What To Do With Your Old G.I. Joe Action Figures

Good stuff at Home on the Range today (Brigids' Place as I call it). Go read this now. Savor it. Enjoy it. Forget about the Jihad for a little bit. We'll still be here when you get finished. So will the Jihad, goddammit.

MSM doesn't want black community to know Obama did something demeaning

Power Line tells that the MSM has largely decided to go silent on the subject of Obama's bow to the Saudi king. Even the Wash. Post hasn't run a full story on it, and while Michael Fletcher, their White House correspondent, did run an online question about it, he still seemed to prefer avoiding the challenging answers about it.

I can guess why they'd rather avoid the subject - they don't want the black community to know that Obama, as a man of black descent, did something that's insulting and demeaning to the community. Challenging question then: does this not suggest that the MSM really does have contempt for racial minorities?

More U2

You should watch this in conjunction with Chrisitne's MLK post directly below

U2

Pride

U2 - Pride (In The Name Of Love)
Uploaded by huntylch

Fourty one years ago today

At 6:01 p.m. on April 4, 1968, a shot rang out. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who had been standing on the balcony of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN, now lay sprawled on the balcony's floor. A gaping wound covered a large portion of his jaw and neck. A great man who had spent thirteen years of his life dedicating himself to nonviolent protest had been felled by a sniper's bullet.

Via Metafilter.com

Life reveals the aftermath of the assassination Of Dr. Martin Luther King in photos never before revealed .

U2 - MLK (Rattle and Hum)

Sharia - Can It Happen Here?

From the Bookworm:

In an earlier post, I directed your attention to the incredibly disturbing footage of Pakistani village authorities brutally whipping a teenage girl before a throng of men, because she violated Sharia norms by being seen in public with her father in law.  The footage is disturbing on many levels, not the least of which is the fact that the whole spectacle has a pornographic smell to it, one that makes clear how much of Sharia law is driven by Muslims’ deep fear of female sexuality — but that’s a rumination for another day.

What I want to talk about is whether this could ever happen here.  Certainly Muslims want it to happen here.  Their oft stated goal is a Sharia-compliant world, with every nation having as its one and only law Sharia law.  Given this goal, and given the Islamists’ willingness to steal planes and acquire bombs and lust after anthrax, it’s more than just a hypothetical possibility.

But I don’t think we need to worry right now about Sharia appearing in the West courtesy of a mushroom shaped cloud or virulent bacteria.  The more immediate concern is the fact that, through political correctness, the Western world is already reading itself to deal with creeping sharia law.

Leading the way, as always, is England, which is allowing sharia courts, even though there is every indication that this will trap Muslim women in a British sharia hell; routinely banning pigs from public discourse (Oh Piglet, Piglet, wherefore art though Piglet?); slavishly redesigning innocuous packaging to avoid ruffling Muslim sensibilities (ice cream, anybody?); protecting men from being charged with dangerous traffic violations so they can speed from one wife to another; etc.  The list is endless.

In America, we periodically hear stories about accommodations for Muslims who don’t want to drive people carrying alcohol (as if it could leap out of the bottle spontaneously and attack the driver); about Muslims refusing to share public university prayer spaces; about Muslims demanding special foot baths at public universities (and weren’t those high tech “required” foot baths a popular item in the vast Saudi Arabian desert in the 7th Century); or about Muslim women insisting that their driver’s license show nothing more than their eyes, rather than conceding that, if they want to practice the extreme Islamic tradition of a hijab, maybe driving is not an option.

On the whole, we in America are a solicitous people and, with our pluralist religious history, we’re willing to make reasonable accommodations.  Generally, we like it that people are able to live religious lives — as long as they don’t impinge on our own lives.  What’s different about the Muslim demands is the impingement that goes with them — you may not drive in our publicly licensed taxis unless you change your behavior; you may not worship in this public space unless you worship our way; you must abandon the commonly accepted public safety feature of a photo ID card so our women can be anonymous; and so on and so forth.

Each of these Islamic incursions on the public space has resulted in a hoo-ha (otherwise we wouldn’t know about them), and most, when they become known, have been reversed.  The fact remains, however, that there cumulative effect from these sharia attacks on our culture that is akin to water dripping on rock.  One drop has no effect.  Two drops, no effect.  A thousand drops, no effect.  But you get enough drops and the shape of the rock — in this case, the shape of the American body social and politic — begins to change and to conform to the water’s ceaseless demands.

I have an Irish friend who firmly believes that America’s deep rooted sense of liberty cannot be so easily drip-dropped away, whether the drops fall from the Sharia cadre or from the statists in the Obama administration.  He believes that a deep, long-lived history focused on individualism and independence will rebel.  I wonder.

I’d like to think that, if I were that teenage girl about to get flogged, I’d fight and fight and fight.  I’d be hurt anyway, but at least I wouldn’t just yield to barbarity.  But even if I fought, even if I waved the flag of independence, and humanism, and freedom, would it matter if everyone stood around me and stared, as those men in the crowd watching the beating stand and stare.  I’d be willing to bet that, in that crowd, many were true believers, and many were men whose stomachs churned at the horror, but who said nothing, because they were trained to accept. Whatever their reason, they stood and they stared.

Read the whole thing.

You want music?

Try listening to Jimmie Hendrix’s Star Spangled Banner – not as an anthem of Woodstock, but for it’s avant-garde innovations in texture, timbre, and instrumental technique. Very cool.

Hope They're on OUR Side

Sorry, all. Having a hard time with serious today. And, you know, the whole male pig thing. So here's to embracing all things Infidel.

(how come I never see things like this at MY range?)

The End Of The Idea Of The Two-State Solution

If are not a Bible-believing Jew or Christian, don't bother reading this post. 

From Marcel, with thanks to Michael Travis:

the end of the idea of the two-state solution

The US led 2 state solution is not a road Map to peace but to the extermination of Israel.
The Arabs do not need another state or any land ,they have more than enough already.
The 'Palestinians' are used by the nations as the tool to wipe Israel off the map.
How can any bible believing,God fearing Christian be indifferent ,silent or against Israel at this late hour unless he has fallen away and become reprobate ?
Israel is God's plumbline in these last of the last days.

A terminal (fatal) error has been made by the nations.
In their insane pride they assume to make war against God and not be touched.
All the nations ,especially the US,UN,EU are guilty of the greatest attempted theft in the history of the world.
Stealing land from the Jewish people to appease the tribe of greedy pigs who have more than enough land and are too evil and intolerant to permit any other group to exist near them as they trample the whole earth to export their false religion and violence .
I stand ready to rejoice when God judges this evil Islam and it is no more.
AND I PRAY THAT IT IS SOON !
Only then will the Arabs live in peace with the Jews.
What the nations are ignorant of is the price they will all pay for this evil they have chosen to partake of.
What they do to Israel will come on them.

Mevasseret Adumim, the Harbinger of the Hills”.Tell the nations to go to hell and BUILD,BUILD,BUILD on the land God has given you.

Posted by marcel at 8:04 AM 

Friday, April 03, 2009

End Game Israel

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? 
The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, 
Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. 
He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. 
Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. 
Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.
I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. 
Psalm 2

This end game has become much more than Israel alone can bear as it is the whole world against Israel.
The nations have united to side with evil Islam against the thorn in Islam's side, Israel.
Little do the proud fools understand that they have been set up for God's wrath and destruction.
Psalm 83 also speaks of this doomed confederation against Israel.
God laughs at the puny humans and their 'big' plans against Him and Israel.
The showdown of cosmic proportions has begun.
A compliant and easily malleable Israeli leader is needed to bring about the plans of the evil western globalist leaders and that was who the sheep of Israel headed for slaughter gave them when they elected Olmert,Livni.
Netanyahu has been warned that he also must be soft and pliable to accomplish the last moves to set in place the dismanteling of Israel for the last global empire partnership of iron and clay to succeed.
There is only one thing in the way and it is not Hamas or Islam's global terrorism and jihad against Israel ,instead it is Israel. 
Israel has fallen into a big trap she is not able to extricate herself from and only the Holy One of Israel can and will save Israel.

Daniel the Jewish prophet revealed the final global kingdom on earth at the time Messiah returns to deliver Israel and crush all her enemies.

'You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. 
And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything; and like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others. 
Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. 
And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile. 
As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay. 
And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.' 
Daniel 2 

The New World Order Globalist assume that they are the iron but in reality they are the clay and Islam is the iron that breaks non moslems.
Democracy has proven to be weak and corrupted clay now on life support.
In their global chess game of the ages the US,UN,EU have chosen to throw away the'infidel' Jewish pawn,Israel for the Islamic kings to stand with them.
Israel is in the way ,a problem for their Satanic ONE WORLD plan I named Babel II.

The Holy One of Israel is in control and His fury is directed against all the nations as what they intend for Israel will come upon them.
Here is one of many wars that He personally will rain down on Israel's enemies in our day 
"You will come up against My people Israel like a cloud, to cover the land. It will be in the latter days that I will bring you against My land, so that the nations may know Me, when I am hallowed in you, O Gog, before their eyes." ........
And it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord GOD, that my fury shall come up in my face. 
For in My jealousy and in the fire of My wrath I have spoken: 'Surely in that day there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel, .......
And I will bring him to judgment with pestilence and bloodshed; I will rain down on him, on his troops, and on the many peoples who [are] with him, flooding rain, great hailstones, fire, and brimstone.

Thus I will magnify Myself and sanctify Myself, and I will be known in the eyes of many nations. Then they shall know that I am the LORD." 

Ezekiel 38

Posted by marcel at 8:17 AM

Obama's split personality - resembles Islam's dualism

When a Muslim commits an act of horrific terrorism, Muslims are quick to go in two directions at once;

1) they deny the perpetrator is a Muslim, because no Muslim would do such a horrible thing and 2) They exult that non-Muslims have been forced into submission and that Allah's will has been done. Obama's view on Islamic terrorism also reflects such a dualism. From HerRoyalWhyness:

Obama Scraps 'Global War on Terror' for 'Overseas Contingency Operation' Wednesday, March 25, 2009 In a memo sent this week from the Defense Department's office of security to Pentagon staffers, members were told, "this administration prefers to avoid using the term 'Long War' or 'Global War on Terror' [GWOT.] Please use 'Overseas Contingency Operation.'" vs. US Can’t Fight “Terror” Alone, Obama Tells Europe  [ Friday, 03 April 2009 ] United States President Barack Obama warned Europe on Friday that it should not expect the U.S. to carry the burden of fighting a campaign against global terrorism, stemming fromAfghanistan, alone,

How terror travels to India in a bus

The "red paint" of terrorism is getting darker by the day in India.

Vicky Nanjappa in Bengaluru | April 02, 2009 15:07 IST

The arrest of Rashid Malabari[Additional: D-Company coaxed Malabari to kill Varun]may have opened a can of worms. But what is more startling is how this man managed to slip into India despite a red corner alert by the Interpol against him.

Investigating officials firmly believe that this man could have used the Nepal route to enter into India. It may be noted that Nepal is the favourit route for both members of the D Gang as well as dreaded Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorists. In fact, all it takes is just Rs 5,000 to cross over from Nepal into India.

Sources told rediff.com that the Nepal route is preferred by terrorists since the ISI has a well-organised syndicate there.

Sabahuddin, an accused in the Mumbai attack who was also the chief of operations for the LeT in Nepal, too confirmed this during his interrogation.

Once the green signal is given by the LeT or chiefs of the D gang, the operatives fly into Doha from Lahore on a fake passport. A member of the terror outfit is usually accompanied by an ISI member. In Sabahuddin's case, it was a man by the name Major Doggar.

In Doha, the operative needs to wait three more hours before boarding the flight to Kathmandu. The entire process is monitored by the ISI, Sabahuddin adds.

This is, however, the last time that these operatives are asked to contact the ISI. They are instructed never to contact the ISI in future as it could prove to be dangerous.

Once in Kathmandu, these operatives are directed to destroy the Pakistani passport and then flush it down the toilet. Then, they are instructed to mail their higher ups using coded language.

After staying over in Kathmandu for a day, they are asked to meet a local person at a particular location. A cash payment of Rs 5,000 is made to this person, who in turn helps these operatives cross over to India on a motorcycle. The person who helps them cross the border ensures that the operative has boarded a bus and only then leaves the place.

The bus journey is most preferred by both terror and underworld operatives once within India. They are asked to destroy anything that they possess that is even remotely related to Pakistan and asked only to use the bus since there is hardly any checking while boarding a bus.

Additional:

ISI's links with Haqqani, Hekmatyar a matter of concern: US
4 Apr 2009, 1434 hrs IST, PTI

WASHINGTON: United States has said it was concerned about the ISI's contacts with the extremist groups including those led by Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Haqqani network.

"The ISI's contacts with some of these extremist groups — with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Haqqani network, Commander Nazir and others — are a real concern to us, and we have made these concerns known directly to the Pakistanis," Defence Secretary Robert Gates said in an interview to Afghan TV.

While top officials of the Obama Administration have now started publicly acknowledging the connection between ISI and extremist networks, this is possibly for the first time in recent times that the Defence Secretary has himself named the terrorist groups that have links with the ISI.

According to transcripts of the interview made available by Department of defence, Gates hoped that the Pakistani establishment would put an end to this nexus between ISI and extremist groups.

In response to a question, Gates said the US would continue with its drone attacks.

"The President has made clear that we will go after al-Qaida and their planning cells and their training centers, wherever they are in the world," he said.

From Jihad Watch

Just answer the question, please

NYC RAISES TERROR THREAT PROTECTION DURING PESACH DUE TO ISRAELI-IRANIAN TENSIONS

From Reliapundit the Astute Blogger:

JPOST/AP: NYC police worries over terror threats

Concerns that Muslim extremist groups might retaliate against civilians in the city's Jewish community if Israel were to attack Iran's nuclear facilities prompted the NYPD to put together a response plan that includes deploying extra officers, including heavily armed Hercules Teams, to synagogues, Jewish community centers and Israeli diplomatic offices.

The nation's largest police department revealed for the first time this week that it took similar precautions in 2008 after senior Hizbullah terrorist Imad Mughniyeh was killed in a car bombing in Syria. The group blamed Israel for Mughniyeh's death.

"Just in case there was some kind of retaliation in New York, we had an operational plan that was implemented within hours of knowing he was hit," Mitch Silber, a top NYPD intelligence analyst, said Friday at a briefing about security measures for Pessah.

There have been no specific threats reported against the city for the holiday, which starts at sundown Wednesday. But officials say the NYPD, since sharpening its focus on anti-terrorism after the September 11, 2001, attacks, has kept a constant eye on militant groups like Hizbullah for signs they might attack the largest Jewish population outside of Israel.

HIZBALLAH HAS ATTACKED JEWISH SITES OVERSEAS BEFORE:

Hoping to get a better understanding of terror tactics, the department sent a three-member Intelligence Division team headed by Assistant Commissioner Lawrence Sanchez to Argentina in 2008 to confer with authorities about two notorious attacks there.

The first was the deadly 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy, which came after Israel assassinated a Hizbullah leader. The other was a 1994 community center bombing, purportedly organized by Mughniyeh, that occurred after Israel aptured a Hizbullah leader in Lebanon.

The detectives were struck by how the attacks occurred on the other side of the globe within weeks of possible provocation a quick turnaround that suggested reconnaissance on South America's largest Jewish community had been done much earlier in anticipation it would come in handy later.

The NYPD believes similar surveillance might have already occurred in New York.

REMEMBER: HIZBALLAH IS A RELIGIOUS PARTY IN LEBANON WITH MP'S WHO HAVE RECENTLY MET WITH LABOUR MP'S FROM GREAT BRITAIN!

[BTW: I HAVE NOTICED MANY MANY MORE HEAVILY ARMEND HERCULES TEAMS ALL OVER NYC FOR TWO WEEKS - (NOT NEAR ANY JEWISH SITES)... THIS MIGHT BE A COVER STORY FOR OTHER INTEL' WARNINGS. WHICH WOULD EXPLAIN WHY THE NYPD WENT PUBLIC.]

SATURDAY NOONER!

What better to do on a Saturday than a Nooner? For all the die hard Infidels who stop by even on a Saturday when they could be washing the car, doing laundry, fixing that leaky faucet instead.

So what to do we have here?

Brotherly love? Male Bonding? Sibling rivalry?

Why NO! It's just the Vaughan Boys. Having a helluva lot of fun, Family Style.

(Epa's gonna love this)

Stevie Ray & Jimmy Vaughan

2 players, 1 Guitar

But aren't they widening the gap between rich and poor? Times to close Boston Globe?

Times co. threatens to shut down Globe

The New York Times Co. has threatened to shut the Boston Globe unless the newspaper's unions swiftly agree to $20 million in concessions, union leaders said.

Executives from the Times Co. and Globe made the demands Thursday morning in an approximately 90- minute meeting with leaders of the newspaper's 13 unions, union officials said. The possible concessions include pay cuts, the end of pension contributions by the company and the elimination of lifetime job guarantees now enjoyed by some veteran employees, said Daniel Totten, president of the Boston Newspaper Guild, the Globe's biggest union, which represents more than 700 editorial, advertising and business office employees.

The concessions will be negotiated individually with each of the unions, said Totten and Ralph Giallanella, secretary-treasurer of the Teamsters Local 259, which represents about 200 drivers who deliver the newspaper.

You mean that newspapers can hang tough times on the unions, but GM can't?

Well, aren't these mgrs at fault then as well?

Look, no matter what we feel about how the editorial policies have infiltrated what hard news is reported, and how, these are two great newspapers caught in a position not unlike buggy whip manufacturers in 1901.

Printed newspapers AS WE KNEW THEM are over.

The economic structure which paid line workers at GM, Ford and Chrysler nearly $100,000 a year and valued their labor at over $70/hour is over. Have the unions got that message yet? I don't like it either to tell you the truth, but it is compulsory to recognize reality.

The incredible salaries which CEO's and boards paid to themselves at 200-1000 times hourly workers weekly take are dead. Have they got that message yet? If not be prepared to get Geithnerized as the govt moves to take power because you abuse freedom with greed. Don't mistake our support for principals of the Constitution for belief in naked AVARICE.

Ideas that driving up stock prices are as beneficial in and of themselves as MAKING THINGS FOR A PROFIT SHOULD BE DEAD, but I don't believe that message has penetrated, and lies perhaps as the great unutterable scare fact many are avoiding.INCLUDING BY OBAMA, and even Warren Buffett.

Efforts to sustain the policies which lead to the disasters EXPOSED by the credit-mortgage-margarita blender securities default fiasco will cause another deeper crash as confidence is crushed for a generation.

I hope the printers union and the Times and Globe Board understand what needs to be done to create something NEW which can live, NOT prolong what must die.

Should Obama Have The Right To Throttle Your Internet Connection?

As is beginning to be evidenced here, even the Lefties are starting to worry about the Obamanation. And thus, we bring you an Infidel Bloggers Alliance first; a link to the Daily Kos.

From the Daily Kos:

Should President Obama have the power to shut down domestic Internet traffic during a state of emergency?

Senators John Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) think so.

• FromtheGOPwith3VOL's diary :: ::

Should President Obama have the power to shut down domestic Internet traffic during a state of emergency?

Senators John Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) think so. On Wednesday they introduced a bill to establish the Office of the National Cybersecurity Advisor—an arm of the executive branch that would have vast power to monitor and control Internet traffic to protect against threats to critical cyber infrastructure. That broad power is rattling some civil libertarians.

The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (PDF) gives the president the ability to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" and shut down or limit Internet traffic in any "critical" information network "in the interest of national security." The bill does not define a critical information network or a cybersecurity emergency. That definition would be left to the president.

The bill does not only add to the power of the president. It also grants the Secretary of Commerce "access to all relevant data concerning [critical] networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access." This means he or she can monitor or access any data on private or public networks without regard to privacy laws.

let your "representatives" know how you feel.

Note that Rockefeller thinks it would have been better if the Internet was never invented! See video below of his fear mongering:

Updating the List

Since I started the List of things that Offend Muslims over two years ago, it has grown exponentially. About twice a week a new story is added to the List and sometimes i have trouble keeping up with all the outrage. So here's a few that I haven't had time to include recently.

Ten terms not to use with Muslims.

The Clash of Civilizations, Secular, Assimilation, etc... What better way for the Islamists to control the dhimmis than to limit their thought process?

Bowing before elders un-Islamic, says Deoband edict

I guess Obama didn't get the memo, no wonder King Abdullah was laughing at him.

Italy: Muslims try to blow up 14-century fresco

ISLAMIC PROTEST -- Visitors to the magnificent church of St. Petronio in Bologna are now searched by Italian police before entering because in addition to protests by Muslims offended by a depiction of Mohammed in a 14th-century fresco, there have been unsuccessful attempts to blow the painting up.

Cinema and theatre contrary to Islam, says Saudi grand mufti

Cinema and theatre are “against Sharia” because they distract people from work and weaken their efforts in achieving progress, said Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti Shaikh Abdul Aziz Alu Al Sheikh during a conference on leisure, visual arts and literature attended by students at King Saud University.

“Theatrical performance, whether it is a cinema or a song, would generally make an impression that is against Sharia. People need only those (art forms) that are useful to them to change their way of life (in an Islamic manner),” he decreed.

Saudi men arrested for seeking female writer's autograph

Saudi Arabia's religious police detained two male novelists for questioning last week after they attempted to get the autograph of a female writer at a book fair in Riyadh, according to local media reports.

Religious police arrest famous actors, because men and women were performing together

Saudi Arabia- A blitz by the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (the religious police, or muttawa), who early in the morning of March 30 raided a famous hotel in Riyadh and took away the actors and production staff for a television series.

All this in just a few weeks.

What Obama Wants

This is an excellent video on the topic at hand. It uses a song on its soundtrack from some German metal band.



If anyone knows the name of the band, please share. Thanks

Crossposted at The Dougout

Keller - "Saving the New York Times now ranks with saving Darfur as a high-minded cause."

OH REALLY?

Kevin comments: That shows how seriously liberals take Darfur. ///

Feat Don't Fail Me Now

Lowell George, such a great talent lost too soon.

Little Feat

Dixie Chicken

People shot, taken hostage in N.Y. UPDATED

You know EXACTLY what I'm about to say.

CARRY A GUN. THE LIFE YOU SAVE MAY BE MORE THAN YOUR OWN.

Update: Note first the initial reaction to call it high powered rifles when, in fact, it was 2 handguns. Now, in New York you need:

A permit to purchase a handgun

Register your handgun

Be a licensed Handgun owner

A permit to carry your handgun and show valid reason for needing such license.

Since the guy was using an alias we can probably assume the guns were not registered according to "the rules" as well.

See how well gun control works for you?

still developing from MSNBC:

People shot, taken hostage in N.Y.

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. - A gunman walked into an immigrant services center and opened fire on Friday, killing 13 people before he killed himself, police said. Another four people were in critical condition.

The suspected gunman carried identification with the name of 42-year-old Jiverly Voong of nearby Johnson City, N.Y., a law enforcement official said. But the name is an alias that the man has used in the past, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly and was talking on condition of anonymity.

"It obviously was premeditated," said Binghamton Police Chief Joseph Zikuski, noting the gunman blocked the rear exit with his car. "He made sure nobody could escape."

Earlier, the number of dead had been variously put at 12 to 16 by Gov. David Paterson and law enforcement officials. . . .

. . .Rep. Maurice Hinchey, whose district includes Binghamton, said the gunman appears to have been a man who was recently let go from IBM in Johnson City.

Mayor Matthew Ryan initially said the gunman had a high-powered rifle but law-enforcement sources later told NBC that he had actually used two handguns.

the rest, & it keeps changing

No comment needed

Sooner or later, common sense

Obama's BNP Choice ... BANK CEO SHOWDOWN IN DC

The (now clearly) EMINENCE GRIS of his own advisors, to bank CEO's:

"My administration is the only thing
between you and the pitchforks."

i.e your choice, rather than between Islamization or racists, is between the American people, whom I REGARD AS A LYNCH MOB, or my socialization plan to run you and cronies, and demonize the lot of you, but most of you will be made physically safe

It's amazing. BLIND.
The mob will be coming for the Congress, and the executive branch dude.
And you will be organizing for ACORN again, and helping out Habitat for Humanity (there are worse fates)

The bankers struggled to make themselves clear to the president of the United States.

Arrayed around a long mahogany table in the White House state dining room last week, the CEOs of the most powerful financial institutions in the world offered several explanations for paying high salaries to their employees - and, by extension, to themselves.

"These are complicated companies," one CEO said. Offered another: "We're competing for talent on an international market."

But President Barack Obama wasn't in a mood to hear them out. He stopped the conversation, and offered a blunt reminder of the public's reaction to such explanations. "Be careful how you make those statements, gentlemen. The public isn't buying that."

"My administration," the president added, "is the only thing between you and the pitchforks."

The fresh details of the meeting - some never before revealed - come from an account provided to POLITICO by one of the participants. A second source inside the meeting confirmed the details, and two other sources familiar with the meeting offered additional information.

The accounts demonstrate that despite the public comments on both sides that the meeting was cordial, the tone in the room was in fact one of mutual wariness. The titans of finance - men used to being the most powerful man in almost any room - sized up a new president who made clear in ways big and small that he expected them to change their ways.

There were signs from the outset that this was a business event, not a social gathering. At each place around the table sat a single glass of water. No ice. For those who finished their glass, no refills were offered. There was no group photograph taken of the CEOs with the president, which typically happens at ceremonial White House gatherings, but not at serious strategy sessions.

"The only way they could have sent a more Spartan message is if they had served bread along with the water," says a person who attended the meeting. "The signal from Obama's body language and demeanor was, 'I'm the president, and you're not.'"

According to the accounts of sources inside the room, President Obama told the CEOs exactly what he expects from them, and pushed back forcefully when they attempted to defend Wall Street's legendarily high paying ways.

I will just bet. Look when you see people making, FOR INSTANCE the CEO of a major multinational business machine (MFD) corporation making $13-15 million/year, that's obscene..but what will you limit it to and how...AND WHO MADE YOU THE ABROGATOR OF PAY? Not the founding fathers, and I think, not the american people.

From the White House, there were five principal attendees: Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who arrived a few minutes late, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Council of Economic Advisers chair Christina Romer, Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett and director of the National Economic Council Larry Summers. Uncharacteristically, Summers said almost nothing, and it appeared to one participant as if he had been told to remain silent.

To break the ice, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon offered Geithner a fake check for $25 billion, the amount of TARP money that the company has accepted. Although many of those in the room laughed, Geithner didn't keep the check.

The President entered the room a few minutes later, and made a lap of the table shaking hands and saying hello to the CEOs, several of whom he called by name.

Taking his seat at the table, the president said, "So let's get to it." He spoke for several minutes without notes, giving an overview of the economic situation as he saw it. But the first comment that made an impression on several attendees was on Wall Street salaries and bonuses.

The president spoke of public outrage over the high flying executive lifestyle. "The anger gentlemen, is real," Obama said. He urged pay reform and said rewards must be proportional and balanced, and tied to the health and success of the company.

FINE

The president described the financial system as still "fragile," and asked for cooperation from the CEOs. But he also told them he wouldn't shy away from regulatory reform. Obama wrapped up his remarks and threw the conversation open to the table, saying "So, who'd like to talk?"

JPMorgan's Dimon spoke first. He began by complimenting the president on the economic team he'd assembled. (KISS ASS BALONEY..remember JP MORGAN HAS A SYCOPHANT CRETIN AT THE HELM) And he said his industry needs to explain more directly to the American people that the economic recovery plans are already working. Dimon also insisted that he'd like to give the government's TARP money back as soon as practical, and asked the president to "streamline" that process.

But Obama didn't like that idea - arguing that the system still needs government capital.

The president offered an analogy: "this is like a patient who's on antibiotics," he said. "Maybe the patient starts feeling better after a couple of days, but you don't stop taking the medicine until you've finished the bottle." Returning the money too early, the president argued could send a bad signal.

Several CEOs disagreed, arguing instead that returning TARP money was their patriotic duty, that they didn't need it anymore, and that publicity surrounding the return would send a positive signal of confidence to the markets.

Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis cracked a joke at the expense of his peers who'd lavished praise on the administration: "Mr. President," he said, "I'm not going to suck up to Geithner and Summers like the other CEOs here have." Lewis also urged the president not to paint all the banks with the same broad brush.

The president argued that's not what the White House was doing. Indeed, earlier the same week, Obama said at a nationally televised news conference, "The rest of us can't afford to demonize every investor or entrepreneur who seeks to make a profit,"

As the meeting wound down after nearly an hour and a half, the CEOs hustled out to live television positions on the White House grounds, where many gave interviews to CNBC.

It had been a landmark day in the history of American capitalism. Unbeknownst to the financial executives, General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner was also on Pennsylvania Avenue that day, meeting with Obama's auto bailout task force. Although the finance CEOs got a meeting with the president, Wagoner saw only Obama's senior advisor Steven Rattner at the Treasury Department. During the meeting, Rattner demanded Wagoner's resignation.

Everyone getting the picture? ...maybe he has less of clue overseas, but there is no doubt he believes he should have the power to change America, and change it AWAY from what the founding brothers envisioned, and into an Alinsky-esque social paradise of gray design, and dulled ambitions, and neutered, discouraged entrepreneurs, whose ultimate goal is EQUAL OUTCOME. Just add sandbags to those top line ballets, so that others have their possibilities EQUALIZED

It had been a tough day for CEOs in the nation's capital.

From the Academy to Atlas Shrugged: An Appreciation

Guest Commentary by Edward Cline:

Were you alive in Aristotle‘s time, had attended his lectures at the Academy, and had read his works, as well, would you have grasped the importance of those works to your existence? Would you have evaluated his contribution to the lives of other men and gasped in unbounded gratitude? Would you have understood the scope and breadth of his bequest to posterity? Could you have projected how his philosophy would influence the actions of men yet unborn, and what effect his ideas would have on their lives? Could you have projected the consequences of his work, such as skyscrapers, or robots exploring Mars, or microscopic cameras and lasers eradicating cancer, or genetically perfected crops, or communications through radio waves?

Could you have imagined a tableau like Raphael’s “The School of Athens,” in the hall of philosophers, with Aristotle and Plato, deep in conversation, striding from beneath the arch, one pointing upward to the heavens, the other gesturing to the earth? Would you have rejected Plato, and venerated Aristotle?

After the eclipse of ancient Greece, and following the interim of ancient Rome before the heavy, impenetrable curtain of the Dark Ages fell to hide the Greco-Roman millennium from the knowledge and sight of men, it took another millennium for them to rediscover Aristotle. The ruins and artifacts of his and Rome’s civilizations lay buried or weed-grown and crumbling in the chaotic, terrifying landscape of the Dark Ages, presenting a paradox and mystery to men who did not understand the source and significance of those ruins and artifacts. His works were salvaged and preserved by a culture, Islam, which ultimately, logically, had to reject them. Aristotle’s rediscovery in the Middle Ages made possible the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution -- and America.

In a dramatically telescoped way, Ayn Rand’s novel, Atlas Shrugged, is experiencing the same rediscovery in the 21st century. It was the most important book of the 20th century, published in New York City in 1957. Although its sales success has been steady and almost without precedent since its publication, until now the novel was ignored, relegated to the cultural sidelines, and deprecated by the cultural establishment. As far as modern philosophers and intellectuals were concerned, it did not exist as a work worthy of serious attention, or exist at all in their minds. It was, and still is, invariably dismissed by critics, leftists, collectivists of every stripe, and most academics as a badly written, unfeeling, hateful, overlong screed posing as a work of literature. Or, it was studiously ignored.

It has taken little over half a century for men to rediscover it and the significance of Rand’s mind and work. Men are gasping, if not in grateful appreciation, then in simple astonishment in the knowledge that she was right. The parallels between the events in the novel and those in the real world have become too obvious for even the novel’s detractors to ignore. They still hurry to denigrate it, but their protests sound peevishly feeble. Hardly a week goes by without Atlas Shrugged being discussed in newspapers, magazines, on the air, or on the Internet. (The latest mention, in the Drudge Report, can be seen here.) The instances are too numerous to cite here. The catalyst for the rediscovery is the current moral and economic crisis for which government actions are only the symptom. What men will do about it remains to be seen.

In an intellectual and philosophic sense, the works of Aristotle acted as a “prime mover” of human culture and civilization. Without them, no Renaissance and Enlightenment would have been possible. Their rediscovery and advocacy by the men of those periods accelerated human progress in terms of a mastery of the physical world, which manifested itself in the Industrial Revolution. But, as Rand herself so succinctly and eloquently observed in her numerous articles and speeches, the Aristotelian influence went only so far, because the skeleton hands of the philosophy of altruism and unreason remained clutched firmly to men’s notion of morality and men did not bother to throw them off. They believed that microwave ovens and cars could coexist with a morality that condemned the ovens and cars, as well as themselves.

Also in an intellectual and philosophic sense, Atlas Shrugged is acting as a “prime mover,” reemerging from behind its curtain of unrecognized existence as something to fear or to reexamine. Men are learning now that the philosophy which made possible their earthly well-being is irreconcilable with its antipode, which makes possible their recurring moral crises. Atlas Shrugged demonstrates that. They are beginning to see that contentment with their pragmatic, unstated “rapprochement” between the opposites can only lead to tyranny, destruction and death, to a condition of existence, as Rand once put it, worse than that of the Dark Ages, for if a partial application to reason fueled the rapid material progress of man, its total absence will cause an even more rapid collapse into anarchic savagery. And reason is what the world’s intellectuals and political leaders are asking men to abandon.

That is what we are beginning to witness now, here in America and abroad.

Atlas Shrugged is about the necessity of a full, unreserved commitment to reason, capitalism and freedom versus a careless, unthinking defaulting to mysticism, “duty,“ slavery and misery. Its theme is the role of the mind in man’s existence. It dramatizes what happens when the rational mind withdraws its power from a society that wishes to both enslave it and kill it. When statist laws and physical force become the “moral” norm in any society, rational minds, which do not take orders or obey edicts, begin to hide, vanish, and go on strike. Just as they did in the Dark Ages. Just as the heroes do in the novel.

In the broadest historic and philosophic sense, the American Revolution was a form of such a strike. As an historic event, it was unprecedented. Its “No, thank you!” was flung in the face of Crown tyranny. Unlike the heroes of Atlas Shrugged, however, the American revolutionaries had to fight a war to win their freedom from that tyranny. Someone has remarked that the novel was America’s second declaration of independence, a completion of the principles present in the first Declaration. That document contains the beginnings of a philosophy which ought to have been explicated, but which was merely implied. Given the enormity of their accomplishment, however, there is neither profit nor point in gainsaying its authors for what they did not do.

For the Founders, because of their circumstances and the means at their disposal, it was necessary to risk the fortunes of a violent separation, which could have ended with defeat and execution in their attempt to dissolve the political bonds which they realized were ensuring their enslavement. In our time, it will become necessary to repudiate and dissolve the bonds of a philosophy which is ensuring our own incremental enslavement. It will require the ratification of a consistent philosophy of reason, one which corrects even Aristotle’s errors. Once that is done, the execrable politics based on a morality of selflessness and sacrifice now robbing us of our own lives, fortunes and sacred honor, will dissolve, as well.

In 1782, replying to James Monroe about calls for Jefferson to abandon plans to retire from public service and return to his personal life, Jefferson wrote:

In this country…since the present government has been established the point has been settled by uniform, pointed and multiplied precedents, offices of every kind, and given by every power, have been daily and hourly declined and resigned from the Declaration of Independence to this moment….If we are made in some degree for others, yet in a greater are we made for ourselves. It were contrary to feeling and indeed ridiculous to suppose that a man had less right in himself than one of his neighbors or indeed all of them put together. This would be slavery and not that liberty which the Bill of Rights has made inviolable and for the preservation of which our government has been charged. Nothing could so completely divest us of that liberty as the establishment of the opinion that the state has a perpetual right to the services of all its members. This to men of certain ways of thinking would be to annihilate the blessing of existence; to contradict the giver of life who gave it for happiness and not for wretchedness, and certainly to such it were better that they had never been born….*

Had he pursued the thought further, Jefferson might have concluded that neither the state nor society nor “others” had any right or claim to the services of any of its members. Had he done that, and in deference to his incomparable stature as a political thinker and child of the Enlightenment, Jefferson would have attained the heights of Aristotle and his philosophical heir.

One hundred and seventy-five years later, Rand, in Atlas Shrugged, completed that thought:

I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of
another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

It is as simple as that.


*Jefferson: Writings, New York: The Library of America (1984), “The Limits of Public Duty,” pp. 778-779.

Crossposted at The Dougout

The God Given Right of Self Defense

Ugly busy at the paying gig today but feel a need to pass this one on.

Daughter # 1 lives in Philly. Last night into early this morning helicopters, cop cars, ambulances all around her apartment and surrounding environs. This morning she found out why:

Teen Girl Found Undressed, Disoriented In Fairmount Park

Cops don't know if it was a rape or not yet, nor if it is the serial Fairmount Park rapist of the last few years or some other unknown dirtbag. Doesn't matter. This is short blocks from where she lives.

The kid contacts me this morning and informs me she has decided to carry an extremely potent pepper spray I bought her some time ago to work even though it is against "the rules". (She does not have a CCW at this time but is thinking about it. Pennsylvania in general is great for being allowed to carry but Philly does not make it easy if you live there& she couldn't get it past the work metal detectors anyway) As she wrote to me:

"i would rather risk gettin written up in the off chance someone searches my stuff and decides its some sort of weapon than risk being a news article"

That's my girl :)

So I sent her the article below to reaffirm her decision. Now, a 14 year old of course would not have had access to a handgun or the pepper spray (I don't think). Which is unfortunate (and wrong to my thinking). But please keep the story above and below in mind when Obama moves on the 2nd Amendment. Don't Be a Victim AND DON'T ALLOW THE GOVERNMENT TO FORCE YOU TO BE A VICTIM.

So this from Brigid's Place back in February. I hope she'll forgive me printing it wholesale but this is too important and she says it better than I could.

You may disagree with me and that's up to you. It's your life. Your safety. And in the end YOU are responsible for it.

FIVE ROUNDS OF SELF DEFENSE

1. Be aware of yourself and your surroundings. Don't be concentrating on work, your love life or school. When you're on the street you need to be alert. Walk with head up. Walk strong.

2. If you feel afraid DO SOMETHING. Fear warns you.

3. When it is obvious that you are going to be attacked, take action at the first sign of threat.

4. If there is not time to flee, fight until you know you are safe.

5. If you carry a weapon. Know how to use it. Practice with it. Have it in easy reach.

I know many of my readers are married. I would think that more than a few of you have older daughters. But how many of you have had "that talk" with them. You know the one. The one about carrying concealed?

My daughter has a Glock. Now before you all jump up and down about bad parenting :-) I TOLD her she'd like a 1911 better, but you know how headstrong redheads are, so she has her Glock. If it was good enough for Grandma why listen to her mother. . . .

As my regular readers know, I did not raise her. I got pregnant just out of high school and gave her up for adoption. An open adoption where she could find me as an adult if she wished. With her parents blessing, I met her when she was 18. We are close. She has red hair, is 6 feet tall, and like me, loves sci-fi, steaks and the outdoors and, not to my surprise, had already learned firearm safety. I'm invited to the family gatherings. I was there when she graduated from college. I didn't lose out on 18 years to ever lose her again, so before she moved out on her own, we had "the talk", with her parents support.

For a young woman, for anyone, there are various methods of self defense. First and foremost is the brain. You always have it with you, and for most folks it's been optimized by evolution to keep you alive (though there are Darwin Award candidates that have proved me wrong).

Your brain is your best weapon with proper back up. The brain is an amazing thing. If you could witness it working, if it light up like a circuit board as it went about its processes, different areas would be popping on and off, one after the other. Those patterns, in their firing, are formed from unique experiences of our lives, giving rise to "instinctual" actions that are really based upon everything we've ever read, seen or felt, informed decisions at a speed of sound that could never be made by logic. All of these brilliant points of light taking place just beyond conscious thought, lightning strikes from shadowy clouds in the night.

Add drugs or alcohol to the mix and the lights become erratic sparks. Dimmer and dimmer. I enjoy my beer as much as the next person, and I didn't tell her she should never drink or that she wouldn't make it to 21 without one or two really good hangovers. But she knew the dangers, , drilled in from all of us, including a grandmother who is an LEO as well. Women who are solitary and intoxicated are the easiest of prey. Lambs led to slaughter.

It's not just the brain that will aid you in flight or fight. What I tried to pass on was that our whole body adapts to the environment, not just our brain. A lifetime of experience shapes our body's response and only a subtle change in the environment can mean that your body may not have the proper response, unless it's trained to respond.

Her brain is a self defense tool, but only if she practices the body's response to threat. Shooting paper targets teaches her hand eye coordination. What about moving targets? What about shooting in cold, dark, or wind? A rapist is not as likely going to try and snatch you from the parking lot in bright sunshine, though it does happen. Evil likes the darkness, and if there's weather adding noise to the elements to cover the scuffle, even better.

There's another factor biological of the body that needs to be considered. Stress releases cortisol in the blood, invading the hypocampus and interfering with how it works. The amygdala is powerfully connected to the rhinal cortex, the anterior cingulate, the ventral prefrontal cortex - the sensory cortexes. This means that the inputs and outputs of memory are affected and most people are incapable of performing anything but the most simple of tasks under stress. Stress also limits the abilities to perceive. Cortesol and other stress hormones interfere with the prefontal cortex, where perceptions are processed and decisions are reached. You will see less, hear less, missing cues that might save you. Everything becomes irrelevant noise, and if you are fumbling with a gun that you never took the time to learn to use until it was as natural as breath, the only sound your brain may register in that last moment is your scream.

You can prevent many crimes by being aware, using your eyes, your ears, and your brain. Prevent before you are in that fight or flight stress mode. But you must train. Prevention can fail, the body will flood with stress hormones, and even Superwoman will need to have something a little stronger than sass to protect herself. A confident, survival oriented attitude combined with a means to protect that is second nature, without hesitation, is a devastating combination.

If you truly believe you are strong, worthy of protecting, protecting to the death, you will project that attitude to those around you, and the average punk will tend to leave you alone. I'm told I walk differently when I'm carrying. I know I do.

Which is where we got to the carry part. On the college campus, they were handing out whistles. They called them "safety" whistles, not rape whistles. Rapes did not decrease.

I had missed out on telling her Fairy Tales as a child. But I could tell her this one. Believing that someone will come to your rescue when you blow a whistle or set off a siren is just that, a fairy tale. Don't fall for it. Not only are noise-makers and rape whistles ineffective at deterring crime, they are likely to do more harm than good, for several reasons.

When you hang that whistle around your neck, you are acquiescing to passivity. You are saying "I'm not strong enough to fight. I'll depend on someone else to rescue me!". You are pretty much betting your life that someone will hear the alarm, and if they respond, are capable of stopping the attack. That is way too many "if's" in one paragraph for me. Too much out of MY control.

The outcome of an attack is usually decided upon with the first 8 -10 seconds. It may be just grab the purse and run, it may be to kill. It's that fast. And you aren't privy to the thought process. But the act of activating the alarm or blowing the whistle can take 2 to 20 seconds. If the noise doesn't work, you're out of time, game over, and the criminal is free to try the other options he originally hadn't planned but now he might rethink. Rethink, seeing as how he has you all to himself and you can't hurt him. Stop or I'll toot is a joke.

Oh, and those little strings the whistles come on? They make great tools for strangulation or just choking into unconsciousness so he can take you elsewhere for his fun.

If you didn't have the whistle, you could scream, more time wasted while you increase your chances for victimization. Garner that breath, harness that adrenalin and fight. With tooth, nail or 9 mm. Fight as long as you have breath or can get away.

If you want to carry and legally can, do it. Don't let society, your peers or your environment dictate something as important as your life. Hecate tells a story of a rangemaster at the gun school, a sheriff's deputy, who met a nurse in the course of his work, a nurse who had serious ex-boyfriend problems. After responding to one of her 911 calls, he told her she should get a handgun. He offered to advise her on weapon selection and arrange for training.

She said she'd think about it, and asked her hospital colleagues what they thought. Thoroughly indoctrinated in pacifist attitudes, they were horrified and told her she should get a whistle instead. That was what she decided to do, and the deputy said he could not talk her out of it.

When her body was later found in the hospital parking lot, the whistle was still between her teeth. She had blown it until it filled up with blood as she died.

I think it's time you had that talk.