So the European Union has a committee on racism and they did a study regarding anti-Semitism in Europe. They weren't happy with the results though, so they have shelved the report.

What was the shocking, inflammatory, and therefore invalid conclusion of the report, you ask?

The conclusion is that most anti-Semitism in Europe is practiced by Muslims and pro-Palestine groups.

Duh.

FT.com Home Europe

Going to the range this morning, so posting will be light. Anyone in the Seattle area is welcome to join in. Analog Kid, Joe & Sondra, plus a co-worker of mine will all be there. Any skill level is welcome, and I'm teaching the co-worker how to shoot. I'll be more than willing to teach anyone who wants to learn, and AK will also teach if you want. We're going to be at Wade's Gun Shop and Range. Mapquest directions can be found here.

Speaking of guns, this doesn't qualify as a dead goblin, since the perp lived, but here's a perfect reason why people should own a gun.

A man who attempted to rob a small grocery store on Beacon Hill in Seattle Thursday afternoon fired a shot that first wounded the store owner, then ricocheted into a customer.

The robber already had the money. But, when dealing with criminals who may or may not be under the influence of some chemical, you never know what they'll do. Take my word on this, I've dealt with more than my share. However, the story has a happy ending!

The owner then shot and wounded the robber, police said

Robber shoots at owner, grazing the man, and owner proves that he has much better marksmanship.

The store owner was hit in the hand, police said.

The store owner wounded the intruder in the face and abdomen. The man ran out of the store, but collapsed nearby.

The intruder and the injured customer were taken to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

Of course, since this is ultra-liberal, anti-gun Seattle, they had to include one last statement.

Two weapons were recovered at the scene.

Here's a clue, newspeople. The only weapon that should have been recovered was the criminal's, since it was most likely stolen or aquired through other illegal means. The store owner should have had his gun inspected at the scene, then RETURNED TO HIM IMMIDIATELY, so that the next time some drug-addled dope tries to rob him, he can improve his aim!

Robber: This is a stick-up! Gimme all your money!
Store owner (whipping out pistol): BANG BANG BANG BANG!
Robber: Ow. *thud*

Ah well, at least this guy won't be robbing people again any time soon.

NEWS FLASH: Dyke attacks 'unquestioning' US media ! ! !

And no we're not talking Rosie O'Donnell here.

MediaGuardian.co.uk

Donald Sensing has a quick story about the ingenuity of an Army Staff Sergeant whose necessity mothered the invention of a new device to help save lives.

Did you happen to catch the SlamBall slam dunk competition last week on Spike TV? In all seriousness, it was spectacular. I mean it was awesome. No lie.

And a bonus fisk.

That's right, it's time for more thought than you can shake a stick at. And the fisk is from one of the local rags, just because it got my blood up. Anyways, let the links begin!

From Townhall.com, we have dozens of choices. My picks are as follows:

Jonah Goldberg blames the politicians for forcing the courts to rule on gay marriage. Bruce Bartlett takes on trade protectionism (something that Tim and I disagree on every now and then). Thomas Sowell takes judges to task for their "Legislation by Judiciary". Mike Adams exposes more false liberal "tolerance" on campus, and it's not a pretty sight. Walter Williams links the anti-tobacco crusade to the loss of property rights. Don't even get me started on this one. I could go on a rant for days. And what would linky love from Townhall be without the Dream Woman, Michelle Malkin, who rips yet another layer from the Eco-terrorist's facade.

Now then, to NRO, just in case you missed them. The piece which has every right thinking person frothing at the mouth, Amir Taheri's expose on just who the protesters actually are. An eye opener if I ever saw one. More on this later. Sally Pipes describes the ponzi-scheme "prescription Drug" bill as a money sucking waste of time and effort. Can't say that I disagree with her, either. And last but not least, Mr. Dunphy bemoans the bureaucratic machine that has overtaken law enforcement. As an MP, I can sympathize with Mr. Dunphy.

Now then, on the Taheri piece, can anyone actually say that they're surprised? The people protesting the war are, quite simply, the enemy. They are Marxists, who refuse to see their dream of Communism die the death that it deserves. They are Radical Islamists, who have no problem sending their kids to die in suicide bombings, if only they get their dream of world-wide Shari'a law. They are the people determined to drag this world down into the depths of misery, depression, despair, and hopelessness. Not contents with murdering over 100,000,000 people in various marxist hellholes, they want EVERYONE to suffer equally. Except for them, of course. Whenever I debate a communist, I always ask "Just WHO is going to determine what everyone needs, anyways?" I haven't gotten a strait answer yet. And in an interview, one of the protesters lays a favorite leftist lie to rest.

In his book Revolutionary Islam, published in Paris last month, Carlos, who says he has converted to Islam, says he has advised Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader, to forge an alliance with "all guerrilla, terrorist and other revolutionary groups throughout the world, regardless of their religious or ideological beliefs."

Carlos says Islam is the only force capable of persuading large numbers of people to become "volunteers" for suicide attacks against the U.S.

"Only a coalition of Marxists and Islamists can destroy the US," he says.

So much for Saddam and Bin Laden not getting along, eh?

I did promise a fisk, did I not? This is from the Seattle Times, only slightly more to the right than the Seattle Commie Apologiser Post-Intelligencer. The columnist is one Froma Harrop, another person who can be counted on to spew the various positions handed down by the liberal elite.

There's really no point in getting excited over the conservative plot to kill off traditional fee-for-service Medicare. It's going to fall flat on its face, anyway.

Of course, traditional "fee for service" Medicare is an abysmal failure, to the point that many doctors are refusing to accept any more Medicare Patients. A re-embursement rate of around 48% will do that to people. Something to do with medical costs and the failure of Medicare to adequately cover them. But wasn't that clever of her to zing conservatives in the first paragraph?

We're talking about the grand scheme to pit private health plans against the government-run program. It was to be a centerpiece in the big Medicare drug bill. The privatization idea has since shrunk to a few pilot programs, starting in 2010. Better to have the pipe dream fail in selected cities than to drive everyone crazy.

But of COURSE the government can do things better than the private sector! Just look at Social Security with it's 0.062% interest return! What's that you say? IRAs? 3%-4%? On a BAD day? No kidding!

I appreciate the conservatives' unease over fee-for-service Medicare. About 80 percent of Medicare's 40 million elderly and disabled beneficiaries choose this option. Once Grandma buys a Medigap policy — which covers expenses Medicare doesn't — she can visit doctors all day and never spend an extra penny of her own money. The government picks up most of the bill.

I never knew that 48% was considered "most" of the bill.

This setup is rough on taxpayers. Under current rules, Medicare spending will jump from $250 billion this year to $310 billion in 2006. Heaven knows what will happen when the giant baby-boom generation starts retiring in 2008. So any thoughtful policymaker would want to change the program to encourage more careful use of medical resources.

How nice of you to think of the taxpayers, Froma! But it's not just hard on us taxpayers, it's hard on every medical facility that doesn't get reimbursed. It's hard on patients who struggle to find a doctor that will accept them. Medicare is a failing program that should have been removed, torn down, demolished, and put out of everyone's misery long ago. But it wasn't, and now we're forced to attempt to fix it.

But rather than reform fee-for-service Medicare, conservatives are trying to poison it slowly. And they're so blinded by hostility to the government-run plan that they are offering alternatives that will cost more, not less, money.

Well, what's wrong with competition? When it comes to Medicare, most everything.

Fee-for-service Medicare puts millions of people in the same giant insurance pool. Some enrollees use a lot of medicine. Others use very little. The healthy subsidize the sick. That's how health insurance is supposed to work.

Gee, why would we be hostile to a government run plan? Hmmmmm, how about widespread corruption, bloated, money sucking bureaucracy, and inability to respond to market demands? But it's nice to see the author attempt to acknowledge how the free-market works.

A sneaky but effective way to destabilize this arrangement is to drain the pool of healthy participants. How can that be done? By subsidizing private health plans to attract the profitable beneficiaries.

Under the pilot program, each participant would receive a voucher to buy insurance from a private plan or from the government-run program. People who chose a cheaper private plan could get money back. That makes it a good deal for those who rarely see doctors.

And here is where Ms. Harrop goes off the deep end. I'll let her hang herself continue.

The joke of it all is that while the private health insurers may hurt traditional Medicare, they won't save the taxpayers money. Consider the sorry history of Medicare HMOs: Private health plans were to lure beneficiaries into managed care with promises of drug coverage and other new benefits. Congress cut payments to the private insurers in 1997, and they abandoned the program in droves. Or they slashed benefits.

The Medicare bill will now sweeten the deal for private health plans — offering payments in line with those under the fee-for-service program. People in traditional Medicare, meanwhile, are protected against big hikes in their premiums. So where are the savings going to come from?

Here's the deal, Ms. Harrop. Any person who is able to have private health care in the FIRST place doesn't touch Medicare! Hell, people avoid Medicare like the plague, because it's an inefficient, bloated, unmoveable, government run debacle! Do you really think that people WANT to be on Medicare? NO! These folks know that Medicare is the LAST place they want to go for help! There are no "healthy participants" in Medicare to begin with! The very fact that you attempt to claim that a private health insurance company is anything like a government run socialist ponzi-scheme like Medicare shows just how far into the deep-end you are! Medicare doesn't need reform, it needs to be killed!

Many conservatives retain a touching faith in the private sector's ability to do the job more efficiently than government — but they never explain how. Medicare spends less than 2 percent of its outlays on administration. It has no marketing expenses. It doesn't pay dividends to shareholders or turn its executives into tycoons. Private health plans, by contrast, spend 20 percent or more on administration costs.

Yes, our "touching" faith in the free market, reinforced on a daily basis by the total and complete FAILURE by the nanny-state government to do anything with the efficiency of the free market. I want to know just where the hell Ms. Harrop gets her "2%" figure, because I'll call it a damn flat out lie right here and now. The fact that medical practitioners get reimbursed less than HALF of the cost of treating Medicare patients exposes the fraud of Medicare. Perhaps Ms. Harrop forgot that every dollar spent by the government had to be taken out of someone else's pocket. And let's go through the list of people to have a hand on that dollar, shall we? The IRS starts the ball rolling. Every bureaucracy in the government has administrators, paper pushers, handlers, and sorters. The IRS is no different. Once your dollar gets through THAT little gauntlet, THEN it comes back out, battered, beaten, and much smaller, only to be shoved into the maw of whatever government blob is in charge of the service du jour. Which means another gauntlet of paper pushers, handlers, administrators, and other people. All of which get paid. By this money. Do you really think that there will be much left of that dollar when it finally gets to where it needs to go?

Today, private insurers generally pay doctors and hospitals higher fees than does traditional Medicare. After all, they lack the government's size and bargaining power.

No, you socialista bitch, they don't have the money eating BULLSHIT BUREAUCRACY that the government has! And the government HAS NO FUCKING BARGAINING POWER, as proved by doctors NO LONGER TAKING MEDICARE PATIENTS! WOW, GREAT LEVERAGE THERE! This is what you want to inflict on the American public, you socialist twit? NOT ON ME, and NOT ON MY FAMILY!

And FINALLY, we get to the END of this blathering twit's hallucinations.

One suspects that many conservatives don't really care how the chips fall — as long as they're heavy enough to break the back of traditional Medicare. The gold nugget in the ruins would be a voucher system, whereby every Medicare beneficiary received a check for X amount. Elderly Americans would use the money to buy insurance. Anyone who needed more care than the voucher bought would have to find funds elsewhere or go without.

The main goal, then, is to limit the taxpayer's responsibility for the senior citizen's medical problems. And the real issue is how much medical care our society is willing to pay for, rather than who will write the checks to the doctor.

If conservatives want to reduce the taxpayer's exposure to rising Medicare costs, let them say that. It's a fair argument. But all this talk about "choice" and "updating" or "modernizing" Medicare with "marketplace competition" is pure malarkey.

Gee, there's also that little part about the seniors who have been lied to by the socialist nanny-staters, who now face rising medical costs and no way to pay them. These same seniors, lied to by the socialist nanny-staters, who can't find a doctor who will take them because the nanny-state program WON'T PAY FOR THE DOCTOR'S COST! For years, it's been the free-markets, through health insurance companies, that have made it possible for the socialistas to plan and scheme. Hospitals and medical clinics simply made up the difference in reimbursement by charging actual insurance companies more. Which of course, caused insurance companies to charge more. Which meant more people couldn't afford insurance. Until the whole bullshit socialist scheme fell apart, and now we have to figure out a way to fix the problem without hurting those seniors who got suckered into the socialist crap.

Medicare is the perfect example of how the government will fuck things up horribly. The perfect example of why socialism fails, time and time again. But this socialist bint is complaining about us mean conservatives. Maybe she should talk to hospitals and clinics who turn away Medicare dependent seniors instead of poo-pooing the free market.

It's the socialist schemes that have hurt people in this country. The free-market has been it's savior. I say we give the free market the chance.

It's worked so far!

This is perhaps the best page of writing I have seen on the web in, well, a long time. To wit:

Michael Moore is right. There are many Americans who are ignorant of the world around them. And they’re all TV news producers. Two big bombs in Istanbul, and what’s the big story of the day? Following around a pervy slab of albino Play-Doh as he turns himself into the police. I was stunned to discover last night that Nightline not only covered the Jackson case in detail, but bumped coverage of the Whitehall speech, which was the most important speech since the Iraq campaign began and arguably the most important speech of the war, period.

And then there's this:

The staff was split. Nightline, supposedly the Thinking Person’s Late Night Show, was split about whether a repudiation of 50 years of foreign policy was slightly more important than the arrest of a washed-up, crotch-grabbing yee-hee! squeaking nutball who was probably the horrid pedophile everyone already thought he was.

The question is whether this reflects the mood of the country, or whether it reflects the mood of our Olympian betters who hand down the news from their lofty aeries. I think it’s the latter. I hope it’s the latter.

Reading on:

It’s going to take another attack to convince the fence-sitters: I hear this all the time. I don’t think that’s the case. I think the next attack on American soil will jolt whose who’ve moved on, who’ve forgotten the aching, clammy dread we all felt after 9/11. But others will believe that we brought it on ourselves. You already read it around the web – the bombings in Turkey were a response to Britain’s assistance for toppling Saddam; what did we expect? In other words: if we fight back, we get what we deserve. If we do not fight back, and we are attacked again, you can blame it on the crimes for which we have not yet sufficiently atoned. The only proper posture for the West is supine. Curl up and let them kick until they’re spent. Give them Israel and New York and perhaps they’ll go away.

Am I going to post the whole thing? No, but this should get you to, as they say, "read it all":

Finally: the Guardian ran letters welcoming Bush to Britain. Everyone piled on stupid old Harry Pinter, but I didn’t see anyone note this contribution from blogosphere star Salam Pax:

"I hate to wake you up from that dream you are having, the one in which you are a superhero bringing democracy and freedom to underdeveloped, oppressed countries. But you really need to check things out in one of the countries you have recently bombed to freedom. Georgie, I am kind of worried that things are going a bit bad in Iraq and you don't seem to care that much. You might want it to appear as if things are going well and sign Iraq off as a job well done, but I am afraid this is not the case."

[[[ Lileks responds: ]]] Hey, Salam? Fuck you. I know you’re the famous giggly blogger who gave us all a riveting view of the inner circle before the war, and thus know more about the situation than I do. Granted. But there’s a picture on the front page of my local paper today: third Minnesotan killed in Iraq. He died doing what you never had the stones to do: pick up a rifle and face the Ba’athists. You owe him.

If you read anything start to finish today, let it be this.

LILEKS (James) The Bleat

Seen on Instapundit

Did George Marshall lie about The Germany's WMDs?

James Dunnigan compares Iraq and Vietnam.

Regnum Crucis comments on a Christian Science Monitor article regarding "al-Qaeda 2.0".

Reason [Magazine] Online has a little piece about the Weekly Standard article that links Saddam and Osama.

David Frum of London's Telegraph covers anti-war rallies thusly:

I thought of the tens of thousands of marchers I'd seen at the big anti-war demo in October 2002, chanting Islamic slogans from under their caps and hijabs.

They had not been bookish or polite. There was nothing woolly about them.

But they were young and fierce - and numerous. It is they, not these ageing men and women carefully tucking away their litter, who represent the future of the British Left - if, that is, a politics that pooh-poohs the crimes of Osama bin Laden and rallies to aid the last-ditch struggles of the Ba'ath party of Iraq can in any meaningful way be called "Left" at all.

The war on terror has glaringly exposed the moral contradictions of contemporary political radicalism: a politics that champions the rights of women and minorities, but only when those rights are threatened by white Europeans; a politics that celebrates creative non-violence at home but condones deadly extremism abroad; and, perhaps above all, a politics that traces its origins to the Enlightenment - and today raises its voice to protect militantly unenlightened terrorists from the justice dispensed by their victims.

There's a bit more:

Telegraph | News | Why this protest is deeply shameful

I just left this comment over at Citizen Smash's place:

Not thought that has entered my mind in the past ten years scares me more than the realization that there are free people, American, French, British people, who oppose waging war on these Radical Islamic fellas.

I argue that this is World War Four, and it's Radical Islam against everyone else. I know that is melodramatic but if memory serves me well, Radical Islam has, in the past ten years, struck deadly blows in the United States, Kenya, Tanzania, Tunisia, Pakistan, Iraq, Indonesia, Jordan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and now Turkey.

Whom did I miss?

Here is what I was addressing.

Am I wrong? If one group of people, loosely jointed though they may be, strike in twelve different nations inside ten years, what do you call that?

UPDATE: AJ over at Dar al Harb wrote to say that I missed India, Israel, Sudan, and Algeria. I also neglected Yemen, site of the USS Cole bombing.

Samizdata has some pics from today's, uhhhhh, peace march in London.

I hate to mimic Dave yet again today, but looking at these pictures I thought: "Was anyone truly surprised? No, I didn't think so. Not rant worthy."

Click the link.

Hey buddy, you got a job?

Well the girlfriend was laid off on Tuesday. More proof that this town sucks. The good part is, she's pretty marketable, so she's lining up the interviews and getting ready to once again join the working class.

(Side note to hippies: I'm talking about jobs. J-O-B-S, a magical process whereby we transform our labor into money, which we use for things like rent, food, good cigars, and more ammo for our guns)

But in any case, I'm going to be off the computer for most of the day, as she does the job searches, online applications, and other assorted work-finding activity.

In the meantime, I just realized that I forgot to remind everybody that Ammo Day was yesterday. I'm so ashamed! I deserve to be drug out back and whipped to within an inch of my life! So, go out and buy 100 rounds of ammo for yourself. Or if you don't shoot, buy ME a hundred rounds, since my ammo budget just took a massive hit. Ah well, I'm still taking a co-worker to the range on Saturday.

I'll skimp somewhere else in the budget.

Now then, in the news: Michael Jackson was arrested for possible child molestation. Was anyone truly suprised? No, I didn't think so. Not rant worthy. Massacusetts court says gays can marry? I have one question: Now that a court has finally admitted that the government has no business in people's private lives, can we start ripping apart huge chunks of the beurocratic machine?

Seriously, these "laws by judication" are the liberal forte. Can't get a law passed? Go to the courts and force it on the people! Don't like a law but can't get it changed? Go to the courts and force it on the people! It's pissed me off to no end, but if the liberals want to play this game, they've just shot themselves in the foot. Big time. Oh, so the government has no right to say what can go on in a person's private life? Bring it on, baby! I have a WHOLE DAMN LIST of things that the government shouldn't be involved in, and YOU just opened up the door with your "legislation by judiciary". I got your damn number, and I'm gonna use it!

They have no idea what they've done, as usual. Now it's our turn. I'm gonna give a whole new meaning to "The Law of Unintended Consequences".

And the last thing I'm going to bring up is a column from one of the Seattle Commie-Apologiser Post-Intelligencer's usual suspects. Robert Jamison can be counted on to toe the Donk Party Line, as well as vomit up whatever the local NAACP wants him to. This is no exception. I don't want to fisk it here, because I really don't have the patience for it. But this is the sort of blather I've come to expect from Seattle. If you read it, tell me if you can see just what enrages me about this pile of crap.

Leftist Brits are using cell phones to disrupt President Bush photo ops.

Twenty years ago "The Day After" aired on ABC.

"The Day After" debuted on Nov. 20, 1983, to a maelstrom of publicity and controversy. Nearly 100 million viewers tuned in -- a record audience for a made-for-TV movie.

Immediately after the broadcast, Ted Koppel hosted a live panel discussion to help viewers cope with what they'd witnessed. Dr. Carl Sagan, Henry Kissinger, Robert McNamara, William F. Buckley and George Shultz were among those who participated.

Representing the Ronald Reagan administration, Secretary of State Shultz was in full-damage control mode, making comments such as, "The only reason we have for keeping nuclear weapons is to see to it that they are not used."

It was also during this gathering where Sagan first introduced the phrase "nuclear winter" into the lexicon (an event actually depicted in the film). And he presented the vivid analogy that the arms race between the U.S. and Soviet Union was akin to "two men standing waist deep in gasoline -- one with three matches, the other with five."

This is a neat little article.

Fallout from "The Day After"

Eminem is up Shit Creek because he used the word "nigger" in a song recorded over a decade ago.

No word yet as to when the Enn Word Police are going to get around to Busta Rhymes.

David Warren has a thoughtful piece about the path behind and the path forward in Iraq.

Much balderdash has been written about the failure of Pentagon post-war planning. Three points about that:

First, while there were innumerable tactical plans, it was understood from the beginning that the U.S. would be facing an unprecedented situation in the occupation of Iraq, and that all such plans would have to be adapted by trial and error. This is the American strength, not weakness. The U.S. military learns lessons faster than any other in the field.

Second, the strategic plan has not been amended. It is on a scale larger than Iraq. The deposition of Saddam Hussein, the occupation, and the rebuilding of Iraq as an open society, are a means towards the end of changing the whole Middle East. This may be wildly ambitious, but it is what the Bush administration is attempting.

Third, far from having failed, the Pentagon tactical approach -- annihilating the enemy takes priority over winning "hearts and minds" -- has been vindicated by events in Iraq. Last May, it was the Pentagon arguing that the war wasn't over yet. Though I am simplifying for clarity, it was the State Department arguing that it was then time for the civilian types to take over from the military types and "win the peace" through the usual distribution of candy.

Read more here.

Errrrrrrr, ouch.

At work a few weeks ago we received a pamphlet from the Seattle/King County Coalition for the Homeless. It's titled "The 24th Annual One Night Count of people who are homeless in King County, Washington". I'm normally skeptical of things like this, for reasons I will explain later. But thumbing through it today, I saw crap that made we want to flush the whole damn thing down the toilet. Lets start off with a few obvious things, shall we?

First off, on page 2, they admit that they can't even get an accurate count. They say that "the count is intended to foster an understanding of the patterns of survival for people who sleep in publicly accessible areas." Yay. And then there's the actual methods used in counting the homeless.

Volunteers are instructed to mark two people per vehicle whenever there is significant evidence that someone is actively using it as shelter, although it is recognized that some cars may have more or less than that estimate.

We admit that our estimate may in fact be wildly overblown. Yep.

The "walking category" has been questioned after past street counts, in relation to the assumption that a person who is walking is not necessarily homeless. Again, volunteers are given clear instructions to use the team's best collective judgment in these circumstances, omitting those who seem to have a defined purpose other than homeless survival activities.

I wonder if anyone knows what the team's "best collective judgement" is. Living in Seattle, I think I can safely say that the people doing this study are anything but objective.

The study disolves into one big pity party for the cities homeless. Now that all my liberal guests are sure that I'm a heartless bastard, let me explain why I don't give two shits about this "study". Better yet, Analog Kid has some thoughts on it as well. I'll let him have the floor first.

I have hung out and lived and camped out with both the dingy types you see in the line for food at the shelters and the types of freaks that you'd find at the IMC or DU (and even dated some of the psycho-broads from there).

I truly despise 'the homeless'. There are not words to describe my feelings for them. Especially those with children. Trust me, for the majority of 'the homeless', this is a lifestyle choice. Both the the guy begging on the corner with the sign and the guy who asks for spare change think you are an idiot for getting up and going to work everyday and having a rent or house payment.

I never believed in their BS philosophies, I think it was just the youthful mentality that put me outdoors. Arrogance (knowing it all) and wanderlust (needing adventure). And I, like the vast majority of people I met while in that state of mind, liked living like that. The remainder just didn't mind the lifestyle. I finally tired of sleeping in my car when I couldn't find somewhere else to crash and straightened up. Less than two years later I was making enough money that I probably could have bought a house. I decided, again stupidly, to go racing instead.

As for my perspective? I work in a hospital. I see the homeless on a daily basis. I deal with them regularly. And here's what I know.

There are more resources available to people who are homeless than there are to me. Fine. You can say that they need it more, and I'll give you that point because it's not even worth arguing to me. But what I see sickens me. Those resources are abused, ignored, turned down, and tossed away. The problem lies with the homeless themselves, and the homeless problem will not go away until you start to accept some hard facts. Let's go over them.

Many homeless people are drug addicts/alcoholics. I've seen many of them come through the detox center at the hospital. 99.99% of them, once their body is somewhat healthy, return directly to the drinking, drugs, and sleeping on the street. They have the resources available to get off the drugs, but they either can't or won't. Many of them have no desire to do so.

Many homeless people have various mental disorders. Short of locking these people in a mental institution and forcing them to take the medication needed, there is no way to prevent these people from living on the streets.

Many homeless people chose that lifestyle. Again, something that people never consider, but plenty of people have come through my hospital and told me "Why should I get a job?" We, as a society, have made it easy for them to live by just soaking off of the people who DO work. I had one gentleman laugh as he described his $600,000 medical stay, which he won't pay a cent of, while he told me of the people he suckered into giving him food, money, and booze.

Let's take these facts one at a time, and see if we can find a solution, shall we? Fact #1, the drug/alcohol issue. There is only one way to stop these people from doing drugs, and that is to remove them from any area they can get drugs from. Which in short means locking them up, because I have yet to find one city where drugs weren't available. Are people willing to do that? And what's more, even if we get these people clean, sober, and ready to work, how can we force them to do so? We can't. One man from my hospital ran up his medical bill over three months. While he was here, he was given offers of jobs, a place to stay, a place to get clean, food, shelter, you name it. Three days after he left the hospital I saw him staggering down the street with a bottle in his hand. Five months after that he was dead. Are you willing to do what needs to be done with people like that?

Fact #2, mental illness. Once again, how can you force these people to take their meds that they need? Talk to any social worker and they'll tell you about the frustration of dealing with people who either won't take their meds or forget to do so. One week they're fine, the next week they're raving on the street corner and flinging feces at passerbys. Are we, as a society, ready to lock these people up? There was a case in NYC where a judge ruled that a woman could not be forced into treatment, even though her family pleaded with the judge to do so. I can't find the link right now, but if I recall it correctly, the woman was sleeping on a heating grate, shitting in her bedding, and screaming at people walking by. Are we willing to accept the fact that these people cannot be helped unless we lock them up for a period of time and treat them? I can see the ACLU blowing their top, while dollar signs flash in their eyes.

Fact #3, choice. Lets say you drag all the addicts to detox and treatment. Then you take all the mentally ill and put them in a treatment facility. You still have to deal with the people who are there by choice. People like my little hospital friend, who laughed at the fact that he wasn't going to have to pay his $600,000 hospital bill, because he knew someone else would pay it. Yeah, like me, my boss, my friends, and everyone else who has a job. Your taxes go to his hospital bill. The only solution I can see is flat out telling them that if they don't want any of the responsibility that society demands, then they shouldn't get a single benifit that society gives. But there's not a chance in hell that anyone in this town would say such a thing.

Maybe now you get an idea of why I toss these pamplets and reports in the trash. Seattle wants to throw money at the problem. Big shock there. Money won't fix the homeless problem, dealing with reality will.

But not many people in Seattle deal with reality at all.

With all due respect to Kim du Toit, his can't be the Quote of the Day so long as this appears at Instapundit: What if they had an anti-war and no one came?.

Well, I paraphrased...

Quote of the Day

Shamelessly swiped from Kim du Toit.

"Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency."

Did anyone else see BBC Newsnight last evening? Locally, it runs on C-SPAN2 at 10pm. Last night the discussion was about Bush's visit. After viewing, I now understand why so many Brits have a bad opinion of President Bush. The thinly-veiled insults were flying all over the place, voiced in the typical British subdued "yes-i-am-slashing-someone-but-don't-i-look-dead-serious" manner.

My favorite part was where some Labour MP was talking about the dichotomy of America. I paraphrase: "There really are two Americas. On the coasts, the people have a more international outlook, are more accomodating, more giving. In the center of the country there's more nationalism and a tangible air of self-righteousness."

Jeez.

The internationalists on the coasts are more giving, eh? Maybe this needs further publicity.

Austin Bay waxes caustic regarding The Axis of Neville.

Via Healing Iraq, we have a (so far unsubstantiated) report that the New York Times is stealing property and abusing property owners.

Nothing new for the Times, is it? I mean, let's be honest here, the NY Times isn't exactly the paragon of virtue when it comes to it's business or it's reporting.

And don't even get me started on Jayson Blair.

Hat tip to Instapundit.

Till when will the charts of human rights remain incompulsory , cancel them, because they remind you of your big disgrace.
Keep giving time and tribunes to regimes like those in Syria, Yemen, North Korea and Libya to justify their presence.
To me I don’t recognize your committees and I have no time to listen to that nonsense, I’ve got along way to walk building my country and helping my people forget the days of abasement.
You all owe the Iraqi people an apology.
What happened in Iraq was worse than the holocaust.

He's pissed. And I don't blame him.

Found via Cold Fury.

Yep, it's time for some more of that Linky Love! First up, courtesy of The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, we have three pieces that should be required reading for everyone in America.

The Pandavox takes everyone screaming "Quagmire!" to task, using US history as his club.
QandO takes the Leftist "Resume of George W Bush" and shreds it, point by point. I have no idea how he made it all the way through without scratching his eyes out, but he did it. Well worth the time to sit and read.
Israpundit has a suggestion about the response for the Synagogue Bombings

Misha himself has a few opinions about the protesters in London.

Next up from Kim du Toit is the newest Mark Styen article, with more good quotes than I can copy down. So I'll just give you this one:

The fanatical Muslims despise America because it's all lapdancing and gay porn; the secular Europeans despise America because it's all born-again Christians hung up on abortion; the anti-Semites despise America because it's controlled by Jews. Too Jewish, too Christian, too Godless, America is also too isolationist, except when it's too imperialist

Everybody follow that? Good. Kim also has a pic of a certain American actress up that will get the blood of any man (or gay woman!) pumping.

No, I ain't telling you who it is! Go look for yourself!

Just when you thought people couldn't be more hateful than the American Left:

One in nine police officers in England and Wales will be protecting George Bush on his state visit to Britain, which begins today.

Ten thousand more police officers have been drafted in amid rising concerns about the threat from terrorists and the scale of anti-war demonstrations. That brings to 16,000 the number of policemen and women who will be deployed during the four-day trip.

The bill will run to at least £7m, and the British taxpayer will pay for it.

The Metropolitan Police announced that it was boosting the numbers of officers on duty in London from 5,000 to 14,000.

The Independent

And this is the Europe we're supposed to admire and emulate, right? Government health care, gun bans, Kyoto ratification, you name it, they've got what the Left recommend.

Except a foreign dignitary needs 16,000 cops to protect him.

I wonder what Blair's security contingent in America amounts to.

We're so violent and uncivilized, aren't we?

Making a list, checking it twice

Little troll's been naughty, and I ain't gonna be nice.

Just a recap, for anyone who doesn't know, I have an imposter who's going around, posting some foul crap, and using my contact info. I've been getting the IP's from different people who have been hit, and I've also been copying down the comments, if possible.

205.188.209.xxx - Peacetree Farm
205.188.209.71 - Apathy Blog
205.188.209.11 - Making Light
64.12.96.205 - Armed Liberal
205.188.208.165 - Beyond Azure
64.12.96.231 - Conscience Blog
64.12.97.6 - Exit.com

There were a few blogs that I couldn't get the IP from, but I copied the comment and the URL
Xtra Rant
Bloviate
Alas, a blog

All those IP's resolve back to an AOL server. If you have been trolled, please send me the IP number (if available), and the comment with the time and date. I'm working on this, don't worry. And thanks to one person, I believe I have a damn good idea of just who the troll is.

Never piss off a grunt.

Just when you thought you had heard the last of Albert Gore, Junior, the Fallen Mighty Tall Tree has emerged as a leader in waterfree urinals.

Don't forget to fold it up before you tuck it back in, Big Fella.

Remember all that talk about how Dubya was doing Osama's recruiting for him, by attacking Iraq, EVEN THOUGH Osama and Hussein hated each other?

Aw golly. It was all baloney.

Captain's Quarters: Osama's Peace with Saddam

A hunting we will go!

Heeeeeeeeeere trollie trollie trollie! But before I go hunting, here's a post that had me laughing, courtesy of Right We Are.

If figures a Jarhead wrote it.

Totally meaningless

I was out working when I saw a seagull gliding up ahead of me. It's windy, cold, and in short a November day in Seattle. So I'm watching this seagull when I realize that it has it's legs tucked inside it's feathers. Normally they just stick their legs out behind them and fly, but this bird has them tucked in close, under the feathers. As I watch, it sticks out one leg, wiggles it, gives it a shake, and pulls it back under the feathers. Then it sticks out it's other leg, wiggles it, gives it a shake, and pulls it back in, all the while just gliding on the wind. So my meaningless thought of the day for you is this:

Does a seagull get a charley horse?

Not to pile it on, but Instapundit has a post up about the media in Iraq. It seems that the media is hiring the old Ba'athist Saddamite minders.

Nah, no bias there, right?

And then there is this little piece of naivete:

With each passing day, the Iraqi resistance gets bolder and more destructive – and the possibility of getting them to lay down their arms and enter politics fades. The announcement that elections to a National Assembly were being held would pose a political challenge to the armed resistance, and strike at the rationale for its very existence. This would do more to damp down the violence than any military action.

Ja.

If America would just leave, the Iraqis would have elections and the rationale for "resistance" would end.

Scary, isn't it?

THE DEADLIEST DAY... KEEPS GETTING WORSE IN IRAQ - BUT THERE IS A WAY OUT

Whilst reading Dave's post about Ba'athist "anti-war" people in Oakland, I was reminded of a gem I saw in the LA Times earlier this year. The headline read: 'Every Day Gets Worse And Worse' -- Along a busy Baghdad street struck by missiles, shocked residents curse the United States and mourn.

Fair enough, I'd say. In the third paragraph the Times writer bolsters the headline with this quote:

"Every day gets worse and worse," Sahar, a 23-year-old with a birdlike voice, said with a sigh Wednesday. "I can't imagine what will be next week."

Seems unfortunate, doesn't it?

Amazingly, in the very next paragraph, a revelation is made.

Sahar, who did not give her last name, had been assigned by the Information Ministry to guide, translate and keep an eye on foreign journalists.

As with RD's example below, the commentary of Hussein Regime officials is accepted without comment, with no grain of salt. In this case, the Hussein official is given a headline.

Bah.

Make no mistake about it. There are A LOT of American Leftists who want to see us lose this war.

Click to see article (PDF)

If you have been trolled by my imposter, please go here or here.

Dean's World links to a blog that lays a smackdown on a California college. As usual, all emphasis is mine.

Reporting from Mills College, in Oakland, the camera panned over 50-75 young women nodding in horror and agreement as the reporter explained the anti-war position of the guest speakers, Journalist Nermin Al-Mufti and Amal Al-Khedairy, who are sponsored by Global Exchange:

At this point, all the standard anti-war crap (and yes, I do use the word crap, if the argument has been debunked) is starting to get annoying. If they have a good argument, I'd really like them to use it. Because repeating a lie does not make it true. But I digress.

Reading further into the provided bios, one notices that both women held privileged positions under the Ba'athist Party. Yeah they're qualified, by the thugs and mass murders who ruled Iraq for thirty years.

That would be the party of raping little girls in front of their families. That would be the party of dissidents being dropped into industrial grade plastic chippers. That would be the party responsible for the 300,000 bodies in mass graves in Iraq. That would be the party responsible for more human suffering in the past two decades than can be truly summed up in words.

But of course they're anti-war!

You know, when you're in a hole, you need to stop digging. If the best this college could get was two women from the Ba'athist Party, they need to re-think their plan.

Usually we Conservatives don't talk about feelings, but I am interested to know if the following pictures provoke different reactions for the gentle reader.



PICTURE ONE


Bill Belichick and Bill Parcells


PICTURE TWO


Britney Spears and Madonna



I don't know. I just find myself having different impulses when I look at those.

A pic here, and a pic there....

Well, Analog Kid has his post about the rally/counter-protest up, complete with pictures. He also got a link from Instapundit, so if the site is slow to load, be patient. I wrote about it on Sunday, and aside from the troll attack I've received mostly positive responses. Well, there was the one idiot who liked to talk about "mullet clad, flag waving psycho rednecks", but he obviously doesn't get out much. By the way, anyone who had a troll crap in their comments, please see here or here. If you've been hit by the troll, please give me IP numbers, and if you have them, times and dates of the trolling. I'm loaded for bear, and the troll will be hit.

I've spoken with a few co-workers who gave me a look and said "I didn't think you were that type." That kinda bugs me. I wonder if these people actually make the distinction between protesting the war, and protesting the troops. I've also had one person give me the snide remark of "Well, so much for free speech, eh?". So let me spell it out for anyone who might be wondering.

If you want to protest the war, fine. If these people were going to protest in Olympia, or in Westlake Center downtown, fine. You want to march around Green Lake and scream "No blood for oil", go right ahead.

But don't you ever, EVER even think about taking your frustration out on our troops.

These men and women are being separated from their families, their lives, their jobs, and everything that they know. They're being sent overseas to the worlds largest kitty-litter box, where they might get shot at, they might get attacked, and yes, they might die. My buddy in Baghdad is going through crap that I can't even imagine right now.

The last thing these brave souls and their families need, is some addled-brain twit screaming in their faces as they report for duty. These wives who are clutching husbands and babies do NOT need to have some idiot who never served in the military telling them that their husband is a murderer and a baby killer. The children don't need to hear a moonbat howling out obscenities about their parents.

You want to yell at the troops? You've got to come through me first. You want to call someone a baby killer? You can yell at me, because I'm not letting you close enough to the troops for you to insult them like that. You want to dump red paint on a soldier? Not while I live. It happened to my father because of people like those protesters, and while I draw breath I will not allow it to happen again.

We can argue about the war all you want. You bring your facts, and I'll bring mine. We can debate until the cows come home. But the moment you abuse the troops, it's over. I'll debate the war, the president, the economy, it's all good. But you give crap to the troops who are being sent over, I will jump all over you. I have my limits, and they are set.

Does that clear things up for a few people?

In case you missed it, a story broke this weekend regarding Iraq's ties to Al Qaeda. If you watched anything but Fox News, you probably DID miss it.

Ah well. We have a handful of links in our Resources.

I differ with Raging Dave about steel protectionism, for one reason: war is waged with steel. Guns are made with steel. Ships? Steel. Tanks? Steel. And the machinery that is used to produce everything else?

Steel.

I stand very wary of an increased American reliance upon foreign steel.

No steel, no fight.

My, my, my!

Let's see, for those who don't know, I've had five people report the impersonator troll's IP numbers. Just to make it easier, they are:

64.12.96.205 - from a comment left at Armed Liberal's site.
64.12.97.6 - from the comments at Frank's site.
205.188.209.11 - from the comments at Ms. Hayden's site.
205.188.208.138 - From Ross' site.
205.188.208.165 - From BeyondAzure.com

Now then, plug the IPs into a search engine, and what do we find?

64.12.96.205 - America Online, Manassas, VA
64.12.97.6 - America Online, Manassas, VA
205.188.209.11 - America Online, Sterling, VA
205.188.208.138 - America Online, Sterling, VA
205.188.208.165 - America Online, Sterling, VA

I'm in Seattle, folks. Only a difference of around 2500 miles or so, give or take a few hundred. And I wouldn't use AOL if you paid me.

Don't worry little troll, I've got your numbers. And AOL will as well.

Anyone who was trolled by my impersonator, please please PLEASE send me the IP's. I want to have both barrels loaded when I go after him.

UPDATE: Tim, guess who's IP I just ran through the search engine? Yep, our old pal Ralphy. Want to know where it comes back to?

152.163.253.38 - America Online, Dulles, VA

Just got a new IP from this woman, and it's a close match to the rest of the IP's. I'll post it up above to make things easier. I've got your damn number, "Ralphy". Your ass is mine.

First of all, if you have had someone crap in your comments, please go here. A troll has been using my contact info and going onto other blogs.

Now for the rant:

It's called "CAPITALISM", Mr. Bush.

Of all the things that I hear being bandied about by the Left, it always amazes me that so many people make crap up in order to attack the president, when the could actually use the things he's done in real life. Such as the steel tariffs.

If you want to talk about a stupid idea, this was it. And any conservative who disagrees better be able to back it up, because I cannot see how imposing a tariff like this could help our country. It's pissed off quite a few people, and rightly so. Not only that, but I don't see how anyone can support capitalism and the tariff in the same breath. This isn't capitalism, this is a punitive tariff designed to protect a few jobs at home.

Competition is what drives a free market. The Big Three were producing crappy fuel guzzling cars while the Japanese were putting out gas-sippers that drove for years. And damn if the Big Three didn't come to their senses once it hit them in the pocketbook. They still haven't (in my opinion) put out a car that they can hold up to a Honda Accord, but their quality is lightyears ahead of what they were. C'mon, anyone remember the Pinto? Chevrolet put out a car that sucked so much ass, I can't even remember the name. But they eventually pulled their heads out of their collective asses long enough to realize that they couldn't get ahead by pushing junk cars, because Honda, Toyota, Nissan, et al would eat them alive. Thus, they were forced to bring their quality up. The Japanese did the same, and we end up with much better cars that we would have if there were no competition.

Well, the free market also works with steel. Better quality, lower price, faster manufacture, all these improvements come about because one manufacturer wanted to outdo his competitor. Tariff's retard that process, and it's not a good thing.

Drop the damn tariff's Mr. Bush.

TROLL REMINDER

If you've come here because of a dipshit who crapped all over your comments, you may have been trolled by someone using my name and contact info. Please see the post below titled "YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE", or click here to get to that post.

If the comment started out "You fucking (fill in the epithet here) are all the same", it's the troll. He's been doing cut-and-paste trolling on several different blogs.

Another bleat from the man that makes the Democrats shudder, because they can't disavow him, Teddy "Where's the girl" Kennedy. As usual, emphsis is mine.

Boasting of his party's resolve in the face of GOP attempts to stop the Democrats' filibuster, Kennedy told the Senate, "What has not ended is the resolution and the determination of the members of the United States Senate to continue to resist any Neanderthal that is nominated by this president of the United States for any court, federal court in the United States."

Seriously, this guy must be giving the Dems fits right now. Can you imagine if the Republicans couldn't get rid of Trent Lott, who just kept running off his mouth? Kennedy is the guy they can't get rid of. Hell, a large section of the Democrat party has damn near cannonized 'ol Teddy, due to his family. He's been the public face for the Dems more than once, and they keep bringing him back. And he keeps running off at the mouth, causing more embarassment than he's worth. For god's sake, he was drunk on the Senate floor last month, and voted FOR two bills that everyone knew he was AGAINST!

Memo to the Donks: When a politician is practically cutting your party off at the knees, it's time to jettison that person. See: Lott, Trent and Santorum, Rick.

THE COUNCIL HAS SPOKEN!

This weeks winners are Generosity in Red and Blue, by Aaron's Rantblog, and 300,000 Mass Graves in Iraq, by Trojan Horseshoes. You can see all of the entries (and votes) by going here.

Well worth the time to go check them out.