Say Anything Blog

New Study claims Detroit is most dangerous city in US:

DETROIT - In another blow to the Motor City’s tarnished image, Detroit pushed past St. Louis to become the nation’s most dangerous city, according to a private research group’s controversial analysis, released Sunday, of annual FBI crime statistics.

The study drew harsh criticism even before it came out. The American Society of Criminology launched a pre-emptive strike Friday, issuing a statement attacking it as “an irresponsible misuse” of crime data…

The report looked at 378 cities with at least 75,000 people based on per capita rates for homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and auto theft. Each crime category was considered separately and weighted based on its seriousness, CQ Press said…

“What I take exception to is the use of these statistics and the damage they inflict on a number of these cities,” said Mayor Robert Duffy, chairman of the Criminal and Social Justice Committee for the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Critics also complain that numbers don’t tell the whole story because of differences among cities.

“You’re not comparing apples and oranges; you’re comparing watermelons and grapes,” said Rob Casey, who heads the FBI section that puts out the Uniform Crime Report that provides the data for the Quitno report…

“These rough rankings provide no insight into the numerous variables that mold crime in a particular town, city, county, state or region,” the FBI said. “Consequently, they lead to simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading perceptions adversely affecting communities and their residents.”

Misleading perceptions adversely affecting communities?  I guess residents shouldn’t pay attention to statistics and in reality don’t have to worry about being raped, murdered, or assaulted?

What exactly do they mean by “differences amoung cities?  You mean that people are shot and killed or raped differently in Detroit?  That people are more likely to report it in Detroit than say Mission Viejo, CA?

Detroit’s mayor sent the following criticism to the study’s authors:

“Muthafucka talkin shit bout Dtown, we gonna come and burn your shit down like afta the Pistons win a championship, bitch!”

The WaPo Article reprinted in the Arizona Republic is just classic:

Global warming is destroying species, raising sea levels and threatening millions of poor people, the United Nations’ top scientific panel will say in a report today that U.N. officials hope will help mobilize the world to take tougher actions on climate change.

The report argues that only firm action, including putting a price on carbon-dioxide emissions, will avoid more catastrophic events…

“Those in the weakest economic or political position are frequently the most susceptible to climate change,” the panel wrote.

“In all regions,” it added, those most at risk are “the poor, young children, the elderly and the ill.”...

Despite the sweep of science and scientists utilized by the IPCC, its reports have been rejected by some who argue that the world has gone through natural shifts in temperature before.

Critics also say society and industry should not be put to the difficult task of curbing emissions.

President Bush, until recently, questioned the validity of global warming.

Are you shitting me?  Questions the validity of Global Warming?

I for one question the validity of the data that is gathered because so many weather stations in the US are now heat islands and in the middle of parking lots.  I question whether NASA has correctly written their programs to analyze the data.  I question the amount of global warming attributable to CO2 versus the amount do to solar fluctuations and other natural causes.

But most of all I question the dire outcomes of destruction of species and sea level rising and poor people dying.  But that probably means that I don’t “care about the poor and the sick”. 

Bush also denies the existence of Santa Clause, but does believe in Jesus. 

Scientific Consensus of the UN:

Global Warming--real.  Jesus--not so much.  Santa Clause--the debate is out.

The Surge is making progress that is impossible to ignore.  Most Americans are not concerned with Iraqi deaths.  It is sad to say, but before we invaded, folks could care less about Iraqis dying and the only ones that care now are the Lefties that are using it to justify how America is at fault for killing innocent babies and women and children because we are war mongers.

But here are the indisputable facts about the surge as told by Statistics, not Harry Reid and Nancy Pants.  These are the average per day number of body bags coming home via C-130.

We don’t measure success in reduced casualties, but the left has certainly used increased casualties as a measure of failure.  So maybe this simply means we are not failing as bad as we were.

A friend of mine turned me on to the following quote via roundabout way:

Simply put, freedom is the absence of government coercion. Our Founding Fathers understood this, and created the least coercive government in the history of the world. The Constitution established a very limited, decentralized government to provide national defense and little else. States, not the federal government, were charged with protecting individuals against criminal force and fraud. For the first time, a government was created solely to protect the rights, liberties, and property of its citizens. Any government coercion beyond that necessary to secure those rights was forbidden, both through the Bill of Rights and the doctrine of strictly enumerated powers. This reflected the founders’ belief that democratic government could be as tyrannical as any King.

Few Americans understand that all government action is inherently coercive. If nothing else, government action requires taxes. If taxes were freely paid, they wouldn’t be called taxes, they’d be called donations. If we intend to use the word freedom in an honest way, we should have the simple integrity to give it real meaning: Freedom is living without government coercion. So when a politician talks about freedom for this group or that, ask yourself whether he is advocating more government action or less.

The political left equates freedom with liberation from material wants, always via a large and benevolent government that exists to create equality on earth. To modern liberals, men are free only when the laws of economics and scarcity are suspended, the landlord is rebuffed, the doctor presents no bill, and groceries are given away. But philosopher Ayn Rand (and many others before her) demolished this argument by explaining how such “freedom” for some is possible only when government takes freedoms away from others. In other words, government claims on the lives and property of those who are expected to provide housing, medical care, food, etc. for others are coercive-- and thus incompatible with freedom. “Liberalism,” which once stood for civil, political, and economic liberties, has become a synonym for omnipotent coercive government.

His premise was the he is supporting Ron Paul. 

I love the Liberty first, smaller government message.  I just think Fred Thompson offers this same message, nuanced with State’s Rights.  And Thompson is not going on shows and attracting 9-11 Truthers at his rallies.

Seriously, I am not voting for Ron Paul.  But if you wade through the 9-11 truthers, gun nuts, college kids, and potheads that surround his ideas, there are some pretty good ideas in there.

Then again, I am kind of a Libertarian myself and was once registered in the LP when I was younger and more idealistic.  In 2002 when I was in my mid-20’s. 

Again, I support Fred.

Another story of idiocy in the wake of Columbine. Michael Moore went Bowling to make sure that kids like this end up with permanent spots on their record.  Welcome to the UK, Canada, or Mexico, at least if you are a high school student:

The father of an accomplished Willow Canyon High School skeet shooter has filed a formal complaint with the Dysart Unified School District regarding his daughter’s suspension for mistakenly leaving shotgun shells in her car…


Kim Peters, a competitive shooter who attended a Junior Olympic camp for her sport, was suspended for four days after a school security guard found two boxes of shotgun shells in the back seat of her vehicle. There was no gun.

Kim’s father, Tony Peters, said he proved that his daughter regularly uses the shells for sport and never intended to hurt anyone. He said that he does not want the school’s charge, possession of a “dangerous instrument,” to mar his daughter’s permanent record as she applies to colleges.

The elder Peters appealed the disciplinary action and asked that the charge be removed from his daughter’s permanent record.

As grounds for his argument, he cites a 2007 federal education statute that excludes shotguns and shotgun shells from being categorized as a “destructive device,” as they are primarily used for sport…

She said her 12-hours-a-week practice schedule got so hectic that she forgot to remove the ammunition from her vehicle, and she failed to notice it as she was running late for school Tuesday morning.

I think she is a gang banger.  We want this girl out of the school because she poses a risk to the other students.  I believe that is what zero tolerance was about.  Not about destroying the lives of honors students that simply choose to participate in a sport that involves guns.  Does Zero Tolerance really mean that there is zero difference between a gang banger bringing their “9” to school and a girl leaving a box of shells in her car after a competitive shooting event?

I sent the following to the Arizona Repugnant:

Today’s front page article demonstrated the pervasive bias of AP news reporting.  The article was quick to point out that troop deaths in 2007 may exceed the previous record of 850 due to the troop surge.  But that is only part of the story.  The rest of the story is that 331 of those casualties came during the months of April, May, and June making that the bloodiest quarter since the start of the war.  Since then the death toll has dropped dramatically, despite an almost 20% increase in the number of troops present in Iraq.

The article failed to highlight that the death toll in Iraq for US soldiers has dropped significantly over the last three months, with only 38 US soldier killed during the month of October, demonstrating the progress of the troop surge of cutting the violence.  The total of 38 soldiers is the fewest since March of 2006, and the second fewest number of soldier deaths in a single month since February of 2004.  It is also less than a third of the number killed in May at the start of the troop surge.

The AP quoted a military source stating, “It’s due to the troop surge, which allowed us to go into areas that were previously safe havens for insurgents,” Danielson said. “Having more soldiers, and having them out in the communities, certainly contributes to our casualties.”

By not citing the progress made over the last four months, the author uses the context of the quote to blame the troop surge for the annual death without also attributing the surge to the current downward trend in violence that has seen soldier deaths drop dramatically over the last four months.

I am disappointed that the Arizona Republic would run such a poorly written and biased article on the front page of the newspaper.  This kind of reporting should be reserved for Moveon.org press releases, not the AP and Arizona Republic.

Fresh out of negative news due to the record low numbers of troops killed in October and the rapidly declining death tolls since the June as the troop surge was instituted, the media is trying to find something negative to report about Iraq and casualties:

BAGHDAD - With just under two months left in the year, 2007 is on course to be the deadliest year ever for American forces in Iraq, despite a recent sharp drop in U.S. deaths.

At least 847 American military personnel have died in Iraq so far this year, the second-highest since the war began in March 2003, according to Associated Press figures.

In 2004, the bloodiest year of the war for the U.S. so far, 850 American troops died. Most were killed in large, conventional battles.

But the American military in Iraq has increased its exposure this year, reaching 165,000 troops, the highest levels yet. Moreover, the military’s decision to send soldiers out of large bases and into Iraqi communities means more troops have seen more contact with enemy forces than ever before, said Maj. Winfield Danielson, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad.

“It’s due to the troop surge, which allowed us to go into areas that were previously safe havens for insurgents,” Danielson said. “Having more soldiers, and having them out in the communities, certainly contributes to our casualties.”

So we want to use cumulative numbers to describe the year.  And this year, we have had roughly one third as many deaths FOR THE YEAR than were suffered in a single month of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam.

We surge, troop deaths increase for three months.  Al Qaeda throws everything they can at us to fight back.  We continue to press them and dismantle their leadership.  Their operational capability is destroyed and violence against both US Troops and civilians drops to almost record lows as Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites begin taking up arms in their own communities to expel the foreign fighters.

But that doesn’t fit into the AP’s agenda, so it won’t get reported that way.  Just that we are on pace for a record number of troop deaths.

Good job AP.  Way to google “Iraq War Casualties” and go to iCasualty.org to add up the body count for 2007.

UPDATE: The article was not buried on Page 14, but was on the Front Page of the Print Edition of the Republic. Disgusting.

UPDATE: Click here to read my Letter to the Editor in response to the Article.

It is difficult to hit a moving target.  When the mantra from the left is “Iraq is not worth even one American life” does that mean if Americans stop dying there, the cause will be worth it?

Better framed--when the body count in Iraq was rising, this was seen as a sign of defeat, yet the converse of the body count falling is not seen as a sign of victory.

Of course it isn’t:

October reportedly marks the fifth consecutive month of decline in deaths, and the lowest level of casualties since March 2006. As noted, there were 31 American military casualties in Iraq reported by the Department of Defense through Oct. 28—25 of those deaths were combat- related.

In the first 28 days of October 2006, the Pentagon reported 90 U.S. military casualties, 86 of which were combat-related. That’s compared to the first 28 days of October 2007, when the Pentagon reported 31 U.S. military casualties, 25 of which were combat-related. That’’s a 71 percent drop in combat deaths from October 2006 compared with October 2007.

This October also showed a 48 percent reduction from last month’s total deaths, as the first 28 days of September saw 60 casualties, 38 from combat. That’’s a 34 percent reduction in combat deaths.

The military credits much of the progress to the surge of 30,000 new troops, led by Gen. David H. Petraeus. However many war critics are quick to note that, despite the military progress, Iraq has been slow to achieve political progress.

I would simply point to the lack of political progress by the new Democrat controlled Congress here in the US that has failed to deliver anything other than a minimum wage despite all their talk of draining the swamp and 100 hours and so forth.

The previous target of our failures in Iraq was body count.  That was objective, but the same objective figures that the left used previously to demonstrate our failures, now are meaningless when possibly used to confirm our successes. Just like job creation numbers were meaningful in 2004, but are meaningless now. 

The reality is that if you believe Iraq is a failure, no numbers will convince you otherwise.  If you are hoping we win in Iraq and our strategy (both military and diplomatic) for the Middle East will succeed, there are some serious signs of hope. 

The difficult part for the Left is that they left themselves no wiggle room in case we succeed, so they are left to simply downplay our success in hopes that Americans won’t notice the real tangible progress the troop surge has made.  They could have easily thrown their weight behind the surge originally to the dismay of Moveon.org and been left with the “We caused the President to change strategy, so it is really our success” talking point, but they sabotaged the entire effort before it even got started.  This puts them in a position of actually hoping for a higher body count to help confirm Moveon.org’s hypothesis that the war is not winnable.

Rooting for body count numbers to go up for political gain.  They are left with that or the less despicable tactic of trying to convince Americans to ignore objective evidence and rely on their gut and the Dems propoganda that the war is lost.  I like facts and figures and numbers better than my gut.  And I have a big gut.

The Story appears here:

HILLIARD, Ohio (AP)—A high school student who tricked football fans from a crosstown rival into holding up signs that together spelled out, “We Suck,” was suspended for the prank, students said.

Kyle Garchar, a senior at Hilliard Davidson High School in suburban Columbus, said he spent about 20 hours over three days plotting the trick, which was captured on video and posted on the video-sharing Web site YouTube. He said he was inspired by a similar prank pulled by Yale students in 2004, when Harvard fans were duped into holding up cards with the same message.

At the end of the video, Garchar wryly thanks the 800 Hilliard Darby High School supporters who raised the cards at the start of the third quarter during last Friday’s football game.

“It couldn’t have been done without you,” reads the closing frame of the video.

Garchar, 17, created a grid to plan how the message would be spelled out once fans in three sections held up either a black or white piece of construction paper.

Directions left on stadium seats instructed fans to check that the number listed on their papers matched their seat numbers. Darby supporters were told the message would read “Go Darby.”

This article from the Houston Chronical details the story.  Remarkably this went from page one on AZCentral (Arizona Republic) to vanishing almost immediately.  Wonder if Jon Kyle and John McCain are thankful?

WASHINGTON — The Census Bureau wants immigration agents to suspend enforcement raids during the 2010 census so the government can better count illegal immigrants.

Raids during the population count would make an already distrustful group even less likely to cooperate with government workers who are supposed to include them, the Census Bureau’s second-ranking official said in an Associated Press interview.

Deputy Director Preston Jay Waite said immigration enforcement officials did not conduct raids for several months before and after the 2000 census. But today’s political climate is even more volatile on the issue of illegal immigration.

Enforcement agents “have a job to do,” Waite said. “They may not be able to give us as much of a break” in 2010.

We need to stop trying to reduce the number of illegals so that we can get an accurate count of how many are here so that the individual states can have Congressmen and Federal Funds distributed back to them in proportion to the number of illegals they contain.

How about this idea:

Close the borders.  Shut down companies that hire illegals or at very least, fine the hell out of them.  Enlarge the legal Visa numbers to provide DOCUMENTED, LEGAL, and TRACKABLE workers to complete the jobs the left claims “no American wants to do” such as produce, cleaning, some construction.  And deport every one that is here illegally. 

Then we will HAVE AN ACCURATE COUNT BECAUSE WE CAN COUNT THEM AS WE ALLOW THEM IN. 

Just a thought.

Nope, we are not talking about acquiring NBA players like Yao.  This from money magazine:

The gap narrowed even as the trade gap with China, which has been getting increased attention as of late, rose to $21.2 billion, up 5.7 percent from May and 7.7 percent from a year earlier.

The trade gap with China has gotten particular attention due to safety concerns about a number of Chinese products. Toymaker Mattel (Charts, Fortune 500) Tuesday announced another recall of more than 7 million Chinese-made toys due to the danger posed by lead paint and loose magnets. The recall comes less than two weeks after it recalled 1.5 million other Chinese-made toys sold under its Fisher-Price brand that cost the company $30 million.

There have also been recalls in recent months of Chinese-produced toothpaste, seafood, animal feed and tires for light trucks, all due to concerns about the safety of the products. But even without the safety questions, there are rising concerns among many smaller U.S. manufacturers and some politicians about the ever-increasing trade gap with China.

This highlights a couple of things.  First, China’s industries are nationalized.  That means that while government should be concerned with safety and regulations to ensure that workplace standards, health standards, and safety standards are met (and by that I don’t mean overregulation, but freaking lead based paint?!?!?! Come on...), instead governent is directly profiting from their industrial production. This is the problem with Communism, but as Kim at Wizbang pointed out last week concerning Hospitals in the UK with their wonderful "free healthcare for all", this is the problem any time government controls an industry. 

A searing indictment of the cleanliness of hospital kitchens is revealed today in research showing that almost half are plagued by vermin, risk infections by storing food incorrectly or employ staff with poor personal hygiene.

Official inspection reports reveal that breaches of food hygiene laws include infestations of mice and cockroaches, kitchen staff not washing their hands, food being kept at the wrong temperature and remnants of meals becoming stuck in equipment.

Government cannot be their own regulators and when government is allegedly run for the people and the collective good, Government is by far the worst polluter.

Corporations are often accused of despoiling the environment in their quest for profit. Free enterprise is supposedly incompatible with environmental preservation, so that government regulation is required.

Such thinking is the basis for current proposals to expand environmental regulation greatly. So many new controls have been proposed and enacted that the late economic journalist Warren Brookes once forecast that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could well become “the most powerful government agency on earth, involved in massive levels of economic, social, scientific, and political spending and interference.

But if the profit motive is the primary cause of pollution, one would not expect to find much pollution in socialist countries, such as the former Soviet Union, China, and in the former Communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe. That is, in theory. In reality exactly the opposite is true: The socialist world suffers from the worst pollution on earth. Could it be that free enterprise is not so incompatible with environmental protection after all?

China’s major recalls of products from toothpaste to dog food to toys contaminated with everything from melamine to lead based paint demonstrates that when Government has a “profit motive” and is the owner of an industry, you get a far more dangerous and lower quality product than when private industry (EVEN WALMART for the Liberals) runs things.  I define profit motive as the same forces that cause a company to try to cut production costs or increase revenue.  This means either cutting medical spending or raising taxes in a situation of socialized medicine or in the case of Communist China producing products, trying to cut production costs of creating a product like toys.  .Usually it comes at a much higher cost since government, even when motivated by the “profit motive”, is so inefficient.

Anyone want Universal Health Coverage?  Hillary Care?  Get ready for the vermin and hospitals that are more like England’s and US Government run Walter Reed.

This from the Arizona Republic about Katrina Aid being misused.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - With large swaths of the Gulf Coast still in ruins from Hurricane Katrina, rich federal tax breaks designed to spur rebuilding are flowing hundreds of miles inland to investors who are buying up luxury condos near the University of Alabama’s football stadium.

About 10 condominium projects are going up in and around Tuscaloosa, and builders are asking up to $1 million for units with granite countertops, king-size bathtubs and Bama decor, including crimson couches and Bear Bryant wall art.

While many of the buyers are Crimson Tide alumni or ardent football fans not entitled to any special Katrina-related tax breaks, many others are real estate investors who are purchasing the condos with plans to rent them out.

And they intend to take full advantage of the generous tax benefits available to investors under the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005, or GO Zone, according to Associated Press interviews with buyers and real estate officials.

The GO Zone contains a variety of tax breaks designed to stimulate construction in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama. It offers tax-free bonds to developers to finance big commercial projects like shopping centers or hotels. It also allows real estate investors who buy condos or other properties in the GO Zone to take accelerated depreciation on their purchases when they file their taxes.

The GO Zone was drawn to include the Tuscaloosa area even though it is about 200 miles from the coast and got only heavy rain and scattered wind damage from Katrina.

The problem with Katrina has not been that Government wasn’t responsive enough when Katrina happened.  It really was the way that government responded afterwards that I take issue with.  New Orleans is still a disaster despite billions in aid being divied up by local (and by Louisianna standards anything short of Rep. $100k Jefferson is clean) politicians.

Government jumped to throw money at the Gulf and these are our tax dollars being spent on condos for Alabama Football.  There was no oversite and the entire process of “rebuilding” has led to massive fraud and waste.

Dependence on government is why Katrina killed so many.  Government tax subsidies, breaks, and grants are being funneled into pet projects and are just flat out stealing from the rest of us.  And it is all over our white guilt at seeing what happened to the poor Chocolate City.

I want to start with the premise that roughly a million Nader voters caused Gore to lose the election.  They saw what the rest of us see now--that Al Gore was a non-charismatic puppet of the Corporate Whore that was and is the Democrat Party.  The Noam Chomsky’s on the radical left chose to support Nader.  Their grassroots people and A-list Celebs like Eddie Vedder campaigned and raised funds for Nader, not Al Gore.  These folks voted against Mr. Inconvenient Truth for the “GREEN” Candidate.

So let’s look at the Utopia that could have been if not for the Nader voters:

1.  We would sign Kyoto and the world would be 2 degrees on average cooler now because we would have cut greenhouse emissions.
2.  The economy would have continued upwards on the Clinton trajectory and the Dow would be at 20,000 instead of 14,000.
3.  9-11 would not have happened because Al Gore would have listened to his advisors unlike Bush.
4.  OBL would have been killed with a cruise missile instead of an invasion of Afghanistan.
5.  Saddam would have been toppled by several cruise missiles or would have stopped taking OFF money and stopped his weapons programs voluntarily.
6.  The Israelis and Palestinians would have continued to meet at Camp David and Gore would have continued Clinton’s legacy of world peace.
7.  Because of the above, the invasion of Iraq and the 3,500 American Servicemen would never have died.
8.  Gore would have been an incumbent in 2004 and the resulting wave of prosperity and giddiness from the economy rolling along would have swept him into a second term and given the Dems back the House and Senate in 2002.
9.  Because the Government would not have had taxcuts for the rich under Bush, the gap between rich and poor would be narrowed leading to prosperity for all.
10. No Patriot Act.

I am downright pissed that the folks at Daily Kos and DU that supported the radical left agenda of Ralph Nader destroyed my Utopian America by keeping us from completing all of the Above.

Clearly the loathing for Bush should be self loathing for their own support of Nader as well as for their lack of understanding just how Green and great Mr. Inconvenient Truth and Mr. Live Aid is. 

If every problem in America and the world is our cowboy Boy King Chimpy McHitlerburton idiot Godbag from Texas, I would simply hold a mirror to the faces of the most radical and far left voters that cast a vote AGAINST Al Gore, Kyoto, and the Democrats in 2000.

Takin’ it back old school.