This just in From the ACC Tourney...
Georgia Tech 78
North Carolina 75
Next up, Duke or NC State tomorrow. Bring them on...
Saturday, March 12, 2005
A Nice Big Steaming Pile
I used to have a really nice yard at my house in Marietta, Georgia. Being a yard nerd and into manual labor induced muscle pain, I used to spend a couple of afternoons each week and one weekend day doing my “yard thing.” Mowing, aerating, pruning, planting, spreading lime, pre-emergent weed killer, fertilizer—you name it, I had a piece of equipment to accomplish the task and did it religiously and my efforts showed in the quality of my lawn.
I’m also a cat person. I had a dog before, and I’ll have one again when and if I move back to the farm in Alabama or buy a parcel of land larger than a postage stamp, but I like big dogs like Rottweilers and I don’t believe in torturing a large dog by keeping them in the house.
Our next door neighbors in Marietta had five dogs and a small herd of cats, and a fenced back yard to keep the larger mongrels in. They had this one little furry mixed breed beast that was an inside pet, except when he needed to visit the toilet late at night. Then they let him unescorted out the front door of their house, where he proceeded to walk down their driveway to the street, barked a few times at no one and nothing in particular, turned left and wandered into MY yard to do his business.
It took me a while to figure out what the yellow spots were in my grass because the owners were apparently poop-scooping the poop on a clandestine basis, but the little bastard’s urine must have had a PH of 0.1 because he could kill a 12” circle of grass with one little squirt.
The barking was ultimately his downfall because once I figured out who (or what) was responsible for violating my lawn I started staking him out with my BB gun, powered by about four pumps. Not enough power behind the BB to cause injury and leave evidence, but I could make that mutt do a triple axel figure skate jump or a quadruple somersault and leave my yard with amazing speed.
We currently live in a very nice area here on St. Simons Island. Not the best—that’s down at the Island Club or over on Sea Island—but the houses around our condo complex sell from the mid $300K range up to over half a million dollars each.
Although the yards are typically tropical in nature with lots of pine islands and flower beds, EVERYONE has a landscape company do their lawns and the places each look like a botanical garden most of the time.
Which brings me to my point.
Why the hell do all of these snooty homeowners take their $1000 dogs out for a walk to pee and crap all over their neighbors’ curbs, grass, and mailboxes? Is it a mutual thing? “Your dog does my yard and my dog does your yard,” or something. Really, there is a daily parade of fancy dogs ambling along the streets with their owners mindlessly allowing them to ravage an area within ten feet of the curb.
What do I do if I don’t own a dog and am not able to reciprocate in the mutual urination and defecation association? Can I eat a few bowls of chili, drink a six pack, toss on a big ole poncho, grab the newspaper, and wander over into my neighbor’s yard to squat down and take my evening constitutional? On Saturday morning can I drink a half pot of Café du Monde coffee, toss down a few donuts, and scramble by for a little “business in the bushes?”
If no one sees me, so I’m not charged with public indecency, is leaving a big steaming pile on the front lawn against the law?
Just wondering—if Fido can, why can’t I?
I’m also a cat person. I had a dog before, and I’ll have one again when and if I move back to the farm in Alabama or buy a parcel of land larger than a postage stamp, but I like big dogs like Rottweilers and I don’t believe in torturing a large dog by keeping them in the house.
Our next door neighbors in Marietta had five dogs and a small herd of cats, and a fenced back yard to keep the larger mongrels in. They had this one little furry mixed breed beast that was an inside pet, except when he needed to visit the toilet late at night. Then they let him unescorted out the front door of their house, where he proceeded to walk down their driveway to the street, barked a few times at no one and nothing in particular, turned left and wandered into MY yard to do his business.
It took me a while to figure out what the yellow spots were in my grass because the owners were apparently poop-scooping the poop on a clandestine basis, but the little bastard’s urine must have had a PH of 0.1 because he could kill a 12” circle of grass with one little squirt.
The barking was ultimately his downfall because once I figured out who (or what) was responsible for violating my lawn I started staking him out with my BB gun, powered by about four pumps. Not enough power behind the BB to cause injury and leave evidence, but I could make that mutt do a triple axel figure skate jump or a quadruple somersault and leave my yard with amazing speed.
We currently live in a very nice area here on St. Simons Island. Not the best—that’s down at the Island Club or over on Sea Island—but the houses around our condo complex sell from the mid $300K range up to over half a million dollars each.
Although the yards are typically tropical in nature with lots of pine islands and flower beds, EVERYONE has a landscape company do their lawns and the places each look like a botanical garden most of the time.
Which brings me to my point.
Why the hell do all of these snooty homeowners take their $1000 dogs out for a walk to pee and crap all over their neighbors’ curbs, grass, and mailboxes? Is it a mutual thing? “Your dog does my yard and my dog does your yard,” or something. Really, there is a daily parade of fancy dogs ambling along the streets with their owners mindlessly allowing them to ravage an area within ten feet of the curb.
What do I do if I don’t own a dog and am not able to reciprocate in the mutual urination and defecation association? Can I eat a few bowls of chili, drink a six pack, toss on a big ole poncho, grab the newspaper, and wander over into my neighbor’s yard to squat down and take my evening constitutional? On Saturday morning can I drink a half pot of Café du Monde coffee, toss down a few donuts, and scramble by for a little “business in the bushes?”
If no one sees me, so I’m not charged with public indecency, is leaving a big steaming pile on the front lawn against the law?
Just wondering—if Fido can, why can’t I?
Law Enforcement Incompetence
I lived in the Atlanta metropolitan area for 27 years, beginning in 1977, and I can honestly say that the Atlanta Police and Sheriffs departments are perhaps the most clueless and inept organizations of their type in the entire country. At the risk of appearing racist, I will say that these law enforcement departments are treated as “jobs programs” by the city’s African American politicians and city council. Actual law enforcement is a secondary or tertiary concern.
Former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell, whom was recently indicted on federal corruption charges relating to his tenure as mayor from 1994 to 2002, appointed an unqualified woman named Beverly Harvard as Police Chief during his tenure. Beverly’s qualifications? She had been the driver and administrative assistant to the former Atlanta police chief. Her entire term of service was a joke, and Atlantans looked forward to laughing their way through any news conference in which Ms. Harvard participated due to inability to clearly speak the King’s English.
Meanwhile, Fulton County Sheriff Jacquelyn Barrett, another Bill Campbell cohort, was elected to run the Sheriff’s department and Atlanta Jail from 1993 until she was defeated last in last November’s elections.
Barrett was defeated because of her own incompetence and numerous scandals relating to the construction and operation of the new Atlanta Fulton County jail. Besides being unable to keep the inmates locked securely inside (she allowed a dozen people to escape or be mistakenly released in 2003,) she also had trouble keeping people from outside from getting in, as in when a video crew was allowed inside the jail to film a rap video for inmate rapper T.I. last year. Some of the guards were even in the video.
Needless to say moral and discipline were in the toilet when an imminently qualified gentleman named Myron Freeman took office as the new Fulton County Sheriff this past January. Unfortunately, Mr. Freeman hasn’t had enough time in office to make improvements in the jail or in inmate handling procedures relating to the courts and the City of Atlanta has suffered a tragedy as a result.
Today the Fulton County Sheriff’s department allowed Brian Nichols, a violent rape suspect who had previously been found with two homemade knives in his shoes, to steal a gun from a female deputy and shoot four people in the courthouse, escaping down through eight floors of the building and onto the streets of Atlanta.
First things first, the Sheriff’s department has lost control of the Atlanta jail which they are charged with operating, supplying administrative staff and guards in the facility. As I stated earlier, they can’t keep the inmates in and the rap video crews out. Inmate violence is rampant and somebody is making knives and the guards and deputies are letting the inmates to walk out of jail and into courtrooms with sharp instruments in their shoes. They left a lone woman deputy to guard an unshackled 6’-1”, 200 pound rape suspect who had been caught with weapons before? That makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?
Next, how the heck did this guy get off the eighth floor of the courthouse and onto the street without having to pass more than one other deputy? The one that he did see he killed, but I would expect the courthouse to be literally teaming with law enforcement personnel.
Finally, there is a thing known as a “magnetic safety trigger” made by Magna-Trigger that numerous security and law enforcement officers use when in close contact with inmates in places you don’t want a gun getting loose in—places like jails and courthouses.
When the device is installed in a Smith and Wesson handgun, the gun will not fire unless the user wears a magnetic ring on their trigger finger. Similar magnetic devices are available for other gun brands like the Colt Maglock.
What a neat idea, huh? Make the guns in courthouses useless except to the deputies.
Of course the conversion costs money, between $200 to $300 per gun, but with three people dead and one wounded, the $6200 it would cost to modify 20 guns seems to me to be a small price to pay.
Hopefully this is a wake up call for law enforcement everywhere to look at their security efforts and possibly employ some technology to make things a little safer for everyone involved.
Former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell, whom was recently indicted on federal corruption charges relating to his tenure as mayor from 1994 to 2002, appointed an unqualified woman named Beverly Harvard as Police Chief during his tenure. Beverly’s qualifications? She had been the driver and administrative assistant to the former Atlanta police chief. Her entire term of service was a joke, and Atlantans looked forward to laughing their way through any news conference in which Ms. Harvard participated due to inability to clearly speak the King’s English.
Meanwhile, Fulton County Sheriff Jacquelyn Barrett, another Bill Campbell cohort, was elected to run the Sheriff’s department and Atlanta Jail from 1993 until she was defeated last in last November’s elections.
Barrett was defeated because of her own incompetence and numerous scandals relating to the construction and operation of the new Atlanta Fulton County jail. Besides being unable to keep the inmates locked securely inside (she allowed a dozen people to escape or be mistakenly released in 2003,) she also had trouble keeping people from outside from getting in, as in when a video crew was allowed inside the jail to film a rap video for inmate rapper T.I. last year. Some of the guards were even in the video.
Needless to say moral and discipline were in the toilet when an imminently qualified gentleman named Myron Freeman took office as the new Fulton County Sheriff this past January. Unfortunately, Mr. Freeman hasn’t had enough time in office to make improvements in the jail or in inmate handling procedures relating to the courts and the City of Atlanta has suffered a tragedy as a result.
Today the Fulton County Sheriff’s department allowed Brian Nichols, a violent rape suspect who had previously been found with two homemade knives in his shoes, to steal a gun from a female deputy and shoot four people in the courthouse, escaping down through eight floors of the building and onto the streets of Atlanta.
First things first, the Sheriff’s department has lost control of the Atlanta jail which they are charged with operating, supplying administrative staff and guards in the facility. As I stated earlier, they can’t keep the inmates in and the rap video crews out. Inmate violence is rampant and somebody is making knives and the guards and deputies are letting the inmates to walk out of jail and into courtrooms with sharp instruments in their shoes. They left a lone woman deputy to guard an unshackled 6’-1”, 200 pound rape suspect who had been caught with weapons before? That makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?
Next, how the heck did this guy get off the eighth floor of the courthouse and onto the street without having to pass more than one other deputy? The one that he did see he killed, but I would expect the courthouse to be literally teaming with law enforcement personnel.
Finally, there is a thing known as a “magnetic safety trigger” made by Magna-Trigger that numerous security and law enforcement officers use when in close contact with inmates in places you don’t want a gun getting loose in—places like jails and courthouses.
When the device is installed in a Smith and Wesson handgun, the gun will not fire unless the user wears a magnetic ring on their trigger finger. Similar magnetic devices are available for other gun brands like the Colt Maglock.
What a neat idea, huh? Make the guns in courthouses useless except to the deputies.
Of course the conversion costs money, between $200 to $300 per gun, but with three people dead and one wounded, the $6200 it would cost to modify 20 guns seems to me to be a small price to pay.
Hopefully this is a wake up call for law enforcement everywhere to look at their security efforts and possibly employ some technology to make things a little safer for everyone involved.
Friday, March 11, 2005
Creeping Crud
Me and the computer are suffering.
I'm hhacking and ccoughing and the Dell Notebook refuses to connect to the internet, thus the absence of postings on Thursday.
Pat returned from Chicago tonight and I fired up her laptop long enough to check E-mail, get a fix of my fellow blogger's writing, and let you know that, in the words of Governor Arnold...
I'll be back.
I'm hhacking and ccoughing and the Dell Notebook refuses to connect to the internet, thus the absence of postings on Thursday.
Pat returned from Chicago tonight and I fired up her laptop long enough to check E-mail, get a fix of my fellow blogger's writing, and let you know that, in the words of Governor Arnold...
I'll be back.
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
I'd Rather...But Not Dan Rather--Part II
Just like the Martha Stewart saga, I can't add a whole lot to the Dan Rather story that I haven't already said in my earlier postings except to state how glad I am that it is over.
If it were really over...except it isn't...over.
Rather still works for CBS and will be on the air on the news magazine 60 Minutes. A lot of people out there still put a great deal of stock in what is said on 60 Minutes.
Isn't the program 60 minutes where Mr. Rather attempted to pass off forged documents on the American public? Documents that impunged the reputation of a sitting US president? Documents intended to affect the outcome of a presidential election?
Documents that practically everyone at CBS except Mary Mapes and Dan Rather have admitted were fakes?
Documents about which Dan Rather recently told David Letterman that he could have proved were real if "they had just had more time before they went on the air with the story?"
Hey Danno, you're now semi-retired...take all the time you need.
Prove the documents are real, YOU STUPID LYING, PARTISAN BASTARD.
If it were really over...except it isn't...over.
Rather still works for CBS and will be on the air on the news magazine 60 Minutes. A lot of people out there still put a great deal of stock in what is said on 60 Minutes.
Isn't the program 60 minutes where Mr. Rather attempted to pass off forged documents on the American public? Documents that impunged the reputation of a sitting US president? Documents intended to affect the outcome of a presidential election?
Documents that practically everyone at CBS except Mary Mapes and Dan Rather have admitted were fakes?
Documents about which Dan Rather recently told David Letterman that he could have proved were real if "they had just had more time before they went on the air with the story?"
Hey Danno, you're now semi-retired...take all the time you need.
Prove the documents are real, YOU STUPID LYING, PARTISAN BASTARD.
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Anti-Gun Insanity
The hysterical whackos are at it again in Illinois.
“Anti-gun lawmakers are seeking a ban on .50-caliber "sniper rifles," saying they're favored by terrorists and can shoot down aircraft from a range of more than 2,000 yards -- though they don't appear to be tied to any crimes here in the last decade, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis shows.
A spokesman for the National Rifle Association, which is pushing dozens of its own bills in the General Assembly, vowed to fight the sniper-rifle legislation backed by Representatives Elaine Nekritz (D-Northbrook) and Beth Coulson (R-Glenview).
"There isn't a single person in the United States that I know of who has been killed by one of these firearms," said Todd Vandermyde, an NRA lobbyist in Springfield.”
As I wrote back in November in “Six Dead In Wisconsin” and in September in ”1994 Assault Weapons Ban Expires,” why can’t the anti-gun morons get it through their thick skulls that dead is dead and if someone that knows what they are doing shoots at you with a .177 caliber pellet gun you are in almost as much trouble as someone firing a so called “sniper” weapon?
I have friends that shoot competitively that you do not want coming after your butt with a pea shooter. And by the way, you don’t want me looking for you with my old JC Higgens M-25 semi-automatic 22 caliber rifle with a Weaver 4X scope if I have an axe to grind with you.
It’s a slippery slope, and banning one kind of gun leads to banning yet another, Next they say that you can only own “x” number of guns (I have three rifles and two shotguns—so sue me) and finally no one legally has any guns except the police and the military.
And, of course, PEOPLE LIKE CRIMINALS who already have illegal guns or own guns illegally like felons.
Why do we have to keep going through this stuff every few months?
“Anti-gun lawmakers are seeking a ban on .50-caliber "sniper rifles," saying they're favored by terrorists and can shoot down aircraft from a range of more than 2,000 yards -- though they don't appear to be tied to any crimes here in the last decade, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis shows.
A spokesman for the National Rifle Association, which is pushing dozens of its own bills in the General Assembly, vowed to fight the sniper-rifle legislation backed by Representatives Elaine Nekritz (D-Northbrook) and Beth Coulson (R-Glenview).
"There isn't a single person in the United States that I know of who has been killed by one of these firearms," said Todd Vandermyde, an NRA lobbyist in Springfield.”
As I wrote back in November in “Six Dead In Wisconsin” and in September in ”1994 Assault Weapons Ban Expires,” why can’t the anti-gun morons get it through their thick skulls that dead is dead and if someone that knows what they are doing shoots at you with a .177 caliber pellet gun you are in almost as much trouble as someone firing a so called “sniper” weapon?
I have friends that shoot competitively that you do not want coming after your butt with a pea shooter. And by the way, you don’t want me looking for you with my old JC Higgens M-25 semi-automatic 22 caliber rifle with a Weaver 4X scope if I have an axe to grind with you.
It’s a slippery slope, and banning one kind of gun leads to banning yet another, Next they say that you can only own “x” number of guns (I have three rifles and two shotguns—so sue me) and finally no one legally has any guns except the police and the military.
And, of course, PEOPLE LIKE CRIMINALS who already have illegal guns or own guns illegally like felons.
Why do we have to keep going through this stuff every few months?
Martha Stewart
There, I said it.
And while I'm at it, Michael Jackson, Scott Peterson, and Kobie Bryant et. al. can all go somewhere far, far away and I'll help take up a collection to pay their airfare. I just don't give a damn.
Oh, and FOX's Greta Van Sustren can be their co-pilot...
And while I'm at it, Michael Jackson, Scott Peterson, and Kobie Bryant et. al. can all go somewhere far, far away and I'll help take up a collection to pay their airfare. I just don't give a damn.
Oh, and FOX's Greta Van Sustren can be their co-pilot...
Monday, March 07, 2005
What Is There To Not Understand?
Imagine this situation with me. You’re driving through suburban Atlanta, Georgia at night. You are in the Stewart Avenue (now called Metropolitan Blvd.) area of south Atlanta near the airport that is known as a high crime district. Prostitution, drugs, petty crime, a shooting almost every day—you get the picture?
As you cruise along at about 45 MPH with your windows rolled up and your doors locked, you see a police roadblock up ahead.
What do you do?
Do you a) maintain your speed because of the bad neighborhood and attempt to blow though the roadblock, or do you b) slow down and obey the commands of the officers?
If you chose option a, wouldn’t you expect the police to react rather adversely to your behavior? If you actually drove your car too close to an officer, might you not expect the police to use deadly force in response to your threat? As a minimum you could expect an ensuing police chase and the opportunity to spend a free night with crappy accommodations courtesy of Clayton County Georgia.
Now move this situation to Iraq, a country that has been under the rule of a dictator for 30 plus years and been under military rule of coalition forces for going on three years. You watch CNN and Fox news and work for your government’s security agency.
HOW IN THE HELL DO YOU EXPECT ME TO BELIEVE THAT YOU SOMEHOW THOUGHT THAT YOU COULD BLOW THROUGH A MILITARY ROADBLOCK IN A COUNTRY FULL OF SUICIDE CAR BOMBERS AND NOT GET YOUR BUTT SHOT OFF?
Yet after two plus years of coalition operations, someone actually is trying to say that people are still confused about what to do at roadside military checkpoints.
“The deadly shooting of an Italian intelligence officer by U.S. troops at a checkpoint near Baghdad on Friday was one of many incidents in which civilians have been killed by mistake at checkpoints in Iraq, including local police officers, women and children, according to military records, U.S. officials and human rights groups.
U.S. soldiers have fired on the occupants of many cars approaching their positions over the past year and a half, only to discover that the people they killed were not suicide bombers or attackers but Iraqi civilians. They did so while operating under rules of engagement that the military has classified and under a legal doctrine that grants U.S. troops immunity from civil liability for misjudgment.”
SO WHAT’S NOT TO UNDERSTAND?
JUST LIKE HERE IN THE UNITED STATES, YOU SEE A ROADBLOCK—YOU SLOW DOWN AND STOP.
Got It Now?????
As you cruise along at about 45 MPH with your windows rolled up and your doors locked, you see a police roadblock up ahead.
What do you do?
Do you a) maintain your speed because of the bad neighborhood and attempt to blow though the roadblock, or do you b) slow down and obey the commands of the officers?
If you chose option a, wouldn’t you expect the police to react rather adversely to your behavior? If you actually drove your car too close to an officer, might you not expect the police to use deadly force in response to your threat? As a minimum you could expect an ensuing police chase and the opportunity to spend a free night with crappy accommodations courtesy of Clayton County Georgia.
Now move this situation to Iraq, a country that has been under the rule of a dictator for 30 plus years and been under military rule of coalition forces for going on three years. You watch CNN and Fox news and work for your government’s security agency.
HOW IN THE HELL DO YOU EXPECT ME TO BELIEVE THAT YOU SOMEHOW THOUGHT THAT YOU COULD BLOW THROUGH A MILITARY ROADBLOCK IN A COUNTRY FULL OF SUICIDE CAR BOMBERS AND NOT GET YOUR BUTT SHOT OFF?
Yet after two plus years of coalition operations, someone actually is trying to say that people are still confused about what to do at roadside military checkpoints.
“The deadly shooting of an Italian intelligence officer by U.S. troops at a checkpoint near Baghdad on Friday was one of many incidents in which civilians have been killed by mistake at checkpoints in Iraq, including local police officers, women and children, according to military records, U.S. officials and human rights groups.
U.S. soldiers have fired on the occupants of many cars approaching their positions over the past year and a half, only to discover that the people they killed were not suicide bombers or attackers but Iraqi civilians. They did so while operating under rules of engagement that the military has classified and under a legal doctrine that grants U.S. troops immunity from civil liability for misjudgment.”
SO WHAT’S NOT TO UNDERSTAND?
JUST LIKE HERE IN THE UNITED STATES, YOU SEE A ROADBLOCK—YOU SLOW DOWN AND STOP.
Got It Now?????
I Was Right, They Were Just Stupid
It seems that little Italian communist Giuliana Sgrena was released because the Italian Secret Police arranged to pay a multi-million dollar ransom to her "insurgent" captors. The Italian authorities didn't tip off the US forces that she had been released because they didn't want us to know that they were paying for it.
In an interview with Hamid Mir, Osama Bin Laden's "official biographer", he said that "I met some criminals in the al-Mansoor area of Baghdad who offered me lot of money. They proposed that I trap one Western journalist for them; they will take the ransom and then I will get may share. I just disappeared from Palestine Hotel after that offer."
So these Osama want-a-be's that don't have financial backing have discovered that the Italians are willing to indirectly fund their efforts against coalition troops. Snatch a reporter, even one that is simpathetic to their cause, and hold her until someone ponys up some cash. I wonder how bad the conditions of her captivity really were? She could have been well fed and living watching CNN while the world worried about her plight. And I wonder who got a cut of the ransom money like that promised to Mr. Mir?
I wonder how many Rocket Propelled Grenades and Improvised Exposive Devices six million (see update below) dollars will buy? I wonder how many innocent Iraqis and coalition troops will be injured and killed as a result of Comrad Sgrena's "independent" reporting efforts in Iraq?
The domestic and Italian leftists and the media should quit their whining and admit that these people brought the firepower of the Americans on themselves through their own incompetence.
With reporters like Giuliana, who needs "Osama" to fund terrorism?
Update: 9:20 AM
They paid six million, not a million ransom. Here is the Washington Times story.
What pisses me off is how Comrad Sgrena's story keeps changing to suit the facts that have leaked out publicly. First she was certain that they had targeted her as a journalist for the tone of her stories. Now she is certain that the US troops were targeting her because she was released as a result of a ransom? She says that the car was not speeding, but she also is quoted as saying that they were going so fast that the driver nearly lost control of the car avoiding rain puddles.
Expect to hear the bitching and complaining continue while the left attempts to impune our troops efforts in Iraq.
In an interview with Hamid Mir, Osama Bin Laden's "official biographer", he said that "I met some criminals in the al-Mansoor area of Baghdad who offered me lot of money. They proposed that I trap one Western journalist for them; they will take the ransom and then I will get may share. I just disappeared from Palestine Hotel after that offer."
So these Osama want-a-be's that don't have financial backing have discovered that the Italians are willing to indirectly fund their efforts against coalition troops. Snatch a reporter, even one that is simpathetic to their cause, and hold her until someone ponys up some cash. I wonder how bad the conditions of her captivity really were? She could have been well fed and living watching CNN while the world worried about her plight. And I wonder who got a cut of the ransom money like that promised to Mr. Mir?
I wonder how many Rocket Propelled Grenades and Improvised Exposive Devices six million (see update below) dollars will buy? I wonder how many innocent Iraqis and coalition troops will be injured and killed as a result of Comrad Sgrena's "independent" reporting efforts in Iraq?
The domestic and Italian leftists and the media should quit their whining and admit that these people brought the firepower of the Americans on themselves through their own incompetence.
With reporters like Giuliana, who needs "Osama" to fund terrorism?
Update: 9:20 AM
They paid six million, not a million ransom. Here is the Washington Times story.
What pisses me off is how Comrad Sgrena's story keeps changing to suit the facts that have leaked out publicly. First she was certain that they had targeted her as a journalist for the tone of her stories. Now she is certain that the US troops were targeting her because she was released as a result of a ransom? She says that the car was not speeding, but she also is quoted as saying that they were going so fast that the driver nearly lost control of the car avoiding rain puddles.
Expect to hear the bitching and complaining continue while the left attempts to impune our troops efforts in Iraq.
Are They Just Plain Stupid?
Or do they just think that we are?
I’ve had it up to here (pointing to the top of my every graying, balding head) with journalists. Particularly the variety called “war correspondents.”
Foreign and domestic, they are, by and large, in my personal estimation, useless, overeducated morons with a political axe to grind--having no intention of reporting the facts about what is occurring around them. Not to say that they are all bad, mind you, just that most of them are.
These individuals have jobs as reporters, but they have lost sight of the fact that, when it comes to world events, they are supposed to REPORT WHAT IS HAPPENING. Noooooo, that would be too easy, they are now editoralizers and commentators. They have either lost sight of who their audience is, or else they think that we are too stupid to read and listen to the facts and form our own opinions based on the evidence.
History has given us some really great war correspondents. Guys like Ernie Pyle, for example. Ernie Pyle was “embedded” with the US forces in Europe and the Pacific as a reporter during WWII. By “embedded,” I don’t mean that he slept in the Paris or Tokyo Hilton and made day trips to film a drive by “terrorist” car bombing and to send out an anti-war missive in time to be home for happy hour at the hotel bar.
By embedded, I mean that Ernie lived with the troops he reported on. He wore an Army uniform, he ate and slept with the troops and he died with the troops, as a Japanese machine-gun bullet killed him on the island of Ie Shima on April 18, 1945, at the age of 44.
Ernie won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting, but he didn’t win it by despising the young American men he reported on while salivating for a “friendly fire” expose or an Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Ernie was famous for reporting on the lives of the men that were charged with defending our freedom and his life on a day by day basis. Here is an excerpt from an article entitled “Killing is all that matters”:
“WITH THE AMERICAN FORCES IN ALGIERS, December 1, 1942 - From now onward, stretching for months and months into the future, life is completely changed for thousands of American boys on this side of the earth. For at last they are in there fighting.
The jump from camp life into front-line living is just as great as the original jump from civilian life into the Army. Only those who served in the last war can conceive of the makeshift, deadly urgent, always-moving-onward complexion of front-line existence.
And existence is exactly the word: it is nothing more.
You dig ditches for protection from bullets and from the chill north wind off the Mediterranean. There are no more hot-water taps. There are no post exchanges where you can buy cigarets. There are no movies.
When you speak to a civilian you have to wrestle with a foreign language. You carry just enough clothing to cover you, and no more. You don't lug any knickknacks at all.
When our troops made their first landings in North Africa they went four days without even blankets, just catching a few hours sleep on the ground.
Everybody either lost or chucked aside some of his equipment. Like most troops going into battle for the first time, they all carried too much at first. Gradually they shed it. The boys tossed out personal gear from their musette bags and filled them with ammunition.
The countryside for twenty miles around Oran was strewn with overcoats, field jackets and mess kits as the soldiers moved on the city.
Arabs will be going around for a whole generation clad in odd pieces of American Army uniforms. “
Sound Familiar? Other than the reference to the Mediterranean and Northern Africa, this piece could have been written two years ago during the initial invasion of Iraq. Go to the link and read the entire piece if you have time and read more of Ernie’s work here.
Now let’s talk about the little Italian communist Giuliana Sgrena and the stir that her reporting efforts have caused in Iraq:
“The daughter of a World War II veteran, Sgrena was one of the founders of the peace movement in the 1980s.
Before joining Il Manifesto, she worked for the daily Guerra e Pace (War and Peace), but she made her name at the communist newspaper mainly through her avowed affinity with the Arab world.
"For my whole life, I have fought and written on behalf of the weakest," she said in a video put together by those who campaigned to secure her release.
With this in mind, the reporter refused to become embedded with the US military during the war - choosing, instead, to remain in Iraq on her own during the major hostilities of the spring of 2003.
She then returned to the country periodically, focusing on the suffering of ordinary Iraqis brought about by a war she was vehemently opposed to.
Sgrena's outspoken anti-war stance should have endeared her to Iraqi insurgents fighting the US-led forces, said friends and colleagues shocked at her capture on 4 February.”
Wrong, Comrad Sgrena. The only way to endear yourself to the Iraqi “insurgents” is to be an Arab man, grow a long beard, strap explosives to your body or install them in the trunk of your car, and end your life killing as many of your innocent fellow Iraqis while looking for your gaggle of eternal virgins.
And by founding “the peace movement in the 1980’s” isn’t Sgrena about 20 years too late? I thought that the American left started the “peace movement” in the 1960’s in response to the Vietnam War. Come to think of it, isn’t passivism and the “peace movement” was as old as history—supported by the coddled “intellectual” group du jour whom constantly criticize those around them that militarily defend their right to be stupid and complain about society’s ills.
So any way, this silly Italian woman “war correspondent” wanders into Iraq, on her own, because she is against the war and would never allow the American Military to support and protect her presence there. Instead, Sgrena and her fellow “war correspondents” over at Il Manifesto have been running around Iraq undermining the coalition’s efforts. Look at this excerpt from a story published under the headline ’My Name is Giuliana Sgrena: I write for a Newspaper Which Opposed the Sanctions and the War Against Iraq’:
“Sheik Hussein al Zobey, Sunni coordinator of the refugee camps inside the University of Baghdad, uttered an impassioned appeal for the journalist's release: "In the name of truth, free her. I appeal in the name of those who come to help us. I ask the kidnappers to free Giuliana, who has promised to help us. She has laughed and played with our children—and has cried with us."
"Truly moving is the involvement of the Iraqi people in Giuliana Sgrena's ordeal," writes Il Manifesto's correspondent from Baghdad, Stefano Chiarini. "Suffering daily abuses and violence from occupation forces or their proxies, the Iraqis themselves are subjected to routine hostage-taking by the occupiers. If the father is not at home, they arrest his son, or brother, or other relative. Under the pretext of looking for arms, American soldiers and their Iraqi trainees look for jewels and money. And, yet, the whole country has mobilised for the liberation of Giuliana." ”
This is yet another perfect example for the left and the Democrats and the other international “nay sayers” of what kind of animals we are dealing with in Iraq. It doesn’t even matter if you have adopted their side of the fight, if you are not an Arab Muslim you are a potential target. If you happen to be a white skinned woman, your life is even more worthless.
The only reason Sgrena was released was that it was politically expedient for her captors to do so, and she hasn’t yet learned her lesson. Continuing along the path of ignoring the military control and restriction issues brought about by the “insurgent” actions, she and her Italian "James Bond" wannabe protector jump in a used Datsun car and go screaming down a road toward a US Military roadblock.
This story in the anti occupation web site uruknet.info (written by Washington Post reporters) seems to make a case opposite the meaning of their own headline that “Observers Cite Other Shootings at Checkpoints:
“But the circumstances of Friday's shooting of Italian military intelligence officer Nicola Calipari made it particularly vulnerable to calamity, a military source said as he divulged new details of how the car in which Calipari and a newly freed hostage, Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, came to be attacked.
The automobile was traversing onto a route -- the road to the airport -- where soldiers have been killed in shootings and by roadside bombs. U.S. soldiers had established an impromptu evening checkpoint at the entrance to the road about 90 minutes earlier and had stopped other vehicles.
They knew a high-level embassy official would be moving to the airport on that road, and their aim was to support this movement.But no specific coordination occurred between those involved in Sgrena's rescue and the military unit responsible for the checkpoint, according to the source, who said he cannot be named because the military's investigation into the incident is continuing.
Soldiers at the checkpoint have told U.S. military officers that they flashed lights, used hand signals and fired warning shots in an effort to stop the car, which they believed was traveling at more than 50 mph, a typical speed for that road. But Sgrena, who had just been released by Iraqi captors, recalled later that the car was not traveling very fast and that soldiers started firing "right after lighting" a spotlight -- a decision she said was not justified.
Sgrena was wounded by shrapnel in the U.S. barrage.The absence of advance communication between the Italians and the U.S. soldiers at the checkpoint appears to have put the occupants of the car in grave jeopardy, given what many U.S. officials describe as the military's standard practice of firing at onrushing cars from their checkpoints in Iraq."
In my view, the main contributing factor was a lack of prior coordination with the ground unit," the source said. "If requested, we would have resourced and supported this mission very differently."
Military officials in Iraq have said for two days that they cannot answer questions about U.S. rules of engagement because of a need to keep insurgents off guard. Officials have not said whether these rules have changed since the insurgency in Iraq worsened in late 2003. They also have declined to estimate how many civilians such as Calipari have been killed accidentally by U.S. forces -- at checkpoints or elsewhere in Iraq.”
So the bottom line here is that you are going to hear two versions of this story, no matter what the facts actually are. One is what I’ll call the Eason Jordan version saying that the US is targeting journalists. The other version, which makes sense for me, is that these Italian cowboys were running around in a war zone and failed to heed the rules of engagement and got their butts shot off.
Which version are you going to believe?
I’ve had it up to here (pointing to the top of my every graying, balding head) with journalists. Particularly the variety called “war correspondents.”
Foreign and domestic, they are, by and large, in my personal estimation, useless, overeducated morons with a political axe to grind--having no intention of reporting the facts about what is occurring around them. Not to say that they are all bad, mind you, just that most of them are.
These individuals have jobs as reporters, but they have lost sight of the fact that, when it comes to world events, they are supposed to REPORT WHAT IS HAPPENING. Noooooo, that would be too easy, they are now editoralizers and commentators. They have either lost sight of who their audience is, or else they think that we are too stupid to read and listen to the facts and form our own opinions based on the evidence.
History has given us some really great war correspondents. Guys like Ernie Pyle, for example. Ernie Pyle was “embedded” with the US forces in Europe and the Pacific as a reporter during WWII. By “embedded,” I don’t mean that he slept in the Paris or Tokyo Hilton and made day trips to film a drive by “terrorist” car bombing and to send out an anti-war missive in time to be home for happy hour at the hotel bar.
By embedded, I mean that Ernie lived with the troops he reported on. He wore an Army uniform, he ate and slept with the troops and he died with the troops, as a Japanese machine-gun bullet killed him on the island of Ie Shima on April 18, 1945, at the age of 44.
Ernie won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting, but he didn’t win it by despising the young American men he reported on while salivating for a “friendly fire” expose or an Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Ernie was famous for reporting on the lives of the men that were charged with defending our freedom and his life on a day by day basis. Here is an excerpt from an article entitled “Killing is all that matters”:
“WITH THE AMERICAN FORCES IN ALGIERS, December 1, 1942 - From now onward, stretching for months and months into the future, life is completely changed for thousands of American boys on this side of the earth. For at last they are in there fighting.
The jump from camp life into front-line living is just as great as the original jump from civilian life into the Army. Only those who served in the last war can conceive of the makeshift, deadly urgent, always-moving-onward complexion of front-line existence.
And existence is exactly the word: it is nothing more.
You dig ditches for protection from bullets and from the chill north wind off the Mediterranean. There are no more hot-water taps. There are no post exchanges where you can buy cigarets. There are no movies.
When you speak to a civilian you have to wrestle with a foreign language. You carry just enough clothing to cover you, and no more. You don't lug any knickknacks at all.
When our troops made their first landings in North Africa they went four days without even blankets, just catching a few hours sleep on the ground.
Everybody either lost or chucked aside some of his equipment. Like most troops going into battle for the first time, they all carried too much at first. Gradually they shed it. The boys tossed out personal gear from their musette bags and filled them with ammunition.
The countryside for twenty miles around Oran was strewn with overcoats, field jackets and mess kits as the soldiers moved on the city.
Arabs will be going around for a whole generation clad in odd pieces of American Army uniforms. “
Sound Familiar? Other than the reference to the Mediterranean and Northern Africa, this piece could have been written two years ago during the initial invasion of Iraq. Go to the link and read the entire piece if you have time and read more of Ernie’s work here.
Now let’s talk about the little Italian communist Giuliana Sgrena and the stir that her reporting efforts have caused in Iraq:
“The daughter of a World War II veteran, Sgrena was one of the founders of the peace movement in the 1980s.
Before joining Il Manifesto, she worked for the daily Guerra e Pace (War and Peace), but she made her name at the communist newspaper mainly through her avowed affinity with the Arab world.
"For my whole life, I have fought and written on behalf of the weakest," she said in a video put together by those who campaigned to secure her release.
With this in mind, the reporter refused to become embedded with the US military during the war - choosing, instead, to remain in Iraq on her own during the major hostilities of the spring of 2003.
She then returned to the country periodically, focusing on the suffering of ordinary Iraqis brought about by a war she was vehemently opposed to.
Sgrena's outspoken anti-war stance should have endeared her to Iraqi insurgents fighting the US-led forces, said friends and colleagues shocked at her capture on 4 February.”
Wrong, Comrad Sgrena. The only way to endear yourself to the Iraqi “insurgents” is to be an Arab man, grow a long beard, strap explosives to your body or install them in the trunk of your car, and end your life killing as many of your innocent fellow Iraqis while looking for your gaggle of eternal virgins.
And by founding “the peace movement in the 1980’s” isn’t Sgrena about 20 years too late? I thought that the American left started the “peace movement” in the 1960’s in response to the Vietnam War. Come to think of it, isn’t passivism and the “peace movement” was as old as history—supported by the coddled “intellectual” group du jour whom constantly criticize those around them that militarily defend their right to be stupid and complain about society’s ills.
So any way, this silly Italian woman “war correspondent” wanders into Iraq, on her own, because she is against the war and would never allow the American Military to support and protect her presence there. Instead, Sgrena and her fellow “war correspondents” over at Il Manifesto have been running around Iraq undermining the coalition’s efforts. Look at this excerpt from a story published under the headline ’My Name is Giuliana Sgrena: I write for a Newspaper Which Opposed the Sanctions and the War Against Iraq’:
“Sheik Hussein al Zobey, Sunni coordinator of the refugee camps inside the University of Baghdad, uttered an impassioned appeal for the journalist's release: "In the name of truth, free her. I appeal in the name of those who come to help us. I ask the kidnappers to free Giuliana, who has promised to help us. She has laughed and played with our children—and has cried with us."
"Truly moving is the involvement of the Iraqi people in Giuliana Sgrena's ordeal," writes Il Manifesto's correspondent from Baghdad, Stefano Chiarini. "Suffering daily abuses and violence from occupation forces or their proxies, the Iraqis themselves are subjected to routine hostage-taking by the occupiers. If the father is not at home, they arrest his son, or brother, or other relative. Under the pretext of looking for arms, American soldiers and their Iraqi trainees look for jewels and money. And, yet, the whole country has mobilised for the liberation of Giuliana." ”
This is yet another perfect example for the left and the Democrats and the other international “nay sayers” of what kind of animals we are dealing with in Iraq. It doesn’t even matter if you have adopted their side of the fight, if you are not an Arab Muslim you are a potential target. If you happen to be a white skinned woman, your life is even more worthless.
The only reason Sgrena was released was that it was politically expedient for her captors to do so, and she hasn’t yet learned her lesson. Continuing along the path of ignoring the military control and restriction issues brought about by the “insurgent” actions, she and her Italian "James Bond" wannabe protector jump in a used Datsun car and go screaming down a road toward a US Military roadblock.
This story in the anti occupation web site uruknet.info (written by Washington Post reporters) seems to make a case opposite the meaning of their own headline that “Observers Cite Other Shootings at Checkpoints:
“But the circumstances of Friday's shooting of Italian military intelligence officer Nicola Calipari made it particularly vulnerable to calamity, a military source said as he divulged new details of how the car in which Calipari and a newly freed hostage, Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, came to be attacked.
The automobile was traversing onto a route -- the road to the airport -- where soldiers have been killed in shootings and by roadside bombs. U.S. soldiers had established an impromptu evening checkpoint at the entrance to the road about 90 minutes earlier and had stopped other vehicles.
They knew a high-level embassy official would be moving to the airport on that road, and their aim was to support this movement.But no specific coordination occurred between those involved in Sgrena's rescue and the military unit responsible for the checkpoint, according to the source, who said he cannot be named because the military's investigation into the incident is continuing.
Soldiers at the checkpoint have told U.S. military officers that they flashed lights, used hand signals and fired warning shots in an effort to stop the car, which they believed was traveling at more than 50 mph, a typical speed for that road. But Sgrena, who had just been released by Iraqi captors, recalled later that the car was not traveling very fast and that soldiers started firing "right after lighting" a spotlight -- a decision she said was not justified.
Sgrena was wounded by shrapnel in the U.S. barrage.The absence of advance communication between the Italians and the U.S. soldiers at the checkpoint appears to have put the occupants of the car in grave jeopardy, given what many U.S. officials describe as the military's standard practice of firing at onrushing cars from their checkpoints in Iraq."
In my view, the main contributing factor was a lack of prior coordination with the ground unit," the source said. "If requested, we would have resourced and supported this mission very differently."
Military officials in Iraq have said for two days that they cannot answer questions about U.S. rules of engagement because of a need to keep insurgents off guard. Officials have not said whether these rules have changed since the insurgency in Iraq worsened in late 2003. They also have declined to estimate how many civilians such as Calipari have been killed accidentally by U.S. forces -- at checkpoints or elsewhere in Iraq.”
So the bottom line here is that you are going to hear two versions of this story, no matter what the facts actually are. One is what I’ll call the Eason Jordan version saying that the US is targeting journalists. The other version, which makes sense for me, is that these Italian cowboys were running around in a war zone and failed to heed the rules of engagement and got their butts shot off.
Which version are you going to believe?
