Let US ruin it instead!

I seem to remember growing up in a little place called the Soviet Union.  For those of you who don’t know, that little place was run by communists.  And for those of you who don’t know what life was like there, I can describe it in a single word:  SHITHOLE.

I remember having no toilet paper.  Only those with special connections could get toilet paper.  My aunt could.  Sometimes.  The rest of the time, you wiped your ass with wadded up Pravda, which is really all that rag is good for anyway.

My parents would send me to the store for milk.  It was rationed.  I received four bottles, and because the sack I used to carry the milk back from the store had a hole in it, and one of the bottles of milk slipped through and fell to the ground, shattering.  We couldn’t get any more.  My parents were pissed.  I was happy.  I never liked milk much.

I remember parties.  The height of opulence was having vodka and sardines for your friends when they came over.  Sometimes you even got some ingredients for a charming salad Olivier.  Sans chicken.  You’d use gross bologna as a substitute.  Rotten potatoes. And pickles.  We put pickles in everything.

We didn’t have shit, but neither did anyone else (except those with connections).  So we were all equally miserable (except for those with connections).

And now, the communists want to bring back those heavenly days of bliss and equality.  They claim the current Russian government has ruined the Russian economy… as if they can do better.

Russia’s Communist Party is to hold nationwide rallies on April 4 to
call for the government to step down over what it calls a failure to
deal with the economic crisis, the party’s deputy head said on Monday.

Ivan Melnikov, who is also a member of Russia’s lower house of
parliament, said the government’s anti-crisis measures “were either
ineffective or were carried out in the interests of a small circle of
individuals.”

Ummm… because the communists never did anything that benefitted a small group of individuals during their reign, right?

Russia has been hard hit by the global financial crunch that was
sparked by the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States last
summer and quickly spread to the rest of the world. Unemployment is up,
and the ruble has lost about 40% of its value. The economic slump has
also seen a drastic decline in oil prices, Russia’s most important
export.

Yep, the global economic crisis is ALL our fault, and so is Russia’s shitty economic situation.  It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that their economy is completely dependent on oil and natural gas and based their entire spending plan on the premise that oil and natural gas prices would remain obscenely high, as they were during the summer of 2008.  Granted, external demand for Russian exports is also plummeting thanks to the global economic downturn, but when you put all your eggs in one basket in a blind devotion to a single line of exports to prop up your entire economy, what the hell do you expect?

I remember telling a politics professor at Johns Hopkins – in reply to her euphoric pronouncements about the fall of the Berlin Wall – that I fully expected history to repeat itself and the communists to assume power again after a couple of decades of failed crony capitalism.  She disagreed.  I argued.  She gave me a “C.”

We’re not there… yet.

Things you never, EVER want to read in a newspaper

Every once in a while, I’ll troll the Internet for things to amuse me while I hang around the house alone, waiting for the munchkins to return from their various adventures in the neighborhood.  I’ll generally unwind from a long day by searching for funny stories.

And then I run across something like this, and I keep wondering what the writer had to be thinking when he wrote this:

“He volunteered to police that he had a stick and a
torch inserted in his anus for sexual gratification. He had inserted it
because he was depressed.”

For those of you who don’t know, a torch is a flashlight.  This numbskull had a flashlight up his ass.  Apparently he had a case of the blues and thought that inserting a foreign object into his anus would cure the problem.

I remember watching a video of a newscaster when I was in broadcast journalism school, trying to keep a straight face while reporting on the Lorena Bobbitt story.  I remember thinking I’d never be that unprofessional when reporting on a legitimate news story.

And then, several years later, I had to interview Charlie Dick, the late Patsy Cline’s second husband.

And when your morning show co-host is just as much of an immature jackass as you are, your segment turns out to be a complete disaster!

So I can’t help but wonder what the writer had to be thinking when writing a paragraph that involved the words “inserted,” “torch,” and “anus.”  I’m betting he was chuckling for a while.

But hey – at least he wasn’t live on the air with thousands of listeners realizing that their morning show co-host is a complete asshat.

Constitution? What Constitution?

Sovereignty? Law of the Land?  Who needs that shit?

That appears to be the opinion of Yale Law Schools’ Harold Koh, who’s on track to become the legal adviser to the State Department.

Now, obviously, what I’ve linked to is an opinion piece, but if any of it is true, this constitutes an absolute contempt for our Law of the Land.

JUDGES should interpret the Constitution according to other
nations’ legal “norms.” Sharia law could apply to disputes in US
courts. The United States constitutes an “axis of disobedience” along
with North Korea and Saddam-era Iraq.

Those are the views of the man on track to become one of the US government’s top lawyers: Harold Koh.

President Obama has nominated Koh — until
last week the dean of Yale Law School — to be the State Department’s
legal adviser. In that job, Koh would forge a wide range of
international agreements on issues from trade to arms control, and help
represent our country in such places as the United Nations and the International Court of Justice.

[...]

…A New York lawyer, Steven Stein, says that, in addressing the Yale
Club of Greenwich in 2007, Koh claimed that “in an appropriate case, he
didn’t see any reason why sharia law would not be applied to govern a
case in the United States.”

A spokeswoman for Koh said she couldn’t confirm the incident,
responding: “I had heard that some guy . . . had asked a question about
sharia law, and that Dean Koh had said something about that while there
are obvious differences among the many different legal systems, they
also share some common legal concepts.”

I’m sorry.  WHAT?

The man the President of the United States picks to be the top legal adviser to the nation’s diplomatic body thinks that an antiquated, neanderthal, twisted code straight out of the Stone Age (and maybe not even that modern) shares common legal concepts with our Constitution?

A system created to subjugate the individual to a vengeful God is somehow comparable to a system created to preserve and protect individual rights?

A system that destroys free will, keeps its followers cowering in fear and has no respect for human life somehow has something in common with a system that holds life, liberty and property as sacrosanct?

This is what is in charge of one of the nation’s best law schools.  This is the travesty that heads a school that trains the nation’s future lawyers.

Koh has called America’s focus on the War on Terror “obsessive.” In
2004, he listed countries that flagrantly disregard international law
– “most prominently, North Korea, Iraq, and our own country, the
United States of America,” which he branded “the axis of disobedience.”

You know… I bet if this pernicious piece of fetid shit actually lost a friend or a family member in the September 11th attacks, he wouldn’t call the War on Terror “obsessive.”  These are the words of someone who sits in his comfortable, sunny office at the top of the Ivory Tower of Academia and gazes upon the Great Unwashed masses in disdain, while refusing to come down and face reality.

The choice of Koh for the State Department shows this administration’s disregard for the very principles upon which this nation was built.

The majority of Mexican crime guns come from where?

I know I’ve blogged on this before, but it needs to be blogged again, because of the incredible amount of absolute bullshit that’s coming from the media about the Mexican drug war.

We’ve heard again and again how the U.S. is responsible for the evil drug dealers’ easy access to arsenals filled with weapons of mass destruction.  Hell, our new SECSTATE has told the Mexicans that we’re somehow responsible for their criminal problems, because of the drug demand here, as well as “easy access to guns.”

But is that exactly true?  They’ve stepped up enforcement, but the criminals are getting bigger and more effective armaments.

OK, yes, we have a demand for drugs here.  And it’s basic economic logic that where there is a demand, there will always be a supply.  And the more barriers to the supply chain, the more profitable it becomes to provide that supply.  You’re not going to change demand with more laws, but with education

As for the military weapons, the LA times – not exactly the bastion of pro-Second Amendment thought – reports that the military arms aren’t really coming from the United States, as the Brady Center and the journalists who regurgitate their talking points claim.

The Feb. 21 attack on police headquarters in coastal Zihuatanejo, which
injured four people, fit a disturbing trend of Mexico’s drug wars.
Traffickers have escalated their arms race, acquiring military-grade
weapons, including hand grenades, grenade launchers, armor-piercing
munitions and antitank rockets with firepower far beyond the assault
rifles and pistols that have dominated their arsenals.

Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American
countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused
on the smuggling of semiauto- matic and conventional weapons purchased
from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona
and California.

The proliferation of heavier armaments points to
a menacing new stage in the Mexican government’s 2-year-old war against
drug organizations, which are evolving into a more militarized force
prepared to take on Mexican army troops, deployed by the thousands, as
well as to attack each other.

These groups appear to be taking
advantage of a robust global black market and porous borders,
especially between Mexico and Guatemala. Some of the weapons are left
over from the wars that the United States helped fight in Central
America, U.S. officials said.

David has more here.  Please read it.

On police

I need to add a note here, because it seems every time I post a story about corruption within the ranks of the police, or wrongdoing, a number of my readers chime in with posts that bash cops as a whole.  So let’s get something straight…

First – You’re entitled to your opinions, and I won’t ever censor you on this blog, unless you start issuing threats or saying something equally stupid

Second – Yes, I know police officers aren’t issued a halo with the badge and gun.  There are corrupt police officers, just like there are corrupt politicians… and corrupt bankers… and corrupt journalists… and corrupt lawyers… and corrupt judges…

Third – I know a lot of you had unpleasant run-ins for whatever reason with police.  I understand. I sympathize.  And it colors your judgment on the subject.  I don’t blame you.

Fourth – In my experience, corrupt, power-hungry police are in the minority.  I know a lot of police officers.  I was married to one once.  Some of my closest friends are cops.  I’ve had the pleasure of working with some stellar individuals as a reporter.

I guarantee you for every corrupt, rude, power-drunk cop you have met, there are THOUSANDS out there whom you haven’t met and who deserve your respect.  Just think about how many police departments and other law enforcement agencies there are out there!  Think about how many men and women in those departments truly believe in the honor and integrity that is part of their job. Think about how many of them got into policing, because they truly wanted to make their communities a better place.  Think about how many of them are willing to risk their own lives to protect the people they serve.  There are plenty.

I haven’t met every single police officer in every single department and law enforcement agency.  But I’ve worked with, spoken with, been exposed to and been close with quite a few of them.  I’d be willing to bet that I likely know a lot more law enforcement officers than many of you.  And, given my number of speeding tickets, I’ve also had not-so-pleasant encounters as well.  From the numerous times I’ve been stopped for moving violations, there has only been one Virginia State Police officer, who was a smarmy dick and insisted on interrogating me about my reasons for carrying a weapon.  I told him “Because I can.  It is my right,” and I left it at that. He said nothing else about it.

But I digress…

My point is that we, gun owners, have something  in common with police officers.  One cantankerous pustule commits a crime with a scary, black rifle, and all gun owners are punished with restrictive gun laws.  One corrupt cop is caught doing something shitty, and we have a tendency to bash all of them.

One bad apple… You know the rest.

So while I won’t censor your comments, and I never have, I would ask those of you who feel the need to bash all LEOs for the misdeeds of a few, to give some thought to your comments and remember that most of them are on your side.