To be able to say "Noggle," you first must be able to say "Nah."
Kids arrested in Port Washington, Wisconsin, for Ding Dong Ditch.
So make sure you’re always on the stoop after you ring the bell, or they’ll get you for Attempted Ding Dong Ditch or Conspiracy to Commit Ding Dong Ditch. And if that’s not enough, they’ll make subsidiary charges like Wearing Sneakers During Commission of Ding Dong Ditch.
Because everything changed on 9/11.
Okay, I am done now.
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Professor O’Neal explains:
Indiana center Jermaine O’Neal said the NBA’s desire to put an age limit in the next collective bargaining agreement could be driven by racism.
“In the last two or three years, the rookie of the year has a been a high school player. There were seven high school players in the All-Star game, so why we even talking an age limit?” said O’Neal, who was drafted out of high school in 1996 by the Portland Trail Blazers.
“As a black guy, you kind of think that’s the reason why it’s coming up. You don’t hear about it in baseball or hockey. To say you have to be 20, 21 to get in the league, it’s unconstitutional. If I can go to the U.S. army and fight the war at 18, why can’t you play basketball for 48 minutes?”
Heh. And that’s a mean heh.
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No, I don’t mean the obvious absurdity of Illinois distributing scratch ‘n’ sniff cards so authoritarian figures can reference the scent of methamphetamine ingredients. No, look beyond it and find more subtle absurdity in the following:
The cards, when scratched, would emit the odor of anhydrous ammonia, an ingredient used in the methamphetamine production process that smells distinctively like cat urine. They would be distributed, by the Illinois State Police and the Board of Education, to teachers, school employees and day-care center employees to help them identify children who have been exposed to meth, the bill says.
“Most people haven’t smelled meth,” said state Rep. Michael P. McAuliffe, R-Chicago, who introduced the bill in late February, adding, “Not too many people know about this drug, and it’s everywhere.”
McAuliffe said last week that despite the rapid growth in meth use and production in Illinois, few people can detect the signs of addiction or exposure, particularly exposure to children. Many children, McAuliffe explained, live in homes where meth is produced or smoked and absorb the smell in their hair, skin and clothes.
“The teacher might say, ‘How many cats do you have at home?'” McAuliffe demonstrated. “The student could say, ‘We don’t have any cats.'”
Which is more patently nuts?
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A Best Buy customer is handcuffed and taken to jail for paying with $2 bills, and the police call 9/11:
For Baltimore County police, said spokesman Bill Toohey, “It’s a sign that we’re all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world.”
That’s right. Overly aggressive and inappropriate police behavior threatening to cause a stain on the public trust? Just call 9/11!
(Link seen on Instapundit.)
UPDATE: John Cole had the same thought.
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We’re waiting to know what to think: Where the current and former presidents dressed appropriately for being indoors while attending a solemn occasion such as viewing the corpse of a pope?
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So Jimmy Carter isn’t going to the Pope’s funeral. Doesn’t surprise me, actually, considering this story:
Secret Papal Election Set for April 18.
A secret election + Jimmy Carter in the area? Perhaps the Vatican fears Carter calling the election invalid and demanding international monitors and a straightforward crooked election of a tyrant.
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Missouri State Senator Joan Bray (D-University City) also dissents from Go Directly to Jail by wanting to make a felony crime in the state of Missouri to not disclose a criminal record when getting a mail order bride:
Missouri men seeking a “mail-order bride” from a foreign country might soon have to disclose their criminal records and previous marriages to the prospective fiancee.
A bill before the Legislature would require the full and accurate disclosure of such information. The measure would apply equally to a woman who sought a husband from another country. A violation would be a felony.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Joan Bray, D-University City, is an attempt to stop the abuse of foreign women who suddenly find themselves in a strange country married to violent men.
A ham-fisted attempt which probably wouldn’t protect that many foreign women in a strange country married to violent men. But hey, felonies don’t cost anything to legislate!
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Apparently, congressman F’n Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) dissents with the themes in Go Directly to Jail as he wants to pass a law that mandates show a boob on television, go to Federal prison:
Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner III, R-Wis., told cable industry executives attending the National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. conference here on Monday that criminal prosecution would be a more efficient way to enforce the indecency regulations.
“I’d prefer using the criminal process rather than the regulatory process,” Sensenbrenner told the executives.
You know, perhaps I could support the concept if we extended the definition of boob to publicity hound, power-mad elected official.
Also, perhaps this explains Sensenbrenner’s strong anti-immigration stance. He wants to save them from indecency on American television.
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Support grows for beefing up U.S. forces: Some see situations where volunteers may not be enough
The lead:
The war-strained all-volunteer U.S. military has a growing manpower problem and a cross-section of Washington policymakers has proposed a solution — increase the size of the regular military by 30,000, 40,000 or even 100, 000 or more.
While just about all the proponents maintain they want to achieve the increase by offering recruits bigger financial incentives or through appeals to patriotism, lurking in the background is a possibility that for now remains anathema to all but a few. The military draft, which coughed up its last conscript in 1973, could make a comeback if recruiting doesn’t pick up and if America’s commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan turn into long-term occupations or if the Bush administration’s tough-minded foreign policy means military action in places like Iran or North Korea.
Edward Epstein, Chronicle Washington Bureau, writer of this piece begins blurring the line early; the first paragraph is about increasing the size of the army, and the second draws its circle, shakes its depacapitated chicken, and reanimates THE DRAFT!!!
So while Edward Epstein, Chronicle Washington Bureau, tries to confuse his readers by lumping those who want a bigger military in with those who want a draft, let me help by breaking them out:
Wants a Draft/Thinks Draft Might Be Necessary:
But he warned that if the Iraq occupation drags on, other foreign military operations are launched and a half-million more soldiers are needed, “I don’t think we can get there without a draft.”
He favors the national service idea, and says that in his vision those who opt for military service would only serve as military police, truck drivers or in homeland security posts.
Those Who Want Bigger Military:
So although many people have called for more military personnel, a far smaller number of people have called for a draft. Several quotable notables in the article say it will be tough to maintain or to elevate force levels. However, only one person in the article seems adamant that the draft is a real danger.
Edward Epstein, Chronicle Washington Bureau.
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A controversial St. Louis Alderman, facing a recall, sues the leaders of the recall effort for defamation:
A petition to remove Bauer from office is gaining momentum, even as Bauer levels a $2 million suit against the organizers. Records show that Bauer himself has profited from development in the ward. While the deal appears not to have violated any rules, some of Bauer’s colleagues frown on investing in their own ward because of the potential for conflict.
The alderman defends himself:
For his part, Bauer says he is the target of a “civil conspiracy” spreading lies to besmirch his name.
“There are some people who have a personal agenda – they want to prevent good things from happening in Dogtown,” Bauer said.
A civil conspiracy? Is that the new euphemism for accountability to voters and elections in the parlance of the Elect(ed), who feel they should be above reproach?
I fully expect this lawsuit to be dismissed (SLAPPed down, as it were), but I imagine its headlines will have a chilling effect on some opposition as the lawsuit gets big fonts but the dismissal does not.
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As if there were any doubt, Mark Steyn is firmly on Hugh Hewitt’s side and doesn’t recognize the danger in which the Republican party finds itself:
The notion, for example, that poor Terri Schiavo will cost Republicans votes in a year and a half’s time is ludicrous.
It’s not the principled stand on life that will cost the Republicans; it’s the intrusion of the Federal government into a private matter, with eleventh hour legislation to move a single case to Federal court because the party in power in the Federal legislature did not like the outcome of the state courts.
No, I would have preferred to see Schiavo’s husband turn her care over to her parents (hey, and I wouldn’t have even condemned him for taking a million bucks for it). I’d rather Terry Schiavo continue her hopeless existence unheralded in a Florida hospice into perpetuity, in the obscurity in which most people with functioning brains toil. But if her guardian felt she would not have wanted to wither and die over the course of decades she would never know passed, then so be it; he could end the extraordinary measures continuing her life (a feeding tube is an extraordinary measure; if you doubt it, count the number you see on an ordinary day). But you know what? I and many like me recognized it’s not our business. It’s not clearly, obviously murder nor is it "forced starvation" it’s not forced feeding.
But the party for whom I vote most of the time on a Federal level has determined that Terri Schiavo’s life and death are its business. Therein lies the disparity, the cleft which shall yield a schism in the bloc that re-elected George W. Bush and has continued to send a Republican majority to Congress. It’s not a culture of life versus a culture of choice, it’s the culture of my business versuse the culture of “Hey, we’re in power now, so maybe it is the Federal government’s business since the Federal government is ours.”
Call them the pro-Federal-Business wing of the Republican party. I won’t call them theocrats because that’s not the issue; from whatever source they derive their beliefs, I care not. I do care that they’re using the mechanisms of federal government to impose them on everyone.
Supporters of the Republican Federal Steamroller (RFS, blogosphere, if you want a nifty abbreviation) chortle and ask me if I’m going to vote for John Kerry or Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2008. No, I won’t.
I will vote for the stronger foreign policy candidate for president in 2008. That’s the proper role of the president; to handle foreign policy.
The real danger to your Republican hegemony comes in 2006 and 2008 for the legislative branch of government. Because quite frankly, I am so disappointed with what the Republicans are doing in Congress that I will probably vote for the Libertarian candidate, however nutso and unqualified. And if the loss of my vote leads to a Democratic Congress, perhaps the Republicans can relearn their lesson and return to small government, Contract With Americaesque stylings. At least a Republican president won’t give the Democrat congress everything their socialist heart desires, so we won’t be much worse off than we are now.
If the worst case scenario occurs, and I help elect a Democrat congress and the Republicans cheese off voters who don’t recognize the proper role of the president to elect Clinton II (The Restoration), undoubtedly Hewitt, Steyn, et al., will blame me and my None-Of-My-Business-and-Especially-None-of-the-Federal-Government’s-Business brethen for the potential disasters ahead–National Health Care, National This, National That, International Law, Loss of Sovereignity, and so forth–without recognizing the role they played as cheerleaders to the Absolutely-Corrupted-By-Absolute-Power bunch we sent to Washington in 2004.
No, all damnation will be reserved for the libertarian conservatives who just wanted the Federal government to handle national things. That the Federal government wanted to dictate what a single individual would eat–PVS or not–won’t cross the minds of the small-government-conservatives-until-in-power legislators and their cheerleaders.
So be it. I cannot wait until 2006 so I can cast my vote.
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Pensioner ordered to cut the grass
A pensioner who took his daughter and son-in-law to court to force them to cut his grass has been forced to do it himself.
Paul Mueller, 72, argued he was too old to cut the lawn at the house he shared with daughter Karin and her husband Peter Hoffer.
He went to court to get them to take on the job at the house in Bonn, Germany.
But the plan backfired when the court ruled that the pensioner should be responsible for cutting the grass.
If he fails to do the job, his daughter, 43, is allowed to hire a professional gardener and make the old man pay the bill.
I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. I suppose I could do both: I could laugh at the absurdity of this silly Eurocrat idea, and cry because I realize by the time I am 72, the situation could be such in this country that I might have to sue my own damn kid to mow the schnucking lawn and lose.
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From a story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch entitled “Chain reaction“, we have this illuminating look at poor lawmaking:
That’s what Connie Davie of Creve Coeur thought when she saw dogs tied outside, all alone, day and night, in every kind of weather. In fact, she thought, as images of the lonely, pathetic-looking canines kept creeping into her mind, surely there is a law against such obvious abuse.
Curious, Davie called her local police department to find out just what the law said.
It said nothing. There was no law. As long as a dog has access to food, water and shelter, the law was happy.
Note the shading of story; a dog chained in a yard is subject to obvious abuse; the community must sanction the owner. Also, let’s understand the nature of this John Q., shall we?
Or volunteering for Stray Rescue of St. Louis. Or walking Eddie and Sherry, the dogs she fostered for Stray Rescue and ended up keeping.
But, she said, “I saw a need in my area for a law that addressed this issue of tethering.” Animals were suffering.
And when animals are suffering, Davie acts.
This particular citizen is an active volunteer for an animal advocacy group. One doubts that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch would wine-and-dine a Missouri Synod employee advocating schools to allow Lutheran youth groups meet on campus after school, but an animal group volunteer who agitates is just a plucky normal person.
“I worked with Beth for three to four months drafting an ordinance that we thought would be enforceable. I also worked with our police chief, Don Kayser, since he would be the one who’d have to enforce whatever we came up with,” she said.
“When I first met with the police chief, I told him I didn’t expect the police to be cruising around looking for chained dogs. And I told the city council that I didn’t expect the police to be the dog gestapo. But if someone calls to report that a dog is being mistreated, the police need to have the leverage to act on it.”
You see, the law is not designed for an instant enforcement; tether a dog, go to jail. Instead, it’s designed as a means by which to punish those select people about whom the neighbors complain, or whom the police want to punish. If cops see a tethered dog, they’re not always going to make an arrest. A good discretionary law, subject to arbitrary enforcement.
Davie smiled when she recalled that the final draft of the ordinance had a mistake in it. “It said that a dog could not be tied out continuously for more than six hours. It was supposed to say eight hours, because we wanted to take people who work into consideration. When one of the council members pointed out the typo, another council member said they’d be happy if it said we couldn’t chain a dog outside at all,” she said.
I cannot bold this paragraph enough. They made an error in the final legislation they passed, but that’s okay, because one legislator would prefer to take all tethering rights from dog owners altogether.
Davie still is amazed at the relative ease with which the ordinance passed. So much so that she has decided to broaden the battlefield.
She wants to get a similar measure enacted in St. Louis County.
So she wants me, and all St. Louis County residents, to adhere to her personal aesthetic standards of animal ownership. But wait, it’s not just me:
Davie is hoping that others will join her crusade, not just in St. Louis County but in other municipalities.
“What we did in Creve Coeur has been done in at least 59 other communities across the country,” she said. “It’s becoming kind of a movement, I think.”
John Q. wants the entire world to adhere to her standards.
There you have it. An animal rights advocate uses anecdotal evidence and emotionalism to hand law enforcement a law it can enforce at its whim. Whom will it impact the most? Law abiding citizens who own dogs but cannot afford thousand dollar fences but don’t want to leave their dogs in their homes while they’re at work. While they might have provided their tethered dogs with water, food, shelter, and amusement for the periods when they’re at work, they’ll have to give up their dogs or violate the law (I bet they just violate the law).
The more laws you make, the more lawbreakers, particularly when the laws target trivial misdeeds that many people do without mens rea or particular ill effect. I wonder what our society will be like in twenty years or thirty years when everyone knows that they’re already breaking laws….what could one more crime mean?
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According to a nugget in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols did not strike out in spring training. An almost unheard of occurrence:
He is the first player to go an entire spring without a strikeout since the Milwaukee Brewers’ Eric Young in 2003. The Chicago White Sox’ Joey Cora accomplished the feat in 1993 in 72 plate appearances. Outfielder Luis Saturia was the last Cardinals player to go all spring training without a strikeout in at least 20 plate appearances. He did so in 2002; however, he was reassigned before the end of camp.
No other player in Major League Baseball has done that since the year before last and no Cardinals spring trainee attendee has done that since two years ago. And that Cardinals player was demoted to the minor leagues.
If local sportswriters could have it, we know which Cardinal they would elevate to the papacy.
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New pope will hail from cardinals
So that puts those of us who are not Catholic and advanced members of the clergy out of the running. I was hoping to be a Cinderella story myself, a dark horse candidate who would bring a sort of everyman’s perspective to the papacy. Ah, well, at least I can console myself with my acelibacy.
I don’t know what’s more frightening; that reporters need to write entire eighth-grade-report style stories on succession in the Catholic church, or the idea that some people impacted by this knowledge might not have it.
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Blagojevich orders pharmacies to sell contraceptives promptly.
The Illinois governor also told fast food fry clerks to clean the frier, grocery store utility clerks to restock the bags at the end of the registers, and for the sales clerk at the department store to stop standing around and to straighten her area, for crying out loud she’s lucky she has this job with her being late three times this year and calling in once every three weeks.
UPDATE: Furthermore, Blagojevich ordered pharmacies to bundle unused flu vaccination doses with every purchase of a contraceptive.
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After all, he’s federal legislator, so he cannot be seen by the public as Doing Something!!!! on local law enforcement problems. So he gathered up a news conference with local law enforcement and spake:
Sen. Jim Talent, calling methamphetamine “the No. 1 law-enforcement problem facing Missouri,” on Friday outlined a federal plan to increase funding for police and prosecutors and restrict sales of the over-the-counter cold pills used to make the powerful narcotic.
Speaking at a news conference at the St. Louis County Police headquarters in Clayton, Talent called the Combat Meth Act the most comprehensive anti-meth legislation ever proposed.
The bill – sponsored by Talent, R-Mo., and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. – would direct $20 million to train police, hire prosecutors and fund programs that help children injured in drug labs. But the bill’s focus is restricting the sale of pseudoephedrine, the active ingredient in scores of cold remedies.
It’s a big problem facing Missouri, so Talent (a name, not necessarily a noun) wants the federal government to gather federal tax dollars, take its cut off the top, and then pass those federally-taken tax dollars to the states to spend as they see fit. Well, maybe pass the money back to the states, if the states jump through the new federal hoops correctly, probably including passing legislation to make it possible to charge someone with DUI for wearing aftershave. But I digress.
My senator co-sponsored this bill with Dianne Feinstein. That says it all.
They’re doing something to make America better and stronger by setting up a vigorish that will fund administration of the tax money redistribution and by making more innocuous behavior (buying too much cough medicine) criminal.
The America they’re strengthening is the federal government. That America and the amalgamated citizens and states of America are often not the same thing.
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From the sound of it, the case against Leonard Little was a little weak:
On Friday, the only defense witness that Rosenblum called was Ladue police Officer Keneth Andreski, who was Stork’s backup when Little was arrested and was standing five feet from the defendant when Little was given the sobriety tests.
Stork had testified that Little was windmilling his arms and unable to stand on one foot. Andreski said he didn’t recall seeing Little swinging his arms or holding them outward like airplane wings to keep his balance.
Andreski said he didn’t recall seeing Little swaying or using the Mercedes for support, as Stork had told the jury.
Also testifying Friday was Sgt. Darin McClure. Under questioning by prosecutor Mark Bishop, McClure said he administered a breath test at the arrest scene on a portable machine and it showed that Little had been drinking. McClure said also he smelled alcohol on Little’s breath.
Under Rosenblum’s questioning, McClure said Little wasn’t stumbling, swaying, losing his balance or smelling of alcohol at the Ladue police station, where he was taken 18 minutes after the traffic stop.
“Nothing in this case is consistent with intoxication,” Rosenblum said.
Well, that’s the flipside of fame and the law’s engagement with you. On the first offense, you leave a mother dead and get a slap on the wrist; from there on out, every cop who pulls you over will try to railroad you for DUI.
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Cardinals Differ on Who Will Succeed Pope
Pujols is said to favor Matthew Arnold, whereas Matt Morris and some of the relief pitchers back Percy Bysshe Shelley. Jim Edmonds publicly espoused Anonymous, which proves he was either joking, is daft, or has some weird Californiaesque buddhist leanings.
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Clinton Supporters Gear Up Against ‘Swift Boat’ Tactics
Fortunately, this still leaves her exposed to deep water navy tactics, including submarine warfare.
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