Old News, but How Did I Miss THIS?

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OK, today I stumbled across the fact that a couple of the stars of the now completed SciFi series Battlestar Galactica appeared at the UN for a panel discussion back in March of last year. The New York Times gave it some print, stating:

The Sci Fi Channel series “Battlestar Galactica” will be the subject of a panel discussion involving the creators of the show, two of its stars, Mary McDonnell and Edward James Olmos, and representatives from the United Nations’ offices of the secretary general and high commissioner for human rights.

How a television series about interstellar travel, ancient prophecies and genocidal robots came to join forces with a terrestrial intergovernmental body relates to the Sci Fi Channel’s philanthropic activities and the United Nations’ efforts to become more media savvy.

Oooookay.

For the United Nations, the event represents the second effort of its Creative Community Outreach Initiative. Announced by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at last June’s Jackson Hole Film Festival, the initiative is the organization’s attempt to “establish partnerships with the entertainment industry to tell the U.N.’s story,” said Juan Carlos Brandt, a spokesman.

Its first undertaking was to allow a television crew to shoot at United Nations facilities this month for an episode of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” about child soldiers.

Will they do another episode, this one about child-rapists and child prostitution? That’s part of “the UN’s story” too.

Representatives from the Sci Fi Channel approached the United Nations early this year. “They came to us and explained that there were themes common to both the show and the U.N.,” Mr. Brandt said, “and that those themes could be discussed here in a serious manner.”

Whoopi Goldberg will moderate the discussions.

Whoopi.

The exemplar of calm, deliberate, factual debate!

Then the following June a couple of UN representatives traveled to Hollyweird and another panel discussion took place there!

The panel featured Battlestar’s executive producers Ron Moore and David Eick; actors Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell; and U.N. representatives Steven Siqueira and Craig Mokhiber (whose actual job titles are so formidable and impressive, they would require a separate essay). Serving as moderator was L.A. Times’ Geoff Boucher. A packed house sat in anticipation of some solid political discourse, which Boucher was quick to point could not have found a more likely home that the intersection of Hollywood and Highland (what with the guy paid to wear that SpongeBob costume being just yards away…….).

SpongeBob for UN Secretary General! The denizens of the ocean are insufficiently represented in the UN!

The U.N.’s Mokhiber seemed sincere in his admission that the U.N. has come to view Battlestar Galactica as “more allegory than fiction.” He cited “freedom from fear and freedom from want” as issues that fuel both the U.N. and BSG’s plotlines, with enough overlap that Mokhiber insisted Battlestar must surely “owe royalties to the U.N.”

“Freedom from fear and freedom from want.”

Must be nice. Who provides that?

There’s more you probably ought to read, but I’m going to skip to this part (hey, it’s my blog):

Siqueira said that while the U.N. has at times been given a spot in big Hollywood filims(sic), it had been more of a “bit player or prop” in the past. Its recently heightened show business presence stems from the realization that the entertainment industry is “much better at communicating these issues.”

Funny how that works. Music and movies and video games don’t influence the public when it’s something bad they’re accused of, but when it’s something good, well then! Nothing better for it!

This admission was interesting as well:

Eick confessed that the evolution of the show as a lighting rod for political discourse was “surreal” given that the show was initially “dreamed up in sports bars.” He says it was a matter of trying to tell good stories “that were being informed by a sick world.” Eick seemed less shy about pointing a finger of admonishment toward specific political figures. Especially ones nicknamed Dubya. “If we’d done this show ten years later,” he said, it would have been a totally different ballgame.

And then there was this:

As Boucher optimistically posed to the panelists: What can people do to become more politically active?

Mokhiber noted there are no shortage of volunteer opportunities through organizations like Amnesty International, but even more simply than that, he relayed that people ought to “find out what the heck is going on” in the first place.

Siqueira offered up: “Care about one issue deeply, and act.”

We have. It’s called the TEA Party movement. But that’s not what they wanted:

Eick, on the other hand, continued to serve up a more sassy partisan opinion of how to enact change. “Find somebody to beat the hell out of Glen Beck!” he insisted.

Why are Leftists such h8rs and so (vicariously) violent? (Or recently, personally violent?)

Quote of the Day – Ron Paul Edition

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I saw this last week but forgot to bookmark it. Unix-Jedi points to one of the most succinct expressions of my problem with Ron Paul I’ve ever seen. From Attack Cartoons:

you’re all familiar with the broken clock that is right twice a day. ron paul is like a strange broken clock that is right 23 hours a day. then you get to some foreign policy midnight, and in stead of chiming, it barks and smears itself with poo.

Thing is, 23 hours right is at minimum triple the time of anybody else in Congress, if not a couple of orders of magnitude better.

Unfortunately, the poo-smearing has been a deal-killer for me.

This is Fascinating on Several Levels

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SayUncle linked to this story in the Kentucky Post online edition:

NKU Awarded Grant For Patrol Rifles

Web Produced: Jessica Noll
Email: [email protected]
Last Update: 2/25 4:13 pm

FRANKFORT, Ky. –Northern Kentucky University has been awarded $10,660 from the state Law Enforcement Protection Program (LEPP) to purchase patrol rifles, Gov. Steve Beshear announced Thursday.

Under the LEPP, administered by the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security (KOHS), appropriate agencies can seek financial help for certain defensive items essential in the course of their duties.

“These funds will help ensure that our law enforcement will not be out-gunned and increase security on campus,” state Sen. Katie Kratz Stine, of Southgate, said.

In conjunction with the Kentucky State Police (KSP), KOHS derives income from sales of confiscated weapons.

KSP conducts periodic auctions – only to federally licensed firearms dealers – which generate dollars for the LEPP initiative. The KOHS then assesses needs, and after prioritization, provides whatever funds are available in the acquisition of body armor, weapons, ammunition and electronic or muscular disruption technical devices often referred to as tasers.

“Although statewide appeals for financial support always exceed resources, we place the highest priority on personal safety of our law enforcement officers,” Thomas L. Preston, KOHS executive director, said.

“Decisions about other aspects of this program are based on several factors including absolute need for monetary assistance combined with overall effectiveness in combating crime through our grants,” he explained.

LEPP support goes to police agencies of cities, counties, charter counties, unified counties, urban-counties and consolidated local governments, sheriff’s departments and public university police departments.

First off, a college was just given a grant by the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security to buy EVIL BLACK RIFLES. These are the rifles that the Brady Campaign swears

…are equipped with combat hardware. Combat features like high-capacity ammunition magazines, pistol grips, folding stocks, and bayonets, which are not found on sporting guns, are designed specifically to facilitate the killing of human beings in battle.

These combat features include:
  • A large-capacity ammunition magazine which enables the shooter to continuously fire dozens of rounds without reloading. Many assault weapons come equipped with large ammunition magazines allowing more than 50 bullets to be fired without reloading. Standard hunting rifles are usually equipped with no more than 3 or 4-shot magazines;
  • A folding stock which facilitates maximum concealability and mobility in close combat (which comes at the expense of the accuracy desired in a hunting weapon);
  • A pistol grip which facilitates spray-fire from the hip without losing control. A pistol grip also facilitates one-handed shooting;
  • A barrel shroud which enables the shooter to shoot many rounds because it cools the barrel, preventing overheating. It also allows the shooter to grasp the barrel area to stabilize the weapon, without incurring serious burns, during rapid fire; (I thought that was the shoulder thing that goes up? No?)
  • A threaded barrel designed to accommodate a flash suppressor which allows the shooter to remain concealed when shooting at night, an advantage in combat but unnecessary for hunting or sporting purposes. In addition, the flash suppressor is useful for providing stability during rapid fire;
  • A threaded barrel designed to accommodate a silencer which allows an assassin to shoot without making noise;
  • A barrel mount designed to accommodate a bayonet which allows someone to stab a person at close quarters in battle.

What on EARTH does a COLLEGE need with weapons like THESE?!?!

As an aside, the Brady Campaign ranks Kentucky very low on its Gun Laws Scorecard, giving it a mere two (2) points because in Kentucky “Colleges are not forced to allow firearms on campus.”

Unless they’re in the hands of Only Ones law-enforcement personnel.

Which brings up the second fascinating point of this story, the fact that the University feels a need for these “patrol rifles” stating that they “will help ensure that our law enforcement will not be out-gunned and increase security on campus”.

Out-gunned?

Out-gunned by whom? Isn’t NKU a “gun-free zone”? Aren’t there signs posted to let potential bad-guys know that they aren’t allowed to bring a gun onto campus? I mean, the Brady Campaign gave Kentucky a measly TWO POINTS because that’s the ONLY restrictive gun law that Kentucky appears to have on the books! Who are the campus cops so afraid of that they need these spray-firing bullet hoses designed only “to kill large numbers of human beings quickly and efficiently”? And then filet them with the bayonet?

The third fascinating point is that the money to purchase these engines of destruction came “from sales of confiscated weapons.” It seems that the Kentucky State Police periodically auction off – “only to federally licensed firearms dealers” – the firearms they confiscate from bad guys. In Brady parlance, these guns go “back on the street!” Horrors! You mean they don’t get melted down and turned into anti-gun sculptures?

Huh. No wonder Paul Helmke and Josh Sugarmann are sad pandas.

And now the National Shooting Sports Foundation is out educating the public (and what little of the media that will pay attention) about these newfangled “Modern Sporting Rifles”.

What is the world coming to?

Its senses, one would hope.

Nah. Too much to ask.

UPDATE, 3/3: Over at The Ultimate Answer to Kings, Joel points out one more fascinating point that I completely missed:

. . . my personal favorite is this:

“Although statewide appeals for financial support always exceed resources, we place the highest priority on personal safety of our law enforcement officers,” Thomas L. Preston, KOHS executive director, said.

See, there’s not a single word in the whole piece about student safety.

Excellent point. And thanks for catching that.

I Bet He was a Closet Teabagger

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I Bet He was a Closet Teabagger!

Isn’t this interesting:

The Strange World Of Dr. Anthrax

After the Department of Justice last month formally closed its probe of the 2001 anthrax attacks, the FBI released the first batch of documents detailing the years-long investigation that ended with officials concluding that Bruce Ivins, a government scientist who committed suicide in July 2008, was responsible for the mailings that killed five victims. The records, released pursuant to Freedom of Information Act requests, portray Ivins as becoming increasingly unhinged as it became clear that he was the principal target of the FBI’s “Amerithrax” probe. Additionally, the memos–a selection of which you’ll find on the following pages–reveal how agents examined every aspect of Ivins’s life, monitored his e-mails, searched his trash, and were even surveilling his Maryland home at the exact time he was inside overdosing. Despite being an FBI target, Ivins was often forthcoming about the details of his strange obsessions and private life. For example, as seen below, when agents executed search warrants in late-2007, an FBI supervisor asked Ivins if he was worried about those raids. Ivins said he was, noting that he did things a “middle age man should not do,” adding that his actions would “not be acceptable to most people.” He then noted that agents searching his basement would find a “bag of material that he uses to ‘cross-dress,'” according to an interview report.

And:

Ivins wrote that “Dick Cheney scares me. The Patriot Act is so unconstitutional it’s not even funny.” He added, “I’m voting for Obama!”

Yup, another member of “the Base!” I can’t wait for the New York Times’ Paul Krugman to opine!

UPDATE: Reader “el coronado” comments:

what’s most interesting to me about the FBI “closure” of the matter by blaming everyhting on the dead guy, ivins – dead men can’t defend themselves, and besides, he was an odd duck – is the timing of that annoucement. teh WSJ published a devastating obliteration of the FBI’s “case” against ivins on 25 january of this year, written by edward jay epstein. here are the huglughts:

1) the anthrax in question waa aerosolized by means of attaching the spores to silicon, “according to the US armed forces institute of pathology. (…) if so, then somehow silicon was *added* [my emph.] to the anthrax. but ivins, no matter how weird he may have been, ***had neither the set of skills nor the means*** to attach silicon to anthrax spores.” {again, my emph.]
2) “at a minimum, such a process would require highly specialized equipment that did not exist anywhere in ivins’s lab – or, for that matter, anywhere at (where he worked).”
3) the FBI was oddly releuctant to inform congress of the precise percentage of silicon contained in the anthrax used in the attacks. this was apparantly because…
4) (finally) “according to the FBI lab, 1.4% of the powder in the leahy letter was silicon. ‘this is a shcokingly high proportion’, explained stuart jacobson, an expert in small particle chemistry.’it is a number one would expect from a deliberate weaponization of anthrax.'”
5) the FBI stuck to their story: hadda be ivins. maybe he did it at home! so, “to back up their theory, the FBI contacted scientists at the lawrence livermore national labs to conduct experiments in which anthrax is accidentally absorbed from a media heavily laced with silicon. [the results of those tests) effectively blew the FBI’s theory out of the water. the livermore scientists had tried 56 times to replicate the high silicon content without any success. (…) they never came close. most results were an *order of magnitude lower* [me again] with some as low as .001%.(!)”
6) therefore, “since ivins had neither the equipment or skills to weaponize anthrax with silicon, the some other party MUST HAVE done it.”

the FBI later responded in a WSJ letter to the editor in which they argued, paraphrased, “huh-UHHH!!!!”. they offered no other details.

and now, a mere month later, the “case” is “closed”. so who do we believe here? a large federal bureaucracy well-known for its belief that maintaining its image supercedes all other priorities, including “truth” and “law enforcement”? or a man respected worldwide as a meticulous and accurate researcher? and if you choose to believe the FBI is lying, as i do, for whatever reason, what else might they have lied about? hm…..think, think…..coughhoriuchicough….

Interesting . . .

As commenter “TheSiliconGraybeard” notes,

There seems to be an attitude that shows up in law enforcement, something along the lines of “we got somebody for it”. It sometimes doesn’t seem quite so important that they got the right somebody, just that they got a warm body arrested and/or jailed.

I’ve noted that in this blog. We don’t have a “justice” system, we have a legal system, and the metric seems to be “did we get a conviction or at least close the case?” So if the WSJ is correct, it would appear that the FBI hounded a not-very-stable man into suicide, and then said “HE DID IT!”

I guess it MUST’VE been one of us “cultists!”

Quote of the Day – Ann Colter Edition

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Quote of the Day – Ann Coulter Edition

“Isn’t food important? Why not “universal food coverage”? If politicians and employers had guaranteed us “free” food 50 years ago, today Democrats would be wailing about the “food crisis” in America, and you’d be on the phone with your food care provider arguing about whether or not a Reuben sandwich with fries was covered under your plan.”—Ann Coulter

From John Hawkins’ new Self Help Quotes page.

OK, THAT’S Done

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I sat down this afternoon, put the latest issue of Vicious Circle on WinAmp, and plowed through the last of my .30 Carbine components. I ran out powder with 50 cases left to load. So now I’ve got the better part of 920 rounds of 110 grain .30 Carbine softpoints (950 total minus the thirty or so test rounds I fired) either loaded in magazines, or loose in a cardboard-lined .30 caliber ammo can.

A heavy .30 caliber ammo can.

I’ve got 1,000 155 grain Lapua Scenar .30 caliber bullets coming from Graf & Sons, and 500 M118 LR 7.62 cases waiting for half of ’em. I may be picking up another 500 cases from GI Brass if he still has those in stock next month. These go along with the 300 155 Scenar bullets and 300 Lapua .308 cases I already have, plus I’ve got a couple hundred 175 SMK’s. I managed to score about 10 lbs. of Reloder 15 a while back, and I’ve got a couple thousand CCI Large Rifle Benchrest primers, so I’m set there.

I’ve got 1250 .45ACP cases, and I’m planning on ordering a couple thousand Ranier Ballistic 200 grain .45 caliber hollowpoints from Midway next month, too. Primers I’ve got, but now I need to find an 8lb. jug of Unique. I’ve got maybe a pound left, which is about enough for 1,000 rounds, but then I’m out.

I’m short of .223 brass, but I’ve got 1,200 75 grain Hornady HPBT Match bullets, plenty of Varget, and a couple thousand CCI #41 military small rifle primers. I’ve got about 600 loaded rounds, so fresh brass can wait until April, I think. Scharch is carrying Lake City, new unprimed and uncrimped brass for $200/1000 which is a helluva deal. I may not be able to wait.

I haven’t played with my .38 Super much since I got it, but I have 200 147 grain Gold Dots, and I think I may pick up 500 Ranier Ballistics 147 grainers when they become available. Brass is available locally, and I’ve got a couple hundred already. Don’t know about powder for this one yet, and from what I’ve read, small rifle primers are advised.

In short, I have a LOT of reloading to do, and then I need to take some trips to the range. I think I’m almost set for the rest of the year, anyway.

Damn it’s nice to be working again.

Quote of the Day – International Edition

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Quote of the Day – International Edition

This isn’t the QotD, but it’s the lead-in:

When soldiers from any other army, even our allies, entered a town, the people hid in the cellars. When Americans came in, even into German towns, it meant smiles, chocolate bars and C-rations. — Stephen Ambrose

Here’s another:

We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years and we’ve done this as recently as the last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in, and otherwise we have returned home… to live our own lives in peace. — Secretary of State Colin Powell

Today’s QotD comes from Maj. Said Rahim Hakmal of the Afghan National Army, discussing what he says by radio to members of the Taliban:

“The Taliban will say things like why do you side with the Americans? Why do you sell out your country? You love Obama more than Afghanistan.”

Hakmal said the standard response goes something like, “The Americans are here to help our country function again. They don’t want to stay. They want to help, then leave. You should help, too.”

Then the shooting starts.

They don’t want to stay. They want to help, then leave.

Damned straight.

Eric S. Raymond put it well once:

I was traveling in Europe a few years back, and some Euroleftie began blathering in my presence about America’s desire to rule the world. “Nonsense,” I told him. “You’ve misunderstood the American character. We’re instinctive isolationists at bottom. We don’t want to rule the world — we want to be able to ignore it.”