Pot and kettle

In an interview that can only be characterized as the pot calling the kettle black, Bernie Madoff compares his crimes with those of our government.

Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff said in a magazine interview published Sunday that new regulatory reform enacted after the recent national financial crisis is laughable and that the federal government is a Ponzi scheme.

"The whole new regulatory reform is a joke," Madoff said during a telephone interview with New York magazine in which he discussed his disdain for the financial industry and for its regulators.

Ponzi scheme? I guess it takes a Ponzi-schemer to know one.

And who can argue with him? Social Security is a total Ponzi scheme. The same can be said of virtually all of our "entitlement" programs.

The current direction our government is taking us in leads to financial meltdown and will leave this once-proud nation in ruins. Don't take my word for it. Read Vox Popoli on a daily basis and you'll come away as pessimistic about the future as I am.

The American experiment is not going to end well.

Justifiable discrimination

Anyone who has read this blog more than about 5 times knows that schadenfreude is one of my favorite things. Forget raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. I want to see despicable people suffer!

And speaking of despicable people, who among us wouldn't include the TSSA* in that category.

A Seattle area restaurant certainly does.

Fed up with what he views as crappy treatment from the TSA, the owner of a restaurant near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport has decided to put all TSA agents on his No-Eat List.

"We have posted signs on our doors basically saying that they aren't allowed to come into our business," one employee tells travel journalist Christopher Elliott. "We have the right to refuse service to anyone."

She says that whenever a TSA agent attempts to dine at the restaurant, "we turn our backs and completely ignore them, and tell them to leave... Their kind aren't welcomed in our establishment."

The restaurant claims that 90% of its patrons are in agreement with their stance and that the local police have actually helped escort TSA workers off the premises.

"Until TSA agents start treating us with the respect and dignity that we deserve, then things will change for them in the private sector," says the employee.

Is that awesome, or what? "Their kind aren't welcomed in our establishment."

Let's hope more businesses pick up on this and start to do likewise. There's no one more deserving than the TSSA's goon squad. No one.

* You can't abbreviate Schutzstaffel without the double 'S'

Dripping with irony

Senator John Kerry Lurch made an appearance this past weekend. The reception he got was the sweetest type of schadenfreude imaginable, and for all of the right reasons.

A loud and angry crowd in Northampton confronted Sen. John Kerry over his support for the war in Afghanistan, the government’s response to the recession and other issues.

Anti-war protesters interrupted Kerry numerous times Saturday as he met with constituents.

OMG, is that the best or what? Mr. Vietnam Veterans against the war. Mr. Winter Soldiers investigation. And he gets heckled for what? Supporting an unpopular war!!!

It just doesn't get any better than this. Seriously.

A thought for today

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

— C. S. Lewis

Couldn't have said it any better.

Contrasting Presidents

Today is Presidents Day. This means that mattresses are discounted. That, and Federal employees get the day off. Hey, how 'bout that? [/sarcasm]

But February 21st used to mean something. It was the celebration of George Washington's birthday. It was Nixon (figures!) who combined GW's birthday with Abraham Lincoln's birthday, which falls just 9 days prior, to form Presidents Day.

It's a safe bet that no one born after 1980 has the remotest clue as to what Presidents Day is. That is, aside from the mattress sales.

Nixon did more than make two holidays into one when he combined Washington's and Lincoln's birthdays. He obscured what the two men meant to this nation at the crossroads of history at which they stood.

Washington: first in war, first in peace, and last in the National League. Okay, that's a lame and dated line. But does anyone remember WHY Washington was referred to as "first in war, first in peace"? General Washington was a gigantic figure in the creation of this country. He lead the armies. He secured the terms of British surrender. And he was the first president.

There were those who wanted to crown Washington as King following the revolution. He would have no part in it.

To fully appreciate the times in which Washington lived, you have to understand that the idea of a ruler who voluntarily steps down after a period of time and turns over power to another in a peaceful transition was something well outside of the norm. That Washington would serve two terms, handing over power to the newly elected President Adams at the end of his second term, and simply go home to Virginia was astounding for the times in which he lived.

That was the greatness of Washington.

Contrast that with the evil that was Lincoln. I wrote extensively about what Lincoln was (vice the "history" we're taught in government schools) two years ago. There's no point to elaborate on what I wrote then. It would just be piling on.

To lump Lincoln and Washington into a sort of equivalence (which is what Nixon effectively did) is to disrepect the greatness of Washington and whitewash the atrocities of Lincoln.

It's not right. It's just not right.

Once again, NWA was right

'cause a cop think a badge give him the authority to kill a minority.
NWA, F*** tha police

Some time back, I referenced a tragic shooting in the Seattle area of a Native American man by a police officer donut-eating self-important bully. John T. Williams is still dead. And the tax-fed waste of oxygen who killed him is still a free man, as per standard procedure in this type of case.

“If you’re going to prosecute a cop for excessive force amounting to manslaughter or homicide, you have to prove that the officer acted with malice,” says Strait. “(The standard requires proof) that (the officer) acted with intent to harm (the victim). You have to prove he really wanted to get the guy.” Birk has presented the shooting as an act of self-defense.

The inquest brought out the cloudy nature of some of the aspects of the case. Witnesses and Birk presented several different versions of the afternoon’s events — Birk believed that Williams presented a threat to passers-by, while civilian witnesses perceived Williams as a normal pedestrian.

The jury leaned somewhat toward the witnesses’ version of events. Four jurors out of eight believed that Williams “pose(d no) imminent threat of serious physical harm to Officer Birk.” Three jury members were undecided and one agreed that Williams was a serious threat.

Several other key points of the incident are in dispute: Jurors were split on whether or not Williams was facing Birk when he was shot, if Williams was able to put down his knife before he was shot, and whether or not Williams’s knife blade was open or closed.

With a demanding burden of proof, Washington prosecutors are often loath to pursue prosecutions of police officers who have fired on citizens.

Often loath? OFTEN?!?!?! How about 'virtually never'. Cops literally get away with murder in over 90% of these cases. Why? Because cops and prosecutors are on the same "team", and it's bad form to throw a member of your "team" under the bus.

The reactions of citizens and local officials to the decision not to prosecute are telling. The few private citizens quoted are foursquare in the Williams camp. The tax feeders and union hacks are foursquare behind Birk. And the prosecutor does his best Pilate.

The policy of this state is to give police officers this special protection. The underlying policy, passed 25 years ago, is a sound one. My first and foremost responsibility is to follow the laws in the state of Washington. I had to look and see, 'Is there malice, is there a lack of good faith?'

Translation from lawyer-speak: Cops get special treatment. Go pound sand if you don't like it.

I, for one, don't like it.

Apparently, a badge DOES give a cop the authority to kill a minority...or anyone else...and will continue to do so until right-minded people demand that policies like the Seattle area "the cop is innocent unless we say so...and we won't say so" policy are abolished and cops are treated the same as ordinary citizens who commit acts of violence.