New York, New York......

I've made the point I hope Anthony Weiner wins the election to succeed Bloomturd as New York's Mayor. Of all the candidates, he sucks the least.

I just caught this article on how homicides have been reduced in New York in the first half of 2013.

City Homicides Drop Sharply, Again; Police Cite New Antigang Strategy

The number of homicides on record in New York City has dropped significantly during the first half of the year — to 154 from 202 in the same period last year — surprising even police officials who have long been accustomed to trumpeting declining crime rates in the city.

In the first 178 days of 2013, the city averaged less than a murder a day, the first time the police can recall that happening for any sustained period. The latest numbers were recorded through Thursday.

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly attributed much of the drop to a new antigang strategy meant to suppress retaliatory violence among neighborhood gangs. Police officials also credited their efforts at identifying and monitoring abusive husbands whose behavior seemed poised to turn lethal.

The recent decrease in violence is all the more striking because last year the department recorded the fewest homicides since it began a reliable method of compiling crime statistics half a century ago. The police recorded 419 murders in 2012....

Not that it will last, thanks to the NY City Council.

City Council Votes to Increase Oversight of New York Police

Over the objections of the mayor and police commissioner, the New York City Council early Thursday morning approved by veto-proof majorities a pair of bills aimed at increasing oversight of the Police Department and expanding New Yorkers’ ability to sue over racial profiling by officers.

The two bills, known together as the Community Safety Act, passed during a late-night meeting of the Council that began after 11 p.m., lasted more than three hours and in which members also voted to pass the city’s budget and override a mayoral veto of a law on paid sick leave.

Community Safety Act. Almost as Orwellian as Affordable Care Act or Recovery Act. But leftist always loved propaganda like that.

...One, known as Intro 1079, would create an independent inspector general to monitor and review police policy, conduct investigations and recommend changes to the department. The monitor would be part of the city’s Investigation Department alongside the inspectors general for other city agencies.

The law would go into effect Jan. 1, 2014, leaving the matter of choosing the monitor to the next mayor.

The other bill, Intro 1080, would expand the definition of bias-based profiling to include age, gender, housing status and sexual orientation. It also would allow individuals to sue the Police Department in state court — not only for individual instances of bias, but also for policies that disproportionately affect people in any protected categories without serving a significant law enforcement goal.

Both measures passed the 51-member Council with the votes needed to override a mayoral veto. As that threshold was passed just after 2:20 a.m., scores of supporters who had filled the chamber’s gallery and waited hours through the debate erupted into cheers.

Mr. Bloomberg, who has promised to veto both measures and this week called his opposition to them a matter of “life and death,” released a statement after the vote. “I will veto this harmful legislation and continue to make our case to Council members over the coming days and weeks,” he said.

"...disproportionately affect people in any protected categories..." Funny, these people who cheered it's passing are for some reason not concerned that murder and other violent crimes disproportionately affect people who are black or Hispanic or gay or poor. But that's not of concern to these "community groups". They only want to suck more money from the tax payers and lawsuits are the way. The fact a 25 year old black man in a club gets knifed over a "disrespect" is not an issue. The fact the police put out a general broadcast that the suspect is a "black male" living in a housing project is. They can file a discrimination suit on that.

I wonder if in a year or so when the suits are filed and the city is looking at millions more lost for nothing what will the council do? They've already chased out the middle class and anyone with money who can get out is. The mayor, in a spasm of "head out of assitis" acknowledged there are only around 40K people left in the city paying significant taxes and they are high earners. Which means they can leave at some point. And if things get worse they will.

I wonder if these idiots on the city council think (rhetorical question, I know) of what an effect this will have on policing. In my department in 2001 or so we started to collect racial data on any people who stopped on a self initiated basis, e.g. traffic stops, on the street investigations, etc. This is what came out at a roll call from our shift lieutenant.

Guys, you have to document everything that you do self initiated. If the numbers show you are disproportionally pulling overs blacks or Hispanics, etc, you can be disciplined, fired or sued...

To put this in context this was after a all the district and shift commanders were called into a meeting with the chief at the last minute and told this was going into effect as soon as the meeting ended. I think the man was giving us a warning "take it easy until this settled out..." Well the warning worked. Self initiated investigation ground to a halt. The department's ticket issuance dropped over 60% and other on view investigations like narcotics drooped also. We had to document our "on views" on a form turned in with the workcard. In roll calls people would put a "0" on top of it.

After a month or so when the city knew it was loosing it's ass in tickets, and also when better guidance came from the state attorney general's officer, the department revised it's collection plan. But I don't see that happening in New York.

Bloomberg, I'm no fan of yours but I'll give you this. You have continued the anticrime program of Guiliani and kept the murders down. Hopeefully after you veto this you can pick off enough members to kill it. For once I'll say good luck to you. If not, God help the people of New York.

The end of Marco Rubio

Schumer, Durbin, Menendez, Bennet, Graham, Flake McCain, Rubio...who didn't belong here.

There was such promise with the election of Marco Rubio. He came from literally nothing, challenging a sitting (notional) Republican governor, beat him in the primary and again in the general election when Christ somehow became an independent (later an open Democrat). He was right on the issues, calling for the repeal of Obamacare, limits on government and securing the border before any pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens.

But something happened on the way to the presidency. Yes, he was presented as the key note speaker at the 2012 Republican Convention, a sign he's being groomed for bigger and better things. The facet he was selected by the RINOs in the party leadership should have given pause. He gave the response to B Hussein Obama's State of the Union speech in January to the ridiculous criticism of taking too many sips of water.

Now he's working to pass the amnesty bill that will destroy the Republican Party he comes from, as well as destroy the nation as we know it. It will put tens of millions of new leftists voters into the electorate who will gladly vote for more benefits (i.e. for Democrats). Low skilled/no skilled workers will be an overall drain on the economy but they will provide something B Hussein Obama finds critical. The need for a permanent underclass. The Democrats are the party of big government (to a much greater degree than the Republicans) and for that, you need a large group of voters who can be relied on to vote for more. To paraphrase an old saying "Anyone robbing America to pay Mexico can always count on the support of Mexico."
So why did Rubio jump onto this? Maybe the powers that be in the Republican Party told him "You want to run for President, you need our support and money and our supporters in big business want the cheap labor." Or maybe this is the real Rubio. Or maybe he honestly had a change of heart. But if so, I wonder if it's looking around and asking "If I'm a young up and comer, why am I surrounded by these mostly old white men?...Do I really belong here" I guess Rubio has answered the question yes and he's cut his own wrist. He may win the nomination (God know the Republicans can always pull defeat from the jaws of victory.) but without the base he will never win the general election. And he's dead to them now.

Sorry to see Rubio kill himself off like this. I hope Allen West challenges him in 2016 so the Republicans can support a real conservative in FL.

UPDATE: From this previous post.  Here is Senator Rubio trying to jusify his push for amnesty.  I hate to say it, he's either a liar or a fool




.

Texas has another accomplishment to be proud of!

The 500th Execution since the reinstatement of capital punishment!

Texas Department of Corrections in Huntsville TX.
The Walls Unit's clock ticking away till 600PM.

Woman will be 500th execution since Texas resumed death penalty

HUNTSVILLE - The illuminated clock set in red-brick facade of the Walls Unit may be the most dreaded timepiece in Texas. Minute by minute, it ticks away dreary years behind bars. On some days - 15 times last year, 40 times in 2000 - its black hands signal another criminal justice milestone.

Six o'clock, the hands say. Another killer will be dead and gone.

Barring a last-minute stay, Kimberly McCarthy on June 26 will become the 500th Texas killer to be executed since the state re-activated the death penalty in 1976. Texas leads the nation's 33 death penalty states in executions, killing more than the next five most active states combined.

Virginia, with 110 executions, places second.

Minutes before the killing hour, McCarthy, 52, condemned for the 1997 murder-robbery of a 70-year-old Dallas County woman, will be strapped to a gurney in a room deep within the 164-year-old prison. Then, as a warden and chaplain stand silently nearby, she will be injected with a lethal dose of a drug commonly used to euthanize cats and dogs.

McCarthy, a one-time occupational therapist and home health care worker, will be the fourth woman in Texas executed by injection.

Supported by law since Texas' earliest days, executions like hers remain at the heart of a raging dispute pitting most Texans against an array of death penalty opponents here and abroad.

Issues of justice arise as prisoners, including some on death row, are shown years after their convictions to be innocent, and scrutiny is directed to cases of executed men whose convictions were based on questionable investigations. Increasingly, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has found itself challenged to carry out executions as death penalty opponents pressure drug makers to stop sales to executioners.

Nonetheless, capital punishment retains strong support in Texas. Last year, a University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll found almost three-fourths of respondents favored executions. Nationally, a Gallup Poll found 63 percent endorsed capital punishment.

Killers from Harris County, Texas' most populous county, fill the Polunksy Unit's death row. Since 1982, 118 Harris County killers have been executed; 100 remain at the Livingston prison. Fifty Dallas County killers have been put to death; 37 from Bexar, the county encompassing San Antonio.

And the author write it like that is a bad thing.

Typical of the extremes in the death penalty debate are Ray Hunt, the Houston Police Officers Union president, who calls for expanding the death penalty to cases of brutal child abuse, and Anthony Graves, who was condemned for murders he did not commit.

"There's no doubt in my mind," Hunt says when asked if executions have made Texas safer. "The 500 people who are executed - they have no opportunity to brutally murder again."

Counters Graves, who was released from prison in 2010 after prosecutors admitted he had been wrongly convicted in the August 1992 killings of six Somerville residents: "For me, the death penalty is a slap in the face. I spent 18 years in prison, 12 of them on death row with two execution dates, and it doesn't even slow down. It says to me: 'Your life has no value.' "

An avid death penalty supporter, Gov. Rick Perry has defied the United Nations in refusing to intervene in the executions of foreign nationals. In a 2011 presidential debate that brought cheers from Republican supporters, Perry remarked that he "never struggled" with allowing executions to occur.

"In the state of Texas," he said, "if you come to our state and you kill one of our children, you kill a police officer, you're involved with another crime and you kill one of our citizens, you will face the ultimate justice …"

Rick, I've had some disagreements with you on certain issues but on this you are steel on target.

...International attention

Slowly Texas' revamped death penalty gained momentum. By the late 1990s, executions topped 35 a year. A record 40 killers were put to death in 2000. In June 2000, Texas executed Gary Graham, convicted of a 1981 Houston supermarket robbery-murder.

In a case that drew international attention, prosecutors relied heavily on the testimony of an eyewitness, who said she saw Graham accost a shopper in a dimly lighted parking lot. Graham claimed innocence but admitted that he had committed a string of violent crimes. Civil rights leaders Coretta Scott King, Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson rallied to his cause, but to no avail.

From the gurney, Graham denounced his execution as "a lynching."

The author write this like it's a bad thing.  Not to mention the list of supporters their ain't exaclty supporting.  Al and Jess are not exactly known as men of honesty.  But I digress.

David Atwood, founder of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, found Graham convincing.

"I very strongly believed Graham had not committed the crime," the Houston activist says. "… I think there's pretty strong evidence - it's hard to say it's 100 percent - that in three or four instances we could have executed someone who's innocent."

Cases concerning him include those of Ruben Cantu, executed in 1993 for a San Antonio robbery-murder the former district attorney now believes he probably did not commit; Carlos DeLuna, put to death in 1989 for a Corpus Christi robbery-murder, the investigation of which Columbia University law students critique as flawed; and Cameron Willingham, executed in 2004 for the murder of his three young children in a Corsicana house fire...

I got it, a man who makes his living is the founder of non profit group wanting to notionally end the death penalty says he doens't want the death penalty.  And he thinks people who are not guilty have been executed.  This is news....right!

David Weeks, the Walker County district attorney and a former president of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association, says such failings largely occurred in "old cases."

"I think that to a large extent, it's not the same old world, not the same old situation it was," he says. "We've done quite a lot to make sure the process works. Can it be improved more? Probably so, but we have to realize how far we've come."

Now, Weeks argues, lawyers appointed to represent accused killers are "well qualified," and DNA investigation tools work to lessen the chance of false arrests.

Changes to the Texas death sentence have come from inside and outside the state.

In 2005, the Texas Legislature for the first time enabled juries to sentence capital killers to life without parole. Since then, 535 death penalty-eligible killers, 144 from Harris County, have been assessed lifelong incarceration. No death sentences were handed down in Harris County in 2012.

Fifteen Texas killers were executed in 2012; McCarthy will be the eighth this year.

One of the points I make with anti capital punishment people is if you get rid of executions and go to life without parole, how soon before the usual suspects start saying "Life without parole, that's really inhumane." In some of the expected states (New York) there are cop killers that the state has tried to parole. Sorry, cop killers should be put down like the rabid dogs there are, barring that they should never see daylight as a free man.

So California, Illinois, New York, etc, please, imprison your worse as you will.  Texas will permanently rehabilitate a rabid animal of a human in a few hours and it will be no loss to humanity.  Hopefully she gets more justice than she's earned at her next hearing.  That will be a judge she cannot lie to.


UPDATE: 

IT HAS HAPPENED.  KIMBERLY MCCARTHY WAS PERMANENTLY REHABILITATED!

CNN) -- Kimberly McCarthy on Wednesday evening became the 500th prisoner executed in Texas since 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated in the state, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

McCarthy was put to death at 7:37 p.m. ET at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas, said department spokesman John Hurt.

 

The 52-year-old former occupational therapist was convicted in 1997 of murdering her elderly neighbor. Authorities said McCarthy entered the retired professor's home intending to rob her; a struggle ensued, and McCarthy repeatedly stabbed her, according to the state's criminal justice

website.

 

McCarthy then took the victim's credit cards and vehicle...

What's going on in the World Today 130625

Major T. J. "King" Kong: Survival kit contents check. In them you'll find: one forty-five caliber automatic; two boxes of ammunition; four days' concentrated emergency rations; one drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills; one miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible; one hundred dollars in rubles; one hundred dollars in gold; nine packs of chewing gum; one issue of prophylactics; three lipsticks; three pair of nylon stockings. Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff


HYPERLINKS MAY REQUIRE AN EMAIL:

USA

U.S. Naval Update Map: June 20, 2013

June 20, Washington Post – (International) Bank of Tokyo to pay $250 million to N.Y. state in money-laundering case. The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ agreed to a $250 million settlement over charges filed by the State of New York that it processed $100 billion in illicit transactions between 2002 and 2007 to countries under U.S. sanctions.

EUROPE

Greece, Bulgaria: Political Protests Erupt

Hollande Faces a Dilemma

Problems Surround the EU-U.S. Free Trade Negotiations

ASIA

The Japanese Military's Focus on Anti-Submarine Abilities

Hong Kong's Declining Economic Fortunes

AFRICA

Piracy Slowly Rises in Western Africa

Increased Pirate Activity in the Gulf of Guinea

Railway Development in Ethiopia

RUSSIA


Russia After Putin: Inherent Leadership Struggles

Syria: Russia Will Not Permit No-fly Zone, Spokesman Says June 17, 2013

Russia will not allow a no-fly zone to be implemented in Syria, a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry said June 17, NOW reported. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that the United States was drawing up plans for a no-fly zone, which would be deployed from Jordan over western Syria. Russia's core interest is to sustain the Syrian regime and prolong the conflict.

Putin Puts Pensions at Risk in $43 Billion Bid to Jolt Economy

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — Faced with meager growth worldwide and a worrisome ebbing of Russia’s own oil and gas revenues, President Vladimir V. Putin announced an ambitious and risky economic stimulus program on Friday along with a novel amnesty plan for imprisoned white-collar criminals that was intended to improve investor confidence.

Mr. Putin’s proposal to dip into the country’s pension reserves for loans of up to $43.5 billion for three big infrastructure projects and other investments provoked an immediate debate among some of Russia’s top financial minds. It also brought warnings from financial experts who said that it might produce a burst of inflation, and that what the Russian economy needed most was deep structural change, to diversify from oil and gas and to build investor confidence....

CHINA

China's Food Supply

In China, Reform and the Risks of Urbanization

China's Brinksmanship with its Banks

IRAN

Iran’s Man in the Middle

...While he is considered a moderate, Rouhani comes to office as an insider. For sixteen years he was head of Iran’s National Security Council (NSC) and for two years Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator. Even today, he sits on the NSC as the personal representative of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. He served five terms in the Majlis, or parliament. He sits on two major state councils, one of which, the Assembly of Experts, will elect Khamenei’s successor whenever he passes away. In holding high office, Rouhani was more a team player than a maverick and continues to support many existing Iranian policies. On Syria, since his election he has offered only the formulaic non-answer that the Syrian people should decide their own future through elections....

IRAQ

Iraq: Northern Oil Exports Have On Hold Since June 21, Shippers Say June 24, 2013

Crude oil exports from Iraq's northern Kirkuk oil fields have been on hold since June 21 after an explosion at a key pipeline, Middle East shipping agents said June 24, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Baghdad-controlled Kirkuk-Ceyhan oil pipeline has been operating at roughly one-fifth of its official capacity of 1.6 million barrels per day due to frequent bombings, poor maintenance and lower output overall.

ISRAEL


http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israeli-aircraft-strike-targets-in-gaza-strip-after-rockets-launched/2013/06/24/dae8be4c-dc8e-11e2-a484-7b7f79cd66a1_print.html


Israeli aircraft strike targets in Gaza Strip after rockets launched

JERUSALEM — Israeli aircraft pounded targets in the Gaza Strip early Monday after rockets were fired at Israel from the territory, the military said, unsettling a tenuous cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

The military said its aircraft struck two weapons storage facilities and a rocket launch site. No injuries were reported.

Rocket fire from Gaza has declined since Israel carried out an eight-day military campaign last November in response to frequent attacks. An Egyptian-brokered cease-fire has largely held, but sporadic fire still persists.

AFGHANISTAN

The Challenge of Afghan Power-Sharing

Afghanistan: NATO Forces Stepping Back From Combat Operations June 19, 2013

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said June 19 that NATO forces will no longer plan, execute or lead combat operations in Afghanistan, Xinhua reported. The remarks followed an announcement by Afghan President Hamid Karzai that Afghan security forces are taking the lead in the country.

MIDDLE EAST

Qatar: Emir To Transfer Power To His Son June 24, 2013

Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani announced June 24 that he plans to step down and transfer power to his son, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, Al Jazeera reported. It was also announced that June 25 will be considered an official state holiday.

A Revolt Within the al Qaeda Movement

SOUTH OF THE BORDER

Evaluating the National Effect of Brazilian Protests

Mexico Readies for Energy Sector Reform

Oil and Natural Gas Production in Mexico

MISC

Geopolitical Calendar: Week of June 24, 2013

June 20, V3.co.uk – (International) Anonymous OpPetrol hacking campaign targets oil and gas sectors. Symantec urged oil and gas firms in the U.S. and worldwide to be vigilant for cyberattacks after a hacker group announced their plans for attacks on energy companies beginning June 20. The group promised to use distributed denial-of- service (DDoS) attacks, deface social media accounts and Web sites, steal sensitive information from systems and post it online, as well as infect networks with disk- wiping malware.


Except where noted courtesy STRATFOR.COM

You only though Bloomberg was this stupid!

But no, the entire city council is pretty bad also.

Here is the ad placed by some of the police unions in New York in opposition of a bill from a Brooklyn councilperon (don't want to be profiling) idiot who wants to expand the definition of "racial profiling" to include describing a suspect with pretty much anything more than the cloths on his/her back.

NYPD unions blast bill they say will bar cops from using race, gender to go after suspects
Police unions in New York City are blasting a piece of legislation they say will handcuff them, by preventing cops from using little more than the color of a suspect’s clothing in descriptions or risk being sued for profiling.
A half-page ad in Thursday’s New York Post paid by the NYPD Captains Endowment Association and the Lieutenants Benevolent Association asks: “How effective is a police officer with a blindfold on?”
The answer is not very, according to Roy Richter, president of the Captains Endowment Association who is seen in the advertisement wearing a blindfold in bustling Times Square. Richter claims Intro. No. 1080 would send crime rates soaring and told The Post the bill is dangerous because it will “ban cops” from identifying a suspect’s age, gender, color or disability.
The proposal, sponsored by Jumaane Williams, D-Brooklyn, would effectively expand the definition of profiling, which is already prohibited. It specifically pertains to what factors officers can consider before stopping a potential suspect.

The bill defines profiling as "an act of a member of the force of the police department or other law enforcement officer that relies on actual or perceived race, [ethnicity, religion or] national origin, color, creed, age, alienage or citizenship status, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or housing status as the determinative factor in initiating law enforcement action against an individual, rather than an individual's behavior or other information or circumstances that links a person or persons [of a particular race, ethnicity, religion national origin] to suspected unlawful activity....”
The bill defines profiling as "an act of a member of the force of the police department or other law enforcement officer that relies on actual or perceived race, [ethnicity, religion or] national origin, color, creed, age, alienage or citizenship status, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or housing status as the determinative factor in initiating law enforcement action against an individual, rather than an individual's behavior or other information or circumstances that links a person or persons [of a particular race, ethnicity, religion national origin] to suspected unlawful activity....”

OK, how about something I've said over the radio once or twice. "Dispatch. suspect on foot, south bound on Main, mid twenty's black male two hundred pounds wearing green shorts and a white t-shirt in a wheel chair carrying a blue back pack ..." That is what we call a general broadcast. Notice how it relies on "actual or perceived race...color...age...disablity" Now if I were to follow the law as proposed by this moron with a chip on his shoulder this would be the description: "Dispatch. suspect on foot, south bound on Main, mid twenty's black male two hundred pounds wearing green shorts and a white t-shirt in a wheel chair carrying a blue back pack ..."" You think the first description may be a bit more enlightening and led to more direct apprephentin of the suspect. Also, it will enable us to not stop people who don't match the second rather worthless description.

Thursday’s ad urges residents to contact local councilmembers to urge them to vote against the bill. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is reportedly going to bypass normal committee processes to bring the measure directly to a vote.

“If a police officer transmits descriptions beyond clothing color they can be sued for racial profiling,” Thursday’s ad reads. “That’s dangerous for the public and police officers.”

City councilmembers, according to the bill, have “deep” concerns regarding the impact of the NYPD’s growing reliance on stop-and-frisk tactics, and particularly the impact of the practice on communities of color.

“In 2002, the NYPD made approximately 97,000 stops,” the bill reads. “By 2010, the number of stops had increased to more than 601,000. Black and Latino New Yorkers face the brunt of this practice and consistently represent more than 80 percent of people stopped despite representing just over 50 percent of the city's population.”

They also live in the more crime filled areas and by statistics, the conduct more the of crimes. Sorry, but look at the stats and the fact.

Stop-and-frisk practices, further, have not increased public safety, sponsors claim, as year-after-year nearly 90 percent of individuals stopped are neither arrested nor issued a summons.

NYPD Detectives Endowment Association President Michael Palladino criticized Quinn for supporting the rare expedited process and said his union plans to place ads in newspapers next week.

“The (union’s) ad will focus on . . . Speaker Quinn’s political decision to sell the security of all New Yorkers for votes,” Palladino told the newspaper. “Where was the speaker and her legislation for the last seven years?”

A spokeswoman for Quinn said the proposal was sent to a full vote because a majority of councilmembers supported it and Public Safety Committee chair Peter Vallone Jr., who opposes the measure, refused to let it out of committee.

A bit of a sidebar from the law enforcement aspect on this proposal. I linked to Ms Quinn's Wikipedia page to show who she is, a serious canidate to be the next mayor of this country's largest city. Until Anthony "The Weiner" Weiner plunged back in, she was going to be the new mayor. Now the odds are he is going to pull it out and have the climate of his political career, mayor of New York. New Yorkers, I have to ask, when you look at the ballot and ask "Is this our choice, eight million people in this city and this is the best we have?" I had a similar experience in November 2008.

...Williams and fellow Brooklyn Democrat Brad Lander, a co-sponsor of the proposal, told the Post the bill, if passed, would only expand the city’s existing racial-profiling law by adding other demographic groups that should be protected, such as homeless and homosexual individuals.

Lander told CBS New York that police union officials are mischaracterizing the bill.

“They know they’re misrepresenting the legislation,” Lander told the station. “Police officers will continue to be able to use skin color and gender and age and height in suspect descriptions. What doesn’t work is profiling people based solely on they’re being one race, being one religion, being gay, living in public housing.”

Yo moron, how stupid do you take us for. May I quote your bill, "an act of a member of the force of the police department or other law enforcement officer that relies on actual or perceived race,..." A general broadcast of a suspect on the radio, or computer, or description in a report is an "act of a member of the force..." If this passes you can see how fast it will be before the fist law suit is filed saying "My client was described as a black male, an act that is forbidden by the city of New York..." What stupidity. Mr Williams, I hope someone kicks your ass on the street and the responding officers puts out a general broadcast for you, "Suspect, human wearing black pants and white shirt....not other details allowed by city ordinance..."

But New York, you've eared it. You put these cretans in office I hope you're happy as a once great city rots from the inside. Oh, please stay up there. We don't want you and your stupidity to infect great states like Texas.

K9 Down

K9 Ronin
Glendale Arizona Police Department, Arizona
End of Watch: Thursday, June 20, 2013
Breed: Belgian Malinois
Gender: M
Tour: 3 months

K9 Ronin was shot and killed as he attempted a take down on an armed subject who had fled from officers a short time earlier.

Patrol officers had initially responded to a business on Orangewood Avenue to investigate reports that a man was trespassing at approximately 6:45 pm. When the officer attempted to make contact with the individual the man fled on foot and jumped over a wall into a residential area. The subject was able to elude officers briefly and attempted to force entry into a home. Additional units were able to locate the subject hiding under a trampoline in the 5100 block of Morton Avenue.

K9 Ronin was deployed to subdued the subject, but the man opened fire, fatally wounding him and wounding his handler. Officers returned fire and killed the subject.

K9 Ronin was transported to a local animal hospital where he succumbed to his injuries overnight.

K9 Ronin had served with the Glendale Police Department for only three months and was the agency's newest canine.

Rest in Peace Ronin, we got the watch! …and enjoy running the green grass of Heaven!

In Memory of all Police Dogs

They handled themselves with beauty & grace

And who could ever forget that beautiful face

Whether at work; or at home; whatever the test

They always worked hard; and did their best

They were real champions; at work or at play

But their lives were cut short; suddenly one day

While working on the job with their partner one day

They put themselves out on a limb; out into harms way

They gave the ultimate sacrifice; any dog can give

They gave up their life; so someone could live

The best of their breed; as his partner and anyone would say

Many hearts are now broken; that he had to prove it this way

Now as the trees are blowing in the gentle breeze

The sun is shining; thru the leaves on the trees

The meadows are green; and the grass grows tall

Off in the distance they can see a waterfall

As they look over the falls; down through the creek

The water flows gently; as a rabbit sneaks a peek

Far up above; in the deep blue sky

They see the birds soar high; as they fly by

They see animals playing; at the bridge by a waterfall

Chasing each other; and just having a ball

They play all day; from morning to night

There's no more rain; just warm sunlight

Off in the distance; they hear trumpets blow

Then all the animals look up; and notice a bright glow

The harps would play and the angels would sing

As they know they've come home; they've earned their wings

We remember that they died; in the line of duty

And are now with the Lord; sharing in heaven's beauty

Off to the meadows now; where they can play and roam free

With an occasional rest stop; under a tall oak tree

No more bad guys to chase; or bullets to take

Just a run through the meadow; down to the lake

A quick splash in the water; then back to the shore

Then it's off to the forest; to go play some more

These special dogs are back home; up in heaven above

They're cradled in God's arm's; and covered with His love

We'll light a candle for all of them; in the dark of night

In loving memory of all; these very special knights

By John Quealy

I don't know what to call this other than evil

A waste of human sperm and egg who
likes to rape children

The mother who let the waste of sperm
rape her daughter to death. 

Police: Infant Died After Mother Let Boyfriend Rape Her

ST. CHARLES, MO (KTVI) – Prosecutors in St. Charles County have charged the mother of an infant girl with abuse and second degree murder stemming from an incident last December.

The grim and chilling details were released Monday.

In an amended complaint against Jessica Lynn Howell, 25, prosecutors now allege that she knew her boyfriend, Jordan Lafayette Prince, had previous convictions for sexual offense against a minor.

Prince is currently awaiting trial for first degree murder in the death of four-month-old Ashlynn Lilith Peters on December 3, 2012. Police allege that Prince strangulated Ashlynn after sexually assaulting her.

The complaint against Ashlynn’s mother, Jessica Howell, alleges she had sent text messages to Prince suggesting her willingness to allow him to engage in sexual activity with Ashlynn.

“In those text messages she suggested and encouraged some unspeakable things,” St. Charles Prosecuting Attorney Tim Lohmar said. “It is very, very disturbing.”

The complaint goes on to allege that Howell took Ashlynn to Prince’s home to spend the night at the time Ashlynn was murdered.

It was a trailer at Deerfield Village in St. Charles County. Neighbors said they were shocked.

“I saw them take the baby in and out, but you never imagine something like that is going on,” John Ezell said. “I am glad she is charged.”

Howell is in custody and held on $1 million bond. She will be arraigned Tuesday morning. Prince remains in custody as he awaits trial for Ashlynn’s murder...

A few years ago I testified at the trial of a piece of human excitement who raped a two year old and a five year old. He's currently in Huntsville for life in a small block for over 20 hours a day. Human rights activist complain that is inhuman. Pardon me morons, it's for their protection. Any exposure to the prision population and these humans will get justice that don't want. Given five minutes they will get raped like they raped the child.

Personally I would rather see these two hanged at the county courthouse but we know that won't happen. The best we can hope for is they never see the light of day or somehow the general prison population does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. God, how does such evil come up from humans I will never know.

Global Affairs: Why Mideast Monarchies Survive, June 19, 2013

By Robert D. Kaplan

A startling fact has emerged from the Arab Spring that few have remarked upon: despite the pining for democracy by the Muslim masses, it's comparatively safe to be a king or sultan. Royal families have survived better in this age of upheaval than secular autocrats, despite the latter's pretension to revolutionary traditions. No Arab royal family has been toppled, and most have made deft adjustments in the face of public unrest. Compare that with military dictators and security service thugs who have either been killed, driven into exile or who are fighting quite bloodily for their survival.

King Mohammed VI of Morocco, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah II of Jordan, Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman and the various sheikhs of the Persian Gulf are, to be sure, more nervous on their thrones than a few years ago: in particular the monarchs of Jordan, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Moreover, they are not angels. Strong and regularly ruthless security services help keep these monarchs in power. Nevertheless, as comparison is the beginning of all serious scholarship, compared to other regimes in the region these monarchs have been both enlightened and Machiavellian in the best sense of the word.

Algeria's military-cum-revolutionary regime contended with a civil war in the 1990s; and, with the looming death of President Abdel Aziz Bouteflika, stability there is seriously questionable. Tunisia's secular strongman Zine El Abdine Ben Ali was toppled in a popular uprising in 2011; so was military dictator Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. Libyan tyrant Moammar Gadhafi was hunted down by a crowd and murdered, following another popular uprising. Mubarak was in a line of revolutionary military pharaohs and Gadhafi was an avowed radical: a self-declared enemy of the reactionary order of kings. Yet, the Egyptian and Libyan masses were not impressed.

Of course, the sturdiest revolutionary credentials were possessed by the Baathist socialist rulers of Iraq and Syria. Though the Americans toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, many in the country did not mourn his death. And had the Americans not invaded, the Arab Spring might have claimed Saddam, too, as a victim. Finally, there is Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad, who thus far has had to wage a civil war that has claimed 93,000 lives and created millions of refugees in order to stay in power.

Modernizing officer corps have bitten the desert dust; antiquated dynasties have held on, at least so far. Why?

It's legitimacy, stupid!

The fact is, monarchs are identified with their states to a degree that the officers and the dark-suited security heavies are not. Tunisia is an age-old cluster of civilization emanating from ancient Carthage, the incredibly corrupt, plain-clothed policeman (because that's what he was) Ben Ali was superfluous to Tunisia's identity. Egypt constitutes a river valley civilization going back thousands of years. Toppling Mubarak was not going to lead to the breakup of the country. Then there are the revolutionary leaders who governed no real states at all. Libya is but a vague geographical expression that was held together only by Gadhafi's tyranny -- a tyranny so suffocating that it sowed the seeds of its own destruction. Syria and Iraq are also artificial states, and their erstwhile rulers, al Assad and Hussein, have represented sectarian minority regimes with questionable legitimacy at best. In sum, either the rulers were not sufficiently identified with their states, or there weren't any states underneath them.

The contrast with Arab royalty could not be greater.

The monarchs and their states, in terms of identity, are inextricable. The Alaouite dynasty in Morocco has ruled longer than the United States has existed as a country: it was Alaouite Moulay al-Rashid who forged the country in the first place in the second half of the 17th century. Saudi Arabia is, well, Saudi Arabia, the kingdom of the al-Sauds: without them there is no country. Jordan's geographical artificialness, coupled with its uneasy mix of desert tribesmen and urban Palestinians, is held together by the unifying force of the monarch: whose Hashemite family -- claiming direct descent from the Prophet Mohammed -- was synonymous with the original founding of the state in the mid-20th century. In Oman, the sultan has united the disparate worlds of the desert interior and the cosmopolitan, Indian Ocean seaboard in order to forge a state. As for the Gulf sheikhdoms, they were created as such by the British, and have been further buttressed by combining small populations with significant hydrocarbon deposits. Only the royal family in Bahrain is in trouble, because of a Sunni-Shiite split that has also bedeviled Iraq.

Precisely because of this historical legitimacy, the royal families of the Arab world have not had to govern in an extremely brutal fashion -- relative to the likes of the Gadhafis, the al Assads and Husseins. Their very moderation, again, relative to their region, has made them at least tolerable to their populations -- if not downright popular, in some cases. Moreover, because of their inherited wealth, there is not the same impetus to be corrupt. The kings and sultans may live lavishly, but they lack to the same degree the money-grubbing aura of the Ben Alis and Mubaraks, with their vulgar, nouveau riche wives. The Arab royals represent "old money," after a fashion. This, too, has made them more acceptable to the masses.

There are other factors. Precisely because the monarchs are ceremonial -- encompassing all the pomp and circumstance of the state in their very persons -- they can often delegate the dirty work of actual daily governance to ministers, who, when things go wrong, can conveniently take the blame. Indeed, who says the Arab world does not have separation of powers? Some Arab monarchs utilize this feature all the time, to their benefit. Jordan's kings are famous for firing prime ministers during many an economic downturn. The problem with the Gadhafis and the Mubaraks was that, because they had no inherited legitimacy (nobody believed in their pomp and circumstance), they demanded absolute power as insurance against coups. And because they had absolute power, they got personally blamed when the economy produced uneven results.

Finally, there is something else, something harder to define. Yes, the Arab royals are legitimate in a way their non-royal counterparts are not. Nevertheless, preserving a family tradition of state power for generations and, in some cases, for centuries, is an enormous responsibility: much greater even than that of the scions of family-run corporations in the West. You don't want to be the last in a royal line! And so, in addition to being wily and occasionally ruthless, there is also the constant desire to do good works: to earn your throne, as it were. For that, ultimately, is what will keep you in power. So when we think of Arab leaders who are -- in a larger political sense -- humane, who comes to mind: Mohammed VI, Abdullah II, Sultan Qaboos. That is the key to being a real prince, as Machiavelli would say: combining ruthlessness with virtu (virtue).

The democratic West should count itself lucky to have such autocrats in power.

Why Mideast Monarchies Survive is republished with permission of Stratfor.

The selling of Obamacare and other tripe....

I found this on HotAir.com this morning and after reading it I was reminded of discussion i had with a college friend on Time and Newsweek. He recalled the time he was with a person he knew at a medical center getting a treatment and he just had to kill a few hours. There were piles of recent issues of both Time and Newsweek and he said "After a while I found I was reading more of the Newsweek and less of the Time." After that I tried it at a library and he was right. Newsweek sucked less that Time (this was over twenty years ago.)

Now we have the propaganda rag of the left explaining the latest problem with Obamacare (excuse me, the Affordable Care Act...pardon me, while I puke.) The problem is not the piece of legislation, just the fact it hasn't been sold right

And Now, The Selling of Obamacare

Stephen Lam

In a windowless office in the basement of the West Wing, behind a utility room and next to a fire-alarm panel, David Simas is marking up another whiteboard with blue ink, hoping to explain one more time just how the President’s health care reform law will work when the time comes for uninusured Americans to sign up this fall.

The abstraction of Obamacare is about to become reality. But will anyone know what to do? An estimated 7 million Americans will join the first health exchanges from Oct. 1, 2013, to April 1, 2014, and most have no idea how to do that. And for the millions who are already covered by some early Obamacare benefits, Simas adds, “We need to continue to remind them of what they’re getting.”

If Simas, 42, has the nervous energy of the 2012 campaign, where he served as opinion-research director, there is a good reason. Though Barack Obama has competed in his last election, he has one more campaign ahead of him. This fall, Obamacare will go into full effect, with the promise of insuring as many as 40 million Americans if it succeeds. But it could still fail.

No Stephen, it's designed to fail. Without people just falling in line and paying multiple times what they do now, the system will collapse. And Stephen, in case you haven't figured it out, that is the purpose.

...the law is increasingly unpopular. According to an NBC News–Wall Street Journal poll released earlier this month, 49% of Americans now believe the law is a bad idea, the highest percentage recorded, with only 37% saying it is a good thing. Many states have already opted out of key provisions to expand Medicaid. In Washington, Republicans continue to lay siege to the law; they have voted to repeal it 37 times in the U.S. House.

That unpopularity threatens one of the law’s most ambitious goals—establishing health care exchanges allowing uninsured Americans to purchase affordable coverage. The exchanges need roughly 2.7 million healthy 18-t0-35-year-olds to sign up to be solvent. The majority of that group is nonwhite and male, according to Simas’ data, and a third are located in just three states: California, Texas and Florida. If too few choose to enroll because they don’t know about the law, don’t like it, or feel they don’t need insurance, the exchanges will fail. And so will the law.

The Administration has plotted an extensive social-media campaign designed to reach the young and healthy and is soliciting sports teams to help raise awareness. More than 10 staffers in the Office of Public Engagement are marshalling the help of Latino and African American groups and community nonprofits. And Simas has spent countless hours surrounded by maps of media markets and demographic data on the uninsured trying to remind prospective enrollees of the benefits available to them: “It’s that guy in Dallas, it’s the woman in Los Angeles, it’s the family in Miami-Dade,” he says.

Obama aides have been saying such things for years, with little effect. But now the clock is ticking, and Obama is running out of time to make his signature achievement stick.

Again Stephen, that is the purpose. Obama's signature achievement is yet to come and Obamacare is just one of the means to that end. Obama (and his ilk) hate this country as it was founded and they want it changed into a second rate nation, the United States of Europe if you will. He thinks we made it to the top of the international pyramid by cheating and taking the wealth of other nations. As if the people of the Middle East would know what the hell to do with oil without the work of the British and Americans. But B Hussein want to fundamentally transform this nation into a second rate power and moving to a single payer system for health care is a means to that end. Destroying the finest health care system on earth will leave the people of this country with no choice but having the government running it and if people are hurt or die during the implementation, so be it. The means justify the end in his mind and you should just go alone. B Hussein Obama will have his goal met of turing this country from a republic into a semi-solaist nation with no opposition. And the "leadership" of the Republican party have no stomach to fight him.

God help us all.

Officer Down

Police Officer William Jason Sprague
Texarkana Texas Police Department
End of Watch: Saturday, June 15, 2013
Age: 30
Tour: 2 years
Cause: Vehicular assault
Incident Date: 6/14/2013

Police Officer William Sprague succumbed to injuries sustained the previous night when he was struck by a hit-and-run driver while investigating a disturbance at Grady T. Wallace Park at approximately 12:30 am.

Officer Sprague had responded to reports of the disturbance, involving approximately 100 people, and was attempting to make contact with the driver of an SUV. The vehicle suddenly accelerated, struck Officer Sprague, and then fled the area. Officer Sprague was transported to a local hospital where he succumbed to his injuries the following morning.

The subject who struck Officer Sprague was arrested the following day after being interviewed by detectives.

Officer Sprague had served with the Texarkana Police Department for two years and had previously served with several agencies in Arkansas. He is survived by his wife and son.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh. 

How New York does it wrong and Texas has it right.

Which is normal.

Saw this last week and I have to say, coming from the former Empire State and example of all the worst of liberalism, I'm not surprised

Upstate NY man charged after confining in closet 4 boys caught vandalizing home

CLYDE, N.Y. (AP) -- A man who says he caught four boys vandalizing his father-in-law's home has been charged with child endangerment after corralling them in a closet until police arrived.

Jesse Daniels was arraigned on four counts of endangering the welfare of a child after authorities say he interrupted the vandalism at the empty home in the Wayne County village of Clyde, midway between Rochester and Syracuse.

Daniels, 53, told WHAM-TV in Rochester that he heard pounding coming from the home next door the night of June 8. The house is empty while Daniels renovates it for his father-in-law.

Daniels said he went to investigate while his wife called 911. He said he found four boys, ages 8 and 10, inside with hammers. He took a hammer from one, then stuck the boys in a closet until officers arrived, he said.

"I was fortunate that they were in that room that had a closet, so I put them in the closet," he said. "I said, 'Listen, you guys are staying here until the police come, period.'"

Their parents said Daniels handled the boys roughly and threatened them with the hammer.

The damage to the home included holes in the walls, broken windows and graffiti derogatory to women spray-painted on walls. Daniels estimated that the damage to his father-in-law's property exceeds $40,000.

He said he believed the boys committed the vandalism in retaliation for Daniels' wife telling them earlier in the day to stay off the couple's property.

The boys have been charged with burglary and criminal mischief. Their cases are being handled in Wayne County Family Court.

Paul Bowler, the father of two of the boys, told the station that there are no excuses for his sons' actions.

"I understand they were in the wrong, but there are other ways to handle it," he said. "He (Daniels) knew who the kids were. It's not like they were strangers. And send the kids home and call the cops then. You don't sit there and torment them and tell them you're going to bash their skulls in with a hammer."

Bowler said Daniels grabbed the neck of one of his sons and left a mark. He said that his boys are traumatized and that Daniels should have faced more charges....

Mr Bowler, I would say you raised a piece of s^%#, but he obviously wasn't raised. If he was, he wouldn't have put 40K in damage in a man's house. But even m ore absurd is the fact the local DA even took charges on this. That idiot needs his ass kicked.

Now, this is how we do things in Texas.

Baytown mom punches, runs over robber who threatened her kids

BAYTOWN, Texas -- A Baytown mother fought back – and won – when an armed robber threatened her and her two young sons, according to police.

Dorothy Baker was just driving home from CVS with her sons, ages 5 and 2, when a man crept up from the third row of their minivan with a knife.

He demanded money.

“So I asked him how much he needed and he said $200,” Baker said. “And I told him I didn’t have that kind of cash, I had about $20 in my account, and he said I better figure out a way to get it, or my kids were going to get hurt.”

Thinking fast and acting even faster, the mother of six ignored his request at one point to make a turn.

She said he then leaped up to the front row and realized she had dialed 911 on her cell phone. Instinct took over and she was able to rip the knife out of his hand.

She said she then pushed him to the passenger seat and punched him in the face, all while they were still moving.

“And I told him to get the hell out of my car,” she said. “And he said ‘fine.’ He got out and started running and the next thing I thought was if he gets away he can do this to somebody else.”

So she pursued him.

“He kind of ‘zagged’ and I turned, intending to clip him in the side or something to get him to stop,” she said. “And I ended up running completely over him.”

Baytown police identified the man as 53-year-old Ismael Martinez. He was taken to Memorial Hermann via Life Flight, where he was listed in stable condition.

Damned! :<(  The sack of s%^& lived.

Now seeing she used "deadly force" on another human being, by state law she must be judge by a grand jury.  Twelve people on a panel will judge is this was assault, aggravated assault or justified use of force.

I'll take a bet on the outcome.  Mrs Baker, glad you and the kids are OK and hopefully the turd who started this gets to go back to his home in Huntsville.

Officer Down

Trooper Sean O'Connell
Washington State Patrol
End of Watch: Friday, May 31, 2013
Age: 38
Tour: 15 years
Badge # 1076

Trooper Sean O'Connell was killed when his motorcycle was struck by another vehicle as he controlled traffic in Conway, Washington.

He was struck near the intersection of Fir Island Road and Main Street and knocked to the ground at approximately 5:45 pm. He was transported to a local hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.

Trooper O'Connell was a U.S. Navy veteran and had served with the Washington State Patrol for 15 years. He is survived by his wife and two children.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh. 

Geopolitical Weekly: The Foreign Policy Impact of Iran's Presidential Election, June 18, 2013

By Michael Nayebi-Oskoui and Kamran Bokhari

Iranians went to the polls Friday to elect outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's successor. Candidates reported few serious problems with the process, and the losers sent congratulations to the eventual winner, Hassan Rouhani. 

Compared to the political instability that followed Ahmadinejad's 2009 re-election, this process was relatively boring. But however the news media felt about the election, Iran needs domestic stability if it is going to change its foreign policy in a very challenging geopolitical environment.

Domestic Stability

Domestic stability has been the first goal for any regime that would project power from Iran's central highlands. The Persian Empire first emerged only after a central power subjugated the various groups of Indo-Iranian, Turkic and Semitic peoples within its borders. The suppression of 2009's Green Movement is only a recent example of a strong state apparatus quelling internal dissent. For millennia, various Persian regimes have sought to keep such domestic pressures at bay while foreign powers have sought to exacerbate these tensions to distract Iran or make it vulnerable to invasion. 

In today's Iran, structural economic stresses that have persisted under decades of sanctions are coming to a head while sectarian competition in the region has halted the expansion of Tehran's regional influence. The clerical regime that currently rules the Iranian mountain fortress understands the threats from beyond its borders, but like its predecessors, it must make peace at home before it can address external challenges. 

Much of the Western, and especially U.S., coverage of the Iranian elections centered on Rouhani, a figure known to many in the West. He took part in the Islamic Revolution and had ties to Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic republic. He also has ties to Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran's second clerical president, and is a representative of the current supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, on the Supreme National Security Council. Rouhani served as secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council for 16 years. As an extension of this position, he was Iran's chief nuclear negotiator from 2003 to 2005. It was during this period when Rouhani's foreign policy credentials became best known in the United States and Europe. It was also during this period when Western and Iranian nuclear negotiators came closest to reaching a deal. 

Paradoxically, Rouhani combines conservative and reformist tendencies. As a cleric, he does not seek fundamental changes in Iran's power structure of the sort Ahmadinejad sought, but he also advocates cooperation with, and outreach to, other branches of Iran's power structure such as the military and civilian politicians. While defending Iran's nuclear program and regional agenda, he understands that simply issuing ultimatums to the West and escalating tensions rather than striking compromises will not win relief from sanctions. In this regard, he resembles the reformist former President Mohammed Khatami, under whom Rouhani served as chief nuclear negotiator. Rouhani can be expected to adopt a less incendiary tone in foreign policy than Ahmadinejad and to cooperate with other domestic power centers, like those of the supreme leader and the military and security forces.

Iran's domestic woes give it an incentive to pursue the kind of pragmatic engagement and dialogue with the West Rouhani was known for, especially on issues such as Iran's nuclear program and Tehran's interests in the Levant, Iraq and Afghanistan. This means Friday's election represents a relative success for the Islamic republic, though it denied the West's desire for a disruptive election that would see Iran's clerical regime fall. 

Ahead of any meaningful traction on its foreign policy agenda, the Iranian government had to re-engage its electorate, something it has accomplished with this election. Tellingly, aside from current nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, seven of the eight candidates approved to run in this election campaigned on moderate or even reformist platforms, in stark contrast to the nationalist rhetoric of the firebrand Ahmadinejad.

Although largely unaffected by the regional unrest in 2011, the clerical regime needed to demonstrate both to its citizens and foreign capitals that the Iranian people could still bring about change at the ballot box, not just through the streets. Given the choice, the Iranian people chose pragmatism in relatively free and fair elections.

Though the Islamic republic cannot be changed overnight -- long-term structural changes are needed to revive the Iranian economy -- Rouhani's campaign and election have provided a relatively immediate, low-cost way to lessen some of the domestic pressures on the regime. Large-scale demonstrations in support of the president-elect following the announcement of his victory took place in Tehran and throughout many of Iran's urban centers, without the involvement of state security forces. For now at least, this suggests Iran's large and increasingly frustrated electorate seems to have been appeased.  

While it is, of course, too early to know how his presidency will play out, the Rouhani administration at the very least will not begin its tenure plagued with doubts regarding its legitimacy of the sort that greeted Ahmadinejad's second term. Also unlike Ahmadinejad, the president-elect has the opportunity to bridge deep divisions within the clerical elite. With clerical authority and the supreme leader no longer under attack from the presidency, and with convincing electoral support behind him, Rouhani has already overcome the largest hurdles to amending Iranian policy at home and abroad.

Foreign Policy Shifts

It is in this framework that the West hopes to eventually re-engage Rouhani and Iran. Fiery rhetoric aside, Ahmadinejad also sought a strategic dialogue with the West, especially as his competition with the supreme leader prompted him to seek foreign policy wins. But the infighting that resulted from Ahmadinejad's attempts to undermine the pro-clerical structure of the republic impeded any progress in this arena. 

If Rouhani can get the clerics behind him and accommodate the interests of Iran's military and security forces and the broader electorate, his chances of reaching a dialogue or negotiated settlement with the West will be much improved. 

Guiding much of this will not be just the change in personalities but Iran's shifting geopolitical environment. Since it is no longer on the regional offensive, Tehran's previous defiant rejection of American interests is now incompatible withlong-term Iranian goals in the region. 

There is still much work to be done at home before Iran can switch gears, and Iran's president-elect still faces considerable challenges to enacting any major shifts in policy. Rouhani must still convince many of the stakeholders within the regime that he can be trusted. He must protect the economic interests of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps while building a relationship with Iran's larger and often overlooked regular army. He must also manage his relationships with Rafsanjani, his most influential political backer, and with the supreme leader. Rafsanjani and Khamenei are competitors, and although the approval and eventual success of Rouhani's candidacy may hint at a broader clerical rapprochement, the supreme leader will not take kindly to attempts by Rafsanjani to rule through Rouhani. Rafsanjani, however, is unlikely to stop trying to capitalize on the successes of his protege. 

Against a backdrop of domestic political reconfiguration, gradual diplomatic outreach to and from Iran can be expected. Parliamentary elections in 2015 will provide greater insight into how much change Rouhani can attempt, and it is along this timeline we should expect to see Iran seriously re-engage in negotiations with the West. In the meantime, little substantive change will occur beyond more careful rhetoric regarding both Iran's nuclear program and Tehran's support for the embattled Syrian regime. While challenges to both Iran's domestic policy realignment and outreach to the United States thus remain, Western and regional hopes for such change endure. 

The Foreign Policy Impact of Iran's Presidential Election is republished with permission of Stratfor.

Portable Battlefield Surgery Kit

One of the good things of working in Houston is we have multiple Level One Trauma Centers in case of major injury. If you get shot, stabbed, crushed or burned, you go to Ben Taub or Hermann Memorial. Now I found this interesting and one of the bad things for smaller departments (or state police units) is they may not have emergency facilities available nearby. Time can mean life. Something like this may very useful to smaller, more isolated agencies.

Nicole Ribeiro, an anesthesiologist, demonstrates how a tablet
computer can help evaluate a burn patient when used with other
miniaturized medical tools. Nick de la Torre / Houston Chronicle

Dr. George Kramer shows a miniaturized high-rate IV pump, which is
used to help burn patients in John Sealy hospital in Galveston.

Emergency room in backpack being developed for battlefield

GALVESTON — Marines seriously wounded in remote areas of the world, hours or even days from emergency room care, can find their lives slipping away.

New tactics developed by the Marine Corps that emphasize smaller, highly mobile units operating in distant lands make the need for better medical care closer to the battlefront even more important.

That care is on its way in the form of an emergency room in a backpack being developed in part by a team of doctors at the University of Texas Medical Branch. It’s part of an effort to bring close to the front lines treatment normally found only in the best hospital emergency rooms. The effort already has produced life-saving equipment.

“This is really a big breakthrough,” said Dr. Kim Bentley, program officer at the Office of Naval Research in Arlington, Va.

The object of the effort is to reduce the size of bulky monitors and other life-saving equipment normally found in a hospital emergency room so that they can fit in a backpack. Eventually wounded Marines could be hooked up to the automated system and it would keep them alive while they were transported to the nearest aid station.

One possibility under consideration is attaching the equipment, known as the Automated Critical Care System, to a drone that would carry the patient to a hospital ship.

“It’s robot airplanes and robot medical care at the extreme part of this vision,” said Dr. George Kramer, a researcher who pioneered two key components of the system. Although the Office of Naval Research is leading the development of the system, it would be available to all branches of the service and eventually to civilian first responders, Bentley said.

Small enough to carry

The idea is for miniaturized medical devices to be connected to a core computer. Devices would monitor vital functions such as breathing and heart rate as well as administering blood and saline solution, drugs and anesthetics, among other medical tasks.

The entire system must be small enough to fit into a backpack. The device could work on its own without human intervention or give information to a caretaker. It could also link to specialists.

University of Texas Medical Branch is developing the devices that monitor and dispense fluids and drugs, the University of Cincinnati is working on devices that assist with breathing, and Iowa-based Athena GTX is working on the core computer, Bentley said.

A helicopter picking up wounded could be equipped with the system, which would give doctors information about the injury earlier than was previously possible.

“The great thing about this whole setup is that it provides a medical record from the point of injury onwards,” said researcher Dr. Michael Kinsky. “We don’t have any information now at the point of injury. It’s a big black box.”

Vital signs monitor

Kramer developed a component known as the Burn Navigator, which monitors a burn patient’s fluids and automatically replaces them. The device was recently approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. He developed a second device to monitor blood pressure and replace blood. The device consists of a wireless vital-signs monitor with a cuff that transmits information to a computer tablet about the size of an iPad. The computer analyzes information from the monitor and sends instructions to a small pump.

Kinsky is testing the blood system on volunteers and the results are promising, with no complications in about 50 experiments, he said.

Another group of the hospital’s researchers is turning the best available medical knowledge into algorithms — mathematical computations that can create software for the Automated Critical Care System.

Houston-based Arcos Inc. has adapted the rugged Panasonic Toughbooks for use as the trauma tablets to control the blood system device. Arcos is using the hospital algorithms to develop the tablet software.

The device can operate on its own, but it will know when human assistance is needed, Arcos CEO Chris Meador said. Arcos is manufacturing the Burn Navigator and will manufacture the blood system device....

Officer Down

Sheriff Cody Carpenter
Scott County Arkansas Sheriff's Office
End of Watch: Friday, May 31, 2013
Age: 42

Wildlife Officer Joel Campora
Arkansas Game and Fish Commission
End of Watch: Friday, May 31, 2013
Age: 32

Sheriff Cody Carpenter and Wildlife Officer Joel Campora drowned while assisting victims of an overnight flash flood along the Fourche Lefave River near Y City, Arkansas.

They had responded by boat to a 911 call at a home in the flooded area along the river. They both exited the boat and entered the home to assist two female victims who were trapped inside. At some point the officers, victims, and boat were swept away by the rising water. Sheriff Carpenter's body was located the following morning while Officer Campora's body was recovered three days later.

Sheriff Carpenter had served as sheriff for 11 years and had served with the Scott Sheriff's Office for a total of 16 years.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh.