It’s Orwell 101; the authoritarian/totalitarian state has to have an enemy to justify piddling on the Rights of Man.

I know, I know; the left spent the last eight years caterwauling emptily about the same thing – the threat that the War on Terror was just a pretext to gut Americans’ civil liberties.  It’s not to say that the price of Liberty isn’t eternal vigilance; it’s not even to say that the left was crying wolf.

It might seem, though, that they’re projecting a bit.  The Obama Administration is apparently weighing using the US military to help the Mexican military fight the narcotraficantes weighing using the US military to help the Mexican military fight the narcotraficantes that have made northern Mexico as dangerous as Iraq so far this year:

The U.S. military is in a better position to provide Mexico’s military with training, resources and intelligence as its southern neighbor battles deadly drug cartels, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says…”I think we are beginning to be in a position to help the Mexicans more than we have in the past. Some of the old biases against cooperation with our—between our militaries and so on, I think, are being set aside,” Gates said in an interview aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.””It clearly is a serious problem,” he said.

But yes, of course – it’s our civil liberties that are at fault:

A U.S. report has found that weapons in the drug killings are coming from north of the border. Mexican authorities are outgunned by the drug cartels because the criminals are receiving their high-powered arms from the United States, Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday…”They want to clearly stop the guns from the United States going south. We want to stop the drugs coming north,” Emanuel said on “Face the Nation” on CBS. “That border is important to us and Mexico is a key ally of ours.”

We’ve called BS on this claim for quite some time; what self-respecting thug would use a measly semi-automatic, civilianized “Assault Weapon” when they can get, for a fraction of the price, fully-automatic weapons from Central American legacy terrorist groups, from the Mexican and other co-opted Latin American militaries, or from gun-merchants who can turn cartel drug money into first-world hardware for the asking.

No, the Administration needs a boogieman.

A domestic, right-wing boogieman.

So, gun owners; are you ready to boogie?

I strongly disapprove of police brutality.

So all I can add to the video Ed runs in this post is that the cops’ defense attorneys had better shoot for a jury of parents of teenagers.

…for harm to befall others, I think it’s forgiveable to hope that dogs and tasers were used in this FBI raid:

The FBI searched the Virginia headquarters of the PMA Group in November, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. PMA was founded by former Murtha aide Paul Magliochetti and specializes in winning earmarked taxpayer funds for its clients.

Good government groups have long criticized Murtha’s cozy relationship with a handful of lobbyists and defense firms, ties that see millions of dollars in government spending go out from Murtha’s office, and hundreds of thousands in campaign donations come in. Murtha has said his earmarking has helped revive his economically depressed district.

And maybe that cool battering ram tank they have in LA.

Tuscon homeowner beats back four armed scumbagswho attack his home, apparently wounding one of them.

On the other hand, the first guy in the video is carrying an AR15.  Good to see how all those “assault weapon bans” that made it so expensive to buy the cool firearms have been so effective in disarming criminals.

…since a story made me as angry as this one:

An Arizona man who has waged a 10-year campaign to stop a flood of illegal immigrants from crossing his property is being sued by 16 Mexican nationals who accuse him of conspiring to violate their civil rights when he stopped them at gunpoint on his ranch on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Roger Barnett, 64, began rounding up illegal immigrants in 1998 and turning them over to the U.S. Border Patrol, he said, after they destroyed his property, killed his calves and broke into his home.

His Cross Rail Ranch near Douglas, Ariz., is known by federal and county law enforcement authorities as “the avenue of choice” for immigrants seeking to enter the United States illegally.

Government can’t, or won’t, protect him and his property, which has sustained immense damage from the depredations of the packs of illegals crossing his land.

But for goodness’ sake, be polite when you confront them:

Trial continues Monday in the federal lawsuit, which seeks $32 million in actual and punitive damages for civil rights violations, the infliction of emotional distress and other crimes. Also named are Mr. Barnett’s wife, Barbara, his brother, Donald, and Larry Dever, sheriff in Cochise County, Ariz., where the Barnetts live. The civil trial is expected to continue until Friday.

The lawsuit is based on a March 7, 2004, incident in a dry wash on the 22,000-acre ranch, when he approached a group of illegal immigrants while carrying a gun and accompanied by a large dog.

Attorneys for the immigrants – five women and 11 men who were trying to cross illegally into the United States – have accused Mr. Barnett of holding the group captive at gunpoint, threatening to turn his dog loose on them and saying he would shoot anyone who tried to escape.

On the other hand, a few more stories like this and perhaps the nation will come around…

…wait.  No.  Here’s the answer; round up the illegals at the border, and buy them airfare and cabfare to Malibu, to Cape Cod, to northern Virginia, and whatever parts of Connecticut all the nations news anchors live in.

When illegals file suits against Katie Couric and Jon Stewart – then you’ll see action on this issue.

…stories of disc jockeys who took immense creative revenge on stations that fired them were legion; some locked themselves into the studios and staged epic rants (that, often, improved their careers); others merely beat the crap out of their management (or tried).  Smart management started making sure they had security on hand after a few of these stories.

A lesson that IT management seems to be  slow to learn:

Rajendrasinh Babubahai Makwana, 35, of Virginia, concealed the Unix script on Fannie Mae’s main administrative server on October 24, the same day the Unix engineer was terminated, according to court documents made public Tuesday. His script was programmed to remain dormant for three months, when it would greet administrators with a login message that read “Server Graveyard” and systematically replace all data with zeros on every production, administrative, and backup server in the company.Makwana was arrested on January 7 and released on $100,000 bond.

The plot?  Well, it might have done Chloe O’Brien proud:

The allegations also lay out a cautionary tale about the risk of lax security practices at highly sensitive enterprises. Despite his dismissal on October 24, Makwana’s highly privileged computer access wasn’t terminated until late into the evening because of bureaucratic procedures in Fannie’s procurement department, according to court documents.

Shortly after Makwana was informed he was being fired, he logged in to Fannie’s main development server and embedded a series of malicious scripts inside a legitimate program. To conceal the malicious payload, he created a page worth of blank lines between the legitimate code and the malicious code.

“When the program ascertained it was January 31, 2009, it would copy the rest of the files from the ‘.soti’ file from the dsysadm01 server and run the .y.sh script,” a FBI special agent wrote in a sworn statement that referred to Fannie as ABC to protect its identity. “The .y.sh script would place a blocker on the monitoring system disabling any ABC engineers from receiving a monitoring alert for any problems on any machines in the entire ABC environment for 61 minutes.”

Makwana’s script would then disable logins to Fannie’s administrative and backup production servers; remove the root password appliance access; rewrite all data, including backup software, with zeros; and target any “high availability” software. It would then replicate itself to each of Fannie’s 4,000 servers.

Maybe he needs a government gig.

The local chattering classes are tittering merrily; the guy who rammed his “SUV” (or was it a pickup truck?) into Saint Paul’s Baby Meat Mill Planned Parenthood Clinic was “mentally ill”:

Stop the murderers,” Matthew L. Derosia quoted Jesus as telling him, a criminal complaint said.Derosia, 32, who has a history of mental illness, faces two counts of first-degree criminal damage to property.

This blog does not endorse physical violence to curb infanticide.  Why, had Derosia driven a bigger truck, the clinic might have been put out of action even longer.  Why, who knows?  Someone – say, the next person Jesus talks to – might drive a bulldozer or a tank.  That’d really cause problems, wouldn’t it?

Still, I think it’s interesting;  Planned Parenthood represents a movement that believes the only thing separating “life” and “unviability” is a four-inch trip down the birth canal – but we call Derosia “mentally ill”.

Bush commutes the sentences of Ramos and Compean, two unjustly-imprisoned Border Patrol agents:

In his final acts of clemency, President George W. Bush on Monday commuted the prison sentences of two former U.S. Border Patrol agents whose convictions for shooting a Mexican drug dealer ignited fierce debate about illegal immigration.

Bush’s decision to commute the sentences of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, who tried to cover up the shooting, was welcomed by both Republican and Democratic members of Congress. They had long argued that the agents were merely doing their jobs, defending the American border against criminals. They also maintained that the more than 10-year prison sentences the pair was given were too harsh.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Look – we don’t want to encourage the precedent of police lying about their actions.  But the two agents were scapegoated as part of a defense of an indefensible border policy.

Michael Yon’s lawsuit against Michael moore is going forward, albeit slowly.

Details?  Sure!

There are a few geographical peculiarities in this country that I have to confess I’ve had enough of:

• Yes, Texans, we know; everything’s bigger.
• Alaskans:  Like Texas, in the same accent Francis McDormand used in Fargo.
• New Orleans: When you describe the New Orleans attitude, you’re describing a 24/7 houseparty.  Most of us outgrew that in our early 20’s.
• We don’t care how you do it in New York.

But one of the most tiresome is the reverence Chicago pays to its history of political corruption.

Christopher Orlet at AmSpec has had enough, too:

Here we go again. Another corrupt Chicago politician hogging all the headlines. It seems like every time you open a newspaper (or surf the Internet) some columnist is snootily recounting Chicago’s colorful past as a Shangri-la of corruption and political intrigue, from Mayor Levi Boone’s 1855 Beer Riots to the zany antics of Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Manhattanites may be ardent arts and culture snobs, but no one appreciates a good political scandal like a Bears fan.Just the other day Wall Street Journal readers were treated to the giddy recollections of Chicago native Scott Simon, who reminisced wistfully about the colorful history of Chicago politics. “Chicagoans and Illinoisans,” wrote Mr. Simon, “love political scandal the way that Milanese love opera.”

Speaking as a journalist who just happens to be a downstate Illinoisan, I’ll grant that political scandals are wonderful copy, perhaps even comedy gold. But as a disenfranchised citizen of a corrupt, one-party state ruled by Democratic party hacks (and I mean that in the best way possible) there is little to “love” in these continuous scandals.

Pride in rampant criminality that skews government? I don’t imagine they’d be as proud of it if were a Republican majority.

It’s the Blagojevich burger:

It is the invention of Kuma owner Michael Caine, who once sold a Chicago City Council Burger, topped with foie gras. That was much tastier. But then, &*!% ’em: The Blago begins with a 10-ounce patty, a feisty foundation that remains nonetheless in the &#@$ background, marrying well with the *&^@# condiments; the patty is best ordered pale pink for maximum evocativeness. Next, the burger is topped with a very thick slice of bologna, ensuring every bite of beef is undercut by a mouthful of salty, startlingly bold baloney.The grandest touch, however, is the “bun.” Burger and bologna are held between grilled cheese sandwiches of Wonder Bread and processed American cheese.

The grace note: yellow mustard, squirted into the shape of a dollar sign.

The price? “Negotiable”:

Caine has sold about 70 since last week, and he won’t take less than $10.

“But if you want to pay more, sure.”

This is, after all, a &%$! valuable hamburger.

Last time I went to a burger joint, all I got was appreciation.

(Via Peg)

What do you get when you put an attraction for (among others) yuppies with more money and concern for Mother Oerth than common sense in the middle of the second-worst neighborhood in the Twin Cities?

Oh, what do you think?

The Minneapolis Police Department’s (MPD) Third Precinct has issued an alert regarding a series of robberies/assaults taking place on the Midtown Greenway bike trail and the adjacent Hiawatha light-rail transit (LRT) trail.

According to the MPD, victims have been surrounded by groups of 2–3 or more younger males, pushed off their bikes and robbed of wallets, backpacks or purses. The assaults have occurred after dark. In some instances, knives and guns have been used.

They’re talking about the Midtown Greenway – the old railway trench converted into a cross-Minneapolis bike path – and the trail along the Ventura Trolley.

“Conservative” anti-bike activists please note – both areas were vastly higher-crime before the bike path.

Still, there’ve been some ugly incidents:

The most recent attack took place on Dec. 4 at around 8:30 p.m. along a dark and secluded stretch of the Hiawatha trail just south of the Franklin Avenue LRT station. The victim told the Midtown Greenway Coalition that three young men “formed a pattern” in his path, ordered him off his bike and onto the ground and then stole his backpack. Afterwards, a gun was held to the victim’s head and, the man with the gun said “I’m going to shoot this nigger.” The assailants were gone soon after.

Another victim was referred to using that word in a separate incident on Nov. 21, in which the victim was threatened with a box cutter after stopping along the trail near Minnehaha Avenue.

I’ve ridden the Greenway – never later than dusk in the summer. It goes through some dodgy areas. The LRT bike path – which allows you to ride from the Metrodome to Fort Snelling (and thence to points south across the Mendota Bridge) – is a nice ride, but it goes through some of the worst parts of Minneapolis. I remember riding south from the Riverside Park apartments (the hideous multicolor “New Town” towers on the West Bank that look like they were transplanted from some hideous Egyptian public housing idea) south to Franklin, where the path runs between the backs of warehouses and the LRT line, and silently crossed it off my night-time biking “to do” list.

In response to this ugly, violent crime, the Twin Cities’ perpetually-enraged community proposes to respond with…well, the usual: ineffective symbolmongering:

Take Back the Greenway
Saturday, Dec. 13, 4 p.m.
The ride begins at the Midtown Greenway entrance near Calhoun Beach Club, travels the greenway past the Sabo bridge, then turns onto the Hiawatha LRT.. trail and finally ends at Grumpy’s Bar, 1111 Washington Ave. S. in Downtown East.

…and lumpen passivity:

The MPD and Midtown Greenway Coalition offer these prevention strategies:

— Avoid the Greenway after dark. [That’s right. We merely citizens need to know our place. Everyone knows the city belongs to the scum after dark – Ed.]
— Ride and walk with others, rather than alone. [ “Hell is other people – Sartre]
— Look for a “Bluelight” phone on the Greenway that will connect you directly with 9-1-1. [ Right. Because a bunch of thugs who’ve staked out an ambush will be happy to let you pedal back to a “blue phone”- Ed.]
— Carry a cell phone and call 9-1-1 if you need help. [ Ditto – Ed.]
— Pay attention to your surroundings. Exit the Greenway at the nearest ramp if you feel comfortable or nervous about people you see ahead of you. [ At last, common sense. Of course, that’s always good advice, wherever you are – Ed.]
— If you are assaulted, try to stay calm and give the attackers what they want. The more you resist, the more likely it is that you will be injured. [ Actually, people who don’t resist are about four times as likely to be killed as those who do; SEVEN times as likely as those who resist with lethal force – Ed.]
— Wear a bike helmet while riding to reduce considerably your chances of injury. [ That’s just common sense, given how awful Minnesota drivers – “The Cairo drivers of the West – are. Ed.]
— When calling 9-1-1, give the operator your location. The Greenway is now listed as a street: Midtown Greenway East is the name of the stretch east of Nicollet Avenue to the river. [ Not dumb, obviously – Ed.]
— Take time to familiarize yourself with the addresses of the cross-streets over the trail to help ensure quicker police response. [ Again, not a bad idea – subject, of course, to your having time to call in a report. Which, likely, will be after the perps are gone – Ed.]

Another idea; get your carry permit. And then you, the trained, authorized, permitted citizen, carry while you ride.

Remembering this event last summer – where scads of permit-holding Minnesotans held an Open Carry picnic at Lake Harriet – perhaps a more effective “Take Back The Greenway” idea would be for a gathering of permit-holders on bikes to have a ride. Carrying openly. Or perhaps just doing bounding overwatch.

That’ll get the thugs’ attention.

…I was shocked, shocked, to find this:

What is this world coming to?

Perhaps you’ve heard – Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is under arrest for, essentially, trying to sell Barack Obama’s vacant former Senate seat:

A 76-page FBI affidavit alleges that Blagojevich, a Democrat, was intercepted on court-authorized wiretaps during the last month conspiring to sell or trade Illinois’ U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama for financial and other personal benefits for himself and his wife. At various times, in exchange for the Senate appointment, Blagojevich discussed obtaining:

A substantial salary for himself at a either a non-profit foundation or an organization affiliated with labor unions;

Placing his wife on paid corporate boards where he speculated she might garner as much as $150,000 a year;

Promises of campaign funds – including cash up front; and

A cabinet post or ambassadorship for himself.

Expect the leftyblogosphere to spend a lot of time updating the gentle reader on Mark Foley, Larry Craig and Duke Cunningham.

It’ll be an interesting question for the next one-to-four years; did Barack Obama escape Chicago Democrat politics, or did he bring ’em all to DC?

It’s long been a truism of American government; when some government figure calls for a “war on…” something that is not an enemy nation that is trying to kill us – see “war on poverty”, “war on drugs”, “war on illiteracy”, and so on – it never works.  “War” is a pretty specific human condition, prone to – indeed, built on – profligate waste of money and, worse, blood, as well as the suspension of reason, liberty and often questioning to complete a mission which, at the end of the day, had better be worth all of those sacrifices.  Smart people don’t use it.
To paraphrase William Tecumseh Sherman, “War is hell on political rhetoric”.

Perhaps it’s time to start retiring another term of expedient political rhetoric with similar prejudice; the ‘czar’:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi touted the notion of a “car czar” Tuesday to supervise an auto industry bailout, saying Big Three executives haven’t adapted well to changing conditions.

Does Pelosi really mean “czar” – an omnipotent  hereditary ruler  who had license not only to rule absolutely, but  the means to do so without any due process, often resorting to blood-curdling cruelty?

Well, we’re talking Pelosi so – sorta:

As United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger voiced fresh confidence that an accommodation will be reached on a $15 billion bailout bill, Pelosi told interviewers it’s more critical than ever that change in Detroit be forced.

As long as that “forced change” cleans up the auto industry the way twenty years of “drug czars” have eradicated drugs and reclaimed our inner cities from organized crime, it’s all OK, right?

Background:  I’ve always supported the Boy Scouts,especially in their long-running battle against politically-correct oppressors.  And I still do.

But this story, by Doug Hester at Northern Muckraker, will provoke some thought.

Doug – as he narrates in the post – was molested by his scoutmaster, years ago, in a case that got some local publicity.  Worse – the Boy Scouts of America reacted no better than the Catholic Church did to its own responses to its own sex abuse scandals.

Read the post for the details – it’s a long post, and a good one.

But Doug didn’t write me to publicize his past.  It’s the present he’s talking about.  He’s at the BSA’s headquarters in Texas today, protesting against the Boy Scouts for their response to his and other scandals:

Why am I going public with this? Three main reasons:

1. I no longer feel overwhelming shame or personal embarrassment about disclosing the circumstances of what has happened to me, as I have done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide;

2. The BSA’s heartless lack of responsibility and total absence of scruples has angered me, and

3. The incredibly brave telling of their own sexual abuse histories by such people as wide receiver Laveranues Coles of the New York Jets has inspired me to do what I can to help fight further such acts and their cover-ups, as well as seek redress for victims like myself who are already permanently scarred.

To that end, I would consider it a personal favor if the regular readers here would support my efforts by calling Mr. Mazzuca at 972-580-2000 and expressing disappointment with the way that victims of sexual abuse by leaders in his organization have been treated both in the past and quite recently, and urging him to make even a token attempt at offering these permanently damaged people a way to regain at least a small part of what was stolen from them, in an effort to make their lives a little easier and more complete.

Additionally, I would very much appreciate it if people would publicize my quest through word of mouth, email, blog posts or any other means available to them. Furthermore, if anyone has direct knowledge of any other victims of sexual abuse at the hands of the Boy Scouts, please direct them to me, and reassure them that I will treat their personal information with the utmost confidentiality.

Once again, interested people can also follow my efforts to reach a resolution to this issue at The Boy Scouts Don’t Care.

There are plenty of people who’ve had their lives immeasurably changed for the better by Scouting.  But while every group will draw its “bad apples”, larger organizations – not just the Scouts, but the police and other official bodies – need to learn how to handle this kind of thing.

And Doug’s story is a compelling one, and well worth a read.

NPR’s “Morning Edition” carried a story yesterday morning that made me go “Hmmmm”.

The thesis – bad dconomies don’t cause crime waves:

There are few outlaws in the United States as famous as Bonnie and Clyde — a young couple, with no jobs or prospects, driving across the country robbing banks and killing police officers to make ends meet during the Great Depression.

It’s an indelible image of what people will do during desperate times. For a while, Bonnie and Clyde were almost American heroes.

There’s only one problem: The Depression years had very little crime.

The story went from there to claim that…:

Just look at the 1920s, says David Kennedy, director of the Center for Crime Prevention at John Jay College of Criminal Studies.

“It was a period of booming economic prosperity, the roaring ’20s, and very high crime,” he says.

The 1950s and ’60s were the same. The economy was great, but crime rates rose every single year.

Well, I know one thing; my kids aren’t going to John Jay College of Criminal Studies.

The 1920’s were a booming stretch of time; they were also the peak of Prohibition, which helped organized crime metastasize out of the inner metropoli out across the entire country. 

And by the way, crime rates in general may have been low-ish, but the murder rate peaked at 9.7 per 100,000 in 1933. 

And what happened during the ’50’s and ’60’s?  “Urban Renewal” and the building of the Interstate system gutted the stable beating hearts out of many American cities (including both of the Twin Cities), disrupting low-income communities (like Saint Paul’s Rondo and Minneapolis’ Phillips neighborhoods, turning them from dowdy and low-rent but close-knit and low-crime areas into dangerous ghettoes overnight) and trashing the landscape.  The sixties also brought us the Great Society, which in trying to “declare war” on poverty succeeded in institutionalizing it, and the beginning of the “war on drugs”, which created an upward-incentive on the price of drugs and a profitable niche for criminals to both fill and violently defend (not to mention the fact that the Baby Boom got into their most criminally-susceptible years starting around 1964).  As a result, the murder rates zoomed during the seventies, peaking at a record 10 per 100,000 in 1980. 

When the economy goes bad, many people move in with parents or relatives, and they stay home more — both of which appear to have a calming effect, experts say.

The “experts” seem to be focusing on property crime, rather than violent crimes, especially murder.  I’d suspect (with no academic proof whatsoever) that property crime is a “smile problem”; if people have stuff to steal, people will steal it (especially given that liberal government policy has created both a permanent underclass and a permanently-inflated drug market).  If people have no stuff to steal…

…well, you probably don’t go to John Jay College of Criminal Justice or work for Morning Edition, so you know where this is going, right?

The question isn’t so much why they arrived at their conclusion, or why NPR ran the story. 

The real question is “how does NPR story think this is going to benefit an Obama Administration”.

Intern at KSTP-TV wasn’t happy about being tossed:

University of Minnesota student Jennifer Nicole Anato-Mensah, 21, threw a fit last month after Twin Cities station KSTP let her go. She began hurling threats at an executive producer, according to a criminal complaint, and kicked out the glass of a conference room door in an attempt to get at her. “You don’t know where I’m from. I’ll mess you up, b—-,” the student allegedly told the female producer.

The broadcasting industry, being full of deeply dysfunctional people, is full of stories of the tirades and rampages people go on when they get pink-slipped.  But not so much in the news end of things.

And while Hubbard Broadcasting (KSTP-TV’s owners) has cleaned up its image a bit since I worked there (also bored us to death by hiring Willie and Jay to do mornings at KSTP-AM), I think Ms. Anato-Mensah might have had a big future in middle-management there, back in the ’80s.  It’s all in the timing, I guess.

May I suggest sending an audition tape to Springer?

The important part is finding the good news.

For example, it’d be easy to look at this piece, above the mugging and violent assault on crime novelist Laura Caldwell while jogging in Chicago last weekend…

On Thursday, Caldwell, a red-headed attorney who in 2005 successfully defended a man who spent five years in jail awaiting trial for murder, was jogging at Seminary and Altgeld in Lincoln Park when she saw two men — one with a hood pulled over his cap and the other who was lifting his jacket over his head.

Nervous, Caldwell felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. Suddenly, one of the men kicked her from behind, and she fell onto the street.

“They smashed my mouth into the pavement and kicked me a few times,” she said. “They screamed about money, but I said, ‘Guys, I am jogging and I don’t have any money.’ They took my iPod and ran off.”

…and other such stories…:

Police officers told her that muggings are more common in Lincoln Park in late autumn, when the victims are walking in darkness and more susceptible to surprise attacks, she said.

There was an armed robbery at the same intersection just after 11 p.m. on Nov. 6. And over the last month, there have been two assaults and a purse-snatching within three blocks of Caldwell’s mugging, police records show.

In September, the sister of Bears quarterback Rex Grossman was robbed at gunpoint in her garage about six blocks away at Racine and Armitage.

…and of course Chicago’s skyrocketing murder rate and out-of-control gang violence, and think “Wow.  Crime’s getting bad in Chicago!”

What you should  be thinking is “Whew.  Good thing none of those criminals has to worry about a law-abiding citizen being able to legally use a gun to defend themselves.  All hell could break loose, then!”

Chicago; governnment so good, we now have it nationwide!

One of my co-workers recently got his car – a relatively popular imported model – stolen.

A few days ago, he got a call.  The car’d been found.  He went to the salvage yard where it’d been delivered.

He came back to the office, perplexed; the car, which was in mint condition (it was a ’94, but my co-worker likes to tinker, apparently), was actually in better condition than when stolen.  More to the point, it’d been heavily modified; upgraded suspension, new wheels, all sorts of new, cool parts.

All of them stolen as well, naturally.

They’re still trying to figure out how to settle that one.

Mail delivery stops in on a Chicago-area block  deemed too dangerous by the Post Office:

Dozens of mailboxes remain empty after the post office suspends service in one south suburban neighborhood…The U.S. Post Office seems to think that this is one of the most dangerous blocks in the country. People who live on it say they haven’t gotten any mail delivered to their homes in almost two weeks.

How dangerous?

“Between robberies and shootings and delayed police response, several things going on, that would make it unsafe,” said Harvey resident Venus Jones.

One of those shootings on the morning of October 10th reportedly happened yards away from the mail carrier. That’s when the mail stopped on Marshfield between 151st and 152nd streets, but the post office didn’t tell anyone.

“Some of the people didn’t even know that it was being held at the post office,” Jones said.

Now Jones, who says her own home has been broken into three times in 30 days is talking to her neighbors about the mail problem and what should happen next.

Sounds bad.

Good thing the rights of the the law abiding citizens in the area to own guns are more tightly restricted than any place in the country!  Goodness knows how bad it’d be then, right?

A Nebraska judge tosses a lawsuit against God:

Judge Marlon Polk threw out Nebraska Sen. Ernie Chambers’ lawsuit against the Almighty, saying there was no evidence that the defendant had been served. What’s more, Polk found “there can never be service effectuated on the named defendant.”

Chambers had sued God in September 2007, seeking a permanent injunction to prevent God from committing acts of violence such as earthquakes and tornadoes.

It’s good to know there’s some sort of brake on judicial activism.

Oh, wait – it was “to prove a point”:

Although the case may seem superfluous and even scandalous to others, Chambers has said his point is to focus on the question of whether certain lawsuits should be prohibited.

“Nobody should stand at the courthouse door to predetermine who has access to the courts,” he said. “My point is that anyone can sue anyone else, even God.”

Chambers, an avowed atheist, said he decided to make that point after at least two attempts in the Nebraska Legislature to limit “frivolous lawsuits.”

Laws against “frivolous lawsuits” are indeed stupid – provided you believe in the integrity of judges and juries…

…and we should just change the subject, shouldn’t we?

As I’ve noted in the past, I don’t so much care that Al Franken wrote for Playboy; I’ve been a freelance writer, and I know you don’t look gigs like that in the eye.

Does he cuss during the occasional speech?  Yeah, and I doubt I’ll let him babysit my kids, but I’d suspect he’ll be in a different mode should Minnesota lose its collective mind and send him to DC. 

And is he an aloof, elitist jerkwad – sort of a younger Garrison Keillor?  Sure.  But I’m not voting for a buddy – I’m voting for a Senator.  Right?

Right.

But what does matter is that Al Franken is buddying up with a group that is under investigation in a third of this nation’s states for rampant, mind–numbingly bizarre, massive, immense, systematic, criminal voter (and other) fraud – including Minnesota:

It was last July that Minnesota ACORN endorsed Al Franken.

Today, the Al Franken for U.S. Senate campaign is proud to announce the endorsement of Minnesota ACORN, a member-driven community organization dedicated to providing housing services to low- and middle-income Minnesotans.

“I’m thrilled and honored to receive this endorsement,” said Al Franken. “And more motivated than ever to work with ACORN and other community organizations in this campaign and in the Senate to fight for economic justice, health care reform, good-paying jobs, and a solution to the housing crisis.”

There will need to be a national accounting for ACORN and its contributions – especially in terms of votes – to Democrats across this country.

ACORN is allegedly actively abetting voter fraud:

Two Ohio voters, including Domino’s pizza worker Christopher Barkley , claimed yesterday that they were hounded by the community-activist group ACORN to register to vote several times, even though they made it clear they’d already signed up.

Barkley estimated he’d registered to vote “10 to 15” times after canvassers for ACORN, whose political wing has endorsed Barack Obama, relentlessly pursued him and others.

Fearless prediction: watch the media focus relentlessly on everything but ACORN.  I’m guessing electronic voting machines will make a comeback in the next few news cycles…but I digress.  Watch pre-emptive Tic claims of election fraud to get breathless coverage.

No, really.

The wages of the past eight years – of the Dems trying on the one hand to sabotage confidence in the electoral system on behalf of Algore, and on the other to fraudulently gin up votes for their people up and down the ticket – are a much weaker democracy.

Sure enough. As predicted, black boxes in cars will be required in all motor vehicles by 2012.

The device can be used by the manufacturer to determine if the car was abused in the case of warranty issues (fair enough) but can also be used by attorneys or law enforcement to gather data that “can and will be used against you in a court of law” (no thanks).

A Florida man named Scott Weires (who is an attorney incidentally – JR) has canceled the order for his long-awaited Nissan GT-R. Why? It’s not that he was disappointed in the car’s performance credentials, far from it. The problem is that the GT-R is equipped with a ‘black box’, similar in theory to the kind found on airplanes to help determine what went wrong in case of an accident or breakdown. By the end of 2012, car buyers won’t have a choice as to whether their new car is equipped with a ‘black box,’ or Electronic Data Recorder — they will be federally mandated to carry one.

Florida man cancels Nissan GT-R order due to ‘black box’ 

That’s at least one consumer voting with his checkbook. No word yet on whether the devices will be defeatable.