Prince Harry

(Nice picture eh? He looks like my Brother in Law.)

News that Matt Drudge has forced England's Prince Harry to abandon his 14 week tour of duty in Afghanistan four weeks short is interesting and disappointing at the same time.

Interesting in that the Prince got his wish (in part at least) to serve in his regiment as more than a REMF. One acquaintance of mine, a retired U.S. Marine, said it bluntly, "...he's living like just any ordinary grunt. He's been in some fights, he's engaged the enemy, he's seen the elephant.. .And that means that people in the UK are going to hate him for having a pair of balls the size of coconuts and showing the London Liberals what a Real Man looks like. It's been a long time since their was a real man in the Royal Family. Bravo, Harry."

The Prince has long chafed against the fame and attention that's part of being a Royal; He's expressed before a wish to be ordinary. These past 10 weeks of living like a grunt with his messmates in Afghanistan's Helmand province must have been gratifying. Nice going Matt, you disappointed a Prince.

Interesting, in that in exchange for unprecedented access to the Prince, the MoD managed to broker a deal to get the British press to cooperate this long in keeping the news of his deployment confidential.

When the news leaked, the MoD was quick to order an end to Harry's deployment out of security concerns. Most of the 88 British troops killed in Afghanistan since 2001 have died in Helmand, where British forces began fighting with the NATO-led coalition two years ago. Security for the prince will be higher when he returns home too, as now the Islamist death threats against him will be portraying him as a killer of Muslims.

Good for you Harry, I'm glad you had your chance to give em hell.

Maxim Blows it - forced to apologize to Black Crowes

Maxim magazine has had to apologize to the Black Crowes for writing a review of a New CD without listening to the cd. The Crowes first new studio Album in eight years, Warpaint, will be released Tuesday; Maxim had been provided only with samples for preview purposes. The March issue of Maxim panned Warpaint, giving it 2 and half stars out of five, saying the Black Crowes "sound pretty much like they always have: Pretty Boozy, competent, and in Slavish debt to the Stones, Allmans, and the Faces."

While I agree about the intellectual dishonesty on Maxim's part, is the review so bad? I've always thought the best thing about the Black Crowes was their consistent ability to infuse their bluesy Rock sound with a level of Soul that the Stones, Allmans and Faces could handily achieve, but did so all too rarely.

Pretty Boozy, Competent, and in slavish debt to the Stones, Allmans, and the Faces.

F*ckin Eh. Looks like I'm buying Warpaint on Tuesday.

===========

ps: review of Warpaint from Rolling Stone.
Rolling Stone's review

Dark day.

Two blows to my psyche in less than 5 minutes today.

The first, when I learned that one of my favorite authors, Dr. Jerry Pournelle is being treated for some kind of growth in his head. Malignant? There's not enough information yet, but further tests are scheduled. I now gladly buy the first issue hard cover edition of anything J.E. Pournelle and/or Larry Niven will writes. I've enjoyed his work more than any other writer, which include the creation of a future history that includes "The Mote in God's Eye," and "Falkenberg's Mercenary Legion." Here's a publisher-provided link to two free copies of his books, one of which is an early Falkenberg title.
Don't know if it matters to you Jerry, but you're in my prayers.

---------

I was very sad to see that Fred Thompson has surrendered in face of the midstream media's campaign of silence. Not that they'd necessarily choose him, but I've yet to talk to an American conservative who didn't like him. The media tried real hard to either ignore his campaign or put it down. They characterized him as lazy or stupid, but I believe they thought he was another republican in the Reagan mold, and that scared them bad. Anybody that scares the liberal press has to be good for America.

I like what roger suggested, when he was speculating about a possible last ditch campaign effort for Fred Thompson:

"I'm Fred Thompson. You may not even know I'm running for president, because there's been a media blackout of my campaign. Why? The media elite see me as the closest thing to Ronald Reagan, and that scares the hell out of them. Here's what I believe ... ___Insert here______. Here's what I don't belive. ___Insert man made global warming_____

If you want a pandering pimp for president, then you want McCain or Huckabee. If you want a leader, it's me. Here's where I stand, then. If I don't win the Florida primary, I'll have to quit unless I receive $40 million dollars in campaigh contributions immediately. Otherwise, I won't have to say "go fuck yourselves"; you'll have already done it.

Thank you, good night, and God bless America.
"

Chinese Gov't Offals Beat Blogger to Death

A Chinese Blogger was beaten to death in the street by local Government Officials after he tried to record a Villager's protest on his cell-phone. Wei Wenhua, a 41 year old Construction company manager and blogger reportedly happened upon a violent clash between villagers and a group of Municipal Inspectors who were attempting to dump trash in their village. That the 50 government inspectors felt justified in beating Wenhua to death for attempting to document their illegal activity is indicative of the barbaric attitude China's Government-Culture has towards the rights of the individual or the ancient Western concept that laws should apply to everybody -even members of the ruling power stucture.

The Chinese Government is particularly sensitive to losing face at this time, as they want to show a civilized facade to the world in time for Beijing's 2008 Olympics. The Government has responded to the killing by arresting 24 municipal inspectors whilst investigating more than 100 others in relation to the incident. CNN reports the killing has sparked outrage in China, “with thousands expressing anger in Chinese Internet chat rooms, often the only outlet for public criticism of the government.”

When I first heard about this killing, I expected the protest to be about the land privatization movement in China. Added to the government's troubles, is the Unrest that has also been growing in China over what villagers and farmers see as unfair land management policies. Under the Communist system of collectivization of farmland, peasant farmers have been assigned plots to work on. They don't own the land, and can be re-assigned at the government's whim. Earlier this week I heard a CBC Radio news story about how Land Developers with close connections to the Communist Party were arranging to have the peasant farmers booted off prime land near growing urban areas without compensation. The Developers then profited hugely from developing the land.

Nothing is wrong about making a huge profit in an honest manner, but in this case it's blatant Government Corruption and Theft. This is what growing numbers of Chinese villagers and farmers are angry about. They are pressing the government to allow them to own the land they farm, and be compensated if it is appropriated.

Fat chance.

Tribute to Her Father

I hope someday my kids will think half as well of me as Ann did of her father. That was really well said Ann.
Her Father, John V. Coulter died last Friday morning.

Hillary

I knew she was corrupt. But this is as if she thinks she's untouchable. Now it's emerged that since she's been in the Senate, she's procured over a Billion Dollars in government backed financing for her corporate supporters... 64% of whom, have in turn contributed millions to her campaign.

We're sleepwalking into War

(image by www.filibuster.com)


One of my favorite authors, Dr. Jerry Pournelle has pointedly asked people to read this. It's a warning to each and every one of us that we're losing a war by default, and that our society's opponents know they're at war with us, and are doing everything they can to keep the majority of us from realizing this.

He's referring to a recent speech. The speech's author begins by talking about a book, The Troublesome Young Men, which tells of the days leading up to World War II. There was a group of younger conservatives who were attempting to oppose the appeasement policies that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was following in his attempts to deal with the coming Nazi threat. These men recognized that Chamberlain's ilk were so deeply desiring to avoid war, that they refused to recognize the reality of Hitler's proven ambitions, or that policies of appeasement would eventually lead to a war even greater than was feared possible. For their efforts these young Tories were severely punished and isolated by Chamberlain and his Conservatives.

There are frightening parallels to today. After six years of a "War on Terror" neither the sponsors nor the funders of many of the acts of terror since have been called to account.

"We need first of all to recognize this is a real war. Our enemies are peaceful when they're weak, are ruthless when they're strong, demand mercy when they're losing, show no mercy when they're winning. They understand exactly what this is, and anybody who reads Sun Tzu will understand exactly what we're living through. This is a total war. One side is going to win. One side is going to lose. You'll be able to tell who won and who lost by who's still standing. Most of Islam is not in this war, but most of Islam isn't going to stop this war. They're just going to sit to one side and tell you how sorry they are that this happened."

Read the speech. The rest of it will bother you too, I hope.

The Nanny State's Revenge

I've called Canada a borderline police state before, but it was to make a point, and more tongue in cheek than meant. I'll take that back now. We are becoming a police state and the "People Who Are Supposed to Protect Us" are degenerating into armed thugs who intimidate and persecute the families of those the State disagrees with.


This is Katie. Her Father refused to renew his gun license as a protest, and the Canadian government has stolen their home in reprisal. He's worked and paid his taxes and his bills all his life. He's a productive member of our society.

Katey's father is Bruce Montague, who has been fighting the Liberal Party's Billion Dollar confiscatory Anti-Gun law, C-68 for years. On September 14th 2004, in a as blatant abuse of power as I've ever heard of before, the Ontario governnment seized his house.

Part of the foundation for this was laid in 1982. The elite who rule over us would have a harder time justifying confiscation of private property (firearms or homes) if it weren't for former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I've ranted before about how Pierre Trudeau's Charter of Rights illegally omitts the right to own property. I'll do it again. As an elitist and former communist, he knew property rights for ordinary citizens couldn't be allowed under the socialist state he was trying to impose on us.
Yet for nearly a thousand years since the MAGNA CARTA the crown has acknowleged the property rights of it's subjects; it also says:

"neither We, nor our Heirs, shall procure or do anything whereby Liberties contained in this Charter shall be infringed or broken; and if anything be procured by any person contrary to the premises, it shall be had of no force nor effect."

After acknowledging the supremacy of the Magna Carta, Trudeau's Charter omits the right to own property. We need to get the people of Canada to realize they've been robbed. Otherwise it's inevitable that more Canadian Patriots like Bruce Montague will feel the heavy hand of police state thuggery.


(thx to the MadOgre for the heads up)

Chinese Trojans on your HardDrive?

The Taipei Times has published reports about 500gb Seagate Harddrives being sold with trojan viruses that upload any data stored on them to Beijing. The affected drives are reportedly Maxtor Basics 500 GB sold as part of a portable HD system, manufactured in Thailand, and sold in Taiwan. The news story did not mention any such compromised HDs sold outside of Taiwan.
I have long been concerned that policy makers in the West appear to be oblivious to the threat Communist China poses to both our security and economic well being. Like the Soviets and the Nazis before them, China's rulers see themselves not only as the center of Human history, but also the future dominant political and economic power on earth.

Chinese espionage in the west has only been sporadically covered in the midstream media; Hell, they gave the Clintons a complete pass on their questionable connections.

Format format format those cheap new hard drives...

Thx to Dr. Jerry Pournelle for the link.

Gun Control Affects Crime

...but not how you might think.



This should be shown in Schools. Thanks Roger, for the link. Here in Canada it seems that the RCMP want ordinary citizens to be helpless.

Stuff you almost Never See in the Papers

I was shopping with my mother and sister a couple of weeks ago, when I walked past this Edmonton Journal headline: CANADIANS ROUT TALIBAN. I've been reading about the coalition (and Canada's) successes against the Taliban in Afghanistan from non-traditional news sources for quite sometime, but this midsteam media headline was a surprise. The Liberal Journal seems to usually print only stories that seem to me to be designed to damage morale and sway Canadian public opinion against participation in the recovery and rebuilding of Afghanistan. No doubt the regular editor at the Journal was sick or something, and this story was printed.

Maybe it's catching. Today's Sun carried on the GLOBAL watch page the headline: AMBUSH ENDS BADLY FOR TALIBAN. The Sun news wire reported that a Nato-led force was ambushed yesterday in southern Afghanistan but suffered no losses. The story reported that the Taliban lost "dozens of insurgents" and attempted to hide in a residential area. I'm usually skeptical of what appears to be "newsrelease" reporting, but we can be reasonably certain there weren't any coalition casualties- that would have been reported in the midstream media for sure.

Meanwhile, another milestone was ignored by the midstream media: the 10,000th act of Islamic-based terrorism since 9/11.

I've had the opportunity to meet a few people who claim to be moderate muslims; Muslim by choice. Some are very likeable guys, Veterans of honorable service with the U.S. military. But when the topic turns to issues like this, they get very hot and very angry.
My response is that either they've been lied to, or we've been been lied to about what Islam really is. But I'll buy into their viewpoint only after it's as Safe to open a Jewish Synagogue in Tehran or Medina as it is to open a Mosque in Edmonton or New York.

Who knows, that day may come.

Ordinary Sunni Iraqi's have been banding together in revolt against the Al-Qaida terrorists in Iraq. Baghdad's largest Sunni Cleric's group, The Association of Muslim Scholars, has condemed the actions of these ordinary citizens who've acted to protect themselves by doing things like capturing suicide bombers and holding them until the authorities arrived. Associated Press reported Yesterday that after accusing the Association of Muslim Scholars of actively supporting Al-Qaida, the Iraqi government seized control of their headquarters.

Quote:

"The association has always justified killing and assassinations carried out by al-Qaida," the head of the Sunni Endowments, Ahmed Abdul-Ghafoor al-Samarraie, told reporters at the mosque, built by Saddam Hussein to commemorate the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Al-Samarraie said the association had opposed the Sunni revolt against al-Qaida, which began last year in Anbar province and is spreading throughout the Sunni heartland. He said the association opposed any group formed "to purge their neighborhoods of al-Qaida elements." AP

registration = confiscation

I was really surprised to read that this happened in America. It's the kind of shit I'd have expected to read about here in Canada.

During the hurricane Katrina emergency, when looting and lawlessness became rampant, the police were ordered to begin seizing firearms from law abiding citizens. Geezus, what about the fucking criminals???????



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-taU9d26wT4


Comment (November 10th) by the MadOgre:
FACT: Democrats are gun grabbers. As for your reference to the New Orleans confiscations: You are right. It did happen under a Republican President's watch. But it also ended under the same and it was ordered by Democrats in charge at the local level. As soon as something happened, PRESTO – the Democrats ordered the guns seized. Look at similar mass disasters in other areas where the Republicans are in charge... oh, say... ANY of the other last major floods in the last 20 years. They did not stick their hands out demanding FEMA give them money. They did not throw a hissy fit and start seizing guns. They just simply rolled up their sleeves and got to work.



Thanks George.