The Big Move

There will be no new posts on this medium until at least next week.  I’m getting ready for The Big Move to southern Illinois, and by the time you read a new post here again, I’ll have a new city, a new job, and perhaps a few new other things, as well as a new focus — after all, because southern Illinois was pro-Confederate during the WBTS, and remains Illinois’s most right-wing region hands-down even today, their media might not generate the kind of hilarious headlines that I’m used to in St. Louis.  Though I’m still going to pay attention to St. Louis and Missouri affairs from a little bit afar…hell, the Arch Pundit’s motto is “Illinois, from Misery,” I could be “Missouri from Ill-Noise.”

Happy New Year!!!

New Year, Same Old News

P-D:  TVs taken from downtown Hooters

Sure, I go to Hooters for the TVs.

AP:  Influx of black renters raises tension in Bay Area

All those Hispanic gangsters and Indian computer programmers are none too happy.

Reuters:  Blagojevich names lawyer to Obama Senate seat

I was thinking to myself, the U.S. Senate could use another lawyer.

CSM:  Bailout may cost trillions … or not

If the bill rings up to $999,999,999,999.99, that’ll make me fell soooooo much better, like the time I got an electric bill for $99.99.

USNAWR:  California Algebra Requirement Halted

Some of the board members thought “algebra” was some sort of sex ed course.

NPR:  Why Are So Many Young Black Men Being Murdered?

Because so many young black men are murdering.  Duh.

News Factor Network:  Windows 7 Leak Helps Microsoft Focus Beyond Vista

Yeah, because Vista has been so successful, they can now think about the follow-up.

Live Science:  Exercise Improves Kids’ Academics

That said, let’s Title IX out the boys’ sports teams.

PC Mag:  LG Announces 480-Hz LCD TV Panel for 2009

Sounds like something that will cost $5,000 and nobody will be able to tell the difference.

AP:  Dick Clark, 79, is still rockin’ New Year’s Eve

Dick Clark was present when the year was invented.

Reuters:  Sarah Palin most desirable celebrity neighbor: poll

People know that she’s their best chance at being able to borrow a cup of moose gravy.

Black Thug Update

The bad news is that he was popped for shoplifting on Kwanzaa Eve Eve.  The good news is that he supposedly has something of a human soul after all, and was so ashamed of himself that he shot himself in the chest.  (So we’re told.)

In case you’re wondering, none of the charges from the shoplifting, which also include resisting arrest and simple battery, are felonies, so I highly doubt that there was a no-firearms condition of his bail.  So I doubt his possession of a firearm after bailing out could be a matter of legal interest.

I wonder how it feels to be Michael Vick today.  After all, his former team was predicted to do badly this year, as he’s sitting in Club Fed and their head coach abandoned the team for it.  Yet they finished 11-5 and in the playoffs.  Their team’s quarterback, white rookie Matt Ryan, was thought to have been made the starter as a move of desperation by their (also a) rookie head coach, and Ryan is the antithesis of the “exciting, electric, run-around” QB style of Vick and other media-celebrated black QB pros.  Yet, Ryan is the NFL’s offensive rookie of the year.  And, barring an unusual circumstance, will be the starter for years to come.

I think Mr. Vick realizes that he’s never going to play in the NFL again, this season just proved his obsolescence.

Hawking the Globe-Democrat

Shorpy today shows two Globe-Democrat newspaper boys in 1910.  I don’t know how interesting the Globe was to read then; after all, these were long before the days of Pat Buchanan and Martin Duggan.

On the Roland Burris Appointment

Thoughts on Roland Burris:

(1)  I think it’s brilliant strategery on Blago’s part.  One of two things will happen:  The most likely thing that will happen is that, while there will be talk of the Senate not seating him, they’ll easily back down when the NAACP starts screaming racism.  For most sitting U.S. Senators of both parties, there is no greater fear than being called a racist, worse than death.  At that time, Blago will have had his way.  If the Senate indeed does not seat him, then Blago and Co. will push the issue in the Federal courts, and eventually we will have a precedent that will probably solidify Governors’ near-absolute rights to fill vacant U.S. Senate seats, in which case Blago will win.  Blago can’t lose either way.

(2)  Some Republicans are licking their chops because they think a Blago-appointed replacement (or any replacement) will be vulnerable when the seat is up for election in 2010.  I’ve had political friends tell me that they hope Blago appoints the most radical black possible, to ensure a Republican win in two years.  My answer is this:  Don’t count your chickens before they hatch, this is Illinois we’re talking about here.  If not for the fact that Illinois is a solidly blue state, the Illinois Republican Party makes matters worse — if you are like the late great Dr. Samuel T. Francis, and call the Republican Party in general “The Stupid Party,” then the Illinois Republican Party qualifies as the Retarded Party.  (Alan Keyes, anyone?)  For a liberal PC Republican, especially of the DuPage County Plutocrats’ Club, there is no greater fear in life than being called a racist, worse than death.  Look for Mr. Burris to be unopposed for all intents and purposes in 2010, and 2016, and for as long as he wants to be in the Senate.

One At a Time

I keep hearing Barack Obama himself and his posse, in response to one domestic or foreign problem after another, that there’s “only one President at a time,” implying that President Bush should be the one to try to find solutions.  Yet, while they’re doing that, they’re acting like the ones in charge.  What gives?

I think I have the answer.  While there can only be one President at a time, there can only be one Messiah at a time.

Fun With Bush 44

Town Crier:  Obama wants YOUR opinion on IMMIGRATION

When I give him MY opinion, he’ll have his FINGERS crossed behind his BACK.

KSDK:  Obama returns to gym, vacation

OMG, he’s Bush with a tan face.

CSM:  Wanted: More science and math teachers in the US*

* – Whites need not apply.

Live Science:  Top 10 Most Literate U.S. Cities

And yet, many of these “literates” think it’s a good idea to force their cities to accept more illiterates for the sake of diversity.

NPR:  Op-Ed: Black Republican Torn After Obama Win

Yes, the black Republican is indeed torn.

McClatchy:  Senator trades suit for uniform in Iraq, Afghanistan

Thankfully for the Senator in question, the military has a “don’t ask don’t tell policy” on his sort of thing.

McClatchy:  Iran’s unpopular president is favored to win re-election

Because they face a foreign external threat.  Gee, I wonder from whom.

CNet:  Microsoft outlines pay-per-use PC vision

So, instead of collecting all of your soul at one time, they’ll take little chunks of it on an hourly basis.

InfoWorld:  What future is in store for Microsoft?

A situation where theire storage costs for the souls they own eat up all their profits.

AP:  BET, TV One plan extensive inauguration coverage

Hope Obama comes out for cable a la carte in his speech.

Fun With Christmas Leftover Headlines

P-D: St. Louis man faces 30 years in carjacking

You’ll read “Fats” and “Cool Papa” in the story. ‘Nuff Said.

LAT (H/T Diane Meyer): Obama team probe of Obama team finds no Obama team impropriety

Yes, and all those chicken feathers in the fox’s snoot was really the hen’s fault, so say the foxes.

MSNBC: Viagra helps CIA win friends in Afghanistan

It would have helped sooner, but the stumbling block was translating “call your doctor if you have an erection lasting more than four hours” from English to Pashtun.

KSDK: Obamas visit aquatic park, eat shave ice on outing

The two daughters got temporary brain freeze, Barack and Michelle were trying to find a restroom…do we really need to know everything?

KSDK: Blagojevich says he’s fighting for people of Illinois

He would be right if the population of Illinois was 13, or 666.

KSDK: John Paul Forget Remembered in Church Service

You take this one…

KSDK: Kennedy tells AP she’ll have to work twice as hard

Translation: She’ll actually work in the Senate a couple hours a week.

WND: Brian Cashman for defense secretary

Stay with the Yankees, Steinbrenner’s gonna spend more money on the Yanks than Obama is on Defense.

My Predictions For 2009

1. A major MSM top three market (NYC, Chi, LA) newspaper goes out of business.

2. Mayor Slay loses his bid for re-election; the black body politic will close ranks and unify behind someone credible, and as Lewis Reed and Barack Obama have proven, white St. Louis City voters aren’t the same types who once gave 80+% to an anti-deseg school board. Reed got enough white votes in 2007 to topple the white Aldermanic President, and Obama got 84% of the vote in the city, McCain only got 40% in his best ward, one in lilly white south city. The city’s economy is going south in a hurry, and if InBev pulls the rug out of A-B a little more, or there are some other rounds of job cuts, the incumbent will be blamed.

Even it takes some black voter fraud, it will happen, and by the time of the March primaries, the new U.S. Attorney for St. Louis will work for a black President and a black Attorney General, so they won’t prosecute that kind of fraud.

3. Ballpark Village falls apart. The grass farm you see today is what you’ll see at the end of 2009.

4. The eastern end of the Highway 40 closure will be noticeably more painful than the western end.

5. There will be a serious push for secession in some American territory, probably some kind of non-state territory (e.g. Guam), but maybe an actual state.

6. A fast food joint you’ve heard of will go out of business.

7. Some outbreak of an infectious disease will cause casualties in at least the six figures.

8. Microsoft posts a financial loss for at least one quarter of 2009.

9. Since many illegal aliens from Mexico in the U.S. are returning back to Mexico, plus the rapidly increasing corruption scandals, the Mexican government will do one of two things: (1) Become insanely dictatorial, or (2) Fall.

10. Some form of alternate energy will become affordable, economical and practical for the masses.

11. Sub-$100 Blu-Ray player for Christmas shopping season 2009.

12. Some European nationalist party will either win control of their country’s government, or come close enough, either way causing a media panic.

2008 Predictions In Review

Much better batting average this year than last.

1. This will be my only prediction about the Presidential elections. Ron Paul will win at least one primary or caucus in the lower 48 states. He is projected to win the Alaska caucuses in February, and I knew that several weeks ago, which is why I make the stipulation about lower 48. If I would have predicted that he would win at least one state, then it wouldn’t be much of a prognostication at all.

Turns out he didn’t win those Alaska caucuses, nor any other state.  His best chance was after McCain clinched the nomination, in states where “average” Republican-leaning voters felt no need to come out.  Alas, no.  Bonk.

2. Some country that usually has an above-average Summer Olympics delegation of athletes will boycott this coming summer’s games in Beijing, for political or geopolitical reasons.

Bonk.

3. I’m feeling one or more major snowfall dumps (12 inches or more) for St. Louis before winter is through.

That came through on March 4.  Ding dig.

4. Average real estate sales values ceteris paribus in 2008 will take the greatest percentage plunge since the Great Depression.

DING!!!

5. Crestwood Mall will announce that it’s shutting down entirely.

Not entirely, but its new owners did change its name.  Half a ding.

6. The big semi-circular hole that exists north of Busch Stadium Today (January 1, 2008) will continue to be there as no deal comes to fruition about building something there. However, the catch this year is that the MLB All-Star Game is scheduled to be played here in July 2009. I predict that the city will turn the big semi-circular hole into a small city park and be done before then to save face and national embarrassment.

Half a ding here.  The hole was filled, and the area has become St. Louis City’s premiere grass farm.  So it won’t be that embarrassing in July.

7. Someone high-up in Missouri state government will resign because of their involvement in some major scandal.

I don’t know how much you want to consider the e-mail thing surrounding Gov. Blunt’s office a “major” scandal, but it meant that his chief of staff quit.  Half a ding.

8. A Democratic state governor will be impeached, or resign before s/he can be impeached.

Wow.  Not only can I give this one ding with New York (Eliot Spitzer), the other ding might happen before the end of the year just across the river.

9. The reason that this past hurricane season was quiet in terms of storms hitting the Atlantic coast or the Gulf of Mexico is the same reason why parts of the South are experiencing a severe drought — because high pressure mounted itself over the drought areas, precluding rain, but also deflecting hurricanes. Now that the southeast is getting more rain, the high is subsiding. Therefore, I’m betting on a bad hurricane season.

It wasn’t anywhere near 2005, but you thought so if you lived in Houston and Vicinity this year.  Half a ding.

10. Miley Cyrus (”Hannah Montana”) joins the Britney/Lindsay circus and gets arrested for drunk driving.

She did the first part (Annie Liebowitz and Vanity Fair) but not the second.  Half a ding.

11. Posh and Becks go home, in recognition of his failed American soccer career.

They kinda have.  Half a ding.

12. Mozilla Firefox becomes the majority browser in at least two European countries.

Bonk, though it’s awfly close in three countries.

13. The section of Highway 40 closing tomorrow morning for all of 2008 will not lead to a traffic disaster. But wait until 2009, when the part from 170 to Kingshighway closes.

Ding.  Actually, St. Louis made me proud in 2008 by not freaking out re this.

So, out of 13 predictions, I got six-and-a-half dings, making for a .500 batting average.  For comparison, I only “hit” .125 last year.  Since I have a .320 “lifetime” average, this should make 2009′s predictions either prescient or laughable.

Merry Christmas!!!

Once again, the Warriors on Christmas were unsuccessful, because it will once again come tomorrow.  No new postings here until Friday, when I’ll review my 2008 predictions.  At first glance, it looks like I did pretty good this year.

The Headlines Today Seem So Christmasey

CTV:  Will Canada see its first white Christmas since ’71?

Doubtful, because ubertolerat Kanada is opposed to both whites and Christmas.
KTLA-CW-5 LA:  Man Arrested for Flashing Gang Signs on Santa’s Lap

Eighteen years old, and still believes.  At least he’ll get to bed early tomorrow night.

AFP:  Blood from mosquito traps Finnish suspect

Oh great, now an idea for a CSI episode, which people will eat up and jurors will demand from all other cops.

London Sunday Times:  FBI diverts anti-terror agents to Bernard Madoff $50 billion swindle

Sure, because if you lose all your money in a Ponzi scheme, that’s the same thing as losing your life to AQ boogie woogies.

AFP:  Mugabe slams ‘stupid’ Bush

Bush may be stupid, but I’m still eatin’, and my money is still somewhat worth something.

NPR:  Mexican Hospitals Aim To Attract More Americans

Meanwhile, American hospitals are attracting more Mexicans.

Reuters:  Fifty years on, Cuba still in grip of revolution

Castros still waiting for the Great Socialist Pumpkin to rise from the vines.

Liberty Reborn:  T’was The Night Before Liberal Christmas 2008

Sorry, there’s an oxymoron in this headline.

Shorpy Does the D.C. Jail

Even in 1919, it was virtually all black.

SOL

From the pen of someone who was once accused of being Deep Throat:

Indeed, if what Felt did was honorable, why did he lie and deny it repeatedly when asked if he was leaking to the Post? Why did he lie in his memoir in 1979, when, well into retirement, he emphatically denied he was Deep Throat? Was Felt so noble he could save our republic, yet refuse, to the point of lying in his memoirs, to take any credit?

Answer: Felt knew what he did was dishonorable, corrupt – and unnecessary. For honest FBI agents were steadily making progress toward proving that higher-ups at CREEP were involved in aiding those caught in the Watergate break-in.

Felt had another reason for lying about his role as snitch for the Post. Former colleagues would be disgusted, for his was not only a breach of law, but of faith and trust, a dishonoring of his oath as an FBI agent.

And he had another reason beyond that.  He was illegally leaking the confidential details of an FBI investigation.  He was very likely waiting for the statute of limitations on the Federal crime that made what he did illegal to run out, so of course he would deny in 1979 and confirm in 2005.  If he would have died before the SOL would have run out, then he would have been SOL in another way.

I once thought credible the theory that Pat Buchanan was Deep Throat, becuase he was the only real human soul inside the Nixon White House.  But, up until late 1999, he was a stubbornly loyal Republican (much to the dismay of many members of his Brigades), and the same loyalty which drove him to endorse globalist/establishmentarians Bush 41 and Dole in 1992 and 1996 respectively, both of whom he opposed in the Primaries those years, would also mean that he would never rat out rat Nixon to the WaPo or any MSM organ.

I’ll Have a Blond Christmas

Slashdot:  Denver Couple Unveils Homemade Service Robot

And yet, their very city is full of illegal aliens to be had for peanuts.

CNS:  U.S. Taxpayers Wrongly Own Company That Has Shari’a-Compliant Subsidiary, Lawsuit Alleges

AIG:  Alqaeda International Group

P-D:  Zygmunt to quit soon, sources say

Whaaaaat?  You mean a 2-12 record isn’t sterling enough to bring him back for another year?

Financial Times:  Christmas shut-down in Silicon Valley

For a lack of Christians.

AP:  AP study finds $1.6B went to bailed-out bank execs

Stupid media pushes for the bailout, then wonders why execs are making off with loot.

Reuters:  Soldiers decapitated in new round of Mexico drug war

Save the Mexican troops drug dealers — border wall now.

Time:  Will the Catholic Church Ever Have a Black Pope?

I hope not.

Time:  Finding Jesus in London

And arresting Him for hate speech.

NPR:  Pirates, By-Product Of Somalia’s Internal Conflict

Pirates, by-product of Somalia’s backward thug culture and racio-religious jealousy.

AFP:  Strollers, umbrellas forbidden at Obama inauguration

No doubt, they’re doing it for the reason Democrats do anything they do, for the children.

AP:  Urban areas struggle to find grocers, fresh food

Urban areas struggle to find grocery store patrons that don’t steal, graze

E!:  Jessica, Ashlee Simpson Celebrate Family Texmas

Unfortunately, since they didn’t bring the computer that gives them marketable voices, singing Carols was out of the question.

U-City Shows Fear In Front of the Far Left Dogs, and Guess What? The Far Left Dogs Bite.

The affair in Greece vis-a-vis “students” (read:  anarchists) and the cops is spilling over across that well-known coterminous border between Greece and University City, Missouri.

Officials with the U-City P.D. are telling the local MSM that they’re at a loss to explain why U. City’s good “progressive students” are taking out after them, because the UCPD is “the most progressive and tolerant in the St. Louis region.”

Duh stupid, that’s why.  Because you pander to them, because you’re actually one of them yourselves but in an older body, they know they can get away with it without any serious repercussions.  Now if Bull Connor were the Chief of Police in U. City, they wouldn’t even try.

Mayor Slay Congratulates Chief Isom For Graduating From Business School

Mayor Slay:

Chief Isom’s News Conference

Police Chief Dan Isom was at a news conference this morning. He said that he would have liked to have been talking about the hard work the department is doing in city neighborhoods; the individual successes of his officers; the promise, talent, and challenges of some of the newest generation of command officers; the innovative strategies and cutting-edge technologies the department is now using to reduce crime: or the many little stories of how his officers have helped the people they serve in a big way. Instead, he said, he had to talk about another tone-deaf decision of the police department’s business managers.

You don’t really need to read the rest.  Most of the B-School BS is in this paragraph.

This means we have a mayor that is on par with the quality of a B-School student for believing it.

“Algebra” — From the Arabic Word Meaning “Delusional”

If you’re a Major League Baseball player with a .125 batting average, you’d be cut.   If you’re an ISP that only promised 12.5% uptime, you’d never have any business.  If you’re a politician that gets 12.5% of the vote, you lost.  However, if only a quarter of those California eighth graders who take Algebra learn enough to pass the standardized tests, and only half of all Calif. eighth graders take algebra, (see below), and 25% times 50% is 12.5%, then the State Department of Education wants the other half to have to take it, too.  I guess insanity is doing the same 75% failed thing over and over again and expecting a better result.  And what’s worse, the state judiciary steps in to stop it.

AP:

Judge blocks 8th-grade algebra testing in Calif.

A judge on Friday blocked a plan to make California the first state in the nation to require algebra testing for all eighth-graders.

(snip)

In her ruling Friday, Judge [*****] said she issued a preliminary injunction because the board acted outside its jurisdiction and without public input. She added that the plaintiffs would likely win if the lawsuit went to trial.

So, a department named “Education” has no jurdisction when it comes to schools.  Hmph.

Maybe the state’s eighth graders aren’t that good at Algebra, but at least one of the state’s judges seems to have flunked English.

State school Superintendent Jack O’Connell said the mandate was “a recipe for disaster, particularly now that our schools are facing the prospect of severe midyear budget cuts.”

O’Connell was in the news recently, when he released a public statement blaming white public school teachers for the low academic performance of black and Hispanic students.  While the statement is patently stupid, it’s engineered for his political future — CW has him running for Governor in 2010, and, if his only opponent for the Dems is San Francisco Mayor Gavin “Any Twosome” Newsom, O’Connell will win, based on his statewide reputation.

About half of California eighth-graders receive full algebra instruction, but only about a quarter of those who take it score proficient or above on standardized tests. The rate is even lower for black, Hispanic and poor students.

As I alluded to above.  Since only 25% of those who take it can muster the standardized tests, I wonder what percentage of those who take it get passing grades.  Grade inflation, anyone?  Also, I tend to think that while the class is called Algebra I, that at best Pre-Algebra and probably late elementary school level arithmetic is being taught.  Course title inflation, anyone?

Critics say pushing students into higher-level math too early could increase the dropout rate, but Mitchell said the ruling was a “roadblock to higher academic achievement in California.”

Dropping out of the eighth grade?

O’Connell estimated the board’s mandate would cost California about $3 billion.

How?  Aren’t enough middle and junior high school math teachers proficient in Algebra?  Aren’t there enough Algebra textbooks in the state?  Hell, just transfer some from the high schools to the middle schools, it’s the same Algebra.  They don’t even need to buy the newest books, Algebra hasn’t changed in at least a century.  Only in Califstupid could something so simple cost so much.

I Have Not Yet Begun to Fight (Blubber Blubber)

KSDK:  Steven Jackson still has 1,000-yard goal

$12 million a year, and all he can fantasize is a 63 yard per game average?

CNS:  Blagojevich Says He’ll Fight Until His ‘Last Breath’

With the kind of characters RodB was allegedly mixed up with, that ‘last breath’ will be with concrete shoes.

KSDK:  Mother of Palin daughter’s boyfriend arrested

Don’t expect a gubernatorial pardon.

P-D:  Mothers of suspects offer condolences to Creve Coeur murder victim’s family

“And yet, you both raised murderers.”

AP:  Police:  [Paris] Hilton’s home burglarized, jewelry missing

I thought yesterday that Perez Hilton couldn’t be a suspect.  Now that we know that women’s jewelry was taken, he’s now indeed a suspect.

Reuters:  Iraq shoe-thrower inspires Web games

Let’s hope these games continue to be popular after January 20.

Their Lifeline Is Made of Tweed

CNS:

For Auto Bailout to Be Legal, Automakers Must Now be Considered ‘Financial Institutions’

Some critics are questioning the propriety and even legality of using money from the $700-billion financial-industry bailout bill that Congress passed in October to give a $17.4-billion bailout to Chrysler and General Motors.

That legislation, which created the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), expressly limited the Executive Branch to using the funding the law approved to purchase assets from “financial institutions.”

Chrysler and GM (and Ford, to a lesser extent) wanted this bailout because they’re on dire straits.  However, their getting it will be a pyrrhic victory.  Why?  Since they’re now considered “financial institutions” in the eyes of our Yankee government, they’ll have to comply with the same rules that banks and credit unions do, which include the Community Reinvestment Act and various corollaries.

This means that the subprime loan fiasco of the home mortgage market will now apply to cars.

Biddin’ on the Robert E. Lee

It’s stayin’ in town, apparently.

Nothing’s Too Good For Our Modern Day Thespians

AP:

OXFORD, Miss. – From the moment he stepped on campus, 320-pound tackle Michael Oher seemed destined to be a star on Mississippi’s football team and a failure in its classrooms.

Oher was the son of a crack-addicted single mom, and as a teen could barely read. His educational record — 11 schools in nine years as he moved from home to home in Memphis — read like an indictment of a failed education system.

But four years later, at a school that graduates fewer than 60 percent of all students within six years, Oher has cleared every hurdle and nearly earned his degree — all that stands between him and graduation are a final semester and workouts for the NFL draft.

(snip)

The last five years have seen an astounding jump in the time, money and resources devoted to academic support for student-athletes, even as some faculty complain that just plain students are being left behind. To learn more about the trend, The Associated Press surveyed the 65 schools from the six major conferences plus independent Notre Dame involved in the Bowl Championship Series plus independent Notre Dame.

The AP started work before the first kickoff of the season and eventually obtained at least some financial information from 45 schools about the resources they devote to graduating athletes.

The picture formed by the data is one of schools frequently spending more than $1 million annually on academic support, with some spending hundreds of thousands of dollars more in 2008 than they did in 2004, the AP found. Eight BCS schools reported spending increases of more than 70 percent in the last five years. Four — South Florida, Illinois, Georgia and Kansas — more than doubled spending.

In other words, colleges and universities are spending a pretty penny in the fiction that their “student-athletes” are really students, too.  Mainly from NAACP pressure to increase the “graduation” rate of “student-athletes,” most of those not graduating are black.  I just wonder how difficult the coursework was for someone who “could barely read” as a teenager; the degree was probably in basketweaving or arithmetic.

Zimbabwe Is His, All His. (Insert Laugh Tracks Here)

NPI:  French politicians fear youth violence along Greek pattern

Oh no, I couldn’t image what it would be like if “French” “youths” took to the streets and burned cars for night after night in a row.

CNS:  Counterfeiting Versus Monetary Policy

“Versus?”  Counterfeiting HAS been the monetary policy for several decades.

KSDK:  Gates Foundation awards $6.9M to upgrade libraries

Wait till the library patrons hit the computer lab with all the computers with Windows Vista, they’ll ask why they put an older and slower OS on all the computers.

Dan Stein:  38 Million Californians

38 Real Americans.

AP:  Madoff ordered to produce accounting by Dec. 31

Good thing, because December 31 will be the last day that Accounting won’t be that busy for a couple of months.

AFP:  Anti-Semitism floods Internet after Madoff scandal: campaigners

Because we all know that making an anti-Semitic comment on the internet is just as bad as running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

AFP:  ‘Zimbabwe is mine’ says Mugabe

Yes, the famine- and plague-infested rat dump is yours.

AP:  Mugabe says no African country will topple him

He’s confident that the Zimbabwean Army could withstand an invasion from that superpower known as Equatorial Guinea.

Time:  As Zimbabweans Starve, Mugabe Holds a Feast

But they can take solace in the fact that Mugabe drove out the evil white man.

CSM:  Good morning, Liberian media

Good morning, some anonymous guy with a bullhorn.

AP:  Iraqi judge says shoe-throwing reporter was beaten

He was lucky not to have been stripped naked and a paper bag put over his head while a retarted white woman makes fun of and points at his junk.

AP:  Immigrant’s daughter Solis to lead Labor Dept

Will oversee changing the department’s name to the Cheap Labor Deptartment.

Business Weak:  Business Schools Urged to Diversify

This probably means that the non-diverse student body have drug habits to satisfy.

NPR:  Mexican Drug Lords Diversify Their Business

Confirming my previous suspicion.

Reuters:  Daddy day care: dinosaur fathers guarded the eggs

You play, you pay, even back then.

LiveScience:  Men Flirt with Risk to Score Women

We knew that already, drag race winners get the cutest girl along with the fastest car.

PC Mag:  LCD, TV Sales Could Fall in 2009 For First Time

I guess people figure they don’t need two TVs in every room, one will do.

AP:  Police: Man broke into Paris Hilton’s home

Police ruled out Perez Hilton as a suspect, because Paris was untouched and the refrigerators were still full.

Reuters:  Shocking study finds most will torture if ordered

Shocking, that subordinates will follow the orders of their superiors.

AFP:  Obama inauguration’s ‘last call’ moved up in DC bars

I don’t blame em.  I had to drink heavily to vote “for” McCain, I’ll want to drink even more when I realize that a high-yellow with three Arab names will actually become President.

Nearly a Depression

Using the statistical method of the U.S. Government of the late 1970s and earlier that showed that there was 25% unemployment at the nadir of the Great Depression, and mid-teens in the early 1980s recession, the current unemployment rate is 16.5%.

Even during the “good economy” of the late 1990s and through most of 2000, which was credited to then-President Bill Clinton, (though strangely the Republican Congress doesn’t get any), the unemployment rate was only as low as 10.5%.

If you have read this medium for any extended length of time, then you know that I take the current unemployment methodology with a grain of salt.  If you get laid off and haven’t found work in a certain amount of time, the beancounters drop you off the face of the Earth.  Also, it only takes working an hour a week at minimum wage to be considered “employed.”

Question and Answer

This was part of KSDK Channel 5′s website at the time of this writing.

Fun With the Predictable

WaPo:  Chrysler Shutting Down for One Month

How much you wanna bet they never reopen?

WAT:  Gay man backed for Navy secretary

You just knew that the first person of alternate orientation to rise this high would be in the Gayvy.  BTW, let’s avoid “backed” when referring to gay men.

CNS:  Latin Americans Should Kick Out U.S. Envoys, Says Chavez Ally

Oh no, if they keep this up, Indoamerica might not allow any of its people to migrate here, and Mexico might build a real northen border wall.  Please don’t throw me into the briar patch.

Malkin:  Akon update: Thug singer admits throwing boy off stage

The courts let him off easy because, unlike the image he presents, this was his first offense.

Which Networks Will the NAACP Boycott? I Want to Know So I Can Program Them Into My Remote.

AP:

NAACP report find TV networks lagging in diversity

LOS ANGELES – Nearly a decade after the NAACP condemned a “virtual whiteout” in broadcast TV, the civil rights group said major networks have stalled in their efforts to further ethnic diversity on-screen and off.

Television shows of the future could be even less inclusive because of a failure to cultivate young minority stars and to bring minorities into decision-making positions, NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous said.

The effect on the country could be profound, Jealous said.

I agree it could be profound, TV might be watchable again.

Why I’m Against Asset Forfeiture

The P-D has an investigative article today, detailing the many problems relating to asset forfeiture and the St. Louis City Police Department, one of which led to the fall of Chief Joe Mokwa.

Aside from all these problems, which I think are actually an almost inevitable consequence of having asset forfeiture to begin with, and aside from the fact that it violates the 7th Amendment and the equivalent reading in the State Constitution, because the assets are taken on the assumption that they’re ill-gotten gain without due process, (meaning that if there were a way to convict the assets, similar to convicting the criminal suspects, I would have no problem with it), the big problem with asset forfeiture is that, especially in jurisdictions like St. Louis City, it amounts to a reliable revenue stream, and therefore, it gives the cops a built-in disincentive truly to eliminate the kinds of crimes that generate illicit revenue and physical assets.

Again

This is 17-year old Mitchell West, of Sikeston.  He’s accused of raping an 80-year old woman in her Cape Girardeau home.

Why is it that it always seems to be young black men who rape old women?  I mean, there are plenty of white rapists, but I have never heard of an elderly woman being raped by a white man.

Fun With Headlines, While There Are Still Headlines to Have Fun With

AFP:  US news agency staff stage ‘byline strike’

It better not be a headline strike, or I’m done for.

CNS:  DC Council Puts More Restrictions on Gun Owners after Supreme Court Ruling

Now now, you didn’t expect D.C. to comply with a non-leftist approved Supreme Court decision, did you?

NYDN:  Gov. David Paterson unveils dire New York State budget that includes new taxes, layoffs and cuts

Good idea, slappy:  Make it more expensive to buy stuff in a state where most of its people are only minutes away from another state.

AP:  Prominent NY law firm to seek bankruptcy

You knew something like this would happen at Dewey, Cheatham & Howe.

CNS:  Change Draft Text or We’ll Boycott Racism Meeting, Netherlands Warns U.N.

I wouldn’t even give them the option of the former, just do the latter.

CNS:  Democrat Says Fairness Doctrine Should Extend to Cable, Satellite TV

Uh oh, either Keith or Chris will have to clear out.

KSDK:  Family pushes their dog as next Illinois governor

Who will do something wrong and get tossed in doggy prison.

WND:  Obama citizenship issue has merit, AOL poll says

Wuuut?  AOL still matters?

USNAWR:  Pediatricians Don’t Routinely Ask About Mental Health

Being as they’re not psychiatrists, it’s a good thing.

Time:  Why the Ivy League is Rethinking ROTC

I get the feeling that it has something to do with money, your money.

Time:  Is Caroline Kennedy Ready for the Senate?

So asks the same media that had no problem with a half-term U.S. Senator becoming President.

FNC:  John McCain Returns as the Democrats’ Favorite Republican

Of course, because the Democrats’ favorite Democrat won the election.