Tonight's video is from Capercaillie. It is a professionally produced video of their song Miracle of Being.
I started posting these videos as part of my one year blog birthday. The response has been so positive that I intend to keep posting these as long as I can find good Celtic music videos.
Since December is the month in which we celebrate Christmas I will mix in as many good Christmas music videos as I can find.
Ralph Peters is a smart man who has lately become prone to saying some really stupid things. Like this op-ed in the New York Post in which he asserts that there is no chance of Europe becoming Eurabia.
Peters' point is that Europeans are vicious when they get their backs up and are, after all, the people who invented genocide. He believes that Muslims in Europe are living on borrowed time and that the US military might be called upon to evacuate the Muslim population of Europe to America.
Paul Belien answers Peters in The Brussels Journal:We see how the inner cities and suburbs in various European countries are degenerating into “no go” areas, where people get killed, where the police no longer venture and where radical Muslims hold sway. The French authorities have published a list of 751 “sensitive urban areas,” which are no longer under the control of the authorities and which have become, as Daniel Pipes remarked, the “Dar al-Islam, the place where Muslims rule.” Almost 5 million people, or 8% of the French population, live in these “sensitive urban areas.”
AndIf there is any danger that [European] far-right groups […], become involved in ethnic cleansing, it will not be a case of the indigenous Fascists going after the Muslims, but rather of the Neo-Nazis joining the Muslims when the latter go after the Jews. Peters warns that “Europe’s uslims are living on borrowed time.” I fear Europe’s Jews are living on borrowed time.
[…] The ageing and dwindling group of indigenous Europeans will not exterminate the young and growing group of Muslim immigrants. When it comes to fighting, old people are no match for youngsters. The only way for an older generation to exterminate a younger one is through abortion. That, unfortunately, Europe has done – with its own children.
On todya's Mike Church Show Peters said that if population numbers meant anything that the Chinese and the Indians would be ruling the world. I have this question for Mr. Peters. If you brought 400,000,000 Chinese to the United States and gave them the right to vote, but their loyalties still lay with China, who would control the nation?
Last Christmas some punk shot another punk at Warrior's Path State Park near Kingsport, TN. The trial started a couple of days ago.
Court TV sent a small caravan of vehicles down with technicians and reporters to cover the trial.
After the prosecution rested the defense surprised everyone by declining to put on a case.
The jury came back after a couple of hours with a guilty verdict.
I hope it was worth the drive down from New York City.
Some alpha hotel set a pregnant bitch out near my house. I, being a soft touch, took her in. These are the result. The mother appears to be mostly Labrador retriever and the father seems to have been a rottweiler.
They should make good watchdogs. You won't be able to escape by going in the water.
They are getting big enough to want out of the dog lot.
This one got out, but didn't like it alone.
Crossposted from Stop The ACLU
Its that time of the year again. The time when the intolerant grinches like the ACLU start trying to fill their stockings with your tax dollars in their attempts to secularize Christmas. The ACLU try their best to deny their attacks on Christmas. They call those defending Christmas the well organized extremists out to make a buck in the guise of defending Christmas. This is of course false. The Alliance Defense Fund, just like last year, are offering their services to defend Christmas completely FREE!
However, the lies continue again this year as the ACLU denies their attacks on Christmas. However, their actions speak louder than their words.
Already the ACLU have began their attacks. They have already been successful in bullying the Berkley City Council into moving their Christmas nativity scene off public property. This, despite the fact that the display also included other religious and secular elements including a Star of David, Christmas trees, a Santa Claus figure, a Santa’s Mailbox, and a “Seasons Greetings” sign.
In their latest attempt to censor Christmas they have sued the Wilson County School System outside of Nashville, TN. because their Christmas program includes "Christian themes and songs."
The plaintiffs and the ACLU allege that several kindergarten students role-played a nativity scene of the birth of Jesus—and had the audacity to sing “Away in the Manger” and “Joy to the World.” According to the ACLU, these songs are exclusively Christian in nature because they celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and are, therefore, inappropriate.
Julia Gorin writes in today's online American Spectator:
It looks like the recent pro-embryonic-stem-cell spot that Michael J. Fox did for Missouri Senate candidate Claire McCaskill was effective, since McCaskill won the seat. Indeed, this month's sweeping Democratic victory could spell a victory for embryonic stem cell research as well.
It's a bit baffling, though. One would think that having Parkinson's Disease would be enough for a person. But apparently Fox also wants a brain tumor. Recall a study published in the May 1996 edition of the American Academy of Neurology's journal Neurology, in which a Parkinson's patient in China was implanted with embryonic and fetal stem cells. The subject's brain grew bone, skin, and hair -- essentially a Siamese twin; he died.
I understand Democrats are for euthanasia, but there's got to be an easier way. A gun would be quick and less painful, but -- sure enough -- they're against those, preferring the torturous, drawn-out route instead. We should have seen the warning signs when instead of just injecting Terri Schiavo with something, they wanted her to starve and thirst for three weeks until her swollen tongue protruded, her skin cracked, lips and nose bled as she heaved, vomited, had seizures, and gasped for air.
Fetal tissue was also once thought to be a promising avenue for treating neurological disorders. But in 2001 the New England Journal of Medicine reported on a U.S. study in which patients implanted with cells from aborted fetuses started to writhe and twist about, jerking their heads and flinging their arms. As one of the researchers in the study described it, they also started to "chew constantly, their fingers [went] up and down, their wrists flex[ed] and distend[ed]....It was tragic, catastrophic. It's a real nightmare."
One subject reacted so negatively that he now needed a feeding tube. (And we know where that leads.)
As one of the study's sponsors, Dr. Gerald Fischbach, put it: The surgery "is not the final solution that people would have hoped."
There you have it in their own words: They're working toward a Final Solution with human experimentation.
Remember: Guns don't kill people. Using dead babies for cures does.
Do you know what the difference between this and Ann Coulter style hyperbole is? This isn't hyperbole. Every factual assertion made here is exactly as stated with no exaggeration. I have seen the videos of the Parkinson's sufferers who got the fetal cells. It is horrible.
Left liberalism is a death cult. Fetal stem cell research is it's latest sacrament, right up there with abortion and euthanasia.
This group is called Flook. They are a very popular English/Irish band. They will be touring some in the US next year.
This is a video shot by someone in the audience and appears to be edited. The audio isn't the best, but you can get an idea of how they sound. If you go to their website you can download some music clips.
From The Washington Times:
Air marshals, pilots and security officials yesterday expressed concern that airline passengers and crews will be reluctant to report suspicious behavior aboard for fear of being called "racists," after several Muslim imams made that charge in a press conference Monday at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
Six imams, or Muslim holy men, accused a US Airways flight crew of inappropriately evicting them from a flight last week in Minneapolis after several passengers said the imams tried to intimidate them by loudly praying and moving around the airplane. The imams urged Congress to enact laws to prohibit ethnic and religious "profiling."
Federal air marshals and others yesterday urged passengers to remain vigilant to threats.
"The crew and passengers act as our additional eyes and ears on every flight," said a federal air marshal in Las Vegas, who asked that his name not be used. "If [crew and passengers] are afraid of reporting suspicious individuals out of fear of being labeled a racist or bigot, then terrorists will certainly use those fears to their advantage in future aviation attacks."
The charge of racism has become a convenient, and potent, club to bash sane people who object to insane things.
For example, if you object, in even the most microscopic way, to the agenda of a wretched and detestable race pimp like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson then you are a racist.
If you object to flying with Muslims who are doing everything in their power to look like terrorists (short of openly carrying AK-47's and hand grenades) you are a racist.
If you want to reform the nation's welfare system to discourage multigenerational dependency you are a racist.
If you want to control our borders so that we know who is entering the nation and can turn away those we deem to be a threat to the lives of our citizens or those who have no useful contribution to make and would only become social parasites you are a racist.
I say that it is time and past time to stop letting the charge of racism have any effect upon us whatsoever. Fifty years ago a racist was someone who wore a white sheet and lynched innocent Black people. Today a racist is someone who doesn't want his nation to commit suicide.
The way racism is defined by the left today it is an honorable thing to be a racist.
There is a salute to rye whiskey in today's New York Times by Eric Asimov that is worth a look. As someone who has always found a good rye, like that distilled by Wild Turkey, to be a fitting companion to a fine cigar (Hoyo de Monterrey for example, or a Cuban Romeo y Julieta) I'm glad to see rye making a comeback.
My first exposure to rye was in the over-the-top and unintentionally funny movie The Lost Weekend
Although rye was presented as the cheapest possible rotgut that one could buy when I say a bottle of Wild Turkey rye sitting on the shelf of a liquor store one day I just had to try it. Imagine my surprise when I found it to be quite excellent.
Anyway, here is a part of what Mr. Asimov has to say about rye:
It used to be the signature whiskey of the United States. George Washington distilled it. Men fought over it in the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794. Classic cocktails like the manhattan, the Sazerac and the Ward 8 were invented for it. Humphrey Bogart swigged it. But the rise of vodka, bourbon and single-malt scotch, along with the decline of the distilling industry in the Northeast, the stronghold of rye production, turned rye into a relic.
For decades, it clung tenuously to life, barely preserved by a couple of distilleries that would not let it lapse. A dedicated search might have turned up no more than a few dusty bottles lingering on the bottom shelves of downtrodden liquor stores. Many people came to believe that Canadian whiskey was synonymous with rye, though Canadian generally contained a smaller proportion of rye than American rules mandate.
Now though, in a turnabout, the prospects for rye have brightened considerably. Fueled by the same sense of curiosity and geeky connoisseurship that gave birth to the microbrew industry, the single-malt avalanche and myriad small-batch bourbons, rye has been resurrected by whiskey lovers who want to preserve its singular, almost exotic essence.
Unlike bourbon, which is characteristically sweet, smooth and rounded, rye has a dry, jangly, brash nature. Its spicy flavors practically dance their way through the mouth. In its simplest form, rye is a little grassy and sour, much like rye bread. With age, it becomes more complex and subtle, weaving spice and caramel flavors over and through the grassiness. Yet it retains its angularity, never quite losing its edginess. A manhattan, made as originally conceived — with rye instead of bourbon — is a completely different cocktail, dynamic rather than soothing, more Harley-Davidson than Cadillac.
I would say that I'm going to run right out and get a bottle, but rye can be difficult to find around here, still I shall endeavour to persevere.
From The Washington Post:
From troops on the ground to members of Congress, Americans increasingly blame the continuing violence and destruction in Iraq on the people most affected by it: the Iraqis.
Even Democrats who have criticized the Bush administration's conduct of the occupation say the people and government of Iraq are not doing enough to rebuild their society. The White House is putting pressure on the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group have debated how much to blame Iraqis for not performing civic duties.
This marks a shift in tone from earlier debate about the responsibility of the United States to restore order after the 2003 invasion, and it seemed to gain currency in October, when sectarian violence surged. Some see the talk of blame as the beginning of the end of U.S. involvement.
"It is the first manifestation of a 'Who lost Iraq?' argument that will likely rage for years to come," said Bruce Hoffman, a Georgetown University expert on terrorism who has worked as a U.S. government consultant in Iraq.
Back before the first American boot had hit the ground in Iraq Rush Limbaugh was saying that the ultimate choice about what kind of nation they were going to have belonged to the Iraqis and on one else.
The fact is that we removed one of history's most vicious dictators from off their backs, rebuilt a massive amount of infrastructure and sponsored truly free elections. We gave them everything they needed to move forward and they proved unwilling to do so. At least that is the way it looks so far.
I'm not ready to give up just yet, but if we don't see some definite action from the elected government then there isn't any point in trying to "stay the course".
From The New York Times:RIGA, Latvia, Nov. 28 — On the eve of a high-profile trip to Jordan to meet Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq, President Bush on Tuesday dismissed suggestions that Iraq had descended into civil war, blamed Al Qaeda for the latest wave of sectarian violence and vowed not to withdraw troops “until the mission is complete.”
The media have decreed that Iraq is in a state of civil war and will not be happy until the President agrees with them in public. However the situation on the ground does not easily lend itself to the "civil war" model.
What seems to be happening for the most part is different tribal and religious factions fighting each other, not for control of the government, but just because they hate each other.
When the Bloods and the Crips were at war in the Southern California area no one said that the US had entered a second Civil War. This seems to be the closest analog to what is happening in Iraq now, except on a larger scale.
What we need to do is start putting down these different militias and factions. Not by negotiating with them but by shooting them. Either that or step back and let Iraq fall into a real civil war; then step in and make a deal with whoever comes out the winner.
From The Washington Post:House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has decided against naming either Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), the senior Democrat on the House intelligence committee, or Rep. Alcee L. Hastings (Fla.), the panel's No. 2 Democrat, to chair the pivotal committee next year.
The decisions came despite lobbying by conservative Democrats on Harman's behalf and a full-throttled campaign by Hastings to overcome the stigma of the 1988 impeachment that drove him from his federal judgeship.
In this as in squashing the move to impeach President Bush Pelosi is showing an admirable tendency toward discretion. This seems to indicate that she possesses a trait very much lacking in her fellow members of the lunatic fringe of the Democrat Party's extreme left wing - the intelligence to realize and the honesty to admit that her views are representative of only a small percentage of the American people.
If you go over to the DU or the dailykos the people there seem absolutely convinced that the average American is just as much a barking moonbat as they are. This is somewhat understandable since most of the posters to left wing fever swamps like that are college student punks who don't associate off campus very much and therefore don't often encounter real human beings.
Pelosi seems to be cut from different cloth. Knowing that any attempt to implement her far left nutjob ideas during the next two years will frighten and disgust the public so badly that they will hand the White House and legislature back to Republicans for at least another decade in 2008 she seems to be committed to a long game.
Of course I do not believe for one second that she has changed. I do not believe for one second that she has abandoned her desire to turn America into a socialist gulag patterned after Castro's Cuba (except without the part where they throw homosexuals into concentration camps). She is just smart enough to realize that if the Democrats play it moderate for the next two years that helps Hillary gain the Oval Office in '08 and then they can declare a state of emergency and suspend the next election indefinitely.
This is Dervish. They are another of the bands that will be performing at the Diana Wortham Theater in Asheville for their Celtic Series early next year.
From The Washington Times:
Muslim religious leaders removed from a Minneapolis flight last week exhibited behavior associated with a security probe by terrorists and were not merely engaged in prayers, according to witnesses, police reports and aviation security officials.
Witnesses said three of the imams were praying loudly in the concourse and repeatedly shouted "Allah" when passengers were called for boarding US Airways Flight 300 to Phoenix.
"I was suspicious by the way they were praying very loud," the gate agent told the Minneapolis Police Department.
Passengers and flight attendants told law-enforcement officials the imams switched from their assigned seats to a pattern associated with the September 11 terrorist attacks and also found in probes of U.S. security since the attacks -- two in the front row first-class, two in the middle of the plane on the exit aisle and two in the rear of the cabin.
"That would alarm me," said a federal air marshal who asked to remain anonymous. "They now control all of the entry and exit routes to the plane."
A pilot from another airline said: "That behavior has been identified as a terrorist probe in the airline industry."
I have been pointing out for some time that the odd behavior exhibited by some Muslims on airline flights are probes to test airline security and to desensitize the public and the airlines.
It is unlikely that any of these imams would carry a weapon onto an airplane and attempt to hijack it themselves, but you can bet that they will make sure that a detailed report of what happened will make it back to the terrorists who will do such things.
And just as importantly airline officials and passengers will be just a little less likely to raise objections to this kind of behavior from Muslims in the future.
As Americans we want to believe the founding principal of "innocent until proven guilty" however, as a Supreme Court Justice once observed", "the constitution is not a suicide pact". There are times when real and immediate dangers to the lives of the nation's citizens require a limitation or even suspension of some of the rights recognized by the constitution.
This is one of those times. While there are certainly innocent Muslims who hate the extremists and the acts of barbarity which they perpetrate they are indistinguishable from the terrorists and terrorist-sympathizers and so they must all fall under the same blanket of suspicion.
Everyone involved with airline security, from the ticket agents to the sky marshals to the airline passengers must view every person who appears to be an Arab/Middle Easterner/Muslim as a potential terrorist and act accordingly. It could very easily come to the point where we say that if you want to practice the religion of Islam openly then you need to go to a Muslim country to do it.
Also from the Times article:
Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, Texas Democrat, said the September 11 terrorist attacks "cannot be permitted to be used to justify racial profiling, harassment and discrimination of Muslim and Arab Americans."
"Understandably, the imams felt profiled, humiliated, and discriminated against by their treatment," she said.
While I pray to God that there is never another terrorist hijacking of an airplane anywhere in the world, I do hope that if there ever is one that Rep. Jackson-Lee is on that plane and that in the final seconds before the terrorists blow it up or fly it into a building that she has a moment of clarity and realizes that she is partly responsible for what is happening and that she richly deserves what is happening to her.
But I doubt that would happen. Even imminent death could not bring a moment of genuine truth telling to a creature such as her.
From The New York Times:Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg convened an extraordinary meeting of black religious leaders and elected officials at City Hall yesterday to calm frayed tempers over the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man in Queens, calling the circumstances “inexplicable” and “unacceptable.”
The "black man" was armed with an automobile, which he was using to attempt to run down a police officer.“It sounds to me like excessive force was used,” the mayor said of the conduct of the officers, who fired 50 shots outside a Queens nightclub early Saturday, killing Sean Bell, 23, hours before he was to be wed, and injuring two others. “I can tell you that it is to me unacceptable or inexplicable how you can have 50-odd shots fired.”
Several factors go into this. One is that the 9mm round used by the NYPD is underpowered. Therefore it will take more shots to get the job done. Another is that the City of New York mandates that their police department modify their Glock handguns so that they will have a ridiculous 10-POUND trigger pull! This makes it difficult to shoot the NYPD Glock quickly with any degree of accuracy. Finally, NYPD cops don't get enough practice. Shooting is a skill which must be developed and maintained through constant practice. Because NYPD makes an effort to screen out "gun people" who would go shooting on their own for recreation the typical New York cop only shoots when the Department forces him too, and the Department doesn't force them to often enough.
Add to this the fact that when you perceive your life to be in danger, like it is when someone is using an automobile as a weapon against you, the biochemical reactions which take place in your body (the "flight or fight" response which is hard-wired into our genes) make it difficult to hit a target as small as the "kill zone" on a human body even when it isn't moving, or behind cover or poorly lit.
I understand why creatures like Al Sharpton and Charles Rangel are doing what they're doing. They don't care about the dead men, or the cops or the welfare of New York City. This is just a chance for them to strut and preen and mug for the cameras to demonstrate to their constituents how important and powerful they are. However Bloomberg is supposed to be the head of New York City's government with a duty to ensure that the City's workers, who all ultimately report to him, get a fair deal.
If Mr. Bloomberg truly believes that 50 rounds are "too much" then he needs to begin work right now to equip NYPD with handguns in .40 or .45 caliber with trigger pulls in the 5 lb. range and see that they shoot at least 100 rounds per week in practice in realistic training scenarios.
Still aren't completely over.
COLUMBUS, Ohio, Nov. 27 -- Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio) won reelection Monday by a margin so slim that a recount will be required.
Unofficial results announced by Franklin County, the last to finish counting absentee and provisional ballots in central Ohio's 15th District, showed Pryce led Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy by 1,055 votes, or 0.4 percent of the vote.
[. . .]
In North Carolina, election officials said a manual recount of randomly chosen precincts will take place Wednesday and Thursday in the 8th District race between Rep. Robin Hayes (R) and Democrat Larry Kissell. Hayes leads by 329 votes.
[. . .]
And no election would be truly complete without a Democrat loser whining about how the voting machines malfunctioned or the ballats being too complicated for Democrat voters to figure out:
And Florida officials will start an audit Tuesday of electronic voting machines in the 13th District House race between Republican Vern Buchanan and Democrat Christine Jennings. The state certified Buchanan the winner by 369 votes, but Jennings contested, arguing that touch-screen voting machines had malfunctioned.
This is Solas. I'm sorry about the poor quality of the audio. I would not have posted this except that I found out that they will be in Asheville in Feb.
They will be perfroming at the Diana Wortham Theater as a part of their annual Cletic series. Dervish will also be performing.
The Washington Post looks back for examples of how past presidents whose party lost control of congress reacted. They offer up an example of how a president totally lacking in class handled the situation:The president was in a funk. Morose from midterm elections that handed Congress to the opposition, he stewed in private, vented to friends, turned on aides and summoned self-help gurus to help him understand just what went wrong. He was left to argue with reporters that he was still "relevant."
They do go on and offer some observations that are actually helpful, but I thought their opening reminder that no matter how much we may feel disappointment at Bush the fact is that it could be worse was the most important.
The truth is that other than extending his tax cuts and staying the course in Iraq the President's agenda for his last two years was likely to be increasingly left leaning anyway. The fact that he now has a congress that wants to make the next two years an extended anal examination of his first six years may just save the nation just may prompt some much needed gridlock.
Reagan was correct when he noted that "that government which governs best governs least". Perhaps the circumstances will drag our government, kicking and screaming, back to the "best" form of governance.
This is another video from the Cambridge Folk Festival. This is Julie Fowlis doing Puirt a beul.
Puirt a beul (mouth music) is not the name of a song, but a style of singing. It is meant to be danced to and the rhythm of the song takes precedence over the correct usage of the Gaelic. Most of the lyrics are meaningless or nonsensical and so are not generally translated.
Puirt a beul is accompanied by musical instruments today (especially the fiddle) but was originally intended as a substitute for musical instruments. Some believe that the origin of Puirt a beul came in the banning of the pipes after the 1745 uprising while others think it came out of religious opposition to musical instruments.
Either way the Scots and the Irish are going to dance and for that you need music, puirt is the plural of the word port which means "dance tune".
From The Washington Times:LONDON -- British authorities said a rare and highly toxic radioactive substance was found in the body of a former KGB spy who accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of his killing in a statement dictated on his deathbed.
"You may succeed in silencing one man, but a howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr. Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life," Alexander Litvinenko said in a statement read aloud by friends outside the hospital where he died.
"May God forgive you for what you have done, not only to me, but to beloved Russia and its people," said the statement, which Mr. Litvinenko dictated shortly before he died Thursday night.
Putin is a KGB operator from the days of the USSR and he has not changed.
Russia is not powerful enough to challenge the US any more and their military hardware is so obsolete and crappy that they do us a favor by selling it to our enemies. However they still have the wherewithal to make themselves a very large turd in the World's punchbowl.
I hope that George W Bush has the wit to be just a little bit embarrassed at his "I looked into his soul" prattle after his first meeting with the old murderer.
It has been too long since we had a new Hillbilly sign up for the Ecosystem. Well today we got us one and he's a good'un. Mushy's Mooching is a good conservative blog from Tennessee and the best part is he loves a good beer.
Go over and give him a big Hillbilly welcome!
From The Washington Post:
The intelligence community and Capitol Hill are awaiting House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi's choice to lead the chamber's intelligence panel, an explosive decision that will anger key members of her party no matter who she selects.
Even before Democrats won control of the House, reports surfaced that Mrs. Pelosi would skip over Rep. Jane Harman of California, the highest ranking
Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and opt instead for Rep. Alcee L. Hastings of Florida or Silvestre Reyes of Texas, the second- and third-ranking on the panel.
Mrs. Harman is backed by many centrists and is seen as hawkish on defense matters, while Mr. Hastings has the support of the powerful Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) but is tainted by his impeachment and removal as a federal judge in 1989.
A footnote: Senior CIA officials consider Harman a prima donna and say they dread the thought of dealing with her as chairman. They would much prefer Hastings, finding him consistently cooperative.
From NewsMax:
U.S. and Argentine media reported that one of President Bush's 24-year-old twin daughters had her purse stolen while being guarded by the Secret Service during a visit here.
ABC News, citing unidentified law enforcement reports, reported on its Web site Tuesday that Barbara Bush's purse and cell phone were taken while she was dining in a Buenos Aires restaurant.
La Nacion newspaper, citing anonymous government sources, said in its online edition early Wednesday that one of Bush's daughters had her purse taken Sunday afternoon in the popular tourist district of San Telmo.
A pair of thieves removed the purse from under a table while Secret Service agents stood guard at a distance, La Nacion reported. La Nacion said its sources did not reveal which of the Bush daughters had her purse stolen.
I'm just filled right up to the nose holes with confidence in the Secret Service, ain't you?
In retrospect it was inevitable. Actors, talk show hosts and civil rights activists had fraked things up as badly as they could. To make things even more ridiculous required the participation of an attorney.
I had thought that the Michael Richards affair was dying down until I heard this:
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Two men who say they were insulted by actor-comedian Michael Richards during his racist rant at a comedy club want a personal apology and maybe some money, their lawyer said Friday.
The men, Frank McBride and Kyle Doss, said they were part of a group of about 20 people who had gathered at West Hollywood's Laugh Factory to celebrate a friend's birthday. According to their attorney, Gloria Allred, they were ordering drinks when Richards berated them for interrupting his act.
When one of their group replied that he wasn't funny, Richards launched into a string of obscenities and repeatedly used the n-word. A video cell phone captured the outburst.
Richards, who played Jerry Seinfeld's wacky neighbor Kramer on the TV sitcom "Seinfeld," made a nationally televised apology on David Letterman's "Late Night" show earlier this week. He has since apologized to civil rights leaders the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton.
But Allred complained Friday that he "has not apologized to his victims directly, face to face, man to man."
Richards' publicist said his client wants to apologize to both men, who are black, but hasn't been able to locate them.
Allred, speaking by phone from Colorado, said Richards should meet McBride and Doss in front of a retired judge to "acknowledge his behavior and to apologize to them" and allow the judge to decide on monetary compensation.
"It's not enough to say 'I'm sorry,'" she said.
She did not mention a specific figure, but pitched the idea as a way for the comic to avoid a lawsuit.
"Our clients were vulnerable," Allred said. "He went after them. He singled them out and he taunted them, and he did it in a closed room where they were captive."
The video of Richards' outburst shows several people getting up and walking out as he shouts at the audience.
I wonder why the people who got up and walked out weren't "captive"?
I had thought that Gloria Allred, despite being a lawyer, a feminist and generally a woman of the left, retained some microscopic little sliver of dignity, integrity and class.
What a fool I was!.
Some years ago when I first became interested in Celtic music I was listening to the local community college's radio station's Celtic music program on a Sunday afternoon and heard my first Capercaillie song. It was called The Tree and I was hooked.
So in celebration of Hillbilly White Trash's first birthday here is Capercaillie preforming The Tree at this year's Cambridge Folk Festival.
The Tree is from the Beautiful Wasteland CD. Here are the lyrics:
Crathadh d'aodaich a ghaoil / Thig thu'n taobh-sa mu Shamhainn / Crathadh d'aodaich a ghaoil / Thig thu ma bhios gaoth ann/ Bith thu nad ruith air a' rathad / Bith thu nad ruith air a' rathad / Bith thu nad ruith air a' rathad / Sior chrathadh d'aodaich
The English translation is:
With sails unfurled my love / you will come this way about Halloween (Shamhainn) / With sails unfurled my love / You will come if there is a fair wind / You will make haste on the way under full sail
Attention all of you conservative advocates for open borders and amnesty.
The reasoning of the minority of conservatives who are pushing for an open borders policy with Mexico and amnesty for the alien criminals who are already here rests on two pillars. One is the belief that Hispanic immigrants "do jobs that Americans won't do". Of course this means "jobs Americans won't do at the low wages Mexicans will work for". The other is that Mexicans are good church going devout Catholics who will vote Republican because they share the GOP's conservative family values.
I have long maintained that this is a pipe dream. As Mexican and other Hispanic immigrants flood the nation they will quickly find themselves drawn into the government funded (through the alphabet soup of government welfare agencies) "lowest common denominator" lifestyle of America's other racial minorities (excepting Asians).
The Democrat Party and their legions of shock troops in the social service bureaucracy will see to it that the nations new largest minority will be locked into a cycle of dependancy wich will guarentee that they will keep pulling the lever next to the picture of the Jackass for the next century, if America lasts that long.
Heather Mac Donald has some support for my thesis in this quarter's City Journal:
Unless the life chances of children raised by single mothers suddenly improve, the explosive growth of the U.S. Hispanic population over the next couple of decades does not bode well for American social stability. Hispanic immigrants bring near–Third World levels of fertility to America, coupled with what were once thought to be First World levels of illegitimacy. (In fact, family breakdown is higher in many Hispanic countries than here.) Nearly half of the children born to Hispanic mothers in the U.S. are born out of wedlock, a proportion that has been increasing rapidly with no signs of slowing down. Given what psychologists and sociologists now know about the much higher likelihood of social pathology among those who grow up in single-mother households, the Hispanic baby boom is certain to produce more juvenile delinquents, more school failure, more welfare use, and more teen pregnancy in the future.
The government social-services sector has already latched onto this new client base; as the Hispanic population expands, so will the demands for a larger welfare state. Since conservative open-borders advocates have yet to acknowledge the facts of Hispanic family breakdown, there is no way to know what their solution to it is. But they had better come up with one quickly, because the problem is here—and growing.
The dimensions of the Hispanic baby boom are startling. The Hispanic birthrate is twice as high as that of the rest of the American population. That high fertility rate—even more than unbounded levels of immigration—will fuel the rapid Hispanic population boom in the coming decades. By 2050, the Latino population will have tripled, the Census Bureau projects. One in four Americans will be Hispanic by mid-century, twice the current ratio. In states such as California and Texas, Hispanics will be in the clear majority. Nationally, whites will drop from near 70 percent of the total population in 2000 to just half by 2050. Hispanics will account for 46 percent of the nation’s added population over the next two decades, the Pew Hispanic Center reports.
But it’s the fertility surge among unwed Hispanics that should worry policymakers. Hispanic women have the highest unmarried birthrate in the country—over three times that of whites and Asians, and nearly one and a half times that of black women, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Every 1,000 unmarried Hispanic women bore 92 children in 2003 (the latest year for which data exist), compared with 28 children for every 1,000 unmarried white women, 22 for every 1,000 unmarried Asian women, and 66 for every 1,000 unmarried black women. Forty-five percent of all Hispanic births occur outside of marriage, compared with 24 percent of white births and 15 percent of Asian births. Only the percentage of black out-of-wedlock births—68 percent—exceeds the Hispanic rate. But the black population is not going to triple over the next few decades.
As if the unmarried Hispanic birthrate weren’t worrisome enough, it is increasing faster than among other groups. It jumped 5 percent from 2002 to 2003, whereas the rate for other unmarried women remained flat. Couple the high and increasing illegitimacy rate of Hispanics with their higher overall fertility rate, and you have a recipe for unstoppable family breakdown.
You should read the rest but maybe not tonight. It is the kind of thing that can give you nightmares.
It is official. The Michael Richards story is over. The "real" Krammer has spoken:
For Kenny Kramer, role model for the "Seinfeld" character who shared his surname, each call was a reminder of the intersection between his real life and his sitcom doppelganger. Actor Michael Richards _ the on-air Cosmo Kramer _ made headlines this week with a racist rant in a Los Angeles comedy club.
[snip]
Kramer said he wasn't too worried that people would confuse Kramer, the character, with Kramer, the person.
Just in case, however, he issued a two-sentence statement drawing the distinction: "I know the public is smart enough to realize that Michael Richards' personal actions in no way reflect on the character he portrayed on television or me, Kenny Kramer, the real person that the character was based on."
[snip]
"You know what the good news is?" he asked. "Judith Regan is now on a plane to California, trying to sign Michael Richards to a book deal: `If I Were a Racist, Here's What I Would Have Said.'"
Can't add anything to that.
From The Jerusalem Post:
Russia has begun delivery of Tor-M1 air defense missile systems to Iran, a Defense Ministry official said Friday, confirming that Moscow would proceed with arms deals with Tehran in spite of Western criticism.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue, declined to specify when the deliveries had been made and how many systems had been delivered.
Ministry officials have previously said Moscow would supply 29 of the sophisticated missile systems to Iran under a US$700 million (€565 million) contract signed in December, according to Russian media reports.
The United States will complain about this in public but my guess is that the Pentagon is pretty happy about this.
Why would US military planners be happy about this?
Remember how many of our planes and helicopters Saddam's air defenses were able to shoot out of the sky during our two Gulf Wars? The Iranians don't seem to remember how poorly the Iraqi's Russian hardware preformed for them.
The fact is that Russian and Chinese (which is all based on Russian junk) hardware are vastly inferior to American equipment. Put Arabs at the controls and "inferior" turns into "disastrous" as people whose culture prepares them for nothing more technically sophisticated than milking a goat attempt to operate anything "radar guided" or "computer controlled".
In the Third World War which America has begun to fight, even if most of us don't realize it yet, our greatest strength will be the quality of our enemies.
Hat Tip: Shooting the Messenger
From The Brussels Journal:
Let’s review where we stand, shall we? Since the French and Dutch “No” votes, five more states have approved the European Constitution, bringing to 18 the number of nations to have ratified. Meanwhile, every government remains devoted to the text.
Germany’s Angela Merkel says the European constitution is “vital to German interests.” Italy’s Romano Prodi says he interprets the “No” votes as “a demand for more Europe, not less.” Spain insists that its “Yes” vote be allowed to stand. Austria and Finland want ratification to be completed by the end of 2007, and Belgium suggests changing the rules so that this can happen by a majority vote rather than by unanimity.
In France, both main presidential candidates are committed to pushing ahead: Nicolas Sarkozy says he wants a “mini-treaty” that will contain all the constitution’s main elements, while Ségolène Royal says that, if Britain has problems with the constitution, the rest of the EU should go ahead without it. Not that the UK is trying to back out: it seems to have agreed in principle to the Sarkozy “mini-treaty” proposal.
Am I forgetting anyone? Oh yes, there is one solitary voice of dissent: that of the ordinary citizen who, whenever invited to express an opinion on the Constitution, keeps rejecting it. Opinion has swung against the constitution over the past two years, both in France and the Netherlands and in those countries whose governments went ahead with ratification – most spectacularly in Germany, where two thirds of people now say they would vote “No”. Not that any of the governments seems to care.
The people of Europe could change this any time they wanted too. All they would need to do is vote in different people.
However to do that they would have to vote for people that their news media and their political and academic elites tell them are dangerously unstable, neo-fascists, racists and probably pro-American as well.
The fact is that the average European has been conditioned by a lifetime of immersion in a suffocating cradle-to-grave welfare state to fear individual responsability. They do not want to take care of themselves. They have become what amounts to a giant herd of human sheep.
At the end of the day the sheep do not stand up to the shepherd or the sheep dog. Europe will have its Union and will "enjoy" it for better or worse for about the next 25-35 years. Then it will be transformed into the great Eurabian Caliphate under sharia.
Hillbilly White Trash is ONE YEAR OLD TODAY!!!
I want to thank everyone who has stopped by and especially all those who come back regularly.
38,048 visitors since day one and 1280 posts, counting this one.
There were only a few days left in November when I started this blog so I put up only a few posts that first month.
Here is my favorite of them:
Top 10 List
Since Firearms and politics are some of the things that this blog is about here is a list of 10 firearms related things that you can say to make a liberal involuntarily void his bowels.
10. Of course I'm carrying a gun, I'm always armed.
9. Yes its cocked, but the safety is on. Hell, Browning's original design didn't even have a safety!
8. I'm taking a few days off so I can take the kids hunting.
7. I've tried to get my wife to carry an automatic, but she insists on a revolver.
6. No, this isn't beef its venison. I shot it last fall. Bet you couldn't tell the difference, could you?
5. I met my wife in a concealed carry class.
4. I got into youth ministry when I volunteered to teach firearm's safety and marksmanship at my church's youth camp.
3. Have you seen how much ammunition costs nowadays? I can only afford to shoot once a week!
2. Let me take you to this indoor range, they have a couple of machine guns that they rent out.
1. My daughter is getting her first gun this Christmas.
Feel free to add your own suggestions.
Alan M. Dershowitz has reviewed Jimmy Carter's new book about the Middle East called, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. I could have set that up as a link to Amazon.com and made some money on anyone who used it to order the book, but I would hate to think that I had helped Carter sell any of this anti-Semitic diatribe. Here is what I consider the meat of Mr. Dershowitz's comments:
The Carter book is so filled with simple mistakes of fact and deliberate omissions that were it a brief filed in a court of law it would be struck and its author sanctioned for misleading the court. Carter too is guilty of misleading the court of public opinion. A mere listing of all of Carter’s mistakes and omissions would fill a volume the size of his book. Here are just a few of the most egregious:
[snip]
The Carter book is so biased that it inevitably raises the question of what would motivate a decent man like Jimmy Carter to write such an indecent book. Whatever Carter’s motives may be, his authorship of this ahistorical, one-sided and simplistic brief against Israel forever disqualifies him from playing any positive role in fairly resolving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. That is a tragedy because the Carter Center, which has done much good in the world, could have been a force for peace if Jimmy Carter were as generous in spirit to the Israelis as he is to the Palestinians.
What is confusing Mr. Dershowitz is his mistaken belief that Jimmy Carter is a "decent man". He is not. Perhaps Carter was decent at one time. Maybe before running for President he was a good man. Possibly he was a good man during the first part of his presidency, however when his hopelessly naive worldview, contemptible in a person who aspires to the White House, showed him to be completely out of his depth in the real world he began to change. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the real Jimmy Carter began to emerge.
The amazing economic expansion caused by Ronald Reagan's tax cuts and the collapse of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies due to Reagan's aggressive tone with the Soviets and his pushing ahead with development and/or deployment weapons systems which Carter had opposed, underfunded or outright canceled seemed to push Carter into a near total break with the real world.
From his position at the Carter Center "Jimmah" acts as though he were still the president, in control of the nation's foreign policy. From supporting "land for peace" between the Israelis and the Palestinians to brokering the deal with North Korea in which they were paid off handsomely for the transparently hollow promise not to develop nuclear weapons every incident which serves to prove how utterly wrong Carter is about utterly everything only serves to entrench Carter more deeply into his delusions.
In this latest Jew-hating screed disguised as a foreign policy tome Carter has reached his lowest point to date. I would say that he has bottomed out, however when looking at his past history I could not rule out a future flirtation with Christian Identity, Aryan Nations or the Klan.
The Blond One gives us her take on the six imams ejected from a US Airways flight due to the excellent imitation of suicide hijackers they were putting on:
Six imams removed from a US Airways flight from Minneapolis to Phoenix are calling on Muslims to boycott the airline. If only we could get Muslims to boycott all airlines, we could dispense with airport security altogether.
Witnesses said the imams stood to do their evening prayers in the terminal before boarding, chanting "Allah, Allah, Allah" – coincidentally, the last words heard by hundreds of airline passengers on 9/11 before they died.
Witnesses also said that the imams were talking about Saddam Hussein, and denouncing America and the war in Iraq. About the only scary preflight ritual the imams didn't perform was the signing of last wills and testaments.
After boarding, the imams did not sit together, and some asked for seat belt extensions, although none were morbidly obese. Three of the men had one-way tickets and no checked baggage.
Also, they were Muslims.
The idea that a Muslim boycott against US Airways would hurt the airline proves that Arabs are utterly tone-deaf. This is roughly the equivalent of Cindy Sheehan taking a vow of silence. How can we hope to deal with people with no sense of irony?
The next thing you know, New York City cab drivers will be threatening to bathe.
As usual she is funny and her humor is dead on accurate. Go read the rest.
The American Spectator has an article up about Libertarian Stan Jones:"Stan Jones, a Montana libertarian widely known for his peculiar blue skin, can arguably be said to have recast the political complexion of the U.S. Senate, turning it from Republican red to the same color as his face," reported the Washington Post after the election.
Running as the most anti-government candidate in the field in the race for the U.S. Senate, Libertarian Party candidate Jones received 10,324 votes while Republican
candidate Conrad Burns lost to Democrat Jon Tester by just 2,565 votes.
Jones, a bit on the crazy side, once turned himself blue by sticking some electric wires into his drinking water to ward off the oncoming calamities of a predicted Y2K collapse. Now he's turned the Senate blue.
This is a big part of why I left the Libertarian Party.
I agree with a great deal of their ideas as far as domestic policy goes, however they are sadly naive when it comes to foreign policy and military affairs.
When you take the whole Libertarian package together it becomes nothing more than another in a long line of Utopian fantasies. Like the fanatical Muslims who believe that if the whole world can be terrorized into submission (the meaning of the world "Islam") paradise on earth will be the result. Like the Marxists who slaughtered around 100 million people in the Twentieth Century in the belief that if you could just put a bayonet to every one's back then the state would wither away and all men would live in perfect equality.
Like every single human "ism" which aims to perfect fallen Man Libertarianism would, if enacted, do nothing more than get a whole lot of people killed.
From The Telegraph:
Ségolène Royal, the Socialist candidate for the French presidency, wants Britain to choose between being a "vassal" of the United States, and embracing a French-led drive for European integration, her adviser on Europe has revealed.
Throughout Miss Royal's spectacularly successful campaign to sew up the Socialist nomination, she kept the details of her EU policy under wraps for fear of reopening deep splits within her party.
However, in the hours after her victory on Thursday, Gilles Savary, a French MEP and her spokesman and foreign affairs adviser, spoke exclusively to The Daily Telegraph, revealing her EU policies in detail.
[snip]
He demanded efforts to integrate foreign policy and cast that struggle in searingly anti-American tones. Mr Savary said: "The question that needs to be asked is – do we want to be vassals of the United States, do we want to be a 51st state?"
The Brussels Journal reproduced two graphs showing how much higher the rates of unemployment and taxation are in Europe than in America. The British should think carefully about that before giving Ms. Royal her answer.
From The Washington Post:
MILWAUKEE -- Fifth-grade teacher Amy Tromp lights a match and then the small pile of sage she holds in a shell. The sage begins to smolder, its smell stinging the nose.
Her students, sitting in a circle on the floor, try to catch the smoke and bring it over their bodies to get ready for the school day. They then share their concerns and stories from the night before. Someone played a lot of video games. Another tells of his pregnant sister who might lose her baby.
This morning's activity, called smudging, is an ancient American Indian tradition. And for many students and staff members here, it is the way of the future, too.
[snip]
This is how a normal morning begins at the Indian Community School of Milwaukee, a place where tobacco and sage, both sacred instruments of thanksgiving and spirituality, are in every classroom. Outside, a sweat lodge and tepee stand ready. And the long list of possible field trips includes hours-long drives to northern Wisconsin to pick and dance over wild rice. Here, all 300 students have some kind of tribal affiliation.
The Indian Community School of Milwaukee, located in one of the city's rough neighborhoods, is one of at least 150 schools in the nation designed to help children connect to their native heritage. Located both on and off Indian reservations, the schools are growing in popularity.
[snip]
Student Logan Gott, 12, said he believes he has learned more about his spiritual life and the ways of his ancestors than he would have at a public school. Since he started at the school, he has learned how to sing and drum at sacred ceremonies and powwows, an honored opportunity.
This is wonderful! Help the Indians become even more marganalized and unable to compete in the greater American culture. That way they can stay on welfare or working at the most menial of low paying jobs. Or go to prison.
Just as long as they stay dependant and bitter and voting Democrat.
I wish I were an Indian-hating bigot so I could be happy about this.
We return to Capercaillie tonight.
The song is called Mile Marbhaisg Air A Ghaol which translates to "A Thousand Curses On Love" It is from the Choice Language CD.
A thousand curses on love / Which has wearied me / Which broke my heart within my body
From The Brussels Journal:
Last September Halima Chehaïma, the 18-year old daughter of a Moroccan father and a Flemish mother, was elected Miss Brussels. Until next week Ms Chehaïma was also the absolute favorite of the bookmakers for the election of Miss Belgium next month. She was thought to be an excellent candidate to symbolize the multicultural paradise that Belgium has become. However, a girl’s dream was shattered.
Halima Chehaïma was a controversial candidate. Last October she stood for the Marxist-Leninist Labour Party in the local elections in Molenbeek, the predominantly Muslim Brussels borough where she lives. The party is so marginal that she did not get elected, but her declaration that Israel must be wiped off the map raised the eyebrows of the organizers of the Miss Belgium pageant. What really seems to have ruined her chances, however, is her connection with Bilal Ould Haj, a Belgian criminal of Moroccan origin.
Ould Haj, who has been convicted three times so far for armed robberies, is soon to stand trial for torturing the 84-year old Maria Reyntjes. When he broke into the latter’s home in November 2003 and found only 500 euros (650 dollars) he flew into a rage, broke the old lady’s legs with a hammer and set her hair on fire. At the time he was Chehaïma’s sweetheart, though she claims they were just friends.
Last July Ould Haj was able to escape from jail (easy in Belgium: he said he was someone else and was allowed to walk out). Meanwhile, however, Halima Chehaïma had fallen in love with an Albanian criminal. When Ould Haj encountered the Albanian last week the two men started quarrelling, whereupon the latter knifed the former twice in the neck. Ould Haj survived the assault, was taken to hospital and arrested. The police are currently investigating whether Miss Brussels had been visiting Ould Haj in his Brussels hide-out and whether she helped to keep him out of their hands.
In America beauty queens want to work for world peace or help orphans. In Europe they want to annihilate the Jews. I also love the way that she goes out and gets another criminal for a boyfriend no sooner than the current one winds up in jail.
She should come to America. She would have a bright future in the Democrat Party.
It seems that even now the 2006 midterm elections aren't really over.
From The Washington Post:
More than a week after Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R-N.M.) claimed a razor-thin election victory, her Democratic challenger conceded yesterday, saying that a recount would cost too much and that there was no guarantee it would reverse the result.
In Ohio's 2nd District, Rep. Jean Schmidt (R) also clinched reelection yesterday when additional ballot counts gave her an insurmountable edge of about 3,200 votes over Democratic challenger Victoria Wulsin.
[snip]
A handful of other House races remain contested:
· In North Carolina, a recount is underway in the 8th District. Rep. Robin Hayes (R) led Democrat Larry Kissell by 339 votes after the results were certified Friday night. Kissell then asked for the recount.
· In Ohio's 15th District, Rep. Deborah Pryce, a member of the House Republican leadership, led Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy by 3,717 votes yesterday amid a count of provisional ballots.
· In Florida, state officials certified Republican Vern Buchanan the winner over Democrat Christine Jennings by 369 votes, or by less than 0.02 percent of the total. Jennings challenged the result Monday, asserting that touch-screen voting machines had malfunctioned. She asked a judge to order a new election.
Notice how it is almost always the Democrat who asks for the recount or files a legal challenge based on the voting machines not working or the ballot being too complex for Democrat voters to understand? It seems that so many of them cannot find it within themselves to lose gracefully.
And finally:
· Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.), the subject of an FBI bribery investigation, will face fellow Democrat Karen Carter in a Dec. 9 runoff, and Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-Tex.) will face former congressman Ciro D. Rodriguez (D) in a Dec. 12 runoff.
If voters in Louisiana reelect the corrupt William Jefferson then I say kick Louisiana out of the Union.
By now everyone has heard about actor Michael Richards' meltdown at a California comedy club in which he responded to a couple of black hecklers by launching into an unhinged tirade in which he called them "nigger" and said that "50 years ago we would have hung you upside down with a f**king fork up your ass".
If you haven't seen it just go to YouTube and search "Michael Richards" and you can see it for yourself.
I think it was incredibly stupid of him to go off on a rant like that in public. However I am not upset with him. To be a good comic you have to be messed up in the head to some degree, with the best comics being the most messed up.
You doubt me? Two words. Andy Kaufman.
Also, look at Dave Chapel. He was the most brilliant young comic in the country and he had a mental breakdown and will probably never be able to perform again.
Jerry Lewis described the origin of his comedy like this. He said that it came from growing up a Jewish kid in an Irish Catholic slum in New York City. From being beaten and harassed every day and laying broken and bleeding in the gutter with his mouth open and the sewage from the gutter flowing into his mouth. That kind of life can make you a great comic, but it is also bound to leave scars.
There is another angle to this as well. If this had been a Black comic launching into a racist rant against White people it would not even have raised an eyebrow. If some Black rapper had stopped his concert to spew a hate filled screed against the White motherf**kers it also would not have raised any eyebrows.
Any criticism by any White person would be instantly denounced as racism and attempted censorship.
You want me to get upset and denounce Richards for what he said? Fine I'll get my underwear in a twist over Michael Richards the very nanosecond that the Black community gets as bent out of shape over Black racism as the White world was over What Richards said. But not before.
PS - I expect to hear any minute now that Kenny Kramer is suing Michael Richards for "damaging the Kramer franchise".
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