Guns Don't Kill People; Dangerous Minorities Do

Good point. Some timely observations from the SBPDL blog. And, sad to say, they are most likely correct observations about how things really go around here. Minus out the violent crime hotspots here in Michigan (Detroit, Flint, etc.) and this place would have the same crime stats as as a civilized social democracy like Sweden.

Sadly in Detroit that's just how we roll

Grandmother beat down by irate party-goers at the Dearborn Chuck E. Cheese when she asked them to stop cursing and swearing so loudly near her grandson's birthday gathering inside the restaurant. This isn't the first time something like has happened before either. Go figure?

“Our drivers are scared, they’re scared for their lives."

Fearing a repeats of recent acts of gang violence against them at work Detroit bus drivers are engaged in a wild cat strike over safety issues today.

Steven Pinker on the decline of violence & "The Better Angels of Our Nature"

Being a "manly man" for real

Never put your full trust in a man who has never been in a fist-fight and isn't prepared to be in one again too if need be. Last time I was in a fist-fight was back in 1995. Guess I'm due. If you fancy yourself a "stand-up" kinda guy then you have to be willing and able to "stand up" (i.e., throw a punch) when required or else you're just a fraud or you are deluding yourself but either way you're likely to eventually  be a victim.

"Men who have fought know how difficult it is to stand against the crowd", says Scott Locklin @ Taki's Magazine, "and that civilization is fragile and important. A man who has experienced violence knows that, at its core, civilization is an agreement between men to behave well. That agreement can be broken at any moment; it’s part of manhood to be ready when it is. Men who have been in fights know about something that is rarely spoken of without snickering these days: honor. Men who have been in fights know that, on some level, words are just words: At some point, words must be backed up by deeds."

So there you are.

Work union! Or Else!

John King of Lambertville, Michigan the largest non-unionized electrical contractor in SE Michigan & Toledo area finds car vandalized, investigates and is then shot. If the right-to-work types did shit like this you'd never hear the end of it. When union types do it nary a peep. Go figure?

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Ann Arbor city council Democrats want a city income tax but seem afraid to vote for it. Look for them to try to slide it in as a ballot proposal.

Detroit PD posted the security camera footage of the suicide attack on the Sixth Precinct last week, complete with an intro by Chief Godbee. I have no idea why they decided to post this footage to YouTube despite listening to Godbee's explanation three times. It looks like a cut from the scene in the original (1984) Terminator movie where the cyborg attacks a police station only for real.

Vigilante Cop story: A Detroit cop made up his personally owned car to look like a department issued one and drove it around off duty pulling people over and harassing them. And he wasn't even fired for it, either. Go figure?

Popular Mechanics list of 50 tools everyone should have. I didn't have all 50 but I was close with around 37. Some stuff I just couldn't imagine ever needing. Which is typically the case, until you do.

An Ottawa, Ontario, Canada fire department spokesman says that use of modern construction materials makes today's houses firetraps compared to thirty years ago. "... [Un]like 30 years ago, when homes, furniture and appliances were made of solid wood and steel, modern day versions are made with glue, plastics and synthetic materials. Such synthetics not only burn faster but produce carcinogenic emissions as they burn." In a modern house, the story says, you have only three to six minutes from the time the fire alarm goes off until flashover occurs which way too short of a time for the firemen to arrive to save you or your home. Yikes! Bottom line: Be prepared and have a plan. (via BoingBoing)

Polar bear swims 426 miles across the Beaufort Sea. Alas, her cub didn't make it and drowned. It must have been hard on the scientists tracking her survival swim with GPS telemetry to just watch this happen and not try to help. It would be for me.

Boom Town and Bust City: A Tale of Two New Yorks (The Nation.com)
"If New York City were a nation, it would rank fifteenth worst among 134 countries with respect to income concentration, in between Chile and Honduras,' writes James Parrott, chief economist for the Fiscal Policy Institute...".  NYC is run by reform minded progressive Democrats and a billionaire mayor, so why then is it a plutocracy?

Direct Action vs. False-Flag police operations (Reason.com/)
"How much of the looting is bona fide grassroots rioting and how much is false-flag activity by the cops? I don't know, and neither do you; in general, whenever you hear the word 'looter' on the news, it'll probably be days or more before you can speak with any certainty about what has actually been going on. But government agents are clearly involved with the spree, and it's very possible that they're stoking and spearheading it; defense of person and property, meanwhile, has fallen not just on the Army but on civil society, as neighbors form informal protective associations. If Robb's scenario turns out to be true, Egypt has inverted the Hobbesian story of the state: The police are spreading disorder and the voluntary sector is containing it."

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Lawyer Schlussel

Southfield-based attorney/activist/blogger and columnist Debbie Schlussel is doing legal battle with the American Muslim activist group CAIR in Detroit federal court over some trademark issues. Deb is a very unique piece of work and with whom I don't agree with very much but I do admire her sand.


What good is a tragedy if you can't exploit it?
It strikes me as sad but typical the way that the mainstream media types, and bloggers, pundits, chatterboxes and spinmeisters associated with the Democratic Party and its allies and cronies are already trying to use this latest tragedy for their political advantage. The person who shot U.S. Rep. Giffords and about two dozen other people last Saturday seems to be a nut-job loner without any coherent ideology. And the disappointed emotions expressed by some that a search of the shooter’s home found no books by Rush Limbaugh or a Tea Party membership card strikes me as crass and mercenary even for them.

Wayne county judge jails bridge company honcho for contempt 
"Wayne County Circuit Judge Prentis Edwards denied a request by bridge company attorneys to delay jailing Stamper until an appeal could be filed. Wayne County deputies immediately handcuffed Stamper and led him out of the courtroom. Stamper had no reaction as he was led away.
The jailing came as Edwards issued a contempt ruling against the bridge company for failing to comply with his Feb. 1, 2010, order to rebuild the approaches to the Ambassador Bridge as the Michigan Department of Transportation requires as part of the $230-million Gateway project."