Category Archives: Freedom

Ammo shortage is Hillary’s fault

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I’ve been hearing about the 7.62×39 ammo shortage and high prices for sometime now.  I didn’t realize it was Hillary Clinton’s fault and wouldn’t have believed if I didn’t have these additional details:

American defence officials have secretly requested a “prodigious quantity” of ammunition from Russia to supply the Afghan army in case a Democrat president takes over in Washington and pulls out US troops.

The Daily Telegraph can disclose that Pentagon chiefs have asked arms suppliers for a quote on a vast amount of ordnance, including more than 78 million rounds of AK47 ammunition, 100,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 12,000 tank shells – equivalent to about 15 times the British Army’s annual requirements.

The Bush administration is said to want the deal because of worries that the next president could be a Democrat, possibly Hillary Clinton, who may abandon Afghanistan.

…

Defence specialists said Russian arms chiefs at first “fell about laughing” because they thought the order was a joke when it arrived this month.

But with the Americans said to be pressing for a price and earliest delivery date, the request is being rapidly processed and exports could begin before the end of this year.

The “decade’s worth” of ammunition will give the Afghan National Army a vast arsenal to deal with Taliban or drug warlords if Washington withdraws its troops.

…

The order also suggests the Afghan army will be equipped with T62 tanks, Mi24 Hind attack helicopters and Spandrel anti-tank missiles.

If fully trained it will provide a formidable force against insurgents and potential foreign aggressors, including Pakistan where tensions are high on the southern border.

“This is completely refitting the Afghan army for the long term and it should stop a resurgence of the Taliban in its tracks,” a British arms expert said. “The order will take a year to make and deliver but the Russians are used to large quantities.”

…

Some observers pointed to the irony of the deal, because when the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan the Americans sold Stinger surface-to- air missiles to the Mujahideen to enable them to shoot down Moscow’s aircraft.

Quote of the day–Nouri al-Malki

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Al-Zarqawi was eliminated.

Nouri al-Malki
Prime Minister of Iraq
June 8, 2006
Top terrorist killed in air raid
See also:

[There was no competition for today’s “Quote of the day”.–Joe]

Experts weigh in on ID cards

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Via Bruce Schneier.

In this case the experts are the people that make a living selling the fake cards:

(AP) Luis Hernandez just laughs as he sells fake driver’s licenses and Social Security cards to illegal immigrants near a park known for shady deals. The joke _ to him and others in his line of work _ is the government’s promise to put people like him out of business with a tamperproof national ID card.

“One way or another, we’ll always find a way,” said Hernandez, 35, a sidewalk operator who is part of a complex counterfeiting network around MacArthur Park, where authentic-looking IDs are available for as little as $150.

Basically it’s a unsolvable problem that, even if successful, won’t solve the problems the government wants it to solve.

The front is here

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The recent arrests of Muslim extremists in Canada weren’t isolated and weren’t limited to just that country:

AN INTERNET trail left by a British computer expert has led investigators to an intricate terror network spreading from the backstreets of Baghdad through cells of young militants living in European capitals to Islamic extremists plotting car-bomb attacks in North America.

For nine months police and intelligence agents in eight countries have patiently worked through a forest of e-mails and intercepted telephone calls that have so far led to the arrest of up to 30 men.

…

A senior security source told The Times that there is a far greater number of terror networks operating in Britain than had been thought, all using the internet to plot attacks here and abroad.

A series of criminal trials in Britain, the US, Canada and Bosnia over the coming months will determine whether the much maligned Western security agencies have successfully disrupted a dangerous ring of al-Qaeda sympathisers or been duped by faulty intelligence.

…

The arrest of 17 suspects, many of them teenagers, picked up in the suburbs of Toronto at the weekend is said to be the latest stage in dismantling a terrorist nexus that, worryingly, has its links with one of the world’s most wanted men — Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

On his website al-Zarqawi has encouraged young Muslims to take up the fight in their own countries and spread his religious war further than Iraq and Afghanistan.

One aim is to create an army of “white-skinned” militants, men born in Europe and America who can convert to Islam and become harder for the authorities to detect as they cross the world on their missions, including suicide attacks. Using skilled computer operators around the world, al-Zarqawi’s outfit passes on bombmaking manuals, advice on how to sustain terror cells and even ways to use credit card fraud to hack into vital internet sites.

…

A series of raids in recent months in a number of Europe’s capitals and in Atlanta in the US has passed virtually unannounced.

One US official told the Wall Street Journal: “We let the operation run as long as we had to make sure we could identify as many would-be terrorist operators as we could and then picked them off one, two, three and finally 17 at a time.”

What will it take for people to realize we are in the middle of WW III with the front lines in our own cities?  And furthermore our enemy is composed of up to a billion people.

Unchecked freedom

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One might assume Mr. Brown thinks there should be some “common sense” restrictions on our rights guaranteed by the First Amendment:

In a highly unusual instance of a United Nations official singling out an individual country for criticism, Mr. Malloch Brown said that although the United States was constructively engaged with the United Nations in many areas, the American public was shielded from knowledge of that by Washington’s tolerance of what he called “too much unchecked U.N.-bashing and stereotyping.”

“Much of the public discourse that reaches the U.S. heartland has been largely abandoned to its loudest detractors such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News,” he said.

Mr. Brown forgets that in the United States we are not subjects of the politicians or “The Crown”.  Here the politicians are the servants of the citizens.  But I guess that is understandable, the politicians here frequently forget it also.  This is why we have the Second Amendment–our other communication tool (as Ry once described the pistol on my belt next to my cellphone).

Thanks to Michelle Malkin for bringing this to my attention.

National Firearms Assocation fisks the UN

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The National Firearms Assocation (Canada) explains why the anti-gun bigots at the UN are nuts:

As you have probably noticed, the UN methods of “eliminating the illegal circulation of small arms and light weapons” have been quite unsuccessful. This paper explains some of the reasons why that is so.

…

The Programme of Action suffers, in this writer’s opinion, from a prejudice. It seems to have been written by someone who assumed that it is the availability of a weapon that causes violent criminal acts. That is an untrue assumption. If it were true, every nation would have to mount continuous campaigns to deter husbands and wives from quarrelling in the kitchen, because knives are readily available in every kitchen. That is not necessary because ordinary people do not become murderous criminals simply because a weapon is easily available.

…

Now let us look at the Programme of Action. It is unfortunate, but true, that attempts to deal with complex situations are usually coloured by the type of expertise available. In this case, the type of expertise available when the Programme of Action was drafted and then adopted was apparently administrative expertise, not likely to produce successful ways of dealing with situations that range from quasi-legal to flatly illegal. Administrative methods are good for dealing with legal transactions by persons firmly determined to stay within the law. They are remarkably poor at dealing with illegal ownership, illegal procuring, illegal sales, illegal trades of goods for goods, illegal shipments, smuggling, and other illegal transactions.

…

So–what are the actual effects of laws based on the British theory and the American theory, as opposed to the anticipated effects, now that we have had a few years to study them?

In the U.S., the latest FBI annual report statistics showed that the overall national violent crime rate for 2004 had decreased for the thirteenth consecutive year (starting in 1991), and had reached a 30-year low. As a check, the latest Bureau of Justice statistics showed that the overall national violent crime rate had reached a 32-year low in 2004.

The FBI data also show that in 2004, murder rates hit a 39-year low, robbery rates a 37-year low, and aggravated assault rates a 20-year low. All forms of violent crime have been steadily decreasing since 1991. Between 1991 and 2004, violent crime declined by 39 per cent, murder by 44 per cent, rape by 24 per cent, robbery by 50 per cent, and aggravated assault by 33 per cent.

Those are very good numbers, and the period from 1991 to 2004 has also been one with a steadily increasing number of states that feature mandatory concealed carry laws. Additionally, the American approach has been particularly good for women, as women are the preferred (even if not the most numerous) targets of violent criminals. Knowing that some women are able to protect human life from criminal violence has had a noticeable effect, reducing crimes against women. Causing violent criminals to fear women results in a desirable check on violent crime rates, as Paxton Quigley says in her excellent book, Armed and Female.

The British picture is quite different.

The British Home Office Statistical Bulletin, “Crime in England and Wales, 2004/2005,” tells us that their national violent crime rate increased by 109 per cent from 1995 to 2004/2005.

Between 2003/2004 and 2004/2005, reports of “threat or conspiracy to murder” went up by 31 per cent in the “top nine [police] forces (those that did the best reporting)” and up 3 per cent in “other forces.” Less serious woundings reports went up 25 per cent from the top nine and 12 per cent from the other forces. Possession of weapons reports went up 13 per cent from the top nine and 0 per cent from the other forces. Harassment reports went up 58 per cent in the top nine and 22 per cent in the other forces. Reports of sexual offences increased 17 per cent in 2004/2005, but this figure was confused by a change in the definition of “sexual offence” that occurred within the two reporting periods.

“Crime involving firearms” has been rising steadily since 1998/1999 (more than doubling), in spite of the total “elimination” of handguns imposed by a total ban on the private ownership and possession of handguns in 1995. One conclusion is inescapable: British violent criminals are experiencing no difficulty in acquiring and using as many illegal handguns as they want.

Read those figures and draw your own conclusions. In this writer’s view, the American approach is working, and the British idea is failing.

Give yourself thirty minutes to an hour to read the whole thing.

Quote of the day–Ann Coulter

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Cybercast News Service: What do liberal environmentalists have against toilets that use water?

Ann Coulter: They admire the living situation of the earthworm and believe humans should emulate it.

This is why they adore primitive societies where people crap in holes behind their mud huts. They pray that these primitives never leave the mud huts — unless it’s to come clean their designer spa bathrooms “off the books.”

Cybercast News Service: Do you think any of them has ever used the type of dry toilet that they advocate?

Ann Coulter: Well, that would certainly explain why they’re so cranky all the time. Dry toilets are worthless. You can’t even use them to destroy a copy of the Koran. And believe me, I’ve tried.

Ann Coulter
June 6, 2006
CNSNew.com
[There are a lot of things I disagree with Coulter about but she does have a wicked sense of humor and a complete lack of mercy for her victims.  I admire both of those traits.–Joe]

Canadian Muslims are real sweethearts

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The Muslim extremists in Canada probably figure people should trust them too.  They only planned to do a few bombings and beheadings:

RAMPTON, Canada — Some of the 17 men and youths arrested in a suspected terrorism plot had planned to storm the nation’s Parliament, take politicians hostage and behead Prime Minister Stephen Harper unless their demands for a withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan and the release of Muslim prisoners were met, prosecutors said Tuesday.

…

In his comments before the judge, Batasar said the prosecution was contending the defendants planned to invade the Parliament building in Ottawa and take hostages to demand that Canadian forces leave Afghanistan; about 2,300 serve under international mandate with the Kabul government’s consent. The defendants, according to prosecutors, planned to demand the release of unspecified Muslim prisoners and to bomb the Parliament building and decapitate Harper and other political leaders if their demands were rejected.

They say Islam is the religion of peace and if you don’t agree with them they will kill you.

Terror attack planned for London was sarin

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The two Muslims the Brits captured the other day were probably intending to use sarin in a train carriage:

Terrorists were planning a chemical attack in London similar to that on the Tokyo subway, police and the security services said.

MI5 agents suspect that al-Qaeda sympathisers intended to produce a nerve agent – probably sarin – and release it in a confined space, such as a train carriage, to maximise the number of casualties.

Just in case you don’t know about sarin:

Initial symptoms following exposure to sarin (and other nerve agents) are a runny nose, tightness in the chest and contraction of the pupils. Soon after, the victim has difficulty breathing and experiences nausea and drooling. As the victim continues to lose control of bodily functions, he vomits, defecates and urinates. This phase is followed by twitching and jerking. Ultimately, the victim becomes comatose and suffocates in a series of convulsive spasms.

Sarin is a highly volatile liquid. Inhalation and absorption through the skin pose a great threat. Even vapour concentrations immediately penetrate the skin. People who absorb a nonlethal dose but do not receive immediate appropriate medical treatment may suffer permanent neurological damage.

Even at very low concentrations, sarin can be fatal. Death may follow in one minute after direct ingestion of about 0.01 milligram per kilogram of body weight if antidotes, typically atropine and pralidoxime, are not quickly administered. Atropine, an acetylcholine inhibitor, is given to treat the physiological symptoms of poisoning. Pralidoxime can regenerate cholinesterases if administered within approximately five hours.

It is estimated that sarin is more than 500 times as toxic as cyanide.

Death from 10 micro-grams per kilogram of body weight.  A 110 pound person (women and children would likely be on the train carriage) would have to ingest less than 1/2 of a milligram.  A baby aspirin is 81 milligrams–over 160 times as massive as a lethal dose of sarin.

And the Muslims want the British people to trust them?  When they start turning in people planning atrocities such as these then the trust can be slowly restored.

Are they afraid of their own shadow too?

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England afraid to fly its own flag:

Following warnings by extremist Islamic group al-Muhajiroun, in which the group said that the red cross in the England flag symbolizes the ‘blood thirsty crusaders’ and the occupation of Muslims, some of the largest companies in England have ordered their workers not to wave the flags.

The flag has recently appeared in England on everything from bikinis to cars, and sold in endless versions in stores.

But the Islamic protest forced some corporations, such as cable companies NTL, and even the Drivers and Vehicles Licensing Agency to ban the flag in every form due to fears from reactions of Muslims.

The Sun tabloid newspaper has in recent days launched a campaign to bring back the flag, and has published a blacklist of companies preventing their workers from expressing their patriotism at work.

The Sun said that a large pub network has banned drinkers from entering with symbols of the national team.

The hero of the day is a two year-old toddler, who was thrown out with his parents from Leicester, because he wore the England team’s uniform.

Blood thirsty?  I keep thinking of the  British aid worker Marget Hassan, director of CARE international who was killed by Muslim extremists in Iraq.  I keep thinking of the slaughter houses they found where the Muslim extremists made videos as they beheaded people.  Muslims have no high moral ground when it comes to “blood thirst”. 

The people of England need to grow a spine.

Quote of the day–Muhammad Abdul Bari

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The danger is the trust between the community and the police may be broken. The community feels very vulnerable.

Muhammad Abdul Bari
Muslim Council of Britain leader
Terror raid could ‘damage trust’ 
BBC News–June 6, 2006
[And I thought that trust was broken July 7, 2005 when Muslim extremists blew up trains in The Tube and a bus.  Trust, but verify.  That’s my advice.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Dr. Larry Piaget

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There’s a power struggle going on over control of the human consciousness.  We are a cell of health surrounded by plague.  It’s not men’s minds that are at stake, but their consciousness, their awareness.  This isn’t a struggle over a market area.  Make no mistake about it.  This is a struggle over what’s to judged valuable in our universe.

Dr. Larry Piaget
A character in The Santaroga Barrier by Frank Herbert
[There is great subtleness in this book.  There is vast room for interpretation as to who the “good guys” and who are the “bad guys”.  Some call Herbert a prophet in this book.  I can see why.–Joe]

I wonder

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There are a couple things that come to mind when I read this:

TORONTO (Reuters) – A group of Canadian residents arrested for “terrorism related offenses” were inspired by al Qaeda, had amassed enough explosives to build huge bombs and were planning to blow up targets in densely populated Ontario, police said on Saturday.

Mike McDonell, assistant commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, said the group had acquired three metric tons of ammonium nitrate — or three times the amount used in the 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City — as they sought to “create explosive devices.”

The first thing I wonder about is will this cause people to walk up any?  Or will they just figure, “Oh, it’s our fault for being in the mid-east, if we weren’t there it would have happened.”  People can’t seem to realize that the Islamic extremists have been trying to convert the world to Islam by force for several hundred years now.  It’s not going to stop anytime soon.

The second thing I wonder about is ammonium nitrate readily available in Canada?  If so I wonder if I can pick myself up a 1000 pounds or so for Boomershoot 2010 or whenever it is that I will exhaust my current supply.

Quote of the day–George Galloway

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Mr Blair has murdered more than 100,000 people in Iraq and the Iraqi people are an occupied people, illegally invaded. They have the moral and legal right to resist that occupation.

Why would that right be restricted to the poor, bloody infantry that Mr Blair sent into the streets of Iraq?

If the Iraqis have the right, as they do under international law and under any moral philosophy, to resist foreign invaders of their country (then) that must include the man who is giving the orders.

George Galloway
Friday May 26, 2006
The Guardian
Speaking from Cuba, where he earlier in the week shared a TV stage with President Fidel Castro.
[The irony of it all…happy with Castro while advocating the murder of a leader that helped save so many people from a murderous tyrant.–Joe]

Tactics that work

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From Alan Korwin–tactics that work in the fight to defend the right to keep and bear arms.  As he says, “Easy, fun, and it helps save the planet by golly!”

Reality is sinking in

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Canada is resisting the identity card system required by U.S. law to enter our country:

Canada will not embark on an untested identity card system to meet U.S. border concerns, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said yesterday.

His government has told the Americans it prefers not to create such a card and wouldn’t do so until the American government has convinced itself it is effective, Harper told reporters.

ID cards are not effective in solving the problems they are claimed to address.  Mandatory ID cards are a bad idea.

Sensitive issues

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Maybe the TV news people left something out that would make things a little more clear but the way it’s spelled out now Mayor Kiss doesn’t make a lick of sense:

“From the perspective of being mayor,” he said, “I haven’t looked at public safety in terms of whether there are initiatives we would like to take. At least an element of that is that we’ve had two recent shootings in which handguns were involved.”

Kiss said it was possible that Burlington might seek a charter change related to guns or a member of the Legislature from the city might propose a bill.

…

Despite the likelihood of opposition, Kiss said it was timely to talk about handguns, given the recent shootings. “We could see where that went, without prejudging the process,” Kiss said. I don’t want to be afraid of bringing up issues that are sensitive.”

He doesn’t want to be afraid of bring up issues that are sensitive?  Okay then Mister Mayor, why don’t you bring up reinstating slavery?  Never mind that should he start pushing for such a thing I would probably be among those looking for a clear shot to put a .30 caliber hole in his cranial vault.  That is if he wasn’t almost immediately impeached and unable to get any job with a higher status than shoveling pig manure.  It would make about as much sense.  Vermont has one of the lowest crime rates in the country and among the most relaxed gun laws.  Why would he want to change what is working well?

I have Just One Question for you Mayor Kiss.

Indefensible

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The felons at PNNL didn’t allow me to see the evidence against me, confront my accusers, or present a defense of any sort but I didn’t know such things existed in criminal courts of law of modern countries.  So this, from Ireland, really surprised me:

His lawyers had sought to have his conviction quashed after the Supreme Court last week overturned a 1935 law that made it an indefensible crime for any man to have sex with a girl under the age of 15.

I can see the point but one should always be allowed to defend themselves.  They could have been framed for example.  Their DNA could have been planted by someone else, the pictures could have been edited, whatever evidence is used should be subject to question.

Something like this even happens in the U.S. under certain circumstances.  The freedoms we take for granted are not as secure as you might think.

Quote of the day–The Potowmack Institute

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The “armed populace at large” becomes the libertarian fantasy of some people, arrested in political adolescence, who have an extreme difficulty accommodating to public authority and giving the “consent of the governed”. The fantasy is that this is a viable concept. The right to be armed outside of the law is a right and a fantasy that has to be maintained by defeating legislation. It succeeds because everyone else fails.

The Potowmack Institute
As revised on November 11, 2005
[They completely neglect to consider the concept of inalienable rights such as freedom of speech and other rights guaranteed by our Bill of Rights so it’s no wonder they arrive at the wrong conclusion in regards to firearms.  Thanks to Lyle for pointing these guys out.–Joe]

Quote of the day–John A. Logan

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The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.

John A. Logan
Commander-in-Chief
N.P. CHIPMAN
Adjutant General General Orders No.11
WASHINGTON, D.C.
May 5, 1868