The comments contain a lot of nice observations. Namely that there is no "gun control loophole", and that there is no evidence that gun control deters crime one little bit (some argue, convincingly, that gun control makes it worse)
I was looking at the Brady Centers page, and came across this nonsense, a PR release dealing with Charelton Heston's announcement that he is in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. It's not nonsense because of the sentiment towards Heston, but because of this phrase gratuitously tucked into the "we are genuinely sorry" verbiage:
"As you know, we at the Brady Campaign, the Brady Center and the Million Mom March, strongly disagree with Charlton Heston and the National Rifle Association in their opposition to life-saving, sensible gun laws.....
Tell me again about these sensible and life saving gun laws? As I said in the comments section of Rachel's rant, the modus operandi is to repeat the lie long enough, in the hope it finally gets mistaken for truth.
8:57:15 PM
That bastion of fairness, the UN
Go over to the Israeli Guy blog, and read his post about the UN being a ridiculous organization. Be sure and read the comments section, especially those by Nikita. An extract:
"Did you know that Syria, a country on the U.S. list of countries that sponsor terror, sits on the UN security council (actually had its rotating chairmanship too) and that while the US is excluded from the UN Commission on Human Rights, countries with the horrific human rights records of Saudi Arabia, Cuba and Sierra Leone serve on it and Libya is to chair it? Gadaffi's one-year term begins next March.
Did you know that Israel is the only U.N. member state excluded from a regional group within the overall body of the UN, and as a result, Israel cannot sit on the Security Council or other key committees?
Did you know that of the 175 Security Council resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel, and of the 690 General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were directed against Israel? The UN has convened emergency session after session to condemn Israel. As Israeli Ambassador Pazner said, "No such session has ever been convened with respect to the Chinese occupation of Tibet, the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, the slaughters in Rwanda, the disappearances in Zaire or the horrors of Bosnia. Israel is a democracy. It is ludicrous to suggest, as the U.N. has, that Israel is a worse abuser of human rights than Iraq or Syria."
SHAME on the U.N. And shame on the European states, dependent on Gulf oil and afraid of their Muslim immigrant populations, for their eagerness to condemn Israel. It smells bad. It smells really bad, and brings back strong memories".
And the UN continues to condemn the only deomcracy in the middle east, while doing everything it can to ensure that a murderous thug remains in power. The UN is irrelevant, the US should close up shop, withdraw all financial support, and leave the UN to its own devices. Why on Earth should we continue to pay to be a member of a club that does nothing but bash us and lecture us on how we should behave, while ignoring horrible situations elsewhere in the world.
8:28:53 PM
More Scott Ritter Musings
Lots of people have questions about Mr. "waging peace is more important than the truth" Ritters apparent change of heart on Iraq. But no one voices them quite like Lileks.
Update
If you are having trouble following Ritter's flip-flops, this little primer might prove helpful.
7:56:40 PM
Welcome Silent Running
The replacement for War Now. I'm not really sure what happened to War Now, but it sounds like some nasty bit of business between the content on the site and censors. Therefore, be sure you clearly read and understand the disclaimer at Silent Running before you enter.
7:13:51 PM
Those darn Palestinians
Charles Johnson over at little green footballs has another example of the typical Palestinian resolution to all problems: Kidnap and threaten innocent civilians. This time it was a group of fired Palestinian security personnel who kidnapped some Italian members of a human shields brigade and held them hostage while demanding their jobs back. The only difference? The Italian "peace protestors" were released unharmed. But it was a good idea: kidnap members of a group that is there to show solidarity for your cause and threaten to kill them if you don't get your job back. No wonder the Al Aqsa brigade has no trouble filling their quotas of splodeydopes.
7:05:08 PM
Blame the Jews
Or at least that's what McKinney and Hilliard are trying to do. They are somehow surprised that support for the PA and Arab terrorists cause any kind of backlash in elections in this country. And then to paint it as a "Jews vs Blacks" thing is silly. Yes, McKinney and Hilliard are black. But I think any white candidate that made similar outrageous statements as McKinney would have been treated the same way by the Jewish lobby.
Speaking of lobbies, isn't that what they are supposed to do? Lobby for the candidate they think best serves their needs and interests? If Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton "lobby" for a black candiate by using inflammatory rhetoric and thinly veiled threats, it is political activism. But if Jews work to expose the beliefs of someone they see as having a set of values contrary to what they want to endorse, it is somehow a huge "Jewish conspiracy to keep the black man down". From McKinney's perspective, I suspect having CAIR send out an urgent press release endorsing her did more to hurt her candidacy than anything else. No matter the color of your skin, appearing to be unpatriotic is the kiss of death in a political arena. And then to follow up on that story saying how McKinney's loss has widened the split between Jews and Blacks is pretty funny also. Look at this quote, from the chairman of the Black Caucus:
After the Aug. 20 defeat of Mrs. McKinney, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, Texas Democrat and chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said "I definitely have some feelings about any outside group exerting this kind of influence in a race, and I've been receiving angry calls from black voters all day saying they should rally against Jewish candidates."
"To have non-African-Americans from around the country putting millions into a race to unseat one of our leaders for expressing her right of free speech is definitely a problem," she said.
Excuse me, but aren't black voters always being rallied to block vote against white candidates? Is it only blacks who get to vote for blacks, and anything else is outside influence? Problem is, McKinney got burned by a tactic that black candidates use all the time, and she has no one to blame but herself. Oh, and by the way, both McKinney and Hilliard were defeated by black opponents. So it wasn't a case of Jews voting to put a white Jewish candidate in office at the expense of a black candidate. It was the case of a lot of people, many of whom were Jewish, making a choice between a black candidate they felt represented their views over one that did not. And for the esteemable Rep. Johnson quoted above: how come you don't mention that much of McKinney's money came from Arab contributors that lived outside of the state of Georgia? Is it only a problem when an outside group inserts influence if the candidate you support loses? If McKinney had won, would we be seeing the same cry about poor Denise Majette, and how unfair it was that she was defeated by the outside influence of Arab money? Would she be receiving "angry calls from black voters" saying they should rally against candidates of Arab descent? Of course not, because that would be racist. But anti-semitic seems to be OK. Geee, what a wonder that black-Jewish relations may need a little mending.
I link most of the stories above through the GoobyeCynthia.com website. Many of the stories originally appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
