Tuesday, June 30, 2009

POLICE PRIDE VS. GAY PRIDE

How a local police officer responded to me on the story below: Horrible! Just horrible! That gay guy was just trying to give a little rub and a tug but the TABC agent couldn't take a joke. I'll bet he didn't arrest the pole dancer who did the same thing to him when he inspected a "titty bar" the night before.

TEXAS OFFICIALS INVESTIGATE POLICE RAID AT GAY BAR
By Angela K. Brown

Associated Press
June 30, 2009

FORT WORTH, Texas — Two city officials are seeking an investigation into a police raid at a gay nightclub that ended with the arrests of several patrons and the hospitalization of a man with a head injury.

"I've asked for as thorough a report as possible ... to reassure folks that the police are not singling out any group," Councilman Joel Burns said Monday.

He said he was particularly disappointed that the raid occurred on the 40th anniversary of New York City police raid on the Stonewall Inn. That 1969 raid touched off a riot and subsequent demonstrations that fueled the gay rights movement in the U.S.

Burns said Fort Worth police were unaware of the anniversary.

Mayor Pro Tem Kathleen Hicks, also calling for an investigation, said she was "very concerned" after hearing from patrons and others in the community about the early Sunday morning raid at the Rainbow Lounge.

More than 100 people gathered outside the Tarrant County Courthouse on Sunday evening to protest what they said was police harassment and abuse.

One of those arrested during the raid, Chad Gibson, 26, remains hospitalized with bleeding on the brain, his sister Kristy Morgan said.

Gibson is not violent, and "for anyone to come back and say he did something to provoke this is ludicrous," she told Dallas-Fort Worth television station KDFW.

Fort Worth police went to the Rainbow Lounge with Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission agents early Sunday as part of routine alcoholic beverage code inspections, said police Sgt. Chad Mahaffey. They first went to two other bars, where 10 people were arrested, he said.

Officers then went to the Rainbow Lounge, which had opened about a week ago. They encountered two drunk people who made "sexually explicit movements" toward officers and another who grabbed a TABC agent's groin, according to the police report.

No one was arrested for assault but about half a dozen people were arrested on charges of public intoxication, according to police records.

Police Chief Jeff Halstead said Gibson was the patron who grabbed at the agent's groin. Gibson was so drunk he was vomiting and struck his head when he fell, the chief said. Gibson was arrested, but was taken to the hospital instead of jail.

Halstead said he did not have additional details about how Gibson was injured.

The department has started an internal investigation into the raid, he said.

The TABC is waiting on a report from the Fort Worth office, but "given the concerns that have been raised, it would not be unusual" for an internal investigation to be done, said agency spokeswoman Carolyn Beck.

George Armstrong, 41, said he had been at the Rainbow Lounge about 30 minutes when officers stormed inside. He smiled and flashed a peace sign at one officer, but was then grabbed and tackled to the floor with his arm twisted behind his back, he said.

"He was yelling at me to stop resisting arrest, but I wasn't doing anything. It was horrible. I really thought he had broken my shoulder," Armstrong said Monday. "I've never been so embarrassed and humiliated. I didn't do anything to him."

Armstrong, who was arrested, said he noticed that other people who were arrested were injured or said they had been tackled by police.

Armstrong said he was released from jail the next day and went to a hospital, where his arm was put in a sling after X-rays determined his shoulder and back were severely bruised and strained.

Armstrong said he didn't see anyone inside the Rainbow Lounge make lewd gestures or grab the officers. "To me, it seemed like they were trying to make a point," he said of the police.

GORDON BROWN'S NEW GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS FOR PEOPLE 50 AND OLDER

EMERGENCY PROCLAMATION

Dear People of the United Kingdom

Due to the current financial situation caused by the slowdown of the economy, your Government has decided to implement a program to put workers 50 years of age and older on early retirement. This program will be known as RAPE (Retire Aged People Early).

Persons selected to be RAPED can apply to the government to be eligible for the SHAFT program (Special Help After Forced Termination).

Persons who have been RAPED and SHAFTED will be reviewed under the SCREW program (Services Covering Retired Early Workers). A person may be RAPED once, SHAFTED twice and SCREWED as many times as the government deems appropriate.

Only persons who have been RAPED can get AIDS (Additional Income for Dependants & Spouse) or HERPES (Half Earnings for Retired Personnel Early Severance). Obviously, persons who have AIDS or HERPES will not be SHAFTED or SCREWED any further by the government.

Persons who are not RAPED and are staying on, will receive as much SHIT (Special High Intensity Training) as possible. The government has always prided itself in the amount of SHIT it gives out. Should you feel that you do not receive enough SHIT, please bring this to the attention of your local MP. They have been trained to give you all the SHIT you can handle.

God Save the Queen
Sincerely


Gordon Brown, Prime Minister
Her Majesty’s Government

Monday, June 29, 2009

OBAMA'S POUND OF FLESH

From today's IsraelNationalNews.com:

Pinchas Wallerstein, a long-time Israeli settlement leader charged that the new American government is trying to take "Barak Hussein Obama's pound of flesh for the Arab world towards which he now sets his sights." President Obama stated in his Cairo University speech earlier this month that "the U.S. does not view the settlements as legitimate." he has issued repeated calls for a halt to building for Jews.

Even the Washington Post, which usually sides against Israeli policies in Yesha, is concerned with the Obama administration having painted itself a corner in the Arab-Israeli peace process.

Jackson Diehl, the newspaper’s deputy editorial page editor, wrote Monday morning: "The administration made the mistake of insisting that an Israeli settlement ‘freeze’ - a term the past three administrations agreed to define loosely - must mean a total stop to all construction in the West Bank and even East Jerusalem.

"This absolutist position is a loser for three reasons. First, it has allowed Palestinian and Arab leaders to withhold the steps they were asked for; they claim to be waiting for the settlement "freeze" even as they quietly savor a rare public battle between Israel and the United States.

Second, the administration's objective -- whatever its merits -- is unobtainable. No Israeli government has ever agreed to an unconditional freeze, and no coalition could be assembled from the current parliament to impose one.

Finally, the extraction of a freeze from Netanyahu is, as a practical matter, unnecessary. While further settlement expansion needs to be curbed, both the Palestinian Authority and Arab governments have gone along with previous U.S.-Israeli deals by which construction was to be limited to inside the periphery of settlements near Israel -- since everyone knows those areas will be annexed to Israel in a final settlement."
 

Sunday, June 28, 2009

2 DEATHS BUT ONLY 1 LOSS

This past week, despite the state of the economy, the turmoil in Iran and the military blustering by North Korea, all the media was focused on the death of two entertainment celebrities. One death was a tragic loss. The other death, which received by far the most attention, was no loss.

Farrah Fawcett died at the age of 62 after losing a long and painful battle against anal cancer. Farrah is best remembered for her beauty, the poster of her posing in a red bathing suit, and her co-starring role in the TV series "Charlie’s Angels." But Fawcett was also an accomplished actress, the recipient of three Emmy Award nominations for her portrayals as an abused wife in "The Burning Bed," as a rape victim in "Extremities," and as a deranged mother who murders her own children in "Small Sacrifices." Farrah Fawcett’s death is a tragic loss.

Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, died at the age of 50 and millions of his fans all over the world are left grief stricken. There is no doubt that Jackson was one of the greatest entertainers of all time. As a recording artist and dancer he was phenomenal. But his death is no loss because the bottom line is that he was also a child molester. I say good riddance!

There is a good possibility that Jackson’s death was related to a 25-year-long addiction to prescription drugs that started after he was accidentally burned while filming a Pepsi Cola commercial. During his early years, Jackson enjoyed the good fortune of being extremely handsome, but in a weird desire to be white, he underwent numerous plastic surgeries that left him looking like a macabre horror flick zombie.

None other than Jesse Jackson, who never misses a photo-op, suddenly popped up like a jack-in-the-box as a family spokesman to announce that Michael Jackson's family was not satisfied with the Los Angeles County Coroner’s findings and has hired an independent pathologist to perform a second autopsy.

The King of Pop was fond of taking young boys to bed with him. In 1993, a 13-year-old boy accused Jackson of sexually molesting him. The boy said that he and Jackson had engaged in acts of kissing, masturbation and oral sex. Jackson avoided prosecution by paying the family $21 million for his accuser’s silence.

In 2003, Jackson was accused of sexually molesting another 13-year-old boy. In that case, Jackson was tried in 2005 on seven counts of child sexual abuse and two counts of administering an intoxicating agent to seduce the young boy. After a five-month-long trial, a jury acquitted Jackson on all charges.

TO THOSE OF YOU WHO SAY THAT MICHAEL JACKSON WAS NO CHILD MOLESTER, I SAY YEAH RIGHT, AND O.J. SIMPSON WAS NO MURDERER.

A retired police official, who was justifiably angered by the worldwide grief over Jackson’s death, wrote to let me know how he felt. I could not have said it any better:

"This Monday I will be attending the funeral of Houston Police Officer Henry Canales who was shot to death by an illegal alien. Unlike Michael Jackson, this officer is a true hero. And unlike Jackson, he will be missed only by his grief stricken family and his fellow officers.

Maybe I'm missing something. Since when do child molesters get so much adulation? I recognize that Michael Jackson was a singing and dancing sensation, but more important, wasn't he a child molester? I know he was never convicted, but didn't he settle out of court for millions of dollars to the victims? This obsession with celebrities who promote nothing but themselves is wrong and sickening.

The real heroes are the fire fighters, police officers and U.S. Military personnel who protect us here and abroad. The sacrifices they and their families make are for us, not themselves."

Now everyone seems to be scrambling for a piece of the action. Not only did Jesse Jackson take advantage of Michael Jackson’s death, but so did his fellow charlatan, Al Sharpton, who placed himself in charge of organizing world-wide memorials for the King of Pop. Please count me out!

While I am truly concerned about the welfare of Jackson's three children and want to express my sincere condolences to his family for the loss of a loved one, I have nothing but utter contempt for those who continue to worship a sordid child molester. Again, I say good riddance to that pedophile!

TRUE NATURE OF FATAH

ABBAS’S FATAH BRAGS ABOUT ANTI-ISRAEL TERROR
by Maayana Miskin

IsraelNationalNews.com
June 28, 2009

Members of Fatah put on a show recently boasting that Fatah leads other organizations, particularly Hamas, in anti-Israel terrorism. The event was attended by former Palestinian Authority leaders.

The performance was videotaped and shown on Fatah TV -- the television station controlled by Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority, with which the U.S., U.N. and EU expect Israel to conduct negotiations. It was later translated by Palestinian Media Watch.

Among those present at the event were former head of PA security Mahmoud Dahlan and former head of PA foreign affairs Nasser al-Qidwa. The audience sang the PA anthem prior to the show.

In the pro-Fatah performance, actors portrayed a classroom setting in which pro-Fatah students debated their pro-Hamas classmates and teachers over which of the two groups deserved most credit for attacks on Israel. The play includes a segment in which pro-Fatah students criticize Hamas for failing to attack Israel more frequently since taking control of Gaza:

"Since Hamas seized power, we haven't heard of any martyrdom [suicide] operations," a pro-Fatah student taunts.

"It's called 'fighter's rest,'" the teacher responds.

"Why, when Fatah stops fighting, [Hamas] says they're cowards, but when Hamas stops fighting you say it's 'fighter's rest'?" the student demands.

LOUD APPLAUSE AND WHISTLES

In another segment, pro-Fatah students brag that the Fatah-led Palestinian Liberation Organization was the first to carry out terrorist attacks on Israel. "The first shot was fired by the PLO, the first jihad was carried out by the PLO with all the other factions – but Hamas always opposed," a student says to loud applause and whistles from the audience.

The pro-Fatah students also boast about the sadistic murder of two Israelis in Ramallah in 2000. Israeli reservists Vadim Nurzhitz and Yossi Avrahami were arrested by PA police and subsequently lynched by a mob, which beat the two to death, mutilated their bodies and dragged them through the street.

The students also express approval of the kidnapping of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, criticizing Hamas only due to the fact that it was not directly responsible for his capture.

"What do you say about the Hamas kidnapping of [Israeli] soldier Shalit," the teacher in Fatah's play asks.

"Did Fatah ever capture a soldier?" the pro-Hamas character asks.

"[Other] brigades captured [Shalit] and sold him [to Hamas]," a pro-Fatah student character responds to loud applause.

"Remember, in Ramallah, [PA] police arrested two soldiers. Have you forgotten, teacher?" A second pro-Fatah character adds.

The two soldiers "arrested" were Vadim Nurzhitz and Yossi Avrahami, may Hashem avenge their blood.

NO LYNCHING BY DUKE FACUTY THIS TIME

LITTLE BOY BLUE DEVIL
by Mike Adams

Townhall.com
June 28, 2009

It looks like Duke University has another rape case on its hands. This one may hurt the university nearly as much as the one that rocked its campus back in 2006. Unlike the previous case, this one appears to involve a credible confession of sexual abuse. Like the previous case, crucial facts are already being filtered through the prism of identity politics.

Frank Lombard is the associate director of Duke’s Center for Health Policy. The university administrator was recently arrested by the FBI and charged with offering up his adopted 5-year-old son for sex. I tried to contact Frank Lombard over the weekend to probe his expertise regarding the health benefits of raping small children. So far, he’s declined to comment.

University administrator Lombard is accused of logging on to a chat room online and describing himself as a "perv dad for fun." The detective who wisely looked into the suspicious screen name says that Lombard admitted to molesting his own adopted son. All this was before allegedly inviting a stranger to travel to North Carolina from another state to statutorily rape his already-molested adopted son.

If Lombard is convicted, he faces a maximum of 20 years in prison. His arrest comes about a year after the Court decided that child rapists cannot be executed because "society" has "evolved" to the point where such executions would be "indecent."

If this case goes to trial, it could be an interesting one to watch. But it will be just as interesting to watch the Duke faculty respond to these allegations. It didn’t take them long to respond when several white Duke Lacrosse players were accused of raping a black stripper. A whopping 88 professors signed a statement accusing the players of both racism and rape. Such was their regard for the presumption of innocence.

Perhaps even more stunning was the response of some professors after it became apparent that the white lacrosse players were innocent. After that became so obvious the school had to readmit the students, Professor Kate Holloway resigned her committee assignments in protest. By the way, the most common form of faculty protest these days is to refuse to work. Most people think this kind of protest is caused by arrogance. But the actual cause is a thing called "tenure."

So it will be interesting to see how Duke faculty members respond to Frank Lombard. Because he is white, Lombard is fair game at Duke, isn’t he? But Lombard is also gay, so will that complicate things?

Unfortunately for Frank Lombard, the affidavit in support of his arrest warrant shows that this second Duke rape case will also have a strong racial component. According to a confidential source (CS) a man using the user name "cooper2" or "cooperse" logged onto an internet-based video chat room. CS saw him perform oral sex on an African-American child under the age of ten. He also performed other acts on the child, which are too obscene to be described in this column.

The user name "cooper2" has now been linked to Frank Lombard, the associate director Duke University’s Center for Health Policy. A second source has now alleged that "cooper2" has confessed to being "into incest" and that he has adopted two African American children.

The only good news coming out of this story is about Frank Lombard’s live-in homosexual partner. The affidavit in support of Lombard’s arrest warrant shows that he made special arrangements when molesting the child – sometimes even by drugging the child – to make sure his partner did not find out.

Records also indicate that Frank Lombard made a contribution to the Genesis Home in 2003. The Genesis Home is an organization that assists needy families in making a transition out of homelessness, in part by maintaining a child care center. The organization’s website features numerous photographs of African-American children under the age of ten.

The Associate Press (AP) did not mention the fact that the five-year old offered up for molestation was black. Bringing that fact to light might be damaging to the political coalition that exists between blacks and gays. Nor did the AP mention that the adopted child is being raised by a homosexual couple. Bringing that fact to light might harm the gay adoption movement.

I wrote this column because I believe that certain coalitions must be broken. And certain movements must be harmed. Let the political fallout begin.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

APPALACHIAN TRAIL RUNS ALL THE WAY TO ARGENTINA

As the saying goes, you can learn something new every day. I’ve always thought the Appalachian Trail runs from Maine to Georgia but I’ve just learned that it runs all the way down to Argentina.

When Gov. Mark Sanford of South Caroline mysteriously disappeared, his staff told us that he went away to spend some time in solitude by hiking on the Appalachian Trail. Upon his return, he confessed that he had gone all the way down to Argentina to spend five days in Buenos Aires doing the tango between the sheets with the extramarital love of his life.

Of course, by now everyone knows the story of the good governor’s great "hike." He left his SUV, with his camping gear inside, at the Columbia airport and flew off to Buenos Aires to be with his Argentine lover, a beautiful woman he met eight years ago at a dance hall in Uruguay while on a business trip to South America. He might have gotten away with his hiking ruse had it not been that a reporter, who happened to be at the Atlanta airport, recognized the governor upon his return to the United States. That let the cat out of the bag.

Sanford was a rising star in the Republican Party who has often been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate. Alas, now poor old Mark’s star has dimmed. Presidential ambitions aside, he may also see his hold on the governor’s office slip away. Another Republican bible thumping, family values office holder appears to be biting the dust.

What in the world would lead a prominent public official to risk his marriage and his political career for a "piece of ass?" Among a long list of others, you might want to ask Eliot Spitzer, New York’s former Democratic governor and presidential hopeful, who resigned from office in disgrace after it came to light that he had been dilly-dallying around with high-priced prostitutes.

Why would a married governor fall in love with an Argentine woman from Buenos Aires? I think I know why. I’ve been to Brazil and Peru four times, to Argentina and Venezuela three times, and once to Columbia and Ecuador. In each and every one of those South American countries I’ve seen hundreds of drop-dead gorgeous "hotties" who would have melted butter in a freezer. Those women, usually of European extraction, are not only eye-popping beautiful, but unlike American women, they have not been spoiled.

I wish I could show you some snapshots of the many stunningly beautiful women I saw during my travels in South America, but I was unable to take their pictures when those beauties caught my eye. However, I will show you some snapshots that I took of three ordinary looking babes in Brazil. Now that you've seen these pictures, I’ll let you imagine what an easy-to-fall-for drop-dead gorgeous South American "hottie" would look like.


So now you know what happened to Gov. Sanford. He met a beautiful Argentine woman in Uruguay, fell in love with her, couldn’t resist disappearing from sight for some sack time in Buenos Aires with his new found love, got caught as he returned, and lost all hope for any shot at the presidency. And that is also how I learned the Appalachian Trail runs all the way from Maine down to Argentina.  

Friday, June 26, 2009

JUSTICE DELAYED, DENIED FOR VICTIMS AND INNOCENTS WRONGLY CONVICTED

The backlog of DNA evidence seems to be a problem experienced by most law enforcement agencies. The failure to test DNA evidence delays and denies justice for both crime victims and innocents wrongly convicted. Here is the L.A. Times report on the problem in Los Angeles:

CASH-STRAPPED L.A. DEPARTMENT STOPS ANALYZING DNA EVIDENCE
By Joel Rubin and Molly Hennessy-Fiske

Los Angeles Times
June 24, 2009

LOS ANGELES — Out of cash and understaffed, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has suspended its faltering effort to analyze DNA evidence from thousands of rape and sexual assault cases.

The department halted shipments of the genetic evidence to private crime laboratories at the end of May after funds allotted for the testing ran dry, according to a report submitted by Sheriff Lee Baca to the county Board of Supervisors late last week.

Sheriff's Department officials said they expected to receive federal grant money next month, and more funds in the fall, that would allow them to continue testing for four or five months. After that, however, the department will have to rely on an uncertain stream of state funding, officials said.

The haphazard approach underscores the trouble Baca has had delivering on a promise he made in November to clear the decades-old backlog of evidence from roughly 4,600 cases and to keep pace with testing evidence from all new cases. Late Monday afternoon, a spokesman for Baca said that Marshall University in West Virginia had agreed to do a small amount of testing for free each month, adding to the sense that the Sheriff's Department is scrambling to find help anywhere it can.

To date, the department has sent evidence from 676 cases to outside labs, according to the report. About three-quarters of those were not dispatched until recently and have not yet been processed, department officials said. Moreover, though testing has produced usable results in 98 cases so far, the genetic profiles of the suspected attackers in only six of the cases have been compared with state databases. The rest are awaiting a final review by the Sheriff Department's in-house laboratory. In one of those six cases, the alleged attacker was identified, raising the likelihood that the answers to several other rapes and sex crimes lie in the department's untested evidence.

"The lab must be given the resources it needs to do this work," said Gail Abarbanel, director of the Rape Treatment Center at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center. "There are rapists walking the streets of Los Angeles, who, if they tested evidence that is sitting on shelves, could be taken off."

Because of funding problems, the amount of untested evidence has actually grown. Sheriff's officials said the department's lab cannot keep up with the more than 330 new sexual assault cases and the preparation and review work that must be completed on outsourced evidence kits.

Victims of sexual assault are taken to medical specialists who swab their bodies for sperm, saliva or other genetic samples left by the attacker. The evidence, packaged in so-called sexual assault kits, hold potentially crucial information. DNA analysts can extract a person's genetic code from the collected samples and compare it with the DNA profiles of known felons in state and federal databases. When the DNA sample matches a DNA profile in the database, it can offer prosecutors nearly irrefutable proof of the person's guilt. The evidence can also be used to confirm that someone has not falsely confessed to a crime or to link someone to other unsolved cases.

Since the advent of DNA testing, however, the Sheriff's Department -- as well as the Los Angeles Police Department and other agencies -- had followed a policy of testing evidence only when such a request was made by detectives working the case. Late last year, under pressure from watchdog groups and politicians, Baca and LAPD Chief William J. Bratton changed course, saying they would test all the evidence kits. Inventories of the backlogged cases in both departments revealed that evidence had gone untested in hundreds of cases in which detectives had no other leads and could have possibly benefited from the DNA analysis. Dozens of those cases were found to be too old for prosecutors to pursue under the statute of limitations.

LAPD Deputy Chief Charlie Beck said his department is continuing to outsource evidence from old cases at a rate of about 115 a week and has the funding to continue doing so for most of the next fiscal year.

But L.A. County is hardly alone in its predicament. A state legislative budget committee recently recommended that funding for the California Department of Justice lab be slashed by $20 million next fiscal year -- a move that, if approved by lawmakers, would force the lab to stop providing free DNA testing to 47 of the state's 53 county governments.

In the months after Baca's November announcement, sheriff's officials indicated repeatedly that the department did not have sufficient resources to make good on the promise. Early hopes that the county would provide an infusion of cash for testing were quickly dashed as the economic recession worsened, said Cmdr. Earl Shields of the department's Technical Services Division. The full extent of the funding shortfall became clear last month when Baca told county officials his department needed about $4.5 million to outsource old sexual assault kits to private labs and a similar amount to add 30 more people to the Sheriff's Department lab. With those resources, the DNA backlog could be cleared in 18 months, Shields said.

Facing nearly $500 million in budget cuts, county officials made it clear that there was no money to be had. "That was never realistic," Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said. "He's got a $2-billion budget. If this is his No. 1 priority, he should be able to find resources within his own department."

Sheila Williams, an analyst with the county's chief executive office, added that sheriff's officials never alerted anyone in her office that there could come a time when funds would be gone and testing suspended.

CARTER'S LATENT ANTI-SEMITISM

Jimmy Carter’s comparison of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to South Africa’s apartheid policy, his insistence that Jerusalem must be divided, and his refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state because 20% of the population is not Jewish are some clear signs of latent anti-Semitism.

In today’s Townhall.com, Scott Wheeler shows how Carter is either a phony or a fool. Here is Wheeler’s column:

FOOLS, FRAUDS AND TERRORISTS
by Scott Wheeler

Townhall.com
June 26, 2009

When it comes to describing the unfortunate periodic reappearances of Jimmy Carter in the Middle East several characterizations come to mind but none more so than these two: a basket case of self-delusion or venal anti-Semitism masquerading as compassion. In either case, Carter is destined to continue his encouragement of the outlawed terrorist organization Hamas to pursue its murderous policies aimed primarily at civilians.

During his recent foray into Gaza -- where Carter publically called upon the US to remove the Iranian backed Muslim Brotherhood affiliated Hamas from the list of known terrorist organizations -- he managed to be the only observer of Mid-East politics to believe the absolutely phony and poorly staged "falling out" between Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and his deputy Moussa Abu Marzook. What Carter interpreted as a sign of Hamas’s moderation was in fact a clumsy tactical move to make that organization appear "moderate" by spinning off its terrorist operational arm into a subsidiary organization so that when the next series of terror attacks occur they will have a degree of deniability for the actions they launch. This is an old tactic taken directly from the terrorist playbook of the late Yassir Arafat during the course of his murderous existence. It also comes at a time when multiple reports, and statements by his own advisors, have indicated that Obama intends to negotiate with Hamas, in fact some reports say that Carter was delivering that message from Obama.

Then came the staged "roadside bomb" incident where Hamas announced it had discovered and neutralized a bomb along Carter’s motorcade route. Of course he was deeply grateful for their vigilance, professionalism, concern for his safety. Again he stood alone in being so gullible as to defy belief among virtually all observers of his trip. Everyone else was convinced that Hamas planted the "bomb" themselves to then act as hero by finding it. Hamas literally saw Carter coming.

Let us not forget that Carter also urged Hamas to recognize the right of Israel to exist. Can we now get Carter to urge Obama to recognize Israel’s right to exist? To his chagrin Hamas categorically rejected Israel’s right to exist when a senior Hamas official announced: "Recognizing Israel is completely unacceptable." Undaunted by these obvious facts concerning the violent and implacable nature of his Hamas friends, Carter is still insisting that US and UN sanctions against Hamas be lifted and they be rewarded for their vile rejectionist stance – after all the people in Gaza who freely elected them are suffering under their policies. Alas, it is such a pity that Carter’s favorite terrorist organization has the bad taste to actually do what they say they believe in.

Carter’s penchant for believing his own rhetoric and seeing the World as he would like it to be rather than for what it is makes him the incarnation of what Vladimir Lenin termed a "useful idiot," in Obama’s case a more accurate term would be "pernicious idiot." Unfortunately, multitudes of innocent people pay the ultimate price for the delusional machinations of such people throughout history. The self-righteous weaklings who periodically appear on the world stage have caused much tragedy. Carter himself and his failed one-term presidency was largely responsible for the mismanagement of political change in Iran that saw Muslim fundamentalists seize power in 1979. His intervention that forestalled a military coup ensured the successful power grab by Islamic militants and the waves of murders and assassinations around the world of pro-Western Iranian leaders. These same Islamic militants went on to seize the American Embassy and develop Terrorism as the primary instrument of their foreign policy. Two of their most dangerous and infamous creations were Hamas and Hezbollah.

There is a certain symmetry to Carter’s unwavering support for organizations like Hamas. How much is a result of his underlying guilt as the unwitting mid-wife of modern day Islamic terrorism and how much is sheer buffoonery is difficult to discern and may never be known. Unfortunately, his misplaced compassion for Hamas and the Gazans who installed them in power and still give them their unwavering support despite the depredations they have wrought may also mask a long-suspected underlying anti-Semitism that distorts his ability to rationally approach issues in the Middle-East.

Neville Chamberlain saw the world as he wished it would be in 1938 when he signed the Munich Agreement with Hitler and doomed the innocent citizens of Czechoslovakia, and eventually much of Europe, to Nazi tyranny and genocide. Unfortunately he lived to see his 76th birthday. Jimmy Carter has now seen his 85th birthday but his legitimization of terrorist organizations such as Hamas will ensure that untold numbers of innocent civilians will never be blessed with such longevity.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

JUSTIFIABLE ASSAULT

If you recall, Carrie Prejean, Miss California, was favored to win the Miss USA title. That was until she was asked a provocative question by one of the pageant’s judges, Mario Armando Lavandeira, Jr., a gossip blogger who goes under the name of Perez Hilton and calls himself "queen of all media." Hilton asked Prejean to express her views on gay marriage.

When Prejean answered the provocative religious and politically charged question by saying, "I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman," her chances of being crowned Miss USA were doomed.

Fielding accusations that he cost Prejean the Miss USA title, Perez Hilton, countered by saying "Miss California lost because she's a dumb bitch." Later, the damn bitch (Hilton) had the audacity to say that Prejean should have "left her politics and her religion out because Miss USA represents all Americans" when in fact he was the one who brought the religious and political controversy to the pageant.

Now the openly gay Hilton is in the news again. It seems that the manager of the Black Eyed Peas took offense to something the damn bitch said during a heated argument with members of the band while they were in a Toronto nightclub. In his usual obnoxious style, Hilton directed "gay slurs" at the band members. Outside, in the club’s parking lot, the manager punched Hilton in the face, leaving him with a well deserved black eye.

The police charged the manager with assault. The "queen of all media" wasted no time filing a lawsuit claiming battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

I believe the wrong party has been charged in this episode. Personally, I am not the least bit interested in the details of this case. I am sure they are splattered all over the blogosphere. My only interest in this case is seeing justice done. For starters, I hope Hilton’s lawsuit will get its just deserves – DISMMISAL with payment ordered for the manager’s legal bills.

As far as I am concerned, that punch by the Black Eyed Peas manager which blackened Hilton’s eye constituted a justifiable assault. It would have been more appropriate had Hilton been charged with assault for striking the manager’s fist with his head. Every time that troublemaking bitch opens his big mouth, someone needs to smack him with a good one.

JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE

 
Submitted by a retired police officer:
 
NON-POISONOUS SNAKES CAN KILL YOU!!!
 
Garter Snakes (Thamnophissirtalis) can be dangerous. Yes, tiny grass snakes, not rattlesnakes. Here's why....

A couple in Sweetwater , Texas , had a lot of potted plants. During a recent cold spell, the wife was bringing them indoors to protect them from possible freeze.

It turned out that a little green garden grass snake was hidden in one of the plants. When it had warmed up,it slithered out-the wife saw it go under the sofa.

She let out a very loud scream.

The husband (who was taking a shower) ran out into the living room naked to see what the problem was. She told him there was a snake under the sofa.

He got down on the floor on his hands and knees to look for it. About that time the family dog came and cold-nosed him on the behind. He thought the snake had bitten him, he screamed and fell over on the floor.

His wife thought he had had a heart attack, she covered him, told him to lie still -called an ambulance.

The attendants rushed in, would not listen to his protests, loaded him on the stretcher, and started carrying him out.

About that time, the snake came out from under the sofa and the Emergency Medical Technician saw it and dropped his end of the stretcher.. That's when the man broke his leg and why he is still in the hospital.

The wife still had the problem of the snake in the house, so she called on a neighbor who volunteered to capture the snake. He armed himself with a rolled-up newspaper and began poking under the couch. Soon he decided it was gone and told the woman, who sat down on the sofa in relief.

But while relaxing, her hand dangled in between the cushions, where she felt the snake wriggling around. She screamed and fainted, the snake rushed back under the sofa.....

The neighbor man, seeing her lying there passed out, tried to use CPR to revive her.

The neighbor's wife, who had just returned from shopping at the grocery store, saw her husband's mouth on the woman's mouth and slammed her husband in the back of the head with a bag of canned goods, knocking him out and cutting his scalp to a point where it needed stitches.

The noise woke the woman from her dead faint and she saw her neighbor lying on the floor with his wife bending over him, so she assumed that the snake had bitten him. She went to the kitchen and got a small bottle of whiskey, and began pouring it down the man's throat.

By now, the police had arrived.

[Breathe here......]

They saw the unconscious man, smelled the whiskey, and assumed that a drunken fight had occurred. They were about to arrest them all, when the women tried to explain how it all happened over a little green snake.

The police called an ambulance, which took away the neighbor and his sobbing wife.

Now, the little snake again crawled out from under the sofa and one of the policemen drew his gun and fired at it. He missed the snake and hit the leg of the end table. The table fell over, the lamp on it shattered and, as the bulb broke, it started a fire in the drapes.

The other policeman tried to beat out the flames, and fell through the window into the yard on top of the family dog who, startled, jumped out and raced into the street, where an oncoming car swerved to avoid it and smashed into the parked police car.

Meanwhile, neighbors saw the burning drapes and called in the fire department. The firemen had started raising the fire ladder when they were halfway down the street. The rising ladder tore out the overhead wires, put out the power, and disconnected the telephones in a ten-square city block area (but they did get the house fire out).

Time passed! Both men were discharged from the hospital, the house was repaired, the dog came home, the police acquired a new car and all was right with their world.

A while later they were watching TV and the weatherman announced a cold snap for that night. The wife asked her husband if he thought they should bring in the rest of their plants for the night.

And, that's when he shot her.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

IN A THOUSAND YEARS, NO PALESTINIAN LEADER WILL ACCEPT RECOGNITION OF ISRAEL AS JEWISH

OBAMA UNABLE TO BULLY ISRAEL - FOR NOW
by Joel Mowbray

Townhall.com
June 23, 2009

Following a surprising speech in which he uttered the words "Palestinian state" for the first time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has strengthened his standing at home and abroad, far exceeding expectations from all quarters.

Though last week’s address received only modest coverage in the United States, it has already shifted the dynamics of the inevitable "peace talks." Contrary to the media’s conventional wisdom, however, Israel’s stronger negotiating position actually increases the odds of genuine, measurable progress for the Palestinians in the near term.

Emphasizing that positive steps could be taken almost immediately, a high-ranking Knesset staffer used a football analogy to explain that the Obama administration now has important question to answer: "Do they want to go for a Hail Mary pass, or will they be happy moving the ball forward?"

No amount of bromides and wishful thinking can change the reality that a "permanent" agreement has never been within reach. Israel, of course, has long been willing to make painful concessions, and the broader public still supports some form of a two-state solution. What has been lacking, though, is a willing partner on the other side of the bargaining table.

Former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat famously walked away from a generous deal in July 2000 that offered him almost his every request. Shortly thereafter, he ushered in the so-called intifada, an unprecedented campaign of suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians in buses, markets and cafes.

Since then, matters have sadly deteriorated. Palestinians suffer not just a crisis of leadership, but also a crisis of culture. Thanks to the dogged efforts of groups such as Palestinian Media Watch and Middle East Media Research Institute, we know that Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza miss no opportunity in textbooks or television to poison the minds of parents and children alike.

It is little wonder that terrorism remains more popular with Palestinians than does peaceful coexistence with a Jewish state.

Much has been made—correctly—about Netanyahu’s insistence that any future Palestinian state be de-militarized and accept Israel as Jewish, but two other provisions in his speech likely will be the initial focal points as soon as talks start.

In calling on the Palestinians to "turn toward peace ... in educating their children for peace and in stopping incitement against Israel," Netanyahu brought to the front-burner a subject largely ignored by the three prime ministers who served since his last term ended ten years ago. Here Western governments actually possess substantial leverage, as it is their taxpayers’ money that underwrites most Palestinian education and media.

Parallel to curbing indoctrination is Netanyahu’s idea of "economic peace," which would entail fortifying the Palestinian economy and re-building the institutions of civil society. Advisors to the Israeli prime minister believe that conditions on the ground—culturally, politically, economically—must improve before the Palestinian society will be ready to embrace peace with Israel.

What is not likely to be a major sticking point in the near term is the issue that has generated the most attention in recent weeks: Israeli settlements. People close to Netanyahu believe that the highly publicized spat has been overblown, and any differences with the Obama administration will soon be resolved.

Most important was the impact the speech had on Netanyahu’s political standing inside Israel. Improbably, he garnered praise from the right and left; his approval skyrocketed 16 percent overnight.

His right-wing coalition was pleased that he didn’t cave to Obama on settlements or propose a Palestinian state that would be capable of attacking Israel.

Helping him most with shoring up support from the center and the left, though, was the shockingly coarse responses from across the Arab world to Netanyahu’s insistence that Israel be recognized as Jewish. Presumably speaking on behalf of moderate Fatah leader and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said flatly, "In a thousand years, no Palestinian leader will accept this."

"If they won’t accept us as a Jewish state, then when will they ever accept us?" asked Shmuel, a 70-year-old native Israeli who supported Oslo and has mostly voted for left-wing candidates. Such was the sentiment across Israel, where ordinary citizens are leery of making concessions to people who won’t even agree to their country’s right to exist.

Speculation that "peace" is now dead or hopelessly delayed misses the point. Oslo proved that a signed deal alone does not bring peace.

On the table now is the prospect of making life better for Palestinians, laying the necessary foundation for a future state that is stable and—most important—committed to peace.

For the sake of all parties, Obama should not waste this historic opportunity.

OVERCOMING THE ASIAN MENACE ON CAMPUS

As a retired academic who has been very critical of the left’s shenanigans on campuses, I found the following Townhall.com column by Walter Williams extremely eye-opening. Williams is a conservative columnist who happens to be black, as is Ward Connerly, the author of an article that led to this column.

VICIOUS ACADEMIC LIBERALS
by Walter E. Williams

Townhall.com
June 24, 2009

Ward Connerly, former University of California Regent, has an article, "Study, Study, Study -- A Bad Career Move" in the June 2, 2009 edition of Minding the Campus (www.mindingthecampus.com) that should raise any decent American's level of disgust for what's routinely practiced at most of our universities. Mr. Connerly tells of a conversation he had with a high-ranking UC administrator about a proposal that the administrator was developing to increase campus diversity.

Connerly asked the administrator why he considered it important to tinker with admissions instead of just letting the chips fall where they may. His response was that that unless the university took steps to "guide" admissions decisions, the University of California campuses would be dominated by Asians. When Connerly asked, "What would be wrong with that?", the UC administrator told him that Asians are "too dull -- they study, study, study." Then he said to Connerly, "If you ever say I said this, I will have to deny it." Connerly did not reveal the administrator's name. It would not have done any good because it's part of a diversity vision shared by most college administrators.

With the enactment of California's Proposition 209 in 1996, outlawing racial discrimination in college admissions, Asian enrollment at UC campuses has skyrocketed. UC Berkeley student body is 42 percent Asian students; UC Irvine 55 percent; UC Riverside 43 percent; and UCLA 38 percent. Asian student enrollment on all nine UC campuses is over 40 percent. That's in a state where the Asian population is about 13 percent. When there are policies that emphasize and reward academic achievement, Asians excel. College officials and others who are proponents of "diversity" and equal representation find that outcome offensive.

To deal with the Asian "menace," the UC Regents have proposed, starting in 2010, that no longer will the top 12.5 percent of students based on statewide performance be automatically admitted. Students won't have to take SAT subject matter tests. Grades and test scores will no longer weigh so heavily in admission decisions. This is simply gross racial discrimination against those "dull" Asian students who "study, study, study" in favor of "interesting" black, white and Hispanic students who don't "study, study, study."

This is truly evil and would be readily condemned as such if applied to other areas lacking in diversity. With blacks making up about 80 percent of professional basketball players, there is little or no diversity in professional basketball. Even at college-level basketball, it is not at all unusual to watch two teams playing and there not being a single white player on the court, much less a Chinese or Japanese player.

I can think of several rule changes that might increase racial diversity in professional and college basketball. How about eliminating slam dunks and disallowing three-point shots? Restrict dribbling? Lower the basket's height? These and other rule changes would take away the "unfair" advantage that black players appear to have and create greater basketball diversity. But wouldn't diversity so achieved be despicable? If you answer yes, why would it be any less so when it's used to fulfill somebody's vision of college diversity?

Ward Connerly ends his article saying, "There is one truth that is universally applicable in the era of 'diversity,' especially in American universities: an absolute unwillingness to accept the verdict of colorblind policies." Hypocrisy is part and parcel of the liberal academic elite. But the American people, who fund universities either as parents, donors or taxpayers, should not accept this evilness and there's a good way to stop it -- cut off the funding to racially discriminating colleges and universities.

TOURISM TRIFECTA

After reading my blog "Mexico To OK Use Of Pot, Coke, Meth And Smack" (6-22-09), a very dear friend of some 30 years sent me an e-mail in which he coined the term "Tourism Trifecta." My friend knows what he’s talking about because he is a retired state police lieutenant who worked on the Mexican border and who met often in Mexico with some of that nation's police officials.

My friend is very concerned about Mexico’s decriminalization of drug use. In his e-mail he wrote, "Mexico will increase its Spring Break tourism 10 fold. Can you imagine the headshop business in Cancun and in the Mexican towns along the U.S. border? Drinking, Prostitution and Legalized Drugs. That’s tourism trifecta!"

Later, he sent me the following e-mail:

"The sad thing about the drug tourism business will be the kidnappings, robberies, beatings, and murders of young Texans that venture across the border to get high.

While stationed on the border I worked with State Department officials who had the gruesome task of retrieving the bodies of young people killed while partying in Mexico. This will only get worse. The same drug dealers that ply their trade will also work hand in hand with Mexican bandits.

I met with Mexican police officials in Matamoras and Nuevo Laredo on several occasions in an effort to curb underage drinking in the Mexican border cities. I was instrumental in receiving federal funds to train police officers on both sides of the border. Sadly, after 911 the funds dried up. Some of those police officials from Mexico that I had worked with were killed or disappeared."

So there you have it from an expert. Soon, American tourists can get stoned in Mexico without worrying about getting busted by Mexican cops driving cars that were stolen in the United States. When Mexico legalizes the use of pot, coke, meth and smack, it will have created a tourism trifecta that will have dire consequences for our party-loving college students and other pleasure seeking tourists from the United States.

IRS AUDIT

Here is a Jewish joke that everyone can appreciate.
 
THE RABBI AND THE IRS AUDITOR

The IRS sends their auditor (a nasty little man) to audit a synagogue. The auditor is doing all the checks, and then turns to the Rabbi and says, "I noticed that you buy a lot of candles."

"Yes," answered the Rabbi.

"Well, Rabbi, what do you do with the candle drippings?" he asked.

"A good question," noted the Rabbi. "We actually save them up. When we have enough, we send them back to the candle maker and every now and then, they send us a free box of candles."

"Oh," replied the auditor somewhat disappointed that his question actually had a practical answer. So he thought he'd try another question, in his obnoxious way...

"Rabbi, what about all these matzo purchases? What do you do with the crumbs from the matzos?"

"Ah, yes," replied the Rabbi calmly, "we actually collect up the crumbs, we send them in a box back to the manufacturer and every now and then, they send a box of matzo balls."

"Oh," replied the auditor, thinking hard how to fluster the Rabbi.

"Well, Rabbi," he went on, "what do you do with all the foreskins from the circumcisions?"

"Yes, here too, we do not waste," answered the Rabbi. "What we do is save up all the foreskins, and when we have enough we actually send them to the IRS ."

"To the IRS ?" questioned the auditor in disbelief.

"Ah, yes," replied the Rabbi, "directly to the IRS ...And about once a year, they send us a little prick like you."

Monday, June 22, 2009

MEXICO TO OK USE OF POT, COKE, METH AND SMACK

If you can’t beat em, join em, the old saying goes. And, according to the Los Angeles Times, that’s what Mexico is going to do by decriminalizing the personal use of marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamines and heroin. Make no mistake about it, despite claims to the contrary, what Mexico is really doing is legalizing the use of those drugs.

I predict that Mexico will end up with a lot more drug addicts. For instance, once the use of marijuana becomes prosaic, pot heads will turn to coke, meth or smack in order to satisfy their cravings for a better "high." And those three drugs can be very addictive.

I will also predict that there will be a rush of American spring breakers heading for south of the border where they can get stoned without fear of getting busted by Mexican cops driving cars that were stolen in the United States. And after a week of getting their daily fixes in Mexico, many of those students will return to their college campuses hooked.

Here is the LA Times report:

MEXICO WILL DECRIMINALIZE SOME DRUG USE
By Tracy Wilkinson

Los Angles Times
June 21, 2009

MEXICO CITY — Could Mexican cities become Latin Amsterdams, flooded by drug users seeking penalty-free tokes and toots?

That is the fear, if somewhat overstated, of some Mexican officials, especially in northern border states that serve as a mecca for underage American drinkers.

The Mexican legislature has voted quietly to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of pot, cocaine, methamphetamine and other drugs, an effort that in the past has proved highly controversial.

There has been less protest this time around, in part because there hasn’t been much publicity.

Some critics have suggested that easing the punishment on drug possession sends the wrong message at a time when President Felipe Calderon is waging a bloody war on major narcotics traffickers. The battle between law enforcement authorities and drug suspects has claimed more than 11,000 lives in the past 2.5 years.

But it was Calderon himself who proposed the decriminalization legislation.

His reasoning: It makes sense to distinguish between small-time users and big-time dealers, while re-targeting major crime-fighting resources away from the former and toward the latter and their drug lord bosses.

"The important thing is ... that consumers are not treated as criminals," said Rafael Ruiz Mena, secretary general of the National Institute of Penal Sciences. "It is a public health problem, not a penal problem."

The legislation was approved at the height of a swine-flu outbreak in Mexico that dominated the world’s attention. Meeting at times behind closed doors — the better to prevent the spread of disease, officials said — the lower and upper houses of Congress passed the bill on the last days of April. It awaits Calderon’s signature.

The bill says users caught with small amounts — five grams of marijuana, 500 milligrams of cocaine — clearly intended for "personal and immediate use" will not be criminally prosecuted. They will be told of available clinics and encouraged to enter a rehabilitation program.

As many as 40 milligrams of methamphetamine, a synthetic and especially harmful drug, are permitted, as are as many as 50 milligrams of heroin.

In May of 2006, then-President Vicente Fox, from Calderon’s right-wing party, vetoed a similar bill Congress had approved and that he initially supported. He backed down only under pressure from Washington, D.C., where the Bush administration complained decriminalization for even small amounts could increase drug use.

POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS

But with less than a month to go before critical mid-term elections in which his party is struggling to maintain control of Congress, Calderon cannot afford to be seen as bowing to the U.S., analysts say. Already under intense criticism for the drug-related violence terrifying parts of the country, Calderon needs to maintain good relations with Congress, where much of the opposition voted in favor of the decriminalization initiative. He can’t suddenly go back on his own bill.

And so, political observers say, he probably will sign it into law. Calderon’s office did not comment for this story.

So far, the U.S. government has not publicly objected to the bill. Michele Leonhart, acting director of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, however, said in April that legalization of drugs "would be a failed law enforcement strategy for both the U.S. and Mexico."

Mexican government officials stress they are not talking about legalization, but decriminalization. Until now, courts decided on a case-by-case basis whether and how to punish first-time offenders. And standard criteria for quantities hadn’t existed.

Mexico is woefully underequipped to handle a booming drug-abuse problem. Recently, domestic consumption has soared. A 2007 study by the government found the number of "addicts" doubled in the previous five years.

CRITICS CITE VIOLENCE

The decriminalization legislation has received criticism from several officials of northern border states, who fear so-called "drug tourists" will flock to towns and cities already besieged by violence.

"Allowing the carrying of certain amounts of drugs will create more consumers," said Oscar Villalobos Chavez, social development secretary for the State of Chihuahua, which borders Texas.

Mary Ellen Hernandez, director of the Rio Grande Safe Communities Coalition in El Paso, across the border from blood-soaked Juarez, said she worried decriminalization would lure Americans into a drug world they aren’t prepared for and increase violence on both sides of the border.

"Already, the drugs that don’t come over into the U.S. are being handed out by dealers to younger and younger children (in Mexico), 8-, 9-, 10-year-olds, hooking them," said Hernandez, whose agency specializes in drug prevention. "And then (the youths) steal to feed the habit."

Sunday, June 21, 2009

RIGHT OR WRONG?

Should a cop be allowed to own a business that sells T-shirts with gang symbols? That is the question being asked in the Los Angeles area because an El Monte police officer is doing just that.

It is my opinion that as long as his side-business is legal and does not interfere with his police work or create any difficulties for his department, I don’t have a problem with it, distasteful as it may be. After all, this is a free country that has flourished under the free enterprise system. And I don't believe his right to sell those T-shirts is a free speech issue because the shirts do not express any of his personal views.

Actually I find the controversy over Officer George Fierro’s enterprise rather amusing. The more public attention given to Fierro’s business, the more sales of his T-shirts will be generated. Lest we forget, it was the establishment’s outrage over T-shirts bearing the likeness of Ch Guevara that made it the most popular T-shirt of all time.

I’ll let you be the judge of whether a cop’s sale of gang-related T-shirts is right or wrong. Here is the Los Angeles Time’s report on this controversy:

SOME FIND EL MONTE POLICE OFFICER’S SIDE BUSINESS – SELLING CLOTHING WITH GANG SYMBOLS -- DISMAYING
Officer George Fierro, who was recently videotaped kicking a suspect after a chase, sells 'authentic jailhouse wear'

By Hector Becerra and Richard Winton

Los Angeles Times
June 20, 2009

When El Monte Police Officer George Fierro was seen on video kicking a prone, heavily tattooed gang member in the head at the end of a televised high-speed chase, he received some criticism but also a good amount of praise.

Then the 15-year police veteran's side business made the news, and no one advocated giving him a medal for that.

When he's not fighting crime and chasing gang members, Fierro sells a line of clothing. His company's website is known "for its authentic jailhouse wear."

Among the shirts he sells is one with a black handprint dripping blood -- a symbol of the Mexican Mafia prison gang. The shirt includes the names of members of "the EME" who "wore this tattoo logo." Another shirt has a logo that reads "Green Lighters" with a splatter of blood in the background. The term refers to someone who has defied the Mexican Mafia and has been put on a hit list.

While reserving judgment on the videotaped kick, Councilwoman Patricia Wallach criticized Fierro's business.

"Our police officers spend their time doing everything possible to prevent gang members promoting themselves and here is an officer who is doing his best to glorify gangs," she said.

Fierro's business is called Torcido Clothing. The Police Department's lawyers are looking at the issue, said El Monte Police Chief Tom Armstrong, but only as an "advisory matter.""

There are people who are certainly upset," he said. "They feel that it's inconsistent with a police officer's position within their community to sell those kinds of items."

Fierro could not be reached for comment, and his attorney did not return repeated calls seeking comment.

The videotaped kick is being investigated by the Sheriff's Department. While not confirming who the officer was, a union attorney said the kick was a justified "distraction blow" after the officer allegedly saw movement. The man he kicked, Richard Rodriguez, was a parolee and a member of El Monte's largest gang.

This is not the first time Fierro's side business has caused controversy. In 2007, Fierro filed a lawsuit against an LAPD officer who sent out an e-mail criticizing his business. According to the complaint, the officer wrote: "Has anyone seen or know about this gang clothing that a police officer is selling to gangsters. . . . I understand the clothing has hiding places for contraband, guns and dope. Things that can hurt our real cops on the street."

Fierro said the statement was untrue and libelous. When Armstrong read about the alleged "hiding places," he said, he examined his officer's clothing website."

I went there to specifically look for that, because that certainly would be disconcerting if it was true," the chief said. "But I didn't see that."

In the end, the lawsuit was dismissed.

Some gang intervention experts said they were surprised anyone would sell clothing referring to the Mexican Mafia, or that anyone would buy it. Mike Garcia, a former Boyle Heights gang member who works to prevent gang violence, said wearing such clothing can be dangerous in many neighborhoods."

You're not even supposed to talk about them. It doesn't matter if you're a member or not," Garcia said. "You can get in a lot of trouble. That's dumb."

Chief Armstrong said Fierro is a good gang cop. "He is very adept at gang enforcement and narcotics enforcement. He knows his stuff."

Referring to the shirts, Armstrong said, "I guess it's a freedom of speech issue if you want to call it that. But I certainly wouldn't wear it."

Saturday, June 20, 2009

SAVE THE FLIES

June Fondu , the famous war protester and Save the Whales crusader, has joined the campaign to Save the Flies because President Obama whacked a common housefly with one swift deadly swat of his bare hand.

Fondu was profoundly alarmed over Obama’s "heartless and thoughtless" killing of the fly while on camera during a TV interview. "With millions of people worshipping at Barack Obama’s feet, I’m afraid he has set a terrible example for them to follow," said the chagrined Fondu. " Because of Obama’s cruel act on TV," she continued, "I fear that his minions will now begin to swat at every fly they see until these poor little innocent creatures will have disappeared from our land."

Fondu became absolutely infuriated when she learned that the president had said, "That was pretty impressive, wasn't it? I got the sucker!" Fondu said she had been one of Obama’s strongest supporters, but "After what he did to that poor little fly, I will never vote for that monster again!" Fondu said she would now dedicate herself to the Save the Flies campaign with the same zeal she has brought to her other causes.

June Fondu was joined by PETA in condemning President Obama for killing that fly. "We support compassion even for the most curious, smallest and least sympathetic animals," PETA spokesman Bruce Friedrich said. "We believe that people, where they can be compassionate, should be, for all animals." PETA’s website also contained the following article:

Obama and the Fly
by Alisa Mullins

The PETA Files
June 17, 2009

Well, I guess it can't be said that President Obama wouldn't hurt a fly. The commander in chief was recently pestered by a fly during an interview. He swatted at the insect and killed the little guy instantly.

Believe it or not, we've actually been contacted by multiple media outlets wanting to know PETA's official response to the executive insect execution.

In a nutshell, our position is this: He isn't the Buddha, he's a human being, and human beings have a long way to go before they think before they act.

If all this has you wondering how you can be a bigger person (figuratively, as well as literally) in your dealings with exoskeletal beings, check out our handy-dandy bug catcher—one of which we are sending to President Obama for future insect incidents. I can tell you from personal experience that it sure came in handy the other day, when one of my cats was chasing the World's Largest Palmetto Bug around the house.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Handy-Dandy Bug Catcher traps bugs indoors so they can be released unharmed outdoors.

Friday, June 19, 2009

ADULT EDUCATION FOR MEN

SAM HOUSTON INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Announces Fall Classes for Men at
THE SHIT ADULT LEARNING CENTER

REGISTRATION MUST BE COMPLETED
by Friday, September 4, 2009

NOTE: DUE TO THE COMPLEXITY AND DIFFICULTY LEVEL OF THEIR CONTENTS, CLASS SIZES WILL BE LIMITED TO A MAXIMUM OF 12 PARTICIPANTS

STUDENTS CAN CHOOSE UP TO 5 OF THE FOLLOWING COURSES:

How To Fill Up The Ice Cube Trays--Step by Step, with Slide Presentation.
Meets 4 weeks, Monday and Wednesday for 2 hours beginning at7:00 PM.

The Toilet Paper Roll--Does It Change Itself? Round Table Discussion.
Meets 2 weeks, Saturday 12:00 for 2 hours.

Is It Possible To Urinate Using The Technique Of Lifting The Seat and Avoiding The Floor, Walls and Nearby Bathtub?--Group Practice.
Meets 4 weeks, Saturday 10:00 PM for 2 hours.

Fundamental Differences Between The Laundry Hamper And The Floor--Pictures and Explanatory Graphics.
Meets Saturdays at 2:00 PM for 3 weeks.

Dinner Dishes--Can They Levitate and Fly Into The Kitchen Sink? Examples on Video.
Meets 4 weeks, Tuesday and Thursday for 2 hours beginning at 7:00 PM

Loss Of Identity--Losing The Remote To Your Significant Other. Help Line Support and Support Groups.
Meets 4 Weeks, Friday and Sunday 7:00 PM

Learning How To Find Things--Starting With Looking In The Right Places And Not Turning The House Upside Down While Screaming. Open Forum
Monday at 8:00 PM, 2 hours.

Health Watch--Bringing Her Flowers Is Not Harmful To Your Health. Graphics and Audio Tapes.
Three nights; Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 7:00 PM for 2 hours.

Real Men Ask For Directions When Lost--Real Life Testimonials.
Tuesdays at 6:00 PM Location to be determined

Is It Genetically Impossible To Sit Quietly While She Parallel Parks? Driving Simulations.
4 weeks, Saturday's noon, 2 hours.

Learning to Live--Basic Differences Between Mother and Wife. Online Classes and role-playing
Tuesdays at 7:00 PM , location to be determined

How to be the Ideal Shopping Companion Relaxation Exercises, Meditation and Breathing Techniques.
Meets 4 weeks, Tuesday and Thursday for 2 hours beginning at7:00 PM.

How to Fight Cerebral Atrophy--Remembering Birthdays, Anniversaries and Other Important Dates and Calling When You're Going To Be Late. [Note: Cerebral Shock Therapy And Full Lobotomy Referrals Available.]
Three nights; Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 7:00 PM for 2 hours.

The Stove/Oven--What It Is and How It Is Used. Live Demonstration.
Tuesdays at 6:00 PM, location to be determined.

Note: Upon completion of any of the above courses, diplomas will be issued to the survivors.

SETTLEMENT ISSUE IS UNSETTLING

CLINTON VS. LIEBERMAN IN BARE KNUCKLES FIGHT OVER YESHA
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

IsraelNationalNews.com
June 18, 2009

The relationship of "good friends agree to disagree" took a tough test Wednesday afternoon as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman standing at her side, told reporters, "We want to see a stop to the settlements."

Foreign Minister Lieberman, who himself lives in the settlement of Nokdim, south of Jerusalem, did not flinch and retorted, "We think that as in any place, babies are born, people get married, some pass away and we cannot accept this vision about an absolutely complete freezing of settlements."

Elliot Abrams, former adviser on the Middle East to the Bush government, wrote this week that the Obama administration's emphasis on a construction freeze in Judea and Samaria will lead to "needless confrontation" with Israel.

The confrontation escalated with the Clinton-Lieberman sparring match. Their opposing positions were not new, but their public standoff "appeared to be one of the most tense encounters between the sides for several years," the Financial Times of London reported.

In a major policy speech this past Sunday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu maintained that the issue of building in Judea and Samaria is not a major issue, a position echoed on Wednesday by Michael Oren, Israeli Ambassador to the United States.

Secretary Clinton views the destruction of "settlements," meaning Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, as a crucial step towards creating a new Palestinian Authority state on the same land, with its capital in eastern Jerusalem.

After years of an almost non-stop erosion of Israeli positions opposed by the United States, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has drawn clear red lines that have a left a stalemate, at least for the time being.

Foreign Minister Lieberman, who heads the Yisrael Beiteinu party, and the Prime Minister, head of the Likud, see eye-to-eye on the need to continue building for Jews in existing communities in Judea and Samaria and on the retention of Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel.

In her remarks Wednesday, Secretary Clinton also directly rejected Lieberman’s claim that Israel had reached "some understandings" with the Bush administration.

She reiterated her rejection of former President George W. Bush’s written promise to former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon -- for which she herself had voted as a junior senator in 2004 -- that areas of large Jewish populations, such as Maaleh Adumin and Gush Etzion, would remain as part of Israel regardless of the establishment of a PA state.

"In looking at the history of the Bush administration, there were no informal or oral enforceable agreements," she said.

Several hours after the meeting, she was rushed to the hospital for a fractured elbow which she suffered in a fall while on her way to the White House. She will undergo surgery next week and is expected to resume full duties soon.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Did the God of Israel strike down Hillary?

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

DEBUNKING THE ANTI WAR ON DRUGS CROWD

Over the past year or so, the public has been subjected to an attack against the war on drugs. The latest attack came in the form of a New York Times column by Nicholas Kristof (Refer to my blog, "War Against The War On Drugs" [6-14-09]). These attacks have been full of inflated statistics, half-truths and even outright lies.

My 13 years of experience in law enforcement (half of it in narcotics enforcement), my 25 years as a criminal justice educator, and the fact that I have a close family member who is a "crack head," enables me to speak out with some authority on this subject. While I have to admit that for the past 40 years we have not succeeded in stemming the tide of illicit drugs, that is no reason to give up on the war on drugs and certainly is not a reason to decriminalize (a euphemism for legalization) the use and possession of drugs.

I am taking this opportunity to debunk some of the main arguments used by those who want to end the war on drugs and who want to legalize the use and possession of illegal substances.

(1) The anti war on drugs crowd likes to throw around the figure of 500,000 people in our prisons for drug offenses. That number is highly suspect, if not preposterous. Most of those in prison for "possession" are really in there for selling substantial quantities of drugs, having copped a plea to the lesser charge of possession.

(2) The "reformers" are fond of trying to make us feel guilty about the number of people in prison who are drug users. That may account for the inflated 500,000 figure. That is the same story they gave us years ago about alcohol users in prison. Then it was con-wise for inmates to relate their anti-social behavior to the use of alcohol just as they are doing today with drugs, when in fact those substances had little, if anything, to do with their criminal behavior.

The truth is that most imprisoned drug users have been convicted of thefts, burglaries, armed robberies, rapes and murders, crimes they committed as members of society’s criminal subculture. To those who say that many of those crimes were committed to feed a drug habit, I say that those prison inmates would have been thieves, burglars, robbers and murderers even if they had not been using any drugs.

(3) The decriminalization advocates are pleased to have the support of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), an organization of cops, prosecutors, judges and citizens who oppose the war on drugs and advocate their legalization. Big deal. Those renegade cops and prosecutors represent less than 1% of their professions, the other 99-plus percent remaining firmly opposed to the legalization of drugs.

(4) The drug legalization advocates complain about the funds that have been wasted in the war on drugs. They refer to Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron, who estimates this country spends $44.1 billion a year in enforcing our drug laws. Well, that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the current federal stimulus package. The federal government has appropriated $787 billion to bail out insurance conglomerate AIG, a number of big banks, GM and Chrysler, and to stimulate the economy in order to reverse the loss of jobs. .

(5) The anti-prohibition crowd claims that the war on drugs has ruined the lives of countless substance abusers by hamstringing them with criminal records. Say what?! Did anyone force these pleasure seekers to use illegal drugs? Certainly no one forced my own family member to smoke pot and graduate to the use of crack. Yes, that family member, a college graduate by the way, has paid a heavy price – two prison terms – as a consequence of drug use and thievery. Every drug user knows they are breaking the law and that there are consequences if they get caught. It’s not what the war on drugs has done, it’s what the "I can get away with it" thinking has done.

(6) The do-gooders want us to believe that the war on drugs has given rise to the drug cartels and to the deadly drug wars between those cartels. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s not the war on drugs! It’s the enormous demand for recreational drugs that is responsible for the drug cartels and the violence they have spawned. The cartels are merely feeding the insatiable hunger for drugs by Americans. It’s the law of supply and demand! If it weren’t for the demand, there would be no drug cartels.

I could go on to debunk other points made by those who would have us believe that everything would be hunky-dory if we would only stop the war on drugs and legalize their use. The truth is that the use of recreational drugs is debilitating and that will not change if the use of those drugs were to be legalized. It all starts out with that initial "innocent" use of pot and then goes on from there. When are young people going to wake up and realize they could get busted and, if so, they may face some unpleasant consequences for their misbehavior?

Monday, June 15, 2009

OH NO, NO, GOD NO, MY KID WOULD NEVER DO THAT !

The body of Kung Fu actor David Carradine has been returned to the U.S. from Thailand where he had been found hanged to death in a hotel last week.

The very first reports suggested that he had committed suicide, but later reports implied that he had died as the result of auto-erotic asphyxiation (AEA [my designation]), also known as sexual asphyxia.

AEA is an "enjoyable" dangerous practice by people who get their jollies off by choking themselves. It usually occurs among males, often boys as young as 14-16. But women also are known to obtain sexual gratification through AEA. The practitioners usually hang themselves or place their heads inside a plastic bag and experience an orgasm when they are on the verge of losing consciousness. With males, death by AEA is detected during an autopsy when ejaculated semen is observed.

AEA cases are actually not that uncommon and are often mistaken for suicide, sometimes even for murder. In fact, they are accidental deaths because the victims, even though they deliberately asphyxiated themselves, had no intention of dying.

It is almost impossible for parents to accept the fact that their young children have been practicing a weird form of sexual activity. When confronted with the death of a child by AEA their typical reaction is, "Oh no, no, God no, my kid would never do that!" They may insist that their beloved son was murdered or, if not that, they will even insist the death had to be a suicide, as they will never ever accept a finding of death by AEA.

NETANYAHU'S PEACE CONDITIONS IMMEDIATELY REJECTED

In his speech yesterday, Bibi Netanyahu responded to Obama’s Cairo speech by declaring that he would accept an independent Palestinian state, but with some preconditions. The Palestinians and the Arab states would have to recognize Israel as a Jewish state; the new state would have to be a demilitarized state with international guarantees that it remain so; Jerusalem would have to remain the undivided capital of Israel; Palestinian airspace would have to remain under Israeli control; and no Palestinian refugees would be allowed to resettle inside Israel.

The Palestinians, Egyptian President Mubarak and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter immediately rejected those conditions. Carter even rejected recognizing Israel as a Jewish state because 20% of the population is not Jewish. That schmuck also insists that Jerusalem must be divided.

Netanyahu promised that Israel would not build any new settlements, but he did not agree to a "freeze" of construction for "natural growth" in established settlements, a contentious program that Obama steadfastly opposes.

The Palestinians and the other Arabs demand that the Israelis accept all of their peace conditions. Their principal demands are that Israel must return every bit of the land it captured in 1967 during the Six Day War, including East Jerusalem as the capital of the new Palestinian state; and that Palestinian refugees must be given the right of return to their former lands inside Israel.

Let’s get real. Israel would find itself in a bloody civil war if it attempted to evict the 300,000 Israelis who reside in established settlements. And Israel cannot accept the Palestinian and Arab demands if it expects to survive as an independent state.

The Palestinians do not really want a peace agreement with Israel that will enable the Jewish state to remain independent. So, despite Obama’s huffing and puffing, the chances for a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians in the foreseeable future are slim to none.

ADVISE TO AMERICA'S OBAMA ADORING JEWS

THE ERA OF BIPARTISAN SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL IS OVER
by Adam Hasner

Townhall.com
June 13, 2009

The best days of Democrat support for Israel have now passed. The evidence is abundant and clear that the importance of Israel’s existence and well-being has become secondary to the political idolatry of many Jewish-American Democrats. Furthermore, many Jewish voters who do have Israel’s best interests among their priorities are too often duped by the maze of activists and institutions that use Jewish concepts and credentials to manipulate support for their liberal agenda. Despite all of the lofty pronouncements regarding respect for the America-Israel relationship, all species of partisan support are not equal.

After successfully wooing nearly 80% of the Jewish vote with his siren song, it has taken little more than one hundred days for the true motives of Barack Hussein Obama -- who now desires that his Muslim origins be noted -- to be revealed and put into action. For years prior to his election, Obama comfortably operated within the realm of the anti-Israel perspective. His record of sharing personal, intellectual and political relationships with anti-Semites, purveyors of Palestinian victimology, and characters who seek to demonize Israel at every opportunity had been well documented, albeit intentionally ignored and ruled as "off-limits" during the campaign by his many supporters and the mainstream media. With the power of the Presidency and a Democratic-controlled Congress now in hand, this rhetorical pied piper is now positioned to enforce his will upon an increasingly threatened and isolated Israel, all under the watch of those who are tragically misguided and disoriented in the Jewish-American community. Indeed, President Obama may yet prove to have become the subtle leader of the Anti-Israel Lobby.

Obama’s recent Muslim outreach speech delivered in Cairo has proven to be a watershed moment of clarity, as the morally bankrupt equivalence and relativism that he continually employs climaxed before the eyes of the world. The volume of ominous forecasts to be drawn from Obama’s treatment of Israel is now beginning to dawn upon many previously reluctant-to-believe Jewish Democrats. Even Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, the self-styled sheriff of the Jewish community -- who tacitly approved of Obama during the campaign -- was moved to publicly weigh in on the dangerous direction that Obama is leading American policy.

All Americans and Jews should have been outraged to hear Obama equate the Nazi Holocaust to the largely self-imposed suffering of the Palestinian "occupation"; to hear him adopt the revisionist history of Israel’s birth and thereby question Israel’s legitimacy; to hear him draw the Hamas terrorist organization closer toward international acceptance by lending credence to their propaganda of "resistance" rather than confronting them with the truth about their rejectionism; to hear him hypocritically suggest that the U.S. has no right to impose its will on other nations only to then dictate to Israel regarding the natural growth of tens of thousands of suburban Jerusalem settlement families; and most dangerously, to ultimately appease Iran by legitimizing their pursuit of nuclear technology that they are likely to militarize without delay.

The truth about President Obama’s developing policies toward Israel can no longer be denied.

Jewish-Americans are now left to figure out how generations of unyielding support for the Democrat Party could prove so worthless in the new marketplace of liberal ideals. Unfortunately, they continue to unwittingly lend legitimacy, and more importantly generous financial support, to a party usurped by cynical "human rights activists" who seek to make Israel the featured sideshow of their "international law" circus. Perhaps they should begin by discovering exactly with whom they politically co-exist under the Democrat Party tent. By soliciting their cohorts’ views on Israel, they can observe how anti-Israelism has become a vehicle for delivering latent anti-Semitism.

Undoubtedly, the many Jewish-American surrogates who bear specific loyalty to Obama will continue to shield his Administration by distracting with their Jewish credentials and manipulating the Jewish community’s compact of ethnic trust. Ironically, they make frequent use of pro-Israel terminology to deceptively peddle Obama’s corrupted approach toward Israel, although it would seem only natural considering Obama’s gift for wordcraft. Many of these political figures have been systematically deployed to stymie discussion by exploiting their Jewish heritage while numerous other Jewish leaders and organizations sit in irresponsible silence out of political expedience and fear. At the same time, the Administration has also cultivated and promoted a host of treacherous new "Jewish" agencies, whose vision for Israel more readily identifies with that of her enemies, and whose purpose is to counter the good work of other constructive groups. Obama and company know that under his spell these groups will serve as a useful tool in distorting the voice of the Jewish mainstream, and will lend bona fides to the harsh coercion they are beginning to exert upon Israel in the false name of her best interests.

In moving forward, the Jewish-American community must conduct an accounting of its collective soul, and resolve to be more objective and independent in analyzing the issues faced at home and in Israel. There is still plenty that can be done to articulate, protect and reinforce the natural and supportive relationship that America and Israel share. To begin, there are more Jews currently in Congress than ever before, and each must be urged to stand against anti-Israel measures regardless of party loyalty, or else face a withdrawal of support.

Jewish-Americans must become more vocal on every level – government, media, and socially – and demand that President Obama remain true to his "Pro-Israel" campaign promises. Jews must also firmly embrace their non-Jewish allies, Evangelical Christians and other friends of Israel, whose valuable support has for too long been misrepresented and undermined for the sake of political pettiness. And those who support Israel must publicly and forcefully articulate historical truths to counter the Administration’s anti-Israel distortions, revisionism and moral relativism and express the dangers of basing U.S. policy on an anti-Israel platform. There must be strong pressure for his staff members and surrogates with anti-Semitic and anti-Israel views to be dismissed, as was thankfully witnessed in his attempted appointment of Chas Freeman. It is also important that pro-Israel initiatives be taken up at the state level, through the promotion of economic and intellectual trade, and statements of solidarity. Finally, Jewish-Americans must invest in the future and awaken the next generation by funding continuity and identity programs that focus on Israel experience, so that with God’s help they may find their share of America and Israel to be worth fighting for as well.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

WAR AGAINST THE WAR ON DRUGS

The war against the war on drugs continues. Nicholas Kristof had an op-ed column in The New York Times which offers a strong case against the war on drugs. The problem with his column is that it is full of embellishments and half-truths. His figure of 500,000 people in our prisons for drug offenses is highly suspect, if not preposterous. And most of those in prison for "possession" are really in there for the sale of substantial amounts, having copped a plea to the lesser charge of possession.

The "reformers" are fond of propagandizing the number of people in prison who are drug users. That may account for the inflated 500,000 figure. That is the same story they gave us years ago about alcohol users in prison. The truth is that those drug users have been convicted of thefts, burglaries, armed robberies, rapes and murders, crimes they committed while being willing members of a criminal subculture. To those who say that many of those crimes were committed to feed a drug habit, I say that they would have been thieves, burglars, robbers and murderers even if they had not been using any drugs.

Kristof trumpets the position of LEAP, an organization of cops, prosecutors, judges and citizens who oppose the war on drugs and advocate the legalization of drugs. Big deal. Those renegade cops and prosecutors represent less than 1% of their professions, the other 99-plus percent remaining firmly opposed to the legalization of drugs.

Oh yes, what about Kristof mentioning that a Harvard economist estimates this country spends $44.1 billion a year in enforcing our drug laws. Well, that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the current federal bailouts. According to The New York Times, the same publication that carried Kristof’s column, in less than half a year, the federal government has spent $700 billion bailing out AIG, a number of banks, GM and Chrysler and it has spent an additional $2.5 Trillion – that’s trillion with a "T" – through April 30 on other economic rescue programs.

I could go on and rip apart a number of other points Kristof makes, but to what avail? The problem is that we have fought the war on drugs the wrong way. The Japanese have done a much better job. They put their efforts into reducing the demand by resorting to harsh measures against drug users, no exceptions made. Japan has a 99% conviction rate and drug users are sent either to prisons or confined in drug rehab programs.

Japan’s prisons have not been overloaded with drug users because, knowing what will happen if they get caught, relatively few of their people are into using illegal drugs. And by successfully reducing the demand, the Japanese have significantly reduced the number of criminals involved in the illegal sale and distribution of drugs. But in the United States, resorting to harsh measures against drug users would be politically incorrect.

Here is Kristof's bogus column:

The New York Times
June 13, 2009

DRUGS WON THE WAR
By Nicholas D. Kristof

This year marks the 40th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s start of the war on drugs, and it now appears that drugs have won.

"We’ve spent a trillion dollars prosecuting the war on drugs," Norm Stamper, a former police chief of Seattle, told me. "What do we have to show for it? Drugs are more readily available, at lower prices and higher levels of potency. It’s a dismal failure."

For that reason, he favors legalization of drugs, perhaps by the equivalent of state liquor stores or registered pharmacists. Other experts favor keeping drug production and sales illegal but decriminalizing possession, as some foreign countries have done.

Here in the United States, four decades of drug war have had three consequences:

First, we have vastly increased the proportion of our population in prisons. The United States now incarcerates people at a rate nearly five times the world average. In part, that’s because the number of people in prison for drug offenses rose roughly from 41,000 in 1980 to 500,000 today. Until the war on drugs, our incarceration rate was roughly the same as that of other countries.

Second, we have empowered criminals at home and terrorists abroad. One reason many prominent economists have favored easing drug laws is that interdiction raises prices, which increases profit margins for everyone, from the Latin drug cartels to the Taliban. Former presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia this year jointly implored the United States to adopt a new approach to narcotics, based on the public health campaign against tobacco.

Third, we have squandered resources. Jeffrey Miron, a Harvard economist, found that federal, state and local governments spend $44.1 billion annually enforcing drug prohibitions. We spend seven times as much on drug interdiction, policing and imprisonment as on treatment. (Of people with drug problems in state prisons, only 14 percent get treatment.)

I’ve seen lives destroyed by drugs, and many neighbors in my hometown of Yamhill, Oregon, have had their lives ripped apart by crystal meth. Yet I find people like Mr. Stamper persuasive when they argue that if our aim is to reduce the influence of harmful drugs, we can do better.

Mr. Stamper is active in Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, or LEAP, an organization of police officers, prosecutors, judges and citizens who favor a dramatic liberalization of American drug laws. He said he gradually became disillusioned with the drug war, beginning in 1967 when he was a young beat officer in San Diego.

"I had arrested a 19-year-old, in his own home, for possession of marijuana," he recalled. "I literally broke down the door, on the basis of probable cause. I took him to jail on a felony charge." The arrest and related paperwork took several hours, and Mr. Stamper suddenly had an "aha!" moment: "I could be doing real police work."

It’s now broadly acknowledged that the drug war approach has failed. President Obama’s new drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, told the Wall Street Journal that he wants to banish the war on drugs phraseology, while shifting more toward treatment over imprisonment.

The stakes are huge, the uncertainties great, and there’s a genuine risk that liberalizing drug laws might lead to an increase in use and in addiction. But the evidence suggests that such a risk is small. After all, cocaine was used at only one-fifth of current levels when it was legal in the United States before 1914. And those states that have decriminalized marijuana possession have not seen surging consumption.

"I don’t see any big downside to marijuana decriminalization," said Peter Reuter, a professor of criminology at the University of Maryland who has been skeptical of some of the arguments of the legalization camp. At most, he said, there would be only a modest increase in usage.

Moving forward, we need to be less ideological and more empirical in figuring out what works in combating America’s drug problem. One approach would be for a state or two to experiment with legalization of marijuana, allowing it to be sold by licensed pharmacists, while measuring the impact on usage and crime.

I’m not the only one who is rethinking these issues. Senator Jim Webb of Virginia has sponsored legislation to create a presidential commission to examine various elements of the criminal justice system, including drug policy. So far 28 senators have co-sponsored the legislation, and Mr. Webb says that Mr. Obama has been supportive of the idea as well.

"Our nation’s broken drug policies are just one reason why we must re-examine the entire criminal justice system," Mr. Webb says. That’s a brave position for a politician, and it’s the kind of leadership that we need as we grope toward a more effective strategy against narcotics in America.