Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, as promised, is plesed to provide the second installment of his three part series “It is good to be the King.” As clever readers will note, the first installment was posted yesterday; and in it your Maximum Leader pointed out some of the reasons why it is good to be Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Big Hominid even was kind enough to write an e-mail to your Maximum Leader wanting him to elaborate on the possible Russian Mob/Russian Government connections to which he alluded yesterday. As your Maximum Leader told the Big Hominid in a reply e-mail, those connections are mostly conjectural right now, but your Maximum Leader will try to research some on the subject and get back with you all.

So… Who else is it good to be?

Well loyal minions, it is good to be… Hu Jintao.

Chinese President Hu Jintao is a lucky man. He is the leader of what most people will concede is the next great world power. China is proof of what goes around comes around. China was, for centuries, the greatest nation in the world. They fell to second (or even third) rate status over the past few hundred years. But now they are on the verge of breaking out again. So why is it good to be Hu Jintao? Let us examine the reasons.

Hu has a booming population. Surplus labor provided by Chinese farmers is the engine that fires the massive Chinese economy. Sure there are concerns about farmers leaving the country side too rapidly and this causing a serious decline in Chinese food production. There are also concerns about too many unemployed farmers in your cities being a source for political unrest. But really now? Are these problems?

Hu is the leader of a Communist Dictatorship that is doing what it can to harness a market economy. That makes Hu an adaptive sort of fellow. He’s learned that so long as enough Chinese are happy making money and reaping the benefits of the market they don’t much care that they don’t have much political freedom. So are those migrant farmers really a problem now? No… If you need more farmers back on the farm, you call out the army and forcibly relocate them back to the farms. If the farmers in the cities are a cause for unrest, you call out the army and squash them with tanks. Either way you come out the winner.

You see, so long as the growing “middle classes” of China see the government as protecting their interests; they will likely continue to support even heavy-handed government action to supress and keep under control the teeming masses.

Hu has lots of other things going for him. He’s got political clout all over the world. If he wants to throw his weight around, he can. His economy and population are so huge that all he has to do to get his way most of the time is just threaten that he’ll cut off access to Chinese markets to the offending party. It works with gamy-handed, weak-willed Europeans (but then again - what doesn’t). It works with his Asian neighbors. (Of course, the massive Red Army will all those soldiers and tanks and guns and missiles helps back up the economic threat.)

Hu is a useful counterbalance to the US as well. In a way that Russia is not. Russia might be opposed to US action for a whole bunch of reasons. But Russia is the past. China is the future. When the US tries to get anything done in the world who does it go to (after the Brits and Austrailians) the Chinese and Russians. If the US can get the Chinese on board with a plan (which happens rarely) then pretty much everyone else in the world community will go along. Frankly, the Chinese very often take positions indirectly opposed to the US simply because they are forward thinkers. To the Chinese, when the US is engaged in an activity it buys China more time to grow stronger.

Did your Maximum Leader mention that Hu Jintao is the Communist Dictator of a huge country? Let us not ever forget that fact. Being a Communist Dictator has its advantages. Hu has authoritarian powers of government beyond our daily conception in the west. Can you imagine the outcry if George W. Bush tried to block internet content? Hu Jintaodoes it every day. You know the outcry when Americans learned that their Government might be tracking phone conversations they make? Hu Jintao has buildings full of people listening to wiretaps and reading e-mails. Can you imagine how people would react if George W Bush outlawed the Jehovah’s Witnesses? Hu Jintao has all sorts of religious activity banned. George W Bush is hounded by Cindy Sheehan where ever he goes. She’s even bought a house in his neighborhood. Hu? He’s got no problems like that. Hu has people who hound him “taken care of.” And by taken care of your Maximum Leader means that the people disappear or find themselves in a nasty prison camp until Hu changes his mind. (And Hu doesn’t change his mind.)

Oh yeah… Did your Maximum Leader mention that China needs oil? They need oil like the US needs oil. That makes them a big competitor for resources. A competitor with an appetite for winning. You know, dependence on foreign energy sources is probably the only big negative that Hu has against him right now. But if his economy continues to grow, he’ll have the resources to overcome that problem. He’ll probably be the ones that help the Russians get at all that oil and gas in the far east…

Anyhow… Hu Jintao has another big drawback… He’s just not nearly as studly as Vladimir Putin. Those glasses are sorta dorky and he needs a better tailor. (Your Maximum Leader thinks he’d be better served with smaller, rounder frames. Also, his suits have no style. With all those great tailors in Hong Kong you’d think he’d go for something a little more dynamic…)

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wants to take a moment to wish the Pontifex Maximus of Scatology a very happy birthday. Yes, good readers, this is the birthday of none other than your Maximum Leader’s best buddy, Kevin, the Big Hominid.

What can one say about a friend you’ve known for 30 of your 37 years on this green earth? Well… As your Maximum Leader has said to Mrs Villain on occasion, if Kevin were a woman we’d probably be married. Our kids would be horrible monstrocities of quasi-humanity… But we’d be happy.

(NB to Loyal Minions: Your Maximum Leader is very happy and very much in love with Mrs Villain… Just so you all know… He’ll even buy “things” for Mrs Villain when she asks. Without griping…)

Kevin is a good man. I am glad to be his friend. Sometimes I wish he weren’t hanging out in Korea. That would allow us to hang out more often. But… Distance is what it is.

Anyhoo… Your Maximum Leader thought he would re-run his Big Hominid creation myth post for your reading pleasure…

As we have all learned from Joseph Campbell, there are archetypes within the various religious and spiriual traditions of the world. After much careful research, your Maximum Leader can now illuminate for you, his dear minions, the similarities in the Big Hominid creation myth from the various world traditions.

According to the Nordic tradition, from the Ginnungagap (the emptiness) came Audhumla. Audhumla was the first creature, the primeval cow in fact. From Audhumla’s teats flowed the four rivers of milk which fed the next creature, Ymir the frost giant. Ymir spawned many frost giants who inhabited the world and became the enemies of the gods. During the time of the frost giants Audhumla found a salt lick to sustain herself. As she licked the salt, she created the first man, Buri. In time Buri found a mate and their child Bor was the father of the god Odin (Wotan for you Wagnerians out there). But after the creation of Buri, the tale of Audhumla fades. Your Maximum Leader has pieced together ancient runes and discovered that after creating Buri from the salt lick, Audhumla became constipated. She wandered throughout Midgard and Asgard seeking relief. After the Gods defeated the frost giants, Audhumla was found near Valhalla by Thor. Seeing her constipated state, Thor struck Audhumla on the flank with his hammer. A great torrent of manure flew from Audhumla. The manure mixed on the earth with her life-giving milk and formed a great boiling pit. Seeing the festering pit, the god Odin foresaw the eventual coming of a great being who would alternately use his powers equally for good and ill. Odin foresaw that the liquid would coalesce into a child. A child who would be known by his nom-de-blog, the Big Hominid…

According to the Greco-Roman tradition, Cronos (the titan and ruler of the heavens) ate the children he produced with his wife-sister Rhea. But Rhea determined to save one of her children. So she gave a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes to Cronos. Cronos, distracted by Gaia the earth-mother doing a striptease, ate the stone thinking it was his newborn son. The son grew to be Zeus. Zeus, in a fit of teenaged pique, faught his father and forced him to vomit up his siblings (Poseidon, Hades, Hera, Hestia, and Demeter); who joined Zeus in deposing his father and becoming the ruling gods. The little known postscript to this tale is that after vomiting up the siblings of Zeus, Cronos shat out the stone he’d eaten believing it to be Zeus. The feces-encrusted stone fell to the earth and it landed in the sea. The titan feces mixed with the same sea foam that would later spawn Aphrodite. The floating morass of titan feces infused sea foam drifted across the seas. It caused the destruction of Atlantis, and helped keep the sea monster Kraken entombed in the sea. But its greatest creation would come much later. That creation/spawn was to be the scatalogically preordained being, the Big Hominid…

According to the Indian tradition, Vishnu was walking one day and a lotus flower blossomed from his navel. Brahma sprung forth from the lotus blossom and set about creating the world. The oft forgotten part of the story is that after the lotus flower sprang forth from Vishnu’s navel, a Titan Arum blossomed from his anus and from that odourous flower were sprung a line of men who would join together the world of spirituality and scatology. It is said that this line of men continues to this day, and that the Big Hominid is known in some parts of rual India and Nepal as the 69th incarnation of the Rectali Lama…

Now you all can see the similarities of the various Hominidal creation stories. Accept them for what they are. And be joyous in your celebration of the anniversary of the birth of the one and only Big Hominid.

Happy Day! And many happy returns.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was watching Mel Brooks’ “History of the World Part 1″ the other night. If you’ve not seen the film there is one part where Mel Brooks is playing King Louis XV - as a hypersexed twirp. After offering to save a poor maiden’s father from certain death (by extracting a promise for him to ravage her later); Brooks - in villainous fashion - turns to the camera and says “It’s good to be the King.”

So your Maximum Leader was thinking about that phrase a little bit. He was tossing about the idea in a semi-serious and then serious fashion. Who in the world is it good t be right now? He came up with three world leaders who are currently (in your Maximum Leader’s opinion) are on the top of their game. Right now you are reading part one of what will be a three part series.

So, without further adieu…

It is good to be… Vladimir Putin.

Okay… So Vlad is not really a King… But he might as well be a Tsar. He’s got sweeping nearly dictatorial powers over Russia. He has a democratically elected, yet completely subservient to his will, parliament that gives his government just enough credibility with those silly westerners who like to deal with “democratic nations.” He’s been popularly elected twice - and frankly could be again if he decides to change that pesky (and meaningless) constitution.

Vladimir has ultimate control over all press outlets in the nation. If he doesn’t like what they say about him, he can shut them down. Sure there is outcry in the west, but what do you care? What can they do to you? Sure the Russian army isn’t what it used to be; but they still have more nukes than you can shake a stick at. In a pinch you can get cash to the army by selling more oil or gas.

Oh yeah… Did your Maximum Leader forget the huge natural resource reserves in Russia. While it is a fact that they are hard to get to, the oil and gas is there. With gas and oil needs rising so dramatically around the world soon the opportunity cost of getting that gas and oil will be low enough that plenty of companies around the world would chomp at the bit to drill it out.

Now, surely there is lots of corruption and crime in Russia. But if you are Vladimir Putin you know that all you need to do to get that under control is to crack down in the name of freedom and democracy. Vladimir is the former KGB agent afterall. He has plenty of experience with cracking down. Your Maximum Leader is pretty certain that a lot of crime money somehow trickles up to Vladimir and his henchpeople… So a crack down might not be in the offing anytime soon.

Oh yeah… Did your Maximum Leader forget to mention that Vladimir does have problems with various seperatist groups. But those problems can be dealt with. Afterall, all Vladimir has to do is claim the seperatists are terrorists and he has carte blanche from the west. But then again, who the hell cares what “the west” says about heavy-handed dealings with seperatists?

For all these reasons, and many many more (not the least of which is just how plain studly he is), it is good to be Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader must thank Loyal Minion Dr. (Infidel) Rusty Shackelford for the linky-love yesterday. It caused a little “Jawa-lanche” here at Naked Villainy. Don’t fret. Your Maximum Leader has piles of unused bandwidth - so keep visiting.

Dr. Rusty placed a siginifcant quotation from Augustine’s masterpiece “City of God” on his site. Your Maximum Leader will reproduce the salient point.

Whoever gives even moderate attention to human affairs and to our common nature, will recognize that if there is no man who does not wish to be joyful, neither is there any one who does not wish to have peace.

For even they who make war desire nothing but victory,–desire, that is to say, to attain to peace with glory. For what else is victory than the conquest of those who resist us? and when this is done there is peace. It is therefore with the desire for peace that wars are waged, even by those who take pleasure in exercising their warlike nature in command and battle.

And hence it is obvious that peace is the end sought for by war. For every man seeks peace by waging war, but no man seeks war by making peace. For even they who intentionally interrupt the peace in which they are living have no hatred of peace, but only wish it changed into a peace that suits them better.

They do not, therefore, wish to have no peace, but only one more to their mind.

Peace more suited to their desires… There is a reason that St. Augustine is, and will be long remembered, and why so many others will not be remembered.*

Anyhoo…

The discussion of war and peace is a rather cheap segue for your Maximum Leader to pose a moral question to his readers. A moral question he’s been thinking a lot about in the past few weeks. Here it is:

What does it mean to follow Jesus’ admonition to “love thy neighbor?”

Really. Think about that for a moment. What does it mean? What does it mean practically?

Your Maximum Leader recently listened (twice) to an interview with Karen Armstrong (the noted theologian). During the interview she noted that the great monotheistic traditions all call for action tied to belief. Religion calls on you to “do something” and not just to “believe something.”

When Jesus said that we should love our neighbors what did he mean? Your Maximum Leader, in a glib sense, actually does like his neighbors quite a bit. Those blessed to live in the environs of the Villainschloss are good people. But your Maximum Leader will concede that this is notthe meaning that Jesus intended.

So what does it mean? There are lots of “neighbors” in your Maximum Leader’s extended community. Is he to love them like he does his family? Is he to tolerate them and be on his best behavior with them? Is he to approve of what they do? Of how they act? Is he to attempt to better their lot in life through his own action? Is writing weekly checks to his favorite charities enough? Is keeping the less-fortunate in his prayers enough?

What is the extent or type of love he must show his neighbor in order to live up to Jesus’ command?

Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure of the answer right now. Although he thinks that he is on the right path when he is thinking to himself that he shouldn’t allow his neighbor to be victimized by injustice. Surely that is a broad and sort of wishy-washy or “feel good” definition for now. (Perhaps it is a little new-agey even.) But allow him to explain.

Your Maximum Leader doesn’t feel that he needs to go far out of his way (or out of his way at all in fact) to help the crack addict who has lost everything to feed their addiction. That person made (at some point) a choice to take the crack and start down that path. (Your Maximum Leader thinks it is safe to assume that it is fairly common knowledge that crack isn’t good for you.) They are not victims of any injustice there. They are victims of their own bad choices.

On the other hand, many people of the lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, Louisiana are likely the victims of an injustice. They have not been well served by their elected representatives (at any level) and they continue to suffer because of this disservice. What can your Maximum Leader do? He can give money to local relief organizations. He can write Congress to conduct more oversight on how disaster recovery is going. He can volunteer to build a house, or clean up a homesite. There are lots of things that can be done.

These are (as they always are for arguments it seems) extreme examples. But perhaps they are a starting point. If you Maximum Leader can admonish you to do something, it would be to think for a little today about what it means to love your neighbor.**

Carry on.
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Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader will point out to those of you of the Anglo-Cathoic (and by that he means Anglican/Episcopal/Roman Catholic) tradition that today is the feast day for St. Augustine of Hippo.

Your Maximum Leader, who was raised in the Roman tradition, chose St. Augustine as “his saint” when he was confirmed in the Catholic Church. For those of you so inclined, here is a reasonably good web site to St. Augustine.

Knowing that today was the feast day, your Maximum Leader thought it was somewhat serindipitous that he should see a new biography of St. Augustine in the local Borders over the weekend. Moments of serindipity like that should be taken advantage of (especially when they only cost you about $10). So he bought the book. He will begin it later today.

The book, Augustine: A New Biography, by James O’Donnell is very well reviewed. If any of you Hoyas out there in the reading audience know anything about Dr. O’Donnell you should let your Maximum Leader know. According to the reviews, O’Donnell is the Provost of Georgetown U.

Carry on.

The trial was yesterday.

The boys wanted to plead guilty and the assistant DA called me out of the courtroom to give my consent - she was prepared to go for the whole nine yards of a trial if I wanted to prosecute to the fullest.

The plea deal was that they would plead to malicious wounding of livestock. They would each get a year in prison with six months suspended for the accomplice. The DA thought that if there was any chance of turning around the lives of these young men, it was this. They had been in Juvie before, but a lot of kids think the justice system is playing pattycake. They won’t be going to little kid jail anymore. This is the real thing. I think there was a quote in “Office Space” about this sort of thing. Luckily, there won’t be any pounding because the kids will be seperated from the violent population and do most of their time with drunk drivers and druggies. I was all for that - I wouldn’t wish prison rape on anybody so I’m happy the boys will be protected from that. But hopefully the real time will make them rethink their futures. If not, this does count as a prior offense and one strike so they will get a whole new set of sentencing guidelines if they reoffend. Another condition of the guilty plea was that the triggerman give up the right to own a crossbow.

Justice was served, but Sally and I agreed that it should be lenient justice. I hope something good comes out of it.

As an aside, the trial prior to mine was of a broken-down sixty-three year old man who was stopped with a cigarette pack full of crack cocaine. As he was being arrested, he broke away and tried to run - with his hands handcuffed behind his back. The arresting officer, a fit-looking man in his mid twenties was trying not to laugh on the stand, but the guy, looking back at the pursuing officers, ran into a tree and knocked himself out. Heh.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader’s mind is awash in cascading nodes of thought.

But he shall not blog a vaugely original thought right now. Instead he shall dump links! Woo hoo.

(Your Maximum Leader knows that Naked Villainy readers are really just waiting with bated breath to hear how CSI:Batesville turns out. Or since it is a trial we’re waiting to hear about are we really into the second half hour of Law & Order: Porcine Victim’s Unit?)

Anyhoo… On with the links!

First off… The funny links…

Go see the You Tube of Wilford Brimley on Big Stupid Tommy’s site. He wonders if a Concerned Fan has seen the video.

Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure how in all the hub-ub about Pluto being dropped back to the Minor League of Planets he missed Congressman Murtha’s call to withdraw from the International Astronomical Union. Many thanks to The Colossus for drawing our attention to this one.

Leave them behind. They deserve it. Nigel deserves nothing less than being left behind.

Now the serious links…

You know something loyal reader… Dr Rusty and his compatriots at the Jawa Report really do their best to keep you informed of the situation with western hostages and the continuing war against islamofacists. You should read his latest on the Steve Centanni situation. A situation which seems to be getting very little air time actually…

Very little air time compared to that sicko Karr and the whole stinking Ramsey Murder thing.

Your Maximum Leader had thought of doing a whole separate post about the Ramsey Murder thing, but he’s just decided to pour his invective into this post.

Let your Maximum Leader tell you a thing or two. First off… About 10 years ago he was sick to death of the whole Jon Benet murder story. After a few days it became apparent to your Maximum Leader that this case would never be solved. He wasn’t sure it was the parents, but at most levels he didn’t care who did it. That is a horrible thing to say, but your Maximum Leader was so disgusted over the level of coverage that it made him actually lose any feelings of sdness or pity he had towards anyone involved in the case. Sure it is a horrible thing for a child to be horrifically murdered. But at some point you have to move on.

Then you get this sicko John Mark Karr. Your Maximum Leader would like to see him dragged out in front of the Boulder Courthouse, publicly sodomized by some big angry convict, then shot in the head. Leave his body there to bloat in the sun and rot for a while.

Your Maximum Leader doesn’t actually care or know if Karr committed the crime. Your Maximum Leader thinks that anyone who confesses publicly to a captial crime before speaking (with their attorney) to the prosecutor involved should be dragged out and shot. He doesn’t really care at all if they did the crime. He doesn’t care if the people confessing have “problems” and need “help.” Your Maximum Leader will posit for you all that all the “help” these people need is actually a .45 slug to the back of the head.

If 20 people publicly confess to the same crime, before speaking (with their attorney) to the prosecutor involved in the case, then we shoot 20 people in the head. We leave the case open until the last of the confessors comes forward.

Regardless… Your Maximum Leader is sick of the whole story. There are more important issues before us than who murdered a little girl.

Sad to say… But its true.

Now your Maximum Leader’s invective have drained him of the ability to continue the link dump. Damn that guy Karr… Now there is another reason to shoot you.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader should admit something to you.

As heretical as it might seem to some jazz enthusiasts and Peanuts TV special lovers…

Your Maximum Leader prefers Dave Brubeck’s “Linus and Lucy” to Vince Guaraldi’s.

He just thought he’d share that with you all.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has been reading up on some of his favorite blogs recently. He’s not kept up with things like he wants to. For instance, your Maximum Leader didn’t know that Pamela had vlogged in a wet bikini, nor did he know who the hell Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey was.

But he did know that if he went over to Tacitus he’d find something good. And sure enough he did. You should cruise over and read this post. The money quote:

In warring with a religion, decades of secularism have left us utterly disarmed. We are trained to think of faith as either irrelevant or benign: and when it is undeniably malign, we ascribe its malignancy to “fundamentalism,” which is (in direct negation of the meaning of the word) somehow separable or diversionary from the fundamentals of the faith in question.

Damn Tacitus for summing up on one line the concept that your Maximum Leader has been batting around in his brain for weeks.

As your Maximum Leader has written before, he is not sure that the great majority of Muslims throughout the world wouldn’t just as soon kill an American (or Israeli, or Brit, or Aussie) as say hello to one. Your Maximum Leader has (in good post-modern Western fashion) tried and tried to ascribe the malignant elements of Islam to a small and somehow backwards, sect or splinter group. But under some scrutiny, those ssignations dissolve under closer examination. It is quite discouraging really.

This discouragement your Maximum Leader feels when he contemplates the vastness of the problems with Islam is made worse when he then contemplates that a shrinking majority of Americans (and Westerners) seem willing to break with their self-destructive pacifism (or variants of pacifism) to defend themselves in a conflict that will end with one side broken and discarded.

There is probably a longer epistle needed on this subject. But this will do for now…

Carry on.

The trial is tomorrow. Wish me luck.

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Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader asks that you remember Richard III, King of England. He was killed in battle at Bosworth this day in 1485. He fought valiantly, if not triumphantly. He was the last Plantagenet to rule England. He was the last King of England to die in battle. And his death marks the generally accepted end of both the Wars of the Roses and the medieval period in England.

It is from Shakespeare’s play Richard III that the name of this site is taken. The important lines come in Act One, Scene III:

But then I sigh; and, with a piece of scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ;
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

Richard is, in your Maximum Leader’s opinion, one of the most maligned kings in all history. Shakespeare’s play, while vastly entertaining, is far from an accurate portrayal of history and the man as we now know him.

Your Maximum Leader, out of habit, will republish the famous Rex Stout New York Times obituary for King Richard:

“PLANTAGENET — Richard, great king and true friend of the rights of man, died at Bosworth Field on August 22, 1485. Murdered by traitors and, dead, maligned by knaves and ignored by Laodiceans, he merits our devoted remembrance.”

For those of you interested in learning more about Richard you might try the following links: Battle of Bosworth from the Richard III foundation, The Richard III Society of the UK, another Bosworth site from the US Richard III Society and finally Wiki article on Richard III.

Carry on.

Memento Moron and I have a similar sense of humor. We both a family men, first and foremost. But we are poles apart politically.

Immigration is a good case in point. We hammered each other over the issue months ago.

(Self-congratulatory note to self: Bush and Congress did exactly what I predicted. Absolutely nothing of substance. Sure, we might have sent a few thousand guardsman to the border and generated a few headlines for the November election, but Congressmen are smart enough to know that illegal immigrants are good for the economy, regardless of what they tell their innumerate constituents during campaigns.)

For the record, I think Memento is misguided, not racist. Characterizing the opposition to illegals as boiling down to “brown people are icky” was too broad of a stroke in the same way as “liberals hate America” is too broad of astroke. A good proportion of both camps fit those stereotypes, but there are exceptions. Seriously, Brian, I consifder you to be one of those exceptions: I don’t think you are a racist. Can we bury the hatchet, please?

Having, one hopes, set aside the hard feelings resultant of my sloppy language (a proclivity reinforced by the hasty nature of the blogging medium), let’s return to misguided, shall we?

Brian writes:

a) San Bernadino County, CA, in response to jail overcrowding, has instituted a new program where sherriff’s deputies are trained to interview incoming inmates and screen for illegal immigrants and turn them over to the INS. Since the program was instituted, the county has interviewed 600 inmates, 500 of whom turned out to be Illegals.

b) The Center For Disease Control reports that juvenile hepatitis cases are far higher in the western and border states, which have higher illegal populations than the rest of the U.S.

I guess those two articles, and my decision to blog on them, proves that I, the San Bernadino County Sherriff, and the CDC are latent racists who think brown people are.. um, what’s the word? Oh, yeah, “Icky”.

Dealing with a) first. I guess Brian is still trying to fight the FBI. You see, when everyone was jabbering about the crime caused by illegals, I linked to the official government report by the FBI. Law enforcement data shows that illegal aliens are slightly less likely to commit crimes than native-born citizens. Control for socioeconomic level and the gap grows. There are a few hardened narco-trafficers, but there are also native-born narco-trafficers. Despite what law enforcement says, the answer from the anti-illegal side is “nuh-uh.” Others go back to the old canard: If they are willing to break one law, they will be automatically break another law. This belief conflicts with reality - the government’s own statistics show this. In addition, the “illegals are more lawless and will steal your car” types are also blind to their own hypocrisy. I would wager that the vast majority of our readers (yes, you!) have, at one time or another, committed a victimless crime. This does not make us all more likely to commit armed robbery. The Minister of Propaganda, for instance, has violated 43 states’ restrictions on extra-marital hanky-panky. Yet he has not, to my knowledge, been knocking over liquor stores in his spare time. Absolutists who demand law enforcement and harsh punishment for every violation of law - “down with illegal border crossers for illegally crossing the borders” have yet to explain their plan for prosecuting the Minister of Propaganda’s sluttishness. Or, for that matter, prosecuting Polymath and my “experimentation” with alternative fuels.

Memento Moron, who refuses to accept the validity of the government statistics, gives us the San Bernadino Sheriff’s department screening process in order to refute it. His response - using a weak piece of datum to reinforce his own (erroneous) belief in the lawlessness of illegals reminds me of a quote I heard from Joel Salatin this weekend:

“Science can never convince. We only believe science when it agrees with our heart.”

True words.

But let me try one more time to lift the veil from Memento’s eyes. (I know that it is pointless, but hell, I’m a teacher. As a teacher you have to set aside cynical experience and opt for naive optimism on a daily basis.)

When the San Bernadino policemen, trained officers of the law, suspect someone is an illegal alien, they check to see if they are. Surprise, surprise, 500 of 600 suspected illegals are indeed illegal. Is this the whole sample of criminals? Do you think that they ran Bubba the uber-redneck through the screening process? What about Tyrone the stereotypical gang-banger?

In fact, I’d like to see the San Bernadino do a screenin for membership in black gangs. If they suspect someone of belonging to a black gang, they should check it out. If they do belong to a black gang, then that will prove, government statistics be damned, that black people are responsible for all crime in the United States.

We should also do a screening for white supremicist gangs. If someone is arrested with a swastika tatooed on their forehead, we should do a screening for membership in white supremacy groups. If it turns out that most do belong to the Aryan nations, then it will prove that all honkies are racist.

As for part “b,” I’m gobsmacked that Memento would even bring this weak crap.

Correlation, my friend, does not imply causation.

Click through that Wikipedia article. It is hi-larious.

Samples:

Ice-cream sales are strongly (and robustly) correlated with crime rates.
Therefore, higher ice-cream sales cause crime.

or:

Homer: Not a bear in sight. The “Bear Patrol” is working like a charm!

Lisa: That’s specious reasoning, Dad.

Homer: [uncomprehendingly] Thanks, honey.

Lisa: By your logic, I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.

Homer: Hmm. How does it work?

Lisa: It doesn’t work. (pause) It’s just a stupid rock!

Homer: Uh-huh.

Lisa: But I don’t see any tigers around, do you?

Homer: (pause) Lisa, I want to buy your rock.

Didja miss me?

Anyone have a stick of gum?

When Geeks Marry Non-Geeks

Mrs. Smallholder, while a fine, fine woman (some would call her a saint), doesn’t “get” Monty Python.

Or Bruce Campbell.

Or “Big Trouble In Little China.”

This is why I continue to associate with the Maximum Leader, Minister of Propaganda, Foreign Minister, and even Polymath. They may be as wrong as wrong can be about politics, but at least they laugh at my clever asides.

Heh. If those links don’t force the Maximum Leader to fix the comments, I don’t know what will.

Update from Mrs. Smallholder: Clever? Bah.

The Big Ho knows how to incorporate Shakespeare into everyday life.