Page Nine

Religion of Pieces

The lamestream media told you:

Islam is the religion of peace.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:

In an AP story that got surprisingly little coverage nationally, nine Iranians are scheduled to be stoned to death for having sex. Eight women and one man convicted of adultery will be buried (women up to their necks, the man to his waist), and be stoned with pieces of rock too small to cause death immediately, which means the guilty parties will suffer, and plenty of pieces can be thrown by those carrying out the sentence.

According to AP, "Six of the nine were convicted based solely on judges' decisions with no witnesses or the presence of their lawyers during their confessions." One, reportedly, confessed without understanding what the charge was.

Stoning, very popular right after the 1979 Islamic revolution, is less frequent now, though the ruling mullahs don't issue press releases when sentences are carried out.

While some in Iran are seeking an end to the practice, "opposition from hard-line clerics has sidelined their efforts," according to the AP.

Tags: adultery, Islam, stoning

Olympics Firearms Teams

The lamestream media told you:

The Olympic Torch went through the capital of Tibet, Lhasa, with virtually none of the protests and demonstrations that marred the fine ritual in some other cities recently, on its way to the grand opening of the games.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:

Hundreds of Communist Chinese troops and police kept Lhasa virtually closed during the Olympic torch relay, to avoid the extreme embarrassment the Chinese dictatorship has suffered from protests for its treatment of Tibetans and human rights in general. Several hundred "pre-approved onlookers" lined the streets for cameras, according to The Week news magazine.

The U.S. Olympic shooting team, which had to get special permission from President Bush to bring firearms into the Communist stronghold for competing in the games, may receive some televised coverage from NBC and its satellite stations (MSNBC, CNBC, USA, OXYGEN, TELEMUNDO, more). For broadcast schedules (next-to-the-last link): http://usashooting.org/viewRelease.php?id=170

Complete game schedules, which begin on Aug. 8, 2008, straight from the commie website.

Tags: China, Olympics, U.S. Olympic shooting team

Boring Earthquake Glorified

The lamestream media told you:

Too much.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:

Los Angeles experienced a 5.4 magnitude earthquake, no major damage was apparent, no one was seriously hurt, the power didn't go out, traffic continued to flow, and every major news outlet stayed with the story for hours after the event had ended. With nothing significant to report, reporters took phone calls from people who felt the shaking.

The non-event preempted every other news story for hours, preventing news consumers eating lunch (like me) from getting any news about anything, on regular TV (C-SPAN aired the usual abuse from Congress uninterrupted). The breathless, monotonous hand wringing over nothing happening was abysmal, but just a step below the usual broadcasts.

Tags: media coverage, earthquakes, Los Angeles

Are Handguns Machineguns?

The lamestream media told you:

Dick Heller, the security guard who won back limited gun rights in an historic decision at the Supreme Court last month, was turned down by D.C. police when he tried to register his semiautomatic handgun. District authorities decided it was not a proper handgun under the new law.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:

Defying all logic and reason, D.C.'s new law repeats language from its old law, that says any firearm that could take a magazine with more than 12 rounds -- whether you own such a magazine or not -- is a machine gun. Blatant lunacy, D.C. bureaucrats are trying to get away with this abuse, to ban anything but revolvers and derringers.

Dick Heller, who successfully registered the 9-shot, 6-inch barrel, Harrington & Richardson "Longhorn" .22-caliber revolver that got his Supreme Court case underway, is using the denial for his semi-auto to challenge the city's unmitigated gall on the "bottom loading" issue. He also plans to challenge the continued requirement that his gun remains in his home unloaded, and locked or disassembled, rendering it useless, until "it is being used to protect against a reasonably perceived threat of immediate harm to a person within the registrant’s home."

Two of the finest Second Amendment attorneys in the nation, Stephen Halbrook and Richard Gardiner, are representing Heller in the ongoing case. The city plans to spend buckets of taxpayer money to prevent Mr. Heller from exercising the rights most other Americans have, and which the Supreme Court insisted must be restored to him.

No criminal charges or other indictments against District authorities have been announced.

Tags: Stephen Halbrook, D.C. v. Heller, handguns, machine guns, Richard Gardiner, Second Amendment

No D.C. Handguns

The lamestream media told you:

Although we very don’t like it, and our editorial department is in conniptions and working overtime to denigrate it, and even our “news” department is trying to spin it so it doesn’t say what it says, the Supreme Court has ruled that residents of Washington, D.C. can keep handguns in their homes (just like criminals, gang bangers, drug dealers, parolees, ex-felons, miscreants, assorted wackos and police and federal officers) but only for self defense and personal protection. What’s the world coming to, here comes Armageddon, or at least the Wild Wild West.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:

Although innocent, defenseless, law-abiding, decent, harmless, female, gay, weak, elderly, victimized, abused and other citizens in D.C can now keep and bear arms thanks to the Supreme Court’s glorious ruling supposedly restoring the rights the government had mercilessly confiscated, creating the biggest crime-ridden phony “gun-free” zone in the nation, D.C. residents cannot obtain handguns, which are “the quintessential self defense weapon” according to the Court, thanks to federal law:

18 USC § 922(b) It shall be unlawful for any licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector to sell or deliver --
(3) any firearm to any person who the licensee knows or has reasonable cause to believe does not reside in (or if the person is a corporation or other business entity, does not maintain a place of business in) the State in which the licensee’s place of business is located...

No word yet on whether dealers in adjacent Maryland and Virginia are willing to risk their business licenses and incur prison sentences, to sell legal firearms to residents of D.C. Officials in D.C. implied slightly that it would be OK, but they have no authority over BATFE, the agency that would make the arrests.

Tags: D.C. v. Heller, BATFE

Saddam’s Uranium Unloaded

The lamestream media told you:

The Associated Press is reporting that the last remnants of Saddam Hussein’s stockpiles of concentrated uranium have been secretly shipped out of Iraq and received at the Canadian firm, Cameco, which bought the supplies. The material will be refined in Ontario.

Shipped by air and sea, the 550 metric tons of refined yellowcake uranium feedstock, in 3,500 secured barrels, is the last of the secret shipment, and U.S. officials say they are glad it is out of Iraq.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:

Anti-war protesters, liberals, the political left and much of the Democrat Party, along with TV and newspapers commentators, part of the political right and part of the Republican party, which has been screaming loudly about non-existent weapons of mass destruction in the hands of the executed Iraqi dictator, have issued no correction and could not be reached for comment.

Although unmentioned in the report, an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq would have left the dangerous radioactive prize available to anyone with trucks. It is not publicly known how much other secret or dangerous material or munitions are lying around in the Iraqi desert.

According to leading experts, the 1,213,000 pounds of yellowcake uranium, “is a lot,” and worth tens of millions of dollars, though the actual sale price was not released. “Saddam could not refine the coarse nuclear fuel for bombs,” said one observer, “because he’s dead.” Israel had bombed the plant where it was stored in 1991, further slowing the process.

Tags: uranium, Saddam Hussein

Smokers Cost Less

The lamestream media told you:

Smoking is so bad it should be outlawed everywhere, and a private establishment should not be allowed to allow smoking even within its own private walls.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:

The American Academy of Physicians and Surgeons has released a report that indicates nonsmoking persons of normal weight have the highest lifetime medical costs.

Politicians and others usually list the funding of prevention and chronic disease management programs as a key method of achieving cost containment. Smoking and obesity are most frequently mentioned as risk factors to target. In the long run, however, removing these risk factors would probably increase medical costs -- even assuming that preventive interventions cost nothing.

Using a simulation model, researchers found that never-smokers of normal weight actually incurred higher lifetime medical costs than obese nonsmokers. Smokers of normal weight had the lowest costs. Life years gained through prevention are not lived in full health. Reduction of risky behavior resulted in substituting expensive, chronic diseases of aging for cheap, lethal ones.

In other news, Japan passed a law to outlaw flabbiness, but the belief that it will reduce medical costs may lead to overmedication and increased medical costs. Read (and comment on) the story here.

Tags: smoking, The American Academy of Physicians and Surgeons

Schooling Problems Identified

The lamestream media told you:

President Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” law is a disaster, AIMs testing accomplishes nothing, and America’s schools have fallen into horrific disrepair. High school graduates can barely read, or identify basic places on a map, or do simple math, or identify the parts of government or the people currently in office, or the principles that made America great.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:

The political right, fairly or unfairly, bluntly blames the political left for the condition of America’s schools, pointing at:

• devout politically correct educators and curricula,
• revisionist history that accuses dead white men of all the world’s problems without recognizing their stunning achievements and establishment of self-governing freedom that has swept the planet,
• social studies that portray America as the root of all evil,
• political science that sees leftist dictators as champions of the people and America’s Founders as oppressors,
• physical science classes that teach political policy and greenness instead of fundamental science
• affirmative action and diversity schemes that advance students who are hopelessly unqualified so classrooms achieve “balance”,
• feminization programs that attempt to turn boys into girls and men into girly men,
• literature that avoids the classics and instead focuses on modern gay, atheist, perverse, immoral and similar nouveaux “subjects”,
• sensitivity efforts that remove physical activity and even “tag” from the school environment because these are rough male-dominated anomalies,
• vilification of competition -- the very heart of American success -- from sports so that teams do not win or lose and no one’s feelings are hurt,
• dumbing down of curricula in the belief that this will improve student test results and no one needs to know what everyone used to need to know anyway,
• and programs for artificially supplied respect and self worth, so no child has to feel the pain of failure or the unequal accomplishment of accomplishment, which would be unfair.

Aside from blaming a few timid recent efforts to fix the problems like AIMS testing and the Behind law, it’s not clear what the left blames the school debacle upon. In a move that surprises no one, they have not blamed the right.

Tags: No Child Left Behind

Golf Hides Shooters

The lamestream media told you:

Tiger Woods and a small number of other people played at a golf competition recently, an elite sport enjoyed primarily at country clubs, according to reports blanketing Page One. Woods has a leg problem, but won the tournament anyway.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:

USA Shooting National Championships for Rifle and Pistol ran through Saturday, July 5. During the week of competition some 300 shooters, including 13 members of the U.S. Olympic Shooting Team, were vying for national titles at the Ft. Benning, Ga., International Shooting Complex. A handful of people playing golf (the nation’s #3 sport) apparently squeezed all 300 shooting competitors (the nation’s #2 sport, based on equipment sales) entirely out of the news. The U.S. Olympic Team will be heading to Communist China for the Olympics, and according to experts, will get squeezed out of the news there too. http://www.usashooting.org/viewRelease.php?id=153

Results in free pistol, sport pistol, rapid fire pistol, men’s and women’s meets, rifle, airgun and multiple disciplines are posted here.

Tags: USA Shooting National Championships for Rifle and Pistol, Tiger Woods

Battery Funding Scam

The lamestream media told you:

McCain Offers Prize For New Battery. The need for new energy alternatives is so urgent John McCain is “willing to throw money at it,” according to the Associated Press. He proposed a prize of $300 million for whoever can develop a more efficient car battery, and a $5,000 tax credit for consumers who buy zero-emission vehicles.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:

In a campaign stunt that bodes poorly for a constitutional republic, a presidential candidate wants to take money from innocen taxpayers and give it to someone willing to design batteries, instead of letting researchers do research on their own, and letting taxpayers keep their own money.

“If the need for a product is worth $300 million, let entrepreneurs pursue it,” said the Uninvited Ombudsman, with his blood boiling enough to warm the Earth. “Someone should tell McCain he could ask Congress to take such outrageous unconstitutional steps, but he’s only running for president, not emperor, and can’t simply decide to give our money away himself, not matter how good an idea he thinks it is.”

To be fair, both major candidates are proposing schemes that only emperors and dictators can take, unchallenged by a sleepy “news” media. B. H. Obama has a plan to force everyone to pay for everyone else’s medical care.

No details on what would qualify as a prize-winning battery were provided in the countless identical stories that ran nationally from the AP “news” release, because the AP and none of their “affiliates” bothered to ask. McCain did say it should be able to “leapfrog” the industry, a term of unknown scientific value. The Energizer Bunny could not be reached for comment.

Reporter Glen Johnson, in now-standard lapdog style, simply relayed the political pronouncement and failed to ask even the most basic questions:

How many massive new power plants, already browning out to keep up with air conditioners, would it take to charge a nation of car batteries? Don’t they lose net energy to produce electricity, losing energy to transmit the electricity, to finally lose energy pouring it into batteries, according to simple laws of physics? “Energy loss is required by nature every step of the way,” said a high-school teacher, but that’s science, and so is not included in “news” reports.

He notes that battery cars, known as bat-cars for short, can only be considered zero-emission devices if you ignore the massive emissions of the plants that generate their recharge power, a popular fraud used by greenwashing politicians, and overlooked by their complicit reporters.

Tags: John McCain, battery