Portugese Postscript

One of the great things about belonging to a national organization of our type and caliber is that people of our ideology and caliber from across the country and world talk to each other a lot.

In an earlier blog post, I wrote of the nine languages that my new watch’s instruction manual was written in, and noted that the manual specifically said that the given manual was meant for USA and Canada distribution.  I then rationalized eight of the nine langugages on the manual, but was befuddled by the presence of Portugese.

Come to find out, there are several neighborhoods, the size and population of mid-sized cities, in New York City and environs, of Brazilian arrivals, and a number of Catholic parishes in those neighborhoods hold mass in Portugese.

Where’s the Love, Eh?

The ruling establishment of the country of Canada, which even more so than our own, hates guns and loves racial minorities, is now worried that too many of the latter are mysteriously using too many of the former to kill each other, especially in and around Toronto.

The usual talking heads blame all the usual talking head punching bags: RACISMDISCRIMINATIONPOVERTYGUNS. Interestingly, though, the talking heads also notice that there are gang problems in Toronto, though being good minority-loving Canadians, they don’t bother to show the clear link between non-white populations and said gangs. More bizarro, they also complain about the illegal flow of weapons from their southern border, and suggest that something be done about it.

If only they would do something about the flow of people through their borders, perhaps Toronto wouldn’t have gang problems now, eh?

A Stitch in Time Saves Nine

Whoever originated that phrase probably did not think about the watch I purchased yesterday.

For a time period of about one day, I was without a working watch.  Long story.

Instead of hassling with a new battery for one of the dead ones and having to deal with fly-by-night kiosks at the mall where one always seems to have to go to get a watch battery changed, I just bought a new one.  I won’t say what kind, what brand, or what store.

Of course, there isn’t too much to it, so what possessed me to read this new watch’s instruction “manual” (really, two flimsy over-folded sheets of paper) is a mystery.  Still, I did.

NINE different languages.  Yes, the instruction papers have the same instructions in NINE different languages.

One may think, “Well, the global economy, global distribution — you’ll want the instructions written in nine of the world’s most common languages for worldwide sale.”

True enough.  BUT:   The instructions specifically said (in nine languages) that these instruction sheets were intended for inclusion for watches sold in the U.S.A. and Canada.  Let that phrase sink in when I tell you what those nine languages are, for they are a good look at America’s (and Canada’s) demographic future.

Since it was the U.S.A. and Canada, two of the languages are English and French.  Still, one can take heart that in each instruction set, English was the first language.  We still haven’t been demoted that far down, not yet.  For very obvious reasons, one was Spanish.  Layup.

The other six, therefore, will be a good lesson on what we are becoming, or what our betters think we are becoming.  

Two more languages are Oriental languages of the pictographic-hieroglyphic variety.  Now, I know that Chinese, Japanese and Korean look very similar, and seeing one of them, I can tell that it is one of those three.  But I cannot tell which one of those three that one of them is.  There are two such languages on this instruction sheet, so it is two of those three, but I cannot confirm just by looking which two.  If I had to guess, I would say the two are Chinese and Korean, as those are two prominent and high-growth minorities in the U.S.A. and Canada.

The remaining four are:  Vietnamese, Bosnian, Arabic and Portugese.

While Vietnamese is an East Asian language, it’s not as hieroglyphical as the Oriental trio I wrote of above.  Bosnian and Serbian are similar, but because of the influx of Bosnian refugees in the late 1990s, I am almost certain I am reading Bosnian rather than Serbian.  Interestingly, Vietnamese and Bosnians are two prominent minorities in St. Louis City.  In fact, as early as 2000, the St. Louis City Police Department had the translationist manpower for officers to communicate with Spanish, Vietnamese and Bosnian speakers.

Arabic — well, that’s necessary if you want to sell anything in the Detroit area.

As far as Portugese goes, that’s an enigma.  The world’s most populous Portugese-speaking country is Brazil, but these instructions were meant for U.S.A. and Canada distribution.  Has there been a recent influx of  Brazilians that I don’t know about?  Or are the powers that be anticipating it, or trying to encourage it?

No, I am not going to translate this blog entry into eight other languages.

I Spy

I’m not losing much sleep over the revelation that President Bush and others authorized warrantless wiretaps in the months after September 11, 2001.

First, Bush kept eleven different members of Congress briefed on this secret syping.  For security reasons, the names of those eleven are kept secret, but I would bet that at least a few of those whining today about the warrantless searches are some of those eleven.

Second, most Democrats have no moral authority to complain about Bush’s (in my opinion) unconstitutional abrogation of power, when it wasn’t too long ago that we had a president named Clinton who belonged to a party called Democrat, who was fond of unconstitutional abrogation of power in order to uncover (mostly fictional) terrorist plots of the domestic right wing, and who was also fond of issuing executive orders when he did not get his way in Congress with his legislative agenda.  Hardly any of today’s big-mouth civil libertarians with Ds next to their names said boo in the 1990s.

Third, as far as I can tell by reading MSM coverage of the scandal, EVERY instance of a warrantless wiretap was a tap between some person on American soil on one end, and an international source, more specifically a hostile foreign source.  Furthermore, if one wants to believe the Bush administration’s response, every instance involved people who had clear-and-present links to Arab/Muslim extremist terrorism.

The MSM’s coverage of the event, with their verbal emphasis on the Feds spying on “American citizens,” would have you believe that the Feds are illegally wiretapping a phone conversation between Jane Doe and Barbara Smith in suburban Cleveland and spying on their cookie recipes.  Of course, we all know that in most white countries, “citizenship” is handed out so loosely to non-whites that it is almost meaningless.  For instance, some arm of the U.S. Federal government law enforcement just hauled in a “Swede” for thick involvement in terrorist activity –  not Jeorg or Hans, mind you, but this “Swede” was a Swedish “citizen” of the Muslim faith and north African descent.

One misconception has to be cleared.  This has nothing to do with the PATRIOT ACT, though it’s a bizarre coincidence that the House and Senate are debating the renewal of the act at the time when this scandal breaks.  In addition, the Patriot Act’s provisions deals with very similar circumstances.  The authority that President Bush used, and probably other Presidents, for these warrantless taps between an American and international line of communication is an act, whose name eludes me, passed in 1978, meaning it was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter.  Keep in mind, in 1978, both the House and Senate were Democrat-Run.

How ’bout them apples, you Dummycrats?  You’re all going on and on about Bush and his illicit wiretaps, and the authority which he claims in doing it is based on a law passed in a Democrat House and a Democrat Senate and signed by a Democrat President!!!

The whole upshot of all of this is that there was nothing particularly pernicious about what President Bush did.  I agree with the notion that the 1978 law is probably unconstitutional in parts, and that any wiretap that involves people on Yankee regolith should be based on a warrant issued by some court.  And this is not because I oppose international wiretapping.  Again, if one wants to believe the Bush Administration, one major terrorist attack was foiled because of this batch of illicit wiretaps. 

Because the left wing would have us believe that egregious abuses of the Federal government began on January 20, 2001 at about noon eastern time, and began to sprint after September 11, 2001, and because those of our politcal bias tend to overemphasize the abuses of power that took place between January 20, 1993 and January 20, 2001, we tend to think of abuses of power in terms of people or partisanship, rather than just plain bad law.

The Crip Got the Drip

Crips gang co-founder Stanley “Tookie” Williams was sent to his just reward just after midnight, California time, on December 13, 2005.  You might be interested to know that his biceps were so muscular and developed that it took the lethal injection doctors 12 minutes to find a blood vein in this arm.

Now that it’s all over, some elements are truth are starting to leak out to counter the propaganda of a “reformed anti-gang activist” that Tookie’s supporters and anti-death penalty spokesmouths would have us believe.

(1)   Those anti-gang children’s books were probably not authored by Williams.  They were most likey ghostwritten for him by political liberals sympathetic to his cause.

(2)   After his supposed “reformation,” Williams committed a number of acts of violence against prison guards.

(3)   Some prison guards at San Quentin told the Fox News Channel that, even up to the end, Williams was among the most dangerous inmates at San Quentin (and that’s not an easy honor to earn, the competition is stiff).  Prison guards that had direct supervision over WIlliams feared retribution from other Crips gang members either from inside the joint or on the outside.  If Tookie were so reformed and such a stalwart anti-gang activist, then it would make sense that none of these kind of fears would have ever existed among prison guards.  If he really did repudiate the Crips, then there would be no Crip worth his weight in crack that would do anything for Tookie.

(4)   Los Angeles Police and other law enforcement agencies in California were prepared for the prospects of riots and organized violence in Tookie’s postmortem.  Granted, a lot of this could have been mainstream news media agitprop, i.e. the media itself wanted to provoke a riot, but where there’s smoke, there is bound to be at least some embers.  However, once again, if Tookie were so reformed, and was not “one of them” anymore, then nobody “on the outside” should have felt the need to riot in earnest of his execution.  In other words, if Tookie renounced street gangs, then the “homeboyz” in the “hood” would surely have not thought of taking up the cause of such a “traitor.”

Ye shall know the truth…..

Nothing but the Dog in Us

Help me here.

The local media newscasts have, in the past few weeks, have featured a number of stories about abandoned and neglected dogs.  It seems like every time I see such a story, the places where dogs are abandoned are places like East St. Louis, Washington Park, Wellston, and north St. Louis city.

Why do I never hear these kind of stories originating in Ladue or Chesterfield?

Give the Islamic Devil His Due

The recent remarks by Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have sparked a firestorm of reaction and criticism.  Of course, if you imply that the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews didn’t happen, and that Israel should be wiped off the map and all its inhabitants moved to Europe, you’re rightly going to catch some flack.

But lost in all of this is one and only one point where Ahmadinejad was correct, but he had to delegitmize those legitimate concerns by surrounding them with far less legitimate statements.

He noted that in certain European countries, it is a crime to deny that the Holocaust happened, and in some instances it is also a crime to “diminish” the commonly accepted circumstances and events of the Holocaust, meaning that if you say Hitler killed 5,999,999 Jews instead of six million, you’re criminally guilty of “diminishing” the Holocaust.  I know that’s a facetious example, but there are those who fall afoul of such laws who themselves don’t deny that the Holocaust happened, they just proposed a revised scenario when it comes to the actual number of Jews holocausted and the methods by which they were killed, see David Irving.

And it’s not just the Holocaust where these legal thorns develop –  Just telling the truth about race, racial aspects to crime rates, and racial differences are criminal offenses in these countries.  Every several weeks, I see a story about how somebody in Europe or even Canada ran afowl of “anti-hate” laws just for stating the obvious about non-white criminality, or for just criticizing homsexuality.

One can bemoan and criticize such laws without being an out and outright Holocaust denier or an anti-Semite, but the fact that Ahmadinejad did while espousing sentiments of Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism is a PR disaster for any given civil libertarian with right wing sympathies.

All These Silly Ideas

Some people just never get it.

I was watching Channel 5’s (KSDK-TV) 6 PM news tonight (Friday, November 18), and the top story was about how officials at St. Louis University have altered the online student handbook for SLU Medical School students.

Before the alteration, the online handbook’s section on housing for Med School students advised students where to live and where not to live in the St. Louis metro area to avoid being a victim of violent crime.  The handbook basically said that anywhere in the city north of Delmar is undesirable, and so is north of Page in St. Louis County.

Oh-so-coincidentally (or not), north of Delmar in the city and north of Page in the county is mostly African-American.  So the discovery of these paragraphs in this online handbook got the civil rights hustle banging the drums, and the banged them loudly enough to have those paragraphs pulled.  Even (supposedly white) Mayor Slay’s chief of staff, one (supposedly white) Jeff Rainford, joined in the professional bitching, even though north of Delmar can hardly be described as the political base of any (supposedly) white mayor in this city.

The following story on that newscast on that station was about the murder of an 18-year old gentleman of color the previous overnight on Linton street in north St. Louis city.  Yes, Linton is well north of Delmar.