St. Louis CofCC Blog

Time Magazine:

A burst pipe in midtown Manhattan on Wednesday stirred the anxieties of New Yorkers who have experienced plenty of them since 9/11. But given the decrepit state of the country’s urban infrastructure, the debacle could very well have been at a bridge in Boston or a sewer in Philadelphia. Indeed, the Manhattan steam-pipe geyser might be compared to the flooding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and the 2003 blackout of the Eastern Seaboard: accidents and catastrophes that might have been prevented with the right funding and political priorities.

Urban planning experts say America’s older cities are modern-day Pompeiis - within range of volcanoes of infrastructure failures like New York’s. On Wednesday, a pipe, laid in 1924, exploded near Grand Central station, killing one person and injuring 30. Maintaining a sewer system is hardly a sexy political issue, but years of funding neglect and a subsequent lack of maintenance nationwide have left many of the country’s engineering systems unprepared to handle future stresses. “We have an aging infrastructure in this country, and we are not doing enough to maintain it and replace it,” said Sarah Catz, director of the Center for Urban Infrastructure at University of California-Irvine. “What you saw happen in New York will happen in all types of infrastructures.”

In Jared Taylor’s 1992 book, Paved with Good Intentions, there are a few paragraphs about New York City’s infrastructure. It is literally falling apart in many places, because the city’s government has to divert money from it to pay for crime suppression measures and social welfare. And so it is with many major cities in America.

Christian Science Monitor:

Phoenix - A young man is shopping at the Crossroads of the West Gun Show here, and there’s plenty to choose from. The cavernous hall is packed with tables loaded with long guns and pistols, some barrels etched with names like El Capitán (The Captain) and El Supremo (The Best).

Eventually he makes a cellphone call, and a young woman soon joins him. At a table he’d visited earlier, he points to several semiautomatic rifles and walks away. She approaches the vendor, handing him $1,125, cash, for three AK-47s, and fills out the requisite paperwork.

Outside, with the rifles slung over her slight frame, she meets up with the same man. Both are unaware that federal agents are watching, having reason to suspect that he is using her as a “straw man” to buy some big-time firepower for drug cartels or gangs in Mexico.

When the feds swoop in, intercepting the weapons and the woman before she drives from the parking lot, they’ve ensured that a third individual waiting to receive the guns at a rendezvous point will never get them. But the agents from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) acknowledge that, despite their best efforts, thousands of such gun-show purchases eventually turn up south of the border, where drug cartels are locked in a violent, escalating battle with the forces of the new Calderón government.

The Mexican government often complains that the reason the drug cartels flourish there so easily is because of the lucrative market for illicit drugs in the USA, and the flow of firearms from north to south.

I agree. And there is a simple and not-too-expensive solution, when one considers that the American government can spend $1 billion a day in a futile effort to bring democracy to Iraq. Build the border wall, and bring in the 101st Airborne to patrol our side of the border. That way, clean and pristine Mexico can have its virgin eyes shielded from the horror that is the collective throng of drug addicts and guns from its reprobate northern neighbor.

The Calderon Administration and the Mexican plutocracy it represents wouldn’t go for that. Their solution is no fence, open borders, and directing the American government to adopt Mexican-style gun laws and enforcement thereof in the American southwest, as if Mexico already controls the American southwest, which they’re not long from doing. As a commenter to the American Renaissance blog comment section said several weeks ago, Mexico is where Mexicans are.

UK Daily Mail:

A white policeman has begun a racial discrimination claim after an Asian colleague was promoted ahead of him.

Peter Richmond, 44, says he was next in line for the high-profile role of inspector in one of the country’s most racially divided inner-city areas.

But senior officers ignored force protocol and promoted Kash Singh ahead of him as a “token representative”, he told an employment tribunal.

(snip)

He accused the district commander, Chief Superintendent Allan Doherty, of choosing Mr Singh as an Asian figurehead to try to improve relations in the Manningham area of Bradford, which was hit by race riots in 1995 and 2001.

(snip)

Mr Richmond, a married father of two, from Skipton in North Yorkshire, was then demoted to constable after being accused of discrimination himself.

It was claimed he refused to let a female community support officer go to the lavatory, the hearing in Leeds was told on Wednesday. He is appealing against that decision.

Mr Richmond says the claim was brought against him in an attempt to bully him into dropping his racial discrimination case.

(snip)

Mr Doherty denied discrimination and said Mr Singh had been picked for promotion for his ability rather than his skin colour. He speaks Hindu, Punjabi and Urdu and is president of the British Indian Association.

“Since 2001, tensions between Muslim youths and police have been further strained because of terrorism,” said Mr Doherty. “This is a unique posting into a pressure cooker of an area.

“To have someone who has the credibility and trust of this community is something I can’t put a price on. If someone thinks I’d give this most important position to someone according to their skin colour then they’re deluded.”

That is affirmative action. If one truly believes that all races are equal, then it doesn’t matter who is or is not an inspector on a police force. Otherwise, it communicates the message that non-whites can’t behave unless members of their racial kin are high-level cops. The American experience has demonstrated the opposite.

Taking this mentality at face value, does this mean that in white cities, whites will be promoted ahead of non-whites in their police forces? Fat chance. If whites rioted, would there be a rush to promote whites over non-whites? Again, fat chance.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

JEFFERSON CITY — Public records suggest that Gov. Matt Blunt’s staff urged the Missouri Highway Patrol to issue a statement criticizing Blunt’s political rival, Democratic Attorney General Jay Nixon, over his handling of a dam collapse at Taum Sauk reservoir.

That revelation — first reported in the Kansas City Star on Thursday — has prompted Democrats to accuse the governor of an abuse of power, using a key law enforcement department as a political mouthpiece.

“The Missouri Highway Patrol is the state’s lead law enforcement agency and should not be used by the governor for political attacks,” said Jack Cardetti, a spokesman for the Missouri Democratic Party.

I wonder if one Jack Cardetti, a spokesman for the Missouri Democratic Party, was so upset when Governors Carnahan and Holden did the same.

In related news, Troop C of the Highway Patrol is in the process of moving its headquarters from a “blue” county to a “red” one.