6/19/2004
Looks Like We're Learinng from the Israelis
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A U.S. military plane fired missiles Saturday into a residential neighborhood in Fallujah, killing at least 16 people and leveling houses there, police and residents said. A U.S. official said the target was a hideout of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's terror network.
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U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said several members of the al-Zarqawi network were believed in the house at the time of the attack but they did not know if the terrorist mastermind himself was inside.
Complete Story
Actually, I kind of hope they missed him. Do this a couple more times, getting some of his buddies each time, and he'll get nervous. Nervous people make mistakes. Then we get a good location on him, and send in some Rangers. See how he feels when a squad of Rangers with fixed bayonets busts down his door and demonstrates thrust-series-followed-by-a-buttsroke-to-the-groin-series-followed-by-a-smash-series-followed-by-a-thrust-series and so on on his sorry ass. Don't capture the fuckhead. Kill him. Preferably painfully. Then dump his stinking corpse in a pit full of dead pigs.
Incidentally, since we supposedly don't have any troops actually in Fallujah proper, that means we're getting intel-actionable intel-from the Iraqis who live there. And THAT means that the locals are getting sick of a-Z and his band of Islamofascist fuckheads. And that's a very good thing.
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I Can't Say It Any Better
So I won't try. Just read it.
WAHABISM DELENDA EST
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6/18/2004
Interesting Thought
While reading thhe text of the Constitution, I found this bit (Art I, Sec 6):
"They [Senators and Representatives] shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same"
Now, if I read this right, Congresscritters can carry guns around D.C., and not get arrested for it, even though us proles aren't allowed to even own one in the District. Must be fun to be a Congresscritter.
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House panel approves gun bill for officers
The House Judiciary Committee yesterday passed a bill that allows active-duty and retired law-enforcement officers to carry concealed weapons anywhere in the country.
The Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act heads to the floor of the House for a final vote before going to the Senate, where a similar bill passed as an amendment in March by a 91-8 vote. The bill permits "qualified" law-enforcement officers  retired, off duty and outside their jurisdiction  to carry a concealed weapon in any state regardless of the state's law. It passed on a 23-9 vote.
Now, normally, I'm all for any law that allows for more citizens to be able to carry their concealed firearms wherever they go. But this one seriously annoys me. Why? Because it implies, and sets the precendent, that cops, and retired cops, are somehow more special and elite than you and me. They're not. They are citizens just like the rest of us. The only thing different is that they were hired and trained by the rest of us (through our local government, acting on our behalf) to enforce the laws, make arrests, etc. But all citizens have the power to do this. Ever hear of a citizen's arrest? It's just that most of us haven't been specifically hired for the job. And yet the House Judiciary Committee, along with their counterpart Senate committee, are trying to say that cops are a special elite groups that deserve this special "priviledge."
IMHO, a better bill would simply state that "The provision of Art. IV, Sec. 1 of the U.S. Constitution, which states that 'Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State' shall apply to permits and licenses to carry concealed firearms."
Now, to my second objection: the bill makes carrying a concealed firearm into a priviledge. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms is just that, a right. Endowed by the Creator, and protected by the Second Amendment. The Second makes now mention of how said arms are carried, it simply says that the right to bear them "shall not be infringed." Requiring special permission to carry in a certain manner sure looks like infringement to me.
Now, most states reserve the right, in the RKBA clauses, the right to regulate the carrying of concealed weapons, because, back in the day, only a person who was up to no good would hide his gun. Honest men didn't need to. I'm not going to use the argument that "things are different now than when the document was written," because that's what the gun-grabbers say about the Second Amendment, and it pisses me off. I'm going to simply say this: the courts, including SCOTUS, have held that the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applies pretty much all the protections of the Bill of Rights to the states, with the notable exception of the Second. Guess what? Read the debates in Congress on the adoption of the 14th. It applies to the Second as well. "Shall Not Be Infringed" baby.
This line of reasoning also counters the arguments, by some of the usual Anti suspects, that the bill violates the principle of federalism. (Yes, you read that right-Democrats are objecting to a law of federalism grounds.) Actually, it says that the bill isn't necessary, since anyone with a firearms should be able to carry it in any manner they wish anywhere in the country.
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6/17/2004
Add This One to the Stack
John Lott adds more to the pile of evidence of the fultility of gun bans.
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Afghan President Karzai Addresses Congress
Hat tip to the newly blog-rolled Junkyard Blog.
There's really too much to excerpt, but I'll give one great bit:
We honored two American soldiers who recently returned from Afghanistan, and who, a few months ago in Kandahar, were travelling in a vehicle.
Somebody, a terrorist, threw a grenade at them. The grenade landed in their vehicle. They took the grenade. Instead of throwing it into the street, where there were people around them, civilians, these heroic men stuck the grenade under their seat. The grenade exploded. Fortunately they survived, but they were badly injured.
To us, this is also the example of heroism and care for humanity, and we are proud of these two American soldiers.
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6/16/2004
I'm Not Sure if This Should Bother Me
On one hand, I strongly oppose the use of the military to do law enforcement work. But, as a soldier myself, I also understand that soldiers need to train with their equipment, and it appears that these Swiss soldiers weren't deliberately using their UAV to look for potheads. They just happened to spot some (which proves to me that they're fairly good with their gear) and called the cops like good citizens.
for those of you in the U.S. of A who are worried about being spotted in a like manner, the U.S. military does have it's own UAVs. The Army's training base for UAVs troops is at Ft Huachuca, AZ. The two Stryker brigades based at Ft Lewis (and the ones in AK, HI, and LA currently fielding Strykers), WA have UAVs, although I never, while stationed there, saw them fly off Army land.
Moral of the story: don't do something illegal if you hear a aircraft overhead.
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Cool Toy. I want one.
Of course, then I'd have to get an AR to put it on...but I digress.
I wrote a while back about U.S. v. Miller. If the case were argued today, and the defendant's lawyer bothered to show up (unlike the actual case), he could point to this new "accessory shotgun" as an example of a shotgun with a barrel of less than 18" in military use.
Almost forgot: Hat-tip to Say Uncle for the pointer.
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6/15/2004
The Manchurian Hilary
From the NY Daily News:
Hollywood and Washington are buzzing about Streep's Hillaryesque portrayal of a diabolical U.S. senator in the updated "The Manchurian Candidate."
Paramount execs - particularly die-hard Democrat Sherry Lansing - are said to be worried about offending New York's junior senator. And while it's too late to change Streep's Hillary hairdo and suit, the studio honchos have reportedly asked director Jonathan Demme to edit out some of her more obvious Clinton mannerisms.
"Meryl is brilliantly scary and evil," a source reports on www.aflyonethewall.journalspace.com. "Meryl has the Hillary hand gestures totally down pat. ... You feel like you're watching Hillary Clinton conspire to take over the world."
Now, if the Hildebeast were a scheming, conniving, Machiavellian conservative Republican, do you think the Hollywood types would have their panties in a bunch?
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Somebody Explain This to Me
Last week, listening to a talk radio show about (what else) Ronald Reagan, a caller took issue with the host's statement that Reagan was one of the two most influential Presidents of the 20th century, along with FDR. The caller, a Democrat, argued that Kennedy should be #2, bumping Reagan to #3. What I don't get is, why is Kennedy such a liberal icon? Let's look at some items on the Kennedy record:
Bay of Pigs: Kennedy fails to support a plan, hatched under the previous administration, to overthrow Castro. The Cuban exile army is delivered to the beach, where if then gets no help and is destroyed. Given the Left's love of Uncle Fidel, maybe they love Kennedy for failing here.
Taxes: Under Kennedy, the federal income tax was cut massively, sparking an economic boom. But given that the biggest cut went to the top tax rate, shouldn't Democrats deplore this?
Military: Kennedy was key in the creation of the U.S. Army Special Forces, troops who have, as one of their missions, going into foreign countries and training the locals to overthrow their government, if said government happens to be unfriendly to U.S. interests, or to help traing the troops of friendly governments. Aren't Democrats supposed to not like overthrowing foreign governments, and the use of troops to "oppress" indigenous rebel movements?
Foreign Policy #1: Cuban Missile Crisis. Probably Kennedy's greatest accomplishment, calling Kruschev's bluff and staring him down. That we knew what cards Kruschev was holding, because the CIA was able to do its job, is beside the point. Great moment for Kennedy. But today's Democrats tend to preach a non-confrontational policy in such situations.
Foreign Policy #2: The Berlin Wall. Kennedy gets plaudits for his Berlin speech in which he claimed to be a pastry, but The Wall was built on his watch. It started out as a simple barbed wire fenced. When this didn't provoke any great outcry from the West (led by the U.S.) it became a cinderblock wall, and then progressively became harder and harder to breach. If Kennedy had objected strongly, the wire probably would have gone away. But since the repressive dictatorship in which The Wall trapped people was a communist one, I guess the Lefties approved of it.
Foreign Policy #3: Vietnam. U.S. involvement there was started by Kennedy, sending advisors (see Special Forces, above) to assist the South Vietnamese government. I thought the Vietnam war was something Democrats found loathsome (except when their candidate has medals from that war.)
Further puzzling is why LBJ isn't lionized by the Left. Look at his list of accomplishments: Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, topped off by the Great Society(Welfare State) with its myriad of Leftist programs and agencies. LBJ should be a Democrat diety. But he made one 'mistake'-Vietnam (not that I think our involvement in Vietnam was a mistake-it wasn't-but the way LBJ conducted the war was), for which they won't forgive him.
Update: Columnist Charles Kratuhammer doesn't even rank Kennedy #3, giving that spot to Teddy Roosevelt.
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