Do, or do not. There is no 'try'. - Yoda

Tuesday, July 29, 2003

Good for the Israelis.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said he is committed to the peace process, but will continue building a controversial security fence separating Israel from the West Bank.

Mr. Sharon met with U.S. President George W. Bush Tuesday at the White House to discuss the so-called “road map” peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians.

Speaking to reporters in the White House Rose Garden after their meeting, the two leaders agreed that ending terror is the key to establishing two states living side-by-side in peace and security.

On the sensitive issue of Israel’s security fence, Mr. Sharon said construction would continue, but that Israel would make efforts to minimize its infringement on Palestinian life.

I’m glad to see Israel sticking to their guns on this point.  A fence creates a defensible bulwark against which Palestinian terrorists can be kept in check.  If the choice is dead Israelis or pissing off Bush with the fence, I’d take the latter.

Instapundit has blogged on a NY Times story about how the Pentagon is trying to predict future terrorist attacks by setting up a futures market simulation, essentially a game.  This is, believe it or not, solid thinking.  A few years ago a stock market simulation called HSX:  The Hollywood Stock Exchange appeared on the internet.  It allows you to buy and sell stocks in movie projects, actors, music groups, and the like.  This has turned out to be such an accurate predictor of future trends in the entertainment industry that every studio monitors the traffic there. 

I have a friend who works for 20th Century Fox in Los Angeles, and she was the one who turned me on to HSX a few years ago, when it first started making a buzz in the entertainment industry about how it could predict trends.  It’s a lot of fun and its free, you should give it a try. 

Monday, July 28, 2003

News flash!  Things in Iraq cannot be solved overnight!

The demise last week of Saddam Hussein’s two fugitive sons has not yet discouraged Ba’athist guerrillas from killing more American soldiers, as the Bush administration had hoped. 

Two more U.S. Army soldiers were killed yesterday by Saddam Hussein loyalists who used explosive devices to ambush two convoys. The deaths bring to 12 the number of American troops killed by guerrillas since Wednesday, when the Uday and Qusai Hussein died in a fierce gun and missile battle in Mosul, in northern Iraq.

(Gasp!) You mean that killing Uhaul and Queasy doesn’t mean that Saddam’s loyalists would immediately drop their plans to attack Americans?  Perish the thought!

It’s over at The Smoking Gun.

Motion to Dismiss: The Constitutionality of Fuck, “Fucker”, and “Fucking Fag”.

Read it all.

These are the best goddam potato chips I’ve ever eaten.

Some America-hating asshat Limey egghead is comparing the evil bugaboo of global warming with nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.

Human induced global climate change is a weapon of mass destruction at least as dangerous as nuclear, chemical or biological arms, a leading British climate scientist warned. 

John Houghton, a former key member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said Monday that the impacts of global warming are such that “I have no hesitation in describing it as a weapon of mass destruction.”

He said the United States, in an “epic” abandonment of leadership, was largely responsible for the threat. 

“Like terrorism, this weapon knows no boundaries,” Houghton said. “It can strike anywhere, in any form—a heatwave in one place, a drought or a flood or a storm surge in another.”

So can ignorant socialist pseudo-science.  See, parts of the world are getting colder.  Both Pluto and Mars are experiencing warming and a shrinking of their icecaps.  In fact, the Middle Ages were warmer than today, and I don’t recall there being a cataclysmic global-destroying disaster during that time period.

I would be willing to bet the farm that if we looked at this guy’s politics he would be a man of the left, either the Labor party or further towards true Socialism.  He simply doesn’t care about the effects that enacting the ludicrous Kyoto Accords will have on the world economy.  His viewpoint is as much political as it is scientific, as anyone reading his words in the article quoted above will be able to confirm.

Limp Bizkit are quite possibly the lamest ban of the last ten years.  This shows why.

The metaphorical fireworks started much earlier, however, when heckling fans induced a profane tantrum from Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst and the band quit playing after just 20 minutes.

It was easy to predict a rough reception for the rap-rock has-beens when a significant segment of the crowd booed a mention of the band by previous openers Linkin Park. When Limp Bizkit actually appeared around 7 o’clock, the boos intensified, and some fans pelted the stage with garbage.

The famously brainless Durst only fanned the flames, first encouraging the catcalls and flying trash, then swerving into a bizarre tirade against the crowd and city. Ranting that he’d fight anyone in earshot and spluttering explicit sexual putdowns, uncreative curses and ludicrous homophobic slurs, Durst simply self-destructed. Had the villain in “The Wizard of Oz” been a vile little boob like Durst rather than a snarly old lady in greenface, the movie’s “I’m melting!” scene might have looked like this.

The crowd, perhaps stunned, calmed down, and Limp Bizkit played a few more songs (including a sarcastic, gay-bashing cover of George Michael’s “Faith” with potty-mouth lyrics that would embarrass a fourth-grader). But then the band left the stage and Durst resumed his vulgar invective from the wings until, mercifully, he was relieved of the microphone.

The aborted set left fans to wait more than 90 minutes for Metallica, but the mood never turned ugly--maybe because a lengthy delay was better than suffering through any more Limp Bizkit.

What an immature fuckwit.  I have to admit that when I heard they were going out second on the bill to Metallica I was pretty damn surprised, considering how much they suck.  A year or so from now, when Fred Durst is asking you if you want fries with your burger, point at him and laugh.

“Fred Durst can surf a piece of plywood up my ass.” —Trent Reznor

George Wallace, Governor of Alabama, once defiantly stated, “Segregation here; segregation now; segregation forever!” After his assassination attempt Wallace went through a transformation, so much so that he carried most of the state’s black vote when elected for his fifth and final term.  The lesson to be learned from Wallace and the era he represents is that segregation is not beneficial to society, and that we as a society can change to overcome that.  Unfortunately, as is all too common, the left is taking away exactly the opposite message:  segregation is a good idea, provided it is done in the name of a politically correct leftist ideal.

New York City is creating the nation’s first public high school for gays, bisexuals and transgender students.The Harvey Milk High School will enroll about 100 students and open in a newly renovated building in the fall. It is named after San Francisco’s first openly gay city supervisor, who was assassinated in 1978.

“I THINK EVERYBODY feels that it’s a good idea because some of the kids who are gays and lesbians have been constantly harassed and beaten in other schools,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday. “It lets them get an education without having to worry.”

By following this out to its logical conclusion we should segregate every single group into individual schools:  one for jocks, one for computer nerds, one for homeboys, one for fat kids, one for stupid kids, one for smart kids, and so on.  Virtually every group is picked on at one time or another, and if we’re going to identify victims of abuse I’d say that they fat kids have the queer kids beat.  Most gay kids don’t start overtly expressing their gayness until they hit puberty, whereas fat kids are fat from the first day they walk into a classroom.  Should we have a separate school for fat kids?  Is there a social benefit to segregating every child who happens to be part of the “victim” class?

The left loves to pigeonhole, categorize, and classify everyone and everything.  This is no exception.  This is pure segregation, no matter how you slice it.  Segregation here, segregation now, segregation forever.

Oh my God is this funny!  Beware the power of Photoshop.

(Link via Tim Blair.)

When you remove from yourself the burden of providing for your own protection, and empower the state to do so for you, this is what happens.

The extent of street crime in London is revealed in new figures showing there are 164 muggings in the capital every day.

A report by independent watchdogs shows that, although street crime has come down from its record high levels of early 2002, it is still higher than at any other time in recent history.

It will say that the massive effort to reduce muggings and robberies, involving hundreds of thousands of hours of police time, has produced only a 15 per cent reduction in London.

Scotland Yard figures show that Lambeth is the worst of the 32 boroughs for street crime and that, per head of population, Richmond-is the least dangerous.

The full report - published tomorrow by Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Constabulary, Probation and Prisons - is the first independent evaluation of the street crime initiative announced by Tony Blair and Home Secretary David Blunthem a valuable asset they can easily sell.

It is expected to show that the first six months of the police campaign against street crime - when officers got out of their cars and went on the beat in mugging hotspots - produced a steady fall to an average of 163 muggings a day. But there was a rise in the next six months, leading to the average for the year being 164.

So much for Michael Moore’s theories about how socialism and gun control are cures for violence.  The streets of London are a far more dangerous place than the streets of the most armed American societies. This isn’t the first time I’ve blogged on this subject (see here) and it damn sure won’t be the last.

If the UK feels that the solution to gun violence is to ban guns, then it logically follows that passing a law against muggings will stop them as well.  Unfortunately it appears that mugging is already against the law.  And it doesn’t appear that the London police are doing that good a job enforcing that law, anyway.

Fewer than one in 10 street robberies in London end with someone being charged or cautioned, the worst figure in the country. And, despite the rise in the clearup rate, the fall in numbers of street crimes meant fewer crimes were classified as cleared up and fewer muggers went to prison in 2002-3 than in 2001-2.

So, less than 10% of the 164 daily muggings will be solved.  That means that if you are a criminal you have a bettern than 90% chance of getting away with it.  And with a totally unarmed population, you have a 100% chance of your victims not being able to defend themselves.

Nothing like the price of the illusion of safety, is there?

AIDS is an equally opportunity killer, remember?

The number of gay and bisexual men diagnosed with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, climbed for the third consecutive year in the United States in 2002, fueling fears that the disease might be poised for a major comeback in this high-risk group.

THE CENTERS FOR Disease Control and Prevention, which reported the finding on Monday at the 2003 National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta, also revealed that AIDS diagnoses overall had risen 2.2 percent to 42,136 last year.

“The AIDS epidemic in the United States is far from over,” said Dr. Harold Jaffe, director of the CDC’s National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention.

An estimated 850,000 to 950,000 Americans have the AIDS virus. AIDS killed 16,371 people across the nation last year, about 6 percent fewer than in 2001, according to the CDC.

Although U.S. health officials have been preaching HIV prevention to all Americans, they have become particularly concerned in recent years by an apparent resurgence of infections among gay and bisexual males.

HIV diagnoses among men who have sex with men surged 7.1 percent last year, according to data collected by the CDC from 25 states that have long-standing HIV reporting. New diagnoses in this high-risk group have increased 17.7 percent since 1999, while remaining stable in other vulnerable communities.

Jaffe cautioned, however, that the jump in HIV diagnoses could have been caused by increases in the number of gay and bisexual males being tested for the virus and was not proof that this group was being infected at a faster rate.

This is a story that I have covered before.  (See here and here.) Look, this is not difficult to understand.  Men are promiscuous.  If there were clubs where men could go and have anonymous sex with gorgeous women they would be packed every night of the week.  In gay areas these men have that opportunity, but with other men.  The gay aspect has nothing to do with it, the issue is promiscuous masculinity.  But the PC message that AIDS is equally dangerous for gays and straights is ridiculous.  HIV spreads through groups of people who engage in certain behaviors, and the sooner that we take note of this basic fact the better off society as a whole will be.

Jack Kemp is not going to run for governor.

I am flattered by the media speculation and the large number of e-mails, faxes and telephone calls I have received urging me to run for Governor of California.  We love California, and running for governor might have been tempting to contemplate at another time when I was younger but I’ve truly retired from politics.  There comes a point in one’s life when he cannot, should not, attempt to go back.  He should go forward, and that is exactly what I am doing.  I’ve started three businesses and am very involved with Bill Bennett, Jeane Kirkpatrick and Bill Cohen at Empower America in tax reform, enterprise zones, social security reform, education reform and creating a pro-democracy foreign policy.

And it looks like Arnold isn’t going to run, either. 

Bob Hope, dead at 100.  I wish I had something poignant to say here, but I don’t.  I remember seeing him on TV a lot when I was a youngster back in the 1970’s, but that’s about the extent of it.  There’s not a whole lot I can add to the Bob Hope retrospective that can’t be summarized by hundreds of other people in much more detail than I can muster here.  It’s truly a testament to what a great man Bob Hope was that so many people have so much to say about him; me adding my own little bit here seems like a drop in the ocean.  The number of lives he touched through his USO work, bringing a little joy to the bleak life of a combat soldier, will be his lasting legacy.

Reason #6273 why the United States should never sign up for the International Criminal Court.

Top lawyers from Greece are filing a lawsuit with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague on Monday against senior UK officials.

They will accuse the prime minister and other senior members of the government and military of breaching international law by attacking Iraq.

The Athens Bar Association (ABA) believes it has strong evidence and is seeking the indictment of Mr Blair.

The ABA will file the lawsuit with the prosecutor of the ICC who will then have to decide whether it merits further investigation.

The court was established to try cases of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.

Among those named in the lawsuit are Mr Blair, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

And people wonder why the US thinks that the ICC would be used as a politically-motivated tool against American interests.

Sunday, July 27, 2003

Once again the liberal media just doesn’t get it.

America’s prison population grew again in 2002 despite a declining crime rate, costing the federal government and states an estimated $40 billion a year at a time of rampant budget shortfalls.  [Emphasis added]

The liberals in the media cannot see that the crime rate is declining because the prison population is increasing.  Lock up more people, keep criminals off the street, and the crime rate goes down.  Simple, isn’t it?