I attempted to upgrade WordPress this evening using the WordPress automatic updater plugin, and three and half hours later, I’m back where I started. The updater trashed my installation, and I had to reinstall from backups I made before I started. It took a while sort it out, and I’m glad I learned that PowWeb.com has such great user tools, but I won’t ever even try to use that plugin again.
Commenter Andrew at Radley’s place, notes, of cops:
They’ve pretty much dropped any pretense of being anything but bullies, thugs and an army of occupation.
Take a long look at that Denver PD commemorative t-shirt. That’s a mark of people who crave bullying, intimidation, control, and wielding arbitrary force. It’s telling that every cop involved in the DNC received one “free”, yet there is demand for 2000 more.
The pretense “to serve and protect” is long dead. The new premise of police conduct is this: their presumptive authority must be respected at all costs.
My comment, on a local forum, just now:
Voting is a long-shot bet that someone will shoot your neighbor on your behalf, and give you a slice of the corpse to curb your hunger.
Once again, your words reveal your heart.
You can lead a person to concepts, but you can’t make him think.
A former home-owner in Phoenix quits paying her mortgage and blames everyone else:
A little more than a year ago, I bought a four-bedroom tract home with a pool, in a very nice subdivision in Scottsdale, Arizona, for $570,000.
…
Suddenly, the house I bought for $570,000 is worth…$380,000?!?!
…
What this means is that I, as a responsible homeowner, am now paying a mortgage of $450,000, on a house worth $380,000…
…
I never thought I would be the type to end up in foreclosure, but last month I made the decision to stop paying my mortgage.
Alisa, you made a commitment. A promise. You signed a contract vowing you would pay what you promised.
You’re bailing out before you’ve honored your promise, and that makes you a liar and a thief, not to mention a colossal moron for imagining that a house is an investment. You allowed yourself to be consumed by tulip mania and you’re going to walk away from your obligation. Your actions prove you’re not a “responsible homeowner”. On the contrary, they prove that you can’t be trusted to keep your word.
This would have been a comment on Alisa’s blog, but she’s disabled comments on that entry.
Alisa’s bullshit via Billy.
Update: Alisa removed her original post, stating “Way too many crazy, ignorant people linking to this post from fascist sites. Not worth the gray hair”, revealing that she’s not only a liar and a thief, but a coward as well.
And, by the way, Alisa, “fascist” doesn’t mean what you imagine it means.
I’ve been reading Billy’s writings for a long time, at least 15 years. Billy has an incredible way with words:
The clamor is horrifying and no more so than knowing when the times are turning right in front of you on hinges of principle so heavy that you’re amazed how few can see it.
Billy has a grasp of metaphor and imagery that few will ever understand, appreciate, or even recognize.
Thank you, Billy.
Some well-meaning but very stupid folks in Ypsilanti, MI catalyzed another unnecessary police escalation and derailment of a family’s lives:
While she returned to the car to get her cell phone so she could locate her friend, Emily Brumbaugh said, her husband approached the group.
“I heard, ‘Give me my kid,’ and ‘You’re not getting him,”’ she said.
At that point, that crowd was guilty of kidnapping.
The idiot cops who arrived on the scene didn’t help by sorting things out or dissipating tension:
Egeler said Lloyd Brumbaugh ran to the boy and picked him up, but Washtenaw County Sheriff’s deputies had arrived by then. He said he was told to put the boy down so they could talk. Brumbaugh complied, but when Deputy Katrina Bourdeau reached for the boy, Brumbaugh pushed her away and grabbed him, Egeler said.
There is no dispute that the Lloyd is the father of the boy, so when the deputy attempted to take Brumbaugh’s son, she became guilty of attempted kidnapping. Getting between a parent and his child is like getting between a grizzly and her cubs: you’re just asking for serious? trouble. Surely even a cop knows that, and should be able act accordingly without escalating the situation.
Emily Brumbaugh said she was placed in a patrol car until she calmed down and Brumbaugh was taken to a hospital, and didn’t learn where her husband was until he called her from jail at 7 p.m. that night.
And at that point the police made themselves guilty of kidnapping both Emily and Lloyd.
Unfortunately for everyone, cops everywhere are increasingly shooting first and asking questions later, if they bother to ask questions at all. As far as I can tell, they operate on only one premise: their authority must be respected at all costs.
Why is there ever any question that those employed “to serve and protect” everyone are not subject to evaluation by everyone?
Radley Balko points out a case of an Oregan man who “is trying to force the Portland Police Bureau to take a formal position on whether it’s OK for civilians to videotape cops — with sound — in public places.”
Of course it’s okay. Unless they have something to hide. And what cop doesn’t have something to hide?
If I had my way, on-duty cops would all have forehead cameras and GPS toup?es streaming real-time sound, video, and coordinates for all to see.
If you claim to serve and protect me, without my consent, at least have the courtesy to leave absolutely no doubt about your actions.
Chrysler, GM, and Ford want to suckle, too:
Even as lawmakers in both parties unleashed a barrage of questions about the wisdom of a government rescue for the American International Group, support seemed to be growing quickly on Capitol Hill for $25 billion in loan guarantees to assist the ailing auto industry.
Both presidential candidates, Senator John McCain of Arizona and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, have voiced support for the loan guarantees ? an unsurprising stance given the critical importance of the main auto-producing states, Michigan and Ohio, to the electoral map this fall.
The chief executives of the three big American automakers ? General Motors, Ford and Chrysler ? met on Wednesday afternoon with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
When they emerged, they expressed optimism that the loan guarantees would be included as part of a budget resolution that is needed to finance government operations through the end of the year.
Chrysler, GM, and Ford?should be?careful what?they wish for. If the AIG model is followed, those car companies could easily become the US AvtoVAZ:
The Avtovaz project was promoted as a dynamic feat of collective socialist effort…
Compare that to this:
These are jobs. These are cars that we should be selling ? or manufacturing in America, not someplace else.
– Harry Reid, as quoted in the NYT article
There?is no difference between those two statements. With those loans will come?even more?destructive government oversight.?
NY Times article via?Radley Balko.
I don’t often look at the stats for my blog, but I did today, and I see that Kenji in Toronto is using the photo of my last batch of sushi for his YouTube background image.
The last time I met a person named Kenji, he tossed me around a dojo like I was a rag doll. (No, these two Kenjis aren’t the same person.)
Maybe you don’t know this, Kenji, but every time someone views your YouTube site, you consume bandwidth I paid for, because your background is a link to a picture on my site of the last batch of sushi I made.
You’re welcome to it, and I appreciate the compliment demonstrated by your link.
Kenji, the most important thing you can do in your life is this: relentlessly pursue what makes you happy, with one caveat: don’t interfere with anyone else’s pursuit.
“What if I can best help others by redistributing their wealth to the community? By gunpoint if necessary?”
My answer:
You’d be misconstruing “best”, for all involved. And you’d be ignoring what’s right.
You’d be a thief and an enabler, and probably a kidnapper and a murderer.
And you’d rightfully be dead if you had the stupidity and nerve to try to impose that premise on your own. Instead, you’d rather delegate your collectivist fantasy, via some cowardly vote, to a gang of bipedal rottweilers who have been trained to ignore their own consciences.