Viet-Justice

I’m all for putting people in prison for violent crime, but we already have laws on the books that deal with violent crime without getting into whether the victim is a racial minority or gay or something else. The President’s expected veto is a welcome act.

“State and local criminal laws already provide criminal penalties for the violence addressed by the new federal crime defined in section 7 of H.R. 1592, and many of these laws carry stricter penalties (including mandatory minimums and the death penalty) than the proposed language in H.R. 1592,” the statement said.

The above statement is a good point. The 50 states have their own laws and I am greatly dismayed that our Federal legislators are wasting time reinventing the wheel. In addition, only Federal authorities can enforce Federal law. I do not see the FBI going out to arrest people for violating laws such as this. It’s difficult enough getting your local police to help, especially when they’re out blowing things up like Boston PD.

Surprising minority advocates are supporting the idea of the veto.

Matt Barber, policy director for cultural issues with Concerned Women for America, was quick to praise the statement.

The bill would penalize someone who commits an act of violence against a homosexual more so than any other person. Assault is assault and murder is murder. We need to stop trying to invent new forms of hate crime and enforce the laws that are already on the books. I also believe that good self defense training can act as a deterrent. Most people are not going to commit assault if they know the potential of getting injured or shot themselves.

Found on Digg. President Bush is authorizing the sale of up to 200,000 acres of National Forest land, mostly in California. Already the tree huggers are going nuts while cool capitalism is set to prevail.

“I am outraged, and I don’t think the public is going to stand for it for one minute,” said Wilderness Society policy analyst Mike Anderson. “It’s a scheme to raise money at the expense of the national forests, the wildlife, recreation and all the other values that Americans hold dear. It’s the ultimate threat to the national forest.”

Jerry Taylor of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said the proposed land sales make sense.

“Private property will end up in the possession of those who value it the most,” Taylor said. “That is an iron law of economics.”

Being a Libertarian I’m going to have to take the side of the Cato Institute here. Being an environmentalist I’m also going to have to take the side of the Cato Institute. One problem I have with the environmental movement is it places too much emphasis on the Federal government in protecting our natural resources. In the case of ANWR the government can rightfully order drilling for oil. It’s their dirt and they can do with their dirt as they please or they can sell it to other people. Hell, they can turn it into a nuclear missile test range for all I care. It’s their dirt. In this case The Wilderness Society and Mike Anderson really need to get on board with modern economic realities.

Governments fail.

Governments run out of money.

Government priorities shift.

The key to preserving the planet is private or local ownership, not national ownership. This should not be National Forest. It should be California Forest. It should be Colorado Forest. I’m sure you get the idea my fellow tree huggers. Schwarzenegger is probably going to do more to protect the forest than Bush. The tax payers of “Colly-Fornia” are probably going to support initiatives to spend their tax money on buying some of that National Forest and making it California Forest. That is the great thing about this entire issue is that the Federal government is putting up National Forest for sale for State, County, and City government to own. And let’s not forget ownership by logging companies, home owners, or non-profit environmental conservation agencies. Yes, Wilderness Society, Defenders of Wildlife, and Greenpeace I’m talking to you. Your membership can buy this land that is for sale and donate it to you as a gift. You do accept land and property as estate gifts at time of death, right? So, why not accept land that you can manage directly? Why not invest in mutual funds and take the profits to buy the environment rather than lobby Congress? Politicians will serve their own needs. If you truly believe in protecting the environment then do something on a small level. When thousands of like minded individuals come together anything is possible.

This serves as further proof that the country made a good decision by not electing John Kerry or anyone from Massachusetts. Boston residents caused a panic by reporting an advertising campaign from Turner Broadcasting / Cartoon Network as a bomb threat. I am convinced that everyone in Massachusetts has had their brain freeze over at some point. Even the mayor of Boston displays how much of a hater he is.

“It is outrageous, in a post 9/11 world, that a company would use this type of marketing scheme,” Mayor Thomas Menino said. “I am prepared to take any and all legal action against Turner Broadcasting and its affiliates for any and all expenses incurred during the response to today’s incidents.”

According to the AP article the advertising campaign was running in Boston, NY, LA, Atlanta, Chicago, Portland, Austin, San Francisco, Seattle, and Philadelphia. So how is it that 9 cities don’t think anything of it?

Since statistically it seems unlikely that the combined population of 9 other cities did not report this as a threat does the mayor plan to pursue those who called in a *false* bomb scare? Has the mayor’s office investigated the possibility that this incident was reported with malicious intent?

“Everyone can play a part by holding Turner Broadcasting to account for today’s events,” Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley said. “Viewers, advertisers, license holders, can and should make clear to them this sort of behavior is reckless, irresponsible and illegal.”

Hey, Mr. Conley, why don’t you investigate the initial report. We have decided to be fair and give his office an opportunity to respond to our questions.

According to the same AP news article 9 other cities had the promotion for 2-3 weeks. Since, statistically, it seems unlikely that the combined population of 9 other cities did not report this as a threat does the DA’s office plan to pursue those who called in a *false* bomb scare? Has the DA’s office investigated the possibility that this incident was reported with malicious intent to tie up the resources of city authorities?

We would also like to know how advertising in and of itself is reckless, irresponsible, and illegal in Boston but it is not in the 9 other cities mentioned in the AP news article.

I will post the DA’s response when they get back to me.

A man shot his 17-year old daughter 4 times in the head fatally wounding her. She had been to the doctor several times for virginity testing and it appeared that she was a virgin. Even after the autopsy she was determined to be a virgin. Honor killings show that Islam is a barbaric religion and that it is so primitive it cannot trust modern medical science. King Abdullah has made progress by having honor killings classified as regular murders.

An Amish couple filed suit over the Homeland Security photo rule earlier this month. While you are free to worship as you wish, you are also free to choose whether or not to comply with the law of the land. The current rules for immigration, right or wrong, state you need to provide two photographs. This couple is free to convert to a religion that does not have an issue with photographs or they are free to go somewhere else that does not require it. Yes it is a painful and inconvenient experience, but rules are rules. If the rules are truly stupid then we should change them; however, I don’t see people lining up to complain about this particular rule.

An interesting post over at wordpress.com’s hosting service.  The blogger does make a good point that the terrorists are financed by drug money and the farmers will grow heroin because it is the most profitable.  Free market capitalism at work in it’s finest form.  I certainly don’t have a problem with capitalism, but there is something the west can do to reduce the profitability of the heroin trade.  Legalize the stuff!!!!  Take away the black market and viola!  Just think, they could be growing soy beans to make biodiesel fuel.  Damn, winning the war on terror and getting to hug a tree at the same time.  How often does that happen?

Mahmoud LI-LI-LI-LI-LI-LI-LI-LI Ahmadinejad has his own blog! It is unfortunate that he chose IIS 5.0 as his hosting platform.
Trying 217.218.165.150…
HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 14:32:06 GMT
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 87

For god’s sake people, it’s for the children! We have to catch internet pedophiles to protect the children! How many times have you heard that to justify the loss of freedom? Well folks, it has happened again. The Senate has ratified the Convention on Cybercrime and flushed our privacy down the toilet. This treaty forces the US to cooperate with foreign law enforcement in cases where the law is broken in a foreign country. In short this means the FBI can now spy on you without a warrant if you do something on the Internet that some foreign government doesn’t like.

Are you a Chinese person critical of China’s government? You had better not go on vacation to China because you may be on a watch list when you arrive. Germany has been doing this for over a decade with Neo-Nazis. If you’re a US citizen and you have swastikas on your US hosted web site you will in all likelihood be arrested if you get off the plane in Germany. Yes, you will probably find yourself on a watch list and be placed in jail because someone in Germany can see your swastikas never mind the 1st Amendment legally allows you to express yourself
Don’t think this applies to Nazis either. David Carruthers is an executive at BetOnSports in the UK. He was arrested while passing through the US for illegal gambling charges. His final destination was not the US. The plane was in US air space and they nabbed him for something that is totally legal in the UK where he lives and works. The US justification? Americans can illegally bet on UK sports, so naturally we have to shut down that website and throw its owners in jail.
Fellow Infidels, consider what happens if the EU passes their law making it illegal to say anything about Islam. Sure you can’t be arrested in the US for your online antics, but you never know when your employer may have you travel abroad and you may end up getting arrested for something that is perfectly legal on US soil.

News.com has this interesting little tidbit:

An addition to the treaty would require nations to imprison anyone guilty of “insulting publicly, through a computer system” certain groups of people based on characteristics such as race or ethnic origin, a requirement that could make it a crime to e-mail jokes about Polish people or question whether the Holocaust occurred.

Do you still feel safe? What if you say something that insults the Prophet Mohammad or if you make fun of Kim Jung Il’s hair, could you be investigated? According to Declan McCullugh yes you can! And the ACLU has 7 reasons why we should reject the treaty.

Reason number 3 is one of the more troubling.

Under this treaty, American law enforcement would be forced to cooperate with investigations of activities that are illegal abroad but perfectly legal in the U.S. That is because the treaty lacks a “dual criminality” provision that would require an activity to be a crime in both countries before one nation could enlist the police in another to help investigate. The outrageous result: American law enforcement agencies would be forced to cooperate with foreign authorities in conducting surveillance on American citizens who have committed no crime under U.S. law.

Worse, some of those mutual assistance requests will come from countries that have minimal civil liberties protections. The Convention includes not only Council of Europe members like Ukraine and Bulgaria, but will also over time be opened to China and other non-democratic nations - additions that the United States would have no right to veto. And even Western European countries have much different views on civil liberties than the U.S. - the U.K., for example, has much different free speech standards than the U.S. (most notably very broad standards for defamation and libel).

Get used to the idea of foreign powers knowing your business folks and prepare to be beheaded for insulting Islam.

Mohammad Gulab is in trouble again. This time from the US Military. The guy that helped save a Navy SEAL is for some reason being mistreated by the military who suspect that he is in leage with the Taliban. He was summoned to a US military installation and interrogated for reasons the military won’t discuss.

He says, but before his release, one of the interrogators offered some advice: “Stay away from reporters. It will be in your best interest.”

Why would a soldier want Mr. Gulab to stay away from reporters? Obviously there is some kind of cover up going on. They seem to be upset that he talked to a reporter based in Pakistan and for some strange reason they seem to think that travel only happens in one direction. According to the article they asked when he had traveled to Pakistan. Now I’m not a rocket scientist by trade, but isn’t it possible that the reporter traveled to Afganistan to interview him? It’s possible that a reporter went to Afganistan without informing anyone in the US that they went there.  Seems possible and quite probable to me.

One must wonder how I could come up with that conclusion. By searching Google Trends for the phrase “sex” I was able to determine that many of the enemies of the West and the Far East are searching for sex online. The middle eastern countries of Pakistan, Egypt, and Iran score the top 3. Vietnam breaks up the middle east by coming in at number 4 and then you are back to Muslim countries again. [Disclaimer: I am not the sole person responsible for Vietnam being at number 4. India isn't a Muslim nation, but they have a large number of them in and surrounding the country].

What does all this statistical data mean? It means that people who live in oppressive countries are looking for something. Something glorious, unislamic, and western as apple pie. We know that American Republicans tend to be religious and some of them are as frightening as the Taliban, but the Republicans and religious conservatives are missing the boat here on censorship and morality in the US. The 1st Amendment offers greater freedom than most people in the world will ever see. It also offers the rest of the world freedom from religious tyranny. As more and more people want to be like Americans in all ways the more peaceful the world will become. Everyone mimics American fashion and music and as a result they become more like Americans.

So, why not add a little porn to the mix. If middle easterners want something America has to offer let them have it. It will open the door for more American things along the way to slowly take over their lives. It can be a long term strategy for the Americanification of the muslim world. Slow cultural changes are the solution (after ruling out nuclear aannihilation). If America has such gems as Jessica Jaymes, Krystal Steal, and Francine Dee, that you can actually see then by all means let the Muslim world see them. Muslim men are looking at American women because we don’t make our women walk around wearing bags over their heads. And that little fact will eventually cause the common man in the Islamic world to wake up and say, “Hey I don’t want our women to wear bags any more. I don’t want to be gay and look at men like the Islamic Clerics want me to. I want to be more American. ” Think of the possibilities for change.

Senators and Representatives, we need to get back to real American issues and immediately throw censorship out of the capital. After all it is to fight the War on Terror. Oh, and bags on women’s heads.