Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Jacob Briscoe kidnapped; have you seen him?

    A friend of mine from Marshall County, now living in the Atlanta area, is living a real nightmare. His 2.5-year-old son, Jacob Briscoe, went for a two-week visit with his mother and she has failed to return him. She is presumed to have kidnapped him and a warrant has been issued for her arrest. This happened a month ago and his son is still missing.
    Not that my blog gets a lot of traffic, but I do get people who show up here from web searches. So I'm posting this "wanted" poster in hopes that perhaps it might help in finding Jacob.
    From the Save Jacob Briscoe Facebook page:
I am reaching out to all of you to try to spread this information all over the United States. My son, Jacob is missing. His mother, Kathleen Salsberg ("Kathy") took him for a 2 week visit on July 7th from Marietta, GA and was to return him on July 21st at 5pm. I have yet to hear from her at all. Please send this information to everyone you have on your email address list and hopefully we will get this to someone that can help us. She has made mention to her family that she was going to either New Mexico, Montana, or North Dakota to get away for the impending "nuclear disaster" that was going to devastate the eastern United States and those are the last words we have heard from her. This came from her brother in TN.
    Obviously this woman has some problems. If you see them, please help! Also, if you have a business or have access to a high-traffic location, please consider printing out this poster and sticking in your window, on your cash register or somewhere where it can be seen.


Sunday, August 28, 2011

Priority Club offer: Try four brands and earn 2,000 bonus points per night through end of year

    Okay hotel travelers, Priority Club has a somewhat decent offer running from Sept. 15 through the end of the year.
    You can get the details on the flyertalk.com website: Earn up to 80,000 Points Sep 15 through Dec 31.
    The bottom line on this offer is that you will get 500 bonus points per night at any Priority Club hotel. That total increases by 500 each time you add a new brand until you stay at four different brands. So if you stay at a Holiday Inn, a Holiday Inn Express, a Crowne Plaza and a Staybridge or Candlewood, each night (not stay) will earn you 2,000 additional bonus points.
    Priority Club tends to have lots of stackable bonus point offers. You can read about these on the Flyertalk website. Most hotels also allow you to earn up to 3,000 additional points per night by paying an extra five or 10 dollars. Sometimes this is a good deal. Bottom line is that with this offer you should be able to earn anywhere from 5,000 to as many as 8,000 points per night.
    Priority Club is without question the best loyalty program when it comes to earning free hotel nights while staying at a decent hotel. The downside is that PC hotels just aren't as consistent as Hiltons or Marriotts, nor do they regularly provide elite benefits such as an executive lounge or room upgrades for elite members. So it's a trade off: a little less comfort on the front end for lots more free hotel rooms on the back end.
    For Jinny, the choice is usually Hilton or Marriott. She likes the extra comfort (although my understanding is that Holiday Inn Express may actually be nicer than Hampton Inn.). But I'm going to encourage her to pick up a few Priority Club stays in the next few months.
    Of course, if you don't travel enough to earn Marriott, Hilton or other elite status, then Priority Club is probably where you need to be. This is a good offer.

Jr. Varsity football players get taste of Vaught-Hemingway at football jamboree

    Oxford Middle School hosted a football jamboree on Saturday which gave players the chance to play in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. This is the first year they've done this.
    Participating teams included Oxford, Water Valley, Grenada, DeSoto's Center Hill and I think Hernando.
    All I can say is what a great idea! These kids got a chance to play in an SEC football stadium and I'm sure the school managed to make some money off of the deal. In fact, one of the only problems is that the concession stand ran out of stuff a couple of times and even though there were four or five football parents working it they couldn't keep up with demand. My guess is that with more volunteers and plenty of stuff to sell concession sales would have been double.
    I hope the coaches at Oxford Middle School will make this an annual event and invite additional teams. Just make it an all day affair and bring in some school clubs to help with the concessions and split the money with the football program.
    An all-day dozen team jamboree would bring thousands of people to Oxford and lots of money to the Oxford Middle School football and other programs. Everybody wins with this type of event.
    Congratulations to the football coaches for a great idea, and to the players as well. They won both of their match-ups Saturday, one against Water Valley, the other against Center Hill.

No. 2 Ben Bianco gets ready to score a touchdown on a keeper.



Friday, August 26, 2011

Time for the Libya end game -- this is what we are fighting for!

    Gaddafi is managing to hold out for a few days in Libya, and I must say I wish him and the loyalists well in killing as many of the rebel terrorists as possible. But in the end the rebels and their criminal NATO allies, and war criminal Barrack Obama, will prevail. How can they not? The filthy bullies!
    On April 19, shortly after all this illegal war started, I opined that this had nothing to do with waging a war on Libya or Gaddafi and everything to do with putting the squeeze on China. I pointed out that China was far more dependent on Mid-East and Libyan oil than Europe and the U.S., and turmoil there would benefit the West at China's expense. See Libya's real question: Who benefits from Mid-East turmoil and skyrocketing oil prices?
    Al Jazeera has the answer in a story titled and subtitled: NATO nations set to reap spoils of Libya war; As rebels take Tripoli, foreign powers are eyeing the prize of Libya's high quality crude oil. So a major supplier of oil to China is now a vassal state to Europe and the U.S. In fact, virtually all of the Mid-East oil countries are now under the American thumb.
    The Saudi people aren't our friends; that's where a lot of terrorists come from. But the royal family knows they need the United States to stay in power. We own them. We own the leadership of Iraq. Bahrain was allowed to put down its Arab Spring revolt because we own their leadership. We own the U.A.E. and of course we own Kuwait.
    But at what cost? We may have the leadership of these countries in our back pockets, but the poorly educated man on the street has come to hate the United States, and with good reason. It looks like NATO and/or the United States are going to have troops on the ground in both Iraq and Libya for a long time to come. They aren't on the ground in Libya yet, but they will be.
    All of which raises another question. Are we intentionally trying to put as many troops in the Mid-East in order to threaten Iran? Our war effort in Iraq was so incompetent that we took a victory with popular support and turned it into a quagmire requiring a long-term troop commitment. Was this intentional? Now with Libya it looks like we are luring the Europeans into introducing ground troops into the Mid-East. Libya is literally an empty country, with less than 1/16th the population density of Iraq and about one-fourth the density of Saudi Arabia. This is a land mass that can be controlled and used to police the Arab world -- essentially one big military base.
    There have been numerous reports that the violence in Syria has been fomented by American agents. It's also been encouraged by the NATO bombing of Libyan loyalists. Perhaps with good cause, as the Syrians have been a puppet of Iran and an enemy of the U.S., but the unrest in the Arab world has been carefully planned and calculated. Of course, when America murders Arab children -- and make no mistake NATO targeted children -- it's just war. When Arabs murder American children it's terrorism. I confess I don't understand the difference.
    Why does America want turmoil in the Mid-East? Why is America putting as many troops as it can on Arab soil? If this is indeed an attack on China's interests, do our leaders not realize that China will certainly retaliate? Does anyone doubt that the Chinese are just as ruthless as their Western counterparts, if not more so?
    Most maddening of all is that the United States has enough energy resources to be completely energy self-sufficient, but the Democrats won't allow us to use domestic resources such as shale oil, arctic wasteland oil, clean coal, or safe off-shore oil. We don't need these people. I just don't understand.
    Is this all about forcing Iran to give up nuclear weapons? If so, I would advise Iran not to give them up under any circumstances; because as soon as they do Iran be attacked by NATO. If you don't believe it, look what happened to poor Libya when they gave up their nukes.



Thursday, August 25, 2011

Civil libertarian Balko to speak at Ole Miss

    Mark your calendar folks, Radley Balko is going to be speaking at the Ole Miss law school Tuesday, Oct. 25. Not only do I plan to attend, but I hope to bring the kids.
    From Wikipedia:
    Balko is senior writer and investigative reporter for The Huffington Post. Previously, he was a senior editor at Reason magazine, and a policy analyst for the Cato Institute, specializing in vice and civil liberties issues. He writes on drug policy, police misconduct, obesity, alcohol and tobacco, and civil liberties. He also writes on trade and globalization issues and more generally on politics and culture. He was also a biweekly columnist for Fox News from 2002 until 2009.a His work has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Playboy, TIME magazine, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Slate, Reason, Worth magazine, Canada's National Post, and the Chicago Tribune. He blogs at The Agitator, his personal weblog, and for Reason's Hit & Run blog. He has appeared on CNN, CNBC, Fox News, MSNBC, and National Public Radio.b
    Balko's work on "no-knock" drug raids was profiled in The New York Times, and cited by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer in his dissent in the case Hudson v. Michigan. He is credited with breaking and reporting the Cory Maye case; his work on the Maye case was cited by the Mississippi Supreme Court. He has also written extensively about the Ryan Frederick case and the raid on Cheye Calvo's home.[citation needed] Balko has advocated the abolition of laws criminalizing drunk driving, arguing that the "punishable act should be violating road rules or causing an accident, not the factors that led to those offenses. Singling out alcohol impairment for extra punishment isn't about making the roads safer.”

    I am a regular reader of Balko’s blog, The Agitator, and there is a link to it on the left side of my blog page. He has been very active in publicizing the many people in Mississippi who have been jailed due to junk science and what appears to be false testimony of people like former state pathologist Steven Hayne and Hattiesburg dentist Michael West. Read, for example, Balko’s recent Huffington Post article, Leigh Stubbs, Mississippi Woman, Serving 44-Year Sentence Despite Discredited Testimony.
    You have to understand that Balko isn’t busy trying to get people out of jail based on technicalities. He is advocating for people who never would have been convicted but for the use of junk science or false testimony. It is a disgrace, and I for one am glad that he looking out for people like us.
    You don’t want to miss the chance to hear and perhaps meet a true champion for the American people. It does the Ole Miss law school credit that it is hosting his visit.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Children teach your parents well; Ron Paul leads among young voters

    Rick Perry (gag) is now the favorite among Republicans for that party's nomination, according to an August 24 Gallup Poll. He has the support of 29 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. Mitt Romney, once the invinceable man, now has 17 percent. Ron Paul, the man the media loves to ignore, comes in third at 13 percent.
    The same poll shows Ron Paul with a strong lead in the 18-29 age group. Paul leads Perry and Romney 29-21-11. That's a strong lead that shouldn't be ignored, but the media ignore it. See the John Stewart video I posted recently, Ron Paul is the invisible man.
    I like Michelle Bachmann, but I worry that her religious views might get in the way of governance. I like Sarah Palin a lot, but she is damaged goods. The media managed to smear her, and she wasn't strong enough or smart enough to beat them. I like Mitt Romney, but we all know he's a slightly liberal establishment Republican whose support has been wide but thin. I absolutely love Chris Christie, but he won't run.
    As for Rick Perry, he's just not for me. I'll leave it at that, because if he gets the nomination I will nevertheless support him.
    I suspect there are a lot of reasons that young voters like Ron Paul. He's plain spoken. He's consistent. And he's for peace.
    Let's repeat that. He's for peace. He is the only candidate of either party who supports peace.
    Four years ago Paul stood up to all of his fellow Republicans who were trumpeting the greatness of war. Paul said he was opposed to any military action that wasn't authorized by Congress. In other words, he was the only candidate to support the Constitution. Check out the video I found on Youtube and see for yourself.
    Everyone thought Barrack Obama was going to bring peace, but instead he's brought us more war, including a humdinger of a civil war in Libya, where he attacked one of our allies in the war against Al Qaeda. What an idiot!
    When Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, most people in England supported him. They found his initial demands reasonable. The royal family favored Hitler. Most elected officials supported him. One lone nut in Parliament kept lecturing his peers about the danger that Hitler's Germany posed to England. He was generally treated as an outcast and an object of ridicule.
    That man's name was Winston Churchill. He was eventually proven right and England realized he was the leader it needed.
    Ron Paul is America's Churchill. He has consistently preached the same message for years and often been derided as a kook. Yet he's been right.
    I don't agree with every position that Ron Paul takes. I'm not required to. Our nation needs more liberty, not more government. We need peace, not war. So far Ron Paul is the only candidate for people who want less government and more peace. The election is a long ways off and my mind can always be changed, but for now Ron Paul has my support.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Florida man with 34 arrests terrorizes neighbors

    A Tampa Bay, Florida television station is reporting that a neighborhood is scared of one of its residents, who they "feel has a drinking problem." Ya think?
    Here's the story:
New Port Richey, Florida - Residents of a Pasco County neighborhood say they're living in fear and frustration because of a violent neighbor who they feel has a drinking problem.

They say 52-year-old Dale McDaniel has chased neighbors down with a chainsaw and even assaulted a disabled man confined to a wheelchair by slapping him in the face with a fish.

"He's a scary person, especially when he gets violent," said neighbor Victoria Breitfeller. "He's grabbed me by the throat in the past. That's not something you forget."

Neighbors say not only does McDaniel have an overgrown, trash-filled yard, but he can often be seen urinating in it. He's also known to shout profanities at those who walk past his house.

McDaniel admits he's been arrested 34 times in Pasco County. Deputies were called out to his home Thursday after receiving more complaints from neighbors.

"They've had problems with me for years and I ain't worried about it," said McDaniel Friday afternoon. "I'm not a menace. They just don't know how to deal with me."

But many neighbors are convinced McDaniel has a severe drinking problem. Some of them are working to get restraining orders against their neighbor, convinced he is a danger.

    Maybe after say 25 arrests society could just take guys like this to an island with other like-minded individuals. Give them all two beers a day for all I care. But keep them away from the rest of society.
    Would you want this guy living in your neighborhood? If not, he ought not be allowed to live in anybody else's neighborhood, either.

Former Ole Miss coach serves notice of claim

    A former Ole Miss football staff member, David Saunders, has given the university notice that he plans to sue. Such notice is required under the Tort Claims Act for suits against a government entity.
    The Clarion-Ledger has a copy of the notice.
    Much of Saunders' suit is plain breach of contract. He was promised a job by Houston Nutt which fell through because Pete Boone didn't like him. The next year he was again offered a job, this time with a firm commitment, but this offer also evaporated. After the second job offer he claims he turned down several job offers and was later forced to accept $12 an hour from the university instead of the promised $120,000 per year. If true, these facts certainly could form the basis of a civil breach of contract claim although there are to my mind some unanswered questions.
    Saunders claims the reason he was disliked and denied the job by Pete Boone was because he wanted to recruit and work with players with severe learning disabilities. He claims Boone wanted to avoid recruiting these players in order to protect the academic integrity of the university. Saunders seems to claim that Boone's actions were a violation of the Rehabilitation Act and Americans with Disabilities Act.
    To which I say, the law wasn't designed to protect or benefit Saunders; it was designed to protect the disabled. A cripple person can sue to have an elevator put in a public building, for example, but this doesn't give the elevator company standing to sue. If Saunders wants to claim Pete Boone was unlawfully discriminating, then the victims of that discrimination need to step forward, not Saunders. Saunders, their champion, is not entitled to the damages suffered by someone else.
    The are lots of smart students with learning disabilities, but I can't help but wonder whether Saunders recognizes that some students just have a low IQ and don't suffer from a learning disability at all; they just aren't very smart.
    Make no mistake, if Saunders was the victim of a breached contract and suffered damages as a result, I wish him well. But the claim that he is somehow entitled to recover under the Americans with Disabilities Act makes me question the validity of his claim. It will be interesting to watch, I suppose.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Ron Paul is the Invisible Man


    Jon Stewart tells it like it is when it comes to the media and Ron Paul. Michelle Bachman barely edges him out in the Iowa Straw poll and the media declares it a three-candidate race between Bachman, Perry and Romney.
    Paul is apparently the only candidate from either party who is in favor of peace. Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize for some strange reason and then started a war that is going to fester for decades. All the Republicans want war. Paul supports peace.
    The man may or may not have what it takes to win the nomination, but to simply ignore him while continuing to mention candidates like Jon Huntsman is an outrage.

Friday, August 12, 2011

When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns, Part 2 (Britain crime rate)

    I recently pointed out that one of the reasons that Norway mass-murderer Anders Breivik was able to shoot so many people at a leisurely pace was that virtually no one, including police, in Norway has a gun.
There was simply no way to stop the guy.
    Make no mistake, the proliferation of guns in our society has costs. We have a high murder rate, although many of these murders are hooligans shooting each other, not innocent citizens. But researcher John Lott, for example has found very strong evidence that when law-abiding citizens are allowed to obtain licenses to carry concealed weapons there is a dramatic decrease in crime. Criminals are loathe to commit burglaries or assaults against those who might be armed and dangerous.
    Great Britain has gone the other route. They have followed the advice of the liberals who advocated banning handguns altogether. After a deadly school shooting in Dublane, Scotland, claimed the lives of 15 students and a teacher, Britain banned all handguns by refusing to renew virtually any handgun license. As a result the violent crime rate has skyrocketed. It is the most violent country in Europe with a violent crime rate that is five times higher than that of the United States, and higher than that of South Africa.
    It should be noted that handgun ownership wasn't widespread in Britain to begin with. Generally, only people who needed guns, such as shopkeepers, were allowed to have them. But Britain disarmed every law-abiding citizen in its society. Of course, criminals kept their guns and now use them to victimize the citizenry with impunity.
    Adding to the problem is the attitude of British police and prosecutors towards those who try to defend themselves with so much as a knitting needle. Have you noticed that during the current chaos those who have tried to defend their neighborhoods from violence have been called "vigilantes"? A vigilante isn't someone who tries to protect his property; a vigilante is someone who administers justice outside the law. These people are merely defending themselves or their neighborhoods. They aren't vigilantes.
    But this criminalization of those who try to defend themselves is part of the British mindset. And the criminals know it and act on it. Consider the following, from Reason Magazine:

In 1973 a young man running on a road at night was stopped by the police and found to be carrying a length of steel, a cycle chain, and a metal clock weight. He explained that a gang of youths had been after him. At his hearing it was found he had been threatened and had previously notified the police. The justices agreed he had a valid reason to carry the weapons. Indeed, 16 days later he was attacked and beaten so badly he was hospitalized. But the prosecutor appealed the ruling, and the appellate judges insisted that carrying a weapon must be related to an imminent and immediate threat. They sent the case back to the lower court with directions to convict.

In 1987 two men assaulted Eric Butler, a 56-year-old British Petroleum executive, in a London subway car, trying to strangle him and smashing his head against the door. No one came to his aid. He later testified, "My air supply was being cut off, my eyes became blurred, and I feared for my life." In desperation he unsheathed an ornamental sword blade in his walking stick and slashed at one of his attackers, stabbing the man in the stomach. The assailants were charged with wounding. Butler was tried and convicted of carrying an offensive weapon.

In 1994 an English homeowner, armed with a toy gun, managed to detain two burglars who had broken into his house while he called the police. When the officers arrived, they arrested the homeowner for using an imitation gun to threaten or intimidate. In a similar incident the following year, when an elderly woman fired a toy cap pistol to drive off a group of youths who were threatening her, she was arrested for putting someone in fear. Now the police are pressing Parliament to make imitation guns illegal.

In 1999 Tony Martin, a 55-year-old Norfolk farmer living alone in a shabby farmhouse, awakened to the sound of breaking glass as two burglars, both with long criminal records, burst into his home. He had been robbed six times before, and his village, like 70 percent of rural English communities, had no police presence. He sneaked downstairs with a shotgun and shot at the intruders. Martin received life in prison for killing one burglar, 10 years for wounding the second, and a year for having an unregistered shotgun. The wounded burglar, having served 18 months of a three-year sentence, is now free and was been granted 5,000 pounds of legal assistance to sue Martin.
    People ask me why I hate liberals. Now you know.
    The same thing has been going on in France. In fact, police there often refuse to make arrests even when they see a violent crime. And the liberal judges tend to believe that the criminal is the victim, having suffered a childhood of too few peas and carrots. You owe it to yourself to read The Barbarians at the Gates of Paris, a 10-year-old essay, but just as good today as it was then.
    In America, many states still have the English common-law Castle Doctrine (the poor blokes used to have some sense). A citizen is entitled to use deadly force to protect his home if he believes his life is in danger. Unlike the common-law version, most states with a Castle Doctrine have expressly removed the "duty to retreat." It's your home; stand your ground.
    Britain has disarmed its citizenry and empowered its criminals. America allows its citizens to carry arms and has issued everyone a hunting permit to be used to protect themselves and their homes. It has an amazing effect on the crime rate, doesn't it?

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Why desn't media report that London riots caused by immigrants?

    London is in flames. Rioters and looters are running amok.
    The rioting started over the death of one Mark Duggan, who was killed in a shootout with police. It is unknown whether he was shooting at police or whether the driver or the minicab he was riding in did the shooting.
    What's so special about Mark Duggan, you might ask? Finally a columnist for the London Telegraph tells us the secret that every newspaper has refused to print.
What colour is Mark Duggan? Mark Duggan is the man who was shot dead by the police on Thursday in Tottenham. The Tottenham riots last night were sparked when people protested his death. This morning, I first heard of the riots on the radio, then on the television. I read articles on the internet. But oddly, no one would say what colour Mark Duggan was. No one would say the unsayable, that the rioters were, I suspect on the whole, black. Then, finally, Toby Young’s Telegraph blog post on the riots was published. Is Toby Young the only journalist out there who will dare say that these riots are about race?

Still, one paper did carry a photo of Mr Duggan. When I saw the photo, it confirmed what I knew instinctively: black youths once again have set London alight.

Some of the black kids I used to teach will tell you that the riots are absolutely justified. A number of adults would agree with them. Everywhere I read that the protest was understandable because “people are very angry”.
    In other words, Mark Duggan is a member of the Afro-Caribbean immigrant community. He was likely born in Britain to immigrant parents, or perhaps he was the grandchild of immigrants. But in the end he is a part of a dysfunctional immigrant community that has not been able to adjust to the radically different life that exists in Britain in comparison to various home countries.
    Common sense dictates that if you let a bunch of poor immigrants into your country disaster will loom down the road. France has a similar problem with Muslim immigrants who are constantly on a crime spree. It's a problem for all of Europe.
    The solution is to limit immigration of those who are radically different from a country's native population. That doesn't mean eliminate immigration; it means control it. No nation should allow any person to immigrate unless that person will be an asset to that nation as a whole. Too many nations, including the United States, have lost sight of that fact.
    Let's build a fence and expel all the illegal immigrants. Then we as a nation can start offering citizenship to people who we believe will actually improve us as a nation.
    As for Britain, maybe they should consider paying these people $50,000 or so each to renounce their citizenship and go back to their country of origin. Whatever the cost, it would be a bargain.