No, Really, We Only Want Your Guns . . .

No, Really, We Only Want Your Guns . . .

Yep. The gun control lobby says that they only want to get rid of the "bad" guns.

And the guns rights lobby says that this is a slippery slope because they will eventually say ALL guns are bad and must go. Then they will go after other weapons as well.

Well . . . get your sliding shoes on folks!

Oz has some of the most restrictive gun laws around. First handguns, then rifles, then shotguns, then . . .

SWORDS!

Now they are banning swords for cryin' out loud!

Herald Sun: New law to ban swords [ 09mar04 ]

SWORDS will be outlawed from July under new laws to curb the growing use of the weapons in street brawls.

Police Minister Andre Haermeyer said the ban would help police overcome a culture of young people arming themselves with swords.
"For most people running around the street carrying swords there is absolutely no reason for them to be carrying those weapons," he said yesterday.

From July, anyone found possessing or selling a sword without a permit will face up to six months' jail and fines of up to $12,000.

Rachel Corrie Issues

Rachel Corrie Issues

Indymedia has a story about protesters shutting down a Caterpillar plant in England for their "complicity" in the death of Rachael Corrie when she threw herself in front of a moving bulldozer in Israel last year. First is the Indymedia Article.

UK Indymedia | Caterpillar Targeted in Memory of Rachel Corrie

Caterpillar Targeted in Memory of Rachel Corrie
protester, 16.03.2004 13:45

To honour Rachel Corrie, the US activist crushed to death by a D9 Caterpillar-made Israeli military bulldozer a year ago today, protesters intend to occupy Caterpillar Defence Industries in Shrewsbury, leaflet and dialogue with workers on the impact of their work, and grind production lines to a halt for a 3 minute silence in honour of Rachel’s life and the 2,859 Palestinians killed by the Israeli occupation since the 28th of September 2000.

Most of the Protestors have lived in Occupied Palestine with Palestinian families, and witnessed first hand the destruction of homes, olive trees, and lives by Caterpillar bulldozers. Some have felt the violence of the Israeli Occupation on their own bodies and seen friends, including children, shot to death by the Israeli army. Caterpillar is complicit with and aids these war crimes by supplying military equipment to the Israeli army.

Since 1967 Israel has used Caterpillar bulldozers to demolish nearly 9,000 Palestinian homes, leaving more than 50,000 people homeless. Since September 2000, Israel has razed 12,737 homes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In the past two years Caterpillar D9s demolished an entire neighbourhood in Jenin refugee camp and uprooted 200,000 Palestinian olive trees.

23-year-old American Peace Activist Rachel Corrie, was killed by a Caterpillar D9 bulldozer on March 16, 2003 as she nonviolently tried to prevent it from destroying a Palestinian home in the Gaza Strip.

Caterpillar profits from Israel's construction of the 25 foot high Security Barrier (aka The Apartheid Wall) that will confiscate approximately 40 percent of the West Bank under the guise of enhancing Israeli security. The wall separates Palestinians from their farmlands and cuts some villages off from the rest of the West Bank, rendering as many as 100,000 people completely isolated.

Protestors will remain in occupation until they have met the Director or Caterpillar Defence Industries where they will call on Caterpillar to respect human rights and international Human Rights law by terminating its supply contract with the Israeli Government.

Secondly, we have a comment, about halfway down the page, which sums up nicely the problem with Ms. Corrie and others who wish to appease terrorists.

People like Rachel Corrie are a big part of the problem
18.03.2004 01:37

The problem in the middle east is very complex and trying to boil it down to simple stereotypes like the evil Israelis trying to oppress the peace loving Palestinians makes the problem worse.

Most of the evidence does show that the buildings Rachel Corrie was trying to prevent the Israeli Army from demolishing, were in fact being used for weapons smuggling and if I remember correctly, a terrorist leader was later captured in one of those same buildings.

Rachel Corrie took up sides with groups which include suicide bombers who specifically target civilians. I don't know if she did this knowingly or not, but facts show that people who later went on to be suicide bombers attended events at groups she frequented and protected. Rachel Corrie was no innocent. She was a willing participant in things that made the problem worse, rather than searching for a true solution.

Her final act was one of supreme abdication of responsibility. She ran in front of a moving bulldozer, assuming that if she put herself in harm's way, the driver would be forced to stop. But her didn't see her and kept going.

Now the conspiracy theorists here accuse the bulldozer driver of intentionally killing her. Where is the evidence of this? This is just more fuel for the fire of hate burning in the region. The driver said he did not see her, and reportedly needed counselling afterward to deal with the aftermath of what happened.

But all the "human rights activists" here are quick to condemn him, without a peep being said when a school bus full of children is blown up by a suicide bomber from the same types of groups Corrie supported.

You people would have more credibility if you also spoke out against the intentional targeting of Israeli civilians in suicide attacks. By not doing that, you give the impression (perhaps accurately) that you think the Israeli women and children got what they deserved.

Israel is not going to disappear. Anyone who truly wants peace has to recognize this as prerequisite for peace.

Rachel Corrie's actions did nothing to promote peace, and probably cost some lives, other than her own. Her self indulgent field trip to the west bank accomplished nothing but making her a martyr for those who want to continue to hate.

So if people want to make Rachel Corrie their patron saint of the one sided worldview, and conduct juvenile sit-ins at CAT factories, go ahead. But realize that not only was Rachel Corrie part of the problem, but now you are too. Caterpillar isn't the problem any more than a 4 year old child killed by a suicide bomber.

Rachel Corrie could have done infinitely more good by telling her Palestinian "friends" to sit down and negotiate and stop bringing in weapons and setting off bombs, than by trying to act as a human shield for their activities.

Don

Finally, there are several other comments, especially those right after Don's, which spell out in more detail the evidence against Ms. Corrie.

It should also be noted that several comments have complained about censorship of comments to this story. It seems that if Indymedia disagrees with your politics they may delete your post. (As opposed to many sites such as this blog which only delete posts for offensive language, ethnic slurs, etc.)

I don't know if that is true or not, but if Don's posts and the others disappear, I have kept a copy of the subsequent comments which I will post here.

Quick Prediction

Quick Prediction

When (not if) the next terrorist attack occurs on American soil, Dems will claim that Bush has not done enough to prevent it . . . even though they currently complain that he has gone too far with such measures and the Patriot Act.

They won't give any credit for the COMPLETE LACK of terrorist activity in the US in the two and a half years following 9/11/01 . . . while the rest of the world has seen these despicable acts continue.

It's probably just coincidence that no more attacks have happened here. Nothing to do with working hard to prevent such attacks. Nothing at all.

Dictator: Two Approaches

Dictator: Two Approaches

Here are two articles about the return of Jean-Bertrand Aristide to the Caribbean. Notice the difference in tone. The first apparently likes dictators and men who use hit squads to silence opposition. The second does not.

Aristide Back in Caribbean Heat

Some members of Congress, including Waters, have called for an investigation of the U.S. role in Aristide's ouster. Waters, interviewed during the flight to pick up Aristide, rejected Bush administration assertions that Aristide, a former slum priest, had caused recent strife in Haiti through questionable elections and a turn away from democracy.

Suddenly his running for his life to avoid execution by the rebels becomes an "ouster", assuming that the US forced him out.

Aristide leaves exile to visit Jamaica

Mr. Patterson, who heads Caricom, has irritated U.S. officials over the past two weeks by giving credence to Mr. Aristide's claim that the United States kidnapped him and shuttled him out of the country provoking a sharp and unusual public rebuke by the U.S. ambassador to Jamaica, Sue M. Cobb.
"Those words were heard by willing ears, resulting in surprisingly inflammatory rhetoric and an environment of hostility that I can only call markedly disappointing and unsophisticated in analysis," Mrs. Cobb wrote in an opinion piece published March 7 in the London Observer.
She said Mr. Aristide triggered his own downfall with his use of "mob violence and hit squads as a policy for several years and his endorsement of assassinations of journalists who dared to criticize his actions." . . .

Caricom's leaders have had an up-and-down relationship with Mr. Aristide since he started to lose his grip on power in recent months.
In January, Mr. Patterson expressed concern about rights abuses in Haiti, Caricom's newest member. He called on Mr. Aristide to release imprisoned university students and threatened unspecified sanctions against Haiti if Mr. Aristide failed to improve his governance.

Apparently, the shame and criminality of imprisoning students etc. evaporates when you claim that the US done you wrong. So because this brutal assassin ordering tyrant claims he was forced out, suddenly Caricom should support him rather than condemn him as they had two months previously.

Blix Enjoys Lib Establishment Treatment

Blix Enjoys Lib Establishment Treatment

Even after the centrifuge parts and the plans and the other clues found in Iraq, Blix still apparently believes that Saddam was just a nice guy who got caught up on the wrong side of an argument with the world's biggest bully.

If only the US had not been so darn stubborn in its belief that a man who had previously USED WMD might be holding more in hand and trying to get/create even more.

Poor Saddam.

As for CNN's completely dispassionate and neutral reporting on this issue, I am not sure that Blix has been exactly "vindicated".

True - no major WMD have been found to this point.
False - no one believed that Iraq had WMD - including the UN.

True - Al Qaeda is still known to have been based in Afghanistan.
False - no terror link has been drawn between Iraq and major terrorist players (anybody ever hear of Adu Nidal (see also) among others?)

True - Blix makes a lot of uncorroborated claims about what the Bush Administration said to him.
False - these claims from an open opponent of this administration should be taken without a grain of salt (if not a truckload).

Vindicated Blix returns to U.S.

At NYU, he was introduced by faculty members as a "real-life hero," "unbiased and critical," and his comments drew rounds of thunderous applause during his two hour appearance.

It was a striking contrast to the contentious appearances he made in the U.N. Security Council in the months leading up to the war. At that time, he was often criticized as pro-Iraqi or anti-American because his teams were coming up empty and refusing to blame Saddam for their failures.

Blix said he had been convinced for years that the Iraqis were hiding weapons of mass destruction but began having doubts when intelligence provided by the United States and other countries wasn't producing results. He blamed an over-reliance on defectors and a refusal on the part of the White House to consider the possibility that the intelligence was wrong.

Ad Hominem Challenge Update

Ad Hominem Challenge Update

Last week I posted a challenge to my liberal friends to supply me with a single cite of Rep attacks. Here's what I said:

A challenge to the Left: find me ONE, just ONE, instance of Bush or another Senior Administration Official calling Kerry names. I don't mean saying that he did such and such as a Senator. I mean calling him "crooked" or a liar or some other ad hominem attack. Just ONE pure ad hominem attack.

I am extending that challenge and offering an incentive:

Find me one high-ranking Rep OFFICIAL (equivalent on the Rep side as Gore, Kerry, Dean, etc. are to the Dems) who has called Kerry and compatriots names and engaged in outright ad hominem attacks.

Find me one verifiable cite, WITH SOURCE MATERIAL FOR CHECKING IT OUT, and I will put a link to your site at the top of my blogroll and encourage everyone who visits this page to go a read your site daily.

Are you up to it Media Revolution or Rickfman or any of my other liberal (oh, sorry, I mean "progressive." Isn't that the current euphemism?) readers?

Gadget Fun

Gadget Fun

Imagine a watch that has a USB port and holds all of your data - phone numbers, addresses, calendar, documents, spreadsheets, games, presentations, family photos, music files, etc. etc. etc.

Dick Tracy - you're a wimp!

Guinness record for world's smallest disk drive

TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- Japan's Toshiba Corp said on Tuesday that Guinness World Records had certified its stamp-sized hard disk drives (HDDs) as the smallest in the world.

The electronics conglomerate's 0.85-inch HDDs, unveiled in January, have storage capacity of up to four gigabytes and will be used in products such as cell phones and digital camcorders.

To Borrow a Phrase . . .

To Borrow a Phrase . . .

. . . from James Taranto - What Would We Do Without Terrorism Experts?

It seems as though some terrorism experts would have left Al Qaeda intact so that they could better identify its members.

Gosh, these guys are right . . . we probably should have left all the terrorists we have caught or killed in the past year or so alone. I am sure that they would have appreciated this so much that the would only have set off small bombs instead of the ones like we read about in Spain. Yep, that's the ticket.

Experts: War on terrorism could spawn new enemies

As President Bush put it this month: "Some two-thirds of al Qaeda's key leaders have been captured or killed. The rest of them hear us breathing down their neck."

Now, counterterrorism officials say one of their biggest concerns is how U.S. actions such as the war in Iraq are motivating new recruits bound by a common goal: to destroy Western secular society.

Both government and private experts are bracing for what they say will be a war that could last for generations.

Sowell on Outsourcing

Sowell on Outsourcing

From an economist with degrees from Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Chicago.

Strange how many opponents of Sowell's conservative views label him "unintelligent" rather than "wrong because of x, y, and z."

The upshot - trade is trade-off. Benefits in one area often create problems in another (but not always).

'Outsourcing'

Whole political movements are based on a refusal to accept that benefits have costs. Protectionism is just one of these movements. Environmental extremists often refuse to accept even the smallest costs for such benefits as the building of much-needed housing or the dredging of rivers and streams to prevent flooding and save human lives.

Ironically, those politicians who complain most loudly about the outsourcing of jobs often advocate the outsourcing of the job of making foreign policy and safeguarding American national security to the United Nations or to our allies in Europe.

You Don't Believe Studies from the Tobacco Companies . . .

You Don't Believe Studies from the Tobacco Companies . . .

. . . yet you'll buy studies from a group whose sole purpose in life seems to be to promote and engender fear and dollars over global warming?

What happened to your famous skepticism, my lib friends?

I love the underlying assumptions made in this article. For example, this first quote:

Damage from Warming Becoming 'Irreversible,' Says New Report

Britain's most influential scientist, Sir David King, recently excoriated the Bush administration for withdrawing from the Protocol and ignoring the threat posed by climate change. "In my view, climate change is the most severe problem we are facing today," he wrote in Science magazine, "more serious even than the threat of terrorism."

"Britain's most influential scientist", eh? I wonder what Stephen Hawking would think of that?

Here are some interesting comments on the state of GW science (from 1999).

Oooh . . . the Lack of Compassion!

Oooh . . . the Lack of Compassion!

For those of you out there who would look at the quoted paragraph and have the reaction in the title, I can only say that I doubt you would be so understanding if it were a federally/university funded Men Center Clinic which sent money to the Bush campaign or sponsored an NRA rally.

What?

Really?

You would be understanding about that?

Golly. Sometimes you surprise me.

We have them right where we want them?on the run!

And one women?s center in the UNC system may soon lose its budget after abusing its funds for political purposes. These successes are largely due to Town Hall articles written in the last couple of months.

71%

71%

71% of Iraqis polled say that life will be better in the future.

I would guess that this is a more accurate number than the 100% that voted for Saddam in the last election.

Poll: Iraqis say life better now

Some 57 percent of respondents said life was better now than under Saddam, against 19 percent who said it was worse and 23 percent who said it was about the same.

Iraqi people appeared optimistic about the future, with 71 percent saying they expected things to be better in a years time, six percent predicting it will be worse and nine percent the same.

Yet ANOTHER Terrorist Gone

Yet ANOTHER Terrorist Gone

Too bad we are losing the war on terror. I bet this guy wishes the folks who shot him had heard that.

U.S.: Al Qaeda boss 'the Poet' killed

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A senior al Qaeda leader -- described as the group's "chief of operations in the Arabian Peninsula" -- was killed in a shootout in Saudi Arabia, U.S. officials have told CNN.

A U.S. counterterrorism official called the death on Monday "very significant, and a major blow to al Qaeda."

The man was identified as Abu Hazim al-Sha'ir, also known as Kahlid Ali Hajj. He was also nicknamed "the poet," officials said.

"This was a very significant senior al Qaeda figure in Saudi Arabia," the counterterrorism official said.

Junk Science or Just Science?

Junk Science or Just Science?

I wonder how strong the science is in this case. . . .

One thing I do know is that the price of everything just went up. Practically everything you eat and many other things around the house is either flavored or scented in one fashion or another. Do you think this company will just swallow the loss or pass it on?

Popcorn worker awarded $20 million in lawsuit

JOPLIN, Missouri (AP) -- A factory worker who claimed his lungs were ruined as result of mixing flavoring oils used in microwave popcorn was awarded $20 million by a jury Monday.

Correction

Correction

Apparently, the story about the Tides Foundation and its ties to Teresa Heinz-Kerry and her foundation and to the Peaceful Tomorrow foundation are not true. Check out the following press release form the Tides Foundation.

Press Release