Words have meaning

You would think that professional writers would know words have meanings and this is nonsensical unless you also believe the Robocop or Terminator movies represent reality:



The U.S. State Department said on Friday that U.S.-purchased or stolen weapons account for 95 percent of Mexico’s drug related killings, and that Mexican cartels are increasingly carrying out contract killings in the U.S.


But of course from the following it’s apparent facts are irrelevant to this writer (gun shows have the same laws and most state do not have registration):



Mexican cartels often pay U.S. citizens to purchase assault rifles or other guns at gun shops, then sell them to a cartel representative at a U.S. gun show, where registration rules are much less stringent and the gun sale can’t be easily traced.


I have to conclude the writer is clueless, has an agenda against the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights or both.

Sad but realistic

I rather surprised the New York Times actually printed this story since they can never say anything good about private gun ownership on their editorial page.


It’s sad that the woman is facing, in essence, a loss of innocence. But she also goes through her thought process and is realistic about why she needed to buy her first gun:



Back in late September, when my bank stocks began to tank — slowly, then all at once, as Hemingway described going broke — another wall in my life began to crack, as rumors of break-ins rattled my peaceful neighborhood in Allentown, Pa.



A few weeks ago, my husband went away on business, and after two sleepless nights starting every time the old steam radiators knocked, I finally decided I wanted protection.


Jimmy took me to the Army-Navy Store on Grape Street. It was 11 o’clock on Sunday morning, and 15 normal-looking — I was relieved to see — people were leaning on the gun counter at the back of the store. Jimmy explained the differences between the Glocks, semiautomatics with magazines, and the Smith & Wesson revolvers with six bullet chambers. The clerk told us a lot of handguns were out of stock; arms sales around the country have been increasing in inverse proportion to the collapsing economy and in response to the unsubstantiated buzz that the new administration is going to tighten gun control.


“You want a revolver, to start,” Jimmy said. I pointed to a dull pink Charter Arms revolver with a two-inch barrel: the Pink Lady. It looked like a toy. Jimmy laughed. “You don’t want a pink gun.”


I watched the woman at the counter next to me test the feel of several Glocks while the young girl with her thumbed an electronic game. Then finally I picked out a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum, “the gun I started with,” the clerk said. I handed him my driver’s license and filled out the paperwork. He left us to run my license number through a criminal-records system called QuickCheck. Two minutes later I was qualified and, between gun and ammo, $762 poorer. The revolver I bought has a black handle and a four-inch stainless-steel barrel. There’s nothing pink about it.

Maniacs, Vandals, and Neanderthals

A few days ago in comments it was strongly suggested I drop the Neanderthal tag-line. For example:



But I’ve never been fond of ”Ramblings of a red-necked, knuckle-dragging, Neanderthal.” Those words have bothered me for years, every time I visit your site, over the years.


Before I dive in, I openly state that I approach this from a marketing/advertising angle. It’s my job to wrap my mind around slogans n’ such.

I understand the concept of seizing control of negative words. In some situations this technique is effective. However, I’ve never liked the tongue-in-cheek words quoted above. You, Joe, and your cohort Lyle, are *nothing near* rambling, knuckle-dragging, or anything near Neanderthal.


and



I direct lots of people (including representatives in the media) to this blog. I cringe every time I have to do this, because the first thing they’ll read is the header. Yes, readers will get to the hearty content, but self-deprecation *does not* work in the case of this blog.


I thought about this quite a bit and decided I needed to give a little more history.


Barb and I went to high school in Orofino Idaho–Home of the Maniacs. We went to college at the University of Idaho (as did/do all of our kids) where we were Vandals. So maybe calling myself a “red-necked, knuckle-dragging, Neanderthal” comes natural. The Maniac name has been under attack for at least 40 years that I know of and they/we proudly stuck to the name. “You think it is insulting and/or degrading to be called a Maniac? That’s your problem. We’re proud to be called that.”


I see advantages and disadvantages to using the tag-line. The disadvantages have been outlined in the comments to the post linked above. I think those disadvantages are minor. I readily admit I’m not a marketing person. But while a case might be made that I am attempting to market ideas I’m not really interested in people that are so susceptible to a “marketing image” that they are unable to “get past” the tag-line. If they get hung up on that then they are, in many ways, my enemy. Distortions such as “assault weapons”, “weapons of choice”, “sniper rifles”, and “Saturday Night Specials” are in their domain and those type of people are who I attack. If those type of people happen to be on my side of an issue I’ll probably be tone it down some but I still will find them contemptible.


The advantage of having a tag-line like what I have is that my enemies underestimate me. Keep in mind I use “enemies” as a shorthand for “philosophical/political enemies”, not enemies in the sense of literally “kill or be killed”. Read the post for the details but basically my enemies already think of my kind as stupid, violent, racist, women hating, and crude. Giving them a tag-line that agrees with their prejudices causes them to stop their mental processing at that point. And they treat me as such without processing the actual facts and logic of my writing. This leaves them more susceptible to attack. For example, they sometimes have attempted to claim they are better than me because of my (supposed) lack of education. Informing them that I have a MSEE (Electrical Engineering) and asking them what degrees they have causes them to go strangely silent. When I appear to fit their preconceived notion of a gun owner they attack with far, far less than adequate resources. This makes it all the easier for me to counterattack with overwhelming force.


So, the bottom line is I’m not going to change the tone of the tag-line but I might be persuaded to change “Neanderthal” to “Maniac”. I still consider myself a Maniac but that doesn’t fit the stereotype the anti-gun people have of us quite as well so I favor Neanderthal at this time.


Sorry Stephanie (and others), you are going to have to keep cringing for now.

What if he said he was gay?

Via Say Uncle I found out some college professors will call the police if you advocate exercising your Second Amendment rights to defend innocent life:



On October 3, 2008, Wahlberg and two other classmates prepared to give an oral presentation for a Communication 140 class that was required to discuss a “relevant issue in the media”. Wahlberg and his group chose to discuss school violence due to recent events such as the Virginia Tech shootings that occurred in 2007.


Shortly after his professor, Paula Anderson, filed a complaint with the CCSU Police against her student. During the presentation Wahlberg made the point that if students were permitted to conceal carry guns on campus, the violence could have been stopped earlier in many of these cases. He also touched on the controversial idea of free gun zones on college campuses.


That night at work, Wahlberg received a message stating that the campus police “requested his presence”. Upon entering the police station, the officers began to list off firearms that were registered under his name, and questioned him about where he kept them.


They told Wahlberg that they had received a complaint from his professor that his presentation was making students feel “scared and uncomfortable”.


That’s all it takes to have someone call the police on you? And furthermore the police didn’t tell the bigot, “Get over it.”? What if a student had announced they were gay? That could have made some people “scared and uncomfortable”.


I wonder if the college has some sort of policy against “creating a hostile environment” that could be applied to Professor Anderson.

Just backward

How would you deal with someone that got everything exactly backward? When they want the car to stop they step on the accelerator and when they want to go they step on the brake. Instead of washing their hands before meals they soil them in the most foul manner possible. They put water on the campfire that is keeping them warm and they put gasoline on the Christmas tree fire in their living room.


I would have to conclude they are insane. And unless there are some sort of drugs or therapy available for their condition they should be locked up for the protection of themselves and others.


But that’s doesn’t appear to be an option in this case where the political leaders of D.C. are demanding Congress commit an unconstitutional law and object to the a law that brings them in line with the constitution on another matter:



D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and D.C. Council members disagree with that conclusion. They furiously protested the firearms amendment.


“The District of Columbia leadership is fully united in its opposition to unwarranted amendments that would dramatically damage the District’s carefully revised gun law and expose the District to great harm through the undoing of its laws,” D.C. Council President Vincent C. Gray and Council Member Phil Mendelson, chairman of the council’s public-safety commission, said in a letter to Congress released yesterday.


In a statement after the Senate’s vote, Ilir Zherka, executive director of D.C. Vote, a lobbying group, said the city has passed a “significant hurdle in our fight for full democracy for DC residents.”


But he added of the gun amendment: “If anything, this amendment has strengthened our resolve to continue to fight for the rights of Washingtonians. Congress repeatedly treats the District as a testing ground for flawed, dangerous legislation. This has to stop – and we’ll keep fighting to ensure that the bill signed into law is not tainted by this amendment.”

Economic Miracle

I’ve had this in the back of my mind for weeks.  Then two events brought it to the forefront.  First, a customer wrote this wonderful comment in an order form;



Your lessons and videos in your Resource section WERE LIKE GOLD to me! I thought only I had questions that you answered there (i.e., how to attach plastic rail guards easily, can AKs shoot clay targets, what EXACTLY is the difference between stamped and milled (it is like EVERYBODY already is supposed to magically know this somehow!), difference between red dot and other sights, and so on). Seriously, I have tried to learn about AKs now for 2 years, most of my knowledge comes from Gabe Suarez (who strongly promotes Ultimak as you know) but you really filled in holes in my knowledge quickly on that one resource page. THANK YOU! Please keep teaching us, it builds amazing trust between us and you and we appreciate it!


It’s great to hear from customers, especially happy ones.  And I know the feeling.  When I was in High School I was expected to know things (event schedules and such) that were never told to me and were not posted, as if osmosis had been expected to work for knowledge transference.  “What do you mean you didn’t know about the meeting?  Everyone else knows!”


Now to the reason for my posting said “lessons and videos” on my web site.  I did it because I was tired of answering the same questions over and over, and explaining the same things in detail to people who just did not get it, plus I was frustrated with trying to sell a product that (it seemed) few people understood.  I spent some time putting that stuff on the web site as a labor-saving measure so I could spend more of my time being productive, and because the more people understand some of these products the more people will buy them.


But there is a much broader point to this.


Regular readers know that I’m a fan of Walter Williams’ writing.  He recently put up a nice bit entitled “Economic Miracle” describing much the same thing;



Adam Smith, the father of economics, captured the essence of this wonderful human cooperation when he said, “He (the businessman) generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. … He intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain.” Adam Smith continues, “He is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. … By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.” And later he adds, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”


To the customer, it may seem that our putting up a user resources page is an act of charity, or some other form of magnanimity (after all, it is free of charge).  It may in fact have that effect on people, but the bottom line is; this sort of thing happens millions of times per day, all around the world, all out of self-interest.


In a free market, we have to do a better job of serving the customer than those around us, or we fail to prosper.


Let government interests meddle with free markets and it all starts coming apart.  It happens a tiny bit here and a tiny bit there.  At first it may show up as a minor annoyance– maybe a slight price increase here or a drop in service over there.  Eventually it leads to higher risk, fewer start-up businesses, more failures, the formation of de facto monopolies through the process of government licensing or subsidies, people holding back on investments in capital improvements, etc.  You can rarely ever put your finger on it directly, and if you listen to politicians, things are going to be just fine as long as you keep them “in charge” of things.  Finally it leads to stagnation, lawlessness, and decay, as can be seen in parts of the U.S. and in other countries.


For those of you who voted for Obama; I’ll spell it out for you.  Capitalism works better than any of the alternatives.

Cranking it down another notch

The Brady Campaign is now pointing out the rate of fire with a semi-auto firearm can approach the rate of a fully automatic firearm.


One has to assume this fact will be used to argue that semi-auto firearms should be treated like fully automatic firearms. In other words newly manufactured firearms of this type should banned from sale to private citizens and the ones currently in circulation should be heavily taxed and licensed.


Just wait until they find out that in the hands of an expert revolvers and lever action rifles can be fired as fast or faster than a semi-auto in the hands of amateur. Soon they will be calling bolt action rifles and single shot pistols the “weapons of choice” for drug runners, mother rapers, father stabbers, and father rapers.

Questions for Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal?

Earlier this month I asked if anyone had questions for Patrick Leahy when he came to speak to people at Microsoft. I then live blogged about his appearance.


Early next month Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal will be speaking to a group I plan to be a part of.


Any questions you want asked? This is assuming I’m aggressive enough to get my question(s) presented.


Background on Governor Jindal:



  • Bobby Jindal was sworn in as Governor of Louisiana on January 14, 2008.
  • He was elected Governor of Louisiana on October 20, 2007, with 54 percent of the vote in the primary, winning 60 of 64 parishes. Shortly after taking office, Governor Jindal called a Special Session to address comprehensive ethics reform, the cornerstone of his election platform. Since the conclusion of the session, the Better Government Association and the Center for Public Integrity announced that Louisiana’s new ethics laws are among the best in the nation.
  • Additionally, the Governor’s second Special Session eliminated burdensome taxes that deterred investment in Louisiana and limited the growth of existing Louisiana businesses.
  • Governor Jindal has put forth detailed plans for reforming our state’s health care, education, and transportation systems, as well as for encouraging workforce development and continuing recovery efforts in areas devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, as well as Hurricanes Gustav and Ike.
  • Governor Jindal led the historic response to Hurricane Gustav by successfully moving 1.9 million people out of harms’ way, the largest evacuation of citizens in the history of the United States, including the largest medical evacuation in history moving more than 10,400 people from hospitals, nursing homes, and other medical facilities out of the path of the storm.
  • Governor Jindal has worked tirelessly to eliminate the bureaucratic red-tape that has slowed the recovery process in the past, allowing recovery from Hurricanes Gustav and Ike to progress quickly. Louisiana’s oil and gas, agriculture, fisheries, and transportation industries were all affected by the storms and Governor Jindal continues to work with local, state, and federal entities to ensure that all individuals and industries affected are provided with the necessary assistance.
  • Jindal was born in Baton Rouge on June 10, 1971. He graduated from Baton Rouge High School in 1988 and went on to attend Brown University where he graduated with honors in biology and public policy. Following his graduation from Brown he attended Oxford University in England as a Rhodes Scholar, having turned down admissions to medical and law schools at both Harvard and Yale.
  • In 1994, Jindal went to work for McKinsey and Company as a consultant for Fortune 500 companies before entering public service. In 1996, he was appointed Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH). There were many issues that needed resolving during his tenure, not the least of which was the growing deficit in Louisiana’s Medicaid program. During Jindal’s tenure as DHH Secretary, he rescued Louisiana’s Medicaid program from bankruptcy, childhood immunizations increased, Louisiana ranked third best nationally in health care screenings for children, and new and expanded services for elderly and disabled persons were offered.
  • In 1998, Jindal was appointed Executive Director of the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare. As Executive Director, he was responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Commission, whose work continue to be the driving force behind much of the ongoing debate on how to strengthen and improve Medicare.
  • At the conclusion of the Commission’s work, Jindal was appointed President of the University of Louisiana System, the 16th largest higher education system in the country. While serving as President, Jindal worked to establish areas of excellence at each individual institution. President George W. Bush appointed Jindal to serve as Assistant Secretary for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 2001. In that position, he served as the principal policy advisor to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. He later resigned from the position in 2003 to return to Louisiana and run for elected office for the first time. In that race, Jindal went from being a relatively unknown candidate for Governor, to receiving the most votes in the primary election and eventually 48 percent of the vote in runoff.
  • In 2004 he was elected to the 109th United States Congress representing the First District of Louisiana. In Congress he was elected Freshman Class President and served on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, the House Committee on Homeland Security, and the House Committee on Resources. Bobby also served as Assistant Majority Whip. In his first term he passed a number of notable pieces of legislation and played an instrumental role in Louisiana’s recovery from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. His noteworthy accomplishments include the passage of legislation to bring significant offshore energy revenues to Louisiana for the first time and legislation that keeps Federal Emergency Management Agency from taxing certain recovery grants as income.
  • Jindal was re-elected to Congress in 2006 with 88 percent of the vote majority.
  • Jindal and his wife Supriya have three young children.

See also Say Uncle’s comments about him as well as Tam’s.


Update: After thinking about it while I was taking a shower if I were fairly certain he would get the reference to both books I would be inclined to ask Tam’s question:



Why does the GOP insist on offering me The Handmaid’s Tale as its cheery alternative to the Democrat’s promise of 1984?


Update2: This post is being attacked via spammers every few minutes. I’m turning off comments for now. Send me an email if you want to make a comment and I’ll post it for you.


Update3: The meeting has been canceled for now:



We received word this weekend that President Obama is travelling to Louisiana on March 5th – to meet with Gov. Jindal and tour Katrina recovery efforts.  This unfortunately means that he will not be able to travel to the NW for meetings this week.  Governor Jindal is very sorry to make this last-minute cancellation, but we look forward to working with his staff to find a new date for his visit in the future.

Quote of the day–Clayton Cramer

Idaho has this reputation for being a bunch of anti-federal government crazies, but I don’t think that’s particularly deserved. I mentioned last February that Montana officials had warned the Supreme Court that Montana joined the Union on the understanding that the Second Amendment protected an individual right, and they might have to rethink that situation if the Court ruled wrongly on D.C. v. Heller (2008). Fortunately, the Court got it right, so there was no need for Montana to seize the Air Force missile silos there, and become the world’s lowest population and density nuclear power.


Anyway, it appears that the Montana legislature is preparing for the Obamination of restrictive federal gun control laws.



Adding to the amusement of this is that those who were upset about the Raich decision (and they were right to be upset, even if it was for a very stupid cause: marijuana) will have to admit that if California has the right to legalize marijuana that doesn’t move across state lines, free of federal intervention, then Montana has a similar right to tell the federal government that guns made in Montana are exempt from federal rules.


Clayton Cramer
February 25, 2009
Those Pesky Montanans
[Although I probably am as amused about this as Clayton people don’t “have to admit” anything. I literally know a person that will insist to your face that “the fence line is over there and has always been over there” even though you could break a leg stepping into the ancient fence post hole in front of you and get tangled in the rusty barbed wire as you fell. This same person also convinced a judge that it was legitimate self-defense after a neighbor caught him sitting on his ex-wife pounding on her face who was flat on her back on the sidewalk (had it been me that caught him the judge would not have been required to make a decision). Some people are just reality impaired and/or have an infinite capacity to lie.–Joe]

Road Warrior Boomershoot

Kris tells me he is going to attend Boomershoot as a spectator and wondered if this would be an appropriate lead pusher for the event:



The original design intent is described as:



Designed as an equalizer for inconceivable and unpredictable lane changes, and other traffic related anomalies perpetrated by the cell phone using, motor home/SUV driving morons in Florida imposed on the rest of us. The below pictured machine was designed for that purpose.


Each mini gun fires at a rate of 3000 rounds per minute (6000 total). During initial test and evaluation it was demonstrated that a single 2 second burst would, and did blow a 40 foot RV with tow car clean off the road, leaving an open and unobstructed route ahead. It will vaporize an SUV in seconds! Tests further indicated that after two or three RV’s/SUV’s in a row were eliminated, or “friggin smoked”, others voluntarily pulled off the road and thus became a “non threat.”


I told him it would be welcome but the accuracy of the lead on target was far more important than the quantity.


But perhaps we can create a special Boomershoot event for this class of toy if there is enough interest out there. See also these variants.

What does reset mean?

When a non-technical person says, “reset” I have to examine the context carefully and frequently ask more questions. They could mean anything from closing an application and restarting it to unplugging the computer without going through a graceful power-down process.


Steve Ballmer is saying:



“I often think of this as an economic reset. It’s not a recession from which you recover,”


I think this is much closer to someone else yanking the power cord from the wall on your computer while it is still running than simply closing an app then trying it again. I just hope the computer doesn’t catch on fire and the electrical wiring in the building fuses into a blob of molten metal during this “reset”.

Attention to detail may be lacking

The anti-gun people are celebrating yesterdays Supreme Court decision:



Gun control advocates hailed the ruling as a good sign following the Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, a 2008 decision that defined the Second Amendment as covering an individual’s right to possess weapons. That decision was the first time the Court had ever ruled so broadly on gun rights.


But the Heller ruling suggested that some reasonable restrictions to gun ownership would be allowed. “That’s a good sign that Heller is the limited ruling we thought it was,” said Daniel Vice, a senior attorney at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.


They may be overlooking something. The Second Amendment was neither briefed or mentioned in the case. Hence, if my understanding of judicial process is correct, the court could not bring the Second Amendment or the Heller decision into the discussion. Thus, if someone else challenges the Lautenberg Amendment on Second Amendment grounds we could end up with a completely different decision.


Go ahead and dance Mr. Vice, your day to whine may be coming yet.

Quote of the day–Wendy McElroy

I think it is altogether possibility that all freedom in America will be killed in the name of public safety.


Wendy McElroy
February 24, 2009
Modern day Committee for Public Safety
[It’s obvious on the gun laws but it extends way, way beyond that. Just think about the regulation of all industry. A business can be fined and or prosecuted if they



  • Don’t clean their tools according to code (everything from hair cutters to restaurants)
  • Don’t get the government approval of the label on their product (alcoholic beverages)
  • Don’t install safety equipment on their products (think about all the mandated materials and equipment on a car and imagine what horse riding would be like after the government safety committee got through with it)
  • Don’t have a separate bathroom for the exclusive use of the government inspector (meat inspectors)

Enumerated powers were supposed to protect us from this sort of thing. What happened and how do we regain our freedom? Sebastian doesn’t have the answers but formulating the problem sometimes helps.


H/T to Say Uncle and Two–Four.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Rupert Murdoch

As you all know the downturn we are operating in is more severe and global than anything we have seen before.

We are in the midst of a phase of history in which nations will be redefined and their futures fundamentally altered. Many people will be under extreme pressure and many companies mortally wounded.


Rupert Murdoch
February 24, 2009
Peter Chernin’s little shocker
[Risk and opportunity abound. Keep your eyes open for both. I’m listening to The Black Swan which appears to be applicable to the times as well.–Joe]

Abnormal behavior

Does anyone think it is “abnormal behavior” to read a book in public? How about putting a bumper-sticker on your car in favor of (or opposed to) a candidate for political office? How about requesting a lawyer before being questioned by the police? Or insisting on a warrant before the police search your home?

In all of the above the people of the United States are guaranteed these rights by the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. So why would someone in their right mind say:

In case you haven’t noticed, the pro-gun lobby is working overtime to normalize abnormal behavior. Let us ask you a handful of questions.
Would you be willing to:

  • Sip hot chocolate with your toddler at Starbucks while a fellow patron openly displays a gun at the table next to you?
  • Attend a church service with your entire family knowing that the fellow parishioner sitting next to you has a handgun tucked in his belt?
  • Stand in line at a bank to make a deposit as two men enter with baseball hats on and what appear to be guns in their pockets?
  • Board a crowded bus with your newborn child with upwards of 5 other passengers carrying concealed weapons?

“Abnormal behavior”? Exercising a specific enumerated right in public is “abnormal behavior”? Perhaps in the Peoples Republic of China, Massachusetts, or Chicago. But it is a right. All of the above activities seem perfectly normal to me. I don’t know what his problem is. Is he one of those that didn’t want n***ers in the same restaurant with him too? Maybe he doesn’t want Jews handling his money either. And blacks need to sit at the back of the bus and give up their seats to good white folk too.

The only conclusion I can reach is that the guy isn’t in his right mind. He is the one exhibiting abnormal behavior. He must have mental problems, is a blatant bigot, or both. It’s time we treated these people as the bigots they are and condemn them to the political dustbin of history.

Some Foreign News to Relieve Your Boredom

From our friend Howard in Israel.  Saturday, Feb. 21;



Friends:

 

Winter wind and rain have returned, but so far not as harsh as predicted.  And, knock-on-wood, no electric power outages.

 

John Kerry is here. He lied about getting a letter from Hamas to deliver to President Obama.  Senator Kerry lied?  Go figure!

 

Under cover of bad weather (fog up north) two Katusha rockets were fired at northern Israel from within southern Lebanon.  One hit an Israeli target and three civilians were wounded.  The UN forces and Lebanese (now spelled Hezbollah) army are at a loss to find the terrorists who launched the attack.  True to form the EU quickly condemned Israel for violating Lebanon’s sovereignty by firing several artillery rounds at the location from which the Katushas were launched.  Hezbollah said, “Katushas?  What Katushas, we no nut-in about no Katushas.”

 

I would tell you that Kassam missiles and mortar bombs continue to fall in the Negev, but saying so would simply be redundant and repeating the obvious.  Last week a Kassam took out three cars by my younger daughter’s (going to college in Sderot) apartment.  Hope she brings me some pieces of the Kassam next time she comes home.

 

Tomorrow Bibi starts trying to really form the next Israeli government.  When you hear that Liberman’s party wants the Ministry of Police and that they also want the present Minister of Justice (an Olmert appointee) to be reappointed and the anti-Lieberman forces say he is trying to gain control over the ministries pursuing the criminal investigations about him remember two things.  Being “under investigation” is about as close to a condition precedent to being an Israeli politician as there is.  Second, the investigations in Lieberman have been ongoing for 10 years…and counting.

 

Enjoy your weekend.

 

Howard

Yup; Katushas flying in from the North, Kassams from the South, politicians playing childish games, and the EU Press denouncing Israel for even the slightest, half-baked attempts at self defense (why is it that only the enemies of the West have what is referred to in the Press as “sovereignty”).  Sorry; I suppose none of this is “news” after all.  Is it?