Month: May 2004

More on the Torricelling of Kerry

In today’s Tucson Citizen was an interesting op-ed by Hartford Courant writer Jim Shea. I couldn’t find it on-line, so I’ve transcribed it here. It’s written as a letter to Democrats by Howard Beale – the character from the movie Network. I don’t know Mr. Shea’s political leanings. I scanned a few of his columns and can detect from that quick overview nothing patently obvious, so I present to you now, interspersed with my commentary, his latest column:

Democrats find Kerry is Dull and Void

By Jim Shea May 10, 2004

Dear Fellow Kerry Supporter:

We may have made a horrible mistake.

We may have backed the wrong guy.

Granted, it was difficult to stick with Howard after it became apparent he wasn’t wrapped all that tight, but perhaps we were a bit hasty in jumping on the Kerry bandwagon.

I gather from this that Shea isn’t a member of the moonbat hordes, so this bodes well – but limits the overall impact of the piece.

So far, the Kerry campaign, has all the forward momentum of a Dukakis tank ride.

I rest my case on the moonbat question.

Since sewing up the nomination, the two most memorable things John Kerry has done are go on vacation and have surgery.

A week ago, he went for a bike ride in Boston – and fell off. You tie that mishap together with the shoulder injury he sustained – riding a bus – and Kerry’s just a staircase header away from wrenching the Slapstick in Chief title away from Gerald Ford.

A pithy and accurate observation. This man is no average Democrat.

Besides the walking-and-chewing-gum problem, Kerry is also turning out to be quite the gasbag. He’s one of those people who if you say nice night to him, he wants to explain the cosmos.

I mean, two minutes of listening to Kerry these days and you’re longing for the excitement of a Joe Lieberman foreign-policy speech.

And he has a sense of humor. I’m beginning to smell Republican…

The thing is, we Democrats didn’t endorse Kerry because of his intellect; we got behind him because we thought he would go nose to nose with President Bush.

Now we’re not so sure. Since securing the nomination, Kerry has been whacked around more than Larry, Curly and Moe put together.

What happened to the “I’m a fighter” thing? What happened to “bring it on?”

It’s so bad that Kerry has even let the Republicans get away with criticizing his war record.

It was left to House minority leader Nancy Pelosi to point out that while Kerry was getting three purple hearts, Bush was getting a dental exam.

It was left to Senator Frank Lautenberg to deep-fry Vice President Dick Cheney and the chickenhawks, saying: “They talk tough … but when it was their turn to serve, they were AWOL from courage.”

What Kerry is failing to recognize is that everybody is already Toung Fu fighting and their ads are fast as lightning. And if he doesn’t “bring it on” now, it’s going to be hasta la vista, baby.

There are certainly ample targets of opportunity: Iraq, jobs, taxes, prescription drugs, the possibility Bush may be married to his national security adviser!

Say WHAT?

The bottom line, fellow Democrats, is this. If Kerry doesn’t show some spunk soon, we should start thinking about nominating someone at the convention who will.

Dean – with the right medication – remains a viable option

Sincerely,

Howard Beale

(Still mad as hell.)

I’ve said it before. Kerry is NOT going to be the nominee.

It might not be Hillary, but it ain’t going to be Kerry.

The writing is on the wall. The Democrat cry will be “Anybody but Bush.”

Except Kerry.

Want One, Want One, Got One, Want One, Had One…

Jeff at Alphecca has this week’s Check on the Bias up, with this picture of Jesse Jackson that inspired the title of this post.

Go give it a read.

Well Said!

From Smoke On the Water: Turning Lead into Gold

Too good to excerpt. Short, eloquent, excellent. Go read.

(Via No Quarters.)

Need Some New Wall Art?

Cancer poster draws lots of fire

Critics say fundraising message lost

Guelph chief says nothing suggestive or provocative

A controversial fundraising poster featuring eight provocatively clad, gun-slinging female police officers is drawing fire.

The poster, with the caption “Girls with Guns Target Breast Cancer,” is a fundraiser for breast cancer research but that message is lost, detractors say, in images of sexy, heavily armed officers.

“There they are sporting guns as if it’s a fun thing to do,” said Dawn Reynolds, a family therapist in Guelph who is offended by the poster.

Well, it IS – that’s something that gun-phobes don’t get and never have.

But wait! There’s better!

“Guns are what kill women. They are not a good thing. I regret hugely that this was done, especially for such a worthy cause as breast cancer.”

No, guns are sometimes used to kill women, but they are not the cause. And guns are an inanimate object, neither intrinsically good or bad.

But this is the mentality we’ve got to combat, daily.

Two officers in the Guelph police sex and child abuse unit, Constables Cate Welsh and Lisa Lakatos, are selling the posters so they can take part in the Princess Margaret Hospital’s Weekend to End Breast Cancer, a 60-kilometre walk through Toronto this fall. Each participant must raise a $2,000 entry fee.

With approval from the police services board, they persuaded six other female officers to pose with them in the photo. Posters went on sale last week and despite some backlash, sales have been brisk, said Guelph police Chief Rob Davis.

“I didn’t see anything that was suggestive of anything sexual or provocative,” said Davis. “Police officers are targeting breast cancer. That’s very admirable.”

Sue Richards, a Guelph entrepreneur who launched the Breast of Canada calendar in 2001 to raise awareness of breast cancer, said she was taken aback when she first saw it.

“It’s a very unusual image. It’s not obvious these are police officers for starters, and they are not showing breasts — they’re showing guns,” she said.

“I do see a sexual tone to it. To me it is provocative. Personally, I would have preferred to see them in police uniforms. Then the guns are in context.”

Why? Should only police be allowed to have guns, then?

Dianna Schreuer, president of the network, was not upset when she saw the police poster.

“This is what they are,” said Schreuer, referring to the gun-toting officers. “If they were holding bananas, that would be silly.

“To me it implies a fight and that’s exactly what breast cancer survivors do — we fight it.”

Matt Greenfield, spokesperson for the Princess Margaret Weekend to End Breast Cancer event, said his organization will not take a position on the poster.

“We don’t want to polarize ourselves,” Greenfield said. “We are proud of everyone who has made the decision to do something bold in the fight against breast cancer by registering for the event.”

He added, however, that the title, Girls with Guns Target Breast Cancer, “did not originate in our organization.”

Christine Koserski, spokesperson for the Canadian Cancer Society, wouldn’t comment except to say, “These will certainly get a lot of attention. It will probably be a successful fundraiser. Obviously they feel strongly about breast cancer.”

Koserski said the disease kills about 5,200 Canadian women annually.

According to this page, firearms are not exactly what’s “killing women” in Canada. Here’s the chart from 1992. The proportions haven’t changed much, I don’t believe:

Sly Castaldi, acting executive director of Guelph-Wellington Women in Crisis, said she was confused by the poster.

On one hand, she said, they are powerful professional women supporting a really important cause. On the other, “that’s not how they dress for work. I think the evening wear adds to the confusion of the poster.”

“Plus, using the word `girls’ takes it down a notch or two. These are women, not girls,” Castaldi said.

Still, Castaldi is pleased about the debate the poster has sparked.

“Twenty years ago we were the only agency speaking out about domestic violence and women’s rights. Now people are making those connections on their own.

“It’s good when the community can do critical thinking on issues like this.”

Sometimes critical thinking – especially when it comes to the topics of feminism and guns – is a very rare commodity.

Anyway, here’s a thumbnail of the poster:

The number to call to order yours is:

(519) 824-1212

The price is a paltry $10 Canadian (what is that, $7.25 American?)

Hat tip to Gunner of No Quarters.

A Parliament of Whores

GREAT book by P.J. O’Rourke, from which comes his classic quote:

Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whores are us.

Or Henry Louis Mencken’s take on it that I’ve posted here before:

A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker.

James Rummel has a bit different take on it. They’re all whores, and we’re stuck with them, because that’s how our political system works. Our only choice is to look at the “partners” they are and have been sleeping with, and the ones they want to sleep with. Because we’ll be sleeping with them too.

He says it much more eloquently than that, but quoting it here would not be fair to the quality of the piece.

Read the whole thing.

No More Friday Fives

It’s dead

Because Honor Doesn’t Matter Any More

Steven Den Beste asks in reaction to learning that Moore has lied, once again, and been caught, once again:

Why does anyone believe anything that Michael Moore says, anyway?

Because lying isn’t considered wrong any more. It doesn’t result in public censure. It’s REWARDED, as I said below.

As long as it’s done by someone from the Left, because they only do it in a good cause.

Or so they tell themselves.

If someone from the RIGHT is caught doing anything that has a whiff of mendacity or obfuscation, RELEASE THE HOUNDS! STIR THE OUTRAGE OF THE PROLES! PITCHFORKS! TORCHES!

Remember Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them… A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right?

UPDATE: Steven linked to this. (Thanks!) The internal link in this piece refers to the Micah Wright piece two posts down. Wright, along with Jayson Blair, Steven Glass, and Moore all get a pass. They mean well.

No, the Media Doesn’t Hype Assault Weapon Fears

It seems that the Associated Press is reporting that two men were killed and two children were wounded in a drug-related turf war attack in Highland Park, Michigan. This was reported on MLive.com, an “Everything Michigan” website, and in the Detroit Free Press. Here’s what the story says:

About 60 shots from an automatic weapon and a shotgun were fired into a car as part of an apparent drug turf war, killing two men and wounding two young children, authorities say.

The shooting happened about 2:15 a.m. EDT Thursday on a residential street in the city of Highland Park, which is surrounded by Detroit, Wayne County sheriff’s department spokesman John Roach said.

“Apparently, someone came up and ambushed them,” Roach said.

Investigators said about 55 rounds were fired at the car with an AK-47 assault rifle and about a half-dozen more from a shotgun, Roach said. There may have been two shooters in what Roach described as a possible dispute about drug turf.

The children, an 8-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy, belonged one of the dead men, 29-year-old Andre Harden Sr., of Detroit, Roach said. The men had been sitting in the front seat and the children in the back.

The children had been removed from Harden’s custody in May 2000 after allegations that he abused them, the Detroit Free Press reported.

The children remained in foster care until November, when they were returned to their parents, Harden and Brenda Skinner, according to court records.

Christopher Dixon, 28, also was killed, Roach said. He lived in a home on the street where the shooting took place.

The boy, who was shot in both legs, and the girl, who received a minor injury, were taken to Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit and were in temporarily serious condition Thursday afternoon, Roach said. Their injuries were not considered life-threatening.

There were no suspects in the shooting as of Thursday afternoon, Roach said.

Criminals shooting other criminals, which is the case in the majority of deliberate shootings. Two innocent children hurt, two apparent drug dealers killed.

But an “assault weapon” and CHILDREN were involved, so THIS IS BIG NEWS! How big? Well, here’s a partial list of the papers that are running the story, at least on-line:

The Houston Chronicle

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Mid Columbia (Washington) Tri City Herald

The Alabama Times Daily

The Boston Herald

The Tacoma News Tribune

The Anchorage Daily News

The Raleigh N.C. News & Observer

The Sacramento Bee

The LA Times

New York’s Newsday

South Carolina’s Myrtle Beach Sun News and The State

Florida’s Bradenton Herald, and Tallahassee Democrat

Georgia’s Macon Telegraph and Columbus Ledger-Enquirer

Minnesota’s Duluth News Tribune and Pioneer Press

There are a lot more.

This is the perfect example of “man bites dog” combined with the topic du jour – assault weapons and the coming “sunset” of the “Assault Weapon Ban” (that didn’t prevent this crime.) “Assault weapons” are used in less than 2% of all crimes committed with firearms, so things like this are really rare and thus newsworthy. Add The CHILDREN™ and the story is irresistable, because otherwise it’s just criminals shooting other criminals.

One interesting thing is, when I did the Google search on this story, the blurb connected to each link states:

It appeared to be some kind of a rifle, perhaps an assault rifle,” Wayne County sheriff’s Cmdr. James Buford told WWJ-AM.

But this line isn’t in the AP piece. Could it have been an SKS? Yes. The SKS is not considered an “assault rifle” under the Federal ban, and some accept 30 round detachable magazines. But the story is quite explicit, it WAS an AK-47.

Now, had the gunmen not had access to the AK, and had both shooters used shotguns, what would the result of this shooting have been? Handguns? Molotov cocktails?

How would renewing the AWB have prevented this? How would strengthening the AWB prevent this? How would confiscating all legally owned “assault weapons” prevent this?

Just asking.