The courtyard where the attack erupted was the most infamous spot on campus, an out-of-the-way, poorly lit venue for gang initiations and dopers lighting up joints.

[…]

Take the poverty-driven frustration of inner-city Richmond, a youth street culture that glorifies thugs and applauds degradation of women, and the desensitization of young men through violent video games, music and language, and you have a template for trouble.

“This is like a lot of schools, where most of the kids are good kids - and then, we know which ones are going wrong,” said Charles Johnson, one of Richmond High’s security specialists.
“You wouldn’t believe the stuff we have to put up with those few who go wrong - guns, dope busts, fighting,” Johnson said. “We know that courtyard, and we’ve been waiting for something to happen there.

[…]

Johnson, teachers and students at least partially blame the attack on the lack of lighting, sturdy fencing or security cameras on the courtyard, which abuts a rough neighborhood on the northern end of the campus on 23rd Street. Signs for the Norteño and Crips gangs are scrawled in huge letters on a wall near the driveway leading into the courtyard.

DougRoss@Journal reports

I want to tell you that last week I attended a conference on health care reform sponsored by La Raza. And I will tell you that what they had to say, Mark, is scarier than anything that’s been said so far on the health care plan.

The kind of comments that were made and the notes that I took… they started the conference out by saying “America does not need health care reform, but Latino immigrants need health care reform.”

And someone from Menendez’ office [Ed.: Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ] promised that he would make sure that “the useless barriers of citizenship would not be in this bill” and that he would make sure that they would use keywords like “streamline”...

It was La Raza, the Childrens Defense Fund and Senator Menendez from New Jersey, a representative from his office…

...Yes [they said they would get free health care for illegal aliens], these are my notes, Mark. They actually got up and said “Latino children need health care more than whites”. And then they would say things like “you must go out into your communities, use words like ‘streamline’, use phrases like ‘all workers’ and ‘all families’,” because they said—and I quote—“If the American people find out that this bill is about giving health care to non-citizens, they will rise up against it.”

...One of the quotes they said was, “We want to make sure we take care of barriers like verification, but we can streamline programs to the more affluent” and, quote, “Useless treatments for the elderly can be gone because we don’t need to spend money for people who are going to die anyway.”

That’s a direct quote from that meeting. They also said, “We are very concerned there will be an effort to include” the illegal immigrants in this argument, so “we must make sure that we focus this” to the American people that it’s looking like we want “health care for everyone”.

And they also said that 75% of the children who will be picked up in this will be non-citizens and that 44% of the uninsured are non-citizens and they can’t possibly allow the American people to know this.” [Ed: Oops!]

Menendez’ office said that he’s going to make sure that “a family of four that makes $66,000 a year or less will pay nothing at all for the new health care. And he was the one who said he was going to get rid of specifics like “citizenship status” and focus on, quote, “equity for all workers”.

And he said he’s going to make sure that the Latino immigrants are the focus of the health care reform.

And La Raza said if they get this, they don’t even care about amnesty, because they’ve fixed it so that one family member can apply for all extended family members. And… Mark, if you think we have a problem with illegal immigration now, wait ‘til you see the borders when this thing gets passed.

Eric Peters writes:

cars are also much heavier, more complicated—and expensive—than the cars of the past.
But which is better: A car that performs well in a 30 mph offset barrier crash but is also beyond your means? Or a car that’s maybe not quite so sturdy but which you can still afford to buy?
Like it or not, that’s the bottom line choice here. Just as we can’t all drive V-8 Cadillacs, neither can average people afford to buy the ever-increasing roster of safety equipment that Washington regulators think they need—and should be forced to purchase, in an ever-increasing spiral of add-on expense.
This creates all manner of absurd distortions. For example, the car companies have had to go to ridiculous lengths—using completely unnecessary technology—to (barely) achieve the same fuel economy in a modern gas-electric hybrid car that was possible in a simpler, non-hybrid car 20 or 30 years ago ... at two or three times the price.
For instance: A 2010 Toyota Prius hybrid gets about the same real-world mileage as a late 1970s VW Rabbit diesel or ‘80s-era Plymouth Champ. But the Prius costs several times what those cars cost because it is vastly more complicated. Get rid of the weight and expense-padding “safety” mandates and the car companies could stamp out legions of simple, lightweight 50 mpg (or better) economy compacts that could be sold for less than $10,000 brand new.
After all, 40 mpg cars were common 25 years ago—before the government’s rules added several hundred pounds of deadweight to each new vehicle. Nix the rules that add the weight—and with the benefit of modern engine technology, such as direct injection and Continuously Variable (CVT) transmissions—it should be easy to build a 60 mpg economy compact without having to resort to elaborate hybrid vehicle technology.
With diesel power, 70-80 mpg ought to be possible. In fact, VW sells a compact diesel model in Europe that is capable of close to that figure—but we don’t get it here, thanks to Uncle Sam.

For the sake of comparison, I decided to compare the weight of the Toyota Prius and Willys Jeep (the first SUV). The Prius weighs in at almost 2,800 lbs. The 1940s Jeep weighs in under 2,300. So a modern economy car is almost 500 lbs heavier than a 1940s SUV. Of course comparing an SUV to an economy car is like comparing apples to oranges. I also compared the Prius to a fifty year old economy car, the Citroen 2CV. It turns out the Prius more than twice as massive as the 2CV.
Of course it would be illegal to produce and sell a brand new Willys MB Jeep, Citroen 2CV or any vehicle of comprable simplicity.

MSNBC...of all freakin’ places…reports that Hybrids are using up Rare Earth Metals at an alarming rate.

The Prius hybrid automobile is popular for its fuel efficiency, but its electric motor and battery guzzle rare earth metals, a little-known class of elements found in a wide range of gadgets and consumer goods.

It turns out the Red China (which is not more Capitalistic than the U.S.) is the worlds leading supplier of rare earth metals, and is rather keen to use those in their own industry. Economists are expecting shortages of key rare earth metals in the near future.

Among the rare earths that would be most affected in a shortage is neodymium, the key component of an alloy used to make the high-power, lightweight magnets for electric motors of hybrid cars, such as the Prius, Honda Insight and Ford Focus, as well as in generators for wind turbines.

Close cousins terbium and dysprosium are added in smaller amounts to the alloy to preserve neodymium’s magnetic properties at high temperatures. Yet another rare earth metal, lanthanum, is a major ingredient for hybrid car batteries.

And it turns out that that that most “progressive” of gold chains, the Toyota Prius is among the least green vehicles when it comes to rare earth metals.

Jack Lifton, an independent commodities consultant and strategic metals expert, calls the Prius “the biggest user of rare earths of any object in the world.”

Each electric Prius motor requires around two pounds of neodymium, and each battery uses 22-33 pounds of lanthanum. That number will nearly double under Toyota’s plans to boost the car’s fuel economy, he said.

Now The Local is reporting this tidbit:

Swedish father Ragnar Bengtsson, 26, has entered into an experiment that he hopes will help him breastfeed his future children.

On Tuesday, the Stockholm family man began stimulating his breasts with a pump in a bid to produce milk.

“Anything that doesn’t do any harm is worth trying out. And if it works it could prove very important for men’s ability to get much closer to their children at an early stage,” Bengtsson told The Local.

Not only is Ragnar planning to milk himself, he’s planning to do it in public.

As a full time economics student at Stockholm University, he is not always going to be in a position to pump in private.

“I’m going to have to pull out the pump during lectures. But really it doesn’t bother me if it makes people uncomfortable. If they have issues with it that’s their problem,” he said.

My question is this…what the hell is wrong with Sweden?

Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM), the revolutionary group formed by self-described “communist” and “rowdy black nationalist” Van Jones, held a vigil in Oakland, California, “mourning the victims of U.S. imperialism around the world” on the night after Sept. 11, 2001.

The reason this is important is because Van Jones is now President Obama’s green jobs czar. He does not appear to have distanced himself from his past communist activities and is now part of the Obama administration’s push to turn Sept. 11 into a National Day of Service focused on the promotion of the radical environmentalist agenda.

 

Police said that about 2:20 a.m., 24-year-old Maurice Schwenkler, now in custody, and an at-large accomplice took a hammer to the picture windows displaying posters touting President Barack Obama and his health care reform efforts.

[...}

Schwenkler received $500 in November 2008 to walk door-to-door in support of Democrat Mollie Cullom, who lost her race to Republican state Rep. David Balmer of Centennial.

[...]

In those disclosures, Schwenkler’s address is listed as Derailer Bicycle Cooperative, a free community bicycle collective that operates just around the corner from the Democratic headquarters. Multiple volunteers at the collective declined to discuss Schwenkler, though they said he was affiliated with the group.

 

Early Tuesday, Democratic Party chairwoman Pat Waak said the damage to her building in Denver’s art district was a consequence of “an effort on the other side to stir up hate.” She tempered her statement after Schwenkler’s political history was revealed.

“What I’ve been saying is there is a lot of rhetoric out there from both sides of the spectrum,” Waak said. “That’s what’s been disturbing to me. People are saying a lot of things not appropriate for civil discourse.”

Balmer said he suspects the vandalism might have been aimed at making the GOP look bad.

“This sounds like the type of Democratic tactic from the left fringe trying to make Republicans look mean-spirited,” Balmer said. “In this case, it blew up in their face. He was caught red-handed.”

Upon learning they’ve been infected with a sexually transmitted disease, some young people simply see themselves as unlucky, while others undergo a maturation process which leads them to be more careful in their sexual habits, according to midwife and University of Skövde researcher Kina Hammarlund.

members of a third group – consisting entirely of young men – succeed in transforming their diseases into a sign of their manhood.

With other male friends slapping on the shoulders and offering encouraging comments about “success with the ladies”, young men who contract diseases such as chlamydia or genital warts can come to view their infection as a badge of honour, rather than a serious health problem.

In the wake of recent devastating wildfires, faires almost certainly caused by illegal immigrants growing marijuana on California public lands, Time Magazine has noticed the problem.

The damage they do to society is well-known, but drug traffickers, it turns out, also aren’t the most environmentally-minded campers. Law enforcement officials say that a wildfire now raging in Santa Barbara’s Los Padres National park, burning more than 136 square miles, was sparked by a cooking fire started by the hirelings of a Mexican drug cartel which was growing thousands of marijuana plants in the remote canyons.

Far from an isolated incident, the Los Padres fire, according to law enforcement agents, highlights an alarming trend: the invasion of California wilderness and parklands by armed Mexican drug cartels.

The Time writers lament the fact that drug cartels are corrupting the once mellow and ethical Cali-canibus industry and trashing the envoromment.

Of course, because California politicans have spent the state into financial ruin there’s no money to hire rangers to keep forests safe. We have money to hire deadbeats as home healthcare workers but we don’t have money for park rangers.

While the Clunkers program helped push sales of new cars in July to the highest level in nearly a year, sales of used cars have taken a beating.

“We’re struggling and a lot of us small guys are going out of business,” said James Dameron, sales and finance manager at Chase Motors in suburban Richmond, where sales are down about 30 percent.

About 40 million used vehicles are sold a year, four times the number of new cars, said Keith Whann, an industry expert and chief executive of Columbus Fair Auto Auction in Columbus, Ohio. About a third of the used sales come from independent dealers

While the very people who pushed “cash for clunkers” like to claim that they’re all for the little guy, many of the used car dealerships being put out of business are the epitomy of small business.

Mom and Pop dealers typically sell just 20 to 25 vehicles a month and keep 40 to 45 vehicles on their lots, a fraction of the inventory for bigger dealerships, Whann said. So when the owner of a 1995 Ford Explorer opts for a new car, and the old SUV goes away forever, the repercussions are felt quickly. Especially for a majority of these dealers who have fewer than six employees.

As the supply of used cars dwindles, it means higher prices.

“The guy looking for a cheap used car is having a helluva hard time now,” said Greg Signore, 50, co-owner of Elm Auto Sales in Kearny, N.J. “This program is absolutely increasing the cost of the clunkers left on the market.”

He says he’s not getting as many customers with modest income looking for basic transportation.

“What about all these people who need the $3,500 cars? Are they going to ride the bus for the rest of their life?” said Mike Salarze, manager of Majestic Motors in Baltimore.