The Flag Of The Only County In The Middle East

Where gays and trannies don't get flying lessons by being thrown off buildings, is now considered by progressive LGBTQEIEIO idiots to be a "hateful symbol".

The Detroit News:  Michigan LGBTQ group labels Israel flag 'harmful symbolism'

Apparently the mere presence of Israeli flag at the pride march caused trauma and, per the director of the pride festival, "real harm" to gay Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrian, and other LGBTQs from those hotbeds of toleration for LGBT rights.

This is, of course, totally unlike the trauma and "real harm" they might experience of being thrown off buildings or being stoned to death for being LGBTQ in those hotbeds of toleration like Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria.

Hell Hath Frozen Over - 9th Circuit Strikes Down Discretionary 'Good Cause" Requirement For Firearm Carry

Certainly, it's another sign of the impending apocalypse, or that the latest cold snap caused by Global Warming freezing over the netherworld, if you believe in that kind of thing.

In a rather impressively well-written opinion, a panel of the the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down the discretionary and indeed discriminatory "Good Cause" standard that was in place in San Diego County whereby law abiding citizens were denied concealed carry permits. Under that standard you either had to make an appropriate campaign donation, be "connected", orpractically be already dead from a prior attack before they would issue you a carry permit.

The opinion rightly concludes:

San Diego County's "Good Cause" permitting requirements impermissibly infringes on the Second Amendment right to bear arms in lawful self-defense.

If you had told me a few years back that in 2014 the 9th Circuit would have issued an opinion affirming both the individual rights aspect of the Second Amendment and striking down the typical California government discriminatory approach to issuing carry permits I would have laughed in disbelief.

Nice to see the 9th recognizing and upholding an inalienable human right.

One Very Snazzy Olympic Commercial

Sometimes a commercial can have multiple messages.

Norway's Olympics commercial is an outstanding case in point, and is awesome to boot:

Well played Norway, well played.

Irony Rich Headline Of The Day: Syrian government to lead humanitarian visit

The Detroit Free Press: Syrian government to lead humanitarian visit

The U.N. humanitarian chief said a Syrian government-led mission will visit Homs, Hama, Daraa and other cities at the center of the country's uprising starting this weekend, accompanied by U.N. and Organization of Islamic Cooperation staff who will assess humanitarian needs.

As intense fighting continues, Valerie Amos again appealed to the Syrian government to provide unhindered access for humanitarian organizations so they can identify urgent needs and provide emergency care "in a neutral and impartial manner."

Considering the Syrian government is the cause of the "humanitarian needs" in those cities, having them run the tours is pretty ironic. At least they'll know what issues they've caused and can point out the problems so the UN can continue to "gather information on the humanitarian situation."

I hear the residents of those cities replied: "Thanks, but no tanks!"

Turkey: Using The Statute of Limitations To Let AKP And Islamist Supporters Get Away With Murder

This is one reason why there is no statute of limitations on murder in the USA:

Yahoo News: Turkish police fire teargas after controversial court ruling

Turkish police fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse hundreds protesting on Tuesday after a court dropped a case against five people charged with killing 37 writers and liberals in a 1993 hotel fire set by Islamist rioters.

The five have never been found and the opposition blamed Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his AK Party, which emerged from a series of banned Islamist parties, for a failure to launch a serious search.

"Some of the killers got married, did their military service, held weddings, sent their children to school, but could not be found," main opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu told his parliamentary party. "The AK Party is responsible for the failure to find the perpetrators of the Sivas massacre."

The judge at the Ankara court hearing ruled that the 1993 killings did not amount to crimes against humanity and therefore the statute of limitations applied as more than 15 years had passed
....
"The statute of limitations has always been one of the ways to save the AKP. They always point to the path of the law, then delay it until the statute of limitations," wrote Yalcin Bayar, a columnist for the Hurriyet newspaper. "AKP supporters have saved themselves in many cases with the statute of limitations."

The Supreme Court of Appeals last year upheld life sentences against 25 members of Hizbullah, a Turkish Islamist militant group unrelated to the Lebanese group of the same name, then immediately freed them after ruling the courts had failed to complete the trial process within the allotted time.

Go read the entire article and you'll see how a government can manipulate the system to let its supporters quite literally get away with murder.

Allowing statutes of limitation for murder, particularly political murder is a license to kill for any government that wants to play the game while proclaiming adherence to the rule of law.

In other governmental atrocity news in the region, Syria is busy cracking down on protesters to the shock of the Arab League It's not like the Arab league is any bastion of human rights itself, so when it finally condemns a member for "crimes against humanity" you know they blew it by being too open about how oppressive they are and not getting some wholesale killing done quickly and kept under wraps.

As a side-note to the caption maker of the photo, that's not a tank in the picture, its a BMP Infantry Fighting Vehicle, most likely the BMP-1 variant.

Damn journalists think everything with treads is a tank.