Call the Orkin Man

Someone's got a caterpillar problem. Prolly Bush's fault.

Abusing the Authority

Whether it's you local constable, or a TSA screener, or the ATF, we're living in times when the trust between the law enforcement and the public is really important. That means that events like these do no good at all:

Earlier this year, Nashua police confiscated video recordings of two officers being rude to a citizen at his own home. Though police dropped all charges against Michael Gannon and admitted they could not prove the recordings were illegal, they still kept the tapes.

If someone is found with cocaine or any other item clearly illegal to possess, confiscation is easily justified. But the illegality of these items was never proven, and mere possession was not itself illegal. If the government can seize and keep a citizen’s property by simply asserting that it is contraband, even when the assertion is unsupported by the facts, then we have entered into dangerous territory.

The article, of course, mentions Ray Nagin's illegal firearms round-up. Law enforcement has to make sure they have the horese before the cart when it comes to things like where their authority comes from.

Lazy, Malicious, or Something Inbetween

Don't believe the caption:

A Lebanese Red Cross ambulance worker peers from the roof top of an ambulance that was bombed, at the Red Cross station in Tyre, south Lebanon, August 1, 2006. The ambulance was hit on July 26 during an Israeli air raid. (Ali Hashisho/Reuters)

Becuase it's not even vaguely true:

Of all the exposés and scandals surrounding the media's coverage of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon, The Red Cross Ambulance Incident stands out as the most serious. The other exposés were spectacular in their simplicity (photographers staging scenes, clumsy attempts at Photoshopping images), but often concerned fairly trivial details.

The fact that the media was lying was indeed extremely important, and justified the publicity surrounding the exposés -- but what they were lying about was often minor, a slight fudging of the visuals to exaggerate the damage.

The ambulance incident, however, was anything but trivial. The media accused Israel of the most heinous type of war crime: intentionally targeting neutral ambulances which were attempting to rescue innocent victims. If true - and it is almost universally accepted as true - then Israel would lose any claim to moral superiority in the conflict. The commanders who ordered the strike should be brought up on war-crimes charges.

The Red Cross Ambulance Incident was perhaps the most damning of all the evidence against Israel, and the most morally indefensible. Which makes it all the more shocking to learn that the attack on the ambulances most likely never occurred, and that the "evidence" supporting the claim is in fact a hoax.

Bush Puts Women At Risk for Heart Disease

Yesterday President Bush was in town doing the fundraising boogie. I managed to get east before the freeway-closing circus came past, and got glimpse of a parked Air Force One, which always looks great in bright sunshine.

Anyway, in addition to causing transportation mayhem in our fair city and shaking down working families in order to get more Republicans elected, he actually paused to briefly but adversely harm the pulmonary health of young women.

Will the reign of this madman never end?

Getting Ratted Out and Paying For it

So you toodling down the highway one day and your cell phone rings:

Hello?

Hi Mr. American, this is the National Highway Federal Auto Safety Big Police Agency Bureau.

The what?

I'm required to tell you that you now have 2 more points on your driving record, and your insurance will go up 40% next month.

Why?

Well, you're speeding.

How do you know?

The OnStar system in your car called us. It took the data from the GPS system and event recorder that came standard on your car to show me that you just took a curve rated at 40 miles per hour at 48 miles per hour, and you are now doing 52 in a 45.

Jesus.

I've forwarded all that information to the national motor crime database, your insurance company and your car's manufaturer to get your warranty voided. Is there anything else I can help you with today?

You say "OctaneBoy, this'll never happen." Truth is, it's amazing it hasn't already happened more.

I Know What Ty Webb Would Say

Dr. Beeper: "I thought you'd be the man to beat this year."

Ty Webb: "I guess you'll have to keep on beating yourself."

Sure he was talking about golf, but he might also give that advice to Howard's Family Circus:

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, a likely Democratic presidential candidate in 2008, delivered a 15-minute, blistering attack to warm applause from Democrats and union organizers here on Wednesday. But Mr. Biden's main target was not Republicans in Washington, or even his prospective presidential rivals. It was Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer.

Joe's party keeps getting rolled by the opposition, so why would the Democrats set themselves up for more abuse when you can run against . . . a store. What's next week, Joe? You gonna go hard against influenza?

Across Iowa this week and across much of the country this month, Democratic leaders have found a new rallying cry that many of them say could prove powerful in the midterm elections and into 2008: denouncing Wal-Mart for what they say are substandard wages and health care benefits.

If you don't like Wal-Mart, don't shop there. Don't work there. It it really so tough? These government-as-religion clods love to pretend that mom & pop outfits will go out of business if Target or Best Buy show up, which is classic zero-sum economics and intellectually tantamount to the ramblings of the Flat Earth crowd.

Some Democrats expressed concern about the direction the party was heading, saying it could turn back efforts by such party leaders as former President Bill Clinton to erase the image of the party as anti-business and scare off corporations that might be inclined to make contributions. Still, what is striking about this campaign is the ideological breadth of the Democrats who have joined in, including some who in the past have warned the party against appearing hostile to business interests.

That's just Dean unable to keep anyone's toes near the line, but the all-opposing left is really on the holy crusade against anyone that might actually employ peole.

Today on MPR one of the socialists on the city council was speaking about municipal subsidies, living wage laws, and other fire-brand issues of the collectiveists. He was suggesting all sorts of litmus tests for free enterprise before "outside economic interests that want to come in and make a profit off the community." What a diseased perspective, and how sad is that coming from someone with a hand on the steering wheel on my city?

Challenge for you, Lee: Sometime in your current term, please demonstrate the prosperity and independence you are providing as a mere redistributer of wealth. You cannot pawn off the fiscal responsibilities of the welfare state that you've created on the easliy-harpooned big-box retailer just because you think they have the money. Scratch the surface of the anti-private sector and anti-private-property crowd and you'll find folks crushed by the recent toughening of emminent domain laws.

Among the more glaring hypocricies are the fact that this gang would never force the non-big box businesses to dance to their tune. This isn't just a left/right phenomenon; it's polticians as thugs. Why did Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker rob banks? Becasue that's where the money is.

How Old Was My Idol?

45 Kirby Puckett
42 Elivs Presley
40 John Lennon
40 John Coltrane
39 OctaneBoy (still kicking!)
38 George Gershwin
36 Marilyn Monroe
35 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
34 Charlie Parker
33 John Belushi
30 Patsy Cline
29 Hank Williams
27 Janis Joplin
27 Jim Morrison
27 Jimi Hendrix
27 Kurt Cobain
24 Duane Allman

What's On TV? Oh; Nothing!

Among the many reasons President Bush is so incompetent as a fascist (he's so bad, actually, he almost can't wear the title) is that he is unable to stomp out all private media. Any good dictator who's passed Totalitarianism 101 knows that the state should take control of all media and stomp those who don't comply. Bush is worse at this than he is securing the southern border.

Now, say what you want about those plucky Iranians, but they got the heavy hand of government goin' on:

Police in Tehran have begun dismantling satellite dishes from the city's rooftops - part of a campaign to prevent Iranians from watching Western television. The move follows a recent police order that all satellite dishes - officially banned but tolerated until now - be removed. The campaign against satellite television was launched by the Minister for Culture and Islamic Orientation, Hassan Saffar Harandi, who said "we have to halt the West's cultural offensive," on Iran.

More On That Net Neutrality Thing

Mike Godwin:

The public debate about net neutrality is at its heart a debate about whether we want to keep the Internet growing and expanding and contributing to our cultural growth as it has been, or whether we instead want to turn it into something as static and predictable as telephone service or TV.

(O)ne can imagine what riding in taxicabs might be like if taxicab operators had freedom to discriminate based on where a passenger was going or what he or she planned to do after getting there. Taxicab companies might be tempted under such a circumstances to cut special deals — to provide better rates and/or service to someone traveling to Radio City Music Hall rather than to the Museum of Modern Art simply because the former had a commercial partnership with the taxicab company.

And this shared idea about “neutral” carriers has been at the heart of how the telephone and mail systems have worked in this country for many, many years. It’s also central to how the Internet has been designed, to how it has functioned, and to how fast it has grown.

Sure I Liked "Good Night and Good Luck"

But that doesn't mean I don't also endorse this:

I’m not going to defend McCarthy, because he was a brute and boor and a butter-eating drunk who set back the anti-Communist cause four decades. To say that he was sorta right, in the sense that there were Commies about, is like saying that J. Robert Oppenheimer had a salutory effect on Japanese urban renewal. I’m not interested in those debates right now. I’d just like to point out that it’s a little late in the game to trot out a play about the mean old witch-hunts.

It's just interesting how Westerners think that that Red Scare was a historical event of such towering proportions it trumps the tales of the Soviet Union in the same period. US version: communist sympathizers frozen out of screenwriting jobs, justly or unjustly. USSR version: actual communists killed in ghastly numbers by a parody of a legal system underwritten by brute force and an industrialized penal system built on slave labor. Why is the latter ignored, and the former celebrated?

Because a herd of frozen zeks dying in the snows of Wherdifugistan doesn’t really connect, you know? Whereas six guys sitting around the Carnegie Deli bitching about cowardly sponsors, that strikes a chord.

Run Along; Nothing to See Here

While you were sleeping:

Iran fired 10 short-range missiles on the second day of large-scale military exercises Sunday, as officials reiterated Tehran's stance that it did not intend to halt its uranium enrichment program. The exercises are named after Zolfaghar, the name of the sword of Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad.

After you hit the snooze button:

Iran has turned away UN inspectors wanting to examine its underground nuclear site in an apparent violation of the Non-proliferation Treaty, diplomats and UN officials said on Monday. (I)ran's unprecedented refusal to allow access to the facility at Natanz could seriously hamper international efforts to ensure that Tehran was not trying to make nuclear weapons.

Years from now, when the world is really regretting leaving this to the UN, John Kerry will be speaking before a small group somewhere and will proclaim that none of this would have occurred had he had been elected president in 2004, 2008 or 2012.

Crescent City Clown

Now that New Orleans has finally gotten its murder rate back near pre-Katrina levels you sure don't hear a lot from that jive-talkin' Ray Nagin.

It's not all sweetness, light and federal dollars for Nagin's legacy:

A federal lawsuit accusing the city of illegally confiscating firearms during the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina was kept alive by a federal judge Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier denied a motion by the city of New Orleans to dismiss a suit by the National Rifle Association and the Second Amendment Foundation.

The suit says that during and after the Aug. 29 storm, "Mayor Nagin ordered the New Orleans police and other law enforcement entities under his authority to evict persons from their homes and to confiscate the lawfully possessed firearms."

That was a great move Ray, and you have completely shown your hand as a modern political liberal: You think only the government is capable of protecting the unwashed masses, so not only do you order the confiscation of legally-owned firearms, and you do it in concert with your monopolistic police force abandoning its duties leaving an unarmed New Orleans in the lawless lurch.

Rove Infiltrates Hollywood

How about that - and in the El Lay Times no less.

(Eighty four) high-profile Hollywood stars, directors, studio bosses and media moguls have taken out a powerfully-worded full page advertisement in Wednesday's Los Angeles Times newspaper. It specifically targets "terrorist organizations" such as Hizbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine.

"We the undersigned are pained and devastated by the civilian casualties in Israel and Lebanon caused by terrorist actions initiated by terrorist organizations such as Hizbollah and Hamas," the ad reads. "If we do not succeed in stopping terrorism around the world, chaos will rule and innocent people will continue to die. We need to support democratic societies and stop terrorism at all costs."

I still say we should sell California to Mexico, but stuff like this can occasionally temper my misguidedness. Noticeable in a news search is how big of story this in Rupert Murdoch and Nicole Kidman's native Australia, but very little play in the US press.

Turning 13

Happy birthday you dusty old dog.

You gift is a trip to the spa.

Much better.

Channeling Letterman

Top Ten Green Bay Packers of the 1960's Who Might Be Confused With Novelty Cocktails.

10 - Junior Coffey
9 - Zeke Bratkowski
8 - Willie Wood
7 - Urban Henry
6 - Ray Nitschke
5 - Jimmy Ringo
4 - Dick Capp
3 - Boyd Dowler
2 - Bucky Pope
1 - Fuzzy Thurston

You Move Like a Cat, Marty

Bruno Kirby 1957-2006

Sure, he was a young Peter Clemenza, and one of the City Slickers, but for me, he'll aways be Marty Lewis; sort of a non-gay and still-idealistic Jann Wenner.

Who Asked VW for a G6?

I, uh, just don't know.

Perhaps I'm destined to keep falling into the wrong demographic, but this one is not the modern reincarnatin of the TR6 that I keep waiting for.

Excited About That Ceasefire?

Not much optimism here:

The U.N. resolution that paved the way for the truce calls for Hezbollah's disarmament. So, for that matter, does an earlier, long-ignored resolution. But the terms for giving up the weaponry are vague. And as a prominent party in the Lebanese government, Hezbollah will have a hand in deciding how and whether the language translates into fact.If anything, analysts say, the war has worsened Lebanon's underlying instability, bolstering Hezbollah at the expense of more moderate, secular figures in government. "Most of the government really thought that Hezbollah could be trimmed by the Israelis, and that would give them less of a problem," said Judith Palmer Harik, a Hezbollah expert. "But it didn't work out that way, and now there's nothing they can do, in my opinion, to get Hezbollah away from doing what it wants."This is a victorious group. Do they want to be disarmed at this point?" Harik said. "That is such a nonstarter."

I just can't muster enthusiasm over the prospects for Lebanon, Israel or the entire region. More lack of excitement here:

For the moment, Hezbollah is bathed in a heroic light, not just in Lebanon but throughout the Muslim world. Lebanon's prime minister, Fouad Siniora, appears unable or unwilling to force the issue of Hezbollah's disarmament, at least in the south, as called for in the UN Security Council resolution that halted the combat. Whether Hezbollah intends to let its fighters be banned from the kingdom it built for itself in southern Lebanon, with the lavish help of Iran and Syria, is another open question.

The Security Council appears to have done its best to promote the interests of Lebanon and to diminish Hezbollah's hold over the slice of the country between the Litani River and the Israeli border. But the council has passed far-reaching resolutions on Lebanon before - especially Resolution 1559, in September 2004, which called for the disbanding of Hezbollah's fighting force and all other militias and the extension of Lebanese government control over the entire country. That resolution had no enforcement mechanism and was largely ignored.

After 34 days of warfare, the latest resolution, No. 1701, repeats the goals of No. 1559 but provides more teeth, including a more robust UN force of up to 15,000 soldiers. It is supposed to patrol a specific southern demilitarized zone and help the government monitor its borders, ensuring that Iran and Syria do not resupply Hezbollah with rockets, missiles and ammunition. But will it be effective? And what soldiers will be in it? When will they arrive? And will the force be willing to confront Hezbollah? Or, as many Israelis expect, will it allow Hezbollah to remain in southern Lebanon unimpeded so long as the border appears quiet?

Unusual Becoming Usual

There's been some savage crimes in the local jungle. Not all are making the cut in the legacy media (what can you expect with all the important news that needs reporting) but when it does, we sure got lots of chiefs of police who use the old turn of the phrase "this is very unusual for the area."

Here's a fine example:

Two Lakeville men who were walking along Gerdine Path near Dodd Boulevard were robbed at gunpoint on Aug. 5 in what Police Chief Steve Strachan described as an "unusual" robbery. "Most of the time robberies occur at establishments and businesses," Strachan said. "This was unusual because it was a residential street and the suspects set out specifically to victimize pedestrians."

Three men, 18-year-old Hassan Abdul of Eagan, 18-year-old Wod Talian of Burnsville, and 18-year-old Demetrius Lee Johnson of Apple Valley, were charged Tuesday by the Dakota County Attorney's office with first-degree aggravated robbery.

The robbery victims were able to identify the men from a lineup. A search of the vehicle yielded the weapon allegedly used in the robbery. Bail was set at $60,000 for all three men.

I'm sure we'll soon find their mamas on Tee Vee or in the paper who'll swear all three are good boys.

Rambix expands on this, links to lots more "unusual for this area" crime, and has pictures of the little darlings courtesy of the Dakota County Jail.

Old Gray Lady in Rewind

Disproportionate response? I got yer disproportionate response right here . . .