Expat Texan

Hiding on a small island off of the Yucatan peninsula named Isla Holbox.  It is quiet, secluded, and meant to be a real private getaway.  Unfortunately, much of the island was destroyed by hurricane Wilma 3 years ago - and many of the natives have left, unable/unwilling to rebuld.  You see empty lots everywhere you go - with names staked out to identify the previous owners.  Se vende signs are everywhere.  We are staying in a small hotel call Casa Sandra - very nice and romantic - it’s our 20th wedding anniversary, and we wanted to be away from the frantic pace that defines our lives most of the time.

Tarpon, tequila, and seclusion - a perfect trifecta.  I’ll be back - sometime, I suppose.

Professional victim wants to kick John Wheelers ass for being so racially insensitive.

I guess even politically correct idiocy comes in a Texas size, as well.

I have a few questions I would like to ask him about Saddam and yellowcake uranium.

The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program - a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium - reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.

While we’re asking Joe questions, we might have a few for Valerie as well.

A use for a Che t-shirt other than as a pitiable prop used by upper middle-class white boys wanting to appear cool and revolutionary while desperately trying to get laid.

Jealous?  Want your own Che stuff?  Well, visit Che-Mart, estupido!  Where many, many fine apparels of great tastiness to clueless gringos can be found.

And of course, the one item most recommended by the Expat Texan team of elite shopping advisors:

Let’s see.  Canadian female blogger finds a hateful Sikh Facebook site directed towards a CBC commentator, who’s crime is to do a report on Sikh extremism.  Sikh’s get upset at being exposed, and threaten said blogger, accusing her of fomenting hatred (yes, I know - irony is apparently not a Sikh strongpoint)   Juvenile veiled threats (and perhaps some not so veiled) follow in comments.  Brave Sikh’s avenge their honor by making anonymous threats on the internet.  Hooray!  Manly celebrations and chest thumpigs cut short when their moms call them to dinner.

Facts?  We don’t need no stinking facts.

Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, lamenting the decision overturning his city’s handgun ban, said Thursday, “More handguns in the District of Columbia will only lead to more handgun violence.” That’s a dangerous statement for a politician to make–an empirical claim that can be judged against empirical data.

I emailed Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck, one of the nation’s leading gun scholars, to ask if the proposition Fenty set out is true. Surprise: It’s not.

This, of course, is not news to anyone who has actually followed the debate on gun control policy and the effect those policies have in the real world.  Look at the UK, look at Washington, DC - and then look at right to carry states (pay special attention to the Florida statistics).  Those data will show you all you need to know - that people tend to be a lot more polite and respectful of your property/person when they think there’s a chance that you may introduce a gun into the equation.  What possible sense does it make to only allow criminals to be armed?

Kleck says his latest research indicates that when gun ownership rises among noncriminals, homicide rates decline.

In short: Well, Duh.

Look at total violent crimes per 100,000 inhabitants. Their rate is now about twice as high in Canada as in the U. S. The violent crime rate has dropped markedly in the U.S. since the early 1990s, but has remained basically stable here.

…

In the U. K., after the introduction of tougher gun control and a prohibition of handguns in 1997, as well as the general repression of self-defence (victims who defend themselves against violent criminals often get more severe sentences than their aggressors), violent crimes have shot up. To control exploding crime, the British government is resorting to police-state surveillance and control measures, an astounding development in the cradle of Western liberty, and the cradle of our traditional right to keep and bear arms.

Massive social-science research shows the ineffectiveness of gun control in reducing crime. It is a source of continuous amazement that gun control advocates ignore the results of criminological, historical and econometric studies by reputed scholars like (among others) John Lott, Bill Landes, Gary Kleck, James Wright, Peter Rossi, Taylor Buckner, David Kopel, Don Kates, Gary Mauser, Colin Greenwood, and Joyce Malcolm. Why?

In January 2002, two armed students of Appalachian Law School, in Virginia, stopped a mass killing in progress at the university by arresting the killer. Why don’t gun-control activists wonder why there have been no mass killings at the University of Utah, where students are allowed to carry guns? Could it be that madmen look for places where they can do more damage without being interrupted?

And let’s not even get started on that whole registry issue, m’kay?

Well, this should make Germans feel a whole lot better about that old “integration thing”.

A study on Islamic preachers in Germany has found that most imams are unable to help Muslim immigrants integrate into mainstream German society because they are insufficiently prepared for their stay in Germany.

According to the study “Imams in Germany,” up to 20 percent of preachers belong to the more conservative, fundamentalist strand of Islam. The study also discovered that only one fifth of imam’s possess academic qualifications.

I had an interesting little discussion at a blog called PM’s World following a post by the blog owner about the training (or lack thereof) of many imams.  This quickly morphed into a debate about “free speech”, with some arguing that a “right” not to be offended trumped freedom of speech.  The debate was a good one - with no name calling or unwarrented aggressiveness involved.  I was disturbed by the eagerness to trample my rights to keep from offending a protected group, but that was really only expressed by one commentor.

Why can’t we protect ourselves?

Toronto’s ban is irrational as it fails to tackle urban gun crime. Canada should look to the United Kingdom and elsewhere to see that firearm control bears no relation to gun crime prevention. Our own gun registry has done nothing to stop gun crime

I’m hunting wabbits gophers pocket gophers.  More correctly, Richardson’s ground squirrels.  I’ve tried non-lethal ways to get rid of them - to no avail.  So, it’s trapping time.

First, you gotta have something to probe with.  You move back and forth between the mounds, poking the ground, until you feel a sudden “drop” when you poke the tunnel.  Then you use a spade/trowel to excavate down to the tunnel and clear the debris as best as possible.

You have to clear enough to place 2 traps - 1 facing each direction, into the tunnel system.   You want to wear gloves to keep from leaving too much human scent around.

These are called black hole traps.  The are spring loaded with a wire that snaps up with a lot of force when triggered.  These traps are shown in place in the tunnel system, ready to be covered up.

The final step is to cover up the excavation - you can’t have any extraneous light entering into the burrow, or the mole gopher won’t enter.  One of these little buggers can destroy up to 10 square meters of lawn/flowebed/garden.  They eat grubs and earthworms - but do an incredible amount of damage in the process.  I’m not a fan of poisons - they enter the foodchain and can kill birds, coyotes, even pet dogs if they find the dead squirrel.  There are other methods that can have some less than desireable side effects as well.

Irony so deep you can drown in it.

Mike Klonsky, the Maoist Hardliner, Obama supporter and former best friend of the Weatherman terrorist group founders William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, received a $175,000 grant from the William Ayers/Barack Obama-led Annenberg Challenge to run the Small Schools Workshop.

Klonsky belonged to the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and was best friends with William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn who later became famous for their acts of terrorism when the SDS broke up and the Weathermen terror group was formed.

Between 1979 and 1981, Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) (CPML) chairman and Obama supporter Mike Klonsky was repeatedly feted with state-dinner-level visits to Beijing.

Yesterday, Klonsky was posting a blog on the Obama website:

But, that was yesterday.

Today his blog was removed from the Obama website.
Comrade Klonsky is no longer with us.

“Uncle Joe”, a hero of Klonsky’s, airbrushed millions of people.  And by airbrushed I mean killed - but I digress.  Now he’s been quietly removed from the Obama website, as Barack desperately tries to hide any signs of his hard leftist leanings.

The official theme song for the Obama campaign should be “Another One Bites The Dust”.