Rudy's pipe dream

From The Washington Post:

NEW YORK, Dec. 18 -- His national poll numbers are a dream, he's a major box office draw on the Republican Party circuit, and he goes by the shorthand title "America's Mayor." All of which has former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani convinced he just might become America's president in 2008.

He is showing the early signs of a serious candidacy: Giuliani's presidential exploratory committee throws its first major fundraiser in a hotel near Times Square on Tuesday evening, and he recently hired the political director of the Republican National Committee during 2006. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released last week found that Republicans give Giuliani an early lead over Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who is far ahead of the former mayor in organizing a national campaign.

Despite that lead, conservative party strategists and activists in key primary states are skeptical and warn that the socially liberal Republican faces a difficult campaign. They question whether a Republican who has had one marriage end in annulment and another in divorce, and favors abortion rights, gun control and immigrant rights, has much retail appeal in the evangelical and deeply conservative reaches of the GOP.

The major silver lining in the dark cloud of last November's elections were the number of RINOs which were slain at the polls.

Giuliani had an opportunity to distance himself from his extreme left-wing social positions by ascribing them to the necessity of running for office in a liberal bastion like New York City. He could have convincingly explained that when he lifted his eyes from the socialist cesspool of Manhattan and surveyed the rest of the nation that many things became clear to him.

He has largely thrown that opportunity away by digging in his heels and reaffirming his support for partial-birth abortion and civilian disarmament (gun control). He is hoping that his hawkish stance on national security and tax cuts will overshadow his left-wing social views.

He is in error. Most conservatives are wise enough to realize that while nothing else ultimately matters if you don't defend the country that defending a country that isn't worth living in is not worth the effort. The fact that Rudy also favors amnesty and an open borders policy for the alien criminals is another nail in his political coffin.

If Rudy were the only person on the Republican side who cared about the war in Iraq or terrorism or tax cuts then he might have a chance. However Giuliani's views on taxes, the war and crime are not unique in the Republican Party. In a race between a primary candidate who agrees with them all the time and a candidate who agrees with them half the time the great majority of Republican primary voters will pick the candidate that agrees with them all the time.

The largest single voting bloc in the Republican Party are the social conservatives, most of them religious. The winning strategy for the Republican Party in 2008 is to find a social conservative who is attractive and a good communicator who can make his case to moderate and conservative Democrats. This should not be difficult.

The results of the recent election give conservatives good reason to hope. Liberal Republicans lost big and conservative Democrats won big. Other reasons to be hopeful: Almost every state in the Union has adopted "shall issue" laws for concealed handgun permits. More Americans favor restricting the abortion today than at any point since the Supreme Court handed down Roe v Wade. Joe Lieberman's victory in Connecticut demonstrates that all else being equal a pro-war stance does not harm a candidate.

Genuine conservatives are well positioned for 2008 - provided they keep their heads and avoid liberal RINOs like Rudolph Giuliani and John McCain.

Tonight's music video

This is the Battlefield Band playing at the Brunton Theatre, Musselburgh, in Scotland early in 2006.

The Battlefield Band stand among the giants of the traditional Celtic music scene. A position which they have held for decades.

The White Man's Burden

Theodore Dalrymple takes a leftist newspaper writer to the woodshed for a conspicuous example of liberal condescension:

A headline in the British liberal newspaper, the Guardian, caught my eye recently: IRAQIS CAN’T BE BLAMED FOR THE CHAOS UNLEASHED BY INVASION. The writer was that newspaper’s veteran foreign correspondent, Jonathan Steele (another immortal headline to one of his articles, in May 2002, read: NEW YORK IS STARTING TO FEEL LIKE BREZHNEV’S MOSCOW).

Let us grant, for argument’s sake, the article’s premise: that American policy in Iraq has been naive, rash, foolish, precipitate, and culpable. Yet still it would not follow that “Iraqis can’t be blamed” and so forth, unless one also believed what not even the severest critics of the Bush administration have alleged—that the American army, or other agents of the American government, have desired, planned, and even executed the ongoing terrorist attacks in Baghdad.

The only other explanation of the non-culpability of Iraqis would be that they were not really full members of the human race—in other words, that they did not reflect upon their circumstances and act upon their reflections in the way that the fully responsible and therefore potentially culpable Americans do.

[. . .]

Not even the most ardent, anthropomorphic dog-lover credits his pet with a fully developed moral sense, and he therefore regards its misdemeanors with an indulgence that he would not extend to a ten-year-old child. The author regards Iraqis as if they were in the same moral category as pets: for can one really say that people who travel to a different part of the city to explode bombs, resulting in scores of deaths of people chosen merely because they are (most of them) of a different religious confession, do not appreciate what they are doing, any more than a dog appreciates what it does when it knocks over a precious porcelain vase?

[. . .]

Dare I say it: the inability to take seriously the culpability of men and women who, as a matter of policy or tactics, kill large numbers of passers-by and bystanders is a hangover of the late Victorian imperial sensibility, which viewed much of the world’s population as intellectual and moral minors. Special pleading of the kind encapsulated in the headline is not a manifestation of broadmindedness or generosity but of deep-seated arrogance.

Dr. Dalrymple is entirely correct. Furthermore the arrogance is not restricted to the heirs of the Victorian era in England. American left liberals show exactly the same kind of casual assumption of superiority when they excuse the actions of domestic criminals who happen to be Black or Hispanic or some other racial or ethnic minority.

The idea that non-White, non-Christian or non-Western persons are simply unable to perform to the same high standard as "real people" is seen nowhere more clearly than in the paroxysms of outrage over the sophomoric antics of a handful of prison guards at Abu Ghraib from people who seem to have had no problem whatsoever with Saddam Hussein filling mass graves or his sons maintaining rape rooms where they entertained themselves with 12 year-old victims.

This may well be what most conservatives find most annoying about the left.

Painful, but necessary

From The Washington Post:

At least seven Virginia Episcopal parishes, opposed to the consecration of a gay bishop and the blessing of same-sex unions, have voted overwhelmingly to break from the U.S. church in a dramatic demonstration of widening rifts within the denomination.

Two of the congregations are among the state's largest and most historic: Truro Church in Fairfax City and The Falls Church in Falls Church, which have roots in the 1700s. Their leaders have been in the vanguard of a national effort to establish a conservative alternative to the Episcopal Church, the U.S. wing of the 77 million-member worldwide Anglican Communion.

[. . .]

The votes are fresh evidence of an increasingly bitter split within the U.S. Episcopal Church. Seven of its 111 dioceses have rejected the authority of Presiding U.S. Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, installed in November as the first woman to head an Anglican church. Schori supports V. Gene Robinson, an openly gay man elected bishop of New Hampshire in 2003.

"I grew up in the Episcopal Church. I hope I don't cry when I talk about this," said a shaken Katrina Wagner, 37, an accountant and member of Truro's vestry, after the congregation's vote was announced. "But the issue is: Are we going to follow Scripture?"

That is exactly the question. Are you going to follow Scripture? If not then don't call yourself a "Church". There are all sorts of ways that a group of people who wish to do good in the world can combine to do that good without pretending to be a Christian religious organization.

The Christian Church exists for one purpose, the fulfillment of the Great Commission to spread the gospel (good news) of eternal salvation through faith in the sacrificial death and bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christians are told to "love God with all their heart, soul, mind and body" and that the only genuine way of demonstrating that love is in keeping His commandments.

If you "cherry-pick" the parts of the Bible which you like and delete or downplay the rest you are not worshiping God and following his Word. You are setting yourself up as the final judge of right and wrong and attempting to knock God off his throne and take his place.

Martin Luther said, "If I uphold and defend all parts of Scripture except those parts which the world and the Devil are currently attacking I have not confessed Christ no matter how loudly I have professed Christ".

Luther was correct. The modern Episcopal Church, save those congregations which withdraw, is no longer a Christian Church no matter how many crosses top their buildings, no matter how many beautiful stained glass windows they have and no matter how many bibles they place on their pulpits.

And as for the homosexuals who will be made to feel warm and loved and accepted and affirmed in the new Christless Episcopal "Church"? Those warm fuzzies will not help them in hell - which they will go to not because they are gay, but because they reject the Lord that IS in favor of a fantasy god who doesn't say anything that makes them feel uncomfortable.

Air America, circling the bowl

From The New York Times:

In its search for a new chief executive this past summer, Air America Radio interviewed seasoned media executives in an effort to revive the faltering network. One interview took a bizarre turn, however, when the executive got into a political argument with Randi Rhodes, one of the network’s on-air hosts.

“I laughed and said, ‘You sound like Republican talking points,’ ” Ms. Rhodes recalled.

At Air America, business and politics always mixed, and that was the problem, critics contend. Begun with an onslaught of publicity in spring 2004 as an alternative to right-wing talk radio, the network is given some of the credit by its supporters for having helped achieve the Democrats’ Congressional election victory in November.

Yeah right. That would be why the new congressional Democrats ran as conservative pro-gun, pro-life, tax-cutting fiscal hawks. That would also be why the high-profile left-wing Democrat leaders like Nancy Pelosi went dark during the weeks before the election so as not to remind the public what Democrats really stand for.

The truth is that the Democrats were able to win in spite of moonbats like Air America, The DailyKos and Democratic Underground - not because of them.

The truth can be seen in this:

In recent weeks, Air America, which has its headquarters in New York and reaches about 2.4 million listeners weekly, has suffered the defection of a handful of its more than 80 affiliated stations and soon faces the likely departure of its most visible host, Al Franken, even as it cobbles together a plan to emerge from Chapter 11.

You get the part about how they reach 2.4 million listeners per week? RUSH LIMBAUGH REACHES MORE THAN TWICE THAT MANY PEOPLE IN 5 MINUTES.

Cleaning up the mess in Africa

From The Washington Post:

LAST WEEK President Bush hosted a White House summit on malaria. "We know exactly what it takes to treat and prevent the disease," Mr. Bush said, referring to insecticide-treated bed nets and other simple measures. "The only question is whether we have the will to act." The day before the malaria summit, the question of will was raised again by the announcement of an AIDS breakthrough. According to clinical trials conducted in South Africa, Kenya and Uganda, male circumcision can cut the chances of HIV infection by perhaps 60 percent; on one estimate, making circumcision widely available could avert 3 million deaths over 20 years in sub-Saharan Africa. The question is whether health systems in poor countries will be boosted so that circumcision is an option for those who want it.

I'll add a couple of things. Tens of thousands of children die from dysentery because the disease dehydrates them. The body loses its electrolytes causing the heart to become unable to function properly and the child dies. Oral re-hydration salts could save them, or at least the overwhelming majority of them. What are oral re-hydration salts you ask. They are small packets of the minerals which the body needs. Add them to water, stir and what you have is in essence Gatorade. Give this to the child with dysentery and his electrolyte balance is maintained until the disease passes through his body and he lives.

The packet of oral re-hydration salts costs pennies.

You might ask why, since the things are so cheap, are the packets of oral re-hydration salts not ubiquitous in Africa. This is, after all, the kind of thing that the US and the EU and the UN can (or should) agree on. This is even one of the few things that the Islamic world doesn't call blasphemous and fly into a murderous rage over.

Basically the problem is a failure of the local governments to rise above tribalism. The borders of most African nations were drawn by European colonial powers without regard to the tribal makeup of the territories they were creating. To make things worse the Europeans would often draw their native government administrators, soldiers and police from the minority tribe. This was done on the theory that the minority tribe would be more loyal due to the fact that their place of privilege in the nation was due only to the colonizing power and without them they could face retribution from the majority.

Another way in which this tribalism comes into play is the distribution of food aid. If you take the food grown in Africa and add the food sent into Africa by the various world charities (government and private) there is enough food to feed everyone an adequate diet. However the food is often either siphoned off into the black market with the money from its sale finds its way into some "leader's" Swiss bank account or is held back from the starving because the government considers them to be disloyal.

Another area where millions of lives could be saved is in the reintroduction of the insecticide DDT to control mosquito populations. DDT is one of the safest insecticides to humans and other mammals ever developed. The only thing standing in the way of bringing back DDT is the failure of will in the Western governments to stand up to their domestic environmentalists.

Another area where the lunatic fanaticism of the Greens is costing Third World lives is in their success at banning CFC refrigerants. Many medicines, you see, have to be kept cold or they go bad. Making refrigeration more expensive means that there will be a shortage of that which was already in short supply in the places where it is needed most.

If the European colonial powers had taken a more enlightened approach to the dismantling of their colonial empires a great deal of this could have been avoided. They should have adopted a slow process of withdrawal lasting 100 - 150 years. During the long transition period they could have established a nationwide educational system, a transportation infrastructure and a national electrical grid all of which would have weakened the grip of tribalism and left the African nations ready (or at least more ready) to take on the burdens, responsibilities and rewards of full independence sometime in the first quarter of the 22nd Century.

Also, before the Europeans left they could have also done incalculable good for the people of Africa by eradicating every last trace of Islam from the continent, but that's a another story.

Tonight's Video

Tonight's video is of the Glengarry Bhoys performing at the Arts Center in Wellsville, NY. Yes, they are from Canada, but don't hate them for it.

The reports of our death have been exaggerated

Barry Rubin, writing in the Jerusalem Post, doesn't think much of the idea that American influence will no longer be a factor in world affairs:

Suddenly, there's a new fad in discussing international affairs today, and it may be summarized as the "America is dead" school. Echoing Iran, Western - including US - analysts are claiming that recent events prove the United States is a pitiful, helpless giant.

What the heck is this based on? The only two pieces of evidence seem to be the fact that the US has been unable to transform Iraq and Afghanistan into stable democracies in a brief span of time. And, one might add at the extreme limit, that it has not ended the Arab-Israeli conflict, defeated the forces of radical Islamism, or stopped Iran from developing nuclear weapons either.

This is going to be a very short-lived myth, based on an extremely near-sighted view of the international situation. Regarding Iraq, the Baker-Hamilton report - which basically proposes that America throw itself on the mercy of its worst adversaries to save itself - is already the thing that is dead. The Bush administration has already clearly rejected the report and is working on its own plan, to be issued in January.

September 11 was only a little over five years ago. Only a generation raised on television programs in which any problem in life can be solved in a half hour, with time left for commercial breaks, could complain that all the work isn't finished, the tools put away and the sawdust swept up by now.

THE ADMINISTRATION'S rhetoric has also changed quite noticeably. Instead of speaking of "victory" in Iraq, it talks of "success," which is explicitly defined as a regime in Iraq which can defend and sustain itself while being an ally in the war against terror. This is no petty verbal shift. It is a long-needed lowering of goals and expectations.

No longer will the US seek a perfect Iraq, but rather a realistic scenario of a country which can fight its own civil war. The US will help, but cannot deliver, victory in Baghdad. The style and methods used to carry on the battle will be Iraqi, not American.

This is a very good point. It was never realistic to think that an Arab/Muslim country where the primary loyalty was to sect and tribe was going to be able to be transformed into a US or UK style pluralistic democracy with stability and the rule of law.

The goal of an Iraqi government which is strong enough and stable enough to endure and (with ample US assistance) keep the lid on its own internal divisions - and resist Iranian and Syrian meddling - is very doable. And it would leave the average Iraqi far better off than he was under Saddam and far better off than the average Arab/Muslim citizen of any other nation in the Middle East (except Israel where the Arab citizens enjoy the same rights as the Jewish citizens).

In his conclusion he offers an excellent observation:

If, however, anything brings about the decline of America, it will be the kind of policies of appeasement and deliberate weakness advocated by so many of its critics and false friends.

New Blog in the Hillbilly Ecosystem

There is a great new blog out there called Freedom or Death and it is blog number 71 in the Hillbilly Ecosystem. Go pay them a visit and say hello.

And when I say new I mean new. This blog is only a few days old and has had less than 10 visitors so far. In fact they are still an Insignificant Microbe in the TTLB Ecosystem.

Joining the Hillbillys is going to raise them a good bit on the TTLB evolutionary scale so lets go over and bump up their sitemeter stats as well.

A clue for the clueless

Here is something useful for anyone needing a last minute idea for a gift for a child. The Median Sib has some recommendations for books for children.

Take and hold the high ground!

Today's Washington Post carries an article by Marc Kaufman about the United States' dependence upon satellites for various purposes and our consequent vulnerability to attacks upon that space-based infrastructure:

For a U.S. military increasingly dependent on sophisticated satellites for communicating, gathering intelligence and guiding missiles, the possibility that those space-based systems could come under attack has become a growing worry -- and the perceived need to defend them ever more urgent. And that, in turn, is reviving fears in some quarters that humanity's conflicts could soon spread beyond Earth's boundaries.

We can see things begin to go wrong here. We do find out later who these people who "fear . . . that humanity's conflicts could soon spread beyond Earth's boundaries" are (I'll give you a hint - they are the left-wing socialist usual suspects), but we are never told why this is something we need to "fear".

After all space is outside of Earth's biosphere. Blowing up bombs, even nuclear bombs, there will not cause any collateral damage to anyone or anything on Earth. You see nobody actually lives in space. Mr. Kaufman never bothers to explain why moving warfare into the cold sterile reaches of outer space where not even so much as one snail darter or spotted owl could be inconvenienced is something we should be fearing, rather than working to achieve.

Some Democrats and representatives of other nations are becoming more vocal in their concern about the administration's rhetoric and possible plans regarding space defense. Although the 1967 U.N. Outer Space Treaty, signed by the United States, allows only peaceful uses of space, some believe that the United States is moving toward some level of weaponization, especially related to a missile defense system.

Both the new space policy and Joseph's speech "left a lot of room for weaponization of space, which is something that our members have been very concerned about for a while," said Loren Dealy, spokeswoman for the Democratic majority on the House Armed Services Committee. "It also took a very unilateral approach and did not address the issue of multinational agreements to protect satellites that are there."

Told you. The same sorry list of left-wing socialists who can be reliably counted upon to oppose anything which is in the best interests of the United States or freedom and prosperity in general.

I hope you caught the part about how we are supposed to depend upon "multinational agreements to protect satellites that are there". You see to the Democrat Party, and the left in general, having an "agreement" is all you need. Of course Neville Chamberlain found out how much an "agreement" with a tyrant is worth. What is it about the character of Kim Jong-il or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that makes anyone think that they can be trusted when men like Hitler and Stalin could not be?

The fact is that a rogue state like North Korea or Iran could cause a greater disruption of American life by using their nukes to attack our satellites than they could by destroying a city. The fact is that the "weapons in space" genie is out of the bottle and is never going back in again. Just as we are finding out that efforts to control nuclear proliferation are ultimately useless we will see that efforts to avoid the militarization of space will also prove useless.

The fact is that the most fundamental duty of a nation is to protect its people from enemies, foreign and domestic. The United States has the ability, due to its scientific and technological superiority and its vastly stronger economy, to develop a space-based military infrastructure.

There is no excuse not to do this. The benefits to the US are are almost incalculable. I don't have the time or space here to go into every scientifically possible "High Frontier" weapons system that could be built but suffice it to say that if the US and its allies developed the full potential of space-based weaponry even at the level of technology available today waging any kind of conventional warfare against the US or its allies would become impossible.

It would be impossible for Red China to cross the Strait of Formosa with one ship, plane or missile, unless the US allowed it. It would become impossible for Russia, no matter how imperialistic and totalitarian it decides to once again become, to reabsorb any of its former satellite countries, unless the US allowed it.

And before anyone starts to worry about an arms race in space remember this. The first nation or alliance of nations to build the basic framework of an orbital military presence can deny any other nation or group of nations permission to develop its own orbital military infrastructure. The fact is that getting from Earth to space is hard while moving around in space is easy. If you are already there it is not all that difficult to keep anyone else from following you.

Russia opposes any US militarization of space because the only thing it has left to give it any kind of international clout is its nuclear arsenal. China opposes any US militarization of space because it knows that its plans to achieve hegemony in Asia and challenge America on the world stage will evaporate if its military power becomes moot. Europe opposes US militarization of space because of their own inability to participate with us as anything but charity case hangers-on. Their domestic welfare states are at the point where they consume so much of their GDP that they simply can't afford to undertake anything of that magnitude. The UN will oppose us because of the reflexive anti-Americanism of a body which is predominantly made up of representatives sent by various Third World despots.

I would say that the quality of the opposition to US efforts to militarize space alone guarantees that it is the right thing to do. After all when the "rogues gallery" of the UN, Europe, China, Russia and (I'm sure) the Islamic World think something is wrong it almost has to be right.

Why don't we just stone him to death?

Jerry Stahl pens an editorial for the New York Times in which he asks a question:

By now the miracles have been quantified. “Apocalypto,” when it opened, promptly took the top box office spot with $15 million. Plus — what are the odds? — his Joseph Campbell-meets-Mesoamerica epic has been nominated for a Golden Globe, and is now being mentioned in the same sentence as Oscar.

It’s the last thing you’d expect for a movie in Mayan — especially one made by a man whose last project was a staging of Hate Crime Theater on a Malibu police-cam. Which begs the question: How low does a human being have to sink before Hollywood shoos him away and he can’t get an Oscar?

I have a question. How low does a politician have to go before the Left shoos him away and he loses all his influence?

Of course what Mr. Stahl is talking about is Mel Gibson's drunken rant in which he said some stupid things about Jews.

What I'm talking about are detestable race pimps like Al Sharpton who just yesterday lead a "silent" protest to obtain "justice" for Sean Bell (the criminal who attempted to murder NYPD officers by running them over with his 3000 lb. automobile - yet who the Times still insists on describing as "unarmed"). And Jesse Jackson who famously described New York City as "hymietown".

That the New York Times finds nothing objectionable about two racists who seek and wield political influence within their city, and the greater Democrat Party, who have made their entire careers on inflaming racial hatred yet believes that there should be no forgiveness for a single drunken explosion by an actor/director speaks volumes.

The reason that the Times and the left liberals who write for it love Jackson and Sharpton and hate Gibson is at the root religious.

Mel Gibson made a film, The Passion of the Christ, which glorifies God and has led tens of thousands to faith in Christ. Sharpton and Jackson by virtue of the fact that they call themselves "Reverend" accomplish the opposite purpose. In the great battle between God and Satan the New York Times knows which side it is on.

Do you?

Tonight's music

Clann an Drumma, one of the most hard core of the Celtic trad bands performing at Scone Palace. Scone is the site where the Kings of Scotland were crowned. The King would sit upon the Stone of Scone and the crown would be placed upon his head.

The Stone of Scone was removed by Edward I (Longshanks) after he conquered Scotland. He thought that losing the stone would bring home to the Scots that they were a defeated people and now a part of his English realm.

Instead the legend of the "Stone of Destiny" was born. It was said that wherever the stone rested a Scot was destined to rule. The legend was apparently born out when Queen Elizabeth I died childless and left her throne to her cousin James VI who became James I of England and the first "King of Great Britain".

After Robert the Bruce won Independence from England an attempt was made to return the Stone to Scotland, but a London mob would not allow the Stone to be removed from Westminster Abbey, where Edward had placed it.

The Stone was finally returned to Scotland on 30 November, 1996 and installed at Edinburgh Castle. If the legend of the Stone of Destiny is true then we can expect the movement for Scottish Independence to be successful and for there to once again be a King reigning in an independent Kingdom of Scotland.

The Stone of Scone.

16 December, 1944

Today marks the 62nd anniversary of the beginning of the military action known as the Battle of the Ardennes to the US Army, Wacht am Rhein (Watch on the Rhine) to the German military and The Battle of the Bulge to popular history.

From Wikipedia:

The goal of these operations as planned by the Germans was to split the British and American Allied line in half, capturing Antwerp and then proceeding to encircle and destroy four Allied armies, forcing the Western Allies to negotiate a peace treaty in the Axis' favour. The Ardennes attack was planned in total secrecy in almost total radio silence. Even Ultra (the allies reading of secret German radio messages) revealed nothing about the up-coming buildup and offensive. Moreover, the degree of surprise achieved was compounded by Allied overconfidence, preoccupation with their own offensive plans, poor aerial reconnaissance, and the relative lack of combat contact by the US First Army. Allied intelligence failed completely to detect the upcoming offensive and almost complete surprise against a weak section of the Allies line was achieved at a time of heavy overcast when the Allies strong air forces would be grounded. The "bulge" refers to the "dent" the Germans initially put into the Allies' line of advance, as seen in maps presented in newspapers of the time.

The battle lasted from December 16, 1944 to January 25. 1945. It involved more than one million men. 560,000 Germans and 640,000 Americans along with nearly 60,000 British. Casualty estimates range from 70,000 to 104,000 for the Americans and from 60,000 to 100,000 for the Germans.

American casualties include those who perished in the Malmedy massacre in which around 150 unarmed allied POWs were murdered by elements of the 6th SS Panzer Army.

In the end the German offensive failed and the German military was never able to stage any major offensive operation again. From this point the Germans fought a long slow retreat until the fall of Berlin and the suicide of Hitler effectively brought the war to a close.

New Ecosystem Member!

I ran across a good group blog that was started just last Oct. called Beast Media. I'm bringing it to your attention for two reasons. One it is a good blog, much worth your time to read. The other is that it is a member of the Hillbilly Ecosystem. In fact it is member number 70 in the Ecosystem.

I urge everyone to go over and pay them a visit.

The murderer suffered. Cry me a river!

From The Washington Post:

MIAMI, Dec. 15 -- Executions by lethal injection were suspended in Florida and ordered revamped in California on Friday, as the chemical method once billed as a more humane way of killing the condemned came under mounting scrutiny over the pain it may cause.

Gov. Jeb Bush (R) ordered the suspension in Florida after a botched execution in which it took 34 minutes and a second injection to kill convicted murderer Angel Nieves Diaz. A state medical examiner said that needles used to carry the poison had passed through the prisoner's veins and delivered the three-chemical mix into the tissues of his arm.

[. . .]

"This demonstrates that there is no happy and kind and nice way to execute someone," said David Elliot, a spokesman for the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. "Execution is a messy business."

Nor should there be you idiot moonbat. This isn't medieval Europe where you could be hanged for stealing a loaf of bread or burned at the stake for having a cat named Pywackett. In today's America you have to murder someone in cold blood with some special added ingredient of evil in order to merit the death penalty.

I am sick to damn death of people bleeding all over the place for these monsters. I don't give a rat's ass if they suffer; in fact I hope they do suffer. Let the method of execution match the method of murder for the amount of pain and fear inflicted.

I support capital punishment and I am willing to pull the lever on the gallows or pull the trigger on the firing squad or give the lethal injection or drop the pill in the gas chamber or drop the blade on the guillotine or, in the case of people who rape and murder children, spend a couple of days working on them with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch.

If you oppose capital punishment are you willing to match that level of commitment? Are you willing to personally underwrite the room and board and other incarceration costs of a murderer for life? Are you willing to stand responsible for any harm they may do to to prison employees or fellow inmates while behind bars or any harm to members of the public should they ever escape or con some parole board or governor into letting them go?

If not then shut the frak up. The rest of us are tired of listening to your bleating.

Blogger Beta Update

So far things are going very well. Blogger Beta has not eaten one post or failed to upload one image.

The only problem I seem to be having is that Beta is not notifying Blogrolling when I update the blog. I am using the manual ping form, when I remember to.

Given how well everything else is working I have to believe that they will work this out soon.

John McCain is Evil

From Think Progress:

John McCain has made clear that he doesn’t like the blogosphere.

Now he has introduced legislation that would treat blogs like Internet service providers and hold them responsible for all activity in the comments sections and user profiles. Some highlights of the legislation:

– Commercial websites and personal blogs “would be required to report illegal images or videos posted by their users or pay fines of up to $300,000.”

– Internet service providers (ISPs) are already required to issue such reports, but under McCain’s legislation, bloggers with comment sections may face “even stiffer penalties” than ISPs.

— Social networking sites will be forced to take "effective measures” — such as deleting user profiles — to remove any website that is “associated” with a sex offender. Sites may include not only Facebook and MySpace, but also Amazon.com, which permits author profiles and personal lists, and blogs like DailyKos, which allows users to sign up for personal
diaries.

Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation notes that this proposal may be based more “on fear or political considerations rather than on the facts.” When he introduced his legislation to the Senate, McCain offered no evidence that children are being victimized by people who post comments on blogs.

McCain’s legislation could deal a serious blow to the blogosphere. Lacking resources to police their sites, many individual blogs may have to shut down open discussion.

OK now, everybody say it with me JOHN MCCAIN IS EVIL!

Do you still have any doubts?

Not content with raping the First Amendment when it comes to political campaigns he now wants to gut the blogosphere. His reasons are easily understood. While the mainstream media will (he thinks) give him a free pass too many people in the blogosphere have his number and will tell the truth about him in 2008.

He is too stupid and egomanical to realize that the liberal media acts like it loves him because he aids them in their agenda of attacking and discrediting conservative Republicans. The nanosecond that Republican presidential candidate McCain takes the field against Democrat candidate Hillary or Obama or whoever else they throw up in the next election the same media which has fawned over and idolized McCain will turn on him with an absolute savagery never before seen in this nation. Not even the media feeding frenzy of Watergate will come close to what they will do to McCain.

Because, you see, the media down deep in their black little hearts hate McCain. They are willing to use him; to build him up and carry his water, because he is useful to them. But McCain is a traitor, a backstabber and betrayer and nobody loves a Judas, not even the Devil.

So when the agenda no longer requires the media to support McCain they will turn on him and all the pent up hate and contempt will come pouring out and he will be pounded into the ground like a tent peg. And all the while the moron won't have a clue about why its happening because his delusion is so great that he really believes that the press loves and respects him and sees his true worth as a leader.

Well Senator the media does see your "true value". You shit on your fellow Republicans and that makes you valuable to the Left. When you value has ended they won't leave enough of you to fill a matchbox.

Hat Tip: Sondra K

The military wises up

From The New York Times:

GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba, Dec. 10 — As the first detainees began moving last week into Guantánamo’s modern, new detention facility, Camp 6, the military guard commander stood beneath the high, concrete walls of the compound, looking out on a fenced-in athletic yard.

The yard, where the detainees were to have played soccer and other sports, had been part of a plan to ease the conditions under which more than 400 men are imprisoned here, nearly all of them without having been charged. But that plan has changed.

“At this point, I just don’t see using that,” the guard commander, Col. Wade F. Dennis, said.

After two years in which the military sought to manage terrorism suspects at Guantánamo with incentives for good behavior, steady improvements in their living conditions and even dialogue with prison leaders, the authorities here have clamped down decisively in recent months.
Security procedures have been tightened. Group activities have been scaled back. With the retrofitting of Camp 6 and the near-emptying of another showcase camp for compliant prisoners, military officials said about three-fourths of the detainees would eventually be held in maximum-security cells. That is a stark departure from earlier plans to hold a similar number in medium-security units.

Officials said the shift reflected the military’s analysis — after a series of hunger strikes, a riot last May and three suicides by detainees in June — that earlier efforts to ease restrictions on the detainees had gone too far.

The commander of the Guantánamo task force, Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., said the tougher approach also reflected the changing nature of the prison population, and his conviction that all of those now held here are dangerous men. “They’re all terrorists; they’re all enemy combatants,” Admiral Harris said in an interview.

He added, “I don’t think there is such a thing as a medium-security terrorist.”

Everybody there who didn't need to be there has been sent elsewhere and the ones who are left are hard core Islamofascist terrorists who will always be ticking time bombs. As long as their minds remain reasonably clear they will be as threat. Even when 99 years-old they will be willing and eager to put a bomb under their wheelchair and roll into a shopping mall or hospital in order to blow up infidels.

These people can never be set free. The best way to deal with them would be to squeeze all the information out of them that we can and then shoot them. Failing the will to do that we need to lock them away in a maximum security dungeon and forget about them.

Tonight's music

The Pipes of Christmas.

If you are in the area check it out.

Violent crime-infested . . . Europe

Ernest Baert read Fjordman's post on rape rates in Europe and was inspired to look into international crime statistics. He posted his conclusions on The Brussels Journal today. It seems that the best data is that compiled by Interpol, however Interpol has removed its crime statistics from its website. It seems that the nations of Europe do not want their citizens (or subjects as the case may be) to know certain uncomfortable facts.

Facts like these:

In the latest published ICVS, the percentage of the population which claims a personal experience of crime (excluding murder) during the preceding twelve months is higher in all countries than official statistics would lead one to assume : ranging from 16.4% in Norway to 31.5% in the Netherlands. The US (24.2%) and Canada (25.2%) are both average.

According to ICVS, overall crime rates are the highest Commonwealth (Australia, New Zealand, England) followed by northern European protestant countries (Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, but with Norway a clear exception), whilst the “safer” countries tend to be more Catholic/Latin/Southern European, such as Austria, Italy, Belgium and, yes, Northern Ireland (as mentioned above, murders are not covered by ICVS…). Note that the bulk of these crime rates are relatively minor crime.

The US is average in terms of overall experienced crime rates (ICVS), but for the most violent crime, murder, has the highest rates in absolute terms (Interpol), 5.6 per 100,000 inhabitants per year, vs. 4.1 in France for example, although the gap is rapidly shrinking and smaller than most people think.

Overall experienced crime rates are rising in most countries, for instance with violent crimes like Assault tripling in England and doubling in France during the nineties (ICVS). The US is one of the few exceptions to this trend, In fact, Interpol statistics show sharply reduced murder rates in the US (albeit from a high level). Among the five most violent crime categories in the Interpol statistics : (i) murder, (ii) serious assault, (iii) aggravated theft, (iv) robbery and (v) car theft, France had already overtaken the US by 2002 for the last three crimes, and looked like overtaking the US by 2004 for murder and assault as well. According to Interpol, England had fewer murders, assaults and robbery than France, but was also rapidly converging with the US. (Teaser, which Interpol member states had most to hide under continued publication of Interpol comparative statistics, the US or EU countries like France ?)

A lot has been written about the large decline in US crime rates in the last 2 decades and as usual different and sometimes conflicting explanations have been given, including : (i) the declining birth rate (in part, because of high abortion rates), leading to fewer young males around, (ii) better policing methods and the so-called zero-tolerance approach (and there seems to be some indication of a correlation between different policing methods in US cities and the change in local crime rates), and (iii) the very high incarceration rates in the US (i.e. the more people you lock up, the less crime is committed outside the prison walls). If one assumes each of these three factors has had an impact on falling US crime rates, then the conclusion seems to be that for Europe, where birth rates have fallen even more than the US, but violent crime has risen fast over the last two decades, there must be something seriously amiss with policing and incarceration policies in Europe.

Reporting rates, i.e. the percentage of experienced crime actually reported to police varies significantly across borders : for instance, for Assault, more than 40% of cases are reported in the Anglo-Saxon countries - where the incidence is relatively high - and in Belgium, and less than 25% in Germany, Austria and Italy). But reporting rates varies even more depending on the type of crime : almost in all countries, more than 90% of all car thefts are reported, but reporting rates for Assault and Robbery, far more violent and unpleasant experiences are typically only half those of car thefts. For Sexual Offenses the reporting rates suggest that police reports only represent the tip of an iceberg. The fact that many car owners have theft insurance makes them obviously more likely to report a theft, because with cover there is near certainty of compensation for the victim. But the low reporting rates for other crimes may illustrate why so many ordinary people treat the conclusions of official crime statistics with a pinch of salt, despite being told by the elites that all is well and this feeling of insecurity is an imagination. New York was an unsafe city twenty years ago, but was one of the first to try the zero tolerance approach, with good results. New York threw over board its tradition of turning a blind eye to so much crime because there were no liberals left anymore : they had all been mugged (if not worse…).

You see it seems that the United States is not the crime-ridden cesspool compared to Europe that most Europeans (and US elites) believe it to be. It would seem that in most kinds of crime Europe is very close to surpassing or has already surpassed America.

Even in the category of murder, where the US still leads, the difference was never that great and the gap is rapidly closing.

Mr. Baert mentions difference in birthrates, policing philosophy and incarceration rates between the US and Europe. He discounts birthrate as a factor because Europe's is lower than ours. The difference would seem to be found in Americas embrace of zero-tolerance policing and our willingness to lock up criminals.

Another factor that Mr. Baert doesn't cover is the difference in firearms ownership rates and the different legal philosophy regarding firearms in the US and Europe. Sarah Brady and her crowd would have us believe that the comparatively easy access to guns and the high rate of civilian firearms ownership in the US contribute to the violence of our society. Yet it seems that in some ways we are less violent than Europe and that even in the areas where we lead them they are catching up quickly.

This is despite the fact that firearms have recently become even more accessible with the sunsetting of the Brady Law and the rapid spread of "shall issue" concealed carry laws across the nation.

In fact a good argument could be made that Americans' access to firearms (the most efficient means of self defense) are a factor in the very good showing we make in this international comparison.

Of course this will have no affect on the Brady Bunch. What motivates them is not a desire to control crime. What animates the gun control activists (almost all of them left-liberals) is a pure hatred toward and fear of people who like guns.

OK, so the Klan is still bad - right?

Charles Johnson has this on the Front Page Magazine War Blog:

David Duke has been all over the media for his appearance at the Iranian Holocaust Hatefest, and at that online sewer of “progressive” thought, Democratic Underground, they’re deleting post after post agreeing with the white supremacist Jew-hater.

[Snicker]

More trashing Jimmy

From Front Page Magazine:

Jimmy Carter, it appears, needed a scapegoat for his failed presidency and Israel served as a convenient target. His new book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid is a shameful tract filled with factual inaccuracies, and blatant one-sidededness. His pent up frustration with his inability to influence U.S. policy on behalf of his Arab friends prompted the publication of this libelous book.

Lest the readers forget, in March 1977, just months after his inauguration, Carter made his first foreign policy speech in which he called for a “Palestinian Homeland.”

Carter’s presidency, widely renowned for its crowning achievement, The Camp David Accords, which established a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, was not however, a Carter initiative.

The essay goes on to detail how Camp David happened in spite of Carter, not because of him.

The more that I study Carter the more obvious and profound his incompetence and outright evil become. I think that it is time to revive the ancient Athenian custom of ostracism.

2006 Weblog Awards

As some of you may know voting for the 2006 Weblog Awards is going on right now. We have until midnight tonight to cast our ballots. Our good friend Sandra K's blog Knowledge is Power (KisP) is in the running for best humor blog and is only a few thousand votes behind the front runner.

If everyone who reads my blog would go to the Weblog Awards page here and vote for KisP then call up just 150 of your closest friends and family members and urge them to log on to Hillbilly White Trash and follow the link to the Weblog Awards site and vote for Sandra she would win easily.

But remember we only have until midnight, so let's all get to work!

Flying While Islamist

Bonus Video!

Since I posted a Rathkeltair video a couple of days ago I though you might be interested in what their lead singer Trevor Tanner looked like in his youth. This is the group The Bolshoi doing the song A Way.

This essay which I found on YouTube is the best short history of the group that I've found so I bring it to you here:

The Bolshoi formed in Leeds, England in 1983. Founding members Trevor Tanner (guitar/vocals) and Jan Kalicki (drums) soon recruited Nick Chown (bass) and by 1984 they found themselves opening for such acts as The Cult, Lords Of The New Church and Wall Of Voodoo. On the merits of these performances and the success of their first independently released single, "Sob Story", they were soon signed to I.R.S. Records.

Their debut IRS release was the EP Giants in early 1986, which included the song "Happy Boy". Critics responded positively to The Bolshoi, saying, "Strong on broody melodies, driven along by forceful rhythms and crashing splinters of trebly guitar, all showing enough fire and ambition to crash through the dark undergrowth of the post-punk jungle... admirable stuff." And, "The Bolshoi have vision and lyrical flair - a refreshing alternative to some of the rancid pap that currently clogs up the charts." That appeal they had with critics, unfortuantley did not translate to the music-buying public. Bands such as The Bolshoi that were trying to fill the gap between the fading "Punk/New Wave" culture and the rising "Grunge" movement were hard pressed to find an audience.

Later in 1986 the trio expanded into a quartet adding Paul Clark on keyboards and recording their first full-length LP, Friends. The lead tune, "A Way" became a critical success and even managed some chart action. The accompanying video was also put in heavy rotation on MTV's 120 Minutes. Trevor Tanner's mesmerising stage presence combined with his superior writing skills revealed a dark and pensive tone in his compositions, touching on subjects most would otherwise choose not to explore. They succeeded in doing this by mixing dark subjects with moderately amusing melodies, memorable choruses and a clearly danceable beat.Despite critical success in the music press, the MTV exposure and the minor success of "A Way" sales of the LP were lacklustre and IRS let The Bolshoi go. A year later they put out their final album (on RCA), Lindy's Party. Soon after the band split up. Trevor Tanner continues to have the occaisional independent project, but The Bolshoi are now part of post-punk music history, a bright spot in the otherwise vapid "Goth" movement of the late 1980s.

From FritzLang

The story behind the song is that the title is not away, as in "go away", but a way, as in "I've found a way". The way for the lovely young woman in the song is a marriage to a wealthy man rather than going her own way in the world, sinking or swimming on her own merits.

I first became interested in The Bolshoi back in the mid 1980's when a woman I knew was always playing their tapes* at the pub where we both worked.

*Tapes, or cassette tapes were a recording media used before the CD in which the music was reduced to an analog, that means non-digital, signal and recorded on a long narrow magnetic ribbon. The ribbon was wound around a spool and enclosed in a plastic box called a "cassette".

PS - Does anyone else think the young Trevor looks kind of like the new Dr. Who?

Tonight's Christmas Music video

Carol of the Bells.

The taming of the "shrew" - Muslim style

Fjordman discusses an unpleasant topic on The Brussels Journal:

There has been an explosive increase in the number of rape charges in the city of Oslo, but both the media and the authorities consistently refuse to tell us why. They did do so, however, in 2001, when two out of Norway's three largest newspapers, Aftenposten and Dagbladet, reported that most of these rape charges involve an immigrant perp, which again mostly means Muslims. Both newspapers have since then conveniently “forgotten” about this, and have never connected the issue to Muslim immigration although the number of rape charges has continued to rise to historic levels. They are thus at best guilty of extreme incompetence, since their former articles about this issue are still available online.

[. . .]

Two out of three charged with rape in Norway’s capital are immigrants with a non-western background according to a police study. The number of rape cases is also rising steadily. Unni Wikan, a professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo, in 2001 said that “Norwegian women must take their share of responsibility for these rapes” because Muslim men found their manner of dress provocative. The professor’s conclusion was not that Muslim men living in the West needed to adjust to Western norms, but the exact opposite: “Norwegian women must realize that we live in a Multicultural society and adapt themselves to it.”

This is what dhimmitude means. To restructure the behavior of non-Muslims in a society so that it conforms to Islamic norms. To the Muslim this seems completely natural because Mohammad promised them that the whole world was theirs. Therefore it is the responsibility of every non-Muslim in every country to either convert to Islam, accept dhimmitude or die. They may freely choose whichever of these three options appeals to them because there is no coercion in religion.

To a good Koran-believing Muslim man a woman is either a good Muslim woman (meaning that she is the property of some man) or she is a prostitute. Western women not only refuse to act like good Muslim women, they insist on considering themselves the equal of men. This enrages Muslim men who not only resent Western women acting this way, but deeply fear that their own Muslim women will get ideas of equality of their own.

So the good Muslim man puts the Western whore in her place and sends a warning to all the good Muslim women. When they are caught and put in jail for this they become outraged (their default position) and insist that they are entitled to special treatment under the law. They are supported in this by their dhimmi allies within the multicultural ruling elites, the judiciary, the media, political leaders and the academy.

If the whole thing makes you want to vomit congratulations. You are still a free human being.

The Moonbats are flying tonight

Our friend Michelle Malkin in incredulous:

You've got to see it to believe it.

I guess Joy Behar thinks it's funny to suggest that Sen. Tim Johnson's stroke was "man-made." Because she can't be serious, can she?

I guess this is a case of someone being too decent to easily believe how low others can descend.

Me? I have no illusions. I expected this kind of thing. On the left-wing kook website Democratic Underground here are some of the comments:

Interesting, on the eve of the Democrats taking control of Washington a Senator from a very red state with a Republican Governor getting to choose his successor for the remaining years of Bush's term all of a sudden is thrown into death's throws. . .

I am not a conspiracy nut, but this is just too much. Carnahan, Wellstone and now Johnson.

"How conveeeeeeeeeenient!"

Stop The ACLU Blogburst

Crossposted from Stop The ACLU

Via the ACLU we find out the U.S. government is finally being proactive against the ACLU in protecting classified information from being leaked for our enemies to know.

The American Civil Liberties Union today announced that it has asked a federal judge to quash a grand jury subpoena demanding that it turn over to the FBI "any and all copies" of a December 2005 government document in its possession.

The ACLU called the subpoena, served on November 20 by the U.S. Attorney's office in New York, a transparent attempt to intimidate government critics and suppress informed criticism and reporting.

"The government's attempt to suppress information using the grand jury process is truly chilling and is unprecedented in law and in the ACLU's history," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. "This subpoena serves no legitimate investigative purpose and tramples on fundamental First Amendment rights. We recognize this maneuver for what it is: a patent attempt to intimidate and impede the work of human rights advocates like the ACLU who seek to expose government wrongdoing."

The three-and-a-half page document, issued in December 2005, is marked "Secret" and apparently is classified. The ACLU received the document, unsolicited, on October 23, 2006.

Apparently a document marked "Secret" is classified? You don't say! Quite a scary thing that such a dangerous organization like the ACLU has its hands on classified information. I think the ACLU has already demonstrated how reckless they can be with secret information. You can bet there would be no regard to National Security.

The ACLU think that exposing government wrongdoing is exposing to the enemy the governments efforts and techniques to secure our nation.

In legal papers, the ACLU said that while release of the document might be "mildly embarrassing" to the government, the ACLU's possession of it is legal and its release could in no way threaten national security. To the contrary, the ACLU said, the designation of the generally unremarkable document as "Secret" "appears to be a striking, yet typical, example of over-classification."

So who elected the ACLU to determine what should or shouldn't be classified? And if the document is so "unremarkable" why are they fighting so hard to keep it? The ACLU then goes on to justify having classified information by stating that some of the biggest news of the past year came from leaks of classified information, like the NSA surveillance program, SWIFT, etc. I think we all remember how the ACLU handled these leaks. When it comes to National Security, the ACLU has created a dangerous reputation. I don't think they should have any say so in what remains classified or not.

Rob at Say Anything sums it up:

So, basically, the ACLU is claiming that the Bush administration is trying to “suppress information” by getting some leaked classified documents back. But isn’t the government supposed to suppress classified information? Isn’t that the reason it is classified in the first place? I mean, if the government isn’t supposed to be suppressing classified information, then why are we classifying it in the first place?

And how does the government requesting leaked classified documents back violate the ACLU’s first amendment rights? Surely the ACLU isn’t suggesting that first amendment rights extend to illegal leaks of private information, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to stop someone who obtained my bank records from somebody at the bank who illegally divulged them from putting my private information on the Internet.

I sometimes wonder if the ACLU even takes its own arguments seriously.

Although the ACLU has been told that it is not a target of the investigation, which I think it should be, it is interesting that the the subpoena refers to the Espionage Act. That is too bad. The FBI have their own concerns over the ACLU. Between the shady business of their funding issues, helping America’s enemies, spying on their own members, and FBI concerns; there are many reasons besides illegally obtaining classified information that the ACLU should be investigated.

I'm just glad to see the government being proactive to prevent classified information from falling into the hands of our enemies. If the ACLU has its way that is where it will end up.

Jimmy Carter, former human

David Horowitz has written an essay on his website, Front Page Magazine, about Jimmy Carter and his new book:

Even as Islamic Hitlerites gather in Iran to deny the first Holocaust of the Jews and to plot the second, former president Jimmy Carter tours America with a new book that describes Jews as racists and oppressors, and suggests they are also a conspiratorial mafia that intimidates “critics,” controls America’s media and war policy, and are therefore also the source of Islamic terrorism and the Arabs’ genocidal campaign to eliminate them from the map of the Middle East.

In other words, Americans beware of the Jew in your midst.

I could write a long post about how utterly vile Carter is. I could go into the history of his failed presidency and the terrible damage it did to the nation. But I'm not going to. You already know all that, and if you are too young to remember Carter as president be thankful you didn't have to go through that national humiliation.

The fact is that Jimmy Carter is filth. If you dip a bucket into a sewer and then look down into it you will see Jimmy Carter looking up at you. In writing this book, which goes beyond mere anti-Zionism or even anti-Semitism and begins to flirt with a kind of 21st Century blood libel, Carter has for all intents and purposes resigned from the human race.

By casting his lot with the Islamofascist Muslim theocrats and neo-Nazi holocaust deniers Carter has placed himself beyond the pale. It is no longer necessary for decent civilized people to even recognize a common humanity with Carter.

In the eyes of the law he remains a man with all the legal protections that go with that designation, but in all the ways that count in the moral realm he is a mere thing

From Cox & Forkum

Tonight's moment of Zen

This is Rathkeltair doing the Cure tune Lovesong. A Celtic group doing a Goth Rock number complete with whistle and fiddle wtih people wearing kilts in the audience.

Big Bust Bags Bogus Beaners

From The Washington Post:

Federal agents targeting illegal immigrants raided meatpacking plants in six states yesterday, arresting hundreds of workers on the uncommon charge of identity theft and shutting down the world's second-largest meat processing company for much of the day.

About 1,000 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents with search warrants entered plants owned by Swift & Co., of Greeley, Colo., charging that "large numbers" of workers illegally assumed the identities of U.S. citizens or legal residents by using their Social Security numbers to get work, ICE officials said.

Company and union officials said agents, some dressed in riot gear, locked down six beef- and pork-processing plants early in the morning, segregating workers into groups of citizens and non-citizens after questioning. Some illegal workers were bused to detention facilities hours away, labor officials said.

ICE officials would not say how many people were arrested, pending a news conference today in Washington. About 90 percent of Swift's 15,000 U.S. employees work in three shifts at the plants, company officials said.

The crackdown was another step in the federal government's campaign against illegal immigration, and like some recent raids it targeted job sites, the magnet drawing many of the nearly 12 million illegal immigrants. . .

I'm glad to see the government doing something and I'm glad to see them adding tools to their toolbox of ways to target the alien criminals. I hope that they lean on the criminals and find out who is selling the fraudulent IDs and land on them like the proverbial ton of bricks.

I also hope that if they can prove that Swift & Co. knew that they were illegal that corporate officers wind up doing jail time. Businesses simply pass fines along to the customer and the cost of doing business (another reason that there shouldn't be any corporate income taxes, the customers wind up paying them), but you can't pass along a jail sentence.

Sorry about the post's title, but I couldn't resist.

Let's get behind US Air

Reader Syndi forwarded a post from another blog conserning how we might support US Airways now that the 6 pack of imams who diliberatly simulated terrorist related behavior on an airliner in order to provoke an incident are threatening to sue:

Forget political correctness. Stand with the pilots and crews of our commercial airliners, to whom we entrust our lives and the lives of those we love.

Call, write, email, and fax U.S. Airways and say thank you for taking a stand and demand that the Department of Transportation back them up.

Here is contact information:
U.S. Airways
Media Relations, (866) 523-53338 a.m.-5 p.m. M-F (Mountain Standard Time), Closed Sat-Sun

Doug Parker, Chairman & CEO, US AirwaysScott Kirby, President, US Airways Corporate Headquarters Location 111 W. Rio Salado ParkwayTempe, AZ 85281
Phone 7 a.m.-5 p.m. M-F (Mountain Standard Time), Closed Sat-Sun
Corporate Headquarters: 480-693-0800 (General information number)

Internet customer support desk: 800-327-7810

Customer relations
Telephone 1-866-523-53335 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday-Friday, MST6 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sat-Sun, MST Fax 480-693-2300
Another way is by emailing them using their contact form

Department of Transportation
Mary E. PetersSecretary of TransportationU.S. Dept of Transportation400 7th Street, S.W.Washington, D.C. 20590

You can call them at the General Information Main Switchboard at: 202-366-4000 Monday through Friday between 8:30 am and 5:30 pm EST excluding Federal Holidays.
dot.comments@dot.gov

To view and download the complete police report about the imams disruption of that US Airways flight, go to this page at Pajamas Media.

Tonight's video

This is more Celtic Woman from a live Irishn TV broadcast. The music is She Moved Thru The Fair and The Butterfly.

The WaPo has an epiphany

From The Washington Post:

AUGUSTO PINOCHET, who died Sunday at the age of 91, has been vilified for three decades in and outside of Chile, the South American country he ruled for 17 years. For some he was the epitome of an evil dictator. That was partly because he helped to overthrow, with U.S. support, an elected president considered saintly by the international left: socialist Salvador Allende, whose responsibility for creating the conditions for the 1973 coup is usually overlooked. Mr. Pinochet was brutal: More than 3,000 people were killed by his government and tens of thousands tortured, mostly in his first three years. Thousands of others spent years in exile.

[. . .]

Like it or not, Mr. Pinochet had something to do with this success. To the dismay of every economic minister in Latin America, he introduced the free-market policies that produced the Chilean economic miracle -- and that not even Allende's socialist successors have dared reverse. He also accepted a transition to democracy, stepping down peacefully in 1990 after losing a referendum.

This is not a mystery. To explain let me tell you a story. My cousin's wife developed cancer back around 12 years ago. It was a tumor in her throat about the size of her fist. To kill the tumor and save her life her doctors used radiation and chemotherapy.

The treatments were very hard on her. They left her sick as a dog, they compromised her immune system and made her hair fall out. She suffered greatly but had she not endured the treatment the cancer would have killed her.

Chile had the same problem as my cousin's wife. A cancer was growing within the nation and would have killed it if drastic and painful measures were not taken. Socialism and the political left which champions it are as deadly to a nation as cancer is to a human body. When it appears it must be rooted out with utter ruthlessness otherwise it will bring a nation and people to ruin, poverty and slavery.

The pain that Pinochet put Chile through was difficult to endure however it was necessary. For an example of what Chile would look like today had it not been for Pinochet one only need to look to Cuba.

As even the Post is forced to conclude:

By way of contrast, Fidel Castro -- Mr. Pinochet's nemesis and a hero to many in Latin America and beyond -- will leave behind an economically ruined and freedomless country with his approaching death. Mr. Castro also killed and exiled thousands. But even when it became obvious that his communist economic system had impoverished his country, he refused to abandon that system: He spent the last years of his rule reversing a partial liberalization. To the end he also imprisoned or persecuted anyone who suggested Cubans could benefit from freedom of speech or the right to vote.

The contrast between Cuba and Chile more than 30 years after Mr. Pinochet's coup is a reminder of a famous essay written by Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, the provocative and energetic scholar and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who died Thursday. In "Dictatorships and Double Standards," a work that caught the eye of President Ronald Reagan, Ms. Kirkpatrick argued that right-wing dictators such as Mr. Pinochet were ultimately less malign than communist rulers, in part because their regimes were more likely to pave the way for liberal democracies. She, too, was vilified by the left. Yet by now it should be obvious: She was right.

The earlier the cancer is diagnosed the less drastic the treatment need be. Last month America developed a small tumor. We can easily remove it in 2008, but if we wait much longer the US will need a convulsion like Chile's and I'm not sure that we have a Pinochet waiting in the wings to save us.

More cut-and-paste religion

From The New York Times:

RALEIGH, N.C. — Justin Lee believes that the Virgin birth was real, that there is a heaven and a hell, that salvation comes through Christ alone and that he, the 29-year-old son of Southern Baptists, is an evangelical Christian.

Just as he is certain about the tenets of his faith, Mr. Lee also knows he is gay, that he did not choose it and cannot change it.

We are all sinners. We are all born as sinners. None of us personally chose to be sinners, we inherited it from Adam (although each of us would have done what he did if we were in his place).

Although we are all sinners we are not all the same kind of sinner. Some people are tempted to homosexual sin and others (like me) are tempted to heterosexual sin. Some are temped to murder (me, when I drive through heavy traffic) and others to theft. Some are tempted to lie, to gossip or to pride.

Regardless of which particular types of sin attract us we are all sinners. What sets gay "evangelicals" like Justin Lee apart from a straight evangelical like me is that Mr. Lee demands a special dispensation to indulge his sinful temptations while I and other Christians (gay and straight) who aren't attempting to work our Bibles over with a bottle of whiteout grit our teeth and resist our baser natures, sometimes successfully and sometimes not.

To fallen men and women sin is a natural and normal desire. To pursue righteousness is unnatural and difficult and requires us to act contrary to our natural inclinations. What Mr. Lee needs to understand is that God's eternal standard does not change to accommodate our rebellious nature just because we find it difficult to live up to.

Imams on a plane, the saga continues

WASHINGTON, Dec. 11 (UPI) -- Five of six Muslim imams who were taken off a US Airways flight in Minneapolis last month want an out-of-court settlement from the airline for the ordeal.

After the Nov. 28 incident, the airline offered to meet with the group of clerics Dec. 4, but the men declined and instead sought legal help from the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington.

"With the hopes of reaching an amicable resolution to this matter, we would like to take this opportunity to ask for a formal meeting with US Airways executives and legal counsel," Arsalan Iftikhar, CAIR's national legal director, wrote to the airline.

I absolutely agree. A wrong has occurred and those responsible should pay what they owe and do whatever else is required to make things right.

To start with the US Airways flight had to be delayed in order to remove the imams from the plane. Whenever a plane is delayed the costs to the airline are significant. The imams should reimburse US Airways for the costs which it was forced to bear due to the imams' behavior.

Next the other passengers on the plane were inconvenienced due to the delay and were subjected to considerable mental anguish because of their reasonable fear that the plane was about to be hijacked and turned into a flying suicide bomb.

For this reason the imams should pay each passenger a substantial sum in compensation. They should also apologize in both writing and in person.

Finally the entire incident was obviously a terrorist probe intended to test the airline's security measures and to create doubt in the minds of air travelers and airline employees. The hope was that the next time a group of Muslims act weird on a plane everyone will be too timid to take any action, making the next 9/11 that much easier to pull off.

For this reason the imams need to make full confessions. They need to sit down with the FBI, Homeland Security and CIA officers and reveal who approached them with this idea and how they were to report the results.

After this they need to publicly renounce Islamic extremism and affirm Israel's unconditional right to exist within defensible borders. They then need to dedicate the rest of their lives to the preaching a new reformed and tolerant form of Islam which is divorced from its murderous warlord founding prophet and his vile example.

If the imams do this then I would say that their debt is paid.

What happened to comments?

It is 1:15 AM on Tuesday and I notice that on this blog and several others that use Haloscan for comments that the comments are not showing up.

This is not my doing.

I assume that the problem will be fixed soon.

Tonight's music

For tonight's video we return to Enya. This piece is entitled The Celts. Enya created the music for a 1987 British television mini-series titled The Celts - Rich Traditions & Ancient Myths and the soundtrack was pre-released in 1986 as her first CD, titled "Enya". The CD was remastered and re-released in 1992 as The Celts.

Enya's actual name is Eithne Patricia Ní Bhraonáin or in English, Enya Brennan. Enya is how the Gaelic name Eithene is pronounced. Enya is the younger sister of Moya Brennan and was once part of the family band An Clann As Dobhair or Clannad, as it was renamed in the 1970s.

Progress in Iraq?

This is from the AP, so take it with a grain of salt, but if true is very good news:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Major partners in Iraq's governing coalition are in behind-the-scenes talks to oust Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki amid discontent over his failure to quell raging violence, according to lawmakers involved.

The talks are aimed at forming a new parliamentary bloc that would seek to replace the current government and that would likely exclude supporters of the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who is a vehement opponent of the U.S. military presence.

The Iraqi security forces are not 100% ready to take over the protection of the nation without backup from the US, however they are capable of accomplishing a large part of the mission, if they are allowed to.

The problem is that they are not being allowed to because Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is essentially a client of Muqtada al-Sadr. Al-Maliki is doing everything in his power to protect al-Sadr and as long as as-Sadr is walking around breathing and free Iraq is going to be a violent mess.

Now Muqtada al-Sadr isn't the only problem in Iraq which needs a 5.56 MM solution, but he is the logical starting point.

PS - I notice that this story did not make the online editions of either the New York Times or the Washington Post. Perhaps the idea of any kind of positive movement in Iraq doesn't match the picture that they are trying to paint of a runaway Bush Administration failure.

If the situation in Iraq begins to show the kind of substantial improvement that even the MSM can't ignore or explain away the sight of all the elite media heads exploding will be a wonder to behold.

Tonight's Christmas Music video

This is Mannheim Steamroller's video of Deck The Halls. This is off of the CD, Mannheim Steamroller Christmas.

Blogger Beta

As you may have noticed I have switched over to Blogger Beta. So far I like it, but it is too soon to tell for sure. So far it hasn't eaten any posts and I haven't had any trouble uploading photos.

But again, it's too soon to tell.