On one side, I don't mind the OT, but then the office bitches about how much OT we're getting. Eff'em.
What I perused in the news:
Why do people keep insisting that the BBC is the best news source available? They've been busted as much or more as any other MSM outlet for doctoring their stories. Well here's another.
Pali Home Demolition That Wasn't
“The BBC regrets” (via Malkin)
Which contained two links to fable about the destruction of the families house that belonged to the
Via Camera:
Against footage of a bulldozer destroying a burning home, BBC reporter Nick Miles was heard in voiceover proclaiming:
In the hours after the attack, Israeli bulldozers destroyed his [the terrorist’s] family home. Later, his mourners set up Hamas and Islamic Jihad banners nearby.
Only one small problem...it's not true.
In fact, the film clip selected by BBC staff could not possibly have been of the terrorist’s family home, as it is still standing (as of March 12) and, together with the nearby public mourning tent erected by the family, serves as a shrine dedicated to the "martyred" terrorist. That such a shrine is still allowed to remain in place has, in fact, prompted public outrage among Israelis and members of Knesset across the political spectrum. On Monday, March 10 – three days after the report aired – Knesset speaker Dalia Itzik (Labor) petitioned the Attorney General to order the demolition of the public tent and the terrorist’s family home.
Not only does the house still stand, but there is a public mourning tent for this murderer, but why would the BBC do this?
BBC's rush to judgement is consistent with its pattern of minimizing Israeli suffering while emphasizing Palestinian victimhood. After all, the BBC – far from being the impartial news organization it claims to be – is well-known for its biased coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict. (See CAMERA critiques of the BBC.) This time, however, the BBC has gone a step further by offering false evidence of Abu Dheim's home demolition that had not even taken place.
On March 13th,seven days after their initial report (and after floggings by numerous blogs) the BBC issued this:
Now, we would like to clarify a report we heard at this hour last Friday about the attack by a Palestinian gunman on a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem. In the report, the day after the attack, BBC World said that the gunman's home in east Jerusalem had been demolished by the Israeli authorities. That was not correct, and the images broadcast were of another demolition.[Emp-mine]
But a week has past, and who even remembers that there was another terrorist attack. (see "General Info" on right sidebar)
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Diversity for Diversities Sake
Via NRO
What Price ‘Diversity’?
The assault on standards in the LAPD.
By Jack Dunphy
The last true meritocracy in the Los Angeles Police Department, perhaps one of the last to be found anywhere in America outside the military, is about to pass into memory. The LAPD’s Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team, which since its inception in 1971 has confronted and captured thousands of murderers, robbers, kidnappers, and every other type of crazed thug imaginable, will soon be crushed under the accumulating weight of a foe it is ill-equipped to oppose and can but hope to vanquish: misguided but nonetheless inexorably advancing notions of political correctness and social engineering. And what a shame this is.
Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Robert C. J. Parry, a former Army National Guard infantry officer who served in Iraq, exposed the LAPD’s plan to lower the standards for applicants to the department’s SWAT team, this with the transparent aim of placing the first female police officer in its ranks. The Times followed up with added details in this front-page, above-the-fold story last Tuesday, a story for which neither LAPD William Bratton nor anyone else in the LAPD hierarchy would comment. It appears that Bratton, who at every opportunity has proclaimed his commitment to openness and “transparency” within the department, has been caught in his own web of duplicity.
Changes to the long-established SWAT selection process have been instituted without publicity (at least until now), and without the approval or even the knowledge of the civilian Police Commission, ostensibly the policymaking board that oversees the LAPD. The changes were based on a report by a panel convened by Bratton himself and charged with, we were told at the time, investigating a 2005 incident in which a 19-month-old girl, Suzie Peña, was killed by police gunfire. The girl’s father was using her as a shield as he fired at the officers who were trying to rescue her, and she was tragically shot and killed when the officers returned fire. Remarkably, this was the only incident in the unit’s history that resulted in the death of a hostage.
While an examination of this incident was the stated purpose for Bratton’s convening of a “Board of Inquiry,” it is now clear that Suzie Peña’s death was merely a pretext, one that provided cover for Bratton to institute changes to the SWAT team based on the report of a supposedly objective panel of experts. But, as Mr. Parry pointed out in his piece, the board did not interview even a single officer involved in the Peña incident. Moreover, it is now clear that many of the board’s members were selected neither for their objectivity nor their expertise, but rather for their willingness to produce a report that supported the changes Bratton already sought to implement. Only one member of the board had SWAT experience (and what a lonely ordeal it must have been for him), while the others were either police executives or lawyers. None of the members were LAPD officers.
Gotdamn politicians, and this includes "Chief" Bratton, to convene a board for the stated guise of looking into one thing and not even touching on that issue, but to go off on a tangent, and outside of Department input or oversight, decide to rewrite policy and rules.
The selection process for a new group of SWAT officers is currently underway, but it is radically different from the one used in 2006, when the last group of officers was added to the team. What had been a five-day series of evaluations designed to test not only a candidate’s skills but also his dedication and leadership abilities has now been watered down to a four-part process consisting of a physical fitness test, an obstacle course (one that is not all that challenging), an interview, and a background check. Any candidate who passes all four phases will be sent to SWAT school, and all who complete SWAT school will be placed on an eligibility list and selected for SWAT as vacancies occur. Two female officers are among the current applicants, and at least one of them will surely make it through to the SWAT team, even if only because Chief Bratton wishes it so.
I'm not against a female on SWAT, but I am against changing the goalposts, just to get a woman in there. If a woman can pass muster under the old rules, she has my whole hearted backing of her appointment, but if she gets in due to "revised" standards, do you really feel she deserves to be there, or that the ones that work with her are going to trust her to do the job?
I know that women in the military have proven that they can do the job given the chance, but even the LAPD SWAT is a small group. They were formed to respond to extraordinary situations and require extraordinary abilities.
Ahh for the days of Chief Parker and Chief Gates, the men who developed the idea of SWAT. They took a corrupt and demoralized police force and, for a period, made it the hallmark of policing.
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Fun Stuff
How People Count Cash?
I never thought about it before, but I have run into some of these styles and wondered "WTF?". Some of these techniques look like they'd lead to some nasty paper cuts.
How People Count Cash? - The most amazing bloopers are here
One more. If you've been paying attentio to the Shrillary/Tuzla debacle:
