Local news media is fond of calling law enforcement agencies at about 0500 to ask if there’s been any excitement.
I’ll bet you didn’t know that if you shriek, “Bullets aren’t stopping it!” from the back hall while the Dispatcher is on the front phone telling the newsie that it’s been a quiet night you can apparently cause an adrenaline rush in the afore-mentioned media-drone equal to about four simultaneous espresso shots.
Me, neither.
Oh, well. Yet another addition to the List of Forbidden Activities.
Right behind the 0400 Tac Channel broadcast of “The Adventures of Thunderbunny” and the addition of a glue-on rubber pig snout to the uniform on All Hallows Eve.
Amongst others.
No sense of humour in these bigger departments. Frankly, it’s annoying as hell.
LawDog
You’re going to go blind, dammit.
Today, I would like to address those of today’s Youth who have developed a certain public habit which is just flat annoying the hell out of me.
I am speaking of those boys — by no means gentlemen, truly — who feel that they simply can not venture into public without a two-fisted grip on Mr. Happy.
They’re every-sodding-where. Groups of them. Standing around with both hands rammed elbow-deep down the front of their trousers.
STOP IT!
Listen to me: I have four decades on this dirtball as a male of the species, and I can say with some authority that your wedding tackle is not going to sneak away if you don’t keep a firm grip on it. They’re going to be there next time you go to the litter box, trust me on this.
Your underwear does a fine job of keeping them warm, they don’t need extra bodyheat, nor do they require comforting, and there are three of them down there, so they’re not going to get lonely.
Despite what your mother may have told you, the Tallywhacker Fairy does not exist, and is not going to be stealing anything of yours that you don’t have a firm grip on.
If you are afraid of him falling off, quit putting him into dangerous places.
And, even if you do fail to heed the last advice, he’s going to go through at least four colour changes and shoot up the pain spectrum before detachment occurs, by which time you’ll have plenty of advance warning. In other words, it ain’t gonna be a surprise, boy.
Now.
QUIT IT.
Any male who can’t get from one end of a grocery store to the other without getting a firm grip on the family jewels isn’t a man — he’s a child.
A man does not require constant tactile reassurance that gremlins haven’t stolen his Bestest Buddy Since Puberty*. A man — a gentleman — does not go through society shedding curlies with every handshake, and a gentleman does not force the remainder of society to don gloves before touching public phones, elevator buttons, bank pens, door handles, cans of whole kernel corn, or anywhere else that your arthropod-infested little snot hooks may have been.
I swear to Shiva, if you little perverts don’t get your meat-hooks off your goodies, I’m going to take the bigger half of a pool cue and I’m going to start rapping knuckles.
I do hope I am no less than crystal clear on this one.
LawDog
* Edited because I had my anatomical euphemisms mixed up.
PeTA petters should probably skip this post.
1 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon ground oregano
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
Mixed that up this morning and bunged it into an old empty spice bottle. About an hour before I fire up the grill, I’m going to sprinkle it all over some nice little ribeyes, and let them contemplate in the ‘fridge until the coals are ready.
Then, I’m going to sear them on the rare side of medium-rare and serve ’em with a salad, fresh bread and microbrews.
The first person to reach for a bottle of A-1 is going to get shot.
LawDog
Thank you, Mr. Bush
President George Bush, on the anniversary of the Supreme Court Kelo v. New London decision, has issued an Executive Order forbidding the Federal Government from exercising Eminent Domain for private benefit.
I realize that this is probably more symbolic than anything else, but I appreciate it anyway.
Even if it does put a crimp on my plans for the United Nations.
LawDog
Mike Luckovich can pack his bum with salt and go piddle up a rope.
I’d like to introduce y’all to a lick-spittle little jelly-fish name of Mike Luckovich.
Mike seems to think he is somewhat of a talented editorial artiste. Shall we peruse one of his works? Why the hell not.
The “cartoon” in question is under the title “Book On Torture”. This isn’t the original title, originally it seems to have been “Pot To Kettle”, but seems Young Mikey discovered he had done hauled off and shoved his wedding tackle into a hornets nest, so he did a little crawfishing.
I thoroughly and completely wish that I actually lived in Atlanta, so that I could exercise my First Amendment right by buying every copy of this piece of filth and using it to stoke a bonfire for the purposes of burning an effigy of Mike Luckovich on the front lawn of the news office.
Mind you, that doesn’t come within 10% of demonstrating just exactly how PISSED OFF I am about this cartoon.
For those of you who might have blood pressure problems and should probably stay away from that link, allow me to describe it to you.
We have a cartoon drawing of two men, both wearing executioner hoods, the one on the right holding a knife and wearing a shirt labelled “Al Qaida”, the one on the right with a bullwhip and a PR-24 baton wearing a shirt with the American flag on the chest.
The American is reading from a book, titled “TORTURE ETIQUETTE” and instructing the Al Qaida, “I direct your attention to page 17, paragraph 9, line 4 …”
I see.
Seems that Mike Luckovich thinks that when Americans put panties on a prisoners head, it’s just as bad as Al Qaida CUTTING OFF A HEAD.
So. American violate procedure, put panties on inmate heads, let dogs bark at them and force them to deal with unveiled American women.
Al Qaida cuts genitals off. Cuts heads off. Breaks bones. Sets living people on fire.
The Americans who do the above get investigated, tried and sentenced to prison.
The Al Qaida who do the above are GODDAMNED HEROES.
Yeah. This is equal.
I swear to God, if I were kin to an American soldier who had had his genitalia cut off, been cut to ribbons, and had his arms broken before having his head sawed off, I do believe that I might consider the penalty for taking a horsewhip to Mike Luckovich on the front porch of the newspaper to be worth the jail time.
And I’m bloody well certain that were I on the jury deciding that case of horsewhipping, I damned sure would nullify the case and go out for tea.
I cannot fathom the mind that could believe that putting panties on a mans head is the moral equivalent of sawing off a mans head.
I seriously can’t.
Furthermore, I can’t understand how something that ought to be a man could be callous enough — depraved enough — to consider publishing that piece of garbage less than a week after those kids that Al Queda slaughtered were finally identified. Have those kids even gotten back home yet, much less been laid to rest?
Yet here is Mike Luckovich, ostensibly a man, making a black-and-white statement that what happened to those kids is the moral equivalent of what happened at Abu Gharib.
Hey, Mike, you pismire, tell me do, are the people who were tortured at Abu Gharib dead or alive?
Were there investigations and punishments?
Now, you worthless sack of skin, are those kids who were tortured by Al Queda still alive, or are they going home in boxes? Are the funerals going to be open or closed casket? Why?
Were there investigations and punishments?
You insignificant waste of DNA. You worthless oxygen thief. You two-bit, twinkle-toed, pansie-assed, boot-licking, split-tongued catamite. You are an inbred, gauch-eyed, boorish, ill-mannered honyock. Horsewhipping is too good for you.
You should get down on your goddamned knees and beg forgiveness of the families that are burying their dead for your unspeakable crime of comparing the torture and murder of their precious children to what happened at Abu Gharib.
Come near me, you insufferable little bastard, and I’ll spit in your face, I swear to God.
LawDog
Let’s see here…
The Administration declassified some documents stating that Coalition forces in Iraq found somewhere in the neighborhood off 500 artillery shells loaded with mustard gas and nerve gas. Comes to between one and two tons of lewisite and sarin.
This is news? Let me whip out a Ouija board and we can ask a whole bunch of metabolically-challenged Kurds if this is news.
With amazing predictability, a certain … segment … of the political spectrum has decided that this doesn’t really count as “mass” destruction.
Me, I’m just a redneck, but I figure that one metric ton of a substance that requires less than a milligram to Kill ‘Dog Dead is pretty far up there in the “mass destruction” category.
But that’s just me.
The National Academy of Sciences has declared that they’re “pretty sure” that the Earth is the warmest it’s been in the last 2,000 years.
When asked how warm was the Earth prior to the last 2,000 years, the N.A.S. responded by annoucing that the Earth is the warmest it’s been in the last 2,000 years.
When asked if the statement: “The Earth is the warmest it’s been in the last 2,000 years” meant that the Earth was warmer than it is now at 0 B.C. and before, the N.A.S. responded by announcing that the Earth is the warmest it’s been in the last 2,000 years.
When asked if the statement: “The Earth is the warmest it’s been in the last 2,000 years” meant that the Earth was warmer than now during the height of the Roman Empire, the Hellenistic Period, the Inca Empire, the Aztec Empire, several squillion Egyptian Pharoahs, Odin-only-knows how many Chinese Emperors, and various random cultures between the Tigris and Euphrates and/or south of the Himalayas, the N.A.S. responded by sticking their fingers in their ears and announcing that the Earth is the warmest it’s been in the last 2,000 years.
When it was pointed out that the fine print in the N.A.S. report indicated that the study was certain only for the last 400 years, and that the temperatures of the years before the last 400 were still only an educated guess, the N.A.S. responded by announcing that the Earth lalala warmest lalallalala 2000 years lalalalala GLOBAL WARMING!
Said announcement followed by rioting Congress-critters, hyper-ventilating Hollywood-critters, and much solemn sermonizing by plastic Media-critters.
*sigh*
LawDog
I am less than comfortable with this.
Nothing says, “I don’t trust the NOPD” quite like military patrols.
Hizzoner, the Mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin has requested Louisiana National Guard troops to patrol the Crescent City. His partner, The Right Honourable Governor Kathleen Blanco, was only too eager to supply soldiers.
Can Nagin do anything without begging for State or Federal help? Honestly, why does New Orleans even have a mayor?
Several things about this little blip in the soap opera that is post-Katrina New Orleans concern me — not the least of which is the fact that the last place the LA Nat’l Guard patrolled was downtown Baghdad — but I am particularly disturbed by the precedent this sets.
Traditionally, the Governor of a State activates the National Guard for disasters. Multiple city, multiple county, multiple jurisdiction incidents. Tornados starting in the South-west corner of the Panhandle and finishing in the North-east corner. Hurricanes that smash an entire coast. Blizzards covering a couple of States. Biblical-type stuff.
To activate a National Guard unit for one city of maybe 200,000 … what the hell? Doesn’t New Orleans sit in one or more counties? Or is it parishes? New Orleans doesn’t have a parish Sheriff’s Office they could have gotten help from? Mutual aid agreements with surrounding communities?
No, they had to call out troops.
The death of anyone is not a thing to be taken lightly, but are the deaths of several people who were most probably involved in the local distribution of recreational pharmaceuticals really worth the deployment of 300 soldiers?
Washington DC, Detroit, Los Angeles, Chicago and other cities see multiple homicides — since we’re doing it in New Orleans, should we go ahead and start deploying troops in these other cities?
Now, I freely admit that I’m not in New Orleans. It is entirely possible that, from my limited and admittedly biased viewpoint, I am missing something.
However, it is my firmly-held belief that Citizens of the United Staets, on United States soil, should never be policed by military troops unless and until things have gone completely and totally rodeo.
Five subjects getting canked over a dispute concerning Narcotics, Trade of … does not seem to me to pass the smell test for things going completely and totally rodeo — especially with the stated 1,375 civilian peace officers for a city that apparently numbers somewhere around 200,000.
As a comparison, Amarillo, Texas has a population of between 180,000 and 230,000 (depending on whose numbers you’re looking at) and a police force of a little over 300.
Arlington, TX pop: 360,000. PD of 730.
Garland, TX pop: 217,000. PD: 390
Lubbock, TX pop: 200,000. PD: 400.
New Orleans, LA. Population, about 200,000. PD: 1,375.
Plus 300 National Guard troops. And 60 Louisiana State Police.
Granted, none of the above cities in Texas have gone through a hurricane (Beaumont, pop: 114,000. PD: 303 Hurricane: Rita) — but Lord have mercy, 3X – 4X the number of officers for a similarly-sized Texas city and they still can’t get a grip on things?
What the hell, over?
LawDog
Darwin is a rotter
There is a club devoted exclusively to gangsta hip-hop music located in our fair city.
It is currently part of the turf owned by one set of Latino gangers who are feuding pretty seriously with another pack.
Small, dark, mota– reeking little place. My buddy Reno and I did some bouncing for spending money there for a couple of years when an African-American gang still owned that side; it was a brutal little dive then and it darned sure hasn’t got any better.
Local PD won’t go in there with less than four officers, and they usually have the tac-team do their walk-throughs.
Anyhoo, one night a while back there is a call for an ambulance, Rescue, the tac-team, and any available officers Code Three to the club.
Everybody and their grandma shows up. Several tons worth of officers show up, and muscle their way through the patrons to find a 19-year-old hispanic male laying on his side on the dance floor, completely unresponsive.
Everyone really, really wants to know just what the hell has happened here, his vatos are going bugnuts, and the only thing that anyone can learn is that the other gang has “done shot him”.
This is Not Good. This is So Not Good.
Visions of a full-blown gang war dancing in their heads, the tac-team starts heaving bodies out into the road while the detectives snatch two of the biggest-mouthed eses and start trying to put together a sequence of what the hell just happened here.
Turns out that about eight Kings walked into the club sometime prior to the incident and started dancing with Lords gals.
Young Eduardo De La Dancefloor decided that this was, indeed, an insult too great to be borne so he allegedly pulled out what seems to have been a chromed Raven Arms .25ACP, pointed it at the Kings, and engaged in what must have been a truly inspired Alpha Male Display.
The Kings chose (for once) the better part of valour and hauled butt out the side door of the club.
Young Eduardo then turned in triumph to his little pack, and in a manner calculated to cause swooning in any brainless girl-child desperate (or stupid) enough to hang out with Mexicano gangsters, whirls the little silver auto around his shootin’ finger, flips it back the other way, then back again, and proceeds to, err … manfully … thrust it home into the front of his waistband.
Ahem.
Gentle Readers, the Four Rules of Shooting are not just Rules, they are a damned fine idea. Let us ponder, in this case, the wisdom of: “Don’t Point The Barrel At Anything You’re Not Willing To Destroy” and “Keep Your Booger Hook Off Of The Bang Switch”.
Yeah. Whoo. I believe that my readers of the male persuasion probably have an inkling of what happened.
My friends, I have seen the impossible. I have proof of a one shot stop utilizing a single, lonesome .25ACP FMJ.
Sweet Shivering Shiva.
Ahem. Anyhoo, apparently the finale of this testosterone preen involved Young Eduardo staggering back a step, raising a paw to his buddies, stumbling a bit and then according to eyewitnesses, his eyes just “kinda rolled back” and Eddie ploughed nose first into the parquet dancefloor.
I shall never sniff disdainfully at those who choose to carry a .25 ACP again.
Apparently he blew the left one into hamburger, air-conditioned Mr. Happy, and the combination of muzzle-flash and hydrostatic shock(?!) bruised the right one to the point that it’s probably “not going to be viable”. Medically speaking.
Oh, and the the round drilled into his left thigh and snuggled in contentedly about an inch or so from the femur.
Gawd.
Jut another day in Law Enforcement, folks. You can’t make this stuff up.
LawDog
Jodies and Hypocrits.
“Jodie Calls” or “Cadences” are sung by the military while marching in rank. All branches of the military sing jodies — even the Marine Corps.
They are used to keep the troopies in time, and — more importantly — as a morale-builder.
When I went through Basic Training at Ft. Jackson in 1985, the New Army sensitivity hadn’t quite made it down to us, as a result, we still sang the older jodies. Vulgar, tasteless, obscene and scatological doesn’t quite cover it.
As Army recruits, we were firmly informed that we had two missions in life. The first of these was to kill people. The second was to break things. Those were our duties.
As a result, our jodies revolved around killing the enemy, killing Jody (the civilian at home who was topping your girl while you were in uniform), dying ourselves if we screwed up; about blowing things up, burning them down; loud, lewd ruminations about women, their morals and anatomical details…
Y’all get the picture. Not exactly Politically correct, but we were a bunch of piss-and-vinegar 18 year-olds who were training to become United States aRmy soldiers. We were not the Rover Scouts, and if you couldn’t handle harsh language and vivid imagery, then you didn’t need to be anywhere near where we were marching.
I bring this up, because apparently the USMC upper echelon has lost their ever-loving minds.
They seem to have developed an organization-wide wedgie concerning a song sung by a Marine, for the amusement of other Marines.
Rumour has it that some high-level marine-type officers are looking for an excuse to bust these kids.
Folks, any USMC officer of LTC (that’s Lieutenant-Colonel, I’m Army, stuff your LtCol) rank or higher was probably indoctrinated into the U.S. military at the same time that I was.
Any officer of LTC rank or higher sang the same damned jodies that I did at the time.
If I chanted “Bodies, Bleeding Bodies”, “Napalm Sticks To Kids”, and “Up Jumped The Monkey” then those very officers did, too, if not worse ones.
Any officer that breaks it off in those kids for singing a song that is considerably tamer than the cadences that officer sang when said officer was the same age as those kids is one hypocritical bastard.
And you can quote me on that one.
LawDog
HOW much?!
Fox News.
CNN.
MSNBC.
1.4 billion dollars.
That doesn’t sound too altogether bad.
$1,400,000,000.00.
One billion, four hundred million dollars.
Sweet Shivering Shiva. I honestly don’t know whether to spit or have a stroke.
For those of you who’d rather have the synopsis: That one billion, four hundred million dollars is the amount of YOUR money and MY money that was supposed to be used for disaster relief after Katrina/Rita, but was, apparently, not.
It seems that, pardon my aneurysm, that this one billion, four hundred million tax dollars was spent — not on food, water or the necessities of life — but, rather on such items as:
Season tickets to New Orleans Saints football games;
One week vacation in the Caribbean;
Various sex toys;
“Girls Gone Wild” DVDs; and
The services of a divorce lawyer.
On top of the other things like double-billed housing assistance and other aid fraud.
There are no words to describe my feelings on this matter. None.
I want to know, and I want to know right bloody skippy now, how much of this fraud has been committed by genuine victims of the hurricanes. In other words, I want to know how many people took their legitimate aid cards and bought non-essential things.
I realize that I shall never know these figures, because some-sodding-body is going to declare the results to be racist.
I’m going to tell you what: Between that jackass in his New York Holiday Inn, and the other jackasses relecting Ray “The Fed Gov’t Needs To Get Off Their Asses And Save Mine” Nagin, and now this little jewel, I have just about HAD IT with the Katrina/Rita debacle.
And don’t go blaming this crap on FEMA. Too many Congress-critters, Senate Things, Black Caucuses, commentators and other folks who think they’re actually important were flaming FEMA for delays at the time, there was no way this side of Annwyn that FEMA was going to take the time to properly check each applicant, causing more delays and catching even more grief.
You insignificant flyspecks decided to get six-feet up FEMAs fourth point of contact with your politicized horse manure, you ought to have to deal with the consequences, you insufferable little oiks.
Instead of accepting their part of the responsibility for this One Billion, Four Hundred Million Dollar goat-rope, Congress is suggesting, and I quote:
“Prosecutors from the federal level down should be looking at prosecuting these crimes and putting the criminals who committed them in jail for a long time.”
Yeah, that’s going to happen. About five minutes after my legions of flying monkeys complete my quest for World Domination.
Jail, my furry chapped butt. I want to see public floggings and crucifixions, Godsdamnit.
I want to see the dirty, rotten, worthless sack of trash who used a FEMA card to buy “Girls Gone Wild” get that DVD nailed to his forehead on national TeeVee.
I want to see empty Dom Perignon bottles kicked up until the oxygen thief who purchased the booze with disaster relief money — MY DAMNED TAX MONEY –chokes on the foil in the back of his throat.
I want to see … This … You have no idea …
One. BILLION. Four. HUNDRED. MILLION. Tax dollars.
My dollars. I sweated, bled and worked my arse off for those dollars. Forty, fifty and sixty hour work weeks, so the Gov’t could take the money out of my pocket and give — GIVE! — it to the poor, starving survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Caribbean-sodding-vacation. Dom-bloody-Perignon. Shagging toys.
I’m here to tell you, some people can officially GO TO HELL on this one, and you know who the hell you are, too.
LawDog