Wow, giving away free needles to drug addicts could actually backfire?

Who knew?

As I have noted in previous posts (here) efforts to promote "safe" drug use among addicts only leads to worse problems.

In San Fran's Golden Gate Park, addicts are discarding hundreds of needles that they get in the city's needle exchange program.

I hope families in the city feel safe now. They can take their kids down to the park to tiptoe through the syringes.

The city handed out 2 million syringes last year. They probably only get back 70%. Park officials believe that they pull about 100-200 needles out of the park a day.

Folks, when you encourage bad behavior, you only get more of it. The Utopians thought that if they offered addicts needles, they could get them to behave responsibly. An addict is by definition someone who is not going to behave responsibly.

Great, maybe they have helped a few hundred addicts avoid getting AIDS, but they are exposing thousands of innocent park goers to disease by giving these people an easy way out.

It may sound like cold calculus, but when the addicts could not get their needles so easily, they tended to hang on to them. This logically limited their danger by keeping them with the addicts who were already practicing a dangerous lifestyle.

Now that the tools are cheap and plentiful, the users can throw them away because they can always get more at a needle exchange. The risk to innocent park users is just too great.

Best pick up line ever

"Come on baby, the country needs you to put out."

Hat tip Drudge Report

Reviving the practices of Hitler's Germany, Putin's Russia is encouraging Russian youth to procreate at camp in order to continue the Russian race. The group responsible for this is known as "Nashi". They promote anti-democratic sentiment among Russian youth and ally with other groups that use racist propaganda to smear non-Russians. Nashi youths, behaving as the new Brownshirts, also harass dissenters and opponents with official sanction.

This should end well.

It has been painfully obvious for a while that Russia is returning to authoritarianism. They will never be Communist again, but mostly because the elites like the money and goods klepto-captialism provides.

The new Russia will be exactly like the old: big, belligerent, xenophobic, bellicose and armed to the teeth.

The Bear is not dead, it has just been hibernating for seventeen years.

The West does not pay much attention. Why care about an imperialistic, fascist, and expansionist Russia when you can call George Bush a Nazi and condemn America?

We will eventually pay attention, but not till an army full of Nashi youth march into the Sudetenland...I mean Estonia.

Brit youth worst in Europe

...go on to face America in the finals.

This story is great for a number of reasons.

First, it shows just how important parents and families are to the development of kids. The study links the delinquent behavior of British youth to a lack of parent involvement and the unwillingness of adults to confront their wayward spawn. British kids spend too much time with their friends, roaming the streets, and not enough time with their parents. But wait a minute, I thought it took a village to raise a child? Apparently the village is failing.

Parents are the most important part of a child's life. They are the ones who are supposed to instill values and basic morals into their children. Some will fail or neglect their duties, but the majority, when they take on the responsibilities of their role, will do it well.

The village can not effectively raise a child in a modern democratic state. There are too many factors and ideas at play. You never know what your kid will pick up off the street.

The family can not be replaced and the social problems of the West can, in part, be linked to the break down of its basic institution.

The second reason this story is great has to do with the proposed solutions to the problem. They basically involve keeping schools open later and funding after school drama clubs. None of them

will make one bit of difference. A child with no moral compass will not become a decent citizen after they perform a couple of acts of The Crucible. Additionally, the kids who most need the programs will probably go to a friend's basement and smoke weed while playing their Wii instead of becoming a cadet.

The report even hints that such activities will be compulsory. What are they going to do? Are they going to arrest kids who do not show up for the 5pm rehearsal of Hairspray?

Attempts to create a community based substitute for the family will fail. It is like trying to make a pizza based substitute for oxygen. Community centers and classrooms are no substitute for a family dinner.

Love, Chaos, and Repression in Zimbabwe

The chaos and destruction that Robert Mugabe has brought to Zimbabwe is tragic in both its scope and sadism.

Still, under all the strain placed on the country, the love between two people can defy even the genocidal outrages of a madman.

The story of Eugenia and her husband is inspirational.

The beatings, rapes, and mass murders of those who chose to marry some one from another ethnic group recalls some of the worst aspects of our own history.

Stories like this put our own society in harsh contrast. These people have suffered real oppression and deprivation, but have maintained a solid marriage. While here in the US, people leave their spouses and divorce for trivial reasons.

Maybe the common people of Zimbabwe understand the meaning of commitment and love better than the BoBos who rush to a divorce lawyer the moment they do not feel "fulfilled."

Zimbabwe is in dire straights and the situation is about to get worse with plans for further thefts of private property on the table.

I hope the people of this once prosperous nation will be free one day. It will not come with the old communist Mugabe around, but hopefully his successor will see the light.

Shepherds for our defeat

So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas,
lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest
that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.

He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?
He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him,
Feed my sheep.

He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?
Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And
he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee.
Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst
thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou
shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.

This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he
had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me.

John 21:15-19

Christ asked Peter to feed his sheep. Those who feed the sheep are known as shepherds. Looks like we have modern day shepherds who would rather expose the sheep and lambs to slaughter than do the right thing.

A pull out from Iraq would expose the common people of Iraq to the depredations of the Jihadists who think that spilling the blood of the weak and innocent is the surest path to salvation.

It is obvious the Dims have a death wish in Iraq, but their hyperbole and hysterics can not over come the simple fact that pulling out would both seriously undermine our War on Terror and also give Jihadists a safe harbor in the heart of the Middle East.

The surprising thing is that we will be defeated simply because we want to be. By withdrawing, we are just proving that OBL was right when he called us a sick horse. The insurgents are not overrunning American bases, defeating coalition forces in running gun battles, and capturing Americans in number. They either set out an IED, wait for a convoy to pass, and then detonate the bomb or set up an Iranian supplied rocket launcher and let fly with a few agents of death that hit military and civilian targets indiscriminately and make sure that any casualties end up on CNN.

The consequences for our military and the region in general would be dire. How could the US ever fight another war. Our military would be useless because our enemies would just plant a few bombs, kill a soldier or two, and our media would scream that the whole situation was a quagmire.

The Dims in Congress are poor shepherds indeed folks. The enemies of the American people will not disappear because they wish them to. This is not a civil war, and the enemy has very specific reasons for wanting Iraq. America will wake up one day, but it will be when we open our eyes and see a smoking and glowing swath of land that was once Miami, Houston, New York City, Los Angeles, or Chicago.

The wolves are real. They have sharp teeth. They are waiting.

Roundup

Big headlines always grab the attention of the readers, but eventually they get into the story and find that the headline is normally utterly worthless. Hey, I don't blame the papers, they have to sell. Here are a few stories that no one seems to care about, but still might prove interesting.



1. According to MSNBC, the slowness of FEMA may mean contractors will be in short supply after the next natural disaster.



Why does this surprise anyone? Conservatives have been pointing out big government inefficiency for over 70 years. This is what one must expect from any big bureaucracy.



This story has implications for socialized medicine. If the government can not promptly pay tree clearing contractors, how will they be able to effectively handle the medical decisions for over 300 million Americans? How long will it take to approve a simple medical procedure?



2. Booksellers will not profit from Harry Potter and the Unnecessary Hype, I mean Deathly Hallows.



I'm not all that sympathetic towards booksellers, especially the big stores that gouged me on textbooks in college. I also can summon very little sympathy for the little booksellers because normally those places carry way too many books about young girls finding out they are lesbians and old women leaving their husbands to carry on an affair with a hairless pool boy.



The Barnes and Noble near my house had three shelves devouted to "Spirituality," and only one devoted to philosophy. Nothing is more annoying than having to listen to a bunch of idiotic young women talk about crystals, nature rituals, Mother Gaea and other New Age nonsense while I am trying to peruse some Spinoza and Strauss. I will shed very few tears for them indeed.



Harry is everywhere: Want more Harry news? How about how Harry's publisher could use some CSI style detective work to track down the gauche fellow who put the book online? Funny thing is, I bet if they used technology like this to track down terrorists the Left would scream about civil liberties.



Need more Harry? A couple is going straight from their wedding reception to the mall to get Deathly Hallows. Ten to one their kids will be nerds.

You just can't get away from Harry these days. He is around every corner and under every fold.

3. Massachusetts voters can now vote "None of the Above." If a majority choose this, the election is voided and another must be held in two or three months.

Once again we have evidence of the symbolic gesture trumping real action. If voters do not like candidates, then why don't they get involved and start recruiting decent candidates? Why can they take the childish way out and risk nothing by rejecting all the candidates? This is just infantile sneering from the back of the class at those who try to take a role in the community.

70 percent of the office holders in Massachusetts ran unopposed last year. What makes people think that giving the electorate an extra 60-80 days will mean more competition will emerge? Most likely, if someone is running unopposed it means that no one really cares to challenge them.

Elections mean having to choose between flawed candidates. This is what democracy is about. If you can not deal with that do not vote.

New look for the Ring

As some of you might notice, the Ring of Gyges has gotten an upgrade. High time too. After consulting with the Dumb Ox, I have decided to help him with his "After Dark" venture. Many changes are coming. There will be more upgrades and maybe even some shameless advertising.

Give me the crawfish stuffed with tacos

The city of New Orleans is outlawing one of the staples of the Texas eating scene: the taco truck.

For those of you in the great white North, the taco truck is an urban tradition. In my fair city, every other street has a truck selling tacos or roasted chicken. In fact, they are often not trucks, but actually trailers.

I'm sure this ordinance was racially motivated, but New Orleans will be changing with the influx of Hispanic construction workers. If the former residents have not returned by now, they either prefer their new surroundings to their former cesspool or are in jail in Texas.

I'm not too surprised this happened. Those little taco stands make a lot of money in my area. About four years ago one set up on a wooded lot near my house. Over the next couple of years the owners saved the money they made (the place did wonderfully) and were able to buy the lot and put up a sit down restaurant. They still sell the same tacos out of a window on the side of the building, but the place now can take care of a larger group of customers.

New Orleans can send them back to Texas.

One guy gets it, those in the comments don't

Henry Porter over at the UK Guardian gets it.

This article is mildly interesting. The real fun part is the comment section at the bottom. Many people just do not get it.

It is the typical blame the West crap.

The Muslim terrorists are not motivated by our presence in Iraq or by past crimes supposedly committed by the West. This is about Jihad.

The Left acts like American and British forces are roaming Iraq mindlessly gunning down innocents in the name of blood lust. This is so far from the truth it boggles the mind. The Left blames our foreign policy, which they mean supporting Jews, for the Islamists rage.

This position is untenable. The West deals very lightly with Muslims. We have never enslaved our exploited them on a large scale. We take their oil, but we let them charge us unreasonable prices for it because of their little cartel.

The "blame the West" first crowd is always going to be there. They simply can not understand that the problems we face are not about changing our foreign policy or being more "tolerant" or Islam. The terror stems from a pathology that runs throughout the Muslim world. It is religiously based but has additions of Arab racism and a refusal to take responsibility for their countries.

The Koran promises its followers that they will be rewarded on Earth for being pious Muslims. Yet they look around and see a West light years ahead of them economically and socially. They have to account for this somehow. They can either undergo self-critique and admit that their societies are sick, or they can find a scapegoat for their failure. They do the inevitable human thing and blame the West and the Jews for their plight.They scream about imperialism and conspiracy when there is no evidence of either. Heck the only real imperialism the Middle East has ever experienced came at the hands of fellow Muslims.

This is why the mission in Iraq is so important. The president looked at the threat and saw it for what it was: the symptom of a disease in the Muslim world. We are trying to implant a source of hope into the Middle East. Whether this will succeed or fail is up in the air but it was time to do something. We need to find a cure for the sickness of the Middle East. Merely giving into the nihilists demands that we submit or die is not a good choice.

In the end, I think that the Muslims will not change. The West will move past oil and return them to the irrelevance and obscurity that they enjoyed for over 500 years. Of course they will take hundreds of thousands of us down with them in their rage. The Arabs will be return to being a small silly people.

The Left is so sad.

A bunch of anti-war, anti-West, pro-terrorist Libs descended on the City Council of my fair city to demand that the elected body call for the impeachment of the President.

The modern Left loves the symbolic act. They have little else to go on. These are the people who think rock concerts will end global warming. The Left does not have the benefits of reason and argument. They merely scream slogans and ignore the big picture.

This is further evidence of what the modern Left is: shrill, inappropriate, obsessed with the surface and appearance of things, and utterly irrelevant. These are not deep thinkers, they are weak minded people who take propaganda on its face.

The Left is too insane to allow them anywhere near the levers of power. If they had their way, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld would be executed and all the terrorists at Gitmo would have full tenure at Berkley.

Live Earth to hit Washington

Looks like there will be some sort of environmental concert in D.C. after all.

I desperately want to find some interest in Live Earth just for the fact that it would give me something to do. One of life's great delights is making fun of the Left. I thought Live Earth would be a good time to see a bunch of celebs prancing around talking about things they know nothing about and giving the rest of us so fuel for the criticism mill. But it look like the entire thing is going to be lame.

The show in Washington will feature: "Native American rock, funk, punk, reggae, gospel and Andean music in addition to films." What the hell is Native American rock? This thing is going to be lame. It will be a bunch of hairy hippie guys with their first dreads hitting on chicks with more body hair than Hasselhoff.

Dick Cheney: The Legend continues

As all of you know, Dick Cheney both fascinates and frightens me. From my Leftist friends I learned that he controls the weather and kills black people for fun. But they do not even know that half of it. If they only knew:

1. All the "Die Hard" movies are based off of comments written in Dick Cheney's yearbook.

2. His crotch is a Superfund site.

3. Direct eye contact with Dick Cheney = loss of soul

4. He uses his Weather Machine to ruin John Edwards $500 haircuts.

5. He has never laughed in the face of death because you can not laugh in your own face.

6. Einstein came up with the theory of relativity after watching Cheney strangle a caribou to death.

7. The Clapper was based on a Cheney invention called the Decapitator.

8. You can lead, follow, or get out of the way, but it does not matter because Dick will flay your skin off and wear it to the daytime Emmys.

9. The ancients believed that eclipses were Cheney swallowing the moon. This is silly of course. If Cheney had swallowed the moon, he would have full digested it.

10. Dick Cheney can see at night, under water, and right into your worst fears.

11. The Flock of Seagulls wrote "And I ran" after watching Cheney beat a labor union boss to death with his own spinal cord.

Further evidence of the dangers of socialized medicine

Ah socialized hospitals. Havens of bad service, dirty floors, poor quality care, and now terrorism.

As everyone knows now, the people who wanted to kill innocent women out for a night on the town and Scottish travels looking for a chance to tan their pasty skin hatched their scheme while working for the NHS.

This whole situation illustrates the complexity of the threat we face. Al Qaeda does not recruit from the poor peasant in the villages of Pakistan. It wants sophisticated operatives who can move about seamlessly in the West. They want people who know how to use a cell phone, email, and an ATM card, not a guy who gets excited when he sees his first flush toilet and attracts his neighbor's disdain by raising goats in his living room. Riots and revolts are the political tools of the lower class. Terrorism is the tool of the middle and upper class.

The fact that these people are well educated and supposedly better off shows that the poor Muslims are not the ones who we need to fear. We should fear those who know better. These are not ignorant people lashing out.

In many ways, these educated Muslim terrorists are much like the Libs in America. They have had the benefit of Western science, political theory, and economics, but still strain with every fiber of their being to over turn the very thing which makes them affluent. Whether it is calls for a global caliphate or a more equal distribution of wealth,the underlying psychology is the same.

Former Muslim fanatic: No it really is all about Islam

A former Muslim fanatic has finally confirmed what we have all been saying for years: Islamic terror is not about Western foreign policy, it is about warring on the non-believer.

This guy lays it all out on the line and even acknowledges that Islamic terrorists laugh at our pitiful, politically correct attempts to blame ourselves for their murderous rampages. He puts the blame where anyone with a brain knows it belongs: Muslim theology. It is all about spreading their corrupt and perverted ideology.

Here in the West we like to blame ourselves for every little problem in the world. It is sad. The world was dysfunctional, poor, violent, and intolerant long before Western civilization took to the high seas in search of the future.