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Many months ago\u00a0I said I’d monitor news coverage<\/a> of\u00a0the trials of the 11 motorcyclists arrested after a videotaped beating of\u00a0a motorist<\/a> in New York City. I believed then, and believe now, that the motorist\u00a0did something to start the fight, but unfortunately whatever happened to set things in motion was not videotaped.\u00a0I hoped that once the bikers came to trial more information would come out and we’d learn what really happened.<\/p>\n From day one, the media, public opinion, and of course law enforcement came down on the side of the motorist, portraying the bikers as a vicious gang of thugs who’d gone after an innocent driver for no reason. As a long-time motorcyclist, I know better: the motorist\u00a0did something to start the fight. I’ve seen it happen more times than I can count.<\/p>\n I was naive to believe\u00a0the trials would be more honest than the press coverage. I see now what’s going to happen. The district attorney is going to pick off the\u00a0motorcyclists, one by one,\u00a0pressuring\u00a0them to plead guilty to lesser crimes in exchange for reduced sentences,\u00a0and\u00a0then the judge\u00a0is going to impose\u00a0gag orders to prevent them from ever telling their stories out of court. Okay, this article<\/a> doesn’t mention any gag order, but I’m willing to bet it’s part of the deal. We’re never going to find out what the son of a bitch in the SUV did to start the fight.<\/p>\n I guess I’ll have to content myself with the\u00a0one bit of information<\/a> that managed to slip through the media’s biased coverage of the incident, never to be reported on again: one of the bikers involved said the driver swerved into\u00a0the bikers as they passed his\u00a0SUV\u00a0in the fast lane, hitting one motorcycle and causing its rider\u00a0to crash, then speeding away,\u00a0a classic hit & run. I’d have gone after him too.<\/p>\n ——————–<\/p>\n If you read one thing about Harper Lee’s “new novel,” read this<\/a>.<\/p>\n When I worked at the VA, I couldn’t help but notice that every elderly vet living on full disability had one or two unemployed adult children sponging off him. You can only imagine the kind of sponges an elderly, infirm, semi-senile author with a million-dollar-plus annual royalty income will attract. People are greedy and awful, and I’m not going to read the damn book.<\/p>\n ——————–<\/p>\n What is so hard to understand about this<\/a>?<\/p>\n President Barack Obama said Wednesday that he refuses to describe the Islamic State and al Qaeda as groups fueled by “radical Islam” because the term grants them a religious legitimacy they don’t deserve.<\/p>\n “They are not religious leaders; they are terrorists,” Obama said during remarks at a White House event on countering violent extremism. “We are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam.”<\/p>\n Obama said the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, also known as ISIS or ISIL, is “desperate” to portray itself as a group of holy warriors defending Islam. It counts on that legitimacy, he said, to propagate the idea that Western countries are at war with Islam, which is how it recruits and radicalizes young people.<\/p>\n “We must never accept the premise that they put forward, because it is a lie,” he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Do people have any idea what declaring a holy war on Islam would\u00a0mean? If the leader of the free world called ISIS “radical Islam,” he’d be condoning holy war against all of Islam, starting with the nearly 3 million Muslims living in the USA, then on to 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide.<\/p>\n Want to guess what the original Crusaders did while marching\u00a0to the Holy Lands to kill Muslims? They stopped in several German cities to\u00a0massacre Jews<\/a>. But of course. Not only that, they dragged them out of the Christian churches where they had sought refuge. You can’t tell me today’s wanna-be Crusaders will turn out any better. Their ranks are already infested with racists and anti-Semites.<\/p>\n As far as I’m concerned, Fox News has crossed the line and is now shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater<\/a>. I’d pull their fucking FCC license.<\/p>\n ——————–<\/p>\n The story of the Las Vegas mother who was gunned down in her own driveway by some road rage maniac with a gun turns out to be, well, rather different than first reported<\/a>. What a surprise. I wonder how things might have turned out had neither of the belligerents had guns. If this confrontation had happened in Australia or the UK,\u00a0that mother would still be alive (says the man who just mailed in his CCW permit renewal today). She’d still be an asshole, though.<\/p>\n ——————–<\/p>\n
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