That’s right, knives!

Legislation needs to be put through to register all knives, for background checks on anyone planning to purchase a knife… those dastardly knives!

People don’t kill people, KNIVES kill people.

Here’s proof…

Several days ago, while taking care of a few errands in Manhattan (with the Wolf away, I seem to be spending ‘way too much time on that overcrowded, overpriced, rude people filled island), I somehow got into a conversation with one of those dizzy, New York Times/ CNN/ MSNBC/ Obama/ whatever brainwashed young women one sees in the millions on the streets of Almost Anytown, USA.

I forget exactly how we got into it, I believe it was my mentioning the unconstitutionality of so many things our fearless leaders in Washington have been up toof late, but she made what I thought is one of the most ignorant remarks one hears today:

“The Constitution was written in and for a time where realities were different than they are today.”

“No,” I said, “it was not, and no, today’s realities where the Constitution is concerned were no different than they were when it was written.

The Constitution has nothing to do with and is not affected by technological advancement, increased population/ massive immigration nor any other tangibles… It deals with human nature, which will never change. Regardless of physical changes, scientific breakthroughs, etc, mankind will be mankind and the Constitution, having to deal with governence and the rights of Americans, will always have the same place it always has in the order of all things American.”

I think that pretty well summed that up.

In view of this tragic event, are there a Chinese version of liberals demanding more knife control?

I’m back in Manhattan for a couple of days.

I spent the last few weeks taking care of chores at home, and now am in the city to eat at a few good restaurants with some friends and go to the theatre.

I managed to get in some reading from Seth’s list of favorite books I found while monitoring one of his email accounts, The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczny and Steinbeck’s Travels With Charlie, both excellent. The second was actually a “reread”, the first a “first read” for me.

But getting down to brass tacks: We (Seth, Wolf, Chuck and I) have all become tired of the field of professional career politicians that have been running this country of late.

I’m not only speaking of the Democrats, but of the Republicans as well. Both sides are much too concerned with playing party politics to spare the needs of the American people any of their precious time. The reason for having our two party system is to allow room for compromise of one kind or another. I mean let’s face it: Both sides, while claiming that they are open to compromise, are lying: In both cases, it’s “my way or the highway”.

This might suffice for the more politically, logically or morally (each to his or her own morality) motivated among us, each of us “knowing” what is good and what is not good for our country, but without some kind of compromise, a little pain on both sides, perhaps, no one is going to “win”; However, the American people will be the big losers.

The government (mostly the Democrats, but still the government) put us in the economic fix we’re in by going outside the authority placed in them by the Constitution and causing the mortgage crisis that snowballed into the present mess, and every repair job they’ve executed on our broken economy has only made things worse.

These professional politicians are literally destroying what was unquestionably the greatest country in the history of civilization. I say was because they’ve about brought us to our knees, and they still persist in continuing on the same path, that of placing the welfare of we, the people as a united entity second to the whims of the special interest groups that support their campaigns.

Meanwhile, again unconstitutionally, they’ve voted themselves salary increases, elite health benefits and even six digit retirements (pretty good, that, considering that politics was not intended to be a career field); all, according to the Constitution, the kind of stuff we, the taxpayers, are supposed to decide as initiatives on the voting ballot.

They’ve also now been reported to be profiting via investments made based on privileged insider information they possess as part of their jobs, a criminal offense if we rank and file citizens do it. Politicians in the House and the Senate are becoming millionaires through insider information generated portfolios.

Oh, of course they’ll see justice done for these dastardly deeds: They merely introduce toothless legislation to prevent themselves from reaping the rewards of their malfeasance, then go back to business as usual.

I fear that our government’s become as corrupt as that of any third world country, and like in those dictatorships, the people are powerless to do anything about it, except…

…except that this is the United States of America, where we can vote them all out and replace them with patriotic, honest man and women, non-politicians who will serve six years or less and then return to the private sector, depending on their own private resources for building retirement incomes, acquiring the levels of healthcare they require, etc.

But we won’t vote them out, will we?

No, of course not. Everybody (not, however, those of us here at Hard Astarboard) will continue to support the Romneys, the Gingriches, the Obamas, the Pelosis, the Reids, the Perrys… and the politics will continue, along with our own downward spiral until there is little left to distinguish between the United States of America and any third rate country you care to name.

I say this: If we continue allowing the career politicians to stay in office, we will thoroughly deserve the price our children and grandchildren will be paying down the road, because we will have begged for it via our own stupidity.

Like Seth would say, “the government needs an enema.”

And he’d be right.

Where the presidential primaries are concerned, Herman Cain is still our man, and let the opposition keep on throwing fabricated sexual harrassment charges at him. The best thing Cain could do would be to minimize these innuendos, treat them as he might a fly buzzing around and forge ahead with his message.

And that, said Mrs. Wolf, is that.

…this penchant so many liberal progressive (yeah, I have to go along with Chuck’s assessment, those critters on the far left are too fascistic to be called “liberal”, just visit any left controlled enclave like Santa Monica, California and you’ll see what I mean) politicians have for ethics violation problems is reaching the kind of profusion that very nearly qualifies their entire ilk for a trademark on graft and corruption.

While Charles Rangel is still in the middle of addressing his lengthy list of “improprieties”, along comes more of the same for Maxine Waters and, like Charlie, rather than ‘fess up and do the right thing, she’s putting up a fight.

This is probably because in the political atmosphere of the last several years, Democrats have had a great deal of success in eluding their just desserts and even staying in office no matter what their respective offenses happened to be, while any Republican caught in even the mildest or merely alleged impropriety has been treated like an arch fiend by both the mainstream media and the Democrats, and generally resigned on his own.

I know, any progressive will immediately list every Republican in history who’s ever done, or allegedly done anything ethically questionable, but face it, where blatantly corrupt practices are concerned, the ratio of Democrats to Republicans stacks up much, much higher on the left side of the aisle.

Maybe the Democrats get off the hook most of the time, or receive wrist slappings only, because unethical, immoral or downright sleazy behavior (dirty deeds done dirt cheap?) is expected of them, while those on the conservative side of the fence are expected to behave more honorably and so are judged more harshly when they emulate Democrats.

****

On another note, there’s apparently been a semi-stealthy increase in New York City’s tobacco taxes (with a pack of butts already over $13.00 before this one), courtesy of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a weasel supreme.

This weasel, originally a Democrat, ran as a Republican back when because there was already a Democratic candidate, and as soon as he was elected did what any good modern Democrat does: He raised taxes, began enforcing fineable laws that had been forgotten decades before and adding still others, anything he could come up with in order to wrench every possible dime from New Yorkers, rich, poor and in between.

This weasel spends more money frivolously, and brazenly so, than any mayor in the history of New York, then goes to the taxpayer for more with the nonchalant attitude that the city’s suffering from a dearth of operating funds due to a force of nature of some kind.

This weasel bribed the corrupt city government into allowing him to run for a third term, claiming that NYC needed him to fix the financial problems for which he himself was responsible, now he’s making them worse.

Wow, poor New York: Obama on the federal level, the Weasel on the local level.

Oh, and the Weasel has been calling himself an Independent for some time now. Great, an independent weasel.

One whose actual political history, no surprise, goes back to the same party as Charles Rangel and Maxine Waters.

…while I’m able. Luckily, or not so luckily, depending on ones point of view, some things I have to do have been delayed. This, however, leaves me more time to post, so…

I’ve been reading arguments both for and against this WikiLeaks guy, Julian Assange and what he’s been up to regarding the secret documents (91,000 of them, WOW!) he’s allegedly been receiving that detail some pretty bad stuff about our government’s exploits in Afghanistan.

According to some of this material, the U.S. taxpayer has been financing Taliban operations and other activities that are not in the best interests of either our brave troops over there nor in the interests of any sort of U.S./Allies victory.

So why are there pundits and letters-to-the-editor writers blasting this Assange guy for exposing vital military secrets?

It seems to me that the things he’s exposing are problems about which the government needs to do something, but haven’t been — Why? Because like the illegal alien problem we have, which was allowed to build up because politicians were able to sweep it under a rug (if the public ain’t complaining, why take the initiative, right?) due to lack of media pressure, what’s evidently been permitted to become business as usual in Afghanistan has been kept under wraps.

There’s no way anyone is going to convince me that the folks in charge over there (the ones whose salaries originate with We, The Taxpayer), as well as the fine folks in the Langley ‘hood of McLean, Virginia, haven’t been well aware of these ongoing events; If they have been, they aren’t the right people to either a) be assigned responsible charge over there, or b) be responsible for supplying the “powers that be” with intelligence from over there.

I also feel that funneling U.S. taxpayers’ dollars to the Taliban, whether they’re being diverted via U.S. military or intelligence or their Afghani counterparts, endangers our troops a whole hell of a lot more than this WikiLeaks exposing it.

I mean, C’mon! Money supplies people like the Taliban and their al-Qaeda playmates with weapons, logistics, baksheesh to bribe Afghani officials not already secretly sympathetic to their cause, maybe even a nice Swiss account ala Arafat to which some Terrorist-in-Chief can one day retire in luxury.

That sounds more dangerous to our military men and women over there than nobody knowing about any of it.

Now that everybody does know, perhaps something will be done about it.

I know, I know, politicians hate when “classified” graft, corruption, ineptitude and lack of proactive action is exposed.

But, now that it has been, regardless of the source, maybe they’ll do something about it.

I don’t know about the rest of my fellow countrymen, but I sure as shootin’ hate the idea that my hard earned tax dollars are going to the very same evil entity that our soldiers, sailors and airmen are over there fighting.

From The Israel Project.

2 Israelis attacked in Berlin nightclub

Police probing whether assault by man who identified himself as Palestinian was anti-Semitic

I don’t think they’ll have to probe too deep on this one, or, more to the point “Duh!”

************

Jewish dance group stoned in Hanover, Germany

German police are investigating the stoning of a Jewish dance group trying to perform on the street in the city of Hanover.

Youths reportedly shouted “Juden Raus” (Jews Out) as they attacked the dancers of the Chaverim (”Friends” in Hebrew) dance troupe last weekend.

Police said several Muslim immigrant youths were among the attackers and two youths were being questioned.

A German Jewish leader said she feared growing anti-Israeli sentiment.

…several Muslim immigrant youths were among the attackers…

Who’d'a thunk it!?

Unrelated to Germany, meanwhile:

Israel’s hard-line foreign minister said Tuesday there was “no chance” a Palestinian state would be established by 2012 — a message that threatened to cloud the latest visit by President Obama’s Mideast envoy.

The comments by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman drew swift Palestinian condemnations and could put Israel at odds with the international community, which has set a 2012 target for brokering a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

“As an optimist, I see no chance that a Palestinian state will be established by 2012,” Mr. Lieberman said at a news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. “We can express interest, we can dream, but in reality, we are still far from reaching understandings and agreements on establishing an independent state by 2012.”

Can you blame him?

Now this, I think is funny, when you consider all the time that what seems to be the majority of Californians, at least the younger set, spend babbling on their cell phones.

SAN FRANCISCO – In this city known for producing laws both path-breaking and contentious, legislators have forcefully stepped into another debate — this time over the potential danger of cell phone use.

With the 10-1 vote in favor of an ordinance Mayor Gavin Newsom has indicated he will sign, San Francisco has waded into the as-yet unresolved debate over the relationship between long-term use of cell phones and health problems such as brain tumors.

The law requires cell phone retailers to disclose the phones’ specific absorption rate, or SAR, to customers.

SAR measures the maximum amount of radiation absorbed by a person using a handset. The Federal Communications Commission limits SAR to an average of 1.6 watts per kilogram of body tissue, but information about radiation levels is not usually readily available when people purchase phones at stores.

“From our perspective, this is a very reasonable and quite modest measure that will provide greater transparency and information to consumers for whom this is an area of interest or concern,” said Newsom spokesman Tony Winnicker, who noted that the mayor is an iPhone user. “We’re playing a role that we’ve often played, which is to be at the forefront of a debate.”

I took the liberty of putting in a link to the FCC’s SAR page in the text above.

Here in California, one of the hallmarks of “progressive” government is the heavy volume of “warning” signs.

For instance:

“This property uses chemicals known to the State of California to…”

They vary with the nature of the subject of the warning, but they’re all over, especially in hotel lobbies.

There are warning, rules and regs signs everywhere, which serve mainly to insult the intelligence of the smarter among us, but the lefties eat ‘em up — “Government, working for the people” or something.

Having said that, it should be interesting to see how the legions of cell phone addicts, not to mention Muslim cab drivers, react to the passing of this bill.

Then again, this is California, and brain damage already seems to have afflicted most of the population already, though the source of said brain damage is still a bit unclear.

So they pass the SAR bill, and even if a few of these wireless wonders manage to look up from their incessant conversations long enough to notice and find the time to respond in some way or other, the entire SAR debacle will remain the tip of a much larger iceberg, if these folks are correct.

Earlier, I came upon a sidewalk Lyndon LaRouche stand on a street corner that bore colorful abstract banners that said:

Save NASA, Impeach Obama!

The workers there were attempting to acquire signatures and cash donations to support the impeachment of the president.

“Never happen,” I said.

“If we work hard and get the support we need…” A worker told me.

“No, it won’t.” I insisted. “I’d love nothing more than to see that corrupt commie bum get the boot, but the reality is, it just ain’t gonna happen. Even if it did, then what? Biden’s next in line, then Pelosi, the fate worse than death, and then, if the country’s still around, Hillary.”

“Oh, we’ve got a plan for that.” he assured me. “We let Biden know that if he doesn’t get it right, he’ll be next, then Pelosi –”

“Keep dreaming.” I said.

As I was about to leave, he handed me a flyer with some LaRouche politics on it, which I took with me and subsequently read.

The narrative on one side ended with:

“Anyone who is not moving for Obama’s ouster is not for real. The disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is one more demonstration of why Obama must be expelled from office on an emergency basis. If you want to save the nation, he has got to go. Either he goes or civilization goes.”

I kid you not! Either he goes or civilization goes.

Now, this came off an oh - fish - ial Lyndon LaRouche hand-out. I looked around on-line to try and find it in one linkable place or another, since many might find it difficult to believe that someone with so many followers wouls actually print up something like that, and this is the only one I found.

If what this guy was saying and the editorializing on the letter size, small print flyer are core LaRouche (pure frantic alarmism, well beyond even the more dramatic rants one hears on the right, mixed with a heavy dose of paranoia), we are one lucky republic that the man never made it to the White House.

What’s still frightening, though, is the number of people who take him seriously.

I’ll be spending most of my time this weekend doing some work on my boat, as I may take another of my long cruises south along the Mexican coast really soon, and want to have everything 4.0 when I do it.

But this morning…

Something we already knew,

to whit:

When asked to compare Nancy Pelosi to previous House speakers, Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) didn’t hold back. In an exclusive interview with HUMAN EVENTS, Pence excoriated her as the “least democratic speaker in the history of the House of Representatives,” arguing that she’s blocked a “free and open debate” in Congress.

Watch The Video.

Moving on, we all know that today’s feminist movement is not about women’s rights or opportunities as it purports to be. The reason they ignore the plight of women in many Muslim countries is because their politics, based on the “progressive” school of politics, demand butt munching Islam from the left side of the aisle.

Feminists are hypocrites who pursue the left wing agenda, and anyone not contributing to that gets short shrift like those Muslim women do.

As for any woman in politics who is not supporting “progressives”:

Former New Yorker editor Tina Brown appeared on Thursday’s Good Morning America to deride the mostly Republican women who won primaries on Tuesday as “wingnuts” and to sneer that they represent a “blow to feminism.”

I’d say it’s only a blow to the far left.

From Caroline Glick:

The first rule of strategy is to keep your opponent busy attending to your agenda so he has no time to advance his own. Unfortunately, Israel’s leaders seem unaware of this rule, while Iran’ rulers triumph in its application.

Over the past few weeks, Israel has devoted itself entirely to the consideration of questions that are at best secondary. Questions like how much additional assistance Israel should provide Hamas-controlled Gaza and how best to fend off or surrender to the international diplomatic lynch mob have dominated Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s and his senior ministers’ agendas. Our political leaders — as well as our military commanders and intelligence agencies — have been so busy thinking about these issues that they have effectively forgotten the one issue that they should have been considering.

Israel’s greatest strategic challenge — preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons — has fallen by the wayside.

Seriously good insight. Here’s the rest.

Another worthwhile and amusing read comes from Wesley Pruden, all about Obama’s search for that “ass” he says he wants to kick.