Army of Dog

We’ve known for a long time that Britain is headed down the path to a pure socialist state under the intrepid guidance of NuLabour. Now Gordon Brown is telling us that it’s imperative that we all go with them.

BOSTON (AP) - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in his first foreign policy address in the United States, called Friday on the U.S. and Europe to lead a new era of global “interdependence” aimed at solving international problems such as terrorism, poverty and climate change.”We urgently need to step out of the mindset of competing interests and instead find our common interests, and we must summon up the best instincts and efforts of humanity in a cooperative effort to build new international rules and institutions for the new global era,” Brown said to about 350 invited guests at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

Rough translation: “If you Yanks would just stop clinging to your silly ’sovereignty’ and go along with our schemes, this would all be a lot easier.” Allow me to be the first to tell you to pack that shit up and take it back to the “mother country.” Most of humanity is awash in levels of poverty and overt corruption that America has spent vast amounts of her blood, toil, and treasure eliminating within her borders. And, by and large, we have been very successful.

We’re always willing to extend help to those who need it, and you would have a very difficult time finding a better ally when it counts. What we will not do, at least what I won’t do, is follow you down the rabbit hole of socialist utopian fantasies. America has helped countless other countries pull themselves out of the mire of poverty and dysfunction without the guidance of a gaggle of corrupt UN overseers. We don’t need your help to do the right thing, we’ve been doing it for more than two centuries better and faster than any international clusterfuck of self-aggrandizing bureaucrats ever could.

Here’s an idea Mister Prime Minister, why don’t you start hitting up the Chinese for massive amounts of money. They seem to be quite proud of their newfound economic prosperity, so let them start paying for shit like the big boys.  Sending money and weapons to the Janjawid for slaughtering Sudanese women and children doesn’t count as “foreign aid,” by the way.  And while we’re on the topic, where’s the demand that they cripple their economy by adopting your ridiculous “binding targets” for greenhouse gas emissions? The Chinese would tell you and your merry band of internationalist nannies to go fuck yourselves, and I heartily suggest that we follow their lead.

just look at what they do with your money.

WASHINGTON - Federal employees charged millions of dollars for Internet dating, tailor-made suits, lingerie, lavish dinners and other questionable expenses to their government credit cards over a 15-month period, congressional auditors say.

A report by the Government Accountability Office, obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, examined spending controls across the federal government following reports of credit-card abuse at departments including Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs.

The review of card spending at more than a dozen departments from 2005 to 2006 found that nearly 41 percent of roughly $14 billion in credit-card purchases, whether legitimate or questionable, did not follow procedure — either because they were not properly authorized or they had not been signed for by an independent third party as called for in federal rules to deter fraud.

For purchases over $2,500, nearly half — or 48 percent — were unauthorized or improperly received.

Out of a sample of purchases totaling $2.7 million, the government could not account for hundreds of laptop computers, iPods and digital cameras worth more than $1.8 million. In one case, the U.S. Army could not say what happened to computer items making up 16 server configurations, each of which cost nearly $100,000.

I understand that, with a government as large and bureaucratic as ours, you’re going to have some fraud, misfeasance, and bookkeeping problems. That fact is an excellent indicator of why large government is bad, but that’s another discussion. The problem here isn’t just size of government, it’s attitude. In fact, you might go so far as to say it’s world view.

This is yet another piece of evidence that the majority of people who reside in government, whether in elected office or otherwise, do not view themselves as “public servants.” Servants don’t spend the master’s money frivolously, and they damn sure don’t run amok with the master’s credit card to the tune of millions of dollars.

Keep in mind that this report was not intended to be comprehensive.

In Tuesday’s report, investigators did not seek to determine the extent of fraud or waste at each agency. They cited numerous cases of questionable spending, which they said represented what could be found government-wide, including the VA.

Which means that as bad as this report is, it’s probably only the tip of the iceberg. We seem to have an entire culture of government employees who think that buying crap on the public dime is just part of their compensation package. Here are a few highlights:

_An Agriculture Department employee fraudulently wrote 180 convenience checks for more than $642,000 to a live-in boyfriend over a six-year period. The money was used for gambling, car and mortgage payments, dinners and retail purchases that went unnoticed until USDA’s inspector general received a tip from a whistle-blower. The employee, who pleaded guilty to embezzlement and tax fraud charges, was sentenced last year to 21 months in prison and ordered to repay the money.

_U.S. Postal Service workers separately billed more than $14,000 to government credit cards for Internet dating services and a dinner at a Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse in Orlando, Fla., for 81 people at a cost of $160 each for steaks and crab. The dinner bill also included more than 200 appetizers and more than $3,000 worth of wine and brand-name liquor such as Courvoisier, Belvedere and Johnny Walker Gold.

In the Internet dating case, a postmaster charged $1,100 over 15 months for two online services, including the Ashley Madison Agency. The expenses went unnoticed for more than a year even though he was under internal investigation for viewing pornography on a government computer. The postmaster was eventually told to repay the Internet charges but faced no disciplinary action.

_At the Pentagon, four employees purchased $77,700 in clothing and accessories at high-end clothing and sporting goods stores. The spending included more than $45,000 at Brooks Brothers and similar stores for tailor-made suits — $7,000 of which were purchased a week before Christmas. The credit-card holders said the items were for service members working at U.S. embassies with civilian attire. Pentagon rules allow purchases of civilian clothing when performing official duty, but generally only up to $860 per person.

_Justice Department and FBI employees charged $11,000 at a Ritz Carlton hotel for coffee and “light” refreshments for 50 to 70 attendees for four days, averaging about $50 per person. Seventy percent of the total conference cost of $15,000 was for the food and beverages, while audiovisual and other support services totaled only about $4,000, or 30 percent of the charges. It was not clear what action, if any, that Justice took in light of the conference expenses, which GAO deemed excessive.

_At the State Department, one credit-card holder bought $360 worth of women’s lingerie at Seduccion Boutique for use during jungle training by trainees of a drug enforcement program in Ecuador. One State Department official later agreed that the charge was questionable and stated that he would not have approved the purchase had he known about it.

Make no mistake, if you did any of these things in your private sector job you would be immediately fired, almost certainly prosecuted, and probably sent to jail. I may be cynical, but I don’t see any of that happening in most of these cases. Instead, if this gets any attention at all, we’ll get a parade of officials promising to increase “internal controls.” Here’s an internal control for you, handcuffs. Try that one few hundred times and I’ll bet you see positive results.

As much as I would like to blame the employees themselves for all of this, I think our esteemed elected officials share some of the blame. Most of them act like they have a right to your money and we let them get away with it, how could we expect the salaried government employees to be any different. Hell, the politicians spend our money frivolously in the billions, by that standard these infractions are minor league.

From the AP Wire, we find this shocker.

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Intruders ransacked offices of the main opposition party and police detained foreign journalists Thursday in an ominous sign that President Robert Mugabe might turn to intimidation and violence in trying to stave off an electoral threat to his 28-year rule.

Golly, how could he? Corruption, dictatorial control, election-rigging, and national economic suicide are one thing, but an African dictator using intimidation and violence is just beyond the pale.

Earlier, Mugabe apparently launched his campaign for an expected run-off presidential ballot even before the official results of Saturday’s election were announced, with state media portraying the opposition as divided and controlled by former colonial ruler Britain.

Hey, if you buy the idea that blacks in America are unable to fend for themselves because of slavery, this argument actually makes sense.

The police raids came a day after official results showed Mugabe’s party had lost control of parliament’s 210-member lower house. The election commission was slow on the 60 elected seats in the Senate, releasing the first returns late Thursday that gave five seats each to the opposition and ruling party.

MDC secretary-general Tendai Biti said hotel rooms used as offices by the opposition at a Harare hotel were ransacked by intruders he believed were either police or agents of the feared Central Intelligence Organization.

“Mugabe has started a crackdown,” Biti told The Associated Press. “It is quite clear he has unleashed a war.”

With any luck we should see an announcement that Mugabe won the election within the day and Jimmy Carter will proclaim the results legitimate.

Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, said Times correspondent Barry Bearak, a winner of a 2002 Pulitzer Prize, was one of those taken into custody. “An American consular official who visited him at the central police station reported that he was being held for `violation of the journalism laws,’” Keller said.

Arresting Bill Keller? Well, you know what they say about blind squirrels and nuts.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists expressed alarm over the detentions and called for the reporters’ immediate release. “It is imperative that all journalists, foreign and domestic, be allowed to work freely,” said Joel Simon, the group’s executive director.

I’m sure the nice man with the AK-47 will cower before your call for immediate release. I know they have to put out these kinds of statements in situations like this, but it just looks so damn impotent.

Zimbabwe lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa said “quite a few” American and British people had been detained by police but no charges had been filed against them. She said some were being questioned indiviually by police but were not allowed to have lawyers present.

I have fifty bucks on some Lefty comparing these arrests to Amerika under BushHitler.

“President Mugabe is going to fight. He is not going anywhere. He has not lost,” Matonga said on British Broadcasting Corp. “We are going to go hard and fight and get the majority required.”

This sounds familiar.

“We still have not seen the important thing, which is real live election results,” State Department spokesman Tom Casey said. “We need to see an official tally, see it soon and have assurances made that this is actually a correct counting of the votes.”

Who the hell do these people think they are, Democrats in Florida?

Annan, the former U.N. secretary-general, said the delay was dangerous. He urged the government and the election commission “to declare the election results faithfully and accurately.”

“We live in an open world today and indeed the eyes of the world are on Zimbabwe, on its electoral commission, on its president,” Annan said. “I urge them to do the right thing, to respect the constitution and to obey the electoral laws. The election results should be released now.”

I’ll sleep well knowing that Kofi “Only-Two-Genocides-On-My-Watch” Annan is on the case. You can bet shit’s gonna get done now.

According to official results, a total of 2,405,147 valid votes were cast in Saturday’s parliamentary contests, supporting opposition charges that the voter roll of 5.9 million names had been hugely inflated with dead and fictitious people.

Socialist economic policy, voter fraud, intimidation, maybe he can find a job as a Democrat strategist.

I’m highly sympathetic to anyone who has to deal with the unfortunate consequences of mindless bureaucrats who can’t manage to solve a simple situation without turning it into a publicity-whoring opportunity for Gloria Allred. That being said, why do we feel the need to give someone an award for being the victim of morons.

A North Richland Hills woman who challenged the Transportation Security Administration’s way of dealing with passengers with body piercings was honored Tuesday by a women’s business group.

Mandi Hamlin, 37, was given the Bold Spirit Award by the Women’s Leadership Exchange, a social networking and professional group that helps women with new or small businesses. The award honors women who take action that will have a positive impact on others.

Yes, now nipple-ring-wearing travelers the world over can sleep soundly at night knowing that our heroine has led the charge to make airport security safe. And of course, Gloria Allred has wrapped her tentacles around this situation and is no doubt preparing to milk it for everything she can.

“Mandi is a winner,” said her attorney, Gloria Allred of Los Angeles. “She has shown courage. She has stood up and been willing to reveal some private facts in order to achieve a greater good.”

A “winner?” What the hell did she win? Is this really the kind of thing we need to start handing out awards for? Why is Gloria Allred involved? Can you sue federal employees for stupidity? That sounds like a dangerous (not to mention expensive) precedent.

And please click on the link to the article and watch the video. If I didn’t speak English and had to rely on facial expression and tone of voice, I would think they were honoring someone for charging a machine-gun nest on Iwo Jima. On the flip side, after the inevitable announcement from the TSA about a change of policy regarding body piercings, al Queda will be working furiously to fit a bomb into a cock ring.

I seriously doubt that anyone reading this is in short supply of reasons to hate the U.N., but just in case, here’s yet another one.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday condemned as “offensively anti-Islamic” a Dutch lawmaker’s film that accuses the Koran of inciting violence.

Ban acknowledged efforts by the government of the Netherlands to stop the broadcast of the film, which was launched by Islam critic Geert Wilders over the Internet, and appealed for calm to those “understandably offended by it.”

“There is no justification for hate speech or incitement to violence,” Ban said in a statement. “The right of free expression is not at stake here.”

Because by “free expression,” we actually mean “you’re free to say whatever you want unless the most hyper-sensitive group of third-world religious fanatics on the planet can somehow manage to take offense.” But wait, there’s more!

“Freedom must always be accompanied by social responsibility,” Ban said.

“We must also recognize that the real fault line is not between Muslim and Western societies, as some would have us believe, but between small minorities of extremists, on different sides, with a vested interest in stirring hostility and conflict,” Ban said.

I respectfully disagree, the fault line is between people who find it acceptable to saw the head off of a bound hostage with a dull knife and videotape it for propaganda or strap a bomb to their chest and blow up a school, and those of us who wish the other group dead. I think that’s a more accurate description of the societal fault line, but I’m just an Ugly American.

My days of hanging around strip clubs are long behind me, but I was happy to read this article in the local paper.

A state district judge struck down a state fee on patrons of strip clubs Friday, invalidating a measure designed to raise money for sexual assault victims and people without health insurance.

Travis County Judge Scott Jenkins called the $5 cover charge – which state lawmakers passed overwhelmingly last year – unconstitutional, and said it taxed “expression that, while politically unpopular, is nevertheless protected by the First Amendment.”

Attorney General Greg Abbott, representing the state, plans to “vigorously appeal” the ruling, a spokesman said. And at least one Dallas club owner said she’s not ready to go out and celebrate.

“The rest of them are ready to throw a big party, but I don’t think this is over,” said Dawn Rizos, who owns the Lodge, an upscale Dallas club. “They’re going to rewrite it, and eventually it will pass.”

Rizos is exactly right, the bastards in Austin (most of them Republicans) will keep reworking this until they get a judge to sign off. When it works, the Republicans will go back to their districts and assure their constituents that children are safe from exposed boobies and the Democrats will trumpet their aid to victimized women and the uninsured.

I’ve known enough women who worked at these establishments to have a pretty strong distaste for the people who run them and most of the people who frequent them. That fact doesn’t mitigate my opposition to the “fee.” In the same sense that one does not have to like smoking to oppose increases in the cigarette tax.

The problem with public acceptance of these laws is that it sends the message that it’s ok to tax things the majority of the people don’t approve of in order to fund things they do. Providing services for sexual assault victims is something most people will get behind, and the people behind this law know it.

Officials with the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault, which helped craft the measure, said they are very disappointed by the decision but intend to rework the bill when lawmakers return to Austin in January.

“This is not the end of the adult entertainment fee or of our goal of providing comprehensive sexual assault-related services to Texans,” spokeswoman Karen Amacker said.

In case I need to bring this idea a little closer to home, imagine a day where the majority of people are opposed to the exercise of Second Amendment rights and lawmakers decide that they can get away with an onerous “ammunition tax” or a mandatory five dollar fee for entry to the local gun range.

I will concede however that I generally find the “getting naked for tips is a First Amendment right” argument to be more than a little lacking. I would much rather see a law like this get repealed because enough right-minded people see it for what it is, a way to raise taxes on a small segment of the population to gain the favor of a larger segment that disapproves of them.

In a shocking story sure to surprise everyone who hasn’t read a newspaper or passed by a television in twenty years, the U.N. is tripping over its own dick in the Sudan.

As Darfur smolders in the aftermath of a new government offensive, a long-sought peacekeeping force, expected to be the world’s largest, is in danger of failing even before it begins its mission because of bureaucratic delays, stonewalling by the Sudanese government and reluctance from troop-contributing countries to send peacekeeping forces into an active conflict.

“Just let us know when everyone is dead, and we’ll be happy to send some troops along.”

The force, which officially took over from an overstretched and exhausted African Union force in Darfur on Jan. 1, has just over 9,000 of an expected 26,000 soldiers and police officers, and will not fully deploy until the end of the year, United Nation officials said.

Even the troops that are in place, the old African Union force plus two other battalions, lack essential equipment - like sufficient armored personnel carriers and helicopters - to carry out even the most rudimentary of peacekeeping tasks. Some even had to buy their own paint to turn their green helmets United Nations blue, peacekeepers here said.

The peacekeepers’ work is more essential than ever. At least 30,000 people were displaced last month as the government and its allied militias fought to retake territory held by rebel groups fighting in the region, said United Nations human rights officials.

For weeks after the attacks, many of the displaced were hiding in the bush nearby or living in the open along the volatile border between Sudan and Chad, inaccessible to aid workers. Most wanted to return to their scorched villages and rebuild but did not feel safe from roaming bandits and militias.

Without getting into the root causes of violence in genocide in Sub-Saharan Africa, it is painfully obvious that the United Nations and its member organizations are impotent in the face of any serious threat to life and limb anywhere, much less a horror show like Darfur. Stories like this one should serve as a testament to the absurdity of the concept of “international consensus.” Listening to leftists in this country and around the world opine about the need to entrust more authority and power to these clowns would be hilarious if real people weren’t being slaughtered in the face of their incompetence.

Maybe I would if I suspected, even for a moment, that most of these ant-war morons actually gave a damn about the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines in harm’s way. Some of them certainly do, but most of them seem to be living a self-centered fantasy world where barbarians who saw the heads off their hostages are simply a product of disagreement with U.S. foreign policy. That, and they’re attention whores. Case in point:

Chicago Police Arrest Six Iraq War Protesters for Squirting Fake Blood on Easter Churchgoers

Six Iraq war protesters disrupted an Easter Mass on Sunday, shouting and squirting fake blood on themselves and parishioners in a packed auditorium.

Three men and three women startled the crowd during Cardinal Francis George’s homily, yelling “Even the Pope calls for peace” as they were removed from the Mass by security guards and ushers.

One Mass attendee, Mike Wainscott of Chicago, yelled at the anti-war protesters.

“Are you happy with yourselves?” he said. “There were kids in there. You scared little kids with your selfish act. Are you happy now?”

The group, which calls itself Catholic Schoolgirls Against the War, said in a statement after the arrests that they targeted the Holy Name Cathedral on Easter to reach a large audience, including Chicago’s most prominent Catholic citizens and the press, which usually covers the services.

Kevin Clark of International Solidarity Movement told the Chicago Tribune that he attended the Mass to serve as a witness for the protesters.

“If Cardinal George is a man of peace and is walking the walk and talking the talk, he should have confronted George Bush and demanded an immediate end to the war,” Clark said.

Let me make something clear, if you run into a room that I happen to occupy and start throwing any substance on people that is even remotely suspect, I’m going to chase you down and knock the shit out of you. It’s my policy.

Now that we have that bit of information out of the way, let me ask an honest question. Other than bringing attention to themselves or their stupid little group, what could these protesters possibly hope to accomplish with this kind of childish shit? Do they really think that a single person would change their position on the most significant issue of current American foreign policy based on retards throwing blood during an Easter service? Furthermore, if they really believe that Iraqis are dying by America’s hand, is using that sad reality to gain attention for themselves not a ghoulish act of self-promotion?

I strongly suspect the reality is that the morons don’t possess enough capacity for self-examination to feel any shame about this kind of stunt. Besides, aside from anti-war protests and vegan conferences, how are poor pasty white guys with bad hygiene supposed to get laid?

As if we needed further evidence that the “call 911 and wait for the police to handle it” school of home defense is the refuge of pusillanimous bastards, we have this story:

Woman Shot and Killed While Calling 911 to Report Intruders

We can’t say for certain that having a firearm in the house would have saved this woman’s life, but this case once again illustrates that the police cannot protect a homeowner from an immediate threat. Every individual and family must be responsible for their own safety, and the insidious argument that we should surrender that responsibility to “authorities” should be met with scorn, derision, and frankly violence if the feckless bastards ever try to enforce such dependency through confiscation.

This point can be illustrated further with another story that occurred in one of the suburbs close to where I live:

Frisco home intruder shoots man after confrontation

Steven Geddie, 24, heard someone breaking into the back door of his home in the 8400 block of Hickory Street around 6 p.m., police said. He told police he grabbed a shotgun and confronted the man in a hallway.

The two exchanged gunfire, and the intruder fled. Mr. Geddie suffered a minor wound in his left arm and refused to be taken to the hospital for treatment, police said.

Keep in mind that in this part of the world and at this time of year, 6 p.m. is still daylight. That means that an armed criminal broke into an occupied home in broad daylight. We can assume from that set of circumstances that the criminal had already decided that violent confrontation was an acceptable outcome of the act if not the goal itself. If the homeowner were not armed with a shotgun, we would very likely be reading a news blurb about a murder instead of a home invasion. And yet, there are those who would tell you that the homeowner should be forced to rely on government for protection from such threats.

In what is no doubt a worldwide plot by the seemingly harmless stingray population to avenge the rape of Mother Nature by evil, SUV-driving humans, a 55-year-old woman was killed while sunbathing on a boat off the coast of Florida.

MARATHON, Fla. (AP) - Officials say a woman died in the Florida Keys after a stingray jumped out of the water and struck her upper body.

The spotted eagle ray had hit the 55-year-old woman while she was in a boat Thursday. Officials say she was hit in the face or neck.

It’s not clear whether the animal’s barb struck the Michigan woman, or if the impact killed her.

Spotted eagle rays can grow up to 17 feet in length and weigh up to 500 pounds.

They are known to occasionally jump out of the water but are not aggressive.

First Steve Irwin, now this. Al Gore tried to warn us, but you people didn’t want to listen. Well who’s laughing now… that’s right, the stingrays are laughing.