Confederate Yankee

March 12, 2008

Manufactured Destruction

CAMERA has the goods on the BBC, which claimed in a video report that the family home of the terrorist that murdered eight students and wounded nine more last week was destroyed in retaliation by the Israelis.

It never happened.

For now, the house still stands, prompting CAMERA to wonder why BBC reporter Nick Miles would report a false demolition in a voiceover, and why the BBC would air a videoclip without properly vetting it.

This should be a career-ender for someone (or someones) if the BBC cares about their reputation as a legitimate news source.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:19 AM | Comments (17) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

March 11, 2008

Fallon Gonged in Favor of Petraeus

Admiral William Fallon, Commander, U.S. Central Command, is resigning:


Adm. William Fallon, the top U.S. military commander for the Middle East, is resigning, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday.

Gates said Fallon had asked him Tuesday morning for permission to retire and Gates agreed. Gates said the decision was entirely Fallon's and that Gates believed it was "the right thing to do."

Fallon was the subject of an article published last week in Esquire magazine that portrayed him as opposed to President Bush's Iran policy. It described Fallon as a lone voice against taking military action to stop the Iranian nuclear program.

Gates described as "ridiculous" any notion that Fallon's departure signals the United States is planning to go to war with Iran. And he said "there is a misperception" that Fallon disagrees with the administration's approach to Iran.

"I don't think there were differences at all," Gates added.

I suspect that there will be those on the fringe left who will be screeching about how Fallon's resignation is the prelude to a preemptive war with Iran—probably before I even finish this sentence—no doubt suggested by a certain Esquire article that stated the quite fanciful claim that "it's left to Fallon--and apparently Fallon alone..." to keep Dubya from bombing Iran into the stone age.

Barnett seems to have completely overlooked the fact that it has been Tehran, not Washington, that has publicly promised not just war, but genocide (but then, in the same article, it was Burnett that claimed Fallon was "waging peace" with the Chinese in his prior assignment, even as Fallon's replacement expressed concern over massive increases in Chinese military spending, so consider the source), but that probably has little to do with his resignation at this time.

No, as Blackfive rightly notes, Fallon's retirement comes not because of friction with the Bush Administration (though there may have been some), but because General David Patraeus is coming to town, no doubt as the Administration's favored choice to lead Central Command after his implementation of COIN strategy in Iraq.

My guess? Lieutenant General Raymond T. Odierno, who executed the surge so well, backfills Petraeus as Commanding General, (MNF-I).

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:16 PM | Comments (21) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

How Long?

As you probably well know by now, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been caught in an investigation linking him to a high-priced prostitution ring as a client.

ABC News is reporting the interesting detail that it wasn't an investigation of the prostitution ring that led to Spitzer's downfall, but his shifting of funds that led to his bank calling in authorities for what they thought was the possible hiding of bribes:


The federal investigation of a New York prostitution ring was triggered by Gov. Eliot Spitzer's suspicious money transfers, initially leading agents to believe Spitzer was hiding bribes, according to federal officials.

It was only months later that the IRS and the FBI determined that Spitzer wasn't hiding bribes but payments to a company called QAT, what prosecutors say is a prostitution operation operating under the name of the Emperors Club.

So it appears that Spitzer's bank called in the IRS over what it thought was money laundering (if I understand the account correctly, and I may not), and the IRS contacted the Justice Department, which tagged the FBI's Public Corruption Squad to run with the case.

This seems a pretty straightforward and logical sequence from my layman's perspective on how Justice might end up involved in the case. Bagging a governor for corruption—which apparently is what they thought they had at the beginning—seems to be a logical application of the FBI's Public Corruption Squad.

That the case turned out to be about prostitution instead of bribery seems to be a bit of a letdown, as noted by David Kurtz at TPM, who called it "anti-climactic."

Refer back to the ABC News story and you'll note that, "It was only months" into the investigation that the investigators were able to determine that Spitzer's money shifting was about covering up payments to the prostitution ring, and not hiding bribes. This brings up a logical series of questions that I've not seen many people asking yet.

  • How long had Eliot Spitzer been procuring high-end prostitutes from the Emperors Club before his financial activity was deemed suspicious?
  • Is his interest in the client side of prostitution a recent development, or is it part of an on-going pattern of behavior? If part of a on-going pattern of behavior, how long has Spitzer been using prostitution services, and has he patronized other services in addition to the Emperors Club?
  • How was Spitzer introduced to the Emperors Club? Did he find the service on his own, or was he referred? If referred by others, is there the possibility that more politicians or business associates may be exposed in his wake?

These are some of the questions that come to my mind about this developing story, and it will be interesting to see if any information along these lines comes out as the scandal continues.

Update: Six years? Allah's got the roundup.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:56 AM | Comments (19) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

March 10, 2008

Spitzer Swallows

This going to be a huge blow his political career.


Gov. Eliot Spitzer has informed his most senior administration officials that he had been involved in a prostitution ring, an administration official said this morning.

Mr. Spitzer, who was huddled with his top aides inside his Fifth Avenue apartment early this afternoon, had hours earlier abruptly canceled his scheduled public events for the day. He scheduled an announcement for 2:15 after inquiries from the Times.

Mr. Spitzer, a first term Democrat who pledged to bring ethics reform an end the often seamy ways of Albany, is married with three children.

All snark aside, my thoughts and prayers go out to his daughters—I think they are teenagers—and his wife. The girls going to be humiliated at a particularly sensitive age, and my heart goes out to them for all the snide comments and snickers from their peers in their future. They did nothing wrong, and will have to pay the price of their father's apparent indiscretions, as will their mother.

One would hope Spitzer himself will try to find a way to lessen this impact on their lives, even if that means resigning from office to avoid the prolonged media circus that is sure to envelope the family as this story evolves.

Update: Fox News reports that Spitzer is is expected to resign, and faces indictment.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:57 PM | Comments (41) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

A View of "Fair Use"

Recently, Brian Ledbetter's photojournalism criticism blog Snapped Shot came under fire from the Associated Press for allegedly infringing on AP's copyrights, causing Ledbetter to take his site offline.

Snapped Shot came back online several days later, sans images, with many bloggers only a little less confused about what constitutes the "fair use" of agency images.

I sent a request to AP Director of Media Relations Paul Colford this past Friday for a statement clarifying their view of what constitutes fair use, and the Associated Press provided the following response via email:


AP licenses its works (photos, news stories, video and so on) to newspapers, Web sites and broadcasters for the purpose of showing news events and to illustrate news stories or commentary on the news events.

If the entirety of the work is used (such as when a whole photo is reproduced), that is considered a substantial "taking" under fair use law. If there are many photos used, that is a substantial taking of AP's photo library.

In the case of criticism, the commentary or criticism has to be about the protected work, not commentary or criticism in general – not using, as in the case of Snappedshot.com, protected photos to illustrate something on which the blogger was commenting. One cannot post a copyrighted photo of President Bush to illustrate commentary criticizing the policies of his administration, for example.

Fair use does not give others the right to use AP content without paying for it, especially when the costs -- and risks -- of gathering news around the world continue to rise. As a result, the AP has been increasingly vigilant in protecting its intellectual property.

I agree unreservedly with the Associated Press that using an image merely for purposes of illustration is outside of fair use, and will seek to go through my 2,700+ post archive and remove images that violate this of my own accord in coming weeks.

According to the AP's response posted above, however, it does appear—and tell me if I'm wrong—that it is still acceptable to reproduce images that are the direct subject of criticism, or as the AP states it "the commentary or criticism has to be about the protected work."

In other words, the context of the blog post the image is presented in matters.

For example, merely posting the below Reuters image of their press vehicle hit by Israeli fire in 2006 in a general blog entry about media casualties in war would be unacceptable under "fair use" guidelines.

If, however, the photo in question is the subject of criticism, then you have a case of "fair use."

Hopefully, this clears things up.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:53 AM | Comments (24) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Antichrist Superstar

Nicholas D. Kristof published an op-ed in yesterday's New York Times that insinuates that preferring another candidate to Barack Obama is a sign of bigotry.

Subtle.


...the most monstrous bigotry in this election isn't about either race or sex. It's about religion.

The whispering campaigns allege that Mr. Obama is a secret Muslim planning to impose Islamic law on the country. Incredibly, he is even accused — in earnest! — of being the Antichrist.

Proponents of this theory offer detailed theological explanations for why he is the Antichrist, and the proof is that he claims to be Christian — after all, the Antichrist would say that, wouldn't he? The rumors circulate enough that Glenn Beck of CNN asked the Rev. John Hagee, a conservative evangelical, what the odds are that Mr. Obama is the Antichrist.

I'm quite certain that there are some earnest, deluded souls out there that think Obama is indeed the Antichrist, but of course, there are people of questionable intelligence out there that feel the same way about George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, and even John McCain.

I must have missed Kristof's editorials excoriating these fringe theologists, but he certainly wouldn't single out those that would vote against his preferred candidate to the exclusion of others, would he?

But the "Antichrist" charge isn't at the heart of Kristof's argument, of course. This is:


These charges are fanatical, America's own equivalent of the vicious accusations about Jews that circulate in some Muslim countries. They are less a swipe at one candidate than a calumny against an entire religion. They underscore that for many bigoted Americans in the 21st century, calling someone a Muslim is still a slur.

Fascinating.

Let's set aside for a moment the fact that Barack Obama is not now a Muslim—and never has been—to examine Kristof's basic grasp of reality.

He states, "These charges are fanatical, America's own equivalent of the vicious accusations about Jews that circulate in some Muslim countries."

"Equivalent?" Really?

Perhaps being at the New York Times he gets a different perspective than most Americans do, but I've somehow missed the Sesame Street demonization of Muslims in American children's television, where an Amerrican Martyr-Me Elmo tells U.S. toddlers their duty is to kill those of the Islamic faith. Such programming exists in the Middle East, targeting Jews in general and Israeli Jews in particular, along with America. Should I being paying more attention to what my daughter is watching, or are Bob the Bomber ("Can we kill them? Yes we can!" and Dora the Exploder only constructs of his fevered imagination?

We have not seen calls from mainstream American Christian or political leaders to bomb Muslims communities within our nation, nor have we seen mass celebrations in the streets resulting from the murder of innocent Islamic school children when terrorists target them. Or perhaps when an al Qaeda terrorist blows up a market in Baghdad there are parades in Times Square, and the Times simply doesn't see such demonstrations as newsworthy. Somehow I find that unlikely, even for the naked, one-sided advocacy journalism now so common at the Times.

It is a fact that in many Muslim cultures Jews are the target of a blind and irrational hatred, and their popular culture is primed, from birth to death, for xenocide. Somehow, we simply don't see "America's own equivalent," hatred against Muslims outside the editorial bullpen.

Kristof's argument is disingenuous and dishonest, but that doesn't keep him from then equating this false construct to the very real racial bigotry that all of us hope remains confined to America's past. As Kristof's own research shows, "A 2007 Gallup poll found that 94 percent of Americans said they would vote for a black candidate." Hopefully we are beyond a candidate's race being a significant factor in American politics.

It is baffling that Kristof seems to need to stoke fears of another kind of bigotry in order to support his choice of presidential candidates, but that appears to be precisely his motivation.

Perhaps by keeping this demonstrably false claim alive he hopes to distract Americans from focusing on Obama's many real shortcomings, including his record as being the most liberal Senator in the United States, that he does not recognize the right of self-defense and advocates banning entire classes of common firearms, that he would raise federal government spending by $287 billion a year (more than any other candidate), and that even his own campaign acknowledges he is not ready to lead.

Nicholas D. Kristof would rather accuses Americans of being bigots and put them on the defensive than have them examine the radical doctrinaire liberalism of his preferred candidate.

Kristof hasn't told us anything about ourselves, but he has exposed a lot about how he would shape the views of his fellow Americans.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:15 AM | Comments (21) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

March 07, 2008

Obama's Plouffe: Retreat, At Any Cost

On the ABC News blog, Political Radar:


Obama campaign manager David Plouffe disagreed Friday with the suggestion that it would be responsible to leave "a little wiggle room" when establishing the date by which all U.S. combat troops should be out of Iraq.

"He has been and will continue to be crystal clear with the American people that if and when he is elected president, we will be out of Iraq in - as he said, the time frame would be about 16 months at the most where you withdraw troops. There should be no confusion about that with absolute clarity," said Plouffe.

In effect, Plouffe is confirming that no matter what the facts on the ground are in Iraq in January of 2009, Barack Obama, if President, would pull all American combat troops out of Iraq.

He is stating that Obama would continue to pull American combat troops out of Iraq, even if by doing so it would destabilize that nation's security situation and lead to much higher civilian casualties.

He is stating that for Obama, ideological purity and dogmatic conviction will be unswayed by changing circumstances, and states convincingly that these things are more important to him than morality or humanity.

I'm glad he cleared that up.

I'd hate to be led into thinking he was capable of change.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:27 PM | Comments (45) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Up-Gunning The Campus Police

The story is a couple of days old, but should echo across campuses nationwide: University police are getting patrol carbines in Arizona:


Police departments at Arizona's three universities plan to arm their officers with military-style assault rifles within the next year, officials said Tuesday.

The new rifles would give campus police officers long-range shooting capabilities, allowing them to hit targets at the end of long hallways or atop tall buildings, officials said.

Arizona State University will be the first of the three schools to use the weapons. Officers there will be trained to use the rifles in the next few months, said ASU police spokesman Cmdr. Jim Hardina.

Officers will undergo 40 hours of training before using the weapons.

"We don't want to just throw rifles out there," Hardina said.

Eight officers at the University of Arizona will get similar training before a rifle program launches there in four to five months, officials said. Northern Arizona University officials said a rifle program was in the works, although a specific start date was not immediately available.

The precise firearms in question are semi-automatic Bushmaster carbines equipped with EOTech holographic optical sights, vertical foregrips and tactical lights, as shown in this article by Matt Culbertson of ASU Web Devil. As equipped, the firearms are well-suited for clearing buildings, which would probably be the most likely scenario to which they wold be deployed, in the event of the tragic situations like those at NIU and Virginia Tech.

This is a development that more college and university police forces should emulate.

While most full-time university police forces already arm their officers with handguns, the inherent accuracy and effective range of a carbine such as those purchased for use by ASU officers would both increase the range at which officers could engage threats in extreme situations, and also increase the likelihood of any shots fired finding their preferred targets.

Missed shots typically mean that more rounds have to be fired to end a threat, and each additional shot—particularly those shots that miss the target and continue downrange as the laws of physics require—increases the odds of innocent students, faculty, or staff members stopping a bullet.

It will be interesting to see if this idea radiates out to other university police departments.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:29 PM | Comments (48) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

March 06, 2008

UNC Student Body President Gunned Down

A body was found, shot multiple times in the head, yesterday morning about a half-mile from the University of North Carolina campus in Chapel Hill.

She has now been identified.


Chapel Hill police have identified a woman found dead near the University of North Carolina campus Wednesday morning as the university's student body president.

UNC senior Eve Carson, 22, was found shot multiple times in the head about a half-mile from campus.

The News & Observer seems to hint that the murder may have occurred during a carjacking.


Investigators are looking for Carson's stolen 2005 blue Toyota Highlander with Georgia license plate AIV 6690. They believe the vehicle was taken during the crime.

What a shame, to lose such a promising young person to seemingly random violence.

The University's statement is here.

Police are asking anyone with information to call 919-968-2760.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:10 PM | Comments (19) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Selective Memory

James Gibney of The Atlantic writes that "U.S. military personnel have been raping Okinawans for the last 60-plus years," though graciously allowing that "the overwhelming majority of U.S. military personnel aren't sociopaths."

Gibney does not provide evidence of six-decades of continual sexual assault, but then, he wasn't shooting for accuracy, just overwrought hyperbole to justify his premise.

Writing in Asia Times Online, Chalmers Johnson notes that since the most infamous case in 1995, there have been precisely four similar incidents:


On June 29, 2001, a 24-year-old air force staff sergeant, Timothy Woodland, was arrested for publicly raping a 20-year-old Okinawan woman on the hood of a car.

On November 2, 2002, Okinawan authorities took into custody Marine Major Michael J Brown, 41 years old, for sexually assaulting a Filipina barmaid outside the Camp Courtney officer's club.

On May 25, 2003, Marine Military Police turned over to Japanese police a 21-year-old lance corporal, Jose Torres, for breaking a 19-year-old woman's nose and raping her, once again in Kin village.

In early July 2005, a drunken air force staff sergeant molested a 10-year-old Okinawan girl on her way to Sunday school. He at first claimed to be innocent, but then police found a photo of the girl's nude torso on his cell phone.

Not including the case dismissed this past week, that brings us a total of five recorded cases in the past 13 years.

By way of comparison, if Mr. Gibney really did have an interest in "The Price of Empire" in Okinawa, he could perhaps spend some time researching the number of Okinawan citizens either directly killed by the Japanese, used as human shields, or were ordered to commit suicide by the Japanese military during the Battle of Okinawa during the Second World War.

Estimates range into the high thousands.

I somewhat doubt, however, that this particular reality suits Mr. Gibney's preferred narrative, where American soldiers are the preferred oppressors.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:04 PM | Comments (19) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Homegrown IED Targets Manhattan Military Recruiting Station

The NY Times City Room blog has the latest details:


The police have attributed the blast to an improvised explosive device, and police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said the device had been placed in an ammunition box like the kind that can be bought at a military supply store. Mr. Kelly spoke with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg at a news conference at 9:30 a.m. in Times Square. The authorities are looking into a possible connection to two earlier bombings at foreign consulates in Manhattan, in 2005 and 2007. Official said that in today’s attack, a man in a gray hooded sweatshirt was seen leaving the scene on a bicycle. Subways and traffic are running normally through Times Square.

They also have a useful slideshow of images from the scene, which gives us just enough information to start making some inferences about the bomb and the bomber.

Looking at images 1-3 in the slideshow, you'll note that the damage from the blast seems relatively minor. Image 1 give you a pretty good idea of precisely where the bomb was placed, as you can see how the shrapnel radiated out from a central point, which appears to have been (as we face the building) almost dead-center in front of the plate-glass window.



Slightly enlarging the same photo and cropping it to focus on the recruiting center front helps to see the central radiating point of the blast a bit better.



You'll also note in this closer view, and in the second and third images of the scene, that there was no attempt to make this an anti-personnel weapon, as there is no evidence of there being ball bearing, BBs, or another other sort of shrapnel that would form an intentional secondary blast mechanism.

The time of the blast was around 3:43 AM, when pedestrian traffic in the area is typically light and the recruiting station was closed. From the time of the blast and lack of shrapnel, we can make the guarded assumption that causing casualties was not the bomber's intention.

We can also infer that the bomber had no intention of destroying the targeted building as well, as the blast was small, and the ammunition can that carried the device could have easily held far more explosives.

From the choice of target, lack of shrapnel, and low amount of explosives used, I think it only logical to conclude that the blast was political in nature, a violent though purposefully less-lethal bomb, if you can ever call an improvised explosive device "less lethal." For these reasons, I doubt it was the act of Islamic extremists.

This was an act of domestic terrorism.

I do not, however, feel comfortable blaming any specific anti-war group for this act, or even pinning this as an anti-war act at this point in time.

Anti-war groups, in general, are non-violent in nature, and those that lean towards the anarchist fringe that are violence prone tend towards vandalism, and generally, don't have the technical expertise to manufacture even such a simple device.

Whoever built this bomb may have sympathies towards the anti-war movement and/or anti-military feelings, but I would be surprised to find them affiliated officially with any specific anti-war or anti-military group, and would be even more surprised if anyone inside one of these groups had advance knowledge of the attack.

There are some news accounts noting that there were similar minor blasts carried out against the Mexican and British consulates in New York in recent years, each using blackpowder inside inert hand grenade casings, also carried out by a bomber on a bicycle.

This seems quite plausible, but we won't know more until the FBI announces the findings of their investigation.

Update: A reminder, via Ace-of-Spades, that the peace-loving left isn't always so peace-leaving:


Thirty-Eight Years Ago Today

March 6, 1970 at 11:55 a.m.

Three members of the radical activist group known as the Weather Underground, Diana Oughton, Ted Gold and Terry Robbins, blew themselves straight to hell when the bomb they were building, which was intended to blow up a dance at Fort Dix, exploded in an otherwise quiet New York neighborhood.

Had they been better bomb-makers, instead of killing themselves, they would have killed an untold number of American soldiers. In the name of peace.

Luckily, the Weathermen's expertise at bomb-making left much to be desired.

The Weathermen's hatred of the United States manifested itself in the bombings of the U.S. Capitol building, New York City Police Headquarters, the Pentagon, and the National Guard offices in Washington, D.C. The Weathermen's leader, Bill Ayers summed up the Weathermen's ideology as follows: "Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, Kill your parents."

Yes, the Bill Ayer's above is the same man that has had Barack Obama as a dinner guest, and who served with Obama on the board of directors of the left-leaning Woods Fund from 1999 until 2002.

Diana Oughton, one of the deceased, was Ayer's girlfriend until some of the 100 pounds of dynamite they intended to use to bomb a non-commissioned officers' dance at Fort Dix detonated.


Update: Hot Air has surveillance video of the bike-riding bomber approaching the recruiting center, and the NYPD thinks they have his bike.

Was the suspect smart enough to wipe his prints from the bike?

Update: The bomber sent an anti-war manifesto to eight NY Democratic Congressmen.

Update: Coincidence? Authorities are now saying the anti-war activist that mailed the "We did it!" letters to Congress had nothing to do with the recruiting center blast.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:48 AM | Comments (63) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

March 05, 2008

Savages

I've watched for several days the story that has grown out of a short, grainy video that shows a Marine in Iraq throwing a puppy to its death.

The act shown in the video, whether it shows a real sadistic act of animal abuse or a Marine with a warped sense of humor throwing a stuffed animal, is sickening.

Perhaps even more sickening is the mob mentality that has overtaken some of those who have viewed the video, who took it upon themselves to post the names and home address of the Marine alleged to be in the video and that of his family members, inviting other Web vigilantes to commit violent acts against them.

It is understandable to be outraged by the act shown whether is if fake or real, but does any rational human being think that an appropriate response to such an act would be the rape or murder of innocent family members, as some have called for? As for the Marine at the center of the controversy, he is currently under protective custody because of threats against his life.

There seems to be far more outrage over this video of animal abuse than far more sadistic and frequent reports of greater acts of brutality committed against human civilians by militias, terrorists, insurgents, and criminals in Iraq. I wonder why that is.

Where are the Internet detectives on Digg when al Qaeda in Iraq shows video of a car bomb that wipes out innocent families? Why are these Youtube and blog denizens not clamoring to discover the identities and home addresses of Islamic fundamentalist thugs that film decapitations and torture?

Sadly, there is far less outrage for these human victims, and occasionally, there are even attempts to rationalize their inhuman brutality.

I'm sure that if they were asked about it today, every politician in Washington would tell you that they were "shocked and appalled" at the actions of the Marine in the video, and yet, most Congressional Democrats, including Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, would help set the stage for far worse in Iraq with a headlong, unconditional withdrawal that would make such depravity far more possible.

They seek to knowingly and willfully abandon Iraq to those would would do far worse than throw that nation's civilians down a ravine, because they think the war costs too much, or because it is unpopular with their constituents.

So many of the same people who have whipped up so much outrage over a dog are indifferent to greater depredations visited upon Iraqi women and children... and yet they claim that the Marine in the video is the savage among us.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:27 PM | Comments (25) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Down to One

A little over a month ago, shortly before taking my concealed carry class here in North Carolina, I put up a post asking for advice on a carry gun, something small enough to carry concealed, but large enough to shoot accurately without discomfort.

What I learned during the class is that getting a concealed lawyer was perhaps my best bet, "if I could only find one small enough to shove in a holster.”

As that wasn't practical, I was back once again to deciding on a sidearm.

After a lot of Internet research, and talking to fellow shooters, I'd narrowed down my choices to three sidearms: the Smith & Wesson M&P Compact, the Springfield Armory XD, and the Glock 23, all in 40 S&W caliber.

I went with the 40 S&W as a compromise between the higher magazine capacity of 9mm pistols and the bigger hole of the a .45 ACP.

I liked the subcompacts from Springfield Armory and Glock, but didn't like the shorter sight radius or the fact that my pinky finger curled under the magazine. I also realized that because of my lifestyle, a slightly larger gun was not a limitation in where I could carry. The Smith, while an interesting design and a handgun that fit my hand very well, was simply too new of a design for me to feel comfortable staking my life on.

So it was down to the service model Springfield XD and the Glock 23, and from there, it was simply a matter of what fit my hand best, and which might be cheaper to shoot.

The winner?



Both the Glock and the XD fit my hand well, and in the end, the availability of a .22-caliber conversion kit sealed the deal in favor of the Glock 23.

While the addition of a conversion kit means more initial capital outlay, it also means that I can afford to practice far more frequently over the long term, an important consideration for a shooter on a budget. To be honest, if the XD had a reliable conversion kit available, I probably would have selected it, as it fit my hand just as well and I would have preferred the XDs fully-supported chamber.

Thoughts?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:10 PM | Comments (34) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

March 04, 2008

App State Student Fakes Campus Gunman and Shuts Down Entire University to Cover Up Broken Door He Didn't Want to Pay For

After the shootings at Virginia Tech and NIU, why not scare the crap out of everyone and shut down campus because you don't want to cough up a few bucks for a door you broke?

Matthew Haney did.


An Appalachian State University student who said he saw a gunman — setting off a campus-wide lock down Monday — made up the story, police said Tuesday.

Matthew Haney, from Durham, said he saw an armed man trying to steal his TV, but investigators said he lied. His apartment door was broken, and investigators said they believe he didn't want to report it to the management company.

That's Matthew Haney, of Durham, North Carolina, for all you future employers.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:23 PM | Comments (14) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Was Obama's Iraq War Opposition Based upon a Relationship to Saddam's Arms Dealer?

That is the theory being floated by conservative blog Illinois Review, and frankly one I've heard speculated about before... but does that speculation hold water?

The theory goes like this:

Barack Obama has had questionable dealings (including the purchase of his home) with Tony Rezko, who is on trial on corruption charges, and who may have directed kickbacks to Obama.

Resko has had numerous business deals with Nahdmi Auchi, who once sold arms to Saddam Hussein and had other dealings with the Hussein regime.

Resko and Auchi also had business dealings with Aiham Alsammarae, a fugitive from Iraqi justice who allegedly stole $650 million from the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity, who is now apparently living in Chicago, despite having been convicted and sentence to 14 years in prison in Iraq.

All these questionable relationships. however, have not produced a "smoking gun," and there is no direct evidence of anything illegal transpiring between Obama and these three men (or any others) at this time.

His mere association with these men, however—men who have continually operated on the edge of the law, and sometimes over that edge into clearly illegal activity—is troubling, and peels off some of the veneer of a candidate who promises "change" but instead seems to be far less pure than the image he'd like to project.

I must wonder, however... will the same left-leaning blogs and news sites that so throughly flogged every questionable Bush/Cheney associate, association, and decision be as willing to investigate every nuance of Obama's questionable ties as they develop?

Frankly, I'm not holding my breath.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:42 AM | Comments (24) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

March 03, 2008

Grandma's Got a Gun

In rural parts of the country, it happens from time to time; a person appears uninvited on someone's property, and the landowner tells them that "elsewhere" is a better place to be. Typically these confrontations are benign in nature, even when on occasion either the property owner or the trespasser turns out to be armed.

Such was the case in Texas this past weekend when a Danish reporter wandered into the yard of an elderly Texas woman, and she shooed him off, a gun apparently in hand.

CNN's Ed Henry made quite a big deal out of the incident, promoting it as a near "international incident" writing in the lede that the Dane came "this close to getting shot."

He characterized the confrontation this way.


"I was just so occupied dictating my story that I didn't really see where I went," Svensson told me later. "I was just walking and talking."

What Svensson didn't realize was that he had stopped walking a couple hundred feet away, on the front lawn of an elderly woman. An elderly woman who looked through her window and didn't like that a strange man was standing outside her house. An elderly woman who had, um, a gun.

Next thing you know the woman is outside, no more than a few dozen feet from the journalist, demanding that he leave. "Suddenly she comes out and she says, 'Get off my property. You're trespassing,'" recalled Svensson.

Svensson was too preoccupied to notice the pistol, and was not aware that Texas law gives homeowners leeway on using a weapon when someone is trespassing on your property. All of us journalists across the street were too far away to see the pistol at first, until a Danish photographer with a telephoto lens announced to a bunch of us that there was indeed a weapon in the elderly woman's right hand.

Henry, of course, had no way of knowing if the journalist was actually in any danger, and he apparently was not. The citizen's interaction with the reporter seemed to have been limited to verbally warning the reporter off her property. She never raised the weapon or pointed it at the Danish journalist, and the one photo of the incident shows that the firearm was pointed at the ground. The journalist reported that he didn't even see a weapon when told to leave, according to Henry's own account.

And so it seems shocking to Henry that an elderly person has the right to be armed when confronting someone trespassing on their property, not knowing if the person wandering towards their door is a wayward Danish journalist, a petty thief, or someone with much darker intentions towards a seemingly frail victim.

That an elderly woman in a rural area warning off an intruder had the common sense to arm herself in case the intruder's intentions were something more than an innocent mistake never crossed his mind.

But, Henry, apparently, had the story he wanted. That being armed is a prudent decision for some in certain circumstances never crossed his mind.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:24 PM | Comments (16) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Wishful Thinking

The most incompetent CBS News headline in recent memory, or the result of too much wishful thinking?


Via HotAir Headlines.

Barack Obama/Deval Patrick could not immediately be reached for comment.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:32 AM | Comments (15) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Texans: Obama Wants Your Guns

I didn't think it was too much to ask the Barack Obama campaign to explain the candidate's position on firearms ownership prior to the Democratic primary in Texas.

Obama, after all, has a documented record of wanting to ban handguns, ban all semiautomatic firearms (rifles, pistols, or shotguns), and while he has been silent on the specific issue, would seem to be squarely against the right of law-abiding citizens to carry concealed handguns (CCH) as well,a right that has been granted in roughly 40 states.

I sent the Obama campaign a short list of questions this past Friday, asking the campaign to clarify his current position on citizens owning firearms for self defense, a right he has never specifically recognized.

I asked the Obama campaign to explain his views on concealed carry. This is a very relevant issue in Texas, where almost 91,000 permits were issued in the 09/2006-08/2007 period alone.

I asked if Obama still favored an outright ban on handguns, which was his position in the past. I asked if he would still like to see all semi-automatic firearms including rifles and shotguns, a position he has also held in the past.

The Obama campaign has thus far refused to respond to these questions, even though they had plenty of time to send me multiple emails asking me to campaign for him.

At this point, we can only assume, lacking any direct response to these sensible questions, that Barack Obama would still favor banning all handguns and semi-automatic firearms currently used by Texans (and of course, all other Americans) for self-defense, hunting, target shooting, and other legal uses.

I suppose this silence shouldn't come as a surprise.

Suddenly recognizing the rights of Americans where he hasn't seen them before is obviously a change he can't believe in.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:10 AM | Comments (15) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

February 29, 2008

AP Lawyers Down Snapped Shot

Snapped Shot a photojournalism criticism site run by Brian Ledbetter, has gone dark due to legal threats from the Associated Press for copyright infringement for reproducing their images in order to critique them:


It's Been Fun
We have been informed that the Associated Press takes issue with our use of their images on this website, and until I'm able to resolve this matter with them amicably, I'm going to have to take the site offline.

Please feel free to e-mail me if you know more about this kinda thing. I'm posting a copy of the AP's letter below, for full disclosure.

Background
Snapped Shot is a site that deals with the criticism of photojournalism. The industry is inaccurate in its reporting, it falls for terrorist propaganda too easily, and in general, the photos that you see presented as "news" on a daily basis are nothing more than fluff. This site has, from the beginning, intended to correct that by presenting specific instances of bias or inaccuracy along with commentary as to why said photographs are inaccurate. I have never drawn a profit from this website, and have never received compensation for any of the "copyrighted" works that are owned by the AP. Furthermore, I have always been careful to give full credit to the wire photographers who have taken the pictures, and have even interacted cordially with a handful of them.

What The?
So why is the AP seeking action against me? I am not making any money off of their work. I am not a mainstream "news" site ala Yahoo, Google, or Breitbart. So what's the deal? Is the Associated Press uncomfortable with the content of this website? Have I struck a nerve too close to home? No idea, but if you're a lawyer that deals in intellectual property, I'm ready to become your new best friend...

Ledbetter includes a scanned copy of the letter from the Associated Press at the link above.

I've long been under the impression—perhaps wrongly—that reproducing photographs for the purpose of criticism was within "fair use" guidelines.

I am familiar with Snapped Shot and have worked with Mr. Ledbetter on occasion and his site, the best I can recall, did seem to satisfy the general guidelines of fair use as many of us understand them.

If the Associated Press has determined that it is in their best interests to sue to keep from being criticized by bloggers, this will be a very unsettling development. I certainly hope that is not the case.

I've just sent an email to Paul Colford of the Associated Press asking for specifics of why Ledbetter's site came to their attention, and hopefully he can shed some light on their motivations as this story develops.

Update:

Colford responds:


I have nothing to add beyond the letter from AP, except to underscore that this is a copyright matter.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 05:16 PM | Comments (21) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Questions on Obama's Views of Gun Rights



Barack on Guns: Yippie Ki Neigh?

I sent the following to the Barack Obama campaign's media contact page earlier today. I'll be very interested in their response, providing of course that they do respond.


There seems to be so ambiguity on Senator Obama's stance on various aspects of the ownership of firearms that I would like to get cleared up.

According to the campaign web site, his view on firearms ownership is as follows:

"Millions of hunters own and use guns each year. Millions more participate in a variety of shooting sports such as sporting clays, skeet, target and trap shooting that may not necessarily involve hunting. As a former constitutional law professor, Barack Obama understands and believes in the constitutional right of Americans to bear arms. He will protect the rights of hunters and other law-abiding Americans to purchase, own, transport, and use guns for the purposes of hunting and target shooting."

This statement does not address a key reason that literally millions of Americans say they own firearms, which is for self defense.

What is Senator Obama's position on Americans owning firearms for legal self defense?

Related to that question, what is Senator Obama's position on the licensing of Americans to carry concealed handguns, which is now a legal option in 40 states?

The campaign statement does not address literally tens of millions of firearms legally owned by Americans at this present time for reasons other than hunting and sport shooting, including handguns, which at one point in the Illinois legislature Mr. Obama said he would like to see banned.

Does Senator Obama still feel that handguns should be banned in America? If he does not still support a ban on handguns, why has his position changed?

Also on his Illinois legislative record are statements that he would like to see all semi-automatic weapons banned.

Does Senator Obama still feel that all semi-automatic firearms should be banned in America? If not, what semi-automatic weapons does he view as being acceptable for civilian use, and why has his position changed? Please explain his views in as much detail as possible.

Thank you very much for your time.

I'll be very interested to see if Obama maintains his previously held and rather absolutist positions on the subject, or if he has, as was speculated this morning, flip-flopped on the subject to pander for votes.

I suspect that if Texans knew of his previous record, they may want their hat back.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:51 PM | Comments (21) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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