Where's Harriet Nelson when you need her?

When I saw this.

The Department of Justice is seeking to hire linguists fluent in Ebonics to help monitor, translate, and transcribe the secretly recorded conversations of subjects of narcotics investigations, according to federal records.

I thought of this.

Remember what Mom said...

...about talking to strangers.


Owners of a mall in Roseville don’t like strangers speaking to each other, unless it is about commercial enterprises in the mall, and penned rules prohibiting strangers from conversing.

The rules forbid peaceful, consensual, spontaneous conversations between strangers about any topic not commercially related to the Westfield Galleria mall. According to the rules, an application for third party access must be filled out and approved prior to engaging in a conversation.

After a 27-year-old pastor filed a lawsuit against the mall seeking monetary damages for false imprisonment, assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, malicious prosecution, and a general violation of his civil rights after he was arrested for speaking to strangers, the Third District Court of Appeals ruled the mall’s policies are unconstitutional.

Matthew Snatchko refused to stop talking with three strangers who had agreed to talk to him about subjects that included his faith.

A security officer ordered Snatchko to stop talking to the strangers or to take the conversation outside. The security officer made a citizen’s arrest, handcuffed the youth pastor and turned him over to Roseville police.

Mr Snatchko was not harassing anyone, the strangers agreed to talk to him. Even a California court couldn't back this rule.

The Pervs of Polk County

Polk County is 20 miles east of Tampa, and they have these stings all the time.

More than a dozen men from across central Florida walked into a trap set by the Polk County Sheriff's Office.

The men are now charged with attempting to have sex with girls aged 14 and younger, some as young as 8 years old.

Investigators say a Davenport home was the rendezvous point arranged online to catch the 15 men.

You would think that prospective pervs would know enough to stay out of Polk County, but being an addict myself I can understand the power of the Jones. It looks like at least one of the accused had his wits about him:

One of the arrestees, Ray Damon of Dunedin, told reporters that investigators misread his intentions.

"I never said I was going to do anything with or to the daughter. I told the woman what she wanted to hear so she would invite me here because I wanted to hook up with her mom. But I didn't say was going to do anything to the daughter in specifics, or with her or anything..."

And a little surprise:

The Sheriff said one of his detectives got quite a surprise during the operation when he knocked on a door to find a man who reportedly coaches a Little League team that the detective's son plays on.

I have come to the conclusion that I would be the world's worst parent. No computer in your bedroom - it's in a common area. And I know all your passwords. And if I am in a generous mood you will get a cellphone that cannot take or receive pics or video. And if you behave I may even feed you and let you sleep in a bed.

Last night @ the Bayshore Blvd gate...

Update: The man was an AWOL serviceman.

..of MacDill AFB in South Tampa.

A man and a woman are in custody after officials say they tried to enter MacDill Air Force Base in a sport utility vehicle carrying weapons and military gear, base officials said.

Base officials haven't heard that it was a planned attack and authorities did not find any explosives.

Bayshore is the secondary entrance to MacDill. I normally go through the main gate on Dale Mabry. The city bus goes to the BX, and you better have a military ID when it stops @ the main gate. An SF comes aboard to check everyone out and they run a mirror under the bus.

Being an SF @ the gate can be pretty routine with the same people coming on base every day. But sometimes something happens.

My first thought is these two are not jihadists because I don't think they roll together as men and women, but I am a little suspicious that at 9 am the next day the cops haven't released any names.

They could always try the Jersey option

UPDATE - oh, it gets better...  it turns out that huge voting irregularities may be responsible for Greene's victory.  Do read the whole thing.

original post, 6/11/10 - Via Ace of Spades, an interesting snippet from the Washington Post about the recent Democratic primary for the US Senate in South Carolina.

Seems that a fellow named Alvin Greene came from nowhere to take his party's nomination, despite not campaigning a lick and barely affording the filing fee.  Lots of speculation that he's a GOP plant.  (If that were the case, why not actually campaign him and stuff?  How did they possibly expect that filing alone was going to get jack-sprat done?)

Anyway, the WaPo quotes the head of the national Democratic Senate Campaign Committee on the situation... one Bob Menendez (D-NJ).

You know, if Greene winds up quitting for his alleged shenanigans, then South Carolina could always do what New Jersey did when it was their Senate race - cram a new guy into the general election well past the lawful filing deadline.  I wonder if Menendez could advise them in any way about anything like that?

Naaaaaaaah.

Portrait of the umpire as a sad man

How many pitchers mounds can Alex Rodriguez cut across?  Shortly after a tiff with A-Rod about ballplayer etiquette, The A's Dallas Braden shut down the Rays on May 9.  Then Philadelphia's Roy Halladay punked the Marlins on Mother's Day.  (This completed a Phillies Family Holiday perfecto, as Philly's Jim Bunning set down 27 straight Mets on Father's Day in 1964.  Take note - Grandparent's Day is September 12 this year.)

Last night we nearly had a third A-Rod Crossing, with Detroit's Armando Galarraga setting down 26 consecutive Cleveland Indians.  And then... well, you can see it for yourself.  (Maybe the problem is that the Indians aren't from Florida.  A fictional owner tried to move them there, but both she and Galarraga were thwarted with two out in the ninth.)

I saw this in a very loud sports bar.  From the look of it, I thought that Galarraga may have bobbled the ball as he caught it - you see that it's much more visible than normal on a play like that.  It was later that I saw, and read, that umpire Jim Joyce thought the runner had beaten the throw.

God bless Jim Joyce.  He was convinced that he was right, so he made the call, no matter how tough it would be.  That is not easy.  Those calls are always so close.  Had this been a routine fourth-inning grounder in a game where the Indians had already gotten a hit, nobody would remember it five minutes later.  Now the guy may unfairly go down in history with the rest of the world's refs who've completely blown it, and on a play that's always tricky to get right, that can honestly be missed.

From that link above there's a gallery of infamous blown calls.  You'll notice as you scroll through that Joyce has been helpfully included.  Some of the others in the list are far worse, though.  For example, the "fifth down" touchdown for the University of Colorado was far worse because it was easily preventable.  Not even included on the list is the bizarre incident from last season's playoffs, when two Yankees wound up stuck at third - neither of them actually standing on the bag! - but Tim McClelland ruled one safe after he was tagged.*

* McClelland is on the list elsewhere, though - the Pine Tar Game.  He was the home plate ump that ruled George Brett out on Billy Martin's appeal, leading to one of the more memorable sports meltdowns ever... and leading to the bizarre four-out conclusion much later in the year.

But really, McClelland at least had a base to stand on in the Pine Tar Game.  And he was dealing with the wily Billy Martin, who never missed a trick, who would invent tricks if there were none to miss at the moment; in a situation where there was no specific rule or precedent.  The more recent one - how do you not know that a stationary runner is not in fact standing on the base?  Joyce had to watch the runner, the pitcher, the ball, and do it all at full-speed with the call deciding whether or not the pitcher had just completed a perfect game.  To me that's far less culpable.

(And not for nothing: one of these calls shouldn't be on that list at all.  Brett Hull's goal was good.  He's allowed to be there with possession of the puck, even if the puck itself is not in the crease when it's shot.)

What do you all think?  Should the Commissioner's Office overturn the call and give Galarraga the perfect game?

UPDATE - today Jim Joyce is working behind the plate at the Tigers game.  Detroit sent Galarraga out to hand in their lineup card before the first pitch, and while Joyce sobbed, the Detroit crowd gave them a standing ovation.  Goosebumps.  That's true class and grace.  Appropriate label has been added below.

Simple truths

Doc Zero is joining a little discussion about exactly how much time ought to be spent going over first principles when it comes to political discussions.

It's a good question because lately the debate has all been about the individual issues facing the country now: this or that bill or foriegn policy choice.  It's not unimportant, but I think that those debates are ultimately lost regardless of the outcome if we accept those as the thing to be discussing; it would mean that the assumptions leading up to those debates are already settled, and increasingly, settled against the liberty of the people.  Debating the size of some bailout assumes that the bailout is needed and valid; debating "health care reform" assumes that government has authority over health care in the first place.  We have to start earlier.

I always try to remind myself that the Constitution is remarkable for its simplicity and elegance. It was not a document written by intellectuals as an abstraction, just to prove a point or propose a theorem. The Founders wrote a library's worth of those sorts of documents - letters to and fro, arguing this or that point, and public essays, and outlines in their journals. Eventually they published the Federalist Papers and other documents to present those refined ideas to the general public. But when it came down to the actual construction of the government, they took all that theory and argument and burned it down to a plain and sparse document.

In some ways the Constitution is like the tip of an iceberg. The part above the water is the actual charter that governs our public affairs; the Federalist Papers and such are the part below that support it. It's good to know that part and it gives insight and understanding - but it is IN NO WAY REQUIRED to be a good citizen. The Constitution as written is enough. And here's the thing: it was always meant to be enough. These remarkable, towering giants who codified our freedoms did not write a Constitution as an exercise, or to prove their cleverness; they weren't writing for an audience of "scholars" and "Constitutional lawyers" and other experts. They wrote a plain document, meant to be easily understood, so that every citizen could know his rights and the limits of the authority the government could exercise over him. The simplest farmer or struggling merchant could know in five minutes what his government was and was not permitted to do, and where he stood in relation to it - and that standing was equal before the law with any other citizen, regardless of social standing, buying power, education, or rival creed.

Now, a certain amount of smaller laws naturally build upon this foundation.  Some of it is necessary; some of it is of debatable use.  But there are two things that are certain to be disastrous - first is to actually chop away at the foundation: to melt the iceberg bit by bit, right by right.  Second is to build so much upon it that it submerges entirely.  Either way, when it goes under all the construction goes with it, and we are all alike headed for the bottom.

That's why I don't trust "Constitutional scholars" when they tell me that the Congress has authority to do all sorts of enormous, intrusive (and costly) things based on the "commerce clause" or a "penumbra" or some case law precedent.  I rather trust what the document says, and it says very clearly that the Congress can do a certain number of limited things.  The writers didn't merely write a commerce clause, they spelled out the 18 specific things that Congress was permitted to do: Article I, Section 8. 

The first of these 18 things says, in part, "...to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States..." and that would seem to cover a lot more than just the rigid list.  This seeming is really a mirage.  Our Congress is dazzled by the lights coming off the iceberg, but what they think they see is not there.

First, they often neglect the common Defence and they certainly neglect paying the Debts; why then should they be trusted by what they say is our "general Welfare"?

Second, the general welfare of the country as a whole is NOT necessarily the individual welfare of the many citizens who live there.  There are 435 Representatives, 100 Senators, one President, and 9 Supreme Court Justices - 545 people.  Managing the affairs of the country as a whole - its foreign policy, its roads and mail and armed forces, its public debts, and its citizenship and immigration law - is enough of a job for them.  Managing the affairs of over 300 million individuals is preposterous.  There is no possible way it can be done, unless the numbers of such people are multiplied to an intolerable burden.

Third, the Constitution says that we the people establish it; it is not the government's statement to us of how they will operate, but ours to them.  It was not written just to promote the general Welfare, either:

establish Justice - equality of treatment and opportunity under the law
ensure domestic Tranquility - peace and safety on the streets; controlling crime and putting down mobs
provide for the common defence - treaties, alliances, fighting and discouraging enemies abroad
secure the Blessings of Liberty - the free exercise of the "inalienable rights" all citizens inherently posess

I've saved "general Welfare" until now because it is the point of dispute.  There are plenty of people who assume this means that the government is ultimately responsible for taking care of us in every respect, and that if when some are not as generally well-off as others, they have the right and obligation to correct it through force of law.  I think that's self-evidently false.  Any government that does that destroys the general Welfare, so it simply can't mean that.

Nor does the Constitution say that.  To quote the great saint Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons, "It will mean what the words say."  And the Constitution spends a lot of time spelling out exactly which things Congress and the rest of the Government are permitted to do.  It's plain that those things are what is meant by promoting the general welfare of the United States.  That's why that list of 18 items in Article I, Section 8 STARTS with "general welfare."  It's not meant as a catch-all for "whatever Congress damn well pleases, and shut up, that's why."  It's an idea that is then defined throughout the rest of the document: to promote the general welfare, Congress is permitted to do these certain and specific things; the President is permitted to do these things; the Courts will do this and this but NOT those, etc. etc.

The last of the list of 18 items is to make any necessary laws for executing the powers of the government as granted by the Constitution.  The highlighted phrase, again, reinforces this basic notion of a government restrained by law, subject to limits that it cannot ignore or alter at whim.

Then come the Amendments, and they are the clincher, especially numbers nine and ten:

9. The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
10. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

It's as clear as the words they wrote - the government's powers are strictly defined by the Constitution, but NOT the people's rights.  If it's not specified, then the government is not allowed to do it, and the people are - or the individual states they live in.

It's easy to see how that makes sense - a State is easier to change than a country.  If the people think that the government ought to step in to handle something, it's quicker to ask their home state to pass the law.  If it's a bad idea it's then easier to change the law back, and not be overridden by the interests of fifteen other states.  If it's a good idea then the other states are free to adopt it themselves.  And if all else fails, the people who don't like that law can move to another state.  In fact, people do it all the time.

Of course one could always leave America as a whole.  The lefties certainly threatened it enough over the past 25 years, depending on who was sitting in the Oval Office.  But nearly none of them did, and why should they?  They are citizens of a still-great nation.  It would be terrible to be forced from their own country.  It would be equally terrible if that country simply vanished out from underneath all of us.  That's unfortunately what threatens us now.  The government has long since stopped actually reading the Constitution and instead prefers to do whatever it pleases.  It so happens that a lot of it pleases a significant number of the people as well - but according to the Constitution, that doesn't matter.  Even a popular law can be unconstitutional and thus invalid.  Therein is a large part of our safety: it's easy to ride some popular opinion at the moment, but the law is a lasting thing and it can endure long after the people have wearied of its burden, because the few who profit from it defend it to the bitter end.

Thomas More:  He should go free, were he the devil himself, until he broke the law.
Roeper:  So you would give even the devil benefit of law?
More:  I would.
Roeper:  I would cut down every law in England to get the devil!
More:  Oh?  And when the devil turned round upon you, where would you hide once the law's gone flat?  I give the devil the benefit of law - for my own safety's sake.

Nobody thinks that things will suddenly turn upon them.  Cromwell didn't, and the very monster he loosed upon More came for him as well.  The Framers of the Constitution knew this.  These government intrustions will intrude upon everyone, including those so gladly endorsing them now.  That's why it's worth remembering the actual Constitution, and what it says, and sticking to it.

Hey, NYC!

Your mayor is an idiot.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg appeared on Katie Couric’s show Monday night to discuss the attempted car bombing in Times Square. Between reassuring viewers at home that New York was safe and praising the city’s resilient spirit, Bloomberg wondered aloud if the culprit behind the Times Square car bomb was “a mentally deranged person or somebody with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health-care bill or something.”

Now there is a chance that the Pakistani-American arrested at the airport trying to head out of the country may have been upset about Obamacare, but I think not. And before any of you teabaggers get any ideas, Nurse Bloomberg is warning you about any reprisals against poor Muslims.

Gratitude (Update)

update to this.

She goes to jail.

Listen, Darlin', you can whine all you want about the gummint getting into your business, but you let them into your business when you had them pay for your kids. No judge is asking me who visits my apartment because Hillsborough County isn't paying my rent.

The only gummint employee getting into my business is my VA doctor.

Takeover Takedown

As of last night, thirteen separate states are already suing the federal government regarding the Health Insurance takeover.

While reporting this last night, the local talking head said something that made me laugh aloud: he assured us that "experts" (whom he neither quoted nor identified, natch!) said it was Constitutional, because "federal law trumps state law." (He may as well have added "So there!")

Now, he's right that the Constitution is binding on the several states, but that still leaves open the question of whether THIS is Constitutionally permissible.  So here I am with my pocket copy of the Constitution... Look, it's the Tenth Amendment! "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
 
For the sake of this post, we have to set aside the vast numbers of times the Congress has already ignored the Constitution and pretend that this time, they do care what it says and will abide by it.  You may pull something making this stretch, so take your time.

Good?  Good.

Right at the outset this Amendment is bad news for would-be totalitarians and Big Brotherists: it states openly and plainly that the powers of the United States Government are delegated to it by the people via the Constitution.  They are not inherent to it like the rights of the people are to them.  They are borrowed, and therefore can be taken back when used unwisely or recklessly.  In brief, We the People are the adults of this relationship; the Congress, the President, and the Courts are the balky children, and their powers over us are an allowance we grant exclusively at our sufferance.  We can ground them if they misbehave.  And this is the consistent language of the rest of the Constitution: in the Preamble, it is We the People who ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States, not the other way around.  Article I starts thus: "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States..." etc.  And that confirms what was written in the Declaration of Independence, that Governments are established only to protect the inherent rights of the people, "deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed."

I highlighted those two words "herein granted" because they further illustrate what the Tenth Amendment was designed to emphasize - the Constitution is meant as an upper limit, not a minimum requirement.  If said powers are not "herein" the Constitution, they are "reserved to the States respectively, or to the People."  And even in the faintest penumbra and emanations of the Constitution, there is nowhere the right to have one's health costs insured by the Federal Treasury.  There's no right to have them insured at all by anybody.

So... going all the way back to our talking head, I would say that a federal law has to be Constitutional in order to be valid and binding on the states.  This thing ain't.

Am I confident about this?  Absolutely.  Will it matter to our rapacious government?  I'm not holding my breath, let's just say that.  If governments stuck to what they were told we may all still be British subjects; no revolution would have been necessary.  By their nature governments prey on their own people.  They don't shrink unless someone shrinks them. and then only with great truculence.  And We are not the same People as the revolutionaries and Founding Fathers.  They helped carve the colonies out of the wilderness, fought to keep them safe, and did so with no promise that their far-distant King and Parliament could swoop in at a moment's notice with millions in federal aid if some flood or fire obliterated their town.  Even the most urbane and loyalist of them had to be a lot more self-reliant than we are.

Not for a moment am I ungrateful to live today, with modern medicine, roads, cheap goods, the Internet, and a thousand other conveniences.  Still I have to say, they're not the reason for living, and they never were.  None of them would mean much if we were reduced to subservience.  Chains of gold and velvet still bind.  These particular chains are in fact so lavish that their forging will beggar every mother's son of us, and we will be a nation of pauper slaves instead of the land of the free and the home of the brave.

AND an update from Noel at Cold Fury: such a major and transformative act has been bipartisan, up until now.  Hell, even Prohibition was a two-thirds majority idea.  As that was eventually repealed, so let this be.

Well, we've got this much going for us, anyway

AKA another good reason to bitterly cling to that grog:

Two major studies confirm the current medical consensus that moderate drinking appears to be good for the heart but heavy drinking is bad for health in general.
...
The new study, using data from nine National Health Interview Surveys done between 1987 and 2000, is more thorough than previous reports and provides "some of the strongest evidence to date" of a link between moderate drinking and a lower risk of cardiovascular disease...

So, when this new health plan drives us to drink, we're all right as long as we moderate - and with what it will cost, we won't have the money to overindulge.

Hey, maybe the government will actually give a tax credit to anyone who opens a still?

Once again, a crime?

Update to this.

The perp is a 16-year-old from Atlantic County. Mind you, if this were my son I'd beat him till my arm fell off. I still do not understand how this is a crime. Keith Olbermann has said much worse and he isn't in jail. Since when is offending with words a crime?

The Bible has some pretty offensive stuff in it. Would reading those portions over a Wal-Mart intercom be a harrassment and bias intimidation crime? This bugs me a little.

Well done indeed

No... beyond well-done.  Spectacular stuff from Doc Zero:

The right to protect yourself, and your family, from injury and death is an essential part of your dignity as a free man or woman. Without the First Amendment, you are a slave. Without the Second, you are a child.

The Western nations which have abandoned this essential understanding of an individual’s right to self-defense have become rotting orphanages filled with dependent children.

As the cool kids like to say: read the whole thing.  Brilliant.

Okay, Van Owen

I felt uncomfortable using four dead police officers to slam Huckabee. Which is why I haven't blogged it. Also, Huckabee's was the first stumble in a long line of stumbles that kept the killer on the streets.

But there is some comfort now that no more tax dollars will be used to feed and house the savage who committed these crimes.

Michelle Malkin (who happens to be from my home town of Absecon, NJ) has a roundup.

What she shows is a guy who was very generous with commutations, especially if one could push the buttons of his Christian compassion.

Maybe, as a pastor, Huckabee displayed a trait which is commendable in clergy but a problem for a governor (or president). Romans 13 says the king does not bear the sword for nothing; his duty is to punish the wicked. Perhaps Pastor Mike doesn't have it in him to fulfill that duty.

One more thought. According to Michelle, Huckabee has granted clemency to 703 convicts, including a dozen murderers. Clemmons and Wayne Dumond we know about, but how many more are out there?

News You Can Use

So this doesn't happen to you.

TAMPA - A University of South Florida student told investigators that he disabled a smoke alarm in his dorm room so he could smoke marijuana undetected. Early Friday morning, he was charged on both counts, one of which is a felony.

We encounter a similar problem during a residential job while installing the indoor coil. The torch used to braze the coil to the copper refrigerant lines produces enough smoke to set off the alarm.

The solution my stoner friends, is to cover the alarm with a latex surgical glove. Then turn on Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and you are good to go.

Get a load of this guy's photo. I think he's had the munchies a few times.

Here she is....

...the future Mrs. Barking Spider.

The good news is that since Obama got smacked down for channelling his inner Sharpton (or Jeremiah Wright), could the Era of the Mau-Mau be over? Sharpton and Jesse piped up, but no one paid attention. Obama had to backtrack because he was getting killed in the polls over this.

To actually see the end of the Era of Mau-Mau in my lifetime! It would be the best thing to happen to black people in 40 years. To finally be liberated from victimhood.

Kilt 'im a b'ar when he war onluh three

This is one of the rare times when I can wholeheartedly cheer for the home team at Madison Square Garden.

One of the NYPD's newest officers made his first arrest Thursday just minutes after graduating from the Police Academy in a ceremony at Madison Square Garden.

Officer Dariel Firpo, 23, was leaving the midtown Manhattan ceremony when he saw a 79-year-old man being robbed of his wallet and thrown to the ground by a mugger, police said. The mugger tried to run away, but Firpo caught him without incident...

For those not familiar with the venue, Madison Square Garden, "The World's Most Famous Arena," is like many less-popular arenas: it has a giant marquee advertising upcoming events. Unlike many arenas, however, it is also located above Penn Station, one of the world's busiest railway stations, and is heavily-patrolled by New York's Finest on the outside and the Transit Police on the inside. What kind of doofus tries to mug a guy in this location on this particular day?

The man Firpo arrested, Jeffrey Grant, was being charged with robbery. Grant, 47, has 48 previous arrests and was just released last week from Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, N.Y., after serving time for a robbery conviction, police said.

OK, then.

Forget the restraining order....

...buy a gun.

TAMPA - Seven weeks ago, Richard Anthony McTear Jr. broke Jasmine Bedwell's door, hit her several times, broke items throughout her apartment, held her down, and poured household cleaner on her face and head, sheriff's deputies say.

A neighbor called deputies, and charges were filed with the state attorney's office.

Five weeks ago, McTear threatened to go to Bedwell's home and kill her infant son, according to deputies. They say he later bruised her enough for her to be taken to a hospital. More charges were filed.

Investigators say McTear followed through on his threat against her son early Tuesday by beating Bedwell, throwing the child onto a concrete floor and then kidnapping 3-month-old Emanuel Wesley Murray and throwing him out of a moving car onto Interstate 275. The infant was found dead.

McTear was arrested hours later Tuesday morning after a short chase. He is charged with first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse, kidnapping, felony battery and burglary with battery.

From my home I can walk to where this poor baby lived. On my ride home from work I pass by where this monster tossed out this child onto the highway. Read this story on how the local justice system could not find a way to put this beast in a cage before he murdered the innocent.

There is no legislation, no government solution to this. Restraining order? Sure ladies, hold up that piece of paper when the crazed, coked-up ex breaks down your door and see how well it works.

If you need a restraining order, you also need a gun. If you were out in the woods being attacked by a bear or a lion you would have no issue with blowing the creature away. It is also true in the urban jungle. To save yourself and your children you must drop the beast when he gets into range.

The International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement…

…better known as the Uhurus.

Mr Bingley posted this last week, and I am finally getting around to throwing in my two cents.

This is the first I have heard of the Uhurus outside of St Pete FL. They are pretty big here, but not as big as they were around 13 years ago.

You can tell by the name that they are black Marxists. They do not call themselves African American. They are Africans. No one, and I mean no one, hates whitey more than the Uhurus.

I first heard of them in October 1996 when a druggie named TyRon Lewis decided he didn’t want to get out of his car and tried to run down the St Pete cop who was standing in front of the car. The cop shot his sorry posterior dead. The Uhurus rioted for two days, which earned them a community center (which they named after the dead druggie) and some pull in the St Pete City Council.

But times have changed for the race baiting business. Last June at a graduation party a teen named Javon Dawson was firing off a gun. The St. Pete Police arrived and told him to put the weapon down. He pointed the weapon at police. Guess what happen to him?

The Uhurus screamed. They claim the kid wasn’t armed (GSR said otherwise). They wanted the state attorney to recuse himself and for Charlie Crist to pick a independent investigator. Crist, who normally panders to minorities, didn’t give these people the time of day. The cops were rightfully cleared and the Uhurus didn’t even have the guts to riot about it. I guess poor Javon won’t be getting a community center named after him.

Local politicians have discovered that there is no need to fear the Uhurus. This must be true in Oakland as well, since a ton of Dem politicians went to the memorial for the four officers this piece of dirt murdered.

Normal race baiters like the Revvums Al and Jesse stay clear of the Uhurus. All they can do is whine. They have no political pull whatsoever.

And thank God for that


Unlike the Philly group MOVE, the Uhurus haven't sworn off indoor toilets.

Reefer Madness

Last night the good folks at Netflix brought me the 1936 documentary "Reefer Madness". Guys, this film has more laughs in it that most movies that try to be. The intro brushes over heroin and cocaine to warn parents of the real threat to their children, the madness of "marihuana".

The school principal is talking to this kid who was a straight A student and top tennis player until he started listening to jazz and smoking reefer. 'So Bill," asks the principal, "Have you picked up any bad habits lately?" I shouted at the screen, "You know he's smoking reefer! Ask him if he's smoking reefer!"

There are teens using reefer and then committing murder (I didn't think a stoner would be that motivated.)

The dealer doesn't sell his dope by the ounce; he buys it from the supplier premade into cigarettes. The machine used to roll the joints was very similar to a kind of machine advertised on TV for tobacco back in the 1970's (Who here remembers cigarette ads on TV?)

Also, there is a scene where the principal is on the office of the local FBI. "Marihauna is grown in every state of the union, "explain the G-man, 'There's no interstate commerce so our hands are tied." Been a long time since anyone in the federal government gave a rat's toenail about the Interstate Commerce Clause.

I am worried about my employer. He listens to a lot of jazz, and that leads to getting hooked on reefer.

OMG! I listened to Steely Dan last night. Am I next to succumb?