“According to the authors of ‘Streetwise: How Taxi Drivers Establish their Customer’s Trustworthiness’ (TLS, May 12), it transpires that in deciding whether to ‘stop for a fare,’ cabbies give preference to ‘whites’ over ‘blacks.’ But they also select older over younger passengers; women over men; individuals over multiple passengers, wealthier over poorer; callers over hailers; and ‘friendly and calm over aggressive and agitated.’ As it is in the taxi driver’s economic interest to refuse ‘as few fares as possible, they can no more be guilty of racism than they are of reverse sexism or ageism because they prefer older and female passengers,’ say the authors.”
“Since there is no way of knowing whether those passengers the drivers screened out were in fact dangerous, it’s difficult to assess the effectiveness of these strategies. Still, not even the most ardent rights-violator would dare suggest cabdrivers be penalized for their prudence. For one, it could cost the driver his life.”
And it did. “Chilling video released yesterday by police shows a life-and-death struggle between a gunman and livery driver moments before the thug shot the cabby in a botched robbery in Queens.
The dramatic confrontation was caught on a surveillance camera installed in the gold Chevy Impala being driven by Trevor Bell, 53, in South Ozone Park on Saturday night. Bell was critically wounded in the attack. …”
“The head of the New York State Federation of Taxi drivers is encouraging racial profiling,” reports ABC.COM:
“Sometimes it’s good that we are racially profiled, because the honest to God truth is that 99 percent of the people that are robbing, stealing, killing these drivers are blacks and Hispanics,’ Fernando Mateo said.”
The law, of course, proscribes the life-preserving measures advised by Mr. Mateo. These poor cabbies are expected to throw open the cab door to the Grim Reaper himself.
UPDATE: As you can see, Mateo, the man advocating racial (or rational) profiling, is a member of a minority as well. The victim, I believe, is black
“It’s easy to be thrown off scent when trying to divine the vague, ill-defined, unconstitutional laws under which the Securities and Exchange Commission hunts for corporate prey. Suffice it to say that the SEC operates with the understanding that competition in capital markets must proceed from a level playing field. All investors are entitled to the same information advantage irrespective of effort and abilities.
In a word, information socialism.
In their latest efforts to bring ruin to capital markets, SEC blood hounds have ensnared some of the country’s most powerful hedge-fund firms. Indictments are replete with SEC cloak-and-dagger.
There is a Don, ‘Don Chu,’ which is how the accused, Don Ching Trang Chu, is called. A co-conspirator is ‘CC-1.’ And a cooperating witness: ‘CW-1.’ The companies violated, allegedly, are Atheros Communications, Inc. (‘Atheros’), Broadcom Corporation (‘Broadcom’), and ‘Sierra Wireless’—aka ‘The Tech Company.’
… Then there is the ‘The Firm.’ … The ominous entity at the center of the investigation. ….”
Some of you are waiting for, and have been asking about, the publication of Into The Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons For America From Post-Apartheid South Africa. The wait is worse for South Africans who are in the thick of the events my book documents and analyzes—Into The Cannibal’s Pot is a Burkian polemic, steeped in history, reality, fact, and the classical liberal political philosophy.
The manuscript is currently under consideration. If all fails, fear not (with your help), someone will see to it that the true story of the New South Africa (“Rambo Nation”), as detailed in Into The Cannibal’s Pot, is told. Not everyone inhabits the solipsistic universe in which most American “writers” (and publishers) are mired. Five magnificent men (as writers, thinkers, and human beings) have returned high Praise For The Cannibal. Thank you; you know who you are.
Some of you are waiting for, and have been asking about, the publication of Into The Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons For America From Post-Apartheid South Africa. The wait is worse for South Africans who are in the thick of the events my book documents and analyzes—Into The Cannibal’s Pot is a Burkian polemic, steeped in history, reality, fact, and the classical liberal political philosophy.
When I completed the book some months back, the number of Boers murdered was just over 3000. As the courageous Adriana Stuijt now documents, the death toll stands at 3,756. Adriana has been on the case since 1987. She, WND, in the early 2000s, and myself have been (still are) the only sources of serious, ongoing analysis—as opposed to knee-jerk, fleeting cyber-ejaculate—about what is truly underway in the new South Africa. Adriana is Dutch, I believe, and lived in SA. I am South African born, as you know.
In any event, the manuscript is currently under consideration. If all fails, fear not (with your help), someone will see to it that the true story of the New South Africa (“Rambo Nation”), as detailed in Into The Cannibal’s Pot, is told. (And that an important work is published.)
So far, four magnificent men (as writers, thinkers, and human beings) have returned Praise For The Cannibal. Thank you. You know who you are. These gentlemen seemed to sense the urgency of my mission (and, I am told, the thing is an excellent read). As I’ve already said, these towering talents do not inhabit the solipsistic universe in which most American “writers” (and publishers) are mired.
I hope this gives you an idea of where in the publication process I am with Into The Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons For America From Post-Apartheid South Africa.
UPDATE I: A GRISLY REMINDER. And people close to my family expect me to rush to the place to visit, possibly forsaking my life. Local predators are on the look for idiot outsiders, such as these. Having documented, contrasted and compared SA crime rates in statistical detail in Into The Cannibal’s Pot, I am more aware than are family and friends of the real risks.
This flashy couple will get western attention, the Boers dying daily in defense of their Zimbabwified farm land, not at all. I tell family and friends that as an outsider, you stand out; become a target in SA. They don’t get it. I, at least, still have the SA accent. But tourists… Why do you think this irresponsible, newly wed man was tossed from the taxi while his lovely wife kept back only to be killed later on? On that, Western media will refrain from postulating or reporting.
The driver of a British businessman whose new wife was shot dead in South Africa appeared in court today accused of helping to kill her.
Anni Dewani was shot dead after the taxi she and husband Shrien, 30, were travelling in was carjacked.
Their driver Zola Tongo, a local man, was charged with murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery at a court hearing in Cape Town this morning.
Tragic: Anni Dewani was shot dead after the taxi she was travelling in was carjacked. The driver has been accused of her murder
Tragic: Anni Dewani was shot dead after the taxi she was travelling in was carjacked. The driver has been accused of helping to kill her
A prosecutor told the court that Tongo is likely to enter into a ‘plea bargain arrangement’ in return for a possible lenient sentence.
Millionaire Mr Dewani and his 28-year-old wife were hijacked on November 13 as they returned to their five-star hotel from an evening meal.
They had asked Tongo, whom they had met at the airport, to drive them through the poverty-stricken township of Gugulethu so that they could experience a flavour of ‘the real Africa’.
But within three minutes of leaving the motorway, two gunmen hijacked the taxi.
After robbing them both, Mr Dewani was thrown out of the people carrier’s back window.
Nine hours later his wife’s body was found in the back of the abandoned taxi.
While Tongo’s actions were not revealed in court, it has been reported locally that during the drive he phoned a friend.
He allegedly told the friend what the couple were planning and where in the township they were planning to go.
This morning, Tongo appeared in court alongside another man, 25-year-old Mziwamadoda Qwabe. Xolile Mngeni, 23, appeared in court last week.
UPDATE II: I mentioned above the knee-jerk, fleeting cyber-ejaculate type commentary that cyber-celebrities allow themselves when it comes to South Africa.
Contrary to Pamela Geller’s fast and furious factoids, a Boer is NOT a “disparaging term for any white South African,” as she “wrote” in an April 16, “American Thinker” post this year, titled “Genocide In South Africa.” Geller, who is in the habit of spouting off as though she knows everything, should learn to cite sources who do know something about the South African subject.
UPDATED III: Given the South African market, my goal is to ensure my readers in South Africa can purchase the book. We will have to see. But this has to be part of the deal.
MAUL MALIA; SCAN SASHA. NO, DON’T. Having seen the children down whose miniature trousers TSA goons have been reaching; having witnessed heroic little Mandy Smith’s ordeal (and her father’s reprehensible abdication); being in possession of a keen sense of justice and rights—I could never-ever condone such futile, en masse, state sadism and fascism. Not ever. Not against innocent adults. And most certainly not against children, not even the president’s kids, who seem sweet, and whose only flaw is to have been born to a miserable excuse for a human being.
Make that two.
The First Lady has seemingly not experienced a visceral reaction against what is being done by her husband’s administration (begun under his predecessor) to the American people. She has, at least, failed to give voice to a gut reaction to this mass contagion; this moronity, if indeed one was experienced.
This is the same FLOTUS of the “Fat-Based Initiatives”; the woman who so cares for America’s bloated kids. In this post I asked, “Why no white butterballs?” Even Michael Savage hasn’t dared to ponder what would Michelle say if more kids who looked like hers were being mauled by malevolent state workers.
As a mother—as a human being with a heart—I cannot stand to see kids being subjected to the cruelty of strangers. What a miserable excuse for a mother is this woman, Michelle Obama.
SAVAGING THE SAVAGES:
MORE PUTRID, PUSHOVER PARENTS
UPDATE I (Nov. 22): WHERE ARE THE MEN? This is no country for men, any men. You emasculate them, feminize them, make them over in the image of woman, and they’ll offer up their own children as sacrifice. Liberal men have been “liberated” from the natural instinct to protect their own. You can’t blame them. Women most certainly can’t blame men. This is what modern women have worked for; the state as parent and protector.
UPDATE II: RADIATION REALISM. Every doctor I’ve known has tried to persuade me that his particular brand of diagnostic radiation was just dandy for my health. When quizzed about the cumulative effects from the radiation prescribed by his colleagues to keep me in good shape, the medical man would become less cocksure. A cursory perusal of the literature on the additive effects of any radiation confirms that it is anything but safe. The issue here is that no innocent human being should be made to choose between “the Scylla of the scan and the Charybdis of the ‘enhanced pat down,'” even if the first boosts his health (as if). It’s a matter of choice. I have always chosen skepticism when it comes to invasive modalities when used liberally on healthy people.
Now comes a scholarly study, first reported in the The Daily Mail, according to which “full-body airport scanners are just as likely to kill you as a terrorist’s bomb blowing your plane out of the sky”:
Peter Rez, from Arizona State University, said the probability of dying from radiation from a body scanner and that of being killed in a terror attack are both about one in 30 million.
He said: ‘The thing that worries me the most, is not what happens if the machine works as advertised, but what happens if it doesn’t.
A potential malfunction could increase the radiation dose, he said.
Rez has studied the radiation doses of backscatter scanners using the images produced by the machines. He discovered that the radiation dose was often higher than the manufacturers claimed.
Rez suggested that the statistical coincidence means that there is really no case to be made for deploying any kind of body-scanning machine – the risk is identical.
But he added: ‘They’re both incredibly unlikely events. These are still a factor of 10 lower than the probability of dying in any one year from being struck by lightning in the United States.’
Critics say the low level beam used delivers a small dose of radiation to the body but because the beam concentrates on the skin – one of the most radiation-sensitive organs of the human body – that dose may be up to 20 times higher than first estimated.
A number of scientists have already written to to the Food and Drug Administration to complain that the safety aspects have not been properly addressed before the nationwide rollout of the scanners.
UPDATE III: TSA THEME SONG, again. I still think that “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” best captures the TSA’s mission, conduct, and the mien of its mindless supporters. Do you disagree?
UPDATE IV: I’ve been remiss, and so have you for not pointing this out to me: even if you choose what to you is a lesser evil, the photons as opposed to the fondle (as Myron puts it), your TSA dominatrix could still pull you over for a once-over. It’s not like your decision between “the Scylla of the scan and the Charybdis of the ‘enhanced pat down'” is honored:
After “electing to go through the airport’s new full-body scanner,” “a bladder cancer survivor from Michigan who wears a urostomy bag that collects his urine,” “was pulled to the side to be patted down by a TSA agent.”
The 61-year-old retired special education teacher said he asked to be examined more discreetly.
Sawyer told WLNS correspondent Jessica Maki that after being taken to a private area, he alerted the TSA agents about his urostomy bag and the danger of its lid being undone, but they didn’t listen.
And when the pat-down began, Sawyer says the agent was so rough, the cap on the urostomy bag came off, spilling urine on him.
“No apology, no recognition – Is that urine? – no nothing, no offer to help me,” Sawyer said. “And I had to face the fact that I had to walk through the airport with urine.”
Do the hos who support this—other than the Fox blond squad, and polls point toward a majority in favor—detect a critical mass in the incidence of abuse travelers have experienced?
[Myron, do not expose Anna to this. Traveling for a wedding is not an emergency. Take a stand.]
When you hear the usual suspects on Fox wax about the land of the free we’re so blessed to live in; switch off. America is a fascistic state by any other name.
UPDATE V: REMOVING A PROSTHETIC BREAST. CBS: “A flight attendant and cancer survivor said she was forced to remove and show her prosthetic breast to a TSA agent during a security pat-down.”
However, what I’ve termed “sectional interests” have piped up again. Instead of arguing for the rights of all customers who purchase an airline ticket constrained by a state-monopolized system—cancer survivors are engaged in special pleading. Ditto airline pilots, flight attendants, etc.
UPDATE VI: As to Myron’s suggestion about special permits; I’ve been trying to make the point that special interests-based rights to pass without pain are bad for everyone and wrong. No one other than the suspicious should be searched. Why do you think Israeli security gives out special permits to those with cancer, the elderly, the pilots, the pretty… They don’t. See “TSA: Home Grown Terrorism (& Cretinism).” They do not molest people as we are doing; they question them politely.
