The Smallest Minority

.Word of Advice:

Here I am at the La Quinta Inn in Plano, TX, ready for the big du Toit bash tomorrow..

DO NOT try to blog using their “high-speed internet service.” This suqs.

And I can’t get either Instapundit or SondraK to come up.

Hooked? Me? Don’t be ridiculous.

Whoops! Not Quite Yet

(And I might get in a post tomorrow morning before I leave.)

Y’all need to read this post by Anne Lieberman at her blog Boker Tov, Boulder! It was inspired by this thread at Michael J. Totten. Read the Totten thread first, but here’s an excerpt from Anne’s piece:

After years of being knee-jerk liberals who never considered or questioned, but just continued the line of politics we inherited at age 15, we started to investigate, study history and {gasp!} read differing opinions.

The first big shocker was the liberal bias of the media, the second was the inability of our families and friends to respond to change in the world with anything other than the old knee-jerk cliches, and the third has been the devastating revelation that the Left seems not have meant what it used to say. When push comes to shove, it doesn’t live up to its supposed ideals. The ideals, the values, are just as theoretical as the “issues.”

—

I am ashamed to admit that as a reactionary liberal, I “hated” eveything and everybody conservative – Newt Gingrich,Oliver North, Bill Bennett etc.- without ever really knowing what they were about, without ever once really listening to what they had to say. Over a period of a couple of years I became more comfortable with FoxNews than with the New York Times and NPR, both of which I had previously held in The Very Highest Regard. (I still read the Times, but read the Wall Street Journal as well.)

Conservatives simply make more sense to me these days.

Still…faint…hope….Must…hold…on….

RTWT. It’s really good.

Off to See the Wizard! du Toits!

Well, I’m not going to be posting for a few days. I’ve got another piece on the civil war topic stewing, but I don’t have time to do it justice, and I think I’ll need something to keep me occupied while I’m driving to Texas over the next couple of days.

NOTE TO GOBLINS: My wife has both the Mossberg 590 (mix of #4 buck and slugs) and a .357 at hand. Stay away.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to meeting everybody. I’ll check in again probably Tuesday.

Dept. of Socialized Medicine, or “So THAT’S Why They Want to Register All Firearms!”



This one comes from two different sources, plus I heard about it on the radio today, so I have to assume that it’s not an urban legend. I’ll let you read both versions for yourself:

Woman died at B.C. hospital as relative told to call 911

By ROBERT MATAS

Monday, September 6, 2004 – Page A4 Globe And Mail

VANCOUVER — The family of a 22-year old woman who died at a British Columbia hospital threatened legal action yesterday in an attempt to show that emergency-room staff failed to properly respond when an uncle rushed in, frantically asking for help.

Single mother Jessica Peace was in the back seat of the car when Jim Roberts pulled into the emergency driveway of Peace Arch Hospital in White Rock, outside Vancouver, two weeks ago. She had stopped breathing moments before.

Mr. Roberts asked for help. Hospital staff called 911 for paramedics to bring Ms. Peace into the hospital. “I believe if I had gotten help immediately when I pulled up, she would still be alive,” he said yesterday.

The hospital’s response has reignited a fierce debate over the institution’s reaction to people who go to the emergency department requiring assistance to get out of a car and into the hospital.

Ms. Peace’s death came 16 months after an 88-year-old man died of cardiac arrest outside a residence care facility next to the hospital, fuelling suspicion the institution has a policy of calling 911, rather than responding immediately to those in need.

Hospital representatives adamantly denied having a policy to call for an ambulance to bring people from the driveway or parking lot to the emergency ward.

However, Mr. Roberts said yesterday hospital officials were not giving an accurate portrayal of what happened when he pulled up. He may go to court, if necessary, to put on the record exactly what took place, he said.

“What is really bothering me is the blatant lies.”

Mr. Roberts recalled driving to the hospital with his niece about 4 p.m. on Aug 25. Ms. Peace was a drug addict who was trying to break her habit. They were talking in the car, but then at a red light close to the hospital she stopped talking. It looked like she was not breathing.

He rushed into the emergency room, saying his niece had stopped breathing and that he needed help immediately. He said he was told to phone an ambulance. When he suggested that was not appropriate, ER staff dialled the number and gave him the phone.



A paramedic from the hospital came out to assist only after he returned to the car and stood there, shouting: “Help, she’s not breathing,” Mr. Roberts said. They rushed Ms. Peace into the hospital but were unsuccessful in reviving her.

David Plug, a spokesman for the Fraser Health Authority, which runs the hospital, said hospital staff would normally help if they were not busy with emergency patients.

“There is no policy that bars them from going out,” he said. “It happens all the time at hospitals. People come and say, ‘I have someone in the parking lot’ and the hospital responds if it can.”

Hospital staff said they did not hear Mr. Roberts say his niece was having breathing problems, Mr. Plug said. They only heard him ask for assistance to bring someone inside.

When they overheard Mr. Roberts tell 911 about the breathing problems, a nurse went to check out the problem. The nurse then called for a paramedic to come with a stretcher to bring Ms. Peace into the hospital, Mr. Plug said.

“Emergency did not know the situation outside when they asked him to call 911,” Mr. Plug said. “When they found out, they reacted in a timely fashion.”

Apparently not.

Mr. Roberts insisted that no one came out until he started shouting in the parking lot. He did not see a nurse outside.

The hospital did whatever could be done once his niece was taken indoors, he added. He was not upset with the hospital until staff starting offering a different version of events.

Unless they acknowledge what they did, he will look into court action to bring the truth out, Mr. Roberts said.

That’s the first version, all emphasis is mine. Here’s the second:

Hospital didn’t help ill people enter facility



CTV.ca News Staff



A B.C. family believes their daughter died because of hospital bureaucracy.

Two weeks ago, Jessica Peace — a mother of one — had a drug reaction, stopped breathing and died in hospital.

Her uncle, Jim Roberts, took her to the Peace Arch hospital in White Rock — but not into the hospital. And he thinks she’d still be alive if not for the delay in getting her emergency care.

“I honestly don’t know why I didn’t carry her in, but I thought when you went to a hospital they helped you,” he said.

Don’t be silly! You’re just a number to them!

When he arrived at the hospital, he left her in the car, ran inside and begged for help.

“‘My niece is in the car. She’s not breathing. I need help,'” was his recollection. “She says, ‘I’m sorry sir, you’ll have to call an ambulance.'”

Roberts was handed a phone and the desk clerk dialed 9-1-1. “I said, ‘that’s crazy.’ She said, ‘that’s our policy, sir.'”



The Peace Arch hospital insists it’s not a policy, but that having paramedics to assist is necessary sometimes. “Removing somebody from an automobile and putting them on a stretcher, you need at least two people to do that,” said Don Bower of the Fraser Health Authority.

And the hospital employs… How many?

The hospital said a nurse eventually did go out and give Jessica CPR while she was still in the car.

Well Whoop-de-fucking-doo!

It agrees Roberts shouldn’t have had to call for an ambulance himself and it is investigating the matter — the second such investigation in just over a year.

In May 2003, an 88-year-old man died of cardiac arrest just outside the hospital’s doors. Even the RCMP complained it took to long to get the victim help.

“It can’t go on like this. More people are going to die,” Roberts said, adding, “it’s not the first time something like this has happened.”

Lisa Trewern can vouch for that, saying, “the same thing happened to me when I took my mom to the hospital on April 3.”

She said her mother had severe abdominal pains. While her mother survived, Trewern said she now regrets not having formally reported the matter: “They weren’t willing to help me until I got through the doors.”

It’s apparently not part of their labor contract?

Jessica Peace’s family is considering legal action while they take care of her son.

I would certainly hope so.

Were it my daughter, I believe I’d be considering redecorating that emergency room.

Oh, yeah. Public health care. Just as good as public toilets.

Anybody Else Seen this? “80 Seconds of Hell”

Iran’s promise: ’80 seconds of hell’

Sunday, September 5, 2004

Let’s begin by looking at some facts.

On Saturday, June 26, only a few weeks ago, two security guards at the Iranian U.N. Mission were expelled from the United States, and allowed to sneak back to Tehran. The State Department says that they were “engaged in activities inconsistent with their duties.” Sure. They were spies.

The pair had been observed by the FBI for months moving around Manhattan videotaping landmark buildings and other infrastructure. It took an alert transit police officer to arrest them when he saw them taking video images on the subway tracks. They claimed diplomatic immunity and were not charged with any crime.

In Tehran, as August began, the Islamic Republic’s supreme guide Ali Khamenei, was answering questions from a hundred or so Islamic guidance officials, home from foreign postings for retraining. Most of his answers were trite slogans, but when he was asked, “Is our Islamic Republic at war against the United States,” he paused before replying. “It is the United States that is at war against our Islamic Revolution.”



However, Khamenei’s own newspaper was even more direct. Writing this July, it said, “the White House’s 80 years of exclusive rule are likely to become 80 seconds of hell that will burn to ashes. Those who resist Iran will be struck from directions they never expected.”



To these facts add that an Arab newspaper published in London and Beirut reported that an Iranian intelligence unit has established a center called “The Brigades of the Shahids of the Global Islamic Awakening,” controlled by a Revolutionary Guards intelligence officer, Hassan Abbasi. The newspaper has a tape recording of Abbasi when he spoke of Iran’s secret plans, which include “a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization.”

Missile strikes



To bring this about, Abbasi said, “There are 29 sensitive sites in the U.S. and in the West. We have already spied on these sites and we know how we are going to attack them.” This Revolutionary Guard officer continued by saying, “Iran’s missiles are now ready to strike at Western targets, and as soon as the instructions arrive from Ali Khamenei, we will launch our missiles at their cities and installations.”

These are facts. Now let’s consider the information coming in from Iraq where, day after day, our troops are being killed.

Most of the killing is now being done by Muslim militia — Shi’ite Muslims — in the cities of Fallujah, Mosul and Najaf. This militia appears to have some loyalty — but not much — to the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, but he is equally obviously not their paymaster.

The militias need weapons, ammunition, gas for their vehicles, food, water and everything else to fight the Iraqi police and our military. Just remember that these are Shi’ites. The Iranians, just over the border are also Shi’ites. So we needn’t be surprised to learn that the word on the streets of Baghdad and Tehran is that they are providing millions of dollars every month for the “hot” war against the Americans.

The Iranian Shi’ites have during the past few weeks established relations with the Kurds in the north of Iraq and with the main Arab Sunni rebel group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. And, every alliance is cemented with dollars.

25-year war

Iran has been at war with the United States since the mullahs ousted the shah’s forces in 1979.

Iran’s war against the United States has gone on for 25 years. It is past time that the ayatollahs, mullahs and imams begin to understand that there are limits to our tolerance and that our military might is by no means exhausted?

That February in 1979, the Revolutionary Guards invaded 27 U.S. listening posts in Iran that had been set up to monitor Soviet rocket tests. The posts were closed and our guys expelled.

That was enough for Democrat Jimmy Carter. He sent a wonderful letter to the Ayatollah Khomeini, praising him as “a man of God.” And, in a show of goodwill, Carter lifted the ban he had imposed on arms exports to Iran.

A few days later, the Revolutionary Guards raided our embassy in Tehran and seized our diplomats as hostages for a year and a half. In April 1980, Carter tried a military rescue attempt, which ended in disaster with more Americans being killed.

Since then Iran has created one disaster after another. The Marine barracks in Beirut with 241 U.S. Marines killed, some 30 U.S. hostages taken in Lebanon, the torture-killing of the CIA’s Middle Eastern chief and the generalized support of all America’s enemies.

On July 27, Iranian Member of Parliament Hamid-Reza Katoziyan told a television audience “Muslims living in the U.S. are currently, in my opinion, in a special situation. Perhaps they do not walk the streets with weapons or attach bombs to themselves to carry out a suicide operation, but the thought is there.”

And, one last fact: The 9/11 commission in its report poses a question, “September 11 was a day of unprecedented shock. The nation was unprepared. How can we avoid such a tragedy again?”

The answer has to be obvious. Ensure that Iran does not have the opportunity to make a first-strike against the U.S. and that Iran stops attempting to make Iraq a colony.

Dateline D.C. is written by a Washington-based British journalist and political observer.

I am unfamiliar with PittsburgLIVE.com, and I’ve never read Dateline D.C., but I find this a bit alarming, don’t you?

Tuesday’s Entry on the Vast Divide



(I think this might become a daily!)



From Tim Blair (read his piece first) and then this AWESOME comment left on Tim’s post (which I preserve here for my future re-reading pleasure):

That is so deeply offensive that I can scarce think of a comment capable of expressing my revulsion. But let’s try. Please excuse the rant.

It’s amazing to me that the “left” (how outmoded and meaningless these distinctions are) have evolved into the most uptight, anti-rational, superstitious and piously moralistic bunch since the Puritans walked the wild forests of America (though I hesitate to make the comparison, since the Puritans accomplished great things). The “left” may joke and titter and wheeze about “fundy Christian wingnuts” but find someone lecturing you about your immorality, your materialism, your sinful pride, your lack of spiritual value and, most likely, they will be driving an old Volvo with the radio tuned to “Pacifica” and a GEORGE BUSH IS A LIAR bumper-sticker on the fender. Your average lefty is quicker to take offense than a blue-haired old presbyterian; they are constantly monitoring everyone for signs of racism, sexism, colonialism, anti-animal hate speech. They will criticize your car, your house, your synthetic fiber sweater, your swear words, your cigarettes, your sandwich, your choice of grocery bag, your skin color (if it is in the dusky pink range). Life to them is a laundry list of strictures, taboos and lamentations. They hate science, they fear Christianity, they think heterosexual porn is rape, they believe in magic, aromatherapy, tribalism; they scream about Bush killing children but fail to bat an eyelash at the consequences of “pro-choice”. They cringe in disgust and embarrassment at the “black and white” moral distinctions of Bush (and Reagan in his time) when he speaks of the “axis of evil”, yet no one uses the word evil more than leftists when describing the Bush Administration, capitalism, America, Israel. They mock and scoff at the president’s religiosity, yet speak in reverential tones of Gaia, Buddha, Wicca, Yoga. And on and on.

In other words, they are as wrought out, blinkered and dangerously conflicted and superstitious as your average Puritan (or probably closer to your average medieval peasant), yet they call themselves progressives and call everyone else fundamentalists, warmongers, fascists. Freedom is slavery.

The end result of stewing in this murky broth of half-truth, projection, fear, and mis-education? A man sitting in Manhattan at the dawn of the 21st century, writing on a weblog about poorly-understood prehistoric deities taking delight in the destruction of sinful man’s hubris-saturated civilizations. Vive Memor Lethi Fugit Hora. Pride goeth before the Fall. It almost makes you want to laugh, if you weren’t crying.

Posted by: goldsmith

Oh yeah, that divide is bridgeable! (Not!)

Hat tip, Instapundit (who else?)

Before the SHTF,



I want one of these:

And about a dozen magazines and a couple of cases of ammo. DSArms, baby. American made.

I just have to hit the lottery.

Remember This?

Well, these words go with that face:

Lies move Democrats to dig up dirt

SUSAN ESTRICH



My Democratic friends are mad as hell, and they aren’t going to take it any more.

They are worried, having watched as another August smear campaign, full of lies and half-truths, takes its toll in the polls.

They are frustrated, mostly at the Kerry campaign, for naively believing that just because all the newspapers and news organizations that investigated the charges of the Swift Boat assassins found them to be full of lies and half-truths, they wouldn’t take their toll. The word on the street is that Kerry was ready to fire back the day the story broke, but that his campaign, believing the charges would blow over if they ignored them, counseled restraint.

But most of all, activist Democrats are angry. As one who lived through an August like this, 16 years ago – replete with rumors that were lies, which the Bush campaign claimed they had nothing to do with and later admitted they had planted – I’m angry, too. I’ve been to this movie. Lies move numbers.

Remember the one about Dukakis suffering from depression after he lost the governorship? We lost six points over that lie, planted by George W.’s close friend and colleague in the 1988 campaign, Lee Atwater. Or how about the one about Kitty Dukakis burning a flag at an anti-war demonstration, another out-and-out lie, which the Bush campaign denied having anything to do with, except that it turned out to have come from a United States senator via the Republican National Committee? Atwater later apologized to me for that, too, on his deathbed. Did I mention that Lee’s wife is connected to the woman running the Swift Boat campaign?

What do you do, Democrats keep asking each other.

The answer is not pretty, but everyone knows what it is.

The trouble with Democrats, traditionally, is that we’re not mean enough. Too much is at stake to play by Dukakis’ rules and lose again. That is the conclusion Democrats have reached. So watch out. Millions of dollars will be on the table. And there are plenty of choices for what to spend it on.

Will it be the three, or is it four or five, drunken driving arrests that Bush and Cheney, the two most powerful men in the world, managed to rack up?

After Vietnam, nothing is ancient history, and Cheney is still drinking. What their records suggest is not only a serious problem with alcoholism, which Bush but not Cheney has acknowledged, but also an even more serious problem of judgment.

What if Bush were to fall off the wagon? Then what? Has America really faced the fact that we have an alcoholic as our president?

Or how about Dead Texans for Truth, highlighting those who served in Vietnam instead of the privileged draft-dodging president, and ended up as names on the wall instead of members of the Air National Guard.

Or maybe it will be Texas National Guardsmen for Truth, who can explain exactly what George W. Bush was doing while John Kerry was putting his life on the line. Perhaps with money on the table, or investigators on their trail, we will learn just what kind of wild and crazy things the president was doing while Kerry was saving a man’s life, facing enemy fire and serving his country.

Or could it be George Bush’s Former Female Friends for Truth. A forthcoming book by Kitty Kelley raises questions about whether the president has practiced what he preaches on abortion. As Larry Flynt discovered, a million dollars loosens lips. Are there others to be loosened?

Are you shocked? Remember Dukakis? Now he teaches at Northeastern University. John Kerry has been very fair in dealing with the Swift Boat charges. That’s why so many of my Democrat friends have decided to stop talking to the campaign, and start putting money together independently.

The arrogant little Republican boys who strutted around New York this week, claiming that they have this one won, would do well to take a step back. It could be a long and ugly road to November.

Not so damned funny anymore.