All posts by Chief

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HUH?

Border Patrol chief rejects mission against aliens, drugs

This beggars the imagination. To quote Isaac Asimov: ” Such folly smacks of genius! A lesser mind would be incapable of it.”

A Border Patrol chief at one of the nation’s most dangerous Southwest border crossings says the agency’s mission doesn’t include apprehending illegal aliens or seizing narcotics — perplexing front-line agents and angering a congressional critic of illegal immigration.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,” Carlos X. Carrillo, Border Patrol chief of Laredo, Texas, told guests at a town-hall meeting Thursday. “The Border Patrol’s job is not to stop illegal immigrants. The Border Patrol’s job is not to stop narcotics. … The Border Patrol’s mission is not to stop criminals.

OK dipwick, just what ARE you supposed to be about?

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,” Carlos X. Carrillo, Border Patrol chief of Laredo, Texas, told guests at a town-hall meeting Thursday. “The Border Patrol’s job is not to stop illegal immigrants. The Border Patrol’s job is not to stop narcotics. … The Border Patrol’s mission is not to stop criminals.

Hmmmm. How does one detect weapons and terrs if there is no checking of who’s crossing the borders, and with what?

Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican, called for Mr. Carrillo’s resignation Friday. He also questioned how the recently appointed official could tell the difference between an illegal alien and a terrorist. “If the Border Patrol has developed a new technology that can distinguish between terrorists and other illegal border crossers without first catching them and checking them out, that is good news,” said Mr. Tancredo, an outspoken critic of illegal immigration and a presidential candidate. “But if that is not the case, Mr. Carrillo’s statements are extremely irresponsible and demoralizing to officers in the field.”

“…irresponsible”? FAR too generous a description of el Señor Carillo in the Chief’s humble opinion. Put him in the pillory.

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UK Not Ready for National Suicide?

Brown faces Labour revolt over EU referendum

Gordon Brown faces a growing Labour insurrection over his refusal to allow a referendum on the controversial EU treaty, it has emerged. A “hard core” of at least 40 Labour MPs is poised to issue the Prime Minister with an ultimatum to re-open talks on the treaty or concede a referendum.

Angela Merkel and Gordon Brown held talks on the EU treaty before watching England take on Germany at Wembley Stadium They are preparing a 15-point plan to put to Mr Brown calling for the Brussels blueprint to be radically amended to end the need for a British referendum.

The Chief REALLY likes Britain, and has a high respect for their history, which in many ways (to the consternation of the diversity crowd) is really a significant part of our own national DNA. I hope they can muster enough of the spirit that beat down Napoleon and stood off Hitler’s Luftwaffe to maintain their unique and valuable nationality.

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Homeland Insecurity – It’s Real!

DHS hid data from probers

The Chief has had one of his blog categories labeled sarcastically as “Homeland Insecurity”, to tag those situations where moonbattery overcomes rationality in cases involving so-called Homeland Security.

Department of Homeland Security administrators — fearing additional scrutiny — concealed from federal investigators information-sharing breakdowns that left the U.S. vulnerable to terrorists, internal DHS memos and e-mails show. The documents obtained by The Washington Times lay out how officials at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) deliberated telling the Inspector General’s Office that DHS agencies failed to share data before opting to withhold their concerns.

“We better be ready to provide evidence and name names because this type of statement is the height of the post-9/11 criticisms,” former Citizenship and Immigration Services Chief Council Dea Carpenter noted in an e-mail to officials within her DHS agency last year. The e-mail preceded the removal of references to information-sharing failures in the mammoth department from the third and final draft of a memorandum Mrs. Carpenter wrote for Inspector General Richard L. Skinner. Mr. Skinner had begun a probe into USCIS information-sharing shortcomings at the request of Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, who had received numerous complaints of internal problems in the agency.

Sadly, it’s another clear case of government ‘crats doing what they do best: covering their…donkeys.

SD Politics

Senator Returns to Public Life

Johnson speech open to public
Senator to appear at Convention Center

U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota will speak Tuesday at the Sioux Falls Convention Center, his first public event since being stricken by a debilitating brain hemorrhage in December. The South Dakota Democrat will be accompanied by his wife, Barbara, three grown children and their spouses, and five grandchildren.

Best of wishes to SD’s senior Senator and his family as he returns to public activity.

That having been said, the Chief DOES reserve the right to continue to be very skeptical of the Senator’s political stance and actions.

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Donks Mugged by Reality in Iraq

Democrats Refocus Message on Iraq After Military Gains

It’s admittedly tough to have an idea of what you’re going to be doing…only to have the mean old real world slap you with something that is completely contrary to the situation you were expecting.

Democratic leaders in Congress had planned to use August recess to raise the heat on Republicans to break with President Bush on the Iraq war. Instead, Democrats have been forced to recalibrate their own message in the face of recent positive signs on the security front, increasingly focusing their criticisms on what those military gains have not achieved: reconciliation among Iraq’s diverse political factions.

You KNOW that if the administration was also focusing on Iraq’s internal politics that the screaming would be about “high-handed US imperialism dominating a sovereign foreign nation”.

There’s more of the Donk fecklessness in this article…check it out for yourself…or not. You can guess what it is based on the previous record.

Somehow, the Chief will be able to restrain his tears of sympathy for the Donks.

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Feds Ignore Own Regs on Illegals

Bush hit over jobs for illegal workers

If President Bush is serious about getting tough on U.S. employers who hire illegal aliens, he can start with his own administration, which employs thousands of unauthorized workers, says the top Republican on the House immigration subcommittee.

Note: “IF President Bush is serious…” Although this is worth pointing out, the Chief has absolutely zero confidence that any seriousness is present.

A 2006 audit showed federal, state and local governments are among the biggest employers of the half-million persons in the U.S. illegally using “non-work” Social Security numbers — numbers issued legally, but with specific instructions that the holders are not authorized to work in the U.S. “Let’s clean up our own house, let’s especially clean up the federal employment of all those working for the federal government,” said Rep. Steve King, Iowa Republican and ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee’s immigration subcommittee.

Just another joke on us from the best government money can buy.

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French Cooking the News at A.F.P.

BANG! or not to BANG?

This is just too much for words. A.F.P. in case you are wondering stands for Agence France Presse came out with the following report and picture:

afp_iraq_bullet.jpg

Tuesday August 14, 2007: An elderly Iraqi woman shows two bullets which she says hit her house following an early coalition forces raid in the predominantly Shiite Baghdad suburb of Sadr City.

Notice anything peculiar fellow gun aficionados? Apparently AFP didn’t! HINT HINT: What’s the difference between a cartridge and a bullet?

To help them out The Dissident Frogman has thoughtfully provided a helpful training video for journalists and wannabes. It’s well worth the effort to go over there and check out.

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Not Many Care for CAIR These Days

CAIR blames Justice for its troubles

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) says it is suffering from a decline in membership and fundraising and blames the Justice Department for listing it as an unindicted co-conspirator in a case involving a charity accused of terrorist ties.

How typical is this? The blame is ALWAYS elsewhere, regardless of the actions that have caused the trouble. The clear record of the actions of this organization in regularly excusing Islamo militancy, and opposing effective security measures to meet its threat just COULDN’T have any effect on the popularity of CAIR, at least according to itself.

Support for charity terrorists COULDN’T be affecting this, could it? Not according to CAIR!

An antidote to their Koranic circumlocutions is a clear Biblical principle from Matthew chapter 7:

16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

’nuff said.

National Insecurity

“The Company” Needs Reorganization

Tenet’s Pre-9/11 Efforts Faulted

The Chief NEVER had any faith in this holdover Clinton appointee from the get-go. After all, he was part of the same establishment as Jamie Gore-lick who was responsible for the so-called “wall of separation” between the CIA, FBI, etc. that prevented their sharing and coordinating intel/counter-intel information. I never saw that Tenet ever had any problems with this…it’s no wonder that the CIA fell off the cliff when it (attempted) its operations under these conditions.

Former central intelligence director George J. Tenet and his top lieutenants failed to marshal sufficient resources and provide the strategic planning needed to counter the threat of terrorism in the years before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to a long-secret CIA report released yesterday.

Despite promises of an all-out war against terrorism in the late 1990s, leaders of the spy agency allowed bureaucratic obstacles and budget shortfalls to blunt the agency’s efforts to find and capture al-Qaeda operatives, said the report, by the CIA’s inspector general. It also faulted agency leaders for failing to “properly share and analyze critical data.”

The executive summary of the formerly Top Secret report is available in PDF format here, direct from the CIA!

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Blognote

Road Trip Report

Just completed 10 day road trip – meandering across southern Indiana in search of genealogical information.

This exercise was successful, with a lot of the Chief”s ancestral information and family historical locations visited.

The emotional highlight came with a visit to a remote rural family burying ground, with the grave of (one of) my Revolutionary War ancestors, who served in the 3rd Pennsylvania infantry, and fought at Trenton and Brandywine. Also discovered another previously unknown Revolutionary vet, and a number of War of 1812-ers, and Civil War types also.

The next day, I had the chance to visit the George Rogers Clark memorial – what a job HE did, leading a 3-week forced march of about 190 men across flooded out southern Illinois in mid-winter, and then attacking, and getting the surrender of around 600 Brits in their Ft. Sackville at Vincennes, IN.

This American victory sealed the presence of the United States in the “Old Northwest” and insured that the new republic would NOT be restricted to the strip of the 13 (former) colonies along the Atlantic seaboard.

We stand on the shoulders of giants. May we be worthy of the sacrifice and accomplishments of our ancestors, and add to their edifice rather than tear it down.

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GlowBull Warming Update

Report from the Global Warming Battlefield

In case you hadn’t noticed, the global warming debate has now escalated from a minor skirmish to an all-out war. Although we who are skeptical of the claim that global warming is mostly manmade have become accustomed to being the ones that take on casualties, last week was particularly brutal for those who say we have only 8 years and 5 months left to turn things around, greenhouse gas emissions-wise. I’m talking about the other side – the global warming alarmists.

Check it out for some REAL inconvenient truths.

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Bureaucratic Malfeasance in Office:

U.S. agents accused of aiding Islamist scheme

A criminal investigations report says several U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services employees are accused of aiding Islamic extremists with identification fraud and of exploiting the visa system for personal gain.

What’s that bit about “aid and comfort to the enemy…”?

The confidential 2006 USCIS report said that despite the severity of the potential security breaches, most are not investigated “due to lack of resources” in the agency’s internal affairs department.

The Chief would recommend revival of the pillory in the case of those ‘crats eho couldn’t be bothered to crack down.

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“Don’t Get Fooled Again!”

Chávez to Propose Removing His Term Limits

President Hugo Chávez will unveil a project to change the Constitution on Wednesday that is expected to allow him to be re-elected indefinitely, a move that would enhance his authority to accelerate a socialist-inspired transformation of Venezuelan society.

Juan Barreto/Agence France-Presse – Getty Images

The removal of term limits for Mr. Chávez, which is at the heart of the proposal, is expected to be accompanied by measures circumscribing the authority of elected governors and mayors, who would be prevented from staying in power indefinitely, according to versions of the project leaked in recent weeks.

Hmmmmm. Let’s see…hasn’t that pattern been tried before in Latin America?

“Here comes the old boss, same as the new boss.”

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Cold Case File: Missing Lakota Warrior

Could building site be burial ground of the lost warrior from Buffalo Bill’s show?

This is a rather curious situation in the UK with a clear South Dakota connection,

At 6ft 7 inches tall, the imposing sight of the Sioux warrior on the battlefield would have been enough to instil the enemy with fear. In 19th Century Salford, the towering warrior with his solemn name Surrounded By The Enemy was a source of fascination and mystery.

Surrounded, as he was better known, succumbed to a chest infection in his teepee on the chilly Salford Quays in 1887 and died. His body was taken to Hope Hospital, where it promptly vanished. There was no official burial, there is no record of it being moved, and nobody admitted to taking it.

Now, 120 years later the mystery may yet be solved, with the start of excavations on the site that experts hope might just uncover the once impressive warrior’s final resting place.

The Chief has to hope that if Surrounded is found, that he might be returned to the plains where he lived most of his days. It would be fitting,

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Can you get with the program?

The Chief posts these items for you possible mental exercise..as the saying goes, the views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the management.

First this one from the NYT no less:
Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy’s Couch

Until I talked to Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University, it never occurred to me that our universe might be somebody else’s hobby. I hadn’t imagined that the omniscient, omnipotent creator of the heavens and earth could be an advanced version of a guy who spends his weekends building model railroads or overseeing video-game worlds like the Sims. But now it seems quite possible. In fact, if you accept a pretty reasonable assumption of Dr. Bostrom’s, it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else’s computer simulation.

You too can be a set of bytes…IF you accept the assumption,,,

Even if Life Is a Computer Simulation…

…we still have some real questions to consider. Nick Bostrom’s argument that we could be living in a simulation, the topic of my Findings column, is a clever new twist on the old life-is-but-a-dream notions of Western philosophers (like the idealist George Berkeley), Eastern religions and science-fiction writers everywhere (cf. “The Matrix,” “The Truman Show,” and the “holodeck” in “Star Trek: The Next Generation”). A few of the questions:
1) How likely is it that we’re living in a computer simulation run by intelligent posthuman beings?
2) Would you consider it ethical for any intelligent beings to run such a simulation?
3) What’s the best way to live and survive in a computer simulation?

Finally, the blogosphere logs in on this one, and comments to the point, that often make more sense than the original proposition.

If We’re All Living In the Sims…

H/T to Instapundit.

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Straight from the Horse’s Mouth…or is it the other end?!

President: Rule of Islam Only Way fro Salvation of Mankind

Here’s the latter-day Hitler of Iran giving his own view in plain language on his own official news service. How much more direct do you need it?

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here Tuesday that rule of Islam on mankind is the only way for salvation of human beings. “There is no truth on earth but monotheism and following tenets of Islam and there is no way for salvation of mankind but rule of Islam over mankind,” said Ahmadinejad in a meeting with Afghan Sunni and Shiite ulama at Iranian Embassy in Kabul.

Of course this will be studiously ignored by the politically correct/anti-war lefty moonbats who will continue to demand that we negotiate. WHAT’S TO NEGOTIATE? How soon we surrender and convert? There’s no compromise position…you’re either with them…or not. If not, you’re a target.

Capice?

Space Patrol

Forward, Into the Past!

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Time travel could be possible … in the future

It may take more than a nuclear-powered De Lorean or a spinning police box, but time travel could actually be a possibility for future generations, according to an eminent professor of physics. Prof Amos Ori has set out a theoretical model of a time machine which would allow people to travel back in time to explore the past.

…Doctor Who?

The way the machine would work rests on Einstein’s theory of general relativity, a theory of gravity that shows how time can be warped by the gravitational pull of objects. Bend time enough and you can create a loop and the possibility of temporal travel.

Prof Ori’s theory, set out in the prestigious science journal Physical Review, rests on a set of mathematical equations describing hypothetical conditions that, if established, could lead to the formation of a time machine, technically known as “closed time-like curves.” In the blends of space and time, or spacetime, in his equations, time would be able to curve back on itself, so that a person travelling around the loop might be able to go further back in time with each lap.

In the blends of space and time, or spacetime, in his equations, time would be able to curve back on itself, so that a person travelling around the loop might be able to go further back in time with each lap. In the past, one of the major challenges has been the alleged need for an exotic material with strange properties – what physicists call negative density – to create these time loops.

“This is no longer an issue,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “You can construct a time machine without exotic matter,” he said. It is now possible to use any material, even dust, so long as there is enough of it to bend spacetime into a loop. Even though Prof Ori, of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, believes his new work strengthens the possibility of a real Tardis, he would not speculate on when a time machine would be built, or even if it would ever be possible.

This is way cool.

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More Border Problems – with Islamoterrs!

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More Trouble on the Rio Grande

Terrorists teaming with drug cartels

This is definitely a DUH moment. Given the state of the alleged border, the only surprise to the Chief is that this hasn’t turned up sooner than this.

Islamic extremists embedded in the United States — posing as Hispanic nationals — are partnering with violent Mexican drug gangs to finance terror networks in the Middle East, according to a Drug Enforcement Administration report. “Since drug traffickers and terrorists operate in a clandestine environment, both groups utilize similar methodologies to function … all lend themselves to facilitation and are among the essential elements that may contribute to the successful conclusion of a catastrophic event by terrorists,” said the confidential report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times.

The 2005 report outlines an ongoing scheme in which multiple Middle Eastern drug-trafficking and terrorist cells operating in the U.S. fund terror networks overseas, aided by established Mexican cartels with highly sophisticated trafficking routes. These terrorist groups, or sleeper cells, include people who speak Arabic, Spanish and Hebrew and, for the most part, arouse no suspicion in their communities.

Unfortunately, there are more gory details in the article. Fortunately, this report is not passing completely without notice.

Hearings urged on DEA report

A Texas congressman today demanded a hearing based on recent reports that Islamic terrorists embedded in the United States are teaming with Mexican drug cartels to fund terror networks overseas. Rep. John Culberson, Texas Republican, said the Drug Enforcement Agency document — first reported in today’s editions of The Washington Times — revealed startling evidence that Islamic radicals are camouflaging themselves as Hispanic persons while conducting business with violent drug-trafficking organizations.

“I have been ringing the bell about this serious threat of Islamic individuals changing their surnames to Hispanic surnames for three to four years,” Mr. Culberson said. “Unfortunately, Homeland Security’s highest priority is to hide the truth from Congress and the public. I just hope we’re not closing the barn door after terrorists have already made their way in.”

It couldn’t hurt, and could even help.

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RINO Wants Revival of Amnesty Bill

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Republicans pan Specter immigration alternative

Here we go again – but at least the BS detectors are activated:

Some Republican leaders say they smell a rat in Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter’s compromise proposal to get an immigration-reform bill through the Senate this year. Mr. Specter now suggests the 12 million illegal aliens he says are already here should be given the equivalent of “green card” status but “without the automatic path to citizenship” that critics labeled “amnesty.”

Nah – don’t think so Arlen.

China Watch, Culture Wars

Christianity…Still on the Ascent

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Christianity finds a fulcrum in Asia

One of teh Chief’s favorites: Spengler writing over at Asia Times, with another offering of great interest and at least potential importance.

Ten thousand Chinese become Christians each day, according to a stunning report by the National Catholic Reporter’s veteran correspondent John Allen, and 200 million Chinese may comprise the world’s largest concentration of Christians by mid-century, and the largest missionary force in history.

There’s a lot more in this piece…among the more interesting morsels is this one:

While the Catholic Church has worked patiently for independence from the Chinese government, which sponsors a “Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association” with government-appointed bishops, the evangelicals have no infrastructure to suppress and no hierarchy to protect. In contrast to Catholic caution, John Allen observes, “Most Pentecostals would obviously welcome being arrested less frequently, but in general they are not waiting for legal or political reform before carrying out aggressive evangelization programs.”

Allen adds: “The most audacious even dream of carrying the gospel beyond the borders of China, along the old Silk Road into the Muslim world, in a campaign known as “Back to Jerusalem”. As [Time correspondent David] Aikman explains in Jesus in Beijing, some Chinese evangelicals and Pentecostals believe that the basic movement of the gospel for the last 2,000 years has been westward: from Jerusalem to Antioch, from Antioch to Europe, from Europe to America, and from America to China. Now, they believe, it’s their turn to complete the loop by carrying the gospel to Muslim lands, eventually arriving in Jerusalem. Once that happens, they believe, the gospel will have been preached to the entire world.”

Aikman reports that two Protestant seminaries secretly are training missionaries for deployment in Muslim countries.

The plot thickens!

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Immigration and Infrastructure

Steel firm owner jailed
Illegal aliens had bogus SS numbers

The owner of Tarrasco Steel, a company that supplied workers on the Biloxi Bay Bridge, was arrested and charged with hiring illegal immigrants on projects in three states. Some had improper welding certification.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Jose S. Gonzalez, 32, at his office in Greenville Thursday, according to a news release. Tarrasco Steel was hired as a subcontractor for rebar installation services to major bridge projects in Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee. The federal government considers those bridges as critical infrastructure, and they were part of routine inspections of facilities that if damaged could pose a threat to national security and public safety.

“There is a serious public safety concern when illegal aliens, who are not authorized to work in the country legally, and who do not possess valid welding certifications, are employed in the construction of bridges in our communities.” said Michael A. Holt, special agent in charge of the Customs Office of Investigations in New Orleans, in a news release. (Emphasis added.)

Another reason to be controlling the border…as if we needed any more!

National Insecurity

More UN Corruption

U.N. translator charged in U.S. visa scheme

As if we needed any more reasons to dissociate the US from the UN…

U.S. authorities today arrested a U.N. translator and two other persons on charges of running an extravagant scheme to sell U.S. visas, mostly to Russian and Uzbek nationals. Vyacheslav Manokhin, a relatively low-ranking U.N. staffer, was accused of providing requests on U.N. letterhead for U.S. visas to allow aliens to attend U.N. conferences that didn’t exist or that the visitors did not attend. The scheme had apparently been in operation for years.

“Manokhin used his position at the U.N. to make it appear as though the U.N. supported the visa applications, so that the aliens could enter the United States, purportedly to participate in conferences organized by non-government organizations, by the U.N. or by entities associated with the U.N.,” according to a statement issued yesterday by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. “In most instances, the alien was successful in obtaining a visa and entering the United States.”

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Afghan Roads Come to N. America?

Landmines discovered in Ontario creek

The big question about two live landmines found in a countryside culvert running under Inadale Drive between Strathroy and Mt. Brydges, Ontario yesterday is who put them there? Appearing to be attached to timers, the landmines were likely of the type used to blow up tanks, according to Strathroy-Caradoc police.

Police yesterday swarmed a country creek where children cool off in heat waves like the one this week as Canadian Forces explosives experts detonated the landmines. The creek would be a huge draw for children in the weatherman’s extreme heat alert on Ontario’s Simcoe Day long weekend.

“One mine was discovered by two teenaged girls Friday. They called police, and a second mine was found yesterday morning, only one metre away from the first.” (London Free Press, (London, Ontario) and Sun Media, August 5, 2007).

Of course there’s no terrorism link.

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Border Cluebat Hits RINOs

Republicans hardening stance on immigration

An anti-immigration backlash has taken hold among Republicans in the Capitol, led in some cases by the staunchest supporters – Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina – of the failed Senate bill derided by many as amnesty.

Maybe they finally started to get the message after having blows of the cluebat upside their heads. D’ya think?

Constitution Watch

UPDATE: Cong to Investigate Itself!

House Forms Special Panel Over Alleged Stolen Vote
GOP Assails Decision on Food Aid for Immigrants

OK. Even the Donk Congs have been waken up by the impact of the cluebat, with 3% congressional poll approval numbers, and the flap about the votegate situation have dictated that SOMETHING extraordinary had to happen to try to repair what little is left of congressional prestige.

The House last night unanimously agreed to create a special select committee, with subpoena powers, to investigate Republican allegations that Democratic leaders had stolen a victory from the House GOP on a parliamentary vote late Thursday night.

The move capped a remarkable day that started with Republicans marching out of the House in protest near midnight Thursday, was punctuated by partisan bickering, and ended with Democratic hopes for a final legislative rush fading. Even a temporary blackout of the House chamber’s vote tally board led to suspicions and accusations of skullduggery.

While Democratic leaders hoped to leave for their August recess on a wave of legislative successes, the House instead slowed to an acrimonious crawl that threatened to stretch the legislative session into next week.

The agreement to form a special committee was extraordinary. Such powerful investigative committees are usually reserved for issues such as the Watergate scandal and the funneling of profits from Iranian arms sales to the Nicaraguan contras in the 1980s. “I don’t know when something like this has happened before,” said House deputy historian Fred W. Beuttler. He called the decision “incredible.”

This CAN be good for the situation…but then again, based on recent history, one has to wonder.

GOP lawmakers had marched out of the House chamber about 11 p.m. Thursday, shouting “shame, shame” and saying that Democrats had “stolen” a vote on a parliamentary motion to pull an agriculture spending bill off the floor until it incorporated an explicit denial of federal benefits to illegal immigrants. The bill already would deny such benefits to illegal immigrants, and Democrats stressed that they won the vote fair and square. But a campaign has been launched, and the House has not fully recovered.

“Last night sent a clear message to the American people that there are people in this town who are willing to break rules and utilize extraordinary maneuvers just so that illegal immigrants can receive taxpayer-funded benefits,” said Rep. Brian P. Bilbray (R-Calif.). Anger-driven delaying tactics threw into uncertainty an agenda that was to include important votes on a huge energy bill, a defense spending bill and a terrorism surveillance measure before Congress’s departure for its month-long summer recess.

Given all this, House Speaker Squeaker SanFranNan Pelosi complained about…the GOP having the nerve to DARE to stand up for itself.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) accused Republicans of blatant obstructionism. “They’ve just been deluged by the success of the Democrats on behalf of the American people,” she said.

Uh…”deluged by the success of the Democrats…”????? Is THAT how they have reached 3% in the polls? This is clearly a case of poor situational awareness on the part of Squeaker Pelosi.

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Representative Government: R.I.P.?

The House of Representatives is on the verge (if not already over the edge) of self-destruction as a Constitutional representative body.

When a vote is taken, and then thrown out by the presiding leadership (the Donks of course, at this time) and re-recorded as having an outcome opposite to the original total, then the integrity of Constitutional representation has taken a bullet in the back of the head.

House erupts in chaos

In a massive flare-up of partisan tensions, Republicans walked out on a House vote late Thursday night to protest what they believed to be Democratic maneuvers to reverse an unfavorable outcome for them.

The flap represents a complete breakdown in parliamentary procedure and a distinct low for the sometimes bitterly divided chamber because members of one party have rarely, if ever, walked off the floor without casting a vote.

The rancor erupted shortly before 11 p.m. as Rep. Michael R. McNulty (D-N.Y.) gaveled close the vote on a standard procedural measure with the outcome still in doubt.

Details remain fuzzy, but numerous Republicans argued afterward that they had secured a 215-213 win on their motion to bar undocumented immigrants from receiving any federal funds apportioned in the agricultural spending bill for employment or rental assistance. Democrats, however, argued the measure was deadlocked at 214-214 and failed, members and aides on both sides of the aisle said afterward.

Some additional information noted at NRO:

JUST PLAIN CHEATING [David Freddoso]

They just replayed the whole mess from the House last night on C-Span. I spoke to Novak and he doesn’t remember anything quite like this happening before. Pretty outrageous, really. It is about as blatant an abuse of power as you can have in a legislative body, to cheat on a vote total. (Emphasis added)

The Chief thinks that Freddoso understates this.

Republicans were playing a game that the minority usually plays — you have your guys vote with the other side, then have them change at the last minute. This forces the majority to come up with votes quickly. Although on close issues they would rather spare their endangered members in swing districts and give them a free vote, the majority leadership then has to tell their endangered members to bite their tongues and vote the party line.

Two Democrats changed their votes to ensure that the measure would fail, but then three Republicans did the same. The vote total was 215-213 in favor of the Republican motion to recommit. At that moment, Rep. Mike McNulty ( D-N.Y.), who was in the Speaker’s chair, gavelled out the vote, thinking that it was a tie and the motion had failed. But he had miscounted — the motion had actually passed. The Democrats were only able to change this by cheating and changing more votes after the gavel.

Although they did not do so for hours, the House clerk’s office finally did put a record of the vote online this morning, with the measure failing by a vote of 216-212.

What’s to say.  Just a bit worse than before, so no big deal?  NOT!

America’s at that awkward stage. It’s too late to work within the system, but too early to start shooting the bastards. — Claire Wolfe

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Editor Killing w/Islamic Connection

Police: Gun Linked to Journalist’s Death

Police are testing guns recovered from raids in which authorities arrested seven members of an Oakland Black Muslim splinter group who investigators suspect were involved in the killing of a journalist and two others. Police Lt. Ersie Joyner said one of the guns found during the raids is thought to be the weapon that a masked attacker used Thursday morning to slay Chauncey Bailey, a journalist who was walking to work.

Bailey, 57, was the editor of the Oakland Post, and had been working on a story about Your Black Muslim Bakery before he was ambushed and slain, his colleagues said.

The “Religion of Peace” doing it’s little thing again. Surprise, surprise, surprise!

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Sic Transit Gloria Britannia?

A modern Macchiavel

The Chief recently completed re-reading The Birth of Britain, the first volume of Churchill’s classic History of the English-Speaking Peoples, which among other things of some note, documents the centuries-long struggle towards a system of limited government founded in some concept of inherent rights of Englishmen.

SO, when I noted this posting from Samizdata, notes a matter of governmental philosophy (dare one say ideology?) a fully conscious effort to transform Britain into Orwell’s “Airstrip One”, with an deliberately engineered death of the concept of individual rights, the contrast with Churchill’s accounts couldn’t have been stronger.

This week (BBC’s) File on 4 did the first really serious, probing investigation into HM Government’s National Identity Scheme that there has been in any media yet. You can listen to it here, and it is full of fascinating things for the attentive listener.

The most extraordinary is this testimony from IT consultant Peter Tomlinson:

The meetings were called by people in the Cabinet Office. There were topics on the agenda that were set by people in the Cabinet Office and we kept on thinking: why are we not seeing people from the Home Office.

Why are we not seeing technical people from the Home Office, or people involved in technical management? Eventually they began to come along but they never produced anyone who had any technical understanding of large-scale systems. We were just completely puzzled.

This is the first really solid public evidence I have seen that the scheme really is [or was?] intended by strategists at the highest level as a complete population management system and revolution in the nature of government, rather than being one by accident. That it is the emanation of a philosophy of government. It is it is not always good to have one’s analysis confirmed. In this case I would prefer not to have been vindicated.

Remember Philip Gould? He’s one of those high-level strategists.

This is not some silly idea of the phoney left. It is a mainstream idea of modern times. It is a new kind of identity and a new kind of freedom. I respect the noble Lords’ views, but it would help if they respected the fact that the Bill and the identity cards represent the future: a new kind of freedom and a new kind of identity.

The philosophy is probably best summed up by a word from Foucault: governmentalism. Christopher Booker to the contrary, it is not a ‘mental’ creed of “The Mad Officals” but a pervasive pragmatism – using the natural history of humanity the better to shepherd it. The better shepherd is a member of the new innominate politico-bureaucratic class: maybe a civil ‘servant’, maybe a politician, maybe officially neither.

And just today a new example of the sage. A strategy memo has leaked to the Daily Mirror’s sharp political editor Kevin Maguire. Lord Gould allegedly writes:

No-one in Britain should have any doubt about what you stand for, what you want to achieve. You should position yourself as a powerful, muscular modernisation politician with the power and the determination to change Britain. You should aim to be a great reforming PM.

You have to meet this mood for change. You have to exemplify renewal and a fresh start. Your Premiership has to have a dynamism and an energy that pulls people along in its slipstream. You must become the change that Britain needs.

There is a name for this, too. It is one of the most widely used populist techniques in world politics: Strong Man government, tribal leadership, caudillismo. A national security state, presided over by a Big Man – has “a nation of freemen, a polite and commercial people” (Blackstone), really come to that? When exactly did liberty become such a minority taste in Britain that it were possible?

Having a lot of personal British roots, makes it even sadder to consider the efforts over their to try to persuade the once (and hopefully once again) stalwart Brits to sell their hard-won political birthright for a mess of EngSoc pottage.

It’s even worse to realize that there are others of the same ilk seeking to lead US down the same sorry path.

Keep your powder dry!

National Insecurity

Donk Candidate a Pakistan Warhawk?!

Obama warns Pakistan on terror

HUH?

Sen. Barack Obama yesterday said he would send U.S. troops into Pakistan if President Pervez Musharraf fails to more aggressively hunt down and eliminate al Qaeda strongholds and terrorist training camps there.

“Pakistan must make substantial progress in closing down the training camps, evicting foreign fighters, and preventing the Taliban from using Pakistan as a staging area for attacks in Afghanistan,” said Mr. Obama, setting benchmarks on millions of dollars in future military aid to Pakistan.

Let’s see now? B. Hussein Obama expresses repeated statements of total opposition to the war in Iraq. given the situation in northwestern Pakistan’s tribal areas, a large US intervention would make Iraq look like a cakewalk.

The Illinois Democrat acknowledged the military and political difficulties of such an effort in the “wind-swept deserts and cave-dotted mountains.” He said it would be difficult to convince nomadic tribes living there with few ties to the Musharraf regime or any government that the U.S. is not there to occupy their lands. “It’s a tough place. But that is no excuse,” Mr. Obama said.

Uh…what’s so magical about the need to do this in Pakistan that doesn’t apply in Iraq, or for that matter, Syria, and Iran?

B. Hussein Obama is apparently untroubled by the presence of logical consistency in his consciousness.