Why I carry a handgun for protection, Vol. 24

So that if I happen to be set upon by two coyotes while hiking alone in a national park, I will be able to successfully defend my life against the vicious and unprovoked attack.

Does that scenario sound a little far-fetched? Well, it isn't. It's unfortunately exactly what happened to 19-year-old singer-songwriter Taylor Mitchell, who on Tuesday tragically lost her life in Cape Breton Highlands National Park in one of those horrific events that anti-gun zealots such as the Violence Policy Center and the Brady Campaign swear up and down just never occur to ordinary people.

"'Coyotes are very shy animals,' [animal behavior expert Simon] Gadbois said. 'To me, this looks like two yearlings with very little hunting experience, probably very hungry, maybe a little bit desperate.'"

Who cares why the animals attacked Mitchell? What matters is that they did, and now this by-all-accounts very nice young woman is dead.

Since the park where the incident occurred is in Nova Scotia, Canada, an "enlightened" country that bars the lawful carrying of defensive firearms by its citizens, Ms. Mitchell wouldn't have had the option of using a handgun to fight off what was basically a wild dog attack, even if she had had the desire and training to do so. Instead, she found herself at the mercy of what official "help" was available, which arrived far too late to do any good:

"The Ottawa Citizen reports that another hiker heard her screams and called emergency services. Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers arrived at the scene and shot one of the coyotes, though both animals escaped."

Violent attacks by predators (of the two or four-legged variety) can happen in a heartbeat to regular people just going about their lives, whether they are in the inner city or out in the wild back country. Please take the appropriate steps to allow yourself to fight back if you become one of them, as in many situations this will determine whether or not you survive the encounter.

You go, girls!

The number of lawful firearm purchases by women for the purpose of self-protection has been rising significantly in recent months, even in such traditional anti-gun strongholds as the Chicago, Illinois metro area (not in the city proper, of course, as both the purchase and possession of a handgun in that toddlin' town have been unconstitutionally banned for decades. That irritating state of affairs will hopefully soon be relegated to history by the U.S. Supreme Court by the conclusion of this year's term):

"At Illinois Gun Works [in Elmwood Park], the owners say they've seen a 40 percent increase recently in the numbers of women looking to take classes, and that the number of women coming in to purchase guns is rising, too."

Cathy Jacobs, a Phoenix, Arizona resident, coincidentally explains in a letter to the editor in today's Arizona Republic just why she's chosen to become one of these enlightened women:

"I have a question for those who believe law-abiding citizens who carry concealed weapons almost anywhere must be paranoid and live in fear.

Over the past 20 years, we've seen gun-carrying criminals kill people in more and more settings: churches, schools, department-store parking lots, abortion clinics, restaurants, homeowners associations . . . the list goes on and on.

The gun-grabbers will complain, "Well, we're just not safe anywhere these days! Look at all the places people are getting killed with guns!"

If you're willing to admit that no place is safe from lawbreaking, gun-carrying criminals, then why would you call us law-abiding, gun-carrying citizens paranoid and fearful for lawfully carrying our guns in those same exact places?"

Well stated, Ms. Jacobs.

It's very heartening to see ever-increasing numbers of intelligent, law-abiding females choosing to educate and train themselves to take on the responsibility for their own self-protection, instead of simply relying on official aid that may or may not ever show up when needed.

These women have come a long way, baby, and it's certainly for the better.

You can't get much dumber than this "professional"

Eric Janik, a resident of Maryland (the state where we grew up), has been charged with assault and reckless endangerment after pulling out his pistol at a haunted house attraction and pointing it at the chest of one of the workers, a person dressed up as the movie character Leatherface, from a distance of about ten feet.

(We always thought that the whole point of going to a haunted house in the first place was to be startled and frightened by the workers there, but we digress.)

Anyway, since you're reading about the incident on this site, you've probably already guessed that Janik is a cop (a sergeant with the Baltimore Police Department, to be specific), which means that he's one of the "special people" allowed to carry firearms in public in that state, a practice that is routinely denied to just about all ordinary peasants who live there unless they know someone in power, are a celebrity or who can somehow manage to provide specific written threats made against them.

"The employee, Mike Morrison, followed Janik and several other people up a staircase Sunday night at the end of the haunted house tour in a bid to get "one last scream" out of them, police said.

When the group exited into a parking lot, Janik pulled his gun and pointed it at Morrison from less than 10 feet away, according to police and Morrison, who said he dropped the chain saw, put his hands up and backed away. The saw had no chain."

What monumental stupidity on the part of this law enforcement "professional".

To make matters worse, Janik appears to have been carrying his firearm while intoxicated, which helps explain (but certainly not excuse) his idiotic actions on Sunday night:

"According to charging documents, Janik smelled of alcohol and told police two different stories about what he did with the gun."

Janik has been suspended with pay, although that status could change after a hearing today, according to the story. Good. The Maryland taxpayers shouldn't have to pay the salary of this doofus for another minute.

It sure is nice that the Maryland State Police, the agency in charge of that state's handgun carry permit issuance process, and which enjoys complete discretion (which the department regularly abuses) about determining who is "lucky" enough to receive one, is so stingy about handing them out, isn't it?

Otherwise, if your basic ordinary Maryland peasant did somehow manage to obtain a carry permit, he or she would probably only end up doing something supremely idiotic like, say, getting liquored up and ruining a perfectly fun evening out for quite a lot of people, while at the same time criminally putting an innocent man's life in danger (to say nothing of really scaring the poor guy half to death).

A heartening surprise

Senator Joe Lieberman, I-Conn (but he's really for all intents and purposes a Democrat) has announced that he will help Republicans filibuster Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's proposed socialized medicine scheme:

"'We're trying to do too much at once,' Lieberman said. 'To put this government-created insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt. I don’t think we need it now.'"

One of the more sensible adults on that side of the chamber finally has the guts to come out and state the obvious, and to then take a principled stand against the blatant further nationalization of our entire free market system.

We now almost forgive Senator Lieberman for attaching his political aspirations to uber-hypocrite eco-nut Al Gore in 2000, and for cynically hedging his bid for higher office by running for reelection to the Senate at the same time he was trying to become Vice-President.

We hear the Chattanooga Wal-Mart needs a greeter

Kenneth Freeman, the off-duty Chattanooga, Tennessee police detective whom we previously noted was given a 28-day unpaid suspension from duty earlier this year after he was caught on a surveillance camera shoving to the ground a 71-year-old Wal-Mart greeter who was simply trying to check Freeman's store receipt (pushing another innocent customer through a glass door in the process), has apparently been fired from that department for a variety of reasons completely unrelated to his violence-filled little shopping trip.

Freeman, not happy with this turn of events, is now filing an EEOC discrimination complaint against the Chattanooga City Council alleging racial bias because they wouldn't reinstate him following his appeal, the airing of which shockingly didn't end up improving the bullying now-ex-cop's case:

"He was then terminated by Chief of Police Freeman Cooper in August after several charges of insubordination as well as drinking while armed and other policy infractions.

He appealed his termination to the City Council who, after several hours of testimony including new allegations that he threatened to kill a female friend after she said she intended to inform his wife of their relationship, unanimously upheld his termination."

Yep, it sure sounds like this fine public servant was quite unfairly cashiered (by a black police chief, no less) just because he happens to be black, and for no other legitimate reason.

Happy trails, Mr. Freeman.

Hear, hear

Online friend Scott Jordan eloquently sums up just how far down the rabbit hole of madness our country has fallen in just ten short months:

"General Motors and Chrysler are under Federal control, their assets summarily clipped from their bondholders' contracts and gifted to the unions by the politicians.

The banking industry has largely been federalized, salaries dictated by an all-powerful political czar.

Ditto the mortgage industry and soon the health-care industry. A crazy scheme to force lenders to give trillions in doomed mortgages to deadbeats precipitates an enormous global financial cataclysm, yet the perpetrators got promoted by voters left uninformed by a misfeasant media.

The national debt has been tripled in less than nine months.

The Administration has declared a vendetta on the solitary dissenting news organization and has stooped so far as to target and attack private individuals whose public expressions are inconvenient.

Government buyouts of media outlets are discussed out loud.

A Gulliver's netting of community organizers will shortly control the broadcast industry, stealthily instituting "fairness" by eliminating opposition.

The White House set up a Stasi-inspired snitch program for citizens to report on each other.

Little schoolkids sing hymns to their Dear Leader here in America.

A cold-eyed president runs out the clock on our troops' struggle to salvage Afghanistan even as he flicks our allies away like unwelcome beetles on his sleeve. He bows to the Saudi king and envelops the genocidal mullahs with words as they race to develop an atomic bomb."

As Scott also notes, who knew ten years ago that we'd be fervently wishing for the by-comparison "good old days" of a sleazy horndog Southern politician and his petty power-hungry wife in the White House?

The issue is finally raised

(CNSNews.com) – "Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) would not say what part of the Constitution grants Congress the power to force every American to buy health insurance--as all of the health care overhaul bills currently do.

Leahy, whose committee is responsible for vetting Supreme Court nominees, was asked by CNSNews.com where in the Constitution Congress is specifically granted the authority to require that every American purchase health insurance. Leahy answered by saying that 'nobody questions” Congress’ authority for such an action.'"

Well, we certainly do, and we're not the only ones:

"The Congressional Budget Office, however, has stated in the past that a mandate forcing Americans to buy health insurance would be an 'unprecedented form of federal action,' and that the 'government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States.'"

Of course, no rational argument exposing the illegitimacy of forcing people to buy something that they have no wish to own matters when it comes to swaggering martinets such as House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, to whom nothing seems to be off-limits to the meddling ministrations of him and his Congressional cohorts:

"[Hoyer] added that Congress has 'broad authority' to force Americans to purchase other things as well, so long as it was trying to promote 'the general welfare.'" (Emphasis mine)

The general welfare of the country, sir, not of each individual citizen's cholesterol levels. Is the next step going to be requiring Americans to buy only GM and Chrysler vehicles regardless of whether they wish to own a car or not? After all, since our government is now saddled with owning part of those firms, such a move would certainly improve the "general welfare" of the nation's economy in short order, at the mere expense of everyone's freedom of choice.

"Well, we meant well, anyway. Sorry we broke the country's economy, as well ruined the health and tried the patience of millions of citizens along the way, while "trying" to fix something we know absolutely nothing about."

We're not going to buy into your Ponzi scheme, Messrs. Leahy and Hoyer. Ever. Neither are lots of other folks who see through your plan to socialize one-sixth of our economy.

What do you gentlemen propose to do about that little eventuality?

Today's TASER Travesty Triumph?

Taser International, makers of the eponymous devices, has issued a training bulletin, along with an accompanying memo, to police agencies which advises officers who deploy their TASERS to target the pelvic, thigh or back regions of a suspect rather than the chest, as the company has finally admitted that jolts to that particular area "could pose an extremely low risk of an 'adverse cardiac event.'"

That risk would seem to be patently obvious, seeing as how during a TASER deployment to a person's chest 50,000 volts or more of electricity is delivered pretty much right square over the heart, an organ that depends on electrical impulses for its operation, but maybe Taser employees have only just now consulted anatomic experts about the very real possibility of so much juice disrupting a suspect's heart rhythm.

"Extremely low risk" is also debatable, seeing as how "Since 2001, there have been more than 400 deaths following police Taser strikes in the United States and 26 in Canada", but since this bulletin is the first admission by the firm of any risk at all from using their product as intended, it's a significant development which should help prevent some of these adverse events from occurring in the future.

Now, if the company would only issue a similar training bulletin advising police agencies to only use their TASERS for their intended purpose as "less-than-lethal" self-defense weapons (we certainly agree on the device's value as part of a police officer's overall use-of-force continuum. We can even see the occasional chest deployment as being unfortunately necessary, if it's a true defensive situation and the cop honestly had no other choice in the matter), instead of their all-too-often implementation as compliance tools to get simply unruly citizens to do whatever cops want them to, whether as part of a lawful order or not, we'll really be going places.

From the forgotten corner to the catbird seat

Career Chicago-machine politician Senator Roland Burriss, D-Ill, apparently not being humiliated and ashamed enough to just sit quietly and keep his chair warm until his term is up in early 2011 after he was forced to admit that he did in fact attempt to raise money for disgraced ex-Governor Rod Blagojevich (presumably in a naked attempt to buy his Senatorial appointment), despite Burriss specifically denying that action while under oath, is now merrily gumming up the works for the man he replaced in that chamber, President Barack Obama:

"[Burriss] says he'll only vote for a bill to provide health care to millions more Americans as long as it allows the government to sell insurance in competition with private insurers."

The very same cleverly name-disguised "public option" (that really should be labeled "entirely-government-run-and-controlled option" for clarity) the President is currently finding out is becoming a major sticking point that's blocking the passage of his reform scheme, as a vast majority of the peasants he purports to govern want no part of such a socialistic government takeover of their health care.

"And [Burriss] says he won't compromise."

Oh, we're sure that position will be quite easy to change, as soon as the Democrats in the Senate realize that they're going to have to have his vote to reach the magic number of 60, and that they're going to be forced to offer Burriss pretty much anything he wishes in exchange for that all-important "yes" nod (most likely up to and including re-election financing and support, something that his own party was adamant about denying the disgraced politician to this point).

What's really amusing is that Burriss knows full well the leverage he now wields, and he is currently delighting in letting everyone in on how much fun he's having while doing so:

"'Yes. I'm a senator from Illinois representing 13 million people. I'm one of 100, and I speak on the floor, I preside over the Senate, I co-sponsor legislation,' he says. 'I'm very busy, I'm very challenged, and I have one problem.'

He grins.

'I enjoy what I'm doing.'"

In more ways than one, he seems to be not-so-subtly telling the Democrats, who now have to somehow find a legal way to bribe him into not causing any more trouble for them on this, the all-important issue that Obama has staked his entire Presidency on.

We would really enjoy the headache Burriss must be causing the Obama and the rest of the Democrats right about now, if the issue weren't so serious. We suppose they should have tried a little harder to keep hardball-playing Chicago thugs like Burriss out of both their caucus and our Federal government.

Oh, wait - Obama himself is also one of the merciless players who honed his attack skills in that town.

Never mind, then. This is just poetic justice at work.

The Jack-Booted Thug(s) of the Week, International Edition...

... are the Bury St. Edmonds, England police who arrested grandfather Torben Merriott and subsequently grilled him for nine hours after he had the audacity to use a cheap flashlight in order to identify what was making the awful racket above his farmhouse in the middle of the night last month, and then quite reasonably called the government to complain about the noise:

"[Merriott] spotted one of two gunships [Apache helicopters] on an exercise just ‘10ft above my garden’ at his farmhouse in Stradbroke near Eye, Suffolk, and called the Ministry of Defence complaint line.

But instead of receiving an apology for the September 18 disturbance, Mr Merriott was visited three weeks later by police, who arrested him on suspicion of endangering an aircraft by dazzling the pilot."

They also confiscated his indeed dangerous to a pilot laser pointer Wal-Mart-style flashlight, which presented no hazard whatsoever to the aircraft:

(Picture is from the article)

"Don’t tell the Taliban that all they need is an eight-quid torch to bring down multi-million-pound high-tech gunships,’ he said."

Ironically, the story reports that Merriott is a professional lighting director, and the company he owns has previously lit "up flying helicopters at a Buckingham Palace event hosted by the Queen".

Merriott may now be charged with aircraft endangerment, which would give him up to two years in the pokey.

He still hasn't gotten his flashlight back, by the way.

It's good to be the ones in charge

"The National Health Service has spent £1.5m paying for hundreds of its staff to have private health treatment so they can leapfrog their own waiting lists.

More than 3,000 staff, including doctors and nurses, have gone private at the taxpayers’ expense in the past three years because the queues at the clinics and hospitals where they work are too long."

But it's perfectly OK for these same lucky British staffers to keep the regular peasants waiting months to get assistance for their health care issues, as commenter to the story Michael Palmer anecdotally explains:

"What I do take issue with, however, is a health service that made me wait 12 weeks to get to see a NHS Consultant and a further 12 weeks for an essential operation."

That's six full months, which is about on par with the wait times we've found to be the norm in Canada and Great Britain, both places that love to tout the "efficiency" of their socialized health care systems.

This is the future of medicine in America if we allow it to be imposed upon us, and we're going to pay upwards of 1 trillion dollars for the pleasure of losing control over our health care decisions.

Still think it's going to be a worthwhile bargain?

This isn't funny anymore

The old saying goes something like "You can judge a person's character by the company they keep".

If that maxim is in fact valid, then we're getting more and more insight into President Obama's character every single day, and the picture we're getting isn't good at all, to say the least.

After previously finding out about:

1.) His Communist "green jobs czar", Van Jones, who was booted after it came to light that he, among many other odious things, had signed a petition demanding that the government look into allegations that President Bush was behind 9/11 (this affects us personally because we spent 5 hours on that day not knowing if our father was alive or not, and we take great offense to a dunce such as Jones trying to spin that event into some kind of wack-job conspiracy for political gain);

2.) His "regulatory czar", Cass Sunstein, who has publicly advocated for bans on hunting and eating meat, and has agitated for the right of animals to file lawsuits in court with the aid of human advocates seeking their "rights";

3.) His "safe schools czar", Kevin Jennings, who himself has written that when as a schoolteacher a 15-year-old student reported to Jennings that he had been statutorily raped by an older adult male, he merely told the boy "I hope you knew to use a condom" (this affects us personally because we have been the victim of such sexual abuse and a similar failure of role-model adults to help us at the time, and in our view Jennings is a disgusting piece of humanity who should be kept as far away from schools as possible);

We now note that Glenn Beck has uncovered video from just this year of Obama's White House Communications Director, Anita Dunn, incredibly praising mass murderer "political philosopher" Chairman Mao Tse-tung, the person who was personally responsible for the deaths of an estimated 70 million people during his iron rule in China:




"[One of] the two people I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point which is you're going to make choices, you're going to challenge, you're going to say why not. You're going to figure out things that have never been done before."

Presumably like "figuring out" how to send millions of peasants to their deaths because they happened to inconveniently be in Mao's way as he was seizing total control of that country and its citizens.

What a nice personal hero to have, Ms. Dunn. You sicken us.

Beck's absolutely right - "How many radicals surrounding our President [that have to be exposed as the savage collectivist advocates they really are, rather than the bland "progressives" they were presented to us as being] is it going to take [before we as a country wake up and decide that we've had just about enough of the takeover of our society by these radical socialists]"?

We will no longer gently mock President Obama as "the Messiah", as the stakes have now become far too high for limiting ourselves to poking fun at his worshipers, much less his activities and political appointments. He and his cohorts are doing no less than fomenting the "transformation" of our nation into a clone of Communist China or the Soviet Union at their peak, and all of us need to devote every fiber of our being to stopping them cold, starting right now.

Why should they believe him?

We've previously noted how a core group of the Messiah's supporters was beginning to realize that it was being played like a cheap fiddle.

Well, the grumblings are now getting much louder:

"President Barack Obama restated his campaign pledge to allow homosexual men and women to serve openly in the military, but many in his audience of gay activists were left wondering when he would make good on the promise.

'I will end 'don't ask-don't tell,'' Obama said Saturday night to a standing ovation from the crowd of about 3,000 at the annual dinner of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay civil rights advocacy group. He offered no timetable or specifics and he acknowledged some may be growing impatient."

This change could be unilaterally made by Obama at any time, wouldn't cost a dime of taxpayer money and would garner him some much-needed credibility among his faithful followers by showing that he's willing to fulfill at least one of the many flowery campaign promises he made to so many people.

So what's the holdup? We honestly don't know, unless it's a fear of upsetting yet another group of his fervent supporters, the religious black community.

It certainly isn't tentativeness, because as we all know (mostly to our detriment), the President has shown a ready willingness to blunder about making massive changes in just about every other facet of government, whether he knows anything about the objects of his meddling or not.

Muckraker Television

An experiment in a new medium. Please forgive the muffled audio that occurs in the first minute or so of the clip, as we're still shaking out the production bugs. The dialogue during that period should nonetheless be understandable.

Constructive feedback would be much appreciated.

Busted

California First Lady Maria Shriver, caught on camera by the gossip website TMZ flagrantly breaking that state's recent ban on using handheld cell phones while driving, a prohibition that was supported and signed into law by none other than her husband, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Those silly elitist liberals, always thinking that the ever-increasing number of rules and regulations imposed by them onto the masses are intended merely for the unwashed peasants, and that strict legislative bans on behaviors such as this certainly don't apply to them.

"Earlier this year, Schwarzenegger said he told his daughter, who had recently started driving, that if he catches her on the phone with her hands off the wheel, she will no longer be able to drive."

What's Ah-nold going to do now that the family scofflaw (and subsequent poor role model) has turned out to be his wife instead of his kid?

Jerks

Two St. Lucie County, Florida sheriff's deputies have received written reprimands for their breathtakingly rude and bullying behavior while playing last March for a softball team sponsored by one of the local jail's food vendors (and thus leaving no doubt as to what the men did for a living):

"The home plate umpire said [Deputy Thomas] Johnson 'insulted' a base umpire, who has a single arm, 'by removing one arm from the sleeve of his shirt, placing the arm inside his shirt, thus indicating that he only had one arm as well.'"

"The home plate umpire also said [Deputy Rigoberto] Iglesias was 'rude and belligerent' during and after the game. The home plate umpire said Iglesias used 'excessive profanity both on and off the field.'"

Other observers (most likely game spectators) to the deputies' asinine behavior also subsequently complained to the sheriff's office, according to the story.

Contrast this utter juvenile nonsense with the quite noble but completely undeserved class the umpire in question showed towards the deputies in response to his treatment:

"The base umpire with a single arm, however, told sheriff’s officials 'both teams were vocal but that is a part of sports and emotions can run high from time to time,' records show.

He didn’t feel any sheriff’s employees should be disciplined. The deputies’ actions, he said, weren’t different from those of 'any other team on a given game night.'"

People on other teams don't have the responsibility (while armed) of keeping the peace and making sure things don't get out of hand at such events when they're on duty, though. Keeping that fact in mind, we think that this is probably the proper chastisement.

He's got no room to talk

The "Reverend" Al Sharpton's labeling of Rush Limbaugh as "divisive" (while trying to derail the radio host's attempt to become a minority owner of the St. Louis Rams NFL franchise) makes about as much sense as Keith Richards discussing opening a health and wellness spa.

Oddly enough, no one ever seems to talk about the fact that after Rush made his comment about Donovan McNabb in 2003 (that McNabb wasn't as good a quarterback as the liberal media made him out to be, a discrepancy that may have been because the journalists were biased in favor of wanting McNabb to do well with the Philadelphia Eagles because he happens to be black), Hall of Fame receiver Michael Irvin, a fellow panelist on the ESPN pregame show where Limbaugh's comment was made (and who also happens to be black), agreed with Limbaugh, saying that "Rush has a point". Doesn't that make Irvin "divisive" and a racist in Sharpton's eyes as well?


UPDATE: Email out to sports columnist Bryan Burwell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a major news outlet of the sort that seems to regularly look down their collective noses at the amateurish scribblings of bloggers such as ourselves, regarding his column of October 7:

Mr. Burwell,

I am an independent journalist who is unable to attribute the following quote to Rush Limbaugh:

"I mean, let's face it, we didn't have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: Slavery built the South. I'm not saying we should bring it back. I'm just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark."

Would you please provide the citation you found that proves that Limbaugh did in fact make that comment?

Thank you very much for your help.

Respectfully,

Douglas Hester
(contact info)

We'll let everyone know if Mr Burwell has the evidence to back up his assertion.


UPDATE 2: Edited for clarity and links added.

The Jack-Booted Thug of the Week...

... is Tempe, Arizona Police Chief Tom Ryff, for placing city resident Eleanor Holguin's home on a list that flags addresses which appear on it as "hazards", warning police and fire personnel to use particular caution when responding to calls for service at those locations.

Holguin only found out that her home happens to be on that list when she recently called 911 to report that her elderly father had fallen. One of the paramedics that showed up to help requested that she step outside for a moment, and then asked if she had recently moved in or, if not, if she perhaps knew why her house was on the list, according to the article:

"Holguin said the paramedic told her that 'whenever we get that (hazard) dispatch on our call log it means we're possibly going into a hostile situation. That could mean other things like you could be on some terrorist list.'"

This was very puzzling to Holguin, as her family has lived there for 40 years or so without incident, and the emergency aid summoned for her dad seems to have been the only time that 911 was ever called from that house. There is apparently no reason whatsoever for that particular house to appear on a list of potential trouble spots.

-Except-

Earlier in the year, Ms. Holguin had apparently spoken out publicly against the chief for some other reason, including requesting that he resign his position.

Coincidence?

Well, it sure doesn't look too kosher from our vantage point.

We can see the value of keeping such a list in certain situations, for example to let officers know when they're about to arrive at a known troublemaker's home, or to warn rescue workers about a nightclub that regularly has altercations in its parking lot. In such cases, a police department should be able to clearly articulate why they have labeled an address in such a manner, both to justify their actions as well as to allow the individual or business to publicly challenge the evidence which labels them as bad eggs, giving them a chance to remove themselves from such a list if they prove their inclusion had been due to errors or bad information. (This supposes an active criminal investigation isn't ongoing, of course.)

So, all Chief Ryff has to do is simply announce why the Holguin residence was placed on the list, and this matter will quickly be resolved, right?

Hah. You just knew where this was going:

"Tempe police refuse to say what placed her on the list"

and, of course cited the tired old "for security reasons" argument:

"Releasing information about why an address is a threat could anger a resident, leaving public-safety officials and the public at risk, Tempe Sgt. Steve Carbajal said."

It appears that your not releasing the information is thoroughly "angering a resident", Sergeant. How do you propose to deal with that "risk", sir? Article commenter bostonblackie ably points out the ridiculousness of the department's untenable argument:

"The police have taken the Kafkaesque position that they can't tell you why you are on a 'hostile' list because it might make you hostile."

Lunacy. Pure lunacy.

Interestingly, the story reports that the Tempe fire chief has now agreed to remove the Holguin home from the list (at least as it pertains to fire calls), which only further raises a casual observer's suspicion that Chief Ryff is merely playing games with his secret little "enemies list", rather than actually having a legitimate reason for including the Holguin house on it.

Come on, Chief Ryff. Either come out with a legitimate reason why these people have been singled out for inclusion on your hazardous address list, or else immediately strike them from it.

When it rains, it pours

We can safely state that the optimum time for a car battery to give up the ghost is not when one is attempting to pull an automobile back into the garage after having the passenger door window replaced.

We've pretty much had enough car-related hassles for one day.

Violated

One of our vehicles has been the target of a smash and grab robbery while parked in our driveway overnight, resulting in the theft of a laptop computer. Blogging will probably be light today while we deal with the aftermath.

Socialized medicine can be quite painful. Just ask this chap

British subject Torron Eeles is madder than a wet hen at his country's completely out-of-control National Health Service, and we certainly don't blame him one bit.

You see, the poor guy broke his left humerus in a fall ten months ago, and yet he still hasn't undergone the surgery required to allow it to heal correctly. It's actually been so long since the injury that Eeles's arm has set in a truly grotesque manner (check the story for a picture), leaving him unable to use it for even the simplest tasks.

Why has Eeles still not gone under the knife? Well, because the vaunted NHS has canceled his operation four times to date, that's why. As nutty as it may sound, at least one surgery was nixed, the NHS spokesman quoted in the story freely admits, solely due to "concerns over his [Eeles's] smoking".

That's sadly all part of the master plan. When a government gives itself monopoly authority to run programs such as the aforementioned nationalized health care scheme, it gets to make all the rules. The bureaucrats who run things can then begin to tell the peasantry what to do with their formerly free lives, as they now control all of the resources.

As a result of this kind of power grab (and which is apparently exactly what is happening to the unfortunate Mr. Eeles), should one happen to participate in an activity that Big Brother frowns upon, the treatment spigot can be arbitrarily cut off at any time and the nail-sticking-up peasant can just go pound sand and suffer, at least until he or she comes around and begins exhibiting the desired behavioral modification. This is social engineering at its finest. Stalin and Mao would be so proud.

Anyone still want this kind of health "care" to be imposed upon us here in America?

Wrapping up the tale

John Patten of Venice Florida! dot com finishes up with Part 3 of his interesting series on the utter mess that purports to be the Police Department down there.

At Officer Frassetti's arbitration hearing, six fellow Venice PD officers bravely go to bat for him, directly contradicting the IT guy's assertion that the computer system simply never, ever eats reports, despite receiving explicit threats about doing so from the brass:

"[Officer Demitri] Sorrentino also testified that he had been warned against testifying by his supervisor. According to Sorrentino's testimony, which was backed up by subsequent testimony of Officer Serianni, the pair of them had been warned by their supervisor that if they testified in support of Frassetti, their careers as cops with the Venice Police Department would be seriously jeopardized. 'You better dot all your I's and cross all your T's correctly from here on out because the chief will be out to get you.'"

Bottom line - Frassetti has been ordered reinstated, although one wonders why he would want to work in such a nightmare of a department, as Patten notes:

"According to Serianni, who is the current vice-president of the local FOP, in the last three years, there have been over 100 internal affairs investigations. That's an astounding number. That's a "why the hell would you even want to think about working there?" number. That's just paranoid nuttiness that contributes to stress, mistakes, serious health issues, and the ever-dreaded cop suicide death rates. I've worked either in or around law enforcement for most of my adult life, and for the size of the Venice Police Department, that number is nothing short of sheer insanity."

Total cost to the Florida taxpayer for the Frassetti fiasco alone? Oh, only about $150,000 or so.

We hope the peasants down there wake up and realize exactly how much money the likes of Venice Chief Julie Williams and City Manager Bob Anderson is costing them.

Patten isn't anti-cop at all, by the way. He's just anti-crooked cop, and is merely after fairness, the same as us:

"My thanks go out to the many good and honest officers of the Venice Police Department, many of whom have risked their careers to point me to information in order that this story could be told. It is due to their bravery and their hopefully deserved trust in me, in the face of a very real and scary internal political machine, that I have been able to tell this tale."

Great job, John.

The Jack-Booted Thug of the Week, Bonus Edition...

... is former Dolton, Illinois police officer Christopher Lloyd, for being caught on a school surveillance tape beating the snot out of a 15-year-old brain-injured student who dared to give the law enforcement "professional" some lip after he told the kid to tuck in his shirt:





"Officer" Lloyd was fired from the force after the incident, but that isn't the worst of his problems. Oh, no no no. He's currently in jail after being accused of raping a female friend, and is facing 20 years in prison if convicted of those charges.

Oh, and did we forget - Lloyd has also been recently served with a lawsuit by his ex-wife regarding his conduct in nearby Chicago last summer, when he shot her new husband many, many times in front of their children with each other:

"An autopsy revealed Lloyd shot the man 24 times, the agency found. He was not jailed at the time as Chicago police accepted his explanation that the killing was in self-defense." (All emphases mine)

That astounding (but not surprising, unfortunately) finding by the Chicago PD would be quite amusing if it weren't such a deadly serious (and blatant) example of the "blue wall of silence" that law-enforcement officers routinely bestow onto their brethren who happen to be criminal suspects, apparently no matter how heinous the offense.

Imagine some random peasant in rabidly anti-gun King Emperor Mayor-for Life Richard Daley's Chicago offering up such a pathetic explanation for a similar incident, and then calculate the chance (we figure, oh, 100% or so) that that particular citizen would have been promptly jailed for his or her actions, and would most likely still be sitting in the pokey right this minute.

If that had also been Lloyd's fate after his actions last year (and which likely didn't simply because of what he did for a living), the kid in the story would not have been the recipient of a "face-down take-down" (Catchy. We wonder what they call hitting someone with a baton - "teaching the perp a new trick with the good ol' nightstick"?) and the acquaintance of Lloyd's (should her story pan out in court) would have been spared being raped. Heady stuff, indeed.

It sure is a good thing that Illinois residents, particularly Cornel McKinney, the seemingly innocent man Lloyd gunned down in Chicago, are prevented from lawfully carrying firearms for self-defense - the idiot peasants there would only end up doing something evil, such as gunning down their spouses' new husbands in cold blood (allegedly).

Mr. McKinney might be alive today had he had the means that day to successfully fight back against the sort of "public servant" that the likes of Mayors Daley and Bloomberg in New York constantly lecture us are the "only ones" qualified, trained and law-abiding enough to be armed in public, and who are supposed to be protecting and serving people like McKinney, not executing them (allegedly).

"For what", indeed

President Obama has somehow been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, even though the nomination period for the award closed a scant 12 days after his inauguration, so it would appear that the world-changing work that put him ahead of the 204 other nominees stems from his two years as a back-bencher U.S. Senator.

What an absolute travesty. At least the people who nominated Jimmy Carter could point to something Carter had done, however impotent and useless it ultimately turned out to be, in order to justify giving him a Nobel nod.

The "Messiah" label seems especially appropriate today, that's for darn sure.

Pfui on the whole issue.


UPDATE: A very nice lady, who happens to be a fellow YMCA member, has the following to say on the subject: "I'm a liberal, I love the man, but even I can't justify this".

The Jack-Booted Thug(s) of the Week...

... are the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, of all agencies, who in October 2003 sent its goon squad, complete with ninja outfits and heavy weaponry, to conduct a "no-knock" raid on an elderly couple in Spring, Texas (utterly trashing their home in the process) who were suspected of growing - marijuana? Opium poppies?

Nope - orchids.

Here's what they told the wife, Kathy Norris, when she quite reasonably inquired at the courthouse the next day as to exactly why she was being treated like a major drug baron:

"'You don't need to know. You can't know'"

How does the all-too-true saying go again - "When all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail"?

What's worse, the family's business was entirely legal, but the husband, 66-year-old George Norris, was still sentenced to the federal pokey for basically not dotting his i's and crossing his t's:

"Mr. Norris ended up spending almost two years in prison because he didn't have the proper paperwork for some of the many orchids he imported. The orchids were all legal - but Mr. Norris and the overseas shippers who had packaged the flowers had failed to properly navigate the many, often irrational, paperwork requirements the U.S. imposed when it implemented an arcane international treaty's new restrictions on trade in flowers and other flora."

Want another example from a subject that's near and dear to us? How about the thugs at the BATFE, who regularly go after law-abiding gun dealers who make the tragic error (interpreted by the ATF agents as being a serious crime) of not noticing that a tiny fraction of their otherwise legal customers had put "Y" and "N" instead of "Yes" and "No" on their firearms purchase forms?

Brian Walsh, who authored Monday's Washington Times commentary on this subject, has it completely right:

"Astronomical numbers of federal criminal laws lack specifics, can apply to almost anyone and fail to protect innocents by requiring substantial proof that an accused person acted with actual criminal intent."

How many otherwise law-abiding peasants unintentionally break numerous laws every single day simply because the statutes are too many in number and too broad in their language?

We really need to reclaim our lives from this sort of insane legal bureaucracy.

More nationally-broadcast child abuse

A bunch of innocent brainwashed children from a Georgia indoctrination center school called the "Ron Clark Academy". They're busily singing the praises of the Messiah and his proposals on CNN, instead of being where they should be - back at school learning skills to help them become successful in life, instead of having their teachers and administrators waste precious instruction time by cynically using their pupils as a leftist propaganda tool in this bizarre manner.

"My tummy's turning"

So was ours - after watching the blatant exploitation of these children.

"Capricious coverage is killing me"

We will give $100 to the first one of those kids that can define the word "capricious". Who wrote this dreck, anyway? Bill Ayers?

The frequency with which these types of videos are appearing is truly disturbing. Anyone else still willing to argue that the deification of President Obama (especially to children who don't know any better) isn't taking place?

Not so fast, Professor

Dr. Geoffrey A. Clark, one of those pretty much useless taxpayer-supported ivory-tower liberals (He's "a Ph.D. Regents' Professor at the School of Human Evolution & Social Change, Arizona State University". We're sure that position adds a whole lot of value to society.) was fortunate enough to have a commentary about health-care "reform" published in yesterday's Arizona Republic. He (quite unscientifically, by the way) manages to turn a few personal anecdotal experiences into justifying transforming our entire health-care system into a government-ruled socialized mess bureaucracy, and he also takes the opportunity to bash the capitalist system that generously allows him to sit on his rear end in a campus office and pontificate on these types of issues:


"I've run out of patience with those who adamantly oppose a national health-plan option. Do they seriously think people whose principal goal is to maximize profit and minimize service are going to have the consumers' best interests at heart?

How is it that we have come to accept that an industry with uncontrolled growth in costs and little incentive for efficiency can continue to operate without controls or limits?

For what it's worth, my own view is that it is the right of every American to have access to comprehensive public health care and the obligation of the American government to provide it.

I've spent a lot of time abroad, and for some inscrutable reason, Europe and many parts of Asia somehow manage to provide universal health care without imposing an excessive tax burden on the citizenry, such that, in the event of a pre-existing condition or a medical emergency, it doesn't kill or bankrupt everybody except for the obscenely wealthy.

Every society is governed by a moral code comprising core values that express a concern for the common good and those that constitute opportunities for the creation of wealth. Socialism and capitalism are two sides of the same coin, and it is the balance between them, or more accurately, between the ideals expressed in their moral codes, that is of crucial importance.

Sure, socialized medicine doesn't work perfectly all the time, but it works far better most of the time for more of the people than the kind of care provided by the "death by spreadsheet" industry.

Case in point. I got sick in the nation of Jordan last spring, was taken to a hospital and was tested and treated for dehydration. Cost me $50, plus $11 for medicine. Jordan is a poor country, yet somehow can afford a national health plan for all its citizens (it also covers foreigners who, if they can afford to do it, pay a very modest fee).

Another example: I was in Spain in 2005 on an archaeological project. A Brit who was on the dig fell on the slippery surface of a cave floor and tore the ligaments in both knees. In short order, an ambulance arrived, an EMT extracted him from the cave, he was taken to a hospital where he was examined, X-rayed, medicated and then flown back to the United Kingdom, treated there and provided with physical therapy for six months - all covered by a comprehensive public-health plan. Didn't cost him a cent.

Many Americans who are critical of a national health plan appear to be oblivious of the fact that capitalism is both a blessing and a curse.

Although capable of generating wealth, a balanced view of capitalism must also acknowledge its historical record of exploiting the weakest and most vulnerable, its 19th-century dependence on slavery, child labor and poverty wages for factory workers, and - today - the corporate mandate to maximize profit by shifting underpaid work to laborers both here and abroad who are desperate enough to be exploited.

Capitalism is designed only to maximize profit. It has no inherent morality, no commitment to the public good and no respect for the public commons.

President Barack Obama should stick to his guns and use his very considerable powers of persuasion to push a public option through Congress. The past decade or so of capitalism run amok is more than a mortal can bear (this mortal, anyway). National health care is long, long overdue. We need it badly, and we need it now."

Our response to this nonsensical drivel, submitted to the Republic's editors and emailed to Dr. Clark personally:

"I would like to respond to Dr. G. A. Clark, who has apparently “run out of patience” with uneducated peasants such as me who “adamantly oppose a national health-plan option”. (“Practical reasons to have public option”, October 6, 2009).

I concur that people who run a private business in the manner that Clark describes (“to maximize profit and minimize service”) aren’t necessarily going to have their customers’ best interests in mind. That’s why people in a free society who are treated in such a manner are able to go and patronize another business, which confirms the capitalist principle of competition. If the government takes over health care, where else are people going to go should they receive shoddy or inadequate treatment from the Feds who, unlike too many businesses to count, can’t point to a single program that they’ve ever run in an efficient and successful manner? Since the U.S. government under the public option proposal is going to have to operate in the exact same manner or worse, effectively ration care in order to keep the costs of adding the health care of millions of people to our public debt in time of deep recession contained, Clark’s is a straw-man argument at best, and outright deception at worst.

Clark argues that countries such as Jordan and Spain provide care to their citizens for little or no out-of-pocket money on the part of the individual citizen, although he doesn’t reveal the confiscatory, controlling tax rates levied onto those populations that enables that sort of largesse. It’s also a fact that residents of those countries have significantly less freedoms and personal liberties than do American citizens. Are you willing to trade “essential liberties for a little temporary security”, as Ben Franklin put it? I’m not, and I agree with Franklin, who argued that such people deserve neither liberty nor security. I won’t even get into the fact that nowhere in the Constitution is it authorized for the federal government to force people to purchase something that they do not wish to possess.

Clark also flippantly lectures us that “Sure, socialized medicine doesn’t work perfectly all the time” (ironically confirming that the scheme President Obama is proposing, despite his vigorous denials to the contrary, is indeed the outright socialization of one-sixth of our national economy). Dr. Clark sure gets that point correct. Just ask the patients in Canada who have to wait upwards of nine months for a cardiac procedure, up to three years for a joint replacement or even two to three months for a routine MRI due to a lack of machines. How about the residents of Great Britain that have been diagnosed with wet age-related macular degeneration who have been informed that they must wait to go blind in one eye before receiving sight-saving medicine?

Finally, Clark accuses the concept of capitalism itself of “having no inherent morality”. Governments don’t have morality, Dr Clark; individuals do. Oh, and by the way, sir, are you seriously positing that socialism does have morality? Go tell that fallacy to the estimated 100 million people who were exterminated in the 20th century under such apparent Clark heroes as Mao, Stalin, Pot and Castro. I would also point out factors such as the thousands of American soldiers who died during the same period to bring freedom and liberty to oppressed people all over the world, our unmatched humanitarian and peacekeeping efforts and our tradition of agitating for liberty for people all over the globe (excepting Obama’s recent non-efforts in that arena in places such as Iran and Honduras). If any country has a claim to morality, it is certainly the United States.

In the United States, freedom is the opportunity to live one’s life as they choose without interference from the government, regardless of whether those choices are wise or foolish. Forcing citizens to participate in a Ponzi-style health-care scheme that the majority of people want no part of is contrary to our very core beliefs and traditions, and a practice I personally believe has no place in our nation."


We'll let everyone know if the paper's editors deem our counterpoint print-worthy.

Donning their costumes

(EPA - Pic is from the article)

Some of the willing stooges doctors who were present at the White House propaganda session photo-op on health care "reform" that took place yesterday.

The physicians are dutifully receiving "their" white coats from the Messiah's staff to wear for the pictures in order to appear more learned and authoritative to the peasantry, no doubt in the hope that everyone's eyes will immediately glaze over and they'll subsequently obediently do whatever task Doc Sawbones tells them to perform.

"Underlying the strictly photo-op nature of the event, The Associated Press noted that Obama broke no new ground in his remarks."

But he's surely chewing the ground he's already covered into the worst kind of muck, isn't he?

News flash, good doctors - posing with a garment some of you haven't worn (or even owned) since medical school does not immediately make one an expert on economics, and it sure as heck doesn't qualify you to harangue Americans into buying a product they have no wish to own.

UPDATE: My good friend and trainer Matt brought up an excellent point while we were working out this morning - just who, exactly, paid for all of those bright new coats that were handed out like free drug samples so that the doctors could also "play one on TV" like some sort of mass Marcus Welby character or late night over-50 insurance shill?

We (all of us chump taxpayers) did, of that we have no doubt.

British Nanny State - style insanity is inexorably making its way to Canada

Canadian "Justice" Minister Rob Nicholson is pushing the idea of changing the law to allow the Junior Nanny State police up there to be able to force motorists to submit to Breathalyzer tests whenever and wherever the cops feel like it, all without one scintilla of evidence of a driver being impaired in any way, shape or form:

"If random testing were to be adopted, it would be a major change to Canada's 40-year-old breathalyzer legislation, which stipulates that police may only administer a test if they suspect a driver has been drinking." (Emphasis mine)

Yes, we suppose it would indeed represent quite the deviation from the established norm. Thanks for pointing that out, Captain Obvious.

"[MADD chief executive Andrew] Murie said the change would allow police at roadblocks to conduct about three times as many breathalyzer tests because they would not need to spend time determining whether there is 'reasonable' suspicion a driver has been drinking."

If those pesky civil liberties just keep getting in the way of efficiency, Mr. Nicholson, here's an idea - why not just go ahead and dump all of them at the same time? That way the jackbooted minions under your control could really get some police work accomplished, all without anyone having to fret about any of those silly (and quite unnecessary, really, when one thinks about it) arguments about "rights" and "freedoms" mucking up the system.

What's next - allowing Canadian cops to randomly search houses and people on the street for whatever reason the "authorities" decide to come up with? That would follow the exact same logic as the above proposal, and such a policy certainly would snare more persons who engage in illegal activities, which is the only part of "Justice" that Minister Nicholson seems to care about.

Talk about a one-sided scale.

A true hero passes on

We note with the utmost respect the passing of Marek Edelman, one of the leaders of a group of 200 or so ordinary Jewish citizens confined to the Warsaw Ghetto when the German Army came to round up them up for transport to concentration camps in the spring of 1943. The citizens decided to not go without a fight, and with small arms and whatever makeshift weapons they were able to scrounge up held off the mighty Wehrmacht for three solid weeks, until the brave Poles were finally defeated by the mass use of explosives by the Nazis.

This sort of example, not "hunting or sport shooting", is why the Founders of our country listed the Second Amendment where they did in the Constitution, behind only the rights of freedom of speech and assembly - they recognized and acknowledged the inherent right of Americans to use firearms to successfully fight back against attacks by their own government, should it become oppressive and threaten the loss of their freedoms or even their very lives.

This kind of atrocity can and does happen over and over again, even in today's world. One only has to remember the recent stories of:

The former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s
Rwanda in 1994
The breakaway republic of Chechnya in the former Soviet Union
Darfur, in Sudan
Zimbabwe in the 2000s

All of these tragedies were made easily possible by the simple fact that the citizens of those areas were disarmed by the force of law, and as such had no way of fighting back against their oppressors save with their bare hands.

Rest easy, Mr. Edelman. You will never be forgotten around these parts.

One of Florida's many swamps is getting drained in a surgical manner

John Patten of VeniceFlorida!.com has published Part 2 of his eye-opening expose about that city's firing of Police Officer Michael Frassetti by Police Chief Julie Williams and City Manager Bob Anderson for apparently nothing more than Frassetti's arresting of someone (while responding to a request for a traffic stop radioed in by the chief herself, no less) who was "connected" by family to a lieutenant in that department.

We especially enjoyed the part where the suspect, Joshua Rose, had the charges against him dropped because, as an Assistant State's Attorney's memo feebly attempts to claim,

"When preparing for trial, the State learned of the fact that the arresting officer [Frassetti] in this case is not employed by the Venice Police Department any longer. After contacting VPD it was also learned that there was no forwarding information for the arresting officer."

Frassetti has resided at the same address all along and is still there to this day, according to Patten. "No forwarding information", indeed.

Patten then goes on to state that he tried to show this very memo to Chief Williams personally in order to get an explanation, but that "she didn't want to look at it".

How professional of her.

There's quite a pile of evidence, both written and on video, to back up Patten's assertions. His article is definitely a worthwhile read and we are eagerly looking forward to Part 3, in which he is going to total up exactly how much this farce is going to cost Florida's peasants.

What an embarrassment for him

Chicago has been bounced from contention as the site for the 2016 Olympics on the first vote, despite the Messiah traveling to Copenhagen to shill for his adopted hometown in person. He's apparently lost whatever international influence he was once perceived to possess.

Good. Since that subject has been decided, maybe now our Commander-in-Chief can get back to dithering over whether to send the additional troops to Afghanistan that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Obama's handpicked leader over there, has been absolutely begging for. Don't hold your breath, however. The President has announced that he's going to "take several weeks to review U.S. strategy on Afghanistan and Pakistan", even as our soldiers are experiencing large numbers of casualties while desperately fighting the Taliban under the Messiah's hamstringing new rules of engagement for that theater.

No hurry, sir. Take your time. Maybe there's some other shindig you'd like to go sweet-talk before getting around to deciding whether to reinforce our troops.

From the Department of Glaringly Obvious Headlines

"Millionaire Filmmaker Michael Moore: Capitalism Did Nothing For Me"

Except ensure that he didn't miss too many meals, judging from this uncredited picture displayed on Drudge's site:

Special treatment for "special people"

Los Angeles, California county employee Robert Andrew Moran recently pleaded no contest to charges of drunk driving as well as plowing his county-issued SUV into another vehicle early one morning, injuring the two innocent occupants that happened to be inside the car.

Of course, since he's Deputy Sheriff Robert Andrew Moran, he's apparently not going to have to spend even one day in jail for his crimes:

"A Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputy was sentenced today to six months on home confinement for injuring two people after crashing into their car while driving under the influence of alcohol. " (All emphases mine)

Not to worry, though. Judge Erick Larsh "also placed Moran on three years informal probation and ordered him to enroll in a three-month first offender program to include facing a Mothers Against Drunk Driving panel".

That's throwing the book at him, Your Honor. What's "informal probation", anyway? We've never even heard of such a thing. We're guessing it means that should Moran keep his nose clean during that period his conviction will be completely scrubbed from his record.

Naturally, it also appears that Moran is probably going to retain his position with the department, despite admitting to the exact destructive behavior he's sworn to combat:

"Vicki Podberersky, Moran's attorney, said this morning that her client has already served most of his time on home confinement. She said he was placed on unpaid leave from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department when charges were filed against him, but he will seek reinstatement."

We're sure the good peasants of LA County just can't wait to see Moran's smiling face the next time they're inconvenienced at an unconstitutional DUI roadblock.

There goes our girlish figure

Two more Arizona restaurants that are taking a proactive stance in welcoming concealed-carry permit holders:

"Hello, I am the owner of Eat at Joe's Barbecue in Wikieup, AZ. I am a CCW permit holder, and I invite all CCWers to carry in my establishment. Anyone who is carrying and has a permit, I will give a 10% discount toward their meal."


"Marc Peagler, owner of the Silver Spur Saloon Restaurant in Cave Creek outside Phoenix, said he will allow people with concealed weapons permits to carry in his business, and Silver Spur will be safer because of it. 'It's a deterrent,' he said. 'In the criminal element, there is some logic that says when people look at a place that they might want to rob, the ones that have big signs up that say 'We do not permit firearms' would be the first target. They know there's not going to be anybody in there that can stop them,'"


A bunch of other establishments are on an ever-expanding list here.


(h/t to Dustin)

The criminal justice system is not a travel agency...

... despite what this fellow apparently believes:

"Police in Framingham, Mass., say an illegal immigrant from Guatemala entered a police station, told officers he had stolen another man's identity and asked to be deported because he could no longer make ends meet in America."

He'd been here and using taxpayer-funded services free of charge for 13 years.

Just another person who willfully broke a slew of our laws in order to enter and reside in this country, but we're supposed to ignore that fact simply "because he wanted a better life". Well, so do billions of people in the rest of the world. Should we just open the borders and let all of them in?

By the way, are we taxpayers going to be expected to finance trips home for all the people who don't make it in this country should the Messiah's proposed illegal alien amnesty scheme "comprehensive immigration reform" pass Congress?

Prosecute this guy for identity theft, then send him home and bill him for the ticket.