The Last White Man in Cairo, Illinois

KSDK-NBC-5:

EAST CAPE GIRARDEAU, Ill. (AP) — Illinois State Police said a customer who was shot to death today at a video store in the far southern Illinois town of East Cape Girardeau was a 30-year-old man from Cairo.

Investigators said police dispatched to the Brown Bag Video store at about 1:30 Tuesday morning found Charles Caldwell dead and the clerk wounded.

As you can see from the KSDK story, the “Brown Bag Video Store” in East Cape, Ill., is an XXX joint.  This means that in Cape Girardeau, like in St. Louis, you have to head across the river and down into the river plains to do all the naughty stuff.

And he has been identified, as 30-year old Charles Caldwell, from Cairo, Ill., which means that he was the last white person living in Cairo.  The rest of the others were driven out by black crime and gangs long ago.

Also, the suspect has been described as a white man.

It’s Howdy Doody Time

Matthew McMillan, 24, of Sullivan, Mo., is suspected of doing a 13-year old girl from Columbia, Mo., that he met on an internet singles website. The Columbia Police described his demeanor upon being arrested as “wooden.”

Fallout

From her being cut out of the will:

Paris Hilton is trying to sling her Hollywood Hills home for $4.25 million. If she bags that, after the capital gains taxes, she could invest it well and have a nice upper middle-class lifestyle for the rest of her years on Earth. Sure, she won’t be able to be in places that would get her on Perez Hilton’s blog every day, but by the same token, she wouldn’t have to be flopping a mop along side of L.A.’s many Latinas.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Tropical Storm Chantal has formed, but will not develop into a very big storm, as it is already 300 miles south of Nova Scotia, and is forecasted to hit Newfoundland with heavy rain and not much more.

The more curious part is this storm’s name: Chantal. A couple of years ago, black civil rights groups were bitching that hurricanes didn’t have black-sounding names. Obviously, if Hurricane Katrina would have been named Hurricane Shantee, the same civil rights groups would be bitching that devastating storms WERE given black-sounding names. Mark my words — if, for example, Hurricane Demetrius would become a Category 5 storm and slam right into New Orleans, we would never hear the end of that from the NAACP.

Then again, it seems like many American major cities have been devastated by Hurricane Demetrius and Hurricane Shantee.

Michael Bloomberg Tries to Bash in HRC’s Knees

Here is a story that states that the Chicago law firm with which Ken Starr is a partner has given more money to HRC than to all Republicans running for President. This is juicy enough: After having made a name and career of chasing after Bill, Ken Starr is part of a law firm that would like to see Bill’s wife become President.

The more interesting thing is that this story’s source is Bloomberg News Service, as in Michael, as in the NYC Mayor that wants to be President himself. I think M.B. is trying to poison and FUD up HRC’s well, so that Democrat voters would turn to him and his “independent” candidacy in November 2008. Face it — thanks to his moral turpitude, he can’t bleed off many Republican votes, so Bloomberg and Hillary will be chasing after the same chad-punchers.

This Took Balls

As you know by know, the FBI raided the Alaska home of Sen. Ted “Bridge to Nowhere” Stevens (R-AK). Stevens is the ranking Republican on the Senate committee that controls the FBI’s budget.

Man With Gun Will Almost Always Beat Man Without Gun

There’s a lot of talk from anti-gun left wingers that you don’t need a gun or a CCW permit to protect yourself from gun-wielding criminals, that all you need to do is learn self-defense and martial arts techniques.

Yahoo Sports:

CHICAGO (AP) — Two hulking NBA stars were bound with duct tape and robbed of cash and jewelry by masked gunmen in separate holdups that have Chicago-area detectives wondering whether someone is targeting professional athletes.

New York Knicks forward Eddy Curry — 6-foot-11, 285 pounds — was tied up along with his wife and an employee at his mansion in suburban Burr Ridge on Saturday.

Miami Heat forward Antoine Walker, who is 6-foot-9, 245 pounds, was similarly robbed along with a relative at his $4 million townhouse in Chicago’s exclusive River North section on July 10.

The odds are that the gunmen were all smaller and less physically imposing than the professional basketball players they robbed. And both players, even in the absence of formal training in self-defense maneuvers, could have probably improvised, ceteris paribus. But ceteris was not paribus; the robbers had a gun in their immediate possession, and Messrs. Curry and Walker did not.

The Other Famous Person

I watch Hell’s Kitchen on FOX faithfully, and have so for all three of its seasons.

Jen, the chef who was sent home tonight, (and “tonight” refers to the show, as HK seasons take place and are filmed in the winter), has something very notable a lot her.

Have a look.  There is a hint somewhere in this post.

Chopin vs Crips

The Tacoma, Wash., transit system is using the music played locally by KING-FM, a Seattle classical music station, to drive out gang activity at the interface between the city’s public bus system and Tacoma’s shopping mall. If they really want a musical gang repellent, try this radio station. Or better yet, satellite-impart this one.

Paris Hilton Is Out of the Will

She won’t see a dime of the Hilton fortune, evidently.

Since she’s only famous for being famous, she will have to start working for a living pretty soon.  And with southern California’s depressed wage-scale, thanks to you-know-what, she might have to start settling for the fake Gucci bags instead of the real ones.

Beirich Starts a Blog

Dr. Heidi Beirich, a woman I once described as a sexy, Donna Shalala look-alike, and through her official capacity with some “center,” has started a blog. No, you’re not getting a link.

But I will have a look at their blogroll. After all, Dr. Beirich and the “center” she works for wouldn’t hesitate for a second to judge a right-wing blog, and the organization it represents, if it does represent one, based on the strangest items in its blogroll.

Some of the lowlights:

* Anti-Neo Confederate

That’s Ed Sebesta, who has been trying to land a job with some sort of paranoia-industrial complex outfit for a long time. To wit: He has his resume posted on his static website. Be of good cheer, Ed. Maybe this means that Morris is getting close to hiring you.

* Daily Kos

Need I say more?

* FAIR

No, not Dan Stein’s FAIR, but that other FAIR that thinks that you have to be left-wing to be accurate.

* Subway Canaries

Oh goody, my favorite New Mexico liberal Republican — at this rate, I’m surprised they didn’t link to her best friend, that being the Pondering American. Then again, since Pondering hasn’t made a post since December, and since this would be the time of year that P.A. would be gloating about his precious LSU football team, I think he’s done with blogging.

* Undercover Black Man

Probably the weirdest link on their blogroll.

With these and the ones I didn’t show here, their blogroll is a collection of the kookiest elements of the left-wing. (And I always thought my ‘roll was strange.) So, considering that birds of a feather flock together, what does this say about this “center?” (i.e. that we didn’t know already).

Fairness for Vick

AP Headline:

NAACP Leaders Urge Fairness for Vick

I agree. We should be fair with him. He shouldn’t spend one more day in Federal prison than the legal maximum based on whatever crimes he pleads guilty to or is convicted of. And he should be at the top of the QB depth chart on the inmates’ football team when they plan their yearly game against the guards.

Cheney: There’s No Such Thing as a NAFTA Superhighway, But There Were WMDs in Iraq.

WND has it.

If the NAFTA Superhighways, the North American Union and the Security and Prosperity Partnership isn’t a problem, then why has:

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., a GOP presidential candidate, introduced an amendment to H.R. 3074, the Transportation Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008, prohibiting the use of federal funds for participating in working groups under the Security and Prosperity Partnership, including the creation of NAFTA Superhighways.

On July 24, Hunter’s amendment passed 362 to 63, with strong bipartisan support. Later, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 3074 by a margin of 268-153. The bill has been sent to the Senate with Hunter’s amendment included.

Someone who seriously thinks he can become President of the United States isn’t going to waste time and parliamentary maneuvers over a baseless conspiracy theory, and 83% of the members of the U.S. House wouldn’t vote to prevent something that is a figment of somebody’s imagination.

As an aside, I think: (1) Saddam Hussein did have WMDs, (2) Was working on more, (3) Pawned them off on another country because he knew Yankee was about to march in, as there was more than a year of debate on the Iraq invasion before the invasion actually happened, (4) The American government knows this, but the truth of the matter is too insensitive and too much a hot potato, and would somehow damage foreign relations too much, i.e. whatever country is hiding Iraq’s pre-invasion WMDs somehow has us over a barrel, so Uncle Sam would rather have people think that there were “intelligence failures,” making the CIA look foolish, instead of the truth, and (5) Even with all this, that was not a justification to invade Iraq.

Dallas Pot Farm Found Near DEA Field Office

MyFox Dallas:

And on July 12, agents with the Drug Enforcement Agency found a large number of marijuana plants growing in a wooded area near the Trinity River in Dallas.

The secret pot farm was just 200 yards from the DEA’s office building.

Agents said they found more than 300 plants, worth at least $300,000 on the street.

Doing this is either insanely courageous or clever in a Machiavellian way. The last place the DEA would think that a pot field would exist is within eyeshot of their building, so the pot farmers set up shop in the last place they thought the cops would look.

Second Life: Catholics, not Casinos

In two stories about the virtual world called Second Life, its creators and managers have expunged virtual casinos and gambling, and Jesuits are being encouraged to create avatars and a presence there to save virtual souls.

Missouri Synod Lutherans, being the Christian theological polar opposite of Jesuits on the Grace-Works spectrum, will soon have to answer, if and only if they get a notion that God can Grace an avatar with salvation as much as He can a corporeal human being.

Hancock Family Drops Lawsuit

P-D:

A wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of former Cardinals pitcher Josh Hancock, who died in a vehicle crash after a ballgame back in April, was withdrawn today by the family’s attorney.

The family’s local attorney, Mark Bronson, filed the motion to “dismiss without prejudice” this morning, just prior to a hearing before a judge in St. Louis Circuit Court on the merits of the case.

The motion effectively ends the legal battle, although the lawsuit could be refiled.

The lawsuit was filed in May by Hancock’s father, Dean Hancock, just weeks after the 29-year-old relief pitcher crashed his SUV into the back of a tow truck stopped on Highway 40 in St. Louis.

The lawsuit alleged that others shared responsibility for Josh Hancock’s death, including Mike Shannon’s Steaks and Seafood, where the player drank earlier in the night; restaurant manager Pat Shannon Van Matre; the tow truck driver; the tow truck company; and the driver of a disabled car on the highway whom the tow truck driver had stopped to help.

This lawsuit didn’t have a chance.  How this will affect the tow truck company’s counter-suit, which is almost a slam-dunk, is unknown.

No Wonder Bloomberg Thinks He Can Become President

He must think that because Bill Clinton did it, he can.

From the AP:

Before his election as mayor in 2001, Bloomberg was the target of a sexual harassment suit by a female executive who accused him of making repeated raunchy sexual comments while he was chief executive of his financial company, Bloomberg LP.

Among the allegations in the complaint:

_Bloomberg asked the woman who sued if she was giving her boyfriend “good” oral sex.

_He said “I’d like to do that” and “That’s a great piece of a–” to describe women in the office.

_When he found out the woman was pregnant, he told her “Kill it!” and said “Great! Number 16!” — an apparent reference to the number of women in the company who were pregnant or had maternity-related status.

“Good oral,” “Great piece of a–,” and “Kill It!” in terms of an unborn baby — now there’s a sure-fire way to get all those votes of Baptist preachers in Alabama. I hope Bloomberg and the 1% of the vote he’ll get are happy with each other.

Gingrich: Clinton-Obama Ticket for Dems

Me:  She would never pick Obama, for a lot of good, expedient and taboo reasons

Jay Nixon is a Zebra

Mannies:

State Sen. Jeff Smith’s basketball tournament packed ‘em in Saturday. And the political attraction was arguably just as strong as the enthusiasm for the round orange orb and the net.

Attorney General Jay Nixon, the Democratic contender for governor who’s had an on-off relationship with regional black political activists for decades, was on hand to help officiate the contest.

Let’s hope that as a hoops ref, that Jay Nixon doesn’t go Tim Donaghy on us.

Collinsville Wants to be Known for Packets As Much As Bottles

KSDK-NBC-5:

Since Collinsville already claims its water tower as the world’s largest catsup bottle, why not capture another title? It’s an attempt at the world’s largest catsup packet. It’s a four foot by 10 foot packet, capable of holding 127 gallons of catsup.

The idea came from Pastor David Amsden from Son Life Church. It’s all part of fundraiser designed to celebrate catsup and raise money for his church’s school. Two things Pastor Amsden was sure Collinsville would support. But what he didn’t know was just how much his school would need their support.

While we’re on the subject, why haven’t the ketchup makers come up with the idea to make the plastic packets of ketchup significantly larger? I mean, you have to open and squeeze at least six packets to get enough ketchup out for an order of fries.

Democrats Have Trouble With Simple Words

If it’s not Bill Clinton fumbling with the definition of “is,” then it’s Barack Hussein Obama not quite knowing what “all” means.

Hint, BHO: “All” means every item or individual of the group in question. If there is even one that is different from the rest based on the supposition that uses the word “all,” then it’s not really “all.” Since I myself don’t think it was a “victory,” then you, by definition, are wrong to say “all.”

The Company He Keeps

If this would ever happen to a volunteer for a Republican Presidential candidate, we would never hear the end of it.

KSDK-NBC-5:

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — An intern working for Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign was arrested Friday at the Des Moines airport after authorities flagged an outstanding arrest warrant for aggravated battery in Illinois.

Derrick Lamon Johnson, 20, of Glen Carbon, Ill., was also charged with fleeing from justice.

I wonder why someone with a rap sheet would go to work for the Obama campaign.  What does Mr. Johnson know about Obama’s agenda vis-a-vis crime that we don’t?

The “Boy Crisis” Is Really a Race Problem

Time Magazine joins the San Francisco Chronicle in telling us that the Schlaflyite/Sommersite “Boys Crisis” (1) Isn’t a crisis, and (2) Doesn’t have as much to do wtih gender as it does with race:

In particular, Mead decided that boys from middle- and upper-income families–especially white families–are doing just fine. “The biggest issue is not a gender gap. It is these gaps for minority and disadvantaged boys,” she told me recently in the think tank’s conference room.

…

We Almost Got a Truthful Explanation

AP:

Courts across the country have been going to extraordinary lengths in recent years to get people to report for jury duty — a cornerstone of democracy and a civic responsibility that many citizens would do almost anything to avoid.

(snip)

An increase in the number of homicides in Boston and the use of special grand juries to investigate violent crimes have eaten into the prospective juror list.

The city also has a large number of immigrants, who are exempt from jury duty, and college students, who move so frequently that their summonses are often sent back as undeliverable.

The problem appears to be worse in urban courts, where the population is more transient and address lists can quickly become outdated. But rural and suburban areas also have problems with reluctant jurors.

They almost hit the nail of the problem right on its head. In big cities, with big populations of blacks and Hispanics, there is so much crime, and therefore many more criminal jury trials than white jurisdictions, that jurors are needed more often. In Missouri, one can’t be summoned for jury duty more often than once every three years, and if you’re 21 or older and not a convicted felon and you live in the city, you can attest to the fact that the city courts push that rule almost right up to the edge. (The obvious requirement that jurors not be convicted felons contributes to a smaller base of potential jurors in big cities.) You know that, once three years have passed since you were last called in, you can count on one hand the weeks that will pass until you get that summons in the mail. I know that it won’t be long after mid-January next that I’ll be called in.

Meanwhile, I bet there are some people who live in St. Charles County who have never been called in for jury duty for a criminal case in state courts at St. Charles.

Beyond all of that, this article is more right than even its author knows. Jurors, at the time they are serving, have an immense level of power — one person can keep a criminal defendant from going to prison. Intelligent juries can be a firewall against capricious prosecution and abuse of power.  And in spite of what judges say, jurors can judge both the facts and the law in making a decision.

Lying in a court is never a good idea, but if I had to make the Hobson’s Choice, I would rather lie to get on a jury than lie to get out of jury duty.

St. Michael Was Surely Watching Over Him

AP:

TAFT, Calif. – A former Bakersfield police officer turned pastor helped nab a man who allegedly stole a car from his church’s parking lot.

James Kilgore, pastor at Taft Free Will Baptist Church, said he always keeps a gun and handcuffs in his fanny pack. They came in handy on Tuesday, when one of his elderly parishioners left Bible study to find his car had vanished.

Kilgore and Walter Brenton, 72, drove around looking for Brenton’s 1986 Ford Crown Victoria, and spotted the alleged thief driving it a few blocks away.

The pastor followed the driver until he crashed, tackled him as he crawled out of the car and then handcuffed him until police arrived on the scene.

Ronald Lee Allen, 46, of Taft, was arrested on suspicion of grand theft auto and being in possession of stolen property, said Kern County sheriff’s Sgt. Martin Downs.

(snip)

Kilgore said he was glad to put his law enforcement training to use, but said it was likely God had a role in helping him restrain the suspect.

If you’re getting a sense of deja vu about a story about guns and the city of Taft, California, you’re right: In 1998, ATF or FBI agents summarily executed a town gun dealer by the name of Darrel Howell, because they believed (falsely, in all likelihood) that he was trading guns banned by the 1994 Crime Bill.

Blacks and White Liberals Are At Each Other’s Necks Over Michael Vick Scandal

Dan Wetzel, Yahoo Sports:

RICHMOND, Va. – The crowded, chaotic sidewalk on Main Street, across from the federal courthouse, was an unlikely location for a lesson on the virtues of the fifth amendment.

But standing behind a throng that wanted a pound of Michael Vick’s flesh – people that had just screamed for the Atlanta Falcons quarterback to “burn in hell” and held signs advocating his murder, torture and neutering – was Thomas Smith in work boots and a white t-shirt.

High above his head he held a simple sign with just a single word: “Constitution.”

“These folks have convicted a man who hasn’t even had a chance to defend himself,” said Smith. “They just forget everything about America.”

But here was America in full force, full vision, mixing it up while Vick pled not guilty to federal charges pertaining to an alleged dog-fighting ring on property he owned in rural Surry County. And front and center, impossible to ignore, was race.

Like Smith, almost all of the people supporting Vick or holding signs pleading for “due process” and “innocence until proven guilty” were African American.

On the other side was an emotional, angry, passionate anti-Vick group that was overwhelmingly white.

Still, it does not look like the white liberal animal rights activists are going to back down even when they have the R-word thrown at them. This is what comes when you try and string an ideology together with too many distinct and disparate coalitions.

NoTube For Most GOPers

The Republican “top tier” has essentially conceded the September 17 YouTube Republican debate in St. Petersburg, Florida to Ron Paul. Yeah, John something-or-another will be there, but his train left the station weeks ago.

Even though I’m for Duncan Hunter, this will be a good opportunity for Ron Paul to reach a lot of people, uninhibited by distractions and idle chatter.

How can the Republicans that skip this debate face down AQ if they’re too scared of YT?

What’s Next? Brad Smith Will Run for Secretary of State?

Corby Jones (left), former University of Missouri quarterback and currently a partner in a Kansas City law firm, is considering running for State Treasurer. If we’re going to start handing out statewide elected offices to former Mizzou QBs, then Brad Smith (right) will soon announce he’s running for something in Missouri.

Big Meets Small

St. Louis’s own “Thumbelina,” the world’s smallest horse, met “Radar,” the world’s tallest, in Texas.

Updates

Of two 18-year old black criminal suspects:

(1)  Three years in prison for Brandon Crawford, not only for his chair attack, but for another assault.
(2)  The case against Thamaris Higgins has been dropped, because a grand jury refused to bring charges.