Cryptic Subterranean

WOW: Disaster Response | Mark's Daily Apple

2011-03-24T10:07:00.000Z

There's a lot of advice online about being prepared for a disaster- and at the very least I suggest everyone have a bug out bag ready with enough food and water to see you through two or three days- but when it comes to being physically prepared the advice is usually to try and keep reasonably fit. Which is all well and good but have you ever wondered how to test to see if your fitness levels are sufficient to cope during a disaster? Well, wonder no more. Over at Mark's Daily Apple the Workout of the Week is called Disaster Response and it will let you know if your current level of activity is sufficient...or whether you need to reconsider your fitness regime in order to develop more practical strength and stamina.

WOW: Disaster Response | Mark's Daily Apple

Have fun, it looks like a blast.

It May Never End

2011-03-23T02:06:00.000Z

I've just discovered this album by It May Never End called Such is Life and I'm really, really enjoying it. Have a listen and if you like it head on over here where you'll find links to download the album. Terrific stuff- I hope there's a follow up soon. This track is called To Fall Without Landing.

Libya & The UK Military

2011-03-22T13:34:00.000Z

The UK is not only involved in the no-fly campaign against Libya but PM Cameron seems to be desperately pushing to specifically topple the regime and kill Gaddafi. Just the other day a specific attack against him was called off at the last minute because of the presence of the press at the site. In fact, the government is now involved in a public spat with their top General on whether or not such a thing is even permissible.

The fact that the UK is even involved in Libya is of major concern to me, and not only because it seems to be a badly conceived, poorly defined mission with no clear objectives or command structure. My main concern is with the men and women of the UK military and the effects that another war will have on them, especially since the government has recently taken a machete to the military budget. Under the auspices of the Strategic Defence Review, the government has slashed spending, slashed jobs and slashed our nation's capability to wage war. The Independent described the spending review as meaning that the UK would be 'unable to launch major military operations overseas'. Which, let's face it, is precisely where you want to launch military operations.

The problem with this is that the SDR was not driven by the needs of the military nor based on the realities of the dangerous world we live in, it was driven by a need to cut spending and damn the results. Not only did the recent Strategic Defence Review not mention N. Africa once- no hint of turmoil anywhere in what is now one of the most volatile areas of the world- it takes no account of having to wage an air war in the Mediterranean or of having ground forces in the desert kingdom of Libya. In short, the paper upon which we're basing our future defence needs did not even have the foresight to predict major unrest a handful of months after its publication. Given that the military procurement process and training process moves at an almost glacial pace, it's important that our future needs are carefully considered. Skill sets do not appear overnight. If we lose a skill or a capability due to redundancies, we cannot simply regain it overnight when needed- it can take months or even years for the skill to be re-acquired and then for trainers to pass that skill on to the men who will take it into battle with them. And re-learning skills during a war is a sure way to get people killed. If we scrap a particular piece of equipment now, we not only lose it but the men with the ability to use it, plus the skills of those who maintain it. If at some later date we discover that actually we do need it, we not only need to re-purchase it but we need to re-learn and re-train a whole new generation of soldiers in its care and use. Not to mention the integration of the equipment/skill with the wider military.

Right now, 800 Royal Marines are on stand by to go to Libya, as the air war threatens to expand to the ground, and the SAS & SBS are already in country. But the UK has no aircraft carrier to stand off the coast and no Harrier jump jets to provide ground support- our new aircraft carriers won't be ready until 2016 and won't be able to carry planes until 2019. Incidentally of the two we're buying, only one will ever be operational- that's right, we're buying two but can only afford to run one.

Our armoured vehicles and artillery have been slashed (we've lost 40% of our tanks alone) - because when will Britain ever be involved in the flat, open expanses of desert where they are essential? Given that tanks not only provide the ability to project power against the enemy but also provide ground forces with a great deal of protection this makes no sense to me. Especially since other nations, for example Canada, are currently using them to good effect in Afghanistan.

Our number of soldiers has been drastically cut too so that we could not even mount another conflict like the Falklands without the help of other nations. Given that Argentina recently made noises about reclaiming the islands because of the oil there one has to ask who in government thought it was a good idea to make our future defence of the islands dependent on other nations. Who precisely? The US remained essentially neutral in the last conflict and the French, our current allies, supplied the Argentinians with Exocet missiles to attack our Navy. If Argentina moves to take the islands again, who specifically does the government see as helping us protect them? Who is going to lend us a fully functioning aircraft carrier? Perhaps this is a question someone, say an elected representative, should have asked before now. As it stands the new cuts mean that not only are we unable to launch a major offensive we will not be able to fight wars in more than one country at a time- only 30,000 men are available for a major conflict while 45,000 were needed for the initial invasion of Iraq for example. In a smaller conflict like Afghanistan we will only have a pool of 6,500 men- down from 9,500. If the no-fly zone fails to topple Gaddafi, how many troops will be needed and/or available to go in? What will that mean for the mission in Afghanistan? It bears mentioning here too that of all the foreign fighters in Iraq, the majority were from Libya- will they turn their guns on Allied troops once Gaddafi is gone?

At the time that Cameron was still threatening his intervention in Libya 170 nearly fully trained RAF pilots were made redundant, in addition to two whole Tornado squadrons (and all of our Harrier jump jets)- because when will Britain need pilots to enforce a no-fly zone or provide ground support to troops facing tanks?
Cameron has not only crippled the military with short-sighted cuts, his intervention in Libya now threatens to put servicemen at greater risk than they would have been only a year ago- in fact, the SDR specifically stated that there would be no wars of "liberal intervention" in the near future. The whole basis of the review was that Britain's future conflicts would look an awful lot like Afghanistan- it did not once take into account an action like Libya or any other potential hotspot around the world- back in October the thought of going to war against Libya was not even a possibility and yet here we are today on the verge of getting sucked into another ground war.

Basing future military needs on the actions we're currently involved in is not only short-sighted but it puts the lives of servicemen and women in danger- have they forgotten already how many died because British troops had Land Rovers and not armoured vehicles in Iraq? How many were killed because they had no body armour? In Afghanistan, troops have even needlessly been killed or maimed because they aren't even issued portable ladders so that they can enter walled compounds safely. Ladders for goodness sake- we can't provide troops with a simple item like that in the war that's already been going on for almost ten years and here we are starting another one.

Why is it always that the politicians who slash the military's capabilities are the same ones who so eagerly send them to war?

LGF And Breitbart

2011-03-21T01:07:00.000Z

A recent tweet from Charles of LGF, retweeted by Andrew Breitbart, linked to a post which argued that the BIG conglomerate of websites were nothing more than a cargo cult. As evidence they presented the argument that the Planned Parenthood stings run by James O'Keefe "depended upon the right-wing fantasy that there exist extensive well-organized juvenile "sex-trafficking" rings, something that upon even cursory examination turns out to be utter crap."

Really? Organised sex trafficking rings pushing juvenile girls is a right wing fantasy? Well, not quite, as even a cursory examination- and an awareness of recent news- prove otherwise.

The owners of a local bar and restaurant are among 10 people accused of bringing young Mexican women and girls to Houston and forcing them into prostitution, U.S. Attorney Jose Angel Moreno said Thursday.

According to the indictment, Maria and Jose Rojas were involved in the recruitment of Mexican nationals, ages ranging from 14 to 30, to travel to the U.S. with the false expectation of legitimate jobs in bars and restaurants, beginning in 1999. Once the women arrived, the indictment alleges that the suspects used force, fraud and coercion to compel the women to work as prostitutes at their businesses.

"Their families back home are under threat," said Deputy Adrian Garcia with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office. "It’s put into the minds of these women if they don’t cooperate, if they do have family back home terrible and horrible things will happen to them.

The indictment also alleges that beginning in 2003, the conspirators changed their tactics and began relying on pimps to provide the girls and young women and to keep them from escaping.

In fact, it's so NOT a fantasy that the FBI even operates an arm dedicated to combating Human Trafficking. A page on their website notes-

The majority of victims in FBI human trafficking cases are women and young girls from Central American and Asian countries. They are primarily forced into the commercial sex industry and..domestic servitude...there are an increasing number of young males being forced into the commercial sex industry as well.

So, far from being a right wing fantasy, a cursory examination reveals that it's actually a very real problem. Real enough for the FBI to dedicate efforts directly to combating it.

What was that you were saying about a cargo cult, LGF?

The Chair

2011-03-10T02:11:00.000Z

Stumbled across The Atlantic's photo section In Focus today and discovered a wealth of tremendous high-res photographs. I'd recommend popping over there to check it out, there are some amazing images on display.

The most recent post concerns the conflict in Libya and there are some photos I thought would be of particular interest here- images of rebel positions coming under aerial attack and those detailing the weapons (and techniques) used by the rebels. Russian arms are, not surprisingly, well represented but I was taken by the image below- a rebel armed with an FN FAL utilising an office chair as an anti-aircraft emplacement.

What's Wrong With The NHS

2011-02-24T02:26:00.000Z

Two headlines that say it all about how the UK's National Health Service is run- and why, despite seeing massive increases in its funding under the Labour government, actual improvements in service were still not seen.

More than 50,000 frontline NHS jobs to be cut, researchers warn

And,

NHS bosses' pay soars 50% as thousands of doctors and nurses face axe

Quote Of The Day

2011-02-20T17:41:00.000Z

From a female British journalist who was sexually harassed in Tahrir Square-

From my previous experiences in the Arab world, I have accepted that a minor level of sexual harassment comes with the territory, so I brushed it off.

It immediately brought me to mind the comments of Tony Blair some time ago-

The Koran is inclusive. It extols science and knowledge and abhors superstition. It is practical and far ahead of its time in attitudes toward marriage, women, and governance.

Perhaps he should tell that to the women who continue to be oppressed to this day in the Muslim world.

Obama Math

2011-02-18T22:23:00.000Z

It's amazing that Obama isn't laughed at whenever he opens his mouth to talk about his new budget.

Add $2 trillion in new taxes, then add another $1 trillion in new spending and, presto, you’ve got $1 trillion of debt reduction.

And where have we heard this before?

It’s the same kind of mad deficit accounting in Obamacare: It reduces debt by adding $540 billion in new spending, then adding $770 billion in new taxes. Presto: $230 billion of “debt reduction.”

Good luck America- you need it.

A Taste Of Things To Come

2011-02-18T12:20:00.000Z

The big news today is the continuing turmoil in, of all places, Wisconsin. To briefly sum up, the newly elected Governor and Republican majority there are attempting to dig the state out of it's budget black hole (a projected $3.6 billion deficit over the next two years)- and their first target is the unions. Michelle Malkin is is covering the story. Democrat law-makers have responded by actually running away, fleeing across state lines to hide out in Illinois: it takes the presence of a single Democrat to allow the budgeting process to continue you see.

While the brave Democrats have fled, the unions and their supporters are protesting, phoning in sick to shut down schools and intimidating Republican lawmakers to such an extent that they are coordinating with law enforcement-

I ask whether he is going home tonight, to sleep. He says, “We’re not disclosing that. My colleagues and I are not talking about that. We’re working with law enforcement” on the matter.

Remember, this is not some Third World nation we're talking about- it's Wisconsin, USA and the year is 2011. Yet we have elected representatives feeling so threatened that they cannot discuss if they are going to their own homes. We have other elected representatives who have just been voted into the minority throwing a hissy fit and refusing to show up for the work they were elected to do in order to sabotage the will of the people of their own state. Can you imagine the media furore if a Republican minority subverted the political process in such a way?

And where's the President on all of this? Is he calling for calm debate, for cooler heads to prevail? Is he roundly condemning the threats aimed at Republicans? Of course not- in fact, his own campaign apparatus is coordinating the protests.

Here's what one state employee wrote to Michelle Malkin, explaining that for the unions this fight is not just about pay and contributions but their stranglehold on employees-

The unions are scared to death they will lose their gravy train, you are forced to join the union upon state employment as a condition of employment, what is more tyrannical than that? So, now, the workers would be able to CHOOSE to join the union or not, and many will leave it. The rest will have to cut an actual check to the union each month, instead of having it garnished from their check, and the union knows people will get tired of that. THAT is what this is really about.

Doug Ross describes the situation in his own inimitable way-

The Democrats and the public sector union bosses created untenable compensation, pension and benefit packages... and then promptly destroyed them by making them so outrageous that the taxpayers simply can't afford them anymore. And instead of saving up the union members' dues money for tough times -- like these -- they spent all of that money electing Democrats and funding ever more untenable spending programs. Get it? There's no freaking money!

And yet Democrats and the unions are refusing to abide by the will of the people- in fact, they are demonstrating, just weeks after the attempted murder of Rep Giffords, with placards that deliberately echo what happened in Tucson - see the second and thirteenth image in this post in particular. Thus far only nine protesters have been arrested- but given the heated rhetoric being aimed at Republicans and the fact that law enforcement are involved we can only hope that the representatives and their families remain safe from harm.

The economy as a whole is suffering, unemployment is high, the USA as a whole is running trillion dollar deficits and the state budgets are on the verge of collapse- and yet the unions are refusing to give up one iota of their bloated compensation packages. The Democrats they helped get elected have abdicated their duty to the people of the state they represent (seems they've forgotten that they don't work just for the unions) and Republican lawmakers have had to work with police to ensure that they and their loved ones remain safe. And to top it all off the President's own campaign organisation is right in the thick of it.

It's not Greece, it's not some corrupt Banana Republic, it's the United States of America in the 21st century.

And this could just be the beginning of much worse to come.

Zombies And Cigarettes

2011-02-17T23:04:00.000Z

Short zombie film from Spain- and winner of a whole bunch of different film festival awards ranging from Best Gore to Best Actress. The scenes of the outbreak first starting out are particularly well done.

Short film Zombies and cigarettes / English subtitle from Rafa Martínez on Vimeo.

The Pocket Hammerless

2011-02-14T16:54:00.000Z

It's the centennial of the 1911 pistol and the design is in no danger of fading from use. In fact, Colt and Springfield have apparently submitted models to the USMC for consideration for their replacement to the MEU/SOC pistol. There's plenty of life left in the old warhorse yet.

Given the enduring popularity of the pistol- and for the genius of John Moses Browning himself- I'm forced to wonder if the time is not right for a company to bring back another of his designs- the Colt 1903/1908 Pocket Hammerless. Though hardly a pocket pistol by today's micro-compact designs, it's a wonderfully elegant pistol and would make for a great companion piece for those days when the 1911 is thought too large and bulky for concealed carry. I'm sure that for those wanting a bit more oomph from their carry gun that it would be entirely feasible for a 9mm version to be produced too. To read a review of the original 1903 go here-

I shot over 500 rounds through this 1903 without one problem. Not one. And 300 rounds through another 1903 with similar results. Would I bet my life on an 89-year-old Colt? Yes, I would.

Originally manufactured from 1903 to 1945, more than half a million were made and I'd argue that now would be an excellent time for Colt- or another of the 1911 manufacturers- to bring another of Browning's classic designs back to life.

Police Advice

2011-02-13T11:35:00.000Z

Britain's descent into an Onion-esque Bizarro world continues apace. After reports that police refused to patrol a night-time playground because it was too dark and ~~spooky~~ dangerous, comes the news that homeowners in several villages have been told to take down the wire-mesh placed over windows on sheds after a series of robberies...because burglars could be injured.

Take down your security precautions, burglars could be hurt- are you kidding me? There I was thinking that the police were there to arrest criminals, not perform health and safety risk assessments for them. What's coming next? Locked doors may force criminals to break windows, exposing them to the risk of severe lacerations- better leave your doors unlocked at night?

Gay Marriage

2011-02-13T11:15:00.000Z

I think it was Clayton Cramer who once said that you could have freedom of speech or gay rights- but not both. It's not just freedom of speech that's at risk though. Here in the UK civil partnerships were made legal some years ago but even that is not enough for some gay rights activists- so the law has now been changed so that marriage is no longer defined as the union of a man and a woman.

Gays and lesbians will be able to 'marry' in church under new laws to be unveiled this week.
The historic decision by Liberal Democrat Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone will end the legal definition of marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman.
A gay couple will be able to refer to one of the partners as a 'husband', and a lesbian couple will be able to refer to one of the partners as a 'wife'.
A key part of the reform will bring an end to the ban that prevents civil partnerships being conducted in places of worship.

Gay marriage in places of worship? Yeah, exactly- since the law now says gay couples can get married in such places you know what's coming next-

The change could also lead to legal action by gay couples denied the right to marry in church.

I'd change that 'could' to 'will'. Never mind the rights of the churches to have their own beliefs, in politically correct Britain gay right trump those of everyone else. Pretty soon a gay couple will try to 'marry' in a church and be refused, they'll sue and the judge will rule that the law says they can be married there and to refuse them will be to discriminate against them, to infringe their human rights. In our new, PC world the religious apparently have no rights.

The Bicycle Cops

2011-02-09T01:17:00.000Z

UK police officers who are to conduct their patrols mounted on bicycles are to receive various training booklets from their individual forces to teach them to ride their bikes. The manuals, which are estimated to have cost thousands of pounds to produce, are being introduced because the idea that police officers actually be taught to ride bicycles was ridiculed.

Yeah, this is much better.

The manuals contain such gems of wisdom as "don't put your feet on the ground to slow down when going downhill". One of the manuals contains three pages on what snacks to eat. Another has a seven-point guide on how to get off a bicycle!

Essex police who do ride bikes on patrol are forbidden from using them to chase after criminals unless they have received advanced training- no doubt in high speed pursuit. Why they are using bikes when they aren't allowed to use them is not explained.

While it seems ridiculous we should perhaps not be too quick to judge. After all, two police forces managed to rack up 238 car crashes in just 18 months...inside their own car parks. Clearly, some of these officers have problems when it comes to operating wheeled vehicles.

Ronald Reagan Speech - 1964 Republican National Convention

2011-02-06T17:33:00.000Z

President Reagan would have been 100 years old today.

Listening to this speech a few things are apparent. First of all, Obama is no great shakes as an orator compared to the Gipper. Reagan was a powerful speaker and a superlative spokesman for liberty. Second, the problems Reagan speaks of facing America in 1964 are not far removed from the problems facing it in 2011- a liberal caste intent on overturning the constraints of the Constitution and of expanding government intrusion into every facet of Americans' private lives.

Too Scary For Police

2011-01-27T19:24:00.000Z

I wrote the last piece before I saw this- and now it really feels like I'm living in an Onion-inspired Twilight Zone.

Police in the UK have been banned from patrolling a playground at night because, get this, "it is considered dark and dangerous."

A senior police officer tried to defend the decision by describing the park as "a building site", an unlit area fraught with danger for the unwary PC who might be injured at any moment!

Of course, locals then pointed out that it's not a building site at all- it's actually a fully functioning playground where children are free to play during the day and that there is only minor work left to be completed.

Home-owners in the area - many of whom are old or disabled - complain it has become a magnet for young thugs and have reported dozens of incidents of anti-social behaviour. They have also found evidence of alcohol and drug use.

Given this new line of reasoning the police responded by saying that it was not their job to "keep the area clear". No mention of the vandalism and substance-abuse being carried out then.

It's Come To This

2011-01-27T18:22:00.000Z

Another of those cases where you have to double check to see if the calendar has somehow rolled over to April 1st. It seems, more and more, that real life is resembling stories which more properly belong in The Onion.

A Canadian tourist flying home from the UK was prevented from bringing an ornament he had bought at a visit to the Royal Signals museum onto his flight- packed in his luggage- because the figure was of a soldier holding a tiny, three inch long resin gun.

As he passed through the security checkpoint he was stopped by a security officer who then contacted his supervisor-

'My wife asked for a "reality check", explaining how this offending piece of sculptured moulding is a 9 inch painted model with a moulded and painted rifle that is part of the figure.

'The supervisor was confident within the surety of the regulations and said a "firearm" is a firearm and cannot pass.

In fact, a spokeswoman for the airport said, "Items including firearms and items with the appearance of firearms are prohibited."

What kind of world do we live in where an ornament of a soldier holding a gun is prohibited? Surely the correct course of action would be for the airport to admit their mistake and announce that this was an isolated case of an official taking things more than a tad too literally. It's clearly not a real weapon, it clearly cannot be modified to function as a real weapon and it's clearly preposterous to anyone with even a hint of common-sense that a three inch long piece of resin on a statue constitutes "the appearance of a firearm"- what's he going to do- pretend that it's a real assault rifle and take over the plane?

I actually feel less safe knowing that these people are in charge of airport security.

Wasteful Spending By NHS

2011-01-27T17:28:00.001Z

Despite massive increases in funding, the performance of British health care doesn't seem to be getting substantially better. People suffering from serious illnesses such as cancer are being denied life prolonging drugs because, in the words of NICE (the inappropriately named drug approval commission) they are not "cost effective". Yet at a time when the government is busy looking for cuts to save money, there is one area of the NHS where vast sums of money are being spent on medications which are far from cost effective- money which could surely be put to better use.

It seems that a loophole exists in NHS rules which allows pharmacists to receive any payment they request for so-called "specials". Basically, these are liquid forms of medications usually give in pill form, for example liquid paracetamol.

A woman contacted the Daily Mail when she discovered that the liquid paracetamol she received for her son was charged to the NHS at a staggering £175 for a 500ml bottle. To buy that over the counter, without prescription, would cost perhaps £10. And it doesn't end there-

The NHS spent more than £3 million on around 14,000 liquid formulations of this in 2009, at a cost of £208 each (the equivalent amount in pill form costs £1.12).

But there are other, more shocking, price differences. ‘I couldn’t believe an invoice I recently received,’ one London-based pharmacist told us, on condition on anonymity.
‘It was for a supply of sodium chloride solution — salt water, basically, to treat a child with hormone problems. The charge was £570. I’ve been told it soon will be £1,000. The ingredients would have cost just pennies.’

The article contains many other examples of this colossal waste.

Since the NHS reimburses pharmacists for any specials they order — at whatever cost — business is booming. Latest figures show that NHS spending on specials rose from £58 million in 2006/7 to £164 million in 2009/10.

A massive part of this increase is because the NHS won't set pricing rules on specials- and it seems they have no plans to do so. A pharmacist can pay hundred of pounds for a medicine with an actual value of pennies and he will be reimbursed without question- yet at the same time cancer sufferers are being told that they cannot receive drugs that will actual prolong their lives because they are not "cost effective". And it's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to wasteful spending.

It's little wonder that people are unhappy with the quality of care the NHS provides them with.

McCarthy's 'Magazine' Ban

2011-01-21T02:15:00.002Z

There's been much discussion on the internet recently about Rep Carolyn McCarthy's bill which would place a limit on the number of rounds a handgun can hold in its magazine. The argument goes that because the deranged lunatic who shot (and mercifully only wounded) Rep Giffords in Tucson, Arizona used a 33-round high capacity magazine in the commission of his crime, then these magazines, and many others holding much less, should now be banned. If he had only had a 10 round magazine, they say, then nowhere near as many people would have been shot and either wounded or killed. I guess these people have little problem with the fatalities and injuries caused by the first 10 shots of any rampage, or any further injury caused by the shooter reloading his government-approved 10-round magazines.

The argument then goes on to state that no one really needs high capacity magazines carrying 33 rounds (and this is where they neglect to mention the 13 round magazines for the Browning High Power, 15 round magazines for the Beretta 92 or 17 round magazines for the Glock 17 that will also be banned- amongst many others). These, let it be made clear, are NOT "high capacity magazines". They are standard capacity magazines.

You see, according to the hoplophobes in Washington- whose familiarity with handguns and their defensive uses seems to extend as far as seeing them in the holsters of the police protecting them- there is no reasonable use for a high capacity magazine other than for mass-murderers to go on killing sprees.

Really? There's no other use for them? No, we're told, no one needs them. Which is interesting because the current bill carries an exemption not only for police officers but also retired police officers.

In other words, McCarthy and the other politicians who co-sponsored this bill believe that there is not only a use for 10-plus magazines but a need. Otherwise, the police would not be allowed to own them either. And there must also be a valid reason why a retired cop would need a 10-plus magazine. Quite why a retired police officer should be afforded extra rights not granted to his fellow citizens is unclear.

So, why would the police need magazines that hold more than 10-rounds? The police, after all, respond to crimes. If a violent criminal breaks into your home with the intent of causing you and your family harm why is it that the police you call to respond to the crime- who will most likely arrive after the criminal has done what he intends to do or has been stopped- need more than 10-rounds but you, the person who has to deal with the criminal face-to-face, on-your-own, need only 10? The police have access to pistols and often shotguns and carbines in their patrol cars. They often travel in pairs. They have access to armed back-up who will go out of their way to protect a fellow officer from harm. They even have access to specialist units specifically trained and armed to deal with highly dangerous situations.

I don't know about you but I've lost count of how many bullets all that adds up to. But the home-owner or woman walking to her car at night confronted by a gang with malicious intent- the person who has to face that threat ALONE is to be restricted to 10 rounds only?

I'm sorry but I fail to see the logic at work here. If a police officer needs more than 10-rounds then so too does the average law-abiding citizen. In fact, I'd argue that they are more in need of standard capacity magazines than the average police officer who has armed colleagues to support him. The person forced to draw a gun to defend themselves is faced with imminent danger at close range. Under these circumstances, and perhaps faced with more than one threat, the citizen needs every available shot they have.

The Tueller Drill established that the average man can cover 21 feet in 1.5 seconds. That time- 1.5 seconds- is the time it takes a practised police officer to draw and fire his holstered weapon twice. If faced with an attacker with a knife that means that the cop who can successfully draw and shoot- and score those two hits- could still be stabbed. Even fatal gunshot wounds do not put an attacker down immediately- he can often continue to operate after receiving those fatal wounds and inflict wounds of his own. Police officers are trained in conflict- and yet even when most of their confrontations occur at a range of less than six feet (one study examining this put a terrifying 81% of shooting confrontations at less than six feet) many of their shots fired miss the target.

These misses occur for a number of reasons, not least of which is stress- but also involved are bad lighting (many shootings occur at night in dimly lit areas) and the fact that the officer and armed bad guy can both be moving and that the officer could be receiving fire from the bad guy. These sudden, violent confrontations can occur with little warning (just watch some of those police dashboard-mounted camera video shows for proof) and are confusing, dangerous, stressful situations.

Let's now consider a young woman who carries a gun in her purse to protect herself as she walks to her car at night. She is confronted by a group of young men, in their late teens or early twenties. She is not only outnumbered but overpowered. If they choose to attack her, she cannot physically defend herself. Neither can she call the police for help- by the time she takes her phone out of her bag the men will be on her. When the men advance on her, perhaps even telling her of what lies in store for her, she draws her gun. The men respond in kind and the woman is forced to shoot. She fires her government-mandated 10 round magazine and hits two of the men more than once before the 10 shots are done. As with the highly trained police officer, some of her shots even at this close range miss the target. Only one of the men is totally incapacitated. The other wounded man and his untouched companion are now free to do what they wish to the now-defenceless young woman. They have weapons drawn already so she cannot reach for a reload.

And consider for a moment an elderly woman living alone. She owns a gun with a standard capacity 17 round magazine because she not only finds it hard to rack the slide but also because she finds it a slow and time-consuming task to remove one magazine and replace it with another. Her fingers are not as nimble and as strong as they used to be. Because she spent her working life as a nurse she is now banned from owning this magazine. Her ex-cop neighbour, who has no such problems with reloading, owns a 33 round magazine for his gun. When drug addicts decide to raid her home she shoots to defend herself. When the gun runs out of ammo the survivors come out of hiding and, as she struggles to reload, beat her to death with a crow bar.

If only she had her weapon loaded with a standard 17 round magazine she might have survived to see another dawn.

Or how about this-

This is a real video of an attempted home invasion. The gang of men, one of them armed with an AR-15 rifle, raced into an older man's home in an attempt to rob and, perhaps, attack him. Luckily, the home-owner was able to retrieve his handgun and shoot at the men. The gang turned and fled the determined, armed home-owner. But suppose for one moment that this gang had decided to use the weapons they had with them that day? Four men, one of them with a rifle, against a single man. If they had stood their ground, and if Rep McCarthy's bill had been passed, the home-owner would have had only ten rounds with which to defend himself.

Up against these armed home-invaders, do you suppose that you would have been able to successfully defend yourself with a government-approved 10-round magazine? Or would your chances of survival increase with 17?

This bill- which will not only ban high capacity magazines but also standard size magazines despite its name- will prevent law abiding citizens from utilising a tool that is not only currently legal but which has been around for decades. The Browning High Power, which holds 13 rounds in its standard size magazine, has been around since 1935. Even before then it was recognised that there was a need for handguns to hold as many rounds as possible.

Rep McCarthy might think that 10-rounds is sufficient for the average person to defend themselves from violence and death under all circumstances but the fact is that she is wrong. If police officers need more than 10 rounds to respond to crimes which have already been committed (and retired cops need them for their own defence and amusement), then the people on the front line, those actually facing criminals without body armour and armed partners and armed back-up have just as much, if not more, need.

And that doesn't even begin to tackle the question of how McCarthy reads the Second Amendment to mean that a person must prove a need to the government to own a certain type of magazine or weapon (some firearms will be banned under the 'magazine ban') rather than 'the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed'. It's perfectly clear to me that banning an integral part of a firearm and replacing it with a less satisfactory part- one which increases the owner's chances of being killed in a violent confrontation- is certainly infringing that right.

Future First Person Shooter

2010-12-25T02:46:00.000Z

Daft Punk - Derezzed (from TRON: Legacy)

2010-12-09T15:54:00.000Z

Valhalla Rising Review

2010-07-16T12:23:00.001+01:00

Okay, let's get one thing straight first off- if you've seen the poster or DVD cover for Valhalla Rising and are expecting some kind of 13th Warrior-style action film, you'd probably think you had made a wise choice. After all, there's a picture of Mads Mikkelsen on the cover holding a giant sword and with an army of soldiers at his back. Right?

WRONG.

This has to be the most blatantly false piece of advertising I've ever seen in my whole life- and given the addition of the non-existent soldiers in the background, it's the fact that it's so deliberately misleading that shocks me. Because if you're a fan of action films, the chances are you'll probably hate the glacial pace of Valhalla Rising.

In short, you're getting not an action film but an art house film. And, if like me, you don't mind slow-paced, atmospheric movies with great soundtracks and (very) occasional bursts of gut-wrenching violence you might not be completely disappointed. You might hang in there all the way through the film- Mads Mikkelsen does, after all, deliver a terrific performance as the invincible, mute One-Eye. The problem is that there's no pay off.

The film opens with One-Eye as a slave warrior, chained to a pole and forced to fight in brutal, unarmed combat (usually against more than one foe at a time). This section, at least, delivers on the misleading advertising. The problem, though, is that as the film goes on and he escapes and then falls in with a group of warriors off to the Holy Land the pace not only slows but the action almost completely stops. That's not say that it's not good- the photography is fantastic, the soundtrack is mesmerising and there's something compelling about watching the journey these men are on. No, the big problem is that the film builds tension so brilliantly as the men arrive, hopelessly lost, in the New World. The sound here is tremendous by the way- every whisper of wind, every rustle of leaves, every animal call hints at the hidden danger around them. It's one of the most effectively menacing environments I've seen on film. Glad I had my headphones on while watching it.

And that's why it's such a frustratingly, horribly unrewarding film. One-Eye is one of the best conceived warriors on celluloid. He cannot be stopped, cannot be beaten. We witness him fighting bare-handed and then, once or twice, with axe and dagger- but these are only hints of what he's capable of. The film builds and builds, heading inexorably towards a showdown between One-Eye and the natives and then, suddenly, it ends. I don't want to give any spoilers but if you're expecting a big finale you're going to be sorely disappointed because there isn't one. Instead it just stops and you're left staring at the screen going, "that's it?"

If you're an art house fan, of course, your mileage may vary. You may love the "what was that bit all about" of some of it, you may wonder about the symbolism of certain elements, you may question the meaning behind certain acts. In short you may enjoy thinking about the film more than actually watching it. Personally, I'm somewhere in the middle between the "that was so boring, can't believe I wasted my time" crowd and the "wow, that was so thought-provoking/weird/unfathomable" brigade.

The major lack of a satisfying ending is the film's worst sin- perhaps some will like it but for me it's akin to the false advertising of the packaging. The DVD box art sells this as an action film. The story, the mood, the character build this film as if it's heading towards a certain ending but then doesn't deliver. I couldn't stand it. What I did like was pretty much all of the rest of it. The lack of action after the opening scenes is totally fine- as is the glacially slow pace and lack of dialogue. As I've said the cinematography is superb, the sound editing is awesome, the soundtrack is perfect for creating the proper mood, the acting is well above average and the atmosphere is gripping. The only big flaw for me was that it doesn't deliver on all of these elements. Maybe next time I watch it, I'll stop my DVD player a few minutes before the end and just imagine what should have happened.

Kill Babies

2010-07-07T10:40:00.000+01:00

Here's video of the person at the core of the voter intimidation case- you know, the one the Obama Department of Justice had already won, but then dismissed, allowing this person to walk free.

Of course, it goes without saying that this is a classic "what if Bush did it" moment- can you imagine the uproar, the media attention, that a similar case would get if Bush's DoJ had allowed a white man with a history of saying these same things about black people to go free- after winning the case against him?

Armed Forces Day

2010-06-26T12:55:00.000+01:00

It's Armed Forces Day here in the UK, so spare a thought for the men and women engaged in war in a far-off land.

Soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines don't get anywhere near the respect or gratitude that they deserve. The fighting in Afghanistan is brutal and intense- and the British public only hears a small fraction of what's actually going on over there. If you haven't already, I strongly suggest you head on over and read some of Michael Yon's posts.

Bug Out Bag

2010-06-26T11:43:00.000+01:00

I'm putting together a "tiered" bug out bag. Level One will provide enough for 24 hours, level Two 72 and then Level Three will be a less man-portable system for a longer duration emergency. I did have my eye on one of County Comm's superb little EOD utility bags (along with a good deal of the rest of their products - they couldn't have designed a better product line aimed at me personally if they tried- Pico Pen? I want one so bad). Unfortunately, they don't seem to like making money and won't sell their products outside of the US- and the only other supplier of the EOD bag is LA Gear which wants to charge me in the region of $80 shipping for a little bag. Wow.

So, I'm looking for an alternative (or a dealer who will ship internationally without robbing me blind) and if anyone can suggest one I'd really appreciate it. I like that the EOD bag came with MOLLE webbing so that extra pouches can be attached.

For what it's worth my Level One gear will be based on what the British military term assault order- the contents of webbing (and in my case the gear normally carried in your combat jacket too). Minus the magazines for the L85, cleaning kit and grenades of course. This basically boils down to a mess kit, 24 hours of rations, stove, mug, water bottle and a few little extras.

Ninja Assassin

2010-06-26T01:53:00.000+01:00

Just watched Ninja Assassin. Quite possibly the greatest ninja film ever made. And Sho Kosugi is in it!

Convict Conditioning

2010-06-25T22:24:00.000+01:00

Although my back injury prevents me from engaging in vigorous exercise I do try to keep abreast of what's going on in the world of strength and fitness training. I recently stumbled across a Dragon Door book called Convict Conditioning. Written by an ex-con it details the system he developed to become scary strong and fit inside the joint. Utilising nothing but bodyweight exercises, the book can trace its heritage back to old-school strongman The Mighty Atom.

What's refreshing about this book is that not only does the author explain the reasoning and history behind his system, he also lays out a foolproof guide of how to progress from absolute beginner to master athlete. I've read a lot of exercise books and while many offer explanations of certain techniques and some sample routines, few- if any- lay it out in such a clear, simple way as Convict Conditioning. Based around six main exercises, it takes you step-by-step through the program. Take press ups, for example. This section starts with standing, wall press ups for those with little conditioning, and then builds gradually- level by level- towards the peak movement: the one handed, handstand press up. It's as simple as that. Get the book, follow the routine- with clearly pictured and described guides to each of the exercises- and get strong. And the best part is that you don't need to buy any expensive or fancy equipment; or even go to the gym for that matter.

Quite simply this is one of the best exercise guides I've ever seen.

The Tunnel

2010-06-25T22:04:00.000+01:00

This is interesting- an Aussie firm has made a horror movie called The Tunnel and they are releasing it themselves as a torrent. They intend to pay for the production costs by selling individual frames of film. It's a rather daring step to take and it will certainly be interesting to see how well this system does. If it works we'll be sure to see others try the same approach- and surely a successful cult film will be able to charge a bit more than a dollar for at least some of the frames.

“An investigation into a government cover-up leads to a network of abandoned train tunnels deep beneath the heart of Sydney. As a journalist and her crew hunt for the story it quickly becomes clear the story is hunting them.”

You can check out the teasers- and buy your own frame- here. And don't forget to look for the torrent.

Centurion Trailer

2010-06-25T21:55:00.001+01:00

Neil Marshall's a genius- Dog Soldiers is a blast, The Descent was genuinely scary and Doomsday was a hugely entertaining homage to the post-apocalyptic films of the '80s. So, I'm really, really looking forward to seeing his latest flick Centurion.

Obama's Anti-British Rhetoric Attacked

2010-06-10T11:12:00.002+01:00

Britain's Lord Tebbitt slams Obama's continual blame-shifting and finger-pointing-

‘The whole might of American wealth and technology is displayed as utterly unable to deal with the disastrous spill – so what more natural than a crude, bigoted, xenophobic display of partisan political Presidential petulance against a multinational company?’

London mayor Boris Johnson also joined in-

'I do think there's something slightly worrying about the anti-British rhetoric that seems to be permeating from America.

'I would like to see a bit of cool heads rather than endlessly buck-passing and name-calling. When you consider the huge exposure of British pension funds to BP it starts to become a matter of national concern if a great British company is being continually beaten up on the airwaves.

'It was an accident that took place and BP is paying a very, very heavy price indeed.'

BP provides income for millions of pension savers- Obama's constant demagoguing of the company might in the short term deflect blame from his rudderless "leadership" but in the long run it could have a ruinous effect on the pension plans of many retirees dependent on those funds.

Foiled Plot

2010-05-15T12:03:00.002+01:00

How's all that tread-softly, don't talk about "Islamic terrorism", Muslim out-reach doing for Obama? About as well as anyone with half a brain cell would expect-

Indonesian police said today they had uncovered and foiled a plot to assassinate the president and other top officials, massacre foreigners in Mumbai-style attacks, declare an Islamic state, and possibly even kill Barack Obama.

Religion of...what was it again?

To begin

2010-05-14T02:20:00.002+01:00

Opening paragraphs to political articles don't come much more brutal than this one-

Who the hell does Barack Obama, this morally preening, arrogant hypocrite, think he is? His vacuous, demagogic shtick about helping the "people" fight "the powerful" is getting so old from his lips, and already was so hackneyed even before he expropriated it, that it's a miracle that even he himself can say it anymore without getting nauseated by his own oleaginous triteness.

Makes you want to read the rest of the article, doesn't it?

Dangerous Delusion

2010-05-09T22:40:00.003+01:00

Looks like I blogged too soon. In a previous post I quoted Mark Steyn's most recent column in which he postulated that the very last thing another terrorist attack on the USA would result in would be stricter controls on Muslim immigration or more thorough vetting of Muslim immigrants.

Thankfully we don't have to go through the horrors of another attack to have his point proved. Byron York has a piece up in which he details what former Clinton and Bush intel chief Richard Clarke thinks the US should do in the event of a terrorist attack-

In the raw aftermath of a successful attack, it will be very hard for an American president to shift the debate in a more productive and honest direction. Imagine if, after a fatal attack, President Obama responded by proposing greater outreach to Muslim communities domestically and around the world, in an effort to undercut radicalization. That is precisely what we and other nations should be doing, but it would undoubtedly be decried as a weak, starry-eyed reaction by our commander in chief, especially after an attack that revealed deficiencies in our counterterrorism system.

Yep, according to Clarke the US shouldn't respond to a terrorist attack which murders American citizens with retaliatory strikes or with silly things like strengthening the homeland security system- all the President needs to do to undermine a centuries old theological imperative to wage war against infidels is to try and be nicer to the Muslim world.

This from a guy who used to be the head counter-terrorism chap in the White House. Doesn't build confidence does it?

Stonewalling Congress

2010-05-09T22:22:00.004+01:00

This hasn't gotten much play in the media or on the blogs- though you can be sure that if we were talking about Bush's DoJ doing the same it would be running 27/4 on the TV news and be on the front pages of the papers.

It appears that the Department of Justice is playing politics with the Times Square bombing plot by refusing to brief Senator Kit Bond (R-MO), the Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. During a classified briefing on Thursday members of the intelligence community refused to answer one of Senator Bond's questions, according to Bond "We called the agency of the intelligence community that should have that information, and they advised us that the Department of Justice is running it and they told us they should not share it with the Intelligence Committee."

As is made clear in the article this is a stunning overreach of the powers of the Department of Justice- and the response of the intelligence community to Holder's crowd should not have been, "sure thing" but "get bent"- they are legally required to keep the Senate Intel Committee fully and currently informed.

Times Square Bomber

2010-05-09T22:08:00.002+01:00

Mark Steyn's weekly column is a must read- every week.

This time he tackles the subject of the Times Square bomber- and the reaction to the attempt to commit mass murder in the middle of New York City on a busy Saturday night. He counters the frankly preposterous notion that America has become Islamophobic, and this following section really caught my eye-

Because the reactions of Bloomberg & Co. are a useful glimpse into the decayed and corroded heart of a civilization. One day the bomb will explode. Dozens dead? Hundreds? Thousands? Would we then restrict immigration from certain parts of the world? Or at least subject them to extra roadblocks on the fast-track to citizenship?

What do you think?

I can imagine it now- New York, Chicago, LA or some other major American city left in smouldering ruins with an unknown number of dead. While the fires still burn and emergency crews struggle to save lives, you just know that the talking heads on TV will be whining about a feared backlash against Muslims living in America- and not railing against the murderous philosophy of jihad that caused the attack.

New Brit Horror Movie SNUB

2010-05-06T12:49:00.002+01:00

This looks rather interesting- a new British movie called S.N.U.B. which stands for Secret Nuclear Underground Bunker. In short a Brit politician finds out about an impending nuclear attack on London and he flees- along with an assortment of other people- into a bunker to save himself. The bomb goes off and the radioactivity mutates a group of prisoners who escaped in the aftermath of the blast. Said mutants then set about attacking the survivors in the bunker.

I think I'm going to enjoy this one. It's available to pre-order on DVD now.

Women's Rights

2010-05-06T12:32:00.003+01:00

Been away from blogging for a while. Tried that Twitter whatsit- really great for passing on an interesting story when you don't have time to blog about it- and then took a break from the whole thing for a short time. When the whole world is going to hell having a ringside seat- and being constantly informed of the minutiae of the destruction of Western civilisation from within and without- can be more than a little depressing.

Anyway, saw this story and just had to blog about it-

Women with suntans are violating Islamic law and will be arrested in Iran, the capital city's police chief was reported by The Daily Telegraph as saying Wednesday.

"In some areas of north Tehran we can see many suntanned women and young girls who look like walking mannequins," he continued. "We are not going to tolerate this situation and will first warn those found in this manner and then arrest and imprison them."

You may have heard of this far-off place, Iran, in the news recently. In actual fact, they've just been elected to serve on the United Nation's Commission on the Status of Women. This is a body which is "dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women."

Yep, the same country which thinks that it's just fine and dandy to imprison women for having a bit of a fake tan is now a member of the UN's premier body on women's rights issues.

In response, American "women's leaders" (that they have leaders may come as a surprise to many American women) have sprung into action- and written an open letter to Hillary Clinton in protest.

That should do the job...

HK To Bring Back The XM8?

2010-02-09T21:07:00.004Z

George Hill aka Mad Ogre drops some very interesting news from his SHOT Show 2010 coverage. He talked to a Heckler and Koch rep-

In fact, we are going to be seeing some new stuff that would have been previously unheard of... such as a very real possibility of a revamped XM-8 – for Civilian Sales. Which would be outstanding.

HK put an awful lot of time, effort and money into developing the XM8- a version for civilians (and presumably police and military sales) would make sense to recoup their costs. Before the project was killed, it was being out through its paces at the Aberdeen Testing Ground and there was talk of the 10th Mountain Division taking the weapon into combat in Afghanistan with them.

A few years has passed and HK has brought out its product improved M4, the piston driven 416, and the long-lived, slowly evolving M16/M4 platform is now facing competition from the likes of FN's SCAR and the new Bushmaster ACR. It would be interesting to see how a "revamped" XM8 stacks up alongside them. Remember, in the recent "dust test" the Army carried out, the XM8 came out on top, defeating the SCAR, HK's 416 and the M4.

One other thing to bear in mind is that not only are US Special Forces using the HK 416 but the Army is adopting the HK M320 40mm grenade launcher and the USMC have just announced that HK won their IAR competition. I'm guessing a new XM8 would no doubt appeal to a number of different military and police units.

Project Valor-IT

2009-11-04T16:30:00.006Z

Hi folks, I've just made a donation to Soldiers' Angels Project Valor-IT. It's a very worthy cause helping wounded servicemen and I'd strongly recommend you donate whatever you can.
Pick a team- Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines- and give what you can to help those who have been wounded. Team Marines are currently in the lead- so do what you can to either keep them in front or help your preferred branch to do better. It also helps to spread the word so tell your friends and family too.

Project Valour-IT helps provide voice-controlled/adaptive laptop computers and other technology to support Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines recovering from hand wounds and other severe injuries. Items supplied include:

# Voice-controlled Laptops - Operated by speaking into a microphone or using other adaptive technologies, they allow the wounded to maintain connections with the rest of the world during recovery.
# Wii Video Game Systems - Whole-body game systems increase motivation and speed recovery when used under the guidance of physical therapists in therapy sessions (donated only to medical facilities).
# Personal GPS - Handheld GPS devices build self-confidence and independence by compensating for short-term memory loss and organizational challenges related to severe TBI and severe PTSD.

I just want to add- I'm a British citizen but the work American servicemen do, currently fighting terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan, serves to benefit not just America but the UK and many other nations. I'm thankful for the courage and dedication of America's servicemen and women.

Police Apathy

2009-10-26T21:11:00.003Z

A British man discovered a gang-land gun- loaded and left in a plastic bag at a playground- so he did the decent thing and phoned the police. They first of all offered to come to his home but as he had just had a confrontation with the gang he was afraid they would follow him there. So, instead of driving to him at the scene, they told him to walk to the nearest police station to hand it it- two and a half miles away.

If he had been stopped by police en route and discovered with a gun he would- according to the police themselves- have been charged with possession.

The authorities seemed to be completely unperturbed by the thought of the man walking alone with a gang's gun- and cash and a passport; even though he had just had a run in with them over it. Why did they not show any concern not only for his safety but for the risk of a loaded firearm falling back into the hands of the gang?

No doubt their reluctance to drive to meet him at the playground indicates that they were in no hurry to go to his home either. Their disinterest in a gang's loaded firearm, possibly one used in a crime, is pretty surprising. Why were they not interested in questioning the thugs who demanded that the gent hand over their gun? Why no interest in obtaining the best possible forensic testing of the weapon, etc? Why tell a member of the public to carry a loaded firearm through city streets- when he faced arrest or a confrontation with armed police officers if some member of the public spotted the gun in the bag?

The only answer can be a shocking level of apathy on the part of the police.

In fact, it turns out that the gun was used in a gangland shooting just five days before it was discovered but police were unable to link it to an individual and so no case has gone to court.

Quote of the Day

2009-10-25T13:54:00.001Z

Obama in one Monty Python quote.

Operation Rize

2009-10-25T12:24:00.003Z

Hard to take a small sample of the article to illustrate this story. In short, UK police used a relatively new law designed to seize the assets of criminals to raid some safety deposit boxes. What's startling- and frightening- is that instead of raiding the boxes of identified criminals, the police obtained a warrant to raid every single box in the facility. They cut them open with angle grinders, catalogued the contents and then basically argued that if you had cash or valuables in the boxes, you were assumed to be guilty and had to prove that you had obtained the valuables legally.

I always thought that a man was innocent until proven guilty- not any more.

Under POCA, the burden of proof lay with the box-holders. Finding evidence for wartime treks across Europe, or charting migration stories from the Partition of India and beyond, would cost many of the box-holders tens of thousands of pounds.

For example, one Jewish family fled Europe before the war with some diamonds sewn into their clothes. Fearful that at some point they or their children might need to flee again they kept the diamonds in a safety deposit box. To get their belongings back they had to pay to carbon date the diamonds, proving they were cut in the 1930s.

And that's just one example of many. It's also worth noting that the law used to carry out the raid was never intended for this kind of operation- dubbed a fishing expedition. In fact, the first judge in London they took the case to turned down the warrant request. So the police went "judge shopping", travelling outside of the capital to a nearby town where the judge was less knowledgeable about such cases- and they dazzled him with statistics that proved to be incredibly wrong in order to obtain the warrant. No need for things such as evidence here.

I strongly urge you all to read the whole article to get the full picture of this scandalous raid- inspired, it would seem, by the police failing to meet their seizure targets. The fact that officers are not being sacked for this shocking abuse tells you all you need to know about how far the notion of individual liberty in the UK has fallen.

My Parents Were Awesome

2009-10-25T12:20:00.003Z

Discovered this website yesterday and I love it- essentially old photos submitted by folks of their parents when they were young and cool.

Definitely worth a look- some interesting characters and great photography. I love looking at old photos like these.

I'm going to have to see if I can get my scanner out of storage and send in some pics of my Mum and Dad- I have a few of them looking great when they were younger.

White House Admits Joe Was Right

2009-09-13T17:59:00.002+01:00

Well, well, well, look what we have here. Buried late on a Friday night the White House releases a statement that, let's not beat around the bush, proves that Joe Wilson was right to declare that Obama was lying when he said Obamacare would not provide cover to illegal aliens.

The question, as we all know, arises from the Wilson “You lie” outburst, and the core claim that notwithstanding specific bill language barring illegal immigrants from participating in the “exchange,” as a practical matter, there is no way of verifying the citizenship of applicants — which is the current state of play. Republicans say that then means illegal immigrants would end up being enrolled in plans — bill language or no bill language.

Today, for the first time as far as we know, the administration is backing a provision that would require proof of citizenship before someone could enroll in a plan selected on the exchange.

In other words, Obama was either just plain ignorant-wrong when he made his no illegal cover statement or else he knew what the bill said and he was, in fact, lying to Congress and the American people. So which was it smartest-president-ever? Were you lying or did you just not know what you were talking about in your carefully prepared big speech?

Big hat tip to Stop The ACLU for catching this.

9/11 Never Forget

2009-09-11T18:29:00.003+01:00

Seems hard to believe that it happened eight years ago.

Gateway Pundi t has a small round up- I strongly suggest watching the video of the second plane's impact on the WTC from a different angle than is normally seen. Nothing brings back memories of that terrible day (or crystallises the horror of it all) quite so vividly as seeing the actual footage again- which is what follows:

And from Cox and Forkum, originally posted in 2003.

Liberal Reaction To Joe Wilson

2009-09-11T17:01:00.004+01:00

A moronic so-called comedian who goes by the name "DantetheComic"was so incensed by Joe Wilson's daring to call out Obama's lies to Congress that he goes off the deep-end. First off, he send this tweet to me (after I congratulated Wilson's stand)-

you are a f**ktard and need to read a book and a newspaper and not comic books and neo nazi books

Yeah, apparently Monster Hunter International (the only book I can remember referencing on Twitter) is a neo-Nazi book. As for comics, I'm not sure what he's talking about because I'm not much of a comic fan any more and don't think I've ever referred to reading one on Twitter. Incredibly he missed the many links to newspapers there. Well, I say incredibly but given his own output it's perhaps not too surprising. He went on to spew the following bile on Twitter-

Joe Wilson you are a good example why there should be a white christian Rebublican holocost

JOE WILSON...........You are like the 5th person to screw up from S. Carolina in the past year. We may have to blow that state up.

luciferiscoming and his name is JOE WILSON

President Obama is our president. I believe in him and our country and Joe Wilson SPIT on our flag tonight

(To another Twitter user who agreed with Wilson) are you nuts, you c*nt, please go kill yourself

JOE WILSON is alive and well and Kennedy is dead. Shame.

JOE WILSON......if a demacrat yelled out durring a BUSH speech he would have been arested. (Note - not exactly true.)

Joe Wilson thank you since I have ranted about what a piece of crap you are I have gained 30 followers

Joe Wilson eat my nuts

Joe Wilson should resin (Note- I believe he means that Wilson should resign, not turn into resin)

Joe Wilson needs to be punished

(To a Joe Wilson supporter) are you nuts? F**k Joe Wilson and you. That was our president he heckled not Carrot Top

I had Obamas speech on DVR and just watched it. Brilliant. That man is going to change the world. Screw Joe Wilson and other whackjobs

As a comic I hate Hecklers! JOE WILSON is the top piece of sh*t heckler in the world. You f**ktard. (This delicate blossom should never watch Prime Minister's Question Time)

Hey to all the pussys that were following me until I spoke my mind about Oboma and Joe Wilson go f**k yourselves and dont follow me anymore

Go Oboma. Fuck those peice of sh*t republicans who sat there and heckled you and acted like children

Joe Wilson resign now you f**ktard

Joe Wilson if you were a dem durring a Bush speech, you would have been escorted out. How dare you (See above)

F**k you Joe Wilson you piece of sh*t, who the f**k do you think you are yelling at our president.

There needs to be a white christian republican holocost

All the white christian rebublicansneed to all move to Alabama and start thier own country, then left bomb the shit out of those dumb fucks

White christian republicans annoy the sh*t out of me.

I am so sick of dumb f**ks who can not read bashing our president. Show us proof of any thing he has done wrong.

(To another Wilson supporter) Fred let me guess....you love Joe Wilson....you are a white, republican christian. Your level of education and respect are low.

All of the spellings are his originals. Ironic, isn't it, that he slanders someone else's level of education when he can't even spell Democrat? And calling for respect when he's insulted others and called for a holocaust of Christian Republicans? Wow.

No doubt Dante's off to name-call all the liberals and Democrats who attacked Bush, calling him a liar, a murderer and even Hitler over the past eight years...

Subtle But Important Changes

2009-09-11T16:49:00.004+01:00

Mary Katherine Ham notes an important change in the language Obama is using to sell his health care reforms. He's gone from this-

If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor under the reform proposals that we've put forward. If you like your private health insurance plan, you can keep it.

To this-

First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have. Let me repeat this: nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have.

In short, Obamacare won't force you to lose your current health insurance or doctor, but when the government mandates exactly what each policy will be required to cover (and remember, if you don't have a government approved plan you will be forced to pay a punitive tax) and so on, the chances are that you will lose your current plan and/or doctor. The government might not require it- but then again, why should they when the end result is the same? Also, if you aren't paying particularly close attention to the debate you might just be fooled into thinking that what Obama's saying is that even after Obamacare you'll be able to keep your current insurance and doctor.

So...Embrace The Minimum

2009-08-17T01:55:00.003+01:00

The new King Cannibal single So...Embrace The Minimum is out today. Just downloaded my copy from Amazon. It's DJ Magazine's Dubstep single of the month.

The title track has, IMHO, a bit of a house vibe to it- in parts it brings to mind Slam from their Headstates days. For Cannibal this is a pretty light, smooth tune with a very rich sound to it. It also makes me want to hop in the car and go cruise along the motorway at 2:00 am. No one does dark and scary quite like King Cannibal but So... coming on the heels of Virgo proves that there are more strings to his bow than just that.

Check out King Cannibal's MySpace page to have a listen to his tunes.

Secondary Emergency

2009-08-13T15:48:00.004+01:00

Two student nurses were threatened with rape by male intruders. They called police but it took four hours for them to respond, by which point the men had long since fled. The men told them,

'We are going to remember your faces and names, and next time, we are going to rape you'.

The police claimed that because the young women were behind a locked door, their case was prioritised as a "secondary emergency".

Their excuse? They were dealing with "a high volume of calls" at the time.

It turns out that the police force were struggling to cope with a mammoth 40 incidents at the time.

What's not said is how many of those "incidents" were violent crimes in progress - how many officers were working that evening- how many of those incidents were police responding to were actually the aftermath of a crime- what incidents were prioritised ahead of thugs threatening to rape young women in their own flat- that is, what exactly is a primary emergency- and how many of those 40 incidents were actually classified as primary emergencies?

Funny the questions professional journalists fail to ask.

King Cannibal Strikes Again

2009-08-13T15:17:00.004+01:00

First music I've bought in absolutely ages- King Cannibal's Virgo and Call Me Mr Cold Blooded.

On the Virgo single the title track is, by Cannibal's standards pretty light and, dare I say it, bouncy. Murder Us, the B-side, is darker and more menacing by contrast. I actually like the lighter tone of Virgo, not what I was expecting but it works well.

Call Me Mr Cold Blooded (and brilliant B-side A Hundred Eyes Closed) is in a similar vein to the classic Arigami Style- like a horror movie for your ears. I don't know what specific genre of drum and bass you'd file this stuff under but the best way I can think of describing it is as the electronic equivalent of really dark heavy metal, Ministry or Nine Inch Nails gone jungle.

Looking forward to the coming release- S0...Embrace The Minimum out on August 16th.

Check out King Cannibal's MySpace page to have a listen to his tunes.

One last thing- someone should really hire this guy to score the soundtrack to a really scary horror movie, and make it twice as frightening.

Quote of the Day

2009-07-10T17:49:00.000+01:00

For Obama, success is not the delivery of watertight nuclear security for America; it is a feel-good news conference and photo opportunity that will create huge approval ratings on liberal campuses where the delusions of 1968 and the anti-Vietnam war movement still linger on in these isolated Jurassic Parks.

Read the whole thing.

Great But Failed Handguns

2009-07-10T12:05:00.002+01:00

Hell in a Handbasket as a very good post up on some innovative firearms designs that ultimately failed to succeed. Go check it out here.

As I read a few thoughts occurred to me.

The LeMat- make it a break action like a Webley so that the revolver cylinder and shotgun can both be loaded at the same time. It would obviously require some ingenious work to re-fashion the design so that the shotgun barrel was firmly locked in place while the cylinder continued to revolve around it but I'm sure some engineering whizz could figure that out. These days I'm sure some would want to see the shotgun chambered for a .410 shotshell but personally I'd opt for a 20 gauge or 16 gauge.

The HDH Machinegun - this is a neat idea and a weapon that I'll admit I'd never heard of before. Seems to me that the time for another double barrelled revolver has come- it evidently needs a small cartridge so why not go for a rimmed version of the P90's 5.7mm or HK's 4.6mm?

More Twitter

2009-06-15T21:35:00.003+01:00

I've been using Twitter to post lately- simply because it's faster than blogger. You can view my page here. You don't need to be signed up to the service to see the items or click the links. And you can also see my Twitter posts further down this page below the links.

A few examples-

Actress Lynn Collins has been picked to play Dejah Thoris in the upcoming John Carter of Mars movie. Sorry, but she is no Dejah. The guy who played Gambit in the Wolverine movie is to be John Carter. I'm underwhelmed by that choice but I'll reserve further judgement until I actually see that film. I doubt very much it will convince me he's right for the part though.

An "expert" has designed a revolutionary new knife which *gasp* cannot be used to commit crimes! How does it manage this? Well, it has a blunt tip. The pointless design (couldn't resist) evidently doesn't take into account that knives are known to not only stab people but also to slash them. No doubt the next version will take this into account and come fully featured with a blunt edge too.

The US is to send financial aid- to be used to combat global warming- to...wait for it...China. Let me see if I have this right- US borrows money from China, US gives money to China because they are "a developing nation", US then repays loan to China plus interest.

Museum Shooting

2009-06-13T10:15:00.003+01:00

There appears to have been a mini-blog storm about Debbie Schlussel's column which argues that the climate of tolerance for Islamic anti-Semitism essentially motivated the Holocaust Museum shooter to carry out his crime. I think she has a definite case to make about the shocking rise of anti-Semitism and its link to the politically correct climate around not offending Muslims, but it's a stretch to go from there to "he committed the shooting solely because of it". Perhaps he did feel more comfortable in his hate but there were other factors at play too.

Having said that, the links between white supremiscists and Muslims have been summarily dismissed or ridiculed by Schlussel's critics. She does bring up Hitler's links to the Grand Mufti and also to the Muslim SS Divisions in response. More pertinent to the argument I think would be this more recent news from 2005-

A couple of hours up the road from where some September 11 hijackers learned to fly, the new head of Aryan Nation is praising them -- and trying to create an unholy alliance between his white supremacist group and al Qaeda.

"You say they're terrorists, I say they're freedom fighters. And I want to instill the same jihadic feeling in our peoples' heart, in the Aryan race, that they have for their father, who they call Allah."

That's right - the head of the Aryan Nation wants to join forces with Al Qaeda, reasoning that they two disparate groups have common enemies- the American government and Jews. There's also this report from 2003-

"Western-made terrorists motivated by Marxist, anarchist and neo-Nazi ideology are forming alliances with jihadists and are planning copycat-style attacks and others utilizing funding from Islamists, according to intelligence sources."

Schlussel may have overstated her argument but there is no denying increased anti-Semitism nor is there the "common cause" that white supremiscists feel they have with jihadists.

Twitter

2009-06-13T01:55:00.002+01:00

Trying out Twitter to see what all the fuss is. Certainly less time consuming to highlight a story than do a blog post. I may use it to point out items of interest which wouldn't normally make it into the blog, but we'll have to see how it holds my interest.

Any readers use it? Let me know.

Here's the link.

Shi No Numa

2009-06-11T20:35:00.003+01:00

Well, downloaded Map Pack 2 for Call of Duty: World at War. Haven't even looked at the new multiplayer maps but I have been playing the new Nazi Zombies game, Shi No Numa (Swamp of Death) for a good part of the afternoon.

It's fantastic- with the new additions to the game and the Imperial Japanese zombies it feels unlike the other two Nazi Zombies games. Treyarch have really outdone themselves with this one. The map is big and sprawling with lots of doors and windows for the zombies to come shambling or running through. I had thought that the randomly generated Perks machines would be frustrating but it works well- especially since you don't have to first go turn on the power to get them working. Also the Box, source of all the good guns, seems to be more rationally programmed- no more getting a useless bolt action rifle on level 12. Fingers crossed they don't change this come the next upgrade- the game is hard enough as it is.

The Hellhound levels are brilliant- I like that they occur randomly and each begins with the whole level filling up with fog, before the Hellhounds spawn and begin attacking. It's a wonderfully spooky touch. Easy to imagine the jungle temperatures plummeting as the air turns to mist. Really, Treyarch- make a whole game of this stuff.

Thus far, the best I've managed is level 15 solo. If you have the pair of MGs, the Browning and the MG-42, stick with the latter when confronted with Hellhounds- the higher rate of fire seems to put them down much easier.

If you have any strategy tips, feel free to leave them in the comments!

One last thing- seems I was right about the Wunderwaffe- not a night-scoped MP-44 but a nifty Nazi electric rifle. I'm not quite sure what to make of the new weapon just yet as I only got to handle it a couple of times. Not quite as effective as the Ray Gun (which appears to still be in the Box) but it's still pretty destructive. If you haven't used it yet, wait until you get a group of zombies coming at you before firing.

Oh, and just one other last thing! The Flogger? It's awesome.

Friend and Mentor

2009-06-11T09:39:00.004+01:00

While Obama panders to the "Muslim world", shakes his finger at the US for having the temerity to worry about a genocidal thug obtaining nuclear weapons, he makes demands of Israel unheard of from any previous American administration- to cease even the natural growth of settlements.

Now, apart from his weekly dinner-and-chats with former PLO spokesman Rashid al-Khalidi and his attending a dinner with Edward Said, his anti-Israel foreign policy team during the campaign, was there any clue as to his apparent animus to Israel? You know, apart from attending a church that printed Hamas propaganda in its newsletter.

Maybe this new comment from Obama's "crazy uncle" Rev Wright will shed some light on matters.

Asked if he had spoken to the President, Wright said: “Them Jews aren’t going to let him talk to me. I told my baby daughter, that he’ll talk to me in five years when he’s a lame duck, or in eight years when he’s out of office…

Wright also said Obama should have sent a U.S. delegation to the World Conference on Racism held recently in Geneva, Switzerland, but that the president did not do so for fear of offending Jews and Israel.

What was the phrase I was looking for? Oh yeah, now I remember- told you so.

A Dangerous Decision

2009-06-11T09:32:00.003+01:00

This is not going to end well.

If Tenet is right, it’s a good thing KSM was captured before Barack Obama became president. For, the Obama Justice Department has quietly ordered FBI agents to read Miranda rights to high value detainees captured and held at U.S. detention facilities in Afghanistan, according a senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. “The administration has decided to change the focus to law enforcement. Here’s the problem. You have foreign fighters who are targeting US troops today – foreign fighters who go to another country to kill Americans. We capture them…and they’re reading them their rights – Mirandizing these foreign fighters,” says Representative Mike Rogers, who recently met with military, intelligence and law enforcement officials on a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan.

So foreign terrorists captured on the battlefield are essentially being given the same rights as US civilians arrested by police back home. How on Earth are they going to square, "you have the right to remain silent," with obtaining actionable intelligence on terrorist plots and/or networks?

Can't have it both ways. This might salve the consciences of liberals in Washington but it will do nothing to protect American servicemen overseas or citizens back home. In short, this disastrous decision is going to get people killed.

TARP Jeopardy

2009-06-10T16:15:00.003+01:00

Mary Katherine Ham reports on just how effective the oversight of TARP really is. From Professor Warren, head of the TARP oversight committee-

There's no discussion of the overall policy. Instead, there are specific programs that are announced, and from that, it's necessary to reason backwards to figure out what the goal must have been. It's like a "Jeopardy!" game. If this is the answer, what was the question? It's frustrating because without a clearly articulated goal and identified metrics to determine whether the goal is being accomplished, it's almost impossible to tell if a program is successful.

And then this-

Q: Do you have a clear sense of what the overall TARP plan at this point is supposed to do? Are you capable of summarizing what it's supposed to be doing?

A: No. And neither is Treasury. Treasury has given us multiple contradictory explanations for what it's trying to accomplish.

Your tax dollars at work, folks.

Osprey To The Rescue

2009-06-10T16:11:00.003+01:00

Another lucky escape for a British soldier- this time due to his Osprey body armour.

Shot in the back by a Taliban sniper, Lance Sergeant Daniel Collins must have thought his luck had finally run out.

Flattened by the force of the bullet, and in excruciating pain, he begged his platoon leader not to tell him how bad is injury was.

But when L/Sgt Grant Lewis went to his comrade's aid he was amazed to find that the bullet had been slowed down by the body armour and had only just penetrated his skin.

Unbelievably, he could even see the bullet and managed to dig it out with his bare hands.

Luckily for him the bullet clipped the very bottom edge of the ceramic plate in his armour- a fraction of an inch lower and he might very well have not lived to tell the tale.

Penny Pinching

2009-06-10T16:04:00.003+01:00

Gordon Brown, currently presiding over Labour's complete destruction, is facing more criticism- this time stemming from his time at Treasury.

Brigadier Ed Butler, the highly-respected officer who led UK forces into Helmand Province in the summer of 2006, told MPs how a 'Treasury-imposed cap' left him with just 3,350 personnel to confront the Taliban.

That was only enough fighting power for 'one significant operation a month' - and not enough to cope with extra battles or unexpected strains, he told the Commons Defence Select Committee.

Things were so bad due to the cap that there were only eight helicopters available for the forces- at a time when many of the roads were considered too dangerous for traffic.

In the event, the Paras and other soldiers from 16 Air Assault Brigade found themselves besieged in camps across northern Helmand, fighting almost constantly for days or weeks at a time and critically short of helicopters to bring in ammunition and food.

Sadly, this has been all too typical for the armed forces under Labour- being asked to do more and more for less and less.

Mandatory Health Insurance

2009-06-09T13:02:00.003+01:00

The first draft of the Democrat health care plan is out.

First of all, you will be required- compelled- to have health insurance. Second, you won't be able to buy just whatever health insurance you want, but one approved by the government. So, even if you're young and healthy and don't want to buy health insurance just yet you'll have to- or else be hit by a punitive tax.

Employers will be forced to offer health insurance- and pay a percentage of the premium or face a punitive tax. In short, one this bill becomes law, wages are going to drop or staff are going to be fired.

Next, the government will decide what benefits your insurance covers. Here comes rationing of services when the costs begin to spiral.

Then, as if that wasn't bad enough, people up to 500% of the poverty line (even children aged up to 26!) will be given subsidies by the government to help pay for their mandatory health insurance. In other words, the rest of America will be paying for it. Those living in cities will receive bigger subsidies than those in rural areas. Gotta keep the Dem base happy, right?

No where in the plan does it say where all the money to pay for this comes from.

Wasn't America supposed to be the land of the free?

Terminal Decline

2009-06-06T20:54:00.003+01:00

Mark Steyn's latest is a sobering read-

Like General Motors, America is “too big to fail.” So it won’t, not immediately. It will linger on in a twilight existence sclerotic and ineffectual, declining unto a kind of societal dementia, unable to keep pace with what’s happening and with an ever more tenuous grip on its own past, but able on occasion to throw out impressive words albeit strung together without much meaning: empower, peace, justice, prosperity — just to take one windy gust from the president’s Cairo speech.

I personally believe that Obama's policies, his out-of-control spending and dramatic transformation of the relationship between government and business and government and the people, are killing America. Each household in the nation currently represents $546,688 of Federal debt- and that debt is only going to increase as Obama institutes further "change"- cap and trade and healh care reform to name but two.

Not only has he bankrupted the nation with a stimulus which has worsened the effects of an economic downturn it was supposed to repair, but when American businesses consider the number one threat to their practices the American government, you have to realise that it's all gone horribly wrong.

I hope I'm wrong but I think that Steyn has it right- America is in a terminal decline.

Reid Strikes Again

2009-06-05T12:01:00.002+01:00

Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse-

Passing immigration reform is “going to happen this session,” Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), referring to the 11th Congress. “But I want it this year if at all possible.”

I warned before the election that an Obama victory would transform America beyond recognition. Even I didn't think the Dems would accomplish so much so fast.

Like A Drunken Sailor

2009-06-04T17:21:00.002+01:00

Obama has plunged the US into debt for generations to come.

And in just one month, CBO estimates had to be revised to show that we will be forced to borrow $9.3 trillion over the next ten years, which is $2.3 trillion more than Obama predicted just a month ago!

• The result, according to the CBO, would be a national debt that threatens the full faith and credit of the American monetary system with a national debt in excess of 82% of the entire economy by 2019.

But it seems he isn't done spending your money just yet. In addition to his health care plan, Obama also plans to spread the wealth around the Muslim world-

On education, we will expand exchange programs, and increase scholarships, like the one that brought my father to America, while encouraging more Americans to study in Muslim communities. And we will match promising Muslim students with internships in America; invest in on-line learning for teachers and children around the world; and create a new online network, so a teenager in Kansas can communicate instantly with a teenager in Cairo.

He can't afford to continue the Washington DC school voucher program but he can do this for foreign students?

And that's not all-

On science and technology, we will launch a new fund to support technological development in Muslim-majority countries, and to help transfer ideas to the marketplace so they can create jobs. We will open centers of scientific excellence in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and appoint new Science Envoys to collaborate on programs that develop new sources of energy, create green jobs, digitize records, clean water, and grow new crops. And today I am announcing a new global effort with the Organization of the Islamic Conference to eradicate polio. And we will also expand partnerships with Muslim communities to promote child and maternal health.

Obama is so generous with your money. Any guesses as to how much these programs are going to cost?

Just Words

2009-06-04T16:51:00.003+01:00

Obama in his speech to the Muslim world-

But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.

Everywhere- except the USA where, apparently, opponents of the government are labelled right wing extremists, where there is no transparency, where the government threatens private business with ruin if they do not hand over their legally held property to unions, where the rule of law is subsumed to feelings of empathy, and where massive, ever increasing government regulation limits your rights to live as you choose.

But, hey, you other folks should really try it out.

The Cairo Speech

2009-06-04T16:13:00.002+01:00

Both Ed Morrissey and Yid With Lid have written up their impressions of Obama's speech. Having read Ed's first, I was somewhat surprised to find Obama not pandering as much as I thought he would. Perhaps he realises that CAIR's inflated figures of American Muslims are just that- no match for Jewish voters come election time.

Yid With Lid also makes a strong argument against Obama and given what we know of Obama, his associations, etc it's hard to disagree with him.

One part of the speech which he highlighted caught my attention- Obama's summary of the Isra, the midnight journey Mohammed claimed to have made. Obama references the story as an example of his utopian vision of the two-state solution. Jews, Christians and Muslims living together in harmony.

Too many tears have flowed. Too much blood has been shed. All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed (peace be upon them) joined in prayer.

There are a few things that Obama either seems to be unaware of or is deliberately obfuscating.

First of all, in the Islamic tradition, Moses and Jesus are not Jewish and Christian figures at all but Muslim ones- as such his story does not represent the three faiths coming together but rather is another example of Islamic domination- taking Moses and Jesus as their own and, especially in the case of Jesus, denying his divinity. In Islam, Jesus was only a prophet, not the son of God. Mohammed wasn't sitting to pray with a Jew and Christ, he was praying with two other Muslim prophets.

This is something that Obama's target audience will be aware of. If Obama doesn't understand what he's talking about then he should perhaps refrain from citing Islamic stories in speeches to the Islamic world.

The second problem with citing the Isra is that this tale is the source of much of the ongoing conflict over Jerusalem. In the tale, Mohammed mounted a flying horse and rose to "the farthest mosque", a location since claimed to have been the Temple Mount. It is this particular fact which causes so much trouble between Israel and its Muslim opponents. For Obama to specifically cite this story in the speech, it seems to me, he seems to be implicitly offering his validation of Muslim claims to Jerusalem.

Not Holding My Breath

2009-06-03T11:18:00.002+01:00

I think the Obama team owes a big public apology to everyone they tried to smear as racist for having the temerity to not only question his upbringing (his Muslim father, step-father, his Muslim school registration in Indonesia and also his own account of reciting the Koran in class for example) but also to even reference his middle name.

During a conference call in preparation for President Obama's trip to Cairo, Egypt, where he will address the Muslim world, deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Denis McDonough said "the President himself experienced Islam on three continents before he was able to -- or before he's been able to visit, really, the heart of the Islamic world -- you know, growing up in Indonesia, having a Muslim father -- obviously Muslim Americans (are) a key part of Illinois and Chicago."

The candidate was even offended when referred to by his initials "BHO," because he considered the use of his middle name, "Hussein," an attempt to frighten voters.

We're waiting.

The Context Lie

2009-06-03T09:14:00.003+01:00

One of the most stunning things about the Sotomayor controversy is the apparent ease with which her defenders have lied on her behalf. Not only where her words not taken out of context but if you read the rest of what she was saying it actually sounds much worse.

But the majority of Americans won't know that. Take Feinstein for example,

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor told Sen. Dianne Feinstein Tuesday her controversial Latina remarks were a "poor choice of words," the California Democrat said.

“She said, 'Obviously it was a poor choice of words if you read on and read the rest of my speech you wouldn’t be concerned with it but it was a poor choice of words,'" Feinstein told reporters.

And this is a lie that has been repeated time and again by Democrats- with no corrections from the MSM.

Embarrassed by a racist statement? Why, just claim it was taken out of context and rely on the media not to report that the opposite is true.

Democrats must really love the "watch-dog" media.

Noob

2009-06-02T00:26:00.001+01:00

Good grief.

It is not every 31-year-old who, in a first government job, finds himself dismantling General Motors and rewriting the rules of American capitalism.

But that, in short, is the job description for Brian Deese, a not-quite graduate of Yale Law School who had never set foot in an automotive assembly plant until he took on his nearly unseen role in remaking the American automotive industry.

No knowledge of the car business- or any business for that matter. But Barack's given him the job anyway.

How long before GM needs another bailout?

New Race Discovered

2009-06-02T00:20:00.002+01:00

It's incredible really- in politically correct Britain there are new races being discovered all the time.

A man brought his German-born neighbour close to tears by twice calling her a schweinhund, a court heard yesterday.

Both the Englishman and his German-born neighbour are white by the way...but get this-

This defendant was well aware of her German heritage. He did not say what he said in English. He said it in German. Mrs Hurst was quite shocked. Schweinhund is an insult in German.'

Robinson denies a charge of racially-aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress on January 24 last year.

Ah, the famed "German" race found at last!

Sotomayor Not Fit For Jury Duty

2009-05-30T00:12:00.003+01:00

Andy McCarthy explains why Obama's Supreme Court nominee is not fit to serve on a jury, let alone the highest court in the USA.

In every trial — every single trial — judges solemnly instruct American citizens who are compelled to perform jury duty that they will have a sworn obligation to decide cases objectively — without fear or favor. If a person is unwilling or unable to do that, if the person believes he or she has a bias or prejudice, especially one based on a belief that people are inferior or superior due to such factors as race, ethnicity, or sex, the person is not qualified to be a juror.

I recommend reading the rest.

Now, what are the odds of a Republican bringing this up with the media, let alone during the confirmation hearings?

Cost Cutting Treatments

2009-05-29T10:53:00.004+01:00

Another example of health care in Britain being dictated by costs rather than medical opinion.

Thousands of patients could undergo unnecessary spinal operations because of new NHS guidelines on treatments for lower back pain, warn experts.

NICE, the group which spent £4.5 million on PR and only £3.4 million on actually assessing new medicines (their actual role), has told doctors not to recommend therapies which have little evidence to support them- MRI scans, X-rays, ultrasound and steroid injections. So if there is some underlying problem with your back, you may not discover what it is because doctors are being told not to send you for expensive scans. A relative of mine, for example, suffered from some terrible back pain and it was only after some months of agony that doctors discovered a tumour in her back. Under these new guidelines, a diagnosis like that may not be made until it's too late.

Now, many patients who fail to respond to initial treatment could miss out this intermediate stage and proceed straight to risky spinal fusion operations.

NICE estimates the NHS will make annual savings of £33million on back injections and £11million on MRI scans.

Costs which will be eaten up by NICE's approved replacement treatments- which include "acupuncture, manual therapy such as physiotherapy, or exercise."

NICE estimates the NHS will make annual savings of £33million on back injections and £11million on MRI scans.

However, it will spend £24million extra on acupuncture and £16million extra on manual therapy, making the cost-cutting aspect negligible.

A £4 million saving- but at what cost to the patient told to go for acupuncture rather than an MRI to discover the root cause of their pain?

A pain specialist and a member of the Interventional Pain Medicine Group of the British Pain Society is not impressed by the new plans-

Dr Ron Cooper, past chairman of the group and a consultant pain specialist in Northern Ireland, said: ‘I have never known so many pain medicine specialists to be so furious. More patients will end up having more expensive surgery, which is unnecessary, risky and has worse results.

‘NICE made it difficult for us to submit evidence to a committee on which there was not one experienced pain physician.

‘The guidelines will make us the laughing stock of Europe, Australia and the U.S. where pain specialists will continue to have full access to a wide range of treatments.’

In short, in an effort to control costs, intermediate treatments (including important investigative tools) are being denied to patients and some people who may not need it will be told to have surgery.

Freedom of Speech

2009-05-29T10:23:00.002+01:00

Looks like it's time to trot out this quote again-

"Being a lover of freedom, when the [Nazi] revolution came, I looked to the universities to defend it [freedom], knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but no, the universities were immediately silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers, whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks...Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth.

Here's yet another example of how much universities value freedom-

A student who wants to form a gun-rights group at the Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC) has been threatened with disciplinary action for her efforts. Student Christine Brashier has turned to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) for help after reporting that administrators banned her informational pamphlets, ordered her to destroy all copies of them, and told her that further "academic misconduct" would not be tolerated.

And now they do it all on their own, without any government coercion.

That's progress for you.

SCHIP

2009-05-29T10:20:00.001+01:00

Tax-payer funded health insurance in America- if you're the child of an illegal alien. From the lips of Obama himself.

If the GOP had any sense this would be running in campaign ads come the mid-terms.

Another Tour

2009-05-28T10:34:00.003+01:00

A novel approach to rehabilitating prisoners in France-

Close to 200 prisoners will cycle around France next month, watched by scores of guards on bicycles, in the first penal version of the Tour de France, authorities said Monday.

The 196 prisoners will cycle in a pack and breakaway sprints will not be allowed. They will be accompanied by 124 guards and prison sports instructors. There will be no ranking, the idea being to foster values like teamwork and effort.

They will complete 1,400 miles before finishing in Paris. Unlike the regular Tour, this will not be a race as the prisoners have to ride in a pack.

We're only a couple of steps away from turning this into a sci-fi movie- upgrade the bicycles to motorcycles, arm the prisoners and make it an elimination race. Death Race could have some serious competition.

Reagan Honoured In London

2009-05-23T16:20:00.002+01:00

A statue honouring Ronald Reagan is to be erected in London- breaking a rule which states that statues should not be put up of people who have not been dead for at least 10 years.

Westminster City Council granted planning permission for the 10ft bronze sculpture to be erected outside the U.S. Embassy in Grosvenor Square.

In discarding the rule, the council stated-

'Regardless of politics, nobody can dispute that President Reagan was a true ally of this country.'

In addition, to recognise his part in ending the Cold War, a piece of the Berlin Wall will be installed in front of the statue. Amazingly, the US Embassy in London is less than impressed.

However occupants at the U.S. Embassy have given the statue a frosty reception.

An embassy spokesman told The Times newspaper: 'This is not something that we have requested or actively tried to get brought about.

When asked if the embassy would take the statue with it when it leaves Grosvenor Square for its new head-quarters in Nine Elms, the spokesperson said: 'It’s not our statue.'

I'll bet he'd be saying something else if it were a statue of Obama. Instead he comes off sounding like some petulant child.

Verruckt

2009-05-22T18:56:00.001+01:00

For those of you who have never played Nazi Zombies, here's a trailer for the last map pack game Verruckt.

New Nazi Zombies

2009-05-22T00:30:00.003+01:00

Well, I'm only just starting to get into Verruckt- when the map came out I thought it was crazy hard and didn't play too much. Besides that my online play has dwindled to nothing. Anyway, it's only in the past week that I've dedicated some time to Verruckt and managed to get up into the teen-levels.

It's still crazy hard and I hate that there's no good place to stand where the zombies can't come charging at you from three different directions at once.

Anyway, now that I've gotten that off my chest, here's the news on the next map pack- out some time in June.

The map is called Shi No Numa which is Japanese for Zombie Swamp. Why the change from German nomenclature I don't know- perhaps this one should be called Imperial Japanese Zombies? There will be Perk machines, new achievements/trophies, flaming Hell Hounds and a mysterious weapon called the Wunderwaffe DG-2. There's a great deal of speculation on the gaming boards that this is a Vampir- an StG-44 with night vision device mounted- but I'm not convinced. Why give an existing weapon a new and made-up designation? I'm hoping it's something more along the lines of the Ray Gun.

Not long to the release date now and I can't wait. Nazi Zombies is, without a doubt, an utterly awesome game.

NIH Strikes Again

2009-05-21T16:44:00.004+01:00

Here we go again. Not content with wasting US tax dollars studying drunken gay sex in Argentina and advising Chinese prostitutes on how to drink responsibly on the job, the NIH is also researching the reasons behind drug-using Thai prostitutes having high HIV rates.

The federal government is spending $178,000 to better understand why drug-abusing prostitutes in Thailand are at greater risk for HIV infection, an endeavor taxpayer watchdogs are calling a huge waste of American taxpayers' money.

Something of an understatement.

The NIH funds many studies that focus on HIV risk and prevention in hopes that it can lay the vital groundwork for developing treatment and intervention plans to thwart the deadly AIDS virus.

Now, why would female and transgender prostitutes who also abuse drugs have higher than normal rates of HIV? Hmm, that's a real puzzler. It's also difficult to think of some way of reducing the rates in a group of people who regularly engage in risky sex and risky drug use? Oh, if only there was some clue to solving this enigma.

The NIH spends $29 billion each year to help fund thousands of health studies, including many overseas initiatives.

Oh, and they're also studying suicide patterns in young men and women...in China. Apparently the NIH doesn't seem to realise that they are a US institution funded by US citizens. I think too- I think this is right, correct me if I'm wrong- that Argentina, Thailand and even China have their own governments which can, if they so desire, spend their own money on these particular research programs.

Your tax dollars at work, folks. And, as they say on FARK, still no cure for cancer.

GRE

2009-05-21T16:28:00.004+01:00

Here's another recommendation for David Codrea's Gun Rights Examiner. This time he tackles the subject not only of America's two-tier legal system, whereby individuals in certain professions are offered remarkably lenient treatment compared to the public at large, but also of the myth that LEOs are the only ones possessed of the skills necessary to bear arms.

Go check it out (and check the archives for any you may have missed) and then help spread the word!

Che T-Shirt

2009-05-21T16:25:00.002+01:00

Finally, a Che T-shirt I can get behind-

No Fly No Buy

2009-05-20T02:05:00.003+01:00

David Codrea's latest GRE is on Carolyn McCarthy and her plan (HR 2401) to deny American citizens their Constitutionally guaranteed rights without being charged with any crime or facing any kind of trial.

To increase public safety and reduce the threat to domestic security by including persons who may be prevented from boarding an aircraft in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, and for other purposes.

In other words, if your name appears on the No Fly list you will be denied the right to keep and bear arms. As David points out, the list is far from perfect: Teddy Kennedy himself was affected by this when his name appeared on the list-

While he worked to clear himself, Kennedy kept having to wait in terminals at Reagan National, Boston's Logan International and at least one other airport, his staff said. All of the flights were on US Airways. When the senator checked in at the counter, airline employees told him they could not issue him a boarding pass because he appeared on the list. Kennedy was delayed until a supervisor could be summoned to identify him and give approval for him to board the plane.

Even though he's a famous US Senator, it still took him three weeks to have his name (which had been used as an alias by a terrorist apparently) removed from the list. What do you suppose it would take- in time and effort- to have your name taken off the list and have your seized firearms returned to you? Under such circumstances I would say that three months would be an overly optimistic evaluation.

One last thing, McCarthy does know she's a member of Congress in America doesn't she?

No, Mr President

2009-05-20T01:34:00.003+01:00

From Hot Air comes this video featuring John Piper on the subject of abortion. It's quite a powerful presentation in my opinion- as AP says, it very effectively combines speech and animation- and I recommend watching (it's only three and a half minutes long).

Snark

2009-05-20T01:08:00.002+01:00

As anyone with half a brain knows, Tam is the undisputed Queen of Snark.

On Nancy Pelosi avoiding the media this weekend-

That's because the foot in your mouth doesn't get any tastier no matter how much you wiggle the toes.

On Ruger offering an AR rifle, complete with 30-round magazines-

Did you hear? Ruger's gone carbon-neutral. Yup, they've wrapped ol' Bill “No Honest Man Needs A Handgun Smaller Than A Canned Ham” Ruger Sr.'s corpse in copper wire and lined the coffin with magnets, and now the whole plant is off the grid.

On the McCain-Obama match-up-

A rudderless GOP tendered up the lamest candidate imaginable, with the looks of Amonhotep III, a completely demagnetized policy needle, and all the public speaking skills of Marcel Marceau, and even with the most charismatic presidential candidate to make it to the finals since 1984, you still only got 52% of the vote.

On the SPAS-12-

An innovative Italian fowling piece that could malfunction in both semiauto and slide-action modes. As an added bonus, on the early versions the safety wasn't. Plus it had ergonomics apparently designed for people with hands that could palm basketballs and two elbows per arm.

On an article about a gun "buy back" -

The tone of the article is so supine, so docilely toothless, that it leaves one in slack-jawed amazement that someone so obviously ovine could operate a keyboard with their little cloven hooves.

And that's just a quick sampling from what's on the front page at the moment. Her crown remains firmly unassailable from all and sundry.

All of which leads me to this, a comment by Mark Hemingway over at NRO, which struck me as being particularly Tam-esque,

You can read the transcript here, but as to be expected, you could probably give yourself a pre-frontal lobotomy with a screwdriver that's accidentally been dropped in the toilet and come off more coherent than Joe Biden.

If you head on over there and check out what Biden did come out with, you'd be forgiven for thinking for a few moments that you'd clicked on a link to The Onion and not NRO.

If you ever hear someone talk muddle-headed, rambling, nonsensical drivel I think it's now safe to say that they're "pulling a Biden".

Fuel Standards

2009-05-19T15:14:00.002+01:00

Obama again-

President Barack Obama's proposed new fuel and emission standards for cars and trucks will save billions of barrels of oil but are expected to cost consumers an extra $1,300 per vehicle by the time the plan is complete in 2016.

Obama on Tuesday planned to announce the first-ever national emissions limits for vehicles, as well as require a 35.5 miles per gallon fuel efficiency standard.

Boy, is that rich - coming as it does from a guy who drives around in an 8 mpg behemoth and who flies globally in a massive jet accompanied by a huge staff and security detail. Saving the environment is for you chumps, not the President.

But hey, don't worry- if government calculations are correct you'll be able to make up that extra $1300 cost in savings at the pump. Because we all know that the equivalent of taking 177 million vehicles off the road won't impact oil production and costs.

Canadian Law Enforcement

2009-05-19T11:09:00.003+01:00

Wow. Just...wow.

Anyone who has ridden an escalator and bothered to pay attention has seen – and likely ignored – little signs suggesting riders hold the grimy handrail.

Bela Kosoian, a 38-year-old mother of two, says when she didn't hold the handrail Wednesday she was cuffed, dragged into a small holding cell and fined.

Travelling down the escalator, she was looking for her fare in her bag when a police officer told her to hold the rail. When she told him she didn't have three hands he demanded to see her ID so that he could write her a ticket. That's when she argued with him.

The officers handcuffed her and threw her into a small holding cell. The officers searched her bag and gave her a $100 ticket for failing to hold the banister and another $320 ticket for obstruction.

The handcuffs bruised Ms. Kosoian's wrists and an officer's boot scraped skin off the top of her foot.

I guess Canada has solved all of the really serious crime for police to concentrate on matters like this.

And note too that her original "crime" is considered to warrant a lesser fine than her refusal to kowtow to the cop's authority.

Warped Priorities

2009-05-19T10:19:00.003+01:00

Not so long ago, social workers wanted to steal a baby from a pregnant woman when it was born- because she had been treated for an eating disorder and self-harming as a teenager and they had decided that she posed a risk to her unborn child. They said it was all for the good of the child. She eventually had to flee the United Kingdom in order to avoid this draconian decision- one since over-ruled I might add.

But social services don't seem to always be so concerned about "the good of the children".

Social workers put the rights of a teenage sex offender over those of the foster family whose children he went on to abuse, a report has found.

The married couple who welcomed the 19-year-old into their home were not told of his sexual interest in minors.

They only discovered the truth after he raped their two-year-old son and molested their nine-year-old daughter.

Why did they put this family's children at such risk?

Yesterday, social services admitted they had withheld the information because they considered the paedophile to be 'the one in need of protection'.

Sure, a paedophile needs protection- so let's put him in a home with young children and not tell their parents.

The boy had sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl, had exposed himself and touched a young boy sexually at a care hostel and had faced allegations five years earlier of 'sexually inappropriate behaviour' with a young boy.

And yet he was not locked away where he posed no further risk to children. The staff who made the decision to withhold information from the foster family face losing their jobs, but their boss won't-

Three members of the council's 'leaving care' team now face dismissal and could be struck off the social workers register following-further investigation into their decisions

After apologising to the devastated family, director of social services Philip Evans refused to resign, insisting he should stay on to bring in improvements.

But of course.

Surveillance State

2009-05-19T10:06:00.001+01:00

A £500 million investment and nothing to show for it.

The millions of CCTV cameras on Britain's streets have done virtually nothing to cut crime, Home Office research has revealed.

Cameras in town centres, housing estates and on public transport 'did not have a significant effect', a report concluded.

It found that the only offence that was heavily reduced by their presence was theft from vehicles in car parks.

But will we see them being removed from our streets before further money is wasted? Don't hold your breath.

Police Failure

2009-05-19T09:11:00.006+01:00

So much for the sex offenders registry and police monitoring.

A paedophile who was being monitored by police and was already on the sex offenders register, went on to abuse a four-year-old girl.

He had been convicted of sexual assault and gross indecency with underage girls- but instead of locking him up where he posed no further threat to the most vulnerable segment of society, the authorities let him walk free- and their system failed dramatically.

The police watchdog upheld a complaint, adding that the force failed to take appropriate action, 'endangering the welfare of the children living there'.

They also found 'organisational failings within the force's management of sexual offenders'.

But despite the fact that a four year old girl was assaulted because of those failings, no officers will be held accountable and punished.

'While the IPCC found that two junior officers had failed in their specific duty, we concluded those failings were a symptom of more serious organisational failures which led to the overall poor management of this registered sex offender.'

In other words, they failed to perform their duty- but because this particular police force's whole system was lacking, nothing is being done. As the police complaints body states,

'This little girl has suffered a traumatic experience and I hope that the family take some comfort that lessons have been learned from this to try and stop something similar going wrong in the future.'

Basically, we messed up and allowed your four year old to be abused by an already convicted paedophile but we hope it won't happen again. Oh, and no one will face any kind of sanctions for the fact that our whole system was a failure. Not the specific officers in question or their superiors.

And as for the two police officers who the commission found to have failed, what of them?

'Gwent Police has fully accepted the IPCC investigation findings and conclusions. I have also agreed with the force that while two police constables would receive management advice, no other individual officer should face misconduct action because of the organisational failings.'

Management advice is the "punishment" for two police officers failing in their duty to adequately monitor a convicted child abuser who went on to assault a four year old.

And I see that no senior officers will be held accountable for the so-called "organisational failings" of Gwent police. Apparently, no one is responsible for that.

And one other thing- this man was originally convicted in 1998 and then again, for this crime, in 2007. So what did the judge have to say about it all-

'There is a high risk you will continue to seek out and sexually assault young female children.

'In my judgement, there is a clear risk you will physically injure those children and given your selection in this case of a very young child, there is a substantial risk of causing serious physical risk to young children.'

And the judge's sentence?

An indeterminate sentence with a minimum tariff of three years.

Note, not a minimum tariff of thirty years despite the fact that he was not only guilty of already abusing young children but the judge himself said he posed "a high risk", "a clear risk" and that there was a "substantial risk" to young children from him.

It's not only the police who are to blame- it's the courts that allowed this man out of prison after his first conviction and who have again issued a too lenient sentence- after three years are up he will again be eligible for parole.

Casting Decisions

2009-05-18T18:50:00.003+01:00

Breaking news from Hollywood- a new biopic is being made of Martin Luther King and the hot favourite to play the part is none other than....Jet Li.

Preposterous? Absolutely- and completely untrue. But it does seem that some in Hollywood are considering making a similarly bizarre casting choice.

Jamie Foxx, the African-American actor, singer and comedian, has been named as a potential contender for the role of Frank Sinatra in Martin Scorcese's biopic of the entertainer.

Sure, I just just see cinema audiences queuing up to see this one. While they're at it, why not cast Harrison Ford as Barack Obama and Will Smith as John McCain in a film about the last campaign?

So long as we're being "colour blind".

The Road Trailer

2009-05-18T14:51:00.002+01:00

I haven't yet read the book this is based on but the post-apocalyptic setting alone is enough to put this high on my list of "want to see" films. I'm torn between wanting to read the source material and avoiding all knowledge of the story/plot so that I can go into the cinema without any preconceptions.

Anyway, this looks good-

UK Policing Targets

2009-05-15T23:28:00.003+01:00

Crime in North Wales-

Compared to the same period last year violent crime in North Wales has increased by 18 per cent, burglaries have risen by nearly 8 per cent and robberies have rocketed by an amazing 115 per cent.

So, what's a police force to do?

Police have been ordered to go on litter patrol in a bid to boost the number of people nicked for minor offences.

Officers will be forced to ditch their uniforms and go out undercover in plain clothes in an attempt to hit performance targets.

However cops are furious over the move - because they don't even have the powers to issue on-the-spot-fines.

Instead, they will have to radio a PCSO - a lower ranking officer - to attend the scene to slap the offender with a £50 to £80 penalty.

Brilliant- instead of tackling real crime, police are being forced to meet pointless targets instead.

Is it any wonder the country's in the state it is?

Slandering Their Opposition

2009-05-15T23:12:00.003+01:00

Opposed to gay couples adopting children? Well, Britain's state-funded adoption agency thinks you're "a retarded homophobe".

Isn't political correctness wonderful?

And get this-

The British Association for Adoption and Fostering sets rules and organises training for social workers across the country.

The organisation strongly supports the legal requirement that the perceived interests of children are paramount and the wishes of would-be parents are of minor importance.

It insists that children go to homes only of adoptive parents of the same race.

Gay couples- fine. Mixed race families- verboten.

And the whole concept of gay adoption didn't fulfil its intended purpose-

Until Tony Blair's 2002 Adoption Act, children could be adopted only by married couples or single people.

Mr Blair argued that the reform would increase the proportion of the 60,000 children in state care who win new families through adoption.

But the numbers have actually fallen. Since 2004, adoptions from care have dropped from 3,800 a year to 3,200.

And because of social workers' opposition to mixed-race families-

Black children are missing out because there is a shortage of black couples wishing to adopt, yet social workers oppose sending them to non-black families.

But, hey, these rules are for the good of the children.

Citizen's Arrest

2009-05-15T23:00:00.002+01:00

Another "only in the UK" moment.

A man who tried to carry out a citizen's arrest on youths who he said were attempting to break into allotment sheds was himself arrested by police.

Phil Hennessey, 44, was arrested in Medway on suspicion of assault and carrying a weapon, and bailed until July. He spent a night in custody.

Hat tip to Smallest Minority. And, yeah, you really should read that Überpost™^©®!

Live Free Or Die

2009-05-15T22:56:00.001+01:00

Mark Steyn-

After the President unveiled his budget, I heard Americans complain, oh, it's another Jimmy Carter, or LBJ's Great Society, or the new New Deal. You should be so lucky. Those nickel-and-dime comparisons barely begin to encompass the wholesale Europeanization that's underway. The 44th president's multi-trillion-dollar budget, the first of many, adds more to the national debt than all the previous 43 presidents combined, from George Washington to George Dubya. The President wants Europeanized health care, Europeanized daycare, Europeanized education, and, as the Europeans have discovered, even with Europeanized tax rates you can't make that math add up. In Sweden, state spending accounts for 54% of GDP. In America, it was 34%—ten years ago. Today, it's about 40%. In four years' time, that number will be trending very Swede-like.

There's much more- I recommend it all.

Zombie Stimulus

2009-05-15T22:48:00.003+01:00

Looks like the stimulus is being used to pay off long time Democrat voters-

Antoniette Santopadre of Valley Stream was expecting a $250 stimulus check. But when her son finally opened it, they saw that the check was made out to her father, Romolo Romonini, who died in Italy 34 years ago. He'd been a U.S. citizen when he left for Italy in 1933, but only returned to the United States for a seven-month visit in 1969.

A careless error? Not really-

The Santopadres are not alone. The Social Security Administration, which sent out 52 million checks, says that some of those checks mistakenly went to dead people because the agency had no record of their death. That amounts to between 8,000 and 10,000 checks for millions of dollars.

An estimation evidently- the figure could conceivably be larger. So, the cheques were sent out to people in the system who hadn't yet been flagged as deceased?

The strange thing is, some of the checks were made out to people -- like Romonini -- who were never even part of the Social Security system.

So where did the names and addresses come from? Voter registration forms?

Explorer Program

2009-05-15T22:29:00.003+01:00

The New York Times posted a story about The Explorers program where the young people were receiving law enforcement-style training.

The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence — an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters.

All well and good. But this caught my attention-

Ten minutes into arrant mayhem in this town near the Mexican border, and the gunman, a disgruntled Iraq war veteran, has already taken out two people, one slumped in his desk, the other covered in blood on the floor.

The responding officers — eight teenage boys and girls, the youngest 14 — face tripwire, a thin cloud of poisonous gas and loud shots — BAM! BAM! — fired from behind a flimsy wall. They move quickly, pellet guns drawn and masks affixed.

So, in these days of Islamic terrorism, illegal aliens and drug-fuelled border violence- they even mention responding to campus shootings- the scenario they're training on involves a "disgruntled Iraq war veteran"?

Gun Rights Examiner

2009-05-15T21:58:00.003+01:00

David Codrea's latest Gun Rights Examiner is a must read-

Information I have received from reliable sources says the Zeta criminal organization is stepping up its ruthlessness on our side of the border. Mules who if detected would previously abandon contraband they were smuggling, must now, under threat of death for failure, protect the drug shipments they are carrying rather than abandon them. To do this, they have been ordered to carry weapons.

Expect more violence, more deaths...and more calls from Democrats demanding that Mexican drug runners being armed requires the disarmament of US citizens.

While you're there make sure to also read about the lies being peddled by American politicians and their lackeys in the media about US guns in Mexico.

Afghanistan Fashion

2009-05-15T21:48:00.005+01:00

A great photo from the Daily Mail of troops in Afghanistan defending themselves from an attack. Roused from sleep, one soldier only had time to grab his weapon, vest and helmet- so he ended up fighting in flip-flops and pink "I love New York" boxer shorts.

The young man in question, Zachary Boyd, joined up because of the 9/11 attacks.