December 2012

Jack Donovan on "Police State Liberals"
Contra expatriating
Reaping what you sow: SF murals being defaced by taggers
Soviet-era spy tech still spying on ex-satellite states
The long, strange (ego) trip of Anonymous member "Commander X"
Game show host talks about his sensory deprivation chamber experiences
 Obama should jail his opposition "like a third-world dictator"
Making brain cells from urine
Is it time to put a "may be dangerous to your financial future" warning label on graduate school?
 Experimental handcuffs under development can shock, inject drugs as well as restrain
Urban Outfitters buys garage sale clothes and resells them to hipsters
Items found between the pages of second-hand books
NTSB seeking to require black-box recording devices in all new cars
Defending the world, bankrupting ourselves
Small business owners, white collar professionals are today's kulaks
Amsterdam to create "scum town" neighborhood to exile its anti-social residents to
 Obama campaign still asking for contributions a month after winning re-election
Elites prefer to rule an impoverished citizenry to not ruling at all
 Fresh crop of "celebrity victims" making the mainstream media get real about SWATTING
 CA city official tells residents to "lock your doors" and "load your guns" after PD lay-offs

In a brave twist, Microsoft releases an ad for IE 10 that mocks those who hate Internet Explorer

Highland Park school board "reformer" busted

Board member Robert Davis has been accused by the feds of spending money the bankrupt school district desperately needs on fine dining, clothes, travel, cable TV, bar tabs and such.

If you're considering going ex-pat you should probably take Belize off your list of places to emigrate to

John McAfee, the millionaire anti-virus software company founder, claims that he has been continually shaken down for bribes and payoffs by the local politicians and cops since he moved down there CNet News is reporting.

McAffee claims that the local politicos and their minions on the police force are hitting him up for money in return for not raiding his home. McAffee's home has been raided by the Belizian cops at least four times he claims. McAffee  also claims the cops shot his dog during their last raid on his home the result of which he now faces illegal weapons possession and among other charges.

I think that this information might be a good reason to take that particular Turd-World location off my potential ex-pat list if it were me, Belize's great beaches and cheap real estate notwithstanding.

Saturday morning pot-shots

I got my eye on you!

Corporatism is not a free-market situation Sheldon Richmond reminds us. "Too many people are willing to accept government-set goals (such as energy independence)," says Richmond, "so long as the 'private sector' is induced to achieve them. Regardless of how the goals are achieved, if government sets them, that’s statism."

More collateral damage from the Iraq invasion. How Iraq's university system, considered the best in the middle east by the way, was looted, vandalized, trashed, and burned due to the fecklessness and neglect of the "occupying army". Very sad indeed.

Stupid and venal. That's about all you say about Indiana's just convicted ex-Secretary of State. Republican Charlie White was convicted of six felonies related to fraudulent voting on his part just so he could retain a $1,000/mo. city council pay check. I guess he really needed the money or something. Hope it was worth it Mr. White. He probably paid that much out just for a retainer for his defense lawyer. Love of money is root of all evil they say.

A hilarious look at life, love, sex, and hormones amongst the young adult set presented in cartoon form here.

Next big thing? Speaking here of polymer framed 1911style pistols. This was bound to happen I suppose. Should cut down on both weight and cost, but who knows?

Don't call it theft. More like "holding it for ransom".

Police affiliated tow companies are prowling metro-Detroit (and Ann Arbor) streets looking for cars to high-jack and hold for ransom says this Detroit News article. Back in the old days when we all rode horses they used call what these tow companies are doing horse theft.  The remedy for that problem in those days was to routinely hang horse thieves, just to show how seriously this crime was taken. Just sayin'.

"It takes real guts to stare that sort of power in the face, and then put it in its rightful place."

And in this case it means putting an 84 year-old billionaire (and his chief lackey) into a cell at the Wayne  county jail for contempt. Even if it was for only a day. If you ignore the Detroit Metro-Times' Curt Guyette's  hyperbole and snark and just focus on the details you get a pretty good sense of why this Maroun guy is thought to be such an asshole from his article.

Beware the police-industrial complex too

Echoing the words of former President Eisenhower I wonder why the NYC based Police Foundation is so generous in funding new technology solutions as detailed here in this City Journal article. The piece references a mobile scanner set up so that the cops can run people through it like cattle in feedlot (or passengers at an airport) to scan them for guns and knives and other weapons so they won't have to do so much hands-on stop & frisk patrol activity but which tend to annoy the citizens. Being the cynical sort that I am I have to wonder if the directors of the Police Foundation have a financial interest in these technologies and hope to get some positive buzz for them via the NYPD and other first adopter PD's and who will then lobby Washington to make DoJ, DHS, etc. grants available to other PDs to buy it as well?

Building sports stadia, convention centers may be the "conventional wisdom" but the facts show that there is nothing wise about it

If it "takes money to make money" then why do all these private developers sit on their wallets and checkbooks and insist that the taxpayers pay for it all? Hint: Because it's all a swindle and they know it.

And I thought metro-Detroit politicians were corrupt

Then along comes Illinois. From this article at Newgeography.com comes some really harsh stats on the swamp that is politics in Chicago. And I thought we were bad because Detroit's ex-mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was removed from office after pleading guilty to several corruption related felonies as was the Detroit City Council President who is currently in prison for taking bribes and a huge federal investigation is underway in re Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano's shenanigans. That's all pretty bad I admit but then along comes Illinois: At least 27 Chicago aldermen/women have been convicted of felonies for their conduct in office in past few years. (Frosting on the cake: Four of the last six Illinois governors were convicted of felonies and went to prison too.) And yet these guys get elected and re-elected with the regularity of a well oiled machine. Go figure?

The Kwamester, despite all he's done (as well as been convicted of), "has forgiven himself" he tells EMU audience

Awww. Forgiveness sure is nice isn't it? Especially when it is extended by the one and only person you really do actually care about. What a narcissist, eh? If this puzzles you consider this. The political class is different from the rest of us you see. Estimates are that the general population is about 4 percent sociopathic but among the political class the rate has got to be more like 99 percent. The only realistic course of action I can see therefore would be this: I wouldn't trust a government office to anyone who desires to have one. Just wanting that power shows they can't be trusted with it.

This mofo is the best guest speaker you guys could come up with?

The Kwamester

Ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is scheduled to take his lame ass book-tour to my alma mater in a few days. Probably trying to raise a few more thou to pay for the legal team he is no doubt assembling for his upcoming federal corruption trials.

Wayne county government's swamp of corruption about to be drained?

It's starting to look that way. That festering boil of corruption is about to be lanced by the feds. Heh.

Even in perenially broke Wayne county (Detroit) they piss away taxpayer money like it was water

Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano tried to give a $200K "severance package" to a personal aide moving across the hall to a another better paying county job. Go figure? The Wayne County Board of Commissioners says they're going to investigate this. Jeez I sure hope so.
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The Kwamster does some battlefield preparation

Disgraced ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick gives a mealy-mouthed self-serving interview to the Detroit News today that is full of non-apology apologies, half-truths, pleas for sympathy and barely concealed appeals to blacks for racial solidarity (i.e., Acquit me!). Look for him to mount a "whitey hates me" style of defense at his upcoming federal corruption trial.

Me personally I would be happy to see all of Kilpatrick's charges dropped (but not the restitution payments though) in exchange for him being required to  staying in Texas permanently and not visit Michigan for at least 10 years. Why? Because that fat, hairy, crooked, lying tumor on Michigan politics and society is better off removed than contained.

City of Detroit to lose $54 million grant from feds if it doesn't stop corruption

Well if that's the case then they should just kiss the funds good-bye right now. Appalling. (Detroit Free Press)

Starbucks CEO to pols: No more campaign cash until you "deliver"

A good idea (cutting off the money) but for all the wrong reasons (to gain influence for themselves). What Howard Schultz expects them to "deliver" is kinda left unsaid but it isn't likely to be good. Not for the rest of us anyhow. But for a favored few it will be.

You won't have Kwame Kilpatrick to kick around any more news media!

Says the former Mayor of Detroit.  Forever playing the victim card. Do us all a favor bub and stay in Dallas.

Jail bird Ex-Detroit Mayor: "I could get elected Detroit mayor again"

Even though: Kwame Kilpatrick is a convicted felon, currently on parole, and under federal indictment for additional corruption charges whose tenure as mayor was a media carnival of corruption, mismanagement and an epic failure. The sad thing is that the Detroit electorate are a bunch of race-obsessed morons who really would happily re-elect this fucktard just to "stick it to whitey" or something. To paraphrase H.L. Mencken here: People in Detroit know what they want and deserve to get it. Good and hard too.

Why do mayors love sports stadiums?

Other people's money sure spends easy

"The simplest explanation is fear: because team owners can choose new cities but cities can’t choose new teams—thanks to the leagues’ government-sanctioned monopolies over franchise placement—mayors feel they must offer owners anything they want." (Neil DeMause @ The Nation)

As luck would have it Ann Arbor's stadia are all state owned property but even so the UM athletic department squeezes everybody it can for money. That "jobs, jobs, jobs" stuff the political types fall for is just BS. So we get a few parking attendants, hot dog vendors and clean up positions. We also get litter, traffic congestion, and noise along with them too. But at least UM can't threaten to move to Livonia or  Toledo either so there's that.

A thinner but still cocky & arrogant Kwame Kilpatrick leaves prison

Free for now.

After serving 14 months in state prison for violating his probation by concealing cash and assets from the court and not paying his restitution. The ex-Detroit mayor is heading back to Texas until his next court appearance. And like the  asshat he is, he's apparently forgotten nothing and yet learned nothing from his experience.