Wall Street Journal Smears Belgian Vlaams Belang Party

The Journal's editorials are usually excellent. However, their news articles are often written by journalists who have the typical leftwing bias. In Saturday's edition we see how John Miller has smeared Vlaams Belang, the party in Belgium that looks out for the interests of the Flemish people:

BRUSSELS -- A team appointed by Belgium's King Albert II started work Friday to resolve a stalemate between the nation's French and Dutch speakers. At stake is not whether Belgium falls apart, but whether it becomes more like Switzerland.

Ever since elections in June 2007, Belgium has been in trouble. It took nine months to form a government. Belgian newspapers ran alarming headlines warning of the nation's possible breakup. On Monday, the prime minister, Yves Leterme, offered to resign.

But while the glue that holds together this fragile nation of 10.5 million is slowly coming unstuck, it's likely to endure at least another generation, say political leaders and analysts.

So far so good. Now we get to a discussion of the political parties:

None of the mainstream Flemish parties favor independence for Flanders -- a reflection of Belgium's battered but tenacious national identity, along with the costs and complications of divorce, and the gnarly question of who gets Brussels, the wealthy capital city and seat of the European Union.

But what of Vlaams Belang, the party that works for Flemish independence? Does it therefore follow that Mr. Miller does not consider them to be 'mainstream'? Miller proceeds to admit that nearly a majority of the people in Flanders favor independece:

Around half of Belgium's Dutch speakers would like to see a Republic of Flanders, according to some opinion polls.

He doesn't get around to mentioning Vlaams Belang until the last column of the article:

Yet, "no political party except the extremists supports a split," says Vincent Van Quickenborne, Belgium's economy minister and a Flemish conservative. Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest), a far-right party that does advocate independence, generally polls a quarter of the vote in Flanders.

Ah yes, Vlaams Belang are 'far-right' and 'extremists'. Typical smear phrases used by the left.

Here is what Miller is saying:

(1) Half of the Flemish want independence.

(2) Vlaams Belang polls a quarter of the vote in Flanders.

(3) Vlaams Belang are not 'mainstream'.

(4) Vlaams Belang are 'far-right' and 'extremists'.

Am I missing something here? Whenever I try to make sense of anything that a lefty has to say, especially when he or she is a journalist, I inevitably fail to find any thought or logic at all.

I just can't get enough of Natalie. She was 100% female.

Another Nail in the Coffin

If there are any leftwing yahoos reading this who still believe that human CO2 emissions are causing global warming, read this essay by Australasian climatologist David Evans:

I DEVOTED six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector.
FullCAM models carbon flows in plants, mulch, debris, soils and agricultural products, using inputs such as climate data, plant physiology and satellite data. I've been following the global warming debate closely for years.
When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the old ice core data, no other suspects.
The evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we were certain when it appeared we needed to act quickly? Soon government and the scientific community were working together and lots of science research jobs were created. We scientists had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet.
But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming.

Why so?

1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it.
Each possible cause of global warming has a different pattern of where in the planet the warming occurs first and the most. The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever.

2. There is no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None. There is plenty of evidence that global warming has occurred, and theory suggests that carbon emissions should raise temperatures (though by how much is hotly disputed) but there are no observations by anyone that implicate carbon emissions as a significant cause of the recent global warming.

3. The satellites that measure the world's temperature all say that the warming trend ended in 2001, and that the temperature has dropped about 0.6C in the past year (to the temperature of 1980). Land-based temperature readings are corrupted by the "urban heat island" effect: urban areas encroaching on thermometer stations warm the micro-climate around the thermometer, due to vegetation changes, concrete, cars, houses. Satellite data is the only temperature data we can trust, but it only goes back to 1979. NASA reports only land-based data, and reports a modest warming trend and recent cooling. The other three global temperature records use a mix of satellite and land measurements, or satellite only, and they all show no warming since 2001 and a recent cooling.

4. The new ice cores show that in the past six global warmings over the past half a million years, the temperature rises occurred on average 800 years before the accompanying rise in atmospheric carbon. Which says something important about which was cause and which was effect.

However, Mr. Evans does show ignorance of one crucial fact:

The last point was known and past dispute by 2003, yet Al Gore made his movie in 2005 and presented the ice cores as the sole reason for believing that carbon emissions cause global warming. In any other political context our cynical and experienced press corps would surely have called this dishonest and widely questioned the politician's assertion.

Mr. Evans probably understands climatology as well as anyone, but he has very little understanding of American politics and our press corps. Al Gore proceeds with his lies because he knows the leftwing press will give him a pass on it. His eight years of experience in the Clinton administration gives him the confidence to lie with impunity.

World Court Orders USA to Halt Execution of Rapist-Murderer Jose Medellin

Jose Medellin, a citizen of Mexico, raped and murdered Elizabeth Pena (16) and Jennifer Ertman (15) in Houston in 1993. He is scheduled to be executed on August 5.

Now the World Court, in direct affront to the sovereignty of the United States, has ordered the USA to halt the execution on an absurd technicality:

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The World Court ordered the United States on Wednesday to do all it could to halt the imminent executions of five Mexicans until the court makes a final judgment in a dispute over suspects' rights.

The row, which has strained relations between the neighbors, centers on the fact that the United States failed to inform 51 of its citizens sentenced to die in U.S. jails of their right to consular assistance.
One of the five Mexicans on death row, Jose Medellin, is due to die on August 5 in Texas.

In 2004, the World Court ruled in favor of Mexico, finding the United States had violated international law, and ordered it to review the 51 cases to see whether the lack of consular assistance had prejudiced the outcome of their trials.

A year later, U.S. President George W. Bush ordered Texas to review Medellin's case but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in March that Bush had no authority to do so, leading Texas to schedule Medellin's execution for August.

"The court indicates that the United States of America shall take all measures necessary to ensure that five Mexican nationals are not executed pending its final judgment," Judge Rosalyn Higgins said.

This is ridiculous. Had Medellin asked to contact the Mexican embassy in the USA, he would undoubtedly been allowed to do so. This dirtbag confessed to his crimes back in 1993. He has been given a proper trial, attorneys paid for by the taxpayers of Texas, and numerous appeals for 15 years.

The state of Texas should ignore those idiots at the world court and send Medellin to his reward.

Inflation Accelerates in June

Thanks to the Federal Reserve, the inflation rate has jumped up to 1.056% during the month of June. That is a 13.4% annualized rate:

WASHINGTON -- U.S. consumer prices soared at their fastest annual pace in nearly two decades last month, tightening the screws on Federal Reserve officials as they balance a stagflationary mix of rising unemployment, strained financial markets and rising inflation.

Even more worrisome for policymakers than the headline inflation jump may be signs that food and energy prices are starting to filter through the broader economy, as evidenced by sharp price gains last month in housing, transportation and services.
Separately, a heat wave and the end of an auto sector strike gave a lift to U.S. industrial production in June, rising well above expectations.

The consumer price index jumped 1.1% in June, the Labor Department said Wednesday, the second-highest increase since 1982 and the highest since 2005. Excluding food and energy, it advanced 0.3%. Wall Street economists had expected a 0.7% rise in the headline and 0.2% core increase, according to a Dow Jones Newswires survey.

Unrounded, the CPI rose 1.056% last month. The core CPI advanced 0.323% unrounded.

The blame for this may be properly laid at the feet of Ben Bernanke. There was no need for him to drive the Fed Funds target down to 2%. The problems in the financial industry were not due to high interest rates.

InstaPunk Has Figured Out the Left

A blog I have recently become acquainted with is InstaPunk. I don't know this guy (or gal) but I like what he or she has to say about the lefties:

LOOK AT YOU. It's tiresome and I don't want to write about it at all, but it still has to be said. The lefthand 30 percent of the political spectrum in this country is emotionally and spiritually retarded. They're the ones who celebrated the death of Tony Snow in the Los Angeles Times blog, they're the decision makers at the L.A. Times who approved such barbaric comments for publication on that blog, and they're the highly educated, meticulously responsible and objective journalists who will ignore the implications of this kind of disgraceful behavior by those who take loud credit for being the most tolerant, civilized, progressive, humanitarian, and intelligent among us. That adds up to a pretty sizeable percentage of the Obama idolaters in our nation.

.

.

.

There's another larger point to be made here. One that explains what many have regarded as an insoluble mystery. Why you are so quick to side against your own nation and with the funadmentalistic fanatics of Islam who are quite open about their desire to enslave your womenfolk, castrate and behead your gay mascots, and exterminate your right to disbelieve in anything divine forever. It's no mystery at all. You are two peas in a pod. For you, politics is religion. For muslims, religion is politics. The concept of any separation between church and state is as much an oxymoron for you as it is for them. That's the savage incomprehension you share which overwhelms what should be a world-splitting schism between you.

You are the same. Which is to say you've arrived at the same annihilating perspective by entirely different means. The muslims of Jew-hating jihad are historical prisoners of undeveloped consciousness. You are history's greatest historical cowards of consciousness, the ones who fearfully fled the responsibilities of individual conscience for an easy -- and false -- collective rationality that defies the logic of human nature and experience. You have chosen an anti-human evil and draped it in the hypocritical lies of rhetorical altruism.

That's exactly the way I feel. If you lefties don't want to live in a free society, go off and form your own socialist utopia where you may lick the boots of your muslim masters as much as you like.

But leave the rest of us alone. There are some of us here in the USA who cherish freedom and appreciate the sacrifices our ancestors made for us. Losers like you don't deserve to live in a free society.

What Makes O'Bama Tick?

There is a really interesting analysis of Obama's political philosophy in an article by Michael Beran in City Journal. One interesting excerpt:

The politics of consensus that Obama favors is incompatible with the Founders’ adversarial system, which permits those whom he disparages as “ideological minorities” to take stands on principle that, at times, frustrate the national consensus. Obama makes it clear that there is no place, in the politics he advocates, for those “absolutists” who would defy the community. The “ideological core of today’s GOP,” he writes, is “absolutism, not conservatism,” an absolutism driven by those who prize “absolute truth” over “communal values.” This commitment to absolute truth, he argues, stands in the way of a politics that can solve our problems and change our lives.

So what happens to those of us who do not submit to the 'communal values'? Many fellow travelers of Obama's ideology believe that dissenting opinions should be suppressed. Wil Barack be any different?

A ticking Time Bomb is About to Explode

There are two quasi-governmental organizations: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who have a major hand in the home mortgage market. They are known as 'government sponsored private corporations', as can been read on Fannie Mae's website:

1968 Charter ActThe 1968 Charter Act split Fannie Mae into two parts: Ginnie Mae and a reconstituted Fannie Mae. Ginnie Mae would continue as a federal agency and be responsible for the then-existing special assistance programs, and Fannie Mae would be transformed into a "government-sponsored private corporation" responsible for the self-supporting secondary market operations. The reconstituted Fannie Mae was to be stockholder-owned and managed. Fannie Mae retired the last of its government stock on September 30, 1968, and transformation to a government-sponsored private corporation was completed in 1970.

As is inevitable whenever government tries to get involved in commerce, they have done more harm than good. Clinton administration officials Franklin Raines and Jamie Gorelick earned huge paydays while they worked at Fannie Mae, although neither of them were remotely qualified to work in finance.

Now that these 'government sposonred' businesses have gotten themselves in trouble with the home mortgage mess, both the US Treasury and Federal Reserve are planning to bail them out. This will enable Fan and Fred to continue to make the same mistakes they have in the past, and to provide well-paid sinecures for politically-connected people like Gorelick and Raines.

What a stupid idea!

Another Myth About Guns Debunked

The left are so hell-bent on taking away from law-abiding people the means to defend themselves against criminals and despotic governments that they will lie and twist the facts into a pretzel in order to 'prove' their fallacious points. One myth that they have repeatedly tried to perpetuate is the notion that gun ownership increases suicide rates. Steve Chapman explains why this is false:

Americans often buy guns for self-defense, a purpose that now has Supreme Court validation. But according to advocates of gun control, those purchasers overlook the people who pose the greatest threat: themselves. Anyone who acquires a firearm, we are told, is inviting a bloody death by suicide.
So says Matthew Miller, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health. "If you bought a gun today, I could tell you the risk of suicide to you and your family members is going to be two- to tenfold higher over the next 20 years," he told The Washington Post. Since the chance of a gun being used for suicide is so much higher than the chance of it being used to prevent a murder, we would all be better off with fewer firearms around.

It's a rich irony -- as though smoke alarms were increasing fire fatalities. But the argument raises two questions: Is it true? And, when it comes to gun control policy, does it matter?
As it turns out, the claims about guns and suicide don't stand up well to scrutiny. A 2004 report by the National Academy of Sciences was doubtful, noting that the alleged association is small and may be illusory.
Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck says there are at least 13 published studies finding no meaningful connection between the rate of firearms and the rate of suicides. The consensus of experts, he says, is that an increase in gun ownership doesn't raise the number of people who kill themselves -- only the number who do it with a gun.
That makes obvious sense. Someone who really wants to commit suicide doesn't need a .38, because alternative methods abound. Gun opponents, however, respond that guns inevitably raise the rate because they're uniquely lethal. Take away the gun, and you greatly increase the chance of survival.
But in his 1997 book, "Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control," Kleck points out that "suicide attempts with guns are only slightly more likely to end in death than those involving hanging, carbon monoxide poisoning, or drowning." It's not hard to think of some other pretty foolproof means of self-destruction -- such as jumping off a tall (or even not so tall) building, stepping in front of a train or driving at 80 mph into a telephone pole.
People who use guns are generally hellbent on ending their lives. So deprived of a sidearm, they will no doubt find another reliable method -- rather than swallow a dozen aspirin and wake up in the emergency room. Banning guns is no more likely to reduce suicides than banning ice cream is to curb obesity.

God save us from the left.

July 12, 1690

Victory at the Boyne!

Tony Snow: 1955 - 2008

Does Gun Control Work?

The UK has a complete ban on private ownership of handguns, and severe restrictions on long guns. Many gun control advocates have tried to attribute the lower murder rate in that country, as compared with the USA, to the gun restrictions. This is a classic case of data mining: Only using those data points that support their thesis and ignoring evidence to the contrary. For example, Finland and Switzerland have much higher per capita gun ownership than the UK, and yet have much lower murder rates. Brazil has almost no legal private ownership of firearms, yet they have amuch higher murder rate than the USA.

And now we read that banning guns doesn't stop murders. It just changes the type of weapons:

Gordon Brown declared tonight that new anti-knife crime measures will be announced next week after four men were stabbed to death in separate attacks across London in just 24 hours.
The Prime Minister said the latest spate of murders was “shocking and tragic” a few hours after the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police issued a rare appeal for calm in the capital.

One thing you can count on from the left. They'll never let the facts get in their way.

E J Dionne Brainfarts in the WaPo

Whenever there is an economic crisis, the left immediately start howling that free-market capitalism is to blame, and that the government must supervise commerce. They don't explain how government officials have acquired some special wisdom that enables them to shepherd the economy any better than private individuals making their own decisions. They merely take it as given.

It is in this spirit that E J Dionne talks about Capitalism's Reality Check:

The biggest political story of 2008 is getting little coverage. It involves the collapse of assumptions that have dominated our economic debate for three decades.
Since the Reagan years, free-market cliches have passed for sophisticated economic analysis. But in the current crisis, these ideas are falling, one by one, as even conservatives recognize that capitalism is ailing.

But Dionne does not mention the names of any prominent conservatives who have made this 'recognition'. The two names he gives are Irwin Stelzer, a guy I never heard of before, and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke:

While Frank is a liberal, the same cannot be said of Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve. Yet in a speech on Tuesday, Bernanke sounded like a born-again New Dealer in calling for "a more robust framework for the prudential supervision of investment banks and other large securities dealers."

Um, Dionne, I hate to contradict you. But just because Bernanke was appointed by Bush doesn't mean he is a conservative. Ben has always been quite committed to Keynesian economics.

Dionne also quotes Barney Frank extensively, as if the little leprechaun is also a conservative:

Frank also calls for new thinking on the impact of free trade. He argues it can no longer be denied that globalization "is a contributor to the stagnation of wages and it has produced large pools of highly mobile capital." Mobile capital and the threat of moving a plant abroad give employers a huge advantage in negotiations with employees. "If you're dealing with someone and you can pick up and leave and he can't, you have the advantage."

So what is the solution? If the government prohibits a company from moving its operations overseas, what's to stop them from just shutting down? Many will have to do just that if they are unable to compete.

And some more words of socialist wisdom from Frank and Dionne:

He noted that in 1999 when Congress replaced the New Deal-era Glass-Steagall Act with a set of looser banking rules, "we let investment banks get into a much wider range of activities without regulation." This helped create the subprime mortgage mess and the cascading calamity in banking.

The practice of securitizing mortgages predates 1999 by about 20 years. It was started by GNMA, a government agency. The repeal of Glass-Stegall had no effect on the practice. There are some investment banks that are heavily involved in commercial banking (Bank of America, J P Morgan), and some that are not (Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs). Prior to 1999 the commercial banks could simply have their mortgage-backed securities underwritten by a separate investment bank. It didn't have to be an in-house deal.

Idiots like Dionne and Frank feel that the government can do better. Ignoring the fact that much of the subprime mess resulted from government officials demanding that banks make more loans to people with lower incomes.

So are we to believe that a handful of Democrat government officials, like the previous occupant of the white house, are to be trusted to honestly and intelligently manage the socialist utopia? When you have politicians like the Clintons who rent out rooms in the white house like it is a motel 6, sell burial plots in Arlington National Cemetary, and sell pardons to the highest bidder?

The mind boggles.

The Promise of Socialism

I read this interesting tidbit from G. K. Chesterton, an English bloke I nay heard of before, on Protein Wisdom:

A permanent possibility of selfishness arises from the mere fact of having a self, and not from any accidents of education or ill-treatment. And the weakness of all Utopias is this, that they take the greatest difficulty of man and assume it to be overcome, and then give an elaborate account of the overcoming of the smaller ones. They first assume that no man will want more than his share, and then are very ingenious in explaining whether his share will be delivered by motor-car or balloon.

– G. K. Chesterton, Heretics, 1905

I just ordered a copy of Heretics.

The Bearded One Has A Bad Idea

Having already made the poor decision to bail out securities firms that have suffered losses from the mortgage-backed securities, Federal Reserve Board Chairman plans to extend the bailouts:

In an extraordinary action, the Fed in March agreed to let investment houses go to the Fed -- on a temporary basis -- for a quick, overnight source of cash. Those loan privileges, which are supposed to last through mid-September, are similar to those permanently afforded to commercial banks for years.
"We are currently monitoring developments in financial markets closely and considering several options, including extending the duration of our facilities for primary dealers beyond year-end should the current unusual and exigent circumstances continue to prevail in dealer funding markets," Bernanke said in prepared remarks to a mortgage-lending forum in Arlington, Va.
The Fed's decision to act -- temporarily at least -- as a lender of last resort for Wall Street firms was made after a run on Bear Stearns pushed the investment bank to the brink of bankruptcy and raised fears that others might be in jeopardy. It was the broadest use of the Fed's lending powers since the 1930s.
Bear Stearns was eventually taken over by JPMorgan Chase & Co., with the Fed providing $28.82 billion in financial backing.

Underwriting securities is a risky business. The owners and employees of these firms are handsomely compensated for bearing the risk. Many of them earn more in one day than most of us earn in one year. If they make bad decisions, they should eat their losses. The government has no need to bail them out. For every person working in securities, there are at least 1,000 more who would like to. The firms and the individuals who fail can be easily replaced.

I'm Back

Sorry about the lack of posting. I been down at Galveston Bay for the 4th. We got to see some great fireworks and shot some of our own.

Magennis's Pub in Belfast

The IRA murdered Robert McCartney here in 2006.

Is Google Shutting Down Anti-O'Bama Blogspot Accounts?

It wouldn't surprise me one bit. As the Anchoress said recently:

the “chill wind” that tries to shut down speech it does not like has been blowing from the left.

Very true. The left's stupid ideas cannot withstand the daylight of simple facts and clear analysis. That's why they are constantly calling for libertarians and conservatives to be silenced.

Will Google try to shut me down? Perhaps they will shut down this blogspot account but they won't silence me. The harder they try, the louder I get.

Dan Thomasson Squawks Foul After SCOTUS Heller Ruling

I have heard a lot of miserable lefties lamenting the fact that the Supreme Court has discovered the right to bear arms, where it has been hiding in plain sight for the last 221 years. But this OpEd by Dan Thomasson takes the cake:

WASHINGTON -- I often wonder if Antonin Scalia might not be more comfortable in another century, past not future, one not touched by the miseries and dangers of urbanization. I certainly think we would be if he were.
Maybe most fittingly he would do well in the 18th century where a firearm larger than a one-shot pistol and a long rifle could not be imagined, especially by those who were drafting a plan for the rest of us to live by forever and where citizen soldiers in local militias were the national defense.

Were Scalia sent back in time to the 18th century, it wouldn't take any imagination at all to see cannons and howitzers that were much larger than pistols and rifles. All he would have to do would be to open his eyes and have a look at the weapons used by the King's redcoats who were killing the patriots who founded this country.

Perhaps better yet if the good justice were somehow transported backwards in reality and just not in philosophy, he might somehow understand what brought about the Second Amendment of the Constitution and what went into the thinking that created it. Being privy to the future, then he could tell the framers about the development of destructive armament that would be available 200 years later and warn about the dangers this would pose for the 80 percent of modern Americans who live in metropolitan sprawl. Made aware of the potential horrors they might have written clearer language or dumped the idea altogether.

Yeah, Scalia could tell the framers about the high urban crime rate and how idiots like Thomasson want to disarm law-abiding people. And how the left have conveniently re-interpreted the 2nd amendment to try to make it some type of vague 'collective right', while the other nine amendments of the Bill of Rights concern individual rights.

And then the framers could tell Scalia about how they fought a war to obtain individual rights for common people. About how American soil is stained with the blood of patriots who fought and died so that we would have the means to defend ourselves against criminals or against a despotic government. And then Scalia could tell them about craven cowards like Thomasson who want to throw our rights away.

But it is my hope that Scalia would keep those facts to himself. If the founding fathers and the patriots who died in the American Revolution knew what losers like Thomasson were up to, they might not think it worth the trouble.

But since that is impossible, Scalia and his philosophical teammates had to roll their own when it comes to ruling on the right to bear arms. As everyone knows by now they did so by ignoring the carnage outside their cloistered chambers and by labeling as irrelevant that clause of the amendment that mentions the necessity of maintaining militias. This left them free to conclude that what George Washington and company really meant was that everyone, except criminals and certifiable crazies, can own almost any kind of legitimately bought weapon of mass destruction. The right to own automatic weapons still may be in dispute although the experts tell us converting a semi-automatic to one that is fully so is quite easy.

Yeah, Dan, Scalia and his crew 'rolled their own' by going against your leftwing lunacy that ignores the Founder's stated intent that the second amendment confers an individual right, and that the reference to militias is included because back in the 18th century all able-bodied men were members of the militia. And no, Scalia is not ignoring the carnage. They are doing this specifically because of the carnage.

In the District of Columbia whose strict law was the basis for this horrendous ruling, one can now shoot oneself without having to face a gun charge at least if one's aim is bad. That is just to mention the fact that a huge number of gun deaths are suicides and very few from protecting hearth and home from some intruder, who in many instances uses the victim's own weapon on the victim, adding insult to injury.

If someone wants to commit suicide, some stupid gun law will not prevent them from doing it. Then Dan repeats the well-worn myth of the intruder using the victim's weapon on the victim, something that rarely if ever happens.

The ruling, of course, is not surprising. Those trying to bring some sanity to the national love affair with guns had anticipated a negative result, but probably not one of this magnitude. For what the court did, albeit narrowly, was to decide for good or until the panel's philosophical make up is changed to come down on the side of individual rights not collective rights. Most disturbing was Scalia's reasoning that residents of this city -- and before long probably every other city -- can now hold off a bandit with a gun in one hand while dialing the police with another.

Handguns were invented specifically for the purpose of being operated with one hand. This leaves the other hand free to do something else, such as hold the reins of a horse or dial the police. And there are many law-abiding people who have held intruders at gunpoint until the police arrived.

Now the badly outgunned majority of Americans who are opposed to the wholesale traffic of nine millimeter pistols to AK-47s will have their work cut out for them, trying to stave off the gun lobby's assaults so that some semblance of control remains. The ruling suddenly vaulted the Supreme Court into a leading issue in the presidential campaign with supporters of presumptive Democrat nominee Barack Obama warning that if the Republican John McCain wins, the next appointments would give conservatives control for decades since the likely retirees are on the liberal side.

Yeah, they were badly outgunned. Because in many places they were not allowed to own a gun or were required to keep it in inoperable condition. For some reason, those nice criminals that lefties like to coddle didn't obey the laws, and kept on using guns.

But now law-abiding people will have a right that should have been theirs all along. They will no longer be outgunned. If a criminal brings a nine millimeter, they can fire back with a .357 or .44 magnum. Or if an intruder brings an AK-47, they can fire back with a .30-06. In spite of what idiots like Dan think, almost all deer rifles are more powerful than those awful 'assault rifles' that lefties are so afraid of.

Gun Control Advocates Continue to Spread Falsehoods

The lefties can't stand the fact that ordinary people have the right to defend themselves with a gun. They believe such protection should only be allowed to government officials like Mayor Daley of Chicago, who has 24/7 armed police protection, or the Chicago Aldermen, who have the right to possess a handgun even though the little people don't. They also don't have a problem when a celebrity gun-grabber like Rosie O'Donnell has armed guards to protect her children.

So now that the Supreme Court has upheld this right, gun-grabber Arthur Kellerman tries to tell us unwashed masses what we should do:

The Supreme Court has spoken: Thanks to the court's blockbuster 5 to 4 decision Thursday, Washingtonians now have the right to own a gun for self-defense. I leave the law to lawyers, but the public health lesson is crystal clear: The legal ruling that the District's citizens can keep loaded handguns in their homes doesn't mean that they should.

In his majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia explicitly endorsed the wisdom of keeping a handgun in the home for self-defense. Such a weapon, he wrote, "is easier to store in a location that is readily accessible in an emergency; it cannot easily be redirected or wrestled away by an attacker; it is easier to use for those without the upper-body strength to lift and aim a long rifle; it can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police." But Scalia ignored a substantial body of public health research that contradicts his assertions. A number of scientific studies, published in the world's most rigorous, peer-reviewed journals, show that the risks of keeping a loaded gun in the home strongly outweigh the potential benefits.

In the real world, Scalia's scenario -- an armed assailant breaks into your home, and you shoot or scare away the bad guy with your handy handgun -- happens pretty infrequently. Statistically speaking, these rare success stories are dwarfed by tragedies. The reason is simple: A gun kept loaded and readily available for protection may also be reached by a curious child, an angry spouse or a depressed teen.

More than 20 years ago, I conducted a study of firearm-related deaths in homes in Seattle and surrounding King County, Washington. Over the study's seven-year interval, more than half of all fatal shootings in the county took place in the home where the firearm involved was kept. Just nine of those shootings were legally justifiable homicides or acts of self-defense; guns kept in homes were also involved in 12 accidental deaths, 41 criminal homicides and a shocking 333 suicides. A subsequent study conducted in three U.S. cities found that guns kept in the home were 12 times more likely to be involved in the death or injury of a member of the household than in the killing or wounding of a bad guy in self-defense.

What Kellerman's 'study' conveniently leaves out are the number of times that a gun is brandished to prevent a crime, without being fired. John Lott has estimated the number of such occurences:

Those who advocate letting law-abiding citizens carry concealed handguns point to polls of American citizens undertaken by organizations like the Los Angeles Times and Gallup showing that Americans defend themselves with guns between 764,000 and 3.6 million times each year, with the vast majority of cases simply involving people brandishing a gun to prevent attack. [1] Victims (such as women or the elderly) are most often much weaker than the criminals that attack them. Guns are seen by these advocates as the great equalizer, and allowing concealed handguns provides citizens even greater ability to defend themselves. [Page 356]

While cases like the 1992 incident in which a Japanese student was shot on his way to a Halloween party in Louisiana make international headlines, [2] they are rare. In another highly publicized case, a Dallas resident recently became the only Texas resident so far charged with using a permitted concealed weapon in a fatal shooting. [3] Yet, in neither case was the shooting found to be criminal. [4] The rarity of these incidents is reflected in Florida statistics: 221,443 licenses were issued between October 1, 1987 and April 30, 1994, but only eighteen crimes involving firearms were committed by those with licenses. [5] While a statewide breakdown on the nature of those crimes is not available, Dade County records indicate that four crimes involving a permitted handgun took place there between September 1987 and August 1992 and none of those cases resulted in injury. [6]

The potential defensive nature of guns is indicated by the different rates of so-called "hot burglaries," where residents are at home when the criminals strike. [7] Almost half the burglaries in Canada and Britain, which have tough gun control laws, are "hot burglaries." By contrast, the United States, with laxer restrictions, has a "hot burglary" rate of only 13%. Consistent with this rate, surveys of convicted felons in America reveal that they are much more worried about armed victims than they are about running into the police. This [Page 357] fear of potentially armed victims causes American burglars to spend more time than their foreign counterparts "casing" a house to ensure that nobody is home. Felons frequently comment in these interviews that they avoid late-night burglaries because "that's the way to get shot." [8]

We don't want those poor felons to get shot. Do we lefties?

McCain Promises to Make Illegal Alien Amnesty His Top Priority

I am trying to talk myself into voting for McCain. It seems like every time I am almost convinced, the bozo gives me another reason not to. Now he claims he's going to make his "comprehensive immigration reform" (aka amnesty for lawbreakers) a top priority in his administration:

Appearing before the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) in Washington Saturday, each tried to assuage these concerns—and court a community whose votes could prove pivotal in Florida and a handful of western battleground states.
McCain, speaking first, promised the approximately 700 attendees that resurrecting the bipartisan immigration bill he helped shape last year would be at the forefront of his agenda as president.
“It would be my top priority yesterday, today and tomorrow,” McCain said in response to a question about whether he would pursue a comprehensive approach beyond his campaign promise to secure the border in his first 100 days in office.
Seeking to win some points for his initial support for a comprehensive immigration bill, McCain noted that his position “wasn’t very popular…with some in my party.”
And, in remarks that could inflame those Republican border hawks, the Arizona senator made clear he would not just seek to secure the border first, as he promised in the primary.
“We have to secure our borders—that’s the message,” McCain said. “But we also must proceed with a temporary worker program that is verifiable and truly temporary.”

There's not much to choose from this November.

Director of Communications for the Obama Campaign

Warning: Be sure to swallow your coffee before watching this video.

Get a Load of What Barack's Buddy, Fr. Pfleger, Said Last Year

Fr. Michael Fleger, a marxist scumbag who claims to be a man of God, called for the murder of the owner of a gun shop, as well as state legislators who oppose gun control:

Nobody expected Saturday's Operation PUSH protest at Chuck's Gun Shop & Range to be anything other than a circus of the bizarre. However, nobody anticipated that an address by a Chicago priest would include a call for the murder of a suburban gun shop owner and legislators who oppose gun control.

During an address at an anti-gun rally in front of Chuck's, Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina's Church, exhorted the crowd to "drag" shop owner, John Riggio, from his shop "like a rat" and "snuff" him. Rev. Pfleger went on to tell the crowd that legislators that vote against gun control legislation should be "snuffed" as well. As many know, "snuff" is slang for especially violent murder.
The ISRA has a recording of Pfleger's remarks in MP3 format.
"Certainly Fr. Pfleger has offered Absolution to a murderer or two during his tenure as a priest," commented ISRA Executive Director, Richard Pearson. "That's why it's shocking to hear him actually advocate the murder of a gun shop owner who has never committed a crime in his life. He then compounds the problem by calling for the murder of legislators who disagree with his personal political views -- something I suspect is a felony in this state. Pfleger's comments were disgusting and dangerous. And, I seem to remember that the Fifth Commandment frowns on murdering one's neighbor."
"This week, I'll be penning a letter to the Archbishop, expressing my concerns over Rev. Pfleger's comments," continued Pearson. "I would hope that the Archbishop would reply with words of comfort for Mr. Riggio, his family, state legislators, and all others who were injured by Rev. Pfleger's thoughtless, inflammatory remarks."

So Barack, what were you doing last year while your spiritual advisor Pfleger was calling for the murder of innocent people?

Hat tip to Anne Leary at Backyard Conservative.

New Battles for Second Amendment Rights

Now that the supreme court has correctly ruled that individuals have the right to bear arms, the NRA and others are taking aim at the draconian restructions on guns in other cities, including Chicago and San Francisco:

CHICAGO (AP) - Gun-rights groups have already filed a lawsuit against Chicago's handgun ban -- after a similar ban in Washington, D.C. was struck down by the Supreme Court.
The National Rifle Association is planning to go to court and challenge San Francisco's ban.
The high court ruled that Americans can keep guns at home for self-defense. It's the first time the justices ever ruled on the meaning of gun rights under the Second Amendment.
But the court also said the right to bear arms is not absolute. And the mayor of Philadelphia, Michael Nutter, says that's an "explicit statement of support" for cities that are creating "reasonable measures" targeting those who will carry weapons in order to do harm.
The San Francisco ban prevents people from carrying guns on county property -- including parks, schools and community centers. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom says he wishes the justices who rejected the D.C. ban would first "spend a week in public housing."
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley predicts that if his city's ban is overturned, there will be more violence.

Yeah Gavin, why don't you try spending a week in public housing? And not as a visiting mayor with dozens of police protecting you. Do it incognito as a regular guy. You will wish you had a gun to defend yourself.

Justice Anthony Kennedy: At Least He Got Something Right

Justice Samuel Alito

Chief Justice John Roberts

Justice Clarence Thomas

Justice Antonin Scalia. A Man of Courage and Intellect

Breyer's Dissenting Opinion in the Heller Case

Here is one of the things Breyer said in his dissent. It was joined by justices Ginsberg, Stevens, and Souter:

I can understand how reasonable individuals can disagree about the merits of strict gun control as a crime-control measure, even in a totally urbanized area. But I cannot understand how one can take from the elected branches of government the right to decide whether to insist upon a handgun-free urban populace in a city now facing a serious crime problem and which, in the future, could well face environmental or other emergencies that threaten the breakdown of law and order.

This raises two important points. How can a government insist on a handgun-free urban populace? It isn't possible. They can only guarantee that the law-abiding people will be handgun-free. Does Breyer really believe that some man who is willing to commit armed robbery or murder will obey a handgun ban?

We have already seen an example of what government might do in the case of an emergency that threatens the breakdown of law and order when New Orleans was inundated by hurricane Katrina. The guns of many law-abiding people were seized by the administration of the racist mayor Ray Nagin. This rendered them defenseless against viokent crime.

More from the DC v. Heller Decision

I am reading Scalia's brilliant opinion on the Heller case. Here is one of the sources he quotes:

St. George Tucker’s version of Blackstone’s Commentaries, as we explained above, conceived of the Blackstonianarms right as necessary for self-defense. He equated thatright, absent the religious and class-based restrictions,with the Second Amendment. See 2 Tucker’s Blackstone
143. In Note D, entitled, "View of the Constitution of the United States," Tucker elaborated on the Second Amendment: "This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty . . . . The right to self-defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine the right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction."

Very true. Governments definitely like to keep that right confined. It hasn't been so bad here in the USA, but in the UK some people have gotten in more trouble with the law for defending themselves against a violent criminal than that criminal himself.

Scalia wraps up his opinion with:

...the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table. These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home. Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.

We affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

It is so ordered.

You got that, left wing jackasses?

U.S. Supreme Court: Constitution Supports an Individual Right to Bear Arms!!!!!!

You could hit me on the head with a sledgehammer right now, and you still wouldn't be able to wipe this smile off my face. Supreme Court Justices Scalia, Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, and Thomas have confirmed that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution supports an individual right to bear arms.

See the full opinion here.

Our second amendment rights are the basis of all other rights. We must posess the means to defend ouselves against a despotic government. Without that right, human beings are mere chattels who exist at the whim of any tyrant who comes along.

Now I want to hear all you lefties bitch and moan. Are guns exacerbating global warming? Does the posession of shotguns make me racist, sexist, and homophobic? And be sure to write me to take me up on my free offer. It is still open.

ACLU Threatens to Deny Navy Midshipmen Their First Amendment Rights

The American Civil Liberties Union, which was founded during World War I by former communist Roger Nash Baldwin, has a limited understanding of what First Amendment freedom of religion consists of. The first amendment reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The ACLU feels that the amendment only protects atheists. The conveniently ignore the part where it says "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof".

So, in their latest salvo in their war against religion, the commies are targeting the midshipmen at Annapolis, trying to deny them the right to pray at lunch time:

The American Civil Liberties Union is threatening to sue the U.S. Naval Academy unless it abolishes its daily lunchtime prayer, saying that some midshipmen have felt pressured to participate.
In a letter to the Naval Academy, Deborah Jeon, legal director for the ACLU of Maryland, said it was "long past time" for the academy to discontinue the tradition. She said the practice violates midshipmen's freedom to practice religion as their conscience leads them.
The Naval Academy rejected the ACLU's request that the prayer be eliminated.
"The academy does not intend to change its practice of offering midshipmen an opportunity for prayer or devotional thought during noon meal announcements," the university said in a statement. It said that some form of prayer has been offered for midshipmen at meals since the school's founding, in 1845, and that it is "consistent with other practices throughout the Navy."
Nine midshipmen have complained to the ACLU about the practice, Jeon said yesterday. Some have since graduated. One recent graduate, an agnostic who objected to the chaplain-led prayer, said she felt pressured to take part in it.
"Everybody else is participating with their heads bowed and their arms crossed," the midshipman said in an interview. "It became very obvious that you aren't participating."
The midshipman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she feared her military career might be affected, said she went along with the practice at first because she didn't want to stand out. But she stopped in her third year and stood at parade rest instead of bowing her head and crossing her arms.

That's the attitude of the left: "Free speech for me but not for thee", "Freedom of religion for me but not for thee".

As for those midshipmen who didn't want to pray: Deal with it. The Christians at Annapolis are not forcing you to pray. Don't force them to refrain from praying.

What Warming?

A plot of global atmospheric temperatures as measured by satellite. See Icecap for more details.

Did Steve Levitt Fake a Referee Report at JPE?

For those of you not familiar with the economics profession, the Journal of Political Economy is one of the most prestigious academic journals. It is edited at the University of Chicago. Getting a paper accepted there can work wonders for a professor's career.

One of the editors is Steve Levitt. I have written previously about how Steve Levitt claimed to speak for "pretty much all economists" on the subject of gas prices. Concerning the issue of John Lott's research on gun control, John found it necessary to file a defamation suit against Steve.

And now, it appears that Steve committed a major faux pas as an editor.

What Peace?

The only peace in Northern Ireland is for the Sinn Fein/IRA terrorists. The Protestants are still living in fear for their lives, as is the case for a former member of the Ulster Defense Regiment:

A former Ulster Defence Regiment soldier has been forced to flee to England after being targeted by dissident republicans, it was confirmed today.
The ex-UDR man, who has been a civilian for almost ten years, was told by the PSNI of a high threat against him from the Continuity IRA.
But after a police guard was put on his Lurgan home overnight, the former sergeant was advised to get out of the province.
The DUP today said it was aware of a "very high threat" in north Armagh which represented an escalation of the campaign by dissident groups in targeting retired security forces personnel.
Jeffrey Donaldson, who as a privy councillor has access to security information, said the threat has also spread to prison staff.
The Lagan Valley MP said a number of people have recently been forced to move under the SPED (Special Purchase of Evacuated Dwellings) scheme.
A PSNI spokeswoman said it could make no comment on the security of individuals, but the incidents follow warnings from Chief Constable Hugh Orde about dissident republican activity.
The latest threats come after the CIRA claimed responsibility for an attack in which two police officers suffered minor injuries from a bomb hidden under a small rural bridge near the border village of Rosslea.

This is what happened to one of my best friends in Northern Ireland. She was forced to flee to England after the IRA threatened to kill her.

George Carlin: 1937 - 2008