Never the responsibility of the purse, only the power

All pretense has been abandoned:

House Democrats will not pass a budget blueprint in 2010, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) will confirm in a speech on Tuesday.

Bend over and think of England.

Six, Down: Euphemism for murder under color of law, eight letters

How about, "bad shoot"?

Because the people on the bridge would not know they were cops, Hunter said he fired warning shots out of the window of the truck, and the civilians scattered for cover across a concrete barrier separating the roadway from a pedestrian walkway.

Hunter said the civilians "did not appear to have any weapons."

When the truck stopped, Hunter said Sergeant A, identified as Sergeant Kenneth Bowen, got out of the front seat and "fired an assault rifle down toward the civilians on the walkway." Hunter admits that he too got out of the truck and fired his handgun at the people running up the bridge.

At the same time, Hunter said Sergeant B, identified as Sergeant Robert Gisevius, came from the back of the truck and fired an assualt rifle at the same group.

Hunter said he shouted "cease fire." That's when he saw several civilians, who appeared to be "unarmed, injured and subdued." Then, without warning, Sergeant A, or Kenneth Bowen, "suddenly leaned over the concrete barrier, held out his assault rifle and, in a sweeping motion, fired repeatedly at the civilians lying wounded on the ground."

... Hunter said later that day at the makeshift 7th District Police Station, he attended the first of several meetings to cover up a "bad shoot."

During this meeting, a lieutenant said something to the effect of, "we don't want this to look like a massacre."

Hey, what do you know? "Massacre" has eight letters, too.

An observation: the police are us, unless one happens to be an officer, in which case, the police are non-civilians, "the elite". In truth, they are just as corrupt, just as dim-witted, just as greedy as the average person, and it should surprise no one (which, now, surprises nearly everyone) that an increase in police-powers exhibits a corresponding increase in the abuse of those powers, soon to be demonstrated on an international scale.

Rod Tuason, Praetorian

Meet Detective Rod Tuason. Rod works for the East Palo Alto Police Department.

Unfortunately for Detective Tuason, Facebook knows no loyalty:

"Sounds like you had someone practicing their 2nd amendment rights last night! Should've pulled the AR out and prone them all out! And if one of them made a furtive movement...2 weeks off!!!"

EDIT: Tuason's Facebook page has since been removed, but not forgotten.

Frankly, it's difficult to think of how this comment could be construed as anything but callous thuggery; no doubt this is what Scalia had in mind when he mentioned the "new professionalism" in Hudson v. Michigan. The most disturbing aspect of this, however, is the cavalier attitude regarding the willful murder of someone exercising their rights under the law, the paid vacation after the fact, followed by a cursory review which will likely find "no evidence of wrong-doing."

Hopefully, once the city realizes the liability posed by allowing him to remain on the force, Defective Tuason will be bounced out on his rear faster than a pack of dogs on a one-legged cat. The truth of the situation is that officers of the law are supposedly held to a higher level of responsibility and restraint in word and action, and this comment was demonstrative of neither, but in all ways more befitting a soldier of a totalitarian regime in a Third-World nation.

Tuason then opens a fresh can of worms:

"Haha thats when you go attend one of their meetings and laugh at them cuz they can only dream to have a ccw.."

This highlights the need for a model akin to Vermont: unlicensed concealed-carry. If the police are not obligated to respond, serve, or protect, then immediately forbid the bearing of arms anywhere beyond one's home, who can then provide means for their own self-defense? Of course, this is the core fallacy of the gun-control movement: criminals are generally not inclined to respect the law, and will go about their business armed, regardless of restrictions.

Indeed, if creatures such as Tuason are gate-keepers of our means of defending ourselves, we are truly in dire straits. Ideally, the situation would not have to be remedied via incorporation (McDonald v. Chicago), but the pretense of adhering to some form of limited constitutional republic has all but been swept away.

The Epic of the Eight-Fold Invisible Hands

I, for one, welcome our new tiny-pocketed arachno-capitalist non-overlords.

The West: An Interpretive Dance

Via the Smoking Gun:

JANUARY 28--Two Tennessee women who accused a man of rape have admitted to cops that they had consensually agreed to sex with him in exchange for a pack of cigarettes. One woman told investigators that the duo filed a phony police report because they "didn't enjoy the sex," according to cops.

Split between them, a five-dollar pack is about $2.50. Now, what two (or more) consenting adults do with themselves is none of my business, but I think he was taken for a ride, so to speak. Were they more attractive, or were another intoxicant involved, then perhaps they would have a case; regret is the new threshold of evidence.

Would they lie about something as serious as rape?

Orwell v. Huxley

Just when I doubt the level of absurdity involved with what passes for law and justice in Britain, something fresh from the bowels of Dystopia is presented for our entertainment:

Police in the UK are planning to use unmanned spy drones, controversially deployed in Afghanistan, for the ­"routine" monitoring of antisocial motorists, ­protesters, agricultural thieves and fly-tippers, in a significant expansion of covert state surveillance.

The arms manufacturer BAE Systems, which produces a range of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for war zones, is adapting the military-style planes for a consortium of government agencies led by Kent police.

Funded by the taxpayers, for the taxpayers, as a necessary step in the War Against Whatever, for their own safety. It's not as bad as the obedience collars suggested by our very own DHS, but I'm sure they're getting to that. Presumably, it will activate when the serf subject runs with scissors, or is eating paste during publicly-televised lectures.

Initially, the picture above was meant to be funny, but then I found this, and the humor dried up.

RTFM

Just which book is he reading from, exactly?

Poor people who are desperate for cash have been advised to go forth and shoplift from major stores - by an Anglican priest.

The Rev Tim Jones said in his Sunday sermon that stealing from successful shops was preferable to burglary, robbery or prostitution.

He told parishioners it would not break the eighth commandment 'thou shalt not steal' because it 'is permissible for those who are in desperate situations to take food that they might not starve'.

Rev Jones later added that the worship of Baal, Baphomet and Mammon would be acceptable in the interest of diversity in faith, and that murder would be condoned in cases of "necessary social justice".

Perhaps the Anglican Church should start encouraging its congregation to provide for those in their community in some sort of charitable capacity, on an anonymous donor level to be managed and distributed by the clergy, if necessary, rather than encouraging them to sin.

Nice suit there, Rev. How many bushels of wheat did it run?

With officers like these, who needs criminals?

This must be more of the "new professionalism" that Scalia had crowed about:

The suspect said that he was hit three times with a Taser after he was already handcuffed and face-down on the floor. Murphy's investigation found evidence that the suspect was hit twice with the Taser — once in the back before he was handcuffed and once in the buttocks after he was cuffed.

Murphy said the officer who used the Taser -— described as Officer #3 in the report — also coarsely threatened to use the Taser in the man's anus and genitals. Murphy's report says that use of Taser on a man's buttock's does not violate policy in and of itself; the question is whether it was "reasonable and necessary."

If the question remains open to the nature of water-boarding as torture (it is), then how is this within the realm of consideration for "reasonable and necessary" action?

Unsurprisingly, the review yielded these recommendations:

— Use-of-force investigation policy review. Establish specific standards and procedures needed for those tasked with investigating reportable uses of force by Boise police officers. "It is important that such acts be investigated and documented using consistent, best practices," he said.

— Training regarding positional asphyxia. During the arrest in question, the suspect was placed face-down on the ground and handcuffed with his hands behind his back and had the weight of three officers on his body. "None of the officers seemed to be aware of the possible danger posed by positional asphyxia," Murphy said.

More training and additional bureaucracy is the answer to persistent abuse of authority? If anything, it is demonstrably the antithesis of known solutions to the systematic abuse of power.

This is not law, and it is not justice, but both of them will out, legally or otherwise.

The stupid, it burns!

The goggles, they do nothing!

I hate this state.

When in doubt, empty the clip

- "We love the idea of the Kindle, but Amazon really needs to step up and start communicating more honestly with customers about the details of the invisible shackles they use when they sell us ebooks. How can their license agreement promise you permament access to a copy if that access to it is taken away after a certain number of actions?"

- Incredibly invasive, idiotic and inimical to even the pretension of liberty: more "change we can believe in".

- "In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court has ruled that prosecutors aren’t obligated to turn over DNA for testing after someone has been convicted, even if the state acknowledges that a DNA test would prove conclusive as to guilt or innocence, and even if the defendant agrees to pay for the testing himself."

- "The Mexican legislature has voted quietly to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and other drugs. Past efforts have proved highly controversial, most recently three years ago, but President Felipe Calderón is expected to sign the bill into law this time."

- Speaking of drugs,votes, and advocating products and services without full disclosure...

Edgy, but largely without a point

It's an excellent scam, but the situation defies belief:

The first “anti-stab” knife is to go on sale in Britain, designed to work as normal in the kitchen but to be ineffective as a weapon.

The knife has a rounded edge instead of a point and will snag on clothing and skin to make it more difficult to stab someone.

Getting one's self killed with one of these "safe knives" won't make one any less dead for the effort. In fact, there is danger in the idea that there is any such thing as a "safe knife" to begin with; as even the most wet-behind-the-ears Scout knows, a dull knife is more dangerous than a sharp one due to forcing the blade during use, and failure to treat any tool with respect will inevitably lead to injury.

One hardly knows what to expect next; a universal ban on grinding wheels? Perhaps cleavers? Rocks? Whiffle bats?

Pathetic.

When a problem comes along, you must empty the clip

Hindsight is twenty-twenty, and all it took was a couple of comments for me to realize that something without comment-space would be unwieldy. So, we're back to "round-up" posts until I get this figured out. Here are the links, preserved for posterity:

- US Customs poised to ban one-handed assisted-open knives.

- "Isn't it time we started rounding up promoters of hate before they kill?"

- Use a camera, go to jail. (Via Lew Rockwell Blog)

*(Conor Clarke refutes his argument thusly.)

For those of you that like pictures, the government is not a socialist abomination! For those of you with basic reading-comprehension, this is a lie!

*(I'm using asset information from the US flow of funds account. This chart is basically an updated and modified version of one I did for the business site, using slightly different data and a slightly different metric. There were some very thoughtful criticisms of that chart, so I decided to make a new one using asset information.

That said, this measure isn't perfect. I'm excluding a lot of assets -- households, farms, the financial sector -- in part because there's no precise data (see here for more) and in part because I want to avoid the same assets being counted twice. And I don't include liabilities. Please let me know of other methodological suggestions in the comments section.)

Here's a methodological suggestion: try including the liabilities. Richard Fisher, of the Dallas Federal Reserve Board, takes pair of pliers and a blow torch to the argument:

Add together the unfunded liabilities from Medicare and Social Security, and [the total unfunded government liability] comes to $99.2 trillion over the infinite horizon. Traditional Medicare composes about 69 percent, the new drug benefit roughly 17 percent and Social Security the remaining 14 percent.

I want to remind you that I am only talking about the unfunded portions of Social Security and Medicare. It is what the current payment scheme of Social Security payroll taxes, Medicare payroll taxes, membership fees for Medicare B, copays, deductibles and all other revenue currently channeled to our entitlement system will not cover under current rules. These existing revenue streams must remain in place in perpetuity to handle the “funded” entitlement liabilities. Reduce or eliminate this income and the unfunded liability grows. Increase benefits and the liability grows as well.

Just a quick guess on my part, but I don't think that the collected assets of the government at any level amount to even one-tenth of their liabilities. Where exactly is this money supposed to come from, Mr. Clarke? When one starts to muddy the waters between public and private ownership and control, liabilities do not exist in some quantum-state, trapped in some Social Security lock-box like a geriatric and vegetative Schrödinger's cat; they exist as a real unfunded problem, growing exponentially and swallowing nations in the process.

Peddle your sophistry elsewhere, you sycophantic hack.

Putting the child back in "Schild und Schwert"

Little Brother and Little Sister are watching you:

Luton Borough Council's Street Seen scheme encourages its 650 volunteers to report 'environmental concerns'. It is also recruiting 'Junior Street Champions', aged between seven and 11.

Primary schools could also be involved within two years.

Similarly, Islington Council in north London has recruited 1,200 'Islington Eyes' to report crime hotspots, fly-tipping and excess noise from DIY.

Volunteers are given a list of things to do when confronted with fly-tippers, including taking photos 'without being seen'.

Considering that even a modest council-budget could outfit a legion of these snot-nosed lice with equipment that would have made the actual STASI wet their pants in excitement, this should prove to be a profitable venture for the micro-tyrants of the United Kingdom's various townships.

A spokesman for the Local Government Association said: 'Environment volunteers are people who care passionately about their local area and want to protect it from vandals, graffitists and fly-tippers.

'These community-spirited residents are not snoopers.

'They help councils cut crime and make places cleaner, greener and safer.'

Wasn't this the plot-line for Hot Fuzz?

What a sad spectacle this nation has become.

Better ladder than never

Honestly, I can't make this stuff up:

ACADEMICS at Oxford University have banned step-ladders from its world famous Bodleian library – because of health and safety fears.

The ban means students are unable to reach books on the top shelves but dons refuse to bring them lower because it would remove them from their “original historic location”.

"Besides," the health and safety officer said, "it's common knowledge that those books contain ideas not listed in the Party-approved literature lists, and we certainly wouldn't want that sort of rubbish floating about within easy reach... It causes sluggishly-progressing schizophrenia, and if that's not a health and safety issue, then I'm the Queen-Mum."

England Prevails

It's true, from the Magna Carta to the Home Office, from John of Salisbury to Jacqui Smith, and despite numerous warnings to the contrary, you've come a long way, baby:

Nikolai Bukharin claimed one of the Bolshevik Revolution's principal tasks was "to alter people's actual psychology". Britain is not Bolshevik, but a campaign to alter people's psychology and create a new Homo britannicus is under way without even a fig leaf of disguise.

The Government is pushing ahead with legislation that will criminalise politically incorrect jokes, with a maximum punishment of up to seven years' prison. The House of Lords tried to insert a free-speech amendment, but Justice Secretary Jack Straw knocked it out. It was Straw who previously called for a redefinition of Englishness and suggested the "global baggage of empire" was linked to soccer violence by "racist and xenophobic white males". He claimed the English "propensity for violence" was used to subjugate Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and that the English as a race were "potentially very aggressive".

Only aggressively stupid, Frau Straw, as they have allowed the totalitarian state to advance this far into their lives. Short of total collapse, it's here to stay, unless (however unlikely) the natives undergo a cultural revival laced with some of that dreaded latent "aggressiveness".

Perhaps, as is the case with many sub-sentient animals, if England threatens the young:

In September 2006, a 14-year-old schoolgirl, Codie Stott, asked a teacher if she could sit with another group to do a science project as all the girls with her spoke only Urdu. The teacher's first response, according to Stott, was to scream at her: "It's racist, you're going to get done by the police!" Upset and terrified, the schoolgirl went outside to calm down. The teacher called the police and a few days later, presumably after officialdom had thought the matter over, she was arrested and taken to a police station, where she was fingerprinted and photographed.

Hmm. I suppose this was not a sufficient affront to one's sanity to garner such a response. Never fear, England will do better next time, so long as the people willingly and knowingly entrust their children to its indoctrination-camps.

What if the people, particularly those clinging to the mysticism of the Days of Ignorance, are made to bow to the idol and kiss the ring of the State?

A bishop was warned by the police for not having done enough to "celebrate diversity", the enforcing of which is now apparently a police function. A Christian home for retired clergy and religious workers lost a grant because it would not reveal to official snoopers how many of the residents were homosexual. That they had never been asked was taken as evidence of homophobia.

Unless rolling over and urinating on oneself is a mysterious new strategy in combating the rampant and arbitrary abuse of power, this lands soundly in the camp of "failure". Of course, to have accepted the shekels of the State to begin with was to doom themselves from the start.

I am not yet so callous that I did not feel a small pang of pity for England-That-Was, or the erstwhile-unwilling Scotland and ever-rebellious Ireland, but there is no one to blame for this except themselves, and they deserve everything that is coming to them as a result of their folly, however horrific it may be. What they say is true: none of us is as stupid as all of us.

Perhaps, if the fires burn brightly enough at night from across the Atlantic, some will remember the last days of the United Kingdom and guard against those same mistakes, if just for a little while.

Or, why I will never emigrate Down Under

The Aussies are wonderful folk, but there are just too many venomous, foul-tempered creatures native to the area that make it inhospitable for human habitation. Also, they have critters like this:

Scores of eastern tarantulas, which are known as “bird-eating spiders” and can grow larger than the palm of a man’s hand, have begun crawling out from gardens and venturing into public spaces in Bowen, a coastal town about 700 miles northwest of Brisbane...

While not deadly like other Australian spiders, the eastern tarantulas are venomous and can grow up to 6cm (2.4in) long with a leg span of 16cm (6.3in). Despite their common name, they do not eat birds, but can kill a dog with one bite, and make a human very sick.

They are also known as whistling or barking spiders for the hissing noise they emit when they are disturbed or aggravated at close range.

And now they're collecting en masse in the town square, cat-calling, making lewd faces at the ladies and causing the milk to sour?

No, no thank you. I don't like surprises, and spiders et al have a uncanny ability for surprise at the most awkward of times, and it just so happens that my least favorite kind of surprises are "potentially-lethal, maybe-hiding-in-your-shoe, maybe-hiding-in-the-laundry-or-perhaps-under-the-couch surprises". Combine that with a penchant for inexplicably congregating downtown, and that's a deal-breaker.

When in doubt, empty the clip

- Bee warned: there is a fungus among us.

- The logical and inevitable consequences of nationalized health-care.

- Speaking of logical and inevitable consequences: it seems that doing anything except bleating for help to the State (which may or may not respond within three hours) will not only get one murdered on one's doorstep, but will cause the State to deny your family compensation due to its negligence while simultaneously awarding those with sports injuries and "human rights" (read: taxpayer-funded narcotics).

- I have reason to suspect that Zimbabwe has finally exhausted its ink and paper reserves.

- In other news, water declared "wet", and human vision is mysteriously impaired at night; IMF is indicates that it will continue to forecast improvement in order to boot-strap the manufacture of confidence-based goods.

Persistent thinking getting you down? Try Samhsatrol!

The Drudge Report breaks self-fulfilling prophecy:

NANNY STATE: GOVERNMENT WEBSITE TO WARN OF SADNESS/CRYING OVER ECONOMY
Mon Mar 30 2009 18:43:56 ET

The U.S. government is set to offer an online emotional rescue kit!

"Getting Through Tough Economic Times" will launch Tuesday with a media push across all platforms.

The site is meant to help people identify health concerns related to financial worries.

The feds will warn of depression, suicidal thinking and other serious mental illnesses. It will raise warning flags for: Persistent sadness/crying; Excessive anxiety; Lack of sleep/constant fatigue; Excessive irritability/anger.

The guide will be available starting at midnight at http://www.samhsa.gov/economy.

Developing...

Just knowing that you and I are paying for this crap is causing "persistent sadness/crying", "excessive anxiety" and "excessive irritability/anger".

Washington: if you're going to try to pick my pocket with one hand while trying to wipe my nose with the other, I suggest you use only the fingers you aren't particularly fond of.

When in doubt, empty the clip

- Just in case one needed more iron-clad proof regarding PETA members' mental instability...

- "The rationale goes like this: Vehicle AC units sap engine power and hurt fuel economy. If vehicle paint and glass reflect more heat, car interiors will be cooler. That means drivers will use their AC units less, the compressors won’t have to work as hard and auto makers will be able to use smaller AC units in the future."

... We're doomed, but at least the PRK has a new tag.

- Surprisingly, the answer wasn't Zimbabwe.

- Considering the rash of kidnappings in Mexico and the spill-over of related violence into the southern United States, I'm sure this will provide valuable instruction to the family members of the victims in the years to come.