Category: Uncategorized

While the blogosphere is abuzz with the news that Micah Wright actually wasn’t an Army Ranger (or even in the Army) and never was in Panama, Spoon’s significant other drops a bombshell:

I just wish I had done a cursory google search on Micah Wright a couple years ago and found out what he was up to. I could have told Kevin Parrot, WaPo, and Wright’s publishers that I knew Wright hadn’t been a Ranger during the American invasion of Panama.

Because I was dating him in Tucson, Arizona at the time.

I was a freshman at the University of Arizona, and Micah was a junior. We met my first month at school at a mutual acquaintance’s birthday party in September, 1989, and sort-of dated each other and generally hung out together that year. The Panama invasion started in December, 1989, and ended with Noriega’s surrender in January, 1990. Micah was definitely at the U of A, not Panama.I graduated from the U of A in December 1985. My best friend from North Carolina went to Panama as a Special Forces non-com.

Small world.

Mea Culpa

I owe Tim Lambert a small apology. In a previous piece I made a pretty stupid statistical error which he caught, and I have, until now, failed to correct it. I will do so now.

In I Pound My Head Against the Wall Because it Feels So Good When I Stop I stated:

To me that isn’t as important as the fact that England, according to the British crime survey, suffered 276,000 robberies in 2000, and the U.S. about 408,000. With six times England’s population, that makes the English rate four times the American rate.

Tim followed the provided links and responded:

Oh, and you blew the comparison of robbery rates. You have compared the survey measured robbery rate in England with the police reported robbery rate in the US. The police reported number in England is 78,000 (it’s right next to the 276,000 figure you reported) that’s roughly the same rate as you get with 408,000 robberies in the US once you adjust for population.

Tim was correct, I did mix crime survey and police reported levels of crime, and that was an error. My apologies. It was not intentional. However, it was my intent to use survey results for both, rather than police reported crime numbers, because there is some significant doubt as to the accuracy of the actual levels of crime as reported by police agencies in England.

To illustrate this doubt, let me preface by providing this Telegraph story from 2003:

Britain the most violent country in western Europe

By John Steele, Crime Correspondent (Filed: 25/10/2003)

Britain has the worst record in western Europe for killings, violence and burglary and its citizens face one of the highest risks in the industrialised world of becoming victims of crime, a study has shown.

Offences of violence in the UK have been running at three times the level of the next worst country in western Europe, and burglaries at nearly twice the rate.

Britain has the highest level of homicides in western Europe and the totals for robberies and thefts of motor vehicles have also been close to the highest in the European Union, outstripped only by France, the Home Office figures show.

Only Germany, which has 20 million more people, recorded more crimes overall in 2001, the most up-to-date figure in the research – International Comparisons of Criminal Justice Statistics 2001, with data collected by the Home Office and the Council of Europe.

But the “victimisation risk” – showing the risk of suffering a crime – in England and Wales is higher for overall crime than anywhere else in Europe, and higher than in America. The same is true of falling victim to “contact” – violent – crime.

England and Wales also had markedly fewer police officers per head of population than France, Germany and Italy, according to the study.

The Home Office points out that police have achieved some reductions in violence and robbery in 2003.

The study is also accompanied by warnings about the difficulties in making comparisons because of differing definitions and methods of recording crime. But the sheer scale of offending in the UK in recent years is apparent from the figures.

Britain had 1,050 homicides in 2001, three ahead of France, the next worst in western Europe.

In 2001, UK police recorded nearly 870,000 violent crimes, a figure hugely above the next highest total – 279,000 in France. Germany recorded 188,000 violent offences.

There were around 470,000 domestic burglary offences in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Spain recorded 247,000 offences, France 210,000 and Germany 133,000.

The figures for robbery, which surged in Britain around the turn of the Millennium, showed about 127,000 offences in 2001.

This was surpassed only by France, with a total of 134,000. Both countries were ahead of Spain (104,000) and substantially ahead of Germany (57,000) and Italy (66,000).

Overall, in 2001 nearly 6.1 million crimes were recorded in the UK. Only Germany had a higher total (6.3 million).

Hazel Blears, the Home Office minister for crime reduction and policing, said: “This report shows the picture in 2001.

“Since then we have cut crime further and dramatically increased the number of police on our streets.”

Those are pretty serious numbers, don’t you think?

Now in this slightly earlier piece there seems to be some question as to the accuracy of the data:

Rising crime, falling accuracy

By Philip Johnston Filed: 05/04/2003)

What has happened to crime statistics? Once they were the gold standard of the criminal justice system against which could be measured the success of the police against the villains.

We relied upon recorded crimes – those reported to the police – as a guide.

But, increasingly, the Government has come to rely upon the British Crime Survey. This used to be conducted every two years (it is now annual) among a pool of about 20,000 people who give their personal experience of crime. It has a major flaw in that it excludes under-16s.

Ministers began to notice that the BCS told a different story to the recorded crime figures: it was registering a decline. So, the survey became the new guide for the Government, talked up by ministers as the only true measurement of crime.

Furthermore, the Home Office was unhappy with the way the police recorded their statistics and so it introduced a new National Crime Recording Standard – a sort of statistical quality control.

This, then, is where we stood yesterday when the latest quarterly crime figures were produced. “Crime is down,” said Bob Ainsworth, the Home Office minister. “These figures show government measures to reduce crime are working.”

Well, do they? Let us take the claim that domestic burglary fell by 11 per cent from just over one million to 948,000 in 2002. This is not a real figure but an estimate calculated using interim population figures supplied by the Office for National Statistics. So, too, is the 17 per cent “drop” in vehicle thefts. Why is the Government relying on a survey to establish the theft of a car or a house break-in? Who does not report a stolen car or a burgled house?

When we look at the crimes recorded by the police a different picture emerges. Over the three months to December, domestic burglary fell by less than two per cent and vehicle theft by just three per cent, both of which are “statistically insignificant”.

Total recorded crime rose by more than four per cent over the quarter and by eight per cent over the year as a whole. The Government finesses this by “adjusting” the figures to account for the new recording standard. And, lo and behold, they then go down. Instead of the four per cent increase in the three months to December, we discover that it has, in fact, miraculously fallen by seven per cent.

However, this adjusted figure is also an estimate. Needless to say, the Home Office highlights the two estimated measures of crime – the BCS and the new recording standard, which show a decline – and ignore the recorded crime figures that show an increase.

Or take violent crime, which the Home Office said “appears to have levelled off”. The recorded crime figures show a 28 per cent rise in the final quarter of 2002. Yet after “adjustment”, this declines almost to zero on the grounds that “most offences are relatively minor assaults”. Adjustments are always made to make the figures look more positive.

This statistical jiggery-pokery is making it almost impossible for observers to know what is going on. The Home Office stopped publishing monthly asylum figures because they produced bad publicity on a regular basis. Recently the Home Office issued figures claiming that the reconviction rate among young offenders was falling. Closer scrutiny showed this just was not true. An official complaint has been lodged with the Statistical Commission about the way race figures have been used.

In the short term, the Home Office’s inventive use of statistics may get favourable headlines. In the long run, it risks damaging its reputation for straight-dealing, perhaps irreparably.

It’s tough to know what to believe when the guidelines keep changing. And then there’s the declining trust in the police to do much for you when you’ve been robbed. The British Government uses the British Crime Survey numbers because – even though the numbers are massively higher than the police reported numbers, the BCS numbers are coming down while the police recorded numbers are going up. Seeing as the BCS numbers – although they exclude victims under the age of sixteen – are supposed to represent reported and unreported crime, those are the ones I intended to use. However, to be consistent, I needed to use U.S. National Crime Victimization Survey numbers in comparison, not the police recorded number.

According to this Dept. of Justice Report in 2000 there were 732,000 attempted and completed robberies in the U.S. in the year 2000. That’s 732,000 estimated under the National Crime Victimization Survey, as opposed to the 408,000 recorded robberies, a ratio of 1.79:1. And as opposed to the 276,000 estimated robberies according to the British Crime Survey compared to the 78,000 recorded robberies as reported by British police forces, a ratio of 3.54:1.

So, with one-sixth the population of the U.S. England and Wales managed to have a robbery rate not four times higher, but only 2.26 times higher than ours.

In the year 2000.

Way to go England!

Oh, and our robbery rate has continued to decline precipitously. According to this report NCVS estimates show robbery fell to 630,690 in 2001, and to 512,490 in 2002. Robbery has decreased in England and Wales over the same period, though.

Maybe.

According the British Crime Survey,

In 2002/03, the number of robbery offences in England & Wales for people aged 16 and over was 300,000.

This compares with 97,000 robberies of personal property recorded by the police in the same period.

The BCS does not measure robbery offences among victims under 16 years.
However, a study of 2,000 police files found that:

22% of recorded robbery victims were between 11 and 15 years old
23% were between 16 and 20
5% were over 60

Apparently a LOT of Brits no longer bother to report robberies. I wonder how many are missed by the BCS? At any rate, a comparison of 512,490 robberies in the U.S. and 300,000 in England & Wales means the per capita robbery ratio has increased to just over 3.5:1.

Now, if you want to talk recorded crime, take a look at this Home Office paper from January 2003:

Recorded offences of robbery have risen sharply in recent years despite the fact that recorded crime overall has fallen over the same period. Between April 2001 and March 2002 robbery offences recorded by the police increased by 28 per cent. This followed a 13 per cent increase the previous year, and a 26 per cent increase before that.

—

The British Crime Survey routinely collects information on ‘muggings’, which includes personal robberies and snatch thefts. The latest BCS estimates that there were 441,000 muggings including 362,000 robberies.

—

Offences recorded as robbery (personal and business) by the police in England and Wales have more than doubled over the last ten years. Some of the largest increases, in terms of volume, have been in recent years.

I hope to shout! Check out this graph:

Now, this next part is really interesting:

Personal robbery accounts for the bulk of recorded robbery in England and Wales. Between April 2001 and March 2002, personal robbery accounted for 89 per cent of all robbery, and almost all of the increase. Personal robbery continues to increase at a faster rate than business robbery. Business robbery increased by 6 per cent in 2001/02 compared to the previous year, while personal robbery increased by 31 per cent.

Now, why might that be?

And if you really want to compare international recorded crime instead of estimated, there’s this graph:

Anyway, I apologize for the error, Tim, and I’m glad you caught it. It’s important to get these things right.

It does that when the obvious-stick is jabbed through my eye-socket and into my skull.

Feces Flinging Monkey delivers an essay that is almost literally a ClueBat™ to the noggin – the Democrats are CONSERVATIVES.

No! Really! Some excerpts:

The Democrats Have Become The New Conservatives.

I’m serious. Take a quick look at their big domestic issues now:

Don’t weaken abortion laws.
Don’t weaken affirmative action laws.
Don’t weaken the public school system.
Don’t weaken the unions.
Don’t weaken welfare.
Don’t weaken environmental laws.
Don’t weaken gun control laws.
Don’t weaken liability laws.
Don’t weaken Medicare.
Don’t weaken Social Security.
Don’t get too far into debt.
And of course, stop taking so many chances overseas.

There is no innovation here, no new plan or new future, nothing bold or risky or daring. It’s a gigantic holding action. The only real change ever discussed is an increase in scale, an increase of quantity rather than kind. You can run the same speeches from the 1980 race and nobody would notice the difference.

—

The face of the Democratic party is, more accurately, the face of the soccer mom – risk-adverse, parentalisitc, and always concerned for the sake of the children.

—

The face of the Democratic party is not that of the hot chick you saw at the Phish concert. It’s the face of Kyle’s Mom from Southpark.

RTWT. There’s much more in there that will really make you think.

He’s absolutely right.

The problem isn’t that the Democrats are too liberal, it’s that the Republicans aren’t libertarian enough. We’ve got TWO conservative parties, and there really is only about a dime’s worth of difference between them.

Boy, Good Thing This Happened in D.C! Somebody Might’ve Had a Gun!

(Hat tip, Mostly Cajun, who I just added to my blogroll. Good stuff.)

It seems that Supreme Court Justice David Souter was attacked by a “group of young men” while out jogging. Here’s the story:

Supreme Court Justice Souter Assaulted

WASHINGTON – Supreme Court Justice David Souter suffered minor injuries when a group of young men assaulted him as he jogged on a city street, a court spokeswoman and Metropolitan Police said Saturday.

The attack occurred about 9 p.m. Friday, and Supreme Court police took Souter, 64, to a Washington hospital, court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said. He was examined and released about 1 a.m. Saturday.

Neither Arberg nor police would detail the justice’s injuries except to say they were minor. Nor would they give other details about the assault, except Arberg said Souter was not robbed.

A spokeswoman for Washington Hospital Center also would not talk about the incident because of privacy rules.

Souter was running alone when he was attacked. He lives in a neighborhood not far from the Supreme Court building on Capitol Hill, where the attack occurred.

Souter is among the youngest justices and is a regular jogger.

He is not the first justice to be injured while exercising. Justice Stephen Breyer was thrown from his bicycle several years ago and suffered minor injuries.

Souter was named to the bench by the first President Bush in 1990.

“Injured while exercising??” This wasn’t an oopsie, this was a criminal attack. (Unless Justice Breyer was “thrown from his bicycle” by an assailant, too, how do these two incidents rate comparison? Surely Justice O’Connor has pulled a muscle riding a horse once or twice, too.)

Let’s see: A city in which no one is allowed to have a firearm for self-protection. A 64 year-old man out jogging at 9PM. He’s assaulted by “a group of young men.” Young men who, by all evidence, would have no problem acquiring pretty much any weapon they might want (gun, knife, club, broken bottle…), have no compunction about assaulting someone, and who had nothing to fear from one old guy in jogging togs.

I’d say Justice Souter was one lucky SOB.

Unless it was someone trying to influence his vote on a case, that is.

Oh, THIS Will Help

(Via KeepAndBearArms.com)

It seems that now the Brits think that they can shame criminals into not using guns in crime.

GUN CRIME CONVICTS UNVEILED ON POLICE POSTERS

Reporter: Natalie Jackson

A poster campaign featuring the faces of people who’ve been convicted of gun crime has been unveiled today. The policy has been criticised by a civil liberties group. But senior police officers hope their naming and shaming policy will deter youngsters from getting involved with guns. Natalie Jackson reports.

The Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire Police launching his campaign today. He’s promoting this poster which names and shames four convicted gun criminals.

The Chief Constable for Nottinghamshire Police Steve Green says ‘It isn’t cool to carry a gun, there are consequences if you shoot someone you will be sent to prison for a very long time, and this campaign gets that message home’.

Only if you get caught. They don’t seem able to do much of that.

But civil liberty groups are against the move, claiming it infringes the human rights of the men and their families.

Steve says ‘I’m going to do everything in my power to tackle gun crime, I’m going to do everything in my power to protect the people of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire and if this is what I have to do. What I am doing is proportionate to the threat to the safety of people in this city’.

Everything, that is, except allow the people in your city to defend themselves effectively without fear of prosecution or persecution.

But, realistically, the brainwashing has gone on for so long and has been so effective that I don’t think enough Brits would be able to defend themselves effectively. It’s been bred and trained right out of too many of them.

And the figures speak for themselves. In the last fourteen months in Nottingham ninety three weapons have been discharged, forty six people shot and five of those were fatal.

Really? In the gun control utopia of England? How is that possible?

Oh, right. The “loopholes” of “imitation” firearms, Eastern Europe and the internet. Silly me.

Police say the message to gun criminals is that they’re not untouchable.

Just mostly.

The poster carries four photos.

Let’s see, ninety-three weapons discharges, forty-six hits, five fatal. That’s a hit to miss ratio of (mmm…carry the one…) 49.5%! Damn, for a culture where most guns are banned, that’s pretty high!

Here’s the BBC’s take on it. Money quote:

But the move is not backed by everyone.

Reverend George Benson, Pastor at a church in Nottingham is concerned about the message it gives out to people and fears a similar reaction to that which occurred surrounding the controversial idea of naming and shaming paedophiles.

Rev Benson said: How many people got injured because of neighbourhood watch and vigilantes actually took the law into their own hands?”

Figures for Nottinghamshire show 46 people have been shot – five of them fatally, in the last 16 months.

Residents in some parts of Nottingham say the use of guns has become a common way of sorting out so-called turf wars between rival gangs.

Yeah, those neighborhood watch vigilantes really are a problem, aren’t they? But self-defense is perfectly legal and acceptable in jolly old England. Really.

And note that “the use of guns has become a common way of sorting out… turf wars”. The handgun ban and confiscation was in 1996. That was over eight years ago.

But “gun control” (licensing, registration, “needs” testing, and “safe storage,” followed by bans and confiscation) makes you safer, don’tcha know?

Here’s a bit more:

The move is welcomed by community leaders.

Milton Crossdale director Racial Equality Council in Nottingham said: “We are not to give young people the idea that people who use guns are the big bosses and they should be emulated.

“If we can discourage young people from seeing these kind of people as role models then this kind of campaign should be encouraged.”

Mothers of victims have held street campaigns in the past against guns.

Police have said with support from residents they will beat the problems.

Not when the problem is defined as “GUNS!!”

The chant at the first (not even close to a) “Million Moms March” was “England can do it! Australia can do it! WE CAN TOO!“

I sure as hell hope not, and I’ll do everything in my power to prevent it.

Well, in their quixotic effort to reduce halt the increase in violent crime involving guns in England through gun banning regulation, they’ve now made “the manufacture, sale and purchase of hi-tech air weapons using a self-contained gas cartridge” illegal and “owners without a licence will be prosecuted.” The sentence is five years.

But of course the gun-grabbers still aren’t happy. There’s still “loopholes” that “need to be tightened”:

Lucy Cope launched Mothers Against Guns after her 22-year-old son Damian was killed by a converted replica in 2002 (Yes, the gun magically converted itself, loaded itself, and levitated itself until it found her son, then it pulled its own trigger and killed him.) and is calling for a total ban on the sale of replica weapons – whether or not they can be modified to fire bullets.

“Replica weapons are toys that kill, they are weapons of mass destruction,” she said. “Anything that resembles a gun should be banned.

“Even cap guns can cause problems – police units have to make difficult snap judgements about whether they’re real or fake.”

Got that? CAP GUNS need to be banned. Replica guns are “WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.’

Let’s look at some more idiocy:

Paul Kelly, chairman of the Police Federation in Greater Manchester, remains unconvinced by the new legislation.

“The Home Office is making the right noises,” he said, “but we think it’s time to see some real substance.

“Anything designed to be an absolute replica should need a licence in exactly the same way as a real firearm.

Um, that would be the real firearms that were licensed, registered, and stored safely under the previous law. The law that was found to be ineffective at stopping firearm crime. The law that permitted the government to know where every single legally owned firearm was kept and who owned it. The law that allowed the government to tell those legal owners to hand in all semi-automatic long guns in 1988 (which didn’t slow the increase in violent crime) and all handguns in 1996 (which didn’t even slow down the increase in violent crime involving HANDGUNS.) You mean that kind of license?

Just because the horse is beaten bloody dead doesn’t mean we shouldn’t beat it some more! The philosophy CANNOT BE WRONG! The policy just wasn’t implemented correctly! LET’S TURN UP THE POWER!

But look! Down here at paragraph 28!

Mr Kelly feels the law will change little for the bobby on the street and added: “Officers will still be expected to spot the real guns and the replicas – even when it’s a dark, wet night and late on in their shift.

It will change nothing at all for either the bobby nor the general English subject. And here’s a bit of (typical) wishful thinking:

“If we take the things off the market, the problem will be solved.”

Uh, no. You keep neglecting the first law of economics: Demand WILL BE MET by supply. As illustrated in the very next paragraph:

Increasingly, criminals are sourcing weapons abroad, as modern technology helps them avoid government and police safeguards.

The mantra from many gun controllers regarding why Chicago and Washington D.C. have such high homicide rates despite their draconian gun control laws is that guns are brought into the cities from areas with “lax gun laws,” and if the gun laws were uniform across the nation, this wouldn’t happen. Yet the UK has uniform gun laws, IT’S A FREAKING ISLAND and guns still flow across its borders.

No, now the Internet is at fault (if one scapegoat dies, find another):

Police are working to stop the flow of convertible guns into Britain, but growing sales on uncontrolled internet sites are worrying.

It took me just 10 minutes to access one selling all manner of firearms from central Europe, boasting delivery anywhere in the world.

Demand will generate a supply, baby. That’s economics 101.

And efforts like this:

The new legislation makes it illegal to manufacture, sell, purchase, transfer or acquire any air weapon that uses a self-contained gas cartridge system.

Anyone who already owns one will be able to keep it only by obtaining a £50 firearm certificate from the police.

are destined to abject failure.

But the philosophy cannot be WRONG! And the indoctrination of the populace has had decades to do its job, and do it well:

It’s about time firearms of all types were banned in this country. Airguns can seriously injure or even kill. Do we really want to become like the US and have over 40 shootings a day in each state? All guns shout (sic) be banned.
T. Hawkins, Swinton, Gtr. Manchester

You’ve pretty much tried that, T. Hawkins. Hasn’t worked, or haven’t you noticed?

And I’d bet you’d love to have our levels of burglary, robbery, assault, home invasion, and general thuggery.

Nightline

Robert Arial of South Carolina’s The State:

In case you weren’t aware, I get my cartoons from Slate’s Political Cartoons page. Go read through it some time and see the “liberal slant” of the media. For every “right-wing” or “moderate” cartoonist, there must be ten leftists, and some of them are foul.

(Since this site is non-profit – no tipjar, no blogads – and I do political commentary, I hold that use of these cartoons falls under “fair use” standards.)

But…All Cultures are EQUAL and We Have No Right to Impose OUR Values…

Somebody needs to.

I don’t think this has been reported ANYWHERE in the U.S. media. It’s apparently not as important as reporting each and every death of an American soldier who is – like it or not – fighting for the freedoms of Iraqi and Afghani women every bit as much as they are fighting to stop terrorism. Via Dodd of Ipse Dixit, under the heading of Why They Hate Us comes this bit of news from Norway:

Norwegian-built schools in Afghanistan destroyed

The largest girls’ school in Kandahar, Northern Afghanistan, financed by Norwegian funds, was destroyed by fire on Thursday.

This is only one of several Norwegian-built girls’ schools which have been burned down in Afghanistan during the last six months, NRK reports.

In Kandahar, a group of men tied up the guard and set fire to the school, which had just been rebuilt, a city official reported.

-We look at the torching of these schools as an organized campaign aimed at preventing girls from receiving education, says Astrid Everine Sletten, head of the Afghanistan Committee’s office in the country.

He view is shared by other international organizations in Afghanistan

Afghan authorities, however, view the incidents as “random terror”.

-We disagree. Over the past year altogether 600 girls’ schools around the country have been wholly or partly destroyed by terrorists, while none of the boys’ schools have been touced, Sletten says.

A related story, from the Pakistani PakTribune:

SCA condemns recent attacks on girls’ schools

KABUL: In the past month, three girls’ schools supported by the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) have been attacked and completely or partially destroyed by unknown assailants.

On 19 February, at night, Jar-e-Shah Baba girls’ school in Keshem, Badakshan, was attacked and burnt to the ground. On 10 March Sangana school in Rokha, Kapisa province, was bombed and three classrooms were completely destroyed. In the latest attack on 17 March, Harmal Girls school in Laghman was targeted by armed men who tied up three guards and set fire to doors, windows, school books and official documents. No person was injured in the attacks.

“We are deeply concerned and angered by this recent wave of attacks on schools. The fact that such attacks are taking place in provinces in the north where there has traditionally been less resistance to girls’ education is also very worrying”, says Jesper Jensen, Country Director of SCA.

Reports by SCA’s education staff in the field give conflicting accounts of the reasons behind the attacks.

In the case of Jar-e-Shah Baba school in Keshem, where SCA supports almost 600 students in classes 1-6, armed men wearing black masks explicitly condemned education for females as they tied the two peons of the school and set fire to the building. Most reports indicate, however, that the attack was an expression of the on-going power struggle between a local commander and government authorities rather than actual resistance to girls’ education. To show their support, villagers have guaranteed the safety of staff and hired armed guards to protect the school at night. The school also has roughly 600 girls in secondary education, supported by the Norwegian Committee (NAC).

In the case of the bombed Sangana school in Panjshir, some witnesses claim there was a note indicating that the attack was directed against “female activities” carried out by HABITAT, who were using school premises for meetings related to NSP (National Solidarity Programme). Other sources insist that it is more likely the result of political infighting between different factions. In the most recent attack in Laghman, no specific threats were issued.

“Whatever the reasons are it is clear that girls’ schools are an easy target for anti-government forces. They are used as symbolic pawns in various power struggles, partly because they are high on the agenda of donors and the International aid community and are likely to draw attention, partly because education for girls has traditionally not been considered a priority in Afghanistan”, says Dr Attaullah, acting Education Coordinator for SCA.

SCA is committed to rebuilding the schools and has so far pledged approximately 1000,000 Afghani (19,000 Euro) to cover costs. Some other organisations have also offered their support. The school year started on 22 March and while repairs are being carried out many students are being taught outdoors.

“We condemn these attacks and urge authorities on a local and central level to secure the future of girls’ education in Afghanistan and to bring the culprits to justice”, says Jesper Jensen.

According to information from the Ministry of Education approximately 40 attacks on girls’ schools were reported in Afghanistan in 2003. Over the past years a number of SCA-supported schools have been targeted, mainly in the south-eastern provinces.

The SCA Education Programme has been in operation for almost twenty years and currently supports approximately 450 schools with 250,000 students and 6400 teachers in Afghanistan. Approximately 30% of students in SCA supported schools are girls.

I expect the National Organization for Women to issue a harshly worded criticism of this terrorism, to be printed page A-1 above the fold in the New York Times.

Not.

I did some research on the NOW website. Here’s a typical piece from 1999:

TAKE ACTION TO STOP THE ABUSE OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN AFGHANISTAN!

Women and girls are under attack:

The extremist Taliban government in Afghanistan is denying women and girls even the most basic human rights.

Prohibited from going to work or school and forbidden from leaving their homes without a male relative, women and girls in Afghanistan are under house arrest.

Women and girls are prevented from getting adequate health care since male doctors may not care for female patients.

You can help!

Demand that the U.S. take action to stop the abuse of women and girls in Afghanistan. Call upon the U.S. and the U.N. to continue to refuse to recognize the Taliban government!

I’d say our invasion of Afghanistan was “taking action” against the Taliban – a major step above merely “refusing to recognize” it, and a major plus in stopping the abuse of women and girls there. The fact that all those girl’s schools were built – by international groups – being just one indication. After the invasion of Afghanistan, NOW had this to say:

NO OUTRAGE OF THE WEEK: 11/19/2001



Moment of Tentative Joy Inside Afghanistan

Women’s Enews: Driving the Taliban out of Kabul and other Afghan cities has ended the fiats that prohibited women from working outside the home, attending school, leaving home without a male relative or showing their face in public.

While droves of men are rushing to the barber to cut their long, Taliban-mandated beards, some women have burned their veils in public and some are walking abroad in the daylight for the first time in years. Many women are still wary of being seen in public without their veils and, in cities, towns and areas where the harsh fundamentalist rule has been lifted, equal rights for women have by no means arrived.

That’s it. Two paragraphs. No mention of Bush, just a snarky comment that “equal rights for women have by no means arrived.” Apparently NOW was NOT happy. Their 2002 National NOW Conference Resolutions read thus:

WHEREAS, the advancement of the feminist agenda through electoral activity is of paramount importance in an election year when the executive branch is controlled by the radical right, the conservative Dennis Hastert serves as Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Democrats retain control of the Senate by one vote; and

WHEREAS, the Bush administration has pushed its anti-woman reproductive rights agenda through a multi-pronged strategy of executive orders, congressional action, and the nomination of the right-wing judges to the federal bench; and

WHEREAS, if Republicans retain control of the House and take back the Senate we can expect more radical legislation eroding our rights in addition to the loss of the 5 to 4 majority preserving basic abortion rights in the Supreme Court; and

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that NOW recommend to the NOW PACs that they support our incumbent friends who are being relentlessly targeted by the right wing and work to protect their seats even as they also work to elect the wonderful new feminist candidates challenging our political enemies throughout the country or running for open seats, as well as the record number of feminist candidates running for governor.

But wait! There’s more!

WHEREAS, the women and girls of Afghanistan have suffered from years of gender apartheid and oppression under the totalitarian regime of the Taliban and, before them, the Mujahideen; and

WHEREAS, the United States, in a CIA covert-operation, trained and funded the Mujahideen (“Soldiers of God”) to fight the Soviets in the last battle of the Cold War; and

WHEREAS, the Taliban was a faction of the Mujahideen that was initially supported by the United States; and

WHEREAS, the Afghan Ministry for Women’s Affairs and the Afghan-women-led non- governmental organizations (NGOs) desperately need funding to rebuild women’s lives and the Afghan nation; and

WHEREAS, the United States has a moral obligation to help restore Afghanistan; and

WHEREAS, the United States has a global interest to end the conditions that breed terrorism; and

WHEREAS, U.S. foreign policy must support human and women’s rights as well as democracy;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the United States should support an expansion in the number and the jurisdiction of international peacekeeping forces throughout Afghanistan; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the United States should increase its funding for women-led Afghan NGOs; and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, that the United States should actively promote the full restoration of women’s and girls’ rights in Afghanistan and throughout the world.

Let me see if I read this accurately: It’s our fault women are oppressed in Afghanistan. It’s our responsibility to fund “Afghan-women-led non-governmental organizations” (I suppose in penance for our support of the Mujahideen against the Russians – who would have protected the rights of Afghani women). It’s our responsibility to make sure international peacekeeping (read UN) forces should have jurisdiction in Afghanistan. And since Bush is so blatantly anti-women, we’ve got to get rid of him.

Even though the Bush-led unilateral invasion of Afghanistan is what has given Afghani women the opportunity for more freedom than they’ve had since 1996 when the Taliban took over. Hell, more freedom than they’ve ever had.

Here’s some more NOW bitching (and I use that word intentionally) about Bush and the WoT not doing enough fast enough, incompetently, and for all the wrong reasons from 2003.

I’m disgusted.

More Good News

This time provided by Ravenwood. Let me quote:

Well if you look at national crime statistics, they show that none of these proposals would do any good. Here are some tidbits from the U.S. Department of Justice web site.

Firearm-related crime has plummeted since 1993.

Nonfatal firearm crime rates have declined since 1994, reaching the lowest level ever recorded in 2002.

Incidents involving a firearm represented 7% of the 4.9 million violent crime of rape and sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated and simple assault.

The number of gunshot wounds from assaults treated in hospital emergency departments fell from 64,100 in 1993 to 39,400 in 1997, a 39% decline.

So not only has crime fallen, but “gun crime” has also fallen. And we haven’t even gotten to the most telling statistics. Keep in mind that the gun grabber crowd is constantly shrieking about sales from “unlicensed dealers” at gun shows, and the use of “assault weapons” on our streets. Both issues are a top priority among the gun ban crowd, and both were used as gun control amendments to torpedo the gunmaker liability bill.

According to the 1997 Survey of State Prison Inmates, among those possessing a gun, the source of the gun was from

– a flea market or gun show for fewer than 2%

– a retail store or pawnshop for about 12%

– family, friends, a street buy, or an illegal source for 80%

During the offense that brought them to prison, 15% of State inmates and 13% of Federal inmates carried a handgun, and about 2%, a military-style semiautomatic gun.

The gun banners claim that most crime guns are gotten from gun shows using the so called “gun show loophole”, but the Department of Justice says that figure is actually only 2%. The gun banners would also have you believe that so-called “assault weapons” are the “weapon of choice” for criminals. But once again the Department of Justice says the figure is actually only 2%.

And if you want a perfect example of gun banner claims lies, just look below where reporter Alison Soltau of the San Francisco Examiner quotes Coalition to Stop Gun Violence member Eric Gorovitz saying:

The most common way criminals obtain guns is from shows in nearby states with less stringent laws, such as Nevada.

“So a felon can go to a gun show in Nevada … buy a trunk-load of assault weapons and drive them in to the Bayview and sell them on the street,” Gorovitz said.”

If that’s true then that felon would represent a big chunk of that “less than 2%” of “gun show or flea market” guns AND the 2% of “military style” firearms.

Do you think Mr. Gorovitz could pack any more lies in to a single sentence?

Also Via C&S comes this really excellent target practice simulator.

I shot a 275 out of 300 in my first try at the 15 meter Advanced Pistol range. Challenging.