Category Archives: Justice

UPDATED: Blade Runner Still Walking On Water

Celebrity, Crime, Criminal Injustice, Justice, Law, Pseudoscience, Psychology & Pop-Psychology, Race, South-Africa, Sport

A high-profile murder involving a class of people whose role in South Africa’s endemic crime is statistically insignificant occurred last week. The two wealthy white South Africans involved, however, will become a perfect foil for the hypocritical tele-twits of the West. The latter have said nothing about the carnage of crime in that country—and they’ll continue to say nothing meaningful at all.

Crime in South Africa should have been making news headlines across the world throughout South Africa’s overnight transition from minority to majority rule. It hasn’t. Blade runner Oscar Pistorius’ run-in with the law has occasioned the first such mention that I can recall by anchor-personality Megyn Kelly of Fox News, and her colleagues in the industry. (The killing fields of South Africa are dissected in “Crime, The Beloved Country,” a chapter in my book).

A statistical outlier, an anomaly—the murder of a (white) South African celebrity (Reeva Steenkamp) by another (Olympian Oscar Pistorius), allegedly—has newsmen in the West mentioning a subject they’ve so far submerged.

Steenkamp was a South African model. Pistorius is also a celebrity whose fame comes from being a tenacious (and talented) track-and-field annoyance. An annoyance, because most hardcore track-and-field fans want able and disabled Olympians segregated. (Yes, this is an intentional play on “loaded” words. Call the PC police!) The separation why? So as to allow fans (me) to enjoy the sport without the accoutrements of technology and the incontinent gushing that accompanies Pistorius whenever he makes a run for it.

In any event, how PC and TV perfect is this crime? (This or any other crime should never be called “a tragic circumstance,” as such vague language implies that bad deeds are invariably caused—never committed. And that they are caused by factors outside the perpetrators. (See “Rah-Rah For Rioters.”)

I wager that next, Anderson Cooper or Piers Morgan will call on the actress Charlize Theron to comment about the relevance of her pet campaign to stop violence against women in our former homeland, and its relevance to this case.

There is no relevance. Violence in the “Rambo Nation” is unidirectional: black on black and black on white. Violence against women—at least the kind that causes more than hurt feelings—follows the same pattern.

Meanwhile, the blade runner is still walking on water. Oscar Pistorius is receiving “overwhelming support” from his fans. Or so his agent informs the fans and the press.

UPDATE: FROM the Facebook thread. It’s just as I said. The Guardian is turning a statistical anomaly in this group (well-to-do whites) into a generic statement about violence against women in South Africa.

Sen. Graham: ‘Not Fair to Let President Get Hit.’ But What About The Drone’s Victims?

Barack Obama, Homeland Security, Justice, Law, Technology, The Courts, War, WMD

Bloodthirsty neoconservative Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican Senator, supports President Obama’s drone policy, which, as I noted on 02.05.13, is being debated only because of the very public confirmation hearings for John Brennan, President Obama’s nominee to head the Central Intelligence Agency.

“Sen. Graham says it’s not fair to leave the president out there on his own while he’s getting hit from libertarians and the left,” reports MSNBC’s Chris Matthews.

I guess it’s fair to leave kids like little Shakira to brave the cowardice of Uncle Sam’s Assassin. As you see, not much remains of the child’s small, charred face.

The Los Angeles Times concedes that it is time “to press the architect of the administration’s policy of targeted killings about its legal rationale and practical application.”

…the document espouses a “broader concept of imminence” in which a suspect can be killed even when the U.S. government lacks “clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future.” Another passage suggests that the determination of whether there is an “imminent” threat can take account of the fact that certain Al Qaeda members are “continually plotting attacks against the United States.”

Despite the horror of the concept of “Targeted killings”—and the violation of 4th and 5h amendment safeguards—the LA Times posits the need only to “limit” rather than “eliminate” this barbarism.

Uncle Sam: ‘The Greatest Purveyor Of Violence In The World’

America, BAB's A List, Family, Government, Individual Rights, Justice, Law, Military, Pop-Culture, Race, Terrorism, War

BAB contributor MYRON PAULI agrees with MLK, who said: “The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today–my own government.”

‘The Greatest Purveyor Of Violence In The World’
By Myron Pauli

“The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government” is the revered Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior saw America. Well, we are now a country where millions go to the movies to applaud “terrorists” being tortured by the CIA which, apparently, enabled us to lynch Osama bin Laden (the “terrorists” do not deserve to be put on trial since our government tells us they are “guilty” and it is none of our business to ever question the government but just to shut up and applaud). We have a secret and unaccountable organization, the CIA (instead of our own military which has more accountability) conducting secret undeclared wars all over the planet. Some people objected when Nixon did this in Cambodia – rather that Nixon be hailed as a Prophet of what was to come. Gadhafi comes clean on his nuclear program so WE OVERTHROW HIM and scatter his forces into Mali where …. – “Good Golly Miss Molly” – now the “terrorists” are destabilizing Mali – send in the French and troops and airplanes and drones. Like a proverbial tube of toothpaste, it will probably spread to Niger or Mauritania or who-knows… – remember when Cambodia was a quiet neutral ignored country until the US and the Vietnamese Communists decided to use it as a battleground and 2,000,000 Cambodians later died?! Collateral damage!

Meanwhile, the Washington Post of January 11 told of how foreign governments and our own are cracking down on parents who want to adopt orphans from overseas. Yes, ostensibly there are rules to prevent foreign kidnappings – but 2 hours of investigation by a reputable orphanage should be sufficient. A couple spent $45,000 over 5 years and came up with no child! The Homeland Security Department made them submit their fingerprints twice because the first set of fingerprints “expired”! And the foreign governments use the children rotting in their orphanages as fodder for their own corrupt political aims. Any cretin can give birth, and any other cretin can have an abortion, but G-d help us from those evil people trying to adopt babies. They are now on the lookout for single parents, the obese, elderly, divorced parents, gays, or whatever. Imagine a kid being adopted by a single old fat divorced lesbian – call out the drones. Perhaps we should be thankful for abortion since it prevents these kids from being adopted?!

Nowadays, 55% of black American developing children get aborted, and 70% of the rest are born out of wedlock. Whites are lagging behind but gradually catching up. Naturally, we will be subjected to the 40th Anniversary “discussion” of that random exercise of Harry Blackmun’s stream-of-consciousness, “Roe v. Wade,” in spite of its irrelevance. Even if Utah could outlaw abortion, a woman could hop on the Greyhound bus to Nevada to dispose of her developing child. Additionally, it is highly dubious that a jury of 12 in any jurisdiction would ever convict when 65% view abortion as less morally objectionable than burping at the dinner table. Heck – just announce that the fetus is part of “Al Qaeda” and the audience will cheer! Kill, kill, kill!

But perhaps the aborted babies are not missing much. Any child born in America comes into the world owing $50,000 of national debt and about ten times that in promised obligations to current Americans. Government grows in secrecy while Americans are regularly spied upon. Prosecutors threaten a jerk like Aaron Schwartz with 180 years in jail for computer “crimes”, e-mails are read, due process of law is disposed of entirely, laws are passed without being read and subject to arbitrary “interpretations” by the executive. We can celebrate Martin Luther King day because instead of Lyndon Johnson conducting idiotic wars in far-flung places, we now have a half-African origin President conducting new idiotic wars in far-flung places. We can celebrate because thanks to technological advances, we can conduct new idiotic wars with less American casualties.

America has advanced to the point that a dark skinned American can now be “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today” and even do it “on the cheap” – out of view from the public which focuses more on the phony girlfriend of some Notre Dame football player than our trillion-dollar war budget and the dozen or so ongoing perpetual wars.

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Barely a Blog (BAB) contributor Myron Pauli grew up in Sunnyside Queens, went off to college in Cleveland and then spent time in a mental institution in Cambridge MA (MIT) with Benjamin Netanyahu (did not know him), and others until he was released with the “hostages” and Jimmy Carter on January 20, 1981, having defended his dissertation in nuclear physics. Most of the time since, he has worked on infrared sensors, mainly at Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC. He was NOT named after Ron Paul but is distantly related to physicist Wolftgang Pauli; unfortunately, only the “good looks” were handed down and not the brains. He writes assorted song lyrics and essays reflecting his cynicism and classical liberalism. Click on the “BAB’s A List” category to access the Pauli archive.

UPDATE II: Freedom To Choose? Only When It Comes to Abortion (BHO Agrees)

Individual Rights, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Justice, Labor, Law, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Liberty, Reason

For a libertarian, it is “highly problematic to insist that by virtue of her fertility, a woman loses a title in her body.” It is equally wrong to tell a dope-head (or a fat-head, for that matter) what not to ingest, inject or smoke.

In libertarian law, the legislator has no place in a voluntary exchange between adults, as dodgy and as dangerous as these may be (like dwarf tossing).

Ever selective, and never principled, about the freedoms they champion, left-liberals (as opposed to classical liberals) believe that the right to have an abortion (at the public’s expense) is sacred. Nobody should come between a woman seeking such a procedure and her doctor. (Agreed, so long as she and not me pays for the termination.)

Forget about the right of the same woman to work for whomever she wants to without the intervention of a third party (a union). Freedom of association holds no sway with liberals when it comes to labor law. Pinko pukes religiously believe that it is good and just to compel an employee to join a union and remit union dues.

The Michigan Statehouse has changed this sorry state of affairs. “Organized crime” is outraged.

Predictably, CNN reporters and anchors have utterly ignored individual rights in their coverage of the Michigan vote, focusing the network’s collective bias on the fact that wages in right-to-work states are freer to adjust with the market (read lower):

The House approved two bills, which the Senate already passed last week. Both chambers are dominated by Republicans.
On Tuesday evening. Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, signed the legislation, which allows workers at union-represented employers to forgo paying dues.
Thousands of people, many of them union workers, gathered outside the statehouse, chanting and holding signs as snow fell. At least three school districts were closed as teachers traveled to Lansing to protest.
There are 23 states which have right-to-work laws, mostly in the South and western plains states, where union membership is relatively weak. Nationwide, union membership stands at 11.8%. …”

UPDATE: BHO Agrees. The language of rights doesn’t belong in the “escalating fight over changing Michigan into a right-to-work state.” Rights are about things like publicly sponsored abortion, welfare, and so on.

The ass with ears (AWE) said that “the State Legislature’s move to ban the required paying of union dues was all about politics.”

That’s a non sequitur, professa. For even if the Michigan Legislature’s vote were political, whatever that means—everything politicians do, by definition, is political—it does not make it wrong.

Logic was never “The Ass With Ears'” strong suit.