Gun Rights.

has been clear from the start. They are completely and totally inept.

And we have numbfucks like Norman Minetta and his asinine comparisons to thank for it:

Not to try to single out young males with these characteristics for extra attention — more extensive searches and questioning — is folly. It ignores, among other things, the successful Israeli experience securing El Al from attacks.

But adopting something along the lines of the Israeli system would require a tough-mindedness, and instead of tough-mindedness, we have Norm Mineta. On the issue of profiling, Mineta’s ignorance appears to be nearly invincible.

Mineta’s Japanese-American family was interned during World War II. He implies at every opportunity that by standing in the way of ethnic profiling, he is preventing a similar enormity today. “A very basic foundation to all of our work,” he says, “is to make sure that racial profiling is not part of it.”

Instead of all the bullshit we are subjected to now post-9/11, we should have taken a cue from the Israelis and El Al right from the start. But what the fuck do they know?

Personally, I think letting the TSA grope and probe the First Family is a splendid idea.

and guarantees that we will not succumb to tyranny in future. The point behind open carry at Tea Party rallies is to remind our government that we were forced, AS A LAST RESORT, to violently overthrow a government that no longer represented us but taxed us with impunity, and that we are able and willing to do so again, if necessary.

I personally don’t see the problem with it, given my current financial situation:

I make $15.00 per hour because of the current economic crisis, the government has threatened to take the home I own by force to settle a prior tax debt and I am “making too much as the single earner for a household of four” to qualify for more than $242.00 per month in food stamps and absolutely no emergency aid. We are currently $2900.00 behind in rent, and I am supposed to pay back taxes to a government that no longer represents me as a law-abiding and hard-working citizen of this country?

This government has failed us as a citizenry. I fully support anyone’s right to carry openly anytime, anywhere in the United States.

“I never hate. Hatred only brings hatred.”

A 39 year old concert pianist in 1942, Alice Hertz Sommer and her young son were sent to the Nazi concentration camp Theresienstadt.

Alice will turn 107 this month. She is the world’s oldest living holocaust survivor… and still plays the piano every day. Citing optimism, she is an upbeat, loving woman with an indomitable spirit who stands as an inspiration for all.

This is the trailer for the upcoming documentary ‘Dancing Under the Gallows’. May God bless this good woman and everyone who suffer the whims of bloodthirsty tyrants.

A true story of faith and love.

The Wedding Gown That Made History

Helen Zegerman Schwimmer

Lilly Friedman doesn’t remember the last name of the woman who designed and sewed the wedding gown she wore when she walked down the aisle over 60 years ago. But the grandmother of seven does recall that when she first told her fiancé Ludwig that she had always dreamed of being married in a white gown he realized he had his work cut out for him.

For the tall, lanky 21-year-old who had survived hunger, disease and torture this was a different kind of challenge. How was he ever going to find such a dress in the Bergen Belsen Displaced Person’s camp where they felt grateful for the clothes on their backs?

Lilly Friedman and her wedding gown on display in the Bergen Belsen Museum.

Fate would intervene in the guise of a former German pilot who walked into the food distribution center where Ludwig worked, eager to make a trade for his worthless parachute. In exchange for two pounds of coffee beans and a couple of packs of cigarettes Lilly would have her wedding gown.

For two weeks Miriam the seamstress worked under the curious eyes of her fellow DPs, carefully fashioning the six parachute panels into a simple, long sleeved gown with a rolled collar and a fitted waist that tied in the back with a bow. When the dress was completed she sewed the leftover material into a matching shirt for the groom.

A white wedding gown may have seemed like a frivolous request in the surreal environment of the camps, but for Lilly the dress symbolized the innocent, normal life she and her family had once led before the world descended into madness. Lilly and her siblings were raised in a Torah observant home in the small town of Zarica, Czechoslovakia where her father was a melamed, respected and well liked by the young yeshiva students he taught in nearby Irsheva.
He and his two sons were marked for extermination immediately upon arriving at Auschwitz. For Lilly and her sisters it was only their first stop on their long journey of persecution, which included Plashof, Neustadt, Gross Rosen and finally Bergen Belsen.

Four hundred people marched 15 miles in the snow to the town of Celle on January 27, 1946 to attend Lilly and Ludwig’s wedding. The town synagogue, damaged and desecrated, had been lovingly renovated by the DPs with the meager materials available to them. When a Sefer Torah arrived from England they converted an old kitchen cabinet into a makeshift Aron Kodesh.

“My sisters and I lost everything – our parents, our two brothers, our homes. The most important thing was to build a new home.” Six months later, Lilly’s sister Ilona wore the dress when she married Max Traeger. After that came Cousin Rosie. How many brides wore Lilly’s dress? “I stopped counting after 17.” With the camps experiencing the highest marriage rate in the world, Lilly’s gown was in great demand.

In 1948 when President Harry Truman finally permitted the 100,000 Jews who had been languishing in DP camps since the end of the war to emigrate, the gown accompanied Lilly across the ocean to America. Unable to part with her dress, it lay at the bottom of her bedroom closet for the next 50 years, “not even good enough for a garage sale. I was happy when it found such a good home.”

Home was the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. When Lily’s niece, a volunteer, told museum officials about her aunt’s dress, they immediately recognized its historical significance and displayed the gown in a specially designed showcase, guaranteed to preserve it for 500 years.

But Lilly Friedman’s dress had one more journey to make. Bergen Belsen, the museum, opened its doors on October 28, 2007. The German government invited Lilly and her sisters to be their guests for the grand opening. They initially declined, but finally traveled to Hanover the following year with their children, their grandchildren and extended families to view the extraordinary exhibit created for the wedding dress made from a parachute.

Lilly’s family, who were all familiar with the stories about the wedding in Celle, were eager to visit the synagogue. They found the building had been completely renovated and modernized. But when they pulled aside the handsome curtain they were astounded to find that the Aron Kodesh, made from a kitchen cabinet, had remained untouched as a testament to the profound faith of the survivors. As Lilly stood on the bimah once again she beckoned to her granddaughter, Jackie, to stand beside her where she was once a kallah. “It was an emotional trip. We cried a lot.”

Two weeks later, the woman who had once stood trembling before the selective eyes of the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele returned home and witnessed the marriage of her granddaughter.

The three Lax sisters – Lilly, Ilona and Eva, who together survived Auschwitz, a forced labor camp, a death march and Bergen Belsen – have remained close and today live within walking distance of each other in Brooklyn. As mere teenagers, they managed to outwit and outlive a monstrous killing machine, then went on to marry, have children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and were ultimately honored by the country that had earmarked them for extinction.

As young brides, they had stood underneath the chuppah and recited the blessings that their ancestors had been saying for thousands of years. In doing so, they chose to honor the legacy of those who had perished by choosing life.

H/T Karlyn.

Thanks to Folly for the updated information!

The Environmental Protection Agency has denied a petition filed by environmental activists seeking to ban lead in ammunition and fishing tackle, saying such regulation is beyond the agency’s authority.

The agency’s decision, announced Friday shortly after FoxNews.com published its report on the issue, sided with hunters and fishermen who had argued that the such regulations weren’t allowed under the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976.

As a former member of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, I haven’t had much use for unions and their members. I was less than impressed with my fellow union workers, and went on to self-employment as a contractor.

But sometimes, union members have the right attitude.

Thoughtcrime in the new regime:reporting the truth.

From Big Journalism:

WJLA-TV, a Washington, D.C. ABC affiliate, suspended reporter Doug McKelway following his alleged “partisan” comments at a liberal rally on Capitol Hill marking the three-month anniversary of the Gulf oil spill. Video of the broadcast tells a different story:

According to several of McKelway’s colleagues, the newsman’s reporting may have lapsed into partisan territory when he commented live on the air about the oil industry’s influence in Washington, particularly its contributions to Democratic politicians and legislators.

The Washington Post

This is not an isolated incident.

Just a few days ago Gateway Pundit reported that GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt, who owns 80% of NBC Universal, gathered the CNBC reporters together in early 2009 and took them to task for ‘negative’ reports about Barack Obama.

I think that’s what you might call ‘owned’.