The Golden Gate

Fuck Yeah:

Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works, famed for the U-2 and Blackbird spy planes that flew higher than anything else in the world in their day, is trying for a different altitude record: an airplane that starts and ends its mission 150 feet underwater. The Cormorant, a stealthy, jet-powered, autonomous aircraft that could be outfitted with either short-range weapons or surveillance equipment, is designed to launch out of the Trident missile tubes in some of the U.S. Navy’s gigantic Cold War–era Ohio-class submarines. These formerly nuke-toting subs have become less useful in a military climate evolved to favor surgical strikes over nuclear stalemates, but the Cormorant could use their now-vacant tubes to provide another unmanned option for spying on or destroying targets near the coast.

One thing’s for sure–no one wants to meet us in the traditional battlespace. No one sane.

Over at Armed and Dangerous:

Americans have never really understood ideological warfare. Our gut-level assumption is that everybody in the world really wants the same comfortable material success we have. We use “extremist” as a negative epithetic. Even the few fanatics and revolutionary idealists we have, whatever their political flavor, expect everybody else to behave like a bourgeois.

We don’t expect ideas to matter — or, when they do, we expect them to matter only because people have been flipped into a vulnerable mode by repression or poverty. Thus all our divagation about the “root causes” of Islamic terrorism, as if the terrorists’ very clear and very ideological account of their own theory and motivations is somehow not to be believed.

By contrast, ideological and memetic warfare has been a favored tactic for all of America’s three great adversaries of the last hundred years — Nazis, Communists, and Islamists. All three put substantial effort into cultivating American proxies to influence U.S. domestic policy and foreign policy in favorable directions. Yes, the Nazis did this, through organizations like the “German-American Bund” that was outlawed when World War II went hot. Today, the Islamists are having some success at manipulating our politics through fairly transparent front organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Be sure to read the rest. He has a very interesting list that will look all too familiar.

Via the Blog Pappy.

Somehow “dumb idea” doesn’t quite convey the scope of this decision by the Bush Administration:

WASHINGTON - Two Republican governors on Monday questioned a Bush administration decision allowing an Arab-owned company to operate six major U. S. ports, saying they may try to cancel lease arrangements at ports in their states.

New York Gov. George Pataki and Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich voiced doubts about the acquisition of a British company that has been running the U.S. ports by Dubai Ports World, a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates.

The British company, Peninsular and Oriental, runs major commercial operations at ports in Baltimore, Miami, New Jersey, New Orleans, New York and Philadelphia.

“Ensuring the security of New York’s port operations is paramount and I am very concerned with the purchase of Peninsular & Oriental Steam by Dubai Ports World,” Pataki said in a news release.

According to the FBI, most of the funding for the 9/11 attacks came though UAE financial institutions. All it takes is this and Iran [with the shipped flagged UAE] floating a nuke into one of these ports on a cargo ship and we are fucked.

I am going to be generous and say that they just did nto think this through and they better fucking start thinking things through.

At least the governors still seem to have their wits about them. Jesus.

MAJOR UPDATE: Maybe I spoke too soon. Suddenly I am fascinated. This has become quite an interesting item with the President threatening a veto [it would be his first ever] of any legislation to bar this deal. Frist has spoken of overriding it. Hmmm.

Instapundit has a full round-up. Just go over there and keep on scrolling down this post.

More up-to-date UPDATE:

more at LGF.

Heh:

The Washington State initiative process began in 1907 as a means to protect the working poor from capitalist exploitation, and labor unions from unfair competition. But in recent years, a few unscrupulous con artists have perverted the system for their own selfish interests. Under the guise of “democracy”, right-wing demagogues such as Tim Eyman have used the initiative process as a tool to limit or reduce taxes, cruelly forcing our elected representatives to actually adhere to a strict budget. Weaving a constant web of deceipt, Eyman employs slick marketing campaigns and bright, sparkly objects to hypnotize innocent Washingtonians into believing they’d be happier if they were allowed to keep more of their income, when we all know that the exact opposite is true.

You see, the American people are basically children – naive, impressionable children. It’s up to us grown-ups to protect them from evil conservatives who want fill their tiny brains with a lot of crazy ideas, such as getting something in return for their tax money besides clever new ways to take even more of it. Training these spoiled brats to become contributing members of a “community” rather than selfish individualists is a tough job and we get little gratitude in return. We help ourselves to a few measly pennies out of their precious piggy banks and give them fantastic sports stadiums and magic choo-choo trains to nowhere in return, but they’ll still turn right around and stab us in the liver for a cheap tank of gas. Well, I’ve had enough! Do you hear me? ENOUGH![...]

Ah yes. Liberal Larry represents the shrill left better than they do themselves. How does he do it?

Frank J over at IMAO has a unique take on this incident. Here is a small sample:

As soon as I heard that Cheney shot a man in the face, my immediate reaction was, “This is why I voted for Bush.” I’ve had my doubts about President Bush at times, but, as this incident unfolded, it’s reminded me of everything that’s great about his administration.

You will want to read the rest of this very funny piece on your own.

This image of Pakistani protestors appeared on Germany’s TV station n-tv.de.

Hat tip: Little Green Footballs.

I don’t know about you, but seeing this picture makes me want to go out and by some Danish products.

A match made in liberal heaven. Bill Nienhuis over at the The Pundit Guy has a great post picking apart the lastest NYT hit piece on Wal-Mart:

NYT Lobs Another Airball at Wal-Mart.

Here’s a sample:

The New York Times doesn’t like Wal-Mart, and over the years, the Old Gray Lady has taken shots at America’s Store in hopes of crippling it’s leadership and slowing its success. Goaded by the labor unions, the NYT goes to great lengths to splatter mud on Wal-Mart’s corporate practices.

They demonize Wal-Mart and characterize its management as dictators controlling an evil empire from the bridge of the death star in Bentonville, Arkansas. Why? It’s simple really. The New York Times is run by liberals living in a bubble who oppose good old fashioned capitalism. They don’t believe in an American Dream that enables a family owned business to build itself up to become the worlds largest retailer, employing 1.6 MILLION people in 3,800 stores in the US alone.

The liberals at the NYT and their ACLU brethren truly believe that Wal-Mart’s goal is to victimize and enslave their workforce. In a nutshell, they believe a Wal-Mart store is no different than a sweatshop in a third world country, and they must be stopped.

Be sure to read all of it.

Last July 4^th I wrote a piece defending our Founding Fathers against the accusation of being equivalent to Terrorists. In it, I pointed out that to call American Patriots terrorists was to sabotage the meaning of the word “terrorism.” It might be semantically possible, but it is spin doctoring at its worse.

Now, I would like to point out a similar dilution of language around what have been called “protests” by Muslim fanatics who are burning Italian embassies for Mohammed cartoons about that were published in Denmark. To call these acts “protests” is both to dignify them beyond their due, and to cast a pall on the
great tradition of social protest. These acts of vandalism and destruction are not organized attempts to raise the consciousness of a culture, but pointless and chaotic expressions of hate, fear, and frustration.

I can hear the liberal revisionists screaming at me even now – who am I to determine what is or is not a legitimate protest? Didn’t our Founding Fathers destroy property and kill to communicate their sense of injustice? Aren’t these protests the equivalent of our own revolutionary beginnings?

Perhaps I am old fashioned, but I suggest that rebelling against your government for political freedom is fundamentally different than mindless vandalism against innocents out of a desire to control the world. American Patriots were not rebelling against the British to force the British to believe their beliefs but fighting so that each person could have their own. They were not offering million dollar rewards to quell the speech of (murder) the cartoonists that dared to disagree with them, but fighting for the freedom of speech for all.

To highlight the difference between considered social protest to further the rights of all and mindless rioting against innocents to silence the rights of others, I suggest we spin the language to its limits and elevate these “protests” to the status of rebellion – The Cartoon Rebellions. It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Only these aren’t rebels without a cause, only rebels without a clue.

The Cartoon Rebellions – a world-wide swath of destruction so absurd that we would think it was a bad comic strip. Cartoons causing people to act like cartoons, while cartoon apologists strive to find politically correct ways to appease the rioters. An elaborate joke that would be hilarious if it were not so tragic, unbelievable if it were not so real.

Over at the Jawa Report.

San Francisco Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval went on the “Hannity and Colmes” TV program yesterday and called for the disbanding of the US Military. And yes, he was (apparently) being sincere. His remarks came in a discussion about the proposal to bring the historic WWII battleship the USS Iowa to San Francisco as a permanent public exhibition.

People who do not live in the San Francisco area may be amazed that an elected official would actually say such a thing. People who live in San Francisco will not be amazed that an elected official would say such a thing.
Hat tip to SFSOS.

The transcript is below, or you can watch the video here. Oy.

SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: As we continue “Hannity & Colmes” from San Francisco tonight, the board of supervisors here overwhelmingly voted to reject a plan last year that would bring the historic World War II Iowa battleship right here to San Francisco harbor, as a museum and tourist center.

We’re now joined by one of the supervisors that voted against that plan, Gerardo Sandoval is with us.

Welcome to the show. You just said something to me as we were coming on the air. You don’t want a symbol of war in the harbor. Is what you said to me.

GERARDO SANDOVAL, MEMBER OF SAN FRANCISCO BOARD OF SUPERVISORS: That’s right.

HANNITY: I guess this is just a difference in philosophy. That symbol of war that beat back the forces of fascism in imperial Japan and Nazism, that’s really a symbol of peace. Why would you see it as a symbol of war when it defended liberty and freedom?

SANDOVAL: Well, it did do that. But also, it’s a warship and it’s got guns on it. It fires things. You know, you can’t deny what it is.

San Francisco is where we signed the United Nations charter, the original charter, created the United Nations. There are many, many ways to honor veterans and their sacrifice.

HANNITY: I understand that. But you don’t have liberty and freedom unless we win that war.

SANDOVAL: Absolutely.

HANNITY: So in that scene — well, then why would you dishonor the men that fought on that ship and preserved your freedom? To say what you want to say?

SANDOVAL: We don’t want to dishonor them.

HANNITY: Well, you are dishonoring them.

SANDOVAL: We just don’t want to put a 10-story gun on the waterfront where everybody is going to be looking at it every single day.

HANNITY: That gun gives you freedom. That gun ensures your liberty. That gun made this world a safer place.

SANDOVAL: But it could be a flag. It could be a statue. It could be many, many different things.

HANNITY: But is war against the Nazis a good thing? Is war against imperial Japan when they attacked Pearl Harbor, is that a good thing?

SANDOVAL: Well, sometimes you have to resort to violence.

HANNITY: No, no, no. Is war — was war against the Nazis a good thing?

SANDOVAL: Absolutely.

HANNITY: Was war against imperial Japan a good thing?

SANDOVAL: Absolutely. We don’t have to put a bomb or a warship right on the waterfront. It’s going to be 10 stories tall. You know how tall that is? It’s half as big as some of the biggest buildings in San Francisco.

HANNITY: You know something? I guess this is just a philosophical difference. Because you know what? I define peace as the ability to defend ourselves. And you seem to look at that as ship as something negative, not something to be proud of. Not something that gave you a great gift. I don’t understand that mentality. Can you explain it to our audience?

SANDOVAL: Well, it’s also a fiscal issue not just a symbolic or philosophical.

HANNITY: Yes, hurt that’s not the reason. Because a lot of people say it’s about money. If I told you the money would be there tomorrow, you would still be against it, wouldn’t you?

SANDOVAL: We would still be against it. That’s right.

HANNITY: So it’s not about money, but you’re using it as an excuse.

SANDOVAL: No, no, no. But it’s a very real reason. In Oakland right across the bay here, where they brought in the USS — one of the wood…

HANNITY: Would you have the freedom to vote this way, had we not used that ship, that symbol of war as you call it, if we had not won that war? Would you have the ability to even make this vote without that ship?

SANDOVAL: Things would be very, very different. No doubt. But that does not mean we have to put a warship on our waterfront.

HANNITY: Warship? Why don’t you call it a peace ship? The peace ship gave you the liberty to be who you are today?

SANDOVAL: Why don’t we paint war symbols on all schools if that’s the way you feel? So we can honor their sacrifice.

HANNITY: I rarely agree with Dianne Feinstein. And she even says this is not the San Francisco that I know. This is — and I guess this is the mentality. Do you think America should unilaterally disarm? Should we give up our weaponry and our war — our tools of war?

SANDOVAL: You know, that’s a very complicated question. But I would say yes, we should. We should invest our money in our kids.

ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: This is Alan in New York. Should we not have military?

SANDOVAL: I don’t think we should have a military. Absolutely.

COLMES: We shouldn’t have a military? Wait a minute. Hold on. The United States should not have a military?

SANDOVAL: What good has it done for us in the last five years? That’s right. What good has it done us…

HANNITY: Good grief.

SANDOVAL: … in the last five years.

COLMES: Gerardo, wait a second.

SANDOVAL: We think about the billions that we’re spending in Iraq right now, if we spend it on schools. We should not…

COLMES: The United States should not have a military?

SANDOVAL: That’s correct.

COLMES: Are you kidding me?

SANDOVAL: The United States should not have a military. All in all, we would be in much, much, much better shape.

COLMES: You’ve got to be kidding me. We should have no military, we should have no ability to defend ourselves, we should have no armed forces in this country?

SANDOVAL: Well, we shouldn’t have a military that goes abroad and starts wars.

COLMES: You just said we shouldn’t have a military. I don’t want to give — I’m speaking out very forcefully to you, because I don’t want to give the impression that Democrats hate the military or don’t want a military. We may disagree with certain wars, like the ones fought now.

SANDOVAL: No, but you said should we give up.

COLMES: But to say that we shouldn’t have a military is absolutely absurd. It’s incredible. That’s a ridiculous fringe point of view.

HANNITY: That’s exactly what I was thinking, Alan. Welcome to San Francisco.

SANDOVAL: If you’re saying that we don’t have a right to defend ourselves that’s different from we shouldn’t have a military.

COLMES: What do you want to defend ourselves — what do you want to defend ourselves with?

SANDOVAL: Well, you got cops. It’s called the Coast Guard. There’s lots of things different.

COLMES: You want to send cops to defend our shores if we’re attacked? You want to send cops overseas if we’re attacked? Cops?

SANDOVAL: You want to send people abroad to start these wars.

COLMES: I don’t. Actually, Gerardo, you don’t know anything about what I stand for if you can say that. I’ve been one of the most outspoken people against this administration and the war in Iraq.

But that doesn’t mean we as Democrats hate the military or don’t want to defend this country. And I’m amaze you could get on national television and say we shouldn’t have a military in America?

SANDOVAL: Well, that’s the way I think a lot of people feel here in San Francisco.

HANNITY: I’ve got to tell you, this is a first. You made look Alan look like a hawk.

I’m going to tell you something. If America is attacked, you have no defenses. You have no liberty. You have no freedom. You can’t think in such a shallow way. You’ve got to tell me that this is a joke.

SANDOVAL: No, no. Not at all. I think that what you look at where you want America to go, I mean America has got hundreds of years, maybe thousands of years to go.

HANNITY: Without a military, there is no America. Without — it’s not a disagreement. It’s a fact.

SANDOVAL: We can imagine an America that someday will not have a military. It might take 1,000 years.

HANNITY: OK. And then when Iran bombs you…

SANDOVAL: But that’s what you’ve got to hope for.

HANNITY: Or when al Qaeda attacks you, what are you going to do?

UPDATE: If you’d like to let Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval know how you feel about his expressed viewpoint, here’s how to get in touch with him:

Gerardo Sandoval - Supervisor, District 11
City Hall
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, Room 244
San Francisco, CA 94102-4689
(415) 554-6975 - voice
(415) 554-6979 - fax
Gerardo.Sandoval@sfgov.org

Personal website: http://www.gerardosandoval.org/

Official website: http://www.sfgov.org/site/bdsupvrs_index.asp?id=4643

San Francisco Democratic Party Central Committee:

(415) 626-1161
1390 Market Street, Suite 818,
San Francisco, CA 94102
email: info@sfdemocrats.org

website:  http://www.sfdemocrats.org

UPDATE: Able Dart over at the SF Wall is mad as hell. He’s calling for all San Francisco Democrats to stay the hell off of any and all Fox News shows. I respect Able and I usually agree with where he’s coming from. But personally, I’d like to see MORE SF Politicians on these national news shows for the basic reason that our local media does SUCH a poor job of really challenging these folks on some of the more outrageous foolery and ideology that passes for “public policy” in these parts. Able’s larger point seems to be that Fox News is “out to get the Democrats.” “Any Democrat worth their salt knows that Fox News – the bastard baby of Reagan era GOP operative Roger Ailes – is out to discredit the Democratic Party [...] is not an impartial organization…” says the Dart.

The obvious counterpoint is, of course, that other Mainstream Media outlets are hardly “impartial organizations,” either — despite all their high-sounding protestations to the contrary. I think it’s actually healthy for the US to have a national media outlet that owns its viewpoint. Now, if only the NY Times, and CBS and CNN et. al. would have the guts to do the same. Because, let’s get real: one is hard pressed to find even-handed coverage of the Republicans (or the Libertarians) on any of the (mesaurably lefty-biased) Mainstream Media outlets.

Furthermore, Fox does do good reporting in their straight news segments. They’ve scooped other providers from time to time. As for the opinion shows, whatever — they’re opinion shows. Again, I’m glad Fox is on the scene and basically owning that they’re coming from a point of view, if only as a counter-balance.

What’s more troubling, to me, is the transparently bogus pretense of “objectivity” foisted on us by other networks and news outlets.

All in all, I am ALL FOR SF politicos “outing” themselves and shooting themselves in the foot when faced with folks who hasn’t been ideologically browbeaten into accepting some of the silly lefty tropes that so many in this City just accept as “received wisdom.”

So I say: More SF Democrats on Fox! Please! And, bring on the GREENS!

For those of you who do not know, it was Flynt, Hustler Magazine’s Publisher, in the landmark Supreme Court case Flynt v. Falwell [yes, that Falwell] that forced this Country to decide that offending religious sensibilities was protected speech.

That was only 30 years ago folks.

Flynt:

Freedom of speech is only important if you’re gonna offend someone; if you’re not gonna offend someone, you don’t need free speech.

No shit.

Read the rest of the interview here.

The University of California @ Santa Barbara just completed a study of the costs of turnover associated with the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy on gays in the military.

The Captain has a great post on this topic. Here is a sample:

In short, it appears that the UCSB study considered the costs in the same manner as any corporation would when reviewing its turnover. Hiring costs always include recruitment, orientation, and all training conducted to bring a new hire to a fully functional level. When employees get culled out for any reason, the cost of replacement includes all of those tasks, and whether one accepts the GAO number or the UCSB number, it adds up quickly.

Interestingly, the number of people drummed out of the service during the ten years under review, around ten thousand, is less than half of the number of those who leave due to pregnancy, and less than a third of those who can’t make weight. The commission that conducted the study use the data to argue for an end to the current policy and the rejection of homosexuals in the service, but I do notice that they do not use this same data to argue for an end to the induction of women. Nor do they mention any endorsement for tightening weight requirements for new recruits.

Nevertheless, I think the panel has a point about gays in the military. As Barry Goldwater remarked in his later years, the only requirement for soldiers should be whether they shoot straight. It seems like a foolish and irrational burden for the armed services to carry, one perhaps understandable when homosexuality was considered a mental disorder but hard to justify now.

Indeed. Be sure to read it all.

By Vedran VuK

An ex-girlfriend once told me, “You treat me like a piece of property.” As an economics major, my first reaction was: How great that the center of my affection truly understands the way I feel! Butterflies in my stomach, rainbows, unicorns, big red hearts shot through my enamored mind. When someone truly understands you, what can you feel but joy?

If I treated her as if she were my property, after all, it means that I would take care of her, protect her, and treat her well above all things not in my possession.

Suddenly, I realized the look on her face did not reflect the combusting happiness within me.

Then, I realized my error. We are all self owners, she as much as I. But let’s say I were treating her like property. That raises the extremely important issue:

“Do you mean public or private property?”

Read the rest on your own over at The Mises Institute.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Read the whole thing.

Sample:

We are being pissed upon

I think it was the long departed H.C. Hansen, one of the great Danish statesmen of the last century, who – as the communists were demonstrating in front of Christiansborg [the Danish Parliament] – cast his gaze across the palace square and remarked: “I will not be pissed upon.”

Then he did what was necessary.

I feel that currently my beloved country is being pissed upon rather too much. Denmark has not been neglecting its duties on the international stage. We have supported poor people with acts and advice, we have worked for peace, we have sent soldiers, policemen and experts to all the far flung corners of the world. We have democracy, a rule of law and a welfare state. Not all is perfect, but we harbor no malice towards our fellow men.

And yet Denmark is being pissed upon. The spokesman of the US State Department is pissing on Denmark, the British Secretary of Foreign Affairs is pissing on Denmark, the President of Afghanistan is pissing on Denmark, the Government of Iraq is pissing on Denmark, other Muslim regimes are pissing on Denmark. In Gaza, where Danes for years have provided humanitarian aid, crazed Imams encourage people to cut off the hands and heads of the cartoonists who made the drawings of Mohammed for the Jyllands-Posten newspaper.

Excuse my choice of words, but all this pissing is pissing me off.

What is going on? I am not referring so much to the threats against Danish citizens and Danish commerce. Nor to the burnt down Embassies. I am thinking of a word that keeps popping up whenever the Mohammed cartoons are mentioned.

That word is BUT. A sneaky word. It is used to deny or qualify what one has just said.

How many times lately have we not heard people of power, the Opinion Makers and others say that of course we have freedom of speech, BUT.

They have said it, all of them, from Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, to our own Bendt Bendtsen [a Danish Politician]. Once we had to be sensitive to the easily hurt feelings of the Nazis, then came the Communists, now it is the Islamists. The reason I say ‘Islamists’ is that I do not for a moment believe all the world’s Muslims are pissing on us. I think we are dealing with thugs, fools and misled people. Those are the ones we have to deal with, and then the chickenshit politicians.

Can I get a fucking “amen”?

I say again, be sure to read the whole thing.

Hubris has joined the fray. You remember Hubris. Now, Hubris is not back, he’s just posting now and then. And this now and then is a doozy:

Dick Cheney Goes On Accidental Seven-State Shooting Spree.

Just go read it. And see the pic of the VP’s vehicle in action.
And welcome not back, Hubris. Glad you’re not back, but just posting from time to time. Or not…err, ummm, yeah.

Oh–and Hubie, you owe me a fucking Keyboard. That shit was so funny I spit up on mine.

Oops. 

That had to hurt a bit. Glad he’s okay. And since he’s okay, LET THE HUMOR BEGIN!
The Corner already has a couple of zingers:

Since the 78-year-old lawyer is in ok shape: Three jokes to be on the look out for, off the top of my head:

• Since wholesale Social Security reform failed, Cheney is taking a retail approach.

• Afterwards, Cheney said two words: “tort reform.”

• Clearly, this is further proof that the administration needs to work harder providing adequate body armor.

And, Three of the Top Ten Things He Said Afterwards:

• “I thought it was Pat Leahy.”

• “Let’s have no more talk about independent counsels.”

• “Pull!…Oh, that was the last lawyer?”

Heh.

Hat tip: Silent Running

Patterico has a post on the proximity of airliners on approach at LAX:

Not just psychologically, but less dangerous as well. As a downtown pedestrian, I have often noticed how absurdly close jet airliners seem to come to downtown’s skyscrapers. I once asked a friend who is an amateur pilot how long it would take for one of these airliners to divert from its flight pattern and crash into L.A.’s tallest skyscraper. He said twenty seconds.

To me, it looks like it would take only ten. But even twenty seconds seems like a very short time. Terrorists could take over a cockpit and crash the plane into the tower before most passengers even knew what was happening.

He links to a story in the LA times on the topic.

Shortly after 9/11 I lived in the San Diego area and was commuting back and forth between SD and San Francisco on a bi-weekly basis on a Boeing 737. Downtown San Diego is no LA, but the flight path upon landing came eerily close to the buildings there.

My awareness always increased in intensity and I watched the aisle knowing that I would only have a few seconds to take counter measures if some suspicious looking fellow made a move toward the cockpit.

I never much enjoyed those flights.

–

BTW–Patterico is often a great read. He takes the LA times to task on a regular basis for bias and inaccuracies.

A federal jury on Thursday awarded $15 million to three Los Angeles police officers who alleged they were falsely arrested and maliciously prosecuted during the Rampart corruption scandal that roiled the LAPD for years beginning in 1999.

The jury award represents a bitter pill for the city, which already has doled out about $70 million in Rampart-related settlements to gang members, drug dealers and other victims of police abuse — and now faces the prospect of paying another significant judgment to officers who were accused of committing some of that same misconduct.

The Orange County jury deliberated for 2 1/2 hours before voting unanimously in favor of Sgt. Edward Ortiz, Officer Paul Harper and former Sgt. Brian Liddy. The award was split evenly among them.

“It was real, real obvious that they were made the fall guys,” said juror Rose McKay. “We listened to the evidence for three weeks and never heard any hard evidence against them.”

Dale Goldfarb, a private attorney hired to defend the city, said he disagreed with the verdict and planned to challenge it in post-trial motions. “We think the verdict was completely wrong and was not supported by any evidence at the trial,” he said.

A spokesman for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said the city probably would appeal if those motions failed. “It’s obviously a significant amount of taxpayer money,” spokesman Joe Ramallo said. “It’s serious.”

The verdict could hardly come at a worse time for the mayor. Villaraigosa, who has pledged to expand the Police Department and tackle other city needs even as the government faces a persistent structural deficit, is working to prepare the first city budget of his tenure since being elected last year.

The $15 million, Ramallo noted, would be enough to fund 150 more police officers.

Ortiz, Liddy and Harper were arrested in April 2000 on corruption-related charges stemming from the then-unfolding Rampart scandal, in which corrupt former Officer Rafael Perez alleged that he and his colleagues routinely framed, beat and otherwise mistreated suspects.

No really. In New Zealand.

On the face of it you have to say that Labour did in fact buy the election. The results as anyone who followed it can tell you were knife edge. Indeed we had to wait for the special votes to be counted before we knew who had won.

That winning margin? Just 2%

So when we find that Labour has overspent their campaign budget by 17% you don’t have to be a Rhodes Scholar to do the maths.

Labour has now taken the position that the laws regulating spending are “outdated”. Which is a bloody arogant way of saying they don’t suit Labour so they’ll ignore them.

Which isn’t all they ignored. National protested at the exclusion of Labours “Pledge Cards” from the budget and the Electorial Office advised PRIOR to the election that they were indeed part of the expenditure. Labour simply ignored this and kept on spending.

Spending our money. Thats right, more taxpayer dollars added to the complusary Union Fees and the free pool a workers for the “Labour Letter Factory” as they called where state servants were used to stuff envolopes. Added to this having been caught out with hospitals handing out political material in waiting rooms and having been instructed to remove it by the SSC it is very clear that there are NO rules that Labour will recognise when it comes to grasping onto power.

This is just one of the reasons that I felt that all of the American Left’s cries of stolen elections was more about projection than anything else. When you are willing to do anything just for the sake of winning, you think everyone has the same inclination.

After weeks of harping on the emerging Jack Abramoff scandal as an example of the Republican “culture of corruption” and debating for the last day about the proximity to George Bush that Abramoff had, Democrats may find the investigation hits too close to home to continue celebrating. The AP reported earlier today that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid intervened on four separate occasions on behalf of Abramoff clients and that Reid coordinated on legislative efforts with the lobbyist’s office

Oops.

Read the rest from the Captain.

Are we at war? You know, Western Civilization with its ideas about liberty, freedom, expression, gender relations, multi-cultaralism…against those who hate it. Or is this just trumped up lies and fear by the Bush Administration?

Well, may be just the locals in palestine justifiably upset about the oppression by the Israelis, right?

Except that is a Danish flag. You know, those Danes. Hungy for empire and all.

And this is in London. That’s right. That’s a Bobby there.

And just in case you had any doubt about their affections…

What was this protest over? Editorial cartoons depicting Mohammed. Cartoons. Time to wake up people.

More photos here. More commentary and links to come in an update later.

Well, the Steelers got one for the thumb. I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for that guy Cower. Not sure why. Regardless…I was hoping the Seahawks would win.

But far more importantly…The Ads!

Here are the ads I favored of those available via DevLIB:

AmeriQuest Mortgage [.mov]

Budweiser [mp4]

CareerBuilder  [mp4]

Bud Amber [mp4]

Sprint [mp4]

Budweiser  [mp4]

Tom Paine over at silent running thinks that this is unacceptable.

I disagree. And I say:

I actually think it is not only perfectly acceptable–but a good thing.

The islamofascists are showing the world it is not the American “imperialism” or our “irrational” support of the joooooos, or our foreign policy of the past, but rather the fevered mentality of a religiosity filled with hate and edicts to force all to submit to the will of Allah.

Perhaps now the appeasers and softball MSM will actually see the truth and begin to call an islamofascist an islamofascist rather than a “militant”, “dissident”, etc.

Maybe they will actually use “terrorist” to describe an attack on Paris. An attack, that while would be horrifying, may actually be needed to wake up the appeasers of all appeasers–the French.

No, I fear this is not only acceptable, but necessary to wake up the Left in America and the Europeans in general to the true threat we face. I hope they wake up quickly and join us in joining the enemy in Iraq, Iran, and Syria.

Sad, but true.

See Tom’s post here.

The CATO Institute has one of those posts that I just love. This one dismantles the conventional wisdom about rent control and its benefits.

Here is just a small sample of a rich piece:

There can be no doubt that rent control creates housing shortages. For almost 20 years, national vacancy rates have been at or above 7 percent–a figure generally considered normal. Cities such as Dallas, Houston, and Phoenix, where development is welcomed, have often had vacancy rates above 15 percent. In these areas of the country, there usually is a surplus of housing rather than a shortage. Landlords commonly advertise “move-in specials,” where rent is reduced for the first month or even where they pay moving expenses.

In rent-controlled cities, on the other hand, vacancy rates have been uniformly below normal. New York City has not had a vacancy rate above 5 percent since World War II. (The state’s rent control law, supposedly temporary, would automatically expire if it did.) Before giving up rent control, Boston’s vacancy rate was below 4 percent. (There are no figures as of yet on the rate since rent control ended.) In rent-controlled San Francisco, the vacancy rate is generally around 2 percent, and in San Jose the rate is 1 percent, the nation’s lowest. Meanwhile, comparable nonrent-controlled cities, such as Chicago, Philadelphia, San Diego, and Seattle have normal vacancy rates at or above 7 percent.

If you know nothing of what shortages do to prices that is well covered. Here is a taste:

It is also striking how affordable housing is in most free-market cities. In Philadelphia, the nation’s fifth largest city, the most common advertised rent, the mode, is between $450 and $500–below both the advertised and census medians. (See Figure 1.) In Chicago, the mode was $500 to $550, also below both medians. Unregulated cities such as Philadelphia, Chicago, San Diego, Phoenix, and Seattle seem to have almost perfectly competitive housing markets, with housing available at every price level but clustered at the low end.

The two cities with strict rent control are glaring exceptions to this pattern. In both New York (see Figure 2.) and San Francisco, advertised rents peaked at $2,000–more than triple the U.S. Census median rent for each city. The median advertised rent in New York was $1,350, in San Francisco, $1,400–both more than double the census median. More important, there were almost no rental units available at the low end of the market. In both San Francisco and New York, less than 10 percent of advertised rents were below the census median. (The New York figures also included listings from the Daily News and the New York Post, which are slanted toward the lower end of the market.) Rent control in both these cities appears to make housing spectacularly unaffordable.

Go read the whole thing here.