

In reference to what he called "Benghazi-gate," he cautions us that "it's far from clear what the president knew and when he knew it." But again he misses the point. What makes Benghazi a scandal is not what Mr. Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knew and when they knew it, although that certainly deserves an explanation, it's the fact that his administration and/or her department disgracefully failed to provide requested and needed security upgrades before the attack began. Had they acted properly it just might have prevented all four of the murders that resulted from the attack on the Benghazi consulate. And then, there’s the video smoke screen to explain.

Some believe the Obama administration overtly engineered the effort by the IRS to target conservatives, Tea Party groups and other conservative organizations. But others blame this oppressive behavior on a "culture of suspicion" of conservative organizations created by President Obama's near-continuous public criticism of those individuals and organizations. After all, if the president repeatedly makes public statements saying these people are up to no good, shouldn't good bureaucrats try to please the boss and go after the bad guys?                                  

President Obama told graduates of The Ohio State University earlier this month that “you've grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's at the root of all our problems. ... They'll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices.” But the swirling controversies that demonstrate actual government tyranny render that advice dangerous and unworthy.

Latest from Bones

BBC: Indian navy captures 23 pirates

It’s good to see these guys starting to get what’s coming to them, as the BBC reports:

The Indian navy says it has arrested 23 Somali and Yemeni pirates who tried to storm a ship in the Gulf of Aden.

A navy spokesman said it had responded to a mayday call from MV Gibe, flying under the Ethiopian flag.

Several countries have warships patrolling the gulf amid growing international concern about piracy.

Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said better intelligence was needed for a land attack on pirate bases to be considered.

Mr Gates, speaking at a security conference in Bahrain, also called for shipping companies to do more to protect their vessels travelling through the Arabian Sean and Indian Ocean.

Piracy in the Gulf is quite lucrative, which is of course why the pirates are there. A concerted effort to take it to the pirates will likely dampen the enthusiasm of at least some of them, and perhaps result in the deaths of the rest.

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Technorati Tags: Culture, Politics, War on Terror, Democrats

People in Minnesota Demonstrating
Their Abysmal Ignorance

That line is borrowed from an English professor from long ago talking about people doing a man-on-the-street interview, and while it is not original, it is certainly an apt description of the protesters at the Republican Convention in St. Paul.

These fools go around wearing masks like common thieves, physically assaulting convention delegates by pushing and shoving them, throwing bleach and other liquids on them, spitting on them, cursing them, trying to steal their credentials, breaking out windows of businesses unfortunate enough to be where they gather, throwing rocks and bottles at police, and other similar criminal activities. These are real classy people. It’s embarrassing to know that such cretins inhabit the United States.

One of the idiots was shown chanting, “This is what democracy looks like.” No, jackass, that’s not what democracy looks like, that’s what felonies look like. It’s what punks look like.

Democracy looks like people expressing their opinion against or for some cause, without stooping to being thugs or hoodlums. Democracy looks like people promoting their ideas in a fashion that doesn’t turn more people against their cause than it attracts.

Many of these morons have earned a healthy stint in the slammer, perhaps some hard labor, and have to pay for the damage and injuries they have caused by the toil of their hands.

It’s not their fault, but Democrats will get the blame for this asinine behavior, because these jerks are far-left whackos. I wonder if the Democrats will condemn this despicable and criminal behavior.

Just in case you’re wondering, I am tense and angry about this crap.

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Criminals Support Gun Control Measures and Bans





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A legacy lurks in the shadows

by Wesley Pruden

Friday, August 15, 2008 History disabuses every president of the notion that he has a legacy to leave. What he leaves is a record, sometimes written in fire and blood, and history assigns the legacy.

George W. Bush leaves a record of trying to housebreak the Islamic radicals, to teach them to behave themselves in this world and wait until the next to collect their virgins. Since his critics think such a reclamation project can't be done, if civilization survives, George W. can enjoy the pleasure of proving everybody else wrong.

But presidents, even presidents looking for the exit, are men in a hurry, and they invariably start trying to shape how they'll be measured and remembered in the shade and shadows of the dying light. They don't want to start new arguments or pick new fights. Suddenly the legacy of the peacemaker, even the maker of the cheap peace bought with rhetoric and a promissory note, is tempting.

George W. went off to Beijing as a tourist, and had the bad luck of arriving just as Russia, struggling to be reborn as a Soviet Union without the burden of a discredited economic system, marched into Georgia to loot and lay waste to democratic dreams of live and let live. George W. sat in the stands, entranced like the rest of us by the aquatic magic of Michael Phelps, and pointed with pride, waving an American flag, and viewed with alarm the Russian blitzkrieg racing through the heart of an ally thousands of miles away.

Viewing with alarm, which is always fun, irritates Vladimir Putin but it won't seriously upset anyone in Moscow. The Russians are taking the long view, brushing off ineffectual criticism. They figure to add to their own history, having invaded with impunity before: Poland in 1939, Finland in 1940, the several Baltic states in 1941, Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Afghanistan in 1979. And of course Georgia, in 1921, 1991 and only last week. Practice can make perfect.

When the Bush administration finally bestirred itself to take the situation seriously, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was sent out to deliver more gruel, this time gruel with a hint of jalapeno. "This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can threaten its neighbors, occupy a capital, overthrow a government and get away with it," she said. "Things have changed." Even this much makes the Europeans of 2008, who quail at the sight of a squadron of butterflies, nervous. The Russians, on the other hand, are taking glee at the restoration of the harsh word games of the Cold War.

The Moscow media, picking up vibes emanating from the blog swamps of the American left, calls the Georgian response to the Russian invasion a plot hatched by Dick Cheney to start a war to elect John McCain. Ranking Russian voices pick up the refrain. Vasily Likhachev, a former Russian ambassador to the European Union, thinks he has Washington's number: "The West - [i.e., the United States] - has spent a lot of time, energy and money to teach Georgia the tricks of the trade ... to make the country look like a democracy. We see through this deceit. We understand that the seditious tactics of the so-called color revolutions are a real threat to international law and the source of global nihilism." (This doesn't quite capture of the flavor of Red China's Cold War rhetoric, with its denunciations of Americans as "poisonous weeds" and "ravenous running dogs," but it could get closer to world class stuff as the melancholy chorus of crickets and katydids signal the waning of summer.)

What the situation needs is a few more "tricks of the trade." When the Soviets blockaded Berlin in 1948, Gen. Lucius Clay sent an appeal to President Truman: "We are convinced that our remaining in Berlin is essential to our prestige in Germany and in Europe. Whether for good or bad, it has become a symbol of the American intent." The Berlin Airlift followed shortly after.

John McCain has suggested several things the West, meaning of course the United States, can do to show American intent, in addition to an airlift to Tbilisi if one is needed, including expelling Russia from the Group of Eight. The West could bar coveted Russian membership in the World Trade Organization, even eliminate the prospect of hosting the Winter Olympics in 2014. Vladimir Putin is carefully calculating Western resolve, as well as measuring the bones of Barack Obama, whose first reaction was the usual moral equivalence of limp liberalism. "Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint," he said. He was right on the message from the West.

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When the Going Gets Tough, Rely on Children

Think what you like about the Iraq war, but the coalition forces are having a negative impact on certain anti-freedom forces there. The bad guys are on the run and can’t effectively oppose the coalition forces in fair fights, so they resort to IEDs, suicide bombers, attacks against civilians and other equally cowardly techniques in their desperation. Now, as impossible as it sounds, the cowards have stooped to yet a lower level of behavior, as reported by the BBC.

Militias recruit child bombers

Insurgent groups and militias in Iraq are recruiting children for attacks, according to a United Nations official. The findings of the UN special representative for children and armed conflict echo concerns expressed by the US military about insurgent tactics. In some cases children are paid to carry out attacks, the UN envoy, Radhika Coomaraswamy, told the BBC.

Last month, the US released footage of what it said was al-Qaeda propaganda showing children being trained. The US says children are being taught how to use guns and carry out kidnappings in addition to other terrorist activities.

Ms Coomaraswamy labeled the practice "intolerable", adding that "their poverty is being exploited." Speaking to the BBC in the Jordanian capital, Amman, she said: "Some are paid, mainly for mortar attacks and for placing bombs."

She added that the use of children had been going on since 2004 and was a growing problem. "Many of them no longer go to school, many are recruited for violent activities or detained in custody, they lack access to the most basic services and manifest a wide range of psychological symptoms from the violence in their everyday lives." She said approximately 1,500 children were also "known to be held in detention facilities."

Technorati Tags: Iraq War, Terrorism, Thugs, War Crimes

Good Grief, Take II

First, he announces he’s going to talk with the leader of the terrorist organization Hamas, against U.S. policy and the wishes of the administration. Now we learn that former President Jimmy Carter has laid a wreath of red roses at the grave of Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat during a visit to the West Bank on Tuesday.

"He and Mrs. Carter and his son Jeff wanted to pay their respects to President Arafat," Carter's trip director Rick Jasculca told Cybercast News Service. Arafat, the "godfather of terrorism," was linked to the deaths of two American diplomats in 1973, among a long list of murderous behavior.

Angered by Carter’s insolence, the Israeli government refused his request to visit Hamas-controlled Gaza.

Good for the Israelis.

Will someone please put Carter out of my misery?

Another Creep Gets His Just Deserts

As reported last year, Angilo Freeland, who got pulled over in a routine traffic stop in Florida, ended up killing Deputy Vernon Matthew Williams, who stopped him. The deputy was shot eight times. Another deputy was wounded and a police dog killed.

A statewide manhunt ensued. The lowlife was found hiding in a wooded area with Williams' gun. When he raised the gun, SWAT team officers fired 110 rounds and hit Freeland 68 times.

Asked why they fired 110 rounds, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, told the Orlando Sentinel, "I suspect the only reason 110 rounds was all that was fired was that's all the ammunition they had." That's a great answer.

So, another idiot sub-human gets what’s coming to him, and there’s no sympathy here at Observations for his death. The tragedy, of course, is that a deputy and a police dog also died.

Venezuelan Troops Fire On Protesters

Hugo Chavez, the socialist Venezuelan president so beloved by such Americans as actor Danny Glover and one-time singer Harry Belafonte, and whose big mouth and dearth of good sense has earned him the scorn of every decent American, is in trouble with his own subjects over the shutting down of the country’s only dissident TV station, RCTV, the most popular station in the country. And Chavez, ever the demagogue, explains that he took this action because he wants to democratize the airwaves by turning the network's signal over to “public use.”

Venezuelan National Guard troops fired tear gas and rubber bullets into a crowd of thousands of protesters angry over the shutting down of RCTV, which was critical of Chavez’ government. Recent reports say one person has died in the protests. Crowds of students demonstrated across Caracas, saying they fear for the future of free speech.

Maybe the students are right; none of the other TV stations in Venezuela carried news of the protests.

Chavez refused to renew RCTV's broadcast license because of its "subversive" activities and for backing a coup against him in 2002. The replacement public channel, TVES, launched its transmissions immediately after RCTV was shut down with pro-Chavez music, followed by an exercise program and a talk show, interspersed with government ads proclaiming, "Now Venezuela belongs to everyone."

Founded in 1953, RCTV regularly topped viewer ratings with its talk shows, sports, soap operas and comedy programs. But Chavez accused the network of helping to incite a failed coup in 2002, violating broadcast laws and "poisoning" Venezuelans with programming that promoted capitalism. RCTV's managers deny wrongdoing.

Technorati Tags: Freedom, Socialism, Thugs

Woman Shot While in Her Car

Linda Burnett, 23, a resident of San Diego, was visiting her in-laws in Los Angeles and, while there, went to a nearby supermarket to pick up some groceries. Several people noticed her sitting in her car with the windows rolled up. Her eyes were closed, and she had both hands behind the back of her head.

One customer who had been at the store for a while became concerned and walked over to the car. He noticed that Linda's eyes were now open, and she looked very strange. He asked her if she was okay, and Linda replied that she'd been shot in the back of the head, and had been holding her brains in for over an hour.

The man called the paramedics, who broke into the car because the doors were locked and Linda refused to remove her hands from her head.

When they finally got in, they found that Linda had a wad of bread dough on the back of her head. A Pillsbury biscuit canister had exploded from the heat, making a loud noise that sounded like a gunshot, and the wad of dough hit her in the back of her head. When she reached back to find out what it was, she felt the dough and thought it was her brains.

She initially passed out, but quickly recovered and tried to hold her brains in for over an hour until someone noticed and came to her aid.

Linda is a blonde and a Democrat, but I'm certain that's irrelevant.

What the World Needs Now Is …
A Few Brutally Killed Perverts

I’m normally not a violent person. I think senseless violence is a horrible thing. I don’t like war. Even so, I believe there is a place for violence; violence can serve a useful purpose.

I’ve had it with perverts preying on innocent children. There is no one more evil than someone who sexually or physically abuses a child, and there seems to be a rash of that lately. Maybe it's because we have better and more ways to communicate, maybe it’s because of the 24-hour-a-day news channels, that we hear about these cases more often than we used to, but my feeling is that there is a lot more of it going on today.

It is my opinion that our over-tolerant society encourages people to do things today that 40 years ago most of them would not have done, because back then society wouldn’t stand for it. But over the last 40 years we have gone out of our way to explain why the unacceptable is really not so bad, and we accept asinine excuses that make us less angry about the evil because, we are told, the perpetrator simply “can’t help himself.” He had a bad childhood, or he was neglected or abused or he couldn’t make the football team, or other kids made fun of him or any of numerous other stupid explanations have caused us to “understand the evil” instead of harshly punishing it.

TV news the other day had scenes from a courtroom incident where the family of a murder victim went berserk when the judge gave the human excrement who brutally killed their father/husband/brother a light sentence. That scumbag deserved far worse than being put to death lying on a gurney getting a shot that puts him to sleep forever. He didn’t even get that. He didn’t even get life in prison. A fitting end would have been for the judge to turn him over to the family and let them finish him off. Perhaps then he would have had some appreciation for the horror he visited on his victim.

And that’s my prescription for reducing or stopping the preying on little defenseless kids by adult perverts: Let the public, the families of the victims, or whoever wants to peel their skin off a piece at a time, break their fingers and arms and legs one at a time, crush their testicles with a hammer, pluck their eyes out, or whatever the most painful, the most horrible death humankind can imagine becomes their fate.

I’m betting that once the news gets out that if you sexually abuse a child that is what will happen to you, child sexual abuse will drop dramatically. And if not, then the those cowardly girlie-men will get what they deserve.

Technorati Tags: Crime and Punishment, America, Sexual Predators

Stupid is as Stupid Does

Occasionally, the stars and planets align such that inanities and absurdities abound. Such an alignment has recently unleashed a series of these events.

Queen Nancy Syriasly Screws Up

Representative Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, recently ascended to Speaker of the House of Representatives, consistent critic of the Bush Administration, has undertaken to supersede the Constitutional directives and assume the role of directing foreign policy by unilaterally, and against the wishes of the executive branch, deciding to engage in direct talks with the president of Syria, a rogue nation involved in the support of terrorist organizations and terrorist activities.

Not only did Ms Pelosi overstep the boundaries of the Legislative Branch of our government, ignore the Constitutional separation of branches of government, and ignore the wishes of that branch of government given dominion over foreign policy by the Constitution, she screwed the pooch when delivering the message to the Syrian president that Israel is ready to change its previous stance vis-à-vis Syria, and begin talks. The Israeli Prime Minister has denied that.

Ms Pelosi appears to have grossly misread the results of last November’s election, and believes that because Democrats gained control of the Congress that she, as Speaker, is entitled to make decisions about troop deployments and can now set a foreign policy different from that of the Executive Branch.

Message to the Speaker: Nancy, the American people did not rescind the Constitution. You are only the Speaker of the House of Representatives. You were not elected Queen of the United States.

Further, your asinine actions have undermined the Constitutional, legal and appropriate policies of the United States.

Illegal Alien Drunk Driver Kills Two Teens

A drunk driver killed two teenage girls, a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old, from Virginia Beach, Virginia, while they sat at a traffic light. This is a tragedy under any circumstances; drunk drivers are a substantial problem in the United States. What makes this case even worse is that the drunk driver was an illegal alien.

And what makes this case even worse than that is that this particular illegal alien had been convicted of three alcohol-related crimes before he killed the two innocent teens, and was let off by the trial judge with no jail time. The illegal alien had no restrictions on his freedom to prevent him from repeating his crime, and the authorities in Virginia never reported the illegal alien to federal authorities. You see, Virginia Beach is what is called a “sanctuary city,” a place where illegals can live without fear that they will be reported to federal immigration authorities. Is it absurd that an illegal alien can be convicted of four crimes, three of them alcohol-related, not be reported to immigration authorities, and be free to get drunk and kill innocent American citizens?

You’re damned right it is!

Here is a list of sanctuary cities in the U.S.:

Anchorage, AK; Fairbanks, AK; Chandler, AZ; Phoenix, AZ; Fresno, CA; Los Angeles, CA; National City, CA; San Diego, CA; San Francisco, CA; Sonoma County, CA; Evanston, IL; Chicago, IL; Cicero, IL; Cambridge, MA; Orleans, MA; Portland, ME; Baltimore, MD; Takoma Park, MD; Ann Arbor, MI; Detroit, MI; Minneapolis, MN; Newark, NJ; Trenton, NJ; Durham, NC; Albuquerque, NM; Aztec, NM; Rio Arriba, County, NM; Sante Fe, NM; New York, NY; Ashland, OR; Gaston, OR; Marion County, OR; Austin, TX; Houston, TX; Katy, TX; Seattle, WA; Madison, WI

(Source)

The Iranian Kidnapping of British Marines and Sailors

Fifteen British marines and sailors were taken captive by Iranian military personnel, who charged that the Brits were operating in Iranian waters. Predictably, there is a dispute about where the British boats actually were when the Iranians attacked.

There are many problems with this incident, among which is the fact that when someone actually goes into the waters of a country, taking them hostage is never the first step. The “invaders” are warned and escorted out of the territorial waters, and a diplomatic complaint is lodged. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to term the capture of the British sailors and marines “kidnapping.”

Another problem is that the Brits had enough firepower close enough to have blown the Iranian thugs out of the water. Why did they just sit by and watch?

Faced with his military personnel being improperly captured by the Iranians, British Prime Minister Tony Blair capitulated to the Iranians, took a weak position, and allowed the Iranian regime to embarrass Great Britain and score valuable points on the world stage. And the marines and sailors caved almost before they were captured.

Maybe the Iranians didn’t win much in this farcical episode, but it appears that they successfully picked a weak opponent, poked their finger in the opponent’s eye, and came out smelling like a dessert rose.

Ron Artest Should Go to Jail

Ron Artest, who plays for the NBA’s Sacramento Kings, was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence and using force or violence to prevent his victim from reporting a crime, sheriff's spokeswoman Dena Erwin said. Deputies responded to Artest's five-acre estate in the Sacramento suburb of Loomis about 9:30 a.m., where they found a woman who had suffered injuries, officials said. She declined medical attention. Artest was released later on $50,000 bail.

Dogs owned by Mr. Artest have spent a total of 77 nights at the pound since July because of poor care by their owner, costing the NBA star $1,942 in boarding and impound fees, county records show. Placer County animal control officers have gone to Artest's five-acre estate seven times in that period in response to callers' complaints about dogs being loose or not being fed.

And if all that isn’t enough, Mr. Artest was just released from a year’s probation for the brawl he participated in when several NBA players went into the stands after fans.

Artest is one of a legion of “professional” athletes who can play a sport, but are socially dysfunctional. They think they have a different set of rules than everyone else; that they can do pretty much what they please, because of who they are. We blame society for all sorts of ills for which society is not to blame, but this is one phenomenon that is clearly and totally the fault of society. We have screwed up priorities that make gods out of one-trick ponies like Ron Artest, and teach them that they can do what they want with impunity.

Ron Artest needs a slap in the face to get his attention; he needs to go to jail this time. His team needs to be deprived of his talents so that the management starts to get the message that paying thugs and hoodlums millions of dollars a year because they look good in shorts and can jump is stupid when those over-paid degenerates slap people around and behave like spoiled children. The team needs to tell Mr. Artest, “Okay, bub, you screwed up, and you are suspended without pay until you straighten out.”

But more importantly, some judge needs to tell him, “Mr. Artest, you aren’t special. You just play a game well. Life is about more than just games, despite what you have learned from our society’s twisted priorities. You will learn how to live peacefully with other people, you will learn that you are just one person among the 6 billion that inhabit this planet, and you don’t have any more rights than any other individual in this country. And if you keep living the way you’ve been going, breaking laws with abandon and acting like you’re something special, you’ll go back to jail until you figure out this simple lesson.”

These same messages should be delivered to every professional athlete and entertainer and Hollywood idol that hasn’t quite grasped the simple message that they really aren’t as special as they think they are. And the sooner the better!

Technorati Tags: America, Professional Athletes, Culture, Thugs

Idiocy Personified

I've often said that criminals are not playing with a full deck, and here's proof of that.

Police in Boca Raton, Florida said a man who carjacked an SUV in Boca Raton drove all the way to Palm Springs before becoming lost and calling 9-1-1 on himself.

According to police reports, Claude King, 31, smashed the driver's side window of an SUV and pulled the driver out of the vehicle. Once inside, police said King began to punch the other four passengers. Once King got the passengers out of the SUV, he began to drive wildly around the area, finally heading southbound down Interstate 95. While heading southbound, King struck a white Chevrolet pickup and decided to turn around and head north. He struck another vehicle along the way and decided to pull over in Palm Springs. Lost and frustrated, he called 9-1-1 and turned himself in.

There are numerous things wrong with this story, first among which is that this dope tried to steal a car.

Now, I'm not a criminal and therefore don't think like a criminal, but it seems to me that it isn't very smart to steal a car that has five people in it in broad daylight. And if you can't drive any better than this incompetent boob, you shouldn't steal a car at all. Steal groceries. Or bicycles.

Thank God that many criminals are so stupid that they are easily caught, as in this case. Also fortunate is that not too many people got hurt.

Travesty (Amended)

The illegal immigration problem along our southern border has been replaced in the news lately by insignificancies like Miss USA being forgiven for being a naughty girl, and irrelevancies like the Iraq Study Group report, and other equally unimportant topics, but at some point the issue is going to have to get serious attention from Washington.

Nothing thus far has succeeded in waking George Bush to one of the greatest threats to the U.S. In terms of the economic strain of taking care of illegals’ health problems and sending children to school puts on states; the fact that some illegals are thugs and drug dealers; the very real possibility that terrorists can use the neglected border to enter the country, and other serious ramifications, all that has fallen on deaf ears at the White House.

A recent incident puts a sharp point on just how stupid the United States is being with regard to illegal immigration:

The criminal had 750 pounds of drugs in his van, and was ILLEGALLY in the US. Two Border Patrolmen stopped the van and the illegal ran, at which time the agents opened fire, striking the criminal in the butt.

According to a criminal complaint that led to an indictment, on or about February 17, 2005, a Mexican criminal attempting to flee back into Mexico near Fabens, Texas, was shot at by Agent Jose Alonso Compean , who fired approximately 12 rounds from his service pistol, and Agent Ignacio Ramos fired approximately two times from his service pistol striking the victim in the butt. The two agents have been tried and convicted, and face jail time beginning next month.

For doing their job trying to protect their country, trying to arrest a criminal who entered the US illegally with drugs, these two devoted men are being punished by their own government.

That is outrageous.

I suggest that everyone call one of the numbers below, or fax a letter, or email a letter, or write a letter, and overwhelm the White House switchboards and personnel with demands that these two agents have their convictions overturned, and be awarded a commendation by their country in apology for the absurd circus that their own government has put them through for doing their job.

Comments: 202-456-1111

Switchboard: 202-456-1414

FAX: 202-456-2461

comments@whitehouse.gov

Or write to:

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

[[[New material]]] Also, go to www.grassfire.org and sign the petition, which already has more than 160,000 signatures.

This travesty cannot be allowed to stand.

How Stupid Are We?

It’s bad enough that miscreants like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez have to set foot in the United States in order to appear at the United Nations, but what in the world were we thinking when we allowed the tin horn Marxist Hugo Chavez to roam around New York City bribing the locals with shallow sentiments and appealing goodies?

Not only that, but during one public appearance Senor Chavez slipped in the subtle comment that he had been told that he might be killed because of his juvenile rant against George Bush before the General Assembly.

Appearing Thursday at a Harlem Church for an oil-for-poor event, Senor Chavez repeated his reference to President Bush as “the devil” originally made during a speech at the U. N. and told the audience packed into the Mount Olive Baptist Church in Harlem, "They told me that I should be careful after I called him the devil — and I think he is the devil — because he might kill me,” as if W. was going to come after him with a gun. Senor Chavez was introduced at the podium by that great American Danny Glover, the actor-turned-traitor who was visiting the church as part of ceremonies to announce the sale of discounted home heating oil to qualified low-income families. "But, I place myself in the hands of God," the tin horn said. Somehow, I doubt that Senor Chavez will be headed in that direction when he gets his just desserts.

What a perfect jackass.

Yeah, I know nobody’s perfect, but Chavez is close. A perfect ass, that is, but he’s not too smart. Yeah, I know, he’s smarter than the doofus that allowed him free reign in NYC, but that’s still not very smart.

No doubt he feels really special because the nincompoops in the General Assembly laughed at his inanities and applauded his insults of the President of the United States. But Senor Chavez didn’t think this through in advance, and he probably still hasn’t figured out that he has revealed himself to be a second- or third-rate dope before the whole world.

You can tell that someone has really screwed the pooch when prominent Democrats object to criticisms of George Bush. "I just want to make it abundantly clear to Hugo Chavez or any other president - don't come to the United States and think because we have problems with our president that any foreigner can come to our country and … offend our Chief of State," Representative Charles Rangel (D-NY) said. “George Bush is the president of the United States and represents the entire country,” declared Mr. Rangel. “Any demeaning or public attacks against him are viewed by Republicans, Democrats, and all Americans as an attack on all of us.” Good on you, Charlie!

Even House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D- Cal.), a constant critic of Mr. Bush, criticized Senor Chavez. "The manner in which he characterized the president demeaned himself and demeaned Venezuela. He fancies himself a modern day Simone Bolivar [the Venezuelan statesman known as "the Liberator" for leading his country’s revolt against Spain in the early 19th century] ... But he is an everyday thug," said Ms. Pelosi. Calling a spade, a spade.

Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa also called Chavez's statements "incendiary and unworthy of a nation’s leader."

Wow!

Having established that Hugo Chavez is a third-rate tinhorn ass, the question then arises whether the United Nations ought to be allowed to remain headquartered on U.S. soil. An agency so feckless, so incompetent, so corrupt, so clawless, so clueless does the United States a disservice by its very presence within our borders. But perhaps it’s better to have the U.N. here, where we can keep an eye on it, than somewhere else, like Venezuela or Iran, for example.

That’s a subject for another day.

Technorati Tags: Arrogance, Thugs, Diplomacy, Hugo Chavez, United States, United Nations