Mid-Week Post

Canada's lax border?

So Canada is “annoyed” with Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle because she pointed out that our northern neighbor’s lax immigration policies endanger America? Touchy, touchy...

Canadians are a very self-conscious people. Guilty as charged. But to be fair, the tighter security taken at the border has only hampered travelers with legitimate business and cast a dragnet for criminals, minor and major. So one has stopped a major money-laundering scam or an illegal immigrant or- shockingly!- a tourist. What happens when a terror suspect approaches the border? Political correctness kicks in. No one wants to profile and no one wants a high-powered lawyer screaming "hate crime".  I agree there should be better measures to protect the border but all efforts made will be in vain if the hammy hand of political correctness clamps down.


And yet there are some very good points:

Angle didn’t say “9/11 hijackers,” unlike DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, who falsely asserted that the 9/11 jihadis crossed the northern border to enter the country. Angle was likely referring to the well-known case of Ahmed Ressam, the would-be LAX millenium bomber, who was stopped by vigilant US Customs Inspector Diana Dean at the US-Canada border in Washington state. There are more.

Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer, a Palestinian bomb-builder, entered the U.S. illegally through Canada in 1996 and 1997. He claimed political asylum based on alleged persecution by Israelis, was released on a reduced $5,000 bond posted by a man who was himself an illegal alien, and then skipped his asylum hearing after calling his attorney and lying about his whereabouts. In June 1997, after his lawyer withdrew Mezer’s asylum claim, a federal immigration judge ordered Mezer to leave the country on a “voluntary departure order.” Mezer ignored the useless piece of paper. He joined a New York City bombing plot before being arrested in July 1997 after a roommate tipped off local police. 

Janet Napolitano may be a moron but she is YOUR moron. YOU deal with her.


And remember- YOU let these guys in. Fool me once, ect.


We fouled the ball on Ressam. Sorry.


And yet, a gunman of a non-descript background opened fire on fourteen people on a military base.


I'm saying we both have problems but you can't use Canada as a whipping boy every time there is an election. Your own president can't suck up to Iran enough. Worry about that.

Great. Now where are we going to get our…. What exactly do we get from Canada?

You get oil (among other things) from us. Or do like Saudi oil better?



Why Americans need to study their own history:

Seeking to channel the sign-bearing, flag-waving enthusiasm of the “tea party” movement into ballot-box victories, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told hundreds of supporters Monday they couldn’t “party like it’s 1773″ until Washington was flooded with like-minded conservatives.
“I can see November from my house!” said Palin in a self-deprecating call to action that had been reprinted on buttons.

Prominent liberals like Markos Moulitsas and others hilariously jumped all over what they believed to be a “Palin gaffe” – thinking perhaps she meant 1776.

Er, wrong.

Guess what happened in 1773, lefties? The Boston Tea Party, which anyone with a high school education could easily figure out – even without watching the video that included the context of her remarks.

Remember when everyone thought Sarah Palin wasn't very clever because she is conservative and has kids? Apparently, being on one side of the political spectrum and having children doesn't make you forget the year in which the Boston Tea Party, a pivotal moment in American history, took place.


Leftists aren't smart.

D'oh!

We owe Japan an apology:

We would like to set the record straight concerning some information contained within a map that accompanied Mr. Goodspeed's article. 

Through thorough surveys, dating back to 1885, it was confirmed that the Senkaku Islands had been uninhabited and showed no trace of having been under the control of China. Based on this, the government of Japan made a cabinet decision on Jan. 14, 1895 to erect a marker on the islands to formally incorporate them into the territory of Japan. 

Since then, the Senkaku Islands have continuously remained as an integral part of the Nansei Shoto Islands, and Japanese territory. These islands were neither part of Taiwan nor part of the Pescadores Islands which were ceded to Japan from the Qing Dynasty of China in accordance with Article II of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which came into effect in May of 1895. 

Accordingly, the Senkaku Islands are not included in the territory which Japan renounced under Article II of the San Francisco Peace Treaty. The Senkaku Islands have been placed under the administration of the United States of America as part of the Nansei Shoto Islands, in accordance with Article III of the said treaty, and are included in the area, the administrative rights over which were reverted to Japan in accordance with the Agreement Between Japan and the United States of America Concerning the Ryukyu Islands and the Daito Islands signed on June 17, 1971. The facts outlined herein clearly indicate the Senkaku Islands are Japanese territory. 

The fact that China expressed no objection to the status of the islands being under the administration of the United States under Article III of the San Francisco Peace Treaty clearly indicates that China did not consider the Senkaku Islands as part of Taiwan. It was not until the latter half of 1970, thanks to petroleum resources on the continental shelf of the East China Sea, that the government of China and Taiwan authorities began to raise questions regarding the Senkaku Islands. 

Furthermore, none of the points raised by the Government of China as "historic, geographic or geological" evidence provide valid grounds, in light of international law, to support China's arguments regarding the Senkaku Islands.

After German President Angela Merkel declares that "multikulti" is a complete failure, the town of Hamburg capitulates without the help of the Red Army:

Hamburg may soon become the first German state officially to recognize Islam as a religious community and give Muslims the same legal rights as Christians and Jews in dealing with the local administration.

Four years of quiet negotiations about building mosques, opening Muslim cemeteries and teaching Islam in public schools are nearing an end just when Germany is embroiled in a noisy debate about Islam and the integration of Muslim immigrants.

Schools (public or sectarian) in Germany are publicly funded (education is primarily the responsibility of the state). Home-schooling is not permitted. There is the separation of church and state in Germany. In 1995, crosses were banned on public schools. In 2000, Islam was an optional subject in schools. Religious schools are subsidised but are more effective than public schools and require students- believers or not- to adhere to the set program. If Germany got out of the nanny-statist game and put the impetus on parents to choose (and fund) their own schools  AND require immigrants to acclimatise to German values, laws and customs, there would be no need for this state-funded debacle. Germany hasn't opened its doors; it's caved in.


A man attempts to kill his pregnant girlfriend:

A man accused of pointing a handgun at his pregnant girlfriend and forcing her to drive to an abortion clinic has been charged with attempted murder under an Ohio law prohibiting the unlawful termination of a pregnancy, a prosecutor said Wednesday.


Dominic L. Holt-Reid was arrested Oct. 6 as he waited for his girlfriend in the clinic's parking lot.

He pleaded not guilty in court Wednesday. A public defender was appointed for the 27-year-old Holt-Reid, who was briefly represented at Wednesday's hearing by an on-duty public defence attorney who could not comment

Columbus police initially charged him with kidnapping and carrying a concealed weapon. A six-count Franklin County grand jury indictment returned Friday added other kidnapping and weapons counts, along with the attempted murder charge.

County prosecutor Ron O'Brien said in an email to The Associated Press that the attempted murder count was filed because Holt-Reid tried "at gunpoint to force her to have an abortion against her will."


Ohio's "murder statute was amended a few years back to prohibit 'unlawful termination of a pregnancy' in order to avoid the debate whether an unborn fetus is a 'person' under the law," O'Brien wrote in the email, which was first reported by The Columbus Dispatch. O'Brien said the statute has allowed him to win convictions on two counts in murder cases in which the victim was pregnant.

I'm sure some leftist is spitting nails about this.


Oh, must we?

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday said his country's ties with NATO have to overcome years of historic distrust, as he prepares to attend the Western alliance's summit.



"Relations between Russia and NATO have always been difficult, maybe it's a legacy plus emotions, feelings, people's perceptions," he told foreign policy experts and dignitaries at his Gorky residence just outside Moscow.

"We all have some historical background."



"Undoubtedly, this weighs down our relations including with NATO. In Russia, there is a feeling that NATO is a kind of aggressive factor in relation to Russia. Perhaps it is misguided thinking in many ways."

Medvedev also lamented that Russia was often seen in the West as "a country where there can never be democracy, which will always be committed to authoritarian principles and which does not want to develop with the rest of the world."

The Kremlin chief was meeting with members of the Munich Conference on Security Policy including Zbigniew Brzezinski, former US national security adviser in the Jimmy Carter administration, Adam Rotfeld, a former Polish foreign minister, and Wolfgang Ischinger, a former German deputy foreign minister.

In 2007, Medvedev's predecessor at the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, stunned the West when he attacked the United States as a reckless "unipolar" power speaking at the annual Munich Conference on Security Policy in Germany.

On Tuesday, Medvedev said he would attend next month's NATO summit in Lisbon as he seeks to promote what he thinks should be a common European security strategy uniting the continent once split between the West and the Soviet bloc under a joint strategic vision.

"Your arrival at the summit in Lisbon could be the starting point in creating a new cooperative European example of building a new security," Rotfeld told Medvedev.
 
In a possible sign that Medvedev's ideas for the common security architecture may be gaining traction, Brzezinski also praised his proposal.

Why would we distrust Russia?


Even though Medvedev is not the heavyweight Putin is, there is no reason to so readily (if at all) trust him.


And now for something completely different.