Category: News

That’s what I make of this capitalization from this story about a drug bust in Wisconsin:

Along with the arrests, police seized powder cocaine, crack cocaine, marijuana, heroin and Ecstasy, seven handguns and ammunition, seven vehicles and $25,000 in cash. Police refused to give details.

However, if that’s the case, shouldn’t it be:

Along with the arrests, police seized powder cocaine, crack cocaine, marijuana, heroin and Ecstasy® 3-4 methylenedioxymethamphetamine, seven handguns and ammunition, seven vehicles and $25,000 in cash. Police refused to give details.

Ecstasy has been in the mainstream 20 years now. How long until we drop the capital E. (I mean that in the grammatical way, not as a slang for actually, you know, doing ecstasy.) No one calls white lady Heroin any more.

Those Bosnian peacekeepers will be home before Christmas.

This article about the serial killer in Kansas known as Blind, Torture, Kill, gives numerous details about the killer that he’s revealed about himself in new missives:

According to police, BTK claims to have been born in 1939, making the killer either 64 or 65 years old. The statement did not say where he was born or where he lived, but that his family moved frequently and always lived near railroad tracks.

BTK’s communications indicate a lifelong fascination with trains, police said.

…

Among other details provided by police:

BTK’s father was killed in World War II, and he was raised by his mother, with his grandparents caring for him while she was at work. When he was about 11, his mother began dating a railroad detective.

His grandfather played the fiddle and died of lung disease.

BTK’s communications include accounts of a cousin named Susan who moved to Missouri, and of a woman he knew named Petra who had a younger sister named Tina.

Unstated, but obvious to anyone who reads too much detective fiction and dabbles sometimes in the composition of same, is this unspoken but apparent klew:

Since he’s only now opening up to the police after apparently going without killing anyone for 18 years and he’s in his middle sixties and he’s got a history of lung disease in the family.

His final mockery comes as he reveals himself on his deathbed when we cannot punish him.

Blackfive speaks about ribbon magnets for your car and suggests you put that money somewhere where it will actually help troops. I concur.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch expresses its continuing sympathy for illegal aliens with this story: Latvian family faces deportation threat:

Ofelia Boudaguian says she hoped for fair treatment when she and her family came to the United States in 1995, after years of suffering discrimination and violence in Latvia.

After nearly a decade in the St. Louis area, though, Boudaguian says she feels let down by the American legal system, which has denied the family political asylum and now threatens them with deportation at any moment.

“We live now day by day. It’s so scary,” she said. A knock on the door might mean that she and her husband, Vitalik Boudaguian, and their two children must gather their belongings, submit to arrest and go to a detention facility to await deportation.

Their one-year tourist visas expired May 18, 1996.

Because starting deportation precedings after these people overstayed their visa by nine years and exhausted all recourse through the system is just unfair!

The system is only fair when it does what I want it to do, regardless of the existing rules. Natch.

The headline, Report: Birth Rates for Older Women Rising, really just makes sense, especially when you consider the gist of the story:

U.S. women in their 30s and early 40s had higher birth rates in 2003, while births among teenagers fell for the 12th straight year, federal health officials said on Tuesday.

Well, of course they’re having higher birthrates. Come on, hasn’t anyone else noticed that women in their 30s and 40s have become smoking hotter in the last ten or fifteen years? I mean, when I was a young man, they looked okay, but now, dayumm. They look mighty appetizing for procreative activities and all drills thereof.

The fact that I am in my 30s or 40s is merely coincidental.

Important quote from this article about the author of Fast Food Nation‘s week performance at University of Wisconsin:

“I was looking for more of a venue for action,” said Kirsten Jordan, a UW-Madison student majoring in geography.

A major in geography? Ha-ha! That will prepare you for anything for any number of years until the Bush administration rewrites world maps and alters world climate. Also, clear-cuts and strip mines to alter topography. So in the next four years, about the time this kid is graduating, all that book-learning will be useless.

Hope she’s smart, like me, and picked up a useful second major like philosophy.

(Link seen on Ann Althouse. Well, not on Ann Althouse, but on her blog.)

In a move that reminds me of extranationals talking about the American election this month, apparently ministers from other Arabic states are squawking about the Iraqi elections due this January:

Violence and boycotts could yet stop promised Iraqi elections going ahead on time, Arab ministers said, despite Baghdad’s confident assertion the landmark vote would be held on January 30.

Iraq had somewhat upstaged a major international conference in Egypt on its future by announcing the date for the first post-Saddam Hussein elections a day before the meeting opened.

But not everyone was impressed by its confidence.

So let’s run down the list. Doubters include:

• Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit
• Jordanian Foreign Minister Hani Mulki
• an Arab delegate to the conference, speaking on condition of anonymity
• Jordanian government spokeswoman Asma Khodr

Hey, here’s a hearty cup of butt the hell out for those representatives of undemocratic societies who have sound bites about sacred democracy. You know what happens if the Sunnis boycott? They don’t vote. Choosing not to participate does not render the decision of the participants invalid. It just means you have to wait until the next election to choose again whether or not to participate.

In Wisconsin, a nutbar in the woods, instead of hunting deer, shot five other hunters in whose tree stand he was trespassing. Story.

Uh oh, and wouldn’t you know it, he had an assault rifle:

Five deer hunters were shot to death and three were wounded Sunday by a man who was hunting from someone else’s tree stand in northern Wisconsin, authorities said.

Chai Soua Vang, 36, of St. Paul, Minn., was arrested by a Department of Natural Resources warden just before dark.

The bizarre attack happened on private land in this Sawyer County town about noon on the second day of the gun deer season, a time when hundreds of thousands of deer hunters are in the woods throughout Wisconsin.

Sawyer County Chief Deputy Tim Zeigle said Chai Soua Vang, 36, of St. Paul, Minn., was arrested by a Department of Natural Resources warden just before dark about 4 p.m. on a road about one mile from the scene, just across the Sawyer County border in Rusk County.

Vang was armed with an SKS semiautomatic assault rifle, a weapon that’s similar to a 30.06 but seldom used by deer hunters, Zeigle said.

Let the call for a renewed ban begin! Oh, wait, somewhere out there it already has.

Personally, I think there’s more to the story–like the relationship between the shooter and the dead and wounded–that will not be included in follow-up stories after the nationwide gun banning crowd crows about the dangers of guns.

Disabled dolphin jumping again with world’s first artificial fin, seeking Sarah Connor.

What the (obscenity deleted) is the Toronto Star thinking to entertain the question Should Canada indict Bush?

When U.S. President George W. Bush arrives in Ottawa — probably later this year — should he be welcomed? Or should he be charged with war crimes?

It’s an interesting question. On the face of it, Bush seems a perfect candidate for prosecution under Canada’s Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Act.

This act was passed in 2000 to bring Canada’s ineffectual laws in line with the rules of the new International Criminal Court. While never tested, it lays out sweeping categories under which a foreign leader like Bush could face arrest.

In particular, it holds that anyone who commits a war crime, even outside Canada, may be prosecuted by our courts. What is a war crime? According to the statute, it is any conduct defined as such by “customary international law” or by conventions that Canada has adopted.

Holy faltering hockey league, but I’m volunteering for the invasion force to liberate Bush should some Canadian try to make a statement by doing this. Crikey on a cracker, but doesn’t this Walkom fellow understand that the local bar’s softball team in the J’s summer social league could successfully trump the entire Canadian military? I mean, no matter how well the six Canadians remaining in the Canadian military can fight, they’re still outnumbered because, remember, in softball there are ten players on the field. Even if the Canadian military calls up the reserves composed of out-of-work NHL players, we’ll call up the gas station’s softball team!

Canadian winter be damned! I’m from Wisconsin. Bring it.

It’s amazing that anyone would take these sorts of sentiments seriously. I don’t, otherwise I wouldn’t be so glib.

But Thomas Hokkum is no Gordon Sinclair.

(Link seen on Little Green Footballs.)

No, please, it is a mental illness, making me a protected class completely unfireable in the workplace and able to seek special accommodation from the rest of you:

Animal hoarders are not necessarily mentally ill, said Gail Steketee, a psychologist at Boston University. “The best bet is to call it a wellintentioned behavior gone awry.”

Steketee is one of dozens of scientists who volunteer with the Hoarding of Animals Research Consortium in Boston, a group formed in 1997 to study the problem. There is no known treatment, she said.

Animal hoarding, a term coined five years ago, is defined as collecting more animals than can be cared for, combined with a failure to realize the squalid conditions are hurting both the homeowner and the animals.

Someone fund another study, and keep going until I get to collect Social Security for having large numbers of cats.

Voters in Columbia, Missouri have apparently passed referenda decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana: Voters cut marijuana penalties:

Decriminalization means if you’re caught in the city with a small amount of marijuana, “you don’t get arrested, you don’t go to jail, and you don’t get a record,” according to Dan Viets, a Columbia defense attorney who helped spearhead the effort to pass the propositions. He’s also defended clients against marijuana charges here for 18 years.

Fortunately, though, the United States Congress will undoubtedly move quickly to make it a Federal crime to possess a joint to cover situations such as this where residents of a particular area try to determine their own standards of behavior.

Here’s a heartening story for those who like security cameras: Apparent kidnapping videotaped by California mall camera; woman put in trunk of car:

Two men were caught on a mall’s security camera as they chased a woman through a parking lot, then grabbed and stuffed her into the trunk of a car, authorities said.

Shoppers nearby seemed to notice the incident Sunday night, but none attemped to stop it.

Police on Thursday were still trying to determine the identities of the woman, who appeared to be in her 20s, and two men seen on the tape made at Corona Discount Mall about 40 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

Remember, the camera doesn’t make the victim less dead or less in-the-trunk-of-the-car; it gives the authorities, safely seated at a desk before a monitor, clues to who did it.

Now, class, how would this scenario played out differently if the woman had been carrying a gun?

To add fun to the story:

“It’s very discouraging right now and it’s really difficult for us, because we don’t know who the victim is,” he told KCAL-TV. “And it’s obvious that some kind of crime occurred.”

The department had received several calls from witnesses and others in recent days, but had no solid leads, Officer Jesse Jurado said. He said investigators had not yet ruled out the possibility that the incident was a hoax.

Because the camera caught it so clearly, the authorities think it might have been a hoax. So instead of using the camera to determine if the shooting were justified as self defense or not, the discouraged authorities are confused. Was it the crime of kidnapping, or the crime of confusing the authorities and making fun of their cameras?

I guess they’ll know when they find the body.

Here’s what you should put in a “perfect” Scouting for Food bag this year:

• 2 cans of hearty soup, stew or chili supply many nutrients;
• 2 cans of tuna, chicken, salmon or luncheon meat contain protein and iron, and canned salmon is a source of calcium and omega-3 fatty acids;
• 1 can of fruit supplies vitamins A and C, folate, potassium, fiber and other healthy substances;
• 1 can of 100 percent pure fruit juice contains vitamin C and often beta carotene;
• 1 can of vegetables supplies beta carotene, vitamin C, folate, complex carbohydrates, fiber and potassium;
• 1 can of tomato or pasta sauce contains lycopene, a healthy substance that is more available to your body in canned and cooked tomatoes than in fresh tomatoes;
• 1 canned meal offers a variety of ingredients and nutrients;
• 1 can of beans contains plenty of protein, complex carbohydrates and fiber; and
• 1 can of evaporated milk makes an excellent source of calcium and protein.

Here’s what you’re getting out of the Noggle home again this year, same as last year:

• Any cans of meat, such as Spam, we received as a joke.
• Any stray cans of stuff that I bought on sale as a bachelor (but was too lazy to prepare) which archeological digs have uncovered in our pantry.
• The annual can of clam chowder that I buy because I like clam chowder (but was too lazy to prepare). Because Heather doesn’t like the the smell, she gets rid of the can by any means necessary.
• A can of mandarin oranges. Where do they keep coming from?
• A can or two of corn or beans that we have, which we would eat on our own but because we have an extra, we throw it in.
• Any cans of french-cut green beans bought by mistake. Probably by me.

I mean, come on, it’s charity. I give surplus and cast offs. Whenever someone starts telling me what to give, I think he or she is about one step away from telling me what he or she wants to take and one and a half steps away from just taking it.

Back in the old days, we could say ex post facto, but apparently nobody in Webster Groves studied Latin:

Some of the chickens have to go, too, and/or some of Silpoch’s pigeons, under a resolution passed Nov. 2 by the Webster Groves City Council. It stipulates that Silpoch may keep a total of a dozen birds, no rooster, at her Grant Road home. She now has 44 birds; the council has given her until Jan. 2 to find homes for the remaining 32.

You see, it was once tradition that the government could not pass a law and punish you for behavior before the law was passed. But now, as far as owning property is concerned, the governments can and do strip you of your possession by fiat whenever it wants.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch does some fine investigative journalism–namely, examining public records–to uncover a fundamental flaw in the public educational system as exemplified by the St. Louis City schools. The problem: lots of money going to administrative personnel, including a number who make over $100,000 a year. Story: High-paying salaries triple in district.

Too many administrators drawing on too much gravy. I mean, how many assistant superintendents do you need? There’s too much infrastructure designed to perpetuate itself and its funding, and too little of the money goes to teachers and to purchase resources that actually directly impact the students.

I don’t disagree that you have to competitively pay administrators, or that some administration is necessary, but I do question the number of employees who spread the gravy around.