The following from a director with Southwest Bell in Mexico City:

I spent five years working in Mexico. I worked under a tourist visa for three months and could legally renew it for three more months. After that you were working illegally. I was technically illegal for three weeks waiting on the FM3 approval.

During that six months our Mexican and US Attorneys were working to secure a permanent work visa called a FM3. It was in addition to my US passport that I had to show each time I entered and left the country. Barbara's was the same except hers did not permit her to work.

To apply for the FM3 I needed to submit the following notarized originals (not copies) of my:

1. Birth certificates for Barbara and me.
2. Marriage certificate.
3. High school transcripts and proof of graduation.
4. College transcripts for every college I attended and proof of graduation.
5. Two letters of recommendation from supervisors I had worked for at least one year.
6. A letter from The St. Louis Chief of Police indicating I had no arrest record in the US and no outstanding warrants and was "a citizen in good standing."
7. Finally; I had to write a letter about myself that clearly stated why there was no Mexican citizen with my skills and why my skills were important to Mexico. We called it our "I am the greatest person on earth" letter. It was fun to write. All of the above were in English that had to be translated into Spanish and be certified as legal translations and our signatures notarized. It produced a folder about 1.5 inches thick with English on the left side and Spanish on the right.

Once they were completed Barbara and I spent about five hours accompanied by a Mexican attorney touring Mexican government office locations and being photographed and fingerprinted at least three times. At each location (and we remember at least four locations) we were instructed on Mexican tax, labor, housing, and criminal law and that we were required to obey their laws or face the consequences. We could not protest any of the government's actions or we would be committing a felony. We paid out four thousand dollars in fees and bribes to complete the process. When this was done we could legally bring in our household goods that were held by US customs in Laredo Texas. This meant we rented furniture in Mexico while awaiting our goods. There were extensive fees involved here that the company paid.

We could not buy a home and were required to rent at very high rates and under contract and compliance with Mexican law.

We were required to get a Mexican drivers license. This was an amazing process. The company arranged for the licensing agency to come to our headquarters location with their photography and fingerprint equipment and the laminating machine. We showed our US license, were photographed and fingerprinted again and issued the license instantly after paying out a six dollar fee. We did not take a written or driving test and never received instructions on the rules of the road. Our only instruction was never give a policeman your license if stopped and asked. We were instructed to hold it against the inside window away from his grasp. If he got his hands on it you would have to pay ransom to get it back.

We then had to pay and file Mexican income tax annually using the number of our FM3 as our ID number. The company’s Mexican accountants did this for us and we just signed what they prepared. It was about twenty legal size pages annually.

The FM 3 was good for three years and renewable for two more after paying more fees.

Leaving the country meant turning in the FM# and certifying we were leaving no debts behind and no outstanding legal affairs (warrants, tickets or liens) before our household goods were released to customs.

It was a real adventure and If any of our senators or congressmen went through it once they would have a different attitude toward Mexico.

The Mexican Government uses its vast military and police forces to keep its citizens intimidated and compliant. They never protest at their White House or government offices but do protest daily in front of the United States Embassy. The US embassy looks like a strongly reinforced fortress and during most protests the Mexican Military surround the block with their men standing shoulder to shoulder in full riot gear to protect the Embassy. These protests are never shown on US or Mexican TV. There is a large public park across the street where they do their protesting. Anything can cause a protest, such as proposed law changes in California or Texas.

Firearm-related crime has plummeted since 1993 in the US. DOJ stats and graphs here.

Precipitants of homicides shows a steady drop in arguments/fights, but an increase in felony crime-related murders.

All regions of the country have seen a drop in homicide.

For all sorts of related interesting crime info, stroll thru the pages.

 

It may amaze some Europeans, liberals and even God-fearing righties without adequate knowledge of history that Islamists were a pain in the rear even before the United States was a real country.  The MSM makes a big thing of indigenous culture, and it was the indigenous culture of the Islamic states along the Mediterranean to kill and terrorize centuries before America gave them a convenient excuse.  Gwynnie suggests that the naive might consider reading this book (unless some knowledge and wisdom might disrupt their political agenda!

"While Europe appeased the Barbary pirates, America sent in the Navy.  (Wall Street Journal, Apr. 29, 2006):

 "A book review of The End of Barbary Terror, By Frederick C. Leiner:  "In 1815, Washington was in ruins: the White House and Capitol building burned and sacked by the British, the national treasury depleted, the U.S. bruised and battered (but not defeated) by the War of 1812. President James Madison called the Congress to its make-shift chamber at the Post Office Building and asked for something extraordinary: a declaration of war against a state thousands of miles away.

"What followed was the U.S.'s first war on terror. This little conflict is now largely forgotten, but it had great and lasting consequences, establishing the U.S. as a global naval power and ending more than two centuries of state-sponsored terrorism in the Mediterranean.

"'The End of Barbary Terror' by Frederick Leiner recounts Madison's decision and the war that followed against an enemy that had attacked and tormented European powers greater than the U.S. since the 1500s. The Barbary states of Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli and Morocco had run a lucrative kidnapping and slavery racket in the Mediterranean, capturing commercial ships, enslaving thousands of Christians and extorting millions of dollars in ransom and protection money from Europe.

"Slave taking was jihad," writes Mr. Leiner, and the tactics employed by the Islamic leaders of the Barbary states "were a form of terrorism, a method of seaborne violence meant to intimidate the peoples of Europe." It was essentially a system of government-regulated kidnapping. The pirates would capture ships, forcing their passengers to work as slaves onshore until somebody came up with enough ransom money to buy their freedom.

"Eventually the major European states simply paid protection money, deciding it was easier to appease the pirates than confront them. "Paying the Barbary rulers a 'license' for trade was less expensive than constantly convoying ships or attacking the Barbary powers in their heavily fortified ports," Mr. Leiner explains. America played the game too. In the five years before the war, the U.S. counsel in Algiers doled out a half-million dollars in "gifts" and "tributes" intended to buy safety for American ships. . . .

"The book recounts a stunning military success. . . . With a mix of bravery and luck, Decatur defeated two enemy ships on his way to Algiers. Within 48 hours of arriving on the shore of the most powerful Barbary state, Decatur was able to force peace on American terms ("dictated at the mouths of our cannon," as he later said). The U.S.'s infant Navy had scored a victory that had eluded European powers for nearly three centuries.

"America's quick victory embarrassed the Europeans and demonstrated that there was no reason to fear the Barbary pirates. Within months, England battled to free British subjects enslaved in Tripoli and soon the entire system of paying tribute to the pirates came crashing down. The American example gave Europe the backbone to fight the terrorists rather than appease them."

Read the whole thing

It is unusual for scientists to get on a bandwagon as passionately as many have with the global warming issue, and to punish dissenting views. It does make one wonder what it's all about. This is from Lindzen's piece in Opinion Journal last week:

So how is it that we don't have more scientists speaking up about this junk science? It's my belief that many scientists have been cowed not merely by money but by fear. An example: Earlier this year, Texas Rep. Joe Barton issued letters to paleoclimatologist Michael Mann and some of his co-authors seeking the details behind a taxpayer-funded analysis that claimed the 1990s were likely the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year in the last millennium. Mr. Barton's concern was based on the fact that the IPCC had singled out Mr. Mann's work as a means to encourage policy makers to take action. And they did so before his work could be replicated and tested--a task made difficult because Mr. Mann, a key IPCC author, had refused to release the details for analysis. The scientific community's defense of Mr. Mann was, nonetheless, immediate and harsh. The president of the National Academy of Sciences--as well as the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union--formally protested, saying that Rep. Barton's singling out of a scientist's work smacked of intimidation.

All of which starkly contrasts to the silence of the scientific community when anti-alarmists were in the crosshairs of then-Sen. Al Gore. In 1992, he ran two congressional hearings during which he tried to bully dissenting scientists, including myself, into changing our views and supporting his climate alarmism. Nor did the scientific community complain when Mr. Gore, as vice president, tried to enlist Ted Koppel in a witch hunt to discredit anti-alarmist scientists--a request that Mr. Koppel deemed publicly inappropriate. And they were mum when subsequent articles and books by Ross Gelbspan libelously labeled scientists who differed with Mr. Gore as stooges of the fossil-fuel industry.

Read entire.  Lindzen is a bit of a controversial figure, as explained here (h/t, Tim Blair). The fact that he smokes cigarettes is used to discredit his research. As I say, all of the emotion around an earth science issue is very odd. It is past science: it's a holy mission now, for some.

From the Financial Times on Hollywood’s Pellicano scandal:

“The scandal in Hollywood, by contrast, is about that community’s special currency, deal-making leverage. The leading man is Anthony Pellicano, a private investigator, who has been indicted for bribery, racketeering and illegal wiretapping. Mr Pellicano is alleged to have secretly listened in on celebrities and entertainment industry figures, including Nicole Kidman (when she was divorcing Tom Cruise), on behalf of industry big shots. At issue in the ongoing investigation is whether the agents and studio executives who hired Mr Pellicano to gain the upper hand in their negotiations and lawsuits understood his methods.

 “It may be far from routine for Hollywood bigwigs to stick spies on their enemies or send goons to intimidate prying journalists, as is alleged in this case, but the ruthlessness and aggression that prompted producers, agents and L.A. lawyers to hire Mr Pellicano are perfectly normal in Hollywood. This is merely a hyperbolic expression of the narcissism and paranoia that characterise the movie mogul’s relentless drive for dominance in pursuit of mediocrity.”

The British military announced today that they had air-dropped former hostages Norman Kembler, James Loony and Harmeet Singh Sooden into the Iraqi desert, just two weeks after their rescue from a house west of Baghdad. The men had been held by insurgents for four months.

Since their release, the three men, all from a Christian Peacemaker team, have spoken with deep admiration and respect for their captors, while not offering any degree of gratitude to the British commandos  who risked their lives to save them.

"We realize now that we made a huge mistake," said Captain Ian Coates of the British Army, "and it was time to return these men to the people they love and respect."

Coates wistfully related the story of how the former hostages were told of the decision to reunite them with their brethren in Iraq.

"To keep it a surprise, we used our commandos to gather the men in the middle of the night," he said. "They were so surprised and excited that we needed to duct tape their mouths and tie them up. But there was no doubt that they were overjoyed to be returning to Iraq. Their eyes were as big as saucers, and Kembler even wet his jammies in excitement!"

The men were whisked by military jet back to a British Military base  in Kuwait, and flown by helicopter into Iraq at dawn. Captain Coates struggled to keep his composure as he described the reunion.

"The air drop was a remarkable moment, something I was honored to see," he said. "The men were writhing around, screaming and crying with joy. There wasn't a dry eye in the helicopter as we rolled them out."

The British Military was concerned that the men would not be picked up quickly, leaving them to wander in the desert. So each man was given  a bright red parachute emblazoned with one of the famed Danish Mohammed cartoons.

"The cartoons really did the trick," said Captain Coates. "As they  drifted downward, you could see the insurgents gathering to welcome them. Some had even set fires to help guide them as they landed. We  could hear the chants and gunfire of welcome even over the whir of the rotors. Did you ever see Born Free? It was like that, but better." Coates would not comment on reports that the three men were all wearing nice new T-Shirts with "Jesus Rules, Mohammed Drools" on the back.

Image: A Brit commando unit attacks a German-held port in Norway, 1942

PS: To Free Market readers - check out our blog. You will like it, if you like his. He is our Brit cousin and bother brother-in-arms.

On free speech hypocrisy in schools, by Ollie North in The Patriot Post:

"It is interesting to note that those who now proffer the most vociferous defense of these 'teachers' to say what they want in the classroom are the very ones who want to ban other educators from uttering a Bible verse, challenging Darwin's theory of evolution or noting that we are 'one nation under God,' when pledging allegiance to our flag. Not surprisingly, the so-called mainstream media has failed to note the utter inconsistency in defending the 'right' of some teachers to defame our President—while denying the freedom of expression to other educators who profess their faith in God. The consequence of the political-legal crossfire of America's classrooms is predictable. As shown by the Global Literacy Survey—and dozens of other assessments—students in public education aren't learning that which will prepare them for jobs and higher education in a highly competitive global economy. Parents who can afford to, vote with their feet. They pull their children out of these troubled schools and send them to private or religious institutions or home-school them. America's high-tech industry is constantly lobbying Washington to increase the number of visas granted to qualified immigrants—because our schools aren't producing enough competent graduates. There is no doubt that our children must learn 'critical thinking.' Before they get to politics—shouldn't they at least know geography—and maybe some math and science? It would be nice—if this is to remain the home of the brave and the land of the free—that America's students could place it on a map."

Just got one of these cases for my 16 ga side-by-side, and these are fine. Galazan.

And if you take your shotgun out of the case to go bird hunting, over time there is over a 50% chance you'll be peppered by bird shot. Powerline has that story, but erroneously uses the term "BBs." BBs are much larger than "bird shot," and generally are only used for cartridges designed for geese. It seems far less likely in European driven hunting, where the shooter shoots from a "peg" without moving, while the birds come from one direction - and usually high. In the US, we actually hunt, and therefore tend to get scattered around at times. The only perfectly safe bird hunting is one man (or gal) and one dog.

But this subject does bring to mind the great movie, The Shooting Party, (1985) with James Mason and John Gielgud. If you haven't seen it, you must. It's a meditation on pre-WW1 England, and the end of an era, and it prefigures the horrors and the cultural changes that the Great War will bring.

Sounds like the NY Times in the Al Queda wiretap case will have some difficulties with "misprision of treason" ... if the government has the nerve to call a spade a spade! § 2381. Treason

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

News Junkie had it right yesterday afternoon.  Gwynnie has been in the pet hospital for a couple of days and hasn’t been keeping up on her blogging, but is astounded not to have read (yet) that this is D-Day, le moment criticale, the time for the media to choose what is important to them: freedom of the press and objective news coverage, or their hatred of Western Civilization and their goal of the destruction of a president.

Bravo to those French and German editors who understand and value their freedoms.  To the pit with CNN and the other British and American editors who chose not to re-publish cartoons that were newsworthy only for their very vapidness.  And as a side issue, isn’t anyone commenting on the fact that it took well paid organizers with thousands of carefully printed Danish flags FIVE MONTHS to get this fire to burn?

Why don’t we have some lynchings and burnings the next time Christianity is slandered?  Why didn’t we blow up the Brooklyn Museum when it features a painting of the Virgin Mary spattered with feces?  Why don’t we trash the New York Times for supporting the desecrators?

Because, gentlemen, we hold ourselves to an elevated form of behavior called “civilized”.  Gwynnie has said this before: the media do not hold brown peoples to civilized forms of behavior BECAUSE THEY DO NOT BELIEVE THAT BROWN PEOPLES ARE CAPABLE OF CIVILIZED BEHAVIOR.  THIS IS THE HEART OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE RACIST!

We have finally come to the great moment when this is all laid out before us. The choice was clear and it was narrow.  The media front-paged their hypocrisy and racism.  All the great religions deserve our respect, and all the major religions deserve equal treatment.

Image below of our brave press, boldly Speaking Truth to Power When it isn't Scary, thanks to Cox and Forkum:

 

Watch this shotgun in action. 300 rounds/minute. Wahoo.

How would this work on those large flocks of Bluebills? Naw, that's an evil thought. How about on a safe-house full of Jihadist head-cutters? A good idea to be on the right end of this little toy.

More info here.

From Ralph Peters at NYPost Opinion:

Osama's latest plea for attention suckered the media into blowing last week's real story: Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice's declaration of war on her dysfunctional department.

In a speech at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, where students are deformed into diplomats, Condi cancelled the tea party. Her message was revolutionary and essential. As a result, she may go down in history as the SecState most hated by Foggy Bottom bureaucrats. 

Read the piece. She's changing all the rules, for the better.

More two-faced political advocacy from the house organ of the DNC.  The NYT is not “biased toward” liberalism and the Democrats, it is their intellectual core, an active participant; it has long since eschewed trying to report news – it prefers to try to create news!

New York Times deplores use of the filibuster in editorial, "Time to Retire the Filibuster," January 1, 1995:

"The U.S. Senate likes to call itself the world's greatest deliberative body. The greatest obstructive body is more like it. In the last session of Congress, the Republican minority invoked an endless string of filibusters to frustrate the will of the majority. This relentless abuse of a time-honored Senate tradition so disgusted Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, that he is now willing to forgo easy retribution and drastically limit the filibuster. Hooray for him."

New York Times demands use of the filibuster in editorial, “Senators in Need of a Spine” January 26, 2006:

Judge Samuel Alito Jr., whose entire history suggests that he holds extreme views about the expansive powers of the presidency and the limited role of Congress, will almost certainly be a Supreme Court justice soon. His elevation will come courtesy of a president whose grandiose vision of his own powers threatens to undermine the nation's basic philosophy of government — and a Senate that seems eager to cooperate by rolling over and playing dead.

It is hard to imagine a moment when it would be more appropriate for senators to fight for a principle. Even a losing battle would draw the public's attention to the import of this nomination.

Senate Democrats, who presented a united front against the nomination of Judge Alito in the Judiciary Committee, seem unwilling to risk the public criticism that might come with a filibuster — particularly since there is very little chance it would work. Judge Alito's supporters would almost certainly be able to muster the 60 senators necessary to put the nomination to a final vote.

A filibuster is a radical tool. It's easy to see why Democrats are frightened of it. But from our perspective, there are some things far more frightening. One of them is Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court.

Ya can't make this stuff up.

LTC Mark H. Salas Coalition Forces Land Component
Command C1, Chief, Policy and Programs

Here's more from my friend Rick in Iraq ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Things are going real well over here.  We had a fantastic turnout for the elections a couple of days ago.  I should preface that by telling a story of a couple of nights ago.  On the night of the 13th, I was up at one of our satellite bases on the Syrian border in the city of Husaybah.  The Company Commander for the area was having a sit down with some tribal sheiks that evening and he asked me to go along.  Our entire area is Sunni for the most part.  We have had very little participation in this area during previous elections and the area was largely anti- Coalition Forces.  The Company Commander wanted to have a sit down with this sheiks to talk to them about the upcoming election and to urge them to talk to their followers about voting on election day.

We went to the house of the sheik around 7:30 at night.  We rolled up with armored humvees and 2 dozen Marines who cordoned off the house.  It was a real big, stone house with a walled off yard in front, which is common for many of the homes in this area.  We went inside the house, took off our shoes and were ushered into the dining room.  They do not eat at tables or use chairs here.  Instead, they lay down a blanket on the floor and sit cross legged.  Also, all meals are communal and family style, rather than having individual plates and meals.  In the middle of this room, there was a giant metal dish, approximately 3 feet in diameter.  The plate was piled with rice, nuts, dates and grilled mutton.  They have large circular flat bread, looks like a cross between an Indian Nan and a giant wheat tortilla, that are about one foot and a half across.  You sit cross legged around the metal dish and tear the bread into pieces.  Then, no forks or utensils, you use the bread as a tool to pick up the food off the plate and eat it.  It was really good and a very interesting experience.  Of course, being that America is everywhere, we washed it all down with an RC Cola.

Read the "rest of the story" below, including how CNN manufactures their news: 

A Late Alito Limerick Entry (took me all day to write, but I have a day job)

Russia and the Ukraine: It's not about gas or money - it's about rebuilding the Russian Empire

The below article is from Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence, a subscription service at Strategic Forecasting, Inc., at www.stratfor.com  (with permission):

During the past few weeks, Russia and Ukraine have been arguing over the terms of their natural gas supply contracts.

Under previous arrangements -- struck in efforts by Moscow to influence the outcome of Ukraine's presidential election in 2004 -- Russia's state-owned monopoly Gazprom supplied Ukraine with natural gas at the rate of $50 per 1,000 cubic meters. But Russia's preferred presidential candidate, Viktor Yanukovich, lost the 2004 election to the pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko. That loss, combined with Russia's hopes of raising income levels in general (or, switching "to a market basis," in Gazprom-speak) prompted Moscow to demand payments of $230 per 1,000 cubic meters from Ukraine -- terms Kiev refused. Gazprom then sliced its exports to Ukraine on Jan. 1, triggering a European uproar. Because Europe also depends heavily on Russian natural gas -- with 80 percent of those supplies transiting Ukraine -- the Russian cutoff hurt Europe rather than Kiev.

On Jan. 4, Moscow and Kiev settled the matter by agreeing to a compromise five-year contract. Under terms of that deal, natural gas from the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan will be transported through Russia, making up a mix that would supply Ukraine at a rate of $95 per 1,000 cubic meters. Any Russian gas fed into that mix will be sold at Gazprom's full rate of $230.

From a strictly commercial standpoint, all now seems right with the world. The Central Asians, who previously were able to sell natural gas only to the heavily subsidized Russian market, now have gained a significant export market for their supplies; the Ukrainians have substituted a mere doubling in prices for what would have been a fourfold increase; and the Europeans have their natural gas supplies re-established.

But that is not the really interesting -- much less important -- part of what has just occurred. When the crisis first erupted, it centered on Russia's desire to reassert influence directly in Ukraine; but as the game has played out, it has come to center on Russia's ability to use Europe as a lever.

The Ukrainian Keystone

From the beginning, the natural gas spat has been about much more than a few (billion) dollars in annual energy sales. This squabble is over the orientation of Ukraine between West and East, and ultimately over the ability of Russia to regenerate its geopolitical fortunes.

Ukraine's “Orange Revolution” was a seminal event in the Russian mind -- a jarring development that ranks second only to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. Russians view the Soviet collapse as the day they lost their empire, and they fear that history may mark the Orange Revolution as the day that Russia degraded past the point of no return.

Viewed from any angle, Ukraine is critical to the long-term defense and survival of the Russian state. This is not about ethnic kin, although eastern Ukraine does host the largest Russian community in the world outside of Russia. Even before the Soviet era, Ukraine was integrated into the industrial and agricultural heartland of Russia; today, it not only is the transit point for Russian natural gas to Europe, but actually is a connecting point for nearly all the country's meaningful infrastructure between East and West -- whether of the pipe, road, power or rail variety.

Read the rest, below. It is an excellent view of what Russia is concerned about these days.

French Imperialism

At the risk of repeating herself, Gwynnie just has to comment on the News Junkie’s post “France (properly) tries to defend their constructive colonial heritage”

Gwynnie asks us to note, not counting lost conquests in Europe by the Emperor Napoleon (Libs & Eurotrash: note the connection: “Emperor” -> “Empire” -> “imperialist”) that France, with 212,600 square miles and a population of 42,000,000, conquered and controlled colonies with a land area of 4,300,000 sq. miles and aggregate population of 65,000,000.

Hello? Americans are imperialists? The sordid French details:

 

The French Colonial Empire

·         Canada·         Acadia ·         Louisiana·         Terre-Neuve (Newfoundland) including the Iles-de-la- Madeleine and Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, the only territory in North America left today under French sovereignty.·         Saint-Domingue (today's Haiti).·         Guadeloupe, including la Désirade, Dominica, La Frégate, Marie-Galante, Saint Bartholomew, Saint Martin, les Saintes and a few other rocks.·         Martinique, including Saint Lucia and Tobago ·         Grenada has also been French for some time.·         French Guyana.·         Alep, ·         Hatay (Alexandretta), ·         Lebanon, ·         Syria and the Sanjak of Damas and the Jabel Druze (Souaida). These territories are included today in the modern states of Syria and Lebanon.·         Cheik Said's Territory on the Yemenite coast.·         In the Far East, Annam and Paracel islands, ·         Cochinchina, (Viet Nam)·         Laos·         Cambodia ·         Tonkin. ·         Canton, Nanking or Shanghai. ·         Hankéou, His-men, Kouang-Tchéou-Wan and Tien-Tsin.·         India - The French Crown ruled between 1742 and 1763.

After this date, various smaller territories and enclaves remained under French sovereignty until the 1950s:o        Pondichéry (1673-1954) o        Chandernagor (1686-1951) o        Mahé (1721-1954) o        Karikal (1738-1954) o        Yanaon (1751-1954) o        Balassar o        Cassimibazar o        Calicut o        Dacca o        Goréty  o        Jouqdia o        Masulipatam o        Patna o        Surate

·         Senegal ·         Mauritania ·         French Guinea (now Guinea) ·         Côte d'Ivoire ·         French Sudan (now Mali) ·         Niger ·         Dahomey (now Bénin) ·         Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) ·         Togo ·         Gabon ·         Middle Congo ·         Ubangui Shari (now Centrafrican Republic) ·         Chad ·         Cameroon ·         Algeria·         Morocco (protectorate)·         Tunisia (protectorate)·         Djibouti.·         Réunion ·         Mauritius ·         Seychelles islands·         Madagascar ·         Comoros·         New Caledonia·         Wallis and Futuna islands ·         New Hebrides (now Vanuatu).·         French Polynesia (still an overseas territory of the French Republic)

When do we call it Treason?

From Human Events:

"America spends $40 billion per year on intelligence operations aimed at discovering our enemies’ secret activities. All our enemies have to do is subscribe to the New York Times and, for as little as $4.65 per week, they can discover most of our secret operations -- at least as long as a Republican is President."

We are now two weeks into the artificial brouhaha engineered by the Times when it exposed that the National Security Agency (NSA) had been authorized by the President to monitor the international phone calls and emails of terror suspects within the US.

Despite the best efforts of the Times and its backup singers in the mainstream media, this revelation has not resonated as scandalous with the American people. A Rasmussen poll released December 28^th revealed that 64% of Americans believe that the NSA should intercept such international communications. This was the majority opinion among Republicans (81%), Democrats (51%) and Independents (57%) alike. A mere 23% thought the NSA should be prohibited from such warrant-less monitoring.

And 68% of respondents said they were following the NSA wiretapping story closely, so the President’s critics cannot blame ignorance for the rejection of their arguments by the citizenry. Indeed, the respondents understood very well that President authorizing such eavesdropping to assess national security threats is not new or unusual -- only 26% were misinformed enough to think that Bush was the first President to do so.

John Lott in NRO:

You don't have to live next to the United States to see how hard it is to stop criminals from getting guns. The easy part is getting law-abiding citizens to disarm; the hard part is getting the guns from criminals. Drug gangs that are firing guns in places like Toronto seem to have little trouble getting the drugs that they sell and it should not be surprising that they can get the weapons they need as well.

The experiences in the U.K. and Australia, two island nations whose borders are much easier to monitor, should also give Canadian gun controllers some pause. The British government banned handguns in 1997 but recently reported that gun crime in England and Wales nearly doubled in the four years from 1998-99 to 2002-03.

Crime was not supposed to rise after handguns were banned. Yet, since 1996 the serious-violent-crime rate has soared by 69 percent; robbery is up 45 percent, and murders up 54 percent. Before the law, armed robberies had fallen 50 percent from 1993 to 1997, but as soon as handguns were banned the robbery rate shot back up, almost to its 1993 level.

The 2000 International Crime Victimization Survey, the last survey completed, shows the violent-crime rate in England and Wales was twice the rate of that in the U.S. When the new survey for 2004 comes out later this year, that gap will undoubtedly have widened even further as crimes reported to British police have since soared by 35 percent, while those in the U.S. have declined 6 percent.

Australia has also seen its violent-crime rates soar immediately after its 1996 Port Arthur gun-control measures. Violent crime rates averaged 32-percent higher in the six years after the law was passed (from 1997 to 2002) than they did in 1995. The same comparisons for armed-robbery rates showed increases of 74 percent.

During the 1990s, just as Britain and Australia were more severely regulating guns, the U.S. was greatly liberalizing individuals' abilities to carry firearms. Thirty seven of the fifty states now have so-called right-to-carry laws that let law-abiding adults carry concealed handguns after passing a criminal background check and paying a fee. Only half the states require some training, usually around three to five hours. Yet crime has fallen even faster in these states than the national average. Overall, the states in the U.S. that have experienced the fastest growth rates in gun ownership during the 1990s have experienced the biggest drops in murders and other violent crimes. http://nationalreview.com/comment/lott200508190817.asp

Canadian blogs point out that the US must be exporting our violence because we don’t have nearly as much now:  Writes Herschblogger in The Other Club:

Bah-nanada

The Drudge Report today linked to this story: USA is exporting its violence to Canada, says Canadian PM...

Lo and behold, Prime Minister Martin must be right, because in 2004 Canada’s rate of violent crime per 100,000 people was 946. That same year, continuing a decline that began in 1994, the US recorded 465 violent crimes per 100,000.

Not only that, but US Homicide rates recently declined to levels last seen in the late 1960s and have been stable since 2000.

While gun ownership is up, US rates of nonfatal firearm crime have declined since 1994, reaching the lowest level ever recorded in 2004.

Violent crime in general has also declined in the US.

Where did all this crime go? To Paul Martin, Prime Minister of a country where the national homicide rate increased 12% in 2004, the answer is obvious – it was exported to Canada. It must be NAFTA, the North American Firearm Trafficking Arrangement.

Toronto Mayor David Miller is facing the fact that gun deaths have doubled in his city since 2004 and won’t be left out of any scapegoating: "The U.S. is exporting its problem of violence to the streets of Toronto," he said. http://otherclub.blogspot.com/2005/12/bah-nanada.html

 

CANADIAN POLLUTION

Our Green Canadian friends have a Dirty Little Secret - their only source of wealth comes from the oil sands of Alberta which much be mined through pumping water into drill shafts, and the view from Google Earth shows 18-20 miles of settling ponds for the used, polluted water -- on the banks of a river.  For Google Earth users, the location is 57 deg, 2 min North by 111 deg, 37 min West.  Gwynnie cannot wait for Paul Martin to declare that the US is exporting pollution to Canada the same way he said the US is exporting crime!

Another book

The Age of Unenlightenment.

GWYNNIE’S MEDIA INNUENDO AWARD – CATEGORY: HEADLINE

We have awarded November’s Media Innuendo Award to London’s Metro newspaper (the free paper distributed by London’s public transportation system, www.metro.co.uk) for this classically (and probably intentionally) misleading headline, which perfectly illustrates the media’s ability to imply conclusions not warranted by the facts:

Blair told: War has fuelled terrorism

 

On our return from England, we showed this newspaper to an educated group of New England Yankees and asked a simple, professorial question: “What is the Fact revealed here?”  Shame on them – they were suckered in and talked about the war and its effect on terrorism.  NO, children, the Fact here is that Blair was told something!  In the Metro’s paragraph one, we learn that this came from “his own advisors”.  In paragraph two, we learn it came from “a group of Islamic experts appointed in the wake of the July 7 bombings in London”.  In paragraph six, we are told that “the experts ranged from Inayat Bungawala, of the Muslim Council of Great Britain, to outspoken ‘curry king’ Sir Gulam Noon.”

 

We had to turn to the Daily Telegraph to learn that the entire panel was composed of Muslims opposed to any attempt to outlaw radical groups such as Hizb-ut-tahrir and Muhajiroun, saying such an attempt “risked alienating law-abiding Muslims and driving fanatics underground.”  The Muslim report concluded that the Government’s Terrorism Bill “could lead to a significant chill factor in the Muslim community in expressing legitimate support for self-determination struggles around the world.”  Like al-Qaeda, of course.

Knowing, then, from where the report came and its biases, go back to the headline: the Fact is that Blair received biased opinion from a special interest group attempting to influence legislation; the headline phrases it in such a clever way that it appears that the group’s conclusion is the Fact the Metro is reporting.

The Metro clearly deserves this month’s Media Innuendo Award.

Embedded blogger Michael Yon continues to deliver qualitative information on the war in Iraq through his blog: http://michaelyon.blogspot.com/

And if you haven’t checked out Yon, here’s a good interview with him this past summer http://www.techcentralstation.com/072705D.html

Finally, below is a Rita Cosby interview with Yon and Bruce Willis about Iraq that you might find interesting, proving that all of Hollywood isn’t wrong:

Freakonomics

Orson Card reviews Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner, and sort-of concludes that everyone should read it before they vote. Thus far, it has seemed to me that this book has been more talked-about than read. The review focuses on the correlation between the increase of abortion and the decline in crime rates:

"The innovative policework in New York City was given much of the credit, but the same thing was happening in cities with no new theories or practices. All kinds of theories were advanced, but they all fell apart against statistical realities -- none of them explained why crime rates fell at exactly the time they began to fall. Except for one explanation. Abortion."

Read his entire interesting review.