Returns from the Jewish State with a fresh perspective --- “I prefer the security I can see.”
Security measures in the U.S. are almost nonexistent compared to those this youngster experienced in Israel.
SECURITY YOU CAN SEE IN ISRAEL
By Truman Brody-Boyd
Jewish World Review
August 28, 2013
We live in an age where Big Brother is, in fact, watching. I'm 16 and have grown up surrounded by super advanced technology. Smart phones can tell you what caused the beginning of the yellow fever outbreak in the United States during the 1800s in seconds. My laptop can show me a video someone in Sweden uploaded minutes ago. An IMessage group text can help me get with friends I want to hang with and meet them in a matter of minutes, using my phone's GPS to find the location of the nearest Pizza Hut (which has an app that gives me the address).
So, I don't mind the security when it doesn't hinder me physically. The phone call monitors or the security cameras don't slow me down, they don't make me change the way I live or the things I carry in my bag. Because I've grown up with all of this around me, I'm used to it and don't notice it. But the older generations certainly do, and the NSA scandal has shaken them up. Most above the age of 30 or 40 have been cautious about the oncoming of all this technology.
But when I traveled to Israel in July, American security measures were put into perspective.
Even flying to get to Israel requires more security than regular TSA checks, and Americans think those are awful. If you fly EL AL, the Israeli airline, before you even check in you get screened. A representative from the airline interviews you about your luggage. If they suspect it's been tampered with or suspect that you're lying, you must get your bag screened and -- occasionally -- unpacked. Then, as you board, carry-on luggage is randomly selected to be put with the checked bags.
American security seem reasonable yet?
In Israel, IDF soldiers are everywhere. Always in uniform, the men and women of the Israeli Defense Forces are always ready to go into action, even in the city of Tel Aviv. It would be like seeing fully equipped U.S. soldiers wandering around downtown Miami. Many have packs on, filled with gear necessary to fight. But the most shocking thing by far: Almost all the soldiers are carrying their assault rifles. Even in Tel Aviv, probably the safest place in Israel, droves of IDF soldiers with guns slung across their backs roam the streets. Yes, American cities have armed policemen, but Tel Aviv has both its policemen and the IDF soldiers.
American security seem reasonable yet?
Even with armed soldiers everywhere, there's still more security in Israel. To get into large bus stations, any train station, museums, college campuses, and malls, your bags are checked. In addition, you're either patted down or passed through a metal detector. Any place that has a high density of people that might be an attractive target for a bomber has some level of security. Even soldiers of the IDF are screened.
American security seem reasonable yet?
Of course, there are also the many security checkpoints that you must past through upon entering or exiting the West Bank, along with the high walls lining the road. I've experienced these firsthand, and I noticed something about the wall. It seemed a lot like the walls our suburban neighborhoods use to separate themselves from noisy highways — but the Israeli walls have guard towers. There are always armed soldiers in the towers and at the checkpoints, usually in full combat gear. Some have bomb dogs with them as well.
American security seem reasonable yet?
You may be thinking now that Israel is some restrictive society where people are hindered in their everyday lives. But this isn't so. The Israelis have grown up in a land where they must always be on their toes, ready to fight for what they believe at a moment's notice. They understand the necessity for all the security, and almost all are thankful for it. When waiting in the security lines, the only grumbling and discontent I heard was from other tourists like me. For example, I was in line for a security screening to enter a mall that had a subway station I was trying to get to. I heard an American tourist in front of me remark, "These checks are ridiculous. I have to add five minutes into the traveling time to go anywhere." The young Israelis trying to get into the mall didn't mind the wait, and it's probably for the same reason I don't mind the monitoring of my phone. We've grown up with it.
Israel is forced to have security measures as extreme as these to ensure the safety of the population. Many of these measures are a result of the Second Intifada, a terror campaign that occurred in Israel during 2000-05 and caused the death of about 1,000 Israelis. Since the introduction of these security measures, terror bombings in Israel have decreased dramatically.
The way the United States monitors us isn't something you notice daily or weekly. Before the discussion of privacy heated up in the past few weeks, we didn't notice the security measures much at all. They circumvent the human aspect of security and go into the technology we've become so accustomed to. In Israel, the security measures that are taken can affect you daily, even hourly. While I'm sure Israel is tapping the occasional phone line or two, they're also on the ground every day, focusing on the human element, screening everyone regardless of race, religion, origin, or employment. Even a 16-year-old kid, traveling alone in Israel, visiting the nation for the first time, gets screened at every turn, and for me that was not a problem. I prefer the security I can see.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
SURPRISE, SURPRISE, BIDEN WAS RIGHT
Texas teenager shoots burglar dead, critically wounds another with a shotgun
“Get a double-barreled shotgun. Have the shells in the 12 gauge shotgun…..You don’t need an AR-15. It’s harder to aim, it’s harder to use and in fact, you don’t need 30 rounds to protect yourself. Buy a shotgun. Buy a shotgun.”
So spoke Vice President Joe Biden during an online town hall meeting February 19 sponsored by Facebook and Parents magazine in response to an emailed question about self-defense for women. And surprise, surprise, he was right.
I have both a shotgun and an assault rifle. Given a choice between the two, I’ll take the rifle with its 30 rounds to defend myself against any intruders.
BAYTOWN TEEN KILLS ONE SUSPECTED BURGLAR, WOUNDS ANOTHER
By Mike Glenn
Houston Chronicle
August 29, 2013
A Baytown teenager shot two suspected burglars, killing one of them, after they broke into his grandmother's home, authorities said.
The 18-year-old told Baytown police he was awakened early Wednesday by noise coming from a back room of the home in the 900 block of Brentwood Drive.
The teenager grabbed a shotgun from under the couch where he was sleeping then moved forward to investigate.
He spotted light from an apparent flashlight coming from behind the curtain covering a sliding glass door, Baytown police said.
As the teenager walked toward the kitchen, the back door was suddenly kicked-in. He was immediately confronted by two burglars.
Fearing for his safety, the teen fired several shots at the two men. One of the men, later identified by Baytown police as Charles Allen Dixon III, 40, fell to the floor and died at the scene, authorities said.
The other man, Michael McDaniel, 26, ran back outside and fled, Baytown police said.
McDaniel called a woman who drove him to San Jacinto Hospital to be treated for gunshot wounds. Also in the pickup truck was Dixon's wife, Baytown police said.
McDaniel was flown by Life Flight helicopter to Memorial Hermann Hospital in critical condition.
Police said charges were still pending against him for his role in the home invasion burglary.
“Get a double-barreled shotgun. Have the shells in the 12 gauge shotgun…..You don’t need an AR-15. It’s harder to aim, it’s harder to use and in fact, you don’t need 30 rounds to protect yourself. Buy a shotgun. Buy a shotgun.”
So spoke Vice President Joe Biden during an online town hall meeting February 19 sponsored by Facebook and Parents magazine in response to an emailed question about self-defense for women. And surprise, surprise, he was right.
I have both a shotgun and an assault rifle. Given a choice between the two, I’ll take the rifle with its 30 rounds to defend myself against any intruders.
BAYTOWN TEEN KILLS ONE SUSPECTED BURGLAR, WOUNDS ANOTHER
By Mike Glenn
Houston Chronicle
August 29, 2013
A Baytown teenager shot two suspected burglars, killing one of them, after they broke into his grandmother's home, authorities said.
The 18-year-old told Baytown police he was awakened early Wednesday by noise coming from a back room of the home in the 900 block of Brentwood Drive.
The teenager grabbed a shotgun from under the couch where he was sleeping then moved forward to investigate.
He spotted light from an apparent flashlight coming from behind the curtain covering a sliding glass door, Baytown police said.
As the teenager walked toward the kitchen, the back door was suddenly kicked-in. He was immediately confronted by two burglars.
Fearing for his safety, the teen fired several shots at the two men. One of the men, later identified by Baytown police as Charles Allen Dixon III, 40, fell to the floor and died at the scene, authorities said.
The other man, Michael McDaniel, 26, ran back outside and fled, Baytown police said.
McDaniel called a woman who drove him to San Jacinto Hospital to be treated for gunshot wounds. Also in the pickup truck was Dixon's wife, Baytown police said.
McDaniel was flown by Life Flight helicopter to Memorial Hermann Hospital in critical condition.
Police said charges were still pending against him for his role in the home invasion burglary.
POT SHOT OFF TARGET
Man busted after attempt to shoot baggie of pot tied to arrow into a jail missed the target
He obviously did not practice his archery with a baggie of pot tied to his arrows. The marijuana probably changed the arrow’s trajectory somewhat.
MAN ACCUSED OF SHOOTING POT ARROW INTO JAIL
By Joel Connelly
Seattle Post Intelligencer
August 28, 2013
A man took a bow out of his pickup truck at the Whatcom County Courthouse in Bellingham early Tuesday, attached a baggie of marijuana to an arrow and fired the arrow at the second-floor recreation area of the county jail, according to news reports.
A 36-year-old man was later arrested, and he claimed he had been aiming at a squirrel, the Bellingham Herald reported late on Wednesday.
“He had no explanation as to why squirrel hunting requires attaching marijuana to an arrow,” Whatcom County Sheriff Bill Elfo told the newspaper.
The second-floor fresh air exercise area is covered by a mesh screen. The man was not accurate in his aim, however, and the arrow landed on the roof.
A civilian employee of the Sheriff’s Office observed this unusual demonstration of archery. As the man sped off, the employee recorded his license plate number. He was apprehended at his home later in the day, with the bow still sitting in the pickup truck.
Police had to force their way into Jordan’s home after he refused them entry.
The archer is no stranger to the Whatcom County Jail. He recently served a 20-day sentence for assault and resisting arrest. He is back on the premises — in a first-floor cell.
When released, he can always walk across the street to the Bellingham Public Library, which has several excellent instructional books on archery in its collections.
He obviously did not practice his archery with a baggie of pot tied to his arrows. The marijuana probably changed the arrow’s trajectory somewhat.
MAN ACCUSED OF SHOOTING POT ARROW INTO JAIL
By Joel Connelly
Seattle Post Intelligencer
August 28, 2013
A man took a bow out of his pickup truck at the Whatcom County Courthouse in Bellingham early Tuesday, attached a baggie of marijuana to an arrow and fired the arrow at the second-floor recreation area of the county jail, according to news reports.
A 36-year-old man was later arrested, and he claimed he had been aiming at a squirrel, the Bellingham Herald reported late on Wednesday.
“He had no explanation as to why squirrel hunting requires attaching marijuana to an arrow,” Whatcom County Sheriff Bill Elfo told the newspaper.
The second-floor fresh air exercise area is covered by a mesh screen. The man was not accurate in his aim, however, and the arrow landed on the roof.
A civilian employee of the Sheriff’s Office observed this unusual demonstration of archery. As the man sped off, the employee recorded his license plate number. He was apprehended at his home later in the day, with the bow still sitting in the pickup truck.
Police had to force their way into Jordan’s home after he refused them entry.
The archer is no stranger to the Whatcom County Jail. He recently served a 20-day sentence for assault and resisting arrest. He is back on the premises — in a first-floor cell.
When released, he can always walk across the street to the Bellingham Public Library, which has several excellent instructional books on archery in its collections.
REPUBLICAN VOTERS COMPARED TO PRISON INMATES
James Carville, Bill Clinton’s former presidential election strategist, thinks the Republican Party is being strangled by voters who think the party is not conservative enough.
CARVILLE SAYS MANY REPUBLICAN VOTERS ARE ‘BAD QUALITY’
By Wanda Carruthers
Newsmax
August 30, 2013
Democratic strategist James Carville reached back into history and compared the bulk of Republican voters to "inmates," referencing a statement by former Georgia Governor Lester Maddox, who said the problem with his state's prisons was "the quality of the inmates."
"The problem is the quality of the people that vote in your primary," Carville told Republican host Joe Scarborough Friday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
"This is the problem you got — what I call the Lester Maddox problem. He famously said, 'The problem of the Georgia prisons is the quality of the inmates.'
"When you have 70 percent of the Republicans in Georgia that believe in creationism, you got, officially ... a Lester Maddox problem. You have a bad quality of inmate in the Republican party," Carville, seen as the architect of Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign, said.
Lester Maddox, a Democrat, was the governor of Georgia from 1967 to 1971, and was known for rigid views on segregation, though he was also at times progressive on racial matters.
"It's the voters out there that are driving the politicians," Carville said, referencing the proponents of a government shutdown to defund Obamacare.
"It may be three [senators] out there that want to do this, but about 63 percent of the Republicans that vote in primaries want to do this. These guys know that," he said.
Carville described Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a primary force behind the effort to defund Obamacare, as "formidable," and added, "You got Cruz, who can ring them up, one of the most talented guys ... And he's driving this whole thing. And they're scared to death to go against him."
Carville indicated the problem for the Republican party was its large number of conservative members.
"The self-identified Republicans in this country say they want their party to be more conservative. That's the problem," he said.
"I'm telling you that there is a hard, hard core part of that party that says, 'Our problem is we're not conservative enough,'" Carville added.
CARVILLE SAYS MANY REPUBLICAN VOTERS ARE ‘BAD QUALITY’
By Wanda Carruthers
Newsmax
August 30, 2013
Democratic strategist James Carville reached back into history and compared the bulk of Republican voters to "inmates," referencing a statement by former Georgia Governor Lester Maddox, who said the problem with his state's prisons was "the quality of the inmates."
"The problem is the quality of the people that vote in your primary," Carville told Republican host Joe Scarborough Friday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
"This is the problem you got — what I call the Lester Maddox problem. He famously said, 'The problem of the Georgia prisons is the quality of the inmates.'
"When you have 70 percent of the Republicans in Georgia that believe in creationism, you got, officially ... a Lester Maddox problem. You have a bad quality of inmate in the Republican party," Carville, seen as the architect of Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign, said.
Lester Maddox, a Democrat, was the governor of Georgia from 1967 to 1971, and was known for rigid views on segregation, though he was also at times progressive on racial matters.
"It's the voters out there that are driving the politicians," Carville said, referencing the proponents of a government shutdown to defund Obamacare.
"It may be three [senators] out there that want to do this, but about 63 percent of the Republicans that vote in primaries want to do this. These guys know that," he said.
Carville described Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a primary force behind the effort to defund Obamacare, as "formidable," and added, "You got Cruz, who can ring them up, one of the most talented guys ... And he's driving this whole thing. And they're scared to death to go against him."
Carville indicated the problem for the Republican party was its large number of conservative members.
"The self-identified Republicans in this country say they want their party to be more conservative. That's the problem," he said.
"I'm telling you that there is a hard, hard core part of that party that says, 'Our problem is we're not conservative enough,'" Carville added.
SERVICING YOUR CAR AND AVOIDING SCAMS
People are quickly learning that to get the maximum mileage out of a car, you have to do proper maintenance
By Jerry Reynolds
Car Pro Weekly
August 25, 2013
People tend to be afraid, however, because they do not know what to believe when a repair shop tells them they need something preventive performed on their car. Whether it is a dealer, or a repair shop, they are going to suggest things that in their view, needs to be done. While doing these things certainly won’t hurt anything, you have to remember that is how they make money. As I say on the radio all the time, go by what the manufacturer suggests.
The good news is that a recent study shows that 73% of people who had recent service were completely satisfied, and that is an encouraging number. The remaining 27% seemed to be really unhappy. Common complaints included overcharging and the repairs not being performed properly. The percentage of women who felt like they were taken advantage of was 30%, and that is an alarming number.
I want to give you some of the common things that I believe are suggested too often and not necessary. Let’s start with replacing the air filter. A lot of repair places want to change it every time they change the oil. Unless you travel a lot of dirt roads, a year or 15000 to 20000 miles, whichever comes first, is generally just fine. Check your factory maintenance guide, but that is a general rule.
Next, flushes. This has gotten to be a big item. Personally, if a vehicle is well maintained, I don’t find this necessary and would never consider flushing anything after a vehicle gets to 75,000 miles or so. The machines repair shops use are very high pressure and the risk of blowing out seals and gaskets is much greater than the reward in my opinion. Some flushes like power steering fluid are a real waste of money.
Then we have the oil change intervals. Oil today is so much better than it used to be, that even under the worst conditions, 5000 miles is plenty often. See what the manufacturer calls for and stick close to that. Also, check the sticker they leave on your windshield as soon as you get your oil changed, some places will place the interval at 3000 miles. If you don’t notice it right then, but later, you could end up changing it too often.
Another item is fuel injector cleaning. I have heard of shops recommending this every 10,000 miles. With all the detergent in today’s gasoline, this is just not necessary. For most vehicles, every 35000 to 40000 miles will serve you just fine.
If you have a repair shop or dealership you trust, stick with them, they have obviously earned that trust and should be rewarded for it. If you don’t have a regular place that you use, remember there is nothing wrong with shopping by phone or Internet. You will often find a vast difference in prices for the same operation. You can also get a feel for how friendly and efficient a place is. Sometimes you just have to go with your gut.
Lastly, don’t assume a dealership service department is much more expensive. Dealerships have been forced to get way more competitive on common things, like oil changes, tires, batteries, and brakes. There is something to be said too for factory certified technicians versus one technician who works on a Mercedes and then a Kia. Be smart, it will save you time and money.
By Jerry Reynolds
Car Pro Weekly
August 25, 2013
People tend to be afraid, however, because they do not know what to believe when a repair shop tells them they need something preventive performed on their car. Whether it is a dealer, or a repair shop, they are going to suggest things that in their view, needs to be done. While doing these things certainly won’t hurt anything, you have to remember that is how they make money. As I say on the radio all the time, go by what the manufacturer suggests.
The good news is that a recent study shows that 73% of people who had recent service were completely satisfied, and that is an encouraging number. The remaining 27% seemed to be really unhappy. Common complaints included overcharging and the repairs not being performed properly. The percentage of women who felt like they were taken advantage of was 30%, and that is an alarming number.
I want to give you some of the common things that I believe are suggested too often and not necessary. Let’s start with replacing the air filter. A lot of repair places want to change it every time they change the oil. Unless you travel a lot of dirt roads, a year or 15000 to 20000 miles, whichever comes first, is generally just fine. Check your factory maintenance guide, but that is a general rule.
Next, flushes. This has gotten to be a big item. Personally, if a vehicle is well maintained, I don’t find this necessary and would never consider flushing anything after a vehicle gets to 75,000 miles or so. The machines repair shops use are very high pressure and the risk of blowing out seals and gaskets is much greater than the reward in my opinion. Some flushes like power steering fluid are a real waste of money.
Then we have the oil change intervals. Oil today is so much better than it used to be, that even under the worst conditions, 5000 miles is plenty often. See what the manufacturer calls for and stick close to that. Also, check the sticker they leave on your windshield as soon as you get your oil changed, some places will place the interval at 3000 miles. If you don’t notice it right then, but later, you could end up changing it too often.
Another item is fuel injector cleaning. I have heard of shops recommending this every 10,000 miles. With all the detergent in today’s gasoline, this is just not necessary. For most vehicles, every 35000 to 40000 miles will serve you just fine.
If you have a repair shop or dealership you trust, stick with them, they have obviously earned that trust and should be rewarded for it. If you don’t have a regular place that you use, remember there is nothing wrong with shopping by phone or Internet. You will often find a vast difference in prices for the same operation. You can also get a feel for how friendly and efficient a place is. Sometimes you just have to go with your gut.
Lastly, don’t assume a dealership service department is much more expensive. Dealerships have been forced to get way more competitive on common things, like oil changes, tires, batteries, and brakes. There is something to be said too for factory certified technicians versus one technician who works on a Mercedes and then a Kia. Be smart, it will save you time and money.
WHICH IS MORE PAINFUL, GIVING BIRTH OR GETTING KICKED IN THE NUTS?
By Adolf der Schweinehund
The Unconventional Gazette
August 30, 2013
What deep thinkers men are... I mowed the lawn today, and after doing so I sat down and had a cold beer. The day was really quite beautiful, and the drink facilitated some deep thinking.
My wife walked by and asked me what I was doing and I said 'nothing'. The reason I said that instead of saying 'just thinking' is because she would have said 'about what'. At that point I would have to explain that men are deep thinkers about various topics which would lead to other questions.
Finally I thought about an age old question: Is giving birth more painful than getting kicked in the nuts? Women always maintain that giving birth is way more painful than a guy getting kicked in the nuts.
Well, after another beer, and some heavy deductive thinking, I have come up with the answer to that question. Getting kicked in the nuts is more painful than having a baby; and here is the reason for my conclusion. A year or so after giving birth, a woman will often say, "It might be nice to have another child." On the other hand, you never hear a guy say, "You know, I think I would like another kick in the nuts." I rest my case.
Time for another beer.
The Unconventional Gazette
August 30, 2013
What deep thinkers men are... I mowed the lawn today, and after doing so I sat down and had a cold beer. The day was really quite beautiful, and the drink facilitated some deep thinking.
My wife walked by and asked me what I was doing and I said 'nothing'. The reason I said that instead of saying 'just thinking' is because she would have said 'about what'. At that point I would have to explain that men are deep thinkers about various topics which would lead to other questions.
Finally I thought about an age old question: Is giving birth more painful than getting kicked in the nuts? Women always maintain that giving birth is way more painful than a guy getting kicked in the nuts.
Well, after another beer, and some heavy deductive thinking, I have come up with the answer to that question. Getting kicked in the nuts is more painful than having a baby; and here is the reason for my conclusion. A year or so after giving birth, a woman will often say, "It might be nice to have another child." On the other hand, you never hear a guy say, "You know, I think I would like another kick in the nuts." I rest my case.
Time for another beer.
Friday, August 30, 2013
OBAMA’S SILENCE ON THE DUNCAN AND SPOKANE KILLINGS (UPDATE)
President Obama waited 11 days to release this written statement:
“As the president has expressed on too many tragic occasions, there is an extra measure of evil in an act of violence that cuts a young life short. The president and first lady’s thoughts and prayers are with Chris Lane’s family and friends in these trying times.”
Obama did not make his statement to the American public like he did in the Trayvon Martin case where he declared that if he had a son, he would look like Trayvon. He waited 11 days following the death of Chris Lane and then had a spokesperson send the written statement to the Australians. The chances are good that one of the White House aides wrote out the statement and the President actually never even saw it.
In effect, Obama remains silent on the Duncan and Spokane killings. And that makes a thug like Trayvon Martin seem more important than an Australian college student and an 88-year-old WWII veteran, and a thug's death more tragic than their deaths.
“As the president has expressed on too many tragic occasions, there is an extra measure of evil in an act of violence that cuts a young life short. The president and first lady’s thoughts and prayers are with Chris Lane’s family and friends in these trying times.”
Obama did not make his statement to the American public like he did in the Trayvon Martin case where he declared that if he had a son, he would look like Trayvon. He waited 11 days following the death of Chris Lane and then had a spokesperson send the written statement to the Australians. The chances are good that one of the White House aides wrote out the statement and the President actually never even saw it.
In effect, Obama remains silent on the Duncan and Spokane killings. And that makes a thug like Trayvon Martin seem more important than an Australian college student and an 88-year-old WWII veteran, and a thug's death more tragic than their deaths.
ARBITRARY AGE NO LONGER APPROPRIATE IN DETERMINING RESPONSIBILITY FOR CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR
In Montana on Monday, Yellowstone County District Judge G. Todd Baugh tried to justify his lenient sentencing of ex-teacher Stacey Rambold for admittedly raping one of his 14-year-old students who later committed suicide. He said that Cherice Moralez was “older than her chronological age” and “as much in control of the situation” as Rambold. He then sentenced the ex-teacher to serve just 30 days of a 15-year prison sentence. His remarks, more than the lenient sentence, set off a tsunami of criticism. Judge Baugh has since apologized for making those remarks.
The Judge’s remarks, especially since the victim committed suicide, were stupid and insensitive. However he does have a valid point about the victim having been older than her age.
I have long maintained that it is no longer appropriate to set an arbitrary age – 17, 18, 19 or whatever – for deciding whether a young person is mature enough to be or not to be responsible for criminal behavior. The same can be said about setting an arbitrary age for the ‘rape’ of underage girls.
Our juvenile justice system was established over 100 years ago on the premise that children who committed mischievous or other delinquent acts – breaking windows, shooting out street lights with BB guns, shoplifting, petty thefts, truancy – were too immature to realize that what they were doing was wrong. That was long before juveniles started to pile up armed robberies and heinous crimes of violence.
Juveniles mature much earlier than they did years ago and they have become more sophisticated in their criminal behavior. Whether they are gang bangers, drug dealers, armed robbers or cold blooded killers, the age differentiation for criminal responsibility should no longer apply. Initially each of these young criminals should be charged as adults, not as juveniles, and then evaluated as to his or her maturity level before deciding whether to try them as juveniles or adults.
And the same applies to ‘child’ rape victims. Today many 14-year-old girls are sexually active. Should we really charge a 21-year-old man with rape for having sex with a consenting sexually active 14-year-old girl? If the answer is no, that still does not excuse a teacher taking advantage of his students.
The Judge’s remarks, especially since the victim committed suicide, were stupid and insensitive. However he does have a valid point about the victim having been older than her age.
I have long maintained that it is no longer appropriate to set an arbitrary age – 17, 18, 19 or whatever – for deciding whether a young person is mature enough to be or not to be responsible for criminal behavior. The same can be said about setting an arbitrary age for the ‘rape’ of underage girls.
Our juvenile justice system was established over 100 years ago on the premise that children who committed mischievous or other delinquent acts – breaking windows, shooting out street lights with BB guns, shoplifting, petty thefts, truancy – were too immature to realize that what they were doing was wrong. That was long before juveniles started to pile up armed robberies and heinous crimes of violence.
Juveniles mature much earlier than they did years ago and they have become more sophisticated in their criminal behavior. Whether they are gang bangers, drug dealers, armed robbers or cold blooded killers, the age differentiation for criminal responsibility should no longer apply. Initially each of these young criminals should be charged as adults, not as juveniles, and then evaluated as to his or her maturity level before deciding whether to try them as juveniles or adults.
And the same applies to ‘child’ rape victims. Today many 14-year-old girls are sexually active. Should we really charge a 21-year-old man with rape for having sex with a consenting sexually active 14-year-old girl? If the answer is no, that still does not excuse a teacher taking advantage of his students.
OUR INVOLVEMENT IN KOSOVO FAR DIFFERENT FROM ANY INVOLVEMENT IN SYRIA
The media has been full of reports on similarities between our 1999 military intervention in Kosovo and our expected military strikes against Syria. Robert Kaplan explains why our involvement in Syria may have far different results, including unwanted consequences, than those in Kosovo.
SYRIA AND THE LIMITS OF COMPARISON
By Robert D. Kaplan
Stratfor Global Intelligence
August 28, 2013
Because so many war plans simply do not survive the reality of war itself, each war is a unique universe unto its own and thus comparisons with previous wars, while useful, may also prove illusory. One of the many wrong assumptions about the Second Gulf War before it started was that it would somehow be like the First Gulf War, in which the pessimists had been humiliated by the ease of the victory. Indeed, the Second Gulf War unfolded in vastly different ways, this time proving the pessimists right. That is why the recent media refrain comparing a military operation in Syria with the one in Kosovo in 1999 worries me.
There are profound differences.
Syria has a population ten times the size of Kosovo's in 1999. Because everything in Syria is on a much vaster scale, deciding the outcome by military means could be that much harder.
Kosovo sustained violence and harsh repression at the hands of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, which was met with a low-intensity separatist campaign by the Kosovo Liberation Army. Violence was widespread but not nearly on the scale of Syria's. Syria is in the midst of a full-fledged civil war. The toppling of Milosevic, moreover, carried much less risk of ever-expanding anarchy than does the toppling of Syrian ruler Bashar al Assad.
Kosovo was more or less contained within the southern Balkans, with relatively limited chance for a spillover -- as it turned out -- into neighboring countries and territories. Full-scale sectarian anarchy in Syria threatens to destabilize a wider region.
The Kosovo Liberation Army may have been a nasty bunch by some accounts, with criminal elements. But it was not a threat to the United States like the transnational jihadists currently operating in Syria. For President Bill Clinton to risk bringing to power the Kosovo Liberation Army was far less of a concern than President Barack Obama possibly helping to midwife to power a Sunni jihadist regime.
Kosovo did not have a complex of chemical weapons facilities scattered throughout its territory as Syria does, with all the military and logistical headaches of trying to neutralize them.
The Kosovo war campaign did not have to countenance a strong and feisty Russia, which at the time was reeling from Boris Yeltsin's incompetent, anarchic rule. Vladimir Putin, who has significant equities in al Assad's Syria, may do everything in his power to undermine a U.S. attack. Though, it must be said, Putin's options should Obama opt for a significant military campaign are limited within Syria itself. But Putin can move closer to Iran by leaving the sanctions regime, and ratchet-up Russia's anti-American diplomacy worldwide more effectively than Yeltsin ever wanted to, or was capable of.
The Kosovo war did not engage Iran as this war must. For all of the missiles that America can fire, it does not have operatives on the ground like Iran has. Neither will the United States necessarily have the patience and fortitude to prosecute a lengthy and covert ground-level operation as Iran might for years to come, and already has. A weakened or toppled al Assad is bad for Iran, surely, but it does not altogether signal that America will therefore receive a good result from this war. A wounded Iran might race even faster toward a nuclear option. It is a calculated risk.
The Kosovo war inflicted significant pain on Serbian civilians through airstrikes, but the Syrian population has already been pummeled by a brutal war for two years now, and so it is problematic whether airstrikes in this case can inflict that much more psychological pain on the parts of the population either still loyal or indifferent to the regime.
The goal in Kosovo was to limit Serbia's geographic influence and to ignite a chain of events that would lead to Milosevic's ouster. Those goals were achieved: Milosevic was forced from power in the fall of 2000, largely because of a chain of events stemming from that war. His ouster, as I wrote in The New York Times on Oct. 6, 2000, meant the de facto death of the last ruling Communist Party in Europe, even if in its final years it had adopted national-fascism as a tactic. Because the war was in significant measure a result of the efforts of a single individual, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, it demonstrated how individuals can dramatically alter history for the better.
Kosovo thus symbolized the power of human agency over impersonal forces in order to wrest a victory for human rights. This is a popular cause among liberal journalists and intellectuals, as is the desire to do something to punish the massive human rights violations of the al Assad regime. The comparison between Kosovo and Syria follows from that. But it is a flawed comparison: Elegantly toppling Milosevic incurred no negative side effects. Toppling al Assad could lead to a power center in the Levant as friendly to transnational jihadists as the one in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan was in the late 1990s until 2001.
Of course, the Obama administration will try to calibrate its military effort in a way to avoid further jihadi chaos in Syria. But even with overwhelming firepower, it is not necessarily in control. Whereas ending Milosevic's rule meant an end to ethnic cleansing, it is far from certain that sectarian carnage would end with al Assad's demise; it might possibly even intensify, with Sunnis exacting revenge on a weakened and cornered Alawite community.
Obama faces a dilemma more extreme than the one Clinton faced in Kosovo. If he chooses limited military strikes to send a message against the use of chemical weapons, he risks looking weak, especially following the powerful rhetoric employed by his secretary of state, John Kerry. If he chooses regime change -- while not calling it that -- he threatens to unleash a jihadi nightmare. He may try a middle option calibrated to seriously erode al Assad's power base while sending a message to Russia and Iran to help him negotiate a stable transfer of authority in Damascus -- something that might yet open up a wider diplomatic process with Iran. But that is obviously very difficult to do.
Keep another thing in mind about Kosovo. At that time, the United States had not been in a ground war for a quarter-century and thus the American people were not weary of war. Even so, Clinton rightly calculated that the public would not tolerate casualties on the ground in a war that did not involve a naked American interest. But the American public is now tottering from more than a decade of bloody ground war, and so Obama has even less leeway than Clinton, even as Syria presents a greater military challenge than Kosovo.
So far, Obama has handled the Middle East tolerably well. He has reduced and ended ground force commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq, while avoiding quagmires elsewhere in the face of regional change and chaos. This is in keeping with the leadership of a global maritime power that has serious military commitments in Asia and elsewhere, even as its energy dependency on the Middle East is on the wane. But Obama now faces a defining event that will test his commitment to keep America out of regional quicksand while being able to wield considerable power in the region at the same time. If Obama prosecutes a significant military operation, one thing is certain: Syria will be its own war for the United States with its own narrative, for better or worse.
SYRIA AND THE LIMITS OF COMPARISON
By Robert D. Kaplan
Stratfor Global Intelligence
August 28, 2013
Because so many war plans simply do not survive the reality of war itself, each war is a unique universe unto its own and thus comparisons with previous wars, while useful, may also prove illusory. One of the many wrong assumptions about the Second Gulf War before it started was that it would somehow be like the First Gulf War, in which the pessimists had been humiliated by the ease of the victory. Indeed, the Second Gulf War unfolded in vastly different ways, this time proving the pessimists right. That is why the recent media refrain comparing a military operation in Syria with the one in Kosovo in 1999 worries me.
There are profound differences.
Syria has a population ten times the size of Kosovo's in 1999. Because everything in Syria is on a much vaster scale, deciding the outcome by military means could be that much harder.
Kosovo sustained violence and harsh repression at the hands of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, which was met with a low-intensity separatist campaign by the Kosovo Liberation Army. Violence was widespread but not nearly on the scale of Syria's. Syria is in the midst of a full-fledged civil war. The toppling of Milosevic, moreover, carried much less risk of ever-expanding anarchy than does the toppling of Syrian ruler Bashar al Assad.
Kosovo was more or less contained within the southern Balkans, with relatively limited chance for a spillover -- as it turned out -- into neighboring countries and territories. Full-scale sectarian anarchy in Syria threatens to destabilize a wider region.
The Kosovo Liberation Army may have been a nasty bunch by some accounts, with criminal elements. But it was not a threat to the United States like the transnational jihadists currently operating in Syria. For President Bill Clinton to risk bringing to power the Kosovo Liberation Army was far less of a concern than President Barack Obama possibly helping to midwife to power a Sunni jihadist regime.
Kosovo did not have a complex of chemical weapons facilities scattered throughout its territory as Syria does, with all the military and logistical headaches of trying to neutralize them.
The Kosovo war campaign did not have to countenance a strong and feisty Russia, which at the time was reeling from Boris Yeltsin's incompetent, anarchic rule. Vladimir Putin, who has significant equities in al Assad's Syria, may do everything in his power to undermine a U.S. attack. Though, it must be said, Putin's options should Obama opt for a significant military campaign are limited within Syria itself. But Putin can move closer to Iran by leaving the sanctions regime, and ratchet-up Russia's anti-American diplomacy worldwide more effectively than Yeltsin ever wanted to, or was capable of.
The Kosovo war did not engage Iran as this war must. For all of the missiles that America can fire, it does not have operatives on the ground like Iran has. Neither will the United States necessarily have the patience and fortitude to prosecute a lengthy and covert ground-level operation as Iran might for years to come, and already has. A weakened or toppled al Assad is bad for Iran, surely, but it does not altogether signal that America will therefore receive a good result from this war. A wounded Iran might race even faster toward a nuclear option. It is a calculated risk.
The Kosovo war inflicted significant pain on Serbian civilians through airstrikes, but the Syrian population has already been pummeled by a brutal war for two years now, and so it is problematic whether airstrikes in this case can inflict that much more psychological pain on the parts of the population either still loyal or indifferent to the regime.
The goal in Kosovo was to limit Serbia's geographic influence and to ignite a chain of events that would lead to Milosevic's ouster. Those goals were achieved: Milosevic was forced from power in the fall of 2000, largely because of a chain of events stemming from that war. His ouster, as I wrote in The New York Times on Oct. 6, 2000, meant the de facto death of the last ruling Communist Party in Europe, even if in its final years it had adopted national-fascism as a tactic. Because the war was in significant measure a result of the efforts of a single individual, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, it demonstrated how individuals can dramatically alter history for the better.
Kosovo thus symbolized the power of human agency over impersonal forces in order to wrest a victory for human rights. This is a popular cause among liberal journalists and intellectuals, as is the desire to do something to punish the massive human rights violations of the al Assad regime. The comparison between Kosovo and Syria follows from that. But it is a flawed comparison: Elegantly toppling Milosevic incurred no negative side effects. Toppling al Assad could lead to a power center in the Levant as friendly to transnational jihadists as the one in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan was in the late 1990s until 2001.
Of course, the Obama administration will try to calibrate its military effort in a way to avoid further jihadi chaos in Syria. But even with overwhelming firepower, it is not necessarily in control. Whereas ending Milosevic's rule meant an end to ethnic cleansing, it is far from certain that sectarian carnage would end with al Assad's demise; it might possibly even intensify, with Sunnis exacting revenge on a weakened and cornered Alawite community.
Obama faces a dilemma more extreme than the one Clinton faced in Kosovo. If he chooses limited military strikes to send a message against the use of chemical weapons, he risks looking weak, especially following the powerful rhetoric employed by his secretary of state, John Kerry. If he chooses regime change -- while not calling it that -- he threatens to unleash a jihadi nightmare. He may try a middle option calibrated to seriously erode al Assad's power base while sending a message to Russia and Iran to help him negotiate a stable transfer of authority in Damascus -- something that might yet open up a wider diplomatic process with Iran. But that is obviously very difficult to do.
Keep another thing in mind about Kosovo. At that time, the United States had not been in a ground war for a quarter-century and thus the American people were not weary of war. Even so, Clinton rightly calculated that the public would not tolerate casualties on the ground in a war that did not involve a naked American interest. But the American public is now tottering from more than a decade of bloody ground war, and so Obama has even less leeway than Clinton, even as Syria presents a greater military challenge than Kosovo.
So far, Obama has handled the Middle East tolerably well. He has reduced and ended ground force commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq, while avoiding quagmires elsewhere in the face of regional change and chaos. This is in keeping with the leadership of a global maritime power that has serious military commitments in Asia and elsewhere, even as its energy dependency on the Middle East is on the wane. But Obama now faces a defining event that will test his commitment to keep America out of regional quicksand while being able to wield considerable power in the region at the same time. If Obama prosecutes a significant military operation, one thing is certain: Syria will be its own war for the United States with its own narrative, for better or worse.
JUDGE CREATES TSUNAMI OF CRITICISM FOR REMARKS ON RAPE VICTIM
The Judge’s remarks, especially since the victim committed suicide, were stupid and insensitive.
MONTANA JUDGE APOLOGIZES FOR CRITICIZING TEEN RAPE VICTIM WHO COMMITTED SUICIDE
Yellowstone County Judge G. Todd Baugh says it was 'stupid and wrong' to say 14-year-old Cherice Moralez was 'as much in control of the situation' as her abuser. The Billings Senior High student killed herself in 2010, but ex-teacher Stacey Rambold will serve just 30 days of a 15-year sentence
By Doyle Murphy
New York Daily News
August 29, 2013
A Montana judge has apologized for claiming a 14-year-old girl was “as much in control of the situation” as a former teacher who admits raping her.
Yellowstone County District Judge G. Todd Baugh also said Monday teen Cherice Moralez was “older than her chronological age” while sentencing ex-teacher Stacey Rambold to serve just 30 days of a 15-year prison sentence.
Moralez killed herself in 2010 with the case still pending, and her mother claimed the abuse by Rambold was a “major factor” in her daughter’s suicide, the Billings Gazette reported.
The mother, Auliea Hanlon, stormed out of Monday’s sentencing, shouting “You people suck!”
Baugh has reconsidered his comments, although not the sentence. He wrote an 81-word letter to the Billings paper apologizing for his statements.
“In the Rambold sentencing, I made references to the victim’s age and control,” Baugh wrote. “I’m not sure just what I was attempting to say, but it did not come out correct.
“What I said is demeaning of all women, not what I believe and irrelevant to the sentencing. My apologies to all my fellow citizens.”
He promised to write an addendum to the court file to better explain the sentence.
Yellowstone County Attorney Scott Twito, whose deputy prosecuted the case, said he would review the sentence, but prosecutors would need to identify a legal or factual issue in order to launch an appeal.
Hanlon told the Gazette she “looked on in disbelief” at the sentencing.
“I guess somehow it makes a rape more acceptable if you blame the victim, even if she was only 14," the mother said .
Baugh was also criticized in July after he allowed a 55-year-old Billings woman to strike a deal for a 3-year suspended sentence, avoiding the possibility she would be convicted of drunken driving for the 13th time, CNN reported. The state's commissioner of higher education blasted Baugh, claiming he told the woman, “If you drink and drive and kill someone, you will spend some real time in prison.”
The criticism in that case was minor compared to the wide-ranging backlash unleashed on the judge as his comments in the Rambold hearing went viral.
Protesters, who have called for Baugh’s resignation, vowed to go forward with a demonstration planned for Thursday outside the courthouse.
“I’m glad he apologized, but he should have known better as a judge,” organizer Sheena Rice said. “The fact that he said it makes me think he still believes it.”
An online petition calling for Baugh’s resignation had 26,350 signatures as of 8 a.m. Thursday.
If Baugh doesn’t resign, Rice said, protesters will organize to vote him out in 2014.
Baugh told the Gazette the outrage was “perfectly understandable” and what he said was “stupid and wrong.” However, he defended the sentence, comparing Monday’s hearing to sentencing a probation violator.
The long and winding case began in 2008 when prosecutors charged Rambold with three counts of sexual intercourse without consent after learning of his relationship with Moralez. The case was was still pending in 2010 when Moralez committed suicide. That was a turning point. Rather than push the criminal case without Moralez, prosecutor's cut a deal with Rambold: They'd hold off on charges if he completed a three-year treatment program for sex offenders. He also admitted to raping the girl, the Gazette reported.
The deal fell apart in 2012 after prosecutors learned Rambold failed to hold up his end of the bargain. He'd been kicked out of the treatment program for a series of violations. Program administrators said Rambold missed meetings, had unsupervised visits with minors and began having sex with a woman without telling them.
As a result, prosecutors refiled the charges in December and sought a sentence of 20 years with 10 years suspended. Baugh thought that was overly harsh. He instead sentenced the ex-teacher to 15 years and suspended all but 31 days. The judge knocked off another day for time served, leaving Rambold with just 30 days to spend behind bars.
Now, 54, Rambold will be on probation and supervised by the state for the remainder of the 15 years when he's released , the Gazette reported. He will be required to register as a sex offender.
Rambold’s attorney said his client has already entered another treatment program.
A civil lawsuit Hanlon filed against the school district revealed that school officials in 2004 ordered Rambold not to touch or spend time alone with female students.
The district settled the case for $91,000.
MONTANA JUDGE APOLOGIZES FOR CRITICIZING TEEN RAPE VICTIM WHO COMMITTED SUICIDE
Yellowstone County Judge G. Todd Baugh says it was 'stupid and wrong' to say 14-year-old Cherice Moralez was 'as much in control of the situation' as her abuser. The Billings Senior High student killed herself in 2010, but ex-teacher Stacey Rambold will serve just 30 days of a 15-year sentence
By Doyle Murphy
New York Daily News
August 29, 2013
A Montana judge has apologized for claiming a 14-year-old girl was “as much in control of the situation” as a former teacher who admits raping her.
Yellowstone County District Judge G. Todd Baugh also said Monday teen Cherice Moralez was “older than her chronological age” while sentencing ex-teacher Stacey Rambold to serve just 30 days of a 15-year prison sentence.
Moralez killed herself in 2010 with the case still pending, and her mother claimed the abuse by Rambold was a “major factor” in her daughter’s suicide, the Billings Gazette reported.
The mother, Auliea Hanlon, stormed out of Monday’s sentencing, shouting “You people suck!”
Baugh has reconsidered his comments, although not the sentence. He wrote an 81-word letter to the Billings paper apologizing for his statements.
“In the Rambold sentencing, I made references to the victim’s age and control,” Baugh wrote. “I’m not sure just what I was attempting to say, but it did not come out correct.
“What I said is demeaning of all women, not what I believe and irrelevant to the sentencing. My apologies to all my fellow citizens.”
He promised to write an addendum to the court file to better explain the sentence.
Yellowstone County Attorney Scott Twito, whose deputy prosecuted the case, said he would review the sentence, but prosecutors would need to identify a legal or factual issue in order to launch an appeal.
Hanlon told the Gazette she “looked on in disbelief” at the sentencing.
“I guess somehow it makes a rape more acceptable if you blame the victim, even if she was only 14," the mother said .
Baugh was also criticized in July after he allowed a 55-year-old Billings woman to strike a deal for a 3-year suspended sentence, avoiding the possibility she would be convicted of drunken driving for the 13th time, CNN reported. The state's commissioner of higher education blasted Baugh, claiming he told the woman, “If you drink and drive and kill someone, you will spend some real time in prison.”
The criticism in that case was minor compared to the wide-ranging backlash unleashed on the judge as his comments in the Rambold hearing went viral.
Protesters, who have called for Baugh’s resignation, vowed to go forward with a demonstration planned for Thursday outside the courthouse.
“I’m glad he apologized, but he should have known better as a judge,” organizer Sheena Rice said. “The fact that he said it makes me think he still believes it.”
An online petition calling for Baugh’s resignation had 26,350 signatures as of 8 a.m. Thursday.
If Baugh doesn’t resign, Rice said, protesters will organize to vote him out in 2014.
Baugh told the Gazette the outrage was “perfectly understandable” and what he said was “stupid and wrong.” However, he defended the sentence, comparing Monday’s hearing to sentencing a probation violator.
The long and winding case began in 2008 when prosecutors charged Rambold with three counts of sexual intercourse without consent after learning of his relationship with Moralez. The case was was still pending in 2010 when Moralez committed suicide. That was a turning point. Rather than push the criminal case without Moralez, prosecutor's cut a deal with Rambold: They'd hold off on charges if he completed a three-year treatment program for sex offenders. He also admitted to raping the girl, the Gazette reported.
The deal fell apart in 2012 after prosecutors learned Rambold failed to hold up his end of the bargain. He'd been kicked out of the treatment program for a series of violations. Program administrators said Rambold missed meetings, had unsupervised visits with minors and began having sex with a woman without telling them.
As a result, prosecutors refiled the charges in December and sought a sentence of 20 years with 10 years suspended. Baugh thought that was overly harsh. He instead sentenced the ex-teacher to 15 years and suspended all but 31 days. The judge knocked off another day for time served, leaving Rambold with just 30 days to spend behind bars.
Now, 54, Rambold will be on probation and supervised by the state for the remainder of the 15 years when he's released , the Gazette reported. He will be required to register as a sex offender.
Rambold’s attorney said his client has already entered another treatment program.
A civil lawsuit Hanlon filed against the school district revealed that school officials in 2004 ordered Rambold not to touch or spend time alone with female students.
The district settled the case for $91,000.
CHP BADLY IN NEED OF TRAINING ON SAFEGUARDING WEAPONS
Assault rifles, handguns and shotguns were stolen from a parked California Highway Patrol car during a CHP training exercise. I have no idea what the training exercise was all about, but it’s obvious that CHP officers have not been trained in how to safeguard their weapons.
GUNS, EQUIPMENT STOLEN FROM CHP VEHICLE DURING TRAINING EXERCISE
Two AR-15 semiautomatic rifles, two shotguns and two .40-caliber handguns were said to be among items stolen this week from a CHP vehicle
By Joseph Serna
Los Angeles Times
August 28, 2013
Several guns and other equipment were stolen from a California Highway Patrol vehicle this week, officials confirmed Wednesday.
The weapons were stolen while CHP officers conducted a training exercise Monday afternoon at Stevenson Ranch in Santa Clarita, said CHP spokesman Saul Gomez.
The thief or thieves made off with two AR-15 semiautomatic rifles, two shotguns and two Smith & Wesson .40 caliber handguns, the Santa Clarita Valley News reported. A bulletproof vest, handcuff keys and an officer’s ID badge were also taken.
Some of the equipment was recovered Tuesday in South L.A.’s Green Meadows neighborhood near East 120th Street and South Central Avenue, Gomez said. None of the guns were found, according to SCVNews.
No arrests have been made. An investigation is continuing.
Earlier this month the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department revealed it has been missing an M-16 assault rifle since February.
GUNS, EQUIPMENT STOLEN FROM CHP VEHICLE DURING TRAINING EXERCISE
Two AR-15 semiautomatic rifles, two shotguns and two .40-caliber handguns were said to be among items stolen this week from a CHP vehicle
By Joseph Serna
Los Angeles Times
August 28, 2013
Several guns and other equipment were stolen from a California Highway Patrol vehicle this week, officials confirmed Wednesday.
The weapons were stolen while CHP officers conducted a training exercise Monday afternoon at Stevenson Ranch in Santa Clarita, said CHP spokesman Saul Gomez.
The thief or thieves made off with two AR-15 semiautomatic rifles, two shotguns and two Smith & Wesson .40 caliber handguns, the Santa Clarita Valley News reported. A bulletproof vest, handcuff keys and an officer’s ID badge were also taken.
Some of the equipment was recovered Tuesday in South L.A.’s Green Meadows neighborhood near East 120th Street and South Central Avenue, Gomez said. None of the guns were found, according to SCVNews.
No arrests have been made. An investigation is continuing.
Earlier this month the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department revealed it has been missing an M-16 assault rifle since February.
TEENAGED GIRL CALLS 911 FOR HELP WITH FREAKING SPIDER THE SIZE OF A BASEBALL
Spider turned out to be 2 inches in diameter, dispatched by cop with swat of rolled-up newspaper
I’m sure all of you have heard some fish stories. Well, this is a spider story.
POLICE RESPOND TO CALL ABOUT ‘MASSIVE FREAKING’ SPIDER
By Paul Craig
KPTV
August 28, 2013
FOREST GROVE, OR -- A teen who called police prefaced what she was about to ask with a simple statement.
"I just kind of have a ridiculous question."
A teenage girl in Forest Grove called dispatchers not for an emergency, but instead for a spider. Police said it happened during the night of Aug. 16.
"I'm home alone and there is a giant spider on the back of my couch, and I'm talking giant. I've never seen a spider this big and I have no idea what to do," she told the slightly perplexed dispatcher, according to 911 records.
The girl estimated the spider was the size of a baseball, similar to a tarantula. She said spiders don't typically scare her, but a family member was recently bit by one and had to go to the hospital.
Plus, she said, this was a "massive freaking creature."
"I don't know if you guys have anything I can do, or if I just sit here and stare at it and wait for someone to get home to kill it," she told the dispatcher.
After the dispatcher pondered how to handle the situation, he agreed to have an officer contact her.
"Is that ridiculous?" she asked.
An officer did respond to the scene and estimated the spider was about 2 inches in diameter. Modern police equipment was not necessary to handle the eight-legged perp in this case.
The officer disposed of the spider with an old-fashioned rolled up newspaper, police said.
Forest Grove police said it's not normal for them to respond to a call about an arachnid, but they decided to help the young lady out in this instance.
I’m sure all of you have heard some fish stories. Well, this is a spider story.
POLICE RESPOND TO CALL ABOUT ‘MASSIVE FREAKING’ SPIDER
By Paul Craig
KPTV
August 28, 2013
FOREST GROVE, OR -- A teen who called police prefaced what she was about to ask with a simple statement.
"I just kind of have a ridiculous question."
A teenage girl in Forest Grove called dispatchers not for an emergency, but instead for a spider. Police said it happened during the night of Aug. 16.
"I'm home alone and there is a giant spider on the back of my couch, and I'm talking giant. I've never seen a spider this big and I have no idea what to do," she told the slightly perplexed dispatcher, according to 911 records.
The girl estimated the spider was the size of a baseball, similar to a tarantula. She said spiders don't typically scare her, but a family member was recently bit by one and had to go to the hospital.
Plus, she said, this was a "massive freaking creature."
"I don't know if you guys have anything I can do, or if I just sit here and stare at it and wait for someone to get home to kill it," she told the dispatcher.
After the dispatcher pondered how to handle the situation, he agreed to have an officer contact her.
"Is that ridiculous?" she asked.
An officer did respond to the scene and estimated the spider was about 2 inches in diameter. Modern police equipment was not necessary to handle the eight-legged perp in this case.
The officer disposed of the spider with an old-fashioned rolled up newspaper, police said.
Forest Grove police said it's not normal for them to respond to a call about an arachnid, but they decided to help the young lady out in this instance.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
FIRST DUNCAN, THEN SPOKANE, NOW HOUSTON
Three armed robbers wearing masks and bandanas rushed into a Denny’s in Houston at 10:30 p.m. Monday. They ordered all customers and employees to the floor. They stole money from the cash register and the customers. They also took purses and cellphones. They even pointed their guns at little children.
Something made the robbers angry and they began firing a fusillade of shots inside the restaurant and outside in the parking lot. When they started shooting, Robert Placette, 64, jumped in front of some terrified children, trying to shield them. He was shot to death. A Denny’s employee was also shot while trying to escape out the door, but he is expected to recover. The trio left the scene in a stolen minivan.
Just as in Duncan, Oklahoma and Spokane, Washington, this was a senseless killing. The three robbers were black and Placette, a true hero, was white. When will we hear Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson expressing their outrage over these black-on-white killings?
Something made the robbers angry and they began firing a fusillade of shots inside the restaurant and outside in the parking lot. When they started shooting, Robert Placette, 64, jumped in front of some terrified children, trying to shield them. He was shot to death. A Denny’s employee was also shot while trying to escape out the door, but he is expected to recover. The trio left the scene in a stolen minivan.
Just as in Duncan, Oklahoma and Spokane, Washington, this was a senseless killing. The three robbers were black and Placette, a true hero, was white. When will we hear Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson expressing their outrage over these black-on-white killings?
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER
Surviving Auschwitz guards facing prosecution for complicity in the extermination of 960,000 Jews at the notorious death camp
Most of the survivors are in their 90s and many people will say they should be left alone. But the scope of the Nazi’s Final Solution extermination of Jews was so enormous that the perpetrators, regardless of age, should not be allowed to escape justice.
OVER 40 AUSCHWITZ GUARDS ‘TO FACE GERMAN JUSTICE’
AFP
August 27, 2013
BERLIN — German investigators into Nazi war crimes will send the files of more than 40 former Auschwitz death camp personnel to state prosecutors from next month, a newspaper reported Tuesday.
Most of the suspects are aged in their 90s and they live in all parts of Germany including the former communist East, chief investigator Kurt Schrimm told the Tageszeitung.
The list of alleged guards at the concentration and extermination camp in what was Nazi-occupied Poland initially contained 50 names, but some of them have since died.
"These accused have so far not been informed" that they are now in the crosshairs of justice, said Schrimm, senior prosecutor at the Central Office for Resolving National Socialist Crimes.
More than 6,000 SS personnel served at Auschwitz, where about 1.1 million Jews, Roma and Sinti and members of other persecuted groups died in gas chambers or of forced labour, sickness and starvation.
For over 60 years German courts only prosecuted Nazi war criminals if evidence showed they had personally committed atrocities, but since a 2011 landmark case all former camp guards can be tried.
In that year a Munich court sentenced John Demjanjuk to five years in prison for complicity in the extermination of more than 28,000 Jews at the Sobibor camp, where he had served as a guard.
The investigative office, set up in 1958, has carried out more than 7,000 probes but has no powers to charge suspects itself. Instead it sends case files to regional prosecutors who then decide whether to pursue suspects, who must also be judged fit to stand trial by the courts.
Most of the survivors are in their 90s and many people will say they should be left alone. But the scope of the Nazi’s Final Solution extermination of Jews was so enormous that the perpetrators, regardless of age, should not be allowed to escape justice.
OVER 40 AUSCHWITZ GUARDS ‘TO FACE GERMAN JUSTICE’
AFP
August 27, 2013
BERLIN — German investigators into Nazi war crimes will send the files of more than 40 former Auschwitz death camp personnel to state prosecutors from next month, a newspaper reported Tuesday.
Most of the suspects are aged in their 90s and they live in all parts of Germany including the former communist East, chief investigator Kurt Schrimm told the Tageszeitung.
The list of alleged guards at the concentration and extermination camp in what was Nazi-occupied Poland initially contained 50 names, but some of them have since died.
"These accused have so far not been informed" that they are now in the crosshairs of justice, said Schrimm, senior prosecutor at the Central Office for Resolving National Socialist Crimes.
More than 6,000 SS personnel served at Auschwitz, where about 1.1 million Jews, Roma and Sinti and members of other persecuted groups died in gas chambers or of forced labour, sickness and starvation.
For over 60 years German courts only prosecuted Nazi war criminals if evidence showed they had personally committed atrocities, but since a 2011 landmark case all former camp guards can be tried.
In that year a Munich court sentenced John Demjanjuk to five years in prison for complicity in the extermination of more than 28,000 Jews at the Sobibor camp, where he had served as a guard.
The investigative office, set up in 1958, has carried out more than 7,000 probes but has no powers to charge suspects itself. Instead it sends case files to regional prosecutors who then decide whether to pursue suspects, who must also be judged fit to stand trial by the courts.
IT’S A GOOD THING THESE TWO COPS WERE LOUSY SHOTS
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department, which tried to cover up this shootout, has a history of its deputies turning on each other with their guns.
RIVAL CAMPERS WHO OPENED FIRE ON EACH OTHER TURN OUT TO BE L.A. SHERIFF’S DEPUTIES
Feuding L.A. County deputies, both off duty at Prado Regional Park, apparently didn't know they were colleagues
By Robert Faturechi
Los Angeles Times
August 26, 2013
An apparent booze-fueled dispute over loud music between two groups at a Chino campground over the weekend escalated to the point where men from both sides drew guns and opened fire.
No one was hurt, but the two alleged gunmen have plenty to explain.
It turns out that the rival gun-toting campers were both Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies.
Authorities suspect the off-duty cops learned they were colleagues only after their campground showdown.
Chino police officers were called to Prado Regional Park early Sunday morning. They arrested the deputies — Dejay Barber, 44, and Matthew Rincon, 24 — on suspicion of negligent discharge of a firearm.
Chino police Lt. Wes Simmons, when asked if he'd ever come across a similar scene, couldn't stifle a chuckle: "That's not fair for you to ask me that," he said, before acknowledging that he hadn't.
Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said both deputies have been relieved of duty with pay. He said the men brandished their guns in a "threatening manner."
They did not fire at each other, he said, but into the air.
"Alcohol is suspected," Whitmore said. "This is gross negligence."
It's unclear if there were other campers nearby when the off-duty deputies began shooting. Multiple rounds were fired.
"I don't know how many, but more than one," Whitmore said.
This isn't the first time in recent years that violence has broken out between deputies from the agency.
In 2009, a sergeant was accused of pointing a gun at the head of a fellow sergeant inside the Compton sheriff's station and mouthing, "I'm gonna kill you."
In 2010, a group of jail deputies brawled with two of their colleagues at a department Christmas party. At one point, a female deputy was punched in the face.
And last year, a deputy was accused of kicking another deputy in the groin without provocation. That came after she had been arrested the year before over suspicion of assaulting fellow deputies during an early-morning brawl at a La Mirada park where she and two colleagues were found bloodied and apparently drunk.
Whitmore said the department is taking the latest incident seriously.
One of the deputies works in the county courts, Whitmore said, and the other in the department's transit services division. The criminal investigation will be handled by the Chino police.
No press release was issued about the campground gunfire. The Times learned of the incident through a source.
RIVAL CAMPERS WHO OPENED FIRE ON EACH OTHER TURN OUT TO BE L.A. SHERIFF’S DEPUTIES
Feuding L.A. County deputies, both off duty at Prado Regional Park, apparently didn't know they were colleagues
By Robert Faturechi
Los Angeles Times
August 26, 2013
An apparent booze-fueled dispute over loud music between two groups at a Chino campground over the weekend escalated to the point where men from both sides drew guns and opened fire.
No one was hurt, but the two alleged gunmen have plenty to explain.
It turns out that the rival gun-toting campers were both Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies.
Authorities suspect the off-duty cops learned they were colleagues only after their campground showdown.
Chino police officers were called to Prado Regional Park early Sunday morning. They arrested the deputies — Dejay Barber, 44, and Matthew Rincon, 24 — on suspicion of negligent discharge of a firearm.
Chino police Lt. Wes Simmons, when asked if he'd ever come across a similar scene, couldn't stifle a chuckle: "That's not fair for you to ask me that," he said, before acknowledging that he hadn't.
Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said both deputies have been relieved of duty with pay. He said the men brandished their guns in a "threatening manner."
They did not fire at each other, he said, but into the air.
"Alcohol is suspected," Whitmore said. "This is gross negligence."
It's unclear if there were other campers nearby when the off-duty deputies began shooting. Multiple rounds were fired.
"I don't know how many, but more than one," Whitmore said.
This isn't the first time in recent years that violence has broken out between deputies from the agency.
In 2009, a sergeant was accused of pointing a gun at the head of a fellow sergeant inside the Compton sheriff's station and mouthing, "I'm gonna kill you."
In 2010, a group of jail deputies brawled with two of their colleagues at a department Christmas party. At one point, a female deputy was punched in the face.
And last year, a deputy was accused of kicking another deputy in the groin without provocation. That came after she had been arrested the year before over suspicion of assaulting fellow deputies during an early-morning brawl at a La Mirada park where she and two colleagues were found bloodied and apparently drunk.
Whitmore said the department is taking the latest incident seriously.
One of the deputies works in the county courts, Whitmore said, and the other in the department's transit services division. The criminal investigation will be handled by the Chino police.
No press release was issued about the campground gunfire. The Times learned of the incident through a source.
FREE MARKET SOCIETY AT WORK IN CHINA
As China evolves into a free market society it is also experiencing a significant increase in crime. The perpetrator(s) who gouged out a little boy’s eyes in order to sell the corneas on the transplant black market are about as low as anyone can get. Hopefully, if and when they get caught, the Chinese judicial system will hand out a justly deserved death sentence.
PARENTS’ HORROR AS CHINESE BOY, 6, HAS HIS EYES GOUGED OUT AFTER BEING ‘KIDNAPPED BY ORGAN TRAFFICKER WHO STOLE BOTH HIS CORNEAS’
Illicit trade fuelled because China has 300,000 on transplant waiting list
Mail Online
August 27, 2013
Organ traffickers gouged out the eyes of a six-year-old boy to sell on China’s transplant black market, it was claimed yesterday.
Police said the child, Binbin, was drugged after being kidnapped while playing outside his home.
His family found him covered in blood and crying in pain three to four hours later. His eyes were found nearby with the corneas missing, police say, implying that an organ trafficker was behind the attack.
An entire eye cannot be transplanted, but a cornea could be vital for a patient with faltering vision.
Police are seeking a woman suspect and have offered £10,500 for information leading to an arrest.
Binbin’s devastated father said: ‘We didn’t notice his eyes were gone when we discovered him – he had blood all over his face. We thought he had fallen down and smashed his face.’
The boy was rushed to hospital where doctors were shocked to find his eyes had been removed. His father said: ‘His eyelids were turned inside out, and his eyeballs were not there.’
Illegal organ harvesting is booming in China, where there is a shortage of donors, and last night, amid domestic and international outrage, Beijing was urged to crack down on the country’s multi-million-pound transplant industry.
Binbin was shown on state TV being taken in bandages from an operating theatre to a hospital bed, writhing in agony as his shocked family wept.
China Central Television said he had been drugged and ‘lost consciousness’ before the attacker removed his eyes.
His parents discovered he was missing when they called for him to come in around 8pm on Monday but received no response.
After a frantic search with relatives, they found him screaming in a field near their home in Fenxi, north China. The kidnapper had reportedly told Binbin: ‘Don’t cry and I won’t gouge out your eyes.’
China does not have a donor culture, but about 300,000 patients need transplants each year. Only about 10,000 receive organs, mainly taken from death-row prisoners.
Though the sale and transplant of organs for money is prohibited, lax laws and widespread corruption have fuelled a booming industry.
China is also a leading destination for ‘transplant tourists’ who travel there to obtain organs.
Last night international doctors appalled by Binbin’s suffering called on leading medical journals to ban publication of Chinese research papers on organ transplants, to shame the country into tackling the problem.
Professor Arthur Caplan, head of medical ethics at New York University and spokesman for Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting, said: ‘As unimaginable and untrue as this boy’s torment sounds, it shocks but does not surprise.
‘Whereas hearts, livers and kidneys must be sourced from donors who match the same blood and body type of recipient patients, in-demand corneas for corrective eyesight operations can be taken from any age and body type.
‘Anyone who knows where the corneas are located in the eye can extract them, and I fear for the unsterile conditions and the barbaric methods used, and that infection may add to the boy’s suffering.
‘He will suffer unthinkable physical and psychological pain.’
Professor Caplan urged international governments to ‘stand up to China’ and take action to make it clean up its transplant industry.
‘Transplant tourists who travel to China with the right amount of money can order the organ needed,’ he said. ‘A prisoner is found to match the recipient and is taken out and shot.’
Last weekend, Chinese police detained members of a kidney- trafficking ring, including a team of four doctors and nurses.
PARENTS’ HORROR AS CHINESE BOY, 6, HAS HIS EYES GOUGED OUT AFTER BEING ‘KIDNAPPED BY ORGAN TRAFFICKER WHO STOLE BOTH HIS CORNEAS’
Illicit trade fuelled because China has 300,000 on transplant waiting list
Mail Online
August 27, 2013
Organ traffickers gouged out the eyes of a six-year-old boy to sell on China’s transplant black market, it was claimed yesterday.
Police said the child, Binbin, was drugged after being kidnapped while playing outside his home.
His family found him covered in blood and crying in pain three to four hours later. His eyes were found nearby with the corneas missing, police say, implying that an organ trafficker was behind the attack.
An entire eye cannot be transplanted, but a cornea could be vital for a patient with faltering vision.
Police are seeking a woman suspect and have offered £10,500 for information leading to an arrest.
Binbin’s devastated father said: ‘We didn’t notice his eyes were gone when we discovered him – he had blood all over his face. We thought he had fallen down and smashed his face.’
The boy was rushed to hospital where doctors were shocked to find his eyes had been removed. His father said: ‘His eyelids were turned inside out, and his eyeballs were not there.’
Illegal organ harvesting is booming in China, where there is a shortage of donors, and last night, amid domestic and international outrage, Beijing was urged to crack down on the country’s multi-million-pound transplant industry.
Binbin was shown on state TV being taken in bandages from an operating theatre to a hospital bed, writhing in agony as his shocked family wept.
China Central Television said he had been drugged and ‘lost consciousness’ before the attacker removed his eyes.
His parents discovered he was missing when they called for him to come in around 8pm on Monday but received no response.
After a frantic search with relatives, they found him screaming in a field near their home in Fenxi, north China. The kidnapper had reportedly told Binbin: ‘Don’t cry and I won’t gouge out your eyes.’
China does not have a donor culture, but about 300,000 patients need transplants each year. Only about 10,000 receive organs, mainly taken from death-row prisoners.
Though the sale and transplant of organs for money is prohibited, lax laws and widespread corruption have fuelled a booming industry.
China is also a leading destination for ‘transplant tourists’ who travel there to obtain organs.
Last night international doctors appalled by Binbin’s suffering called on leading medical journals to ban publication of Chinese research papers on organ transplants, to shame the country into tackling the problem.
Professor Arthur Caplan, head of medical ethics at New York University and spokesman for Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting, said: ‘As unimaginable and untrue as this boy’s torment sounds, it shocks but does not surprise.
‘Whereas hearts, livers and kidneys must be sourced from donors who match the same blood and body type of recipient patients, in-demand corneas for corrective eyesight operations can be taken from any age and body type.
‘Anyone who knows where the corneas are located in the eye can extract them, and I fear for the unsterile conditions and the barbaric methods used, and that infection may add to the boy’s suffering.
‘He will suffer unthinkable physical and psychological pain.’
Professor Caplan urged international governments to ‘stand up to China’ and take action to make it clean up its transplant industry.
‘Transplant tourists who travel to China with the right amount of money can order the organ needed,’ he said. ‘A prisoner is found to match the recipient and is taken out and shot.’
Last weekend, Chinese police detained members of a kidney- trafficking ring, including a team of four doctors and nurses.
HIS FIRST DAY DRIVING A CAB
The Unconventional Gazette
August 28, 2013
Last Wednesday a passenger in a taxi heading for LaGuardia Airport leaned over to ask the driver a question and gently tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention.
The driver screamed, lost control of the cab, nearly hit a bus, drove up over the curb, knocked over a fire hydrant and stopped just inches short of crashing into a pizzeria.
For a few minutes everything was silent in the cab, then the shaking driver said "Are you OK? I'm so sorry, but you scared the shit out of me."
The badly shaken passenger apologized to the driver and said, "I didn't realize that a mere tap on the shoulder would startle someone so badly."
The driver replied, "No, no, I'm the one who is sorry, it's entirely my fault. Today is my very first day driving a cab. I've been driving a hearse for 25 years."
August 28, 2013
Last Wednesday a passenger in a taxi heading for LaGuardia Airport leaned over to ask the driver a question and gently tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention.
The driver screamed, lost control of the cab, nearly hit a bus, drove up over the curb, knocked over a fire hydrant and stopped just inches short of crashing into a pizzeria.
For a few minutes everything was silent in the cab, then the shaking driver said "Are you OK? I'm so sorry, but you scared the shit out of me."
The badly shaken passenger apologized to the driver and said, "I didn't realize that a mere tap on the shoulder would startle someone so badly."
The driver replied, "No, no, I'm the one who is sorry, it's entirely my fault. Today is my very first day driving a cab. I've been driving a hearse for 25 years."
HUSBAND LOST ALL INTEREST IN SEX
The Unconventional Gazette
August 28, 2013
A recent article in the Houston Chronicle reported that a woman, one Anne Maynard, has sued St Luke's hospital, saying that after her husband had surgery there, he lost all interest in sex.
A hospital spokesman replied ... "Mr. Maynard was admitted in Ophthalmology – all we did was correct his eyesight."
August 28, 2013
A recent article in the Houston Chronicle reported that a woman, one Anne Maynard, has sued St Luke's hospital, saying that after her husband had surgery there, he lost all interest in sex.
A hospital spokesman replied ... "Mr. Maynard was admitted in Ophthalmology – all we did was correct his eyesight."
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
OBAMA’S SILENCE ON THE DUNCAN AND SPOKANE KILLINGS
After George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin, President Obama told the nation that if he had a son, he would look like Trayvon Martin. But Obama has not told us that if he had a son, he would look like 16-year-old Chancey Luna or 15-year-old James Edwards, the two black Duncan, Oklahoma thugs who along with Michael Jones, a white 17-year-old thug, killed a white jogger from Australia just for the fun of it. Furthermore, Obama has not told us that if he had a son, he would look like Demetrius Glenn or Kenan Adams-Kinard, both 16, the two black Spokane, Washington thugs who beat a helpless white 88-year-old WWII veteran to death. And Obama will never tell us that if he had a son, he would look like Luna, Edwards, Glenn or Adams-Kinard because they are not black victims, they are cold blooded killers of white men.
Columnist Bernard Goldberg posted ‘If President Obama Had a Son He Might Look Like …’ on the August 22 BernardGoldberg.com website. Among the issues Goldberg mentioned was Obama’s address to the nation in response to Trayvon Martin's killing in which the President called attention to what it's like to be black in America.
Goldberg criticized the president’s silence on the Duncan, Oklahoma killing and said, “Which brings us to the president, who still hasn’t chimed in. But there’s still time. And here’s what President Obama still can say. He could use the tragedy to make some long overdue points. Here’s what, in my most optimistic moments, I would like to hear President Obama tell the nation:
Recently I talked to the American people about what it's like being a young black man in this country. I said women clutch their purses on the elevator when a young black man gets on. I said people lock their car doors at a red light when a black kid gets too close. I said young black men are followed when they walk into a store.
I implied that their only "crime" was being black.
What I should have added is that there's a good reason for all of that. People — and not just white people — are suspicious of young black men because young black men give them plenty of reason to be suspicious.
I did note that black kids commit too much crime. But I should have gone further. Much further. I should have said there's something very wrong in black America when nearly three out of four black babies won't have a father around when they're growing up.
I should have said public schools are free yet black kids drop out at astronomical rates. I should have said, let's stop blaming "crumbling schools" and everything else for their failure. If you drop out — it's your fault. That's what I should have said. And I should have made very clear that without an education you won't get a good job. You'll live in poverty. And too many of you will try to find your manhood in a gun and wind up in prison.
And please Rev. Sharpton and the other members of the African-American elite -- please don't blame a racist judicial system for any of that. You have been silent — just as I have — about the real problems plaguing black America -- for way too long.
We are all co-conspirators. Almost every murder in New York City is committed by a person "of color." And how do we respond: We scream about the racist cops who are profiling our poor, innocent black children.
Enough!”
Columnist Bernard Goldberg posted ‘If President Obama Had a Son He Might Look Like …’ on the August 22 BernardGoldberg.com website. Among the issues Goldberg mentioned was Obama’s address to the nation in response to Trayvon Martin's killing in which the President called attention to what it's like to be black in America.
Goldberg criticized the president’s silence on the Duncan, Oklahoma killing and said, “Which brings us to the president, who still hasn’t chimed in. But there’s still time. And here’s what President Obama still can say. He could use the tragedy to make some long overdue points. Here’s what, in my most optimistic moments, I would like to hear President Obama tell the nation:
Recently I talked to the American people about what it's like being a young black man in this country. I said women clutch their purses on the elevator when a young black man gets on. I said people lock their car doors at a red light when a black kid gets too close. I said young black men are followed when they walk into a store.
I implied that their only "crime" was being black.
What I should have added is that there's a good reason for all of that. People — and not just white people — are suspicious of young black men because young black men give them plenty of reason to be suspicious.
I did note that black kids commit too much crime. But I should have gone further. Much further. I should have said there's something very wrong in black America when nearly three out of four black babies won't have a father around when they're growing up.
I should have said public schools are free yet black kids drop out at astronomical rates. I should have said, let's stop blaming "crumbling schools" and everything else for their failure. If you drop out — it's your fault. That's what I should have said. And I should have made very clear that without an education you won't get a good job. You'll live in poverty. And too many of you will try to find your manhood in a gun and wind up in prison.
And please Rev. Sharpton and the other members of the African-American elite -- please don't blame a racist judicial system for any of that. You have been silent — just as I have — about the real problems plaguing black America -- for way too long.
We are all co-conspirators. Almost every murder in New York City is committed by a person "of color." And how do we respond: We scream about the racist cops who are profiling our poor, innocent black children.
Enough!”
IN WAKE OF STOP-AND-FRISK RULING, GANGBANGERS TAUNTING N.Y. COPS
Judge Scheindlin, the liberals on the city council and the liberal candidates for mayor must all be happy now that the oppressed minority gangbangers are no longer subject to suspect profiling.
As I’ve said before, my suggestion to Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelly is to reduce the number of cops in minority neighborhoods to where they can only conduct routine patrols and only respond to calls for help. Let the liberals worry about the increased number of killings that will result.
SHOOTING OFF THEIR MOUTHS: GUN-CARRYING CRIMINALS TAUNTING NYPD COPS AFTER STOP-FRISK RULING
By Larry Celona , Natasha Velez and Jamie Schram
The New York Post
August 27, 2013
NEW YORK — Thugs with guns think they're the ones calling the shots on the streets in the wake of the anti-NYPD stop-and-frisk ruling.
"You can't stop me! You can't do that no more! There are new rules!" suspect Steven Sidbury, 21, allegedly yelled at officers as they approached him in crime-riddled East New York last week.
The cops walked over to Sidbury when they spotted a suspiciously heavy object in the pocket of his hoodie outside 225 Wortman Ave. in Brooklyn just before midnight Thursday.
He taunted them over stop-and-frisk, then ran and tripped — and a loaded .38-caliber revolver dropped out of his jacket, law-enforcement sources told The Post.
Sidbury was arrested — his third weapons bust in three years.
"This is just what you're going to see more of — people are going to be more arrogant and brazen, and they're not going to be afraid of the police,'' said a source familiar with the case.
Cops in the troubled 40th Precinct in The Bronx also griped that criminals have been openly jeering them — even in front of their precinct — over this month's Manhattan federal-court ruling against stop-and-frisk.
Officers responding to a call about three suspects with guns on 138th Street across from the station house around 7 p.m. Saturday saw a trio matching their description, sources said.
The suspects ran into a building, where one turned around at the stairwell and hissed at the cops, "You ain't stop[ping] me! You ain't gonna frisk me! No more stop-and-frisks! Whatcha gonna do?"
The cops frisked the men anyway — with one officer later saying he would fall back on the "I was in fear of my safety'' defense if questioned, a source said.
No weapons were recovered. But cops believe it's because the perps simply had time to hide them.
"They're not stupid. They stash [guns] quick,'' a source said.
Several hours earlier, cops in the 40th Precinct spotted a guy wearing a hooded sweat shirt on the 85-degree day at 141st Street and Cypress Avenue. The man appeared to be casing a would-be robbery victim, a source said.
When a cop approached, he shouted, "You can't be stopping me, yo! The cops can't be harassing us!''
He was still frisked. No gun was recovered.
One source predicted that there will be more bloodshed in the streets as criminals fearlessly carry their weapons instead of stashing them somewhere — and fire in the heat of the moment.
"They're going to carry their guns, and if they get into a fight, they're going to shoot right away,'' the source warned.
"Every single [perp] I have encountered is very happy about the ruling,'' a Manhattan police source said.
"It is a very common thought now amongst perps that stop-question-and-frisk infringes on their rights to carry concealed guns."
As I’ve said before, my suggestion to Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelly is to reduce the number of cops in minority neighborhoods to where they can only conduct routine patrols and only respond to calls for help. Let the liberals worry about the increased number of killings that will result.
SHOOTING OFF THEIR MOUTHS: GUN-CARRYING CRIMINALS TAUNTING NYPD COPS AFTER STOP-FRISK RULING
By Larry Celona , Natasha Velez and Jamie Schram
The New York Post
August 27, 2013
NEW YORK — Thugs with guns think they're the ones calling the shots on the streets in the wake of the anti-NYPD stop-and-frisk ruling.
"You can't stop me! You can't do that no more! There are new rules!" suspect Steven Sidbury, 21, allegedly yelled at officers as they approached him in crime-riddled East New York last week.
The cops walked over to Sidbury when they spotted a suspiciously heavy object in the pocket of his hoodie outside 225 Wortman Ave. in Brooklyn just before midnight Thursday.
He taunted them over stop-and-frisk, then ran and tripped — and a loaded .38-caliber revolver dropped out of his jacket, law-enforcement sources told The Post.
Sidbury was arrested — his third weapons bust in three years.
"This is just what you're going to see more of — people are going to be more arrogant and brazen, and they're not going to be afraid of the police,'' said a source familiar with the case.
Cops in the troubled 40th Precinct in The Bronx also griped that criminals have been openly jeering them — even in front of their precinct — over this month's Manhattan federal-court ruling against stop-and-frisk.
Officers responding to a call about three suspects with guns on 138th Street across from the station house around 7 p.m. Saturday saw a trio matching their description, sources said.
The suspects ran into a building, where one turned around at the stairwell and hissed at the cops, "You ain't stop[ping] me! You ain't gonna frisk me! No more stop-and-frisks! Whatcha gonna do?"
The cops frisked the men anyway — with one officer later saying he would fall back on the "I was in fear of my safety'' defense if questioned, a source said.
No weapons were recovered. But cops believe it's because the perps simply had time to hide them.
"They're not stupid. They stash [guns] quick,'' a source said.
Several hours earlier, cops in the 40th Precinct spotted a guy wearing a hooded sweat shirt on the 85-degree day at 141st Street and Cypress Avenue. The man appeared to be casing a would-be robbery victim, a source said.
When a cop approached, he shouted, "You can't be stopping me, yo! The cops can't be harassing us!''
He was still frisked. No gun was recovered.
One source predicted that there will be more bloodshed in the streets as criminals fearlessly carry their weapons instead of stashing them somewhere — and fire in the heat of the moment.
"They're going to carry their guns, and if they get into a fight, they're going to shoot right away,'' the source warned.
"Every single [perp] I have encountered is very happy about the ruling,'' a Manhattan police source said.
"It is a very common thought now amongst perps that stop-question-and-frisk infringes on their rights to carry concealed guns."
DRIVER’S LISCENSE PHOTO MAY BE SHORT LIVED
Texas DPS clerk allowed smart ass to wear a pasta strainer on his head for his driver’s license photo
I suspect that the clerk will be reprimanded and Mr. Smart Ass will be called back to the driver’s license office for a more appropriate license photo, one without any headgear whatsoever.
HIS NOODLY APPENDAGE: TEXAS ‘PASTAFARIAN’ WEARS COLANDER AS RELIGIOOUS HEADGEAR IN DRIVER’S LICENCE PHOTO
By Craig Malisow
Houston Press Hair Balls
August 27, 2013
A heathen follower of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has scored a point for infidels in the Lone Star State, by successfully insisting he be allowed to wear a colander on his head for his driver's license photo.
"Once she allowed me to, I put the pasta strainer on my head, I took the biggest, cheesiest smile I probably ever took," Texas Tech student and "Pastafarian" Eddie Castillo told KLBK. Pastafarians -- those who've been "touched by his noodly appendage" -- first gained fame in a 2005 open letter to the Kansas State Board of Education, which decided that year to allow creationism to be taught in Kansas public schools.
Castillo was also quoted as saying "I don't want to say it's poking fun at religious headwear in other people's faiths. I would like to think that it actually opens the doors for new age religion."
However, the KBLK story states that "We spoke with DPS late Wednesday. They say their legal department has reviewed the move, and they say they will be contacting castillo to rectify the situation."
We hope the DPS doesn't force this pious Pastafarian to strip his scalp of such a sacred garment.
I suspect that the clerk will be reprimanded and Mr. Smart Ass will be called back to the driver’s license office for a more appropriate license photo, one without any headgear whatsoever.
HIS NOODLY APPENDAGE: TEXAS ‘PASTAFARIAN’ WEARS COLANDER AS RELIGIOOUS HEADGEAR IN DRIVER’S LICENCE PHOTO
By Craig Malisow
Houston Press Hair Balls
August 27, 2013
A heathen follower of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has scored a point for infidels in the Lone Star State, by successfully insisting he be allowed to wear a colander on his head for his driver's license photo.
"Once she allowed me to, I put the pasta strainer on my head, I took the biggest, cheesiest smile I probably ever took," Texas Tech student and "Pastafarian" Eddie Castillo told KLBK. Pastafarians -- those who've been "touched by his noodly appendage" -- first gained fame in a 2005 open letter to the Kansas State Board of Education, which decided that year to allow creationism to be taught in Kansas public schools.
Castillo was also quoted as saying "I don't want to say it's poking fun at religious headwear in other people's faiths. I would like to think that it actually opens the doors for new age religion."
However, the KBLK story states that "We spoke with DPS late Wednesday. They say their legal department has reviewed the move, and they say they will be contacting castillo to rectify the situation."
We hope the DPS doesn't force this pious Pastafarian to strip his scalp of such a sacred garment.
ONE SIDE OR THE OTHER IS LYING ABOUT THE USE OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS
Michael Reagan told Newsmax that the Obama administration has to be absolutely convinced that it was the Syrian President Bashir al-Assad who used chemical weapons and not rebels eager to draw the U.S. into the war
George Friedman has an extensive analysis on the chemical weapons attack in Syria and on the Obama administration’s response or lack of response to it.
OBAMA’S BLUFF
By George Friedman
Stratfor Global Intelligence
August 27, 2013
Images of multiple dead bodies emerged from Syria last week. It was asserted that poison gas killed the victims, who according to some numbered in the hundreds. Others claimed the photos were faked while others said the rebels were at fault. The dominant view, however, maintains that the al Assad regime carried out the attack.
The United States has so far avoided involvement in Syria's civil war. This is not to say Washington has any love for the al Assad regime. Damascus' close ties to Iran and Russia give the United States reason to be hostile toward Syria, and Washington participated in the campaign to force Syrian troops out of Lebanon. Still, the United States has learned to be concerned not just with unfriendly regimes, but also with what could follow such regimes. Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have driven home the principle that deposing one regime means living with an imperfect successor. In those cases, changing the regime wound up rapidly entangling the United States in civil wars, the outcomes of which have not been worth the price. In the case of Syria, the insurgents are Sunni Muslims whose best-organized factions have ties to al Qaeda.
Still, as frequently happens, many in the United States and Europe are appalled at the horrors of the civil war, some of whom have called on the United States to do something. The United States has been reluctant to heed these calls. As mentioned, Washington does not have a direct interest in the outcome, since all possible outcomes are bad from its perspective. Moreover, the people who are most emphatic that something be done to stop the killings will be the first to condemn the United States when its starts killing people to stop the killings. People would die in any such intervention, since there are simply no clean ways to end a civil war.
Obama's Red Lines
U.S. President Barack Obama therefore adopted an extremely cautious strategy. He said that the United States would not get directly involved in Syria unless the al Assad regime used chemical weapons, stating with a high degree of confidence that he would not have to intervene. After all, Syrian President Bashar al Assad has now survived two years of civil war, and he is far from defeated. The one thing that could defeat him is foreign intervention, particularly by the United States. It was therefore assumed he wouldn't do the one thing Obama said would trigger U.S. action.
Al Assad is a ruthless man: He would not hesitate to use chemical weapons if he had to. He is also a very rational man: He would use chemical weapons only if that were his sole option. At the moment, it is difficult to see what desperate situation would have caused him to use chemical weapons and risk the worst. His opponents are equally ruthless, and we can imagine them using chemical weapons to force the United States to intervene and depose al Assad. But their ability to access chemical weapons is unclear, and if found out, the maneuver could cost them all Western support. It is possible that lower-ranking officers in al Assad's military used chemical weapons without his knowledge and perhaps against his wishes. It is possible that the casualties were far less than claimed. And it is possible that some of the pictures were faked.
All of these things are possible, but we simply don't know which is true. More important is that major governments, including the British and French, are claiming knowledge that al Assad carried out the attack. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry made a speech Aug. 26 clearly building the case for a military response, and referring to the regime attack as "undeniable" and the U.S. assessment so far as "grounded in facts." Al Assad meanwhile has agreed to allow U.N. inspectors to examine the evidence onsite. In the end, those who oppose al Assad will claim his supporters concealed his guilt, and the insurgents will say the same thing if they are blamed or if the inspectors determine there is no conclusive evidence of attacks.
The truth here has been politicized, and whoever claims to have found the truth, whatever it actually is, will be charged with lying. Nevertheless, the dominant emerging story is that al Assad carried out the attack, killing hundreds of men, women and children and crossing the red line Obama set with impunity. The U.S. president is backed into a corner.
The United States has chosen to take the matter to the United Nations. Obama will make an effort to show he is acting with U.N. support. But he knows he won't get U.N. support. The Russians, allies of al Assad and opponents of U.N.-based military interventions, will veto any proposed intervention. The Chinese -- who are not close to al Assad, but also oppose the U.N.-sanctioned interventions -- will probably join them. Regardless of whether the charges against al Assad are true, the Russians will dispute them and veto any action. Going to the United Nations therefore only buys time. Interestingly, the United States declared on Sunday that it is too late for Syria to authorize inspections. Dismissing that possibility makes the United States look tough, and actually creates a situation where it has to be tough.
Consequences in Syria and Beyond
This is no longer simply about Syria. The United States has stated a condition that commits it to an intervention. If it does not act when there is a clear violation of the condition, Obama increases the chance of war with other countries like North Korea and Iran. One of the tools the United States can use to shape the behavior of countries like these without going to war is stating conditions that will cause intervention, allowing the other side to avoid crossing the line. If these countries come to believe that the United States is actually bluffing, then the possibility of miscalculation soars. Washington could issue a red line whose violation it could not tolerate, like a North Korean nuclear-armed missile, but the other side could decide this was just another Syria and cross that line. Washington would have to attack, an attack that might not have been necessary had it not had its Syria bluff called.
There are also the Russian and Iranian questions. Both have invested a great deal in supporting al Assad. They might both retaliate were someone to attack the Syrian regime. There are already rumors in Beirut that Iran has told Hezbollah to begin taking Americans hostage if the United States attacks Syria. Russia meanwhile has shown in the Snowden affair what Obama clearly regards as a hostile intent. If he strikes, he thus must prepare for Russian counters. If he doesn't strike, he must assume the Russians and Iranians will read this as weakness.
Syria was not an issue that affected the U.S. national interest until Obama declared a red line. It escalated in importance at that point not because Syria is critical to the United States, but because the credibility of its stated limits are of vital importance. Obama's problem is that the majority of the American people oppose military intervention, Congress is not fully behind an intervention and those now rooting the United States on are not bearing the bulk of the military burden -- nor will they bear the criticism that will follow the inevitable civilian casualties, accidents and misdeeds that are part of war regardless of the purity of the intent.
The question therefore becomes what the United States and the new coalition of the willing will do if the red line has been crossed. The fantasy is that a series of airstrikes, destroying only chemical weapons, will be so perfectly executed that no one will be killed except those who deserve to die. But it is hard to distinguish a man's soul from 10,000 feet. There will be deaths, and the United States will be blamed for them.
The military dimension is hard to define because the mission is unclear. Logically, the goal should be the destruction of the chemical weapons and their deployment systems. This is reasonable, but the problem is determining the locations where all of the chemicals are stored. I would assume that most are underground, which poses a huge intelligence problem. If we assume that perfect intelligence is available and that decision-makers trust this intelligence, hitting buried targets is quite difficult. There is talk of a clean cruise missile strike. But it is not clear whether these carry enough explosives to penetrate even minimally hardened targets. Aircraft carry more substantial munitions, and it is possible for strategic bombers to stand off and strike the targets.
Even so, battle damage assessments are hard. How do you know that you have destroyed the chemicals -- that they were actually there and you destroyed the facility containing them? Moreover, there are lots of facilities and many will be close to civilian targets and many munitions will go astray. The attacks could prove deadlier than the chemicals did. And finally, attacking means al Assad loses all incentive to hold back on using chemical weapons. If he is paying the price of using them, he may as well use them. The gloves will come off on both sides as al Assad seeks to use his chemical weapons before they are destroyed.
A war on chemical weapons has a built-in insanity to it. The problem is not chemical weapons, which probably can't be eradicated from the air. The problem under the definition of this war would be the existence of a regime that uses chemical weapons. It is hard to imagine how an attack on chemical weapons can avoid an attack on the regime -- and regimes are not destroyed from the air. Doing so requires troops. Moreover, regimes that are destroyed must be replaced, and one cannot assume that the regime that succeeds al Assad will be grateful to those who deposed him. One must only recall the Shia in Iraq who celebrated Saddam's fall and then armed to fight the Americans.
Arming the insurgents would keep an air campaign off the table, and so appears to be lower risk. The problem is that Obama has already said he would arm the rebels, so announcing this as his response would still allow al Assad to avoid the consequences of crossing the red line. Arming the rebels also increases the chances of empowering the jihadists in Syria.
When Obama proclaimed his red line on Syria and chemical weapons, he assumed the issue would not come up. He made a gesture to those in his administration who believe that the United States has a moral obligation to put an end to brutality. He also made a gesture to those who don't want to go to war again. It was one of those smart moves that can blow up in a president's face when it turns out his assumption was wrong. Whether al Assad did launch the attacks, whether the insurgents did, or whether someone faked them doesn't matter. Unless Obama can get overwhelming, indisputable proof that al Assad did not -- and that isn't going to happen -- Obama will either have to act on the red line principle or be shown to be one who bluffs. The incredible complexity of intervening in a civil war without becoming bogged down makes the process even more baffling.
Obama now faces the second time in his presidency when war was an option. The first was Libya. The tyrant is now dead, and what followed is not pretty. And Libya was easy compared to Syria. Now, the president must intervene to maintain his credibility. But there is no political support in the United States for intervention. He must take military action, but not one that would cause the United States to appear brutish. He must depose al Assad, but not replace him with his opponents. He never thought al Assad would be so reckless. Despite whether al Assad actually was, the consensus is that he was. That's the hand the president has to play, so it's hard to see how he avoids military action and retains credibility. It is also hard to see how he takes military action without a political revolt against him if it goes wrong, which it usually does.
George Friedman has an extensive analysis on the chemical weapons attack in Syria and on the Obama administration’s response or lack of response to it.
OBAMA’S BLUFF
By George Friedman
Stratfor Global Intelligence
August 27, 2013
Images of multiple dead bodies emerged from Syria last week. It was asserted that poison gas killed the victims, who according to some numbered in the hundreds. Others claimed the photos were faked while others said the rebels were at fault. The dominant view, however, maintains that the al Assad regime carried out the attack.
The United States has so far avoided involvement in Syria's civil war. This is not to say Washington has any love for the al Assad regime. Damascus' close ties to Iran and Russia give the United States reason to be hostile toward Syria, and Washington participated in the campaign to force Syrian troops out of Lebanon. Still, the United States has learned to be concerned not just with unfriendly regimes, but also with what could follow such regimes. Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have driven home the principle that deposing one regime means living with an imperfect successor. In those cases, changing the regime wound up rapidly entangling the United States in civil wars, the outcomes of which have not been worth the price. In the case of Syria, the insurgents are Sunni Muslims whose best-organized factions have ties to al Qaeda.
Still, as frequently happens, many in the United States and Europe are appalled at the horrors of the civil war, some of whom have called on the United States to do something. The United States has been reluctant to heed these calls. As mentioned, Washington does not have a direct interest in the outcome, since all possible outcomes are bad from its perspective. Moreover, the people who are most emphatic that something be done to stop the killings will be the first to condemn the United States when its starts killing people to stop the killings. People would die in any such intervention, since there are simply no clean ways to end a civil war.
Obama's Red Lines
U.S. President Barack Obama therefore adopted an extremely cautious strategy. He said that the United States would not get directly involved in Syria unless the al Assad regime used chemical weapons, stating with a high degree of confidence that he would not have to intervene. After all, Syrian President Bashar al Assad has now survived two years of civil war, and he is far from defeated. The one thing that could defeat him is foreign intervention, particularly by the United States. It was therefore assumed he wouldn't do the one thing Obama said would trigger U.S. action.
Al Assad is a ruthless man: He would not hesitate to use chemical weapons if he had to. He is also a very rational man: He would use chemical weapons only if that were his sole option. At the moment, it is difficult to see what desperate situation would have caused him to use chemical weapons and risk the worst. His opponents are equally ruthless, and we can imagine them using chemical weapons to force the United States to intervene and depose al Assad. But their ability to access chemical weapons is unclear, and if found out, the maneuver could cost them all Western support. It is possible that lower-ranking officers in al Assad's military used chemical weapons without his knowledge and perhaps against his wishes. It is possible that the casualties were far less than claimed. And it is possible that some of the pictures were faked.
All of these things are possible, but we simply don't know which is true. More important is that major governments, including the British and French, are claiming knowledge that al Assad carried out the attack. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry made a speech Aug. 26 clearly building the case for a military response, and referring to the regime attack as "undeniable" and the U.S. assessment so far as "grounded in facts." Al Assad meanwhile has agreed to allow U.N. inspectors to examine the evidence onsite. In the end, those who oppose al Assad will claim his supporters concealed his guilt, and the insurgents will say the same thing if they are blamed or if the inspectors determine there is no conclusive evidence of attacks.
The truth here has been politicized, and whoever claims to have found the truth, whatever it actually is, will be charged with lying. Nevertheless, the dominant emerging story is that al Assad carried out the attack, killing hundreds of men, women and children and crossing the red line Obama set with impunity. The U.S. president is backed into a corner.
The United States has chosen to take the matter to the United Nations. Obama will make an effort to show he is acting with U.N. support. But he knows he won't get U.N. support. The Russians, allies of al Assad and opponents of U.N.-based military interventions, will veto any proposed intervention. The Chinese -- who are not close to al Assad, but also oppose the U.N.-sanctioned interventions -- will probably join them. Regardless of whether the charges against al Assad are true, the Russians will dispute them and veto any action. Going to the United Nations therefore only buys time. Interestingly, the United States declared on Sunday that it is too late for Syria to authorize inspections. Dismissing that possibility makes the United States look tough, and actually creates a situation where it has to be tough.
Consequences in Syria and Beyond
This is no longer simply about Syria. The United States has stated a condition that commits it to an intervention. If it does not act when there is a clear violation of the condition, Obama increases the chance of war with other countries like North Korea and Iran. One of the tools the United States can use to shape the behavior of countries like these without going to war is stating conditions that will cause intervention, allowing the other side to avoid crossing the line. If these countries come to believe that the United States is actually bluffing, then the possibility of miscalculation soars. Washington could issue a red line whose violation it could not tolerate, like a North Korean nuclear-armed missile, but the other side could decide this was just another Syria and cross that line. Washington would have to attack, an attack that might not have been necessary had it not had its Syria bluff called.
There are also the Russian and Iranian questions. Both have invested a great deal in supporting al Assad. They might both retaliate were someone to attack the Syrian regime. There are already rumors in Beirut that Iran has told Hezbollah to begin taking Americans hostage if the United States attacks Syria. Russia meanwhile has shown in the Snowden affair what Obama clearly regards as a hostile intent. If he strikes, he thus must prepare for Russian counters. If he doesn't strike, he must assume the Russians and Iranians will read this as weakness.
Syria was not an issue that affected the U.S. national interest until Obama declared a red line. It escalated in importance at that point not because Syria is critical to the United States, but because the credibility of its stated limits are of vital importance. Obama's problem is that the majority of the American people oppose military intervention, Congress is not fully behind an intervention and those now rooting the United States on are not bearing the bulk of the military burden -- nor will they bear the criticism that will follow the inevitable civilian casualties, accidents and misdeeds that are part of war regardless of the purity of the intent.
The question therefore becomes what the United States and the new coalition of the willing will do if the red line has been crossed. The fantasy is that a series of airstrikes, destroying only chemical weapons, will be so perfectly executed that no one will be killed except those who deserve to die. But it is hard to distinguish a man's soul from 10,000 feet. There will be deaths, and the United States will be blamed for them.
The military dimension is hard to define because the mission is unclear. Logically, the goal should be the destruction of the chemical weapons and their deployment systems. This is reasonable, but the problem is determining the locations where all of the chemicals are stored. I would assume that most are underground, which poses a huge intelligence problem. If we assume that perfect intelligence is available and that decision-makers trust this intelligence, hitting buried targets is quite difficult. There is talk of a clean cruise missile strike. But it is not clear whether these carry enough explosives to penetrate even minimally hardened targets. Aircraft carry more substantial munitions, and it is possible for strategic bombers to stand off and strike the targets.
Even so, battle damage assessments are hard. How do you know that you have destroyed the chemicals -- that they were actually there and you destroyed the facility containing them? Moreover, there are lots of facilities and many will be close to civilian targets and many munitions will go astray. The attacks could prove deadlier than the chemicals did. And finally, attacking means al Assad loses all incentive to hold back on using chemical weapons. If he is paying the price of using them, he may as well use them. The gloves will come off on both sides as al Assad seeks to use his chemical weapons before they are destroyed.
A war on chemical weapons has a built-in insanity to it. The problem is not chemical weapons, which probably can't be eradicated from the air. The problem under the definition of this war would be the existence of a regime that uses chemical weapons. It is hard to imagine how an attack on chemical weapons can avoid an attack on the regime -- and regimes are not destroyed from the air. Doing so requires troops. Moreover, regimes that are destroyed must be replaced, and one cannot assume that the regime that succeeds al Assad will be grateful to those who deposed him. One must only recall the Shia in Iraq who celebrated Saddam's fall and then armed to fight the Americans.
Arming the insurgents would keep an air campaign off the table, and so appears to be lower risk. The problem is that Obama has already said he would arm the rebels, so announcing this as his response would still allow al Assad to avoid the consequences of crossing the red line. Arming the rebels also increases the chances of empowering the jihadists in Syria.
When Obama proclaimed his red line on Syria and chemical weapons, he assumed the issue would not come up. He made a gesture to those in his administration who believe that the United States has a moral obligation to put an end to brutality. He also made a gesture to those who don't want to go to war again. It was one of those smart moves that can blow up in a president's face when it turns out his assumption was wrong. Whether al Assad did launch the attacks, whether the insurgents did, or whether someone faked them doesn't matter. Unless Obama can get overwhelming, indisputable proof that al Assad did not -- and that isn't going to happen -- Obama will either have to act on the red line principle or be shown to be one who bluffs. The incredible complexity of intervening in a civil war without becoming bogged down makes the process even more baffling.
Obama now faces the second time in his presidency when war was an option. The first was Libya. The tyrant is now dead, and what followed is not pretty. And Libya was easy compared to Syria. Now, the president must intervene to maintain his credibility. But there is no political support in the United States for intervention. He must take military action, but not one that would cause the United States to appear brutish. He must depose al Assad, but not replace him with his opponents. He never thought al Assad would be so reckless. Despite whether al Assad actually was, the consensus is that he was. That's the hand the president has to play, so it's hard to see how he avoids military action and retains credibility. It is also hard to see how he takes military action without a political revolt against him if it goes wrong, which it usually does.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
STOP-AND-GO FOR PEACE TALKS UNTIL THEIR INEVITABLE FAILURE
I am sure the international community will condemn Israel for the brutal killing of ‘peaceful protesters’ who were just expressing their outrage by hurling fire bombs and stones at Israeli soldiers.
I predict that the peace talks will be stop-and-go, on-and-off until the Palestinians walk away for good, leaving Israel to blame for what they were planning to do in the first place.
PALESTINIANS CANCEL PEACE TALKS AFTER DEADLY CLASH
Three Palestinians killed as violent riot mob attacks Israeli soldiers sent to arrest wanted terror suspect
Israel Today
August 26, 2013
The Palestinian Authority canceled Monday evening's session with Israeli peace negotiators in response to a deadly clash between Israeli soldiers and a violent Palestinian mob earlier in the day.
In a fairly routine operation, Israeli Border Police officers dressed in civilian clothing entered the Palestinian town of Qalandiya just north of Jerusalem to arrest a wanted terror suspect.
Just moments after the officers arrived at the suspect's home, a mob numbering at least 1,500 poured into the streets and began hurling firebombs and stones at the Israelis.
The Border Police officers responded with rubber bullets and tear gas, but were beginning to be overwhelmed when IDF soldiers arrived to back them up. The soldiers resorted to live fire as the situation spun out of control.
"Large violent crowds such as this which significantly outnumber security forces leave no other choice but to resort to live fire in self-defense," an IDF spokesman said in a statement to the press.
Three Palestinian rioters reportedly died of gunshot wounds during the clash.
The riots subsided for several hours, but resumed as Palestinians again took to the streets Monday afternoon for the raucous funeral procession of the three deceased men.
Palestinian Authority officials, who view such mob activity as "peaceful protest," accused Israel of "assassinating" the rioters.
I predict that the peace talks will be stop-and-go, on-and-off until the Palestinians walk away for good, leaving Israel to blame for what they were planning to do in the first place.
PALESTINIANS CANCEL PEACE TALKS AFTER DEADLY CLASH
Three Palestinians killed as violent riot mob attacks Israeli soldiers sent to arrest wanted terror suspect
Israel Today
August 26, 2013
The Palestinian Authority canceled Monday evening's session with Israeli peace negotiators in response to a deadly clash between Israeli soldiers and a violent Palestinian mob earlier in the day.
In a fairly routine operation, Israeli Border Police officers dressed in civilian clothing entered the Palestinian town of Qalandiya just north of Jerusalem to arrest a wanted terror suspect.
Just moments after the officers arrived at the suspect's home, a mob numbering at least 1,500 poured into the streets and began hurling firebombs and stones at the Israelis.
The Border Police officers responded with rubber bullets and tear gas, but were beginning to be overwhelmed when IDF soldiers arrived to back them up. The soldiers resorted to live fire as the situation spun out of control.
"Large violent crowds such as this which significantly outnumber security forces leave no other choice but to resort to live fire in self-defense," an IDF spokesman said in a statement to the press.
Three Palestinian rioters reportedly died of gunshot wounds during the clash.
The riots subsided for several hours, but resumed as Palestinians again took to the streets Monday afternoon for the raucous funeral procession of the three deceased men.
Palestinian Authority officials, who view such mob activity as "peaceful protest," accused Israel of "assassinating" the rioters.
ATHEIST PAROLEE MUST BE COMPENSTATED
Returned to prison for refusing to participate in faith-based drug treatment program
McClatchy-Tribune reports that a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled a jury should award Barry A. Hazle Jr. compensatory damages for his loss of freedom and could also consider possible punitive and emotional distress damages. The panel ordered the trial court judge in Sacramento to reconsider whether to issue an injunction to prevent California officials from requiring parolees to attend treatment programs that emphasize God or a "higher power."
Barry A. Hazle, Jr., a drug offender parolee, was ordered by parole authorities to spend 90 days in a 12-step drug treatment program. He informed his parole agent that he was an atheist and requested a non-religious affiliated treatment program. He was told none were available and that he had to enter the 12-step facility. He complied, but the staff reported that he refused to participate and was disruptive “in a congenial way.” His parole agent rolled him up. After he spent 100 days back in prison, he sued.
A federal judge in Sacramento had ruled that Hazle’s constitutional rights had been clearly violated and ordered a jury to compensate him. However, the jury refused to award Hazle any monetary damages. He appealed. The 9th Circuit panel sent the case back to the trial court, ruling that: “"Given the indisputable fact of actual injury resulting from Hazle's unconstitutional imprisonment, and the district judge's finding that the state defendants were liable for that injury, an award of compensatory damages was mandatory." A new jury will have to be impaneled to award Hazle monetary damages.
McClatchy-Tribune reports that a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled a jury should award Barry A. Hazle Jr. compensatory damages for his loss of freedom and could also consider possible punitive and emotional distress damages. The panel ordered the trial court judge in Sacramento to reconsider whether to issue an injunction to prevent California officials from requiring parolees to attend treatment programs that emphasize God or a "higher power."
Barry A. Hazle, Jr., a drug offender parolee, was ordered by parole authorities to spend 90 days in a 12-step drug treatment program. He informed his parole agent that he was an atheist and requested a non-religious affiliated treatment program. He was told none were available and that he had to enter the 12-step facility. He complied, but the staff reported that he refused to participate and was disruptive “in a congenial way.” His parole agent rolled him up. After he spent 100 days back in prison, he sued.
A federal judge in Sacramento had ruled that Hazle’s constitutional rights had been clearly violated and ordered a jury to compensate him. However, the jury refused to award Hazle any monetary damages. He appealed. The 9th Circuit panel sent the case back to the trial court, ruling that: “"Given the indisputable fact of actual injury resulting from Hazle's unconstitutional imprisonment, and the district judge's finding that the state defendants were liable for that injury, an award of compensatory damages was mandatory." A new jury will have to be impaneled to award Hazle monetary damages.
PALMASOLA PRISON FLAMING RIOT
18-month-old toddler was among the 31 killed in Columbia prison riot
A fight between rival gangs inside the Palmasola Prison near Santa Cruz, Bolivia on Friday left 31 dead, including an 18-month-old toddler. Another 37 inmates were seriously injured before authorities were able to restore order in Bolivia’s largest penal institution.
The riot started after inmates in one cellblock knocked a hole in the wall to get at rival gang members in another cellblock. Most of those killed were burned to death because inmates blew up two propane tanks and were able to use others as flamethrowers. Fire spread quickly through the prison because it uses straw mattresses.
The toddler was among the victims because under Bolivian law, children can stay with their parents in prison until they are six years old if there is no one else to take care of them.
A fight between rival gangs inside the Palmasola Prison near Santa Cruz, Bolivia on Friday left 31 dead, including an 18-month-old toddler. Another 37 inmates were seriously injured before authorities were able to restore order in Bolivia’s largest penal institution.
The riot started after inmates in one cellblock knocked a hole in the wall to get at rival gang members in another cellblock. Most of those killed were burned to death because inmates blew up two propane tanks and were able to use others as flamethrowers. Fire spread quickly through the prison because it uses straw mattresses.
The toddler was among the victims because under Bolivian law, children can stay with their parents in prison until they are six years old if there is no one else to take care of them.
FIRST DRIVING EXPERIENCE TURNS INTO A HORRIBLE DISASTER
Child, 4, manages to start pickup truck, runs over and kills her little sister
This tragedy will forever weigh on the minds of the little girl and her parents.
4-YEAR-OLD RUNS OVER, KILLS SISTER IN TEXAS
By Janet DiGiacomo
CNN
August 26, 2013
A 16-month-old girl was run over and killed Sunday after authorities say her 4-year-old sibling climbed into a truck and put it in neutral.
Deputies were called to the scene shortly after 1 p.m. (2 p.m. ET), said John Norton, spokesman for the Collin County Sheriff's Office.
The family was loading a pickup to take to a relative's house.
The 4-year-old got the keys to the truck, which was parked in the driveway, climbed in, started it, and put it in neutral, Norton said.
The vehicle rolled forward, running over the 16-month-old girl. She was killed instantly.
The children’s father was inside the house at the time, Norton said. He heard the truck start and ran to the door. He saw the vehicle rolling forward and ran to stop it.
The truck eventually came to a stop when it struck a neighbor's fence, Norton said.
An investigation is ongoing.
This tragedy will forever weigh on the minds of the little girl and her parents.
4-YEAR-OLD RUNS OVER, KILLS SISTER IN TEXAS
By Janet DiGiacomo
CNN
August 26, 2013
A 16-month-old girl was run over and killed Sunday after authorities say her 4-year-old sibling climbed into a truck and put it in neutral.
Deputies were called to the scene shortly after 1 p.m. (2 p.m. ET), said John Norton, spokesman for the Collin County Sheriff's Office.
The family was loading a pickup to take to a relative's house.
The 4-year-old got the keys to the truck, which was parked in the driveway, climbed in, started it, and put it in neutral, Norton said.
The vehicle rolled forward, running over the 16-month-old girl. She was killed instantly.
The children’s father was inside the house at the time, Norton said. He heard the truck start and ran to the door. He saw the vehicle rolling forward and ran to stop it.
The truck eventually came to a stop when it struck a neighbor's fence, Norton said.
An investigation is ongoing.
PRISONER HELPS SELF TO CHICAGO COP CAR
Handcuffed prisoner managed to jump over the front seat and drive off with a squad car
After he was recaptured at his home, embarrassed and pissed-off cops charged him with everything except taking a kitchen sink.
HANDCUFFED MAN FLEES IN SQUAD CAR
5 NBC Chicago
August 25, 2013
A man who was handcuffed in the back of a squad car after a traffic arrest is accused of hopping in the front seat and driving away with the Chicago Police squad car on the West Side Friday, police said.
Marquette Fisher was pulled over for a traffic stop around 12:45 p.m. Friday in the 4100 block of West Adams Street after he failed to stop at a stop sign, police said. He was placed in handcuffs after officers learned he had been driving on a suspended license.
Fisher was sat in the back of a marked squad car while police talked to a passenger in the vehicle, officials said.
The officers then witnessed Fisher, still handcuffed, hop into the driver’s seat of the police car with his hands in front of him and put the car in drive, police said.
Fisher fled the scene and was stopped by police in the 4300 block of West Gladys Avenue a few blocks away, but he escaped the officers by fleeing on foot.
Around 6:20 p.m. Fisher was arrested in the 1400 block of South Cicero Avenue, police said.
He was charged with possession of a stolen law enforcement vehicle, felony aggravated fleeing and eluding, misdemeanor escape from a peace officer, obstructing identification, theft, and several traffic citations including driving while on a suspended license, according to police.
Fisher was also wanted on two warrants.
Fisher was hospitalized after the incident for an unknown condition following his arrest, police said.
After he was recaptured at his home, embarrassed and pissed-off cops charged him with everything except taking a kitchen sink.
HANDCUFFED MAN FLEES IN SQUAD CAR
5 NBC Chicago
August 25, 2013
A man who was handcuffed in the back of a squad car after a traffic arrest is accused of hopping in the front seat and driving away with the Chicago Police squad car on the West Side Friday, police said.
Marquette Fisher was pulled over for a traffic stop around 12:45 p.m. Friday in the 4100 block of West Adams Street after he failed to stop at a stop sign, police said. He was placed in handcuffs after officers learned he had been driving on a suspended license.
Fisher was sat in the back of a marked squad car while police talked to a passenger in the vehicle, officials said.
The officers then witnessed Fisher, still handcuffed, hop into the driver’s seat of the police car with his hands in front of him and put the car in drive, police said.
Fisher fled the scene and was stopped by police in the 4300 block of West Gladys Avenue a few blocks away, but he escaped the officers by fleeing on foot.
Around 6:20 p.m. Fisher was arrested in the 1400 block of South Cicero Avenue, police said.
He was charged with possession of a stolen law enforcement vehicle, felony aggravated fleeing and eluding, misdemeanor escape from a peace officer, obstructing identification, theft, and several traffic citations including driving while on a suspended license, according to police.
Fisher was also wanted on two warrants.
Fisher was hospitalized after the incident for an unknown condition following his arrest, police said.
FROM WALES, NOT FROM SCOTLAND
The Unconventional Gazette
August 26, 2013
I was at the Friendly Inn the other night and overheard three very obese women talking at the bar.
Their accent appeared to be Scottish, so I approached and asked, "Hello, are you three lassies from Scotland ?"
One of them angrily screeched, "It's Wales, Wales you bloody idiot!"
So I apologized and replied, "I am so sorry. Are you three whales from Scotland ?"
And the next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital.
August 26, 2013
I was at the Friendly Inn the other night and overheard three very obese women talking at the bar.
Their accent appeared to be Scottish, so I approached and asked, "Hello, are you three lassies from Scotland ?"
One of them angrily screeched, "It's Wales, Wales you bloody idiot!"
So I apologized and replied, "I am so sorry. Are you three whales from Scotland ?"
And the next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital.
Monday, August 26, 2013
‘EVERY CONCESSION ISRAEL MAKES WEAKENS IT TO SOME EXTENT’
‘Every time they give up land it only serves to move the rocket launchers closer to their major cities’
Charlie Daniels slams our Middle East foreign policy and the Obama administration’s pressure on Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians.
SURROUNDED BY ARMIES
By Charlie Daniels
The Charlie Daniels Band
August 16, 2013
Makes no difference what angle I look at the situation in Egypt from which I can't see anything even remotely resembling good coming out of it. I can't see any regime, which could conceivably come to power that wouldn't, in essence, shred the Camp David accords and be a constant threat to Israel and, by extension, America.
I can't imagine any government that wouldn't eventually yield to the unrelenting pressure of the hardcore radical Islamists, institute Shariah Law and basically do away with any individual freedoms the Egyptian people have accomplished thus far.
The Middle East is a political conundrum, a puzzle, a Gordian Knot that no world leader or organization has been able to untie, wheels within wheels, factions who hate each other, with nobody really in charge, a place of unbelievable wealth and bone grinding poverty, where the masses have little touch with the outside world, are taught hate from infancy and believe whatever they're told to believe.
We have only a superficial understanding of what's going on in the Middle East. We Americans tend to judge and evaluate other cultures and other races by the standards we live by. There are vendettas that go back a thousand years, tribal ties and alliances, betrayals and downright irrational hatred and a belief that lying to an infidel is morally acceptable.
And yet we walk into a situation that is totally foreign to our western mindset and start pushing our weight around, not against the nations who harbor terrorists and hate everything we stand for, but to the only true friend we have in the Middle East, Israel.
Israel is expected to make all the concessions and accept that their enemies will keep the promises they have made at the latest round of "peace talks" that whatever American president who happened to be in office has initiated.
They never keep their promises and every concession Israel makes weakens it to some extent and all they get in return is a bombardment of rockets and criticism from the world media for responding.
The Obama administration has tacitly forced Israel into releasing over one hundred prisoners, terrorists and murderers, who will do no more than go back home, change clothes and start trying to destroy Israel again.
Every time they give up land it only serves to move the rocket launchers closer to their major cities.
The world sits back and waits for Iran to finish developing their nuclear weapons
and a delivery system to get them to their targets which is tantamount to international insanity, and there again we're thinking liking Westerners, thinking that Iran could not possibly win a nuclear war against the rest of the world, they'd be totally destroyed.
But the truth of the matter is that the real power in Iran, the ayatollahs and religious zealots don't care about that, in fact their attitude is "bring it on" because they think the chaos will signal the return of the Twelfth Imam - also known as the Mahdi - the Islamic messiah, who will come out of the well where he's been in hiding for hundreds of years and, by power of personality and the sword will turn the whole planet to Islam.
So what should America's policy be in the Middle East?
Looking at it by what I call cowboy logic, which is 2 and 2 are always 4, water always runs downhill and if there's smoke, there's a fire somewhere, I have come to this conclusion:
We protect our friend Israel, increase oil purchases from our friend Canada, open up America's petroleum deposits, which would take care of our needs and those of our allies, deny Iran a nuclear weapon, whatever that takes and get out of the way and let these people settle their own problems in their own way.
The Persian Gulf will be closed one of these days, you can hang your hat on it.
Every time we pick a side in the Middle East it turns out to be the wrong one.
Let's just butt out.
Charlie Daniels slams our Middle East foreign policy and the Obama administration’s pressure on Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians.
SURROUNDED BY ARMIES
By Charlie Daniels
The Charlie Daniels Band
August 16, 2013
Makes no difference what angle I look at the situation in Egypt from which I can't see anything even remotely resembling good coming out of it. I can't see any regime, which could conceivably come to power that wouldn't, in essence, shred the Camp David accords and be a constant threat to Israel and, by extension, America.
I can't imagine any government that wouldn't eventually yield to the unrelenting pressure of the hardcore radical Islamists, institute Shariah Law and basically do away with any individual freedoms the Egyptian people have accomplished thus far.
The Middle East is a political conundrum, a puzzle, a Gordian Knot that no world leader or organization has been able to untie, wheels within wheels, factions who hate each other, with nobody really in charge, a place of unbelievable wealth and bone grinding poverty, where the masses have little touch with the outside world, are taught hate from infancy and believe whatever they're told to believe.
We have only a superficial understanding of what's going on in the Middle East. We Americans tend to judge and evaluate other cultures and other races by the standards we live by. There are vendettas that go back a thousand years, tribal ties and alliances, betrayals and downright irrational hatred and a belief that lying to an infidel is morally acceptable.
And yet we walk into a situation that is totally foreign to our western mindset and start pushing our weight around, not against the nations who harbor terrorists and hate everything we stand for, but to the only true friend we have in the Middle East, Israel.
Israel is expected to make all the concessions and accept that their enemies will keep the promises they have made at the latest round of "peace talks" that whatever American president who happened to be in office has initiated.
They never keep their promises and every concession Israel makes weakens it to some extent and all they get in return is a bombardment of rockets and criticism from the world media for responding.
The Obama administration has tacitly forced Israel into releasing over one hundred prisoners, terrorists and murderers, who will do no more than go back home, change clothes and start trying to destroy Israel again.
Every time they give up land it only serves to move the rocket launchers closer to their major cities.
The world sits back and waits for Iran to finish developing their nuclear weapons
and a delivery system to get them to their targets which is tantamount to international insanity, and there again we're thinking liking Westerners, thinking that Iran could not possibly win a nuclear war against the rest of the world, they'd be totally destroyed.
But the truth of the matter is that the real power in Iran, the ayatollahs and religious zealots don't care about that, in fact their attitude is "bring it on" because they think the chaos will signal the return of the Twelfth Imam - also known as the Mahdi - the Islamic messiah, who will come out of the well where he's been in hiding for hundreds of years and, by power of personality and the sword will turn the whole planet to Islam.
So what should America's policy be in the Middle East?
Looking at it by what I call cowboy logic, which is 2 and 2 are always 4, water always runs downhill and if there's smoke, there's a fire somewhere, I have come to this conclusion:
We protect our friend Israel, increase oil purchases from our friend Canada, open up America's petroleum deposits, which would take care of our needs and those of our allies, deny Iran a nuclear weapon, whatever that takes and get out of the way and let these people settle their own problems in their own way.
The Persian Gulf will be closed one of these days, you can hang your hat on it.
Every time we pick a side in the Middle East it turns out to be the wrong one.
Let's just butt out.
SHOOTING PAIN AFTER STAB AT BREAKING FIFTH COMMANDMENT
By Bob Walsh
PACOVILLA Corrections blog
August 25, 2013
Carlos Aldana, 22, of Marin City is believed to have stabbed his own mother to death. The cops arrived at an apartment on Cole Drive in Marin County and found the living room soaked in blood. They found Rosa Aldana, 44, dead in a bedroom of multiple stab wounds.
At more or less the same time somebody called the CHP to tell them a man covered in blood and carrying a toad-sticker just got on a Golden Gate Transit bus in Marin City. The bus went on about its business ( it is San Francisco after all) and was spotted by a U.S. Park Service officer in the Marina District.
The cops spotted Aldana. He spotted them. They ordered him to drop the knife. He didn't. They shot him a bunch of times. He dropped like a sack of wet laundry, yet survived his wounds.
PACOVILLA Corrections blog
August 25, 2013
Carlos Aldana, 22, of Marin City is believed to have stabbed his own mother to death. The cops arrived at an apartment on Cole Drive in Marin County and found the living room soaked in blood. They found Rosa Aldana, 44, dead in a bedroom of multiple stab wounds.
At more or less the same time somebody called the CHP to tell them a man covered in blood and carrying a toad-sticker just got on a Golden Gate Transit bus in Marin City. The bus went on about its business ( it is San Francisco after all) and was spotted by a U.S. Park Service officer in the Marina District.
The cops spotted Aldana. He spotted them. They ordered him to drop the knife. He didn't. They shot him a bunch of times. He dropped like a sack of wet laundry, yet survived his wounds.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
WILD BILL’S ‘DEAD MAN’S HAND’ SIX-SHOOTER TO BE AUCTIONED
Folklore has it that Wild Bill Hickok killed hundreds of bad men, but in fact, he killed only six or seven white men (Indians did not count in those days) in face-to-face shootouts. The six-shooter being auctioned off is the one he was carrying in a Deadwood, South Dakota saloon when a coward came up to him from behind and shot him in the back of the head in August 1876. He was playing poker at the time and was holding two black aces and two black eights together with an unknown card, the combination of which became known as the ‘dead man’s hand.’
PISTOL BEHIND PHARASE ‘DEAD MAN’S HAND’ GOES UP FOR AUCTION: THE GUN ‘WILD BILL’ WAS CARRYING WHEN HE WAS SHOT 150 YEARS AGO DURING POKER GAME IS EXPECTED TO FETCH $500,000
Antique Smith and Wesson pistol has six-inch barrel and varnished rosewood grips; without its history, it would normally sell for about $2,000
By Sara Smyth
Mail Online
August 23, 2013
The revolver worn by infamous gunslinger 'Wild' Bill Hickok when he was shot dead 150 years ago is expected to sell for $500,000 at auction.
The legendary Smith and Wesson pistol was worn by the lawman in 1876 when he was shot in the back of the head while playing poker in South Dakota.
It will be sold at Bonhams auction house in San Francisco in November. The antique piece boasts a .32 rimfire, a six-inch barrel and varnished rosewood grips.
The gun comes with documents proving its origins and details of how it passed through generations of the Willoth family in Deadwood.
Paul Carella, Bonhams' arms and armor expert, said: 'Wild Bill Hickok was one of the most iconic figures of the Wild West.
'He was friends with Buffalo Bill and Calamity Jane and was noted as the best quick-draw shooter of his time.
'He was a stagecoach driver, a lawman, a scout - he was everything that epitomized the Wild West.
'He had moved to Deadwood to find his fortune in the gold rush and also to make some money from gambling. Ironically he died at the poker table.'
Hickock had a habit of sitting with his back to a wall when playing poker, but on the day of his death, the only spare chair had its back to the door.
Mr Carella said: 'Following his death his effects were given to the new sheriff who then gave the gun to a family who ran a bazaar to pay off debts Wild Bill had with them.
'The gun has been in the family ever since.
'It would have been worth about $15, around $500 in today's money.
'It's just a standard Smith and Wesson pistol in average condition that would normally sell for around $2,000 but because of its history we expect it to go for much more.'
Hickok was shot dead by 'Crooked Nose' Jack McCall. At the time he was holding two black aces, two black eights and another unknown card, which went on to be known as the 'dead man's hand' in poker.
McCall claimed he had shot Hickok in revenge for killing his brother. He was later hanged for the murder.
Hickok started calling himself 'Wild Bill' after winning a deadly shootout in 1861.
PISTOL BEHIND PHARASE ‘DEAD MAN’S HAND’ GOES UP FOR AUCTION: THE GUN ‘WILD BILL’ WAS CARRYING WHEN HE WAS SHOT 150 YEARS AGO DURING POKER GAME IS EXPECTED TO FETCH $500,000
Antique Smith and Wesson pistol has six-inch barrel and varnished rosewood grips; without its history, it would normally sell for about $2,000
By Sara Smyth
Mail Online
August 23, 2013
The revolver worn by infamous gunslinger 'Wild' Bill Hickok when he was shot dead 150 years ago is expected to sell for $500,000 at auction.
The legendary Smith and Wesson pistol was worn by the lawman in 1876 when he was shot in the back of the head while playing poker in South Dakota.
It will be sold at Bonhams auction house in San Francisco in November. The antique piece boasts a .32 rimfire, a six-inch barrel and varnished rosewood grips.
The gun comes with documents proving its origins and details of how it passed through generations of the Willoth family in Deadwood.
Paul Carella, Bonhams' arms and armor expert, said: 'Wild Bill Hickok was one of the most iconic figures of the Wild West.
'He was friends with Buffalo Bill and Calamity Jane and was noted as the best quick-draw shooter of his time.
'He was a stagecoach driver, a lawman, a scout - he was everything that epitomized the Wild West.
'He had moved to Deadwood to find his fortune in the gold rush and also to make some money from gambling. Ironically he died at the poker table.'
Hickock had a habit of sitting with his back to a wall when playing poker, but on the day of his death, the only spare chair had its back to the door.
Mr Carella said: 'Following his death his effects were given to the new sheriff who then gave the gun to a family who ran a bazaar to pay off debts Wild Bill had with them.
'The gun has been in the family ever since.
'It would have been worth about $15, around $500 in today's money.
'It's just a standard Smith and Wesson pistol in average condition that would normally sell for around $2,000 but because of its history we expect it to go for much more.'
Hickok was shot dead by 'Crooked Nose' Jack McCall. At the time he was holding two black aces, two black eights and another unknown card, which went on to be known as the 'dead man's hand' in poker.
McCall claimed he had shot Hickok in revenge for killing his brother. He was later hanged for the murder.
Hickok started calling himself 'Wild Bill' after winning a deadly shootout in 1861.
HOMELAND SECURITY EMPLOYEE PREDICTS AND ADVOCATES RACE WAR
We can all feel much safer with U.S. Department of Homeland Security employees like Ayo Kimathi.
DHS EMPLOYEE BEHIND RACIST WEBSITE ON PAID LEAVE
Associated Press
August 23, 2013
The Homeland Security Department says an employee who runs a racist website predicting and advocating a race war has been put on paid administrative leave.
An acquisitions officer for Immigration and Customs Enforcement who deals with small businesses, Ayo Kimathi, operates the website War on the Horizon. It includes descriptions of an "unavoidable, inevitable clash with the white race."
Kimathi is black.
Kimathi has been with the department since 2009. He was told Friday that he is being put on paid administrative leave.
His website criticizes whites, gays, those of mixed race, and blacks who integrate with whites. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, earlier this week reported on Kimathi's role in running the site.
Kimathi hasn't responded to email and phone calls requesting comment.
DHS EMPLOYEE BEHIND RACIST WEBSITE ON PAID LEAVE
Associated Press
August 23, 2013
The Homeland Security Department says an employee who runs a racist website predicting and advocating a race war has been put on paid administrative leave.
An acquisitions officer for Immigration and Customs Enforcement who deals with small businesses, Ayo Kimathi, operates the website War on the Horizon. It includes descriptions of an "unavoidable, inevitable clash with the white race."
Kimathi is black.
Kimathi has been with the department since 2009. He was told Friday that he is being put on paid administrative leave.
His website criticizes whites, gays, those of mixed race, and blacks who integrate with whites. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, earlier this week reported on Kimathi's role in running the site.
Kimathi hasn't responded to email and phone calls requesting comment.
DR. KING’S ‘I HAVE A DREAM’ SPEECH
Wednesday will be the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. I thought it appropriate to post the transcript of that speech, one of the greatest speeches ever given, herewith on BarkGrowlBite:
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.
We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.
We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."
[EDITOR'S NOTE: That ends the prepared text for the speech. From this point on, Dr. King ad-libbed the rest of his speech.]
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."
This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.
With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that:
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.
We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.
We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."
[EDITOR'S NOTE: That ends the prepared text for the speech. From this point on, Dr. King ad-libbed the rest of his speech.]
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."
This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.
With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that:
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
Saturday, August 24, 2013
AL AND JESSE, THE MURDER OF DELBERT BELTON DEMANDS YOUR OUTRAGE!
White 88-year-old WWII vet horribly beaten to death by two black 16-year-old thugs
Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, those of us who believe in equal justice for all, demand that both of you head over to Spokane to lead demonstrations that expresses your outrage at this senseless and brutal deadly beating of a helpless 88-year-old white man by two black teenage thugs. Come on, don’t be shy!
WWII VET BEATEN TO DEATH, FIRST ARREST MADE
By Andrew Johnson
National Review Online
August 23, 2013
Police have made the first arrest in relation to the murder of Delbert Belton, a World War II veteran who was beaten to death outside of his local Eagles Lodge in Spokane, Wash. earlier this week. Belton fought in the pivotal Battle of Okinawa in 1945, according to his friends.
Local police have stated that the attack “does appear random.” “He was in the parking lot, it appears he was assaulted in the parking lot and there was no indication that he would have known these people prior to the assault,” Spokane Police Major Crimes Detective Lieutenant Mark Griffiths said.
Based off of surveillance pictures, police have described Belton’s assailants as two teenage black males. Police arrested one of the suspects earlier today and have charged him with first-degree robbery and first-degree murder. The other suspect is still at large.
Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, those of us who believe in equal justice for all, demand that both of you head over to Spokane to lead demonstrations that expresses your outrage at this senseless and brutal deadly beating of a helpless 88-year-old white man by two black teenage thugs. Come on, don’t be shy!
WWII VET BEATEN TO DEATH, FIRST ARREST MADE
By Andrew Johnson
National Review Online
August 23, 2013
Police have made the first arrest in relation to the murder of Delbert Belton, a World War II veteran who was beaten to death outside of his local Eagles Lodge in Spokane, Wash. earlier this week. Belton fought in the pivotal Battle of Okinawa in 1945, according to his friends.
Local police have stated that the attack “does appear random.” “He was in the parking lot, it appears he was assaulted in the parking lot and there was no indication that he would have known these people prior to the assault,” Spokane Police Major Crimes Detective Lieutenant Mark Griffiths said.
Based off of surveillance pictures, police have described Belton’s assailants as two teenage black males. Police arrested one of the suspects earlier today and have charged him with first-degree robbery and first-degree murder. The other suspect is still at large.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)