Target Centermass

Author: Gunner

  • Calls for EU Ban on Nazi Symbols

    You have to love when a stupid act causes an even more pinheaded reaction.

    Several German lawmakers have called for a Europe-wide ban on Nazi insignia following widespread outrage after Britain’s Prince Harry wore a swastika as part of a costume at a high-society gathering.

    Prince Harry, who went to a costume party dressed in an Afrika Korps uniform with a swastika armband, “really lacked taste,” said Wolfgang Bosbach, deputy leader of Germany’s conservative Christian Democratic parliamentary group.

    Bosbach said it was possible European justice ministers at an upcoming meeting would discuss bringing in a European prohibition on displaying the swastika and other Nazi signs. These already are banned in Germany, which nonetheless has a worrying problem of xenophobic neo-Nazi activities, particularly in the former Communist east of the country.

    “All of Europe has suffered in the past because of the crimes of the Nazis, therefore it would be logical for Nazi symbols to be banned all over Europe,” added Silvana Koch-Merin, who heads Germany’s liberal Free Democrats in the European Parliament. She also called for the question of a ban to be placed on the agenda of the next meeting of justice ministers.

    This calls into question Ms. Koch-Merin’s grasp of the concept of logic.

    The Social Democrats deputy parliamentary leader, Michael Müller, agreed that study was needed to find out how a German-style anti-Nazi law could be transposed to the rest of Europe. Dieter Wiefelspütz, a Social Democratic party specialist on justice questions, said Nazi symbols were reminders of a “humiliating” and “deathly” concept of humanity.

    But expanding the ban on Nazi symbols across the EU is unlikely to happen, as many countries consider their display — no matter how repugnant — is protected by democratic principles of free speech.

    The young prince’s choice of costume was indeed tasteless and poorly thought out for someone so much in the public’s eye. Also, it goes without saying that the history of the Nazis is obviously atrocious. However, to ban a symbol because of this history is ridiculous. What next, a ban on the letter “K” because of its prominent role in the acronym KKK? Beyond the free speech aspect, I would counter that to ban the swastika would only add to its attraction among those seeking to rebel against society.

  • Pentagon Rejected Gay Weapon Proposal

    This is good for a chuckle.

    The U.S. military rejected a 1994 proposal to develop an “aphrodisiac” to spur homosexual activity among enemy troops but is hard at work on other less-than-lethal weapons, defense officials said Sunday.

    The idea of fostering homosexuality among the enemy figured in a declassified six-year, $7.5 million request from a laboratory at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio for funding of non-lethal chemical weapon research.

    The proposal, disclosed in response to a Freedom of Information request, called for developing chemicals affecting human behavior “so that discipline and morale in enemy units is adversely affected.”

    “One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior,” said the document, obtained by the Sunshine Project. The watchdog group posted the partly blacked-out, three-page document on its Web site.

    Lt. Col. Barry Venable of the Army, a Defense Department spokesman, said: “This suggestion arose essentially from a brainstorming session, and it was rejected out of hand.”

    The Air Force Research Laboratory also suggested using chemicals that could be sprayed on enemy positions to attract stinging and biting bugs, rodents and larger animals.

    Another idea involved creating “severe and lasting halitosis” to help sniff out fighters trying to blend with civilians.

    The U.S. military remains committed to developing less-than-lethal weapons that pass stringent legal reviews and are consistent with international treaties, said Captain Dan McSweeny of the Marine Corps, a spokesman for the Pentagon unit spearheading their introduction.

    “We feel it’s very important to offer our deployed service members and their commanders a greater range of options in dealing with increasingly complex operational environments,” said McSweeny, of the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate.

    It all seems rather silly, but it’s good to know the folks in defense are putting some creative skullsweat into their efforts.

    I wonder, however, had we developed the homosexual aphrodisiac weapon, what would the ramifications be on Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell in a friendly-fire incident?

  • FBI Warns of Suspicious Inaugural Activity

    FoxNews is reporting that the FBI is concerned about security threats and questionable behaviour at sites related to next week’s inauguration.

    The federal government is receiving reports of “suspicious activity” around buildings where presidential inaugural events and a parade are scheduled to occur Jan. 20 in Washington, FOX News learned Friday.

    FOX News obtained an intelligence bulletin sent this week to law enforcement by the FBI’s Washington field office, which is coordinating the security for next week’s inaugural along with the U.S. Secret Service.

    An FBI official confirmed the authenticity of the bulletin and said, “there is no credible threat information but we are looking at everything and anything out of an abundance of caution.”

    More than 6,000 law enforcement personnel will be on duty Jan. 20, the day President Bush is sworn in for a second term.

    Reports of suspicious activity noted by the FBI include people taking pictures and writing descriptive notes while being near the buildings. But there is no indication that any of these activities are linked to terrorist activity. Plus, many of the buildings and streets in question consistently receive numerous suspicious activity reports due to their high visibility in the Washington area.

    I’ve lived in D.C. The very notion of trying to discern between a tourist and a terrorist based on the choice of photographic subjects or number of exposures taken seems incredibly daunting. I pity the analysts who have to pore over this stuff.

    Some of the threat reporting is coming to U.S. officials from overseas, according to the FBI bulletin.

    For example, the State Department advised that on Jan. 6, a regional security office received a letter via local mail service from a Kenyan national, alleging that terrorists will launch an attack at the inauguration using tactics similar to those employed in Iraq last month that killed 19 U.S. soldiers.

    The letter did not contain further details about the alleged attack but it rambled on about other topics such as the recent tsunami disaster, the Kenyan government’s inability to provide jobs and medical care to its citizenry and the torture of political prisoners, according to the bulletin.

    Sounds like your run-of-the-mill nutjob or Democratic Underground poster.

    The possible reference in the letter to the Dec. 21 attack in Mosul, Iraq, on a U.S. military mess hall may indicate the use of an improvised explosive device by a would-be homicide bomber, the agency noted. Based on the information received to date, this is not assessed to be a credible threat. A copy of the letter is being passed to the Kenyan police for further investigation.

    Another threat report, as outlined in the FBI bulletin, consists of word that Mohamad Chafiq Dekkak contacted a U.S. businessman of Muslim descent to sponsor his visa entry into the United States for business purposes.

    Dekkak has been associated with two possible international arms dealers, Hemad Lakhani and Samir El Mahallawy. Lakhani was arrested in the United States in August 2003 and charged with providing material support for terrorist acts and with violating the arms import/export control act. The FBI continues to investigate.

    Dekkak’s hidden intent is allegedly to attend the inauguration. This is suspicious, since Dekkak has no known basis for his recent interest in U.S. political events, the FBI noted.

    I feel it important to note that the main reason I post this and feel even a shred of concern is that it is probably the last significant opportunity to strike a blow to the U.S. prior to the Iraqi elections.

  • Soldier Gets 10 Years in Iraq Prison Abuse

    Abu Ghraib continues to take its toll. This time, however, the cost is finally being borne by one actually responsible.

    Army Spc. Charles Graner Jr., who grinned in photos of Iraqi prisoners being sexually humiliated but told jurors, “I didn’t enjoy what I did there,” was sentenced Saturday to 10 years behind bars in the first court-martial stemming from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

    Graner, labeled the leader of a band of rogue guards at the Baghdad prison in late 2003, could have received 15 years.

    Asked if he felt remorse after the sentence was handed down, Graner said, “There’s a war on. Bad things happen.”

    Graner will be dishonorably discharged when his sentence is completed. He also was demoted to private and ordered to forfeit all pay and benefits.

    A day after convicting him, the jury of four Army officers and six senior enlisted men deliberated about two hours to determine Graner’s sentence. He could have received 15 years.

    Graner, who had been free prior to trial, was taken into custody after the sentence was read. He gave his mother, Irma, a big hug and his father, Charles Sr., a firm handshake before the jury foreman read the sentence.

    “He’s scared to death,” Irma Graner said later.

    Graner was accused of stacking naked prisoners in a human pyramid and later ordering them to masturbate while other soldiers took photographs. He also allegedly punched one man in the head hard enough to knock him out, and struck an injured prisoner with a collapsible metal stick.

    Defense lawyer Guy Womack said his client and the six other Abu Ghraib guards charged with abuses were being scapegoated, but added that he thought the jury did its job well.

    “I firmly believe there should have been reasonable doubt, but we respect their decision,” he said outside the courthouse. He added that he had feared Graner could have received a harsher sentence than the 10-year term.

    Prosecutors Maj. Michael Holley and Capt. Chris Graveline would not speak to reporters, but they said in a joint statement, “We think it is important that the world was able to observe this court-martial.”

    The exact scope of the abuse scandal has been hyped to hyperbole by those thirsting for ratings or with an axe to grind or on a political headhunt. Screams for heads to roll, no matter how distant and uninvolved those heads were, echoed loudly but luckily to no avail.

    What happened at the prison was a crime, actually a fairly minor one in relation to the harm it was allowed to wreak on U.S. efforts, and now the criminals are beginning to find justice. That is as it should be; however, when all the dust settles, will those who contributed to the international circus ever look back and realize the damage they willfully perpetrated against the U.S. and the harm done to fighting Islamist terror?

  • Hitler ‘Ordered Pope Kidnapped’

    Interesting.

    Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler gave one of his generals a direct order to kidnap Pope Pius XII during World War II but the officer did not obey, Italy’s leading Roman Catholic newspaper reported.

    Avvenire, which is owned by the Italian Conference of Roman Catholic bishops, said new details of the plot had emerged in documents presented to the Vatican in favor of putting the controversial wartime Pontiff on the road to sainthood.

    Elements of alleged plots to abduct the pope during Germany’s occupation of Italy have already emerged in the past from some historians, but Avvenire’s full-page report said its details were new.

    Avvenire said Hitler feared the pope would be an obstacle to his plans for global domination and because the dictator wanted to eventually abolish Christianity and impose National Socialism as a sort of new global religion.

    ….

    It said that in 1944, shortly before the Germans retreated from Rome, SS General Karl Friedrich Otto Wolff, a senior occupation officer in Italy, had been ordered by Hitler to kidnap the pope.

    According to the newspaper, Wolff returned to Rome from his meeting with Hitler in Germany and arranged for a secret meeting with the pope. Wolff went to the Vatican in civilian clothes at night with the help of a priest.

    The newspaper said Wolff told the pope of Hitler’s orders and assured him he had no intention of carrying them out himself, but warned the pontiff to be careful “because the situation (in Rome) was confused and full of risks.”

    ….

    Avvenire said the details of the plot are in testimony Wolff gave before he died in Germany to Church officials accumulating evidence to back efforts to have Pius eventually made a saint.

    But the reports of Hitler’s contempt for Pius have contrasted with other versions by historians and authors who have depicted Pius as being pro-German and have accused him of intentionally turning a blind eye to the Holocaust.

    The Vatican’s procedures to put Pius on the road to sainthood have not been slowed or shelved despite concerns from Jews, and they will enter a new phase in March when Vatican historians will begin discussing many volumes of documentation.

    The Vatican maintains that Pius did not speak out more strongly because he feared it would worsen the fate of Catholics and Jews, and that he worked behind the scenes to save Jews.

    Pius’s pontificate has been one of the trickiest problems in post-war Catholic-Jewish relations.

    In 1998, there was widespread Jewish discontent with a Vatican document called “We Remember, a Reflection on the Shoah,” which effectively absolved Pius of accusations that he facilitated the Holocaust by remaining silent.

    But the current pontiff, Pope John Paul, has strongly defended Pius and once called him “a great pope.”

    Not sure I believe much of it, but it is interesting.

  • Sorry For the Delay

    Ended up spending more time than expected working on this site’s template last night and, after a couple of hours, ended up with a look identical to how I started. I know that sounds like a waste, but I was able to test a few settings and have the template prepared somewhat for the next wave of changes.

    Today has been wasted on errands and installing a new laser printer. I much prefer to edit from hard copy. I know, I’m so old school — blame it on my journalism background back in the days when PCs were just crawling out of the technological primordial ooze. Now, armed with a clipboard and a pen, maybe I actually be able to improve my posting efficiency. I know I’ll at least feel more in my element. My only remaining excuse is that I’m still on dial-up at home, but hopefully that will be resolved soon.

    Well, now let’s go see what’s in the news.

  • Warning: Testing in Progress

    I’m going to be messing around with the template a bit. Please be patient if things get jacked.

  • Atheist Protests Inauguration Prayer

    Here’s a fine example of one man overreaching and undermining his own cause.

    A federal judge heard arguments Thursday in the case of an atheist who wants to prevent a Christian minister from reciting a prayer at President Bush’s inauguration.

    Michael Newdow — best known for trying to remove “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance — told U.S. District Judge John Bates that allowing an overtly Christian prayer at the Jan. 20 ceremony violates the Constitution by forcing him to accept unwanted religious beliefs.

    Attorneys representing Bush and his inaugural committee argued that prayers have been widely accepted at inaugurals for more than 200 years and that Bush’s decision to have a minister recite the invocation is a personal choice the court has no power to prevent.

    As an atheist, I find myself sympathetic to the effort to revert to the earlier form of the Pledge of Allegiance, one sans “under God” and all I feel that implies. I shrug with only mild interest at the concept of removing “In God We Trust” from money — I feel it would be proper but it has no effect on the beer-buying process.

    That said, this inauguration issue is a joke. Unless the prayer is a mandatory or statuatory portion of the ceremony, I see no grounds for this case.

    Much of the hearing did not focus on the merits of Newdow’s legal claims, but instead centered on whether the lawsuit should be thrown out because Newdow lost a similar case in California last year.

    The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2003 that Newdow did not suffer “a sufficiently concrete and specific injury” when he opposed prayers from being recited at Bush’s first inauguration.

    Newdow — arguing his case via telephone conference hookup from California — said his case is different this time because he actually has a ticket to attend the inauguration. That atmosphere, he said, is more coercive than four years ago, when he planned to watch the ceremony on television.

    Justice Department lawyer Edward White scoffed at that claim, saying the issues in the two cases are the same and that Newdow still has not shown how he would be injured by hearing the prayer.

    Hearing a prayer is not harmful, especially for one who is not compelled in any manner to attend. Granted, there are times when listening to the prayers of others can seem annoying (especially when it causes a delay in the commencement of the devouring of delicious holiday dinners), but we have no constitutional protections against mild annoyances. For that, Mr. Newdow should be thankful.

    George Terwilliger, appearing for the inaugural committee, said the details of the ceremony are not officially sanctioned government action but merely the personal choice of the president.

    That seems to sum up the case — just as I should have the right to not have religion thrust upon me, the religious should not have their faith stripped away, even in a public role.

    A decision is expected tomorrow.

  • Speaker Tells Students Stripping Can Be Lucrative

    Astoundingly dumb move.

    School officials in Palo Alto are reconsidering their use of a popular speaker for an annual career day after he advised middle school students that they could earn a good living as strip dancers.

    William Fried told eighth-graders at Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School that stripping and exotic dancing could be lucrative career moves for girls, offering as much as $250,000 or more per year, depending on their bust size.

    “It’s sick, but it’s true,” Fried, president of Foster City’s Precision Selling, a management consulting firm, told The Associated Press. “The truth of the matter is you can earn a tremendous amount of money as an exotic dancer, if that’s your desire.”

    Well, Mr. Fried, you’ve gone that far. Anything you want to add that can make it worse?

    Fried spent about a minute answering questions, defining strippers and exotic dancers synonymously. He told students, “For every two inches up there, you should get another $50,000 on your salary,” student Jason Garcia, 14, said.

    Well, yes, I guess there was something.

  • A Little Canadian Self-Examination

    Our neighbors to the north seem to be struggling with a bit of an identity crisis: are they allies or opponents to the U.S., contributors or pretenders as members of NATO and the international community? Ben at The Tiger in Winter takes an interesting and critical look here (hat tip to Damian Brooks at Babbling Brooks).

    We are unsteady as an ally. And this is not only a Liberal failing. In fact, the most egregious example was under a Conservative government. Diefenbaker did not co-operate with the Americans during the Cuban Missile Crisis — he refused to put the Canadian military on alert. (Canadian commanders, on the other hand, put themselves on alert.) That display prompted Bobby Kennedy to say of us, “in an emergency Canada will give you all aid short of help.”

    Go give it a read. Mr. Brooks adds his two cents to the piece.

    [Canadian conservatives] want Canada to live up to its potential, both domestically and internationally, so bad it hurts. That means making Canada stronger – economically, socially, and yes – militarily. The Canadian left likes to talk about charting an independent foreign policy from the U.S., but how can you remain independent with no assets to devote to your international goals – foreign aid, consulates and embassies, and yes again – military? How do you maintain true sovereignty over Canadian domestic issues without a strong and expanding economy – one that’s competitive worldwide without the crutch of a weak dollar?