First It Was Dog Food, Then It Was Toys…

…now condoms.

Washington Post:

Tens of thousands of condoms provided free by the District to curb HIV-AIDS have been returned to the health department because of complaints that their paper packaging is easily damaged and could render the condoms ineffective.

Demand at two distribution sites in Southeast set up by nonprofit groups plummeted more than 80 percent after the condoms, in a mustard-yellow and purple wrapper, were introduced this year. More than 2,000 packets a week were scooped up in mid-March, but by late May, only 400 were being given away each week.

Volunteers concerned about why interest had dropped began asking people who had picked up the condoms. They were told about packets ripping in purses or bursting open in pockets. As a result, recipients said they had little confidence that the condoms would offer protection.

In addition, expiration dates on some of the Chinese-made condoms were illegible.

“People were saying, ‘These packets aren’t any good,’ ” said Franck DeRose, executive director of an organization called the Condom Project, one of those involved in the grass-roots distribution system. A coalition that includes the Condom Project sent back 100,000 condoms to the city, about 15 percent of what the city says has been passed out to groups.

This article suggests that the people of D.C. will now be treated to brand-name condoms as a result. How long will it be before black extremist groups start claiming that the Chinese government was engaged in a conspiracy to infect blacks with STDs? Though since I doubt any such rhetoric will sucker the Chinese government into giving American blacks and their civil rights pimps any money or consideration (only white liberals are dense enough to fall for that scam), there might not be any incentive for the black leadership to peddle such paranoia.

Just a Businessman, Don’t Ya Know

Said one Patrick F. Porter, 36, of Jacksonville, Florida, a crack dealer, to the Federal judge that sentenced him to a 182-year stint in Federal prison, according to the Florida Times-Union:

“I’m only human. I ain’t forced anybody to buy no drugs,” he told the judge. He denied selling drugs but also said the people who testified against him were addicts before he met them.

“I’m not responsible for these people’s drug habits. And half these witnesses, their credibility is shot from their long drug use,” Porter argued. “I’m not no menace to society.”

Yes you are, both mostly responsible for your clientèle’s addiction problems, and being a menace to grammar. There would be no addicts without the pushers, and the pushers know full well about the addictive nature of their products, and that addicts must steal, rob, burglar and abscond to pay the pushers, and that they themselves as pushers must occasionally shoot other people to preserve their distribution territory.

I Know I Made the Right Choice. The Computer Told Me So.

Upon completing this survey, it tells me that with a 71.43% match, Duncan Hunter is the closest candidate to my positions/importance matrix.  However, computer surveys can’t measure anything, and I know that by the fact that Romney and Thompson tie for second with 67.86%, while Ron Paul is fourth with 64.29%, and Tom Tancredo is fifth with 60.71%.

In my own qualitative assessment, Hunter is first, Paul is second, Tancredo is third, Romney’s a very distant fourth, and everyone else in both parties might as well be carbon copies of each other.  How this algorithm rates globalist Fred Thompson as a tie for second as a match for me is mystifying, except that these kinds of algorithms could never measure intangibles.

CatDog Comes to Life

Only this time, it’s TurtleTurtle.

I Don’t Believe Murder is a “European Value”

CNS News:

Italy’s leader urged United Nations member states to back a resolution declaring a moratorium on the death penalty, saying the worldwide campaign had reached a “decisive moment.”

Prime Minister Romano Prodi told the General Assembly in New York City Tuesday evening that the resolution “will prove that human beings today are better than they were yesterday also in moral terms.”

The resolution Italy is promoting with the European Union’s support calls for a universal moratorium on the death penalty, ahead of eventual total abolition.

(snip)
‘European values’

European institutions are at the forefront of the international campaign to outlaw capital punishment, and the 47-nation Council of Europe (CoE) says one of its top priorities is “to make abolition a universally accepted value.”

Prediction:  In ten years, such stories about Europe and the death penalty will read in the context of returning to it.

Throwing Kurt Weldon Under the Bus Was a Bipartisan Effort

Washington Times:

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III ordered an internal investigation into whether bureau agents interfered with midterm congressional elections by disclosing a corruption probe that undermined the re-election bid of Republican Rep. Curt Weldon weeks before the Nov. 7 vote.

The internal probe was disclosed in a Senate Judiciary Committee report containing the FBI’s written answers to questions posed by committee members.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, asked why FBI agents searched the office of Mr. Weldon’s daughter and a business associate three weeks before the elections.

The accusation here is that the FBI, and lingering Clintonistas therein, timed their official investigation of Mr. Weldon to sink his chances for re-election.

The trouble with that is that, while it’s partly true, in 2006, the FBI was run by a Republican White House. And Mr. Weldon, who made a name for himself by exposing the Able Danger scandal, (i.e. where American military intelligence’s AQ-spying unit of that name was forever hamstrung in their effort to discover terrorist plots by egalitarian crazies and their obsession with not “racially profiling”), which encompassed both the Clinton and Bush Administrations, wasn’t well liked on either side of the January 20, 2001 schism. The Bush White House had just as much motivation to throw him under the bus as the Clintonites did, and I think it was a joint effort — such an effort could not have been successful without White House participation or complicity.

The Hard Part

Though this is an old story in internet time, it’s still worth a comment.

WBAY-ABC-2 Green Bay:

KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) – A Kenosha County judge has ordered a teenager convicted in a racial attack to write essays about civil rights leaders.

Seventeen-year-old Archie Phillips was also sentenced to 60 days in jail for battery and misconduct.

Phillips, who’s black, was accused of using a racial slur before punching a white classmate at Bradford High School in Kenosha. The victim saw Phillips jumping on some other students and tried to intervene.

Judge [*****] asked Phillips is he was familiar with Medgar Evers or Frederick Douglas. [*****] says he was stunned to learn Phillips was not.

So he ordered Phillips to write three 150-word essays — one each about the assassinated Medgar Evers, his brother and Civil Rights activist Charles Evers and Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave-turned-abolitionist.

The judge says he chose the essay subjects because the men tried to improve race relations, whereas Phillips only tried to tear them down.

Three comments:

(1) Somehow, I doubt that any American public school (or most private schools) does not engage in exhaustive lessons about the Civil Rights Movement and the Abolitionist Movement. If Mr. Phillips did not know about the two Mr. Everses and Mr. Douglas, it is because he wasn’t paying attention.

(2) I disagree with this judge’s statement about how the two Mr. Everses and Mr. Douglas “tried to improve race relations” whereas Mr. Phillips “only tried to tear them down.” Leaving Frederick Douglas aside, the Civil Rights Movement, of which Medgar and Charles Evers were icons of, only let the genie of anti-white racism and hatred among blacks out of the bottle, resulting in crimes like those of Mr. Phillips today.

(3) I wonder which punishment Mr. Phillips will have a harder time with — the jail time, or the three essays. Smart money says the essays.

“Chimps as Humans” Update

An Austrian judge has rejected a plea on the part of a Vienna-based international animal rights group to have a 26-year old male chimpanzee declared human.

Nobody Knows the Score

American Thinker:

Huck Finn must be spinning in his literary grave. Just recently a Colorado Springs, Co., elementary school banned tag during recess, joining other schools that have prohibited this childhood pastime. Upon hearing this, I thought about the movement to ban cops and robbers, musical chairs, steal the bacon, and the kill-joys’ most frequent target and this writer’s favorite childhood school game, dodge ball. Then there’s the more inane still, such as the decision by the Massachusetts Youth Soccer Association to prohibit keeping score in kids’ tournament play.

There are many ways to describe this trend. One might say it’s a result of the left’s antipathy toward competition, the increasing litigiousness of the day, or the inordinate concern with self-esteem and hurt feelings. Then, if I am to speak only of my feelings, the word stupid comes to mind. Really, though, regardless of whether the motivations are good or ill or the reasoning sound or not, at the end of the day I find a conclusion inescapable. Slowly, incrementally, perversely, boyhood is being banned.

(snip)

Getting back to the People’s Republic of Massachusetts’ soccer league, it was so concerned about the poor little eggs’ feelings that it also decided no one should get trophies. This isn’t unusual, as the practice of awarding trophies to all or none is now often adopted, lest a tear run down a cherubic face. Moreover, frowning upon competition – which boys thrive on –isn’t limited to frivolous pursuits, as schools increasingly dispense with merit-based academic models in favor of schemes such as “Outcome Based Education” (it’s nothing like what it sounds).

The rest of this article is lenghty, but worth the time.

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, and if boyish competition is so wrong for 8-year olds that the Massachusetts Youth Soccer Ass’n is going to eliminate game scoring, why isn’t it wrong anymore when that 8-year old boy becomes a 14-year old teenager and dons the uniforms and jerseys of his secondary school, or becomes an 18-year old man and does the same for, e.g. the Boston College Eagles, or becomes a 21-year old man and does the same for, e.g. the New England Patriots or the Boston Red Sox, this time with the added benefit of a paycheck? Last I looked, they still keep score in high school, college, and the pros.

Come to think of it, speaking as a St. Louisan, I only wish the state of Massachusetts would have banned all scoring in every organized team athletic event about six years ago.

Maybe He Thought He Really Was the Father

Even if he was, it doesn’t matter now, since he allegedly did away with the unviable tissue mass that the aborticide industry claims is not a human life, even as Bob McCullough disagrees, and is charging him with first-degree murder for the act.

Word to the wise: Leave the loud paternity arguments for Maury Povich. You’ll be a lot less criminally convicted, but look a lot more stupid.

WGNU’s New Format (Bye Bye, Lizz)

WGNU started with a new format today — calling itself “The New Gnu,” the 920 slot on the AM dial now plays (what sounds like) contemporary Christian rock. This might be a transitional format, or it might be the new “permanent” one (keeping in mind that in radio, “permanent” takes on the same meaning as the word does with women’s hair). If so, then it makes sense, considering the station’s new owner, BDJ Radio Enterprises, which also owns KXEN-1010-AM, a religious station.

Hello Michael W. Smith, goodbye Elizabeth R. Brown.

Sticky Vicky

Dude, your football career is so over. Maybe after you get out of the joint, you can become an underwater french-fry jockey.

Trick water bottles aside, Mr. Vick is going to have to spend his ante-prison days with an ankle leash and a curfew, ordered by the Federal judge who accepted his guilty plea on dogfighting and sundry related charges, and will sentence him in December. The reason? His urine tested positive for weed — because he pled guilty to a Federal felony, he is under the supervision of Federal probation officers (and their drug testing) in the indefinite period between the plea and the time that he reports to Federal prison, if he is sentented to any prison time.

This means his efforts at contrition in order to rescue his chance at playing in the NFL at some point in the future have just (pardon the pun) gone up in smoke.  Wooo….

You have probably heard that Mr. Vick will be facing state charges for his actions in Surry County, Virginia, thanks to the decision of a grand jury. The CW among legal talking heads is that any punishment from state charges would run conjointly and concurrently with his Federal punishment, but I think the taboo reason for that, which you won’t hear talking heads speak of, is that the black D.A. in Surry County, who is pro-Vick, will have to handle this case, and I would imagine he will do as little as necessary.

New to the Blogroll

The Anti-White Racism Documentation Center and Link Directory.  Because its URL alludes to the French-language “Racisme Anti-Blanc,” (and so it is referred to on the blogroll), it is very likely a Franco-European-based outlet, and the fact that it monitors anti-blanc racism on both sides of the Atlantic is an indication thereof.

Inaccurate AP Headline

AP Headline:

Giuliani, Bloomberg disagree on guns

Wrong.  They agree on guns.  The only reason they wouldn’t seem to is that the former wants to be President, but first must win the nomination of a political party of which gunowners are a major single-issue constituency.

Survival Instincts

Live Science:

Modern Humans Retain Caveman’s Survival Instincts

Like hunter-gatherers in the jungle, modern humans are still experts at spotting predators and prey, despite the developed world’s safe suburbs and indoor lifestyle, a new study suggests.

“Despite?” Maybe “modern humans” developed “safe suburbs” precisely because of predators closer in to the urban center. In other words, the “safe suburbs” haven’t dulled these “survival instincts” — they are a result of those “instincts.”

Virgil Goode vs. North American Union

Congressman Virgil Goode (R-VA), one of the most outspoken voices against “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” (i.e. soft amnesty) that was being debated earlier this year, is now trying to push a resolution, namely HCR 40, that would oppose the concept of continental unification embodied in the North American Union (NAU), of which the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Superhighway system, and the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) are baby steps toward.

Mr. Goode, unlike John Chicken Hawkins at Blight Wing Snooze, seems to recognize that a North American Union, if it ever comes to pass, (and as he himself tells World Net Daily, the plutocracy is pushing it), would be the ne plus ultra of immigration amnesty, because a NAU modeled after the European Union would give every citizen of a NAU country legal rights to reside in any other NAU country, which would essentially mean that all of Mexico moves here and to Canada.

America’s First “Hip Hop Mayor” Uses City Treasury As His Personal “Bling”

Even as his city is being reclaimed by nature, and looking more and more like a rural area with each passing year, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is being rapped by Time magazine for not growing up.

Time:

Detroit’s Kwame Kilpatrick was named one of America’s worst mayors by TIME in 2005. Have his fortunes changed since then? Not if you go by court decisions. Last week, a Michigan jury awarded $6.5 million to two former Detroit police officers who alleged they were retaliated against for investigating possible misconduct by Kilpatrick’s bodyguards. The award is the latest blow for Kilpatrick – even as his city makes some gains.

At a time when many of America’s few remaining big city black mayors are young, polished and corporate-minded, Kilpatrick seems to be a bit of a throwback. He became mayor in 2002 at age 31, the youngest mayor in the city’s history. Cultural icon Russell Simmons crowned him the nation’s first “hip-hop mayor” and Kilpatrick, now 37, did not try to avoid a life of excess. His first inauguration was marked with “club crawls” (he said they were intended to galvanize Detroit’s disaffected youth); he wore a diamond-studded earring and flashy suits; his wife got use of a Lincoln Navigator which was leased for $25,000 by the police department. The two Detroit cops then charged Kilpatrick’s bodyguards with abusing overtime and failing to report accidents involving city vehicles. Overtime abuse was never proven, and an accident report was found. Nevertheless, the cops’ claimed they had been retaliated against for looking into the allegations and that lawsuit would go on for three years. It was interlaced in the public’s awareness with newspaper coverage of allegations of the mayor’s marital infidelities. Kilpatrick has repeatedly denied the claims. As for last week’s defeat in court, Kilpatrick says he will appeal, at any cost. Later this month, a judge will hear a related case involving a third former officer.

All this couldn’t come at a worse time. Much of Detroit remains an urban war zone, having seen its population more than halved from a 1950s peak of nearly 2 million. Unemployment stands at roughly 14%. About 47% of the city’s residents over age 16 are functionally illiterate. Yet, for much of Kilpatrick’s tenure, parts of Detroit have experienced an economic turnaround similar to those that have taken place in Chicago and Washington. Million-dollar lofts are being built along the Detroit River. Homicides are down by 17%, and non-fatal shootings have dropped by 9% in the last year. Kilpatrick sliced the city government’s job rolls from about 21,000 to 13,800. He cut property taxes partly to retain what remains of the city’s middle class.

If “million-dollar lofts” are being built in the city center, then it’s not anything that every other major city, including St. Louis, is experiencing — there has been a trendy interest by yuppie libs in urban living and gentrification over the last several years, but that supply is drying up. If violent crime is down in Detroit, it’s because the city’s population, and by deduction, it’s black population, is declining, hence the “nature reclamation.” And even if Mr. Kilpatrick were the worst mayor in world history, he could never be at fault for his city’s high illiteracy rate. After all, he’s a politician, not a literacy coach.

“Lawsuit Against God” Update

God, the omnipotent, omniscient creator of all, is evidently not confident enough in His ability to defend Himself in a court of law, namely in an upcoming civil trial in Lincoln, Nebraska, that He has hired Eric Perkins, a lawyer from a Texas city whose Latin name translates to “body of Christ.”

If this farce actually goes to a jury, I think jury selection is going to be hard. After all, the fact that State Sen. Ernie Chambers filed this suit implies the existence of the defendant, namely God. Therefore, who will be able to serve on this jury that isn’t already biased against the plaintiff? Christians, Jews, Muslims, et al. say that the defendant exists, but wouldn’t want to cross the defendant with a verdict of liability. Agnostics aren’t sure whether the defendant exists, and simply because Chambers filed the suit, you can’t have anyone on the jury who thinks the defendant might not exist. Atheists are sure that the defendant doesn’t exist, so the plaintiff’s lawyers will reject them, too, for very similar reasons.

So if you exclude seriously religious people, agnostics and atheists, who’s left? Deists, of which Thomas Jefferson was one, think that God exists, and created everything, but then stepped back and repudiated His omnipotence after the Creation, to let it all transpire as it would, and does not interfere in day-to-day affairs. They wouldn’t be scared of God to render a verdict of liability, but by the same token, because they don’t think God interferes, they could never believe that God did what the plaintiff alleges.

There might not be twelve people on Earth that could hear this case impartially.

Three Stories on Police Dogs

(1) Talk about a theft deterrent system: 15-year old Mark Adkins, of Oklahoma City, decided to “borrow” a car. When the cops and their canines caught up with him, after a short pursuit, one dog bit into his scrotum.

That’ll be the last car Mr. Adkins steals, even if he never sees a day in prison. In fact, this’ll be the last time he is anything about congenial with cops.

Who needs a car alarm system? Get a German Shepherd that has a taste for groin meat.

(2) Two men in Antioch, Calif. broke into a building on Tuesday to hoist copper wiring. Just as they were breaking in, the Antioch P.D. K-9 Unit was holding a training session, and the burglars walked into an empty room just as the officers were practicing their “surrender or we’ll release the dogs” routine. The burglars, thinking that it was real, surrendered to the human police, with (presumably) their scrotums intact.

(3) This story does not involve a police dog, but one Harvey D. Johnnies, a 31-year old fool from Sheboygan, Wisconsin, tried to hide crack upon a traffic stop in his underwear. Now if only that cop would have had a drug-sniffing dog — Mr. Johnnies, too, would have been liberated from his scrotum.

These Boots Are Made For Walkin’ (Straight Into Prison)

And they wonder why sea turtles are endangered.

AP:

A bootmaker to world leaders, including President Bush and Vicente Fox, is in a Colorado jail, charged with money laundering and conspiring to illegally smuggle the skins of protected animals into the United States to provide exotic footwear for high-end clients.

The arrest of Martin Villegas—and Mexico’s raid of a warehouse filled with hundreds of cowboy boots and belts made from endangered species—has raised questions about how much Fox knew of the scheme and whether the former Mexican president purchased illegal boots himself.

Before Fox left office in December, Villegas created a special brand of cowboy boot named after him, which was manufactured in Mexico’s shoemaking capital, Leon, in Fox’s home state of Guanajuato.

(snip)

A pair of turtle-skin cowboy boots sells on the black market in Mexico for about $70. Across the border, they can fetch as much as $500, the U.S. Justice Department says. Turtle skins, which sell for about $9 in Mexico, go for about $80 in the U.S.

Any commercial trade in sea turtles is prohibited under the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Urroz declined to talk about Villegas or his relationship to Fox.

Enough of Vincente Fox. What did President Bush know, and when did he know it?

The Customer, Unlike the Owner, Is Always Right

P-D:

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued the downtown restaurant Mosaic on Friday, saying that management didn’t protect two bartenders from sexual harassment.

The suit says that Andrew Gladney, an investor and frequent customer of the business at 1101 Lucas Avenue, subjected two female bartenders to “crude sexual comments,” “solicitations for sex” and “offensive sexual touching” almost daily.

The suit says some of the comments were made in the presence of their supervisor, Greg Doyle, and Mosaic’s majority owner, Claus Schmitz.

When regulars at this bar get drunk and ogle women bartenders, it’s considered part of the job. Then again, the only difference between the owners as patrons and regular lushes is that the former have deep pockets, while the latter might have a bar tab in arrears.

“Lenin” Comes Out for NAU

WND:

At a Denver conference on intercontinental trade corridors, a Mexican mayor called for a swift move toward a European Union-style merger of the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

Referring to Europe, Evaristo Lenin Perez of Ciudad Acuna – a sister city of Del Rio, Texas – told the Great Plains International Conference, “It’s a model we need to follow quickly.”

Perez later told WND, “If only people know the benefits of opening the borders and working together, improving the quality of life for all, then no one would be opposed to the idea of a North American Union.”

Yes, and if only pigs could fly, we wouldn’t need to spend money on jet fuel.

The good part about this rant by the Mexican mayor with the apt middle name of Lenin is that he, unlike John Chicken Hawkins of Blight Wing Snooze, at least acknowledges the North American Union as a real possibility and an object of desire among North America’s plutocrats. You can’t dismiss something as a nebulous conspiracy theory if you really want it yourself.

Cat Fancy

This thing, 21-year old Tye Hilmo, of Lawrenceville, Georgia, liked to round up neighborhood cats and feed them to his pit bulls. Since he’s already facing charges for being a weed pusher, the state is likely to round him up and feed him to a state prison.

And since this is Georgia, maybe he’ll wind up in the same joint as the Moulder brothers. Or Jonathan Babineaux.

Feds Blow Foul Whistle on Floyd Irons

We already knew that the G-Men were investigating former Vashon H.S. basketball coach Floyd Irons. And we found out today why, and that Mr. Irons pled guility to several criminal complaints. Turns out it was wire and mail fraud relating to real estate purchases.

He’s been ejected from the game of freedom and will find out on November 29 when he’ll have to hit the showers, but, according to Catherine Hanaway, he’s going to flip on his former basketball program, and tell all that he knows (and did) in relation to illegal recruiting. Looks like they’ll have to take down a lot of banners inside a certain gym pretty soon.

As an aside, I’m surprised that Hanaway took this action against a black man. Now I’m waiting for action from her office relating to one Mr. Kevin “Rock Head” Johnson.

We’re Fine, Thank You

We have enough black crime in St. Louis, and we certainly don’t need to import more from Atlanta.

If it was written in the stars that he was going to commit suicide, he should have been man enough to knock himself off before he (allegedly) killed his ex-wife, his current g/f’s stepfather in Atlanta, and shot a Fairview Heights cop.

Only Now It’s a Problem?

St. Joseph (Mo.) News-Press:

SAVANNAH, Mo. – A rap video recently posted on YouTube threatened violence and rape against police, destruction of a community and bragged about an ability to beat charges on the road to fame.

Andrew County Prosecuting Attorney Steve Stevenson released charges and a probable cause statement Tuesday laced with profanity uttered by two Savannah men suspected in the plot. In it, 20-year-old suspects Kenneth Darrell Black Jr. and Benjamin D. Stevens allegedly outline plans to kill Savannah Police Chief David Vincent and Andrew County Sheriff Gary Howard, along with a number of officers and deputies. The video also targets Associate Judge Michael Ordnung and describes a conspiracy to rape a female police officer.

The “Kop Killa” video threatens Savannah or Country Club Village “like a … Godzilla,” said one felony count of making a terroristic threat filed against Mr. Black and Mr. Stevens.

Both men face felony counts of conspiring to commit second-degree assault with a gun against law enforcement officers, conspiracy to commit rape, tampering with a judicial officer and the terroristic threats against both communities. They also face a misdemeanor offense of peace disturbance against multiple officers and deputies.

Other than the town in which it happened, which is in rural northwestern Missouri, and it has no minority magnets like a college or university, and even without their photos, I can tell that Messrs. Black and Stevens are white, simply because they were actually charged with producing and publishing a rap video that had insinuations of physical violence.

If they were black or Hispanic, and did this, (and, notwithstanding specific threats against named individual authorities and persons, this was standard fare in the rap and hip-hop genre for quite awhile), it would be considered free speech, and an understandable reaction to centuries of racism, discrimination and oppression, and if any cop or authority dared touch them for doing so, the entirety of the ACLU, or the NAACP (if they were black) or MALDEF (if they were Hispanic) would be lining up to defend them and to impugn the motives of the authorities.

Why Not?

EDGE Boston via Michael Savage:

One of four men accused of attacking gay victim Michael Sandy last year, and chasing him into traffic where he was struck by a car, claimed yesterday that he himself is gay.

Anthony Fortunato’s lawyer, Gerald J. Di Chiara, made the claim on behalf of his client in the Brooklyn Supreme Court as the trial commenced yesterday, offering the claim to the jury as part of his opening statement, the New York Times reported in a story posted online today.

Prosecutors have characterized the attack on Sandy as a hate crime, saying that Sandy was targeted because of his sexuality.

(snip)

Fortunato’s lawyer Di Chiara used essentially the same argument, though by including a claim that Fortunato is gay, he may be attempting to introduce a sympathetic element. Outside of court, Di Chiara offered the scenario of a young gay man unsure of how his friends would react to his sexuality and testing their level of anti-gay sentiment by luring someone else into contact with them.

Assuming that this isn’t a ploy on Mr. Fortunato’s part to try and get the hate crimes riders dropped, and therefore reducing the time he might have to spend in prison for this assault, by trying to convince a judge or a jury that it’s impossible for a gay to commit an anti-gay hate crime, I’m not buying it. After all, it is possible and feasible for people of one category to hate their own, and in theory, commit hate crimes against their own. Noel Ignatiev is proof of that.*

* – This should not be construed to mean that Mr. Ignatiev has actually ever committed an anti-white hate crime.

What If You Get a Verdict of Liability?

AP:

LINCOLN, Neb. – The defendant in a state senator’s lawsuit is accused of causing untold death and horror and threatening to cause more still. He can be sued in Douglas County, the legislator claims, because He’s everywhere.

State Sen. Ernie Chambers sued God last week. Angered by another lawsuit he considers frivolous, Chambers says he’s trying to make the point that anybody can file a lawsuit against anybody.

Chambers says in his lawsuit that God has made terroristic threats against the senator and his constituents, inspired fear and caused “widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth’s inhabitants.”

The Omaha senator, who skips morning prayers during the legislative session and often criticizes Christians, also says God has caused “fearsome floods … horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes.”

He’s seeking a permanent injunction against the Almighty.

Chambers said the lawsuit was triggered by a federal suit filed against a judge who recently barred words such as “rape” and “victim” from a sexual assault trial.

I remember that story about the judge that banned the word “rape” in his courtroom. I covered it in this medium.

If Nebraska State Sen. Ernie Chambers rings a bell with you for another reason, perhaps an educational reason, or a racial reason, you’re right — he, as the only black member of Nebraska’s unicameral legislature, sponsored a successful bill that divided Omaha’s schools into three districts largely among black/Hispanic/white racial lines.

If you sue God, and win, and God doesn’t want to pay up, how can you make Him pay? By hiring debt collectors?

Job Hazards

Reuters:

Man stripped, shaved for posting ads

Security guards in a southern Chinese city stripped and shaved the head of a man they found illegally posting advertisements on walls to earn a bit of money, a domestic newspaper reported Tuesday.

The victim, Xiao Liu, a 17-year-old migrant worker from the impoverished central province of Henan, was stripped to his underwear by about 10 men in Dongguan in the southern province of Guangdong, the Beijing News said.

The men, who traveled on scooters and identified themselves as “city inspectors,” also beat Liu and forced him to get down on his knees so they could shave his hair in punishment, the newspaper added.

“Walking around the streets in only my underwear made me want to kill myself,” Liu was quoted as saying, adding that he earned 20 yuan ($2.66) a day posting flyers for a hotel on the streets.

Walking around the streets in only your underwear in San Francisco makes you a protected minority, if not a model citizen.

As an aside, the total number of Chinese migrant workers, of which Mr. Xiao was one, is around 300 million. This means there are as many Chinese wandering around China for spotty work as their are people in the whole USA.

I’ll Believe This When I See It

Reuters:

Obama proposes U.S. middle-class tax relief plan

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama proposed up to $85 billion in tax cuts for about 150 million Americans on Tuesday, paid for by raising capital gains and dividend taxes on wealthy investors.

Obama’s tax plan, set to be announced in a speech in Washington, includes a cut of up to $1,000 for working families, a mortgage interest credit for low- and middle-income homeowners and the elimination of income taxes for seniors making less than $50,000 per year.

(snip)

His proposal also would simplify the process of filing taxes so Americans could do their taxes in less than five minutes, he said.

How in the world can you untangle the tax code so that “Americans could do their taxes in less than five minutes,” and at the same time promise that some of your “middle-class tax relief” will come in the form of additional tax credits, which only increase that early April paperwork?

This is how you can tell that Obama is an empty suit. At least the Clintons have the sense to make nebulous promises that at least seem realistic.

Obama said he would give an income tax cut of $500 per person — or $1,000 per working family — to 150 million Americans. Because the cut would be greater than the income tax bill for some, he said, it would eliminate taxes for 10 million working Americans.

The homeowners’ tax credit would benefit about 10 million home owners, he said, and the tax breaks for seniors would eliminate income taxes for about 7 million Americans.

And conveniently, the more people legislated off the tax rolls, the less important taxes are as a national political campaign issue that the average voter can understand, giving Democrats virtual permisssion to enact the wrong kind of tax system for the few remaining people that actually pay, and undercutting a traditional Republican issue.