I missed the first two days of the convention due to a family emergency. I didn’t actually get a lot of news; i didn’t go near downtown Saint Paul.

Unfortunately, I had to depend on the news media for information. It was that bad.

Like most party conventions, the RNC was pretty much a scripted, predictable pageant, up until Palin’s speech a week ago (for which I was in attendance), so there wasn’t much news.

Now, the mass of protesters – which turned out to be 1/5 to 1/10 as big as “organizers” had originally predicted? They got media coverage. Not only were most of the mainstream media gamboling about among the clots of the disaffected upper-middle-class whites on the street, but practically half of the “demonstrators” were calling themselves “media” as well. So the protests? Yes, they got covered.

Well, let’s be clear; the parts of the protests that the agenda-driven leftymedia wanted covered – alleged police overreaching and alleged excessive force – got covered in slathering detail.

Other stories? Like, atrocities committed by the anarkids?

You can scan the lefty alt-media a long time and find no reference to anything like this:

One 80 year old delegate had to be hospitalized from the violence by the Leftists.

The Alabama delegation was one of the buses that was attacked today in Minnesota.

The Leftist, anarchist, Obama-supporting radicals attacked RNC delegates today at the Xcel Center and sprayed them with a toxic substance.

An 80 year old RNC delegate had to be hospitalized!!

With all the video cameras the likes of the Minnesoros Independent were deploying, you’d think this bit of video might have gotten some play. Molly Priesmeyer would probably breezily quip that they’re all just a bunch of old white people; but if she did, it’d be more coverage than all the rest the “citizen journalists” of the lefty altmedia devoted to the lethal attack on people exercising their First Amendment rights.

They certainly didn’t cover this:

As the Connecticut delegation was getting off a bus near the Xcel Center, a group of protesters broke free from authorities and attacked the delegates.

Connecticut delegate Rob Simmons told FOX 9 that a group of protesters came toward his delegation and tried to rip the credentials off their necks and sprayed them with a toxic substance.

The unknown substance burned their eyes and stained their clothes.

One 80-year-old member of the delegation had to be treated for injuries, and several other delegates had to rinse their eyes and clothing.

Or, um, this?:

…a busload of Cub Scouts were en route to the convention, where they were to present the colors to open the convention. A group of protesters–liberals, Obama supporters, or whatever–blocked the road, surrounded the bus, and attacked it, rocking the bus back and forth, denting and scratching the sides, and generally terrifying the children trapped inside. The left-wing protesters attacked a number of buses in the same way, but there is something especially despicable about attacking a group of Cub Scouts.

(UPDATE: Powerline isn’t so sure about this one anymore.  Let’s wait a bit on that).

This? No? Never mind.

I know some of you leftymedia types read this blog. Where were you when your people attacked the delegates? Most of these attacks occurred before the first demonstration, on 9/1 (which was “highlighted” by anarkids smashing things and attacking the police).

No, I don’t expect an answer. I’ve been asking leftymedia types to answer that one for a week now. Not one has ponied up yet.

The leftymedia is shocked, shocked that the police – who did know about the attacks – didn’t treat the demonstrators, or the lefty alt-media with whom they were pretty much indistinguishable, with kid gloves and greet them like heroes of liberal tolerance.

“Flyover Land” – the part of this country between the Hudson at the Sierras, with a few islands like Minneapolis and Chicago and Boulder, outposts of faux-coastal-transplant cosmopolitanism – is a place that exposes a lot of ignorance on the part of people who don’t live in it.

And we all know that ignorance breeds fear at least, and hate at worst. The coastal media treats “flyover land” with a mix of superstitious stupefaction and condescension.

And via accident or design, the McCain/Palin campaign is pouncing on it. For me, the most memorable line of Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech was her smacking of Obama’s hypocrisy – pandering to blue collar workers and farmers one day, tittering about God and guns and the Bible the next behind closed doors in San Francisco. 

I say right now – it will be the deciding factor in this election. The “Red/Blue divide” in 2000 and 2004 was a demographic happenstance, a series of blotches on a map. In this election – says me – it’s going to be the fulcrum on which McCain and Palin put the lever that lets them move a mountain.

Did I say ignorance and hatred? Bill Maher, as near a posterboy as exists for smug establishment liberalism, wrote in Salon (via Peg Kaplan):

New Rule: Republicans need to stop saying Barack Obama is an elitist, or looks down on rural people, and just admit you don’t like him because of something he can’t help, something that’s a result of the way he was born. Admit it, you’re not voting for him because he’s smarter than you.

No, and I’m smarter than Bill Maher too. But we both digress.

Karl Rove described Obama as “the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini, and making snide comments about everyone who passes by.” Unlike George Bush, who’s the guy at the country club who makes snide comments, and then passes out. Now this characterization, of course, was something Mr. Rove just completely pulled out of his bulbous, gelatinous ass, but remember this is America, a land where people believe anything they hear. One of McCain’s ads casts Obama as “the one,” implying he thinks he’s the Messiah. Good, maybe he can raise McCain from the dead.

Barack Obama can’t help it if he’s a magna cum laude Harvard grad and you’re a Wal-Mart shopper who resurfaces driveways with your brother-in-law. Americans are so narcissistic that our candidates have to be just like us.

And there you have it. We – the lumpen proles in flyoverland – should shut up and fall in line behind our betters.

If you live between the Hudson and the Sierras (outside Chicago, the Twin Cities, Boulder, Austin or Santa Fe), you are a rube, good only for paying taxes and defending the nation. Otherwise, shut up.

That is the attitude – indeed, it’s accepted with near-religious certainty – of the east and west coast media. And McCain, by accident or design, knows it and is capitalizing on it. This attitude – and Mac and Sarah’s response – threatens to do something that the last four GOP candidacies haven’t been able to manager; re-form the Reagan Republicans.

That storied electoral mass – blue-and-white collar voters from the nation’s less-fashionable zip codes – may or may not pay much attention to politics, but they know the economy, because they live in it. They know national security, because it’s their brothers, sons, daughters, cousins…them that serve in our military in vast geographic disproportion.

It’s the part of this nation that takes the flag seriously, and had anscestors not only in World War II, but in Vietnam and the first Gulf War.

It’s the part of the nation that sees this ad (go and watch it) and not only feels a clutch in the stomach for the subject, and thinks “Yes, Lee Greenwood is a sap, and his song is mawkish and hypersentimental, but &*#$*#, I do feel a swell in my heart when I see the flag go by”.  They shop and Walmart and watch NASCAR – and, for that matter, have BAs in English and raise kids and write rings around Bill Maher.

The hatred is more than just a matter of this campaign.  The Guardian’s Nick Cohen traces its recent roots:

In Britain, the most snobbish attacks on Margaret Thatcher did not come from aristocrats but from the communist historian Eric Hobsbawm, who opined that Thatcherism was the ‘anarchism of the lower middle classes’ and the liberal Jonathan Miller, who deplored her ‘odious suburban gentility’. More recently, George Osborne, of the supposedly compassionate Conservative party, revealed himself to be a playground bully when he derided Gordon Brown for being ‘faintly autistic’.

 And it’s not just a matter of personality, whether Thatcher’s, Palin’s, or even Bush’s:

Hatred is the most powerful emotion in politics. At present, American liberals are not fighting for an Obama presidency. I suspect that most have only the haziest idea of what it would mean for their country. The slogans that move their hearts and stir their souls are directed against their enemies: Bush, the neo-cons, the religious right.

In this, American liberals are no different from the politically committed the world over. David Cameron knew that he would never be Prime Minister until he had killed the urgent hatred of the Conservative party in liberal England. A measure of his success is that hardly anyone now is caught up by the once ubiquitous feeling that no compromise is too great if it stops the Tories regaining power. Hate can sell better than hope.

Seeing the left vent its conventional “wisdom” over Palin, so it seems.

And yet…it’s not working:

But instead of following a measured strategy, they went berserk. On the one hand, the media treated her as a sex object. The New York Times led the way in painting Palin as a glamour-puss in go-go boots you were more likely to find in an Anchorage lap-dancing club than the Alaska governor’s office.

On the other, liberal journalists turned her family into an object of sexual disgust: inbred rednecks who had stumbled out of Deliverance. Palin was meant to be pretending that a handicapped baby girl was her child when really it was her wanton teenage daughter’s. When that turned out to be a lie, the media replaced it with prurient coverage of her teenage daughter, who was, after all, pregnant, even though her mother was not going to do a quick handover at the maternity ward and act as if the child was hers.

When a hate campaign goes wrong, however, disaster follows. And everything that could go wrong with the campaign against Palin did. American liberals forgot that the public did not know her. By the time she spoke at the Republican convention, journalists had so lowered expectations that a run-of-the-mill speech would have been enough to win the evening.

It’s the true genius of the McCain/Palin strategy; the Reagan Coalition always saw themselves as the underdogs – and the left (thanks, Bill Maher!) was happy to oblige the impression!

As it was, her family appeared on stage without a goitre or a club foot between them, and Palin made a fighting speech that appealed over the heads of reporters to the public we claim to represent. ‘I’m not going to Washington to seek their good opinion,’ she said as she deftly detached journalists from their readers and viewers. ‘I’m going to Washington to serve the people of this country.’

Anyway – keep condescending, lefties.  Keep trying to slap that glass ceiling above an actual woman of accomplishment who should be a hero to feminists (if feminism were still about, y’know, empowering women).  Keep attacking a very typical middle-American family, with accomplishments and problems all rolled into one.  Please, please have Bill Maher keep telling Middle America what a bunch of dumb schlubs we all are, and how lucky we are “The One” deigns to walk among us at all.

It does our work for us.

…about this story – about a couple of typo police who got their just deserts.

Er, dessserts:

Two self-styled vigilantes against typos who defaced a more than 60-year-old, hand-painted sign at Grand Canyon National Park were sentenced to probation and banned from national parks for a year.

Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson pleaded guilty Aug. 11 for the damage done March 28 at the park’s Desert View Watchtower. The sign was made by Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter, the architect who designed the rustic 1930s watchtower and other Grand Canyon-area landmarks.

The script writers from Monk should really call these guys:

Deck and Herson, both 28, toured the United States this spring, wiping out errors on government and private signs. They were interviewed by NPR and the Chicago Tribune, which called them “a pair of Kerouacs armed with Sharpies and erasers and righteous indignation.”

Hubris, of course, was their problem:

An affidavit by National Park Service agent Christopher A. Smith said investigators learned of the vandalism from an Internet site operated by Deck on behalf of the Typo Eradication Advancement League, or TEAL.

Authorities said a diary written by Deck reported that while visiting the watchtower, he and Herson “discovered a hand-rendered sign inside that, I regret to report, contained a few errors.”

And also was somewhat historic.

Anyway – they were dragged to justice.

I like the occasional happy ending.

The Cardinal Bar, on 38th Street just west of Hiawatha, has attained just a tad of hYpStR chic in recent years; half a block from the 38th Street Light Rail station, it’s become a stop on one of the recent traditions among dissipate twentysomethings with strong livers, the Light Rail Bar Crawl (where people start at the Mall of America, the light rail’s southern terminus, and ride up the line, hitting bars near the stops along the way, at Fort Snelling, the Cardinal, Lake, Franklin, Cedar-Riverside, and finally downtown).

But back in the day, when the Card was the closest cheap bar to my first apartment at 38th and Hiawatha, it was a place to go to get $.50 tappers and dollar burger baskets on Tuesday nights, to sit on a well-worn bar stool with a bunch of alcoholics and yap about the Vikings”.

Anyway, while many of us have fond (also hazy) memories of the place, apparently not everyone’s awash in nostalgia:

The third arson to hit a Minneapolis bar and grill this summer has prompted authorities to again search the south side neighborhood for culprits.

The most recent fire struck the Cardinal Bar and Restaurant, 2920 E. 38th St., just before 6 a.m. Saturday, when firefighters arrived to find flames outside an unused doorway to the bar along 38th Street. The fire was limited to the outside of the building and was put out in about five minutes, said Sgt. Sean McKenna of the Minneapolis Police Department’s arson squad.

If we assume his motive is anger at the hYpStR faddism that’s put the place on the map, then please, please Minneapolis PD; find them.

Before the arsonist turns his attention to the Turf Club.

With DNC in mind, city bans carrying urine, feces

Poo and pee dominated a public hearing Monday on a new law that prohibits people from carrying certain items if they intend to use them for nefarious purposes.

What other purpose might there be for carrying these “products”? I’d say monger away. This is a law whose time has come!

Representatives from some of the groups planning large-scale protests during the DNC this month said the ordinance was unnecessary and accused city officials of fear mongering.

No Pun intended? 

“The intent of this ordinance is to try to smear protesters and make them look as if they are somehow criminal or somehow going to engage in some kind of gross conduct,” said Glenn Spagnuolo, an organizer with the Re- create 68 Alliance.

The ordinance makes it illegal to carry certain items, such as chains, padlocks, carabiners and other locking devices. It also prohibits the possession of noxious substances. Two of the most frequently used examples of a noxious substance are a bucket of urine and a “feces bomb.”

Police have to prove that people carrying such items intend to use them to block public access or emergency equipment or to thwart crowd control measures.

“Our intent for this bill is not about suppressing or chilling First Amendment rights,” he said.

“Young man!”

“Yes Officer?

” Just exactly what do you intend to do with that shit?”

“Exercise my first ammendment rights?”

“Put down the poop son. Before I get pissed!”

I have had more than my share of speeding tickets over the years. I drive a fair amount, like fast cars, and sometimes lose track of my speed or get caught having a little extra fun.

For me, the occasional speeding ticket is a cost of doing business.

As a taxpayer however, It has always raised my ire to observe speed traps on state or federal freeways staffed by local municipal squads. I have a great respect for our police officers. I consider them to be just as brave and in service to our country as anyone in the armed forces. However, I wonder if the officers themselves are thinking

“Is this what I signed up for? Traffic duty?”

Yesterday I spied a Golden Valley squad on 394 before he spied me with his laser gun.

He was “shooting” at cars in very heavy traffic, all of which were well above the posted speed limit. This caused an annoying and probably dangerous scenario where drivers, having spotted him, were jamming on the brakes before the poor sap just behind them knew what was happening.

One has to wonder what is more dangerous? The extra seven miles per hour or the tax collector police officer with the laser gun. 

Two days ago I observed two Minnetonka cops preying on Westbound traffic on the Crosstown, Highway 62 near 494 where the speed limit drops from 55 to 45. One with the laser gun. One primed to pounce.

In the case of Minnetonka, I happen to know that at any given time there are four squads on duty in the city because I have voiced my opinion on the topic with the police chief more than once, having also seen the same thing on 494, an interstate freeway.

In essence, half of our police force was preying on motorists on a state highway that happens to pass through the city. In the mean time, in almost five years living in my neighborhood, where motorists regularly travel at ten to fifteen over the limit on a street where children are regularly seen biking, I have seen a squad patrolling only once.

Within the last ten years or so, a convenience store and a Dairy Queen have been robbed at gun point in the city of Minnetonka. In the case of the convenience store, an employee was shot and died.

That is not to say that either could have been prevented (unless a squad happened to be within view). Rather, it makes the point that speeding isn’t the only crime in these parts.

Shouldn’t our squad cars be conspicuously cruising our neighborhoods and business districts? Isn’t that the highest and best use of a scarce resource? Are speeders from a different community on a state or federal highway that happens to pass through the community a chief concern for the respective police department?

or…

Is it actually a local tax on out of town speeders in response to diminished state and federal funds coming to local police forces?

This could be a post on the second amendment, or on property rights. The comments section will dictate that.

I just had to put it up because…

…because I thought it was so damn funny.

Man shoots his lawn mower, police say

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (AP) — A 56-year-old Milwaukee man is accused of shooting his lawn mower because it wouldn’t start.

Keith Walendowski has been charged with felony possession of a short-barreled shotgun or rifle and misdemeanor disorderly conduct while armed.

According to the criminal complaint, Walendowski says he was angry because his Lawn Boy wouldn’t start Wednesday morning.

Not exactly an endorsment for Lawn Boy.

Right off the bat, I can empathize. Lawn mowers don’t have a complicated life. They start, they run, they cut. In that order. A lawn mower unable to perform any of these three elements would foster hatred in the heart of any property owner.

 He told police: “I can do that, it’s my lawn mower and my yard so I can shoot it if I want.”

Okay, fearless readers, who wants to handle that one?

A woman who lives at Walendowski’s house reported the incident. She says he was intoxicated.

No, really?

Walendowski could face up to an $11,000 fine and six years and three months in prison if convicted.

Wow. That would have paid for years of lawnmower tune-ups and oil changes. Heck, that would have paid for years of lawn mowers.

A call to Walendowski’s home went unanswered Friday.

Seriously, what could possibly come of that conversation? Again, the comments section might offer some insight here as well. Anyone up to the task?

There was no information available on the condition of the lawn mower.

There was no mention of Brett Favre in the article either.

You and your kids are out for a day of fun at Valleyfair.

Some dirtball cops a feel of your daughter.

You go to try to set him straight.

He calls for a bunch of his friends.

They mean to do  you harm.  Lots and lots of it.  Eight teenagers and twentysomethings, jacked up on misplaced testosterone.

What do you do?

If you’re a concealed carry permit holder in the state of Minnesota, and didn’t seek out the confrontation, and think you can convince a jury that you reasonably fear death or great bodily harm, and that you’ve made reasonable efforts to de-escalate, and that the use of lethal force is reasonable (again with the jury), and there’s not a big crowd with possibilities for collateral damage, the decision is both easy and awful.  You draw.  You point.  If the scumbags are like most scumbags, they get a sudden case of mortal fear, and they run like hell.  If they don’t back down – say, they draw a knife or a gun of their own, or come at you with tire irons – you shoot.  Given that you are probably overwhelmed with adrenaline,  you don’t – can’t – try to get cutesy with your aim; you shoot for center mass, and keep shooting until your target drops.  And pray that that’s enough to stop things.  As, indeed, it usually is.

What if it’s not you?  What if you see the event going down – the father defending his daughter, the gang of wanna-be thugs gathering, the “men” stomping on the man’s head.  You have a permit.  There is no sign of a security guard, to say nothing of cops.  Nobody else is stepping forward.  You reasonably believe that the guy, the father, is about to get his brains stomped out.

What do you do?

While Minnesota’s self-defense law states that one can use lethal force in self-defense if one reasonably believes oneself or another person are in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm, things get very cloudy when you are not the potential victim, but just a good samaritan.

 There’s nothing hypothetical about the story, of course.  As John Hinderaker notes, the local media is finally talking about  this two-week-old beating at Valleyfair…:

Shakopee police say as the crowd was leaving Valleyfair Amusement Park around midnight on the 4th of July, the victim’s daughter was confronted by two men.

“The 12-year-old daughter was either touched or slapped in the buttocks area,” Scott County Attorney Patrick Ciliberto said. “The father confronted (the men) by yelling at them for what they had done to his daughter,” he added.

Police say the two men called their friends, who were also in the park. The group of seven men and a juvenile then confronted the father.

“They beat him to the ground and then, the evidence that we have, when he was on the ground, they used their feet on him. They were kicking him in the face when he was down,” Ciliberto said.

According to the criminal complaints, the men were stomping on the 41-year-old father as he lay on the ground, unconscious.

He suffered severe head injuries, including a fractured right orbital bone and possible subdural bleeding on the brain. “We don’t know if there are permanent injuries yet,” the County Attorney said.

Of course, nobody was armed – or if they were, they opted not to use their gun to break up the beating.  Nothing unusual there; it’s a difficult decision, made all the harder by the disdain in which the local officialdom holds citizens who defend themselves or other citizens from the depraved. 

In 1994, after a crazed loner killed a Saint Paul police officer, a citizen – and expert marksman –  had a clear shot at the murderer.  He hesitated – because he feared that he’d be prosecuted by then-Ramsey-County Attorney Mark Foley, known (as is his successor, current occupant Susan Gaertner) for his hatred of law-abiding citizens with guns.  So he shot instead to mark the car – and did it with such accuracy that he was able to tell the police forensics lab exactly where to find the bullet, later on.  If only he’d felt empowered to do the same with the murderer’s head; the madman went on to murder another policeman later that day.  The citizen was right to be worried; Foley did try find some reason to prosecute.  The Saint Paul police made it known to Foley that, since the citizen had tried to save a cop, they would not cooperate with any attempt to prosecution.

Would he have gotten the same treatment had he decided to help a typical citizen?

Like someone who had tried to draw on this lot…:

The six adults charged and held in jail are Devondre Evans-Lewis, Andrew Shannon, Darris Evans, Terry Arnold, Derry Evans, and Anthony Gildersleeve.

…and their two “juvenile” accomplices?

Eight “men” who put an innocent man in the hospital, possibly with permanent brain damage?  “Men” who could have killed the victim?

We don’t know.  It’s all gray area. 

The DFL wants to keep it that way.  They want you, the law-abiding citizen, to feel out of your depth when trying to keep the forces of barbarity at bay when they are tearing civilization apart in your face.  They call it “vigilante justice”.  When we try to change the laws to put the average citizen on firmer ground, they lie through their teeth to scare the uninformed (who are uninformed precisely because that’s the way they want it). 

Feel helpless?

Feel angry?

Good.  You should.

You should turn your anger on everyone who voted against Tony Cornish’s “Stand Your Ground” bill.  At the polls only, of course.

You should turn your anger on Citizens for a “Safer” Supine Minnesota, the lying racist orcs who want to keep the laws just as they are – because they value criminal lives more than they value yours.  But only rhetorically.

You should turn your anger on the lying hacks in the bought-and-paid-for media who play along with CSM’s propaganda, who give it unquestioned play while understanding neither the laws, the proposals for change, nor any of their ramifications (beyond what’s fed to them by their benefactors).  But only by repudiating their lies.

And save some anger for the alleged perps.  Because they are out on bail.

And here’s praying that, if every last one of them doesn’t suddenly come to Jesus (or whomever) and beg forgiveness for trying to destroy a man and his family, that the next man they try to destroy can respond meaningfully – with half a dozen shots to the chest.

Chicago, awash in gang crime, is getting desperate:

The summer of 2008 will be remembered as especially violent. Blagojevich said there’s been a child shot nearly every day since June 26. Bringing in state troopers — even National Guard helicopters to high-crime areas — is still very much in the planning stages.

The governor said Chicago Mayor Richard Daley hasn’t asked for help, but Blagojevich said he’ll call the mayor once he has some concrete suggestions about what help he can provide. He didn’t have many specifics, but he said it’s more likely that state police will be brought in than the National Guard.

Whew. Good thing it’s still almost completely impossible for the law-abiding citizen to get a gun in Chicago.

Goodness knows what would happen…

Leo Pusatieri is one of the local MOB bloggers you need to be reading regularly, both at his main gig, Psychmeister’s Ice Palace, and his other project, the one he started in his capacity as the father of a son in the Army who did a tour in Iraq, Murtha Must Go.

MMG today runs a lengthy piece by Darryl Sharratt, father of Marine Lance Corporal Justin Sharratt, one of the eight Marines accused in the so-called “Haditha Massacre”.  Excoriated by a media that was in the bag for the anti-war movement and just dying to find a new generation of My Lais and a new crop of Lieutenant Calleys for a new generation, tossed under the bus by the left, railroaded (alleges Mr. Sharratt) by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and personally and severally defamed by Representative John Murtha, these eight Marines have, one by one, been absolved of any role in the crime – but are still seeking justice.

Mr. Sharratt indicts…well, just about everyone –  the media, the NCIS, and Rep. Murtha – for their role in creating a hysterical rush to judgment for purely political reasons.

Well worth a read.  So read it.

To: The NBA

From: Mitch Berg

Re: Alleged Rigging

Dear Sirs and Madames,

As long as you are (alleged to be) going to the trouble of rigging your games, could you please rig them to be interesting?

That is all.

Mitch Berg

AKA “The Pansification Of America”

Joseph Lord of Vienna, Maine was tired of having scumbags working over his machine shop for scrap metal, and being told the police could do nothing.

The good news:  like any real American, he did the right thing:

The owner of a machine shop where thieves stole $3,000 worth of scrap steel, iron and aluminum wasn’t going to let it happen again. After Saturday night’s theft, Joseph Lord loaded his shotgun and laid low, expecting the thieves to return. They came back on Tuesday, in broad daylight.

When Lord saw their 2008 F-250 pickup truck, he shot out its tires and windshield and blasted its radiator, Kennebec County Sheriff Randall Liberty said.

I salute you, Mr. Lord. 

The startled thieves took off on foot, but investigators quickly tracked down the truck’s operator, who will be charged with theft, Liberty said. Charges are pending against an accomplice, the sheriff said.

Now, as to the bad news?  Well, OK – you expect the county sheriff to tut-tut and urge citizens not to “take the law into their own hands”…

Liberty said he discourages the use of guns to protect property. In this case, Lord told investigators he wanted to disable the vehicle so the criminals couldn’t escape.

“I can understand the frustration that Mr. Lord must have been experiencing,” Liberty said. But, he added, “We don’t want to see anyone get hurt over property.”

(Although the odds of someone innocent being hurt had the scumbags decided to burgle Mr. Lord’s home, and someone was in the house, would have been vastly higher). 

No, the main symptom of pansification was the Yahoo News headline that came with the story:  “‘Vigilante’ gets revenge on metal shop thieves“. 

“Vigilante”.  Sheesh.

Since the partisan press holds that word over everyone who doesn’t act like a mute sheep in the face of criminal aggression is a “vigilante”, “gun nut” or “paranaoiac”, perhaps we – the Real Americans – need to take those words back.  After all, “Vigilante” in the original Latin was Vigiles – basically “neighborhood block club”. 

And congrats, Mr. Lord.  You are a great living American.

(NOTE:  I’m in a less-than-charitable mood today.  Any comments criticizing Mr. Lord will be edited for my amusement.  This is true only for this post – but it is the case.  There is no appeal).

It was almost a quarter of a century ago when an overzealous (in retrospect) county attorney, Kathleen Morris, offered an arrested sex offender a deal if he started naming names, and ended up indicting dozens people in Jordan Minnesota – a small farm town that’s since become an exurb, southwest of Minneapolis – in what turned out to be a Crucible-like witchhunt on the basis of a jailhouse snitch and testimony from children that turned out to be conjured up from imagination.

Lives and reputations were destroyed.  Lawyers made millions.  Antonin Scalia cited the case in Maryland Vs. Craig as an example of how vital the sixth amendment right to question ones’ accuser is in protecting the innocent – in the Jordan case, protecting them from overzealous prosecutors and dubious investigative techniques.

You’d think the bureaucracy would learn.

Well, no.  You would not, if you knew how government works.  A state appeals court has overturned the seizure of the children from the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints compound:

The Third Court of Appeals in Austin said the state failed to show the youngsters were in any immediate danger, the only grounds in Texas law for taking children from their parents without court action.

It was not clear when the children — now scattered in foster homes across the state — might be returned to their parents. The ruling gave a lower-court judge 10 days to release the youngsters from custody, but the state could appeal to the Texas Supreme Court and block that.

The decision in one of the biggest child-custody cases in U.S. history was a humiliating defeat for the state Child Protective Services agency. It was hailed as vindication by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who claimed they were being persecuted for their religious beliefs.

Now if the FCLS broke any laws – and some of the allegations look pretty seriously – then let’s look forward to some serious consequences.

Child-protection officials argued that five girls at the ranch had become pregnant at 15 and 16 and that the sect pushed underage girls into marriage and sex with older men and groomed boys to enter into such unions when they grew up.

But we have due process for a reason:

But the appeals court said the state acted too hastily in sweeping up all the children and taking them away on an emergency basis without going to court first.

“Even if one views the FLDS belief system as creating a danger of sexual abuse by grooming boys to be perpetrators of sexual abuse and raising girls to be victims of sexual abuse … there is no evidence that this danger is ‘immediate’ or ‘urgent’,” the court said.

“Evidence that children raised in this particular environment may someday have their physical health and safety threatened is not evidence that the danger is imminent enough to warrant invoking the extreme measure of immediate removal.”

The court said the state failed to show that any more than five of the teenage girls were being sexually abused, and offered no evidence of sexual or physical abuse against the other children. Half the youngsters taken from the ranch were 5 or younger. Only a few dozen are teenage girls

 Of course, the stories of child protective services’ officers jumping into cases too zealously – and there are many – are balanced by the stories of CPS officials not working fast enough. 

My little-known evil twin Jed writes:

When Mitch and I were kids, our teachers used to tell us – threatening the President, even as a  joke, was a bad idea; the Secret Service was always watching for these things.  Our fourth grade teacher, Miss Walburn, told us the story about the kid who’d written a joking threat to President Nixon, and gotten a visit from the Secret Service.   

Last Sunday I watched Family Guy.  It was the episode where Stewie takes over the world, and Lois sets out to kill him.

The “climactic” scene is a battle between the two in the Oval Office.  In one scene, Lois, firing a Minigun a la Jesse Ventura in Predator, chases Stewie with a stream of bullets along a wall of presidential portraits, leaving a stream of bullet holes in the pics of the last seven or eight presidents, as the “camera” “pans” along.

Then the shot stops when we get to George W. Bush’s portrait, with two or three holes in it.  Lois stops, pauses, and fires a long burst that obliterates the portrait. 

Now, while I am second only to Mitch in my support for real freedom of speech, isn’t this sort of scene covered by some kind of law?  Couldn’t the Secret Service grab Seth McFarlane just for a little?  Maybe rough him up for a while?  Knock out a few teeth with a tire iron or something?

I mean, remembering the vapors the media got over even the most trivial “threat” against Clinton, and the conspiracy-mongering they do and the “climates of hate” they find – nothing?

Just a question for your readers, Mitch.

There’s a reason we call him my “evil twin”, of course. I don’t necessarily endorse everything Jed says. 

On the surface, the conviction of Anthony Pellicano on 76 of 77 counts against him closes the chapter on yet another tedious LA trial with media and showbiz connections.  The temptation to wash ones hands of the whole sordid business – like yet another OJ or Heidi Fleiss trial – is certainly there.

But Patterico has a great wrapup of what this story means.

Read it,naturally.

It’s illegal to pay off judges, cops and prosecutors.  It’s against the law to tamper with juries.  But paying off the press is not only legal – it’s a cost of doing business for some people and, as Patterico shows, part of a day’s work for parts of the media.

Another law-abiding homeowner with a gun became possessed by the spirit of his/her firearm, and ran amok, killing indiscriminately.

Well, no.  Actually, a Saint Paul homeowner apprehended a violent scumbag with a knife who’d broken into his house.

The really amazing part about this story?  The Strib carried it:

Jon Sokol wasn’t trying to be a hero when he confronted a burglary suspect who had brazenly broken through the front door of his home in St. Paul.

Sokol, 49, said his adrenaline was flowing as he crept up the stairs, revolver in hand, from the basement bedroom he shares with his wife.

His wife had been awoken at about 4:45 a.m. Wednesday by their alarm system and initially thought Sokol had — again — opened the door to get the newspaper without turning off the alarm. But there he was, sleeping right next to her.

Then she heard footsteps. “I think there’s somebody in the house,” Sokol recalled her whispering. “I’m thinking to myself, ‘Noooo.'”

Sokol said he’d gotten to the second step when he saw somebody cross the room upstairs. “Oh my, there is somebody in our house,” he thought.

“I grabbed our gun, which we keep for protection,” he said.

Of course, it was all a terrible misunderstanding.  He was just a Japanese exchange student, or a drunk college kid or…

…or….

…er, no.  He was a dirtbag with a criminal record longer than Bill McGuire’s portfolio of backdated options, armed – according to the Saint Paul police – with a knife and possible a fireplace poker.

“As I stepped around the corner, he hit me … right between the eyes,” Sokol said. “And I fired the gun.

“Down on the ground he went and I insisted, in a not very nice way, that he not move,” he said. “I held him at gunpoint until the police arrived.”

Michael G. Spencer, 31, of St. Paul, has been charged in Ramsey County District Court with two felony counts of burglary. He has a lengthy criminal record, including convictions for theft and burglary as recently as last year.

Now, all joshing aside for the moment – nobody claimed that having a gun was a panacaea.  Having to use a gun to defend oneself is pretty much always the second worst option available to you. 

[Sokol] ended up with a small cut on his forehead and a somewhat shattered sense of security. He and his wife dead-bolted themselves in their bedroom Wednesday night, and still he stayed awake all night keeping watch while his wife slept.

But it could have been much, much worse. 

As, indeed, Sokol seems to realize:

“It’s a happy ending, I guess,” Sokol said. “The good guy’s still alive, for the time being. And the bad guy is captured. It turned out like you see in the movies.”

Perhaps. 

Beats the hell out of the alternative.

Background follows.

Back in college, two of my professors, a husband and wife team that taught Math and English, respectively, went through a flash of tragic fame. The Swans had been Christian Scientists, and as their son fell ill with meningitis.

They followed their faith – and the boy died. The Swans left the church (although they apparently kept their faith in a broader sense), and have spent a few decades lobbying to change state laws that protect parents whose religious practices lead to their childrens’ deaths. It’s an issue fraught with emotion on both sides…

…and one I stay happily out of. I’m a Christian who sees no rational reason to find conflict between an allegorical reading of the Old Testament and science. There is no battle between “creationism”/intelligent design and evolution. It’s pretty simple.

And I regard zealots on both sides – the snake-handlers along with the fevered, bigoted caricatures that Big Atheism sends forth to do battle in the media – with suspicion and a little bit of sorrow.

Fast forward to today, and the dumbest post that’s ever appeared on Anti-Strib that wasn’t written by Ed Salden. It’s written by a fellow named Jeff, who must have gotten video of Tracy Eberly doing something really awful to get included in the Anti-Strib stable of writers in the first place.

Of course, part of the problem becomes clear at the conclusion:

(via Pharyngula.)

P.Z. Meiers is to religion as David Duke is to black people.

Onward to be beginning:

Just when you think that prayer can’t do any harm:

“Even as her 11-year-old daughter lay dying on a mattress on the floor of the family dining room on Easter Sunday, Leilani Neumann never wavered in her belief in the power of prayer.
“We just thought it was a spiritual attack and we prayed for her,” Neumann said, according to a police report. “My husband, Dale, was crying and mentioned taking Kara to the doctor, and I said the Lord’s going to heal her and we continued to pray.”

Prayer didn’t save Madeline Kara Neumann, who died of untreated diabetes March 23.”

No, it didn’t.

Neither, “John’s” claims notwithstanding, did it “do harm”. A couple of parents with a view of God and faith that is, to say the least, on the far fringe of orthodoxy, did.

So what’s my point? I’ve often accused faith of having no accountability, and this is exactly what I mean.

Well, good for you!

Except that for people of faith, accountability is a constant thing. Yes, accountability to God is a pretty powerful force, and if people see that accountability differently than you do (see also: female circumcision, suttee, substituting prayer for medicine, faith-healing, whatever) it can seem anything from “weird” to “barbaric” to “just plain wrong”.

And that accountability is why Christians devote 25% more – of their own free will, rather than via government coercion – to charity than do secularists, and are more likely to vote and volunteer for civic causes than atheists.

At any rate, “Jeff” seems to have missed (or never really understood) the Christian injunction to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s”. Understandable, perhaps – liberals think means nothing more than “be happy to pay for a better Galilee Minnesota“. It actually means that Christians need to recognize civil authority (although the Protestant Reformation added the rather important bit about “evil governments are bad”). So there’s nothing “unnaccountable about faith”; there are merely people of faith who, through over-narrow interpretation or over-broad religious hubris, make the wrong choices.

And this wrong choice, like the Swans’ a couple decades back, ended in tragedy. Life happens. You live and – like the Swans – you learn, or at least, like the couple from Wisconsin, get some nasty consequences.

I might add that science – which is often delegated to merely another religion around these parts

That’s right, “Jeff”, which is why we have the North Memorial Snake Handling Auditorium, Regions Prayer Center, and the University of Minnesota Faith Healing Center, and why you can’t find a doctor on any regional golf courses.

Bad choices – whether driven by a fringe-y view of faith or its mirror image, the belief that ones’ self is the only intelligence that really matters – are the problem.

That, and Tracy Eberly’s lax HR standards, apparently.

…the story of R’nB crooner Akon

 Compared to most of hip-hop’s leading figures past and present–50 Cent, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Diddy, Tupac Shakur, Jay-Z, Notorious B.I.G.–Akon, 35, seems to have logged more time behind bars and, consequently, gained a better understanding of the average convict’s plight (both in and out of custody) than any of his musical peers. The New York Times has referred to him as the “prison-obsessed R&B singer” who “wants it known that crooners can evoke prison life just as effectively as rappers.” In fact, the singer not only named his company Konvict Music, but he settled on “Konvicted” for the title of his second album, which sold nearly three million copies last year.

…the first time I heard it…

 As it turns out, however, “Kontrived” might have been a more accurate choice.

Akon’s ad nauseum claims about his criminal career and resulting prison time have been, to an overwhelming extent, exaggerated, embellished, or wholly fabricated, an investigation by The Smoking Gun has revealed.

…when it was called CB4.

Mitch out.

Here’s an unusual one for me. I got this email (as part of a group, mind you, not personally) from a friend recently:

So here is the scoop…I have a nephew – that got into trouble when he was younger. He spent time in jail and now is having a very difficult time finding a job for obvious reasons. He is 21 years old and needs an entry level job in the Albany, NY area to help him get confidence and skills. He has his high school degree, experience with computers,and also warehouse inventory. I don’t think I am biased when I say he has his head on straight and is motivated to build a life. Any recommendations on connections, websites for job search, organizations that might be able to help, or other suggestions would be welcome.

While I have tons of experience at job-hunting (oof-da), I am lucky to have never been convicted of anything actionable, and haven’t had that particular albatross on my back.

And I do have some friends who’ve made their mistakes earlier in life – up to and including serious felonies committed in fits of adolescent stupidity, for which they served their jail time – and gone on to be productive, solid citizens.  Adolescent stupidity is a byatch – says the guy who wasn’t that stupid as a teenager, but who is on his third swing through the blender of “teenaged kids” and is hanging on for dear life.

So – if anyone has an answer to the question above, especially ones that are germane to the greater Albany NY area, shoot me a line at my Yahoo.com email address which is named “feedbackinthedark”.  I’d love to forward some leads to my friend.

Sure, we’ll call it your good deed for the day.  What the heck.

Myon Burrell has been convicted a second time for the 2002 murder of Tyesha Edwards:

Hennepin County Judge Charles Porter found Burrell guilty of two murder counts: first-degree murder and first-degree murder for the benefit of a gang. He was acquitted of several other charges.

Edwards was shot in the heart as sat in her house in Minneapolis and did homework.

The just ended trial is the second for Burrell in the 2002 shooting. He was convicted in 2003 of first-degree murder in Tyesha’s death, but the state Supreme Court set aside the conviction in 2005, saying a statement he made to police was inadmissible. Burrell has remained in jail in lieu of $1 million bail.

The defense contends that the case was a rush to judgment and that Burrell was charged in a politically volatile atmosphere because of community outrage over Edwards’ death. In a bid to solve the killing quickly, police failed to follow other leads, the defense also said.

Hopefully that’ll be the end of it.

Although Minneapolis’ status as a criminal cesspool, thought slightly improved in recent years, just goes on and on.

Phyllis Kahn – a woman for whom the Strib normally carries the water in the most baldfaced possible way – has introduced a bill that would lower the drinking age to 18, again.

They are not amused:

If a 19-year-old can sign a contract and get married, shouldn’t she be able to legally sip champagne at her own wedding? And if an 18-year-old can be sent to war in Iraq or Afghanistan, why can’t he have a beer in a bar? Furthermore, teens will always find ways to drink — why not let them do it legally? A proposed bill at the Legislature this year poses these questions, but it provides the wrong answer.

And in response, the Strib provides even wrong-er responses.

But we’ll get to that. Kahn’s rationale – and it’s one of precious few times “rationale” has been used unironically in reference to Rep. Kahn – is that criminalizing drinking merely makes the behavior more pronounced. Underground drinking, already illegal, is more flagrant than measured, legal drinking.

Overwhelmingly, the evidence supports a drinking age of 21. Studies of the still-developing teenage brain show that adolescents are more vulnerable than adults to the effects of alcohol on learning, memory and judgment. And those who begin drinking in their early teens are at greater risk to become alcoholics.

Well, yeah. The “Teenage Brain” is more vulnerable to everything. It’s why we send teenagers, rather than thirty-somethings, to school. It’s why the military knocks itself out recruiting high school kids rather than married family guys.

Every stimulus meets a more intense response when you’re dealing with teenagers.

The question is, why single out drinking?

The Strib comes close to making a point…:

In addition, the lower age limit was tried before — and it didn’t work. Similar concerns were raised in the 1970s during the Vietnam War, prompting many states to lower the drinking age. But in the following decade younger drunken drivers became a bigger issue than war or the military service. As a result, Congress said it would pull federal funds from states that did not set 21 as the drinking age. By 1988, every state was in compliance.

But then…:

The results speak for themselves. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration reported that the number of drunken drivers under age 21 involved in fatal crashes decreased by 61 percent from 1982 to 1998. The agency also estimated that tens of thousands of lives were saved from 1975 to 2003 by higher age limits.

I don’t know exactly what studies they’re talking about – and it’s likely the Strib doesn’t either. The Strib Editorial Board tends to get its talking points from whatever pressure group has their ear at the moment; see their editorial on the “Stand Your Ground” bill.

But does the Strib think that drinking age laws operated in a vacuum? Laws about drunken driving in general got much stricter, especially against teenagers.

And five years ago, the Centers for Disease Control reviewed 49 studies on drinking age laws. Nearly all of them found that a 21-year-old drinking age saved lives.

As much as these people genuflect to Europe, you’d think they’d be a bit more cosmopolitan.

In most of Europe, drinking age laws (while more strict than they were a generation ago) are much lower than in the US, if they exist at all. And drunk driving rates are infinitesimal compared to the US.

Why?

Attitudes toward drinking are different, for starters; alcohol is a way of life in Europe, while in America it’s been regarded as a drug, a sin, contraband (by the Constitution, no less), a social problem. Scottish football hooligans notwithstanding, getting hammered and staggering around drunk doesn’t have quite the same cachet in Europe that it does among Americans, especially younger ones and Packer fans.

But laws about driving are much more strict in Europe. It takes serious time and effort – a year’s worth of classes, a lot of money, a hard test – to get a driver’s license in Europe. And part of that training involves learning the penalties for drunk driving – which are unambiguously severe.

So young Europeans drink. And yet they don’t drive drunk in anywhere near the numbers American teens did, and do.

Seeing a pattern here?

We admit that it seems inconsistent that young men and women who can be sent to war can be too young to drink legally. Yet that’s more an argument to raise the minimum age for military service than to lower the minimum age for drinking.

Well, no. It’s an argument to make driving more a privilege than a right; to put some teeth in driver education. There’s at least a fair argument that Minnesota’s new, more restrictive laws on teenage driving (they’re all on probation, in effect, until 18, with zero tolerance for screw-ups) have done at least as much to cut the death rate among young drivers as raising the drinking age did.

There’s nothing wrong with the fact that a kid can get a hunting license at age 12, drive at 16…

Actually, that example proves the opposite point.

Teenage hunters – like concealed carry permit holders – receive training that focuses intensely on the consequences of screwing up. And who causes the problems with hunting rifles and handguns in our state? Not teenage hunters (or carry permittees).

Forget the drinking age; it’s time to raise the driving age.

Charlie Quimby may be the Twin Cities’ generally least-insane leftyblogger, but it doesn’t mean he’s not prone to some wishful thinking:

After all, Minneapolis has a ripe current case that provides a provocative example of the ambiguities surrounding self-defense claims.

Now, Charlie’s been debating the proposed changes in Minnesota’s self-defense laws wtih Joel Rosenberg for a few weeks now – but if he thinks this case is “ambiguous” – well, he’s learning. A few more weeks with Joel might help.  And so for the second day in a row,I’m gonna go after something he’s written.
Let’s be clear on a few things.

As we’ve talked about on this blog many, many times, there are four criteria that the accused must achieve to the satisfaction of a jury (or, preferably, to prosecutors before any charges are filed) to claim self-defense.  I’ve you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know ’em, and may skip ahead.  They are:

1. You can not be a willing participant in the scuffle
2. A jury must believe that you feared death or great bodily harm.
3. A jury must believe you made reasonable effort to disengage – whatever that means to the prosecutors, judge and jury (which was one of the points of Tony Cornish’s “Stand Your Ground” bill).
4. That jury must believe that lethal force was appropriate.

That’s it.

Oh, and if you use a gun outside your house or place of business, you should have a concealed carry permit (although illegal carry might not be used against you in a self-defense claim).

Finally, if you’ve taken a concealed carry training class (I do endorse my arma mater, Joel Rosenberg’s class), there are, let’s just say, certain standards of behavior you need to follow after using lethal force in self-defense.

Now, let’s remember; the debate is about the rights of law-abiding gun owners who follow the rules; not about the “rights” of people who are too criminal, impaired or stupid to follow the law.

Tyeric Lessley believed it was life or death.

In town to celebrate his fiancée’s birthday, the 22-year-old and his two cousins were leaving a downtown Minneapolis club early March 17 when they crashed into a pickup on Washington Avenue S. Lessley got out and started to walk away, but Darby Claar went after him.

So let’s add up the pros and cons of Mr. Lessley’s case, and his career as poster boy for the law-abiding gun owner who’d benefit from Tony Cornish’s bill – and in so doing, let’s take every element of Quimby’s story at face value.    On the one hand, Mr Lessley was apparently not a “willing participant”.  On the other, the story doesn’t mention if he’d had anything to drink at “the club” (the legal limit to carry a gun with a permit in Minnesota is .04) – which begs the additional question, did he have a permit?  I’d suspect not, or Heather Martens would have held a press conference – but, as it happens, evidence appears later:

Lessley’s family claims racial epithets were shouted and punches thrown. As Lessley stumbled to the ground, he pulled out a .44 caliber Smith and Wesson handgun and fatally shot Claar in the chest. Within minutes, a random twist of fate shattered two families.

So did Lessley “reasonably fear death or great bodily harm” from a guy armed with his fists, and “is lethal force appropriate” in dealing with a guy who evidences no actual weapon (wouldn’t brandishing the gun have worked)?  Both of those are questions for trial.  But, again, the more interesting question is “was Lessley carrying legally, with a Minnesota permit?”

Evidence to contrary follows:

Lessley planned to turn himself in because he had no doubt the shooting was in self-defense, relatives said. Before he did, a SWAT team arrested him at his aunt’s house. It wasn’t until Lessley saw a news report on a jail television that he realized Claar, 32, was dead.

If you’ve had any of the training that’d qualify one to get a permit (and to legally have a firearm under the circumstances in this story), the following would have been repeatedly beaten into your head, to the point where you repeat it in your sleep:

1. If you ever even DRAW your pistol, you call the cops; from the scene if possible, from as close by as is prudent if there is continuing danger.  Even if you didn’t fire a shot.  Even if all you did was scare someone off with a gun.
2. If you did  shoot; when the cops arrive, show them any evidence.  And then lawyer up. And don’t consent to a search. And say nothing else without your lawyer holding your hand and, preferably, moving your tongue by remote control.
3. Do not run to your aunt’s house.  Do not assume that it’ll go away.  Even if you never fired a shot – to say nothing of pumping a .44 slug at point blank into someone’s chest.

If you learn nothing else in concealed carry training, you learn this.

So I’ll say this without fear of rational contradiction; Mr. Lessley was not a legal carry permit holder.  I can’t speak to his motivations for carrying a .44 on a night of clubbing – and either can Charley Quimby – but he was certainly not the law-abiding, honest, trained, competent citizen that the Minnesota Personal Protection Act and the Cornish/Pariseau bill are designed to protect.

Lessley is the father of three children. He recently received an Applebee’s employee of the month award because of his rapport with customers.

I feel for the guy – on many levels (levels which will be revealed in an episode of “Twenty Years Ago Today” in about ten months).   It’s a shame one of his customers hadn’t been one of Minnesota’s certified carry permit training instructors.  It woulda saved everyone a lifetime of heartache.

He was charged with intentional second-degree murder. Lt. Amelia Huffman, head of the Minneapolis Police Department’s homicide unit, said she’s not surprised he would argue self-defense.

“But in this scenario, we had only one person who was armed with a weapon of any kind,” she said. “There are no other aggravating factors that I believe would lead a reasonable person to feel they were in a situation in which they would be likely to lose their life.”

And while I feel for Mr. Lessley, that might seem to be that.  It’s an ugly, stupid situation.

And as an indictment of the behavior of the law-abiding, trained permit-holder (or citizen at home), it’s really a non-sequitur.

I’ve spent a bit of time in the past few weeks catching up on reading my leftyblogs.

And owwwie – my trip through the fever swamp has left me covered with bug bites and woodticks. There are some nutbars out there – and I’m not talking the fringey soloblogs, even; the Minnesota Monitor seems to have made a concerted effort to transform from an incompetent news organization to a laughable “Gawker”-style rantblog; while even Nick Coleman in his “prime” didn’t provide this much material, it eventually feels like playing football against six-year-olds; it’s easy to run up a score, but too easy to be really satisfying.

So it’s usually fun to read Charlie Quimby over at “Across the Great Divide”; he’s a lefty but he’s not dumb.

And so I flipped over there, and saw the latest headline: “Why Do Religious Conservatives Kill Their Kids?”

Ow. Talk about whiplash.

Here’s a topic for study by some enterprising PhD student: Do more religious conservatives than liberals murder their children?

That’s have to be one mighty enterprising PhD student. While a parent’s religion might certainly be an element into an investigation into a murder, I don’t recall that a parent’s voting record has, for anyone this side of Kathleen Soliah.

Seriously; have you ever seen a story that kicked off:

A Framingham mother of three, active in her Massachusetts Democratic Party caucus, strangled her toddler yesterday.

Mary Noel Bilkosky-Mullins-Stoppard, 42, of Framingham, was booked on charges of murder yesterday.

Neighbors describe her as “a committed liberal.” “While most of us believe in a woman’s right to choose – I mean, duh – Mary Noel was very committed to the cause – almost like a fundamentalist”, said Bilkosky-Mullins-Stoppard’s neighbor, Ian Micah Schlumberg-Rossellini, interviewed at the local organic food market for this story.

You’ve never seen it, have you?

And you never will!

Hold that thought. We’ll come back to it.

(You can spare me the comments about abortion.

Well, actually, that enforces a certain myopia on the debate, doesn’t it? If one wants to discuss attitudes toward crime, life and death, and murder based on politics, why leave out the biggest single issue signalling group attitudes toward the value of life; that among most fundie Christians, a life has to do something very wrong to deserve being erased, while among the left, it’s (very generally) the opposite.

But OK. I’ll try to stay on Charlie’s topic here.

In Wisconsin this week, the home schooled daughter of a fundamentalist family died because her diabetes was left untreated. The mother says they are not crazy, religious people who belong to any organized faith. She just writes for an end-of-days ministry website on the side and actively proselytizes other women. Her sister-in-law, who called the sheriff, seemed to think there was a problem.

Whoah, Charlie! The whiplash is killing me!

OK. You found a piece that hit a bunch of the hot buttons that lefties find weird; fundamental Christianity, home schooling, healing by faith. Let’s limit our focus, shall we – Homeschooling is rarely lethal (indeed, it works better than school education in nearly every possible instance), and faith-healing is a very fraught issue to which I’m rather close, via this couple, both of whom were professors of mine in college. It’s a different, and much more complex, issue than Charlie’s focus.

Quimby started talking about Andrea Yates, who actively murdered her children – hardly the same thing.

In Iowa, an embezzling banker bludgeoned his wife and four kids to death before killing himself. In communications left behind, he indicated he believed his family was in heaven.

I’m not sure what Charlie’s trying to get at, here. Was he insane for clubbing his family to death? Or for claiming they’re in heaven? Or is the latter just snarky “evidence” of insanity, in case the whole “bludgeoning” thing didn’t convince you? Indeed, does belief in heaven make you either fundamentalist or insane?

Well, send a truck for me, Charlie. I believe they’re in heaven, too. Most of the people in this country’d probably agree.

Indeed, if you went out on the street and picked 100 people at random, almost anywhere in this country (shaddap about Berkeley), 90 of them would likely be one variety of Christian or another, and would hope at the very least there’s a heaven for the innocent victims of the insane. And while “fundamentalist” is a continuum rather than an association with standards and membership cards, probably around nine people of that sample would call themselves some kind of fundamentalist.
But Charlie’s digression has caused me to digress as well. It’s no excuse, but…

And, not to leave anyone out, a Muslim cab driver in Canada strangled his 16-year-old daughter because she refused to submit to his control and demands she wear traditional Muslim garb.

I’ve looked for a study that examines the role of political and religious beliefs of parents who murder their children. Haven’t found one. But golly, the circumstantial evidence doesn’t look good, does it? And it stands to reason, when you decide to kill your kids with a baseball bat, the idea you’re sending them to heaven might lets you swing just a little more freely.

Anyone offended yet?

No, just confused. Since most people of mainstream faith hold the concurrent belief that the same act that’d send your kids to heaven wil send you to a place under complete DFL control hell, Charlie’s implied conclusion (“fundamentalism helps predispose people to murderous lunacy” might not be word-perfect, but it’s close enough, given Charlie’s post’s title) makes less sense than saying, perhaps, that concluding “someone whose personality is defective enough to kill their children is newsworthy; if that same person is a fundamentalist, it’s newsworthy and indulges the urge to bash fundamentalists and/or people of faith in general”.

Oh, not to worry; Charlie is only yanking our chains. Right?

Psychiatric researchers may not see much merit in testing my only half-serious hypothesis. The research already indicates that filicide is a multidimensional crime, and like most human behavior, is not likely to reduce down to red state/blue state simplification.

But it’s hard to shake that whenever I see news of a suicide bomber or a murderous parent, God shows up pretty frequently in the story. John Kerry bumper stickers, not so much.

Well, most of the Islamofascist suicide bombers were hoping Kerry would win.
Hey, if Charlie gets to half-seriously yank chains, why not I?

But OK. Since Charlie can “half-seriously” connect correlation and causation based on an infinitesimally-tiny sampling of crimes, linked with either mental illness (the Yates and Iowa murders) or a sect of Islam that actively promotes murder, or a combination of the two (the cabbie and his daughter), why not join into the fun.

What’s the murder capitol of Minnesota? North Minneapolis and the Phillips Neighborhood on the south side.

Who did they vote for in ’04?

Well, I saw a lot more “Kerry” stickers over there.

Or to paraphrase Charlie, it’s hard to shake that whenever I see news of a neighorhood ruined by drug trafficking, where honest citizens are afraid to go out at night, Democrat bumper stickers show up pretty regularly; “WWJD” and NRA stickers and Milton Friedman T-shirts and, well, visible manifestations of religious faith, not so much.

Another question; is fundamentalism equally likely to cause society to devalue the life of the fundamentalist?

Onward…

The NYTimes reports on the use of sexual blackmail in the Citizenship and Immigration Services division of the Homeland Security department.

The calls from the agent started three days later. He hinted, she said, at his power to derail her life and deport her relatives, alluding to a brush she had with the law before her marriage. He summoned her to a private meeting. And at noon on Dec. 21, in a parked car on Queens Boulevard, he named his price — not realizing that she was recording everything on the cellphone in her purse.

“I want sex,” he said on the recording. “One or two times. That’s all. You get your green card. You won’t have to see me anymore.”

She reluctantly agreed to a future meeting. But when she tried to leave his car, he demanded oral sex “now,” to “know that you’re serious.” And despite her protests, she said, he got his way.

The agent is being prosecuted. 

No one knows how widespread sexual blackmail is, but the case echoes other instances of sexual coercion that have surfaced in recent years, including agents criminally charged in Atlanta, Miami and Santa Ana, Calif. And it raises broader questions about the system’s vulnerability to corruption at a time when millions of noncitizens live in a kind of legal no-man’s land, increasingly fearful of seeking the law’s protection.

The upside?  When the Dems ram single-payer healthcare down our throats, these same people will be running the healthcare system!

Oh, wait, that’s a downside.

Kathleen “Sarah Jane Olson” Soliah, convicted Symbionese Liberation Army terrorist and former Highland Park DFL stalwart and cause celebre, has been released on parole:

Kathleen Soliah, a former member of the radical Symbionese Liberation Army, was released on parole this week from a California women’s prison after serving about six years behind bars for her role in a plot to kill Los Angeles police officers by blowing up their patrol cars.

The white-haired convict, who has changed her name to Sara Jane Olson, had been sentenced to 12 years in prison. Like most California inmates, Soliah earned credit against her sentence for working while in prison. She served on a maintenance crew that swept and cleaned the main yard of the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, prison officials said.

The 61-year-old Soliah, who was released Monday, must now serve a three-year parole, although prison officials declined to provide the conditions of her release.

In the Soliah camp, there’s never been any doubt as to who the real victim was. And it’s not Myrna Opsahl:

Soliah’s attorney, Shawn Chapman Holley, said, “We’re thrilled she’s out and can return to her family. For someone who was not a danger or a threat to society, it was six years too long.”

Saner heads prevailed, at trial and today:

Los Angeles police see Soliah in far harsher light.

She “attempted to murder LAPD officers by bombing two police cars,” said Tim Sands, president of the Police Protective League, which represents the city’s 9,300 rank-and-file officers. “She needs to serve her full time in prison for these crimes and does not deserve time off for working in prison. Criminals who attempt to murder police officers should not be able to escape justice simply because they have good lawyers.”…Soliah pleaded guilty to two charges of possessing a destructive device with the intent to murder and also struck a deal in a separate case, in which she pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for participating in a Sacramento bank robbery where another SLA member killed [customer Myrna Opsahl]. For the murder conviction, she received a one-year sentence. For the botched bombings, Soliah initially was sentenced to five years and four months, but that term was extended to 12 years by a state prison board after the board designated her a serious offender.

I filled in Myrna Opsahl‘s name. The media has troubling tendency to leave here as an anonymous statistic; she was, in fact, a 42 year old mother of four. Indeed, everyone involved, including Soliah’s family, seem to refuse to grant Myrna Opsahl the dignity of having ever existed, much less accept responsibility for her murder.

Last June, Tara McKelvey interviewed Soliah’s husband and daughter, Fred and Emily Peterson. Nary a word of responsibility, of wonder about the life of the woman whose life Soliah helped bring to a gruesome, horrible end, of acknowledgement that Soliah was facing justice (and a fairly benign version of justice at that) for having done something wrong – the evil of destroying one life and family, and actively conniving to destroy more. No – since she’d been a “good person” since her years of bomb-making and bank-robbing and wanton gunfire, they, and their supporters, thought it was all an even trade.
Fred Peterson tried to turn it into a David Lynch screenplay:

“You know, The Fugitive Becomes a Soccer Mom. They’re all stereotypical images of deceit. None of that applies when you’re just living a life and raising kids. People would say to me, ‘How could you accommodate such a depraved criminal mind? How can you live with the knowledge of what happened in the past?’ It captures the American psychodrama. But it was not real.”

I’ll bet the family of Myrna Opsahl begs to differ.

(Via Ed at Hot Air)