God help me, I agree with Al Sharpton

Well, half agree. That's still enough to make me queasy.

NEW YORK (AP) - The Rev. Al Sharpton denounced Paris Hilton's release from jail on Thursday, saying it had "all of the appearances of economic and racial favoritism."

"I think that it's both another glaring display of how race and money seem to get different treatments. There seems to be a different criminal justice system for some than others," Sharpton said.

I don't think race was as much a factor as money. Poor, obscure, dumb white women don't get to leave with an ankle bracelet.

Now, if Oprah drives drunk and has to serve all 45 days, THEN RevAl and I are in total agreement. I somehow don't think she'll consent to take part in my social experiment.

Maybe I declared allegiences too soon.

I like Iowahawk's immigration policy, except I would deport all Cubs, and anyone sleeping with Gisele Bundchen (this must be done before Week 9). Hey, it's not like I'd ask him to pardon wealthy campaign donors....

(Unrelated, I am curious about the family history of a blonde woman with a German surname from Brazil. *cough*)

D-Day

Wishing people a "Happy D-Day" doesn't sound right, but I like to mark it every year. I miss Charles Schulz's annual Peanuts tribute; I don't have time this morning to poke around the intertubes for a picture of Snoopy on Omaha Beach so just imagine it. :)

This week, the Senate is authorizing the invasion of the U.S. It's eerie. We used to be darn near invincible; lately we've caved from within.



In other news, I signed on as a Friend of Fred. I don't expect him to win the nomination, but if his candidacy can push Guliani into recognizing that the Bill of Rights isn't a "privilege" and keep him from screwing over rural America, that's good enough for me.

Heh.

Teachers find plenty of fun summer jobs

But when they complain about their annual teaching salary, don't you DARE point out that it's only for 9 months' work.

Funniest thing I've seen in weeks.

"Focus like the Proverbial Laser."

Hillary Clinton used this phrase during the debate tonight (which I did not watch, because I don't have cable).

If anyone can find an actual proverb about lasers--with some sort of documentation about where you've seen it used in print or film--I'll buy you a fine local microbrew.

Breaking: Terror Plot at Kennedy Airport

Just a nuisance, like prostitution and NCAA tournament pools.

The suspects must be Lutheran. No?

Obviously they only wanted to blow up JFK as a reaction to BushHitlerMcChimpy's illegal invasion and occupation of...Trinidad? Guyana? Oh.


I'm heavy on the sarcasm today because, like moonbats and KosKidz, I'm questioning the timing, and that bothers me. The investigation has been going on for almost 18 months, and the arrests take place while Congress and Bush are colluding on a plan to open the borders, ignoring the national security implications that should have smacked them in the face after we learned that three of the Fort Dix Six came across the Mexican border illegally.

This is weird. In the 90s, I knew Clinton didn't give a crap about anything but his own popularity, but at least most other elected officials were concerned about the future of the American people. Now very few of them give a crap about the current citizenry or the future of the country, and it scares me.

At least there are still some people in law enforcement who care. And the NY Times doesn't know about them....


Ignorance really is bliss. I wish I was the kind of woman who can't be interested in anything more profound than clothes and makeup and shopping and celebrity gossip.

Curse you, intertubes!

I had a HUGE post about the 2000 Iowa caucus, farm art, and Hillary Clinton, but Blogger ate it. There's three hours of my life I want back...

Fraud, corruption, bribes, etc.

I wasn't going to comment on the Alderman McGee thing, and then when I read this article about the Milwaukee police officer/Mexican national being arrested for using a fraudulent identity to live and work here illegally, I remembered this article from the American Thinker about how bribery and corruption is the whole heart of the Mexican bureaucratic system.

Given:

a) McGee's initial offense was demanding money in exchange for getting residents' applications for city licenses approved. They may have been approvable on their own merits, but they weren't getting approved without his under-the-table "cost of doing business".
b) It's just accepted in Mexico and other Western Hemisphere countries that if you don't give government officials money to put in their own pockets, you're not going to get your license.
c) Large swaths of U.S. society enthusiastically embrace the plan to import teeming hordes of people from Mexico and similar countries.
d) The teeming hordes show no interest whatsoever in assimilating into the American system, and their champions show no interest in expecting them to assimilate.

I conclude that a) the American culture is going to degrade to the point where everyone expects to hand cash over to government officials--not the government--to get permits, etc., just like elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere; and b) if McGee had just waited 3-5 years, no one would have blinked twice at him expecting thousands of dollars to approve a gas station permit, much less charged him with a crime (the solicitation of murder--maybe. Could go either way.)

I'm finding this conclusion more disturbing than the various "you crackers are all out to keep a good black man down" rhetoric I'm reading/hearing. I think I've become desensitized to it over the past year since I moved to Milwaukee. I don't have TIME to keep anyone down--ask the cat. I do wonder what it feels like to call a man who threatens to kill the mother of his unborn baby a "good man" but that's not really germane to the corruption discussion.

This new stuff today about election fraud and vote buying--also very Third World. McGee's just ahead of the trend. Or behind it--$5/vote? My dad got offered that in Cook County (IL) in the 70s (even though he was a student with 1.5 kids, I doubt he thought twice before refusing). Fraud ain't keeping up with inflation.

But that's my take: In ten years, this McGee corruption charges will seem downright quaint.

I really hope I'm wrong.

Honesty and Transparency

House Minority Leader John Boehner Calls Immigration Bill 'Piece of S---'

Good for him!

Gas taxes

This is interesting.

Gas prices soar, WI Gov Doyle seeks to raise state gas tax, claims it's not really a gas tax.

Gas prices soar, IN Gov Daniels refuses to suspend state gas tax as Democrats urge.

I don't really know how to analyze these, since I lack the economics background. I do note that gas in Indiana is taxed at 6% + $0.18/gal, so around $0.38/gallon at $3.40/gal, and the gas tax in WI is $0.33/gal regardless of price and expected to go up to around $0.40/gal. From a consumer standpoint, the flat-rate tax per gallon is much easier to not notice as prices fluctuate. And it seems counterproductive to "combatting high prices" to seek to limit the amount of gasoline a company brings into a state--something economists understood in the 18th century and Democrats can't figure out (or willfully ignore) today.

What I can analyze is that neither of these policies are really about "helping citizens." In Indiana, the Dems hate Daniels so they're toying with a visible small issue to make him look bad; in Wisconsin the Dems are exploiting the "ZOMG! Companies make profits and that's wrong!" fears and resentments of people who don't understand math and don't like people making more money than they do.

But I find the regional differences in strategy--more taxes! Less taxes!--interesting. Just like it interests me that an Indiana Democrat would probably be cast as a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal right-winger on either coast. :)

Mark Steyn's Modest Proposal

From NRO:

My suggestion is that, on the day this bill comes into effect, all 300 million US citizens and legal residents should apply for a Z visa.

This is an excellent idea. I, too, want to live and work here without paying taxes (if only I had some children to take advantage of the free education, healthcare, and WIC!). And since whatever clerks are getting stuck filling out the paperwork won't have any idea what day I entered the country, and I'm sure the form won't ask for a Social Security number...

Need another reason to hate the NY Times?

Brewers are 2-7 since the NY Times ran a story about how hot they were.

They couldn't just stick to running classified national security information on the front page...

Irony...

Read this at Sister Toldjah this morning. I hope I get the trackback right--I've never done this before. Anyway:

Former President Carter says President Bush’s administration is “the worst in history” in international relations...

Wow. Just wow. That's some serious projection/displacement going on.

Happy Armed Forces Day!

Cox and Forkum have a history and links to good stuff (and a great cartoon, as usual!). I dumped some of my excess cash off at Project Valour-IT.

My grandfather, father, both brothers-in-law (one currently in the USAF and frequently deployed to Qatar), my mother's three brothers, a great-aunt, and at least six great-uncles have all served at least one enlistment since 1941--Army, Navy, and Air Force (Grandpa was Army Air Corps). AND my little brother just graduated from BCT and is Texas undergoing further training for the National Guard. I'm intensely proud of him.

Someday I will blog some family stories, especially from WWII.

Not hard to figure out why I grew up to be so fiercely pro-America, is it?

So what?

Mexicans fear U.S. immigration plan

I know this is a shocking idea you've never heard before, but it's truth: MEXICANS AREN'T SUPPOSED TO WRITE U.S. LAW.

Funniest thing I've read in some time.

If Ted Kennedy suddenly was hit on the head, had a total personality inversion, and started leading the fight against this bill and killed it, the conservative base would say, "You know, there was always something I liked about that hard-drinking sonofagun."

Curious...

From the J-S:

In what Milwaukee County prosecutors say is the first in a series of criminal cases alleging fraud in the November 2006 election, a Milwaukee woman was charged this morning with two felonies for registering on election day and voting even though she was a felon on probation.

She must have registered as a Republican.

If convicted of the felony counts of voting as an ineligible voter and providing false information to election officials, she could face up to seven years in prison and a $20,000 fine total.

I don't even like dogs...

A residential burglary suspect this morning shot and killed Bo, an Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department canine.

You have to be a real piece of shit to shoot a dog.

*sniff* Poor Bo. I hope his human partner heals.

Killing an officer in commission of a crime (or getaway) should always be a capital offense. Ordinarily, I value humans more than animals--human officers are more important than animal officers--but service animals are infinitely more valuable than criminals. Life imprisonment seems fair--less than the penalty for killing a human officer, but more than a random "animal abuse" charge.

In Indiana, killing a police dog is a Class D felony, up to three years in prison.

Good grief. You spend more time in Michigan City for stealing a laptop.

Take-home lesson for hygenically-challenged morons everywhere

This article was brought to my attention by a self-avowed "socialist" (who brags incessantly about the spa treatments her salary has allowed her to purchase--why am I the only one who sees a logical flaw here?) with the title "Holy shit! The government really is out to get Michael Moore!"

Michael Moore Faces U.S. Treasury Probe
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore is under investigation by the U.S. Treasury Department for taking ailing Sept. 11 rescue workers to Cuba for a segment in his upcoming health-care documentary "Sicko," The Associated Press has learned.

(Two paragraphs of Bush-bashing deleted)

The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control notified Moore in a letter dated May 2 that it was conducting a civil investigation for possible violations of the U.S. trade embargo restricting travel to Cuba. A copy of the letter was obtained Tuesday by the AP.

Here's some friendly advice: When you break the law, don't show yourself doing it on movie screens all over the country. Unless, of course, you want to get caught, so you can cry about being a victim. Sniff, sob.

I can't imagine how blinded by BDS and/or criminally stupid you have to be to see this as "Michael Moore is persecuted! Waaaah!"