I actually boycotted both his elections, but saw the effect first hand. I lived in South Bronx 138/Brook was shooting everynight, 1991 NYT had map of shootings in city, my corner & bushwick the worst in US My corner highest heroin trade in western hemisphere. See here for a history of my life of crime:
Brutality
Protection
Justice

I hated Giulani from his stint enforcing RICO under Reagan, but wouldn't ming him nuking a few mullahs, and he would do it with the slightest provacation.

Giuliani & Rice in 2008

Ted, we are on the same page here, so I guess I must be a fascist, too.

I remember the NYC of David Dinkins (my college days) when it wasn't safe for me to walk through Grand Central without being accosted by bums, and when I had to worry about circumventing street riots to get to my finals. When I compare that to the NYC of a decade later, when I could sip cocktails at Metrazur (right in the station), the effects of Giuliani cannot be ignored.

Jennifer

-- Food Philosophy. Sensuality. Sass.

But found the generally miraculous effects of Giuliani's mayordom incontrovertible. His penchant for gun control was disconcerting (not that I'd register anyway) and turning a blind eye to the evil acts of certain cops was tyrannical and made me sick to the stomach with rage on occasion. But I find no better candidate than him for president, and hope to be able to support his social agenda enough to finally vote for a winning presidential candidate. For the reason that I detested him as mayor I would love him as commander in chief. I must be a fascist.

Ted

Ross, I second that.

On a separate note, Rudy Giuliani has begun exploring a 2008 run for president. Yes, there is bad with the good, but a whole *lot* of good to be had with him in office. He certainly would be a damn sight better than the present Monkey-in-Chief -- and you can bet your ass he would cower to no terrorist country or organization.

Jennifer

-- Food Philosophy. Sensuality. Sass.

Thank you, as always, for being a voice of reason.

The argument against state-issued ID cards is *not* about safeguards or efficacy, it's about my right to be *left alone* to live my life as I see fit and not by another's leave!

For the state to require me to *prove* who I am, at the whim of an official, is a violation of my *privacy*, the recognition & protection of which is the mark of a *civilised* society.

Fair call on the security of the cards. At present it is like building a sand castle on sand. I was being general with identity "cards", as a form of identification security. I envisage, being able to check directly onto an aircraft someday, by having a sort of barcode/chip/retina. I do not like to not queue for anything and I see great potential in waking through a scanner type situation. In places where there are masses of people, I do not mind being watched. However, in a remote place my feelings would be very different.

I do understand your point about being watched etc, but I there are many people in this world that I would want to be watched.

At present I concede that there are not levels of security measures that can guarantee 100% identity.

for stating what needed to be stated. We already have state issued ID cards in the US (drivers licenses, social security cards) - I don't see what would be different about national cards, other than the database would be Federal.

Besides, the ID card just becomes another thing that can be forged, faked, or borrowed by clever criminals and terrorists. The net effect would be yet another state invasion of liberty.

Sandi: "I'd pick the one with the identity cards, each and every time."

Fine, you do that. But make damned sure that it's a card issued by an airport or an airline that is privately owned and administered.

But most importantly, don't require *me* to carry a card that makes it easier for the state to track *my* movements.

ID cards are the the most fundamental violation of the right to privacy encompassed in the right to be protected from unwarranted searches and the right to remain silent, that is, the right to remain innocent until *proven* otherwise.

Leave private organisations alone to protect themselves and their customers and you'll have a much safer society than if you give away your last vestiges of privacy to the state.

For example. Given a choice of flights to take. Which would you prefer. To go on an aircraft that has all passengers who have been investigated through the process of having identity cards or go on one that isn't?

I'd pick the one with the identity cards, each and every time.

My identity is tremendously important to me. I want to protect it.
I have nothing to hide.

"The British establishment is trying to frighten the British population into accepting identity cards."

David Cameron says in his article that he is against ID cards and that they will be ineffective. It is a fixed Tory policy to abolish any ID cards if elected into Government! At least this is a policy to support!

The British establishment is trying to frighten the British population into accepting identity cards.

Remember when the tanks rolled into Heathrow - no threat. Hundreds of policemen were mobilised in the East End to find a non-existent dirty bomb. The suspects have been acquitted. It is all part of a plan, built on the back of 7/7, to justify the Surveillance State.

David Cameron, an Old Etonian and Oxbridge graduate, is epitome of the establishment - elitist and paternalistic with an authoritarian streak. The last thing the establishment wants is radical, free market Conservative Prime Minister.

Yes Marcus, these very worrying statistics, almost as worrying as Gordon Brown being Minister of Terrorism. But he has terrorised Blair rather well over the past few years, he should be a dab hand at the job.

On a more serious note, what good would it be to add another bureaucrat to the loop, apart from the fact that they can say, they are taking the problem seriously.

raises my spirits, Marcus. But the quotes you post remind me of John Kerry's statement to the effect that "American soldiers should not be going into Iraqi homes at night and terrorizing women and children...The Iraqis should be doing that themselves."

...the new Churchills of the UK.

"The debate on Britain’s security was ignited when Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the head of MI5, disclosed last week that the security service was investigating
30 active plots in Britain and had identified 200 terrorist networks involving at least 1,600 people.

Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, confirmed the threat in a speech yesterday, citing evidence that up to 120,000 British Muslims tacitly support terrorist activity."

Brown: "I'll be terror overlord."

Cameron: "We need a minister for terror."

Bush may appoint himself defender of the faith, and envassal the Commonwealth States. Tee hee. In which case, it should be a new Golden Age of Comedy for mankind. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Ted

There will be a "dialog." It will all be part of the "peace process." Jesse Jackson will be sent to Damascus, and Jimmy Carter to Teheran. Unfortunately for the Democrats, the "authorization of force" passed after 9-11 justifying the president's use of all necessary force already authorizes him to go to war against whomever he likes. They didn't worry too much about niceties when the authorization was passed. So Bush can go to war against Iran whenever he wishes. The only problem for us is, will he have the guts to do the right thing? Congress has no authority to negotiate anything. If I were Bush I'd negotiate a treaty with the Iraqi government damn quick, and let the Democrats try to refuse to pass it. I'm not too worried at this point. Nancy "shrieking harpy" Pelosi is so terribly unattractive a human being that her speakership is just about the best news we could hope for regardging the 2008 elections. When the Republicans take back all three branches in 2008, the Democrats will look back on this election as some dirty trick played upon them by Republican strategists. And I can't think of one single Republican who was defeated who was a credit to his party. Except for having to hear them Dems gloat and pose for two years, I'm actually quite happy.

Ted

Do the Democrat's actually have a policy on Iraq?

I wonder how long it will be before Iraq becomes part of Iran?

Then God bless benzadrine, booze, and his greatness. But If I ever find out that he walked around his estate naked, that's something else entirely.

Ted

I've just watched a documentary about Winston Churchill, portraying him as a depressive whose greatness was fuelled by alcohol and what we now call speed—supposedly these drugs gave him the absurd optimism that enabled him to think Hitler would not prevail when the general expectation was that Britain would have to surrender. Whatever the truth or falsity of that, the thought struck me that Churchill was lucky not to have Peikoff around, telling folk to vote for Clement Attlee.

Linz

Not that Attlee, the Labour Party leader, was comparable to the treason-mongers like John Kerry at that time—he was in the War Cabinet, mucking in. At the end of the war, however, he led Labour to an astonishing victory, and nationalised everything in sight. Presumably, Peikoff would say never mind that, Churchill was an M.

When the Euromedia are being found with their throats slit and manifestos written in arabic stuck in their chests with steak knives?

I love your avatar Summer.

Ted

(One hint, it won't be GWB)

The main thing is to be nice. Say, what about the sick, treasonous, incestuous, Saddamite bastards who reasonably and objectively followed Leonard's depraved orders?

P.S. Good thing that their votes hardly counted for shit anyway, huh?

I hope you sick, mindless, treasonous bastards who slavishly followed Leonard's depraved orders are reading this.

In case I haven't already made it clear, you make me fucking sick.

Linz

The BBC held a summit of its senior executives and reporters. They actually agreed that the BBC has an institutional culture of leftism, Europhilia and anti-Americanism.

I recommend the Biased BBC blog as it regularly exposes the distortions and downright lies.

I agree with Summer in that I don't care what the MSM in Europe or anywhere says or thinks about the US but it seems as if everyone is spinning this election as a great triumph, our enemies included (maybe they all listened to DIM).

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday called U.S. President George W. Bush's defeat in congressional elections a victory for Iran. "Since Washington's hostile and hawkish policies have always been against the Iranian nation, this defeat is actually an obvious victory for the Iranian nation."

This is interesting because he goes on the conclude that, ""With the scandalous defeat of America's policies in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and Afghanistan, America's threats are empty threats on an international scale."

As most of us know any attempt by the US to negotiate with Iran (which the Dems are sure to try) will surely fail as Khamenei continues, "The daily crimes by the savage Zionists in Gaza once more prove that holding talks with this occupying regime is of no use." Link

Also something like 200 leading socialist members of the European Parliament hailed the American election results as "the beginning of the end of a six-year nightmare for the world." Link

I just can't bring my self to care what the Euro-media think or say about the US.  And there are times when I have these really dark fantasies about going back in time and sitting out WWII.  That'd learn 'em.