Quick Hitts

Here’s a handy check list for Muslims seeking to improve civilized people’s opinion of their religion.

Do:

• Become a successful and well known businessman in your community
• Start a TV station devoted to helping non-Muslims overcome the negative images they have of Muslims and Islam. Generate a lot of press about it.
• Receive an award from the Council on American Islamic Relations (while hoping people don’t realize that CAIR supports terrorists).
• Become a prime example of a Moderate Muslim.

Don’t:

• Cut off your wife’s head with a sword.

Once again the Religion of Peace shows it’s true colors.  And once again the mass media has ignored it.  If an unknown redneck beheaded his wife in a trailer park it would have been front page news, yet this story has been ignored by the mass media.  Why?

We’ve seen kids kicked out of school for having a gun charm on a charm bracelet, for having a tiny bat that fell off a baseball trophy in their car, for having a butter knife in the trunk of their car, and for drawing pictures of guns in school.  But that’s not going far enough, according to the mouth breather Donald Childs, who presides over the Beaver Dam Middle school.  A picture of a gun on a website that has nothing to do with the school presents some a new level of danger, a mystical threat to safety.

Betsy Ramsdale has been put in administrative leave for posting a picture of a gun on Facebook.  Specifically, a photo of her pointing a gun.  Although Childs admits she was “a good and capable teacher,” a picture of her pointing a rifle suddenly and magically removes all her qualifications.  

Betsy, who was turned in by a member of the school staff too gutless to provide their own name, reacted by immediately changing the photo, but that wasn’t good enough for the Cretans who suspended her.  Will she be expected to grovel at the feed of Mr. Childs, who obviously isn’t fit supervise the training of Chihuahuas, much less children?  

It was about 8 PM, and Ryan Fredrick was sleeping.  He had to get up early for his soda delivery job.  Two days before he his home was burglarized, and in a nearby neighborhood people had been killed in a home invasion.  He had bought a gun to protect himself.

He woke to pounding and smashing sounds at his front door.  He grabbed his gun, ran out of the bedroom, and saw that part of his door had been smashed in.  An arm was coming through the broken door.  Thinking, correctly, that he was being attacked by thugs, he fired through the door.

Unfortunately for him, the thugs were police officers.  One of them was cleverly standing sideways to the door, where his armor didn’t protect him.  He was hit by the bullet and killed.

As soon as he heard them shout “Police” he dropped his weapon and surrendered.  Surprisingly, the cops didn’t execute him on the spot, but arrested him instead.

He waited in jail for a year.  Supporters put a sign on his front lawn, and over a hundred people signed it.  The local bureaucrats amused themselves by citing him for code violations, some of which included damage done by the police and the burglars.  They were particarly pissed about the sign, which claimed was a safety volition.

It turned out the burglars were working for the cops.  It was a sweet deal for both sides.  When the cops didn’t have probable cause for a warrant they’d send in their free-lance burglars, who would steal what they could and snitch to the cops, giving them the pretense for a raid.

They were looking for pot.  They believed, without any evidence, that Ryan had a major growing operation.  In the trial it came out that he had grown a few plants in the past, but wasn’t doing it at the time of the raid.  They only found a few grams of pot when they raided his home.

The prosecutor was eager to set a record for the number of dishonest dirty tricks in a trial.  He started out with the claim that Ryan was “stoned out of his mind” and “in a blind rage,”  eager to kill cops.  If anyone on the jury had ever smoked a joint they would have known to disregard anything the DA said from that point forward.  (As the great philosopher Bill Hicks explained, “I have never seen people on pot get in a fight because. . . it’s fucking impossible.”)  His first witness was the cop’s mother, who had absolutely no facts to offer, just an emotional plea to the jury to avenge the death of her son.  The DA brought in a jailhouse snitch, who claimed Ryan said he wanted to kill cops.  The defense discredited his testimony so thoroughly even the DA told the jury to disregard it.

But a cop was killed, and someone had to be punished.  The jury declined to convict Ryan on capital murder, bringing back a verdict of manslaughter, and a recommendation he receive the maximum sentence.  Ryan won’t see daylight for at least seven and a half years.  He should have been acquitted.

The real criminals in this case were the police.  They broke the law to get a pretense for the raid, but that’s standard operating procedure for most police departments.  The real crime was breaking into a citizen’s home in a SWAT raid.  They could have arrested Ryan when he was on his way to work in the morning, quietly, peacefully, and then searched his now empty house.  It would have been a minor local story and Ryan would have received a fine for the small amount of pot he had in the house.  But no, they had too much testosterone for that.  They had to get all dressed up in their fancy gear and play army men.  And when this sleepy guy defended himself from unidentified thugs breaking into his house, one life was lost and another was ruined.

This is not an isolated instance.  Hundreds of these raids happen every year and far too many end in tragedy.  Cop who murder citizens go free, but when a citizen defends themselves and kills a cop they go to jail, sometimes even to death row.  All over the most harmless intoxicant known to man.  All because these thugs in blue are adrenaline junkies who simply don’t give a rat’s ass about the citizens they pretend to protect.

The best coverage I’ve found on this story comes from Radley Balko, whose articles are on The Agitator and Reason.

I’ve been collecting these for a while, and there’s so much nonsense and evil done in the name of religion I’m thinking of setting up a separate blog for it.  But until/unless I do, here’s a very incomplete list of things superstitious people have done in the name of their religion, from the silly to the horrific.

No atheist would be silly enough to believe their their prayers caused the price of gasoline to drop by twenty cents.

An Oregon couple refused to take their 16 year old son to the hospital for a urinary blockage which could have been easily treated.  Instead, they prayed until he died.  They were not atheists.

Gail Williams, a 34 year old British Aid Worker, was gunned down by two Taliban holy men who claimed she was spreading Christianity.  (Since women are only worth half as much as men in Islam, do you have to shoot two of them for Allah to count it as one kill?)

It was a priest, not an atheist, who told his parishioners they couldn’t receive communion if they voted for Obama.

When a mullah criticized suicide attacks, he was murdered by other members of the “religion of peace.”

It wasn’t atheists, but Armenian and Greek monks who got into a fistfight at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.  If they were Sholin monks we could have seen some cool martial arts moves, but then it wouldn’t have been so entertainingly spastic.

Orthodox Jews, not atheists, have been beating and stoning women for wearing pretty clothes, and attacking stores that sell devices that can access the internet.

Islamic authorities in Malaysia, not atheists, issued a fatwa banning yoga.

An Islamic clerik in Melbourne says it’s OK to rape your wife and beat her.

It wasn’t atheists who held an Angolan woman prisoner for months, until she died.

In Atlanta a Pakistani immigrant, not an atheist, strangled his 25 year old daughter with a bungee chord becuase she wanted to end her arranged marriage and had gotten involved with someone else. He is a Muslim, not an atheist.  The same goes for Waheed Alla Moammad (whose name really covers his religious ass) who tried to stab his 19 year old sister to death for going to clubs and an wearing immodest clothing.  Yaser Able Said, also a Muslim, murdered his two teenage daughters for having boyfriends.  Those stories and others are here.

When Anwar Salameh and Hassan Salameh, Muslims, not atheists, were convicted of murdering their 21 year old sister becuase she had a secret romantic relationship, they complained that their sentences were too severe becuase their family was bereaved.  Is there an Arabic word for chutzpah?

The father who beat his daughter before shooting her to death for talking on Facebook was not an atheist.

The Jordanian man who shot his pregnant sister in the side of the head three times for “family honor” wasn’t an atheist either.

A city counsel in the UK allows employees to look at sites about Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and other religions but blocks Atheist sites.. Although the article doesn’t specify the beliefs of the dingleberries who made this decision, it’s a safe bet they’re  not atheists.

Christians, not atheists, killed an eight year old autistic boy trying to cure him of demonism.

In Russia, two Jehovah’s Witnesses, who are definitely not atheist, brutally murdered 13 people to help cleanse the world of sin.

In Nigeria hundreds of people were killed in riots between Muslims and Christians fighting over the results of a local election.

Also in Nigeria, hundreds of children have been killed, and hundreds more have been brutally tortured by their parents, who believe they are witches.

Forty Hindu Men, not atheists, beat up eight women for being in a pub.  They are part of a Hindu morality police, and despite public outcry, vow to keep doing it.

Mormons, not atheists, contributed about half the money spent to pass Proposition 8, which made gay marriage illegal.  Mormons, of course, have always taught that marriage should be between one man and one wo….  Oh, wait… never mind.

Kwara State Police have arrested a goat for car theft.  They insist it was an armed robber who tried to steal a car and then turned himself into a goat to escape.

That’s enough for now, but I’m barely halfway through the links I’ve collected.  I’ll revisit it again in the near future.  The first Things Atheists Didn’t Do post can be found here.

Congratulations to Kirsten Gillibrand on her appointment to the New York senate seat.  Governor Patterson was considering Caroline Kennedy, whose qualification consisted entirely of her last name.  Gillibrand will replace the horrid Hillary Clinton, who carpetbaged her way into the state knowing there were enough stupid people here to vote for her.

While I don’t agree with her on a lot of issues (she voted in favor of SCHIP, and I’ll have more on that nasty piece of socialism later) I voted for her because she voted against the initial bailout, twice.  She’s also one of the few Democrats who can read the second amendment and understand what it clearly says.

I met her a couple of months ago at a town hall meeting she held in Borders, in Saratoga.  She’s smart and forthright, but the thing that impressed me most was she didn’t tell me what I wanted to hear.

After she talked and took questions there was a line of people waiting to talk to her.  She was surrounded by aids who took notes and paperwork that people handed her.  When it was my turn I asked her if she was familiar with Downsize DC’s Read The Bills Act and One Subject at A Time Act.  She wasn’t, and asked for details.  The conversation (from memory, not verbatim):

Me: The Read The Bills act would require all bills to be read in their entirety in front of a quorum, and be posted on line for a week before they were passed.

Kirsten: That will never work.  Some bills are five hundred pages long.

Me: That’s the point – bills will have to be simplified.

Kirsten: Even if you get it down to a hundred pages no one is going to sit there and pay attention.  It would be a waste of time, and it will never get passed.  What was the other bill?

Me: One Subject At A Time.  It would prohibit adding amendments to bills that weren’t related to the bill.

Kirsten:  That won’t pass either.  We add amendments because we have to to get things done.

(Me, thinking, but not saying, – the whole idea is to get fewer things done, to reduce the size of government.)

Kristen: But what was that part about putting bills online?  I really like that idea.  That way everyone effected by a bill would have a chance to read it and enough time to contact us about it.

She then directed me to one of her aids to take down more information on that part of the bill.

Most politicians would have listened to me, nodded their heads, and said “Yes, those sound like great ideas, I’ll look into them” while thinking “no way in hell, Bucko.”  She didn’t.  She told me why she thought it wouldn’t work.  No bullshit.  No pretending to agree.  That’s extremely rare, and it earned my respect.

These musicians have found the cure for drummers who can’t keep time.  Rather than replace them with a soulless drum machine, they get their rhythm from something with more personality: an old tractor, set to idle. 

Strangely enough, once the novelty wears off, it actually sounds good.  I’d listen to this as a stand alone piece of music. 

Sweet Georgia Brown med traktorkomp

Hat Tip: Wichita Rutherford

How to fix the Economy

George Bush really, really, really wanted to attack Iraq.  Fortunately for him 9/11 gave him an excuse to ramp up the “war on terror” and go marching in, guns blazing.  The situation gave him the “reason” to do what he wanted to do anyway.

Democrats really, really, really like screwing around with the economy.  Fortunately for them, the meltdown gives them a good excuse to do what they’ve wanted to do all along.   And considering the history of such screwing around the result will be making the depression much longer and more painful than it should be, which will, of course, give them an excuse to screw around with it more. 

The US is like a family who, finding themselves deeply in debt, tries to correct the problem by borrowing their way to prosperity.   It won’t work.  It can’t work.  It can only make the problem worse. 

The cure for an indebted family is the same as the cure for the nation.  Reduce spending.  Sell off assets we can do without.  Find a way to increase income, but not one that will make the problem worse.  

We should start with the Department of Education.  It’s useless, it’s counterproductive, it’s 80 billion dollars a year, and if we eliminate it we’ll not only save the money, but improve the quality of education, something they have been unable to do. 

As the number of American farms dropped the Department of Agriculture grew.  And grew.  And grew.   We spend tens of billons of dollars paying farmers not to grow food.  We have thousands of stupid rules and regulations in place.  Recently the DoA prohibited  a small farm from advertising that all their beef was tested for mad cow, because big farms were afraid of the competition.  Does any of this make any sense?  Getting rid of most of the DoA (we could keep the meat inspectors) would save 90 billion a year and dramatically lower our food costs.  How’s that for a painless way to improve the economy? 

Spending on infrastructure is a good idea – we’ve got a lot of things that need fixing – but it is a repair bill, not an economic stimulus package.   Let’s not pretend otherwise. 

Obama talks about government creating jobs.   Just what we need, more government workers.  I’d like to offer a very simple alternative.  It wouldn’t require any government outlay.  It would result in a slightly reduced government income at first, but in the long term it would create so many jobs, real jobs, that the net effect would be many more people working and paying taxes than we have now. 

Small business are the best source of new job creation.  Sure, big businesses hire people too, but growing big business isn’t the answer.  The equations are simple: more new small businesses = more new, real jobs.  Lots of new small business = lots more new, real jobs.  If you want people to start new businesses, you need to increase their incentive.

Enterpenures not only take big risks, but face huge obstacles put in place by the government.  Every dollar of profit earned by the self-employed is not only subject to state and federal income tax, but also a 15% self-employment tax, which is their social security payment.   That doesn’t leave much for the person doing the work.  It makes it nearly impossible to save for retirement and makes it hard for them to grow their business to the point where they have to hire more people.   It is a huge disincentive to even staring your own business.

So here’s the simple, two point plan:

The first $25,000 earned by a small business owner is tax free.  No federal income tax, no self employment tax.  States would be encouraged to follow suit with state income tax.  Every dollar after that is taxed normally. 

Instead of paying a 15% SS tax, they can put half of it in their own 401k. 

That’s it.  No complex bail out, no iffy screwing around with the economy, no need to raise taxes.  Given these two simple incentives millions of people will start new businesses.  Many will fail, many will succeed and grow.   Those who grow will have to hire more people, who will be paying income tax at the regular rate. 

How about it, Obama?