Hypocrisy, thy name is Kofi

Why would Ghana's ambassador to Morocco require a taxpayer-subsidized apartment in New York City?

For the geography impaired - and we suspect that includes nearly everyone under 40 years of age - Ghana is located in western Africa between Togo and the Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast). It's got a lot of southern sunny beaches, and at least a couple (if you will forgive the pun) serving in the Earth's diplomatic corps.

Morocco is also on the African continent, a bit further north. It's the jumping off point to the Straits of Gilbraltar and Spain. Even allowing for continental drift, it is nowhere close to New York City.

The ambassador in question is Kobina Annan, brother of Kofi Annan who, until recently, was the Secretary-General of the United Nations. When Kofi moved out of his rent-controlled digs on Roosevelt Island upon taking the Sec-Gen post in 1997, a promotion that entitled him to a rent-free mansion, his brother, Kobina, moved in, along with Kobina's Swedish-born wife, Ekua.
Ekua, a member of a very wealthy Swedish family, has for years lectured Americans on how rich, greedy and selfish they are in relationship to the world's poor, and that they have an obligation to help.

And all this time they've been keeping some low- to moderately-poor family out of their house.

According to the New York Sun, at market rates, the 3-bedroom apt would rent for about $4,500 a month. The Annans pay less than half that rate, the rest unknowingly paid by the taxpayers of the State of New York. Since Kofi first obtained the apartment in 1978, it is estimated the taxpayers have shelled out more than $100,000.

We don't pay taxes in New York state, and some would say that gives us no right to comment. However, those people are left-leaning dumb-asses who don't understand how freedom works, so we wish them a Holy Christmas and hope they get a life worth living soon, and comment anyway.

Kofi Annan, no longer a diplomat and presumedly no longer immune from prosecution for his misdeeds - and lo, they are many! - should be hauled into New York City's finest jail system and charged with defrauding the government. If his brother and wife should happen to show their faces, they should be jailed as well. Then the court system should give the Annans a lesson in how the justice system in a free society actually works.

He would be grateful, no doubt, that we do not have, as yet, courts that deal with Islamic justice.

We know that none of this will happen, but in a more nearly perfect world it would.

Behold, the ICE man cometh!

While we are skeptical that enforcement efforts will continue, it is good to hear that there are crackdowns on persons who are in the U.S. illegally, and who are breaking the law by passing themselves off as citizens using stolen social security numbers. We hope the government will crack down, as well, on the businesses that enable this type of lawless behavior. To wit:

The president of, Swift & Co., a chain of meat-packing plants, claims his firm does not "knowingly" hire illegal aliens.

But he also protested - in advance - that a sweep of the firm's facilities nationwide would probably result in the loss of 40 percent of the company's 13,000 workers.

That's 5,200 illegals, most using stolen identity information, if you don't want to do the math.

Our question? How innocent is a company whose president already knows that they have thousands of unlawful non-citizens on the payroll?

Doesn't sound like the company was trying too hard to stay on the right side of the law, does it?

Sadder yet, the United Food and Commercial International Workers Union says it will go to court in six states to halt the Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. What happened to the concept of a patriotic union defending American jobs?

The raids capped a 10-month investigation into an identity-theft scheme that may have hundreds of victims, both U.S. citizens and legal residents, officials said.
...

Advocates of stricter immigration control praised the raids, pointing out they targeted people suspected of committing other crimes in addition to entering the nation illegally.

"I'm glad that ICE is enforcing our immigration laws in light of the illegal immigration crisis we face across the country," Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., said in a statement.

As usual there are protests that the raids threaten "the children" and could violate "human rights."

Others criticized the effect on families or called the raids heavy-handed.

"They are taking mothers and fathers and we're really concerned about the children," said the Rev. Clarence Sandoval of St. Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic Church in Logan, Utah. "I'm getting calls from mothers saying they don't know where their husband was taken," he said.

Mexico's Foreign Relations Department pledged to ensure that any Mexicans caught up in Tuesday's raid have "their human rights fully respected, and are given all the necessary assistance, orientation and consular protection."

We believe that it is a teaching of the Church that parents are supposed to be responsible for the protection of their children, which would include, we would think, staying on the right side of the laws in whichever country you happened to be residing. We also believe that it is a long-standing policy of most churches, especially Catholics, to take care of familiesin trouble. Like women with children whose husbands have been arrested for good cause.

Perhaps it would be good timing to emphasize in homilies the expectation of obeying the laws of the nation in which you reside - "render unto Caesar" - as part of what it means to be a good Christian. If the laws are unjust, work to change them. In the meantime, obey them.

To the Mexican officials, we would simply say: Take a good long look at the log in your own eye before you go talking about the splinter in the American system. Mexico's record of protecting the "human rights" of jailed visitors is not a good one.

Dangerous delusions of grandeur

Last time we checked the United States government still had a Department of State. It handles such things as contacts and talks with foreign governments. All things diplomatic come under the State umbrella. The State Department is in turn a part of the Executive Branch of the government, headed by the President. It's been this way for a long time since, oh, about 1789.

But word today from The Jerusalem Post is that

... Hamas representatives recently held talks with officials from the US Democratic Party at a secret location.

The sources told the Bethlehem-based Maan News Agency that Hamas representatives have also been holding secret talks with European government officials, including Britain and France.

The U.S. government does not officially recognize Hamas because it refuses to renounce its long-standing intention to destroy the Nation of Israel.

If the report is true, what the hell is the Democratic Party thinking? (Perhaps "win a few seats in the House and Senate and we can do anything now!") And who is doing the talking the the Dems? Howard "The Scream" Dean?

God help us all!

If the report is true, it is quite possible that certain parties have crossed that delicate line that separates the merely awful from the wrenchingly unlawful.

Will the free world survive two years of Moonbat control of the Congress?

The Palestinian sympathizer in the woodpile

Who is responsible for the insertion of the phrase "right of return" deep inside the just-released Iraq Study Group report in reference to resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict?

A reference to Palestinians' "right of return" in the report issued by the high-level Iraq Study Group broke a diplomatic taboo which sparked immediate concern in Israel and surprise among Middle East policy experts.

The reference was buried deep inside a 160-page report that urged US President George W. Bush to renew efforts to revive Israel-Palestinian peace talks as part of a region-wide bid to end the chaos in Iraq.

The U.S. has never officially used the phrase. It doesn't even appear in the Oslo accords or in the original U.N. verbiage. But someone put it into the report.

... they do not use the term "right of return", which is a long-standing Palestinian demand -- rejected by Israel -- that Palestinians who fled or were driven out of what was to become the Jewish state in 1948, as well as their descendants, be allowed to return home.

...

"'Right of return' is not in Oslo I or Oslo II, it's not in the Bush Rose Garden speech, it's not even in UN 181, the original partition resolution -- it's part of the Palestinian discourse," said (a) US analyst.

Only a complete idiot would think that the phrase got into the document by accident.

Only a complete liberal would think that it belongs there.

When you take your beer seriously ...

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

A St. Louis man was shot to death Sunday night over a warm beer, police said.

St. Louis police say a woman shot her husband, who was about 70 years old, four to five times in the chest after he tried giving her a warm can of Stag beer.

Police said the wife admitted shooting him about 5:40 p.m. in the kitchen of their home in the 5100 block of Terry Avenue. Police said the home had no electricity at the time.

Homicide detectives would not identify the man. The woman, whom police also did not identify, was taken into custody.

Well, the beer was warm. And while first blizzard of Winter 06-07 has knocked out power to hundreds of thousands in the St. Louis area, anyone should be able to figure out how to keep the suds cool. However, we do not wish to be judgmental in the matter, so it is entirely possible he was trying to do his wife a good turn by giving her something warm to drink.

But Stag?

It is a Miller product. Perhaps the wife was a partisan of hometown Annheiser-Busch. Is it possible that the disagreement over brands was brewing beneath the surface, only to bubble up into deadly violence at a time of great personal stress?

So much for the Mother Country

We understand that British ways are not our ways, but scheduling a Muslim - in full veil, or niqab - to give the Alternative Christmas Speech on England's Channel 4 seems a bit stranger than usual.

The background: Every year the Queen gives a Christmas address. It is televised. We suppose it once was broadcast on radio when the Queen's father was alive. Since 1993 the BBC's Channel 4 has immediately afterward aired "alternative" Christmas speeches. Whether this is to mollify critics of the Queen or merely to provide the audience with a more entertaining exposition, we do not know.

Or care.

Past "Alternative Christmas" presenters have included Sharon Osbourne, wife of the bat biter; the late Quentin Crisp; Ali G; the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and the Simpsons. The latter two are puzzling enough since Jackson and the Simpsons are merely artistic creations of other people. Oops! Our eagle-eyed staff here in Command Central has informed us that Jesse Jackson is, in fact, a real live person. We stand corrected.

Apparently someone decided that since a British official (Jack Straw) suggested eliminating the Islamic veil in Britain, it would only be appropriate to have a veiled woman - a freelance lecturer in Islamic studies and the Koran, no less - rebut the Queen. Chosen was the Zimbabwe-born Khadija. All in the name of political correctness.

England is lost, or nearly so.