Monday - August 17, 2009
Hey, Let’s Have A Law, Because We Can
People, y’all have lost your cotton pickin’ minds. This is the weakest gun control argument I think I have ever heard. And to make it even better, he links his essay to an ATF report that shows that the One Gun A Month law is worthless ... that is, if you actually look at the data they’re presenting. If you cherry pick, or just see a BIG PIE CHART, then you can draw whatever conclusions your fuzzy little brain can come up with.
But this ... this is really weak ... [ bold and italics added by me ]
Soliman: N.J. gun law is a sensible compromise
Thursday, August 13, 2009
BY AHMED SOLIMAN
The Record [one of our New Jersey Newspapers. Usually we call it The Bergen Record, since it’s mostly about Bergen County]THE SECOND Amendment right to bear arms has long been controversial, but ironically it was a popular and widely agreed-upon right when first written into the U.S. Constitution — popular enough to be the second one listed.
The common belief of the time was that a citizen should have the ability to defend his land, his family and himself. That was especially true in the 1700s, when many people lived alone on several acres of farmed land, following a time when British soldiers could use their might to bully people around.
People still need the ability to defend themselves today. After all, armed criminals could enter your home in the middle of the night, and harm someone before the police could arrive in time to stop them. But it’s also true that gun-related violence is a serious problem, and sometimes caused by weapons originally purchased from a legal dealer.
In Bergen County, the average was 2.4 gun-related deaths for every 100,000.
Likewise, according to a May report by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, based on the most recent statistics from 2006, 492 people died in New Jersey as a result of gun violence. That works out to almost six deaths for every 100,000 residents in New Jersey (a slight rise from the 5.3 rate in 2004).
Some wonder if it is possible to have our cake and eat it, too: Can we protect the right to arm ourselves, regulate gun possession and curb gun violence at the same time?
Bill signed into law
Last week, Governor Corzine signed a bill into law that aims to do exactly that.
The law limits the number of handguns a person can purchase to just one per month, thereby making New Jersey the fourth state in the union to enact such a law (following California, Maryland and Virginia). The bill was sponsored by Assemblywoman Joan Quigley of Jersey City after the courts struck down a 2006 city ordinance, which also limited gun purchases to only one per month, because it pre-empted state authority.
The law regulates purchases of handguns only, not hunting rifles or shotguns. The law also does not violate a citizen’s Second Amendment right to bear arms, because the law would still allow any law-abiding individual to purchase up to 12 guns per year. That’s more than enough with which to protect oneself.
And yet, gun rights advocates still feel that the law was a bad idea.
“I wouldn’t have signed it because it’s not going to do much of anything to accomplish its goals,” said John Cotte, manager of Lawmen Supply Company in Paterson. “It’s just a political feel-good law.”
Cotte did, however, concede that the law would not affect many people because, except for gun collectors, few people purchase more than one gun per month. But the law exempts gun collectors who hold a federal collector’s license.
Logic suggests that the new law can only help. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms reports that about 24 percent of recovered guns from crimes in New Jersey were originally purchased from New Jersey gun dealers. The new law is designed to reduce that number by blocking frequent and multiple sales to individuals.
Why not?
Since the law does not violate the Second Amendment, affect hunters or even gun collectors, the question becomes: Why not enact the law? After all, if there is even the slightest chance that it could bring down the number of gun-related killings, isn’t that worth it?
Corzine should be lauded for signing this common-sense measure. I’m sure the people who wrote the Second Amendment would agree.
Oy vey. I’m sure the people who wrote the Second Amendment would find a very elegant way to tell you to go fuck yourself. Here’s one of the main graphs from that ATF report:
See what I said about actually reading the report? This new law Corzine signed is supposed to reduce gun violence because such a huge number of guns are being straw purchased and then sold to the ghetto rats so they can shoot people. Uh huh. Because that’s happening sooo often. Funny, those criminals must have genius level IQs and the patience to enact plans for such a long term that they’d even impress the Soviets. 81.37% of the recovered guns had been purchased more than 3 years prior to their “criminal” use, and a whopping 94.60% had been sitting around at least a year. Notice the average “time to crime” for New Jersey is MORE THAN TWELVE AND A HALF YEARS. What antimatter based logic is this guy using to rationalize One A Month? You can’t get there from here, even with heavy doses of medicine.
And if you’re wondering why I put “crime” in scare quotes, it’s because of another graph in that report: nearly 30% of the recovered guns were either found, or recovered for no known reasons. So more than a third weren’t “crime guns” at all. And less than 76% of the guns recovered were handguns. It’s all in the report if you read it.
So what we have, is a new law that punishes - or at least limits the freedoms of, and that’s the same thing really - the law abiding, because out of almost 4000 guns recovered, about 2000 were time traceable* through the ATF, and a whole 32 had been recently acquired and then used in a crime. Or should I say “used in a 70% crime”, given the previous paragraph? That would take the numbers down to 23 guns, and that’s rounding up. And of those 23, slightly less than 1 in 4 came from New Jersey. So really, we’re talking about 5 or 6 guns. of which 76% were handguns, which means, worst case, rounding up, this law might stop 5 pistols per year from being used in a crimeTotal. In the whole state. 5. Per year. At most. Or, it might not. Out of just about 4000 guns, 5. That’s an eight of a percent. 0.00125. One eight hundredth part. Lower than statistically insignificant, that’s statistically invisible. The law is a crock.
When this stupid thing was just a bill, I contacted my legislative representatives, both of whom were, and still are, dead set against this inanity. Those who were pushing the bill were carrying on and on about “straw purchases” being used to arm gangs, blah blah blah. I asked my reps for the evidence. New Jersey makes you jump through hopes to get a pistol purchase permit. Which means they know, even before the permits are issued, exactly how many people are submitting the paperwork for bulk quantity purchases, and who those people are. So let’s see some numbers.
First, define “bulk”, so that we can make some hay with this “straw” thing. Is 2 permits bulk? How about 4? 600? Pick a number, any number. Heck, let’s call it 3. More than you “need”, right? Great. So, how many people have applied for 3 or more pistol purchase permits at the same time? Or within a week? New Jersey laws make you report disposition of firearms. If I own a gun, and then sell it, I’ve got paperwork to do. Super. So, how many of those “bulk” purchasers reported their guns as sold or stolen within 6 months? Oh puh-leez, this entire thing is computerized. These queries are dweeb-work; any chumbawumba with a keyboard and access to the system can get you these numbers, going back for decades probably, in a matter of seconds. So let’s do it: if we have a straw purchase problem, let’s see the numbers, let’s find those people and lean on them, let’s do something.
I gave that line of reasoning to my two legislators, who were actively fighting the bill. And they did nothing with it. I even spurred them on, saying that it would be newsworthy if they were refused the information. Nothing. No numbers. No response. Thanks. For Nothing. Wow, those Republicans sure do put up a helluva fight, don’t they? [yawn]
So, no numbers, no proof. Therefore the whole “Straw purchase” meme is smoke and mirrors. Total bullshit. Bullshit passed into law by Obama’s favorite governor, elitist billionaire, super leftist, anti-gun zealot “seatbelts” Corzine. Fighting crime in a big way, by stopping AT MOST five guns per year. Pa. Thet. Tic.
New Jersey sucks.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/17/2009 at 07:21 PM
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control •
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Permalink • More Crowder!
UPDATE: Death by digital drowning?
The White House on Monday implemented several new changes to its Web site, apparently aimed at reducing the number of people who receive unsolicited e-mails from the administration and at battling charges that it’s collecting personal information on critics.
After the White House took heat for asking people to report “fishy” information about health care reform, the e-mail address set up for that purpose became inactive Monday.
It’s unclear whether the White House pulled the plug on the controversial account, flag@whitehouse.gov, or whether there is a bug in the system.
But the error message that shows up indicates it is a permanent change.
“The email address you just sent a message to is no longer in service,” the message says. “We are now accepting your feedback about health insurance reform via: http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck.”
Through the “reality check” site, set up last week to address what the White House said were health care reform rumors, the White House is still asking people to send in their “myths” on health care. But that site now includes a warning that says, “please refrain from submitting any individual’s personal information, including their e-mail address, without their permission.”
The administration has heard mounting complaints from the public in the past week about the way it is collecting and sending out e-mails.
The request for “fishy” information led to charges, which the White House denied, that it was trying to compile some kind of “enemies list.”
Addressing another complaint about its e-mail system, the White House also has implemented two new changes to its Web site that could reduce the number of people who receive unsolicited e-mails.
Isn’t that just ... fitting? Flag yourself, or turn in your neighbors for BadThink, and the White House adds you to their spamming list. Gee, now that’s Change I Can Believe In. Wadda twerp.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/17/2009 at 05:08 PM
Filed Under: • Health and Safety • Humor • Politics •
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Permalink • Socialized Health Care: A Ex-Pat’s Russian Perspective
Our new Moscow correspondent JA gives his views on Obamacare. JA is a diabetic, living in Moscow and working as a teacher.
Just how in hell I ended up in Russia, I really do not know, maybe the pretty girls, maybe the good Russia beer (pivo), I think the biggest reason is that Russia is a country closed off to the outside world so long for so many people. Maybe I think of Russia as a land of contradictions, a church built in the 1400s with a Hummer limo parked in from waiting for the newly weds to come out from the church. I like to think maybe I’m helping Ronald Reagan put the final nail in the coffin of Russian communism by coming here and teaching business to adults and American history (not the white washed political correct history taught in US schools today) to school children.
Since I’m a legal resident of Russia and pay Russian taxes and qualify for the socialized Russian health care, so I can share my experience with it. Its good in that Russian medical health care is big on preventive measures. I can go to a hospital for two weeks, twice a year for free and have tests done, laser and ultra sound treatments to my legs, my blood cleaned of cholesterol by IV, but and this is what the democrats forget to tell people in the US, everything is free as long as there is a supply of medicines, if they run out that’s it. If you want to continue treatments, you have to do to a drug store and buy the medicines and IVs yourself. If you’re able to go to a drug store in Moscow or have family who can pick up the medicine to you, no problem. If you’re too sick to leave and have nobody who can buy and bring the medicine to you, then your SOL. Also expensive medicines are not provided free, you have to buy them, I’m fixing to start treatments on weak bones and have to buy an IV I need to take every year, this IV costs around $700 per pop. If you can not afford it, you do without.
I can get free insulin and test strips, but no where close to what I need, only a little. Now this can be because I’m not a Russian citizen, but it could apply to Russians also. I have to get up at 4:00 am on the day they give out the free medicines so I can get in line before they run out. To be honest, I have never heard of them running out before, but the lines stretch for a couple of city blocks, they start at a certain time and stop at a certain time, if your not waited on by closing, you come back another day. Most public hospitals here are not very good, there are a few good public hospitals here, but not many. I can buy medical insurance here for $15.00 per month verses $400 plus per month in the US. My insurance allows me to go to a private clinic and private hospital if needed, but my contacts have fixed it where I can go to one of the better public hospitals here. But the fact of the matter is that private health care is the best and there is no way the public socialized health care here can compare. Private hospitals, doctors and clinics are big business here now. It will be the exact same thing in the US, Obama does not bother telling people that.
But what I have against Obama’s so-called health care is that it will destroy the finest health care in the world. No, I am not rich, was out of work awhile and did have to go to the doctor a few time back home. I was never turned away or refused treatment, but Obama’s health care will ration health care because like here in Russia, Canada and the UK, there just is not enough to go around. Instead of trying to place everybody under the same system, he should set it up where only those who can not afford medical coverage (I’m not talking about lazy people who sit on their tails waiting for more handouts), but people with chronic illnesses or serious illnesses that medical insurance companies would rather not cover, these people could be place under something like medicare or medicaid. But you think about it, you think Obama, Howard Dean and the rest of teh big shot democrats and their families will have to go through Obama’s so-called health care, no way, they will have their highly paid specialists and only the best while everybody else gets nothing and they know it!
Posted by Drew458
on 08/17/2009 at 04:59 PM
Filed Under: • Health-Medicine •
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Permalink • Runnin With The Devil
I’m beginning to think that David Horowitz should be required daily reading. Here are two quick excerpts, the alpha and omega paragraphs, from today’s essay.
For the the Hillary-Soros generation of johnny-come-lately radicals and their ACORN footsoldiers, Alinksy is their Sun-Tzu and his book Rules for Radicals is the field manual for their struggle.
...
let’s just focus on the dedication of the book — to Satan:“Lest we forget, an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical:” (Pause there for second. Now continue): “from all our legends, mythology, and history(and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins — or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom — Lucifer.”
So Alinsky begins by telling readers what a radical is. He is not a reformer of the system but its would-be destroyer. This is something that in my experience conservatives have a very hard time understanding. Conservatives are altogether too decent, too civilized to match up adequately, at least in the initital stages of the battle, with their adversaries. They are too prone to give them the benefit of the doubt. They assume that radicals can’t really want to destroy a society that is democratic and liberal and has brought wealth and prosperity to so many. Oh yes they can. That is in fact the essence of what it means to be a radical — to be willing to destroy the values, structures and institutions that sustain the society we live in.
Alinsky’s tribute to Satan as the first radical, and as the model of radicals to come, should cause us to reflect on how Satan tempted Adam and Eve to destroy their paradise. If you rebel and violate the law that has been laid down for you, “You shall be as gods” the serpent told them. You think Rahm Emmanuel was listening?
Oh, and let’s not forget this — the kingdom that the first radical “won” was hell.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/17/2009 at 09:45 AM
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists •
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Permalink • It’s being called, “Pink Diplomacy” and yes , the taxpayer will fund it. Like there’s a choice?
So these folks deface their flag and make it pink, which should outrage Brits because that flag is supposed to represent the country and not just one small but highly vocal group of misfits and deviants. This pink outrage does not represent any Brit I personally know. Hey I admit it. I’m a dinosaur.
I just don’t believe a national flag should be taken so much for granted and used that way. I even wonder if it’s right when ppl use the stars and stripes as bathing suits. I know they mean no harm in it. Hell, I don’t even think the homosexuals intend any harm in it. I just don’t believe it’s right.
Jeesh I got long winded there but I have strong feeling about this stuff.
This country is not out of the financial woods by any means. There are serious problems here, the ppl are being told not to be wasteful yadda,yadda while govt. payrolls save nothing. Oh sure, take some cash away from some program or end another program. But that’s so that more councilors and ministers can take “fact finding” trips to warm climes and toast one another on the success of another nice holiday on the txpayer.
So while things are tight and money is short, this fraken govt. somehow finds the money somewhere to:
FUND FOREIGN GAY QUEER RIGHTS CAMPAIGNS IN OTHER COUNTRIES.
This, they have money for.
Foreign Office Minister takes ‘pink diplomacy’ to anti-gay nations.
The gay Foreign Office minister Chris Bryant is championing a controversial drive to fund equal-rights activists in homophobic regimes.
British missions in countries such as Jamaica, where homosexual acts are punishable by long jail terms, and Nigeria, where they can lead to the death penalty, are being encouraged to “support progress” by financing gay pride marches and legal challenges from local campaigners.
As well as targeting Commonwealth countries, “pink diplomacy” will extend to eastern Europe, where gays have suffered brutal attacks from far-right groups. Opportunities to tackle discrimination in ultra-conservative nations, such as Iran, are also being considered - cautiously.
The move risks a backlash from countries where support for homosexuality runs contrary to state teaching and religious beliefs.
So now as if that isn’t enough not so very good policy ..... This guy does a deep throat by sticking his foot in it by saying that,
Terrorism can be ‘justified’ in some circumstances.
He also said in an interview that “there were circumstances where terror was ‘effective’.”
See the problem with that is, this fellow just happens to be , The Foreign Secretary. At least for now.
Foreign Secretary, David Miliband
Posted by peiper
on 08/17/2009 at 09:38 AM
Filed Under: • Blog Stuff • Gay Gay Gay! • Government • Stoopid-People • UK •
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Permalink • The New Dark Ages of Britain & The U.S.
H/T Warning Signs
Reading this is not a waste of your time. Take a look.
It’s long so see LINK for the rest.
The New Dark Ages of Britain & The U.S.By Alan Caruba
I have long believed that the environmental movement, particularly in America, is quite literally an internal enemy, no less insidious than the efforts of the former Soviet Union to infiltrate spies and agents of influence into our government to affect policy.
I know that sounds harsh, but one needs only look at Great Britain where environmentalism has turned that once great nation into a virtual police state where every bizarre and insane environmental policy is culminating in a nation that will soon be experiencing blackouts and brownouts to its entire system of providing electricity.
“In the frigid opening days of 2009, Britain’s electricity demand peaked at 59 gigawatts. Just over 45% of that came from power plants fuelled by gas from the North Sea. A further 35% or so came from coal, less than 15% came from nuclear power and the rest from a hotchpotch of other sources.” The problem England faces, according to the August 8th edition of The Economist, is that it will soon be dependent on “Vladimir Putin’s deeply unreliable and corrupt Russia.”
This report comes when both the Russians and the Chinese have signed agreements with Cuba, just ninety miles from Florida, to begin to explore and extract its offshore oil. America, however, denies access to 85% of all of its offshore oil and natural gas reserves along its extensive east and west coasts. It further denies access to its huge deposits of coal in its Midwestern States. We import 60% of the oil we consume; much of it comes from Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela.
There hasn’t been a new refinery built in the United States since the 1970s. The bulk of our electric grid for the distribution of electricity was built in the 1950s and 60s. In the last days of his administration President Bush rescinded the ban on offshore exploration and extraction, but that ban has been reinstated by the Obama administration.
As The Economist noted, regarding the United Kingdom’s energy policy, “this is almost criminal.” It is no less so for America, a nation’s whose success has been based on vast amounts of coal, oil and natural gas. It is coal that provides just over 50% of our electricity. It is nuclear power that proves another 20%. The rest comes from our own hotchpotch of gas and hydroelectric power.
In recent years, leading environmental organizations have been crowing about having thwarted the building of more than one hundred coal-fired new plants. Wilderness areas like Alaska’s ANWR have been put off-limits to extraction despite estimated reserves of oil in the billions of barrels.
Comparable areas in America known to have vast reserves of coal have been put off-limits as well. The process of securing the permits to build a nuclear plant has slowed it to a crawl and often meets with NIMBY (not in my backyard) resistance.
If a foreign enemy denied this “master resource” of energy to America, we would go to war with it, but the enemy is internal and, at present, it occupies the White House and is in control of the Congress.
Posted by peiper
on 08/17/2009 at 08:11 AM
Filed Under: • Editorials • Environment •
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Permalink • How seriously stupid does one have to be, to seriously buy into this? Pretty damn stupid!
I could use the entire page filled with bats for this short article spotted in one of our morning papers.
OK, what word is next? Any suggestions out there? Any word that may possibly stereotype or offend?
Funny thing, I’ve heard this word all my life, so have you, and I’d bet not one of us (I haven’t) ever associated it with any stereotype, person or object.
These jerks are clinically STUPID! Anyone who indulges in PC is clinically stupid and beyond any help.
The word Blacklisting, is banned:
Citizens Advice axes ‘offensive’ word and tells staff to use ‘blocklisting’ instead
By Daniel Bates
Last updated at 12:13 AM on 17th August 2009The Citizens Advice service has banned staff from using the term ‘ blacklisting’ over fears that it is offensive and ‘fosters stereotypes’.
The taxpayer- funded quango, which advises members of the public on consumer, legal and money issues, has instead replaced it with ‘blocklisting’ to avoid appearing ‘prejudicial’.
The two terms are both used in IT to mean the same thing. They refer to what are effectively lists of computers or computer networks which have been identified as sending spam and enable mail servers to ban or flag up mail sent from them.
Banned: The Citizens Advice service has replaced the word ‘blacklisting’ with the word ‘blocklisting’. Both are IT terms to mean the same thingBanned: The Citizens Advice service has replaced the word ‘blacklisting’ with the word ‘blocklisting’. Both are IT terms to mean the same thing
Emails to members of staff at the service say the move has been made to keep ‘in line with aims and principles of the Citizens Advice service’.
Critics branded it ‘daft’ and ‘political correctness going over the top’, but the Citizens Advice has refused to back down, even though critics say it renders everyday communications unintelligible.
An email about internet spam sent from IT systems to staff and volunteers who help at Citizens Advice’s 3,000 locations, reads: ‘We have replaced the term “blacklisting” with “blocklisting” in line with the aims and principles of the Citizens Advice service. You are probably aware that the whole service’s email has been intermittently blocked up to twice this week for some time now.
‘This is because spam sent from within the service causes us all to be blocklisted.’
The ban on blacklisting applies across the whole of Citizens Advice. A former volunteer said banning blacklisting was ‘the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen’ and has stopped helping at his local branch because of it. John Midgley, co-founder of the campaign against political correctness, said: ‘This is just daft and another example of political correctness going over the top.’
A spokesman for the service said: ‘Our approach to language is not prescriptive or dogmatic, but where we know or become aware that something is offensive, fosters stereotypes or prejudice, or is inaccurate, it makes sense and is respectful to use alternatives.’
MORE PC MADNESS
* Newcastle City Council banned staff from using common Geordie greetings such as pet and love when dealing with the public over fears they might be regarded as offensive.
* Kirklees Council in West Yorkshire even banned staff from using the words ‘political correctness’ at work in case it offended anyone. An equality policy booklet claimed using the term at work can be damaging - and even linked it to the Ku Klux Klan.
* Birmingham City Council ordered pupils not to be taught the nursery rhyme Baa Baa black sheep in case it was racially offensive, but later backed down.
Posted by peiper
on 08/17/2009 at 03:33 AM
Filed Under: • Daily Life • Outrageous • Stoopid-People • UK •
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Permalink • Sunday - August 16, 2009
It must be Muslim Fashion Day
Here’s another article that ties in with Peiper’s post on the burkhini.
Look at this coin from the other side for once. What if you are a muslim woman, who wants to engage in sports activities? What if you are a woman of any kind who wants to do sports, but find yourself living in a muslim nation with their repressive dress codes?
Personally, I’d opt for starting a revolution.
But others are not so bold. Especially when their culture tends to beat the boldness out of them. So, for those women, a practical solution has to be found. But it isn’t easy. Here is one woman’s story…
By AZADEH MOAVENI
The first time I went jogging in Tehran, I nearly hyperventilated after four blocks, despite wearing the gauziest of head scarves and a decidedly immodest Nike capris. The fabric covering my ears and neck stoked my body temperature unbearably, and the pleasurable strain of running gave way to acute discomfort. “How am I going to stay fit here?” I wailed to my Iranian girlfriends, experts in the dilemma of balancing exercise with Islamic modesty codes. They offered me a rich store of advice, from head scarves with ear slits to calibrating outdoor exercise with the seasons to where to find women’s only gyms.
For the pious Muslim woman, one of the greatest challenges of modern life is how to get a health-conscious work-out. In Iran, of course, the state mandates Islamic dress, so secular and faithful women alike must contend with religious codes that interfere with exercise. But the problem persists for individual Muslim women throughout the Islamic world and the West. It grabbed headlines this week when a Paris swimming pool refused entry to a young Muslim woman wearing a “burqini,” a swim garment resembling a diving suit. In France the incident falls into a wider political debate over how to reconcile the country’s Muslim immigrants to French secular values. And while the number of Muslim women in France - indeed throughout the world - who insist on such a severe covering as the burqa is small, the challenge of staying slim and Islamically proper is not.
There is plenty more here. And while what she writes is practical, to me it is infuriating. It’s submission. It’s going along with forced segregation. It’s accepting the status of a second class citizen. It’s bullshit, in my opinion.
I’d say her best solution is multipart:
a) move to the United States
b) quit that suppressive “religion” and distance yourself from anyone and everyone who would use it to keep you “in line”
c) pack a .38 in your workout kit and go exercise anywhere you want wearing whatever you want. If harassed by any of those camel fuckers in b), above, then
d) shoot their balls off.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/16/2009 at 01:51 PM
Filed Under: • RoPMA •
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Permalink • Another weapon in the Islamist assault on Western cultural values.
This is an excellent read. I am making no comments, this speaks for itself. It’s his take on my previous post re. swimming and burkinis. And what a stupid name that is btw. There’s a bit more background here.
Here’s some info on the writer.
James Delingpole
James Delingpole is a writer, journalist and broadcaster who is right about everything. He is the author of numerous fantastically entertaining books including Welcome To Obamaland: I’ve Seen Your Future And It Doesn’t Work, How To Be Right, and the Coward series of WWII adventure novels. His website is http://www.jamesdelingpole.com
How The West Was Lost (ctd): the Burkini
By James Delingpole Religion
Last updated: August 16th, 2009The Burkini. You’d think it was a joke invention: a bit like the grotesque “Mankini” so hilariously sported by Sacha Baron Cohen on all those posters for Borat. What, after all, could be more absurd than melding the not-notably-sexy Muslim dress - the Burka - with the kind of achingly seductive kit worn by Brigitte Bardot in And God Created Woman?
And God Created Woman....But no, the Burkini is for real. It was designed by an Lebanese Australian Aheda Zanetti to enable women in thrall to extreme Saudi-style dress codes to go swimming on beaches and in public baths without incurring a beating or instant divorce from their characteristically tolerant and cosmopolitan menfolk.
“Practical and stylish,” is how they’re described on a BBC website. Hmm, up to a point. Practical if your primary goal is to protect yourself from box jellyfish stings; stylish, maybe, if your points of comparison are a gorilla outfit, or a Barbara Cartland pink dress, or a tent. But I do think we should be wary of viewing the burkini in terms of a fashion story or an amusing novelty, when it also represents something more sinister. I’m sure the designer didn’t intend this, but the Burkini has become yet another weapon in the Islamist assault on Western cultural values.
When most of us think of militant Islam, we tend to think in terms of suicide bombs on London buses, planes flying into Twin Towers and 19-year olds getting their limbs blown off by Taliban IEDs. But as any extremist Imam could tell you, there are at least two ways in which a good Muslim can further the ongoing struggle to convert the whole world from the House of War (that’s the non-Muslim world) to the House of Islam (ie global submission to the will of Allah): one (see above) is by poison or the sword; the other is by honey.
So the Burkini is part of the honey campaign: all those parts of the Islamist war on the West that have nothing to do with killing people. This campaign includes everything from schoolgirls fighting legal battles (with the help of one Cherie Blair) to fight for their inalienable right to go to school dressed like a sack, to Muslim supermarket workers trying to dictate the terms of their employment (refusing to sell alcohol), to the ongoing campaign (apparently endorsed by our own Archbishop of Canterbury) for certain civil decisions in the Muslim “community” to be made under Sharia law. The goal is to establish the view that Islam is a religion should be allowed to trump everything, including the cultural norms of any non-Muslim society in which its adherents find themselves living.
Why should we care if women want to dress up in burkinis? Well we shouldn’t. It’s a free country. Where we should worry very much is when, in the name of weasel concepts like “tolerance”, “respect” and Multiculturalism, the wider society is bullied into adopting similar “Muslim” (ie Saudi-style, Wahhabist) dress codes too.
This is outrageous. A public swimming pool is not a mosque. It is a secular, leisure facility designed for (and funded by) the local community. If parts of that community feel unable to use those facilities for religious or cultural reasons, well that should be their problem and no one else’s. I dare say naturists object to the trunks/bathing costume dress code operated by local public baths, too. But I don’t think any of us would think that constitutes an argument for introducing special “Nudie” hours at local swimming pools, fun though that might be.
As I remember from my days living in East London (at the much lamented Haggerston Leisure Centre), it’s quite maddening when, after a hard week’s work, you suddenly find you can’t go for a Saturday evening swim because the pool has been set aside for the purposes of religious apartheid.
But apart from being annoying, it’s an absolute disaster for social cohesion. The reason for home-grown Muslim suicide bombers is that British Muslims are constantly encouraged to think of themselves as being different and apart from mainstream British society. Heaven knows it’s a message they hear often enough from their Imams. Is it really something they should be hearing from their local councils and swimming baths as well?
Posted by peiper
on 08/16/2009 at 12:45 PM
Filed Under: • Nanny State • RoPMA • Stoopid-People • UK •
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Permalink • BOYOHBOY. WAIT TIL YOU’VE SEEN ALL OF THIS … BURKA DEMAND FOR NON MUZZIES? WELL, YEAH.
You may recall a post yesterday in which it’s reported that France has said NO to the wearing of full dress, being called Burkinis, in public swimming pools. It’s an issue of hygiene, say the French.
OK. Here’s how some are facing the issue here in the land of Hope and Glory. Rule Britannia.
Now get this BMEWS. It ain’t the muslims making any demand here re. non-muslims. No. Apparently, appeasing, cowardly guilty white non muslim councils think non muslims in public pools should cover up so that they do not offend. I really do not think this is gonna fly, I don’t think too many (well there’s always the odd few) will comply. What’s bothersome is that some damn fool would actually make the suggestion.
Bad as things are here, I really can not see most Brits going along. Yeah, the politically correct. But we already know how stupid they are so that would not surprise.
There’s a lot here so I’m not gonna rant on this. I’ll leave it to you.
Swimmers are told to wear burkinis
British swimming pools are imposing Muslim dress codes in a move described as divisive by Labour MPs.
By Patrick Sawer
Published: 9:00PM BST 15 Aug 2009UK councils running restricted swimming session for Muslims
Under the rules, swimmers – including non-Muslims – are barred from entering the pool in normal swimming attire.
Instead they are told that they must comply with the “modest” code of dress required by Islamic custom, with women covered from the neck to the ankles and men, who swim separately, covered from the navel to the knees.
The phenomenon runs counter to developments in France, where last week a woman was evicted from a public pool for wearing a burkini – the headscarf, tunic and trouser outfit which allows Muslim women to preserve their modesty in the water.
The 35-year-old, named only as Carole, is threatening legal action after she was told by pool officials in Emerainville, east of Paris, that she could not wear the outfit on hygiene grounds.
But across the UK municipal pools are holding swimming sessions specifically aimed at Muslims, in some case imposing strict dress codes.
Croydon council in south London runs separate one-and-a half-hour swimming sessions for Muslim men and women every Saturday and Sunday at Thornton Heath Leisure Centre.
Swimmers were told last week on the centre’s website that “during special Muslim sessions male costumes must cover the body from the navel to the knee and females must be covered from the neck to the ankles and wrists”.
There are similar rules at Scunthorpe Leisure Centre, in North Lincolnshire, where “users must follow the required dress code for this session (T-shirts and shorts/leggings that cover below the knee)”.
In Glasgow, a men-only swimming session is organised by a local mosque group at North Woodside Leisure Centre, at which swimmers must be covered from navel to knee.
At a women-only class organised by a Muslim teacher at Blackbird Leys Swimming Pool, Oxford, to encourage Muslim women to learn to swim, most participants wear “modest” outfits although normal costumes are permitted.
The dress codes have provoked an angry reaction among critics who say they encourage division and resentment between Muslims and non-Muslims, putting strain on social cohesion.
Ian Cawsey, the Labour MP for the North Lincolnshire constituency of Brigg and Goole, said: “Of course swimming pools have basic codes of dress but it should not go beyond that.
“I don’t think that in a local authority pool I should have to wear a particular type of clothes for the benefit of someone else. That’s not integration or cohesion.”
Labour MP Anne Cryer, whose Keighley, West Yorkshire constituency has a large number of Muslims, said: “Unfortunately this kind of thing has a negative impact on community relations.
“It’s seen as yet another demand for special treatment. I can’t see why special clothing is needed for what is a single-sex session.”
Posted by peiper
on 08/16/2009 at 12:19 PM
Filed Under: • Nanny State • RoPMA • Stoopid-People • Typical White People: Stupid, Evil, Willfully Blind • UK •
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Permalink • Nothing I Can Add To This
Except this:
Posted by Drew458
on 08/16/2009 at 11:39 AM
Filed Under: • Republicans •
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Permalink • A bit of history discovered. Fighting Vichy 1940-42 .
Every weekend we get three papers which takes all day to get through. I especially like the book reviews, and the books I mark as must haves must also number a thousand. I’ll never get near all the book I crave. This is one such.
The book reviewer is historian Max Hastings who I have read. He writes a column in the Daily Mail, and I was much surprised to read here, that there was a bit of history from WWII that he didn’t know about.
Anyway, here’s his review of a book by Colin Smith.
From The Sunday Times
August 16, 2009
England’s Last War Against France: Fighting Vichy 1940-42 by Colin SmithThe Sunday Times review by Max Hastings
Most of the second world war’s combatant nations have published official histories — even the Germans have got around to a semi-official one, and impressively scholarly it is. France, however, never has and probably never will. Resistance or no resistance, the French story is intractably complex and inescapably ugly.
How would an official history address, for instance, the episode at Dakar, French West Africa, in July 1940, when Churchill enraged the French by insisting on the award of the DSO to Commander Bobby Bristowe, who led a volunteer naval party in a launch alongside the brand-new French battleship Richelieu, laying four depth charges below its hull? Or the heroics of Pierre Le Gloan of the French air force, an ace who shot down seven British aircraft over Syria in 1941?
Marshal Philippe Pétain established his government at Vichy in July 1940, following Hitler’s triumphant blitzkrieg and occupation of much of France. He ruled the unoccupied rump of his own country and most of France’s overseas colonies in awkward collaboration with the Nazis. Until at least the winter of 1942, Vichy forces abroad fought the allies with a vigour that caused Britain’s prime minister to remark crossly that he wished they had tried as hard against the Germans in 1940.
The French had administered Syria since 1918. In June 1941, Churchill reluctantly committed forces to occupy the country when Germans arrived there, and Vichy aircraft began escorting Luftwaffe operations that threatened British control of Iraq. The Germans seemed likely to seize the Levant with French acquiescence.
The ensuing campaign was bitterly contested. Commando Geoffrey Keyes described in his journal a landing at the Litani river mouth in Lebanon: “Ex-tremely unpleasant…snipers in wired post…Very accurate fire. Padbury, Jones, Woodnutt killed. Several 3 Troop killed and wounded. George and Eric…take most of 3 Troop over about 60 yards to right flank…Four gallant Aussies…succeed in carrying up one boat…One killed.” The commando lost 45 dead including their CO, and 75 wounded. At the end of the Syrian struggle, 5,668 French troops agreed to join de Gaulle, but 32,000 insisted upon being sent home.
There was malice, too. Even as General Henri Dentz reluctantly negotiated Syria’s surrender, he shipped 63 British prisoners to Greece, en route to German POW camps. Only draconian threats got them back. Vichy handled captured allied servicemen and civilian internees with callousness, indeed brutality. “The French were rotten,” said Ena Stoneman, a survivor from the sunken liner Laconia held in Morocco. “We ended up thinking of them as our enemies, and not the Germans. They treated us like animals most of the time.”
Australian, British and Indian soldiers died under Vichy guns in Syria, even as the allies were struggling to hold off Rommel in the desert. The novelist Roald Dahl, who flew Hurricanes in the campaign, wrote later: “I for one have never forgiven the Vichy French for the unnecessary slaughter they caused.”
Colin Smith, a veteran war correspondent, has built an impressive reputation as a military historian, chronicling the fall of Singapore, the desert campaign, the life of Orde Wingate and now France’s minor-key war with Britain — England, as the French called it, usually adding the adjective “perfidious”. It is a fascinating story, which began one morning in July 1940.
Armed Royal Navy parties boarded French warships in British harbours to demand their surrender. At Devonport, officers of the submarine Surcouf resisted, starting a gun battle in the control room during which one French and three British sailors were killed. It was a source of deep bitterness to the British, defying Hitler, that 75% of French servicemen in Britain, including most of those rescued from Dunkirk, insisted on repatriation after Pétain surrendered.
Bitterness mounted after a British ultimatum at Mers-El-Kébir, Oran’s naval base, was rejected. The Royal Navy wrecked the French fleet by bombarding the Algerian port, killing 1,300 sailors. Churchill feared this might cause the Vichy regime actively to ally itself with the Nazis, though this did not dissuade him from giving the fire order.
Vichy did not become a formal belligerent. A few remote African colonies “rallied” to General Charles de Gaulle, leader of the tiny “Free French” contingent that had opted for exile in Britain. But most French forces abroad vigorously resisted the British. Smith de-scribes bloody naval actions in which French destroyers and submarines were sunk, in the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean. The fighting was at its roughest in Madagascar in 1942, a campaign unknown to most students of the war, including me, and here vividly described. Even after the British established themselves ashore, with the aim of forestalling possible Japanese occupation of the French colony, its governor-general signalled to Vichy: “Our available troops are preparing to resist every enemy advance”. Each stage of the island’s defence, he said, “became a page of heroism written by ‘La France’.” It took five months to secure the island.
Even in November 1942, when it was becoming plain the allies would win the war, French troops gave an unpleasant shock to Americans landing in Algeria and Morocco, treating them as invaders rather than liberators. Vichy forces inflicted 1,500 US casualties before quitting.
Why did the French fight so vigorously against us? One answer is that many of their soldiers were mercenaries, Senegalese and suchlike, happy to shoot anybody they were paid to. French colonial troops in Italy later acquired an appalling reputation for rape and murder, albeit by then enlisted in the allied cause.
Many French professional soldiers, sailors and airmen considered it their duty to serve their country as its government demanded, and accepted the legitimacy of Vichy. Finally, a good many viscerally disliked the British, partly for fighting on in 1940, partly for sinking their fleet at Oran, and partly for traditional reasons: Crécy, Agincourt, Blenheim, Trafalgar. British troops advancing into Syria found a graffito: “Wait, dirty English bastards, until the Germans come. We run away now, and so will you soon.”
Smith describes unfamiliar battles with notable fluency and skill. The French deserve some sympathy for their behaviour, amid misery and confusion after suffering humiliation in 1940. But it is impossible to make the story seem pretty. The heroics of de Gaulle’s followers and of the maquis in occupied France could not mask the reality that a lot of Frenchmen tried hard for the other side, killing thousands of allied personnel, even if they convinced themselves that by doing so they were contributing to “la gloire de la France”.
England’s Last War Against France by Colin Smith
Weidenfeld £25 pp512
Posted by peiper
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Permalink • Who Knew? A Belated ‘Thank You’
So, I’m up early on a Sunday morning, minding my own business, surfing the domains of Emperor Misha I, and came across this:
A Very, Very Belated Thank You
Posted by: Emperor Misha I in Imperial ThoughtsOur only excuse is that nobody in the Lame Stream Media seemed to want to talk about it three years ago. If fact, if it hadn’t been for our dear friend Val, we might have never heard about it.
It turns out that in 2006, on September 11, the Russian people gave us a gift. A 10-story memorial to the fallen in the attacks 5 years prior. At the base, all of the names of the murdered were inscribed in the same fashion that the name of our fallen in Viet Nam are inscribed on the Memorial Wall.
But apparently it wasn’t all that newsworthy.
Here’s a site with pictures.
Actually, we weren’t entirely truthful when we suggested that nobody talked about it at all. Thanks to Snopes, whom we consulted to verify the claim, we learned that there was some press coverage prior to the unveiling on the 5th anniversary.
The New York Times called it an “embarrassment.”
The Associated (with terrorists) Press complained that the artist, trying to make sure that nobody murdered was left out, had included about 40 names too many.
And CNN just called the monument “controversial.”
Ah, those liberals. They just never will forgive the Russians for not keeping the Soviet Union around.
His Imperial Majesty, on the other hand, brought up to never look a gift horse in the mouth and never repay a kindness with sneers and scorn, would like to take this opportunity to offer a very heartfelt and sincere, if embarrassingly belated, thank you to our Russian brothers and sisters, the artist Zurab Tsereteli, and President Vladimir Putin for this warm, and not inexpensive, expression of sympathy and solidarity.
Whatever other differences may exist between us, we shall never forget the warmth of friends sharing in our sorrows and expressing their sympathy.
Spasibo vam bolshoye.
Count me in. Thank you Zurab Tsereteli, Vladimir (Pooty-Poot) Putin, and the great Russian people.
Posted by Christopher
on 08/16/2009 at 06:40 AM
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Permalink • Saturday - August 15, 2009
Rats, I missed another birthday
Just the other day, August 13th, was the 149th birthday of Phoebe Ann Mosey. She was a noted professional, internationally famous, and absolutely the best in the world at what she did. She was also a quiet philanthropist, and a tireless worker for women’s rights and equality. Had she been less than the best at her skill, it is said that she could have prevented World War I from happening, all by herself.
She died in 1926 at the age of 66. Her husband, bereft at her passing, died 18 days later.
And almost nobody on earth knew her by her real name.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/15/2009 at 08:16 PM
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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.
- Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
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- Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere
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Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.
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