How did anyone ever think this was a good idea? Seriously, I wonder about the soft heart (and headed) liberals some days. Let's go over this once again:
1) You are building a soft target in what some can arguably call an insulting place.
While everyone loves tolerance, I don't see a huge rush to put up a Serb embassy in Srebrenica. Or a statue of Stalin in Katyn. People are understandably upset about the murder of their loved ones. So, can someone please explain to me how putting up a symbol of the cause that butchered them next to the site of the massacre can be construed as anything but insulting or submissive?
2. You are building a soft target in a nest of very angry people.
As previously mentioned, this mosque is not only an affront to the memory of the people who died, but placed in the middle full of their friends and family. Do you really think that's a bright idea? Don't you get the concept that your parishioners and property will likely be subject to daily harassment and abuse?
3. You have made your mosque a very clear target for extremists.
Every Cletus, Jim Bob and Billy Bob Thorton in the continental US will want to see this mosque destroyed. It will be under constant threat. This may, of course, be what higher leadership wants, but the fact remains that peaceful Muslim Americans are still both civilians and Americans. Lack of sense aside, they deserve the same protections everyone else is afforded.
All in all, I oppose the mosque based on common sense- it'll be a punching bag for the city, will worsen relations between Muslims and New Yorkers, and quite frankly the downtown doesn't really need another crater.
Des
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Long Gun Registry Madness
The Tories are, apparently, hiding the 'facts' on the gun registry. Well, not really. The Liberals are claiming that the Conservatives aren't releasing any 'positive' reports on the Long Gun Registry. This is a horrible symptom of mind poisoning- they assume that such reports exist. They are taking their opinions, and trying to make the facts fit them.
A major House of Commons vote to scrap the long gun registry is coming up close, and the Liberal Media is attempting to whip the legions of douchebag hipsters, bleeding hearts and greens in and effort to stop it. For instance, the Liberal Party recently secured the endorsement of the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians to keep the registry, claiming that "As front-line physicians in emergency departments, we regularly witness the horrific injuries and deaths that result from firearms." So, is there an epidemic of rifle fights across the country? Did I miss something? Did Winnipeg suddenly become Fallujah Far North? Perhaps, while I wasn't looking, these physicians have become professionals in justice and common sense as well as medicine. They claim that "We treat patients on a regular basis who are suicidal and who are victims of domestic assault. We know that a long gun in the home puts both types of patients at a significantly higher risk of being killed" and that three quarters of spousal murders were committed with rifles and shotguns.
We'll pause a second and look at this before I continue. I'll put the obvious point out there: if you have a domestic violence charge, you are unable to obtain a firearms license. You get a domestic violence charge, your license should be revoked in theory. Apparently, this doesn't always happen. Point the second: if you are sufficiently enraged with your spouse that you go, unlock your gun cabinet, unlock your ammo cabinet, load and make ready your weapon and go shoot him/her/it to death, odds are you were sufficiently enraged to grab a knife from the kitchen, a bat from the den, or simply use your fists to get your murder on. Hell, grabbing the knife or bat would take about half the time. The tool used for murder should be immaterial. Which brings me to point the third: how can a doctor tell the difference between a shot fired from a non-restricted rifle from a restricted rifle? There are restricted rifles, like what few ARs we're allowed, and restricted shotguns. Do these ER docs have some sort of magic ray which determines which is which? And even if it does, how does a registry prevent some asshole from the criminal use of a legitimately owned and obtained firearm?
Fact is, it doesn't.
This is all straight up bullshit. As it is, we don't see too many bolt-action drive-bies. Registering a firearm does not magically prevent it from being used in crime. A registry doesn't affect the fact that we share the biggest unprotected border in the world with the country with one of (if not the highest) percentage of privately owned firearms in the world. No, I am not blaming America for being awesome. What I am saying is that illegal firearms are basically impossible to stop from getting into the country. Illegal firearms are available, and quite a cash cow for criminal groups.
If a criminal will act in a criminal manner, no registry will stop this.
Deschain
A major House of Commons vote to scrap the long gun registry is coming up close, and the Liberal Media is attempting to whip the legions of douchebag hipsters, bleeding hearts and greens in and effort to stop it. For instance, the Liberal Party recently secured the endorsement of the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians to keep the registry, claiming that "As front-line physicians in emergency departments, we regularly witness the horrific injuries and deaths that result from firearms." So, is there an epidemic of rifle fights across the country? Did I miss something? Did Winnipeg suddenly become Fallujah Far North? Perhaps, while I wasn't looking, these physicians have become professionals in justice and common sense as well as medicine. They claim that "We treat patients on a regular basis who are suicidal and who are victims of domestic assault. We know that a long gun in the home puts both types of patients at a significantly higher risk of being killed" and that three quarters of spousal murders were committed with rifles and shotguns.
We'll pause a second and look at this before I continue. I'll put the obvious point out there: if you have a domestic violence charge, you are unable to obtain a firearms license. You get a domestic violence charge, your license should be revoked in theory. Apparently, this doesn't always happen. Point the second: if you are sufficiently enraged with your spouse that you go, unlock your gun cabinet, unlock your ammo cabinet, load and make ready your weapon and go shoot him/her/it to death, odds are you were sufficiently enraged to grab a knife from the kitchen, a bat from the den, or simply use your fists to get your murder on. Hell, grabbing the knife or bat would take about half the time. The tool used for murder should be immaterial. Which brings me to point the third: how can a doctor tell the difference between a shot fired from a non-restricted rifle from a restricted rifle? There are restricted rifles, like what few ARs we're allowed, and restricted shotguns. Do these ER docs have some sort of magic ray which determines which is which? And even if it does, how does a registry prevent some asshole from the criminal use of a legitimately owned and obtained firearm?
Fact is, it doesn't.
This is all straight up bullshit. As it is, we don't see too many bolt-action drive-bies. Registering a firearm does not magically prevent it from being used in crime. A registry doesn't affect the fact that we share the biggest unprotected border in the world with the country with one of (if not the highest) percentage of privately owned firearms in the world. No, I am not blaming America for being awesome. What I am saying is that illegal firearms are basically impossible to stop from getting into the country. Illegal firearms are available, and quite a cash cow for criminal groups.
If a criminal will act in a criminal manner, no registry will stop this.
Deschain
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Family History
Alas, brigands to a man, I am decended from. It's not quite surprising, though. My father's generation on both sides of teh family has made gret efforts to unravel the secrets, and here is what we know so far:
The Polish side of my family, through my dad's father, left Poland rather abruptly midway through the Russian Civil War. Apparently, they had made quite a profit helping smuggle Jews, intelligensia, and anyone else targetted by the NKVD or its predesessor from their side of the Russian border into Poland proper, and on to Europe proper. Obviously, this was not looked kindly upon by some of the worst torturers and butchers that the world has ever known. So, when a neighbor knocked in a panic one night, they rushed to the door. He explained as quickly as he could that said parties has politely questioned him at gunpoint as to his whereabouts. He had sent them two farms in the wrong direction, but they didn't have much time. They grabbed their ill gotten gains, the children, and loaded up the car. They dashed to the nearest port, and took off for the first place they saw: America. Now, between the ruination the Great Patriotic War brought and whatever means my great-grandfather used to dodge the secret police, the facts are shrouded in time. My dad grew up in Long Beach, CA, speaking Polish as a second language.
The French side of my family, through my mother's mother, was kicking it in the New World since the 1760's, maybe earlier. Parish records indicate that the first member of my family we can trace our lineage back to came over as a soldier in the service of the monarch. Essentially, from then up to the 1920s, my family was dirt-poor. As in, literally barely owning the dirt they lived in. However, all this rather abruptly changed in 1920s. My great-aunts and uncles recall tales of a 'Forbidden Barn' that smelt funny. My great-grandfather suddenly received a job in the local automobile licensing bureau, run by the local Liberal party member. Now, this may not seem odd...but it should, knowing the town numbered 200 odd souls. Suddenly, of a family of seventeen, all the girls under thirteen could afford to go to school. A few others were married off to an Irish family that shall remain nameless...and also basically runs the Montreal underground. My great-uncle Florian and a few others still repeat a a phrase that makes no sense without context whenever someone loses a game of cinq cent , the local version of bridge: "Awh, t'en va tu a CHICAGO!" For those of us who don't speak French, 'Looks like you're going to Chicago!'. Now, why would a hick from a place you can't find on a map say something like that? I mean, sure, they made regular trips down the St Lawrence weekly. And the year that Prohibition ended, somehow the local licensing place closed down.
Interesting the little facts that add up, isn't it?
Des
The Polish side of my family, through my dad's father, left Poland rather abruptly midway through the Russian Civil War. Apparently, they had made quite a profit helping smuggle Jews, intelligensia, and anyone else targetted by the NKVD or its predesessor from their side of the Russian border into Poland proper, and on to Europe proper. Obviously, this was not looked kindly upon by some of the worst torturers and butchers that the world has ever known. So, when a neighbor knocked in a panic one night, they rushed to the door. He explained as quickly as he could that said parties has politely questioned him at gunpoint as to his whereabouts. He had sent them two farms in the wrong direction, but they didn't have much time. They grabbed their ill gotten gains, the children, and loaded up the car. They dashed to the nearest port, and took off for the first place they saw: America. Now, between the ruination the Great Patriotic War brought and whatever means my great-grandfather used to dodge the secret police, the facts are shrouded in time. My dad grew up in Long Beach, CA, speaking Polish as a second language.
The French side of my family, through my mother's mother, was kicking it in the New World since the 1760's, maybe earlier. Parish records indicate that the first member of my family we can trace our lineage back to came over as a soldier in the service of the monarch. Essentially, from then up to the 1920s, my family was dirt-poor. As in, literally barely owning the dirt they lived in. However, all this rather abruptly changed in 1920s. My great-aunts and uncles recall tales of a 'Forbidden Barn' that smelt funny. My great-grandfather suddenly received a job in the local automobile licensing bureau, run by the local Liberal party member. Now, this may not seem odd...but it should, knowing the town numbered 200 odd souls. Suddenly, of a family of seventeen, all the girls under thirteen could afford to go to school. A few others were married off to an Irish family that shall remain nameless...and also basically runs the Montreal underground. My great-uncle Florian and a few others still repeat a a phrase that makes no sense without context whenever someone loses a game of cinq cent , the local version of bridge: "Awh, t'en va tu a CHICAGO!" For those of us who don't speak French, 'Looks like you're going to Chicago!'. Now, why would a hick from a place you can't find on a map say something like that? I mean, sure, they made regular trips down the St Lawrence weekly. And the year that Prohibition ended, somehow the local licensing place closed down.
Interesting the little facts that add up, isn't it?
Des
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