Mayors and "Gun Control"

Seattle's mayor was in Noo Yawk City with Milk-Carton Barrett, and already knows what he needs to "control gun violence" in Seattle:

• Statewide assault weapons ban
• Mandatory gun locks (including locks on weapons STORED IN HOMES)
• Improved sharing of gun-trace information
• End to gun show "loophole."

Yeah, I know. Looks sort of like the last several hundred vapid and meaningless requests.

S'pose Tom Barrett will haul out the same stuff?

I could bet a nice meal on it, and collect.

Images Unlimited, Today

Just can't help it--another good one. This from The Lair

Two-Fisted Diplomacy

Red China wants to run the Catholic Church, at least within its borders. So the PRC-Catholic Church (not to be confused with the ROMAN Catholic Church) consecrated a couple of new Bishops.

This is a no-no. Under Canon Law, the Pope must personally approve all Bishop-candidates. Needless to say, Hu's boyzz did what they wanted, anyway.

The Vatican response?

The Holy Father learned of this news with profound displeasure, since an action so important for the life of the Church as an episcopal ordination was accomplished in both cases without regard for what communion with the Pope requires.

This amounts to a grave injury to Church unity, to which -- as was understood -- severe canonical sanctions are attached (cf. Canon 1382).

According to communications received, bishops and priests have been targets of strong duress and threats -- on the part of officials outside the Church -- to take part in episcopal ordinations which, since they lack a papal mandate, are not only illegitimate but contrary to conscience. Some bishops countered these pressures with a refusal, while others could only submit to them with great interior suffering. Incidents of this kind tear wounds not only in the Catholic community but within the conscience of the individual.

THAT was the response from Stato, which could be termed, ah, direct. In addition, the Church has excommunicated both the newly-consecrated Bishops AND the Bishops who consecrated them.

George?? Condi?? Remember that "human rights" part of the MFN/PNTR treaty?

HT: CWN

Image Gallery

TWO images in a row. But you have to admit, they're both good ones...

This from Moonbattery

How To Pay Your Gardener

Heh.

From Sacred Cow Burgers via Malkin

Big Government Republican (Hint: He's GWB)

McIlheran discovered an interesting post by Jonah Goldberg of NRO:

"Bush is certainly to the right of Nixon on many issues," writes Goldberg. "But at the philosophical level, he shares the Nixonians' supreme confidence in the power of the state. Bush rejects limited government and many of the philosophical assumptions that underlie that position. He favors instead strong government."

Well, this "strong Gummint" is certainly a component of Folkbum's unhappiness with the Patriot Act.

But there's no question that the "No Child...," the McPain-Feinie Repression of Free Speech Act, the enormous, growing deficit (~6% of GDP, the worst in the 1st world) and the consistent refusal to veto any Party-In-Government spending are signs.

Not to mention his lineage--old "Globaloney George" himself.

Urban Land Institute: Drop Dead, Homeowner

The MJS runs a story today about a couple whose home assessment jumped quite a bit in the past few years. They live in the Brewers' Hill area.

Waaaayyyy down at the bottom of the story is an absolutely chilling quote:

William Hudnut, a former mayor of Indianapolis who is now a senior fellow at the Urban Land Institute, said inner cities throughout the nation are seeing a similar phenomenon.

"Homes that you used to be able to buy for $5,000 or $10,000 are now going for 20 times as much," Hudnut said. "It's a bad thing for the person being forced out, but we need to revive urban neighborhoods."

Remember the line "We had to destroy the city in order to save it."?

Al Lassee--Daft or Dangerous?

Al Lassee, who evidently thinks that he is an Emperor, doesn't worry about stuff like "open meetings" laws.

You recall that Al Lassee ALSO believes in Taxation Without Representation--the now-dead automatic gas tax increase...

In any case, a committee approved the bill last week by circulating written ballots to the office of the committee chairman, Sen. Robert Cowles (R-Green Bay), rather than by a vote in a public meeting. The balloting came five months after a Dane County judge ruled the practice violates the state's open meetings law.

It took considerable maneuvering by Senate President Alan Lasee (R-De Pere) to get the measure to a vote.

The first committee he sent it to indicated it would not pass the measure, so he sent it to a second committee. When that committee declined to act, Lasee directed the bill to the Energy, Utilities and Information Technology Committee.

That committee has no oversight of legal and insurance matters, but does have a sympathetic chairman in Cowles.

...In December, Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess ruled that legislative leaders violated the open meetings law in 2003 by deciding to fire the Legislature's top two computer workers by ballot. Last week, he ordered the state to pay about $40,000 in legal fees for the fired workers.

Until his ruling, Senate committees routinely voted by ballot. Since then, committees have voted by ballots just twice.

Both times, the votes came from Cowles' committee.

For perhaps the first time in recorded history, I think Ed Garvey is right:

"They ought to be following their own rules and applying them to themselves," [Garvey] said. "Either you believe in open government or you don't."

In effect, the legislation would force insurance companies to pay cleanup costs for the Fox River, regardless of the terms of the insurance policy. This will take the paper companies off the hook. Gee. I guess that there are no casualty-insurers located in Lassee's district!

As observed elsewhere in blogdom, an ethics bill (1188) ... completely ignores a group of people who collect a state paycheck and benefits and do nothing but campaign for the five months prior to the election: state legislators. The tail is pinned on the donkey here.

Scratch "donkey" above. Make it Jackass.

HT: The American Mind

Heroin, Kids and Afghan Reality

In the last few months we've heard a lot about high-school kids using heroin, and about heroin addicts getting "hot shots" of very pure horse, hospitalizing them.

The stuff is cheap these days, according to reports.

That's because there's a "bumper crop" of poppies in Afghanistan, and the country is still lawless. (According to this report, it's far worse than reported, and going downhill quickly.) The warlords in Afghanistan earn their AK-47 budgets by selling heroin.

The blog linked above is very interesting; it takes time to read the entries, but he's not afraid to call the Wall Street Journal's take on Afghan security "bullshit."

And Mr. Yon seems to know.

Pun? or Question

The Warrior tells the tale of a Massachusetts school district which introduced a "gay marriage" between two princes, and lived happily ever after, we suppose. (This was pre-AIDS.)

At any rate, the Warrior has a distinctly ambiguous question:

Or is this the politically correct world were even fairy-tales must serve a political agenda?

Umnnhh, (playing straight-man) Prof: it IS a fairy tale.

AB 1020 Passes Assembly

Last night, AB 1020 (the Castle Doctrine bill) passsed the Assembly and is now "in the hopper" in the State Senate.

The Senate's calendar does not show a date for hearings at this time.

Surprise!! We Shoot Back!

In quiet Wauwatosa, there's a business district running west from 60th street.

Well--it USED to be quiet, before Junior McGee (race-pimp) forgot his manners in the presence of the police.

Then it seems that a couple of small retail businesses have been robbed. Well, almost.

The second small businessman was armed.

Heh.

An 18-year-old robbery suspect was in critical condition after being shot during a holdup about noon Tuesday at Aqua-Terra Aquariums, 6410 W. North Ave.

Police arrested a 17-year-old robbery suspect inside the store and took in for questioning the 53-year-old man who fired the shot.

...Police were called to Aqua-Terra Aquariums shortly after noon, responding to separate reports of a shooting called in from the aquarium shop and from a home in the 6300 block of W. North Ave., where the shooting victim had fled.

Officers surrounded the store, where the 17-year-old was apprehended, and the 18-year-old was taken out of the house on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance.

The police confiscated a "number of weapons" from the shop. With Wisconsin's constitution and WI Supreme Court decisions regarding "self-defense," they are likely to be returned quickly, and retained in the shop--just in case somebody is stupid enough to try again.

The US Senate and Porky Pig

As you might have expected, Sheets Byrd (D-KKK) is unhappy with the idea of pulling the pork from the "Emergency Appropriation" bill now in the Senate.

He was joined by his newfound pal, ex-cheerleader and Perma-Wig wearer, Trent Lott (R-Piggsville,) who wants to give $200MM to Northrup.

To add to the irony, Sheets is now opposing a line-item veto bill which he supported during the ignominious reign of X42.

HT: Captain's Quarters

Twenty-Six Million Down the Chute

So here's the deal:

In the beginning, UW writes its own payroll system--it's not uncommon, been done a million times.

Things change. Payroll gets a bit more complex. UW decides they're better off putting up a new payroll system, and the Lawson package looks pretty good.

That was about the last thing that made sense.

Twenty-six MILLION dollars later, seven YEARS into the project, the Lawson system is still not running.

Do the Regents still have full confidence in the UW-System management team?

Hello!!! Hello!!! Regents!!! Where ARE you???

The REAL News Is from Jessica: ILLEGAL Alien Robbed the Bank

Again.

Yah, hey--Jessica told you all about it--the bank-job failure in Waukesha is an illegal. The 6:00 Channel 4 news didn't mention that, even though they had Paul Bucher on camera for a while.

The gun retailer tells us that the weapon was purchased before the 9/11 event, which DID have an impact on handgun-sale paperwork.

However, it's likely that the illegal did have one thing for ID: a valid Wisconsin Driver's License.

Think of it. If La Voces Frontera had their way earlier this year, Wisconsin DL's would still be available to all sorts of folks who may even try to shoot cops.

Thank God for Jim Sensenbrenner, eh?

Another Blogroll Addition

While my curmudgeonliness and occasionally pointed sarcasm are bothersome to certain faint-hearted, sensitive souls, I am distinctly a "nice guy" in comparison to the Caveman, who blogs on Catholic and political issues.

So he's going on the blogroll. You should check in there, every once in a while--as long as you aren't faint of heart, sensitive, or one of his targets.

Belling and the Facts

In his discussion of the Sudan/Darfur problem, Belling has bought into the highly-sanitized version of the slaughter: that it is "genocide."

Wrong--but hey, it's what George Clooney calls it, too, right?

The Sudanese Government, backed by the money of Red China, is targeting Christians in the northern part of the country, and animists in the southern portion of the country.

The Sudanese Government is Muslim.

This is religious, not ethnic--except that some ethnics are Christian, some are animist--and the ones with the guns and money are Muslim.

Now and then a Google search can be helpful, Mark. There's history here--it's been going on for at LEAST 4 years.

General Franco and REAL History

Your children are likely to read the highly-sanitized (and quite inaccurate) "history" of the Spanish Civil War, which looks like this:

"The Spanish Civil War was the "trial run" for WW2. It was a clash of the political right on one side (Fascists with Hitler and Mussolini as the senior international figures and General Franco as the leader of Spain) and the political left supported by Communists, Socialists, liberal democrats and people who were worried by the rise of the far right with Hitler's Nazis as the main concern. The Germans used the War as a test bed for their new equipment and tactics. Franco "won" the war merely because he did not lose. Spain did not take an active role in WW2 although many feel that Spain supported the Nazis."

It gets a couple of things right--the war WAS in Spain, and preceded WWII.

A better picture, however, is found here.

The Generalissimo was not without fault (especially his letting down of the Carlists), but was by and large a great figure in Western history. El Caudillo saved Spain and the Church in Spain from utter ruin. The Spanish Civil war would have happened with or without his involvement. The difference is, that without his leadership Spain would have most likely emerged as a thoroughly Bolshevik puppet regime, thereby finishing off the Spanish Church, which had already suffered the martyrdom of 12 bishops, 283 nuns 2,365 monks and 4,184 priests, and would have placed Europe in a far more precarious post-WWII situation.

HT: College Catholic

One Jihadist Bites the Dust

You may recall the well-fed college prof in Florida who was tried for (and found guilty of) fundraising for Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

He denied it up and down, and his pals at CAIR, a propaganda group, swore to every one of his lies.

Well, he got a surprising sentence: the maximum (plus deportation, later.)

A federal judge yesterday lambasted a former Florida college professor, Sami Al-Arian, as a liar and "master manipulator," before sentencing him to nearly five years in prison for providing support to a Middle Eastern terrorist group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Under a plea deal finalized last month, Al-Arian, 48, agreed to admit guilt and accept a possible sentence of 46 to 57 months and eventual deportation from America. Prosecutors agreed to join defense attorneys in recommending a sentence at the low end of the range, but the judge, James Moody Jr., ignored those suggestions and imposed the maximum sentence allowed by the plea bargain.

But here's the payoff line:

Recall that al-Arian operated with impunity from his academic perch on American soil for years while American intelligence monitored his every move -- until the passage of the PATRIOT Act enabled his prosecution based on the intelligence work.

Jay Bullock's new hero was certainly not talking about THIS "Patriot Act," was he?

Another interesting note: the Federal judge is a Clinton appointee...

HT: Powerline

Blogroll Adder

The site has fascinating little bits of info about the BonzoTrialLawyers crowd, and serves up fair warning about what's coming down the pike.

It's easy to read, although a bit technical now and then; there are also some nice, intelligent discussions on the issues.

Worth reading.

Overlawyered.