A rhetorical question on the media's double-standard of reporting terrorists' motivations

Why, when a killer or would-be killer is white, do investigators and the media always look for connection to "right-wing" "Christian" "extremist" groups, refusing to accept that the person may have acted alone? Much is made of Anders Behring Breivik's politics, but not his doping up. (There you go, Billy: he probably needed the drugs to feel brave enough to substitute murder for his inability to think.) There are calls to classify the English Defence League as "extremist," because Breivik supposedly contacted them. This logic would accuse someone of money laundering based on receiving Nigerian scam e-mails. After the Oklahoma City bombing, the Michigan Militia and other "paramilitary groups" were the new bogeyman, notwithstanding the MM had reported Timothy McVeigh to the FBI (who paid no attention and effectively allowed, intentionally or not, McVeigh to continue on).

Yet when it's a Muslim, almost immediately it's invariably said that there's no evidence the person had religious motivations or ties to other groups.

Houssein Zorkot. Mohammad Alkaramla had "personal problems." Regarding the deadly attack earlier this year in Rio de Janeiro, "Police stressed, however, that there was no concrete evidence that the attack had either a religious or a political motive." Someone made a Wikipedia page for Naveed Afzal Haq, whereas someone else more properly titled the page about the Empire State Building shooting of 1997. Mohammed Taheri-azar. Hesham Hadayet opened fire at LAX's El Al counter, which naturally was downplayed as having no religious motivation. John Mohammed and Lee Malvo, the D.C. beltway snipers. Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad and, just months later, Nidal Malik Hasan. There were four Newburgh men who banded together to bomb synagogues -- but of course they weren't tied to anything beyond themselves, and the judge even blamed the feds for making them into terrorists.

So we again see the double-standards of political correctness, which by nature defies reality. I haven't heard of any home-based terrorism in Ireland for a very long time, but I have a feeling that when English targets were bombed, and the suspect was Irish Catholic, then the investigators immediately had a good idea of the motivation and the overall movement.

Addendum: the world has idiots who have to ask, "For Christians who think of their faith as preaching peace, how to explain the faith-sanctioned killing of the Crusades?" and mention "Or consider the Ku Klux Klan's burning crosses." I get annoyed by such non-thinkers who are essentially demanding justification of why 2 plus 2 don't equal five -- it's obvious to any thinking person that the Crusaders and KKK aren't followers of Jesus Christ by any means. Ergo there's nothing "faith-sanctioned" about the two groups.

"canada is in trade surplus and does not need china to fund its debt." -- oh really?

A Canadian court is handing a Chinese national back to his government, which any thinking person realizes is a death sentence. "Lai's lawyer, David Matas, said Lai's brother and his accountant both died in prison of unexplained causes and argued to Shore on Thursday that the same fate could await Lai."

Some idiot wrote in the comments: "robby and arthur show ignorance of canada.canada is in trade surplus and does not need china to fund its debt. on the other hand china desperately needs canadas oil ,timber, and natural resources."

A trade surplus. Really? This is news to the rest of the world: "Canada reported a trade deficit equivalent to 814 Million CAD in May of 2011." This was a narrowing after April's widening.

But perhaps this person is talking only about trade between China and Canada. Oops, he's still a moron: Canada imports almost four times (in CND terms) from China as it exports to China. Ordinarily I'd just call the person "misinformed," but I call him an outright moron for calling others wrong, when data establishing the truth is so easily obtained.

And what does China do with the surplus? Well, that's in part how China gets Canadian dollars to acquire operations in Canada that develop natural resources. China doesn't prop up national debt for Canada like it does for the U.S. While the Canadian dollar for quite some time now has been over a 1:1 ratio with the U.S. dollar, China would prefer to continue with U.S. Treasuries -- at the very least to help preserve the value of all they've bought so far.

There's nothing wrong with China buying up Canadian holdings, though. Canadians by and large buy the same inexpensive China-made plastic goods, electronics, textiles, etc., that Americans do. And in return, they sell to China natural resources (or the rights to develop the natural resources) that Canadians wouldn't be able to use themselves.

Big Brother Obama is watching you

Yahoo News is using the below. What the hell is someone smoking, or do they no longer care about hiding what Obama really is?

To catch future Casey Anthonys, people are willing to damn us all to more of a police state?

Billy notes the hysteria overcoming so many people, that people outraged at Casey Anthony's release are going full speed ahead into things they haven't reasoned out. As often as our courts free the clearly guilty, or sentence them to nothing significant, it's better than these heavy-handed ideas that condemn us all. People just don't understand the weapon they seek to wield, and that weapon is called "government."

A Republican in Virginia's state legislature once pushed a bill that would have criminalized not reporting a miscarriage within 12 hours. It should have been numbered HB666. Don't you know, this is all to protect the rights of the unborn, lest some woman have an abortion and claim it's a miscarriage, or induce a miscarriage intentionally. Actually, women have more miscarriages than they realize, because it's so early that they didn't realize they were pregnant in the first place. (Thanks to HJ for telling me this. She's not an OB/GYN but knows more about practical pregnancy.) What happens when a woman has been trying to get pregnant but has a weak uterus, and a neighbor who dislikes her, or some punk kid looking to cause any trouble, happens on a piece of gossip?

Most long-time Utah residents may have forgotten the Lehi tragedy of the late 1980s. I was very young, but a local TV news' title "Lehi, a town in crisis" is forever imprinted on my memory. I don't call it a "tragedy" because of anyone who may have been abused. I call it a tragedy because once the allegations flew, it became a 20th century version of the Salem witch trials. In the end, one man was convicted of sexually abusing his two children, and even that was extremely suspect. All you need is someone willing to make false accusations against someone else, especially out of a sense of righteousness rather than malevolence, and a God-damned modern Torquemada, like Mike Nifong, who will prosecute regardless of evidence. I know this personally.

I used to say, "Bad law ties down people. Good law ties down government." After learning that there is no need for law -- to be more specific, statute -- I now understand that any man-made law always has the purpose, ulterior or obvious, of the law-makers and their supporters controlling other people. There is always the highest law, more of a commandment actually, that is simply summed up in that no one should infringe on others' lives, liberty and property. But rather than follow a ten-word principle of not harming others, most people accept public schools' conditioning to "follow the law" however blindly, and resultingly they put up with a bad law until it's repealed or finally struck down. Depending on my neighbors to have the will to recognize bad laws, let alone resist them, is a faith I justifiably no longer have. I once knew a real idiot who said a law always stands until it's repealed, ignoring two centuries of courts ruling laws unconstitutional. And that's playing by government's game: depending on courts to nullify bad laws is relying on the wolf to condemn the fox.

When we realize the simple nature of the highest law, it's not difficult to understand that man-made laws are unnecessarily complex. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, they improperly define objects, ideas and especially intent. The superb Pacino movie "And Justice for All" touches on an innocent man's failed appeal, because it was submitted a mere three days after the deadline. That's justice? But the defined procedures claim it is.

Ayn Rand wrote:

"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against — then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be enforced nor objectively interpreted — and you create a nation of law-breakers — and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with.

Does it matter whether people of clearly evil intentions or goody two-shoes are the ones pushing tyranny? Actually the former is preferable: it's easier to identify and expose the clearly bad people. The latter are useful idiots who argue "for the good of the people," "for the children," "for generations unborn," and "for the country."

Henry David Thoreau wrote,

After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule, is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? — in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.

He was a man of extraordinary conscience. The story has it that, after he was jailed for refusing to pay the poll tax, Ralph Waldo Emerson visited him in jail: "What are you doing in there?" Thoreau replied, "What are you doing out there?"

Upton and Chu can rot in hell

I thought Billy Beck was a little more restrained on Fred Upton than he's wont to be, but with Steven Chu he's back to regular form.

Of course the media is an apologist for this:

The provision requires that by 2012, lightbulb manufacturers produce bulbs that generate the same amount of light but use less electricity to do it. It would not outlaw incandescent bulbs, nor mandate production of the curlicue-shaped compact fluorescent bulbs. The new energy-efficient bulbs, which hit hardware and drugstore shelves this year, are similar in appearance to the old bulbs—they have the familiar shape and cast the same warm light. They are more expensive than the old bulbs but last longer and have the net effect of saving consumers money, according to the Energy Department, which estimates that the bulb law will save Americans $6 billion annually in energy costs.

This is logic from an Orwellian nightmare. The law's proponents are half truthful in claiming that it doesn't directly outlaw the bulbs, glossing over the simple truth that outlawing the manufacture of something is tantamount to outlawing the product itself. They know most Americans are stupid enough to swallow that, and the lie about saving money in the end.

There is a special place in hell for these devils and their minions.

The Minnesota shutdown: "I weep for them as I would a burglar's accountant."

My comment over at Three Sources.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Philip Contos: at least he died in his freedom

"The care of every man's soul belongs to himself. But what if he neglect the care of it? Well what if he neglect the care of his health or his estate, which would more nearly relate to the state. Will the magistrate make a law that he not be poor or sick? Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves. God himself will not save men against their wills." - Thomas Jefferson

Contos was riding his motorcycle, without a helmet specifically to protest laws requiring one, and died in an accident. He accepted the risk and harmed no one but himself. If he had plowed into a crowd of schoolchildren, or flipped through a car's windshield, a helmet would have made no difference.

There are many who deserve a Darwin Award, and many who I wish would hurry up and earn theirs before they kill someone else. Contos isn't one of them, though. It is irony that a helmet might have saved his life, but he wasn't doing anything egregiously stupid. There are many who don't wear helmets and yet survive, and enough who wear helmets yet die. Accidents happen. Did T.E. Lawrence or George Patton deserve Darwin Awards? Certainly not -- people have died in vehicular accidents for thousands of years, ever since we learned how to tame animals.

Darwin Awards go to real jackasses like this goddamn idiot, especially because he took someone else with him.