After skating around Google for awhile and reading some of what has been written about Vermont's Judge Cashman's sentencing of a "child rapist" to 60 days in jail, I am beginning to pick up some hints that all is not what it seems to be relative to this case. I sent an email to Judge Cashman this morning, excerpted below, and am awaiting a reply. If I hear from him, I'll let you know.
The furor over your sentencing of Mark Hulett has been almost 100% in opposition to same. From "the worst judge in America", courtesy of Bill O'Reilly, to many comments and descriptions that are not reprintable, there are thousands of news reports, comments and editorials screaming around the blogosphere, newspapers, radio and TV, all of which are in virulent opposition to your decision and to you, personally.
After doing some research into the case - not an easy thing here in Mexico - I think that I may be able to provide a defense for you, if it is, indeed, warranted. What I would like from you is your personal response to some questions that I have and I will print that/those response(s) in my blog.
Here is what I understand as of the writing of this missive.
1. The victim was not, as has been widely reported, raped numerous times over many years. The sex crimes involved genital touching or oral-genital contact on four occasions over 5 years. Is this correct? In other words, "rape", at least insofar as Bill Clinton understands it, depending upon what the meaning if is is, did not occur.
2. It is being widely reported that, at the original sentencing, you said that you no longer believed in punishment. I can find no quotes from your sentencing pronouncement to this effect. What I believe you were doing was addressing the victim's family and you were talking about "anger", not punishment. Is this correct?
3. My research reveals that the convicted is mentally impaired. I believe that you stated that he had the mind of a 12 year-old and still does not understand that he committed a crime. Is this correct?
4. My research further reveals that Vermont state evaluators reported to you that Mr. Hulett posed some kind of low-level danger to society and, therefore, was not eligble for mental treatment or counseling while incarcerated. Is this correct?
5. Further, he could only receive "community treatment" after completing his sentence. What is "community treatment" up there in Vermont?
6. I believe that, after wading through millions of words from dozens of sources, all of which are diametrically opposed to your decision, that you based your decision on what you felt was most beneficial to the community. You said, according to my research, that you disagreed with the state evaluation and felt that Mr. Hulett did, indeed, represent an immediate threat to the community. Therefore, he requires immediate therapy. The only way for him to get this therapy is to complete his sentence. So, you had no choice but to render a short sentence in order to get him into treatment more quickly. Is this correct?
7. It is being reported that the victim's family allowed Mr. Hulett, a 34 year-old man, to sleep with their 6 year-old daughter. Did you address this with the parents at any time during the trial or at the sentencing?
I would be pleased at your response and I will print that/those response(s) in my blog. That does not mean that I will agree with them and I will so state. If I do agree with them I will also so state. At the very least, you will have the opportunity to explain the what's, why's and wherefore's that led to your sentencing decision. I will not edit nor otherwise remove parts of your response(s) although I will highlight any parts that I feel merit that.
I understand that there are some statutory restrictions placed upon your ability to comment on the sentencing - something like 7 days, I believe. Nevertheless, this is an opportunity for you to explain your position and decision without fear of creative editing, things taken out of context (for I will print every word that you send me exactly as it is sent), or the coloring in of my particular political and social positions on crime and punishment in these United States, except insofar as I may comment on your response. I don't get paid for this so your response(s) have no commercial value to me.
Please consider my offer carefully and respond in some manner that you feel most appropriate.
Sincerely,
Mark in Mexico
While awaiting Judge Cashman's possible response, you might want to hash this over. From the Burlington Free Press If someone with diabetes were imprisoned, they would be treated in the prison setting. Diabetes does not go away. It escalates; it takes a great deal of medical resources: daily monitoring, medication, and medical attention. But people can learn to manage it and pursue a normal life. They can never let down their vigilance or there will be serious consequences for them, their family and the community. Sex offenders deserve and require the same treatment paradigm. It will serve them, their families and the community, as well.
Judge Cashman deserves high praise for calling the game on this situation. The Department of Human Services and Corrections also deserve praise for rethinking the "no treatment issue." Everyone can win.
UPDATE: Hmmm. Curiouser and curiouser. From The Anchoress: The fact is, Cashman sentenced Hulett to up to 10 years on the first count, three years to life on the second count and two to five years on the third count. He will be on probation and under state supervision until the day he dies! If he screws up or refuses treatment, he’ll be behind bars for a long, long time. Hulett’s release conditions prohibit him from any alcohol or drug use, or even living in an apartment complex that has children. He cannot have friends who have kids, go to a bar or possess or view pornography, among other restrictions. One violation would put him back in the slammer.
Calling this “a 60-day sentence for raping a child,” as O’Reilly and Wilton have done, is a gross distortion of what happened.
Other opinions less than 24 hours old:
GA Mongrel, Brain Droppings - who put me onto The Anchoress, House of the Rising Sun, In a Word, aTypical Joe, Rambix and the Red Star, Lost in Lima, Ohio
TAGS: Judge Edward Cashman, Vermont, sex crimes, child rape, sentencing
Round 1: Edge to Specter
Round 2: All Specter
In the sharp exchange over documents between Sen. Specter and Sen. Kennedy yesterday, it was difficult to call a winner. The edge goes to Specter because, in the end, he banged the gavel and Kennedy had to shut up. Round 2, played out backstage, however, went to Specter overwhelmingly.
The documents in question are 4 boxes of personal papers, in the possession of The Library of Congress but the property of William Rusher, former head of CAP (Concerned Alumni of Princeton). Kennedy wanted to halt the hearings for an executive committee session to vote on a subpoena for the records. Specter said he would consider it. Kennedy demanded an immediate vote. Specter reminded him of just who was, in fact, chairman of the committee. Kennedy threatened to request vote after vote until the records were produced. Specter gaveled him into silence. End of Round 1.
During the subsequent lunch break, Specter had his staff call Rusher and request the documents. Rusher said sure, have at them. Specter sent his staff over to the library to retrieve the 4 boxes. During the afternoon and evening yesterday, Specter's staff went through the 4 boxes of Rusher's records and couldn't find Judge Samuel Alito's name mentioned anywhere.
Apparently, the NYT's reporter David Kirkpatrick had already examined all the Rusher documents as well as others at Princeton and reported that they, "give no indication that Judge Alito, who sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, was among the group's major donors. He was not an active leader of the group, and two of his classmates who were involved and Mr. Rusher said they did not remember his playing a role."
Interesting. Specter's staffers say that Alito's name is not even mentioned anywhere in the documents but the NYT says there is "no indication that . . . among the active donors." Why couldn't the NYT say, "We could find no mention of Judge Alito's name in the documents." I suppose that would be too honest and run contrary to the Times slant on things.TAGS:
Judge Samuel Alito,
Sen. Arlen Specter,
Teddy Kennedy,
William Rusher,
subpoena
In case you hadn't noticed, Canada is embroiled in a general election campaign. The liberals, in power for 12 years or so, are losing their grip. So, they resort to anti-Americanism a la the French, the Germans, the Chinese, the Spanish, the, well Hell, just about everybody. The liberals have rolled out dire political ads such as: the election of Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper "would bring a smile to George W. Bush's face."
and "Mr. Harper, the United States is our neighbor, not our nation," warns one.
and Harper is "pro-Iraqi war, anti-Kyoto, socially conservative . . . Bush's new best friend," says another ad . . .
and "We know he is very popular with right-wingers in the U.S. They have money. Maybe they helped him," the announcer muses on the commercial, unveiled Tuesday.
The WaPo article muses that "the ads could backfire". I would imagine that they could, especially if the liberals somehow pull out an improbable victory. What kind of reception would liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin receive in Washington, were he ever again allowed to visit?
The softwood embroglio that has gone on for years would have been settled by Brian Mulroney, the last conservative Canadian prime minister, in a 30 minute phone call or possibly over lunch with George Bush. Instead, the American-bashing liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin, following up on the heels of the American-bashing liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien, has been fighting a very expensive battle over softwood imports for several years. The Canadian softwood industry has lost billions of dollars and thousands of jobs that it will never recover. That somehow doesn't seem too smart to me.TAGS:
Canada,
Paul Martin,
Jean Chretien,
Stephen Harper,
America-bashing
The good folks in Idaho must be smoking some locoweed or something. They are a little short of funds to support their prison population so they are considering "hot bunking". That is, prisoners sleeping in shifts like the US military sometimes does. The US silent service doesn't do this sometimes, the submariners do it all the time. State Sen. Robert Geddes, the silly simpleton, asks, "Why does every inmate need his or her own bed? The military does it all the time."
Well, the reason that you can't do it, my dear soul, is that by the time the ACLU gets through with you, you'll be supplying every prisoner with a queen-size brass canopy bed, that's why. Best drop this before you end up in worse shape than you are now.TAGS:
Idaho,
prisons,
hot bunking,
ACLU
The Chinese are trying to get ready for the Olympics in 2008 by controlling some really filthy habits of Beijing's citizens. Number 1 on the Revolting Things Not To Do List is spitting on the sidewalk. Actually, the Chinese are not going to send out the spit Police. They're going to make it easier to avoid the sidewalk by providing their expectoraters with handy "rubbish boxes" every 100 meters (100 yards, aprox.) and "sanitary bags" in taxis, buses and public areas. Chinese spit inside taxis and buses? Gaaack!
The Chinese authorities will also crack down on "pets fouling the streets" which, I guess, is another way of saying pets pooping in public spaces. You can't really stop the pets from doing their doody wherever and whenever, but the owners can be forced to clean it all up. There are many handy tools available for this task here in the United States, all probably made in China. And here's a whole page of them!TAGS:
China,
Beijing,
2008 Olympic Games,
spitting,
pooping
I've been out-of-pocket for a couple of days. Sorry about no posting. What's happening? Let's take a look around.
The Senate has confirmed Judge Sam Alito to the Supreme Court. No - wait - they haven't? I read Monday's and Tuesday's transcripts of the confirmation hearings and the senators on the Judiciary Committee were doing so much bloviating and self-congrtatulating that I thought it was all over. Guess not, huh?
Today's hearings brought out the long knives used to backstab at will. Sen. Kennedy and Sen. Specter had a disagreemant about who is, in fact, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman (it's Sen. Specter, which he pointed out to Sen. Kennedy in no uncertain terms - video from Michelle Malkin).
After a day of Democrats hurling invective at Judge Alito to the tune of racist, anti-gay, anti-women's rights, etc., Sen. Lindsay Graham apologized to the judge and his family, saying, "Judge Alito, I am sorry that you've had to go through this. I am sorry that your family has had to sit here and listen to this."
"Are you really a closet bigot?" The nominee answered no, and Graham said, "No sir, you're not." At that point, Martha Alito, the judge's wife, got up and, in tears, left the hearing room. Sen. Hatch explained, "She's sick and tired of the mistreatment of her husband."
Well, she needs to toughen up a bit. The players involved in the hearings, from the nominee to the senators to their staffs and to all the special interest groups - most of whom which bitterly oppose Alito - are playing for high stakes. And those that oppose her husbnd's nomination - mostly on the grounds that he was nominated by George Bush and for no other reason(s) - and knowing that they are ultimately going to lose - will and are playing as dirty a game as they possibly can. She must have known that this was going to happen. Having said this, it probably helps the cause of Judge Alito that the people of America can see or read about what Judge Alito's (read: George Bush's) opponents are capable of doing and the way they are willing and able to do it and the effect that it has on innocent people.
Trial lawyers take a huge gamble when they tighten the screws on a female witness or defendant and cause her to break down in front of a jury. This can produce a backlash against the lawyers and can cause a sympathy vote in favor of the weeping female. It looks like Sen. Kennedy may have rolled the dice here and lost.
And now comes the "bombshell" witness that the Democrats had dredged up to testify about what a crummy organization CAP (Concerned Alumni of Princeton) was, which even Alito readily admits. This guy, one Stephen R. Dujack, was dropped like a hot potato by the Democrats when it was pointed out that Dujack had written a very offensive piece comparing the treatment of animals to the treatment of Jews by Nazis during the Holocaust. Dujack now says that his grandfather, Isaac Bashevis Singer, who won the Nobel prize for literature in 1978, originally posited the idea of animals living in a continuous holocaust and that he (Dujack) had apologized to Holocaust victims (Jewish human beings as opposed to your everyday yearling beef steer) and that his being dropped as a witness was Matt Drudge's fault. There is the big press release. The next morning the major newspapers spell your name right. But by noon the Drudge Report runs a shotgun blast of half-truths and innuendoes, and by evening pundits are sifting through your entrails on CNN and Fox. Can citizen participation in government survive the advent of the Internet search engine?
What the hapless Dujack misses here, and so many others miss it, also, is that the internet search engine enables researchers to more or less instantly find out who you are and what you said. You know, like they're doing to Judge Alito. His opponents are dredging up stuff from 30 years ago and Drudge dredged up a 2 year-old article written by Dujack. Drudge's dredge hijacked Dujack, you might say. And if you might say that, try saying it 10 times rapidly. I'll bet Dujack can. And I'll also bet that Matt Drudge is giggling up his sleeve.
I'll post this and then do some research - using internet search engines - to find some others you might like to hear from - Pardon me. I am an English teacher, am I not? - . . . others from whom you might like to hear. Others like:
The Jawa Report
Dread Pundit Bluto
The Unabrewer
The Glittering Eye
The Political Pit Bull
Confirm Them
Iowa Voice
The Political Teen
Fatass The Conquerer
The Captain - go to the Captain's main page and read through his Senate Blogger Forums - really good!
Suitably Flip
The Captain - again
Right Wing Sparkle
All Things Beautiful
Professor Bainbridge
More from Michelle Malkin
Sister Toldjah
Severe Writer's Block
Southern Appeal
Whoa! Finding good posts today is like shooting fish in a barrel! I continue:
Random Yak
Kokonut Pundits
Cake or Death
Mike's Noise - Uh, Mike. What means PWN3D?
Lifelike Pundits
The Real Ugly American
Sigmund, Carl and Alfred
PoliPundit
Decision '08
Patterico - Wheeeee - a drinking game that does, however, seem dangerous
Brutally Honest
Tiger Hawk
James Joyner at OTB
Conservative Outpost
Blogs for Bush
Pardon My English
TMH's Bacon Bits
Basil's Blog
Adam's BlogTAGS:
Supreme Court,
Judge Samuel Alito,
Sen. Arlen Specter,
Sen. Ted Kennedy,
Stephen Dujack,
Matt Drudge
A hate group led by Fred Phelps, which operates out of Westboro Baptist Church, Topeka, KS (www.godhatesfags.com) has announced that it will picket the funerals of the 12 miners who died in the recent mine explosion. The "church's" press release trumpeted, Thank God for 12 dead miners
God is laughing, mocking and deriding hypocritical fag-infested West Virginia
They died in shame and disgrace, citizens of a cursed nation of unthankful, unholy perverts who have departed from the living God to worship on 'Brokeback Mountain' and who have replaced the Bible with 'The Da Vinci Code.'
A reporter who contacted "church" spokesperson Shirley Phelps-Roper was told the following: Our purpose is to cause America to know our abomination.
America is doomed. We have cracked the Bible. We know.
This group of sad excuses for Christians has conducted over 22,000 demonstrations since 1999. Their favorite targets in the past year or so have been military funerals for soldiers slain in Iraq and Afghanistan. Motorcylce clubs have taken to following them around and inserting riders between the demonstrators and funeral goers and using their engines to drown out the chanting demonstrators.
I'm sorry to say that someone really needs to just start shooting these people.
Linked to:
Jo's Cafe Saturday Specials
bRight & Early
Point Five with nice list of open posts for today
Adam's Blog
Don Surber
MacStansbury.org
Stop the ACLU
Stuck on Stupid
The Uncooperative Blogger
TMH's Bacon Bits
TAGS:
Fred Phelps,
Westboro Babtist Church,
hate group,
West Virginia,
mine disaster
What's this? The commander of United Nations force in Haiti, Brazilian Lt. Gen. Urano Teixeira da Matta Bacellar, commited suicide. He shot himself in the head in his hotel room in Port-au-Prince.TAGS:
United Nations,
Peacekeeping Forces,
Haiti,
Blue Helmets,
suicide
This report from London's Telegraph would be amusing if it weren't so pathetic. It seems that a British doctor has been in hot water for some TWO YEARS because of his refusal to give a man a cervical smear. That's right, folks. The complaining patient is 100% male from the neck down. His brain is convinced that he is a woman or a hermaphrodite. That is, possessing both male and female genitalia. Doctor's can find no evidence of any female genitalia, let alone a cervix.
Nevertheless, when his GP refused to give him the test due to the lack of said cervix from which to take the smear, the patient complained to Britain's national health service. The complaint and the adjudication thereof has required two years of reports, meetings, interviews, hearings, travel, etc. on the part of the GP, various health service funcionarios and legal counsel. Apparently at no time during this ridiculous procedure has any bureaucrat had the common sense to just, you know, sh*t-can it.
So, it continues, with a formal complaint heaing now scheduled. The wife of one of the GP's who shares a practice with the unfortunate doctor has made a statement dripping with sarcasm. She said her husband, who has been a GP for 30 years and who trains young doctors would be "pleased to hear from anyone, medical or otherwise, who could teach him the correct way to carry out a cervical smear on a 34-year-old male".
"My suggestion would be to accede unquestioningly to the patient's demand and carry out the procedure requested. Provided of course that a representative of the primary care trust could indicate the necessary part of this gentleman's anatomy, and was able to give the learned medics a clue as to how they could access it."
Linked to:
Argghhh!!!
Samantha Burns
Right Wing Nation
Linkfest Haven
The Bullwinkle BlogTAGS:
Britain,
National Health Service,
NHS,
morons,
trans-gender
Senator Ted Kennedy, demonstrating the effects of 50 years of hard drinking and womanizing as well as a firm grasp on history, declares that the 14 year-old Samuel Alito was unduly influenced by the Goldwater presidency. "This nominee was influenced by the Goldwater presidency," he said. "The Goldwater battles of those times were the battles against the civil rights laws." He added, thunderously, "Not until the Timothy Leary and Norman Rockwell presidencies were we able to throw off that heavy cloak of conservative racism and get face masks added to football helmets."
Well, I added the part about the face masks.TAGS:
Ted Kennedy,
DT's,
liver damage,
Samuel Alito
Rep. Jack Murtha: "A number of senators who are running for president have called me. And I told them there's only two policies. That's the policy of redeployment, which I've suggested, and the president's policy — stay the course is not a policy."
Huh? Did you understand anything he just said?
You have to give the Democrats their usual credit for poll watching and being able to count past 50, however. Murtha's fellow Democratic Rep. James Moran, when asked about impeaching George Bush, said, "I don't think impeachment is the right course of action," he said. "We have a democracy, and the right course of action is to express yourself at the polls."
"I voted against President Clinton's impeachment," Moran continued. "I think impeachment is inconsistent with the democratic process. And the other fact is, it's not going to happen. Congress is controlled by the Republican party. This is a moot issue."
And, later, Murtha added, "At this point, we just don't have enough information," he said. "I'm very hesitant, even with Nixon, to support impeachment until I see the facts. And I just don't see enough facts to support impeachment at this point."
Asked whether he would support an impeachment inquiry, Murtha continued: "Well, I'm not even sure that I have enough facts to support that at this point. There's only one reason for impeachment as far as I'm concerned, and that's treason and treasonous acts. That's very complicated, not something I can answer. I hesitated to say anything about Nixon until the very end when I heard the tapes, so that's not something I would say anything about at this stage."
UPDATE: This story is getting a lot more attention at Memoreandum since I posted about it this morning.
The Anchoress - It’s disturbing that Murtha apparently will only be happy if it’s called a failure.
Greyhawk transcribes a veteran's response that occured during the meeting which national Review didn't mention. Go over there and read it. The vet's response to Murtha and Moran is not the least surprising, nor is their answer - or rather, non-answer.
bRight & Early - Rep. Jack Murtha (SM-PA) is doing his best to become the official spokesman for the Surrender Monkeys.
Flopping Aces - throws Ollie North into the fray.
A Blog For All - looking for a fact check
Blackfive - Murtha has used up his good will and is rapidly looking at a boot in the ass.
MacsMind - How different that lack of backbone compares to that of President Bush who in spite of politics and polls does what he thinks is right.
Michelle Malkin - Cut and run. It's the only way the Dems know.
Lorie Byrd - Read this and cheer.
Polipundit - Lorie's post with C-Span link
Conservative Musings - Moran and Murtha Meet Their MatchTAGS:
Jack Murtha,
James Moran,
George Bush,
policy,
impeachment
Per Lucianne, THIS IS NOT CONFIRMED.
The report itself admits to conflicting reports. Drudge first announced the death, then backed off to "condition unknown", then backed off again to "condition stable but serious". Furthermore, Drudge is now reporting that Hospital officials says Sharon's Brain Scan Shows Improvement and, referring to the Tribune report, that MIDEAST FALSE REPORT 'SHARON DEAD'
The Muslims must be just beside themselves with anticipation.
Drudge is also reporting that My Way News says that Lew Rauls has died. I wonder if that's true.TAGS:
Ariel Sharon,
Lew Rauls
George Galloway is dumber than Pat Robertson. At least Robertson's heart is in the right place, even is his mouth gets in the way. Galloway has no heart and his mouth consistantly proves that fact.
He's now a contestant on the British version of TV's Big Brother. Upon his arrival at the Big Brother house he was roundly booed by spectators. He held up his hand in the "V for vice" sign and elicited more boos. He ignored this, or perhaps he thought they were Arab versions of cheers. Then, during his interview, he said that his favorite things were his
"daughter, sunbathing and sex."
What an incredibly boorish thing to say. I don't believe that I would mention sex and my daughter in the same sentence unless it was, "If I learn that that football player and my daughter are having sex, I'll shoot that sumbitch."
To top it off, he's playing on behalf of the Palestinian charity InterPal. What do we know about InterPal? Interpal is the most important Palestinian fund operating in Britain. During the last decade (and beforehand under a different name) Interpal helped transfer large sums of money collected in Britain and elsewhere to charitable societies and committees operating in the Palestinian Authority (PA) – administered territories. However, most, if not all, of those charitable societies and committees are actually Hamas-operated and therefore contribute significantly to maintaining the large-scale, local Hamas civilian (and terrorist-operational) infrastructure (da’wah). Consequently, Interpal was outlawed by Israel in 1997 and declared a terrorist organization in 1998. Furthermore, in the United States it was designated by Executive Order 13224 (August 2003) as an entity that "commits, or threatens to commit or supports terrorism."
The failure of the British to kick InterPal out of their country is but another indication of why their trains got blown up.
I would like to say that, when mentioning the Rev. Pat Robertson in the same breath as Mahmoud in Iran or the Palestinians or George Galloway, I'm not being completely fair. Robertson doesn't advocate mass murder of innocent women and children. Robertson doesn't advocate the erasure of an entire people from this earth. Robertson has never been known to describe anyone, let alone adherents to one of the world's oldest and greatest religions, as "pigs and monkeys". Indeed, Robertson doesn't advocate the destruction of anyone other than Hugo Chavez which, if you really think about it, isn't such a bad idea.TAGS:
George Galloway,
InterPal,
Pat Robertson,
Hamas,
Hugo Chavez
You want to know all about someone's cell phone usage, like who they called and for how long they talked? You don't need a warrant. You don't need FISA. You don't even have to be a law enforcement officer. You just need to click on a website like Locatecell.com, or one of several others, send them the cell phone number and a credit card number, and in 24 hours or less they'll send you a list of every call made from that cell phone. And it's all perfectly legal.
The FBI ran a test and, for $160 and no questions asked, they got a 30 day rundown of every call made from an agent's cell phone - in just 3 hours. The Chicago Sun Times did the same thing and got a reporter's cell phone records - for only $110. The reporter, Frank Main, says that a private detective told him that, I would say the most powerful investigative tool right now is cell records. I use it a couple times a week. A few hundred bucks a week is well worth the money.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, doing something worthwhile for a change, is trying to get the practice criminalized.
In the meantime, the FBI has issued a warning to all its field offices that the cell phone records of agents and informants are exposed to anyone who wants to buy them. The Chicago Police Department has likewise warned its officers of the security threat.
Wow, this means that all I have to do is get the porcine racist Oliver Willis's cell phone number and I can determine how often he calls Michelle Malkin and Jeff Goldstein for advice for his blog.
Vis EPIC West via Topix.TAGS:
cell phone records,
FBI,
Locatecell.com,
EPIC West,
Topix.net
Bernie, the 130lb albino Burmese python, that is. Burrito, the neighbor lady's black kitty-cat, that is. Bernie's owner, who kept the snake in a pen in his backyard, had just given the giant snake two rabbits to kill and eat. While Bernie was wolfing (heh heh) down unfortunate rabbit #1, rabbit #2 made a run for it. Br'er Rabbit furiously dug a hole under the pen and escaped into the briar patch, or somewhere. The snake followed. Bernie failed to locate Br'er Rabbit but did find Burrito. Wrong place, wrong time - sorry there, kitty.
Another neighbor paid a visit to Burrito's soon-to-be-grieving owner and saw the snake devouring Burrito.Salvatore says the snake tried to eat the cat head first, but couldn't do it. "So it moved around and started eating the cat tail first," she describes.
She says the snake had already killed the cat by the time her friend, Dianne Turner, came home from work around five o'clock.
Too late, Diane. Turner called the Putnam County Sheriff's Office, and deputies along with investigators from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, responded to the scene.
Salvatore says authorities had told Turner she could not kill the snake. "So all we could do was stand there and watch that snake eat the cat," Salvatore says.
The snake's owner has been issued a warning by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. As for Turner, she's lost her cherished furry friend. "She loved that cat," Salvatore says, "she really did."
Lawsuit to follow. TAGS:
Burmese python,
cat,
lunch
You know, this guy has done more damage to Christian fundamentalism, Evangelicalism and the Christian right than the Saudis, the Iranians, the Syrians and Tomas de Torquemada combined. The Reverend Pat Robertson says Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's massive stroke could be God's punishment for giving up Israeli territory.
The founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network told viewers of "The 700 Club" that Sharon was "dividing God's land," even though the Bible says doing so invites "God's enmity."
Robertson added, "I would say woe to any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course."
He noted that former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated.
Robertson said God's message is, "This land belongs to me. You'd better leave it alone."
That puts him, to my way of thinking, on a par with these morons.
Others seeing Patricio de Torquemada here:
Moore Thoughts - says he's an embarrassment to the Christian faith.
Bill Hobbs - compares Robertson to Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Jewschool - says Robertson has raised $250 MILLION for Jewish programs - maybe, but he's still a moron.
Birmingham Blues - Patricio's at it again
The Green Knight - Pat just keeps getting loonier
Centerfield - finds more similarities between Patricio and Mahmoud
Moonbat Monitor - airmail him to Antarctica (what you got against penguins?)
The Sundries Shack - He's a money-grubbing hindrance to God's work.
Right Voices - our own home-grown nut case.
Right Thinking from the Left Coast - Pat's his favorite fundalmentalist lunatic
Sacred Lobotomy - thinks Mossad should "do their thing".TAGS:
Pat Robertson,
Christian fundamentalism,
Evangelicalism,
Christian right,
Ariel Sharon,
Israel
I'm not too surprised by this. 'minorities, descendants of those who crucified Christ... have grabbed all the wealth of the world for themselves.'
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in a Christmas Eve speech televised throughout his country.TAGS:
Hugo Chavez,
anti-Semite,
Venezuela
The New York Times says Political figures from both parties have long defended and profited from ties to the coal industry. Whether or not that was a factor in the Sago mine’s history, the Bush administration’s cramming of important posts in the Department of the Interior with biased operatives from the coal, oil and gas industry is not reassuring about general safety in the mines. Steven Griles, a mining lobbyist before being appointed deputy secretary of the interior, devoted four years to rolling back mine regulations and then went back to lobbying for the industry.
Bizzyblog responds with the truth: Coal Mine Fatalities 1995 - 2005
1995 - 47
1996 - 38
1997 - 30
1998 - 29
1999 - 34
2000 - 38
2001 - 42
2002 - 27
2003 - 29
2004 - 28
2005 - 22
Bizzyblog points out that coal mine fatalities have been cut almost in half since 2001 and that Bush, while taking office in January of 2001, had to operate under Clinton's budget until October of that year. Bizzyblog puts the numbers on a nice graph which makes the improvements in mine safety under the Bush administration all the more stark.
Other views:
Sister Toldjah - commenter Kevin with Deaths per 200,000 hours worked since 1990. These safety improvements under the Bush administration look about the same.
Free Frank Warner - here's where Sister Toldjah's commenter Kevin got the numbers
Michelle Malkin - uses AMA official description of anti-Bush bias: BDS
Right Wing of the Gods - why wait for facts?
Ex Donkey Blog - it didn't take long to blame Bush
EU Rota - NYT dancing on the graves - with another graph
The Political Pit Bull - venom being spewed
Reverse Vampyr - Bush can't be an idiot and AND an evil genius, can he?
The Florida Masochist - Palm Beach Post blindly follows NYT lead
RCP Blog - more data - all trends DOWN
The Anchoress - mine disasters and cave-ins never happened before Bush.
Ace of Spades HQ - NYT seizes opportunistically on a tragedy
VariFrank - the ol' game of j'accuse
The Kirk
Weapons of Mass Discussion - New York Times readers are left with...nothing.
The Right Politics - no wonder the NYT's stock has plunged.
You Big Mouth You - does the analysis that the NYT should have done.
Betsy's Page - research was, apparently, beyond the grasp of the NYT editorial page.
John Hawkins at Right Wing News quotes Sister Toldjah: Shame, shame on the New York TimesTAGS:
New York Times,
anti-Bush bias,
coal mine safety,
Sago,
BDR,
Bush Derangement Syndrome
Texas just won the Rose Bowl, 41-38 over the hated USC Trojans. Well, I hate'em, anyway.
It was a very close game both statistically and, obviously, scoring-wise. First downs - 30 each. Total yards - 557 to 560. Surprise here - Texas outrushed USC by 290-206. USC outpassed Texas by 267-354 but the Texas quarterback was 30 of 40, an astounding 75% completion rate. However, he only outdid Matt Leinert by a bit as Leinert was 29 of 40 for 72.5%. Fumbles lost - 1 each. Punts - 2 each. Penalties - 4 to 5. Penalty yards lost - 34 to 30.
Another surprise, one even might call a strange statistic for a winning team; Texas was only 3 of 11 in 3rd down conversions. I almost think that must be an error. I'll check it later. USC's Leinert was intercepted once and sacked twice while Texas's Vince Young escaped unscathed by interceptions or sacks. Try this one; Texas's Young, while completing 75% of his passes, also rushed 20 times for 200 yards and 3 touchdowns plus a 2 point conversion. That means he threw 40 passes and carried the ball 20 times or was primary in 60 of Texas's 76 plays plus scoring 20 of Texas's 41 points. Unbelievable stats. USC's vaunted Reggie Bush only carried the ball 13 times for 80 yards but even that is a 6.2 yards per carry average, which ain't too shabby.
If you look at just the offensive stats, you wonder that the score wasn't 61-58. The game wasn't televised down here so I've been following it on Yahoo. All in all, a very fitting championship game between the two unbeaten and top ranked teams in the nation. Coupled with last night's triple overtime thriller between Penn State and Florida State, the 2005-2006 college football season ended with a real bang.
YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Go Notre Dame - next year.TAGS:
University of Texas,
Rose Bowl,
National Champions
Over at Americablog - wait - that's AMERICAblog, they're crowing about a list of Abramoff political donations with not a DIME to Democrats.
Hmm. Over at Free Republic, MNJohnnie has a list of Abramoff donations compiled from FEC records and not a DIME to Republicans. Next time you hear someone say that this is a bipartisan scandal, whip out this list and laugh. Heh.
List of Democrats who have taken Abramoff money 1/4/06 - Posted on 01/04/2006 9:56:07 AM PST by MNJohnnie
Abramoff Lobbying & Political Contributions to Democrats, per FEC Records
* Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) Received At Least – $22,500
* Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) Received At Least – $6,500
* Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE) Received At Least – $1,250
* Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) Received At Least – $2,000
* Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) Received At Least – $20,250
* Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) Received At Least – $21,765
* Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) Received At Least – $7,500
* Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) Received At Least – $12,950
* Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) Received At Least – $8,000
* Senator Jon Corzine (D-NJ) Received At Least – $7,500
* Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) Received At Least – $14,792
* Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) Received At Least – $79,300
* Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) Received At Least – $14,000
* Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) Received At Least – $2,000
* Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) Received At Least – $1,250
* Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) Received At Least – $45,750
* Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI) Received At Least – $9,000
* Senator Jim Jeffords (I-VT) Received At Least – $2,000
* Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) Received At Least – $14,250
* Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) Received At Least – $3,300
* Senator John Kerry (D-MA) Received At Least – $98,550
* Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) Received At Least – $28,000
* Senator Pat Leahy (D-VT) Received At Least – $4,000
* Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) Received At Least – $6,000
* Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) Received At Least – $29,830
* Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) Received At Least – $14,891
* Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) Received At Least – $10,550
* Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) Received At Least – $78,991
* Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) Received At Least – $20,168
* Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) Received At Least – $5,200
* Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) Received At Least – $7,500
* Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR) Received At Least – $2,300
* Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) Received At Least – $3,500
* Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) Received At Least – $68,941
* Senator John Rockefeller (D-WV) Received At Least – $4,000
* Senator Ken Salazar (D-CO) Received At Least – $4,500
* Senator Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) Received At Least – $4,300
* Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) Received At Least – $29,550
* Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) Received At Least – $6,250
* Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) Received At Least – $6,250
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte $423,480
Democratic Congressional Campaign Cmte $354,700
Democratic National Cmte $65,720
Patrick J. Kennedy (D-RI) $42,500
Patty Murray (D-Wash) $40,980
Charles B. Rangel (D-NY) $36,000
Harry Reid (D-Nev) $30,500
Byron L. Dorgan (D-ND) $28,000
Tom Daschle (D-SD) $26,500
Brad R. Carson (D-Okla) $20,600
Dale E. Kildee (D-Mich) $19,000
Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md) $17,500
Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) $15,500
Chris John (D-La) $15,000
John Breaux (D-La) $13,750
Frank Pallone, Jr (D-NJ) $13,600
Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo) $12,000
Mary L. Landrieu (D-La) $11,500
Barney Frank (D-Mass) $11,100
Max Baucus (D-Mont) $11,000
Maria Cantwell (D-Wash) $10,000
Nick Rahall (D-WVa) $10,000
Ron Kind (D-Wis) $9,000
Peter Deutsch (D-Fla) $8,500
Joe Baca (D-Calif) $8,000
Dick Durbin (D-Ill) $8,000
Xavier Becerra (D-Calif) $7,523
Tim Johnson (D-SD) $7,250
Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) $6,000
David E. Bonior (D-Mich) $5,000
Jon S. Corzine (D-NJ) $5,000
Fritz Hollings (D-SC) $5,000
Jay Inslee (D-Wash) $5,000
Thomas P. Keefe Jr. (D-Wash) $5,000
Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md) $5,000
Deborah Ann Stabenow (D-Mich) $5,000
Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) $4,500
Tom Carper (D-Del) $4,000
Kent Conrad (D-ND) $4,000
Jerry Kleczka (D-Wis) $4,000
Sander Levin (D-Mich) $4,000
Robert T. Matsui (D-Calif) $4,000
George Miller (D-Calif) $4,000
Kalyn Cherie Free (D-Okla) $3,500
James L. Oberstar (D-Minn) $3,500
Charles J. Melancon (D-La) $3,100
Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) $3,000
Cal Dooley (D-Calif) $3,000
John B. Larson (D-Conn) $3,000
David R. Obey (D-Wis) $3,000
Ed Pastor (D-Ariz) $3,000
Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) $3,000
Richard M. Romero (D-NM) $3,000
Brad Sherman (D-Calif) $3,000
Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss) $3,000
Max Cleland (D-Ga) $2,500
Grace Napolitano (D-Calif) $2,500
Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif) $2,500
Bill Luther (D-Minn) $2,250
Gene Taylor (D-Miss) $2,250
Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) $2,000
Ken Bentsen (D-Texas) $2,000
Dan Boren (D-Okla) $2,000
Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn) $2,000
John D. Dingell (D-Mich) $2,000
Doug Dodd (D-Okla) $2,000
Ned Doucet (D-La) $2,000
Lane Evans (D-Ill) $2,000
Sam Farr (D-Calif) $2,000
John Neely Kennedy (D-La) $2,000
Carl Levin (D-Mich) $2,000
Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark) $2,000
Nita M. Lowey (D-NY) $2,000
Robert Menendez (D-NJ) $2,000
Adam Schiff (D-Calif) $2,000
Ronnie Shows (D-Miss) $2,000
Adam Smith (D-Wash) $2,000
Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif) $2,000
Mike Thompson (D-Calif) $2,000
Maxine Waters (D-Calif) $2,000
Peter DeFazio (D-Ore) $1,500
Norm Dicks (D-Wash) $1,500
John Kerry (D-Mass) $1,400
Barbara Boxer (D-Calif) $1,000
Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif) $1,000
Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) $1,000
Jim Costa (D-Calif) $1,000
Susan A. Davis (D-Calif) $1,000
Eliot L. Engel (D-NY) $1,000
Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif) $1,000
Tim Holden (D-Pa) $1,000
Patrick Leahy (D-Vt) $1,000
Joe Lieberman (D-Conn) $1,000
Jim Maloney (D-Conn) $1,000
David Phelps (D-Ill) $1,000
Charles S. Robb (D-Va) $1,000
Brian David Schweitzer (D-Mont) $1,000
Pete Stark (D-Calif) $1,000
Gloria Tristani (D-NM) $1,000
Derrick B. Watchman (D-Ariz) $1,000
Rick Weiland (D-SD) $1,000
Paul Wellstone (D-Minn) $1,000
Ron Wyden (D-Ore) $1,000
Bob Borski (D-Pa) $720
Shelley Berkley (D-Nev) $500
Howard L. Berman (D-Calif) $500
Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) $500
Democratic Party of Washington $500
Barbara Lee (D-Calif) $500
Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif) $500
Democratic Party of Montana $5,000
Democratic Party of New Mexico $6,250
Democratic Party of South Dakota $9,500
Democratic Party of Minnesota $9,000
Democratic Party of North Dakota $10,000
Democratic Party of Oklahoma $15,000
Democratic Party of Michigan $23,000
Mark in Mexico (R-Oax) $.09
Grand Total $1,541,682TAGS:
Jack Abramoff,
Democratic Party,
bipartisan corruption
An artist visited an abandoned mine to do some arty things. He wrapped a chain around his ankels and locked it with a padlock. He then proceeded to draw a pair of feet and ankles with a padlocked chain wrapped around them. To each his own, I guess.
Then he realized he had forgotten the key to the padlock. He had to hop for 12 hours through the desert to find a gas station where police and paramedics could be called. And the drawing? San Bernardino County Sheriff's Deputy Ryan Ford said, He brought it down with him. It was a pretty good depiction of how a chain would look wrapped around your legs.
TAGS:
artist,
moron
Tom and Ray Magliozzi are two experts on cars, especially used cars. I used to listen to them on PBS radio - Car Talk - all the time. I wasn't that interested in cars but they are a hoot to hear. They are from way downtown Boston and have a great time helping people with car maintenance problems. This is an honest to goodness letter they received which was reprinted in the Detroit News. Dear Tom and Ray:
I am writing you at my dad's request. Recently, my boyfriend offered to change the oil in my car for me. I have a 1992 Olds 88 in very good condition (180,000 miles).
Up until now, my dad has maintained it. My boyfriend charged me $45 for parts and nothing for the work.
He said most of the cost was to refill the fluid levels in the headlights.
I'll repeat that if you didn't quite catch it the first time. He said most of the cost was to refill the fluid levels in the headlights.
When I informed my dad of this, he called me an idiot and told me not to see this boy ever again.
When I asked why, he said to write to you guys.
I don't understand. My boyfriend said he used the "halogen" type fluid, which is supposed to be better than the standard type. What did I do wrong?
Melissa
Click on the Detroit News link to read their answer to poor Melissa.TAGS:
Tom and Ray Magliozzi,
Car Talk
Lynn's in. Lynn Swann, former Pittsburgh Steeler great and NFL Hall of Famer, is diving into politics. He has announced his run for the Pennsylvania's governor's mansion. I say Lynn's in like Flynn.TAGS:
Lynn Swann,
Pennsylvania,
Pittsburgh Steelers
That would be the AC 130 Specter Gunship. Its crew spots a team of Iraqis preparing to set up a roadside bomb - IED - to catch an American troop patrol which would be passing in a short while. The bombers were spectacularly unsuccessful. Turn up your volume to listen to the conversation among the Specter crew as well as with ground control. Caution: What happens to the erstwhile bombers is not too nice.
Via Free RepublicTAGS:
AC 130 Specter Gunship,
IED,
Iraq
James Joyner writes about The Triumph of 'Angry and Stupid' and quotes Max Sawicky saying, You may be able to shout, but if what you have to say is crap, the volume isn’t much of an asset. Being angry and stupid isn’t good enough.
Really? Now I'm going to have to rethink my whole approach to this blogging business. I thought angry and stupid was working pretty well for me.TAGS:
James Joyner,
Max Sawicky,
blogs,
blogging,
bloggers,
politics
Evo Morales, newly elected president of Bolivia (that's in South America), the latest installment of ignorant, uneducated and backward Latin heads-of-state, would have visited Washington had he been invited. Or so says his spokesman. His reaction? Does he call President Bush to find out why he wasn't invited? Does he summon US ambassador David Greenlee to angrily demand an invitation? No, because he already knew why he wasn't invited. During his campaign, Morales said things like this: For the US the war on drugs is an excuse to better control other countries. In Latin America it is narco-terrorism. In Iraq, preventative wars and weapons of mass destruction. And what do they really want? To control the oil.
And this: . . . the fight against drug trafficking has been a pretext for the U.S. government to install military bases ... and these policies will be revised.
Well, which is it, Evo? Oil or military bases? Do we even have a military base in Bolivia? If so, where? He continued: Causachun coca, wanuchun Yanquis! - Long live coca, death to the Yankees.
And, finally, this: I'll be a nightmare for US.
Of course, he has good reason to be angry at us. We've never done anything for Bolivia, right?Between the start of the 1952 revolution and Morales' internal migration in the 1980s, nine tenths of the money Bolivia received from abroad were grants and soft credits from the U.S.. By 1957, the United States was subsidizing 30 percent of the government's budget.
Anyway, as soon as his election was finalized, Evo whipped it now to Havana to meet Fidel, another highly successful Latin leader. He visits Fidel Castro immediately after his election as president of Bolivia (that's in South America), where he said that the US was practising terrorism in Iraq and had run a dirty campaign against him. Evo is also a bit of a dreamer: I never had good relations with the United States, but rather with the American people.
Huh? Ask your everyday ordinary man-on-the-street who Evo Morales is and I doubt that one in ten thousand will know. Probably only one in a thousand even know where Bolivia is (it's in South America). And probably 99,000 out of 100,000 could not possibly care any less about Evo and/or Bolivia and would wonder why you are wasting their time asking stupid questions.
Now, Evo campaigned on a promise to legalize the growing of coca, from whence cocaine is derived. Cooler heads have prevailed and he is already backing out of that promise. Coca is grown legally in a supposedly controlled area of Bolivia (that's in South America) because the indians have chewed it for its mellow "high" for thousands of years. When the past president legalized this "controlled" legal growing area, the coca farmers quickly doubled their authorized output and illegal cocaine production ballooned by 35% just last year. Evo will, of course, put a stop to this illegal activity.
How will he do that? With strong language like this: He declared that . . . zero cocaine and zero drug trafficking, but not zero coca or zero cocaleros.
I feel better already, don't chew?
Then, it was off to Caracas to visit the pig Chavez, where Evo whipped this on the world: This movement is not only in Bolivia; Fidel in Cuba and Hugo in Venezuela are logging triumphs in social movements and leftist policies.
To which Chavez added, The axis of evil - do you know who the axis of evil is? Washington - that's the axis of evil. And their allies in the world, who threaten, who invade, who kill, who assassinate.
Jeez. I just can't understand why he isn't being welcomed in Washington with open arms.
Yawn. They'll all go down eventually. One must feel some sympathy for their people, however. The Bolivians nationalized the tin mines, then successive governments ran them into the ground and the industry collapsed. Mexico nationalized its oil industry and is still running it into the ground. There is a major wildlife and human killing pipeline rupture about once a month in Mexico due to poor-to-non-existant maintenance or infrastructure investment and Pemex is one of the most indebted companies in the world. Now Evo wants to do the same to the Bolivian natural gas industry. How do you think that will go?
Mexico, Bolivia and about every Central and South American country, through a long series of revolutions, civil wars, assasinations, tin pot dictators, etc. have taken land away from the owners and given it to the campesinos (peasant farmers). Here is how they do it. You can have the land, free of charge, they say, but you cannot sell it, transfer it to anyone other than your children or use it for anything other than farming. So, what happens? They give a campesino a nice plot of rock of, say, 10 acres or so. In 20 years he has two sons and 2 daughters. The daughters get nothing and the sons split the land between them. Now each son has 5 acres with which to feed his family. Hmm. Not so easy. Then, each son has two sons and the land is divided again. Now, the original campesino's grandsons have 2.5 acres each to support their families. It very quickly becomes impossible to feed the great-grandchildren, so everybody pulls up stakes and heads for Gringolandia.
Has the United States, or, more specifically, US business interests taken advantage of the incompetent leadership of these countries? Of course. You play the game by the local rules. If you don't, you don't do business with that particular banana/narco republic. Have the people of those banana/narco republics suffered? Of course they have. Is that our responsibility? No. The United States is the only government that I know of which holds it illegal to bribe a foreign official. That makes it very difficult to compete against the the French, Germans, Russians and Chinese who bribe away with abandon. So, our companies do it illegally. They have to or they would have no business.
I know of no cases, at least in this century, where an American businessman sat down across from a Latin American dictator or politician or whatever and unilaterally signed a deal that became the law of that land. There was always a signature from the other side of the table, greased by money. That's the way it was done and is being done today, as we speak, so to speak. We have no reason to feel guily about anything. They do, however. They've done this to themselves, or, in the cases of the innocent campesinos, have allowed it to be done to themselves.TAGS:
Evo Morales,
Bolivia,
Latin America,
corruption,
banana/narco republics,
Fidel Castro,
Hugo Chavez
Mark Steyn says that if you are European, not much except some old buildings. Sheesh! What a opus has Steyn written here. I could probably write something just as good as this, but it would take me a year and I'd be exhausted at the end. Steyn pumps these out on a regular basis. How does he do it? How does he write something that predicts the decline and fall of the West and not walk away totally discouraged at our prospects for survival? If I could indeed write something like this it would probably be the last thing I wrote before moving into a hut in Montana someplace to await the apocolypse.
Steyn offers a lot of numbers to support his position, like, for instance, birthrates. At 2.1 babies per woman to sustain a population, the numbers don't look good for the West. The global fertility leader, Somalia, is 6.91, Niger 6.83, Afghanistan 6.78, Yemen 6.75. Notice what those nations have in common? (Islam, and radical Islam at that.)
Scroll way down to the bottom of the Hot One Hundred top breeders and you'll eventually find the United States, hovering just at replacement rate with 2.07 births per woman. Ireland is 1.87, New Zealand 1.79, Australia 1.76. But Canada's fertility rate is down to 1.5, well below replacement rate; Germany and Austria are at 1.3, the brink of the death spiral; Russia and Italy are at 1.2; Spain 1.1, about half replacement rate. That's to say, Spain's population is halving every generation. By 2050, Italy's population will have fallen by 22%, Bulgaria's by 36%, Estonia's by 52%. In America, demographic trends suggest that the blue states ought to apply for honorary membership of the EU: In the 2004 election, John Kerry won the 16 with the lowest birthrates; George W. Bush took 25 of the 26 states with the highest. By 2050, there will be 100 million fewer Europeans, 100 million more Americans--and mostly red-state Americans.
What Steyn is predicting, or rather, what he allows the numbers to predict, is the death of "The West", as we have known it, by 2020 or thereabouts. It is difficult to argue with his numbers. As they say, numbers never lie. Statisticians, those who interpret the numbers, however, have been known to drown while wading across rivers that averaged 3 feet in depth. I cannot argue with Mr. Steyn's numbers nor his analysis of those numbers. They are truly discouraging.
He notes that 60% of the Muslims in Britain favor Shariah law, now. What happens when the Muslim population exceeds 50% of Britain's people? It's a democracy, right? Hello Shariah law and goodby women's rights. The only way that the Europeans, Canadians and many others can sustain a viable population is through immigration. And from where will the immigtrants come and what will be their religious philosophy? It's scary.
What Steyn has said here, in so many words, is that, by the year 2020, or therabouts, "The West" will be The United States and Australia. That's it. We'll be alone and facing a ring of nuclear-armed suicide-worshiping Muslim Mullahs bent on the destruction of English law, freedom of religion and the market driven economy that has made us what we are. And the Chinese will side with them to assure our destruction. The Chinese will be left to fight them alone, but that will be OK with Beijing. Losing a few hundred million of their citizens to assure world-wide supremacy won't bother the comrades a bit.
I'm not sure that this is a fight that we can win.
Tiger Hawk is looking at the numbers, too.
Jeff Goldstein applies Steyn's predictions to a practical matter.
Francis Porretto says, "Be afraid. Be very afraid."
Below the Beltway says, "Ignoring it is not an option."
Lavere Personal New Letters copies the entire thing.
See these related posts:
SpiritBlog, Brent's Spot, Hard Right, Mind of Mog, GavPOLITICS, IsraPundit, TAGS:
Mark Steyn,
Islam,
suicide,
The West
In Do the Poor Deserve Life Support? Steven E. Landsburg takes on the bleeding hearts at Kos. Money quotes: Bloggers, most prominently "YucatanMan" at Daily Kos, are appalled because "economic considerations," as opposed to what the bloggers call "compassion," drove the decision to unplug Ms. Habtegiris (a terminally ill cancer patient, dying on life support, whose family had run out of money to keep her alive a little while longer). I conclude that YucatanMan either doesn't understand what an economic consideration is or doesn't understand what compassion is, because in fact the two are not in conflict.
And Here, for the edification of bloggers everywhere, is an example of an economic consideration: If you ask people—and especially poor people—what their most dire needs are, you'll find that "guaranteed ventilator support" ranks pretty low on the list.
And At that point, there's a powerful human instinct to come to the rescue. Well, more precisely, there's a powerful human instinct to demand that someone else come to the rescue. (I'm guessing that in the wake of the Habtegiris case, nobody at the Daily Kos has taken to funding ventilator insurance for the poor.)
And finally Accounting for "economic considerations" means - by definition - trying to give people what they'll value the most. In other words, economic considerations are the basis of true compassion.
Well spoken, Mr. Landsburg, although I must admit that I had to think about this a bit. Read the whole thing to understand his reasoning. It's common sense to the max.TAGS:
compassion,
economic considerations
Mexican immigrants in Chicago felt right at home when a bank employee was charged by the FBI with embezzeling $360,000 from their accounts. Estela Ramos would befriend the immigrants, many of whom spoke little or no English, and induce them to buy Certificates of Deposits from the bank. She would then skim off what will turn out to be millions of dollars. Hey, that's just like they do it everyday in old Mexico.
The big difference here is that she is going to prison and the bank is reimbursing all losses. This would never, and I mean NEVER happen in Mexico. In fact, U.S. Bank of Highwood, headquartered in Cincinnati, OH, fired her on November 11 and has already reimbursed some $1.4 million. This is in spite of the fact that the FBI has charged her with stealing much less. And the losses are continuing to mount as more people come forward looking for their money.
Ramos issued a written statement admitting her perfidy: " ... I misappropriated funds from customers' accounts to help out in my community," she said in a written statement quoted in the lawsuit. "I know that everything I did was wrong but I did not know any other way of helping people."
Uh-huh. She . . . opened a women's clothing store named for herself across the street from the bank and co-founded a Lake County Latino advocacy group. She was known for throwing parties often open to the community to celebrate Mexican Independence Day, the Day of the Dead or her birthday.
This type of corruption is an everyday occurrence in Mexico. Often, when a small timer like Ramos is involved, the perp will be caught and sent to jail but the money is gone forever. If, or rather when the corruption goes high up among the political elite, no one goes to jail and the money is never reimbursed, also too.
Now, there is this story about the Mexican Braceros who are beginning to get some money back that has been owed them by the Mexican government for 50 years or so. That is, the Braceros who are still alive. The Braceros were temporary migrant workers brought into the US during WWII to help handle the labor shortages brought on by all our able bodied men in uniform. The feds (ours) insisted that a portion of the Braceros' wages be withheld for social security. The feds (their's) thought that was a wonderful idea and started licking their chops. Since the Braceros were to be repatriated after the war, that money (10% of their total earnings) was entrusted to the Mexican government to be administered. Har, har, har. It disappeared, like, POOF! In fact, the Mexican government failed to even inform the Braceros that any such money had been withheld.
When this came out just a few years ago, the remaining Braceros, some born before 1930, went to the government (their's) demanding their money. The government said, "Money? We don't has to gib you no stinkink money." The Mexican government at first claimed ignorance of any such arrangement, then, after some rude reminders from the government (ours), said that a careful search had found no record of any money ever transferred from the US to Mexico. "Go see the Gringos and get your stinkink money," said the Fox government. Someone in the government (ours) must have sighed deeply and than sent on to Mexico City a record of every transfer of every dollar for every Bracero with dates, times, amounts and who signed for the money on the Mexican side. We tend not to misplace documents regarding international treaties involving millions of 1945 dollars.
Additionally, the government (their's) now estimates 5,000 Braceros went to the United States to work under the agreement, which formally ended only in 1964. The government (ours) says it was 5,000,000. A slight difference of only 100,000 percent (%). However, if the government (their's) can't seem to find any records, they have little argument with the 5 million number.
Ordinarily, that would have been the end of it for the Braceros. Tough luck, muchachos. But, because the United States had negotiated this agreement on behalf of the Braceros, gone to the trouble to collect the money and then the time and expense to carefully transfer every stinkink penny to the Mexican government, and this was an international agreement signed by the Mexican Commisioners E. Hidalgo, acting as representative of the Foreign Office and Abraham J. Navas, acting as representative of the Department of Labor and Social Provision and American Commissioners John O. Walker, Assistant Administrator Farm Security Administration (U.S. Department of Agriculture) and David Meeker, Assistant Director Office of Agricultural War Relations (U. S. Department of Agriculture), the government (ours) insisted that action be taken. To avoid any more embarrassment, the Fox government agreed to pay.
And so they are - more or less.TAGS:
Braceros,
Mexico corruption
So says SondraK.com. The "Mexican American news service" of which poster "Moonbatologist Claire" speaks is "La Voz de Aztlan" in Los Angeles. Here are this "news service's" stories as of 9:00 AM today:
Item 1: Donate to our cause.
Item 2: Subscribe - unsubscribe - free email news bulletins
Item 3: Contact La Voz de Aztlan
Item 4: Link to "Mexico en Sintesis" (an anti-American "service for foreign Mexican communities") newspaper, or whatever, from Mexico City.
Item 5: In an undated story, calls Chris Simcox, head of the Minutemen border patrol, "a pedophile" and "vile bigot".
Item 6: In a story dated 24 Dec, says "Brown Berets pass out hundreds of Christmas gifts". In this story, the writer says that a group of immigrants are about to lose their homes because they must be moved away from a Corps of Engineers project. The immigrants live in the "Riverside Mobile Home Park". Note to La Voz: "mobile home" means that they are moveable. So the people move'em, not lose'em.
You get the idea. Not a whole lot of news but a lot of anti-American, anti-police, anti-Border Patrol, anti-government and anti-white rhetoric. But the ire of La Voz de Aztlan is most frequently directed at the Jooz. To wit;
La Voz labels as "Brilliant Proposal" President of Iran wants Israel moved to EuropePresident Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has softened his position somewhat concerning what should be done with the illegitimate Zionist State of Israel. Instead of "wiping it of the map" he is suggesting now that it be moved to Europe. This is a brilliant idea that could finally bring peace to the Middle East and spare the world "The War of Armageddon".
It is very difficult to quarrel with such logic. Perhaps it is time for the world to seriously consider President Ahmadinejad's intelligent proposal. Move Israel to Europe!
Hey, this gives me an idea. Move all the Mexicans back to Mexico!
Riots loom over imminent eviction of "campesinos" from Los Angeles farm collective
This effective project which has provided economic self-sufficiency for marginalized people of color is today threaten (sic) by a greedy Jewish Mogul from the super-rich LA. community of Brentwood.
These comments are no different than those made by the Jewish Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy of France that added fuel to the fire there.
The Los Angeles city government and its city council today, as is the Los Angeles School Board, take orders from extremely wealthy Jews that reside in the west side of the city.
The French Muslim Rebellion of 2005 Can a similar insurrection occur in the USA?
Sarkozy is an Islamophobe and the son of a Hungarian immigrant, who had airs of being an aristocrat, and of a Jewsih (sic - Spellcheck is my friend, Spellcheck is my friend, . . .) mother.
The rebellion that is occurring in France can and will most probably happen here. If it does, it will have grave consequences on the social, political and economic structures of the country and it could possibly topple a government already weakened by the Iraq War and corruption within its ranks.
World Leader Calls for the Eradication of Israel What is it about the Jews and Israel that causes such animosity? To answer that question one must go back into history. A good starting point is to read "The New Testament" of the Holy Bible and what Jesus Christ himself said about the Pharisee Jews and those who crucified him. Also very revealing, is to study the reasons why over 108 countries have found it necessary to expel the Jews since the year 250 A.D.
It (Israel) is a base for International Zionists and it serves as a refuge for a powerful international class of criminals.
Again, you get the idea. What means "La Voz de Aztlan"? It means "The Voice of Aztlan". And what is Aztlan? Well, that's a little tougher. See if you can follow this humorous logic. These people (Mexicans) believe that all of North America belongs to them. They believe that all of the Native Americans - sometimes referred to in the USA, even by themselves, as Indians or American Indians - are all related to the Aztecs, Mayans, Incans and all the hundreds, if not thousands, of other indigenous peoples of the Americas. They are all brothers, as it were.
And the land that these brothers occupied is the magical and mythic land of Aztlan. And we took it away from them. Now, it's not exactly as simple as I make it sound. The Mexican Mexicans don't truck with this brother business. They want back what Mexico lost to us in the Mexican War and the earlier Texas insurrection, plus California. That would be Texas, California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming.
The Mexican Americans who believe in this Aztlan business are the ones who dreamed up this brotherhood blood-tie to all North American Indians. They do this in order to try to recruit more members to their anti-white crusade. I sincerely doubt that the Northern Cheyenne or the Sioux nations spend much time worrying about their contributions to the Brown Berets or whether Mexico should recover Six Flags Over Texas and the Astrodome. Nor do I think the followers of Aztlan in Mexico City really think too much about Deadwood being returned to the Sioux or Miami Beach to the Seminoles.
This Aztlan farce has been going on for many years and is really nothing more than a minor pain-in-the-ass for civil authorities, mainly in Los Angeles. The ever present claim that all would be peace and harmony if the white man would only just leave conveniently fails to mention the many millennia of bloodshed between warring indigenous groups over the length and breadth of North, Central and South America.
Did the Sioux get along well with the Blackfoot? Uh, no. How did the Mohican and Huron view each other? With abject hatred. Did anyone get along with the Crow, at all? No, they made war on everyone. Why did the Aztecs move from place to place for centuries before finally settling down by the lake at Tenochtitlan (Mexico City)? Because when their new neighbors discovered their penchant for human sacrifice and eating still beating hearts torn out of someone's chest, they were invited to leave, forcefully.
Hernan Cortes attacked Tenochtitlan in 1521 with the largest army ever assembled in history up to that time, 300,000 fighters. How many white men were in that army? About 300, 600 or 800, depending on which source you read. The rest were mainly Tlaxcaltecans (from Tlaxcala) as well as a number of other Mexican Indian nations, tribes, kingdoms and villages that all hated the powerful Aztecs. By the way, Montezuma (or, more accurately, Moctezuma) was long dead, having been killed with a rock thrown by his own people in an anti-Spanish riot. The Aztec king who led the unsuccessful 3 month defense of Tenochtitlan was Cuauhtemoc, the last Aztec king.
The point to all of this is that La Voz de Aztlan is not a "Mexican American news service". It is a bitterly racist anti-white and anti-Semitic sounding board for racist diatribes against, well, almost everybody with white skin but particularly so if they be American, Jewish or Israeli. And Moonbatologist Claire at SondraK.com should know better.TAGS:
La Voz de Aztlan,
Tenochtitlan,
Aztec,
Cuauhtemoc,
racism
Evo Morales, the newly elected president of Bolivia (that's in South America) will start a world tour. Evo, who plans to legalize the growing of coca plants in Bolivia (that's in South America) because the Bolivian indians (they live in South America) have been chewing coca leaves for thousands of years, or whatever. The narcotraficantes are celebrating, I would presume.
Evo, who already visited the failure Castro, will whip it now to Venezuela to visit the big mouth Chavez, Spain to visit the coward Zapatero, Belgium to visit the loser Chirac and officials of the doddering EU, then he'll whip it on to AIDS, poverty, corruption and violence riven South Africa (that's the government propping up Robert Mugabe) then on to that beacon of free and democratic ideals - China - before ending his tour with the now breathtakingly unpopular socialist Lula in Amazon-raping indian-murdering campesino-enslaving Brazil.
No mention of the Bolivian's (that means "of Bolivia" - which is in South America) plans to visit The United States, world's most powerful economic and military force. I think he doesn't want to come here. We're just too scary and have nothing to offer him but, well, money. Bolivia (did I mention that it's in South America?) apparently doesn't need money. The Incan descendents plan to live on socialist slogans.TAGS:
Bolivia,
South America,
Evo Morales,
losers
Vlad "The Impaler" Putin decided to quadruple the price that the pro-Western government of Ukraine was paying for Russian natural gas. The Ukrainians, naturally, squawked. So, to enforce his edict, The Impaler reduced the gas that Ukraine's 50 million inhabitants were receiving, right in the middle of winter. Vlad did this by reducing the flow of natural gas through Russia's huge pipeline to Ukraine by 120 million cubic meters per day.
Just one little problem. That pipeline doesn't exactly go to Ukraine. It goes through Ukraine. It goes through Ukraine; to Austria, Italy, France, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, all members of the European Union (EU), as well as Romania and Croatia. The Ukrainians, not wishing to freeze their asses off for the rest of the winter, simply took the gas they needed from the pipeline. This reduced the flow of natural gas to the aforementioned countries by some 40%. Their collective reaction?
SQUAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWK!!!!!
The Impaler had to back down when the mighty EU stepped in to protect its member nations. Vlad "The Impaler" Putin will be known in the future as Vlad "The Self-Impaled". Perhaps he realizes now that only The United States possesses the economic and military power to tell the EU to go fly one. Vladdy does not.
This would be like Mexico declaring a moratorium on tortillas to The United States. Mexico would continue to ship tortillas to its immigrants in socialist Canada, using the US transportation system. How long before the folks in East Los Angeles began stopping the truckloads of tortillas and taking what they wanted? About 10 minutes, I'd estimate.TAGS:
Ukraine,
Russia,
natural gas,
European Union,
Vladimir Putin,
Vlad "The Impaler" Putin
So states the sign-off on e-mails from Staff Sgt Jim Gilliland, leader of Shadow sniper team, Ramadi, Iraq. Gazing through the telescopic sight of his M24 rifle, Staff Sgt Jim Gilliland, leader of Shadow sniper team, fixed his eye on the Iraqi insurgent who had just killed an American soldier.
His quarry stood nonchalantly in the fourth-floor bay window of a hospital in battle-torn Ramadi, still clasping a long-barrelled Kalashnikov. Instinctively allowing for wind speed and bullet drop, Shadow's commander aimed 12 feet high.
A single shot hit the Iraqi in the chest and killed him instantly. It had been fired from a range of 1,250 metres, well beyond the capacity of the powerful Leupold sight, accurate to 1,000 metres.
"I believe it is the longest confirmed kill in Iraq with a 7.62mm rifle," said Staff Sgt Gilliland, 28, who hunted squirrels in Double Springs, Alabama from the age of five before progressing to deer - and then people.
"He was visible only from the waist up. It was a one in a million shot. I could probably shoot a whole box of ammunition and never hit him again."
Later that day, Staff Sgt Gilliland found out that the dead soldier was Staff Sgt Jason Benford, 30, a good friend.
1,250 meters, 1,375 yards, .78 miles. That's a hell of a shot. Like he said, one in a million. Staff Sgt Gilliland estimates he has killed between 55 and 65 in less than 5 months in Ramadi. His team has about 200 kills. Their targets are individuals or, more often, groups of terrorists planting IED's - the roadside and marketplace bombs that have killed some 20,000 Iraqis and some 2000 coalition fighters. This duty carries some baggage. Lt Col Robert Roggeman, the Task Force 2/69 commander: "It's a very God-like role. They have the power of life and death that, if not held in check, can run out of control. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
"Every shot has to be measured against the Rules of Engagement [ROE], positive identification and proportionality."
Staff Sgt Gilliland: "If you have no respect for what you do you're not going to be very good or you're going to make a mistake. We try to give the benefit of the doubt.
"You've got to live with it. It's on your conscience. It's something you've got to carry away with you. And if you shoot somebody just walking down the street, then that's probably going to haunt you."
And "one shot - one kill"? That's more myth than reality. Although killing with a single shot carries an enormous cachet within the sniper world, their most successful engagements have involved the shooting a up to 10 members of a single IED team.
"The one-shot-one-kill thing is one of beauty but killing all the bad dudes is even more attractive," said Staff Sgt Gilliland, whose motto is "Move fast, shoot straight and leave the rest to the counsellors in 10 years."
TAGS:
Shadow sniper team,
Ramadi,
Iraq
