Redefining human rights

Some illegal immigrants to Britain have tales of woe so heartrending, they defy belief. This story isn't one of them.

An illegal immigrant has demanded to be flown home after saying he was fed up with British people - because they are "rude and unfriendly".

Speaking today, Mokhtar Tabet, 30 - who has been given a home, food and free travel around London - claims his local council has breached his human rights by moving him to a place he does not like.

[ ... ]

"The new place is small, and the kitchen closes at 9pm, so I can't have anything to eat late at night. They have taken away my human rights."

[ ... ]

Mr Tabet is entitled to return to Algeria at his own expense and admits that he "does not like it here".

But he refuses to do so and says Britain will have to pay for his travel if it wants him to leave.

He moaned: "I miss Algeria. The English people are not helpful, they are so unfriendly and rude.

"I thought I had made friends in Croydon, but when I ask them for money they don't give me it, so I know they can't be my friends."

[ ... ]

He now receives £32 a week in vouchers from Croydon Council to buy food with while he awaits deportation.

Unsatisfied at this, he griped: "Croydon Council only gives me food vouchers, they won't give me cash. I want the money.

"I have nothing to buy new clothes with, I have to go to a refugee centre. But if there's not anything nice there, you leave with nothing.

"I want the council to give me a bigger flat and money instead of vouchers."

Please excuse me...I'm a bit choked up.

Concert for the ADD-afflicted

A rare perk in attending industry events comes when the obligatory event bash is actually worth attending. And I don't mind saying that the bash for Oracle Open World 2007 was worth it. The party tonight was held at the Cow Palace just south of San Francisco. The food -- which ranged from bratwurst to sushi -- and ample open bar capacity were by themselves sufficient to ensure a fun night. But the live entertainment, offered on three separate stages, was just off the hook.

Let's start with the opening acts: Angelique Kidjo (who?), En Vogue (pffft), and Smithereens. OK, so maybe I'm being a bit uncharitable to Ms. Kidjo and En Vogue, but we're talking the Smither-freakin'-eens here. They rock. So maybe Pat DiNizio is getting a bit rotund...who the hell cares? He still sounds great. No contest there...it was the Smithereens for me.

Next came the headline acts, and get this: Lenny Kravitz, Billy Joel, and Steve Nicks with Mick Fleetwood. All playing at the same time on separate stages. What's left for one to do except to circulate between the three venues, right? After bouncing back and forth between Billy Joel and Lenny Kravitz, I ended up at the Stevie Nicks show if for no other reason than there was more room. And damn, but if she didn't sound awesome.

Following up after the headline acts was English Beat, whose Ska sound was right on target and spectacularly lively. All in all, a night well-spent.

War and Peace

Fox News has an interesting item on their site this morning, showing that the peaceful years of 1981-82 were more lethal for the American military than the war years of 2005-06.

I suppose this can be at least partly explained by the transition from the decimated post-Vietnam military to the new Reagan army, in which the pace of training exercises was greatly increased, but it's still food for thought.

Hillary Clinton the communist

Because I haven't mentioned it in a while, and because I don't have time to post much else.

Designing war simulation games Democrats can love

Here's a unique look at how war simulation games might be designed if Democrats (or Michael Moore, or the mainstream media, or Islamists) had their say. I'm quoting more of it here than I should, but only because so much of it is that good. But you'll have to click the link to get the rest and to check out the amusing graphics.

I want a war sim where I spend two hours pushing across a map to destroy a "nuclear missile silo," only to find out after the fact that it was just a missile-themed orphanage.

I want little celebrities to show up on the scene and do interviews over video of charred teddy bears, decrying my unilateral attack. I want congressional hearings demanding answers to these atrocities.

On the very next level I want to lose half of my units because another "orphanage" turned out to be an enemy ambush site. I want another round of hearings asking why I didn't level that orphanage as soon as I saw it, including tearful testimony from a slain soldier's daughter who is now, ironically, an orphan.

[ ... ]

I want that Public Support Meter to rise and fall according to Troops Lost, Length of Conflict, Innocents Killed and Whether or Not There is Anything Else On TV That Week. I want to lose 200 public-support points because, in a war where 8,000 units have been lost, one of my Mutalisks happened to be caught on video accidentally eating one clergyman. Then, later, my destruction of an entire enemy city will go unnoticed because the Nude Zero-Gravity Futureball championship went into overtime.

Speaking of innocents, I want a war sim where native townsfolk stand shoulder-to-shoulder on every inch of the map and not a single bomb can be dropped without blowing 200 of them into chunks. Forget about the abandoned building wallpaper in games like the Red Alert series. I want to have to choose between sending marines door-to-door to be killed in the streets or leveling the block from afar, Nuns and all. I want to have to choose between 40 dead troops or 400 dead children, and be damned to hell by chubby pundits from the safety of their studios regardless of which way I go.

I want my Mission Objectives to change every 30 seconds, without anyone letting me know. I want little talking heads to pop up on my screen--commanders, politicians, allies, military intelligence--each giving me different sets of victory parameters, all of them conflicting and many of them written in bullshit ass-covering doublespeak.

[ ... ]

I want factions. Not a simple aliens vs. humans or Russians vs. Americans war orgy. I want to share the map with powerful forces who are not friend or foe or anything else, a news media, private corporations, asshole allies and friendly enemies, everyone jockeying for their own interests and me unable to bend over at any moment without turning my codpiece around first. I want a France. [Heh. --ed.]

I want fat, left-wing documentarians carefully editing the only the most incriminating footage, countered only by low-IQ country music singers crooning my praises while in American flag-colored cowboy hats. [OK, I thought this bit about the country singers was unnecessary. --ed.]

[ ... ]

In my Public Support Meter display, let me find out that the news media has run, in the same magazine, one story blasting us for going to war for minerals and another story blasting us for not acting on the continuing mineral shortage back home.

There should also be simultaneous stories about the outrageous expense of the war effort, and another about how the troops are under-funded and under-equipped. Set it so that I somehow lose public-support points with each story.

I want to be able to build a POW camp structure where enemy soldiers and suicide bombers are held should they somehow survive battle or should their suicide bombing only be half-successful. I want to right-click on the building and open an option that says "Interrogate Prisoners," which will make parts of the map open up and reveal enemy positions, saving my own units from ambushes.

Then, I want a little cut scene to pop up to announce that photos of my prisoner interrogations have emerged, sparking international outrage because several prisoners were upset and humiliated and some even physically harmed.

The whole world is shocked, it says, because people were physically harmed.

In my war.

So, I leave the battlefield and brush the flaming chunks of bomb victims off my boots to address the worldwide outrage. The game will bring me up on a court martial, everybody pointing out that it was I who clicked the little Interrogation icon. I want to lose tons of public-support points and have every game objective suddenly put in doubt.

Read the whole thing.

King of Spain to Chavez: Shut up

[Note: I'm in the middle of a two-week road trip, which explains the light posting over the past week. I'll be back on a regular schedule soon. --ed.]

It seems that even King Juan Carlos of Spain is sick of Venezuelan Comic Book Commie in Chief Hugo Chavez.

Spain's King Juan Carlos told Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez to "shut up" as the Ibero-American summit drew to a close in Santiago, Chile.

The outburst came after Mr Chavez called former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar a "fascist".

Mr Chavez then interrupted Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's calls for him to be more diplomatic, prompting the king's outburst.

Latin American, Portuguese, Spanish and Andorran leaders were meeting in Chile.

Mr Chavez called Mr Aznar, a close ally of US President George W Bush, a fascist, adding "fascists are not human. A snake is more human."

Mr Zapatero said: "[Former Prime Minister] Aznar was democratically elected by the Spanish people and was a legitimate representative of the Spanish people."

Mr Chavez repeatedly tried to interrupt, despite his microphone being turned off. The king leaned forward and said: "Why don't you shut up?"

According to reports, the king used a familiar term normally used only for close acquaintances - or children.

Heh.

Democrats, assholes...what's the difference?

ASSHOLES OF THE WORLD
Uploaded by TheoSpark

Well played.

Christians under siege in Iraq

I read this article today in the dead-tree edition of our local paper. For all the good news coming out of Iraq lately, there still remains much work to be done to put things right, especially for Iraq's Christian population.

Fifteen-year-old Vivian was kidnapped while walking to her Baghdad home.

Her Iraqi Christian parents knew the drill. Like believers often get kidnapped for heavy ransoms.

"How much do you want?" Vivian's mom asked when the kidnappers called.

"We don't want your money," came the terrifying reply. "We want to break your heart."

William Murray and the Rev. Keith Roderick, two members of a fact-finding team looking into the plight of Iraqi Christians, share that story with all who will listen.

The family's plight is ingrained in the minds of Murray and Roderick, who both live in Spotsylvania County. Vivian's parents knew the kidnapping was done in retaliation. A week earlier, they had received a note asking them to bring one of their teenage daughters to the Mosque to marry a Muslim.

They ignored the request.

A week after the phone call, Vivian's naked, mutilated body showed up on a Baghdad street. She had been raped repeatedly, then killed.

Her parents, two sisters and brother fled Iraq with the clothes on their backs, ending up as refugees in Lebanon.

Vivian's surviving family are just a few of many like them who are getting absolutely no help from the US government.

The stories horrified the men. But Murray and Roderick were shocked to learn that the United States government isn't helping the refugees.

"The State Department needs to take greater responsibility," Roderick said. "In fact, they have a moral obligation to take more responsibility. It was our war; we started it. We created this problem."

But in Jordan, the men learned that refugees are not allowed in the U.S. embassy or to talk with its staff. They have to go through the United Nations to determine refugee status.

That policy creates delays, and leads to confusion, Murray said. Many of the refugees have a family member who worked for coalition forces, leaving them open to more persecution, he said.

No matter which side of the Iraq debate one finds oneself, there should be no debate over whether we should be helping these people. We did precipitate the crisis, and the White House needs to intervene to overcome the State Department's inertia over the issue.

Red Sox watch - Postscript

If you handed out something other than licorice whips this Halloween, you probably made some kids pretty happy. I mean, c'mon...who likes licorice? But if you're Jason Varitek and you sat in your driveway in Newton, Massachusetts autographing costumes on Halloween, you gave a bunch of kids something they'll never forget.

There are a whole lot of pro athletes who could learn something from Tek.

Hat Tip: My brother Mark who e-mailed me the link.

Senate dems play politics with national security

I caught this over at Hot Air the other day, but was too busy this week to post anything about it. On Thursday, 30 Senate Demcrats signed a letter to the President stating he had no authority from Congress to act militarily against Iran. As Bryan at Hot Air said in reference to Hillary Clinton, "War Powers Act, Sis. Look it up." I guess technically the letter is accurate in that Congress hasn't authorized any such action, but under the WPA, Bush doesn't need it.

Of course, the letter is meaningless beyond furnishing its signatories with the ability to say that they opposed action against Iran in advance. Or something like that. What the Dembots are really doing here, though, is playing a dangerous game with national security. So why, exactly, are the Dembots nearly unanimously opposed to dealing firmly with Iran? There are a few possibilities:

1. They honestly believe Iran has nothing but peaceful intentions. The evidence says otherwise, but with Democratic candidates tripping over each other in their eagerness to "engage Iran in constructive dialog", this idiotic notion could be a factor.
2. They don't want Bush doing anything about Iran's nascent nuclear weapons program so that when the Dembots take the White House in January 2009 (and they will), they can say "Look at the mess the previous administration left us". Sounds a bit bizarre, but when it comes to political gain, I wouldn't put anything past a Democrat.
3. They want Iran to become a nuclear military power to act as a regional counter balance to our military power. OK, as low an opinion as I have of the Dembots, even I have a hard time swallowing that one. Unless Cindy Sheehan somehow managed to sneak her way into the Senate.
4. They seriously believe that a nuclear-armed Iran is something the world can live with.

Sadly, I believe that last possibility is the most likely one, and further evidence that not a single Democrat can be trusted with national security.

A stake to the heart of Venezuelan democracy

Venezuela's Moonbat Commie-in-Chief Hugo Chavez is putting the finishing touches on his commie utopia with constitutional amendments giving him extraordinary powers and allowing him to seek reelection indefinitely.

Venezuela's pro-government National Assembly overwhelmingly approved constitutional reforms on Friday that would greatly expand the power of President Hugo Chavez and permit him to run for re-election indefinitely.

The 69 changes to Venezuela's Constitution now go to citizens for a Dec. 2 vote.

The proposed changes, Chavez's most radical move yet in his push to transform Venezuela into a socialist state, threaten to spur a new wave of political upheaval in this oil-rich South American country already deeply divided over Chavez's rule.

The amendments would allow the government to expropriate private property prior to a court ruling and take total control over the Central Bank, create new types of property managed by cooperatives, and extend presidential terms from six to seven years while allowing Chavez to run again in 2012.

All but seven of the assembly's 167 lawmakers voted for the changes by a show of hands.

"Today the Venezuelan people have a pencil in their hands to write their own history, and it's not going to be the history of the elite," said pro-Chavez lawmaker Earle Herrera.

In the absence of any widespread, Saddam-style brutality or threats to the US beyond his usual buffoonery, there's nothing the US will do overtly to depose Chavez, his own claims of imminent US invasion notwithstanding.

But the threat to Chavez's perceived enemies in the Americas is real. Chavez has been not only purchasing arms at an alarming rate, but he's been cozying up to the world's worst in forming an alliance with Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran controls Hizballah, which already has a known presence in South America.

This story, unfortunately, is far from over.

Picture of the day

A picture from one of Michael Totten's reports from Anbar

Michael Totten has been reporting from Iraq, and this picture was one that stood out to me as something the mainstream media will never show you. Totten's caption reads:

This drawing by an Iraqi child depicts the American-Iraqi alliance against Al Qaeda. Notice the sword is Iraqi and the muscle is American.

The picture can be found at this post on his site.

Democrats laying groundwork for election fraud

Back in September, I put up this post about the Democrats' fear of laws requiring positive ID at polling places for elections. Democrats fear the voter ID law the way a vampire fears the crucifix.

The only reason any sensible person would oppose voter ID laws is because such laws might thwart efforts to bring enough ineligible voters to the polls to swing an election. And with illegal immigrants present in sufficient numbers in some states, those illegals could be the tipping point in deciding electoral votes for some states.

Enter NY governor Eliot Spitzer and his driver's licenses for illegals plan. Spitzer, a Democrat, proposes issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants in New York. According to Spitzer an illegal, once properly licensed, will never again drive drunk or recklessly, thus making New York's roads safer. That, of course, is complete and utter bullshit.

When Hillary Clinton first waffled on the issue during a debate the other night, then solidified her position as favoring Spitzer's plan, it became clear: This is simply a means to counter voter ID laws. With the federal "motor voter" law, in which states are required to provide voter registration services at motor vehicle offices, the chances of an illegal immigrant fraudulently getting on the voter rolls at the same time their license is issued is greatly increased.

This is the real reason for the Democrats' support of the licenses-for-illegals policy and their ever-softening stance on illegal immigration. Once duly licensed and registered to vote, who else is an illegal immigrant going to vote for?