The Vote Was Actually The Small Problem

68 year old immigrant voted in 2024 and is being prosecuted for it.

First off, I didn't give their headline for this. 

Secondly, he's been here for 30+ years and is only now getting around to applying for citizenship?

An application that is being derailed by his criminal act of illegally voting.

This is something that's been bothering me for a long time.

We shouldn't be giving visas for people to stay longer than a vacation.

If you want to live here, you have to become one of us.

Assimilate to our culture and get that citizenship or go the fuck back home.

Because it's clear when they dither for decades about it, they don't really consider America to be their home.

"Oh, but McThag, he HAS assimilated!"

Then what the fuck was he waiting on?

And, while we're fixing our visa system...  I think that any place hiring any kind of H1 visa should have to show there were zero applications from citizens before they can spend the $150k application fee per H1 visa then the $250k fee for bringing over a foreign worker.  I might even assign a "stop the exploitation of foreign labor" fee of $250k a year to keep that worker.

I mean if there REALLY aren't any Americans qualified for the work and it HAS to be done, this is a pittance, no? 

I would further say that the H1 visa should only be good for the job they were imported for, not just ANY job.  This loophole is really the biggest part of the problem. 

Different Words Is A Clue

I don't think many politicians understand what "affordable" means.

It means that I have enough money to afford it.

It can mean that it costs less or that I have more money.

Too often, having more money has come with the cost climbing to meet the raise, or surpassing it.

Affordable doesn't mean that I want someone else to pay for it.

Affordable doesn't mean that I don't want the person selling it to not make a profit.

But I keep seeing a strong correlation between how tightly something is regulated and how expensive it is, along with a strong correlation between whether most people pay for it out of pocket or if an insurance company typically pays.  There is also a strong relationship between government supplying the money for a good and the prices spiraling out of control.

Combine any or all of these things and it's logarithmic and/or exponentially more expensive.

Sprinkle in some union influence for the maximum price increases for minimum increase in value.

Just as macroeconomics can be summed up as, "Supply and demand, that's it!":  Eliminating the middle man is one of the surest ways to make the price of something go down. 

Good Guy With A Gun

A good guy with a gun got to the shooter in Bend, Oregon three minutes before the cops got there.

That's the part that needs to sink in.

It's been said before, "When seconds count, the cops are minutes away."

It was true when coined and remains true today.

Much emphasis is being put on the good Samaritan having a concealed carry license.

Like doing this good deed without one would make it wrong.

Of note:  Both the shooter and the good Samaritan were in violation of Oregon's gun-free school law.  The Bend-La Pine district has opted in to banning guns from school property.

I am glad our hero decided to break the law to save lives rather than give an interview saying, "I could have run in and stopped him, but it was illegal to have my gun in there and, as we all know, breaking the law is wrong." 

Scattered And Concentrated

I have a friend who is moderately afraid to come visit Florida because of Florida Man stories.

She's fully convinced that there's alligators in every yard.

Seeing a gator around here is uncommon enough we dive for a camera! 

FuzzyGeff recently was in San Francisco and didn't get a single hit on the bingo card for things I see breathlessly reported all the time about the homeless and druggies.

David Freiburger of Hot Rod, Car Craft and Roadkill fame has groused at people hating on the state he was born, raised and still lives in, California.

I know Florida best, and I think it's the same in California as it is here.

There's places you shouldn't go.

Places that are just bad.

What always messes with me about it is how sharp the lines between the good and bad places are.  Crime literally does not cross the street at the borders.

When I go looking, I found those lines in Los Angeles.  I found those lines in Miami-Dade.  I found those lines in Chicago.  I know where those lines are in my local area. 

There's people living perfectly normal, happy, lives in places that I'd consider a Hellhole because I only hear about the criminals across the line in their areas.

I should probably be less prejudiced. 

This Didn't Happen With Hangings

Christa Pike has, apparently survived two attempts at lethal injection.

What the actual fuck?

Say what you will about other methods, most people don't survive the second application.

Hanging is wonderfully good at this.

Ain't dead!

Wait.

The method I like is nitrogen flooding.

Just flood the executing chamber and wait.  No hazmat problems!

Does She Think It Will Be Hard To Find Candidates?

Tennessee woman on death row demands an all female firing squad.

I think that Harvey is free that day. 

The Cops Aren't Coming

I said it during the defund the police campaigns.

I'm saying it again with the local politicians talking about the potential effects of Florida's proposed Amendment 3.

If the cops aren't coming, then the cops aren't coming.

That means that the normal people are free to act against criminals in a way unremembered since we delegated our police power to the people doing it for a living.

Criminals, you REALLY want the cops to come because the average person has no way to jail you and no motivation at all to hold a trial after catching you red handed.

Essentially it's a judge, jury and (literal) executioner situation without worries of the cops second guessing the decision.

Bring it, you tax fattened hyenas. 

Ackshually

Lindsey Clancy is not a triple murderer.

She's a triple killer.

Murder is a legal term and she has not yet been convicted.

She has admitted, and so stipulated for the court, that she did kill her kids.

I remain hopeful she will get her comeuppances. 

However

If someone is so mentally off center that they're a danger to others, they need to be kept from others.

Not guilty by reason of insanity should lead to a mental hospital.

The stay to be governed by how long it takes them to regain sanity and if they never do, then they stay forever.

An insanity plea shouldn't be a means to escape all the consequences of their actions.

Arguably, a successful insanity defense should yield a worse "punishment" than prison because release is predicated on showing they have, fully, recovered from their psychosis and are safe to be among the rest of us.  That predication makes the sentence open ended and indefinite.

I'm open to the argument that any mental illness that leads to a homicide should end in euthanasia.  I can also see how dangerous that idea is, so I'm not advocating for it.

We've a mental health problem in the US.  We dismantled a working system in the Reagan era, rightfully in too many cases, and did nothing to replace it.

Solid, compassionate, institutions caring for the mentally ill were closed with the callous and abusive.  Thanks Sixty Minutes!

It does need fixed, but who do you trust to do it? 

Sexism

It only took 18 minutes for a jury to convict John Battaglia for murdering his two daughters.

His defense (on appeal) was remarkably, and superficially, similar to Lindsey Clancy's.

The Lovely Harvey is following this trial closely and I'm getting snippets.

Something that stands out is the willingness to create a narrative where her husband is actually responsible, even if she did the actual killing.

But none dare call it sexism. 

Finally Some Good News

Deserter's conviction reinstated!

I can't believe this shit is still going on, nice to see resolution happening.

Top To Bottom

 

The stack of mismatched ammo from this recent post appears to be:

1x 9x19mm ball.

2x 9x19mm HP

4x 7.63x25 Luger

4x 9x19mm ball. 

There are many pictures of guns seized by the cops with wildly mismatched ammo, but I think this is the first time I've seen the wrong round for the gun included. 

Phish Elsewhere

Got an email from a dead email account that still forwards...

It was in my spam folder.

It warns me that it's infected my operating system with malware and they used the camera on my computer to catch me doing naughty things while viewing an adult webpage.

They threaten they're going to send the video they took to everyone on my contacts list if I don't send a large amount to their bitcoin account.  They helpfully provide a string for doing so.

Well, scammer...

BRING IT!

I fucking DARE you; NO I double dog dare you to send a vid of me jerking off to everyone on my contacts list.

The worst I will get is, "Why the fuck, Angus?"

My contacts don't care, so titillate them, Mr Scammer.

Don't Paint The Camera

People are not being creative enough when they break the law.

I'm not saying anyone should go out and do this.  But I have decades of murder-hobo wrangling that cause my mind to think about crimes and both how to commit them and how to stop them (depending on the party's law abiding level). 

If one really wanted to cause issues with a Flock camera, one should do something that causes it to degrade performance over a longer period of time.

Problems have solutions.  Dilemmas are never ending. 

Like spraying the solar panel with a UV blocking, etching, clear primer.

This reduces the amount of power the panel provides and the etching makes them ultimately have to replace the panel instead of cleaning it off.

But they get days or weeks of trying to figure out why that camera is working intermittently.

Again: Don't do this!  It's a crime to vandalize or destroy private property.  The proper way is to get off your ass and start eliminating all of the elected officials who support this statist shit by electing better officials from dog-catcher up. 

Peele Was Right

The police are expending a lot of resources to figure out who's cutting their little cameras down.

And I say they are their cameras because Flock doesn't install them where there's nobody paying them.

The thing the cops need to recall is something Sir Robert Peele said:

"To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfill their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect."

That sentence is almost 200 years old.

It's still true.

The cops wasting resources finding the people who are cutting these cameras down is undermining public approval of their existence at a time when half the body politic has been clamoring for their elimination.

Good show!

Getting back to Peelian Principles would go a long way towards mending the rift between the police and the citizens who've delegated their powers to them. 

Heck Of A Contrast

More murders in Chicago than all of Florida's major cities combined!

Except for one teensy problem...  Jacksonville.

According to the article, Chicago has had 211 murders this year.  The three cities they cite had 29.  Jacksonville had 27.

The headline is still correct, but you have to include Jacksonville when you talk about major cities in Florida, especially since Jax is punching above its weight for crime. 

They Should Sue

DSArms aka DSA should sue the Democratic Socialists of America also aka DSA for use of their trademark.

I think they are due substantial financial compensation for the clear damage done to their reputation. 

Hang Anyone Who Answers

Jim Geraghty wants someone to publish how many rounds we have in our critical munitions stockpiles.

During a shooting confrontation.

Something about "aid and comfort to the enemy" comes to mind about anyone who gives Jim the "straight answer" he seeks.

I might even go so far as to include Mr Geraghty as an accessory before the fact for soliciting the information from someone who would divulge the information. 

Gotta Read The Whole Article

Road rage or self defense?

Iowa is a Constitutional Carry state, so what does, "one count of being a person ineligible to carry dangerous weapons," mean?

Is that how Iowa phrases, "felon in possession?"

But look how far down the article you have to get before you find out that the person with the gun is the victim of a rear-ending and the person who rear ended them has a history of driving without a license and insurance.

That mentioning the behavior of this person post-impact was, in fact, criminal is tossed in as an aside.

This case might end up, eventually, at the Supreme Court over whether felons have the right to own a gun to defend themselves.

And since the cops have, repeatedly, used "tried to run me over" as a positive defense for shooting someone trying to run them over, pulling a gun to get someone who's just rear ended you from continuing to move their car seems fairly justified. 

The Spirit Of Aloha

Hawaiian cops have, so far, declined to call assault a hate crime despite use of racial slur.

Racism is racism and if we're going to have hate crime provisions, then they need to be applied to everyone equally.