Feb 10, 2011

So that's what I should call it

Police in Raleigh, N, Calinky, just hate whores. (If you don't believe me, Google.)

So word that some of the cops are renting horizontal girl time embarrassed the chief until he found just exactly the right words to characterize Officer Friendly's little lapses. He explained  that

"...administrative violations may have occurred and that they stemmed from voluntary interactions between a small number of officers and non-departmental individuals," 

Reminds  me I need to take New Dog to the vet to confirm that she's been immunized against voluntary interactions.

Damn, I thought all those guns spoke Gringo.

It's our politicians'  article of faith that 90 per cent of all those guns murdering women and children in Mexico come from the United States. I mean, don't we hand an  M16 to every high school kid in Texas and Arizona?

It occurs, however, that the politicians are wrong.  Almost 90 per cent of the crime weapons confiscated by Mexican cops and Federales do not come from the United States. Their cradle language is more likely to be Spanish, Korean, or Chinese.

I post the source with a caution. It's somewhat long and  full of number-crunching and other miscellaneous geekery.  Admirably so, but you may want to wait until you have a few minutes, a cup of coffee, and an appetite for detailed  analysis before clicking here, to STRATFOR.

A sample: According to the GAO report, some 30,000 firearms were seized from criminals by Mexican authorities in 2008. Of these 30,000 firearms, information pertaining to 7,200 of them (24 percent) was submitted to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for tracing. Of these 7,200 guns, only about 4,000 could be traced by the ATF, and of these 4,000, some 3,480 (87 percent) were shown to have come from the United States.


That is, Officer Hernandez and his Jefe set aside their powdered enchiladas, look over  last month's weapons haul (slipping the especially nice or salable ones into their personal tucker bags) and make two piles. One is for those guns which might have come from the north. The other one is for guns so obviously non-U.S. related that not even a BATF  desk pogue would be fooled. They send the  data on the former  to Washington, salted with just  enough possibly non-U.S-loophole weapons to create a veneer of credibility.

It would take only a C+ student of sixth-grade arithmetic to suggest that  the 3,840 identified as U.S.-acquired be divided by the 30,000 seized to announce that 87 per cent  of of the crime guns in that woebegone country were acquired from non-U.S. sources.

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With 3,000 murders  a year in Jaurez alone, doesn't that 30,000 total crime guns seized  across the country  suggest a certain relaxed  attitude toward solving crimes down there? Manana, Senor Jefe

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I'm indebted to my pal Alan for STRATFOR piece.







Feb 9, 2011

Stupid Brady Tricks

It isn't hard to debate a bill about a citizen's duty to retreat or right to stand his ground  in the face of deadly threat. You discuss the tort-reform aspects of it. You consider the definitions of the important terms -- "deadly threat," "reasonable person," and so forth.  You search for careful language to confirm the right without creating as many problems as you solve.

But don't waste your breath shooting for honest discourse with the flacks who take a Brady Campaign paycheck.  They were all trained in the Jack Parr School of Disputation. "When cornered by logic, try crying and name calling. If that doesn't work, raise your voice, and never, ever, constrain yourself with the dictates of reason." 

It's morning in America

7:30 a.m -- Drastic oversleep. Become vertical.  Pee and moan about achy back.

7:32 a.m. -- Attempt to read small outside thermometer. Gritty eyes decline to focus. Treat with Visine. Re-look. nine below.

7:34 a.m. -- Perfunctorily  scratch dog ears.

7:35 -- Feed fire with oak logs,  two small and one large.

7:37 -- Stumble to kitchen. Fire up coffee pot. Tell dog, "Hold it for another sec, eh?" (vulgarity in original statement here omitted)

7;40 -- Let dog out after stern warning not to go running off.

7:40:07 -- Dog goes running off. Step onto deck in stocking feet and "pajamas" and yell. Feel lungs seize up and other bodily parts shrivel. Yell again. Dog returns to deck area,  decorates snow. Beats me through the door and to the hearth.

7:42  -- Steal cup of coffee from half-done pot. Spill some of same. Shrug;  counter-top disaster anyway.

7:45 -- Slurp enough hot coffee to wash down one aspirin.

7:47 -- Log on to National Weather Service point forecast. Confirms nine below. Perform masochistic act and check Duluth, 200+ miles north, where kids are visiting. Only seven below. Remark the irony to dog who seems not to give a damn.

7:48 -- Slowly, slowly, slowly transform grim mouth-set to semblance of smile at seeing release date of tomorrow, when begins a warmup. One more arctic night, then more than a week of nothing even close to zero, daytime highs above freezing.

7:50 - present -- engage in decision-making process re when or whether to get dressed.
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