On the Calendar

WSIL-3′s Calendar of Upcoming Events:

16th Annual Doctor/Lawyer Basketball Game
Date: 3/14/09
Central H.S. Gym in Cape Girardeau, MO

Proceeds from this event benefit the Community Counseling Center Foundation and will be used to provide special needs to those with mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders. Tickets are $5 for adults and $2.50 for kids. For tickets please call: 334-1100

Lawyers in Cape Girardeau.   I wonder who they could possibly mean :)  I wouldn’t want to be the play-by-play announcer for that game, describing an offensive series for the lawyer team — it would be “Limbaugh passes to Limbaugh, holds, back over the key to Limbaugh, on the inside to Limbaugh, back out top to Limbaugh, shoots, no good, Limbaugh rebounds, looks, moves to the top of the key, 12 footer, Good!!!

Well, Well….

President Obama would have fired Catherine Hanaway and replaced her with Bob “Truth Squader” McCulloch, but the Truth Squader didn’t want the job.

If you are a regular to this medium, you know my opinion of Catherine Hanway’s tenure as U.S. Attorney for Eastern Missouri.  I think she deliberately avoided controversial (i.e. racial) issues, and harped on safe issues that 99.99999999% of people agree with, in order not to offend Democrat constituencies in the futile hope that a Democrat President wouldn’t replace her, and that it would all be in vain.

But I’m even less impressed with Bob McCulloch.  If you remember, at one point last summer, he and Jennifer Joyce plus Metherson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer came out and made the implication that they were going to prosecute anyone who uttered untruthful words about The Messiah.  The purpose was to intimidate Obama critics.  In another medium, I and others made the point that their doing so violated Federal Civil Rights laws, the 1st Amendment and common sense.  Through the advice of a Miami area free speech attorney, I found out that the Federal prosecutor for this area (ironically, Hanaway) could have used a Federal statute called the Klan Act either in civil or criminal fashion, to sue or prosecute McCulloch, Joyce and Boyer for conspiring to intimidate people from using their civil liberties.  From others, I learned that Times v. Sullivan and Garrison v Louisiana precluded their actions in terms of Supreme Court precedent.   Hanaway didn’t, even though her office knew of these legal avenues, because she read the tea leaves and saw Obama’s victory a’comin.

While this dismissal couldn’t have happened to a nicer gal, I’m just as glad that it’s not going to be McCulloch taking her place.  I kinda figured that McCulloch or Joyce were angling to be the U.S. Attorney, hence their attempt to suck up.  Why McCulloch didn’t want the job is beyond me.

BTW, I read some Obamaites on the comment section of this KSDK article rationalizing President Obama’s attempt (which will eventually succeed) in firing Hanaway, claiming that Obama’s actions aren’t “political” like President Bush’s firing of many U.S. Attorneys.  A politician does something political?  Whodathunk?  Also, U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President; any genuflection about politics is irrelevant.

Have I Been Picking on Chris Brown Too Much Lately?

Financial Times:  Downturn hits Sesame Street

Oscar took out a subprime mortgage on the trash can he lives in?

CNS:  Barney Frank: $787-Billion Stimulus Plan Could Have Been 20 Percent Bigger — $943 Billion

It also could have been $118 Trillion, or $22 Quadrillion, or $1 Googol.

P-D:  Student stabbed in conflict resolution session

The stabber resolved the conflict — for now.

TMZ:  [Chris] Brown Wants Misdemeanor Plea, No Jail Time

And a cherry on top, too?

Take Two:  TMZ:  [Chris] Brown Wants Misdemeanor Plea, No Jail Time

After all, a felony sheet and prison time would really cramp his style, and by “style” I mean collecting millions in endorsement money because Wrigley would sell absolutely no Doublemint without the countenance of a one-hit wonder who beats up on women.

Take Three:  TMZ:  [Chris] Brown Wants Misdemeanor Plea, No Jail Time

Brown to Judge:  “You know what they do to pretty boys in prison, don’t ya?”  Judge to Brown:  “Well, Duh, that’s why I’m sending you there.”

CNS:  Durbin: ‘Right-Wing’ Radio Hosts Wave ‘Bloody Shirt’ over Broadcast Censorship

While we’re talking about bloody, Durbin, look at your hands, because there’s surely the blood of American soldiers on it because you gave the enemy moral energy when you made the “Nazi” crack.

CNS:  Bristol Palin Breaks Up With Father of Her Baby

Note to Levi Johnston:  Don’t expect any breaks from state troopers anytime ever, as you just broke up with their boss’s daughter.  Note to Bristol Palin:  The only man you’ll get now with that baby as manbait is Chris Brown.  Note to Chris Brown:  Once you’re not on the San Quentin sodomy menu anymore, Bristol Palin will be your only option.

KFVS-12:  It looks like Dickey Nutt will be the next SEMO Basketball Coach

It looks like the next SEMO “ball” coach will never live down his name.

AP:  Iraqi who threw shoes at Bush jailed for 3 years

Bernie Madoff will get out of prison before he does.

CSM:  How long can executions be delayed?

There is a direct relationship between how long the execution can be delayed and how black the convict is, the number of French leftists who take up for his cause, and/or the number of years the white victim was a police officer.

Reuters:  GE stripped of top-tier credit rating

Oh no, they might not be able to get any commercial paper to make Brian Williams’s salary.

Reuters:  Tom Brokaw to hit the road for new TV project

I thought he retired.  Yet I’m seeing him more on NBC after his “retirement” than I did when he was the network’s lead anchor.

AP:  Global warming to carry big costs for California

As we know, California has billions to spare.

Slashdot:  DHS to Use Body Odor as a Lie Detector

They’ll be able to tell if you’re lying when you said you used deodorant this morning.

Applying for Citizenship

Reuters:

Afghan teenager boxes his way to French residency

An Afghan boy abandoned on a French street who became a boxing champion was granted residency rights at a state ceremony Wednesday in a case that reignited debate about France’s immigration policy.

Sharif Hassan Zadeh, 17, was smuggled to Europe three years ago by people traffickers who dumped him alone in the northern city of Tourcoing. He was taken in by a shelter for distressed teenagers, where he still lives today.

He took up boxing at a local club and became junior French champion in the super-lightweight category two weeks ago despite having no legal status.

Hitting someone really quickly is one way to get French citizenship.  There are actually two other ways:

(1) Say that some white American uttered a racial slur to your face

(2) Kill a white cop.

Papal Visit

Benedict XVI visits Six Flags in Eureka.  And here I thought Six Flags’s St. Louis permutation was a thing of a past.  It’s good enough for the Pope.

Six Flags, Inc. is in negotiations with Eureka, Mo., St. Louis County, Mo., the state of Missouri, the State Department in Washington and The Vatican to see if Six Flags Over St. Louis could secede from the union and become part of The Vatican.  And perhaps Connecticut could be ejected from the union and made a colony of Hell.

Lies, Damned Lies and High School Graduation Statistics

Supposedly, the H.S. graduation rate for Missouri increased from 78% in 2002 to 81% in 2006.  Did high school become marginally easier in four years, or did Missouri’s teenagers become that much smarter?

I don’t think it’s either — methinks there’s some hanky panky going on with the statistics, especially in St. Louis and Kansas City.  Because the state has been rattling the sabres to take over these school districts, and in the case of St. Louis, actually doing so, and since high school graduation rates are one of the criteria to assess how good or bad a district is, I think both districts had an incentive to fudge their graduation rates upward in that time period.

“Effectiveness Factors” — That’s What They Call Affirmative Action These Days

The Law School Admission Test (LSAT), because it’s actually an objective test (for the most part), it has the disparate impact of keeping blacks and Hispanics out of law school.  Therefore, the University of California at Berkeley is coming up with a new test, orally administered, that studies 26 “effectiveness factors” for potential attorneys.  Of course, the LSAT does just that in a written form, so this “oral test,” like most others, is simply a way to weed in blacks and Hispanics based on feel good fluffy duff.

The big hangup is that you have to sit for the bar exam if you pass law school, and the bar is very much like the LSAT.  What are they going to do then, come up with another affirmative action workaround?

You’ve just been arrested for murder, and you’re innocent.  Do you want a lawyer defending you who passed the LSAT and the Bar, or someone deemed “effective” by a panel of racial pandering white liberals?

Reinventing On

AP:

Administration to reinvent Mexican truck program

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Obama administration will try to reinvent a program to allow Mexican trucks full access to U.S. highways.

An 18-month-old pilot program that allowed a few Mexican trucks beyond a border buffer zone died when President Barack Obama signed a sweeping $410 billion government spending bill on Wednesday. The bill barred spending on the pilot program.

A spokeswoman for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Debbie Mesloh, said Obama has told the office to work with Congress, the Transportation and State departments and Mexican officials to come up with legislation to create “a new trucking project that will meet the legitimate concerns” of Congress and U.S. commitments under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

President Obama is in between the rock of Mexico and the hard place of the Teamsters.  So someone in the White House came up with some triangulatory bullshit of “reinventing” the scheme.  Except that the concept of letting Mexican trucks and drivers in country isn’t the most nuanced of things, they either can or cannot move about the country.  You can’t reinvent turning a light bulb on and off, it’s either on or off, no nuances.

I think he’s trying to mirror the Clintonian triangulation on the aborticide issue.  However, that issue is subject to nuances, in that there are very few people who are wholly pro-life or wholly pro-aborticide, most people are somewhere in between, with there being almost an infinite number of “in-between” positions.

I Finished Cleaning the Room, But The Throw Rug Has a Mysterious Hill-Like Bump

Michael Vick’s future cellmate:

Madoff Pleads Guilty To Fraud, Sent To Jail

Former New York money manager Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty Thursday to masterminding of one of the largest swindles in Wall Street history, and a federal judge ordered him to jail.

Madoff defrauded thousands of clients out of billions of dollars over two decades and has become a symbol of all that has gone wrong with the financial industry in recent years. He told U.S. District Judge [*****] that he felt compelled to meet investor expectations and built a giant Ponzi scheme to do so. He said he was painfully aware that he had hurt many people.

“I am actually grateful for this opportunity to publicly comment about my crimes, for which I am deeply sorry and ashamed,” Madoff told [*****].

This is an NPR story, but since it plasters the name of the Federal District Court judge that accepted the plea deal all over the article, no link.

I wish the judge wouldn’t have accepted the plea deal, to force this thing to trial.  It’s not as if Madoff wasn’t guilty as hell, so he still would have been convicted.  Even with the plea deal, he’s going to be in Federal prison for the rest of his life, so a jury finding him guilty and giving him more prison time than he will get with this plea deal wouldn’t make any functional difference to Madoff in terms of the time he spends in prison.

What a trial would have accomplished is to blow the whole lid off of Wall Street, and to expose who helped Madoff pull this Ponzi Scheme off for years (he couldn’t have done it by himself), and the overall culture of corruption on The Street.  The political fallout from such revelations might well have led to real populist reform.

What this plea deal means is that the unindicted co-conspirators will continue to be unknown.  I tend to think that The Powers That Be wanted a plea deal.

How Fast Can a Liberal Change His Mind From No Causation to Causation? When They Want Money.

NYP:

ALBANY – Call it an un-cover charge.

A Brooklyn assemblyman introduced a bill yesterday that would require patrons to pay the state $10 every time they visit a strip club or topless joint.

Felix Ortiz, a Democrat, said the flesh fee could raise as much as $500 million for victims of human trafficking, domestic violence, sexual abuse and child prostitution.

(snip)

“The bottom line is, we have to protect people who have been victimized by unscrupulous individuals, and we cannot continue, especially in this economy, to have government pay for everything,” Ortiz said.

I thought that two or three dimensional pornography was merely harmless fun between consenting adults, and that it had no societal or cultural effects beyond that.  That’s how libs respond to conservatives and Christians when they contend that it leads to human trafficking, violence against women, the objectification of women and kiddie porn.  All of a sudden, porn and strip joints do lead to these things, such that it needs a “sin tax” levied on it to mitigate the costs that governments incur to solve, stop and prosecute these things.  Which is it, libs?

Letdown

Houston Mayor Bill White says that the Federal immigration enforcement authorities “let us down” by not deporting the late career criminal you see pictured above, who wounded a Houston Police Department officer in a drug raid altercation, the cop returned fire and sent the illegal alien to his just reward.  Nothing ever became him in life like the leaving of it.

What is Mayor White’s position on immigration in general?  My feeling is that, since he’s the mayor of a large city with a lot of Hispanics, that he’s pro-amnesty and open borders, and that Houston is a sanctuary city.  But he, like a lot of amnestyaires, is going to mouth off about “deporting criminal illegal aliens” as a diversion.  Which is a moot point, because as former Mexican President Vincente Fox once said, where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico.  And where there is Mexico, there is going to be a lot of violent crime.  Even if you actually do deport the real criminals, your city will still have a lot of Mexico to produce some more violent criminals.

However, that might not be Mayor White’s position on the issue.  Internet searches don’t seem to yield any substantial answers.  If he is what I think he is, then he’s just as much as a letdown as the Feds.

“But Drug Smugglers Aren’t Known For Playing By the Rules”

There’s the understatement of the century.  It comes in AP article about Mexico-to-U.S. drug smugglers trying unsuccessfully to use ultralight aircraft to sneak dope across the border.  The Border Patrol knows of three unsuccessful attempts at this in the last several months.

Yet, this same AP/Obama will lobby for more domestic American gun laws to keep American guns from being smuggled into Mexico.

The Never-Ending Flow of Ice Cream

A spokesman for the White House told the media today, in the aftermath of President Obama’s signing a $410 billion spending bill full of earmarks, that the President wasn’t happy with all the earmarks in the bill, but he had to sign it anyway.  The spokesman also said that earmarkmania has to stop.

Your kid is a rotten brat.  He keeps doing bad things and getting into trouble.  And every time, you go out and buy him an ice cream cone.  On the occasion of the eighth ice cream cone, you tell him that he has to start behaving.  Do you actually think he’s going to behave?

The Good Year and the Good Minute

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is examining Lowell, Mass.’s curfew that mandates persons under the age of 17 not to be out on the streets after 11 PM at night, with certain exceptions.

I am undecided on the issue because I have mixed feelings.  But I know several things for sure — one, the curfews are yet another attempt to solve violent crime, mostly at the hands of blacks and Hispanics, by nailing jello against the wall, and in true PC fashion, avoiding discussion of all the white elephants and naked emperors in the room.  Two, why does anyone think that people 17 and older don’t commit violent crimes, and that the streets are safe at 10:59 but not 11:00?

The fact of the matter is that there’s no time of the day that’s better or worse than others.  It used to be that the ghetto was pretty safe in the mid-morning hours, because that’s when all the thugs were asleep.  But not anymore — several weeks ago, there was an armed robbery at a Metro Link station in north St. Louis at 8:30 in the morning.

Tender Mercies of the State

If you use WordPress for your blog, or you read a WordPress blog like this one, then you are aware of a recently-added feature, where WordPress creates links at the end of posts if you read the post in its individual URL (i.e. click the title of any post on this blog, and you’ll see a webpage with that post as the only post, the URL having the number corresponding with the year, month, day, and words of the title separated by dashes).  Usually, there are four or so links, sometimes one or more of the links is to the same blog you’re reading.  They’re called “Possibly Related Posts,” but take some time to appear in a post after you have created it.

I noticed that a link to this post of mine:

http://countenance.wordpress.com/2009/03/03/the-new-hoosegow/

Was created on this story in this Thai free speech advocacy blog:

http://facthai.wordpress.com/2009/03/11/1-in-31-americans-gaoled-drug-war-chronicle/

Save the last paragraph, which I think is the blogger’s editorial, it’s a reprint of a Pew study about the high rate of American incarceration, and the expense therein to states.  Pew suggests that states adopt “community corrections,” i.e. more generous use of probation, and “Impose swift and certain sanctions for offenders who break the rules of their release but who do not commit new crimes.”

The terms of one’s parole or probation only has teeth to begin with because of the threat of actual (re-)incarceration.  If prisons are so overcrowded and actual incarceration too expensive (and racially biased) that we can’t imprison anyone but the worst of the worst, then what incentive does a probationee or parolee have to obey the terms of their probation or parole?  They can’t be punished by any means worse than probation or parole, except for the concept of home confinement — but still, if prison is out of the question, all a violation of leaving one’s confined home will get you is more home confinement.

Like I said, this particular blog added its own one-paragraph editorial at the end, and with the blog post title being “1 in 31 Americans gaoled,” their theory is that the jails and prisons are overcrowded because the possession or use of certain drugs is illegal.  All the while the Pew report which they reprint states that black adults are most likely of any racial group to be incarcerated.  There is a faulty causation here, because in heavily black jurisdictions, as a generality, the prosecutors are black or white liberal, the judges are black or white liberal, and the juries are mostly black.  And the defendants are almost entirely black.  The hard truth of the matter is that in such places, the wind is into the backs of the black defendants.  Ceteris paribus, compared to suburban and rural white justice systems, prosecutors, judges and juries, prosecutors are less likely to bring charges, juries are less likely to convict, and judges give more lenient sentences if any prison time at all.  One-fifth of first time armed robbers in St. Louis City get no prison time.  And then there are the matter of the actual cops — in big cities, thanks to local, state and Federal affirmative action mandates, they’re more likely to have black and thus corruptible cops, which are more likely to “look the other way” when it comes to black criminal suspects.

Putting this all together, it is highly highly highly unlikely that a black person in a majority black court jurisdiction will ever see any adjudicated (i.e. not counting the time between initial arrest and being bailed out) state jail or prison time for just possessing illegal drugs in violation of state law.  Dealers are another story, though.  And AFAIK, the Feds very rarely go after those in possession — they focus on the big time dealers that cross state lines, and they have the luxury of being able to pick from a wide jury pool, geographically speaking.  Federal juries in the Eastern Missouri district are held in St. Louis, but jurors can come from anywhere in the eastern part of the state, meaning that they’re whiter and more the hanging suburban/exurban/rural type.

Even with all this wind to their blacks, they’re still an overwhelming majority in state prison systems; they are the ones that are there are the real “violent and career criminals” that even Pew thinks should be incarcerated.  If the system were fair, they’d be an even bigger majority.

Well Tanned

Raleigh News & Observer:  Tanning bed bursts into flames; man escapes

With the tan of his life, no doubt.

L.A. Daily News:  Arrest made in Burbank gun battle

The guns battled, so hopefully they arrested a gun.

Slashdot:  Mississippi Bill Would Tax Software Sales

Remember, those of you who download free and open source software — make sure you keep aside the requisite percentage of the $0.00 you paid for the software.

Slashdot:  IE8 May Be End of the Line For Internet Explorer

IE 1 was the end of the line for Internut Exploder.

P-D:  New home values flood St. Louis County assessor system

The good news is that your property tax bill is going down.

P-D:  Memphis teen charged in carjacking that hurt woman from Belleville

“Long distance information give me Memphis, Tennessee.  I’m trying to get the thug that jacked my car from me.”

CNS:  Democratic Senator: ‘Rush Limbaugh is Successful Because He Has a Good Show’

Gee Sherlock, it only took you 20 years to figure it out.

CNS:  ‘Undeclared War’ on Mexican Border Greater Challenge than Afghanistan, Congressmen Say

Well then put your Army where your mouth is.

CNS:  VA Hospital Pulls ‘Japs Surrender’ Headline from Historical Display

Because they want the Americans to surrender.

KSDK:  Report card gives Missouri C, Illinois D for mental health care systems

Take it from someone who has resided in both states — Illinois makes you crazier than Missouri.

KSDK:  Shriver says she won’t run for office in 2010

Oh nuts, because I was just thinking that we needed yet another descendant of Joseph P. Kennedy in politics.

WND:  MSNBC poll: Obama earns ‘F’ on performance

Keith and Chris forgot to vote.

AFP:  Los Angeles considers sacking 9,000 teachers

Those teachers who speak English are no longer needed, because they have an antiquated skill set.

AP:  Detroit mayor hopeful Bing retracts his MBA claim

Because a President with an MBA worked out so well.

Reuters:  Chris Brown, Rihanna recording love duet: reports

Rihanna’s part:  “My boyfriend’s about to get some good lovin’ — he’s about to be the main course on the San Quentin sodomy menu.”

Postscript on a Corrupt Life

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) was injured in a skiing acccident earlier this week.

Her father, then-Gov. Frank Murkowski, appointed her to the Senate seat he abandoned to become Governor.  His humility in appointing his own daughter to replace him is one of the many reasons why he was defeated in his own party’s primary in 2006 in his bid for re-election, by someone who you’ve heard of by now.

The Universal Faith

Two stories on Catholicism today:

(1)  The Nutbar State strikes again.  They say that Missouri and Illinois rank low in terms of mental health?  Hell, ConnetiNUT must be in last place.  The state is pondering a bill that would take the power of the purse away from the Priesthood and give to to committees of laypeople.  While there is no official motivation, the conventional wisdom is that this is all over homosexual issues — marriage and adoption, among others.  The state legislature for, the Catholic Church against.  I also tend to think that there is a racial undercurrent — ConnectiNUT has a high Hispanic growth rate, and it’s not crazy to think that if lay parishioners (read:  Hispanics, more and more) get control of the money, they can be relied on to divert it to Democrat campaign coffers.

(2)  The St. Louis Archdiocese has no plans to close any Catholic schools in St. Louis City, which earns an “Amen” from Mayor Slay.  Of course he thinks that’s good news, because the existence of an alternate (read: mostly white) parallel school system is an implicit selling point to trick white people with children or who want to have children to move back into the city.  There are rumors among real estate professionals in St. Louis that, back in the heady days of renovation several years ago (which has all but come to a standstill), developers were throwing in free Catholic school tuition as a perk to potential buyers.

The Prospect of Cops Actually Enforcing the Law Is Just Too Much For Some People

Open borders rabble in Morristown, N.J. doesn’t want the City’s Finest to get 287-g authorization.  They give some cock-and-bull excuse about “creating rifts” and “making immigrants reluctant to report crimes” (even though every jurisdiction that matters has anonymous tip lines).  The real reason is that the Morristown P.D. might actually help enforce immigration law, whereas if it were up to the Feds alone, they wouldn’t do it very much.  In spite of what you see on ABC every Tuesday night.

Cape Girardeau: Being Too Clever By Half By Getting Twice the Money

MoDOT and Cape turning down Cape’s most famous native son’s offer for $800G for Cape Regional Airport improvements to take $1.6M of Obamabucks for the same.

Cape, you’re going to rue the day you did this one of these days.  Where there is Federal money, there is Federal control, and of the type that you won’t like.  I don’t know for sure what it will be, my best guess is that they’ll have to use incompetent black affirmative action contractors.  Rush Limbaugh’s money won’t come with these kind of strings.

Paducah Is a Pretty Nice and Peaceful City. Don’t Screw It Up By Giving Into NAACP Pressure.

Is there no place in this country with more than 10,000 people 2 of them black that the NAACP doesn’t want to screw up by having a chapter there?  Not only does Paducah have an NAACP chapter, it’s evidently strong enough and the city government pandering enough such that it has influence over the city picking a new Police Chief.

The Latest Bromide

P-D:

Parental involvement sparse at Hazelwood School District’s high schools; Officials say parents are crucial to reform efforts

Hazelwood School District board members say one key element of future high school reform efforts may be lacking.

(snip)

The principals – Darrell Strong at Central, Mark Martin at East, and Joe Dobrinic at West – said about 15 to 45 parents a month at each of their schools have been actively involved.

Most parents of high school students aren’t that involved in their children’s education.  Why are they making a big deal out of this being the case in Hazelwood?

Answer:  Because the district is getting more and more black, and therefore showing lower and lower academic achievement, with each passing year.  Because race is taboo, the excuseologists have to come up with something.

My mother stopped looking at my homework after I got out of the fifth grade, and the seventh was the last time she went to a PTA meeting or a parent-teacher conference.  I don’t remember her lack of active involvement being a disadvantage for me from the eighth grade through high school.

One thing they’re forgetting is that parental involvement is even less helpful in this situation — low performing black students usually have parents that were themselves low performing and not the sharpest tacks in the rug.  I fail to see how such parents could help their high school aged children do any better, or less badly.

H-1B Nightmare Averted

Business Weak:

H-1B Visa Dreams Deferred

Urbandale is a thriving residential suburb of Iowa’s capital city, Des Moines. Go to its Web site and you’ll see a picture of a charming gazebo and the claim that Urbandale is “a growing city that has held onto its small-town charm.”

Part of that growth includes the U.S. headquarters of Pacific West, an IT consulting firm that employs both U.S. and H-1B visa workers from overseas. It is there, in a nondescript six-story office building at 2600 Aurora Ave., that dozens of skilled workers, mostly from India, were supposed to be working in 2004 and 2005.

But according to a federal lawsuit filed on Dec. 16 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, some of those who came to work for Pacific West didn’t get to enjoy the town’s charms, or the computer programing or engineering jobs they expected to fill. A federal grand jury charges that in fact many of the workers wound up on the East and West coasts, working for companies that had nothing to do with technology.

What I think this means is that Pacific West, not so aptly based in Iowa, used some of its H-1B slots as fronts for other companies on either coast who had used theirs all up for non-tech purposes, and wanted more.

SPLC to Change Its Name to SREC — Southwestern Reconquista Enabling Center

Dees:  We’re going all immigration all the time.

My guess is that taking up for blacks isn’t raking in the money like it used to, so The Center is going to change tactics and take up legal and other arms on a racial issue that’s more complex and growing.  It’s more complex because Hispanics may be of any race, white, black or Amerindian, or a combination of any two or all three.  A Panamanian-American teenager is mentioned in this article, and Orientals are in the mix in Panama, because of the Canal.  Peru (?) once had a head of state of Japanese extraction.

It’s growing, because the Hispanic population (mainly Mestizo and Afro- or Mulatto-Caribbean) is rising rapidly, so any given slight or incident between a white person and a Hispanic, which there will surely be more of in the coming years just based on pure numbers, will be an opportunity for Dees and Co. to pounce upon.

The New Axis of Feeble — Akon, Nickelodeon, Chris Brown.

V-Dare:  What’s The Matter With Harlem?

What’s the matter with Detroit, East St. Louis and Haiti?

Houston Chronicle:  The rich flee Mexico drug violence – Fearing for their lives, affluent seek asylum in Houston, other Texas cities

You fled Mexico for Texas.  Isn’t that jumping from the fire into the frying pan?

CNS:  U.S. House of Representatives Quietly Scraps Plan to Become ‘Carbon Neutral’

Won’t become methane neutral anytime soon, either.

CNS:  ‘Whatever You’re Doing, Please Hurry,’ Democrats Tell Geithner

“We need to use the john, too.”

CNS:  Citigroup Profitable in First Two Months of 2009

Of course they’re profitable.  Wouldn’t you be profitable if you got tens of billions of taxpayer dollars?

CNS:  Mugabe Attends Service for Opposition Leader’s Wife

One of those mysterious car accidents.

Jihad Watch:  9/11 jihad defendants say they’re “terrorists to the bone”

Something we figured out on 7 years 5 months 27 days ago.

NPI:  Can L.A. Gangs Be Redeemed with Mayor’s $24 Million Dollar Program?

No, but some social worker is about to become $24 million richer.

P-D:  Tornado sirens will blare today in statewide test

They might blare tonight for real.

KY3:  Likely U.S. Senate candidate Sarah Steelman is in talks with John McCain’s former top strategist, reports The Washington Post.

Taking his advice guarantees a Blunt primary victory which itself guarantees a Mrs. Antolinez general victory.

KFVS-12:  Kansas City IRS building evacuated

For good? :)

SEMO:  Wagon building a labor of love for Dexter resident

Do they mean pit roasted pork shoulder BBQ chuck wagons?

SIL:  Inmate may be behind phone scam

The authorities ruled out a nun being behind a phone scam.

Politico:  Coulter, Maher spar at Radio City

Who won depends on whether the judges kept score for sarcasm or for shrill.

AP:  Leno to give free show for Michigan’s unemployed

Michigan is in a depression, and its unemployed need some good comedy.  Yet, they bring in Jay Leno.

AP:  Police seize $1 million in drugs from Phish fans

Knowing how crazed and obsessed Phishheads are, it must have been seized from three fans.

AFP:  Talking to the Taliban ‘worth exploring’: Biden

Of course he thinks that talking to the Taliban is worth exploring; he’ll run his mouth to just about anyone.  Just don’t give his wife any military strategy for Afghanistan.

CQ:  Democrat Abercrombie Launches Hawaii Governor Bid

His running mate will be someone named “Fitch,” and his campaign logo will be the butt crack of some 18-year old white man.

AP:  Blacks, Hispanics have steeper end-of-life costs

That’s because so many of their lives end by means of lead poisoning.

AP:  Akon says he’d work with Chris Brown

The only way Akon could help is to grab Chris Brown, hold him over his head, then throw him into the crowd.

AP:  Nickelodeon stands by Chris Brown as nominee

It’s all over Brown — all you have left on your side is Akon and Nickelodeon.

How Bad Is It Getting?

Home Depot, pro-Hispanic and amnesty/open borders as it gets, at least one of its Lake Worth, Fla. locations, is trying to crack down on mainly illegal alien Hispanic “day laborers” who stand around near the Home Depot and wait for people to come by and pick them up for day jobs.

The Palm Beach Post interviewed several of them.  One said that he had a good construction job, but got laid off from it.  He also said he was in country illegally, so he either used fake documents to get the job or the employer knowingly hired an illegal alien.  Either way, someone ought to be in trouble.  Also, if the cops are going to do anything, it should be to nab those who hire these “day laborers,” because any dummy knows by now that most of them are illegal aliens.

“From Cradle to Career”

Big Teacher Is Watching You.  Or at least he wants to.

There are parts about President Obama’s education reform plans that aren’t too welcomed by teachers’ unions.  However, I think it’s all a political game to make himself appear moderate and not an NEA/AFT lackey.  Those parts won’t survive Congress, Obama will sign whatever gets sent to his desk.  But he’ll get political brownie points by pretending to stand up to an ally on an issue they pretend to disagree about.  I think the NEA/AFT knows this as well, and are playing along with the game just as much as the White House.

WWW Dot Al-Qaeda Dot Org

Worries about AQ and similar radical Islamic groups and movements using the internet to recruit are overblown.  Just as I thought, as AQ/OBL/Taliban hatched 9/11, without as much as a Wi-Fi hotspot.

So, why all the hype and hoopla?

Voila:

While most of the focus has been on al Qaeda-inspired Islamist militants, far-right white supremacist sites are equally as popular, the report found.

What they mean by that is the British National Party (BNP), which happens to be the most popular political website in England.  The whole trick is to censor the right wing, and using the straw dog of AQ as a diversion.

I’m an Expert. Listen to Me.

AP/Obama:  16 arrested in fight at nonviolence concert

Usually, nonviolence events are more violent than that, so count your lucky stars.

Telegraph:  Prince Charles: 100 months to save the world

Prediction:  In 100 months, he still won’t be King.

CNS:  Giant Omnibus Bill Includes $7.7 Billion in Earmarks for Bugs, Pigs, Parking – and La Raza

Bugs, Pigs, Parking and La Raza.  Which one of these four does not belong?  I’ll give you a hint — It Starts with “Parking.”

CNS:  Pennsylvania Liquor Board Spending Money for Politeness Training

It won’t be hard to be more polite than the kind of person buying a fifth of whiskey.

KFVS-12:  Usher to Chris Brown: Have some remorse

Chris Brown to Usher:  You’re over the hill.  Usher to Chris Brown:  Yeah, but I got to the hill and over it with a clean sheet.

Time:  California And Detroit Go To War Over Gas Mileage

California vs Detroit over anything is like the Goof Troop vs The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.

Politico:  Illinois Dems eye Burris seat

They musn’t realize that he’s black, and that they’re about to be bitch-slapped with the R-word.

Reuters:  Man charged with impersonating experts

That could be almost any of Oprah’s guests.

Reuters:  School fitness programs do not go far enough: experts

They used to go far enough, but feminoids were afraid of boys lifting weights, educrats were worried that the losers would have their self-esteem hurt, and the insurance company wouldn’t want any kid to get hurt or to take an open shower lest some anal-retentive parent would sue or whine.

A Tale of Two Cities

Crime in Carbondale is up, while in Marion it’s low and stable.  These two stories are from the same paper on the same day, and they have something else in common:  Neither one will tell you the most obvious reason why.  For Carbondale, they’ll say that “population density, a concentration of youth and the stability of the population” is part of the problem, while for Marion, a “proactive police force,” “neighborhood watch” and a “citizens’ police academy” are the reasons why it’s not so bad.

Let me translate all this gobbledyguck into English:  Carbondale black, Marion white.