The Car You Keyed

She was raised in communist Poland, with few freedoms
and many fears - several members of her family had
"disappeared" after being taken into custody, never
charged with any crime.

After the collapse of the communist regime, she left
her family and her homeland a few months after her
20th birthday. Living in France, she worked two jobs
on evenings and weekends to support herself while
obtaining her degree in Law.

She worked 60+ hour weeks in Paris for an American law
firm for the next few years, having 60% of her income
confiscated by taxes.

A little over two years ago, she moved to San
Francisco. With limited English , she spent her little
savings and mortgaged her life with student loans in
order to obtain her Masters in Law from Hastings
University.

On May 22 of this year, she learned she passed the
California Bar Exam. Two weeks later she purchased the
first new car she'd ever owned.

Neither she nor the estimator failed to notice that
you, the vandal, had taken care to scratch more than
one panel on a car that is yet to have license plates.

Bravo.

I don't expect this to have any effect on you. Good
people feel bad, even when shouldn't. Bad people don't
feel bad, even when they should.

Just don't kid yourself about the type of person you
are.

Just As I Suspected

Today's L.A. Times printed a cry for attention by Joel Stein titled "I Don't Support the Troops"

...being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken

This falls in neatly with my cut and paste just below of the news story on Democrat Senator John Murtha meeting with representatives of the anti-war group Code Pink that I titled "But They Support the Troops". Code Pink signed a statement saying the Iraqi Insurgency "deserved the support of people everywhere who care for justice and freedom."

Of course, I had to shoot off a letter to the Times. Like I said, the article was a cry for attention and Mr Stein (and the Times) probably got more than he bargained for. This column will follow him for a long time. Anyway, I liked my letter. Here it is:

Editor - It was refreshing to read Joel Stein's true sentiments about the Iraq War; "being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken". I couldn't agree more and believe most anti-war types are only fooling themselves.

While Mr. Stein has faced this contradiction he and the rest of the anti -war movement continue to fool themselves in another manner. This country, this president and these troops, have liberated 50 million people from two of the most oppressive regimes the world has ever known - 50 million people! Yet, somehow he's convinced himself he is on the moral high ground by opposing their liberation.

Reuters has piece on how the Stein article has "infuriated conservatives". This is unintentionally revealing and further confirms what I've always suspected. After all, if Mr. Stein's claims aren't accurate shouldn't liberals be infuriated?

Honesty About Race

The SF Chronicle ran an Op/Ed by Ruben Navarette titled Alito Plays Dumb on Race:

Americans still can't talk honestly about race or racism.

Perhaps Mr. Navarette could start.

Throughout the article he uses the Orwellian "affirmative action" when what he is referring to is "racial preferences". Honest?

I don't know why my colleagues didn't sink their teeth into what was obviously a delicious tidbit -- a nominee's possible misgivings about affirmative acion...

Perhaps because whenever given the chance, Americans have voted repeatedy to reject racial preferences and its inherent discrimination by race. Americans have misgivings about racial preferences, Mr. Navarrette. Honest?

They can't even talk about programs -- however flawed -- that were created to alleviate the effects of racism.

Mr. Navarette may have missed the memo, but the Supreme Court in Bakke explicitly denied the use of racial preferences to "alleviate the effects of racism". Ironically, they did allow their use to create "diversity" under the "compelling interest" that students benefit from a diverse student body.

Of course, the faculty of our universities, the most ideologically monolithic group in the country (with Mr. Navarette's "colleagues" a close second), are unaffected. We are asked to believe that those sitting beside the students are more important to learning than the professors standing before them. Honest?

Finally:

Latinos still have to put up with insult added to injury. First, the nation's largest minority is passed over three times by President Bush...

Perhaps Mr. Navarrette should familiarize himself with the plight of Miguel Estrada. President Bush nominated Judge Estrada for the D.C. Court of Appeals, the nation's 2nd highest court, only to be filibustered by Senate Democrats "because he is a Latino".

From the Wall Street Journal:

Leaked Democratic memos indicate that Mr. Estrada was targeted, in part, because, "he is Latino, and the White House seems to be grooming him for a Supreme Court appointment," and because, "we can't make the same mistake we made with Clarence Thomas."

So by all means, lets start talking honestly about race.

...But They Support the Troops

MURTHA'S NEW ALLIES

Rep. Jack Murtha of Pennsylvania, formerly one of the most hawkish Democrats in Congress, met on Jan. 5 with representatives of the militant antiwar organization, Code Pink.

Murtha, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, has moved deeper into the antiwar protest movement over the past two months since advocating removal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Code Pink, at a mock war crimes tribunal in Istanbul June 27, signed a declaration that the Iraqi insurgency "deserved the support of people everywhere who care for justice and freedom." The document also rejected as illegitimate any democratic government left behind in Iraq.

Code Pink's website currently shows Murtha with his arms around Gael Murphy, the organization's co-founder, and Allison Yorra, its Washington coordinator.

More Good News/Bad News

Below, I wrote about good news for the United States being bad news for liberals. Such a strange position to put yourself in - actually rooting for bad news about America.

Well, there are long faces on all the anti-capital punishment activists today - seems Virginia executed a guilty man, after all.

Imagine hoping that an innocent man was executed.

What Does It Take?

The former warden of San Quentin wrote an Open Forum in the Chronicle trying to derail the scheduled execution of a multiple murderer. Here's my letter in response:

Editor - Let me get this straight. Dan Vasquez notes that Clarence Ray
Allen "ordered 3 murders from his prison cell" then calls Mr. Allen a "model
prisoner"? What's a fella got to do to be executed around here? Kill
somebody? A man who once ordered murders from prison is an unusual choice
to label as "no risk".

Besides, most of us aren't impressed by someone who's a model citizen while
under 24 armed guard. It's just not that impressive.

The issue isn't "threat to society", "retribution", "revenge" or even
"deterrence". The issue is justice - notably missing in Mr. Vasquez's
defense of Clarence Ray Allen (along with the names of the victims) until
the very last word.

Update: Turns out Mr. "Vasquez has been has been retained by the legal team for Allen and that the op-ed reflected remarks from the brief Vasquez was paid to write for the clemency review undertaken by Allen's legal team". I'm not surprised..

Alito's Accusers

Powerline has a post about the coming slander of Judge Alito. Apparently one of those on the witness list compiled by Senate Democrats is an animal rights nut. Powerline links to his article that ran in the L.A. Times.

Lest you think his views are not consistent with the radical animal rights crowd, the link is to an outfit called Raw Food Info, not the L.A. Times. They're proud of it.

Here's the email I sent to Powerline:

While I in no way condone the suffering of animals, comparing the slaughtering of animals to the slaughtering of humans is morally confused, at best. He trivializes the holocaust by equating the attempted systematic extermination of an entire race of people, only 60 years ago in the center of one of the worlds most advanced societies to an industry that feeds, clothes and employs millions of people. I also think he does his own cause no good since most people are repulsed by such sentiments.

"Comparisons to the Holocaust are not only appropriate but inescapable because, whether we wish to admit it or not, cows, chickens, pigs and turkeys are as capable of feeling loneliness, fear, pain, joy and affection as we are."

"As capable"?!?!? Have you ever read a more foolish statement? Do you think a chicken suffers as much pain as a human when a sibling, a parent, a friend (of course chicken's have friends, right?) dies? "...as capable of feeling loneliness, fear, pain, joy and affection..." Amazing.

Mr., Dujack does not elevate the status of animals to that of humans, he lowers humans to that of animals. That, Mr. Dujack is how "ordinary people" ran the gas chambers, stoked the crematoriums, drove the slave trains, cooked the gruel, made the "lampshades, soaps and other "useful" products" from their dead bodies,...and all of the other aspects of the industry needed to support the holocaust. They equated them with animals.

There's more than a little bit of irony here.

Powerline also points out the farcical - "Dujack will be part of the Democrats' effort to paint Alito as a dangerous extremist"

Letterman/O'Reilly

Last night Bill O'Reilly was on the David Letterman show. Not surprisingly, the interview was contentions. What was surprising was O'Reilly's poor performance defending himself and his beliefs. He could barely keep up in an exchange on...Cindy Sheehan!?!!??!?

What O'Reilly should have said:

Dave, you don't know anything about Cindy Sheehan. Do you know the name of her son, who gave his life? No? Did you know that he reenlisted? No? Did you know that she calls the very same people who killed her son "Freedom Fighters"? These are the same people who blow up children and aid workers, Dave. They shoot teachers in front of their students. "Freedom Fighters", Dave. Over 2,000 American soldiers have died in Iraq, Dave. Can you name one of their mother's besides Cindy Sheehan? Why is that? You don't know these things because the media doesn't tell you. They don't tell you because they are using Cindy Sheehan - a woman who has lost her son - to attack this administration. I have not lost any children fighting in Iraq and my heart goes out to all who have including Ms Sheehan. But I do know this - I would not call those who have killed over 2,000 American soldiers, thousands of innocent Iraqis and killed MY son "Freedom Fighters"...and this is the one Gold Star mother's name you know. Shame on you, but mostly shame on the media that created her and is using her.