Hamas, No Mas?

While the following quote came from the NY Times today, it could have come from just about any other newspaper in the US, so this is not another NY Times bashing post (well, not primarily).

The quote in question is this:

Indeed, Hamas's victory has set off a debate whether the administration was so wedded to its belief in democracy that it could not see the dangers of holding elections in regions where Islamist groups were strong and democratic institutions weak.

"There is a lot of blame to go around," said Martin Indyk, a top Middle East negotiator in the Clinton administration, referring to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, and his Fatah party. "But on the American side, the conceptual failure that contributed to disaster was the president's belief that democracy and elections solve everything."

What the fuck is it with liberals that makes democracy such a scary thing? It's almost as if they're saying that so long as the Palestinian Arabs aren't allowed to elect their own leaders, the actual preference of the Palestinian Arabs for terror wouldn't exist.

I, for one, am thrilled with the Palestinian elections. They showed the world that the Palestinian Arabs are nothing more than foaming at the mouth, rabid dogs who care about nothing more than spreading violence, intolerance and hate. Whether or not there was an election wouldn't have changed this. It's not as if the election caused the Palestinian Arabs to embrace terror.

It's good that they now will have a government that can't seem to hide behind the thin veil of two-faced diplomacy, as Fatah did. Getting out of Gaza was Israel's first brilliant move to pave the way for the destruction of the Palestinian Arab terror machine. Now that Hamas will be in charge, we all know that it won't be long before they let loose with the terror attacks.

Since Hamas won't deny what they've done, Israel will have free reign, unlike ever before, to launch a massive military response. Hopefully, the response won't be a measured one. It should be, in the spirit of what I've posted below, a real war, one that has been brewing for a long time, where no Palestinian Arab "civilian" is off limits and where Gaza becomes the free fire killing field it deserves to be. I only wish Sharon were able to witness, if not lead, it.

Now, the second paragraph of that quote above is the beaut..."But on the American side, the conceptual failure that contributed to disaster was the president's belief that democracy and elections solve everything." That's such a perfect example of the liberal, Clintoonian way of looking at things. It's incredible that someone, let alone the turkey Indyk, would be so idiotic as to say that allowing people to show their true colors and make their choices is a bad thing. This is the same group of liberals who insisted that when the American people elected Bush it was not legitimate, simply because there was no way that America could have preferred a leader who wasn't a liberal.

Yes, because as long as we can paint the bloodthirsty savage Palestinian Arabs with a happy face, as Clintoon did, it means that the terrorism goes away. Right, Indyk?

On Pots, Kettles and Blackness

Who are these three white people?

Why, they're the three new assistant managing editors of the New York Times:

The New York Times yesterday announced the appointment of three assistant managing editors, effective immediately.

The three editors, whose names will now appear in the newspaper's masthead, are Glenn Kramon, an associate managing editor in charge of career development; Susan Edgerley, the metropolitan editor; and Richard L. Berke, an associate managing editor for news.

How very, very interesting, in light of this NY Times article from January 21, 2006:

January 21, 2006

Sports of The Times

Coaches Are Green, but Just as White

By WILLIAM C. RHODEN

In this article, the NY Times took the NFL to task for not forcing blacks into the top jobs in the NFL. The article contained great lines like:

JUST before he signed off his satellite radio show the other night, Keyshawn Johnson, the Dallas Cowboys' veteran receiver, said, "I think I'll apply for a head-coaching job, I'm 33 years old." He added, "Oh, I forgot. I'm black."

And

In a league with a dominant African-American presence, the hiring season has been a virtual whitewash.

Oh, and how about this

But come time to hire head coaches this year, the owners and the front offices have fallen back to a comfort level. Though the front offices have gone younger with their choices, they have also gone whiter.

I wonder if the Times has a Rooney rule?

He helped spearhead the process, called the Rooney Rule, that requires teams with head-coaching vacancies to interview African-Americans and other minority candidates, or risk a fine.

Maybe the Jayson Rule?

If the following line is true for football, given the overwhelming whiteness of the NY Times staff I wonder what the criteria are for black editors?

That has been the problem for African-Americans in the head-coaching marketplace: If you are just as good, you won't get the job. You have to be two and three times better and have to prove it two and three times longer.

Now, I wonder how the Times can explain how it can say this

Unfortunately, they are up against the front-office equivalent of a granite defense of team owners, presidents and general managers who refuse to make African-Americans the faces of their organizations.

and then hire three of the whitest faces around for its new editorial positions?

Pot, Kettle, Black, yet again, New York Times...

Four More Years!

I was never one who agreed with the attacks on Bill Clinton when he was President. I'm not saying I liked Clinton (I didn't), but I thought that the attempts to bring him down for his personal behavior were ill advised and distracted from the real issues that could have been examined (like his disastrous foreign policy). My view is that Clinton was a mediocre President...he wasn't the worst President in my lifetime (that award goes to Jimmy Carter) and he was far from the best. I just didn't see him as the devil incarnate, as many other Republicans saw him.

What I think the Clinton era represented was mediocre domestic policy and a horrific foreign policy, dominated by appeasement, naivete and a nasty reliance on moral equivalence. It set up a future that came to light on 9/11/01.

It always amuses me that the "intellectuals" (i.e., urban liberals, western Europe and the UN) loved Clinton. They seem to have considered him the high water mark of American leadership.

So it was with even more amusement that I read an article in last week's New York Magazine (note to Affe: I'm not ragging on the NY Times in this post!) this morning about the US Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton. The article was actually not all that bad, considering the extreme liberal bias of New York Magazine. While it took the predictable shots at Bolton's reputation, it ended up being a fairly positive piece about him, concluding that while he may be all the things that the liberals complained of, he was also effective in the job.

The money quote was this

When George W. Bush nominated John Bolton as America's ambassador to the
United Nations this past March, it seemed like the president had finally found
the man with the personality to match the arrogance and unpleasantness of our
country's present reputation.

This is in line with the mantra of how Bush has destroyed the good will the US had in the world, that we're now seen as bullies, boors, bulls-in-a-china-shop, blah blah blah.

Then, later this morning, Usama bin Laden released a tape where he essentially repeated a New York Times' editorial/Michael Moore movie/DNC talking points memo about President Bush. Bin Laden ranted about Bush's lies, the war for profit, etc. But bin Laden really seemed to want to bash Bush.

Clearly, President Bush has pissed off bin Laden. Not in the way that Clinton did, either. Bin Laden hated Clinton, but he hated Clinton for being a non-Muslim western leader. Bin Laden hates Bush because Bush is destroying bin Laden's dream of an Islamic empire. Bin Laden hates Bush because Bush confronted the threat with convincing force and determination.

Bin Laden hates Bush for the same reason that the liberals, Europeans and UN hate Bush.

Bush may indeed be religious zealot, he may be an asshole, he may be arrogant. But you know what? It works. Bush is doing something that will change the world for the better today and in generations to come. He's stopping the spread of Islamic terror.

Clinton was a master of giving people what they wanted rather than what they needed. He was a slick salesman without any substance. And that's what the liberals and Europe loves.

Bush is the opposite of Clinton. He's not a polished speaker. He couldn't sell toilet paper in a shithouse. He's not a very likable guy. But his ability to ignore the naysayers and do what he knows is right for the country and the world more than makes up for it.

The fact that Bush is the anti-Clinton, that the same Europe that adored our vapid President Clinton hates our determined and committed President Bush, is why I appreciate him.

And it's why bin Laden hates him.

Every tape that bin Laden releases calling Bush a liar and a warmonger is validation of my choice to vote for President Bush.

I Should Have Gone To The Range Today

...it being Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, as it would seem appropriate to go shooting and get them all in the black, just like James Earl Ray did.

Unfortunately, my wife didn't think this was such a funny joke and she wanted to go out furniture shopping instead. So, alas, I didn't get to break in the Garand or the Enfield (which I haven't fired yet even though I've had it for months).

But that doesn't stop me from putting up a few pictures of the entire happy family of the Garand, the Enfield, the 8mm Mauser 98K (manufactured in 1943 in Brno, the only of the four WWII era weapons that actually was made during WWII) and the Swiss K31 Schmidt Rubin.




And for those of you who don't visit my other site, here's a peek at what you're missing...bicycles! Check out the other blog for some lovely winter mountain biking pictures, including horrific trail destruction scenes. I noticed that I always have pictures up of my mountain bike but not my road bike, so here they both are, in their filthy, freshly used glory. I'm about to clean them up, Affe, so don't get all pissy. And since we're in the midst of a house remodel, with the garage being used as the site of most of the fabrication work, the garage is a mess more so than usual.



UPDATE

Thanks for the link, Carnival of Cordite! The bike pictures above do have a shooting connection...if you look in the picture directly above, in the background is my reloading bench, where I build rounds for my beloved SigArms SHR970 7mm Magnum.


UPDATE II:
It being the birthdays of the Zhid, the Zhid's wife, the Zhid's father, the Zhid's sister and the Zhid's brother-in-law this month, we had a family birthday dinner tonight at the Zhidparents'. I took the new (to me) Garand to their house to show the Zhid father, since he is a WWII veteran. While the Zhid father, during his military service, spent more time with his .45 sidearm, as he was an MP, he also spent a good amount of time with the Garand. But that was 60 years ago and I wasn't sure how the Zhid father would react to seeing a Garand for the first time in six decades.

Well, it was like a duck to water. It's really quite amazing to see how quickly things come back in this regard. Within a few seconds, the Zhid father (who spent the 60 years since his military service generally avoiding guns) was drilling with the Garand like he was back in basic training. He knew exactly where to look for the tools, told me how the rifle operated, the muzzle velocity, how to disassemble it for cleaning, etc. It was really fascinating to see.

And to document it, here is the Zhid father posing with the Garand. In back of the Zhid father's head is a picture of the Zhid father at chow during basic training...it's not easy to see (click on the picture for an enlargement), but it's a great picture for the Zhid to have.



And to top it off, right after I took this picture, I showed it to the Zhid nephew, who was also over for dinner but who had not been present for the viewing of the Garand. The Zhid nephew is 14. He saw the picture and said "cool, where did Grandpa get the Garand?"

I was shocked, as I had not told the Zhid nephew what kind of rifle that was. While the Zhid and the Zhid's brother have taken the Zhid nephew shooting and hunting any number of times, and the Zhid's nephew has spent a lot of time around the military, due to the Zhid brother being in the military, the Zhid nephew is still a product of the rabidly anti-gun Bay Area and we had never talked about WWII rifles. The Zhid nephew made his Zhid uncle very proud when he said "I'm a fan of World War II military history and I've been teaching myself all about the war and the weapons that each side used. I've read all about the Garand and I also know about the German rifles, especially the 98k [which is the first WWII rifle I bought with my C&R license-ed.]."

For that moment, I was almost as proud of the Zhid nephew as I was when he flawlessly performed his bar mitzvah last year, wearing a camoflauge yamulke that the Zhid brother made from his combat BDU in Iraq.

How Did I End Up Here?

Yes, that's uber-lefty Nancy Pelosi being heckled for her position on the war. The usually pathetic SF Chronicle does a pretty good job of explaining what's going on in this article:

Her opposition to the Iraq war may have earned her a reputation as a radical lefty in Washington.

But when Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi came home to hold a town hall meeting in San Francisco on Saturday, she was greeted like a pro-establishment warmonger.

So in San Francisco, people are so out of touch with reality and so far to the left that one of the most bleeding-heart liberal politicians in the country is protested for her right wing activities.

This isn't news, I know, but seeing this picture on a Sunday morning when I haven't had even a cup of coffee just makes me wonder. I've always known that most people in the San Francisco area are like political backwoods inbreds...they live in a very small world, isolated from the reality of the rest of the country and the world, and each step to the left creates momentum to go further left. But even with the understanding that people here are incredibly naive, stupid and extremist, could they think that protesting Pelosi for her alleged pro-war views would be seen as anything but evidence of how insane and out of touch San Francisco is? Was that their goal? Mission Accomplished, Lefties!

In other news, I see that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has discovered the fascinating world of Holocaust denial and wants to hold a conference on the subject in Iran.

This is beautiful on so many levels. I'm pretty sure that Ahmadinejad has realized that holocaust denial is his ticket to media coverage, so the best thing to do with him is to ignore him. Even if he goes ahead with the conference and all the leading Holocaust deniers gather and produce a forest of material on the subject, what will the effect be?

"Oh, I read a report from the 'Tehran Conference on The Myth of Six Million' that concluded that the Jews were treated very well by Hitler and the deaths were just the Jews killing their own children to make bread."

Yeah.

But this was the part of the story that I thought was thought provoking:

"It is a strange world. It is possible to discuss everything except the Holocaust," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.

Strange world indeed...it's strange when the same people who go apeshit over how a book is handled say that there shouldn't be such a sensitivity to things that are offensive. Though I'm sure this conference won't take place, I think I'll post a picture of me having fun with a koran for every day that the conference continues. Isn't that fair?

The Newest Addition to the Zhid Family

Arrived 1/13/06, weighing 9.5 pounds and a sturdy 43.5 inches long, the new Zhidling...Garand Zhid!

UPDATE 1/14/06
Bob in Brazil asked about the pedigree of Garand Zhid and I have to admit that I don't know. This is a shooter more than it is a collector...I bought the rifle at www.auctionarms.com and while the seller had extensive information about the condition of the weapon (very low throat and muzzle erosion, which was important for me), there was no information on the history of the particular rifle. What I do know is this:

The receiver is a very late H&R production. It is in the 5,600,000 range, which from what I can tell is one of the last H&R Garands ever produced. I think that after this H&R range, which was produced between 1954 and 1956, there was one final lot produced by Springfield around 1957 and then Garand production ended. All of the other components on my Garand are Springfield and the barrel is dated 1950.

The rifle is very clean and shows very little sign of use, so I suspect parts have either been replaced or that it was a rifle that was sent somewhere and put in storage (most likely the former). As long as this rifle is a good shooter I'll be happy.

And for those who have emailed warning me that I shouldn't fire .303 British rounds through a Garand (one of the boxes of ammo in the picture is indeed .303 British), thank you for the concern, but I am no Affe (the story behind that is that Affe was visiting and I took him to the range to try out my Sig 7mm Magnum and he bought 7mm Mauser ammo and tried to chamber it in my beloved rifle...). I also have an Enfield No. 1 Mk 3 rifle that fires the .303 British and I'm pretty sure I'll be able to keep the ammo separate. And yes, those are 12 gauge slugs in the picture. I'm going to Alaska this summer and will be bringing the 12 gauge with these slugs for bear protection.

A range report will follow, when the weather clears up and I can find an enbloc clip (which didn't come with the rifle or ammo purchase).

The next purchase will likely be a Mosin Nagant...gotta love that C&R license.

Jumping The Shark, Media Style

I believe yesterday's NY Times' editorial was the point where the Times' hate for President Bush become so controlling that they lost all credibility. I'm not saying that the Times had credibility before yesterday, but if there was any doubt, this editorial removed it:

January 7, 2006

Editorial
An Anemic Jobs Recovery

Responding to yesterday's government report showing paltry job creation in December, Treasury Secretary John Snow urged Americans not to overreact to one month's snapshot, but to focus on the bigger picture. But that picture is not so pretty.

In 2005, the economy added about 2 million jobs. At this point in the last recovery, the yearly job-gain total was 3.5 million.

The longer view is even uglier. Job growth in the current period is the worst by far of the four comparable economic upturns since the 1960's: 2.7 percent versus the 7.8 percent tallied in the weakest of those earlier recoveries.

It's little wonder, then, that President Bush cherry-picked his way through the latest economic figures in his speech yesterday before the Economic Club of Chicago, rattling off numbers without context. The president's prescription - more tax cuts - has failed in the past to create a robust job market and is still not the right answer.

For the past two years, average hourly wages and weekly salaries have been flat or falling. Americans' borrowing binge has masked the decline in earning power, but good jobs and rising wages are essential for widespread prosperity. Without them, economic growth has become increasingly concentrated among corporations, shareholders and the top 20 percent or so of earners. The holiday shopping season illustrates this situation: retailers that cater to lower- and middle-income shoppers, like Wal-Mart, Sears and Kohl's had disappointing results, while higher-end chains, like Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom, thrived.

The last line is where I think the editors of the NY Times decided that the typical Times reader is so guillible and open to any attack on Bush that there was no need for the editors to attempt a logical argument.

The editorial conviently ignores that the unemployment rate is under 5%, which is probably the most important metric. The editors were so intent on undermining the good economic news that they had to invent what may be the most idiotic argument I've ever seen: that the disappointing results of low end retailers in the Christmas season (which is not even true by itself) and the excellent results of high end retailers in the same season proved that only the wealthy benefit under the Bush administration.

Huh?

I'm no liberal journalist (I'm just a lawyer with an undergraduate degree in Economics), but even Paul Krugman would make that kind of stupid argument.

During bad economic times, the low end retailers are the ones who benefit, as the lower disposable income and desire to conserve assets drives consumers to the lowest cost provider.

During good economic times, the opposite tends to be true-as consumers feel confident about the future and have more disposable income, they spend more money and tend to go to the higher-end retailiers, especially when they are making relatively rare gift purchases.

Here's an example...Mike, a plumber in Brooklyn, is looking to buy his wife a Christmas gift. If the economy is bad, he probably goes to Costco or WalMart (or the analog in Brooklyn) to get a bracelet or watch or other shiny trinket for the wife. He can't afford to go into Manhattan to shop at Tiffany's or Saks. But if Mike the plumber has had a very good year, thanks to a strong economy and lots of remodel jobs in a hot housing market, he is flush with cash and can not only get his wife a nice shiny object in the blue Tiffany's box, he can probably also get his girlfriend something as well.

That the Times' editorial board would sink to the depths of illogic to slime a good economic report is not suprising. That they couldn't or wouldn't come up with something that had a little more internal logic than this one indicates that they think their readers are not capable of doing anything more than repeating, without thinking, what the Times' puppetmasters tell them to think.

Pathetic.

Why did George Bush Throw Out All The Armored Vehicles And Body Armor that Clinton Provided?

The NY Times led off today's front page with yet another story about the lack of armor to protect US soldiers. It's not worth providing any details on this retread of a story, as it's the same basic refrain the left has been repeating since we suffered our first casualty and it's clear that the story is intended to undermine the President and military rather than provide impetus for victory.

But it got me thinking...if the complaint is that our soldiers don't have proper body armor and their vehicles are under-armored, when did this problem begin? What is its source?

In other words, during the eight years Clinton was President, I never read a story, in the Times or elsewhere, complaining that there wasn't enough armor. In fact, what I remember reading, at least in the Times, was story after story, editorial after editorial, that the military was over-funded and it should be cut back. And that's what Clinton did.

So, excuse me dear readers, but I'm confused. If our troops are under-armored, and President Bush had to send them off to war within a year of taking office, what the hell happened to all the armor that Clinton provided to the military? Did George Bush just throw it all out? Did President Bush say "I want my soldiers to be warriors, only pussies wear armor!"?

Since the Times is so fond of asking what happened to the WMD, I'd like to ask the Times what happened to all the body armor and armored vehicles that Clinton provided during his eight years. Well?

Conspiring Minds Want To Know

Just to start 2006 on the right conspiracy note, I'm beginning to think that the NY Times tried to out-Rove Rove with the Valerie Plame issue.

I won't even try to unravel all that has happened to this point, but the basic story is that someone in the Bush administration is alleged to have disclosed the name of a CIA employee to the media in an effort to somehow punish or discredit the CIA employee's husband, who wrote an op-ed in the NY Times that allegedly exposed one of Bush's infinite alleged lies about the war in Iraq.

I've never really understood why it was such a big deal but the media, and in particular the Times, wouldn't let go of it. They insisted that the Bush administration was exposing intelligence information to engage in retribution and that this was a horrible thing and evidence that the administration used intelligence and national security matters to advance a personal political agenda.

So for all that it is worth, I think that is a basic summary of what happened with Plame and on its own it seems to be a dead-end of an attack on Bush.

But as I was reading the Times this morning (it was actually yesterday's Times, which, due to the torrential rains here, had been so soaked that it took a day to dry enough so that it could be read), I saw a front page article about the other intelligence issue that the Times has been focusing on, the allegations that the Bush administration has been unlawfully spying on Americans.

This, as an issue, also seemed to be much ado about nothing. No one, not even the Times, alleges that this is all that unique for an administration to do. I think that the point of making it into a story was that it fit into the "BUSH LIES, BUSH BREAKS THE LAW, BUSH DESTROYS CIVIL LIBERTIES!" mantra of the left rather than that it actually was something worthy of news coverage.

The background of this story is that the Times had been sitting on it for over a year, that the source of the information about the eavesdropping program was government employee(s) who were leaking classified information to the NY Times, and only now, with no apparent reason to the timing, was the story being published.

The lightbulb went on.

The NY Times was trying to set up the administration with the Plame issue, creating a story out of nothing, so that the administration would not be as quick to prosecute the leaking of confidential intelligence information.

By taking the administration to task, publicly, and forcing it to downplay the importance of intelligence leaks, which the Plame matter was, if at all, to a very minor degree, the Times could then later expose actual classified information obtained from a leak and have less concern that the administration would take action.

It all sounds like the type of thing Karl Rove is accused of masterminding. But in this case, I think that the hacks at the Times didn't do a very good job of setting up the administration. Most rational people understand the differences and severity of the two situations and the Justice Department has not hesitated to begin an investigation into the source of the leaks.

If nothing else, this shows how pathetic the Times has become as it pursues its rear guard attack on the nation.