You Know You’re Out of Line, When…

John from Power Line in what has GOTTA be the line of the month:

Well, you know a painting is offensive when the guy who painted the Pope with swastikas thinks it's over the line.

Outside The Beltway (Along with everyone else) notes the French voters and their rejection of the EU Constitution.

Personally, I’m curious; I see an awful lot of dancing around the causes underlying this rejection.  Is this a rejection of Chirac? Of the EU itself (Along with the prospect of handing over their sovereignty to Brussels) ?

There’s a lot of things that don’t add up here. The French are at least confused. They seem willing to vote Socialists into power there as a matter of routine, and have pretty much since WWII. Yet they seem discomforted by the logical result of 50 years of socialism…. giving up their sovereignty.

The press meanwhile, is apparently clueless as to why the French voters would reject the EU Constitution. I’m not getting a good feel for how much of the press’ apparent confusion is due to a lack of understanding of the French political landscape, and how much of it is not being willing to publicly aver that ANYONE could reject world socialism.

From Ed Chenel, A police officer in Australia

Hi friends, I thought you all would like to see the real figures from Down Under.  It has now been 12 months since gun owners in Australia were forced by a new law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by our own government, a program costing Australia taxpayers more than $500 million dollars.

The first year results are now in: Australia-wide, homicides are up 3.2 percent, Australia-wide, assaults are up 8.6 percent; Australia-wide, armed robberies are up 44 percent (yes, 44 percent)!  In the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms are now up 300 percent.  (Note that while the law-abiding citizens turned them in, the criminals did not! and criminals still possess their guns!)

While figures over the previous 25 years showed a steady decrease in armed robbery with firearms, this has changed drastically upward in the past 12 months, since the criminals now are guaranteed that their prey is unarmed.  There has also been a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the elderly.

Australian politicians are at a loss to explain how public safety has decreased, after such monumental effort and expense was expended in "successfully ridding Australian society of guns." You won't see this on the Canadian evening news or hear your Member of Parliament disseminating this information.

The Australian experience proves it.  Guns in the hands of honest citizens save lives and property and, yes, gun-control laws affect only the law-abiding citizens.

A hat tip to Bruce White

(Editor's note: This was posted here a couple years ago. Every time this thing's been posted for the honor of our troops... both current and past.... it's gotten quite a rise out of the readers. I offer it again here, because frankly, I've decided I can't say it any better than this...)

Honoring our vets has always held special meaning for me; it’s a lesson my parents instilled very well, indeed. It was brought home to me, as I was recently looking at pictures from a trip we made through the Gettysburg PA area some years ago.

It’s a particularly meaningful thing, when you’re standing on that field…. something that goes well beyond the cold facts and figures about who died from what company, how old they were, or even where they were from. It’s more a feeling you get…. you can sense it… not unlike being at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan, or visiting Arlington National Cemetery. I’m told Omaha Beach, and Pearl Harbor and many other sites are the same way. I’ve been at the funerals of firemen and policemen who died in their line of duty, and that was also remarkably similar.

In each case, we’re dealing with places and concepts of death. But death alone doesn’t do it; doesn’t create that solemn atmosphere that is so unique to the above places. After all; there are lots of mass casualty accidents have happened over the centuries and their sites are well marked, and revered, or at least held apart, and yet, their impact doesn’t approach that of an Iwo Jima or a Pearl.

Even under the shelter and relative safety of the time that has passed since the events, as you stand in each place, you can still feel it; Lives were lost there that were willingly (And in the case of the civilian deaths at the towers, unwillingly) sacrificed toward a higher ideal.

Our feelings and conclusions can be far different from what those lost experienced. Yet, their lives and their sacrifices still count for something. And the thing is, it doesn’t take much for us to out ourselves in their mindset.

Think of it this way; Every single man who died at Gettysburg, at Normandy, at Pearl and all he rest, has meaning for us because each of them, had their own lives, just as we have our own lives.

These people loved, they laughed, they cried. They had a favorite food, a favorite color, a particular bit of music, or of poetry stirred their souls, like none other, just like we, ourselves. Every bit as much as you and I love our lives, they loved theirs. Their lives were as precious to them, as yours is to you. Their loss was as keenly felt by their loved ones as yours would yours. And yet, they gave their lives up, for something bigger.

I have a neighbor, whose father just recently needed a liver transplant. This neighbor willingly gave up part of his liver to be transplanted into his father. A noble action, certainly, commendable, and impressive. But with all respect to my neighbor, the choice to do that is comparatively easy to make. He knows and loves his father, and the sacrifice is fairly light by comparison.

How much more noble is a sacrifice of one’s life for people that one will never meet? Well, the people we honor today, those in uniform particularly, but some who were not, gave of themselves for the benefit of people they would never know…. you and I, and countless others from many nations. If not for their sacrifices, you’d not be reading this BIT, because I’d not have written it…. we’d be living in a very different world, possibly, one not nearly as good to us as it has been.

Look upon those actions, those sacrifices, and know what you’re seeing is strength, courage, and nobility in measures that should not… can not, be ignored. It must be honored by us all; it was made, after all for our benefit.

Fox is saying tonight:

LOS ANGELES — Eddie Albert, the actor best known as the constantly befuddled city slicker-turned-farmer in television's "Green Acres," has died. He was 99.

Well, he had a LOT of Movies under the belt, too, and bit parts.
You’ll recall THE LONGEST DAY has been remade… Albert was in the original.
You’ll recall THE LONGEST DAY… He was in that, too.
FIREBALL FORWARD, too… one of the better made for TV movies from the period.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. health regulators on Friday said they have received more than 40 reports of a type of blindness in men taking impotence drugs, mostly involving Pfizer Inc.'s Viagra.

Details at Reuters.com

I’m usually one to pee on the parade of such reports.  They’re usually made up of first class bovine excretion.  Even the FDA is saying it’s nothing new…

"There is no evidence showing that NAION occurred more frequently in men taking Viagra than men of similar age and health who did not take Viagra," Pfizer said in a statement.

The FDA's Cruzan said NAOIN is not uncommon for people of the age that use the impotence drugs, who have conditions like heart conditions, diabetes and heart disease. It also occurs in patients who have not taken Viagra.

… but I’m inclined to wait and see on this one, if for no other reason than the aggravation being hit with ads for the stuff at every stopset on both TV and radio.

Power Line says the recent poll of the Clinton News Network being touted by the lefties this afternoon about Hillary Clinton’s possible voters in ’06, isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

I agree; The numbers don’t add up to anything dramatically different from what they’ve ever been, plus there’s always the annoyance factor. As John Hinderaker points out:

..some voters have forgotten why they ultimately found Mrs. Clinton so annoying. But if she runs in '08, they may be reminded.

I’ve no doubt, John.

Update:

And now we see her Campaign manager has been acquitted.
Oh, Joy… What are these juries smoking, anyway?

Lockjar, over at Lockjaw’s Lair could use some kind thoughts pointed his way.

Early this afternoon, my 10 year old son fell off the playground equipment at school. He apparently did a classic bellyflop onto the ground. Afterward, he complained of sharp abdominal pain. My wife contacted me, and we decided to watch him closely until she got home so I could take a look at him. Soon after, he vomited. I did a little research on the net, contacted a local doctor, and decided to take him to the Emergency Room. My wife took him directly there, as they were still on the way home from school.

In the Emergency Room, they took blood and urine samples. The urine sample showed some blood, so they did a CT scan. The result? My son has a ruptured spleen.

Ouch.
In any case, having a kid in the hospital isn’t easy.

Cory Doctorow has lost a freind.
(Sigh)

Please give welcome a blog I’ve been watching for some time… fellow Blogspotter.. LIBERTY AND CULTURE.

Outside The Beltway points up via an AP article, that:

The Democratic Party, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and two groups associated with the civil rights activist have agreed to pay a total of $200,000 in civil fines for campaign finance violations in the 2000 elections. At issue in the Federal Election Commission case was about $450,000 in election spending by Jackson, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and the Citizenship Education Fund using funds from the groups.

Now, would it be goche to point out that the press is pretty kuch ignoring this story and is all over the story of a fine half that size being laid against Tom Delay’s state campaign people in Texas?

So, Max Boot pukes this gem up yesterday;Gay or Female, Uncle Sam Should Want You and it’s gotten quoted on several blogs.

The argument being employed here basicly comes down to;

“Forget trying to apply morality to this; we’re costing ourselves victory.”

Of Course, Max Boot is talking about the Military and it’s position on homosexuals.

Now think about this; We’re being told how immoral we are on among other things, treatment of prisoners. And those suggesting that being overly concerned with such matters is costing us lives and could in fact cost us victory, are being called ‘immoral’. For making such suggestions, I’ve been personally shouted down as being immoral.

Yet, here comes Max Boot (and others) suggesting we should do exactly that…. leave morality behind with regards to homosexuality, to ‘get over it’… and for the same reason… because to not do so means we cost ourselves lives and could cost us victory… and this gets taken seriously by the Andrew Sullivans of the world. I suppose I expect this kinda thing from Sullivan, but I’m disheartened when I see it being countananced by other people who should know better.

Boortz, this morning points up somehting that will be all over the net by day’s end. I’ve already gotten several E-Mails on the topic.

Here’s a bit of Law and Order, last night:

ADA RON CARVER: An African American judge, an appellate court judge, no less.

MAN: Chief of DS is setting up a task force. People are talking about multiple assassination teams.

DET. ALEX EAMES: Looks like the same shooters.  CSU found the slug in a post, matched it to the one that killed Judge Barton.  Maybe we should put out an APB for somebody in a Tom DeLay T-Shirt.

As Neal says:

Come on, folks.  Can it be any more blatant?  The strong suggestion here is that Tom DeLay supporters are the type that would be likely to shoot federal judges.  Now … tell me that there is no left-wing bias in this writing.

And you guys wonder why I don’t watch much TV.

Powerline notes today:

The Pentagon reports that the Guantanamo detainee who claimed in August 2002 that a guard flushed a Koran down a toilet (do they have really big toilets there, or what?) was recently re-interviewed, and recanted the allegation:

“We’ve gone back to the detainee who allegedly made the allegation and he has said it didn’t happen. So the underlying allegation, the detainee himself, within the last two weeks, said that didn’t happen,” chief Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita told a briefing.

And so once again, our service people suffer, and 19 people DIED, because of our hyper-extended, hindsight-based morality, being used as a tool by the anti-war crowd, and our enemy… And better yet… we now find what ‘ve always suspected; the whole thing was a lie.

1. War is not an intelectual excersize.
2. There are no rules in war, other than the rules dicated by the winner, afterward.
3. The Geneva Convention which proports to be civilized warfare, is in fact nothing of the sort, and is not worth the paper it was written on, having repeatedly been broken in every war ever waged since it’s signing.  There’s a reason, here; Warfare is not civil under any conditions. War is, instead, the utter lack of civility. It is therefore unrealistic to assume or demand any degree of civility in wartime.
4. Those seeking closer adherence to the Geneva Convention during wartime, even on moralistic ground, particualrly when the enemy is overtly not adhereing to said convention, are themselves immoral, given they end up costing their own side lives, by causing their own military to, in effect, fight with one hand tied behind their back.
5. When a people go to war, it is by definition a last resort against an immoral enemy. It’s understood that war of itself is an immoral act. In going to war the line of immorality has already been crossed…  but it is also understood that the greater immorality is to allow the enemy to continue it’s immoral activity. It is assumed, thereby, that whatever actions are taken in pursuit of winning said war against said immoral enemy, are in the immediate sense, of lesser moral consequence than the defeat of the enemy, and the actions of the enemy, both before and during said war.
6. Hindsight is a luxury a nation at war cannot afford. For example, consider the post 9/11 world, and the discussions about ‘How far would you go to stop another 9/11?” We succeeded in stopping any more such attacks on us, and we continue to hold them back. Being concerned now with the ‘rights’ of those attacking us is at least counter-productive, and self-defeating.
7. One does not win a war by respecting the rights, the beliefs, or the demands, of the enemy. One wins a war by killing the enemy in as great a number as possible, and barring that, by breaking their will to fight.