The U.S. Constitution: Not Valid in California

Gavin Newsome, (the San Francisco mayor who issued marriage licenses to homosexual couples in defiance of California law) is proposing more "common sense" gun control. Among other provisions of the proposed law it would "...require all gun owners to store their guns disabled with a trigger lock or placed in a locked-box."

District Attorney Kamala Harris of the City and County of San Francisco, Kalifornia said: "It’s a reality that a lot of weapons and guns that we find in connection with a homicide are stolen."

The idea, she contends, is to remind legal gun owners how to behave.

"Just because you legally possess a gun in the sanctity [sic] of your locked home doesn't mean that we're not going to walk into that home and check to see if you're being responsible and safe in the way that you conduct your affairs,"

"It appears that little details such as search warramts, probable cause, you know, all that Bill of Rights stuff, doesn't apply in Gomorrah by the Bay."

To observe the "responsible and safe" way many San Franciscans conduct their affairs one only needs to take a walking tour of the Castro or Tenderloin districts of that city; that is, if you dare.

h/t: Clayton Cramer

Boycott CITGO!

The time has come for those concerned with U.S. national interest to reject the Citgo petroleum marketing corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Venezuelan Hugo Chavez government which has adopted an anti U.S. policy. The parent company PDVSA has been purged of all opponents to the Chavista regime and is now staffed with Chavez political supporters. The Chavez government continues its policy of communizing the Venezuelan economy by seizing private property in Venezuela and suppressing dissident opinion by closing down private and opposition media. As of Sunday 27 May 2007 the independent TV station in Caracas RCTV will be silenced for failure to toe the Chavista political line.
During the period 1985 1986 when ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ was cruising in Venezuela the exchange rate was US $1.00/21.00 Bolivares. The present official rate is US $1.00/2150.00Bs with the black market rate as high as US $1.00/6000Bs. The current annual inflation rate in Venezuela exceeds 20%. (About equal to the Carter years in the U.S.)
Due to Chavez' price controls many items have disappeared from Venezuelan grocery shelves including sugar and cooking oil which are staples of Venezuela's poor. How long before toilet paper is a luxury item restricted to government appartchiks as in Cuba?

Maria O'Grady writes:

"Here's how Chavez economics "works." As petro-dollars pour into state coffers, the government takes them to the central bank to get new bolivars printed, which are then pumped into the economy through government spending. Mr. Chavez has also been regularly increasing wages. The result is a consumption boom. Under free prices, too many bolivars chasing too few goods would produce inflation that would show up at the supermarket checkout counter. But price controls make that impossible. Instead, serious shortages are emerging.

Producers have no incentive to bring goods to market if they are forced to sell them at unprofitable prices. Ranchers hold back their animals from slaughter, fisherman don't cast their nets, food processors don't invest in equipment and farmers don't plant. Those who do produce find it makes more sense to take their goods across the border to Colombia or to seek out unregulated (black) markets.

Importers also have little incentive to work these days even though the country needs food from abroad. Some things like wheat are not grown in Venezuela. Other products like milk, sugar and potatoes are imported to supplement local supplies. But the Chávez government has made it difficult to buy a dollar at the official exchange rate of 2,150 bolivars and if an importer has to buy dollars at the market rate of 4,000 bolivars it is impossible to make a profit under price controls. Even imports not subject to price controls can be difficult to find since import permits and licenses, as well as dollars, are hard to come by.

This is putting a crimp in more than just the food supply. According to local press reports, some 40% of the country's air fleet has been affected by delays in getting spare parts and the automotive industry's supply chain is hampered by a lack of access to dollars. Earlier this year hospitals began complaining that the servicing of medical equipment has been delayed because spare parts are not available. Hospitals are also reporting shortages of medicines for diabetics, antibiotics and hypertension drugs. Price controls on construction materials have damaged the reliability of supply.

The Venezuelan media is reporting that Mercal supplies are turning up for sale just across the Colombian border, where market prices prevail.

This is one of the methods of how the Chavista bureaucrats are financing their purchases of new Beemers and Mercedes Benz sports cars whose sales have gone through the roof during the last 4 years.

Half Century of "Progress"

The following is a synopsis of the "progress" our society has made over the past 50 years. It was posted on Gates of Vienna by Baron Bodissey who attempted to determine its origin unsuccessfully. The interesting part is that it is TRUE.

See what fifty years will do:

Scenario: Jack pulls into school parking lot with rifle in gun rack.

1956 Vice Principal comes over, takes a look at Jack’s rifle, goes to his car and gets his to show Jack.

2006 School goes into lockdown, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.

Scenario: Johnny and Mark get into a fist fight after school.

1956 Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up best friends. Nobody goes to jail, nobody arrested, nobody expelled.

2006 Police called, SWAT team arrives, arrests Johnny and Mark. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Johnny started it.

Scenario: Jason won’t be still in class, disrupts other students.

1956 Jason sent to office and given a good paddling by Principal. Sits still in class.

2006 Jason given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie. School gets extra money from state because Jason has a disability.

Scenario: Billy breaks a window in his father’s car and his Dad gives him a whipping.

1956 Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college, and becomes a successful businessman.

2006 Billy’s Dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy removed to foster care and joins a gang. Billy’s sister is told by state psychologist that she remembers being abused herself and their Dad goes to prison. Billy’s mom has affair with psychologist.

Scenario: Mark gets a headache and takes some headache medicine to school.

1956 Mark shares headache medicine with Principal out on the smoking dock.

2006 Police called, Mark expelled from school for drug violations. Car searched for drugs and weapons.

Scenario: Pedro fails high school English.

1956 Pedro goes to summer school, passes English, goes to college.

2006 Pedro’s cause is taken up by state Democratic party. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist. ACLU files class action lawsuit against state school system and Pedro’s English teacher. English banned from core curriculum. Pedro given diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he can’t speak English.

Scenario: Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from the 4th of July, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle, blows up a red ant bed.

1956 Ants die.

2006 BATF, Homeland Security, FBI called. Johnny charged with domestic terrorism, FBI investigates parents, siblings removed from home, computers confiscated, Johnny’s Dad goes on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.

Think about it. Your humble blogger ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ has lived to witness the process.

The Unpleasant Dilemma

Given that the current situations on the ground in both Afghanistan and Iraq are probably better than what we are treated to in the MSM they are nevertheless unsatisfactory by most criteria. The results of the policies regarding establishing so called "democracies" on conquered enemies are historically a mixed bag at best. The Treaty of Versailles must be judged a failure. The establishment of a gaggle of pip-squeak nations from the remnants of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was a recipe for the tragedy of WW II wherein an aggrieved nation succumbed to a psychotic leadership that proceeded to wreak havoc on Europe. Likewise the Franco British arbitrary eking out of non viable nation states in the middle East from the Ottoman Empire has contributed substantially to the current unpleasantness. The plus side of the ledger must be considered as well. Japan and Germany come to mind and they both required long term efforts for which the U.S appears to have lost patience.

Conversely, the policy of salutary neglect toward conquered peoples pursued by the ancient Assyrians and Mongols often resulted in their need to revisit the errant societies to rebuild the heaps of severed heads previously left as a warning against failure to remit the necessary tribute.

Unfortunately the U.S. like ancient Rome finds itself to be an unintended Imperial power not by intent but by the adoption of local and regional entangling alliances and treaties as well as their concomitant economic and security commitments.
As has been the situation with most such empires, the power wielded by the "leadership" is so immense that partisans will inevitably emerge which have a vested interest in the failure of their domestic opponents. The difference now being the substitution of public relations campaigns for the dagger and sword. We are thus witnessing the emergence of a major political party that has for all intents and purposes adopted a policy of national defeat for the sole reason of assuming the reigns of power.

All retrospective vision is at least 20/20 with miss steps easily identified. For that reason the Assyrian and Mongol models for dealing with the present situation are looking more and more inviting although politically incorrect .

THE PHONY APOCALYPSE

During the 1950s and 60s many youngsters of an impressionable age began exhibiting signs of "psychological" trauma due to being fed a regular diet of fear of thermonuclear warfare. These fears were fed mostly by the government schools through audio visual presentations and the weekly obligatory "drills" training them in the practice of "duck and cover" and evacuation to the nearest fallout shelter. The new fear being spoon fed to the younger generation by the "educational" system is the gospel as preached by the global warmistas.

“For many children and young adults, global warming is the atomic bomb of today…Parents say they're searching for ‘productive’ outlets for their 8-year-olds' obsessions with dying polar bears. Teachers say enrollment in high school and college environmental studies classes is doubling year after year. And psychologists say they're seeing an increasing number of young patients preoccupied by a climactic Armageddon.”

Since those earlier days we have continued to experience a steady increase in the intrusion by the various levels of government into every facet of our lives, from the regulation of the amount of water used for flushing toilets to the penalties for removing mattress labels. No activity has escaped the scrutiny and regulation by our so called "public servants". Additionally, the assertion that our leaders must be exempted from these onerous ukases is almost universally posited on the assumption that their efforts on our behalf must not be hampered. Hence Al Gore shuttles to and from global warmista presentations and his hideously pollution generating residence in a pollution-spewing private aircraft while crusading for our retrogression to an 18th century economy. All this is to be excused by the purchase of "carbon offsets" (warmista indulgences) from a corporation in which he is a major shareholder.

Since the warmista jihad cannot prevail on the basis of rational and logical debate, the opposing skeptics must be either ignored or silenced by threats and intimidation. The need to silence the skeptics recently became more urgent subsequent to a debate sponsored by the New York debating society Intelligence Squared

On the alarmist side of the debate were the Union of Concerned Scientists Brenda Ekwurzel, NASA climate modeler Gavin Schmidt and University of California oceanographer Richard C. J. Somerville [all dependent on government grants].

The skeptical view of global warming alarmism was presented by Massachusetts Institute of Technology meteorologist Richard S. Lindzen, University of London bio-geographer Philip Stott, and “State of Fear” author Michael Crichton, who is also a Harvard-trained physician and an instructor at Cambridge University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

A pre-debate poll indicated that, by 2-to-1 (57 percent to 29 percent, with 14 percent undecided), the audience believed that manmade global warming was a crisis. But in the post-debate poll, the audience reversed its pre-debate views — the ranks of the skeptics swelled to 46 percent, the believers plummeted to 42 percent and the undecided declined slightly to 12 percent.

The solutions inevitably touted by this new religious sect invariably involve additional taxes and additional governmental regulations. Qui bono? Duh!

Interesting Times. Sarkozy Derangement Syndrome

The "celebrations" across the nation continue subsequent to the victory of Sarkozy in yesterday's French presidential election. Le Figaro reports that only 100 vehicles were torched and a mere dozen police injured. It sounds as if the leftists who are unhappy with the outcome have yet to get up to speed. Fear not! Things could get interesting during the next few weeks in that bastion of western democracy.
The big questions in ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ's mind are: Is this backlash the triggering event in a civil war? Where will the refugees flee to? (St. Barthélemy and St. Martin have already absorbed large numbers of those Frenchmen who have had the means to flee) Guadeloupe and Martinique are likely destinations. Stay tuned to determine if Sarkozy receives the G.W. Bush treatment.

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

"Sustainability" In The Land of Oz

Just when one thinks that the United Nations has lost all reason and credibility and will not be able able to sink further we learn of new depths to be plumbed subsequent to the nations of Cuba and Libya having chaired the Commission on Human Rights. The country of Zimbabwe will presently chair the UN Commission on Sustainable Development. This is the nation formerly known as Rhodesia which until 1980 enjoyed the highest standard of living in Africa. ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ supposes that in UN-speak the shrinkage of a nation's economy by 4.4% for last year and an inflation rate of over 2000% per annum (You sell 1 US Dollar for 258.840 Zimbabwe Dollars) the UN would consider it to be "sustainable". Even writers for the leftist publication New Republic find the situation "Kafkaesque."
The Zimbabwe dollar, denoted by ZWD or Z$, is the legal tender currency of Zimbabwe. The currency was formerly known as the Rhodesian dollar (R$), which was established in 1970 following the replacement of the Pound. At the time of Zimbabwe's independence in 1980, the Zimbabwe dollar was worth approximately the same amount as the Pound Sterling.

In Zimbabwe for the last 20 years under the dictatorship of Robert Mugabe, all indexes of economic well-being, let alone political freedom, have plummeted. Life expectancy at birth for males has dramatically declined from 60 to 37 since 1990 (for women it is even lower), making it the lowest in the world. The infant mortality rate has climbed from 53 to 81 deaths per 1000 live births in the same period. Five and a half million Zimbabweans currently live with HIV. Inflation has soared; trade unions are repressed; opponents are tortured.

Continuing with this bizarre logic we are to accept the findings of another UN commission (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) that global warming is caused by human economic activity and sign on to the Kyoto Treaty to prevent the UN headquarters building at Turtle Bay from being submerged. Why not move the headquarters to Harare to avoid the danger?

The Whites of Their Eyes

The Norwegian Blogger Fjordman outlines how the coming European civil war will unfold. I am substituting America for Britain in this quote but this is how ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ believes it will transpire:

1. The U.S. government continues its suicidal policy of promoting Multiculturalism and cracking down on American “racists”. (a federal "hate crime" law has recently passed the House)
2. A precipitating incident by an immigrant [or Islamist] group of immigrants sparks violence, with mobs of angry Americans taking the law into their own hands. ( May day "protest" as in Los Angeles)
3. The riot police and possibly military troops are summoned by the government to quell the “racist hooligans.”
4. At this point a true civil war has begun, with the Government and civil authorities, in tacit alliance with the Islamists, [or illegal immigrants] fighting native Americans.
5. Elements of the police and the military are reluctant to fight against their own countrymen — with whom they are in broad agreement — and they defect to the “racist” side of the conflict.
6. Next step…? Perhaps a full civil war?

Here in the U.S. the scenario will play out somewhat differently time wise, as a prerequisite to the above will require the disarming of the populace. The de facto abrogation of the 2nd Amendment has already occurred.

Fjordman believes that the situation in Sweden has already passed the tipping point of self disintegration as a result of the welfare state, multiculturalism and denial which will in fact cause its implosion within the next decade. Fjordman's prognosis for Sweden is not optimistic: “Sweden as we know it now will cease to exist. It’s hard to say what will take its place. It’s not a pleasant thing to contemplate.”
ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ would advise those concerned with liberty in the western hemisphere to perhaps bury their powder supplies in a dry place.

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ