New York Newspaper Publishes Interactive Map Showing Where Registered Gun Owners Are: Why Are They Going After People Who Are Obeying the Law? This is an Idiotic Move on the Part of the Newspaper

The knee-jerk reaction to the Sandy Hook massacre continues at full speed, with a local New York newspaper publishing an interactive map showing where gun owners live, and what the permit holder’s name is.

Why are they targeting people who are obeying the law and registering their firearms?

I agree with many of the comments against the Journal News/LoHud.com that it’s an invasion of privacy, but also a roadmap for criminals to attack houses that don’t have registered firearms in them.   Garnett Publishing needs to do a better job of policing their knee-jerk reporters and newspapers from publishing stuff like that.

It’s also highly insulting to have registered gun owners, people who are obeying the law, put on display like sex offenders or other convicted criminals.   The newspaper is engaging in scare tactics, reminiscent of yellow journalism.  If one house is robbed at gunpoint by criminals who looked at their interactive map, the Journal News will have deliberately shared in the execution of the crime and should be held accountable.

Journalism has taken another step backwards.

United States Government Did the Right Thing in Refusing to Sign the International Internet Treaty: 20 Other Nations Refused to Sign It as Well

The Dubai Conference is over and done with, with twenty nations refusing to sign the protocol that was proposed by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and under the banner of the United Nations.  Nations that signed are in black, those who didn't are in red.

Nations that censor the Internet within their borders were pleased with the protocol, especially China, Iran, and 88 other nations.  Twenty-plus nations joined the refusal to sign it.  And I hope the U.S. government never signs it.

We can’t trust our free speech to totalitarian regimes.

I am not supportive of helping China to keep information from their people, nor Syria, or any of the other nations who suppress their own people.

Is The Ongoing “End of the World” Nonsense Connected to the Connecticut School Shooting?

I have a bad feeling that the current obsession over the doomsday nonsense on 12/21/12 is connected to the slaughter in Connecticut.

There’s no doubt that the lunatics are out in force.   Was the gunman one of them?

Hey CONGRESS and President Obama!! Don’t Leave Washington Until You Have a Fiscal Cliff Deal!

Congress needs to stay in Washington and so does President Obama until they fix THEIR fiscal mess.

And if they want to keep their jobs, they had better not kick this down the road again.  They’ve done that far too often, and we get deeper and deeper into the hole.  Unacceptable!

Quit screwing around and GET BUSY!

Suicide of London Nurse Who Was Pranked By Radio Shock Jocks is Tragic on So Many Levels: Who is to Blame?

A couple of radio shock jocks have expressed remorse at the death of a nurse who put their prank call through to Duchess of Cambridge after she was admitted with morning sickness, due to her pregnancy.

The radio station in Australia aired it, and the nurse who put the call through, believing she was talking to Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles, killed herself three days later after the story broke.

This is so tragic that it almost defies belief. 

I think there’s lots of blame to be spread around. 

First, the DJs for pranking the hospital.  Then, the radio station for airing the taped audio.  And the hospital, for not having some kind of protocol for filtering out calls like this, and the media for throwing such a HUGE spotlight on the Royal Family.

I’ve had family members in intensive care before, and before I could talk to my family member on the phone, I had to provide a verbal password to the nurse before my call was put through to the room.  This was done in accordance with the wishes of our family member, and set up by our family and the hospital.  That’s a common practice at hospitals, nursing homes and medical care facilities where I live.

Why in heaven’s name didn’t this hospital have a similar protocol in place to block unwanted calls getting through to the Prince and Princess?   The media coverage of the Duke and Duchess has been just as intense as the media coverage of Princess Diana was before the paparazzi hounded Diana to her death.

The radio station itself should also have its feet held to the fire.  They shouldn’t have aired this crap.   They had the audio recorded, and it wasn’t a live show.  Why did they air it?

Finally, the media.  They need to give the Royal Family a wide berth.  They Royals are human beings who make human mistakes, just like everybody else.  Most people don’t have a microscope trained on their every move and every word that they either make or utter.  WHO CARES!!

Sad.

Egypt and Hamas Pull a Screwjob on Israel and Washington: If This Truce Holds, Israel Will End Up Fighting This Battle Against Hamas Again in a Few Months

The Obama Administration hasn’t done Israel any favors with this cease-fire deal that was brokered by Egypt.

Hamas is still heavily armed, and they’re going to continue sending rockets into Israeli territory.  They haven’t agreed to recognize Israel, which is going to make Israel very reluctant to lift their blockade of Gaza.

All they’ve done is postpone the inevitable.  Here’s why:

Israel will attack Iran before the “red line” is reached, and then Israel will have Hezbollah firing their 40,000 rockets into northern Israel shortly thereafter, while Hamas resumes hitting southern Israel at Iran’s request.  

The best thing that could happen is for the cease-fire to fail and for Israel to flatten Hamas before getting into this thing with Iran and Hezbollah. 

Israel is doing its best to obey the truce, but if Hamas rockets continue to hit Israel, all bets are off.  I don’t see Hamas stopping its own forces from attacking Israel.  They lack the cohesive discipline that the Israeli military has.

Washington did the right thing in saying that Israel has a right to defend itself.  But they were wrong in playing a part in forcing this truce before the job was done.

If this truce is to hold, Hamas needs to act more responsibly on behalf of the people they are governing,   If they can’t do that, they should quit and let the Palestinian Authority take charge again.  Compared to Hamas, they’re much more preferable.

Hard times are ahead.

Hypocritical Turkey Calls Israel a “Terrorist State” for Firing Back at Hamas, But Won’t Apply the Same Label to Themselves for Firing Back at Syria Last Month

Turkey has decided that Israel shooting back at Hamas is terrorism, yet they had no problem doing the same thing to Syria when Syrian artillery shells landed in Turkish territory just last month.  They even enlisted international support in their “terrorist” action against Syria by convening a meeting of NATO ministers to tell Syria to stop.  In fact, they’re asking for U.S. Patriot missile batteries to be placed on their border with Syria. 

NATO should refuse this request if Turkey considers legitimate self defense “terrorism.”  After all, we don’t want to be a sponsor of Turkish “terrorism.”

This is the kind of hypocrisy that Turkey, above all other nations, needs to avoid.  If they’re not part of the solution, then they’re part of the problem.

I wonder how Egypt and Turkey would react if a faction opposed to their governments were firing rockets at their territory and killing their civilians?  Would they be tolerating it, as Israel’s neighbors seem to be insisting on, or would they be going in with maximum military force to put an end to it?

Oh, wait.  Egypt uses its army against its own people already.  So does Turkey.  So do most of the governments who are screaming about Israel defending itself against a terrorist organization.   And knowing these countries, they’d have already sent their armies in, long before now.

Israel’s neighbors need to quit the rhetoric and put pressure on Hamas to stop firing.  Or else Israel will bulldoze Gaza into the ground, and the Palestinian people will suffer for it, while what’s left of Hamas deserts them and flees to Egypt, like the cowards that they are.

And I’d be willing to bet that Egypt’s military will watch them go running by, instead of swiveling the tank turrets around and putting an end to Hamas before they get into Cairo.

This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

Some Political Hack Deleted References to al-Qaeda’s Involvement in Libyan Attack in CIA Memo: That’s Who They Should Identify

I’ve been following this whole Benghazi mess with little surprise.   And I have a few theories.

It’s becoming clear that someone in one of the federal agencies who were reviewing the CIA report on the attack was some political hack, concerned about President Obama’s re-election bid, deleted the references to al-Qaeda’s involvement in the assault on the U.S. consulate, before the information went to President Obama.

I also think that there is a possibility this person or persons used their knowledge that CIA Director Petraeus was being investigated against him, to influence him into saying what he did in his earlier testimony to Congress.  It took the form of “support our version, or we’ll go to the media, ruin your marriage, and destroy your reputation.  AND you’ll go to jail!” 

They need to do a top-to-bottom review of all the relevant agencies, identify people who reviewed the CIA memo, and then determine which of them knew that the general was under FBI investigation before he went public and resigned.   I think the paper trail will lead to the same person or people.

They need to find out if the CIA Director was compromised, in the form of blackmail discussed above.

That’s my theory, and I’m sticking to it.  It’s probably all wrong, but I also think we’ve just seen the tip of the iceberg on all of this.  People will be going to jail.

CNN Caught Faking Palestinian Footage: They Need to Quit Manipulating Stuff to Suit Their Agenda

The degenerates at CNN are at it again, faking footage of the poor rocket-firing Palestinians taking casualties from the evil Israeli warmongers.

Gag me with a spoon!

CNN keeps screwing up; they’ve become nothing more than a propaganda arm of Hamas.   They need to present a more balanced view and keep their opinions to themselves.  They’re siding against the ONLY democracy in that region against terrorists; what does that say about CNN? 

I use the term “degenerate” as they’ve de-evolved from a news agency to a propaganda outfit.   They need to get off their collective butts, report the news and then shut up with their opinions. 

If the Air Force is Unwilling to Spend Money to Fix the Over-Budget F-22 Raptor, They Should Retire Them

The Air Force has been dragging their feet in fixing the F-22 Raptor’s in-flight oxygen system, and it’s time to put an end to the issue.

They either need to spend more money on the already-over budget F-22, or they need to retire the aircraft.   The pilots don’t think the aircraft is safe. 

They only have two options: fix it or retire it.  It can’t continue to fly as-is. 

This has gone on long enough.  Another F22 crashed yesterday in Florida short of the runway.  At $190 million per copy, they ought to be able to diagnose and fix ANYTHING on that aircraft. 

Fix it or cancel it. 

If Egypt Really Wants to Broker Peace Between Israel and Hamas, Then They Need to Tell Hamas to Stop Firing Rockets at Israel BEFORE Telling Israel Not to Retaliate: S0 Far They’ve Been Telling Israel to Cease Fire While Ignoring Hamas’ Firing Rockets Into Israel, Which Started the Israeli Response

Egypt’s new leaders are proving to be more hypocritical than their former ruler when dealing with Israel and Hamas.

Egypt and the Muslim world have been screaming at Israel to stop fighting, while ignoring Hamas and their rocket strikes on Israeli cities, which provoked the Israelis into returning fire.

If one of these other countries were being fired upon by terrorist groups, they’d already have sent in ground troops.  Israel’s response has been very limited by comparison so far, targeting rocket launchers, Hamas commanders, rocket storage facilities and Hamas terrorists. 

Unfortunately, because Gaza is so small and so packed with people, everything Israel has attacked so far is amongst the Palestinian civilian population.  And Hamas doesn’t care where it puts its military equipment either.  There was an image of a rocket launcher next to a mosque yesterday on various web sites.

If the Muslims really want peace, they need to be more even-handed and realize that Hamas is the main cause of the problem.  If they were to stop firing, so would Israel.  It’s just that simple.

I think the Muslim world is sacrificing the Palestinians to Hamas militarism, just to get at Israel.  Otherwise they wouldn’t be arming a terrorist group and screaming at Israel to stop firing back while ignoring Hamas’s attacks on Israel.

Ridiculous White House Notion Sparks Independence Drive in Twenty States: What is President Obama Doing?

President Obama’s web site has an incredibly stupid petition promise: gather 25,000 signatures by December 7th, and the Administration will deliver “a response.” 

Someone from Louisiana started a secession petition to allow Louisiana to leave the United States peacefully.  Individuals in nineteen other states followed suit, and of those petitions, the Texas petition just hit 25,000 signatures.

Now the White House has to waste time addressing their dumb move on the petition drives.

I’m also wondering what kind of people signed the petitions to begin with, and I cannot help but think that there are a lot of civilian militias, and fringe characters, along with people who are unhappy with the direction of the country.   

President Obama needs to put a stop to this nonsense before the militia types pick up arms and start all kinds of trouble that we don’t need.

Internet Should Remain Under Western Oversight and Not Go to an International Authority: They’ll Kill Free Speech on the Internet

One month remains before control of internet addresses shifts over to an international organization under the control of the United Nations.

Given the fact that the U.N. is being lobbied by Muslim countries to ban forms of expression that insults their religion, the U.N. cannot be counted on  to safeguard free speech online.

Western countries should work to make sure that the Dubai conference next month, sponsored by the International Telecommunications Union and sanctioned by the U.N., that they do not get control of the Internet.  This idea needs to be permanently derailed.

The ITU says there are no motions on the table to ban free speech, but how long can it be before one is?

It’s better to have the U.N. keeps its hands off the Internet.  

The U.N. dedication to free speech is only as strong as the member states’ dedication to free speech is.  And with many nations on earth locking up their own citizens for expressing their views, that’s a highly dubious proposition.

The Dubai conference should be cancelled and the UN and ITU told where to go.  If they don’t like it, they can start their own Internet and censor that!

Texas Threatens to Arrest U.N. Observers at the Polls: We Don’t Need International Supervision of OUR Elections

Texas has threatened to arrest United Nations officials if they show up at any voting locations in the state of Texas.  Good!

We don’t need the U.N. to play any part in our elections.  If they do show up, it will give the militia types more reasons to scream about U.N. troops taking over the U.S.

I think the U.N. has bigger fish to fry and can be more useful elsewhere in the world on November 6th.

Romney Should Have Openly Questioned Candy Crawley’s Impartiality at the Debate When She Kept Cutting Him Off: Moderators Should Not Be Influencing the Debate to That Degree

“Sit down, Mr. Romney.” 

Crawley should have just said “STFU Mr. Romney!!” and gotten any image of impartiality off the table.  She was awful and was tiled toward President Obama all evening long.

Reporters should limited to asking questions during the debate, not moderating, or they shouldn’t be from openly biased news outfits.  This would exclude CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, ABC News, CBS News, and NBC News from providing  moderators.  

What was the debate commission thinking, choosing a moderator who described Romney’s VP pick as a “ticket death wish”  in the days and weeks before the debate?  THAT’S IMPARTIAL?

Obama had to have help to fight off Romney in this debate, and he got it in the form of Candy Crowley, who managed to turn it into a three-way dance.

I was just watching one of the George HW Bush/Bill Clinton/Ross Perot debates on YouTube from 1992.  That was a well-run debate and looks like what a proper debate should look like, compared to last night’s train wreck of a debate.  She even got on CNN and admitted after the debate that she was incorrect about her Libya “fact check” and that Romney was “right in the main” but had chosen one wrong word.  Thanks for the clarification.

And what was she doing on CNN after the debate?  Spinning for Obama from the moderator’s chair?

Slate documented some of the problems with the train wrecked debate.  And this is coming from a liberal-leaning magazine, so there were huge issues with the debate last night that the left and right noticed.

Regardless of who won, there were major structural problems with how this debate was set up, how it was run, and how the candidates and audience acted during the course of the debate.

Can we get some independent news journalists and others in to moderate these debates? 

Obama Administration is Unbelievably Off Course on Libya: Are the President's Advisors Talking to Each Other, or to the President?

Judging from the badly bungled Libyan situation, evidently not. 

We have one guy from the Counter-Terrorism Center saying that it was an all-out September 11th terrorist attack to Congress. 

We have another embassy in Libya making apologies to the terrorists, without clearance from the White House. 

We have President Obama mumbling about the anti-Mohammed video being the cause.  His press secretary doesn’t have updated (or ANY) information. 

And the State Department is at war with CNN over some kind of journal that was recovered from one of the destroyed buildings in Benghazi belonging to our late Ambassador.  Secretary Clinton’s speech on the loss of Ambassador Stevens was the best speech I’ve ever seen out of her.  Yet she’s out there focused in on the video too.

A hundred terrorists wielding automatic weapons, RPGs and other heavy weapons  showed up at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, and President Obama insists it was spontaneous, and in reaction to a video that was developed by an Israeli American?  NOT!

I trust the counter-terrorism guy more than President Obama, Secretary Clinton, or any political appointees who are making any noise in Washington.

I think Romney’s scored some points here, despite the media’s attempts to paint his remarks as “inappropriate.”  The White House remarks are the inappropriate ones as they have all the intelligence reports, yet are choosing to promote their own version of events.

The man in the White House has given all the wrong signals to the bad guys. 

Fact Checkers Aren’t Telling the Truth Either: Now The Fact Checkers Need to Be Fact Checked Too!

This is ridiculous!

I’ve long suspected that the “fact checkers” who are taken at their word by the media that their facts are correct actually weren’t.

Now a lot of web sites on both sides of the political spectrum have started cropping up, challenging the fact checkers.  

The “fact checkers” who had a field day with Romney and Ryan had major issues with some of their “facts,” including a GM plant that the Ryan mentioned had shut down during Obama’s term.  They started off by misquoting Ryan, then went off on their tangent.

Here’s the story on that “fact checking” issue, with video of what Ryan actually said.

Townhall.com did a piece on more “fact checking” as well.

The Townhall article above mentions that the “fact checking” are disguised OPINION pieces.  That isn’t right.  Do a Google search on “fact checking fact checkers”, and see what pops up.  Blows the credibility of the agency fact checkers right out of the water.

I wonder how many people believe the crap that the news networks are trying to shovel down our throats to get people to vote for their candidate.

USADA Needs to Obey U.S. Constitution: Suspects Are Innocent Until PROVEN Guilty

I've been following the Lance Armstrong story with a growing sense of anger.

To recap, Armstrong dropped his challenges against the U.S. taxpayer-funded USADA (United States Anti-Doping Agency), and the USADA took that to be an admission of guilt and stripped Armstrong of all his Tour de France achievements and recognitions.

That isn't right.

The USADA has to obey the U.S. Constitution, especially since they are U.S. taxpayer-funded, and they've targeted an American citizen.  All suspects are INNOCENT until PROVEN guilty, and they haven't proven anything.  They say they have evidence, but they haven't shown it to a judge.

Armstrong also doesn't have to incriminate himself, according to the Fifth Amendment.  And he hasn't said that he cheated, either.  He said he was tired of being tied up in court, with no end in sight.

If Armstrong had said that he couldn't afford really expensive lawyers to defend himself, would the USADA have said that it was an admission of guilt?  According to them, the answer is YES.  And that's also unconstitutional.

Also, if they had proof that Armstrong was using performance-enhancing drugs since the mid-1990s, why didn't they ban him then?  Why did they wait until after the guy won seven Tours, and retired from cycling to go after him?  That just smells of a political agenda.

Congress needs to reign in the USADA, and cut their funding if they're going to grandstand like this, and abuse their authority.

I'm not much of a cycling fan, but I'm less of a fan of witch hunts, which this definitely is.  Lance Armstrong has done a ton of good with his celebrity status and his Foundation., which the USADA can NEVER strip away.

There need to be some changes made to the way that this agency conducts business.

I don't care if Armstrong is a champion cyclist or not.  But proper procedures MUST be followed.

Politics 2012: Ho Hum

I'm waiting for President Obama and Governor Romney to start acting Presidential, and not like a pair of eighth graders engaged in a name-calling contest.  When they do, I'll start paying attention to their actual messages.  A few notes:

President Obama ran on nothing in 2008, and won, due to the fact that he was not running against John McCain; he was running against the highly unpopular President Bush and the tanking economy.  He's running on nothing in 2012, and since he has nothing constructive to say, he's throwing nothing but  mud in Romney's direction.

And Romney's been so busy dodging Obama's negative accusations that he hasn't gotten his own message out.  The addition of Representative Ryan to the Romney ticket will help Romney get his message out; I think this is good news for the overall Presidential campaign.

The sooner they start talking about issues, the better.

U.S. Government Owes China NO Apology for Attempted Defection of Chinese Dissident in Beijing, But It Does Owe the American People the Truth on WHY The Dissident Left the U.S. Embassy

China is demanding an apology from the United States government for the attempted defection of a blind Chinese dissident.

China can go jump in a lake, IF this is an official Chinese government demand.  I’m not certain if this is a Chinese media outlet making the demand, or if Chinese government officials are demanding it.  No U.S. apology is owed to China over this situation in either case.

Rather, China owes its own people an apology for treating its dissidents like this, to the point that they feel the need to flee to the safety of a foreign embassy to escape official Chinese government repression.  That’s just wrong.

The U.S. government needs to account for what happened, though.  Did a U.S. embassy official in China tell the dissident that Chinese officals were going to beat his wife to death if he didn’t leave the Embassy, as the dissident claims?  Or is he trying to generate sympathy?  What really happened?

This is a very troubling situation.   He should never have been talked into leaving the protection of the U.S. Embassy; I’m not sure we’ve done right by him.

Any apology from the U.S. to China on this issue is unacceptable.