St. Louis CofCC Blog

Ebay France, that is. The good news is that the bidding on the souped-up 1991 Peugeot is up to €10 million ($15.5 million) at the time of this writing — so somebody appreciates his career and accomplishments. The bad news is that he thinks he no longer needs a bullet-proof car, meaning the end of his political viability.

Time, on the London mayoral race:

Any enthusiasm for addressing this democratic deficit could be diminished if the May 1 elections see the British National Party pick up its first-ever Assembly seats. Promising to “stop immigration”, to give “British jobs to British workers” and to “House British people first,” the party is hoping its crude populist message will resonate with white Londoners. Some pollsters predict they’ll win one or two seats. It’s a timely reminder that politics isn’t always a laughing matter.

Yes, because stopping immigration, giving British jobs to British workers, and housing British people first would be such a crude tragedy, wouldn’t it?

The reason that Red Ken might lose and the BNP might gain seats is that a “city” in England and a “city” in America are defined differently. In British parlance, “London” doesn’t mean the core central city (which is actually small and doesn’t have a big population), it essentially means the metropolitan area. Imagine how different St. Louis City Hall would be if the whole metropolitan area could vote. Since Mayor Slay wants to make St. Louis City seem more crime-free than it actually is by manipulating metropolitan area crime statistics, it’s apropos.

Speaking of big city mayors, Gianni Alemanno will be the new mayor of Rome (actually, the Rome area). He was Silvio Berlusconi’s agriculture minister during his previous stint as PM. And he will be the first right-wing mayor of any majority-white city/area considered a “world city” in my conscious lifetime.  He promises to make crime and immigration his top-burner issues.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Nixon announces higher ed plan

On a campaign stop at the University of Missouri-St. Louis this morning, Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon unveiled a plan to allow some Missouri students who start out at a community college to get a four-year degree without having to pay any tuition.

Nixon, a Democrat running for governor, said his Missouri Promise plan would ensure students don’t graduate saddled with large amounts of debt from paying “outrageous tuition rates.”

Under his plan, he would expand the state’s A+ program to all Missouri high schools — not just the half currently in the program. Under that program, students who meet certain academic, community service and financial need criteria can go to a Missouri community college or technical school for free.

Nixon’s plan would also mean that after those students get their two-year associate’s degree, they could transfer to a four-year public university in Missouri also tuition-free.

(snip)

“While other states have been making college more affordable and accessible, Missouri has moved backwards. The Missouri Promise will create a pathway to a four-year degree for those families struggling to afford college tuition during these difficult economic times. We must make the dream of a college education a reality for all Missouri families.”

Any plans to guarantee such college graduates jobs commensurate with their education? (Assuming they haven’t all been outsourced to Bangalore.)  Oh yeah, these are the Democrats we’re talking about.  So the answer is yes if you’re non-white.

Al Sharpton wants to “close NYC down” (good luck with that). Remember that two of the three cops were black, and that they waived a jury trial, in order to have their case heard and decided by a judge. Al Sharpton should blame the prosecutors, because they, as lawyers, couldn’t convince another lawyer beyond a reasonable doubt. Assuming that they ever could have.

WKMG-CBS-6 Orlando:

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Men dressed in black with covered faces are hunting and then slashing random strangers with razor blades as part of a gang initiation, police warned residents.

Investigators said a gang in Flagler County is sending its future members to Daytona Beach to seek out victims to cut.

Once a gang recruit slashes a stranger, he gains the respect of his peers and is inducted into their underground society, police told Local 6’s Tarik Minor.

We aren’t told much about the gang, but we do know something about one of its victims. If all of their victims share one obvious similarity with this victim, then this might tell us something about this gang.

And proud to be jacked by them, too?

Fox News:

Mexican Embassy: Official Fired After Getting Caught With White House BlackBerries

Whether he was up to no good or simply desperate to play BrickBreaker, a Mexican press attaché was caught on camera pocketing several White House BlackBerries during a recent meeting in New Orleans and has since been fired, FOX News has learned.

Sources with knowledge of the incident said the official, Rafael Quintero Curiel, served as the lead press advance person for the Mexican Delegation and was responsible for handling logistics and guiding the Mexican media around at the conference.

(snip)

Sources said Quintero Curiel made it all the way to the airport before Secret Service officers caught up with him. He initially denied taking the devices, but after agents showed him the DVD, Quintero Curiel said it was purely accidental, gave them back, claimed diplomatic immunity and left New Orleans with the Mexican delegation.

He was in New Orleans to plan the formal integration of Canada, the USA and Mexico. That way, the next time something like this happens, it will simply be a “domestic theft” on the books.

And by the way, White House CrackBerries?  What did he think he would find on them?  All the real good top secret stuff is on Federal government laptops.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Civil rights groups sue state officials over voter registrations

Voting-rights activists filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against Missouri public aid officials and election authorities in St. Louis and Kansas City, saying that agencies have failed to help poor people stay active on the voter rolls.

The suit, filed in Kansas City by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, focuses on a 1993 federal law that requires voter registration to be offered at drivers license facilities and government assistance offices — those that offer aid such as food stamps, Medicaid and welfare. But although registering at drivers license offices is now commonplace, activists claim the Missouri Department of Social Services has shirked its obligations.

Because it’s so hard to register to vote otherwise, we have to make it even easier, by offering up the opportunity for people in the places where they will go to sign up to collect some of your tax money.  And which political party and philosophy do you think would these voters endorse?

Boston Globe:

Bill bars gangs from ’safety zones’

Gang members seen talking to one another or standing together on public property could be fined or jailed under a new bill being pushed in the Legislature and supported by some prosecutors and Boston police.
more stories like this

The bill would give broad authority to police and prosecutors to bring civil lawsuits against reputed gangs or their members, forbidding them to hang out together in the neighborhoods and parks that police say they terrorize.

(snip)

Under the bill, suspected gang members would be barred from parks, neighborhoods, and other areas designated as “safety zones,” and police could order groups of three or more gang members found there to leave. The restriction, which would not extend to church or school events, would also impose a 10 p.m. curfew on gang members.

Good luck with that, Boston.  You’re talking about people that have trouble obeying laws against murder, robbery, drug dealing, and so on.  What makes you think they’ll cede to curfews and safety zones?  Assuming that, and assuming that gang members are that easy in a legal sense to identify (gang laws often do not hold up in court, because of the nebulous and informal nature of black and Hispanic street gangs), why stop at a 10 PM curfew and only a few “safety zones?”  Why not make a 24-hour-a-day curfew and make all of Boston a “safety zone?”  Further, why not just round them up using RICO and state equivalents?

Similarly, I cringe whenever I hear one community activist or another calling for a moratorium on violent crime for a finite length of time.  If they have that much power to stop crime for a month, why not make it forever?

UK Telegraph:

Los Angeles ‘is a Third World city’

(snip)

Ernesto Cortes Jr, of the Industrial Areas Foundation, a think-tank that specialises on social change, claimed Los Angeles was at a crossroads.

“The question is are we going to be a 21st century city with shared prosperity, or a Third World city with an elite group on top and most on near poverty wages?” he said.

The answer is yes.

McClatchy:

Kidnappings soar in Mexico as drug gangs seek new income

JUAREZ, Mexico — Daniel Escobedo was driving to school when he stopped for what he thought was a security check at a roadblock in the Mexican city of Juarez , across the border from El Paso, Texas.

Worried about being late for class, he hurriedly handed his driver’s license to the two uniformed men, who he thought were police officers.

Moments later, two dark SUVs screeched to a halt. Armed masked men jumped out and grabbed Escobedo, 21. He spent the next six weeks blindfolded, shuttled between safe houses while a drug-gang leader negotiated a ransom with his father, who’s a lawyer. He was beaten, shocked and burned until his rescue April 1 by Mexican soldiers who’d been tipped that drug dealers were using the house.

“For a month and a half, I thought I was going to die,” Escobedo said.

He’s one of a growing number of kidnapping victims here as Mexico’s drug gangs seek new business to replace lucrative drug smuggling, which has become more dangerous as Mexican authorities pursue the largest anti-drug-trafficking effort ever in the country.

In other words, the Mexican authorities have been a little successful in squelching the drug trade, but not rounding up the drug gangs. And what a surprise — they find a new crime aviendo.

I’m not sure, at least after reading this article from CNS News:

Students Should Study Human Rights Violations of Mexican-Americans, Lawmaker Says

During the 1930s, the U.S. government “violated the human rights of many Americans of Mexican ancestry” by deporting an estimated 2 million of them to Mexico, a California lawmaker says.

State Sen. Gil Cedillo, a Los Angeles Democrat, has introduced a bill (SB 1214) that would require the California Education Department to incorporate the “unconstitutional deportations” of the 1930s into the Social Studies curriculum for public schol students in 7th through 12th grades. The deportations would be added to the list of human rights issues that students learn about.

“By incorporating this historical event in our history books and making curriculum accessible to educators we can begin educating our future generations in order to prevent future imminent violation of human rights,” Cedillo says on his Web site.

Actually, it will probably serve to provoke anger, rage, jealousy, resentment and hate in the minds of young Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, and provoke a few of them to commit violent hate crimes against “gringos.” So much for human rights.

Cedillo and other critics say up to 2 million Americans citizens and legal residents (400,000 in California, they say) were unconstitutionally deported to Mexico. But an in-depth examination by USA Today found that “tens of thousands” of people — “possibly more than 400,000 Mexicans and Mexican-Americans” — were pressured to leave the United States through federal raids and denial of jobs.

The push to remove illegal aliens came at a time when jobs were scarce in this country.

Were they here legally, were they citizens, or were they here illegally? I imagine that it was a combination of all three, and in the 1930s, like the “Operation Wetback” of two decades later demonstrated, most illegal aliens will self-deport if the economic benefits of illegal entry are squelched. No mass roundups required.

BBC:

Muslim call to adopt Mecca time

Muslim scientists and clerics have called for the adoption of Mecca time to replace GMT, arguing that the Saudi city is the true centre of the Earth.

Mecca is the direction all Muslims face when they perform their daily prayers.

The call was issued at a conference held in the Gulf state of Qatar under the title: Mecca, the Centre of the Earth, Theory and Practice.

One geologist argued that unlike other longitudes, Mecca’s was in perfect alignment to magnetic north.

He said the English had imposed GMT on the rest of the world by force when Britain was a big colonial power, and it was about time that changed.

Yet, this probably won’t preclude a lot of Muslims from immigrating to England and living in London.

WBBM-CBS-2 Chicago:

Bloody Weekend: 32 Shot, 2 Stabbed, 6 Dead

A violent and deadly weekend continues in Chicago. At least 12 people have been shot, two of them killed, since Saturday morning. Two others were stabbed in a home invasion. This comes after at least 20 people were shot, four of them killed, from Friday night through early Saturday.

A 28-year-old man was shot and killed at an auto body repair shop on the Southwest Side Saturday morning. Raul Lemus was shot in the stomach at 2520 W. 59th St. at about 11:20 a.m.

Lemus, of 4630 S. Talman Av., died several hours later at Stroger Hospital, making him the sixth person killed in Chicago since Friday night. Police said the shooting appeared to be gang related.

Also Saturday morning, Michael Giles, 26, was shot and killed inside his home at 336 N. Avers Av. Harrison Area detectives are investigating.

In another case, a suspect toting an AK-47 has been charged with murder and three counts of attempted murder after allegedly killing a man and shooting at police. Bennie Teague, 39, was denied bond in the case Sunday afternoon.

It’s amazing no one was hurt during the shootout between police and Teague, who was firing an assault rifle. Police say the gunman opened fire on them Friday night at 110th and South Union. They tracked him down after he allegedly shot and killed 34-year-old Marcus Hendricks inside a plumbing business a few blocks away.

(snip)

“To put the shooting in perspective, you have to consider this was a 17-hour window,” said Chicago Police spokesperson Monique Bond about the number of shootings.

Chicago police are now stepping up patrols in areas that they call “hot zones.” Police blame the warmer temperatures for the spike in violence.

“We know that we’re approaching warmer weather, the summer season. We know that this is going to be a very busy season for the Chicago Police Department. There’s no doubt about that,” Bond said.

Yep, one long hot summer in Chicagograd.  And keep in mind that summer is warmer than spring — so this means that the “32 Shot, 2 Stabbed, 6 Dead” that was a nightly occurrence in April will be an hourly occurrence in July.  But be of good cheer.  Maybe one of these years, Chicago’s gun ban will work.  “Hot zones.”  I wonder if these zones have something in common.  Also get ready for the gang mitigation industry to pass the taxpayer collection plate around.

Likewise, St. Louis had a relatively exciting weekend in this stead.  There were two different incidents of triple shooting victims.  One of them resulted in all three victims being killed, while the other (IIRC) resulted in no fatal victims.

National Examiner:

A massive drug-trafficking ring circulated methamphetamine around the country via buses, vehicles disguised as satellite TV trucks and complex, electronically triggered hiding spots inside cars, authorities said Thursday.

The drug trade began in Mexico, where methamphetamine can be made more easily than in the U.S., said Jane Duke, federal prosecutor for the eastern district of Arkansas. Many U.S. states, including Arkansas, regulate the sale of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, ingredients found in cold medicine that can be used in bulk to make meth.

A three-year investigation - dubbed “Tienda Hielo” or “Ice Store” - into the drug ring has led to about 65 arrests and the seizure of more than 100 pounds of meth, which would have a street value of about $11 million, Duke said. Local, state and federal authorities announced the drug bust Thursday.

According to Duke, the drug was manufactured in Mexico, then brought over the border into San Diego. From there, couriers would transport the drugs throughout the country, sometimes carried on passenger buses cross-country, other times in so-called “clone trucks,” which are made to look like commercial trucks delivering soft drinks or food, said Lt. Keith Eremea of the Arkansas State Police.

Eremea said state troopers are trained to look “for things that just don’t look right.” According to Eremea, drugs are sometimes hidden in complicated electronic traps that can only be accessed through certain settings on the car. For example, a hiding place would open up only if the cruise control was on and the air conditioner was set to a certain level.

Speaking of which, the Post has an editorial today about the futility of strengthening Missouri’s current restrictions on ephederine tablet purchases, and the paranoia about meth lab busts, because Missouri’s labs were trailer park operations that in the aggregate did not produce too much volume.  The Post noted that meth addicts, who need a new source now that the domestic meth industry is dead, are turning to Mexican suppliers.  What was surprising about this editorial is that the Post, like most major American papers, is in support of amnesty and virtually open borders.

AP:

Obama, Clinton woo coal vote in upcoming primaries

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are walking a delicate line as they promise to aggressively tackle global warming while trying to assure voters that they continue to believe in the future of coal.

In states like Pennsylvania, where voters will cast ballots this Tuesday, and in West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana and Montana — upcoming primary states — coal sways voters.

(snip)

Both Obama and Clinton have rallied environmentalists with their promises to develop windmills, solar power and other renewable energy sources and order mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases from power plants to counter global warming.

It’s an energy policy that would seem to target coal, which produces half the country’s electricity but also nearly 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, each year.

Instead, “clean coal” has become the mantra of both candidates. Some environmentalists are not too happy with that.

“They keep using the term ‘clean coal.’ That’s really an oxymoron,” snaps Brent Blackwelder, president of the environmental group Friends of the Earth. “They absolutely are pandering the coal industry’s propaganda that clean coal is the hope of the future. There’s no such animal as clean coal.”

Actually, there is. And the story behind it illustrates Hillary Clinton’s hypocrisy.

During his second term, President Clinton used the Antiquities Act to turn parts of southern Utah and northern Arizona into a national monument, called the Grand Staircase Escalante. It just so happens that that area has a lot of clean coal underneath it that all of a sudden was off-limits, such that to comply with Federal environmental standards, clean coal had to be purchased from an Indonesian cabal called the Lippo Group, run by a family called Riady that just so happened to dump bags of money into the Clinton for President campaigns.

All this hatin’ just brings me up:

Nearly 300 illegal immigrants were convicted on driving-while-impaired charges and placed in North Carolina prisons in 2007.

Hispanics also account for 18 percent of drunken-driving arrests, while making up less than 7 percent of the state’s population, according to a study from the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center aired in [*****]’s documentary “Focal Point: Crossing the Line.”

The study also showed that Hispanics involved in car crashes were 2.5 times more likely to be drunk than white drivers and three times more likely to be drunk than black drivers.

In the three cases listed above, each of the accused drunken drivers had extensive contact with the judicial system – but had managed to elude the immigration system until these incidents.

Surely, this has to be from some organization or institution that the Paranoia-Industrial Complex is none too happy with?

Unless WRAL, the CBS affiliate in Raleigh-Durham, N.C. is an SPLC-categorized hate group, then the answer is no.

Lighter is less corrupt, darker is more corrupt.

The axiom is clouded a bit by the fact that Argentina (the whitest country in South America) and Russia are relatively dark on this map.

Catholic Online:

Pope Benedict’s Historic White House Visit

In a second historic visit by a Pope to the White House, Pope Benedict proclaims “Christ our Hope” to the United States.

WASHINGTON (Catholic Online) – Pope Benedict visited the White House today, welcomed by the President and Mrs. Bush, distinguished members of U.S. Government, his bishops, and thousands of cheering voices.

This is the first visit of His Holiness to the United States since he became Pope. Pope Benedict XVI is only the second Pontiff to visit The White House. His Holiness Pope John Paul II was welcomed to The White House by President Jimmy Carter on October 6, 1979.

Upon his arrival, the Pontiff was treated to a host of special performances, which begun a presentation by the U.S. Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps.

(snip)

After President Bush and His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI addressed the crowd, the U.S. Army Chorus performed “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

Doesn’t anybody else find this ironic?  The “Battle Hymn of the Republic” is a blasphemous screed that gives pseudo-Divine countenance to looting, burning, laying waste and terrorizing in the name of universal human (especially racial) equality.  The irony is that Pope Benedict XVI, like his predecessor, has criticized President Bush’s similar ambitions in Iraq.  Also ironic is that the Pope and the President were photographed with the Confederate Battle Flag as a background earlier today.

And I’m not talking about the human beings.

Time:

Is Brigitte Bardot Bashing Islam?

She may be better remembered as the revolutionary sex kitten of 1960s French cinema, but these days Brigitte Bardot is better known as a standard-bearer of the anti-immigrant wing of France’s political spectrum. Bardot went on trial Tuesday charged with “inciting racial hatred,” and in view of her four previous convictions on similar charges, prosecutors sought exceptionally stiff penalties of $22,000 and a two month suspended sentence.

“I’m a bit tired of trying Madame Bardot,” admitted assistant prosecutor Anne de Fonette, as she urged the court to impose “the most striking and remarkable” punishment in the case. A verdict is expected on June 3.

Then stop.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Supreme Court upholds Kentucky’s use of lethal injections

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court upheld Kentucky’s use of lethal injection executions Wednesday.

The justices, by a 7-2 vote, turned back a constitutional challenge to the procedures in place in Kentucky, which uses three drugs to sedate, paralyze and kill inmates.

“We … agree that petitioners have not carried their burden of showing that the risk of pain from maladministration of a concededly humane lethal injection protocol, and the failure to adopt untried and untested alternatives, constitute cruel and unusual punishment,” Chief Justice John Roberts said in an opinion that garnered only three votes. Four other justices, however, agreed with the outcome.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissented.

This probably means that Missouri’s execution method is square with the Supreme Court’s interpretation du jour of the Constutition. Then again, what business it is of the Federal judiciary that condemned murderers might feel a tiny fraction of the pain while being executed that they put their victims and victims’ loved ones through is beyond me.

Let’s hope that the third time is a charm, and that he really does crack down on illegal aliens and the criminal “army of evil.“

Fox News:

Jeremiah Wright Sounds Off At Eulogy for Chicago Judge

Rev. Jeremiah Wright told a congregation in Norfolk, Va., on Sunday that reporters sneaked into a private funeral service a day before, in which he blasted America’s founding fathers for slavery and white supremacy and received standing ovations for attacking FOX News for covering his anti-American sermons.

Why is this so shocking? The Founding Fathers were “white supremacists” under today’s impossibe standards. The only difference is that Rev. Wright says it, while most elected liberals won’t.

But it turns out a gunshot will.

The deed took place on Potomac and Spring in south city. The suspect is described like many of this city’s usual suspects are described (and actually are), a black man between 17 and 20. The victim’s family thinks that gang initiation was the motive.

Alderwoman Jennifer Florida blames area landlords for renting to criminals (as if a landlord is supposed to be a clairvoyant), and wants them to do criminal background checks on perspective renters. If they actually did that, Jen, the NAACP/Urban League/EEOC/DOJ/city black aldermen would have a fit. And, in this case, the suspect may not actually have been the contractual tenant of the domicile in which he lived.

The only slight silver lining to this cloud is that the perp shot a USPS letter carrier, which means the criminal proceedings will be in Federal court. If it were in state court in St. Louis City, the jury would probably be majority black, and the chances of race nullification would be high. Even though the Federal courthouse is also downtown, the jury pool can come from anywhere in eastern Missouri, meaning a whiter jury, i.e. a jury far more likely to consider actual evidence.

UPDATE 4/16:

The suspect is Adrian Mabry, 23, who lives near the scene of the shooting. His grandmother told the TV news yesterday that her grandson was a diagnosed schizophrenic and was off his meds. This probably means he lived with his grandmother, and it is highly unlikely that she was a convicted felon, so Alderwoman Florida’s proposal would have done no good. Mr. Mabry himself may not have a rap sheet. Still no word on motive, but since 23 is way over the hill for gang recruits, I doubt that the victim’s family’s theory is correct.

ANOTHER UPDATE, 4/16:

Mr. Mabry’s grandmother turned him in. He stole the gun used in the crime from said grandmother, because she works as an armed security guard. Which proves that she cannot be a convicted felon. He also moved to St. Louis and in with his grandmother from Chicago awhile back.

Blogging Stocks:

Wal-Mart starts strictly tracking gun sales

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) will soon be employing a new method to track gun sales in its stores. As part of a new measure in concert with the “Mayors Against Illegal Guns” group, Wal-Mart’s chief compliance officer J.P. Suarez went to D.C. with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to explain details on a new “10-point code” that will apparently thwart weapons from Wal-Mart from falling into criminal hands.

Wal-Mart will soon be video recording gun sales in its stores and then archiving the footage as part of being included in the “Responsible Firearms Retailer Partnership.” In addition, the world’s largest retailer will create a computer system to notify the company of a gun purchased in one of its stores is indeed used in a crime. If workers think they can get at guns from the inside, Wal-Mart will now perform screening and background checks on employees that will be handling and selling firearms in its stores.

In other words, if you’re a legal buyer that buys a legal gun legally at WM, and someone else winds up using it in a crime, it will somehow be your fault. I suppose the rationale is that WM is going to ferret out straw purchasers, and the assumption will be that if you bought it legally and someone else uses it in a crime, then you simply purchased it to give it to the ineligible person. What if your gun is stolen as part of a residential burglary, then used in a crime? (The more pressing problem, BTW.)  I can see it now — someone who buys a gun from WM has it stolen from him, and it’s used to murder someone.  He goes back to WM to replace it, and WM won’t sell him one.

Also, what is this big obsession with Wal-Mart? There are probably a hundred “mom-and-pop” firearm dealers for every Monopoly Mart out there. I think this country deserves at least one industry that isn’t controlled by the Fortune 1, and if I were you, I would make my purchasing decisions with this opinion in mind. Monopoly Mart won’t miss your business, the small merchant around the corner needs it, and wouldn’t insult you and drive you away by spying on you.

One reason why I think Monopoly Mart is willing to do this, and pander to “Mayors Against Illegal Guns,” is to penetrate urban areas. At the moment, Monopoly Mart often faces stiff (and succesful) opposition when it wants to open a store inside a major city, because of its preference for non-union associates, and because it does sell firearms.

Harrisburg Patriot-News:

Ron Paul campaigns in Gettysburg

Republican presidential candidate and Gettysburg College graduate Ron Paul toured his alma mater and spoke to supporters at the Majestic Theater today.

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul hasn’t fared well in the polls, but he demonstrated that he still has plenty of passionate supporters at a visit to Gettysburg today.

Paul drew a crowd of 800 vocal supporters at the Majestic Theater. He again made a pitch for limited government, more responsible government spending and an end to the war in Iraq.

And he chose the right spot. After all, Gettysburg, Penn. was the place where limited government in the American experience died on November 19, 1863, the American head of state on that day officially jettisoning limited government for unlimited and unchecked Federal power to enforce racial equality, and an imperialist war as a prologue. It’s the perfect place to bring back limited government and end another imperialist war in earnest.

UK Telegraph:

Serb prisoners ‘were stripped of their organs in Kosovo war’

Serb prisoners had their internal organs removed and sold by ethnic Albanians during the Kosovo war, according to allegations in a new book by the world’s best known war crimes prosecutor.

Carla Del Ponte, who stepped down in January as chief prosecutor at the Hague tribunal for crimes committed in the Balkan wars of the 1990s, said investigators found a house suspected of being a laboratory for the illegal trade.

(snip)

According to the sources, senior figures in the Kosovo Liberation Army were aware of the scheme, in which hundreds of young Serbs were allegedly taken by truck from Kosovo to northern Albania where their organs were removed. Miss Del Ponte provides grim details of the alleged organ harvesting, and of how some prisoners were sewn up after having kidneys removed.

“The victims, deprived of a kidney, were then locked up again, inside the barracks, until the moment they were killed for other vital organs. In this way, the other prisoners were aware of the fate that awaited them, and according to the source, pleaded, terrified, to be killed immediately,” Miss Del Ponte writes.

Remember, Bill Clinton started a war against Serbia, and George Bush continues the occupation thereof, based on the nebulous claims of genocide against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo at the hands of the Serbs and then-President Slobodan Milosevic. There were atrocities between the Serbs and Albanians, it’s just that they were the other way around.

Belleville News-Democrat:

Activist plans to lie in front of Metro bus to protest gas prices

ST. LOUIS — A preacher and activist says he will lie in front of a Metro bus Friday to protest high gasoline prices and a shortage of construction jobs given to black residents of St. Louis.

The Rev. Cleo Willis has participated in similar acts of civil disobedience in the past. He got in front of a MetroLink train in 2003 and helped shut down Interstate 70 in 1999.

Willis says he expects to be arrested for his rush hour action.

A Metro spokesman said he wasn’t aware of the impending protest.

And he did indeed do this this afternoon on Natural Bridge in north city, and some of St. Louis City’s finest were right there to give Mr. Willis a shiny new pair of handcuffs and a free trip downtown. The irony of this is that Metro (formerly Bi-State) is one of the more affirmative action-happy institutions in town. The city hall to which he was trying to send a message is 90% black. If he’s referring to the construction trades locally, he might do well to tell his people to brush up on basic math.

Also, what’s this about the high price of gas?  As often as gas stations in certain areas of this city are victims of pump-and-run, it seems like the price of gas is immaterial to a lot of Cleo Willis fans.

Philadephia Inquirer:

Nutter defiantly signs five gun laws

Mayor Nutter likened himself and City Council members yesterday to the band of rebels who formed this country as he signed five new gun-control laws that defy the state legislature and legal precedent.

“Almost 232 years ago, a group of concerned Americans took matters in their own hands and did what they needed to do by declaring that the time had come for a change,” Nutter said as he signed the bills in front of a table of confiscated weapons outside the police evidence room in City Hall.

Goofy better stop standing on his hands and brush up on his history. Paul Revere rode around Boston and proclaimed that “The British Are Coming” because they were “coming” to enforce the Crown’s gun control edicts. Mayor Nut would also do well to remember that many of those “concerned Americans” who “took matters into their own hands almost 232 years ago” would later frame a Constitution and then Amendments thereto, the Second of which says something about the right to bear arms shall not be infringed.