GeekPol's evil twin

Won't be PMITA Prison

Mitchell Wade, the defense guy who bribed Duke Cunningham so brazenly, just got over 11 years in the slam as a result of a guilty plea for bribery and other offenses. The "and other offenses" part is where it gets really interesting. Here's a real goodie from the US Attorney's report on Wade:

Wade then shielded MZM from the normal performance review by crossing
the line into corrupt activities. Wade's activities included:

arranging for a Defense Department official's son to be hired as an MZM employee; the cost of that job was ultimately paid for by the government in reimbursement agreement with MZM; and

extending an offer of employment, and then ultimately hiring, a Department of Defense official who was responsible for overseeing much of MZM's work. Federal law prohibits government employees from, among other things, discussing potential employment with companies with whom they do government business.

Certain Department of Defense employees provided: valuable procurement information that MZM could use to tailor a proposal for work that MZM could perform under the BPA;

an official recommendation that MZM receive contracts under the BPA for certain activities involving the imaging and archiving of Defense Department documents; and favorable performance reviews about MZM. These performance reviews were critical to MZM. Notwithstanding the fact that Wade received these purchase orders without competitive bidding as a result of his earlier receipt of the $225 million BPA, MZM could not be assured that they would continue to receive new purchase orders without receiving these type of favorable reviews by Defense Department officials.

So his corruption extends into Dubaiya's Defense Department. What a beauty.

Anti-Abortion movement values

When one of the "wrong people" gets an abortion, it is Very Bad Indeed for conservatives. When one of the "wrong people" has a miscarriage as a result of a scuffle with the "right people", the conservatives go silent. When it involves a Chinese woman (here for 11 years on a political asylum petition) who is being deported to a country where abortion would be forced on her because of the "one baby rule" (she has two kids born in New York and had twins on the way), conservatives still are silent.

Of course they're silent. She's of the "wrong people".

In Bush America

To those that drink the Bush Kool-Aid (koff Assrocket koff), it is not a cause for concern that the royal family of Dubai, maintainer of ties to Osama bin Laden, is controlling security at our major ports.

A certain whiny, middle-aged Britpop vocalist is, however, such a grave threat that he is subject to FBI investigation.

I wish I were making this up.

hat tip to Archpundit

Good. Lord. Hysterical.

Because of his past dust-ups with the local mouth-breatherati, Archpundit wants to be added to the haet lits of race traitors made by the National Socialist Movement Northwest.

The last response is most precious...

From:Jim Ramm, NSM Oregon

To:ArchPundit

We are now charging $39.95 for those whom want to be added. I will send you my paypal address if you are still interested.

Yeow.

Poopy Boy blogging.

And here's a cat for good measure...

When Conservative Principles Clash

To extend the "what principles are conservative" debate a bit, let's take abortion. Now that you're done filling up that waste bin with your lunch because someone's talking about that crap again...

The usual assumption about abortion is that there are two positions: either you're for it or against it. Those that are for it are seen as liberal; those that are against it are seen as conservative.

There really are more than two positions on abortion.

Position 1: Women should have the choice whether or not to have one; the government doesn't have any right to force a woman to keep that baby or to abort that pregnancy. Seeing as the result of pregnancy is literally the result of nine months of work that she alone has to do, it follows pretty easily that the person who has to do all that work should make the decision whether to do the work at all.

Position 2: The choice is up to the woman, but they're strongly encouraged to make the choice not to abort the pregnancy. The rationale here is that the end result of the pregnancy is far more important than the work put into it.

Position 3: The choice is not up to the woman, because the woman can't be trusted to make that decision. That is, if you have sex, the woman has to deal with the consequences in only one possible way.

Position 4: A woman should be able to get pregnant just so she can abort it. This position is quite silly, held by no one, and only ascribed to pro-choicers by kooks like John Hostettler or Pat Robertson. It's also this intentional mischaracterization of pro-choicers that characterizes the anti-abortion movement. (NOTE: the anti-abortion movement is not the same as "pro-life".)

Let's expand on Position 3. It seems to hew most strongly to the conservative position; that only the "right people" should be entitled to any power, and that women are not the "right people" to make that kind of position. Those who fall under Position 3 tend to believe that sex is something to be punished, and that pregnancy is part of the punishment. Which leads us to Michelle McCusker.

Michelle McCusker is a 26-year-old teacher from Queens. She is unmarried, and she got pregnant. As a result, she was fired from her job as a preschool teacher at St. Rose of Lima in Queens. Why? Because she had out-of-wedlock sex. This is where it get interesting - The ACLU is involved for rather obvious reasons - since men can't get pregnant, men can't get punished by the Diocese of Brooklyn for out-of-wedlock sex (unless a man decides to bring in Mr. Slave as a classroom assistant). Also involved is the group Feminists for Life, which comes to the conclusion that because the diocese punishes women for getting pregnant out of wedlock, then in the future women will seek an abortion to prevent that punishment. To quote Serrin Foster, the president of Feminists for Life:

It is not pro-life to take away the resources and support that women need and deserve to bring children into this world. The appropriate response for the employer when they found out she was pregnant, is to say, 'Congratulations,' and, 'How can I help?'

So here we have one conservative principle (anti-abortion) clashing with another conservative principle (women are not the "right people" to decide such a thing). Here, one conservative principle could actually cause abortions. If you call yourself a conservative, what do you do? Do you reduce the number of abortions or do you punish the woman for having sex?

This is where pro-life is different from the anti-abortion movement: True pro-lifers would do the former; the movement would do the latter. As Nathan Newman (hat tip to him) points out:

This case is a good acid test for your pro-life friends. If they side with the teacher, their pro-life beliefs are probably heart-felt. If they side with the school, all of their talk about "life" is just a cover for reactionary views on women's place in the world.