Jackson arrested

Jesse Jackson arrested

CHICAGO (AP)
"The Rev. Jesse Jackson was arrested Saturday at a demonstration outside a south suburban gun shop.
Prompted by the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old honor student on a Chicago Transit Authority bus, Jackson and other community activists have held several protests at Chuck's Gun Shop in Riverdale in recent weeks. Jackson says the gun shop's proximity to Chicago provides gang members and criminals easy access to firearms.
At a protest Saturday, Jackson and the Rev. Michael Pfleger, a Catholic priest who oversees a South Side congregation, were arrested when they refused to move away from the gun shop's entrance, police said in a statement. Both were charged with one count of criminal trespass to property.
Jackson has used the protests outside the gun shop to call for stricter gun laws.
A message seeking comment from the gun shop was not immediately returned Saturday afternoon.
Blair Holt, an honor student at Julian High School, was killed when a gunman opened fire on a CTA bus. Two teens have been charged as adults with taking part in the shooting, which police said was gang-related. Holt, who was not the intended target, was among nearly three dozen public school students killed this year, school officials say."

Proximity to a gun shop provides easier access to firearms. Kind of goes without saying doesn't it? But, really now, how many gangbangers are going to the suburbs to legally purchase a gun in a gun shop? Chicago's no gun policy has simply moved the legal source for personal protection away from town. Gangbangers will have no real problem buying or stealing guns from other street criminals. Using the "proximity" argument that Jesse makes, then he is working toward disarming all of downstate next. If he is successful at persuading the whole state of Illinois to be disarmed, which seems to be his goal, then I suspect that Indiana gun shops, by reason of their "proximity" to a gun free zone would get much, much busier. Making access to firearms more difficult for non-criminals is not even remotely solving the problem of gang violence. Denying the non-gangmember citizenship of their 2nd ammendment rights to arm and defend themselves is certainly no solution.

The biggest problem with this silly protest by the Reverend JJ is that he seems to give the gangbangers who did the shooting a free pass in order to harass a legally operated business. I've heard no public comment yet from JJ about the shooters. Will Jesse be providing their legal defense and perhaps be giving the gangbangers in question a scholarship after they are eventually released? That has been a common theme with Jesse and gangbangers in the past, such as the football game brawlers in Decatur, back in 1999, and even up to the scholarship he offered to the Pole Dancing Duke Rape Accuser. Jesse wants to make news or better yet for him, be the news, but does not seem to want to attempt to cure the anti-social behavior that is the underlying cause of much of the gang related violence that spills over into the legally unarmed population of Chicago.

It seems like a better idea to convince his "constituancy" of gangs and criminals to take some personal responsibility, as Bill Cosby has suggested, rather than simply taking every insult or disrespect so personally and seriously that they will spray lead randomly when offended. The only gun control that would have prevented the murder of an innocent bystander in this situation would have been better marksmanship. Lack of, or impared social skills and poor marksmanship are two of the real problems plaguing the innocents in Chicago, not Chuck's Gun Shop out in the suburbs.

Another question for school officials who are quoted that nearly 3 dozen students were killed this year... How many of these were non-involved innocents, and how many were active gangbangers? It seems that these figures should not be combined unless you are trying to subvert reality.

The problem, as has been noted for many years by many people, isn't the guns, it is the criminals who use them to commit crime. Rather than deal with that, JJ seems to prefer that innocents should not have any defense capability. The gangland criminal element will continue in their tribal like civil wars, armed to the teeth, but John Q. Law Abiding Citizen must be disarmed. How can this make sense to anyone?

Sky watch

The clear sky Wednesday evening made for a wonderful view of the ISS and Shuttle orbital pass. With the Shuttle Atlantis about 90 miles behind the ISS, it appeared to be chasing the station across the sky. The addition of the new solar arrays during this mission has amplified the brightness of the ISS substantially. The view of the two fast moving objects only lasted about 3 minutes, but it was fascinating to watch. With some small binoculars, I could actually make out a fuzzy, general shape of the station's solar trusses, but not so much with the shuttle. I watched most of it without the binoculars, because the view of the 2 manned spacecraft streaking through the dark, star filled sky together was inspiring.
There is another viewing opportunity over Decatur tonight, but we may have clouds obscure the event. Maybe the predicted rain will hold off until late.

ISS / Atlantis
Thu Jun 21/10:13 PM
Tonight, there will be about 2-3 minutes of sighting opportunity beginning at 10:13 PM.
The ISS will appear first, rising from 11 degrees above West, and it will remain visible across the sky until about 22 degrees above SW.
The shuttle, since today's landing was scrubbed, will also be visible again tonight, chasing the station across the same trajectory.
If you get a chance to watch this tonight, weather cooperating, enjoy.

ACLU gets religion

The American Civil Liberties Union has finally discovered a religion that they will defend!

After years of protesting and filing lawsuits against institutions and local governments to "protect" the public from paying for, looking at, or having any participation in or with anything Christian, they have now determined that it is ok for a public institution, in this case the University of Michigan-Dearborn, to spend 25,000 in public dollars to build, are you ready? Two Islamic footbaths. Apparently, Muslims are required to wash body parts, including feet, up to five times daily before prayers and are presently using public bathroom sinks to clean their feet.

The University of Michigan-Dearborn has decided that the mess on the floor in the bathrooms is reason enough to build the special footbaths. Kary Moss, director of the Detroit branch of the ACLU, said its review concluded the plan is a "reasonable accommodation" to resolve "safety and cleanliness issues" that arose when Muslims used public sinks for foot cleaning before prayers, which often spilled water on bathroom floors.

The American Civil Liberties Union has said the plan doesn't pose constitutional problems, which should please CAIR, (which is named as an unindicted co-conspiritor to support and fund the Hamas terror organization) because now they will not have to divert their own money from terrorist support, but will have American taxpayers pay for the footbaths instead.

I could be ok with this IF they would allow crosses, Christmas trees, a Minorah and maybe even a Nativity scene to be built right in front of or beside the Islamic footbaths.

Why The Gun Is Civilization

This blog entry, by Marko, in his Munchkin Wrangler Blog, should be required reading for ALL Illinois legislators and even local politicians. Especially the Democrat Chicago Machine of liberal thinkers who believe that only the local gangbangers and other assorted armed criminal miscreants should be able to defend themselves against the civilized, unarmed, law abiding citizens. Marko boils it down to the 2 basic ways people deal with each other. Reason and Force.

Why The Gun Is Civilization
"Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it.

In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.

When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gangbanger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.

There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat--it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.

Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser. People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don't constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level. The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weightlifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.

When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation...and that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act."

Gore Video Banished to YouTube

This is a video that the ABC, CBS, and NBC News departments would never consider showing you. It goes against the partisan story line that says that everything Bush says is a lie, and that whatever position he takes, they will take the opposite and call it journalism.

Al Gore Criticizing Bush 41 on Iraq in 1992
About 2:20 into the video, Gore accuses Saddam Hussein of organizing terrorism and working on WMD and nukes.


Flip Flop, Flip Flop. That's the sound of Albert and the loony left wing bump dancing in tandem to a typical vile and nasty thumping gangster rap song. Flip Flop, bump bump, Flip Flop, Bush Lied, flip flop...
To the great weathermaster and high priest of the religion of Global Warming, Al Gore, the biggest enemy is George Bush who is in a virtual tie with that horrible old hot star that is melting the ice cap. Fox News and Rush Limbaugh are probably number 2 or 3 because the truth hurts him too much. Terrorists fall somewhere down around 8 or 9 in the Democrat top ten enemies of America list.

President Bush should have simply let Big Al sell the Iraq war to the American people. The same evidence and intel that Al Gore used in 1992 are now declared by the left to be all lies told by a crazy Texas Republican.
Hypocrites.

Crush on Obama?

Obama Girl has an interesting take on presidential politics, demonstrating her "Crush on Obama." If someone on Obama's campaign helped with it, I wouldn't be surprised. Maybe it is their way of marketing him as an object of female desire.
I'm thinking that Mrs. Obama isn't amused.

Is China Poisoning the World?

Look at the labels on what you buy. If it is made in China, know that you may be getting poisoned or at least getting cheated. Much of China's industry is owned and operated by the Communist Chinese Military. Profits made on cheap Chinese goods, made by near-slave labor, and peddled to (thrifty?) Americans is used to arm and advance the Chinese military, building ships, planes and other military hardware, some of which are then aimed right back at us. This is a serious threat to our health, our economy, the safety of the world, and our very way of life. Unfair trade practices (still supported by some in our government!) allow shoddy Chinese goods to be sold in the US for less than it costs to produce anywhere else, and puts tarifs on American goods that are exported. Unfair trade and monetary policies account for a 35 point plus, price advantage for China, even before the cost considerations of slave labor wages, and lack of quality control. For a much better explanation of the Chinese Trade cheating problem we have, watch this video from Duncan Hunter's website.

Is it just me, or has Wal-Mart become the world wide retail outlet for the Chinese Army? Do they feel any guilt about abandoning the 90's "Buy American" sales strategy they had, and then stiffing American companies to instead sell only Chinese goods? Price cutting comes at a cost.

Below are some articles that describe some of the TOXIC trade.

Chinese Poison Train Declared Unstoppable: Next Stop, You!

Tainted Chinese Imports Common (Washington Post)

China exports lead poisoning
From eye shadow to glazed pottery, products pose danger to U.S. kids

Toxic Toothpaste Made in China Is Found in U.S.

America’s Slow Death by Food Poisoning

Fred Thompson

Fred Thompson, after GOP Presidential Debate in New Hampshire on Tuesday night: