Sweet Ride

NY1:

A man who stole Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s car is headed to prison, along with a female accomplice.

Shawn Young, 36, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for his role in the October 2006 incident.

He was convicted of attacking a Bloomberg staffer who was in the mayor’s Lexus while waiting to pick up a colleague in Hackensack, New Jersey.

Evelyn Moreta, 17, was also convicted in connection with the crime. She was sentenced to ten years in prison.

The pair abandoned the car, which was recovered two hours later.

Even though all’s well that ends well, this takes a lot of fun way from Mayor Bloomberg.  While he has to sit back and watch his colleages Michael Nutter, Thomas Menino and Richard Daley whine about guns, the one crime in NYC that directly affected him was a result of fists and feet.

Bumper Bumbler

Spied these two bumper stickers on the back of a blue WV van this morning:  One read, “Use Biofuels,” the other read, “Stop World Hunger Now!”

Alarm Clock

About twenty minutes to five.  Beat my alarm clock by about twenty minutes…

It was a 5.4, but was felt here, Chicago, Indianapolis, Milwaukee.  The reason is that Midwestern earthquakes are, geologically speaking, like yelling “hello” on the edge of the Grand Canyon, while California earthquakes are like yelling “hello” in a soundproof room.

Lesser Common Denominator

He hasn’t been “Konvicted” as much as he would like us to think and has never been “locked up” as a term consequence of any felony or misdemeanor conviction. Malkin has it.

Usually, people will fib down their rap sheet and prison record, but this one wants to fib it upward. The reason is that he wanted to display a certain image to the kind of people that like and buy his music. (Hence his proclivity towards the sport of human shotput.) What kind of message does this communicate about hip-hop fans that they want and prefer thuggery?

Lest his fans accuse him of “acting white.”  Forbid that, then people might confuse him for a hip-hopper who really does have a rap sheet.

Bad For Children

Reuters:

Venezuela axes “The Simpsons” as bad for kids

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela has forced U.S. cartoon “The Simpsons” off its airwaves, calling the show a potentially bad influence on children, and filled its morning slot with reruns of the beach-and-bikini show “Baywatch.”

Probably because “Hugowatch” isn’t yet in the can.

Word(press) Up

Question for other WordPress.com bloggers out there:

Is it me, or does the new WP admin panel allude to Microsoft Office (esp. Word) 2007?

“I Was Fighting For What Was Mine”

AP:

83-year-old woman foils purse snatcher

SANTA FE, N.M. - An 83-year-old great-grandmother thwarted a would-be purse snatcher with a gas nozzle and an iron grip.

Bernie Garcia said a young man approached her at a gas station as she was buying fuel for her van and asked for money. When she told him she had spent all her spare change on gas, he tried to grab her purse.

“But I had it wrapped around my wrist twice,” Garcia said, and he was unable to pull it away.

She fought back, spraying his shirt with some gasoline. Both of them kept hold of the purse, and he pulled her to the ground and dragged her a short distance until another man confronted him.

The second man demanded, “Turn her loose, you something something,” Garcia said.

(snip)

“My son said, `Why didn’t you just give (the purse) up?’” Garcia said. “`Hell no,’ I told him. That was my purse. I was fighting for what was mine.”

How I wish many more people had Miss Garcia’s attitude and matters more grave than a purse.

Otherwise, I wouldn’t want to be those two in jail.  Word will get around that they got foiled and busted by an elderly woman.

Electile Dysfunction

Sure, Eliot. She just wanted casual conversation about classical music. And those waterfalls on the western edge of the state you used to govern were named after the blue pills.

Have You Seen This Man?

Chapel Hill, N.C. police would like to pump him, because they think he might know something about the recent murder of Eve Carson, a University of North Carolina student who was the President of the Undergraduate Student Body.

Don’t Worry. They’ll Find a Way to Blame This on George W. Bush.

AP:

Wounded Ohio officer dies at hospital

CLEVELAND - A police officer who was shot investigating a group of men drinking beer inside an abandoned garage died hours later at a hospital, authorities said Saturday.

Derek Owens, 36, and another officer approached a the men Friday night and chased them when they started to run away, police spokesman Lt. Thomas Stacho said.

(snip)

Police had received complaints from residents about the neighborhood, where many boarded-up duplexes had been vandalized. Owens was a 10-year veteran of the police department.

One word:  Subprime.

Shooting At Kirkwood City Hall

Coverage at St. Louis CofCC Blog.

There Is a Fine Line Between Contender and Crazy

If he weren’t slightly on the crazy side of that line, he would be a serious Presidential contender today — in contrast to “Gates of Hell” obsessed John McCain and Mike Huckabee, who are both just barely on the contender side of the line.

AHN News:

Gainesville, FL (AHN) - Dr. Jack Kevorkian surprised a crowd of over 5,000 people at the University of Florida (UF) Tuesday night when he unleashed an attack on a “cowardly and deceitful Supreme Court,” assailed the “made up mythology of religion,” called American involvement in Iraq a “modified genocide” and declared that “whites can’t unite” because “they’re wimps.”

(snip)

Kevorkian told the crowd that a person should be able to “carry a kilogram of cocaine in your pocket as long as you don’t try to sell it or abuse it in some way; in your home you can smoke anything you want. You can have any rifle you want. You should be able to carry a rifle or an uzi down the street, as long as you don’t threaten anybody.”

Kevorkian praised the founding fathers, including James Madison, who was the chief architect of the 9th Amendment to the constitution while he served in the first session of Congress. “You don’t realize the power you have in the 9th Amendment… No one can argue with the 9th Amendment, it’s plain language. Only a tyrant says it’s not plain… some professors say it’s murky. Be honest; tell them ‘you’re wrong.’”

The 9th Amendment holds that “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” This, according to Kevorkian, is the strongest defense the American people have to protect their natural rights from a corrupt government.

But, “that’s the trouble with the tyrant, he owns the legislative branch; owns the laws. Anything he wants he just makes a law, now he’s got your control,” Kevorkian said. “The tyrant knows what he’s doing. He keeps you in the dark. He keeps you dumbed down with silly things to keep your mind off of what’s important… The tyrant knows psychology.”

America is “no different than Nazi Germany; they were aggressive too, [but] they were more honest about it. See, unfortunately for the Nazis, there was another power that could counteract them, the United States. Who can counteract us? America is like a bull in a china shop. There is no way to fight them. They can do what they want, lie, cheat and steal - and they do.”

Just a slight knitpick — the Soviet and British Empires also counteracted the Nazis.

Later, Kevorkian turned his attention to race and said plainly; “The whites don’t unite.”

“The whites, especially the old ones, they have petrified brains; their brainwashing is complete,” Kevorkian explained. “You’ve got an Irishman, a German, a Greek, a Frenchman and they don’t unite… they’re wimps… There’s no power in the unification of the whites. Who has the power in this country? Black people.”

“Blacks can unite,” Kevorkian explained. “Because of their common color” and “because they know what slavery is… Had they known about the 9th Amendment, history would have been different… The power of the blacks will lead you to act on the 9th Amendment.”

He also said that “When you vote for president, ‘you’re only electing an idiot on puppet strings…’”

Thank You 254,775 Times

Since WordPress’s statistics use Universal Time Coordinate (essentially the time in London not counting daylight savings), 2007’s statistical year ended as of 6 PM tonight.  And since 2007 was this blog’s first full calendar year in existence on WordPress, I added up the numbers.

You visited 254,775 times in 2007, averaging 698 a day.  The best day was November 28 with 1,673 views.

Thank you that many times.

Hanaway’s Clever Move By the Numbers

I already told why the decision to force sicko to serve his Federal time only after all state time is done was smart. Now, the Post-Dispatch has quantified my reasoning with this graphic. Operating on the assumption that the only way Devlin could get out of prison is by parole (i.e. no court rulings or Gubernatorial pardons), he could get out of state prison at age 71, then be taken to Club Fed for his 25, and he could be totally free at age 96.

Truthfully, if he gets anywhere close to other prisoners, he won’t make it to 42.

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.

Party Like It’s 1994

OJ in the slam, Hillary talking health care? Now all we need is for Roger Fredinburg to get back on 550, and we can roll back that odometer a baker’s dozen years.

Now, if you’ll pardon me, I think I’ll boot up Windows 3.1, start Netscape Navigator 0.9, and take a look at that Yahoo thingey that everyone’s talking about — they say you can actually search for websites on things you want without actually having to know the address!!  What’ll they think of next…

Media Panic Over Bird Flu Isn’t Just Talk

Here’s another reason why you shouldn’t believe all the hype you see on TV:  The more scared and paranoid people get about epidemic diseases, the more likely it is that they will accept “blue helmet” UN “solutions,” brought to you by the UN “influenza coordinator” that seems to be Steve Martin’s long lost twin.

The irony is that President Bush wants to make these plans part of the “Security and Prosperity Partnership” with Mexico, and if there are any epidemics of communicable diseases in the near future, it might well be because of our effectively open border with Mexico, in light of the young illegal alien from Mexico living in Atlanta that had TB and refused treatment, and was jailed in earnest.

TruTV In Advertising

The cable/satellite TV network CourtTV is changing its name to TruTV on January 1, to reflect more accurately its overall programming mission.

In related news, Diane Dimond will change her name to Diane Zirconium.

Catherine Hanaway Makes Another Brave Stand

P-D:

Boyd Houston III, 37, of St. Louis County, was sentenced in U.S. District Court today to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty in February to drug conspiracy and money laundering. He has also forfeited land in Ladue, luxury vehicles and jewelry including a bracelet watch with 365 diamonds, weighing 42.42 carats.

U.S. Attorney Catherine L. Hanaway said Houston “was a significant trafficker in the area. Putting him out of business will take a large amount of drugs off the street.”

Hanaway said Houston would ship cash to an associate in Texas and cocaine would be driven by coiuriers to the St. Louis area. Agents and police seizer $400,000 in currency and more than 50 kilograms of cocaine.

So, she’s opposed to cocaine trafficking.  I actually thought there for a moment that she was for it.  The President that appointed her would gladly see more cocaine trafficking, thanks to his open borders proposals.

Meanwhile, Rock Head continues to lounge in the St. Louis County Jail, unfettered by Federal charges of felon-in-possession of a firearm.

The Excuse Train Departs in Five Minutes

This blog had the story from England about the British National Health Service coming out with a study that blacks are 18 times more likely than whites to be diagnosed with a mental illness.  American Renaissance covered the story too, and comments to that post have had some interesting addenda.

A few comments, as you can see, have said that while they believe that blacks are more likely than whites to have genuine mental illness, that some behavior that is simply the result of lower IQ is being misinterpreted as mental illness.

What I think might be going on is that the left and the establishment in general think they have an “out” on racial differences in intelligence.  I think they will simply chalk the behavioral difference that are really due to lower intelligence, up to  “mental illness,” then explain away the differences in mental illness on white racism, slavery, PTSD (post-traumatic slavery disorder), hypertension due to the stress of discrimination, and so on.

Maybe He’s Related to Marie Antoinette

The Bush Administration has its “Let ‘Em Eat Cake” Moment.

McPaper:

“The reality is, we don’t have enough people,” said [Commerce Secretary Carlos] Gutierrez, adding that many of the USA’s economic competitors, such as France, Germany, Japan and China, will be facing a similar demographic shift. “The big challenge of the 21st century is: Who gets the people? Who gets the immigrants?” he said. “We don’t appreciate today that these people are coming in for free.”

It might take them arrogantly asking us to pay them for sneaking across the border for the flow to subside. Otherwise, every intellectually honest study of the costs and benefits of non-white immigration prove that it’s a net drain to the economy as a whole, but a net benefit to certain politically-connected industries.

New to the Blogroll

Blue Collar Republican. 

But That’s No Reason to Muzzle Him

I didn’t think that Ron Paul’s “let’s understand our enemies” statement from the Republican debate in South Carolina two nights ago helped his cause, nor the cause of his ideas, very much. But I’m certainly not for this:

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The chairman of the Michigan Republican Party said Wednesday that he will try to bar Ron Paul from future GOP presidential debates because of remarks the Texas congressman made that suggested the Sept. 11 attacks were the fault of U.S. foreign policy.

Michigan party chairman Saul Anuzis said he will circulate a petition among Republican National Committee members to ban Paul from more debates. At a GOP candidates’ debate Tuesday night, Paul drew attacks from all sides, most forcefully from former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, when he linked the terror attacks to U.S. bombings.

Is this that great Michigan State Republican Committee that advised Dick DeVos and Mike Bouchard to come out against MCRI? Proof of how well that strategy worked is that I’m probably the only person left outside of Michigan who remembers who those two men were and what they tried (but failed) to do last year. That being said, most things that come out of that office or its officers should be taken with a pile of wolverine poop.

Meet Gitmo’s Newest Fish

Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, an Iraqi who was AQ’s top operational planner in Afghanistan.

According to ABC, he’s at GITMO now, so just about every Senate Democrat is demanding that he gets a jury trial and an ACLU-approved public defender.

I Knew It

State Rep. Talibdin El-Amin’s “baking soda” stunt was just as I thought –  a “modest proposal” meant to draw attention to the “crack cocaine” epidemic in black urban areas.

Now I wish his slavery apology bill was just as much tongue-in-cheek.  Unfortunately, Mr. El-Amin has the Republican Speaker of the House fooled into thinking it’s for real.

What Mr. El-Amin doesn’t realize is that the meth issue is used by blacks to distract attention away from crack cocaine in black urban areas.  Otherwise, neither when it comes to meth nor crack, the drug isn’t doing it to the people, and they certainly don’t contain magic powers.  The addicts are doing it to themselves.

I get the feeling that he believes or is sympathetic to the theory  that the CIA is trucking in crack cocaine to destroy black communities.

Kentucky Fried T-Rex

Breast meat, crispy breading, if you please

Tyrannosaurus Rex has an evolutionary link to chickens.

Razzle Dazzle ‘Em, And They’ll Never Catch Wise

David Sheets:

For years now, we have seen presentations employing PowerPoint thinking that they somehow made us better understand complex concepts.

Now, a study from the University of New South Wales suggests otherwise. Researchers there believe our brains actually struggle to process information when we are reading and listening to it at the same time.

I’m not surprised that a study that criticizes Power Point (and similar programs like OpenOffice Impress) comes from a university. Academicians, by and large, have never liked Power Point and its socio-cultural implications.

The cynic in me says that academicians are being snobby and elitist when they make these criticisms, because they work in an insulated and largely secure industry that is divorced from the pressures to perform and to turn a profit, so they don’t need to engage in sales, and thus don’t use presentation software.

However, I think the study is right. The purpose of presentation software is to jazz one over and to put on a show for a purpose, usually to get someone to buy something. If your presentation actually made its viewers think, then that would decrease the chances of making the sale.

As the Billy Flynn character sings in the musical Chicago, “Razzle dazzle ‘em, and they’ll never catch wise.”

Liberal Miami Tabloid Proves Tancredo Correct

It is a Third World country.

Miami New Times:

While West Coast gangs such as the Bloods and Crips have been making inroads in Miami, many of the recent gang-related killings in areas such as Miami Gardens and Little River have been traced to Haitian gangs. With names like Zoe Pound, One Way, Uptown, Sesame Street, E-Unit, and Zombie Boys, they are ubiquitous in some neighborhoods. Their signs are subtle but clear — tattoos and gang colors on bandanas, headbands, and wristbands.

The context here is a long expose of black gang violence in Miami.

Though I disagree with the subheadline of this article: “An epidemic of payback murder is wiping out a generation of inner-city youth.”

The violence epidemic could get many times worse, and it won’t make a dent in the black population. The reason is that it’s almost always men and boys killing other men and boys.

Someone very wise I met a long time ago, and someone who still has me on his e-mail list, had the best analogy for this sort of thing.

Imagine that there are two worlds. One world has one man and nine women. The other world has one woman and nine men. Each year, the first world could gain nine new people, while the second world could gain only one new person. The more female a population is, the more likely it is to grow.

If this epidemic of black gang violence got far worse and involved exclusively girls and women being killed, then it would start making a dent in the black population. But it’s not. Several thousand fewer boys and men being killed every year in a population of 40 million is hardly the essence of “wiping out a generation.”

Incidentally, the New Times chain of tabloids also owns the Riverfront Times.

Playing Politics With Cockfighting

The Blotter by ABC:

A Republican senator is holding up a popular bipartisan bill to crack down on cockfighting that was expected to pass easily in the Senate yesterday, drawing outrage from his congressional colleagues.

The hold, placed by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., “testifies to the powers of these shadowy forces that allow this illegal and barbaric scandal to continue,” said Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., one of the bill’s co-sponsors in the House.

Earlier this week Republicans and Democrats in the House passed the bill by a landslide margin of 368 to 39 votes.

Cockfighting is now illegal in every state but Louisiana, and the peripheries of Louisiana are now havens for cockfighting spectacles that attract people from surrounding states. The Federal legislation that Coburn is holding up would make interstate transportation of animals for fighting a Federal crime.

Coburn’s state’s governor, Brad Henry, pictured above, (someone who I have tagged as a possible running mate for Hillary Rodham Clinton, should she win the nomination), should also face questions about his playing politics with anti-cockfighting legislation. Part of the reason behind his upset victory over Steve Largent in 2002 was that Largent came out for the cockfighting ban, while Henry was deliberately mum on it, i.e. he communicated the message that he would not sign such a ban.

In the end, Henry won, based partially on the votes of pro-cockfighting forces, but he signed the ban anyway.

If HRC, who will probably vote for the ban, does pick Henry, then I suppose we could say that the chickens have come home to roost.

And You’re Going To Prison Today

A little pothole along the road to the universal brotherhood of man

New York Post:

An angry Manhattan judge slammed a violent, racist wacko with an amazing 240-year prison sentence yesterday - punishment for a 2002 rampage in which he held an East Village bar hostage at gunpoint, doused cowering patrons with kerosene and threatened to set them afire.

The sentence means death behind bars for Steven Johnson, a 39-year-old African-American, AIDS-infected, unemployed Brooklyn barber with a still-festering hatred against whites.

“White people are going to burn tonight!” the berserk bigot shouted to his captives in the Bar Veloce on Second Avenue.

They byline on this story is Laura Italiano. Reading this story and examining its very familiar, sarcastic and propagandic writing style makes me wonder if she and I aren’t separated siblings.

I am not linking to the source article because it contains the name of a very heroic Manhattan judge.