While Doug Powers at Michelle Malkin’s blog reported on this earlier today, I heard about this last night from my twin brother. It seemed almost unreal that Leslie Nielsen could be gone. Everyone dies but this was a man who I assumed would be around much longer. He made us all laugh for decades with movies like Airplane! and The Naked Gun series, and it seemed as if as long as there was comedy, there would be Nielsen. It does feel, at least to me, that comedy, if not laughter itself, died yesterday.
While he became a Hollywood comedy sensation, Canadians never forgot that he was one of us. Born on February 11, 1926 in Regina, Saskatchewan, he came from the humblest of Canadian beginnings. He was not only a source of pride for Canadians, but an inspiration for actors on this side of the border. While Canada isn’t a stranger to comedians, many of whom were Second City Television alumni like John Candy and Eugene Levy, Nielsen set himself apart with his unique style of comedy, highlighted by his deadpan delivery which film critic Roger Ebert said made him “the Olivier of spoofs.” He didn’t have to resort to childishness or offensive gags to make us laugh. With his enormous talent, it is no surprise that Nielsen is both a member of the Hollywood and Canada’s Walk of Fame. Suffice to say, he was one of the brightest of our shining stars.
Comedy will go on, but I doubt we will ever see someone like Leslie Nielsen again. He was the comedic equivalent to Buddy Holly,Ritchie Valens, and J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, and his death ends an era. While many have tried to copy them, there will never be another comedy like Airplane! or The Naked Gun series. Nielsen brought a certain charm to the movies he starred in and no amount of gratuitous humour can replace, let alone replicate it. Nielsen’s death is a great loss, and he will be greatly missed… And I am serious, and don’t call me Shirley…
…”So as it well appeared that famine must still ensue the next year also, if not some way prevented,” wrote Gov. William Bradford in his diary. The colonists, he said, “began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length after much debate of things, (I) (with the advice of the chiefest among them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land.”
In other words, the people of Plymouth moved from socialism to private farming. The results were dramatic…
Even after being taught by the Native Americans how to survive in this new land, pilgrims were still starving because of the communal nature of the Plymouth colony. Why should young men work hard for someone else and not themselves? Why should those who were able-bodied not be able to benefit fairly from their own work? It was because of the privatization of the land and the incentives the pilgrims now had to work hard that there was not only a large harvest, but the first Thanksgiving that was celebrated in 1623.
It doesn’t surprise me that the same history teachers who would teach their students to hate Thanksgiving would also omit the important economic lessons of the occasion. Long before Marxism and communes, the Plymouth Pilgrims found that such socialist policies did not work. Instead of accepting this lesson, they would prefer to erase it from history and pervert the meaning of this holiday to push their own political and social agenda.
Happy Thanksgiving to my American readership. Be thankful for the great food and you have and the company you share it with, but also the fact that more and more people are learning the lessons of the Plymouth Colony and are apply them to the hardships we face today.
While pies have been allowed, we don’t know whether or not a scoop of ice cream with with it is, or whether Americans will be permitted to have extra helpings. If the White House Thanksgiving menu is shows anything, it’s that Michelle Obama has no problem eating what she likes while dictating to everyone else what they are allow to have on their plates… Hypocrite…
…This might be a good time to remind everyone that approximately 233 people re-boarded that plane with assault rifles, pistols, and machine guns–but nothing that could have been used as a weapon.
The second story comes from Gateway Pundit. A CBS 2 news report from July 2008 concerning some of the earlier TSA security procedures. This is why I don’t refer to these intrusive screenings and “new” since they really aren’t.
Suffice to say, this kind of nonsense will continue until those in charge surrender political correctness for common sense. We know who we are looking for and it is clear by these stories that the TSA will treat everyone but Muslim fundamentalists like terrorists. The upsetting thing about all this is that it is most likely just the “tip of the iceberg”… Pathetic…
Hot Air’s Allahpundit is also reporting on this, noting that while Clinton does have a chuckle about these pat-downs, she does defend the use of such intrusive searches. This does raise a question though; If it isn’t something she would submit to, why should anyone else? Mind-boggling…
If you haven’t already heard, Ahmed Ghailani, accused of plotting with an al-Qaeda cell to kill US citizens in the attacks on the embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, which killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, was acquitted on all but one of the charges yesterday by a civilian court in New York. This from The Telegraph’s Jon Swaine.
In a blow to the Obama administration, Ahmed Ghailani, a 36-year-old Tanzanian, was on Wednesday night cleared by a jury in New York of 276 counts of murder and attempted murder and five counts of conspiracy.
He was convicted of just one charge of conspiring to damage or destroy American property with an explosive device, but still faces at least 20 years in prison.
Ghailani had been accused of plotting with an al-Qaeda cell to kill US citizens in the attacks on the embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, which killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.
A spokesman said the Department of Justice was “pleased that Ahmed Ghailani now faces a minimum of 20 years in prison and a potential life sentence for his role in the embassy bombings.”
However the verdict was viewed as a setback to the plan by Barack Obama, the US President, to try alleged terrorists, including the self-proclaimed ringleader of the 9/11 attacks, in civilian courts…
While his lawyer, Peter Quijano, might view this as a legal triumph, many Americans, especially the victims’ families, view this as an example of how inadequate civilian courts are to try terrorists. This also appears not be the verdict of a “courageous jury,” but one deadlocked because of a single holdout who refused to follow the rest of the jury and convict Ghailani on all charges. This from talk radio host and Townhall.com columnist Hugh Hewitt.
An email from an individual very experienced in federal criminal proceedings comments:
This smells like a compromise verdict to me. On Monday you had the report that a juror asked to be excused, claiming she was the lone holdout and she feared continuing verbal assaults on her by the other jurors for refusing to agree with them.
I suspect the 11 jurors wanted to convict on all counts, and this one juror refused.
In order to reach a verdict, the 11 jurors agreed to join her in acquitting him on all counts but one, in exchange for her agreeing to convict him on the one count — which sounds the least serious based on its description in the indictment.
But, the potential sentence for that count is a minimum of 20 years and a maximum of life. Its up to the district judge to determine how much time he will give him, and the judge can consider all the evidence at trial, including the evidence on the acquitted counts.
To take those counts into consideration in determining what sentence to impose, the judge is only required to find by a preponderance of evidence that the defendant was involved in the criminal conduct for which he was acquitted. He’s not being punished for the acquitted conduct, rather, that conduct is to inform the judge about the nature of the defendant’s character.
I expect the judge will give him life when all is said and done.
It doesn’t surprise me that one juror, unable to let go social and political biases, couldn’t vote to convict this terrorist, despite the overwhelming evidence against him. This verdict does seem more symbolic then anything else as the one charge that Ghailani was found guilty on could put him away for the rest of his life. Charles Krauthammer pointed this out last night on Fox News with Bret Baier.
Seeing that the judge had to explain what was meant by being involved in a conspiracy, it is clear that this jury, or at least this single juror, wasn’t capable of realizing the implication of a conviction on this charge alone. As Krauthammer pointed out, if Ghailani’s defense is that he didn’t know he was involved, and that is found to be false, how could you then find him not guilty of being part of the conspiracy he was part of? This highlights one of the many problems with civilian courts for trying terrorists.
This isn’t simply a blow to Barack Obama and Eric Holder’s desire to try other terrorists in civilian courts, but it is a blow to the credibility of both men. As Hot Air’s Allahpundit points out, this fiasco will most likely put an end to this push for further civilian trials. Not only were there problems bringing certain evidence to trial, which is partly to blame for this fiasco, but then you have political fallout if a high-ranking al-Qaeda member like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) is brought to trial and found not guilty because of a small technicality or, as it seems in this case, a single juror unwilling to bring themselves to vote for a conviction. Return to what Krauthammer said last night of Fox News, this verdict demonstrates the incompetence of the Obama administration which decided that civilian trials would be preferable to trying these terrorists in military courts. While there are those in this administration and the media which will either tout this verdict as a success or blame former President George W. Bush for its failure, as Doug Powers pointed out, this trial and the resulting fiasco could have been avoided.
It is clear now that this course of action was a failure, and while this will most likely prevent other civilian trials, it demonstrates that there is a problem at the Department of Justice (DOJ) with Eric Holder. Aside from Hugh Hewitt, many others, including Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey, are saying that it is time for him to step down. It is his incompetence, his and Obama’s desire to grant this terrorist a civilian trial, which has created this fiasco. As Morrissey points out, at the least, Ghailani will be serving twenty years, minus time already served, for the murder of over two hundred people which he himself confessed to. The Obama administration cannot allow this verdict to stand without taking a serious political damage, so it is either has to throw out the conviction and hold Ghailani indefinitely, which they are expected to do with KSM, or hold him and let this next administration make the decision. Either way, Holder’s incompetence on this will most likely cost him his position at the DOJ.
To think that it took one juror to do what no amount of conservative bloggers could, halt Barack Obama’s agenda and bring down Eric Holder. This decision would almost be something to celebrate if not for the fact that Ahmed Ghailani, a man responsible for the deaths of over two hundred people, was acquitted of most of the charges against him.
UPDATE:Alex Fitzsimmons at NewsBusters.org is reporting on Cenk Ugyur’s opinion on the Ahmed Ghailani verdict. While anchoring for MSNBC today, the host of ‘The Young Turks’ said that “our justice system worked” because “We just gave this guy, who we believe helped to kill 224 people, a fair trial.” He then goes on to cite the Nuremberg Trials, a series of military tribunals as an example of “fair” civilian trials. Aside from being historically ignorant, Uygur demonstrated, as Fitzsimmons stated, his warped view of reality. I doubt Sue Bartley, who’s husband and son were killed in the 1998 United States embassy bombing in Kenya, shares his belief that Ghailani’s verdict is something to be celebrated.
Bob highlights the key points raised by those who defend these full-body scanners. With the threat of terrorism to airline travel, all measures must be taken to prevent another attack. Also, since access to airline travel is not a guaranteed right but a business transaction, those who wish to travel by plane need to undergo these screenings. Both are fair points, but both are moot.
The two most recent terrorist attacks, the failed Time Square Bomber Faisal Shahzad and the failed “Underwear Bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, are examples of the failure of these Transport Security Administration (TSA) security measures. As CBS’ Armen Keteyian reported in May, Shahzad, at the time a man wanted in connection to the failed bomb plot, had slipped past specially trained “behaviour detection” agents. Even with his name on a watch list, it was only right before take-off that law enforcement boarded the plane and arrested Shahzad. The same goes for Abdulmutallab, who had boarded a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan after his own father, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab warned authorities of his son’s radicalism. If not for his own incompetence and the heroic actions of Jasper Schuringa, Abdulmutallab would have succeeded in killing all 290 people aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253. Clearly, contrary to early claims by Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, the system didn’t work. It failed miserably on both occasions.
So what is the use of this enormous and intrusive security system if it can’t prevent known terrorists from getting past security and boarding planes? It is to give the impression that the TSA is doing its job. Instead of taking necessary steps to combat terrorism at airports, like the security procedures El Al Israel Airlines employs to combat terrorism, all we are seeing is token gestures from an agency which obviously doesn’t know what it is doing. Yesterday, John Pistole, Administrator of the TSA, told Congress that the pat-downs would have caught Abdulmutallab, but that is irrelevant. Only passengers who forgo the full-body scan would receive a pat-down, and those machines, as this video demonstrates, aren’t reliable for detecting bomb components. (Hat-tip to Cory Doctorow at boingboing)
If the federal government can’t be trusted to ensure the privacy of airline passengers, why should they be trusted to safeguard airports? This issue isn’t preventing further attacks. Americans aren’t complaining about added security measures. The problem is how effective are these measures at preventing terrorist attacks and whether or not such violations of an individuals privacy are worth it. Since the TSA to failed prevent both Shahzad and Abdulmutallab from boarding planes, it is clear that the system isn’t worth such a sacrifice.
Many Americans feel that these security measures have crossed the line, and I am inclined to agree with them. While those like Bob stress the importance of being vigilant, these TSA security measures are absurd. No matter what John Pistole, the Administrator of the TSA says, it is clear that these security measures aren’t working. They have already failed to prevent Faisal Shahzad and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from bordering international flights and the only thing they do seem capable of doing is infuriating the majority of airline passengers who aren’t terrorists.
UPDATE:The Right Scoop has an article up on Hot Air discussing remarks airline pilot Michael Roberts made on Sean Hannity’s show. While I do believe this screening has gone too far, this discussion point about how it would be easy for a pilot to bring down an airplane is misguided. Though a slightly different scenario, FedEx Flight 705, where Auburn Calloway a disgruntled employee who attempted to hijack and crash the plane, demonstrates why some kind of screening of crew is necessary. A single pilot couldn’t crash the plane himself without some way to subdue everyone else in the cockpit. While Calloway did smuggle weapons aboard for this task, he was overpowered. Does that mean I support the TSA in checking the genitals of pilots? Of course not. As I explained in this post, these security procedures are far too intrusive and aren’t that effective. This doesn’t mean, however, that pilots, as well as other crew members, shouldn’t have to go through the same screening as passengers before boarding a plane as they could pose the same threat, if not a greater one, to the lives of all those aboard.
